The Solstice Arrives!

Kull-i-Shay 1 - 9 Vahid - Year Vahhab

Another winter has officially started--it definitely feels like it in Britain. The weathercritters predicted snowfall..and lo!...snow fell. We didn't get much, in our little area of the country. We did get plenty of ice on the pavements and frost on the grass.

Apparently, Rage Against The Machine have 'won' the..ahem..'coveted' No. 1 X-Mas spot on the UK charts, over yet another fresh-faced, scrubbed-down X-Factor winner. This year, it's a Geordie called Joe McElderry and his single is The Climb, a syrupy cover of a syrupy original, sung by the annoying Miley Cyrus (I watched her interview on Alan Carr's Chatty Man show--she does seem to be one of the most irritating critters I've witnessed in a long time...it does make me thankful I don't have children, so I don't have to watch her programme or listen to her music). A more-or-less 'grass roots' campaign started to knock McElderry out of the top spot by buying Rage's Killing In The Name (famous for it's "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" lyric), first released in 1994. This critter has some compelling arguments about why the Rage campaign seems an ultimate failure. While it would please me to see "X-Factor" mastermind Simon Cowell upset that his latest pop-by-numbers ballad hasn't dominated the charts, I strongly suspect he's not really bothered at all. The latest run of the show was the most popular by far and I doubt ITV will let it's main cash-cow disappear, despite Cowell's intimations that he may end it for good. A lot of folks have also remarked on RATM's contract with Sony Music, one of the corporate music giants. Ah the irony, fighting the corporatising of music by buying a song released by a corporate giant. "Killing In The Name" seems dated to me now - it's only known for the "Fuck You.." bit. The tune itself seems like generic 90s skate-metal - couldn't anyone have picked a better tune? I thought maybe Pink Floyd's Welcome To The Machine, which describes McElderry's fate almost perfectly, would be a better choice - but then EMI, another corporate giant, would get the money. Oh, I don't know - I don't really give a shit about the charts, so I'm going to stop thinking about it now.

It's also nearly X-Mas...thankfully! X-Mas season seems to go on too long now, especially since some retailers insist on getting the seasonal clobber out in the third week of October! I suppose I'm becoming more of a Scrooge as I grow older. I really can't stand most of the standard tunes (Walkin' In A Winter Wonderland, Jingle Bell Rock, Let It Snow (though I have to admire it's coy 'bad weather = seduction' ploy), etc, etc, ad infinitum..). I'm even tiring of some of the tunes I still kinda enjoy - like Wizzard's I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day and Slade's So Here It Is (Merry Christmas). I did make my own holiday mix a couple of years ago, entitled Have Yourself A Psychedelic Christmas...And A Progressive New Year, as an alternate to all the old warhorses. I think I might give it a spin. See, I'm not a complete Grinch. Remember, war is over....if you want it.

To my regular readers - I apologise for the lack of content this past Gregorian year. I blame Facebook, eBay, Amazon.co.uk and getting out of the house for actual activity. O.K., so the last one seems good to me...otherwise my eyes would've morphed into mini-computer monitors. The others have sucked away a lot of my 'free' time--though I did get some nifty stuff and got back in touch with a lot of old friends, so it appears not to be a total loss. I will attempt to do a bit more blogging in the new year, but I can't promise anything. Thanks for your visits, even if it was just once in a while, or maybe just once.

I'll close this post with some more greatness from Cassetteboy. This time he's taking on the putrid and repulsive Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP. Cassetteboy does a killer splice-n-dice job with Griffin's appearance on Question Time a couple of months back. It's not as belly-laugh funny as the Alan Sugar Apprentice remix, but it does what it's supposed to do--lampoon a racist twat. Check out Cassetteboy's blog, too. Enjoy.