Crawley Tories start to have second thoughts about their new advertising agency

One of the kids brought this home today.  Apparently they are tied to bus stops all over Broadfield.

Can’t be an ill-advised election campaign poster because he is not up for election for a few years so one has to assume he has been out making friends again.

I guess you have to be pretty upset about something to go to all that trouble but while this is mildly amusing it isn’t really the right way to go about raising issues.

Informative though: I didn’t know he was a twister, whatever that means.

Anyway, one thing led to another, as it always does on Wikipedia and we came across the story of British Airways Flight 9.  I can thoroughly recommend reading it for many reasons.  It shows why closing down all air traffic may not be as much of an over-reaction as it might appear to some as it explains not only the damage volcanic ash can do but why it is not detected by planes’ instruments.

What a story though!  Just reading it gave me goosebumps. The plane had all four engines cut out and had to glide for miles and miles, with the real chance of not being able to clear a mountain range if it dropped too far, so the crew had the contingency plan to ditch in the ocean.

There are also some fine examples of British understatement and keeping calm in a crisis. Not sure how calm I would have been if I heard a pilot make an announcement like this:

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them under control. I trust you are not in too much distress.

After managing to get some engine power back they went to make an emergency landing but even that had problems because the instrument landing system wouldn’t work properly and there was no visibility as the ash had scoured the window completely.  The captain described the landing as being “a bit like negotiating one’s way up a badger’s arse”.  I think there is a special module in British pilots’ school that teaches them phrases like that.

He has not lost his magic way with words though. BBC News interviewed him today and asked him about that terrifying flight and he said “It was, yeah, a little bit frightening“.  A little bit?

I really can’t remember the incident, but at that time I was five months away from buying a television (I finally decided to get one when Channel 4 launched later that year) so wouldn’t have seen the TV news.  Probably just as well because I am pretty sure that when I went to Australia six years later I flew out on BA flight 009.

But back to the 21st Century.  Many people living under the flight paths of major airports are probably enjoying their first good night’s sleep at home for a long time.  When the flights start again I do wonder whether this brief reminder of what it would be like without all the air traffic will have a stimulating effect on the campaigns against airports and runways.

Oh well.  You really do learn something every day don’t you?

Anyway, one of the bands on there was called Pleasure Seekers, featuring a 14-year old (in 1964) female bass player called Suzi Quatro.   Like most males of my sort of age I remember Suzi Quatro as the tiny, leather-clad singer, dwarfed by her bass guitar on Top of the Pops, playing Chinn & Chapman songs.  Being of the right age and in the target audience for glam rock at the time I quite liked such songs as 48 Crash and Devil Gate Drive, although I imagine it was probably not seen as ‘proper’ music by the critics at the time, and certainly not when punk came along.

I had no idea she had a past as part of an ultra-credible, grass-roots scene that came to influence the whole punk scene.  How ironic that her popularity waned as the very scene she helped to inspire grew and led youngsters to look down on the sort of manufactured pop that she was then seen to be performing.

I still think Devil Gate Drive is great by the way, but now I am really taken with What a Way to Die by Pleasure Seekers.  Have a listen on Spotify and see for yourself.  A shame they only have two tracks available in the library, but better than nothing.

And on top of that she had a regular part in Happy Days and had an Audi named after her

I was chuffed because it is from the Tombola tour and so effectively the same show that Jayne and I saw in Kentish Town.  I have ripped the audio to the PC so I can listen to it on the Zen, and had a quick look at the DVD – only on the PC, so no 5.1 surround or anything.

The show is in an outdoors arena so the atmosphere is quite different to Kentish Town anyway, but while flicking through it somthing seemed strange, then I realised that it was because the majority of the crowd were dressed the same, with white shirts and red neck scarves.  Manu Chao and Gambeat also had red scarves on.

I don’t like not understanding something so I did a bit of Googling and found that the concert was in Bayonne, which is in the Basque region of France, right near the border with Spain which makes it a perfect venue for a Manu Chao concert, being as much Spanish as French.   The red and white combo is a sort of national dress for the place and at the main festivals everybody wears it.

The concert was recorded right at the start of the big festival when the town would have been gearing up for a week of celebrations, drinking and (unfortunately) bull fighting.  Must have been one hell of an atmosphere around the place.

I feel my mind has been broadened just a little bit today.  This morning I had never heard of Bayonne/Baiona and now its on my mental list of interesting places that would be nice to visit but I know I never will.

If I’m honest, the concert itself is pretty bloody relentless.  Non-fans would be advised to take it in small doses rather than one session.  I was just glad to see than band back with percussion and a trumpet: the second time I saw them they were down to a five-piece and lacked a bit of depth I thought.

I much preferred the 10-man version I first saw, with the trombone and accordion as well as the second vocalist, but the current line-up will do, and having the old Mano Negra percussionist returning is a distinct bonus as it means the band can add Sidi ‘h’ Bibi to the set list.

Does it show that I am chuffed with how much entertainment, education and nostalgia can be wrung out of a mere nine quid these days?   Now waiting for Jayne to be out one night so I can put the DVD on loud, fire up the bass guitar and try to emulate Gambeat’s basslines.

…was written by the singer of this song…

I must admit that I had quite forgotten about The Bravery.  I really enjoyed their first album, loved this video and really expected them to go on to the sort of success that went instead to the Killers.

Which all just goes to show why I do what I do and Simon Cowell does what he does.  Good to see it again though.

On the other hand, you have to worry a bit about the neighbours when they can say “The safety of my family was compromised as well as the structure of my home” and yet stayed inside the house filming the demolition instead of legging it out and filming from the street.

Got to agree with the bloke though: it would be justice to make the builders rebuild the house as it was before it was knocked down.  Very educational though: I never realised there was a Newcastle in Northern Ireland.

I have a habit that if I come across something I do not know about I look it up.  Sometimes on Google, but more often on Wikipedia.  It might be a person, or a place, an acronym or piece of jargon, but I’ll hate not knowing.  Sometimes it might be a good idea to do such research at home and noton the office PC at lunchtime…

Today I came across the term “rule 34″ on xkcd.com.  I did not know what “rule 34″ meant so I went to Wikipedia and searched for it.  Try it and see why I had a sudden panic attack.