not in the worst way, but kind of bad enough to make you feel like someone else while your real self is floating around in a bubble
add to this the fact that my nose is alternating between running and bunged up and it equals possibly the worst onslaught of hayfever that i have encountered since i was about 11.
then factor in that i have either not had the means, the time, or the mental agility to bosh out a decent blog post of any real consequence.
and this means that i now feel a lot less like me.
on monday i was considering a blog about who i am, or who i used to be. or maybe who i once appeared to be in one particular photo.
i attempted to write that blog last night, and got all of about 18 words out before i faltered and just couldn't get into the right groove for blogging.
so here is a blog to fill the void, it is mostly hot air, fragranced with pollen and then showered in snot.
enjoy it if you can and pray that normal service will resume soon.
if not frequent blogging, then at least a regular mentality.
when i first caught wind that The Weekender, the entertainment section of The Enfield Advertiser, was under threat things were a little bit hush hush... but word gets around doesn't it...
although the clues were already there, the number of pages had slowly been dwindling over the past few weeks and certain articles and features had either been shuffled elsewhere or were tellingly conspicuous by their absense
which i wouldn't have brought into question if i hadn't known that my own music article had been submitted and yet The Advertiser went for a good couple of weeks (or was it three?) without a single music article appearing
when this type of thing happens i slow up a little, but the week before last the entertainment editor chased me up for a piece since something else he had been waiting on had fallen through, i swiftly finished off my piece dealing with The Fett's debut album
so what happens last week when i take a peek into the paper? The Weekender, apparently, and i quote, 'your number one leisure and lifestyle guide', was a paltry three pages long, and the article i had been hurried on had been replaced with an offer for toby carvery
it was after this sorry excuse for a leisure guide had been published (minus its usual music reviews, fashion features, kids club, cinema reviews and listings, and theatre and resteraunt reviews) that the editor informed me of the sorry state of affairs he was facing...
that The Weekender's days seemed to be numbered
now i'm not entirely sure if this was supposed to be public knowledge, and i drafted and submitted my own letter to express my disapointment, but i wondered whether this would make any difference at all
i know many people i know, band members and music fans alike turn to the centre pages before anything else, but how on earth will the powers that be know this if nobody tells them, and how will people need to know that there is something to fight for if they are unaware that it is in jeopardy
so i put news of this situation on facebook, where it was soon causing quite a stir not just between friends, but also among people that are outside of my own social circle, but obviously care enough to make their voices heard and express their opinion
so if you want to join in and make a bit of a fuss and hopefully make a difference then take a look facebookwards, and more importantly, make your voice heard by contacting The Enfield Advertiser by email on letters.enfield@nlhnews.co.uk
and this isn't a fight for me, this won't affect my livelihood, i have a full time job that pays the bills and all my contributions to the paper have been voluntary, but other peoples jobs are at risk if The Weekender is scrapped, and i also fear that it is unlikely that Enfield's bands and Enfield gigs would ever have the same exposure ever again...
i only write because i love it, i was doing it on this blog long before i had been taken on by the Advertiser, giving a mention to music of the local and not-so-local kind, and the loss of The Weekender wouldn't stop me writing either
but i felt that it would be a blow to Enfield's music scene if it lost such a well recognised and well distributed platform
so again, if this matters to you or anyone they know, please take a look at facebook and find a little time to contact the paper on letters.enfield@nlhnews.co.uk
i don't know why, but this blog quite often finds Wonder Woman cropping up for one reason or another, as much as i'm into comics, i am hardly her biggest fan, but the fact that she is so iconic makes her appearances in spoofs and parodies a hell of a lot more interesting than many Wonder Woman comics that i have actually read.
and here we have Wonder Woman, among a number of other superheroes (and villians), finding their perfect matches via a dedicated website that caters to the specific needs of comic book characters
twitter. tweeting. ok, i'll hold my hands up and admit that i don't really get it and i spent a good while saying that i just wouldn't bother with it but in my line of.. erm... unpaid employment i guess it can be used as a tool.
i spent the longest time saying that i wasn't gona set up a facebook for myself, and i held out for a very long time, and it was when logging into myspace and realising that pretty much no-one i knew used it anymore i kinda felt alone and needed the cyber comfort of my friends.
and guess what, i'm on the bloody thing near enough every day.
i use facebook on a more personal level, the myspace was about my musical identity of Hunchbakk, my facebook was actually me, the real person, or as real as i chose to be, i did get round to setting up a Hunchbakk facebook page for people to 'like' but i don't really devote too much time to it, it automatically updates with my blog posts, so you may as well just keep checking back here anyway.
it was at a friend's houseparty a few weeks back that i actually thoughtfully considered using twitter, me and my girlfriend were chatting to a guy in the kitchen, i called him Charlie Chaplin as i informed him that i was unlikely to remember his name and he had been drinking in a pub called the Charlie Chaplin before the party, and then not shown up to the party and then we all feared he was dead or worse as we realy weren't in the nicest part of london. all this is besides the point...
i'm quite humble, and don't announce myself too loudly. i sometimes forget the things i have achieved and all that i am, thankfully my girlfriend will occasionally big me up to people, it makes me feel proud, of myself and of her when she does this and i hope it means that she is proud of me. forget the day job, what really makes me interesting is all the other things that i get up to, and she proceeded to talk about my dan le sac vs madonna ciccone article that dan le sac himself acknowledged....
and Charlie Chaplin was quite blown away by this (which made me a little prouder) and he mentioned that i was selling myself short if i wasn't on twitter and trying to get myself out there and connecting with more people that are gonna take notice of what i write and what i do.
but it is done, that was a very long way of saying that it is done, i am on twitter, and it is neither musical nor wholly personal, i see it as some kind of self-promotional middle ground that is there for the sake of networking, as opposed to just keeping up with friends. i shall have to get in the habit of logging into it regularly, and linking to the various sites that i am involved in
there is absolutely no way that i am gonna get reeled into having to sit through Episode 1 again, not least when i'll have to pay for the privilege on seeing the stupid thing in 3D, no thanks George.
quick to jump on this blooming stupid 3D (but not even really 3D, just a bit 3D) bandwagon that will lead us all into the mouth of hell, George Lucas climbed down from the giant money stack he had been sat on at his Skywalker ranch and decreed that his 6 Star Wars films shall be re-tooled with some crummy 3D and then drip-fed into cinemas over the course of 6 years in order to bleed die-hard geeks of more of their earnings.
i grumbled when i first heard the news, but now a release date for Episode 1 has been pencilled in for next february i feel the need to grumble a little bit more, and publicly...
we'd start at the start (or the middle, dependant on your personal viewpoint) with Episode 1, by no means a classic, but despite the derision and the fact that the film is far from great, i've held a kind of naive fondness for it in my mind, but sitting through it again, i was relieved when the end credits rolled
back in 1999 i think i was kinda caught up in the hype, full of excitement that my generation would have it's own Star Wars legacy to witness anew after growing up with A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi as a standard Bank Holiday TV staple, i don't ever remember being shocked by the revelation of Luke's parentage as it was almost a received wisdom.
right now tho, in 2011, The Phantom Menace sticks out as a moment that the dream soured and as a terrible choice of a way to spend a couple of hours (and however much a ticket to a 3D film will be going for in 2012).
thankfully the other two prequels managed to claw back some of the self-respect lost in Episode 1, but the damage had already been done, and we became imbued with more of a curiosity for parts 2 and 3 instead of being blessed with another huge cultural phenomenon for a later generation.
(and i dare say i may be tempted to sneak into the 3D screenings of Episodes 2, 3 ,4, 5 and 6 as they roll out)
now we are at the halfway point with our screenings (well sort of, she slept through most of Revenge and should realy catch up) and we'll probably fire up the projector tomorrow night and step back in time, but further into the future, although they're all a long time ago anyway, but i'm sure you catch my drift, yep, we'll be watching the 'special' edition of 77's A New Hope.
ok, the lightsabre duels are a hell of a lot slower, and no-one jumps around so much, but nobody mentions midichloreans either, so the other factors that date it don't really matter at all when put into the context of Episode 1.
and for those that are bored of the same song that the Mos Eisley Cantina Band have been playing for what seems like an eternity, then perhaps tune into this Star Wars honouring video for mopey rockers Scattered Trees (no, i hadn't heard of them either) that, through the kitchen sink drama of some Imperial downtime, shows the downside of capturing pretty female jedis if you're a bit of an emotionally charged stormtrooper.
oh, and Boba Fett knows how to play drums, reinforcing his reputation as one of the coolest characters of the franchise.
and before i go, i must also comment on how impressed i am with their use of some chalkboard paint nonchalantly daubed on the walls, looking very cool.
that's right, apparently this hellish clown fiend is being made redundant.
no longer will Ronald McDonald be clocking in at the Golden Arches, since the fast food giant has been slowly and rather obviously changing its image over the past few years, the restaurants for a start are much less lurid than they used to be, now transformed into trendier looking hang-outs purposely designed to rival the huge surge of Starbucks as it aims to take over the world.
it has been trying to distance itself from what we remember it as, as all of a sudden it is terribly unfashionable to sell fatty foods, everything needs to be eco, and healthy, and green these days...
and that red and yellow romper suit and curly red hair will not be going green...
Ronald now factors into very little of McDonald's advertising, no longer fitting in with their new look and their new outlook.
cos who really wants a scary clown advertising your cappa-frappa-crappa-cinos?
and i was intending to post this news as an excuse to use a horrifying image of Ronald, one of the plenty of creepy looking pictures that are floating around the internet, you know, like the type used in Supersize Me...
but when the original clown looks this disturbing anyway, i thought i'd just go with the classic look as Ronald McDoanld waves goodbye......
