[joy division] curtis documentary

New documentary about Joy Division:

The streets of Manchester look as bleak in colour as they did in black and white ("I didn't see a tree till I was nine", one band member claims). Shots of Curtis performing show how closely the actor Sam Riley imitated his thrashing, uncoordinated dance moves.

Many other talking heads are willing to expound on the genius of Curtis and the legacy of a band who changed the face of pop music forever.

In the face of all these grand, romantic statements, someone brings things down to earth with the simple observation that the total output of Joy Division consisted of two albums, Unknown Pleasures and Closer. "Everything else is merchandising."

Very true, and this film is no exception.

Did they need any more to make the legend? These albums stand alone.

[anniversaries] one and one hundred

As you'll see from the previous post, Aquarian men are terrible at dates and anniversaries but this post celebrates two:

JMB has come of age in the blogworld and says:

Blogging takes a lot of time and effort and many things in my life have suffered this past year. Reading has been one of them and it seems that I only read a book a week or every ten days now whereas I read a book every couple of days before, sometimes one in a day.

The Broadsheet Rag has reached 100 posts and should automatically be included in Blogpower. :)

Please get over to both and wish them the warmest wishes.

[aquarian man] ignore at your peril

Click on pic for more info.

As a few of our birthdays are around this time, it's appropriate to present to any female [or male] contemplating a tryst with one of these some of the truths of this sign. There's a lot of guff written but some things do repeatedly come through:

Firstly, this was voted the most accurate by readers of one site:

[He is] friendly, unpredictable, clean, erratic, innovative, freedom-loving. Marriage is not important for the Aquarian male. He usually marries or gets into long-term bonded relationships “like marriage,” but he usually takes a long time making the commitment.

He is a romantic, but not in the usual sense. He remembers his love, whenever it suddenly strikes him, not necessarily on birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries. He likes to surprise and prides himself in “being different, non-conventional. He may achieve some position of prestige with his inventiveness.

He needs a woman who will support his “ahead of the times” ideas. He is attracted to the unusual and independent woman, yea, even eccentric who is willing to be experimental. She should value her freedom, but be firmly loyal to him. He will reject any relationship in which he is not trusted.

Here are a few other things cobbled together from various sources:


The only sure thing about Aquarius is his independence and unpredictability. He is drawn to novelty like a magnet, and loves reaching out to touch every person or thing that fascinates with its newness. He is famous for his spontaneity.

It can also be disturbing when he starts asking you direct questions, as he probes deep into the heart of your private feelings, not in the least interested in pointless small talk
His boyish enthusiasm doesn’t hide his vast databank of life experiences, which make him coldly practical and fiercely protective.

The Aquarian doesn't have the best memory in the world and is very poor on women’s names, but he does have some sort of invisible antenna and a high degree of psychic precognition – he’s known for this. [My comment - I can often tell who's phoning by the dial tone and don't care if you believe it or not]

Trusting people doesn't come naturally - he wants to know what's behind the carefully constructed face you’re presenting to him. [My comment - hence his stress on loyalty]

He delights in defending prophets whose opinions are vilified, then are found to be correct years later. [My comment - as in Jesus Christ who will be seen to have been correct]

He has a knack for calming hysterical people and soothing frightened children and he’ll always be popular with the young. [My comment - this can be a rod for the back]

Aquarians despise liars and cheats, especially a cheating woman. He may remain polite and even loving to her but inside – he’s lost all respect for her.

If he thinks he's being exploited, that charm can vanish so quickly - an upset Aquarian is perfectly capable of truly shocking actions. [My comment - e.g. me at Blogpower]

He’ll support your own career and projects with all his soul but he’ll only fight for you if you’re in real danger; then he’ll fight to the death. His approach is not to let you get into danger in the first place.

If you play off another man against him, he’ll say, "Well, I guess the better man won," pick up his hat and go.

Aquarians suffer from the humidity in the summer and often prefer the winter months. Mental activity keeps them from getting enough sleep, and sleep is often troubled by strange, silent dreams. [My comment - heat and humidity are awful, yes]

He’ll always appear if he says he will, unless he's been kidnapped along the way, which is more than possible - anything can happen to him at any time.

He's into Truth, which transcends any loyalties to anyone.

[blogfocus saturday] special gonad edition

Today's roundup of those I've been able to access:

1. Sally brings us the search for a generic name:

The FDA has been looking for a generic name for Viagra. After careful consideration by a team of government experts, it recently announced that it has settled on the generic name of Mycoxafloppin. Also considered were Mycoxafailin, Mydixadrupin, Mydixarizin, Dixafix, and of course, Ibepokin.

Now this worries me. Maybe it's the women I chase but in my case, it's either smallish or Voom! - there's no "drupin" involved. Maybe I'm from another planet.

2. Speaking of another planet, this one's set in Edinburgh - how to convince a cabby to do what you see in the pic above. 1st Lady explains:

Now, for those of you interested in furniture shopping this way please note that L.Muck and I have become experts and we do not recommend you starting with such large pieces. A few days earlier we had a successful trial run which involved moving a large chair from shop to home (dont ask the taxi driver for seating credit unless he seems in a good mood). Learn the doorway dimensions, learn where the drivers blind spot is, investigate how much oxygen you require in the cab to safely make it home (we dont recommend mattress moving).

3. Ellee brings us why men rape:

Men rape for many reasons, including a desire to exert power in response to a feeling of entitlement, or perhaps to fulfil a need to humiliate and oppress their victims to compensate for their own perceived inadequacy.

Perhaps another reason is they're not getting enough which raises the interesting question of whether men can be raped by women. We once experimented with this and came to the conclusion - no, it's not possible. I'd like to meet a female rapist. Men call them nymphos, I think.

4. Speaking of another type of pestilential female, Jams brings us the Harlequin Ladybird:

Because it eats so many aphids, its staple diet, as well as other ladybirds, it has threatened the number of native ladybirds and species, such as lacewings, which also eat aphids. It also threatens aphid numbers. The two-spot and seven-spot ladybirds are particularly threatened.

5. An oldie but a goodie [the post, not the luscious Swearing Brummie Mummy herself, who's merely delectable] on the delight of pungent food. A Frenchified lady brought me a Camembert form Normandy the other day and the apartment stank, so I understand this:

We've still got half a baby Stilton, an appallingly odoriferous Brie, two tons of chocolate and a tree with no needles left on it. Oh, and half a sherry log. And a ham. With Nigella Bloody Lawson's spiced peaches, which were very nice actually once I'd got some jars, but right now even the smell of cinnamon is enough to make me gag.

6. With this appalling Blogrollingdotcom situation, we need to start manually blogrolling, which I'm about to do, from my MyBlogLog and Referrals. Now, I was thinking that if we each blogrolled each other, imagine how we'd zoom in Technorati - so the BRDC disaster was not a disaster after all but a Resounding Success!

Only one thing left to say:

"Blogroll me! Blogroll me!" he pathetically grovels and whimpers at your ankles, clutching at your thighs in his fawning grip. What a Man!

[blogrolling] just have to love these guys

The situation on the blog couldn't be direr. Time is just being Hoovered up by both RL and the necessity to complete the book before the window of opportunity closes next week [regular sessions at uni].

Just been reading recent comments and many require thought out responses. When? When? Lots of comment about "debate" - post hopefully later. Seems to me the main jobs on the blog are:

1. interesting topic, relevant to today;
2. answer your commenters;
3. visit and link.

Understandably, my visitors have dropped right away in the last few days, a situation which hopefully can be reversed. What's upsetting is that many I'm sure think I've lost interest, e.g. Wife in the North, Mutterings, Chris Dillow and so on but it's not true - it's simply time and organization. I'm sure I'm not the only one in this boat.

It's not helped by Blogger playing up something awful recently in its html formatting for posts plus this, which has bu--ered up the whole system:

ERROR The requested URL could not be retrieved

---

While trying to retrieve the URL: http://blogrolling.com:4080/

The following error was encountered:

• Connection to 216.193.240.86 Failed

The system returned:

    (54) Connection reset by peer

The remote host or network may be down. Please try the request again.

---

Generated Sat, 09 Feb 2008 06:47:58 GMT by elrond.vpop.net (squid/2.5.STABLE14)

[high treason] yes, say voters

If a people vote in a referendum not to ratify a treaty and then the parliamentarians go ahead and ratify it, does this constitute high treason?
Selection		Votes
Yes	89%	16
No	11%	2
18 votes total
pollcode.com free polls

And some of the responses were quite gentle:

From Ian Hunter

I would consider it an honour to lead the attack on Downing Street,pitchfork in hand. The police protection squad can't have that many rounds, i may fall, but others would complete the job!

From Dave Petterson

... and the penalty for treason should be death by being hung drawn and quartered. Slowly.