I think I was about 9 when I first heard Is she really.... and it just, as they say, grabbed me. As I grew up, he was always there or thereabouts in my affections, but always a bridesmaid, never a bride. Bowie outranked him, as The Smiths and later The Stone Roses would also eventually do. But Joe was always there, despite never being the artist I'd announce myself as being a fan of.

However, on a recent Joe binge on Spotify, it struck me what an utterly amazing body of staggeringly varied work the man has to his name: from the angular, articulate and snarling post-punk tunes, through jazz, the classical stuff - including the exquisite Night Music (I've been kicking myself for not name-checking it in the Perfect Album thread.)from which this gem comes.(The Man who wrote Danny Boy)

Then there are the recent standout albums: Volume 4, Night and Day 2 (THE best 'New Yoik' album if you're travelling there) and even Rain.

Never seen the man live, never met him, not sure if I'd want to, don't know what he'd be like, but I'd be a very happy forty something to see him do something like this in a theatre somewhere. One man. A piano. A
very under-rated voice and two of the most beautiful songs to come out of these islands.

So,that's all I want to say. I LOVE Joe Jackson. He's made my life happier.

Having missed my first London mingle in nearly 2 years, I'd love to know how it went, so please, shake off your hangovers and let's see the love!

I just can't believe it!
About 3 or 4 years ago, me old iPod died. Big white lunk of a fella, so it was. Bye bye 2000 tunes, not all of which i'd eventually replace. (No I hadn't backed them up. A lesson learned.)

Since then, it's rested in my Pimlico drawer, occasionally to be taken out, mourned, and, sometimes in a fit of mindless optimism, charged up in the hope of a miracle.

But no, it was always that sad face icon, the reflection of a hundred heartbreaks. Today, while rummaging around for something else, I came across it again. Tried again. Same old sad face.

Went online for a solution.Found at least three You Tube videos saying that if you whack it against the table 2 or 3 times, it'll come to life again and thought,'That's really mean. some people are so desperate, and so thick, that they'd actually try that.'

Then I thought, 'Well, I'm kinda desperate - and let's face it, I haven't quite covered myself in intellectual glory these last 40 years, so whacked it against the table 3 times.

(Cue Music from ET as the bikes ascend skywards)

It worked! It bloody well worked! I am one happy person this afternoon.

So, if you have one, give it a go...

*This advice is not intended for any other electronic device.*

There's been a lot of talk of chippiness on the blog of late, which is a shame, but these things happen so I'm not going to weep and wail.

What I *would* like to do, however, is to remind y'all ( and I know most of you don't need reminding) of how brilliant this blog and those who sail in it can be.....
Recently, by the grace of Mike H, I really got into prog. Whether it's your cup of tea or not isn't really the issue and nor do I seek to mount a defence of the genre: it enjoys a healthy popularity round these parts anyway.
The point is that when I posted saying how much I was loving it and asked for some recommendations, in addition to some great shouts from the Massive, Mr. Vulpes Vulpes offered to send me a sampler if I was interested.. Well, it goes without saying I nearly took his hand off in my enthusiasm to accept such a decent offer.

Nevertheless, I was not expecting the BLOOMIN' MASTERPIECE that came through my letterbox on Wednesday evening.... Not a duff track on it: a double cd - stuffed with gems I'd never known or heard, a musical education, lavishly presented in a fantastically designed sleeve and with ace ( and very very funny) sleevenotes. I've been lost in this labyrinth of excellence for nigh on two days and it's gonna take me some time to get out...

maybe this post would have been more suited to a DM ( and Foxy, I will DM you this weekend) but I just felt that a timely reminder of the amazing good nature, kindness and creativity of the Massive was in order.

Nah, not another comfort food thread. (Though I think we're due one. I love some of the ideas!) Anyway, not sure if this is gonna work as I've never tried to do this with my Blackberry before, but what the heck: mash ups are a new fad of mine and this is the best one I've come across.
Any other good ones you'd care to recommend?

http://m.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&client=mv-google&v=jgNj0fcQy_E

I was in resigned agreement with both the recent thread on the demise of the TOILH and the forensic summation of same in a recent Word podcast.So I spotified the latest release with weary listlessness rather than enthusiasm: a feeling not unlike the obligation, for old time's sake, to go for a drink with an old friend who's been wrecked by life - and whose misery is only going to rub off on you as the Guinness swirls down and the bitterness curdles up.

I was wrong. Yes! I was fucking wrong! Me an' me ol' mate just had a GREAT night! Sure, this IS as if REM are parodying themselves, each track reminiscent of a different period/album but it is all the better for it and, for me, here's why: Instead of me jadedly bitching ' Oh that sounds like Document, that sounds like they're trying to rewrite Automatic ...etc,' with each song I get - that buzziest of phrases - a Proustian rush - reminding me of my late teens (Document) or my early 20s (Automatic) or mid 20s hedonism (Monster) and much of which has gone before and after... Part of the fun seems to be feeling where each tracks transports you back to.

Of course, it's imperfect...
What record execs might term 'the ballads' don't always have the melodic payoff they seem to initially promise and one or two tracks don't grab me, but lordy, this is as fine a collection of tunes as they've , gulp, ever produced. No point doing a track by track: I just hope some of you will give it a spin and see if you agree. Blue, the final track, does, however, deserve special mention. Essentially a rewrite of Country Feedback, it shows Mr Blueface in defiant mood; refusing to justify himself in an apologia por vita sua par excellence. (I know, I'm quite the tosser)
It's a piece which manages to achieve the seemingly impossible; to get the disinterested listener to shift their Stipe -view from that of envied millionaire non-delivering has-been to the Salingery empathy he used to make you feel - and with a rousing positive Buckshot guitar and shouty chorus finale it marks a great finish to a great new REM album.
I will be buying it.

This returns as a scab I can't help but pick. WTC 7 can't be explained in a way that I can accept.. The alleged finding of one of the hijackers' passports is laughable..... As it has shaped the world we live in so brutally and as it has directly led to the unnecessary death of so many young and not so young men from these islands, do the Massive think it was worth it, or do they doubt the story we were fed?

Oh God, I'm an idiot! Today was supposed to be an easy day.
Classes til 12, then a train from Paddington to Reading to sit at a stand flogging my training centre's wares to students from 3-5.
I trace my demise back to my own Schadenfreude. In Paddington, before boarding the 12.21, I found a discarded Sun, with breast-shaped train wreck Jordan on the front and reckoned I'd read that on the train instead of the Kindle.
Pushy, rude woman sitting in the chair in front of me (treating the poor buffet guy like a jerk) had me chomping at the bit to get off at Reading, which I duly did, leaving the newspaper on the seat.I think this is what annoys me most: I always, not *usually* but always take my stuff with me when getting off a train and yup, you guessed it I realised in the taxi that I'd left the kindle on the seat under the newspaper.
But there was still hope, surely! A quick call to the station manager at Oxford before my train arrived (Oxford was the one remaining stop and the train wasn't due to pull in there for a 10 mins yet) and all would be sorted.

Ha ha and indeed, ha. Station Manager? What's that. No, the lady in the call centre in Mumbai explained to me. If the cleaning staff find it it will be held in Oxford for 24 hours, then it will go to the Central Lost Property office in Bristol Thames Meade, which I can contact in 5 days.
No number for Oxford station seems to exist.
So, as it stands I face 2 hours of shit-eating grinning at people while my most extravagant purchase of 2010 may or may not languish in a lost property office that I have no way of contacting.
I'll then by a return ticket and board an Oxford bound train in the tiniest hope that that faint glimmer of hope isn't impaled on the spike of my own idiocy. What's most galling is that I've no-one to blame but myself. Grr, bah and fiddlesticks!

Well, as 2010 gets its hat n coat, I prepare for my last night in Moscow. It's been beautiful; just like Narnia - and the cold has actually been quite bracing. The next three hours will involve the preparation of a massive feast, where I will be directed in the language of Pushkin by my 88 year old granny-in-law, who has yet to realise (or accept) that I don't speak a word of Russian.....Posting will therefore be impossible for the next 6 hrs, by which time we'll have crossed the midnight mark here...
So forgive me for jumping the gun but Happy new year one and all... Go mbeimid beo ag an am seo aris.
2011....Oooh, don't like the sound of it!

What? wonders the Massive. Not cold enough for you or what? Y'see, Vorgona is from there (near Pushkin Square) and this year we're doing the Moscow thing.While I always love it there, I've found it hard to find places I can enjoy when my GLW gives me 'Cave time'. Can any massive members recommend any places of interest that don't contain the words Red, Square or Kremlin?

Massive, I could really do with some pointers: My son is 3, attends nursery and we're hoping to have him start school next September. As private schooling just isn't financially feasible, the local Catholic school is the best option. (I know I know, but please let's not go there: that's not what this is about.)
We've gone to church for the last year and the priest has signed our bona fides. Tomorrow, we are called to an interview with the principal of the school.
Given the crucial importance of this meeting for my little fella's future, I'm terrified as to how it could go horribly wrong, so I'm begging any of you who have experience of this sort of thing to give some advice on
1. what to expect.
2. Which pitfalls to avoid .

All help gratefully appreciated, thanks.

Maybe I'm being picky - and if so apologies to y'all, but I really must take issue with the sidebar here-and I think it also appears in the magazine this month. (which, by the way Mark, David et al was an absolute bloody delight: I read it enthralled from cover to cover last night. The Who won? thing was a great framing device. The coup de grace was Dorian Lynsky's fittingly glowing tribute to The Trip; I only wish it'd been a two-pager..)

Anyway, my beef is with the promise of FRIENDS! Reading? Good. Banter? Good. Music? Good. Other stuff? Great, tell me more.

But friends? Don't get me wrong, I've made some great friends - and have grown to admire a great many other people both for their posting and their personalities in the meat ups. But hey, we were never shut-ins, we had friends before Word, we still 'ave 'em.
The fact that Word has inadvertently spawned a lot of beautiful friendships is just one of the great by-products of the ,'magazine, podcast, way of life,' Word which we love.
Using it in the advertising, while not misleading, diminishes us slightly IMHO. We are the Massive, we are proud. We are rocks. We are islands, all that happened was that we liked what was going on here, took tentatiave steps: both cyber and later shoe-centred and met people either online or in the flesh with whom we become friends. Rather than using that fact in our marketing, let those who enter make that delicious discovery for themselves...

Posted a dead link last night, but it's working now and if y'all have 15 mins to kill, it's a great yarn. Have a read and post feedback! Ta

http://therustywireservice.blogspot.com/p/rex-mulligans-monkey.html

And I really mean a friend of mine; not me. Unfortunately. I think it's a cracker and hope any members of the massive who have 15 minutes to kill might have a look and post your feedback.
http://therustywireservice.blogspot.com/p/monkey-business.html
(Doffs cap. Shuffles jauntily out into the snow.)

So the enfant terrible turns eminence grise -and 61 - today. Wondering what the Massive make of him. I still buy everything he writes, I'd still cross the road to avoid him in person and I still think that Visiting Mrs Nabokov is one of the most re-readable collections of journalism.
So is he irrelevant, misogynistic, racist, brilliant, misanthropic, hilarious or what?