This years 50% off bargain is....

the Sharp 32DH500 32" TV. 

Originally £599. And now it's £299. Sounds good! I'll take two!

Except I won't. Why? When I look at the specification of this set then things don't seem to add up. A £599 32" LCD TV that wasn't full HD? A £599 LCD TV that doesn't feature a myriad of clever image enhancement goodies? A £599 LCD set that only has two HDMI sockets? That's fair enough I suppose. It might be one of those "oddballs" manufacturers sometimes produce that sit higher in product range than the specification would suggest. But I can't confirm this possibility as the 32DH500 isn't mentioned on the Sharp website. A search using the model number is equally uninformative. So the only way to judge where this TV sits is to look at the spec Curry's provide and compare it with other TVs they sell. Funnily enough the TVs that match it closest are those priced in the £299 to £350 bracket. Indeed Curry's have other Sharp TVs. One, the 32LE600E is a much better specified TV with Full 1080p HD, back lit LED and more connectors than 32DH500. Yet it sells at £449, considerably less than the £599 they originally wanted for the 32DH500. 

Confusing isn't it?

From the information I've gleaned I'd be forced to conclude that the 32DH500 is a bog standard sub-£300 LCD TV with little to distinguish it from the other TVs at this price point, beyond having "£300 off". I don't think there'd be any disputing that at £599 this TV would have been hopelessly outclassed. And desperately overpriced. I wonder how many they sold at the higher price? 

Now obviously view is based on what I see in front of me, filtered by 20 years experience of electrical retailing. So I think that it's a reasonable conclusion to draw. But I'd have to concede that it is entirely possible this was Curry's most popular TV sub £600 set, and the bald figures on the website don't actually reflect it's real world performance. However the lack differentiation between it and the £300 Samsung's and LG's of this world, beyond the large "saving", triggers some scepticism that the 32DH500 was ever a competitive £600 TV. But it's still a tricky thing to call. After all dry specifications can be used to inform and bamboozle in equal measure. 

Much, I suppose, like advertised savings.  

Attack of the Odds and Sods

I'm currently in negotiations with Gigabyte technical support.  My 18 month old motherboard - which has already been back once, has gone faulty again. Their attitude to "support" is predicated on the assumption that I'm a moron and the "fault" is a figment of my imagination. So par for the course in the IT sector then.

I mentioned way back in the summer that if I was still unemployed by Christmas I'd give an award to the Worst Recruitment Agency I've had the misfortune to deal with. And, after due consideration I'm happy to announce that Chapterhouse are the easy winners. Why? Well there are a few reasons. 13 unreturned phone calls from the guy who was supposedly running the recruitment for a job (he was either in meetings, wrestling yaks, feeding the starving or something), a blank refusal to even look at my CV without first speaking to this guy, but mainly it's due to the PR guff they have on their home page, "....we listen, we explore, we respond." The addition of the word "don't" after "we" would increase it's accuracy 100%

It's Sale time again. And the High Street has been saved! Hurrah for us. Aren't we great? Of course these are "Matsui 180TC*" sales but who cares? Certainly not the media who don't seem to realise that retailers having a couple of good days around Christmas used to be the icing on the cake, not the cake itself.  

This year again there's been the annual "come back to work in Northern Ireland" campaign, aimed at people who left Northern Ireland because there are no jobs in Northern Ireland. A few years ago I signed up for this scheme at Belfast International airport's departure gate "Fill your email address in here and we'll be in touch." Beyond asking me would I consider returning to NI to work, they took no other details. Guess how many emails I subsequently received?  So many I had to tell them to stop sending them three times before they paid any attention to what I'd said? A couple a month? One every few months? An annual email asking if I still wanted to be part of the scheme? Or none? 

Hands up everyone who isn't surprised to learn that, to date, I haven't had a single one. 

*The old Matsui 180TC microwave. If an item has an advertised saving, then it must have been sold at the higher price for 28 consecutive days in the previous 6 months. In the "glory days" when Currys issued their pre-Christmas pricing and merchandising instructions a curious thing happened with the 180TC. One of the most popular microwave ovens would double in price overnight. Guess what happened in the sale? Guess what item was advertised as 50% off? Guess what flew out the door on Boxing Day? Guess why I don't believe the word "sale" or "saving" when it's printed on day glow point of sale? Guess why I think "sales" are little more than a notion based on smoke and mirrors that shoppers pretend not to believe, but that they want do believe? As for the people who queue up outside shops over Christmas to avail of these "savings"? Frankly there are saner individuals in remote institutions, who when they don't think they are Napoleon, spend their evenings chained to their beds.         

Believe in Better (5)

Amongst the many advertisements Sky are currently running is one extolling their green credentials. It has a sombre Ross Kemp imploring us to support Sky's efforts to plant trees (or something). For those interested the corporate flannel is here. You know the sort of thing. green this, recyclable that, carbon footprint blah blah blah. 

Of course action speaks louder than words. But what you actually see and what you actually experience speaks even louder. So when Sky Corporate are saying one thing and Sky News are doing something else you have to wonder. Now whether you believe in the human contribution to global warming or not, I think it's hard not to be cynical when, on one hand Sky News are reporting from the Copenhagen climate conference on the dangers, and on the other hand have flown reporters to remote parts of the world to report on the effects. Sorry? Aren't we repeatedly told that one of the main contributors to global warming is commercial flights? So what do Sky do? They send a reporter to a swamp in the Brasilan rainforest to report on the environmental damage global warming is having. And, in the interests of balance they send another reporter (who's normally seen sitting in front of their mid 90's Aiwa Hi-fi system inspired studio) to India to report on the damage caused there. Sorry? Am I missing something? How green (the other one) do they think we are? 

Of course what makes this more ironic (to the point of parody) was a little rolling demo they used to have on the Sky customer channel. Basically it said that in order to save energy you should switch your Sky box to standby. That's right, don't turn it off at the mains, just switch to standby. Funny that. I thought the existence of a standby button vexed the environmental lobby almost as much as flying. Now there maybe good technical reasons for leaving the Sky box plugged in. For example it takes to reload the EPG when the mains supply is interrupted, adding to length of time the box takes to reboot. But, and this is the key, if they are as concerned about the environment as they claim why didn't they recommend people turn their boxes off. They just need to educate their customers that although there is a short delay as the the box reboots, the overall environmental benefits could be huge. They could have plugged it as "a short delay to save the planet" or something. That they didn't do this is a puzzle. (Now when I say "puzzle" I don't actually mean "puzzle". Rather that I haven't been able to prove my suspicions. Yet.) Of course what is completely baffling is that if you do switch your Sky box off then the first thing you saw when the box rebooted was the same customer channel advising you to put the box on standby to save energy. So the only people* who'd ever have seen this well meaning information were those who were already saving more energy than those who don't know they were heeding Sky's advice.

I don't think you need to look up the word "pointless". This is it. Writ large.

 

*Apart from people shopping in electrical retailers or Argos. They get to see it as well. Typically no-one can find the remote to change the channel or the Manager / owner has "borrowed" the Sky card** so you get stuck with this. All day. Everyday. Of course the poor sap standing there will still try to persuade you of the benefits of Sky by drawing pictures on a bit of paper, or by showing you a Panasonic demo DVD of long replaced Camcorder as a substitute. Ditto with HD. "No we don't have HD to show you, but I do have a picture of a blu-ray player we don't stock to give you an idea what it's like. Isn't it fantastic?" 

**Of course this doesn't apply any more. Sky cards are locked to specific boxes, meaning that, unlike the glory days of the analogue Sky, when cards would "vanish" at the start of the football season, a card from one box doesn't work for the premium channels on another. 

Revenge of the Odds And Sods

I bought different toothpaste this week. Some variety of Colgate. It claims that it's "infused" with cleaning crystals. "Infused?"  Er? Haven't they just walloped some lumpy bits into their latest concoction?  I suppose that doesn't really fit the image they are striving for though. "Infused" implies gentleness. Conjuring images of tea ceremonies and big bowls filled with rose petals gently soaking in water. So the process they use to produce and flavour their fluoride enriched pastes must be similar. Needless to say I'm not convinced. Or enthused.  

And while I'm on the subject of toiletries. Lynx now produce shower gel containing "glacier" water (presumably now freely available thanks to global warming. Every cloud etc.). Call me "dense" but how precisely does "glacier" water make shower gel, (sold incidentally in containers shaped like the handle of an Armalite) better than gel made from non glacial water?   

The latest "After Eight" advertisement features another one of those "100% Natural" claims. This time though it's Peppermint oil. Interesting considering "Peppermint" is a herbaceous rhizomatous perennial plant, not an oil. I suppose it's possible the 100% natural peppermint oil Nestlé use was laid down during the Cretaceous period like fossil fuel. And it's minty properties were only recently discovered, oozing into large pools. Perhaps these peppermint oil pools are similar (but cooler and mintier) to those the equally "natural" Kettle Chips bathe in.  

HMV (Group) reckon that their sales will increase in the next year. And how will they achieve this? Thorough revamp of their branches? Developing innovative ideas to rekindle their moribund brands?  Aggressive discounts on their range of music, DVD's, books and games in an effort to attract people back through their doors? No it's is predicated on the realisation that, with the removal of Borders, (along with Virgin / Zavi / Woolworths) you don't have a choice. If you want a CD or a book you'll be buying it from an HMV outlet (which includes Waterstones) as there's no-one else left on the high street. Now there's a company with a strategy defined by ambition, drive, a strong sense of it's own worth combined with the necessary dynamism to succeed. Sorry I'm getting confused. What I meant to say was "Now there's a company hoping to grind out a result on the basis that other companies are worse off. And if they do manage to survive it will be largely down to pure, blind luck". Christ I should've been a retail analyst.

Angry Since 1967. The Worst Music of the Decade.

I can't summon up the enthusiasm do this. Not because there aren't things deserving of a good shoeing, but rather that my last post renders a specific, detailed list redundant.

Talk about pop music. Pop, pop, pop music

I know I'd said I was going to post a list of my favourite tracks of the last 10 years, and put the boot into the rest, but this (admittedly "barely coherent") rant came out instead. Like most things I post, if I stew on them for too long , they just become less and less clear. So here it is. Apologies in advance*. 

Where to start? The music industry is not where it was back in 1999. I think though, with the benefit of hindsight, there was an inkling of what was to follow. Remember how the BPI whinged about CDs being imported from outside the UK? Remember the rigmarole they went through trying to "punish" companies like CD Wow? Remember the reports about how expensive CDs were in the UK compared to elsewhere? Remember the weasel words and self-justification the record industry used to prevent people buying physical CDs from abroad and why they "needed" to be more expensive? It's funny now, but these glory days appear to have been forgotten. But at the time there was much gnashing of teeth. Why? Well back then if you wanted to listen to music, you didn't have much choice other than to buy CDs. You either liked it, or you lumped it. I suppose had the record companies realised what was coming, they might have reacted differently. 

The music industry then made another misjudgement. They attempted to block people from copying their own CDs to a PC, preventing transfer across to an mp3 player. The implication? You might "own" the CD, but it wasn't yours. The industry was happy to take your money and give you a silver disc in return, but beyond that? What do you mean you want to make an mp3 version so that you can play it on your newly acquired portable media player? Sorry you can't. That's illegal. And if you were tempted to make your own they introduced some kack handed copy protection on to CDs, rendering lots of them unplayable. If you wanted an mp3 version then, by god, you were going to buy an mp3 version. They simply assumed everyone was a pirate, with an evil intent towards copyright, making multiple copies to give away for free. Coincidently, and with almost poetic timing, something that many newspapers had started doing. 

If you consider what happened next in this context it seems obvious that the initial migration to downloading was a reaction against these prohibitions. "It's not bad enough that you won't let me buy CDs cheaply, but you also want to dictate what I do with my purchase once I get it home?"

As the old Belfast saying goes "hell slap it into them."

Music no longer has the hold it once had. Pre-recorded music held it's pre-eminence because there was little else to spend your money on. Now? Think of the other things you can buy, the other things that are competing your money, Video games. DVD's, mobile phones, and the rest. It's unsurprising that the amounts spent on music has declined.

Added to this is the perception - okay it might largely be my own, that the "value" of music has been eroded. Okay this could probably be categorised as "misty eyed nostalgia" but I'm not sure that's an entire explanation. Think, even on the radio stations and TV channels who you'd (even nominally) expect to provide an outlet for music, just how far down the pecking order music has become. It says much that the TV channel displaying the word "music" most prominently doesn't actually play music any more, preferring tightly scripted reality shows and other ephemeral tat. While 10 years ago such a development may not have been unpredictable, it's nonetheless demonstrates just how far things have changed.

But surely "music" is now much more accessible? It is. But I'd argue that at the same time, it's also become much less accessible. Let me try and explain. Anyone with a broadband connection and the appropriate software, can amass a music collection, shaming most record shops. And there's where the "less accessible" bit comes from. "Record Shops". Where have they all gone? Certainly the increase in supermarkets selling CDs along with the baked beans and the brillo pads will have had an impact. Although I get a feeling that the people who'd buy music in a supermarket wouldn't necessarily be the same demographic as those who'd have trailed around dusty record shops looking to fill the gaps in their Uriah Heap back catalogue. Of course there's been a parallel rise in internet outlets. Ironically many of whom are the same companies the record industry had spent few years previously attacking. I suppose this just proves the point. "Any port in a storm". And the people who actually consumed music?, Those who'd stand and flick through the (old) HMV sale, or bought from their 3 CDs for £20 selection? They are now irrelevant. I suspect that, like me, these music consumers now rely on Play for all their cheap / interesting / back catalogue needs. (When I reorganised my CDs into alphabetical order, I noticed how many had old promotional discount barcodes on the back. Now? I can't remember the last time I bought a CD (or much else) from a "record" shop.)   

The only high street "record shop" left is HMV. And they aren't interested in selling music any more. So the people who want stuff that's a little bit beyond the mainstream, are forced on to the internet. If the only place to buy music is online then it doesn't take an enormous leap just to skip the whole "buying" thing and download it for free.

So like I said we have a contradiction. More accessible, yet less accessible. I believe this is the fundamental factor in trying to summarise what's happened to "music" in the last decade. Think back to 1999. Suppose I wanted (for arguments sake) to buy the Pink Floyd back catalogue. Firstly I would have had to make a conscious decision to "buy" it. And then it was off, cash in hand, to HMV or Virgin. Now? All I have to do is tap "Pink Floyd" into a P2P site and ten minutes later I'll have their entire discography on my PC. For free.  

From the basic bit of marketing I know (long story. And "no" I'm not going there) music has, in the last decade, moved from being a "sought" good to an "unsought" good. Or, more bluntly, it's become a commodity. Just like bog roll.

So how can I sum up the last 10 years? There's been fragmentation of music into an infinity of ever more narrowly defined genres. The dearth of a defining "movement" and the exploitation of the resultant vacuum by a show business svengali's karaoke acts. The endless fixation with trying to find inspiration and the "next big thing" in bands mired in the past. But mainly it shows that the focus has moved from the "music" to how it's delivered. It must be easily consumed, readily at hand, not too demanding and appeal to the lowest common denominator. If you can sound like someone else, or look good on T4's sofa so much the better.  

And that's why, musically, the last 10 years have, with a few exceptions, been a creative wasteland.  

*granted I'll still be hacking at this in a week

The Angry Since 1967 Albums of the Decade

And so here they are. In no particular order.

Wolfsheim "Casting Shadows"

Dunno why like this so much. It's all the good bits of the old pop orientated Depeche Mode crossed with VNV Nation. Yeah I know that it's universally loathed and the band had pressed the self destruct button a few times during it's production, but do you know what? I think it's great. 

Stand out track?  "Wundervoll"

Supergrass "Road To Rouen"

The only Supergrass album I've ever bought. It sounds like a band rooting around their influences and distilling them with their own sound. The result? It just works. 

Stand out track?  "Tales of Endurance, Pts. 4, 5 & 6"

Aphex Twin "drukqs"

Probably the most "flawed" album in this list. There's a helluva a lot of James' time-warped and indigestible "techno" to stomach. But once you strip away these tracks you're left with an album where he appears not only to be channelling John Cage, Erik Satie and Claude Debussy, but surpassing them. 

Stand out track?  "Nanou2"  

Porcupine Tree "Lightbulb Sun"

I read the one star review in "Q" and I still bought it. After a couple of listens I realised an ultimate truth. "Q" don't have a clue. This is easily the most coherent and complete album Porcupine Tree have produced. But it's a frustrating album as well. Not for what it contains, but for what it promised and how as a band they've completely failed to deliver. After this 'Tree decided to explore the path called "least resistance". Pity.

Stand out track?  "Rest Will Flow"

Radiohead "Kid A"

It's hard to remember the reaction when this came out. Possibly only second to "Tales From Topographic Oceans" as the most uncompromising album to reach No.1. For the follow up to "OK Computer", people expected more of the same.  What they got?  Arch electronica and minimalism. This wasn't rock, this was the essence of Terry Riley / Brian Eno / Cluster put through the Radiohead blender. 

Stand out track?  "Optimistic" 

Boards of Canada "The Campfire Headphase"

Initially I hated this. But there was something that kept pulling me back. Then it all came into focus. An album dripping with melancholy, nostalgia and half remembered images. Along with their previous album "Music Has The Right To Children" this defines a currently unnamed genre. Not quite "ambient" or "minimalism" this is music influenced by too many days off watching Schools TV and hearing the "cheap" music it was surrounded by. Unsurpassed.

Stand out track?  "Peacock Tail"

Pete Namlook / Geir Jenssen "The Fires Of Ork 2"

Unfairly, in my view, lumped in with that god awful cod "ambient" phase we went through in the early / mid part of the decade (Moby? the endless volumes of "late night" music?). So what marks this out from the rest of the cloying chill out genre? Simple. The frigging great tunes.  

Stand out track?  "Sky Lounge"

The Beta Band "Hot Shots II"

I was late to this particular party. I didn't "get" The Beta Band. Then I did. I can't put my finger on it exactly but I think it shares a stylistic similarity to the "Road To Rouen", yet is completely different. I love the atmosphere the album produces. Yes it's a bit up and down, and on some tracks their influences are all too apparent, but that doesn't matter. As an overall experience I think the album does everything an album should do. It draws you in and makes you want to listen. And then makes you want to listen to it again.

Stand out track?  "Gone" 

The Divine Comedy "Regeneration"

This shouldn't work. But it does. Something of the "odd one out" in The Divine Comedy albums, as it doesn't really sound like anything before, or after. I just really like it. 

Stand out track? "Bad Ambassador"

And the rest?

Best Cover Version Album 

Luther Wright And The Wrongs "Rebuild The Wall"

It's a country / blue grass version of Pink Floyd's "The Wall". What is there not to like?

Best Re-issue  

Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon 30th Anniversary Edition"

This is here because of the quality of the SACD version of the album that's buried on the disc, awaiting discovery by those who have the suitable hardware. An incredible sounding album. Other notable reissues worth mentioning. The SACD versions of Nine Inch Nails "The Downward Spiral and The Who's "Tommy", "Tommy" in particular sounds like the band are playing in front of you. Astonishing

Best Compilation

The BBC Radiophonic Workshop A Retrospective

Incredible, innovative music that shaped and influenced generations of electronic artists. We also get to hear all those otherwise forgotten tunes written as cheap filler. If ever there was truth in the saying that necessity is the mother of invention then this album displays it in spades. And we get lots of Delia Derbyshire. If you like electronic music then this album is indispensable

And there you have it. A different selection from the usual. Next time? I'll be putting the boot into the worst of the last 10 years and trying to work out what my favourite tracks were. 

"Pick Something Groovy"

So I will.

I've realised that I've been focusing on how music is delivered, rather than the music itself. So, to balance things up, I'm going to do some of those "End Of Decade" round-up lists. 

Well that's part of the reason. I've looked at the NME / Guardian Top 50 lists and thought two things. The first is "who?" The second? How come, a self proclaimed music fan like myself only owns three of the albums featured? So to demonstrate that I am completely out of touch with the music scene, I'm going to list what I think are the best albums from the last 10 years. 

I'm sure you can hardly wait. 

CD is Dead. Again.

I wasn't going to mention this then I thought "why not?" It seems that Linn are going to stop making CD players. The implication being that CD IS DOOMED!!!

Of course what this nugget only kind of touches on is where Linn are coming from. Way back in the mid 80's when every single electronics / Hi-FI brand in the world were falling over themselves to produce a CD player, Linn didn't. They were amongst the few manufacturers who held out, deciding to cater for the dwindling band of enthusiasts who reckoned vinyl sounded better. However, freed from the snap, crackle and pop of vinyl, even a relatively cheap CD player could produce sound quality that made turntables less impressive. And there was Linn's problem. They'd made their reputation selling high end, hyper expensive turntables - the (legendary) LP12 for example. Suddenly there was this upstart format that had, effectively pulled the rug from beneath vinyl's carefully evangelised "superiority". But, so the mantra went, vinyl was still better. And that was it. Unsurprisingly no one listened (Well a few did. Even fewer still do. And yes I am aware of the irony of trying to extol the virtues of one format over another*) Eventually though the few stragglers relented. Later still, out came a Linn CD player. But it was too late. The early adopters, who wanted to spend the kind of money Linn were charging, had already voted with their feet, buying high end players from their many competitors. Linn had to play catch up. And, as far as I can tell, they never really got close.  

And that's how it's been with Linn and the CD format. Their turntables have always been more important. I've long held the view their CD players were something they produced for people who wanted a complete Linn system.  So I was quite shocked when I read Linn won't be making CD players any more. I thought they'd given up years ago. 

The video that accompanies this story is interesting as well. One of the guys from Linn tells the reporter (and I'm paraphrasing here) that CD is fragile, susceptible to noise, external vibrations and that the digital to analogue processing impairs sound quality, and they won't be making players any more as they don't appeal to the high end of the market.  

Right. 

The problem is that these criticisms can be equally (and I'd venture more accurately) applied to turntables and vinyl. I'm sure we've all experienced how robust vinyl is. Even a casual look at a "good" turntable shows just how much engineering has to be deployed to dampen noise, reduce vibrations and the rest of the assorted gubbins required to isolate them from the same things that are supposedly so detrimental to a CD players performance. I'd ask why, given that most new albums are recorded in the digital domain, doesn't vinyl suffer from the same digital to analogue conversion problems? How then does the act of converting a digital file to analogue version for its transfer onto vinyl negate this problem? If it does why don't they use the same D/A conversion technology in CD players? What makes this claim even more puzzling is that the media streaming device they make also has to convert a digital signal into an analogue one, just like a CD player. So how is this device going to do the conversion and,at the same time avoid the problems that a CD player supposedly has? Or do they have a different way to this that gets around the issue? In which case why don't they use this technology on a CD player (again)? There's a further, and more fundamental problem. Where are people going to source the music to play on these media streaming devices? Via the sub 320kps horrors of itunes and the rest?  That doesn't sound viable. People who are prepared to spend this type of money are going to want more than just 320kps. I've had a dig around the Linn site, and there is a music download section of sorts. The suggestion is that Linn will release stuff from their own record label. Now, if you've been to as many Hi-Fi shows as me, you'll know that having The Blue Niles "Hats" is hardly an inducement. So, and as fair as I can tell, the only practical way a user is going to get any benefit from the media streamer is by transferring their existing CDs on to it. Which means, somewhere along the line you'll need a CD player. 

Why does this remind me of "there's a hole in my bucket"?  

What we have here is a small, but successful, niche Hi-Fi company, unknown outside the rarefied air of Hi-FI enthusiasts, who've been historically relatively un-enthused by CD, telling us that they are going to stop producing CD players. That's all. Certainly it's not quite as dramatic as "the death knell of the compact disc player" 

As an aside. In March 2009, What Hi-Fi produced an "Ultimate (sic) Guide to HI-FI". It's an interesting read (well I found it interesting, but I'm a geek). The reviews are prefixed with a little introduction.

"Buying Hi-Fi is all about choice: you'll find hundreds of products to choose from in this magazine alone, and that's only the kit we consider to be the best available - we've omitted the also-rans and the plain awful" 

Of the 38 CD players (produced by a variety of the well known, the not so well known and the downright obscure manufacturers) they deemed worthy of inclusion (bearing in mind these players range in price from £150 to £10,500 so the high end is also covered) there is a notable (in this context) exception. Linn is missing. Of course they (rightly) make an appearance in the turntable section. You get the idea. 

A company is quite entitled to declare CD is dead, and to make a commercial decision based on that view. You have to admire their conviction. But for the BBC to then simply use Linn's decision as "evidence" of CD's death knell stretches the point. If you watch, and then read the article it's hard not to conclude that the BBC have mangled this story to match a predetermined headline. I suppose there must be an element of that. I can't see the BBC publishing a story "Company you've never heard of stops production of a product you weren't aware of". They've spoken to Linn, looked for an angle than made it fit. This time it's the rapid unstoppable decline of CD and it's imminent replacement with downloads. Now what's annoying about this the unchallenged presumption that CD has reached this point. And that it's days are numbered. I'm not sure that it's an assumption that stacks up too well.  

Why? I'm not a betting man, but I'd be prepared to lay long odds against CD not being in production in thirty years time. Why? Well lets take the format so closely associated with failure - Betamax. Anyone want to hazard a guess when this "failure" was finally put out to pasture? 1985? 1990? Believe it or not, it was actually 2002. Think about how many CD users there are. Think about how many CD titles are available. Now compare these to the much smaller number of Betamax movies and players ever made. And yet, despite it's tiny user base it still managed to remain in production for 27 years. It's even more astonishing when you realise that Beta effectively "lost" to VHS way back 1985. Sony made the format for longer after it's "failure" than before it failed. One, can therefore only imagine, given the almost universal acceptance of CD, it's installed user base and the sheer scale of the titles available how long it will be before the last disc and the last player roll off the production line. Factor how long vinyl has lasted since it was replaced by CD and the whole idea of this (CD) format vanishing overnight doesn't seem very plausible.. 

What makes this even more incredible is that BBC are suggesting the end of CD, in a story about a company whose success is largely down to their production of "record players". Is that "irony" I see heaving into view? 

"...the death knell of CD?" Not even close.

*But in this case I'm right.....ahem

More Odds and Sods

Just rereading last post. I've condemned Amazon for not putting their CDs into alphabetical order.

I looked at my own. 

Er.

They are now "nearly" in alphabetical order. Interestingly I discovered CD's that I have no recollection of ever buying, and conversely couldn't find CDs that I definitely have bought - where did Peter Gabriel 2 go I wonder? I don't remember ever lending it to anyone. 

I've had a comment from else where (cheers Colin) about people buying mp3s for download that are the same price as the CD. People are "paying a premium for the 'convenience' of getting it in a digital format so they can listen to it on their mobile phone / MP3 player". Interesting. I never even considered this.

Odds and Sods

Deep breath.

Things are back to normal here. 

The job market has stopped for Christmas. I've been told nothing will happen now until the new year. More jam tomorrow. 

I was down at the Job Centre (did I decide it was one or two words? I can't remember). There's a guy there I've spoken to a couple of times now. No joy from him. And from the sounds of it, not much joy to be had anywhere. Still the veiled threat was nice. As was the completely bloody useless suggestion that I do a beginners IT course. 

I've been thinking about going back to GB. Then I remember. I spent 5 1/2 years in GB, 5 of which I spent wanting to go home. There's no pleasing me. But at least I now know what I want. Not what I have at the moment.

I've been noseying on the various jobs sites (Go figure). I saw the perfect job. Ironically it was a 30 miles from where I used to live. Of course I sent my CV in. And of course I heard nothing.

Looking at the Belfast Telegraph's self proclaimed "Job Finder" on Friday evening. (Now this shouldn't be mistaken for the thing they have online, which, looks like a skimming site) Interestingly there was an job advertisement (not for me) that had a little disclaimer at the bottom. "CVs submitted via Agencies will be rejected." Good for them.

I've been invited to save up to 50% on all clothing purchased via the Play website. As far as self evident offers go that's the best I've had in months. I mean if something has no saving (or 0% if you prefer) then it still falls within the scope of this offer as the saving is cached as "up to 50%. Thanks Play. That's not an offer not too good to not refuse. (See what I did there?) 

I tried looking for cheap CDs on Amazon. Now I'm sure this is simply down to me being an idiot but I couldn't find a way of sorting the CDs alphabetically. Call me "picky", but trying to find an album on the basis of how well reviewed it was, or by it's release date, or by it's sales performance, doesn't strike me as being particularly intuitive. I mean you don't go into HMV and see the CDs organised by the number of copies they've sold do you? If you did I'd imagine it would be like the late unlamented Zavi / Virgin, who seemingly used some strange equations based on chaos theory and fractals to decide how to organise their CDs. (You know I was shocked when Zavi went bust. I found it completely inexplicable. Or something). Did someone at Amazon think "we don't need to put things in alphabetical order or even have it as an option as these alternatives are so much better?" Needless to say I didn't bother my hole. I couldn't face the rigmarole. So I bought them from Play "with up to 50% off".   

I'm back to listening to my MP3s again. At the moment I've got the ambient selection on. It just seemed appropriate.  

And breathe.

A week without mp3s. Day Seven

And so it's over. All I've proved is what I thought I would prove at the start.  

Go Me!

Perhaps I should start producing surveys.

A week without mp3s. Interesting BBC report

I saw this story on the BBC website. I think it neatly illustrates one of my points. I can't quite identify the separates, but it looks like a NAD 3020 amp (I can't tell the exact version) and a pair of Mordaunt Short (possibly) MS10's. The Philips CD player is a complete mystery though, but the styling suggests something from the late 80s or early 90s. Nonetheless it is pretty damning that kit produced, say 20 years ago, sounds better than the kit being sold today.

A week without mp3s. Day Five and Six

Just as an aside, this post is something of a landmark, as it's the 100th thing I've posted on Angry Since 1967. Let joy be unbridled. 

I think I've worked out what's happened over the past couple of days. It's not that I've not been in the mood listen to music - I have. I've just not been in the mood to listen to a CD properly. And I think this is the key difference between having a huge mp3 collection and having a huge selection of CDs. I've mentioned previously that I'd thought listening to CDs was a less passive experience than listening to mp3's. Now I'm convinced of it. 

This little experiment has also demonstrated something that I hadn't really considered. The whole jukebox listening experience effectively reduces music to background noise. I mean we've all been there. A song plays and it doesn't register. Brian Eno might have had a point with "Music For Airports." Just playing random tunes reduces music to something you hear but don't listen to, creating (for want of a better word) "ambience" and not much else.

Of course that's not to say that I don't miss having all those mp3s to pick from. I do. I wonder though. Should I draw a distinction between music that I just "hear" and music that I actually listen to?

A week without mp3s. Day Four

Much the same as yesterday. I think I may have picked the wrong week to do this as, to be honest, I'm not really in the form to listen to much music. Today I listened to Boards Of Canada "Campfire Headphase" and Radiohead "Kid A". Nothing much else. 

Perhaps things will improve tomorrow.  

A week without mp3s. Day Three

Odd thing today, well beyond posting this at midnight on a Friday night obviously, in that I actually missed being able to skip to the next track, and then the next one, and then the next one, until I found something I "wanted" to hear. I don't know if this is good or bad. But then today I've not really been in the mood to listen to anything much. 

I've un-installed Spotify. I don't think I'll be bothering with it again. The whole concept of the thing doesn't sit right with me. Is it the adverts? Is it the low res streaming? Is it all the shitty cover version and karaoke albums that are strangling the life out of the service? Is it the patronising presumption that people will quite happily pay for their music indirectly by listening to advertisements? Or pay a tenner a month for something that offers little additional benefit beyond the absence of these same advertisements? Or is it that I can't stomach the fact that Spotify is a half-arsed, knee jerk response to the idea that the music industry will only survive if it gives music away for free?

I reckon that the music industry might be better advised trying to work out why they think people won't or don't buy their products. Why do they think consumers will be inspired to buy music that is punctuated the advertisements? Doesn't this reinforce the perception music is a secondary consideration and that it doesn't have any intrinsic value beyond filling the spaces between the advertisements?  It's been suggested that where Spotify has value is in introducing people to music that they wouldn't normally have access to. I'm not sure about this. I think it's catalogue is too limited to appeal to those who "really" want to hear something new before they decide to buy. So what listeners is it designed to appeal to?

The other thing I can't get my head around is the actual buying bit. Surely if you are a listener who can cope with the music being free, but interrupted with commercials, then are you really going to buy the same track so that you can hear it without the commercials? Or will you just download it from a P2P site?  And, at the other extreme I reckon if you are interested in music to the point that you'd pay for it then the commercials are sufficiently intrusive to annoy these users to the point that they simply won't use the service. So the thing that supports the site is the very same thing that will deter the people they hope to attract - those who'll pay for music. And if this is the case where does this leave Spotify? Isn't it just a place where people can hear things that they might like, but that they'd never actually buy? If that's the case then what's the point exactly? 

A week without mp3s. Day Two

Much the same as yesterday. Again I've listened to entire albums through, something I don't do with my mp3s.

The other thing that has struck me is how arse about tit my media player is. I use itunes. Now in my defence I only migrated to itunes reluctantly after Musicmatch was consumed and then regurgitated as Yahoo music. The final straw for me with this application was when it decided, on it's own, to re-tag all my mp3s, replacing, for example "The Beatles" with "Beatles,The". Any bit of software that has difficulty with the definite article is clearly not worth having. So I toyed with winamp (please) before going with itunes. Of course I had to then upgrade my PC from Windows 2000 to XP and stick more memory in the machine to make it work, but for a free bit of software it does the job. Needless to say I've disabled all the itunes store bollox it comes with. 

Sorry where was I? 

Right - the ease of use. I don't think itunes is particularly intuitive to use. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but simply reaching across and loading a CD seems to me (at least) a much easier thing to do that scrolling / searching / or changing the view to find a particular track. Sorry I'm not explaining this very well. 

The other thing that is very obvious, if not entirely unexpected is how much better the CD's sound. Listening to Supergrass "The Road To Rouen" it's clear to my ears that there is much more "space" to the music. Again a difficult thing to explain.

What I thought might be interesting (as if this wasn't interesting enough) was to list the CDs I've listened to. So far I've played

U2 - The Joshua Tree

JM Jarre - Equinox

Mike Oldfield - Elements

Underworld - Second Toughest In The Infants

DJ Shadow - Entroducin'

SFA - Phantom Phorce

Rush - Snakes and Arrows 

Arvo Part - Berliner Masse

Plaid - Not For Three

The Beta Band - Three EPs

Supergrass - The Road To Rouen. 

Vanity thy name is

the Belfast Telegraph's  "I'm doing better than you" page 

I can't find the words. 

A week without mp3s. Day One

Today? Easy

I've listened to some albums on CD that I haven't listened to in their entirety for ages. Knowing that there is only a finite number of tracks on CD, compared to my PC which has thousands of songs queued up means that the temptation to skip on has been greatly reduced. I'm listening to whole albums again. What's most interesting though is that the listening experience has become less "passive". Instead of letting the media player decide randomly the next track, I've made a nice pile of discs to pick from. Now you could say "don't play your mp3's on random" but isn't that the point of a jukebox? Never mind the quality feel the width?

A week without mp3s

Tomorrow I'm going to start an experiment, probably the least scientific experiment in history granted. I'm going to stop listening to mp3's for a week. Now regular readers (hello) will know my feelings towards music delivered in this format. It swings from ambivalence at best, to hostility at worst. However, and thanks to the ubiquity of the format, they are a hard thing not to have, especially if, like me, you are a music fan. I'm as guilty as everyone else, ripping music (albeit at 320kps) to play via my PC. And in the process collecting thousands of the bloody things. 

I spend a lot of time in front of my PC (too much to be honest). I use it as a glorified jukebox. If my PC is on then I'll be playing music from it. So I have music playing all day, everyday. Yes I know 

Now just to give you an idea of my set up. I have my PC connected directly to my hi-fi (a Yamaha DSP-AX630SE cinema amp and a pair of Mission M34 speakers). As of tomorrow I'll be disconnecting my PC and using my (admittedly crap, but it plays SACD and DVDA) Pioneer DV-565 DVD player through my old faithful Rotel RA820BX2 amp (a pure Stan Curtis design no tone controls etc) and the same speakers to listen to CDs. The only time in the next week I intend listening to mp3's is in the car. Now if I was to quantify my hi-fi I'd say that while it isn't the best kit in the world, it's still probably much better than what 95% of the population listens to music through.  Upgrading it (the hi-fi that is) is something I intend doing as soon as I get a job (I've always had a hankering for Cyrus or Naim stuff), but that's for the future. 

Now I'm going to lay my cards fully out on the table here. I fully expect that when the week is over I'll report that I miss the convenience of having a jukebox of thousands of mp3's just a button away and not much else. I'm also pretty confident that when I go back to mp3's I'll want to poke my ears out with a stick because they sound that bad.

Let the experiment commence.  

Advertising Slogans. Kettle Chips. Absolutely Nothing Artificial

It's been a while since I've been suitably motivated to do one of these. 
Kettle Chips. Their crisp packets proudly proclaim "absolutely nothing artificial". 

Just to be clear about the terms here.  

Dictionary.com defines the adverb "absolutely" as "without exception; completely; wholly; entirely." Then defines the noun "nothing" as "no thing; not anything; naught." And finally the adjective "artificial" as "made by human skill;"

So, If I apply these definitions to the text on the front of a Kettle Chips packet, their "chips" are without exception; completely, wholly; entirely, no thing, not anything; naught; made by human skill. 

That's pretty definite then

Now, up until this point I'd thought "crisps" (or chips if you prefer) were entirely artificial as, and unless I am mistaken, crisps (flavoured, low fat, organic or otherwise) don't occur in nature. Therefore the only way this claim can be accurate is if there is a secret breed of potato Kettle aren't telling us about. And it must be a curious variety. What with its ability to migrate to Great Britain from the home of all potatoes, the Americas. Negotiating the treacherous Atlantic crossing (I mean they must swim. A flying potato? Please) and through the English Channel, before turning northwards to reach the Norfolk coast. Spying this land they realised the rich soil made an ideal place for them to grow and flourish.  

This breed of potato (already something of a curio thanks to its migratory nature and its ability to navigate oceans) then undergoes a series of startling (and entirely natural remember) transformations before becoming a "chip". Their life cycle is, quite possibly, the most bizarre in nature. When they reach maturity this strain of potatoes can dig their way out of the ground. Freed from the mud, the potato's homing instincts must kick in. Like a salmon returning to it's spawning ground, the potato seeks its destiny - the natural potato slicers and vast, hot sunflower oil geysers in this part of East Anglia. The journey is arduous and some don't survive. Those that do, pausing momentarily to survey the view, throw themselves, Lemming like, on to the slicers, only escaping when they've reached a uniform thickness. After resting, they then bathe in the hot oil. No one is sure why, but as soon as they reach a golden colour and crispy consistency, they emerge, transformed into "chips". 

Weakened, from the slicing and the frying, they pull themselves onto the natural flavour pits which surround the geysers to rest, becoming coated in a variety of delicious flavours. The chips are very vulnerable at this point, as they are at their tastiest. So, and in an effort to protect themselves from the predators who gather to feast on the savoury plenty, the "chips" huddle together in 40 gramme and 150 gramme portions, taking shelter in the wild plastic bags they share Norfolk with. On rare occasions groups of six or more bags find a bigger bag to share. Once the "chips" are securely in their packets, Kettle send out skilled "chip" harvesters to bring in the crop. 

Nature's journey from a humble potato, to a premium, deep fried, flavoured chip, packaged in a plastic bag, is complete. 

And there's "absolutely nothing artificial" about it. 

Something a bit more positive.

I've come to realise that the only thing that changes is the name of the agency who are lying to me. "I'll ring you back as I'd really like to get you in front of the client" she fibbed. "I think you're ideal for the job. I'll be in touch". By the following Tuesday my latest new best friend was mysteriously unavailable and not returning any calls. Honestly I was shocked. Not even slightly. Now you'd think they'd realise that, having been unemployed for 6 months, I'd see right through this bullshit. But, I suppose that only applies if they bothered reading what actually says on my CV, rather than what they think is on my CV. Although in this instance the word (if not the spelling) "read" is kind of ironic. 

I suppose there was some merit in the exercise. Registering with this crowd allowed me to complete my Panini "Belfast Recruitment Agencies" sticker album. You can imagine the celebrations that followed. 

On a more positive note I sat and passed my ITIL V3 Foundation course. This formalises my experience and gives me a recognised, tangible qualification. For all the whinging I do here I'd just like to say that in contrast to my previous experiences the company I used "Sureskills" were very good, and the trainer, a guy called Mike Stellard from Aquip, was excellent. If you're looking to do an ITIL training course then I'd strongly recommend both. 

Believe in Better? (Part 4)

Normally I'd stick something like this as a little comment on the original. But then it just looks like I'm trying to bump up my comment count. 

I was just re-reading my last post when I noticed a lovely piece of misdirection, above and beyond that about it being lossless and "virtually indistinguishable". They claim that mp3's at 192kps are "virtually indistinguishable" from CD. They then claim 320kps mp3's offer "extremely high quality sound files". The clear implication? If mp3's ripped at 192kps are as good as CD then, 320kps mp3's must be better.

Yeah I know.

Another interesting thing about this service (in their defence it's not limited to Sky, Apple, Play, HMV and the rest are just as guilty) is that in a lot of instances the mp3 version is actually more expensive to buy than the CD version. Yip you pay more for the intangible, low resolution packaging free, DRM soaked version than you do for higher quality, nicely packaged, DRM free CD. 

Right. 

Am I the only one who thinks this is bonkers? Why would anyone pay (as an example ) £6.49* on the Sky service to download the most recent U2 (leaving aside the merits of the music for a second) when you can buy the CD version of the same thing for £4.99 from Play? 

No I can't figure it out either.

Anyway I think I've worked the whole Sky / HMV / mp3 thing out for my system for another while. Guess what I'll be blogging about next? (Clue - it involves recruitment agencies)

*HMV appear (for completely unfathomable reasons) to charge the same price for the mp3 version as the CD version. It's bonkers. But, as you'll be aware if you've been in an HMV recently, they've kinda given up on selling music. There must be more money in flogging "5 DVDs for £20," Wii games and t-shirts than from trying to sell Dark Side of the Moon CD for £16. What I also find hard to understand is how they can sell a Movie for less than a fiver on DVD, and at the same time sell the Movie's soundtrack on CD for £15.

If I was being generous I'd suggest that this incongruous pricing was, at best, peculiar. But as I'm not being generous....

Believe in Better? (Part 3)

You'd think I have it in for Sky or something.

I've just come across a further demonstration of the bollox Sky spout. On Monday they launched a thing called Sky Music. Basically it's another one of those "we'll save the music industry from illegal downloads" sites that have sprung up since someone decided the music industry was worth saying. You know the form. It's like Spotify (something I got bored with after a month) but with a twist. For £6.49 you can download tracks to your computer. Only ten mind but you get the idea.  

As I've mentioned before I'm not a fan of the mp3 format, in all it's compressed awfulness. And you'll also recall that I was disputing the assertion that mp3 sounds as good as CD.  So I had a look to see what format these downloads were in and at what bitrate. I came across this in their FAQs 

How good is the quality of the music from Sky Songs?
All the music files at Sky Songs are either recorded at 192Kbit/s or 320Kbit/s. The 192Kbit/s songs deliver sound quality that is virtually indistinguishable from CD quality. The 320Kbit/s songs offer extremely high quality sound files.

How can something be "virtually Indistinguishable" when the whole point of "indistinguishable" is that you can't tell the bloody difference? 

"Why are Sky Songs' downloaded files bigger than those from other suppliers?
Simply because Sky Songs provides as premium music product as possible, using less compression on the files to keep the sound quality as high as possible. This is commonly known as 'lossless compression' which does mean that the file size is somewhat larger than other inferior quality music."

Less compression is known as lossless? No it isn't. mp3 at 320kps (the current maximum) is a compressed lossly format. That's how mp3 works for Christ sake. You "loose" things. Clearly they are getting mixed up with a real compressed non-lossly format like FLAC. CD streams at 1440kps. So where does the other 1120kps go? That's right it's "lost" 

So there we have it. mp3 not only sounds "virtually" as good as CD it's also "virtually" lossless. 

And lo, the music industry is "virtually" saved. 

Believe in Better? (Part 2)

Like the last one, except selling "Art". Yip "Art" and "Sky" in the same sentence. Anyway some old soak, stands playing a saxophone, telling us about the great the "Arts" coverage on Sky. You know grey hair, balding blah blah blah. "Sky" and I'm paraphrasing here "has great arts coverage. You never know what you'll see" more saxophone action and then he's off.

Except you can't just subscribe to Sky Arts. No way. You have to take out their "Style and Culture" pack which includes such er gems as Discovery Shed and Sky Travel. Which is at odds with Sky's long held opposition to the TV licence, based on the proposition that the viewer is forced to pay for channels they don't want.

They even make the following statement on their website

"Start building your TV package with Sky TV. We've organised our fantastic range of digital TV channels into six themed Entertainment Packs, so you only ever pay for TV you want to watch. Take one Entertainment Pack, for £17.50 a month, and add more for an extra £1 a month each. All six Entertainment Packs are just £22.50 a month, plus you will automatically receive over 200 free-to-air TV channels."

Which means that if you want to watch Arts on Sky programming you also must want to see Current TV and Sky Real Lives, as "you only ever pay for the TV you want to watch" That's a pretty specific demographic Sky have sown up there. I wonder what research they did to identify the demand for lumping all these unrelated channels into one lovely, tasty morsel? Still what do you expect from a crowd who advertise unlimited broadband with a download limit and unlimited calls with a time limit? Obviously their definition of "unlimited" is as at odds with reality as their definition of "Knowledge"

Of course it's bollox. What's even more entertaining is if you phone up to ask why you have pay for channels you don't watch*. The answer? If you were able to pick and chose your own channels rather than taking the ones bundled by Sky, then the unpopular ones would go bust.   

Sky. Paying for the TV you want to watch. Kind of. 


*Just on this. There are many things you can do on the Sky website, such as manage your account. Now by "manage" I mean buy additional services. It is impossible to downgrade or cancel your account online. Which is odd. Even more peculiar is that if you try to use the FAQ to help you find out how to cancel or downgrade your package then you are in for a disappointment. There isn't a single word about this in the FAQ . Not a peep. Clearly this suggests that no-one has ever decided to change their channel package, or, god forbid, cancel the whole thing. Ever. Or, if it does happen, it's so rare that there is no fixed procedure to deal with if.. I mean you'd think if such circumstances had arisen more than say three times (hard to believe I know, but the annual higher than inflation subscription price rise might be enough for some tightwads to at least consider the value for money aspect of Sky) you'd think there'd be some indication on their website how you go about doing it. Wouldn't you? Funnily enough the last time I rang Sky I asked about this omission. "Why can't I cancel or downgrade my channel package via the online account management screen?" "Because" I was told "that would put me out of a job."

Believe In Better?

There's an advert for Sky TV on at the moment, trying to sell a subscription to their so called "Knowledge Pack". I say so called as Sky's definition of "knowledge" is fairly narrow. Think TV channels filled with documentaries about World War II, Nostradamus and things exploding. This particular advertisement features a stereotypical Camford student. She can be seen wandering around a university, poking at dead insects, claiming that watching documentaries on Sky (presumably including "Inside the World's Fattest Man" and "Miami Ink") inspired her to pursue a degree in Entomology. Now unless her degree has a large part of it's content devoted to the study of how Nostradamus predicted fat, tattooed Nazis would breed exploding insects, then I'm understandably sceptical about her claims 

But that's not the point.

So, you ask, what is?

The ad then goes on to tell us that her granny (who'd got Sky in before her parents did) would phone or text (to gloat no doubt) about the unbelievable shows she was missing out by not having Sky ("Fuck, you wanna seen the show about how Nostradamus predicted that fat, tattooed Nazis would breed exploding insects....)

Sorry? Did I miss something?

Call me suspicious but a "granny" using a mobile phone? And texting? Not about her medication or what the neighbours dog is leaving in the garden, but about TV shows on Sky? Right. You can only imagine the content of these texts. Either "Saw gr8 doc on sky 2 inspire u 2 uni luv u gran" Or "f off ur prnts r a par ov tite cnts thy shud gt thr own sky lolz".

So what I've taken from the ad is if you aspire to be like our plummy heroine then you don't need to subscribe to Sky. What you need to succeed is an elderly relative, with good eyesight and non-arthritic thumbs, texting you about how good some programmes you don't watch are.

"Top" UK University here I come.

What do you want?

I finally managed to negotiate a meeting with the agency who've been playing silly buggers. And the outcome? I'm no further on. If I hadn't bothered my hole I'd be no worse off. Now I'm not saying it was a complete waste of time, I mean I got to see the new public art in Cornmarket. Hurrah! Culture saved the day! I bet you that's not a claim you'll often hear about sculptures anywhere, let alone Belfast. 

There's a pattern to these chats with agencies. They asked the usual things. When the "what do you want?" question rolled into view I was tempted to say "I want to see me stretch forth my hand again and command the stars. I want a rebirth of glory, a renaissance of power. I want to stop running through my life like a man late for an appointment, afraid to look back or to look forward. I want to be what I used to be! I want it all back, the way that it was.*"

But I didn't. Anyway they promised to put some feelers out and swore on a big pile of Bibles that they'd be in touch. 

So that'll be the last I'll ever hear from them then. 

 *If I'd replied "I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favours come with too high a price" it would have been more appropriate. Yes I'm re-watching Babylon 5. Again.

Angry Since 1967+1 Now whinging in two places

I've put a review (kinda) up of the new (and frankly awful) Porcupine Tree album "The Incident" up on +1

And then I took it down. What I'd posted was as bad as the album I'd been laying the boot into. Which, I suppose, at least has symmetry. As soon as I work out what the hell I'm trying to say I'll post it up again. 

 

  

Worst Agency Contender - Update

I rang them again yesterday afternoon.

Unavailable.

In a meeting.

Delivering famine relief.

Rescuing a child from a burning building.

Or something.

So they couldn't take the call.

My psychic senses are tingling. This doesn't bode well.

Worst Agency Award? We have a contender.

Anyway where was I? 

Still looking for a job. At the moment I'm in negotiations with a recruitment agency as to whether or not they should be put me forward for a job that I reckon I'm qualified to do. They on the other hand reckon, on the basis of a CV I sent them two months ago for a completely unrelated job, I'm not suitable. Now you'd think they would simply ask me to update my CV, so that it was more appropriate. Then make a decision. Seems logical. Sensible even. But no. The CV they have, for an non IT job, is one they are using for this new IT job. Not surprisingly it doesn't match the job so they won't consider putting me forward for the role. 

And people wonder why I think recruitment agencies are a bunch of useless, inept, two-faced, self-serving fuckers. 

I've rang them a few times chasing this asking what the fuck are they at?, Predictably the person I've been dealing with is mysteriously unavailable. And has been since late last week. No doubt they'll be "no longer with us" the next time I ring.

You couldn't make it up.

Lack of Updates - Update

I'm just not in the form to post anything here at the moment. 

I'm sure I'll get my muse back shortly.

In the meantime here is some music.

Angry Since 1967+1

I'm going to start posting stuff that doesn't fit here on the +1 blog. I haven't quite decided exactly what though. More than likely it will be reviews of things. If you've read the stuff I post here you'll get an idea of the tact I'll be adopting.

"Meh"

Like I said "meh"

Three years later

I started Angry Since 1967 three years ago today.

Where has the time gone?

God only knows. 

Odds and ends

I spent the weekend down at the Tall Ships festival in Belfast. And had a great time. There was a buzz in the city that I've never experienced before. Certainly it contrasts with the last event like this I attended. New Years Eve 1999. Belfast City Council, decided to set the fireworks off to celebrate the new millennium at twenty past midnight rather than disturb the Bjorn Again concert they were holding. I remember hundreds of people standing at the Queen Elizabeth Bridge looking at each other wondering what the hell was going on. I've never realised it before but it now seems somehow appropriate that I toasted the New Millennium with a tin of warm Harp.

Of course there's been the usual whinging about the event, missing the entire point. I'm as cynical as the next person, but even I was able to mute my cynicism for the duration and saw a side of Belfast that was totally unexpected. The city, round the docks, down High Street, around Custom House Square was packed to the rafters, filled with people out celebrating. 

Incredible.

My interview with the Jobcentre (I've decided that it's one word rather than "Job Centre") was brief and to the point. They've now got 2000 people signing. They've not seen it this bad in 15 years. The harsh reality of the situation was reinforced as I drove down, passed Nortel's old factory and saw the Union pickets outside, protesting at how employees had been dismissed with no notice and no redundancy, and then just a bit further along posters in support of similarily dismissed workers from FG Wilson. 

The interesting thing about Nortel (or "The Standard" as it's still known round here) is that for as long as I can remember it's existed in a state of perpetual job losses. I was quite surprised to find there was anyone left to make redundant. Nonetheless it's damning for Nortel that people are so aggrieved they have to protest to secure some sort of redundancy package. I wish them success.

 

Quick update.

I've had a letter. From the Jobcentre. They want me to come in for a chat next week to see how my "progress in looking for work" is getting on. They want some evidence that I'm still looking, just in case (god forbid) I'm getting comfortable being on the dole. I've already been told that they will change my job criteria, specifically my salary expectations (already reduced) to be more in line with the minimum wage.  

It's depressing to reflect that in the 3 months I've been signing the Jobcentre's contribution to my search has been two jobs, barely earning minimum wage, both of which required fluency in a foreign language and a not so subtle hint to lie on my CV.

With such sage advice I'm as baffled as they are why I haven't got a job yet. 

If they want proof I've been looking for a job, I'm tempted to print out this blog, and then give them the telephone numbers all the resolutely useless recruitment agencies I spend my days chasing.

 

This one's optimistic....

I like Mondays now. It's the day when I set the stall out for the week. The disappointments of last weeks failures put behind me, assured that success lies just around the corner. Or something. My optimism this week lasted until 11:00 am. The jobs advertised last week are still there, some unchanged, some slightly amended. Now I've been very coy about the agencies I've been using  - mainly because of paranoia. If they were to discover what I was saying about them I reckon they'd be even less inclined (assuming that a reduction from "not inclined at all" was possible) to assist in my search for a job, Today though? I'm fucking tempted. But I won't. Well not at the moment anyway. I think if I'm still sitting here unemployed at Christmas then Angry Since 1967 is having an awards ceremony, honouring the worst recruitment agencies. People are sometimes too keen to laud greatness, forgetting that it takes a special skill to be completely useless. Moreso to be useless and yet still have people queuing up to avail of your services. Surely this must be acknowledged? If nothing but for the scary thought that, even in these credit crunch days, there are some companies who flourish not due to talent or ability, but despite an obvious lack of talent or ablity. 

More whinging

Nothing has changed. I was down for my last chat with the Job Centre for a month last week. The nice person at the desk did another job search for me. This time I needed to speak Dutch. Who knows maybe next time there'll be an IT job in Northern Ireland with a requirement to speak English?

In another development. I had some subtle hints I should be less accurate on my CV. Not in the "before I walked on the Moon, I discovered penicillin while climbing Everest" sense but rather to give it a "I can barely read or write" feel.  In other words, strip anything out that might intimidate or dissuade the bottom feeders who advertise in the Job Centre from offering me a £9000 a year job. It seems that's the way it works in Northern Ireland at the moment. Don't strive to be better, pretend to be worse.

I'm sure you can imagine my response.   

But I did get a unsolicited email from an agency I'd applied to months and months ago. My cheeriness evaporated when I saw the job spec was in German.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. 

Tilting at windmills

Well that's what it feels like, 

Today I had another chat at the Jobcentre. It seems the job situation in Northern Ireland is much grimmer than the statistics would suggest. Why do I know this? Well this centre is being swamped with new applicants. This time last year they had 600 people claiming. Now? It's closer to 2000. It's become so bad that they've had to introduce signing monthly rather than the usual fortnightly to cope. Perhaps, I said, they could employ some of the unemployed to help out until the "green shots" of recovery are a bit more tangible than the smoke and mirror recovery the media are determined to talk up. 

The silent response spoke volumes. 

 

More of the same - depressing I know.

To be honest I'm a wee bit pissed off right now. I've had no joy with any of the many jobs I've applied for, and speaking to a couple of the "tame" recruitment agencies the situation at the moment does look pretty bleak. They aren't expecting things to pick up until August. 

I've also had another one of "those" phone calls from a non-house trained agency. Or rather I haven't. "Yes, stick me your CV across and I''ll phone you tomorrow". That was Tuesday two weeks ago. So I rang. The person I was dealing with has left. Or to use their words "is no longer with us. Can you send your CV? again? And we'll be in touch"

Seriously.

Right back at square one. 

Jesus. 

I can feel a full on rant about recruitment agencies brewing,  They put up vague job descriptions, that may or may not accurately reflect the "real" job, don't tell you in advance who the job is with, stick the same job, with slight variations  on websites of different, but related agencies, arbitarily change the job description when they aren't getting any applicants, have a staff turnover at a rate even Curry's would be ashamed of, don't return calls, can't be fucked reading or understanding the content of your CV, meaning you have to phrase it in fashion that would patronise a 3 year old whose only exposure to English is matching cow shaped pieces to the word "cow" and, worst of all, are completely fucking disinterested. 

And, if they do touch lucky and place you? Well they expect to be paid. I'm not sure for what though. They sow not neither do they reap. They just skim off 10%. I wonder if they'd feel less soiled if they mugged pensioners or sold crack to toddlers. I certainly would.

And breathe. 

It's an odd thing. When you're in work, all you can do (okay I'm speaking for myself) is think about not being in work. The opposite seems to apply when you're out of work. Perhaps the worst thing is trying to fill the days. I know that when I finally do get a new job, I'll look back at this period and think "why did I waste all that time I had". But, and this is the truth, I am at a loss as to what to do with all this free time. I don't really know what it is, but after a few hours fruitless searching for a job my will to "do" something evaporates, I simply can't be bothered. Clearly this a manifestation of my "fucked-offed-ness". I suppose (he kids himself) the fact that I recognise it as such is a good thing, But trying to shake this feeling off is very, very difficult. I'd say it was as tricky as anything I've done recently. Perhaps the most dperessing sign of the times is that I've reached the point were Star Trek Voyager at 2 O'clock on Virgin 1 is the highlight of the day.

I think the term is "bollox"

This simply isn't sustainable. I need to do something that'll improve my chances. And although I'm reluctant to sign up for any courses (thanks to poisonous previous experiences with post graduate education) I think that if by September the options are watching an even worse version of Star Trek or doing a course, then the course gets it by a nose.