camelglasses

This Blog has moved...

2009-12-15T04:45:00.001-08:00

Sorry but Blogger was getting rubbish. You can find me @ http://danmoss.tumblr.com/
Or my Unhub, which shows everywhere I blog both personally and for my work @http://unhub.com/danmoss.
I hope you will keep following, and I'll try to update this more regularly than I have lately!
Cheers,
Dan

Decadence; a cake in decline.

2009-12-06T09:15:00.000-08:00

I was enjoying the Fresh Air student radio christmas dinner yesterday, when I was shocked to find that I have been misunderstanding, or at least under-understanding an everyday word. It's particularly embarrassing because I think I am the only 23 year old English Literature graduate to make this mistake. I'm pretty sure I used the word 'Decadent' in its various grammatical variations throughout the majority of my essays describing things like political governments and rubbish authors and books. To my limited knowledge, it was all about something being simultaneously traditional, established and backward.

I've seen all kinds of food described as 'decadent' and it never really crossed my mind to contemplate the word's meaning. Just like I've never particularly cared to check up on what an 'astringent' wine tastes like. I'm sure it's lovely.

Anyway, from the menu at Pizza Express, this fudge cake was 'rich, moist and decadent'. To describe their own dessert as (dictionary definition 1:) 'characterised by moral and/or cultural decline' did strike me as a little bit odd. But it was only when confronted with the teasing rebukes from friends when I mentioned this, that I genuinely discovered that it also meant 'unrestrainedly or excessively self-indulgent'.

This definitely makes more sense as I had a taste of the cake, and it leaned closer to the second definition than the first. I think if it was in cultural or moral decline, I would have tasted it. I shall continue my search to find a word to accurately convey the simple, yet absurdly moreish delight that is the Pizza Express Dough Ball. Answers on a postcard please.

I'm having an affair with Twitter...and my Blog's not happy about it.

2009-11-16T04:54:00.000-08:00

The age old question: which came first the Twitter or the Blog?

In my case, although I suspect for many people it could well be the other way round, it was the blog. I set this up to chart my search for work and ideas following graduation and since its become something of an indulgent whiteboard to bounce thoughts off. I feel particularly guilty at the moment and have been feeling guiltier by the day as the realisation creeps upon me that I haven't posted an article here for a month.

Without a myriad of admirers, the tangible worth of this blog to anyone but myself is relatively low, although I hope I have a few dedicated readers, so I have to confess that I'm not sure where the guilt is directed. My own recent lack of commitment? A delusional martyr-like belief that I'm letting some invisible army of fans down? Or worse still, is it possible that I feel I'm letting down the blog itself? That last possibility is so nauseatingly pathetic I daren't consider it.

Wherever this guilt is misplaced, I can definitely identify the cause: Twitter. My relationship with my blog is, and again, I know this sounds horrific, a bit like a marriage: camelglasses is my verdana-fonted longstanding anchor of a wife, to whom I bear unconditional responsibility. We'll probably have little blog-children and everything one day.

Meanwhile, for some time now, I have been seduced by the whimsical insubstantial frills of the temptress, Twitter. The Blog waits patiently for me to return, while I'm off chasing pithy 140 character updates, @ing my favourite celebrities and making moronic lists of friends and people I don't really know. What a fool I've been.

I know that Blog and Twitter account should complement one another harmoniously, but it seems that I am incapable of such technological polygamy. What with work, outside interests, actual real socialising and everything else that requires more hours in the day than there actually are, I'm afraid that I have been quite so faithful as I always hoped to be with my regular writing.

Well no more. I have missed you Blog, and I want you back.

Ill Skills - The Maccabees, ABC, Glasgow, 9th October 2009

2009-10-15T12:55:00.000-07:00

Bloc Party have announced to their throng of Welsh fans that they are having to pull out of their Newport gig because of their guitarist's impending and necessary surgery. At the other vertical pole of the UK, The Maccabees' Scottish fans are faced with a slightly different proposition.

The whole band is ill. Not quite rush-me-to-hospital ill, but suffice to say the South Londoners are dosed up to the max with Lemsip and Calpol. When a distinctly peaky Orlando Weeks takes to the ABC stage, compensating for his state with a dazzling reflective shirt, it's not with refreshing pint in hand, but rather an oddly coloured drink that you would imagine contains a fair degree of honey and lemon.

They may be coming to the end of their UK Tour, but the aftermath of this show doesn't represent any kind of respite for the band - they're straight off to Malawi to play a National festival. Nevertheless they're determined to give everything for this Glaswegian crowd, evidenced by a lively performance of Joy Division-soaked single "No Kind Words", which kicks off their set. Their first release from 2009's Wall of Arms doesn't test Weeks' vocals quite too rigorously but even a bout of laryngitis doesn't prevent the enigmatic frontman delivering on more ambitious songs like "Can You Give It" towards the first half of the set.

And there's drama. Affable guitarist Felix White, Weeks' deputy audience liaison officer, interrupts his own vocal cameo in dubious B-side "Accordian Song" to break up a fight at the front of the venue and impressively picks up the tune again for a final chorus.

The set is ambitious - as well as showcasing pretty much the whole new LP, The Maccabees are well aware that 2007's Colour It In holds a great deal of currency for their fans. Ever-popular anthems "First Love" and "Latchmere" predictably get the enthusiastic sixth form audience jumping and bumping about and decanting almost-empty plastic pints over each other.

As the night wears on, Weeks' voice inevitably deteriorates, which is a shame with songs like "Love You Better" still to come towards the end of the set. Regardless, the band and their conservatively-clad supporting brass section do a great job of meeting ABC's 10:30pm curfew, still performing nigh on twenty songs. Get well soon boys.

How Derren Brown really predicted the Lottery Numbers

2009-09-20T10:56:00.000-07:00

Split-screen. Digital imprints. Weighted balls. Delayed feed. You've read all the arguments but each has it's own glaring error. How can the wobbly handheld camera have turned around Brown's balls with the correct numbers techno-branded onto them? How could they have been turned and executed at the exact same time?

Such has been the hype around all the current theories that the real answer has been ignored by all. I was quite happy working it out and keeping it to myself until a friend's garbled explanation convinced me to share the truth with the world:

"It's like he said," says Richard. "He basically told us at the end of the program how he did it, by hypnotising the guards and weighting the balls. He just implied that he didn't actually do that, to avoid getting done for it. But, it wouldn't have been illegal anyway."

"err... why isn't it illegal?"

"He didn't buy a ticket. So he couldn't win. So it's not a crime."

Ah, of course, the old rigging-a-national-competition-through-hypnosis-and-suggestion loophole. First used in court...errm...never. On the Bad-ometer, about as immoral as putting supermarket deli olives back on the shelf when you realise you don't really want them. No, Richard, I think it IS a crime, and if you were to attempt to put it into action, your 'Ticket' alibi might not be enough to save you from the fuzz.

The truth is so extraordinarily brilliant and simple that I thought I might adapt it into a novel and sell the concept to Dan Brown. Working it out requires a knowledge of Christian Bale's tricks in The Prestige, and passing familiarity with the cases of Jonathan Creek.

Basically, to understand what he did, you have to come to terms with the fundamental premise that Derren Brown has spent his entire life building up to this hour-long television special. If you can get your head there, you're half way there.

Derren has spent a great deal of time, money and film reel on this project. He has been buying white balls and writing every possible combination of lottery numbers on them. Then he has filmed each of these unveilings. There are 13,983,816 different numbers that could randomly appear, and obviously lots of different orders in which the numbers come out, which is why it's taken him ages. So, having filmed all of these over the course of many years, Derren happily waits until the very last second, lines up the prepared film footage (all archived), and hey presto, the nation is confuddled.

Hope this irons it all out.

Kanye West Interrupts Twitter

2009-09-18T01:23:00.000-07:00

"I'm a Let You Finish, but..."

Like everyone else with a computer, I've been enjoying the Kanye coverage over the past few days. There have been a few excellent parodies of the Hip Hop star’s unscheduled announcement at the VMA Awards, and it’s been great to see the ‘Kanye Interrupting’ Twibbonreceive so many mentions in articles.

Created by @tomlangdon, an advertising student, the invasive character of the design recalls the Portrait Crasher Squirrel phenomenon of recent months and has got to make this one of the most entertaining virals of 2009 so far!

Mashable and Wired were among the media outlets to give props to my application, Twibbon.

Here’s a couple of links to stories involving the Twibbon:

http://mashable.com/2009/09/15/kanye-interrupts/

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/09/kanye-interrupts/

http://mashable.com/2009/09/15/kanye-west-parodies/ – we’re number 8 here!

The 140 Character Challenge

2009-08-10T11:57:00.000-07:00

"Accidently shot by a man in a diaper, trying to kill a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Not exactly the epitaph I was hoping for. Still, it might look good in Latin..."
Jerry Springer The Opera

Somewhere between reading about the supposed sighting of a 'panther' or 'puma' in my place of birth and checking on the prospective Crystal Palace line-up for tomorrow's crucial first-round League Cup tie against the formidable Torquay United, I was struck by a story doing the rounds on the BBC home page regarding, of all things, the Royal Opera Society.

Normally, this kind of subject matter would have a cultural heathen like myself recoiling from my laptop in fear, but I kept reading.

Apparently, an opera is being 'composed on Twitter'; users can tweet err...lyrics?...that's probably the wrong word...of up to 140 characters that could make their way into a libretto about a man who has been kidnapped by birds. Now I don't know what a libretto is, and I'm not going to check, but I'm going to guess it's pretty much another word for an opera. And that storyline, in all seriousness, terrifies me. I don't like the way birds flap their wings near me, and in order to kidnap me, they would have to be very big birds.

So this elitist musical horror show is the latest cultural to embrace the unstoppable Twitter machine. I suppose the Royal Opera Society should be commended for trying to introduce their art to people who wouldn't usually experience it, but what might seem like a groundbreaking, awesomely-cool idea actually isn't. Well it is a bit. But not really.

You see, this feels like the hundredth time I've heard about the '140 Character Challenge' as I've decided to call it - let's hope that one catches on. First there was the first novel wackily written in 140 character chunks; then there were, and still are, the 140 character film pitches, courtesy of Pitchfilm. Some employers now accept 140 character CVs, substituting quality human resourcing for trendy idiot-fishing.

It's great that people are innovating using Twitter - it's exciting to think about the site's potential if it continues to grow at the rate industry experts maintain it will. But what should we expect next? let's hope that this is the last of the 140 character challenges (copyright Dan Moss, 2009).

Back to big cats and the eagles.

Twitter and the Age of Online Protest - fixoutlook / Colaab

2009-07-15T09:28:00.000-07:00

Twitter and the Age of Online Protest - Colaab DeepZoom mosaic

In recent weeks, Twitter has been carried beyond it's initial remit as a social networking tool to become an overt weapon of dissent over issues of national and international importance. Days of national mourning are declared and practically officialised by an unchallengeable Twitocracy as celebrity after another passes away, leaving behind them their online legacies of micro-obituaries (microbituaries???) summing up their relative importance to the world in 140 characters or less a thousand times over. Green-tinted thumbnails line the computer monitor as users vent their virtual frustrations over the spiralling political debacle in Iran.

What makes these large-scale acts so impressive and unique is their visual dimension. Beyond colours, the channeling of a 'voice' in the Web 2.0 age implies size, substance, shape, taking the form of tweets or comment boxes. When we think historically of protest, we think in pictures: Martin Luther King at the head of the podium, his right hand raised. The actions and consequences of The Tianenmen Square protests in 1989, that occured at a time of worldwide governmental reform (or collapse) on an unthinkable scale, are now almost rendered secondary to the compelling symbolism of THAT man with his shopping bags and the oncoming tanks. The sustainability of our fascination with this image is surely linked to its residual power as an astonishingly appropriate visual metaphor for the act of mass protest; an 'everyman' of the people pitted quite surreally against the faceless, destructive and infinitely stronger enemy.

When the people at Email Standards Project harnessed their grievances about Microsoft Outlook 2010 to develop fixoutlook.org, they weren't trying to address a pressing humanitarian issue, but simply trying to garner support for a campaign that would improve just one aspect of many people's future working and personal lives. Be that as it may, in its swine flu-like viral success - attracting more than 25,000 sympathisers on Twitter - they have inadvertently cultivated a defining analogy for the convenient and immensely powerful framework for digital protest now available to the Web 2.0 generation.

It's only when used with web application Colaab that the full potential of the mosaic is realised. Using DeepZoom technology, you can zoom out and shrink the ultradense image before zooming in to the extent that every thumbnail and avatar becomes fully pixelated: Tens of thousands of users lending their identity to a unified and clear cause, simultaneously faceless and entirely visible.

Meno Fly, Drake, The Maccabees

2009-07-14T10:59:00.000-07:00

Returning from the post-Jackson playlist of grief that I never envisaged myself shuffling or shuffling to, I've been on a new music spree, the cream of which I have shared lovingly below:

Meno Fly - Hopes and Dreams (Dom Ridgeway Remix), (Unsigned )

The South Londoners' debut E.P. boasts a wee dazzling collection of ambitious and well-written songs that impressively marry the multi-layered guitar reverberations of Foals with the happily under-produced synthesising madness of cult Scandinavian weirdos, The Knife and, incongruously, Enter Shikari. Louis Souyave's vocal tenacity and the band's tendancy towards processed beats recall fellow sub-Thamesian musician, Patrick Wolf, but whether or not you're a fan of the iconic lit-indie depressive, Meno Fly make for a worthy recurrent visit on your next Myspace stroll and it's Dom Ridgeway's euphoric and original take on the band's epic flagship anthem Hopes and Dreams that wins ears and hearts. Those of us who spend our sleepless nights waiting in vain for another 'Silent Alarm Remixed' to come along might have just found our collective 'Nytol' in this haunting crescendo of a track.

Drake feat. Lykke Li - Little Bit (Young Money)

Paging Dr. West. I have, quite literally, every reason to love this understated track from R&B's latest and hottest franchise. Let's go through the reasons, shall we? Aside from boasting the name of many people's preferred character in the inaugural Alien film, Drake is signed to Lil Wayne's 'Young Money' label and I love Lil Wayne, but its interesting how the miniscule rapper's influence is glaringly absent from this delightfully sparse offering. Instead, Drake has cranked the Kanye factor up to ten, just when the patience of the music community was wearing thin with the self proclaimed 'Tiger Woods' of sampling. No, I don't understand it either. Finally, Lykke Li drenches the song with the overt indie sexuality that we've come to expect from her rich, deep back catalogue. I swear she's flirting with me.

The Maccabees - William Powers (Friction)

There are quite a few radical differences between 'Wall Of Arms' - The Maccabees' third album - and their previous work, not least the unmistakeable signature of Markus Dravs, producer behind The Arcade Fire and distinctively voiced frontman Orlando Weekes' dramatically lowered register. One constant throughout their career to date has been an impressive depth to their album material - 'Colour It In' will probably be popularly remembered for Toothpaste Kisses, despite the equally weighty presence of songs like X-Ray, All In Your Rows and Precious Time. In this latest venture, the quintet have repeated the trick and the first song to be released back in April, No Kind Words, was quickly and successfully followed up by the thumping Love You Better. Right now the radio is incessabtly playing Can You Give It, but don't be surprised if you don't see my pick, William Powers, getting the airplay it merits. It's an album track through and through, a self-indulgent morsel of technical and lyrical showcasing that marks their transition from a troupe of London faddish upstarts, to festival conquering cult heroes.

Gerrard for £12.5 million? It can only be Fantasy Football...

2009-07-12T05:35:00.000-07:00

It's like 'Looking For Eric' week in, week out.

When people ask me about my 'greatest achievement' my mind always wanders from passing my driving test - something I found impossible to conceive of at one point - to my unlikely completion of the laborious Edinburgh Marathon, amongst various other successes in between.

But I am always reminded of my most impressive feat, which must have taken place back in 1999 or so, back when Twitter was just a noise a bird made and the Jonas Brothers could have been preemptively prevented from embarking on their atrocious Disney musical career.

Before the turn of the Millennium, I was too young to care about the news, let alone decide which newspaper I felt most closely allied to, and my innate obsession for football always forced my fat fingers to the back pages of any journal my parents had decided to bring home that given day. As luck would have it, I became aware of the magnificent Times Fantasy Football competition, and a new passion filled my summer and autumnal days - the construction and maintenance of a super-team composed from the breadth of the Premier League. And what exquisite pleasure it was. The rollercoastering high of ingeniously picking a cheap newly promoted keeper on gut feeling contrasted painfully with the dismal knowledge that your invaluable Top Four striker had ruptured his metatarsal on the day of a crunch game.

The very first season I had turned out to be by far my best, and is probably the reason I continue to get excited to this day. I can't remember too much about the team, apart from the certainty that its midfield boasted a vibrant central duo in Jason McAteer and the more durable Robbie Savage; they were aided by international winger Nick Barmby while a teenage Darius Vassell did the business up front. That ensemble reached 21st in the country at the close of the season, meaning that my place in history would forever be cemented to the fridge door, held by a magnet in the shape of a football.

The pride of this achievement meant that I was planning my raid on the next season's batch before the final whistle had even been blown. When the first week expired, I checked my position to find that I was....97,732nd in the country.

What kind of sick joke was this? Did they know who they were dealing with?! I had planned and planned over my summer holidays, while others had simply ticked a few random boxes and that was that for them. In my despair I briefly lost the momentum of my previous season, took my eye off the transfer market, and before I knew it I was in an irreconcilable position at the foot of the public league.

The 2009/10 season could be the most open in Premier League history and with the right team selections at the start of the season and a few lucky breaks I will be well placed to take my place once again at the altar of the nation's greatest amateur football know-it-alls. I could even pick Nick Barmby again if I fancied it.

The greatest soap opera on earth

2009-06-17T11:49:00.000-07:00

What's missing from everyone's favourite soap operas on the telly, or even on the radio? Good acting? Believable plots? With Eastender s and Corrie picking up the highest viewing figures in the UK consistently they must be doing something right, but there is one soap that has the whole world hooked line and sinker.

Imagine you had a stellar cast, taken from all the universes of music, theatre, radio, TV, film, sports and art, all interacting, their lives playing out in front of an addicted, ever-watching audience. You've just imagined what Twitter is growing into, transforming from an admittedly geeky niche social website into a celebrity explosion, a great leveller where mere mortal can communicate with their greatest human fascinations with the touch of an '@'. But more impressive and compelling than our own ability to chat to these legitimate stars, is their ongoing discussions with each other. Eastenders isn't to everyone's taste, in that not everyone will want to religiously keep their eyes glued to a fictional street (or square) they don't identify with.

But Twitter is totally subjective. Take my personal interest in UK Hip Hop for example. I'm doing my work, listening to radio, and all the while following the interaction between UK Hip Hop heroes, Kano of 'London Town' fame and emerging UKG talent, Bashy.

"
TheRealKano: is just waking up after smashing the Baaba Mal show @ royal festival hall with @itsbashy & @vvbrown..

ItsBashy: @TheRealKano Thats right!! Me & You actually SMASHED it Back2Back! No rehearsal..Straight profesh! "

Outrageous. I'm not a fan of celebrity gossip magazines, but this is dragging me dangerously close to the counter. Is this just me being pathetic and insubstansive, or should we all be more excited about the possibilities Twitter is offering for the future of interaction between artist and fan?

Oh my word

2009-06-10T13:52:00.000-07:00

The debate rages. Elite lexicographers lie sleepless in their beds in the silent surrounds of meticulously arranged literary dens.

Web 2.0 is supposedly the English-speaking universe's millionth word to be in circulation. Historically, the process of measurement for accreditation as a 'word' has relied largely on publication and books, with frequency and sustainability being the principal criteria, but in our techno-spangled world, we're now accepting expressions and terms being used on social networking sites in order to track a word's usage.

It's not entirely surprising then, that the word that made the grade was 'Web 2.0'. I mean, if you need 15,000 people to use a word online consistently for it to win official status (can words even 'win'? I suppose some were just born to be winners, like 'prime' or 'betterer'), I would have put a fair bit of money on the next landmark term to be related to the internet. It seems a bit staged. A bit...rigged.

But then why should words be the property of the professors, doctors and grammar-fiends? In the lexicocracy in which we live, no one has any greater right over the use of a word than anyone else. The best thing would be to elect a single impartial ruler, who of course, had no interest in words whatsoever to eliminate the possibility of bias. Someone like Gordon Ramsay, whose vocabulary extends to about five semi-offensive to very obscene expletives would be an ideal candidate for the role. Steven Gerrard - and I'm just picking him, unfairly, out of the many hundreds of professional atheletes who insist on repeating the same couple of sentences to the cameras after/before sporting encounters - would also get my vote.

I don't think I've ever used the expression Web 2.0, and I'm interested to find out what Web 1.0 might have been (surely that automatically becomes the 1,000,001st word in the dictionary?), but I don't understand how people can claim it doesn't deserve official status. If people say it or write it, it exists. People can be so extravidious sometimes...

Dope SBs Dude

2009-04-16T16:53:00.000-07:00

I have arrived. Finally. Strolling down Portland's riverside park, I am admiring the view on my way to the pedestrian crossing of the 'Steel Bridge', which leads up towards the Northeast quarter of the city, when I'm struck - not literally, thankfully - by conversational ejaculation.

Dope SBs dude.

Now, people have been accosting me all over the shop so far on my West Coast trip. From the pleasantly chatty ("Oh, y'all comin' in the lift? Where you from? etc.) to the arse-tighteningly insane ("I'm a war veteran, I love you, God I love you and everyone here"), I've been subjected to a kind of relentless social communion that we're simply not used to in the UK. It's been enlightening and, more often than not, refreshing and positive, but never more gratefully received than when this bike enthusiast - I'm not just guessing; I mean, he was cleaning or oiling his bicycle when he said this - lauded my choice of new sneakers, which are, as he astutely pointed out, limited Nike SBs (see pictured).

It's not like they were an easy pick, either. Portland is hardly the epicentre of sneakerhead activity stateside, but like all large North American cities, it has its range of delectable kicks. For those who care, or might one day venture this way, I heartily recommend a trip to Compound, a boutique as reputed for its contemporary street-inspired art gallery. Also worthy of praise is Lifted on Northeast Broadway, which has a fantastic selection. Easily the greatest discovery here, though, is Lids, a coast-encompassing chain that deals in caps of all sizes and varieties, and offers more choice than we conventionally get at a store in the UK.

I also found out that Portland, for all its cultural obscurity (can you name anything or anyone of note from here off the top of your head?) is home to a few stars, early noughties' indie heroes, Modest Mouse, The Decemberists and the late acoustic despressive Elliot Smith among them.

As I continue on my ascent to the dizzy cultural heights of Oregon lifestyle, I am invested with the idea that we should all vocalise our positive thoughts. I don't know if the UK is ready for my return.

Give Me Love, Huggy Bear

2009-04-13T08:27:00.000-07:00

Vultures, or what look like vultures, are circling overhead. Not a good sign?

The drive from San Francisco to Sacramento could feasibly take less than an hour and a half. We've taken a longer route, via the Napa Valley, up mountains, across lakes, ripping through half-sprung vineyards. A team of Harley bikers burn it up in front of us, scaring the wildlife shitless with booming, sputtering engines, and it's noted, travelling surprisingly slowly.

Blue Mustang takes the Californian hills well, growling up the gradient and bouncing smartly down steep San Fran streets (how do they live there? the walk downtown and back would be excruciating).

I finally get the internet and scan the headlines. Someon at No. 10 has fucked up royally by documenting a smear campaign against the Tories. Some protest in Thailand getting bloody. Now the important pages: Villa draw with Everton, PALACE LOSE TO CARDIFF AT HOME. Fuck. A forgettable run in to what has been a devestatingly average season. Normally this would render me slightly pissy for the rest of the day, but I'm comforted by the view of expansive lake Berryessa, twenty miles or so away from Sacramento. We stop and take it in, and when the 'vultures' start circling, we restart the journey.

We're on the road again, this time to Portland, always heading North towards Seattle. At our final destination, the happy possibility of seeing The Mariners play baseball, America's cricket, looms large in my mind. Apparently, everyone supports them now, since that captain got rescued from Somalian pirates... the man from Maritime Academy, where Cpt. Phillips graduated, said his rescue was "good news for mariners everywhere".

Ignorant discrimination. Doesn't he realise that pirates are mariners too?

The Talented Mr. Smith

2009-03-31T12:08:00.000-07:00

Jacqui Smith is a lot of things. But apparently she's not a wanker. Mr. Timney's terrified apology to the public was one of the funniest things I've seen in ages, but I have to say, I think he's a bit of a hero. I'd like to see David Cameron to stand up in parliament and swear to God, that every time he's bashed the bishop, his thoughts strayed no further to the colour of his wife's knickers. Mauve, if you're wondering.

Let me state my view on the whole saga: I feel sorry for them. It must have been dissatisfying for the Home Secretary to learn that her spouse cared so little for her future aspirations that he didn't think twice about risking them all for four minutes of self-abuse (a quick calculator check will tell you that he was charged £2.17 per minute for that great pleasure).

But I am truly intrigued by to another aspect of this political scandal, a stone of the story that I believe has been left entirely unturned, and which reveals to us more about the dark humanity of the Smith/Timney relationship than we would ever wish to know. 'They watched Ocean's Thirteen twice'. 'They watched Ocean's Thirteen twice'. 'They watched Ocean's Thirteen Twice'. The sheer volition of the words struck me right between the eyes when I picked up the paper this morning. Have you seen that film? It's hard to sit through once, but, and I'm absolutely serious when I'm writing this, there is literally no point watching it again. It's a heist movie. "How are they going to do it this time?" you wonder, happily gnawing away at your malteaser flavoured ice cream, with a favourite (washed) cushion tucked against your bosom. Then you see how it's done. Boom.

To watch such a film a second time within, as they must have for it to have come up duplicated on the bill, such a narrow time-frame, suggests a mind more suited to watching the Teletubbies with their rottenly child-pleasing "Again, Again!" banter than to effectively running the country.

In fact, I think this point is substantial enough to extend beyond Jacqui Smith and Ocean's Thirteen- yes, I'm going to go there. It applies to anyone who is boring enough to repeatedly regurgitate (or in-gurgitate?) the same crap a moment after they've finished gobbling it up the first time. Whether it's a novel, celebrity magazine, CD, er... chewing...gum, or anything like that, just move on. If you dare read this post a second time...

Having said all this, a good porno can retain its initial intrigue on a second viewing. On reflection, I am furious at Mr. Timney's shocking and flagrant spending on surplus pornography. Shame on him.

Champions League Draw - England vs. Environment

2009-03-20T03:25:00.000-07:00

It's a straight choice. At the time of writing, hundreds of thousands of worldwide fans are praying that the upcoming Champions League Draw is kind to English clubs, pitting them against the likes of Barcelona or Bayern Munich, rather than eliminating one other in the quarter finals.

Tribal alliegances aside, there will be another breed of supporter out there today, hoping for a different outcome - I'm talking about the 'green' supporter, and I'm not talking about Celtic fans (although I've no doubt that they too would smile happily on seeing the English clubs run into the ground in attritional civil war).

The environmentally aware amongst us will be calculating the CO2 emissions that the various flights to Spain, Portugal and Germany will be costing our planet. For instance, a Manchester expedition to Madrid would emit 802 lbs of Carbon Dioxide - several Michelle McManus-worths of life-ending pollution.

I'm not sure where I stand. An all English semi-final would be great, especially if everyone travelled by boat.

Spinto Band Interview (The Journal, 09.03.09)

2009-03-10T08:52:00.000-07:00

Interview: The Spinto Band

"Is it our best song? I don't know. It's our best record, I don't know about songs"

The Spinto Band

Dan Moss
Monday 09 March 2009, The Journal Issue 20

As the rock n’ roll lifestyle goes, munching on a crunchy salad Nicoise an hour before heading on stage doesn’t do for too many bands. I’m at the City Café, meeting the boys as they grab a bite prior to their performance at Cabaret Voltaire this evening – and the only thing on the Spinto Band’s menu is the green stuff. Their tour manager, the brilliantly named Nik Diezel, is definitely more of a carnivore. He’s sitting at the head of the table, leafing through The Sun and looking particularly hard; but the band’s chaperone is certainly in the minority. I’m sat bang in the middle of eleven plimsoll-clad, fresh-faced indie enthusiasts – and I know there’s only six in the band, so how do I discriminate the group from the groupies?

“Well there’s two sets of brothers,” pipes up drummer Jeff Hobson, “and we’re sat next to each other. We’re trying to avoid the cliché.” The Spinto Band’s genesis lies in the closely-knit family ties that propelled the sextet together from a young age to form their pubescent garage-band outfit, known then as Free Beer, in their hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. The older Hobson explains that they’ve never really escaped these modest beginnings: “It’s the bigger stages that cause us the most problems. Even though there’s a bunch of us up there. Where we rehearse is still this tiny little space.”

Although they’re here touring with their new LP, Moonwink, the guys are happy to attribute much of their current success to viral internet phenomenon, ‘Oh Mandy’, the standout track from their breakthrough album Nice and Nicely Done (2005) and currently doing the telly rounds on Kenco adverts. “It definitely opened doors for us. Is it our best song? I don’t know. It’s our best record, I don’t know about songs.” Duffel-coated brooding frontman Nick Krill clearly enjoys the odd profundity, so, in between mouthfuls of lettuce, I give him another chance to speak in abstraction about what we can expect from the new album.

“The sound’s a lot thicker," says Krill. "There are a lot more musical parts happening at once. In the studio it’s so different from on stage, we’ve got more time to tinker and mess with the sound, we’re much less spontaneous.” Krill identifies himself as the guilty party when I inquire as to which of the guitarists adds to his onstage performance with a joint-defying windmill action. “I think that’s me,” he mutters—more out of asocial reticence than arrogance—raising the limb in question with a nervous swish of his dark curtains.

Talk turns to their current European tour; they arrived in Edinburgh three hours ago from Aberdeen (“umm…pretty industrial”), and haven’t had time to look around the capital. “It’s awesome to be here, but we can’t wait for Italy; we’re going through Bologna, Florence…“ Although they haven’t visited Edinburgh, they’ve played the Glasgow venues and are full of praise for their British fans. “It’s like the US,” suggests Hobson Jnr. “We do well in the big cities over there, but when it comes to the smaller places, no one knows who we are. But when they hear us...” Hobson shares a grin with his fellow band-mates.

Despite their awkward and excessively youthful outer appearance, it’s good to see the band exuding an air of confidence in their collective ability. And they should do – they’ve been playing together for more than ten years. They’ll be revisiting the legendary SXSW festival in Austin, Texas later this year, so I wonder whether we can expect any performances at UK Festivals this coming summer? “We have before, but no, we haven’t made plans for that yet. We’d sure like to.” We share fond memories of Reading Festival in 2005, when I recall them being the critics’ choice of the weekend. On this nostalgic note, I make to leave, and the Spinto Band kindly insist that I find them after the gig for a drink and a chat. But, for a band that in their infancy used to refer to themselves as Free Beer, they don’t seem like the drinking type.

Moonwink (2008) is available on Park The Van Records.

"There is nothing special about me, I am just a little star"

2009-02-27T08:51:00.000-08:00

So sings Kelis, in her modern R'n'B classic, Li'l Star.

The history of cultural entertainment has long benefited from our very human fixation with self-deprecation. We routinely placate our individual insecurities by making light of our tragedies, sometimes pointing obvious negative qualities in ourselves before others inevitably pick up on them. Some of the best stand up comedians have made a career out of laughing about their ridiculously hopeless or traumatised lives - a contraversial hero of mine, Russell Brand, released his autobiography, My Booky Wook, totting his entire existence up to "a series of embarrassing incidents strung together by telling people about those embarrassing incidents."

Yes, public belittlement is at the heart of our nation's unique interpretation of comedy - indeed it generated around 99% of the humour for Gervais' cult mockumentary The Office - but it has also become increasingly popular in the fickle arena of...well...'popular' music. To be more specific, with all the hype that traditionally accompanies pop artists, you'd think that, nominally at least, 'bigger' might be better. But just look at the breathtaking range of modern musicians who want to be regarded as 'smaller' than they perhaps are in reality: Lil' Wayne, Lil' Kim, Lil' Chris, Tiny Dancers, 2009's much-touted Little Boots... I could go on.

The tragically brief success of larger than life rap legend Notorious B.I.G. suggested a correlatory relationship between suggested size and success. From the same generic universe, Outkast's Big Boi was once perceived to be a major player of mainstream hip hop. Can it be a coincidence that of these two musical mammoths of the past, one now lies now dead ("East Coast forever y'all"), and the other is perenially eclipsed by his cross-dressing accomplice who exchanged his surname for an arbritrary number?! (Andre 3000 for the uninitiated) The world once marvelled when Fats Domino stormed the jazz world with his fat piano fingers, but we marvel no more.

I initially conceived of this post as identifying this gradual 'sizemic' shift as a chronological development. I would triumphantly prove that, just like the irresistible reprise of the Mini Cooper, our fascination with small things since the dawn of the new Millenium had penetrated into our musical lifeblood.

But I was wrong. As I rumbled and routed through my dad's ancient records an epiphany dawned upon me: we have always delighted in the smaller stars of music. The first rock n' roll generation gave us Little Richard, The Small Faces triumphed with their rhythm and blues revivalist sound and Lowell George's timeless country outfit Little Feat collaborated with the likes of Emmylou Harris, Jackson Browne and The Byrds.

Things bode well then, for microscopic, self proclaimed 'Star in the Hood' Tinchy Stryder, of illiterate UK Grime pioneers Ruff Sqwuad. Perhaps the smallest pop star the UK has seen since Mini Me duetted with Mike Myers on Top Of the Pops. Incidentally, look at what one drawling incomprehensible fan scrawled on Tinchy Stryder's website fan forum:

tinchy stryder dah love i have for yuuh iz to emosh tuuh describe i love yuuh tuuh bits keep doin wht ur doin coz boi im luvin datt styl xxsan-san xx

Clearly, small is here to stay. Tinchy asks of us in his eponymous chart topping new song: "Won't you take me back?" The truth is Tinchy, you never really left...

Great Expectations

2009-02-10T10:27:00.001-08:00

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.
(Charles Dickens, 'A Tale of Two Cities')

Studying English Literature at University, I was inevitably acquainted with a young man named Pip, whose life - to cut a long story short for all you would-be Dickens enthusiasts - is more or less ruined by his incidental massive fortune, bestowed upon him by an initially anonymous benefactor.

Now, I'm not saying that the chance at a privileged education through school and University has in any way significantly damaged me - I'd have to be just a bit of a spoilt bugger to do that. However, the opportunities I've been given in recent years do bring with them a burden that at times verges on the unbearable: Great Expectations. It's an entirely psychological phenomenon and without substance; this feeling that everyone demands success from you is simply a projection of your own frustrations and desires. And I expect this condition to affect more and more people my age as the months rattle on, and clever, energetic graduates face the disappointment of rejection from employers.

In some ways, this condition has sprung from our fairly arbitrary outlook on education. Get your degree, do some work experience along the way, apply in advance for the graduate training schemes, and bob's your uncle, who wouldn't want to employ you?! Err... everyone. But the golden era of such lassitude seems to be coming to an end.

I've got a job for the time being; it isn't exactly the direction I want to be headed, but as long as I keep my genuine interests ticking over in the background, I'm not worried. Watching the world's largest forest fires raze entire Australian towns to the ground puts it in perspective somewhat.

Incidentally, Pip's life is, almost in tandem, ruined by a beautiful woman who perpetually haunts his life, effortlessly inspiring his love time and time again, but never returning it. To put across an inappropriate analogy, you could say that I am said beautiful woman... if you replace 'love' with 'overdraft', and 'Pip' with 'Natwest'.

I nearly balti'd out the door

2009-01-26T02:58:00.000-08:00

There are twenty of us in a curry house. For all the poppadoms and the chutneys, the subsequent array of dishes and the good service, I am still astounded when the bill arrives.

18 quid each!

And its bring your own. It doesn't add up. As our ability to exert power over our financial lives weakens by the day, I catch myself wondering what constitutes 'silly money' these days. Last week's back pages were dominated by one story - the potential transfer of AC Milan's zealous world beater Kaka to Manchester City FC brokered in excess of £130 million. Just think of all those zeroes. The press jump on it, citing the figure as an "immoral" sum of money; the tabloids postulate that the new Sheik owner is living in "La-La-Land", when compared to the rest of us ordinary muckers.

(NB. for a fully loaded and very funny anecdotal assessment of the Kaka fiasco, look no further than my good friend Tom Greaves' blog - http://www.tomgreaves.com/ )

They're right, of course. Mathmatically unendowed as I am, I personally can't begin to grasp the sort of money these people are talking about. But in light of the downturn in the Western World's economic fortunes, I think we're all beginning to question the pecuniary injustices of much less significant practices: The forgettable percentage Ebay claims off every online transaction; The shocking cost of regular bathing; the cost of a two course curry.

I'm not at all sure how much money Channel Four will make off Big Brother's ratings boost (from media coverage it seems like they're going to have to merge with Five anyway) but surely paying ex-Sugababe Mutya Buena in the region of £80,000 to sit in a house, bored out of her skull for a few weeks constitutes an unreasonable investment. While we're on the subject of television, my household has to pay an annual licence fee of £120 to the government, but our digital reception is so bad, we can't even pick up the BBC!

There are so many costs to be counted in adult life that its hard to put money out of your head sometimes. When you're as lazy with figures as I am, it can sometimes feel like your outgoings are welling up around you, giant innumerable masses that plague every ATM visit with unassailable guilt.

I'm reminded in these moments of Ralph Emerson's simple truism, "Money often costs too much". I feel transiently ashamed that I let the dinner bill ruin my enjoyment of a relaxing night out with friends. But come on, eighteen bob? You're rogan joshing me aren't you?!

On a dark desert highway...

2009-01-19T05:42:00.000-08:00

They have doormen. And receptionists. What is this place?

It's not just Job Centre, that's for sure. It's Job Centre Plus. More in common with a luxury Barbadian resort than a queue for the dole. With such a pleasant introduction I expect the bespectacled greeting boy with greasy hair to ask me to take my shoes off and sit on comfy beanbags in the corner with a PS3. With great disappointment, I decide I'm expected to keep my footwear on and I peer around the corner to see a collection of cold plastic seats, all inhabited by a variety of people, old and young and representing the diverse rainbow of society.

"You wouldn't believe the number of people we're getting in here every day now," sighs the lady who eventually sees me, visibly relieved that I'm not a nutter. We go through my situation. "I was laid off, the radio station I worked at went under." She grimaces and types 'Laid Off' in the 'Status' section of my online entry, which makes me a little uncomfortable - is that the best summary of ME they can come up with? What about 'Charming' or or something? 'Rugged'? Nope, 'Laid Off' it is and shall forever be.

Then we go through employment options. Where do you want to work? "Well working in radio was fun, something similar to that." She looks up at me with a hard stare, as if I'm taking the piss. "Obviously," I compensate, "You're probably not going to have much going in that way here, though." She assents, and I try a different tack: "Ive got a bit of experience in PR and communications...anything like that on the system?" Quick check. Nothing.

In the end, we settle on a compromise; there's a temping office admin job going at Heineken down the road in Gyle. She's relieved I'm applying for something, anything, and I'm envisioning the discounts I might be entitled to.

Work is just around the corner, and I can tell you that for a fact because if I'm still unemployed in three weeks I have to go to a - surely horrendous- group therapy session to claim my money. This whole institution reminds me of the Eagles' immortal Hotel California. With its seductive exterior, Job Centre Plus has initiated me into the nightmarish and seemingly inescapable world of social security.

"You can check in any time you like but you can never leave." Cue wailing guitar solo.

The Kids Are Alright

2009-01-03T05:57:00.000-08:00

Let me whisk you back to the summer of... 2008.
It feels longer than it reads. The current dearth of warmth and sunlight reminds me of that interrogative technique Jack Bauer resourcefully utilises in '24'; he sends a bloke insane by depriving him completely of sensory awareness for about half an hour, but the victim believes he's been in captivity for days or weeks. Ingenious.

But let's return to that excellent Summer only a few months ago, when a bunch of us ventured down to Truro in Cornwall to make the most of the Sun's oh-so-fleeting rays in our armada of second hand hatchbacks. The car boots were busting with booze and barbeque-able meats, Joel had rigged up a gadget that allowed him to speak to his Fiat's mp3 player, and boardshorts and sandals were the order of the day.

But only hours into our week-long holiday, we were faced with our first incidence of social prejudice as a police car overtook us on the motorway and its uniformed occupants just glared at the lot of us, shaking their heads. They clearly felt that a fleet of vehicles packed with young adults in beach-vests and boardies meant trouble, and they weren't alone in that opinion. When we stopped to stock up at a discount supermarket, disgruntled locals passed similar knowing glances, echoing the hushed exchanges of the hurricane-enthusiasts from the 1996 CGI masterpiece, 'Twister', that usher in that fateful 'level 8' storm.

It was George Herbert who memorably pointed out that "Living well is the best revenge", and that's how we went about clearing our reputations, having been collectively initiated into the dark underworld of Cornish society. Highlights included a day-long giant sandcastle building competition pitting the girls against the boys, daily body-surfing and a communal game of cricket. Any behaviour that might have offended the sensibilities of residents took place behind closed doors and at the end of the week, an older man who worked for the National Trust came up to us and told us that we were, word for word, "a real credit to young people everywhere". Revenge is sweet.

It's very easy to feel a bit superior, because we live in a time when we can barely open the newspaper without reading about yet another knife or gun fatality at the hands of a young person. It's for this reason that I would have loved to direct all these naysayers to Edinburgh's Hogmanay to see in the New Year a few days ago, where a distinct majority of the Street Party-goers were either in their teens or early twenties. They would have been impressed, and I hope a little humbled, by the goodwill and respect that generated an unbeatable atmosphere.

Let's take this to be a good omen for 2009; and, while we're at it, let's make a New Years' resolution to applaud young people when they get it right, instead of victimising a whole generation because of the actions of a few.

The Sprint

2008-12-17T12:09:00.000-08:00

It's a good thirty second sprint from my car to the glass-faced entrance,

Which would be fine if it weren't chucking it down in Biblical proportions. There are a few hard bits of hail; I can hear them thudding on my windscreen sickeningly. I have prepared for almost every eventuality; I have my National Insurance Number, passport, spare CV, all in my man-bag; my aftershave and a spare tie are sealed discreetly in a side compartment. I even brought recent energy bills just in case they don't believe I'm really who I say I am, as if someone would brilliantly send me to represent them at such an occasion. Yes, I'm at an interview for a prominent graduate training scheme, that all-consuming Leviathan of the higher education system. I am fully prepared. Except I forgot the umbrella.

It's actually more like forty or fifty seconds,

Time spent locking my door must be taken into consideration. Fumbling with my keys, my inability to function in this nightmarish blizzard means that an onlooker could conceivably mistake the mundane task of securing my vehicle for a mild epileptic seizure.

I'm running. Admittedly, it's more of a competitive walk initially, because I'm pretty sure my prospective boss is scrutinising me from a universe of office windows. It becomes a sprint when I realise that my perfectly ironed shirt is going to be graphically displaying my nipples if I don't get a move on. Oh yes, I'm sure I'll get the job if my body language inadvertently suggests I've got the horn for my employer.

Out of the rain, and into the lions' den. Or dragons' den. I'm not sure which, its a bit of a mixture of reality TV and conventional knowledge. A bespectacled gentleman wisely donning an umbrella, offers me an open door handle on his exit and smiles, sympathising with my predicament. I can see the whole pack of wannabes through the second glass door, all eager to get their hands on the same reward. They're generally a bit older than I had imagined and I'm surprised by the number of women going for the position, and this is because I have ignorantly interpreted Deborah Meaden as representing all business women. And I'm not being mean, but pretty much all of them do look like Deborah Meaden. One in particular has committed herself to the 'Power Bitch' look, the sort who ruthlessly brokers deals for tobacco companies and then burns off the guilt kickboxing at the gym. Later, I will come to discover that she has a slightly wonky eye, at which point I will regret my impulsive distaste for her stylistic tendencies out of pity.

The four hours of intense questioning and scenario-pitching can best be described as a hybrid sporting tournament, combining the eliminative qualities of a particularly dangerous Formula One race with all the pomposity, deception and ridiculousness of a Crufts championship. Candidates intermittently rule themselves out of the running with unforgiveable errors; one punctuating their speech with inappropriate and uncontrollable nervous laughter throughout, to quoting Russell Brand's answerphone message word for obscene word. To reclaim my incredibly relevant canine metaphor, these prize dogs are skipping around the circuit with grace and poise, and all of a sudden, they're sitting on the floor and pissing everywhere. The rest of us watch this masochistic ritual with a mixture of horror and delight. Hopefully I'll have impressed enough to make it through to the next round by virtue of not having made a complete arse out of myself. Or maybe they'll catch me out and realise I've entered myself into the wrong category altogether.

"Bye!" "You were great," "Good luck!" Out the door, and I'm running.

Branding ... Politically incorrect?

2008-09-29T05:08:00.000-07:00

WATCHING the recent political sparring on both sides of the Atlantic has got me contemplating style rather than substance. Barack Obama and John McCain were embroiled in heated battle on Friday night, or so we were led to believe by the sensationalist American (and, to an extent, British) press who understandably see the benefit of drawing as much blood as possible from this political rock of a confrontation.

Let's be honest, sparks did not exactly fly. One of the candidates refused from start to finish to make eye contact with the other, eliminating the slim but wonderful possibility of a physical brawl, which, whilst we're on the subject, would be a good way of weeding out the weaklings for this demanding role. If only they had consulted me sooner.

No, this was a tepid occasion, and apart from the American news Networks, I doubt anyone gained much from it, least of all blood-baying viewers. It seems in politicians' natures to play it annoyingly safe in these potentially very rewarding circumstances. Just look at Gordon Brown's big chance to turn his opinion polls around with his much anticipated speech last week. It was received by the British public as...well...OK, but that's not really anywhere near good enough in his present meagre condition is it? So why didn't he go all out, give a really bold explosive rallying cry, shake some walls, grab his nuts and grit his teeth and hope for the best?

I imagine its because we'd all think he was a bit of a loon. We don't mind the Google brand putting itself out there as wacky and weird, positioning itself as the funny, crazy but ultimately immature uncle who comes over for Christmas, but as soon as we see a politician do something a bit different its all over for them. To succeed in politics, you have to have a very solid view of 'normality' - it makes logistic sense; the mainstream population share your view, vote for you, bob's your uncle... So political branding has always appeared to be a different kettle of fish to product branding.

But should it be?
Which is the more trustworthy brand, M&S or Gordon Brown?
The public's collective consciousness can tolerate, enjoy, and even grow to love products that are imbued with a certain artificial significance through advertising and marketing, but I don't think that we will ever receive politicians with that same carefree consumerist acceptance. Too damn sneaky.

Cultural recessions don't exist... I think.

2008-09-14T04:33:00.001-07:00

It is fortunate that money and cultural production share very few characteristics. Granted, they are both fundamentally imaginative creations, intangible concepts critical to happiness and fulfillment in the civilised world. But imagine the Minister for Culture projecting a 'cultural recession' for the next three years or so:

"We expect the consistently low quality of theatre in the U.S. and Russia to spread transcontinentally in the next few months. Families and businesses should protect themselves by booking tickets to plays well in advance. And please, don't panic buy, that will only make the plays worse faster. Before you know it, we'll have Grindley High School for Girls performing their sickeningly underinterpreted modern homage to 'As You Like It' hitting the National Theatre by November."

"Equally, the prolific inflation of Indian and Chinese pop music is going to have a devastating long term effect on the British pop industry. Expect to see the majority of published artists plucked exclusively from the ranks of X-Factor and Pop Idol talent shows, all simultaneously releasing the collected hits of Robson and Jerome. Toothless old buskers who believe that Paul Simon still epitomises 'cool' will be scorching up the charts to Number 2 (of course, given the recession, there will be no such thing as Number 1)."

"Speaking candidly, visual art is simply going to go down the pan. With confidence low in British talent, professionals will simply start drawing stick people with pencils on A4 paper. We expect many artists to produce representations of absolutely nothing, on no canvas."

The future's bright.

Fleshy Advertising

2008-08-29T06:40:00.000-07:00

As a dedicated consumer, I often find myself considering exactly what it is I'm paying for when I hand over hard earned cash for clothes. About a year and a half ago, I became obsessed with the American Apparel clothing brand, or rather 'brandlessness' - AA's produce is totally slogan free. I'm not entirely sure what it was that attracted me so much to the concept; all I remember is the distinct feeling that wearing their T Shirts somehow equated to a small victory over the faceless commercial conspiracy; I could feel smug in public, smirking at 'Gap' and 'FCUK' exhibitionists. Shameless, I thought to myself, sipping my Starbuck's Brew of the day (sourced from Nicaragua or somewhere) and lightly swooshing down the pavement in my Nikes.

This might be stating the obvious, but the propensity within us to eschew consumerism is inevitably a doomed one. Our only option is to embrace the mythology of 'branding', even if it opposes values of peculiarity and originality. Once we can allow ourselves to enjoy this social phenomenon, all we have to worry about is the countless precious hours spent on the internet deliberating over our next advertising installment.

Walking home through Edinburgh today, I was assaulted by that sneaky consumer guilt once again; two post-pubescent lads bopped past me, topless and clearly very pleased with their well toned torsos. Great, I mentally intoned, at least these guys have opted to advertise themselves instead. Then I put my head down; apparently, it's possible to be culturally appreciative AND not want to get mugged.