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1. How did you get into 29? (Paul Colman Trio)

Got given a copy of their album Serious Fun

2. What was the first song you ever heard by 22? (Thievery Corporation)

Marching the Hate Machines (Into the Sun)


3. What’s your favorite lyric by 33? (Nathan Tasker)

Not sure, probably the chorus from Come See the Morning

4. What is your favorite album by 49? (Jan von Grafenstein)

Only one choice so far, so 13.

5. How many albums by 13 do you own? (Ben Folds)

2 - Rockin' the Suburbs and Songs for Silverman

6. What is your favorite song by 50? (Sons Of Korah)

Psalm 1

7. Is there a song by 39 that makes you sad? (Digitalism)

er, no, not really

8. What is your favorite album by 15? (Bitter:Sweet)

Again only one choice: The Mating Game

9. What is your favorite song by 5? (Portishead)

tough one, probably Glory Box

10. Is there a song by 6 that makes you happy? (Michael Bublé)

Song for You does most times.

…

Last week I went and saw Ying Tong: A Walk with The Goons at The Playhouse in Melbourne with tickets that I'd won in a radio competition (thanks VEGA!).

For those who aren't familiar with the plot, the show is a look at Spike Milligan's mental health towards the end of The Goons' run on BBC Radio.

It's set in the mental hospital that Spike spent quite a bit of time in due to mental breakdowns, and charts his efforts to recover from the deep depression & personal pain the pressure of writing the shows caused him.

The show was very well put together, with brilliant performances from the entire 4-man cast, with special nods to David James as Harry Secombe, and Geoff Kelso as Spike Milligan.

The show was a bit crude in places, but a very funny, very moving look at one of British comedy's true geniuses.

In April 2005, I dropped my iPod. I'd done it before, but this time it was in the middle of doing something or other... so basically it was the straw that broke the camel's back. The hard drive was damaged, but I did manage to copy most of my tracks to my Mac (I did not have copies of them since until 2 months beforehand, my Mac's hard drive was 10GB while my iPod's was 20GB.) I then reformatted the iPod and it would work as long as I didn't fill it past a certain point, which would cause it to write on the bad blocks and need reformatting again. I installed iPodLinux on it and with the help of a little Cocoa app I wrote to split a dictionary into a whole lot of small text files grouped alphabetically in folders, I used it as a German-English dictionary, among other things. Then eventually it stopped even mounting on my Mac, so I sent it to my friend in Canada, for whom it still works to this day. I bought a fancy new iPod, of course.

…

I have a smart playlist called 'Podcasts etc.' which contains all tracks I have never played yet which are not music. Most of them are podcasts, but I also have a large collection of comedy shows, although their contribution to the list is gradually decreasing since I don't get new ones regularly. I listen to this playlist whenever I'm walking, waiting for a bus, or doing anything else (like housework) where my mind and ears are not otherwise occupied but I'm not able to read. So this amounts to an hour or more per day of tracks that will never show up on last.fm. These are the artists involved:

Podcasts:
C Goodman-Strauss Kyle Kellams -- The Math Factor
Couleur 3 -- Le son du jour (J'aime bien Tonton Pierrick !)
Dave Shepherd, Howard Shepherd, Howard Chang -- The Word Nerds
Funradio -- BestOf CAUET 6h-10h
RSR - La 1ère -- 15 minutes, La Soupe, et On en parle
Sebastien - Let's learn French the fun way! -- The French Pod Class (mostly to find out about French music, I don't usually learn much from it :( )
…

You put your whole musicy thing on shuffle and then it tells you what your life is. Warning; Results may not be 100% accurate.

What do people assume when they first look at me?
Song: We Are The Road Crew
Artist: Motorhead

Niiiiice

What will be a big challenge in life for me?
Song: Son Of Houdini
Artist: The Goons

He should be dead, if he ever existed. If thats the big challenge my lifes gonna be piss easy from here on in

Am I a good boyfriend/girlfriend?
Song: Memphis
Artist: Rancid

Hard to tell then? Or possibly a fat boyfriend who dies on the lav.

Do I have a Secret Admirer?
Song: Criminally Insane
Artist: Slayer

How nice. So its Fava beans and a nice Chianti for me

Will I ever become manically depressed in my life?
Song: White City
Artist: The Pogues

I am taking that as a no. There's enough nutters in this journal already

How will I die?
Song: Yard Broom
Artist: The Skatalites

Sounds nasty

Is someone trying to kill me?
Song: The Leper Affinity
…

Despite being 12 hours on a coach The journey back to the UK passed fairly quickly and I was awake for most of it, staring at the German, Belgian and French countryside as we speeded through it, stopping at a variety of small towns I'd never heard of. At Calais I witnessed the UK immigration system in full swing, asking anyone without EU passports a wide variety of questions, with one of our coach being thrown off. I've always enjoyed Ferry journeys, and something about a ferry journey at 3am was very invigorating and I spent some of the journey talking a rather eccentric mother (who's accent I couldn't quite place) and her equally strange son (who's accent I also couldn't place). After arriving in London I spent a rather depressing and frustrating morning getting from Victoria to Tooting and back, killing time and then getting stuck in a Tube suspension, so I spent a lot of time thinking and worrying, until I had something of a epiphany (aided by a conversation to an old friend) and realised…

I scored a whole bunch of CDs last night, some I have to give back once I've listened to and some I can keep:

Give Back:

They Might Be Giants - No
Cherry Poppin' Daddies - Zoot Suit Riot
The Goons

Keep, keep!:

Audioslave - self titled
Breed77 - Cultura
Electric Six - Fire

I'm listening to Electric Six at the moment. They were fantastic live, and the album is good. Is it just me today, or are their tracks a little bit same-ish? It's probably just my mood. And, at the risk of being an outcast, I'm not really a big fan of Gay Bar. There, I said it. I think its overrated. I like the general groove of the album though.

I have no idea what I'm going to think of the Goons...Old comedians you say....