Currently reading Peter Ackroyd's biography of Charles Dickens. And a fine tome it is too. The research done must have been phenomenal .

However, that's not what I wish to share specifically.

I'm nearing the end and Dickens is succumbing to ill-health and showing signs of being a potential stroke victim. This in itself is not particualrly amusing but it would appear that his doctor at this time in his life was a chap by the name of Frank Beard.

Which, as a good number of the Massive may perhaps know, is of course the name of the drummer out of ZZ Top.

He isn't referenced that often in the text but whenever he is I have a mental image of a stoic, moustachioed chap in aviator shades holding down an airtight four on the floor beat. Incongruous is not the word.

This has led to further flights of inane fancy. I wonder how Dickens himself might have helped with some of 'Tops finest lyrics and song titles:

Approriately Attired Gentleman - Sharp Dressed Man
Faciltate the Totality of Your Pulchritudinous Affection - Gimme All Your Lovin'
I Am Deviant And To be Found at All Points of the United Kingdom - I'm Bad and Nationwide.

Are there any more? Would any other artist's song titles benefit from some Charles-ing up?

The General Ignorance thread has reminded me of the vast amount of stupid things I've said and done in my time.

Particularly said. Like a lot of Planks I spoonerise frequently. Recently, I reduced a friend to jelly when trying to remember, under pressure, the name of a popular concert venue in West London.

It came out as the 'Sheperd's Pie Ambush'

Not the Sheperds Bush Empire. Though as far as he is now concerned it will always be the former.

Any more similar spoons you've dropped or have heard worthy of sharing here?

Morning.

Not sure how this one will fly because as I'm finding out it's a bit fiddly.

Good people, on your ipod (should you have one) you can find all the songs contained within listed in alphabetical order. What I'd like to know is this; what are the first songs listed in alphabetical order? That is, your first song beginning with A, then B, then C and so on.

My 26 songs look like this:

A Train Lady - Mink De Ville
Baby - The Cruel Sea
C'mon C'mon - Shery Crow
Dad's Gonna Kill Me - Richard Thompson
Ear To The Ground - Matt Schofield
Face - Aerosmith
Galileo - Declan O'Rourke
Half A Boy and Half A Man - Nick Lowe
I'd Have You Anytime - George Harrison
Jack and Tina - Morphine
Kaliedescope - Open Hand
L'Isle Joyeuse - Debussy
M.I.A - Foo Fighters
Na-Na-Ne-Na-Nay - Bill Carter & Stevie Ray Vaughan
O Sleep Fond Fancy -Richard Thompson
Pacific Ocean Blue - Dennis Wilson
Quality Shoe - Mark Knopfler
Race The Breeze - Rory Gallagher
S'il Vous Plait - Fantastic Plastic Machine
T-Bone Boogie - Duke Robillard
U Got The Look - Prince
Valentine - Richard Hawley
Wag The Dog - Mark Knopfler
X - ...?
Yakety Axe - Chet Atkins
Ziggy Stardust - David Bowie

Now what I do wonder is just how many of you post EXACTLY the same songs for some letters. If you think about it a lot of us will have the same albums from the same sort of artists.

This will prove something. Something of no use to man or beast.

Not completely sure of what point I'm trying to make here but on my way to work along the South Bank in London this morning I happened across yet another television film crew filming an outdoor scene by the Thames for some drama series or other.

I often wander past these things. Be it closed dramatic shoots, pieces to camera, vox-pops or live outside broadcasts by GMTV or This Morning. It's all because of where I happen to work of course (though I'm nothing to do with any kind of media or television company).

It got me thinking though. Just how many times have I unknowingly appeared before an unprepared nation; my frankly grotesque visage and lumpen frame drifting across the frame as I go about my business?

According to my dear departed mother it happened enough times for her to notice. In a past life I was a serf at the Foreign Office and along with a large number of others was kept busy shuffling paper during the first Gulf War. We worked odd hours and would enter and leave the building at strange times, often as not walking past live news bulletins being made by the BBC, Sky, CNN and whoever else. My Mam swore blind she'd seen me on the telly walking along behind these reporters at least 3 times. Although on the last occasion she'd 'seen' me I'd been back at the house I shared in East London for some time watching the same bulletin...

On a related note I was speaking with a friend recently who made the point that after a good 20 years or so working/wandering around the centre of such a tourist-heavy city my utterly unbearable features must exist in digitised form as background to thousands upon thousands of tourist holiday snaps. I can assume I can be found lurking on untold numbers of personal PC hard drives and memory cards across the entire globe. And I think she's right - if you work in this city the whirr and click of shutter is with you all the time.

That's unsettling, to say the least!

Anyway, as I say, I'm struggling to find a point but have you been on the telly for the same sort of reasons?

I was inveigled to set up a fantasy league team here at work to fill out the membership last autumn. I'm currently the 'foundation' of the league. Oh dear.

I was impressed by some of the punning that goes on with these things and wondered if any members of the Massive have their own or know of any belters?

I stole mine from a friends pub team of some time ago. I recall I laughed like a numpty when I first heard it

Inter Me Nan.

Any similar?

Cheap jibes aside I'm genuinely taken aback at how inarticulate this lot are, or appear to be, in this article given that all of them (35?) are meant to be lyricists and vocalists.

No matter, it all will all transcend into the future(?). And they paved the way for N-Dubz you know.

Thanks for that.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8467483.stm

I stopped following soaps or any kind of regular tv drama (if I ever did) quite some years ago, but of course I still often see parts of such burbling in the background of my home life.

When this happens what does tend to draw me to the screen more than anything are the appalling acting abilities on display. Over Christmas Mrs B was watching Corrie and I was taken aback by one scene. Steve, the bloke who owns(?) The Rovers, was having a row with his wife while drunk. Or so we were meant to believe.

It was the most crass, lazy and entirely unconvincing performance I've seen in an age. Comical wobbling and slurring. I half expected him to break the fourth wall and give us all a cheeky chap double thumbs up and aside 'I know! It's shit isn't it?'

I know, it's short order relentless pulp and not Chekov. It's not meant to be. But come on. If you're an actor then act. Convince us.

Who else in your opinion can't act for toffee?

I've asked a similar question of the Massive before and I do so again unashamedly because the responses last time were of great interest.

I was very kindly given a £15 Waterstone's voucher at Christmas. I know what I might like to buy with it, but I'm not entirely sure.

What would you spend it on?

Book me up!

As someone who spends an inordinate amount of time with a laptop on my knee surfing, and an inordinate amount of that time reading threads on this blog, I wonder what other members of the Massive thought may have been the most interesting and/or entertaining thread of 2009?

The standard of debate here is exceptional. The wit and erudition is second-to-none. And the sheer good-natured attitude of 'listen/watch/read this' has helped fill up my iPod and my bookshelves on a constant basis.

But the sense of fun that often bubbles through on this blog often makes my day. So for that reason I'm going to say 'My Night of Shame With a Fray Bentos Pie'

And did anyone ever choose a new t-shirt slogan? The sleep I've lost over that! None whatsoever.

A real shame. Last band on in January next year unless Young's Brewery change their mind.

But why? I thought music venues such as this and others were the generators of revenue for bands of all shapes and sizes these days.

Though it seems putting a band on in a pub these days is becoming 'too expensive through excessive regulation' says De Doo Doo De Da Da Hitmaker (DDDDDDH) Sting.

Sigh. What say you?

Again, another pertinent query to make of a music-based blog.

I attend a lot of meetings in my job and I make a ton of notes. 9 times out 10 with my ever-faithful fountain pen. A stainless steel Parker 45 with, get this, a left-handed italic nib. This last I will now freely admit is something of an affectation though I did originally fit it with the genuine intention of having a stab at caligraphy. That fizzled out rapidly but the nib stayed and as a consequence I have a reasonably distintive hand.

An italic script with a fountain pen has recently attracted some queries from colleagues. The vast majority of whom jot away with biro's of varying quality and some of whom will sometimes examine my pen with bewilderment.

Now I'm not very old (45) but when I was at school fountain pens were all the go. We called them cartridge pens in those days, the cartidge being the filled plastic ink holder you rammed into the barrel. We all seemed to use them. Through choice. Post-christmas, school desks all over my school were strewn with the dayglo hues of assorted brand new Platignum cartidge pens.

I've written with such a pen for the majority of the time since and have never felt it odd or out of kilter.

Who else here had the same habit embedded at school? Or was my experience a localised aberration? I have to buy ink, obviously, and it's always in plentiful supply as are the racks of pens on display to fill with it.

But am I a fading anachronism? I seem to be the only one I know now who uses one as the norm.

I bet Richard Thompson uses one!

Came across this series of you tube videos recently. It's 'An Audience With Kenneth Williams' and its a delight.

Richly told anecdotes, long and short, on his life and career. Not long in to it all I quickly realised I was watching an art rapidly being lost; the art of being able to sit in front of a large audience and gently tell a rivetting story, be it comedic, dramatic or tragic.

When I was younger it seemed there was a goodly supply of these characters. All in dark suits, grey hair side-parted, normally a guest on Parkinson and the like, simply telling a good story. No gimmick, no edge, no schtick or attitude. Normally it was the much missed Kenneth or Peter Ustinov.

Who does this now? Anyone?

It seems that, obviously, long experience in a performing life is necessary before anyone could be classed as a raconteur but I can't think of any amongst the contemporary older generation who does this sort of thing. That I've seen anyway.

Who may grow into a good raconteur for the future? Billy Connolly? Eddie Izzard? Ross Noble? You could very convincingly argue that that is what they are now. Yes, they are all marvellous tale-tellers showing intense rapport with their audiences, but at this point it's their act. It's not reflection on past experience. They're all up there going for the throat, for the big woof. Not yet hanging back to simply tell us what really happened in their lives.

Quick and stupid question for the most erudite of Massives.

I fancy watching a couple of new-ish movies without having to rent a DVD and had a very quick google of some online movie sites.

A lot popped up as 'free'. Good. We're skint. I like free.

But are they? There was a lot of new stuff on each of these things and I would fully assume a charge or a subscription along the lines of BT Vision etc.

Would any of you have any experience or any considered opinions on these sites?

Grateful for any comments, as ever.

He being the editor of Uncut Magazine. At Waterloo Station.

Certainly it was a chap who bore a remarkable resemblance to his byline photo in said magazine.

That's all. I thought it mildly interesting at the time.

Hmmmm. It's not really though is it?

Wow. If you look up raconteur in a dictionary you won't find a picture of me.

If you need me I'll be over there. Carry on.

Have spent this afternoon beginning the job of wallpapering my daughters bedroom. Will spend all day tomorrow finishing that and then painting the whole bloody thing pink.

I've had the ipod on shuffle to help me get the joins straight and, happily, Albert Lee's 'Pink Bedroom' duly popped up.

Naturally I now need help from anyone willing to give it in putting together a 'Decorators' playlist on Spotify.

Any thoughts, Good People?

Paint it Black - The Stones
Painter Man - Boney M
Magnolia - JJ Cale

There has to be more...