Robot Zoo
Plasticine Garden
Archive for June, 2009
Robin Hood finale (Spoilers)
Posted on in TV.Nicholas Grace used to boast that he was the only Sheriff of Nottingham who
Do you think the casting director told Clive Standen
Wasn’t Tuck incredibly active for someone who had an arrow in his shoulder at the end of last week’s episode?
They shouted “loose” rather than “fire”. Possibly the first historically accurate thing in the entire series (to the best of my knowledge people didn’t shout “fire” until after firearms were in use).
Celebratory day out in London
Posted on in Books, Doctor Who, My Life.Today was the 10th anniversary of my first date with Lettice. Back in 1999 we went to see The Matrix in Streatham. Today we had an adventure to celebrate.
First up was the Robot Zoo at the Horniman Museum. Did you know that it took three people to drive a chameleon?
Then we did a bit of shopping. Lettice bought beads and I bought Doctor Who books.(About Time 3 2nd edition is 500 pages long and has an end note about the Chuckle Brothers, how can you not want it?)
If you missed James May’s plasticine garden at Chelsea you can now see it at the Royal Festival Hall.
Then we went on the London Eye. Yes, we live in London. Yes, we work in London tourism. Yes, it’s been open for nine years. No, we hadn’t been on it before.
Then there was yarn shopping. Followed by Yo! Sushi (between you and me, the County Hall branch is always nice and quiet in the evenings and only a short walk from the heaving, 45 minute wait to be seated, restaurants along the Southbank).
Anyway, I’ll do a proper image post either tomorrow or on Monday, in the meantime there are pictures on Flickr.
Desert Island Discs
Posted on in Dinosaurs, Music, My Life, Work.At work, we’ve been doing Desert Island Discs and this week is my turn. I’ll be buggered if I’m writing all this lot up and not turning it into a blog post.
I win. No seriously, I win this game because I have had a theme tune written for me. Well, technically it was written for my blog, oh okay, it was inspired by the name of my blog. What? This isn’t a contest and I can’t win? Oh. Sorry.
According to my mother my first musical experience was dancing (or being danced, as I was baby at the time) round the room to T Rex. Was I too young to be influenced by this? Or did it somehow generate an interest in dinosaurs rather than glam rock? Lucky escape.
Adam and the Ants – Stand and Deliver
I was torn between a classic Ants track or something from his later albums. In the end memories of Saturday morning’s spent watching this video on Multi-Coloured Swap Shop won the day (but if you’ve only heard his old material check out the 1995 album “Wonderful”).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPgHbt0ODr4
Drill Queen – Born Depressed
Justin is an information architect with whom I worked on several projects; he also played guitar for Drill Queen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRrq6zp2_M8
Traveling Wilburys – Tweeter and the Monkey Man
Just about the only bits of vinyl from my dad’s music collection that I copied to tape, and one of the few bands that Lettice and I both love. It looks like the record label have been at YouTube so we’re lucky to find this animation:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2cb4t_tweeter-and-the-monkey-man_creation
Moxy Früvous – My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors
Moxy Früvous were a cool, funny, somewhat cheesey Canadian band who I was introduced to via two friends at university. If you saw the groaning bookshelves in our flat you’d know why this song always makes me smile.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9F_XHb81N0
Cerys Matthews – Oxygen
I can’t sing. I really can’t sing. Neither can my brother, though as churchgoer he makes up with gusto for what he lacks in aptitude. Clearly we got our singing genes from the English or Swedish parts of our family not the Welsh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPqaPHTlhdg
Pulp – Mis-shapes
The end of the summer of 1995. On the news it’s Blur vs Oasis. But, before Blair, there was a much better third way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7rxAeF1wmQ
Aziza Mustafa Zadeh – Ay Dilber
Stiff Little Fingers – Tin Soldiers
Hands up who wanted (or even expected) to hear some Azerbaijani Jazz today? Well, you’re out of luck as I can’t find it anywhere on the web. So have some classic punk instead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl5V26oXHUI
Tanita Tikaram – And I Think Of You
The reason I’m here. Sort of. I created my first home page in 1995 (personal home pages, remember them? Like Facebook profiles but you had to do all the work yourself) and wanted to do a bit more. So looking around the nascent web for the various artists I liked I spotted that Tanita didn’t have any fan pages dedicated to her. The resulting site helped to get me my first job at a web design agency.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9bphQpCLNA
Book
Assuming I’m going to be here for a while then I want something fairly long. An old favourite or something I’ve never gotten around to? I think I’ll go for the latter and take Peter Ackroyd’s London: The Biography to remind myself of home.
Luxury Item
A brewing kit. Let’s see which of the fruit on the island makes the best booze.