Free Cat...

Free cat, anyone?

Bad News Day...

Three bits of bad news at the moment:

1. David Tennant leaving Dr Who. It was to be expected I guess and perhaps inevitable what with a new producer coming in.

2. Russell Brand resigning. A complete overreaction. I used to love Russell's BBC Radio 6 and BBC Radio 2 shows. I thought the call he and Jonathan Ross made was very funny. End of.

3. Tottenham stealing a draw. See below.

Arsenal 4-4 Tottenham...

Paul and I went to the game last night. Oh, my giggy aunt. The lucky, lucky bastards. We played by far the best game on the night and they stole goal after goal. It was certainly thrilling stuff right up until the last 40 seconds but, boy, did we deserve the win.

Dead Set (against)...

I'm probably the only one who doesn't like the heavily promoted E4 horror show Dead Set. The reviews have all been pretty positive. But I don't really like zombie films - only one step up from awful money saving 'body snatcher' films. And I always think fake blood and fake gore looks 'cheap'. And fictionalised Big Brother is even worse than real Big Brother - even if it is a scathing attack on the genre. So I guess I was never going to like it. I do hope it's a success though as I think the idea of a nightly show over a whole week is good one.

Windows Azure...

Yes, the truth is finally out. The 'next' version of Windows will be Windows Azure. Well, strictly speaking it'll not be a version of Windows per se but a service platform to run along side client based computing. So it's a collection of services really. Or as Microsoft put it, "software to give you the ability to build new applications in the cloud - or use interoperable services that run on Microsoft infrastructure to extend and enhance your existing applications. The Azure Services Platform provides a wide range of internet services that can be consumed from both on-premises environments or the internet". So now you know.

Shorthand; they're going after Google and Amazon (and maybe Facebook) - to add IBM, Novell and Lotus to their scalps.

Justin Bond...

Last Friday Stu and I went to see cabaret artist and New York icon Justin Bond perform his show Lustre at the Soho Theatre.

It was a great show; potent, musical and very entertaining with just the right amount of pathos and the right amount of politics. I will confess however I do miss him performing as Kiki in Kiki and Herb and I hope the rumours of them not gigging again together are just that. The cancelled gigs earlier this summer were ominous though.

The two support acts were a cute accordion play (who we saw again the following night at Duckie) and Martyn Jacques of the Tiger Lillies who performed the rather marvelous Banging in the Nails. Even today I'm still humming, "I'm bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, banging in the nails."

Good Luck...

Are you good at finding things? Finding a four leaf clover is always good luck. Check out this fuzzy picture and see if you can spot it.

Silent Duck...

Ah, how sweet? A little duckie. A little silent duckie. Oh. Wait. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Silentduck.jpg

RIM Jobs...

Want a career with Research In Motion? Apply at http://rim.jobs/ of course. Fnah.

Scott Capurro...

Last Sunday Mark organised tickets for Mikey, Kevin, Stuart and I to go and see Scott Capurro at the Hen and Chickens.

We didn't sit at the front - hey, we'd seen his act before and we didn't want to get picked on. That didn't stop him though. Mark got rather mercilessly bullied. When he did try to talk back - guess who had the microphone?

The material was 'challenging' (to say the least). And uncomfortable. But that's why it was funny. I guess. Well I laughed!

French & Saunders...

On Friday night Stuart, Paul, Simon and I went to see French & Saunders - Still Alive! at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

After 30 years together French and Saunders are finally calling time on their double act. Last year's A Bucket Of French & Saunders filled us with some anticipation - and not in a good way. We needn't have worried. The show was fantastic. A great mix of character comedy, parody and banter.

We were treated to old stuff reimagined; white room set Doctor's sketch, Jen's leotard clad reprise of her bulky Madonna impression, Sex Talk (the first sketch they wrote together), the original Ab Fab sketch and the expats from Biddeford marvelling at how big everything is in America.

And new stuff; The Vicar of Dibley vs. Absolutely Fabulous rivalry, Dawn taking a chocolate detector into the stalls and finding a rat in someone’s cleavage, a tragic bitter-sweet routine about two teens spending Christmas at boarding school, a pre-recorded Strictly Come Dancing sequence morphing into the old ladies dancing with mannequins of the show’s Anton du Beke and Brendon Cole and the sisters from Prickly Pear Farm in court.

The ending was a bit Little Britain (fat men's rubber willies) but very funny all the same.

Best line: “I banish you to UK Gold!” Too true. But is that such a bad thing?

Arsenal 3-1 Everton...

Marky and I went to the Emirates earlier to watch the game. A rampant second half display secured a much deserved win. Just reward for an impressive second half display coming from 0-1 behind. Yay!

Search Flickr by Colour...

Click here to search Flickr by colour - utterly fab. He's my pink version.

Gatito Exquisito...

Uber cute kittens. Fair enough. We all like snaps of a cute kittens. But much funnier is the comments at the bottom and the increasing enraged comments though, "Looks like these cats have down syndrome."

Cyndi Lauper...

Last night Stuart, Guy, Cesar, Darren, David (and a load of other gayers) all went to see Cyndi Lauper perform at the Shepherds Bush Empire on her Bring Ya To The Brink World Tour.

Essentially promoting her new disco album Bring Ya To The Brink she also delighted us with pretty much all of her back catalogue of hits including Time After Time, She Bop, All Through The Night, Money Changes Everything, Change Of Heart, I Drove All Night, newy Into The Nightlife and of course Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and True Colors.

Great singalong fun. Stuart thought she looked a bit like Robyn though.

The Microsoft Sound...

I'm a bit of a Brian Eno fan. But I had no idea he'd written the Windows 95 sound for Microsoft.

In 1994 Microsoft corporation designers Mark Malamud and Erik Gavriluk approached Brian Eno to compose music for the Windows 95 project. The result was the six-second start-up music-sound of the Windows 95 operating system, the The Microsoft Sound. In the San Francisco Chronicle he said:
“The idea came up at the time when I was completely bereft of ideas. I'd been working on my own music for a while, and was quite lost, actually, and I really appreciated someone coming along and saying, "Here's a specific problem — Solve it!" The thing from the agency said, "We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional", this whole list of adjectives, and then, at the bottom, it said: "and it must be 3¼ seconds long". I thought this was so funny, and an amazing thought, to actually try to make a little piece of music. It's like making a tiny little jewel. In fact, I made eighty-four pieces. I got completely into this world of tiny, tiny, little pieces of music. I was so sensitive to microseconds, at the end of this, that it really broke a logjam in my own work. Then, when I'd finished that and I went back to working with pieces that were, like, three minutes long, it seemed like oceans of time.”

You can listen to all the Microsoft start-up sounds here. Ah memories.

Britain's Got The Pop Factor ... And Possibly A New Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Superstar Strictly On Ice...

Peter Kay's Britain's Got The Pop Factor ... And Possibly A New Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Superstar Strictly On Ice was hilarious. It ripped the piss out of Britain's Got Talent, Pop Idol, The X Factor, Any Dream Will Do, Soapstar Superstar, Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing On Ice perfectly. It got it just right; from the inconsistent judges' comments to the contestants' oh so sad sob stories.

The idea of having a medley for each contestant was brilliant too:

Heartrob R [Our] Wayne sang a medley of "Return to Innocence" by Enigma, "Love Train" by The O'Jays, "Earth Song" by Michael Jackson, "YMCA" by The Village People and "There's No-one Quite Like Grandma" by the St Winifred's School Choir.

Semi wheelchair bound 2 Up 2 Down sang a medley of "We Built This City" by Starship, "Bootylicious" by Destiny's Child, "9 to 5" by Dolly Parton, "Holding Out For A Hero" by Bonnie Tyler and "Hero" by Mariah Carey.

Oversized tranny Geraldine sang a medley of "Born to Run" by Bruce Springsteen, the theme to Born Free (perhaps best known as Andy Williams' version), "Free Nelson Mandela" by The Special AKA, "Umbrella" by Rihanna, "C'est la Vie" by B*witched and "Milkshake" by Kelis.

The single "The Winner's Song" was written by Peter Kay and Gary Barlow and is out now!

Favicon...

The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed a a small change in overyourhead from today. It's very small change in fact. It's a new little icon in the address bar, to whit, the favicon . It should automagically turn up in favourites etc. Well, that's the theory.

Sympathy For The Level...

On one level I'm sympathetic to charities that have lost money due to banking crisis. Of course I am. But on another level why did they have so much money in a bank account in the first place? Shouldn't they have spent it on their cause already?

I won't name names, but certain AIDS/HIV charities that I know of have huge bank balances. Can it be legal to hold on to donations and not spend them?

Motown At Fifty...

On 12th January 2009 Motown will be fifty years old. The current owners of Motown (Universal) are releasing an album in December of Motown's 50 favourite tracks. You can vote for your favourites to be included at http://www.pollthepeople.com/motown50.

For my vote anything by Stevie Wonder please, anything from Motown's disco era (especially Diana Ross's Love Hangover) and for cheese Charlene's I've Never Been To Me.