The View from the Spaghetti Factory (proper redesign coming soon!)

This meme has been doing the rounds this week, and I’ve been having lots of fun with it. Here’s what you do…

1. Go to the Wikipedia random article generator and note the title of the randomly selected article. This is your band name.

2. Similarly, go to this random quotation page and note the last four words of the last quotation. This is your album title.

3. Now to Flickr’s interesting photos feature. Download (or screengrab if necessary) the third picture. This is your album cover picture.

4. Now put the whole lot together in the photo/graphics application of your choice. Populate your imaginary music business with exciting acts!

Here’s one I made earlier. You might be interested to read what the band’s publicity people have to say…

“Sandhu blend the lyrical yearning and wistfulness of the Smiths with sharp, classic pop songwriting in the vein of Prefab Sprout, but with a modern electropop sensibility and skinny jeans. They recently returned from a hugely successful tour of youth clubs in the northern suburbs of Rotterdam.”

Go and buy it now!

The return to work after Christmas and New Year is never particularly easy (although I remember a time when the majority of people worked *between* the two rapidly-expanding winterfests).

When you started your belated summer holiday on Boxing Day, spending almost two weeks on a beautiful archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, where winter daytime temperatures generally stay above 16 degrees, where life is laid-back and everyone is friendly (apart from the miserable cow in the airport tourist tat shop)… well, work becomes a tricky prospect.

And I deserve no sympathy. Here goes…

Dear Father Christmas, please bring me bouncy rabbit mice. I have been very good all year. My regards to your wife and elves. Best wishes, Adrian.

Mysterious mammal caught on film (BBC)

I’ve seen *some* sort of jerboa in a zoo, and it seemed such a fantastic idea… mouse with rabbit ears that hops like a kangaroo! I’ve been through the Gobi desert, too, but I’m guessing jerboas aren’t particularly easy to spot from a train window.

Funniest headline on the BBC website this week…

Police hunt for stolen Guinness

The article concludes, “The stolen trailer has since been found at Slane Hill in County Meath. It was empty.”

You don’t say!

Today, I ate a Wispa for the first time in… ooh, years. I had no idea that the original incarnation had been around until 2003, though. I always associate Wispas with the 80s and 90s, and thereby lies a slight Proust effect for me. Eating a Wispa will always remind me of university days; the freebies at Freshers Fair and everyone saving their wrappers towards the mugs that appeared in every campus kitchen.

One particular Wispa moment stands out in my memory. Emerging, shattered, from an all-night essay panic into a glistening summer morning, I went to the UEA campus supermarket in search of a sugary breakfast. A Wispa and a can of Coke seemed like the perfect quick fix for my sleep-deprived brain.

I started to question my rash choice only seconds after returning to my room, as the gaseous propulsion of the latter product ejected the former neatly into my sink.

… is the fact that Stephen Fry, the thoroughly splendid fellow, now has a blog. Everyone buy a cake to celebrate!

http://www.stephenfry.com/blog/

I think the people who rent advertising space for London Underground must have a sense of humour…

Or maybe there’s a link between 17th century Dutch art and Ashlee Simpson, and I’m just not seeing it. Yep, that’ll be it.

Just a few things that have been amusing me recently…

1. It’s been mentioned by loads of people already, but Marcus Brigstocke’s non-faith-specific religion rant is worth repeating regularly.

2. Good to see Paul Ford writing on his website Ftrain again. He isn’t as prolific as he used to be, but that just means it’s even better when he returns after a long absence… Ftrain - I Am Making a Difference.

3. Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip “Thou Shalt always Kill”

4. Lincoln City’s comedy start to the season. While some have criticised defensive ineptness and a continued failure to repair tactical inconsistencies since early last year, I still insist this is a deliberate piece of black comic performance art, a satirical commentary on the futility of artistic life in an age of global conflict.

As a user of several such things, this made me laugh…

Map of Online Communities (from xkcd)

Just a quick public service announcement, in case it’ll save anyone some bother…

I just noticed a comment on the bluesjamtracks Myspace page, where the request “please add me” was accompanied by a hotlinked picture of a comely young maiden.

I always remove spam and non-music advertising from our comments, so I clicked the picture to see what it would link to. It points at the URL http://d0f50129.com/login.php, where there’s a pretty convincing mock-up of the standard Myspace login page, except the “you must be logged-in to do that!” warning (and yes, the misplaced hyphen annoys me every time!) is on a red background, which I haven’t seen on the genuine Myspace site.

In short, a phishing attempt. There’s already quite enough comment spam on Myspace, so don’t fall for it!