On the Beat

So there I am, browsing in Fopp again. I have no idea how I got there.

My eye is caught by a box set. “Original recordings from the Manticore vaults.” And one of those recordings is of the second ever rock concert I went to: Emerson Lake & Palmer at Hammersmith Odeon, 27 November [erm…] 1972.
( ...If we make it we can all sit back and laugh... )

I went walking around town this afternoon, doing a couple of chores.

I then dropped into the Ingleby Gallery to see what their latest show was like; neither of the two artists on show – Richard Forster and Ruth Claxton particularly impressed: with Forster, I thought “I could do that… And I have, many times! Just as successfully!”, whilst Claxton made me think, “fun idea, but so what?”

However, they had several items by other artists which I really liked: I had to stop myself buying an original, lifesize Anthony Gormley print (cheap at £6,000…), which I’ll probably regret doing (I still regret not buying a Howard Hodgkin print fifteen years ago – when I could have afforded it, too! I wish I had!).

(By the way, the floor of the gallery still had dribbles of mother of pearl embedded in it, left over from their festival show… I didn’t particularly like the exhibit, but there is something rather lovely about the inlaid stones still being there.)

Walking back, I managed to avoid being sucked into Waterstones – I have several unread books and a pile of Granta still to read, too.

However, the siren within Fopp drew me in. I couldn’t help it.

I picked up…

• Heaven Seventeen – The Luxury Gap, largely because Let Me Go is just great dance music, and I remember bopping about at discos in the 80s to it… (Temptation is pretty good, too!)
  
• New Order – Low Life to add the many other New Order CDs I have because This Time Of Night is just a fucking brilliant example of mixing drums and electronic rhythms, and I can’t understand why I didn’t have on my iPod before
  
• Spiritualized – Songs In A&E, since I thought they sounded pretty good when I saw them on Later… a while ago
  
• Lee Morgan – The Sidewinder – mostly because I realised I didn’t have any Lee Morgan as himself (he is on several Art Blakey CDs I have), and The Sidewinder itself is a quintessential Blue Note track
  and…
  
• Horace Silver – Song For My Father, because I don’t have any Steely Dan on my iPod, either…

And all for less than £20!

I nearly picked up a couple of Dexter Gordon CDs, too - Go and Our Man In Paris - I didn’t because I know I have them both on vinyl, and I couldn’t remember whether – or which – I have on CD. This was a good move – I do actually have Go; I might go back to pick up Our Man In Paris tomorrow – I mean, for £3? Jeez!

...but I am clearly not sold on Apple. Because I have just bought a laptop from Dell. If only because I have all the stuff that I need to make it go properly. Which I wouldn't if I had an iBook...

So there I was in the record shop, looking for the new Lloyd Cole CD, when another release by the Bunnymen caught my eye. This time, it is “Crocodiles”, along with bonus tracks, most notably the excellent, wonderful, exciting “Shine So Hard” EP. For a fiver. So of course, I had to buy it – I mean, how could I not?

I was amused to see that there is a recent live Bunnymen CD called “Me, I’m All Smiles”. I have always loved that line (and it probably crops up fairly regularly in LJ posts! Old habits…) – and I was most amused to see that, just like naming “Shine So Hard” after a line from a song which doesn’t appear on the recording, the line me, I’m all smiles won’t be on “Me, I’m All Smiles”, either.

I found the Lloyd Cole, which I have now played a couple of times. I don’t find it as addictive as f4f3 and others have found it – it is ok, but I am not wholly convinced. It could just be that it would be hard to surpass my favourites of old.

Whilst in the record shop, I bought some books, too. I bought “Anansi Boys” by Neil Gaimen, because everyone else seems to rave about him, and I have never read any of his stuff (and it was only a fiver); “We Need To Talk About Kevin”, by Lionel Shriver, which I had been looking at in Waterstones a couple of weeks ago (but it didn’t feel suitable holiday reading), and it was only a fiver; and “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell, because I found “Blink!” very interesting (and it was only a fiver).

I can see a pattern emerging here.

There are lots of Fopp shops. Most of them are in Scotland; but there are also branches in London (one of the streets around Covent Garden), Bristol (main road near the Wills Building) and I think Manchester, too.

Actually, a quick look on the web shows me they are all around the place... http://www.fopp.co.uk/stores.php

Now we know.

Yesterday, I decided to buy some CDs and a book on Amazon – largely because my wife’s birthday is looming.

The book is about clouds – and since that is what she commonly paints, I thought she’d appreciate it.

So I pile all these things into my “shopping cart” and head to the “checkout”.

Only to find that delivery is guaranteed “within four to six weeks”. Too late, too late!

I look through my purchases, and all the CDs are delivered in one to two days… but the book would take up to six weeks.

I remove the book (which was the one thing I knew I wanted!) from the order, and complete that (oh, they make it so easy to spend money!), and then I google the book title.

Another site had it for sale, so I click through to their checkout – and it takes me to Amazon. Where the book is cheaper, and available in one to two days!

I didn’t buy it there and then since once I added on the postage it would cost the same as in a bookshop, but really, what are they thinking?

In Waterstone’s and Blackwell’s today, neither had it in stock; so I guess it might be something to do with the publisher or something, and maybe not Amazon’s fault – but then why would they tell me I could get it when I arrived via another site?!

A few weeks back, whilst we were all out getting drunk, a colleague held forth on how I should be an academic. This was based on the fact that she thought I looked like an academic. (I don’t know how many academics she knows; I know a few, and they don’t look much like me.)
( Then a few days later… )

I am now the proud owner of Firefyl and Serenity.

(A thank you present for my wife!)