Assistant Blog

Now Newt’s on the ropes

Jonathan — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:42:52 +0000

The clip below really couldn’t be much more emphatic; if you watched it, you’ll already know that, finally, Mitt Romney seemed to haul himself out of the doldrums with a commanding performance in the Primary debate last night. Here, swatting Gingrich away, he finally looks back to being a realistic Presidential Candidate. All of a sudden he has hitherto unseen confidence and authority. I think he’ll sweep Florida, now, and if he can retain the energy, sweep the nomination.

For those of us who fear Obama could be beaten at the election, the worry is that the experience of facing the populist agression of Gingrich, and the grassroots’ disdain, has changed Mitt Romney as a politician. If he’d have coasted through this nomination process, he’d be facing up to Obama as the listless, complacent Mitt that started this process in Iowa a couple of months back. But despite the many direct hits he’s taken from Newt through this campaign – all of which he’ll have to take again from Obama later this year – Mitt looks like he might finally have sharpened up and hit his stride. In a sense, he’s been handed a rehearsal for the election proper, and that could help him. Judging by yesterday’s debate, he looks like he might have enough in reserve to win – and to be a significantly improved candidate against Obama.

As always, it’ll be fascinating to watch Newt over the next few days. He looks highly irritated and badly winded in the clip below. Has he got one last burst of energy and can he channel it before Friday?

I doubt it.

Great Wave Pictures live LP

Jonathan — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:58:11 +0000

This site is hosting a nice recording of a recent Wave Pictures gig, in Vienna – a city close to the Wave Pics’ hearts, as they make clear during the show. As you might expect of a band whose live performances are so reliably perfect, and whose recording method so closely resembles their live show, it’s essentially as good as a studio album (and possibly better than the last two, great though they were). As always, there’s a new studio record just around the corner (and a solo Tattersal LP, too, I gather), and this recording suggests the next LP will be a bit louder and faster than recent efforts. To my delight, there are more lead vocals from Jonny ‘Huddersfield’ Helm, too, although whether that’s a way of mixing things up live or a permanent step, I dunno. Either way, get yourself over to Niko’s blog and download the live set – you won’t regret it. Tracklist below.

Setlist:
01 Strange Fruit For David
02 Seagulls
03 Stay This Way A Little While
04 Canary Wharf
05 Pale Thin Lips
06 Eskimo Kiss
07 Little Surprise
08 Cinnamon Baby
09 A Second Chance (New Song)
10 Strawberry Cables
11 Leave That Scene Behind
12 Jump Through (New Song)
13 Stay Here And Take Care Of The Chickens
14 Intro ….
15 Sleepy Eye
16 We Can Never Go Home Again
17 My Head Got Screwed On Tighter Every Year
18 Encore
19 Roller Coaster By The Sea
20 Walk The Back Stairs Quiet
21 You Ask Too Many Questions

The living ukulele

Jonathan — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:58:00 +0000

Made with the Brushes app on my iPad. In case you thought it was Hockney’s.

Blur in the studio with William Orbit

Jonathan — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 21:03:12 +0000

My suspicion is that the band are just testing things out rather than definitively recording with a view to releasing new material, but nonetheless, this is incredibly good news. Following plenty of teasers and rumours surrouding the possiblity of Blur recording new stuff, William Orbit – who produced 1999′s 13 – has posted the following on his Facebook page.

Hope it’s not a wind-up.

Sock puppet news

Jonathan — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 11:27:00 +0000

Here’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy signing off last night’s Channel 4 news, just in case you missed it. Anyone with an irrational fear of sock puppets, look away now. You may or may not be surprised to know that Krishnan used to work for Newsround.

Kemp Town Books

Jonathan — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 09:33:00 +0000

Yesterday’s Independent contained a feature on Britain’s best 50 bookshops; the sort of list which is probably rather meaningless, but which nevertheless is a good chance to catch up on a few places one might not know about, and of course to track the inclusion (or otherwise) of our favourite shops. Predictably, Hove’s lovely City Books is on the list (it always is).

8. City Books

"City Books has to go on my best of the bookshops list," states Sara. "This bookshop has been in business for 25 years and I was drawn back to it again and again, dollying between the two floors, when I was down in Brighton last year researching my latest book". The staff, she adds, are charming.

Where: 23 Western Road, Hove, BN3 1AF (01273 725306; city-books.co.uk)

Well, that’s all well and good. If you live in or near Brighton, you definitely need to get down there more often; it’s a terrific shop. But for the sake of balance, can I just express a moment of frustration that Kemp Town’s equally wonderful Kemp Town Books is not in the list, and seems to be a little less well known nationally. It really really deserves a mention; a wonderful atmosphere, delightful staff and a lovely cafe upstairs. If you’ve not been, go.

91. St. George’s Road, Brighton, Sussex, BN2 1EE

picture by Eva.

Voting day in S. Carolina

Jonathan — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 22:17:15 +0000

It is, really, quite hilarious that Newt is making another comeback in the USA. I’ve long argued that Obama has a very tough ask in the approaching election, and he’s in many ways dependent on little more than the state of the economy. But… the GOP really do seem to be doing all they can to destroy their own chances. And Newt – well, he could never be likeable, but I’m really enjoying watching him go nuclear on Romney. In many ways, he’s like a caricature of the worst, most malign, most vindictive politicians out there. When he will drop out of the race? Never. He’ll keep going ‘til the last, until everyone but him appreciates that every stab at Mitt helps Obama and no-one else. And he’ll keep going, because the hate and the competitiveness and the thrill of it really drives him on. Brilliant stuff; he’d make a wonderful character for a TV show. I don’t think he’ll win, ultimately, but I bet he takes South Carolina tonight, and snaps at Mitt for many a month to come.

My prediction for tonight:

1. Newt Gingrich 35%
2. Mitt Romney 31%
3. Ron Paul 21%
4. Rick Santorum 13%

I’m always wrong with these things, mind.

Not taken with Sherlock

Jonathan — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 21:16:02 +0000

Finally, a few weeks after everyone else, I watched the first episode of the new series of Sherlock last night. At first, I was very impressed – the casting is good and the programme is visually amazing, featuring inventive shots, snappy cutaways and neat directional tricks. Given all this and the fact that the premise of Stephen Moffat’s Sherlock remake is smart (the protagonist as a kind of Aspergers suffering techie), it would be understandable should the programme sometimes seems a bit too pleased with itself – but my god it’s only occasionally that humble.

The whole show – 90 minutes of smug, self-regarding tosh – seemed to me to be entirely comprised of set pieces triggered to deliver a 10 second clip for the accompanying advert; a short burst of violence here, a naked arse there, a never ending series of arch one-liners. And no-one in it remotely likeable.

I’m kind of surprised that so many people have been so very complimentary about it, but to me it seemed like event TV where the atmosphere and the gleaming surface was clearly prioritised over not only the plot but the characters too. Sherlock didn’t feel much in it to me, despite the fact that it supposedly dealt with his first stab of emotional attachment towards a woman. He brooded and snapped, and darted his eyes from left to right, right to left. But I got little from it.

There was still stuff to like – Sherlock and Watson’s relationship, the enigmatic Mycroft, the sour police sergeant torn between respect and disdain for a genius whose help he very much needs. But elsewhere – I thought it was very poor.

If you think differently, do put me straight in the comments – I’d be interested to know what you thought.

This week in football

Jonathan — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 20:53:07 +0000

A surprise expansion of the teams playing in the English Premiership has meant that this week’s football scores contain something interesting, for once – or at least, that’s what it looks like from today’s Guardian website.

Genius guitar from Botswana

Jonathan — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 21:03:39 +0000

Ian Birrill, co-founder of Africa Express and all round fount of knowledge about international affairs, flagged this up on Twitter and it’s absolutely bewitching. I’m a big fan of African music generally, but it would take a very hard-hearted music fan, no matter what he or she thought of world music, to find fault with this bit of casual, masterly, euphoric guitar playing.

The star is (according to Boing Boing) “Ronnie Moipolai from Kopong village in the Kweneng district 50 km west of the capitol Gaborone”.

He is 29 years old and goes around the shebeens selling and playing his songs for 5Pula each (80dollarcents). He learned guitar from his now late father, has 3 brothers that also play guitar (KB is one of them), has also a big sister and plenty of kids in the yard. Nobody has a formal job and his mother sells Chibuku beer and firewood they get from the bush trying to make ends meet.