It makes no Cents

Why oh why aren't copper coins accepted in car park machines, toll booth machines etc? Is it pretend money or what?

Award winning food

Everywhere has 'award winning food'. How many bloody awards are there? It's a joke. I'm not getting fooled any more.

(In Dertopia the awards will be actually be for for food that is actually deserving of an award)

The semi-colon

The semi-colon's place in my life is interesting. As someone who frankly didn't give a toss about writing anything in school the rules of semi-colon use passed me by with, I would have to say, no apparent negative impact on my life. More recently, I think either when writing my college Thesis or when I was doing my professional practice exams report I had to use the damn things. I asked my brother, who lets just say knows about such things, about the correct usage of this little grammatical pause (or possibly half pause?)When the lecture finished days later I had retained a little of the fundementals and embarked upon a new semi-coloned life with renewed vigour. As I used it with increasing frequency in long winded legal reports, snotty letters, planning appeals and the like in the following years I began to get rather obsessed with using what I now considered to be this little essential piece of punctuation whatever it is thingy. It became all-consuming this desire to include multiple semi-colons in my written work. I felt my letters etc never reached the required level of condescention unless sentences were at least 5 lines long with at least 4 semi-colons used to up the intellectual level. Then recently I had to use one of the little buggers in a situation that was beyond my level of semi-colonic expertise and had to contact the literary one again for advice. (I think it may have been something to do with capitals or some such reasonable question. I was treated like a leper by he who knows about words. It was clear that my usage had become complacent and confused. I had it seems been taking the little things for granted, assuming I knew how to use them. But no, no more will I flourish them around in my tomes; they will not grace my written work any more; I will not use them again for fear of further humiliation; I am free.

(In Dertopia the use of the semi-colon is compulsory)

Best Albums of all time

Don't you think that most muso's when asked what their favourite albums are actually say ones that are what they think it should be rather than actually brilliant albums or ones that are actually their favourites. Most of the 'classic' albums that appear at the top of best of's are good, yes, but largely overrated albums that 'critics' (what are their qualifications?) say are great. I'm thinking here of the likes of Pet Sounds, Astral Weeks, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band........ I agree that these albums are good but no way the greatest of all time. Pet Sounds drags in between the 3 brilliant tracks on it (1). Astral Weeks is an album that only works properly if you are out of it, in a particular frame of (loving) mind, with someone to share it with (in the same state) - hardly a ringing endorsement for a 'classic' album. Other not top of the list albums that achieve the same also work when you are on your own just listening to it cos its good. These are lists compiled by people who want to be seen to be cool for putting these albums at top of their own lists. I think most people could give you a variety of top 10's depending on when you asked them, I know thats how I am (2). Time for honesty.


(1) In my humble (but ultimately correct) opinion the best track on it isn't on it. 'Hang on to your ego' is a brilliant outtake, later covered very well by Frank Black and the Catholics albums


(2) 1, 2 & 3 however don't vary -
1 Finest Worksong (3)
2 If I should fall from grace with God (12" mix)
3 Orange Crush

(3) mix varies sometimes from Album mix to Mutual Drum Horn mix available on Eponymous

(In Dertopia only my top 10 list would matter)

Shopping ('Town') Centres

Town Centre eh? Well; no, frankly. Generally town centres tend not to have doors at either end of them, cctv everywhere, security guards everywhere or be totally enclosed by walls and roofs. You could have a protect march in an actual town centre - can you imagine the farmers of Ireland driving their livestock through the malls in Dundrum 'Town Centre' to demonstrate against agriculture cuts? I don't really object to the roofs, although alot more glass so we could see out maybe would be nice; i object to almost everything else about the damn things though. As someone who prefers my town centres to actually be the centre of towns I am both confused and annoyed by the naming of almost every bloody one of the retail driven negative social experiment that is the shopping bloody mall as 'town centre'. There is only one thing worse than a shopping mall; a multi storey shopping mall (sorry, multi storey town centre). I was present when the idea of naming one of the first ones a town centre was come up with - what a great day for the citizens of Ireland that was. Why, why, why? Must we really continue to copy the worst ideas that other retail/materialistic countries come up with? Now the mainland Europeans, they know how to do Town Centres (mind you i suppose alot of them have the weather for it) - they actually care about life in their (actual) town centres, and encourage and develop it. In Copenhagen in the colder months the cafes provide blankets for the outside seats; in Cologne they put glass roofs over actual streets; in Rome, well, its Rome. A detailed objection of shopping centres (and i have to confess i have been involved in the design of a number of these things and i'm pretty good at them) is that it removes to a large degree the ability of someone to people watch as you have a coffee or lunch etc. Wheres the fun in being in a cafe if you can't watch the world go by and pass remarks about everyone. Lets look more towards the cities of Europe for our solutions and find a better way to adapt things to the weather than the shopping experience as Sunday family outing. (In Dertopia there would be town centres like Seville, Rome, Sienna........)

Liverpool

Rafa is currently the Brian Cowen of football managers; what are you at Rafa? Do you know? At least pretend for us.

(In Dertopia Rafa would be made pick the same team in consecutive matches just for fun)

Just bloody well pay

Why won't people just pay? If you commission something to be done for you and it is done correctly, pay for it within the payment terms agreed. Don't invent reasons not to; don't get amnesia about what you asked for; don't try and change the terms; just pay. If you can't afford it don't commission it. (In Dertopia everyone would pay).