All entries for June 2006

Red Card

Blimey!

The ref in the Holland-Portugal game was somewhat card-happy but I didn’t realise how much he liked his cards until I got sent off as well.

(c) Holly Cruise, 2006. Well, it is my face in it, hahaha.

I was only watching the game at home!

^{Apologies for the crappy Photoshopping. I’m tired.}

: 25 Jun 2006 23:48 |  Tags: Football |  Comments (11) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

End Of Term Party Setlist

Blimey. Me and Caspar somehow managed to avoid falling over the netting all over the Cooler stage to deliver this setlist of doom. Thanks Caspar and I was very much liking your air guitar awesomeness bit (see below, mortals).

End Of Term Party (of joy!)

1. Franz Ferdinand – 'What You Waiting For?/White Wedding'
2. White Town – 'Your Woman'
3. Yoko Kanno – 'Inner Universe (Theme From Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex)'
4. Nicky Wire – 'You Will Always Be My Home'
5. M83 – 'Don't Save Us From The Flames'
6. The Koreans – 'Keep Me In Your Mind'
7. Broken Social Scene – 'Ibi Dreams Of The Pavement'
8. She Wants Revenge – 'Tear You Apart'
9. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – 'Yellow Country Teeth'
10. The Dears – 'Lost In The Plot'
11. Secret Machines – 'All At Once (It's Not Important)'
12. The Features – 'Exhibit A'
13. The Organ – 'Steven Smith'
14. Stellstar* – 'Sweet Troubled Soul'
15. Ikara Colt – 'Sink Venice'
16. Men, Women And Children – 'Dance In My Blood'
17. Kubichek! – 'Nightjoy'
18. Voxtrot – 'Sisters, Daughters And Wives'
19. The Knife – 'Heartbeats'
20. Ladytron – 'Seventeen'
21. Klaxons – 'Atlanits To Interzone'
22. iForward Russia! – 'Twelve'
23. The Rakes – '22 Grand Job'
24. Long Blondes – 'Lust In The Movies'
25. British Sea Power – 'Please Stand Up'
26. The Fratellis – 'Henrietta'
27. Ladyfuzz – 'Bouncy Ball'
28. Elastica – 'Connection'
29. Be Your Own Pet – 'Bunk Trunk Skunk'
30. Incubus – 'Certain Shade Of Green'
31. Deftones – 'My Own Summer (Shove It)'
32. Mudvayne – 'Dig!'
33. Atreyu – 'Right Side Of The Bed'
34. Rammstein – 'Reise Reise'
35. Linkin Park – 'Faint'
36. Spunge – 'Kicking Pigeons'
37. Reel Big Fish – 'Beer'
38. Less Than Jake – 'Gainesville Rock City'
39. The Ordinary Boys vs Lady Sovereign – 'Nine2five'
40. Dead 60s – 'Loaded Gun'
41. Angels And Airwaves – 'The Adventure'
42. Finch – 'Letters To You'
43. Brand New – 'Sic Transit Gloria… Glory Fades'
44. Funeral For A Friend – 'Juneau'
45. Taking Back Sunday – 'Decade Under The Influence'
46. Hundred Reasons – 'I'll Find You'
47. The Zutons – 'Why Won't You Give Me Your Love'
48. The Coral – 'Dreaming Of You'
49. Razorlight – 'In The Morning'
50. Kings Of Leon – 'Red Morning Light'
51. Placebo – 'Pure Morning'

Caspar's Demonstration Of Rocking Joy!
52. Alkaline Trio – 'Private Eye'
53. Judas Priest – 'Breaking The Law'
54. The Cult – 'She Sells Sanctuary'
55. Iron Maiden – 'Run To The Hills'
56. Relica X – 'Haunted House'
57. Aerosmith – 'Walk This Way'
58. The Knack – 'My Sharona'
59. Led Zeppelin – 'Immigrant Song'
60. AC/DC – 'You Shook Me All Night'
61. Green Day – 'Holiday'
Cheers Caspar.

62. Garbage – 'Push It'
63. Clor – 'Love + Pain'
64. Hot Chip – 'Over And Over'
65. Justice vs Simian – 'We Are Your Friends'
66. The Departure – 'Be My Enemy'
67. Interpol – 'Slow Hands'
68. Editors – 'Blood'
69. Wolfmother – 'Dimension'
70. AC/DC – 'Back In Black'
71. The Clash – 'Rock The Casbah'
72. Buzzcocks – 'Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)?'
73. Motorhead – 'Ace Of Spades'
74. Thin Lizzy – 'The Boys Are Back In Town'
75. The Beatles – 'Help!'
76. The Rolling Stones – 'Satisfaction'
77. Dirty Pretty Things – 'Bang Band You're Dead'
78. The Raconteurs – 'Steady As She Goes'
79. Bloc Party – 'Banquet'
80. Panic! At The Disco – 'But It's Better If You Do'
81. Head Automatica – 'Beating Heart Baby'
82. Manic Street Preachers – 'You Stole The Sun From My heart'
83. Oasis – 'Roll With It'
84. Feeder – 'Buck Rogers'
85. Guns 'N' Roses – 'Live And Let Die'
86. Foo Fighters – 'Times Like These'
87. Blur – 'Song 2'

Phew.

Enjoy your summer and hope you all have a good one.

: 24 Jun 2006 15:45 |  Tags: Music Setlist |  Comments (14) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Hollyzone BA

Holly Cruise.

BA in History.

University Of Warwick, June 2006.

2:1.

Hell yeah!

: 21 Jun 2006 00:39 |  Comments (32) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

I Am Chris Birchall!

Follow-up to World Cup Dark Horses from Hollyzone

I am Chris Birchall!

See me point. Hear me roar. Watch me nick the ball from really good Scandanavian players and then look delighted as we hold them to a 0–0 draw despite T&T being so small that this blog's author's housemate couldn't find on a map even though he knew where it was.

It was mostly the defence and Hislop who kept the Swedes out well today, but Birchall was very impressive, doing a lot of running and a fair few swooping midfield tackles.

+1 Dark Horse point.

: 10 Jun 2006 19:23 |  Tags: Football |  Comments (7) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Lovers Electric

Writing about web page http://www.loverselectric.com/home.html

Slightly odd but always intriguing indie pop which covers many bases and is from Australia? Yes, stop this way and listen to Lovers Electric for they are all of these things and more.

I don't normally write about individual bands here (perhaps I should…) but LE aren't getting the coverage of, say, the Arctic Monkeys or Sandi Thom so I thought I'd mention them. Not my discovery, they were pointed out to me by Dave tCB*, and if you go to the link above you can listen to their album. Worth your time as they cover a lot of indie bases, a bit of slow nd melancholic, some upbeat poppy stuff, and some fast and slightly funky stuff. Yet the magpie approach doesn't sound stupidly disjointed as it can in the wrong hands. A little like the Kooks, LE seem capable of the shifting styles, though without sounding like the Kooks.

Don't panic, this picture is meant to be fragmented, it's not your computer.

Anyway, there are a lot of good music blogs out there which is why it's not really covered here in depth but I do like music and like pontificating about it on here sometimes. Maybe I will write more… we'll see.

*^{In an email I've not been able to reply to as I've been at home and lacking more than a few minutes of daily internet access for several days... just enough to grind out that pervious article on footballers. Sorry Dave.}

: 10 Jun 2006 01:34 |  Tags: Music New Music |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

World Cup Dark Horses

Let's face it, Ronaldinho is going to own the world this time around. He's great, when I saw him practising on the pitch at Barca before their game against Getafe at Easter, he looked special. Practising. No one looks special when they practise. I've seen Man Utd players practising on the pitch at OT and they never looked special, only when they played did their brilliance come out. But Ronnie could do mundane warmups and make them look amazing. And he waved at us.

Anyway, this isn't really about him. This is about some players I think could shine at the World Cup despite not getting the attention of some Scouser's foot bone (though damn, I hope you're fit to play Rooney). So come on then, who are ya?

Park Ji–Sung

Oh, how people laugh when they don't understand football. The number of numpties who ask Man Utd fans why we have Park is ridiculous when we've watched him be quietly impressive all season. So he doesn't score 30 yard wonder goals, so what? He is surprisingly tough, has good awareness, and is the no.1 idol of South Korean football. As I'm tipping South Korea as one of my surprise packages, this is quite a compliment. Watch him. He might be unpicking your defence as we speak.

Oleksandr Shovkovskiy

Ukraine. Are they even there? Oh yes, the first team from Europe to qualify, against Denmark, Turkey and European champions Greece no less. And with only seven goals conceeded. Theirs is a tough defence as well as a dangerous attack (some bloke called Shev–something who jus signed for Chelski) but the heart of it is their goalkeeper, Shovkovskiy. He's got a reputation as a great stopper and has a bucketfull of caps to show for his abilities. Can keepers make a difference? Well, would Denmark have succeeded in 1992 without the best goalkeeper of the last 20 years (Schmeichal) holding them in place? Ukraine could have built their game on a similarly promising pair of hands.

Shunsuke Nakamura

Celtic fans love him, Japanese fans love him, and why not? Again, Japan, like South Korea, did better than expected at the last World Cup and, though many put that down to home advantage, I'm inclined to think they are capable of similar this time around. In any case, Nakamura has a touch of quality about him and could turn in some nice goals if he gets the chance. Japan's group may be one of the toughest but everyone in the media seems so obsessed with Brazil's genius, Australia's hard won entry, and Croatia's European status (we're a European nation and we are guilty of Eurocentricism in these tournaments, admit it) means there's a chance we've written Japan off unfairly. A good result against Croatia and I think they'd qualify for the second round.

Luca Toni

Not really a surprise if anyone's been following the Italian Serie A this year (and if you have, how funny is the whole match fixing scandal? Hilarious) as Toni has been the top scorer. However most people here haven't really registered his existence which could be good for Italy when (if) they decide to emerge from their usual hyper defensive shell and attack. With Del Piero not the force he was and Totti only recently back from a broken leg (stick that in your pipe and smoke it Rooney–la), it looks like Toni, a man who almost quit in 1998 after scoring just two goals in a season in Serie C, could be the one to crack open some defences.

Chris Birchall

Port Vale have a player at the World Cup. Port Vale! Birchall won't be unseating Rooney from the headlines of the papers, but I just want everyone to recognise the genius of a man who players in one of the least glamourous, poorest clubs in the country, and yet still gets to do what Christian Vieri, Darren Bent, Fernando Morientes and Jerzy Dudek won't – play in the World Cup. Look out for him. He's not hard to spot. After all, there's hasn't been another white player for Trinidad and Tobago in 60 years…

Quim

Portugal's second choice keeper. Unlikely to play. But come on… do I really have to spell it out?

Q… U… I… M…

Yes, I have the mental age of a lobster, but do I care?

Anyone I've missed?

Now can the World Cup please start!

: 08 Jun 2006 18:45 |  Tags: Football |  Comments (24) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

A Complaint About A Modern Creation

I always swore I'd never become one of those people who moan about things because they are they and I don't understand them. Like the denziens of those Grumpy Old Men/Women TV shows and touring theatre groups who whinge at anything invented by those with the audacity to be born after the boom generation of the 1950/60s. How dare they declare our creations to be insufficient? Why do they need to send each other badly spelt notes on their phones? Why must they communicate with distant people instantly rather than by long winded letters?

But some things aren't symptoms of a new generation moving on and pushing culture in new directions, no, some things are just facking annoying. Thus I reserve the right to moan about the latest thing which appears to have been built into phones – music speakers.

Phones which can be mp3 players are an ace idea. Seriously, it's one less item to lose on your evening out. It rules. But some of these new phones appear to have speakers so the music can be blasted out of them and into the ears of all nearby. And this I find highly objectionable when I'm on the bus.

Confession: I have no idea if the pictured model has this capability. It just looked god.

Ok, some buses have radios. Why do those not annoy me but these phones do? Two reasons – first, the bus radios are often so low they can bearly be heard anyway over the roar of the engine (and the clatter of nuts and bolts coming dangerously loose as the bus hits 62mph on the A46), and second, because most radio stations are whores. They want to maximise listeners. As a result there's musical variation, even on Mercia FM. Suffer enough tedious pseudo–folk ballads and MOR dance music and you will be rewarded with something you like. The occasional Killers or Franz Ferdinand. If you like dance music then rearrange the previous sentence so the dance music comes to rescue you from the tedious indie schmindie wanky woo. Or "emo"*.

But these goddam phone speakers blast out no variation, they blast out one person's music. The only occasions I've encountered this I was subjected to 50 Cent's most annoying album tracks and some soppy R'n'B shite which isn't even fit to lick the boots of decent R'n'B like the Neptunes' productions. I wanted to kill the purpotraters. Hell, I moved to the other deck of the bus, that's how annoyed I was. I don't want this aural pollution. And I wouldn't do it myself. I know not everyone likes Manic Street Preachers or Arcade Fire, so I wouldn't blast it out, and I wouldn't approve if someone else was doing so on the bus.

I genuinely think it's just anti–social. Yes, I am whining but does anyone out there have any counter argument other than "if you don't like it then move" which is no argument as what if both decks of the bus have the same thing, or if it's a single decker bus?

And why didn't I ask them to turn it off? Would you? Put it like this, I doubt I would have had a sympathetic response the first time (teenies) and the second time I was getting off soon anyway and didn't want to cause a fuss (so British sometimes). Should something be said? Part of me thinks yes, part thinks "oh gosh, I shouldn't cause a hassle, oh dear, um" and bumbles off like Hugh Grant on valium.

Damn you, Hugh Grant…

*^{Dear non-indie fans, when I am DJing and you come up and ask if I can play some dance music (quite ignoring the fact that it's a indie/rock/alt night) please do not refer to all guitar music as "emo", especially when I'm playing some of the least emo music in the genre. I might actualy kill you if you refer to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs as that again.}

: 03 Jun 2006 01:45 |  Tags: Rant |  Comments (7) |  Close comments |  Report a problem