Sunday 20 December 2009

Freedom 90 - George Michael and a job working for BCCI Bank in the City



I had a 'spine- tingle' tonight whilst trying to put together a Christmas present for my 2 year old son. Both kids in bed, wife watching George Michael in Concert on Sky 1 and me with a bloody huge box with an unassembled table, 7 metres of wooden train track and an allen key.

George Micheal was doing his encore and came out and asked the crowd in Earls Court what song they wanted to hear. Then the drum intro to Freedom kicked in. It took me straight back to my first job in the City. These are the thoughts it evoked.

Still living at home with parents but feeling all grown up. Spending nearly a third of my salary on a season ticket to get to and from work. Being all grown up with a packet of Malboro Reds and a brass Zippo lighter, mints and a Next Suit.

Against my parents wishes I decided to swerve University and got a job for an international bank called B.C.C.I. The Bank of Credit and Commerce International. For those of you in the know, you'll know that this bank was basically a front to launder drug cartel money, clean it and then move it around the world. It was a massive operation with branches worldwide and plenty of branches in London with lots of marble toilets and gold taps. I worked first at Leadenhall Street and then later at the Charing Cross Road Branch. It was closed down by the Bank of England in 1991

Amusingly over the years since the closure, my old branch on Charing Cross Road ( opposite Centrepoint) became an Ann Summers Sex Shop, then a Benjy's Processed Meat Sandwich Shop and now I think it's an EAT.

We used to be allowed to smoke at our desks and I had a massive BCCI hexagonal brown smoked glass ashtray on my desk. I still have this at home, in the shed as a door stop. I was given it as a leaving present by my manager when I left to become a commodities broker. Nice present!

This song evokes feelings and memories of hope and excitement. Job in the City, good prospects and the first steps of a career. When I was at BCCI I wasn't aware of any of the stuff that was going on. There was no internet, no twitter, no blogs, no mobile phones, no texting, no email. My mum and dad had read some stuff in a 'big paper' but I really didn't have a clue that the bank was already under a lot of scrutiny. I wanted to get into Trading either Currency or Soft Commodities and when an opportunity came up I left the Bank.

The whole point of this Music Memories Blog is to capture those moments as and when they occur and hearing Freedom by George Michael did just that tonight. That was nearly 20 years ago... Wow...

I still haven't finished building the table that my son's train set is supposed to sit on and I'm trying to watch a Bluray of Terminator Salvation with the sound set on bloody quiet. It's not happening...



All Saints - The Remix Album mixed by Pete Tong



This CD has an HMV sticker on the back bottom right corner with 'Normally £9.99, sale price £6.99.' I must have hunted this bargain out either in the Colchester HMV but probably the big HMV on Oxford Street. I would put the year at either 1998 or 1999. I wasn't a huge All Saints fan at the time, so I think my girlfriend who became my wife may have had an influence. I started seeing her officially in 1998. I think I've seen a 'Saints and Sinners' CD floating about too. In fact, now I'm thinking about it, I reckon I was in Soho buying dance records from Blackmarket Records and she, the future wife may have gone into HMV and found this.

I've played this today a couple of times. It's got all the big hits as dance remixes and Pete Tong has mixed all the tracks together as a continuous mix. It's a bit cheesy at the start and really only gets going with the Timberland Remix of Lady Marmalade. In the main, the style reminds me of the Speed Garage genre of house I used to like playing. The CD then slowly gets a little harder, but not too hard.

When I first heard this again today, the dubby no vocal bits of this mix CD reminded me of the stuff I used to play when I DJed out. I was playing out every week during this period of my life. The music I liked to play and listen to at home was not the stuff I played in Bars. My own tastes were a lot darker and harder. This speed garage, girly vocal happy non offensive stuff was just what the evening bar punters wanted.

I haven't heard this all the way through for years. It was really nice to hear it again, made me feel quite warm and nostalgic about my life a whole decade ago. Happy times, getting it together with my future wife and still having a laugh every weekend in town. I was still caning it a bit, which was nice.

Seeing as this CD was purchased around the time I started seeing my future wife. I might slip it on again later and see if it magically transports us both back 10 years to before the wedding, kids, responsibility, big house, sensible car, early nights, nappies, no more nights out....... She'll probably just say, turn that shite off, Coronation Street's on...

(as I'm writing this, my 4 year old daughter is playing Bejewelled 2 on my iPhone,  oh how my life has changed)


Saturday 19 December 2009

Anastacia - Not That Kind CD Rediscovered and sledging in 2nd day snow.


Let me set the scene. It's warm and toasty indoors, it's been snowing outside for a couple of days. The kids went sledging yesterday with their mum when I was at work. The snow was lovely, soft and clean and fresh. The kids loved it. Today the snow is icy, dirty and horrible. As soon as we got to the hilly field they started to moan about being cold. So I had a couple of goes on my own and then trudged home. There's no longevity with snow in the UK is there?

After lunch, my son had a little nap and my daughter wanted to make Christmas cards. I decided to give her a little musical education and pulled the next CD off my top shelf. I was hoping for something really cool I hadn't listened to in a while. A rediscovery of a hidden treasure like the Adam F 'Kaos' CD of earlier in the week. Imagine my delight when I pulled Anastacia 'Not That kind'.

I do remember this album vaguely, there's all her big hits like 'I'm Outta Love' , 'Not my Kind', 'Cowboys and Kisses'. This is playing now for the 2nd time. She's got a voice that you've got to be in a certain kind of mood for. Like Duffy or that bloody Macy Gray.

It's an okay album. I remember thinking the first time I saw her that she looked like one of the Appleton sisters from All Saints. I didn't and wouldn't have bought this album. I can only assume it belongs to the wife. If you like powerful female voices with large cheesy american production numbers, you'll enjoy this. I've made myself ( and my daughter ) listen to this twice this afternoon.

Time to press eject and hide Anastacia away again for a few years. Life's too short to listen to this too much. See ya!



Friday 18 December 2009

The Avalanches - Since I Left You 2000 ish



Who remembers The Avalanches? I sure they were like a cartoon band before the Gorillaz. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm pretty sure I remember them going up to receive an award and a couple of real Eskimos or Aborigines went up and collected on their behalf. Anyway I can't actually remember what the band look like or anything. Where were they from, anyone know?

The album itself is pretty cool, couple of stand out tracks 'Since I left You' and 'Frontier Psychiatrist'. The frontier track always makes me smile because my good friend is called 'Dexter' and he actually is 'Criminally Insane'. The video for this track was all over MTV at the time.  The style is like an old school mix tape, it's hard to define the genre, it's definitely dance beats, chilled, cartoony and well produced. If you listen to it a few times you can hear loads of samples from other records.

I reckon I got this CD from MVC in Colchester, there's a Tesco's Metro there now. That was THE music club and video store in town in them days. On listening again it reminds me of moving into my proper house, having a real open fire for the first time and a dodgy pub style Axminster carpet in the living room. The year must have been 2000, my dad said that the carpet was a top quality carpet.  I said he could have it. He declined.


The people who owned the house before us had a massive hairy Irish Wolf Thing Dog, my parents bought us a Dyson and it was amazing how much fur/hair this thing shed into that carpet. We had hair in the Dyson for nearly a year. It put us off having pets. This album also reminds me of planning our Wedding. I was trying to work out what we could save money on so I could get that horrible pub carpet replaced ASAP.

Our wedding pictures have a couple of shots of the Bride getting ready at home and she looks like she's getting ready in a pub...



Thursday 17 December 2009

Feel Robbie Williams Single and memories of Knebworth




I was on Twitter tonight and saw a post from helen_b who tweeted listening to Feel by Robbie Williams.

I put it on, I love this track. It reminds me of the era of early married life, having our own business and the summertime. Robbie was doing the Knebworth gigs and I managed to get 4 tickets. My mate and his girlfriend and me and my wife went to the gig on the Saturday night. My mate worked for Volkswagen at the time and was allowed to borrow any car at the weekends. He turned up to collect us in a Silver Beetle Cabriolet and we went to the concert in style. Hood down, beautiful Saturday afternoon, smoking cigarettes and listening to Robbie CDs driving the back roads of Hertfordshire.

We got to Knebworth, parked up and walked onto the Concert site. The site was so huge, we couldn't see the stage but had an excellent view of one of the screens. We had to queue up for everything, toilet, food, drinks, drinks tokens. I'm a man who enjoys comfort and hates being bounced about in crowds.

When Robbie came on, all was forgiven. He was amazing and when he sang 'Feel' I cried. When he finished, 100000 people piled out. I watched a moving mass of humans as far as the eye could see just moving towards the car parking fields. An amazing sight. A bit like Millennium Night in London. Like a mass exodus of biblical proportions.

I love this song. The best Robbie song in my humble opinion.



Adam F 'Kaos' a forgotten classic hip hop album from 2001




This is precisely the reason why I started this musical memories blog. I pulled this CD out of my top shelf this morning, looked at it and had no idea about it. I thought hard and the only reason I think I have this CD was the fact it was probably an insurance replacement product from the time we had our house burgled in 2000.

We'd been out all day Sunday and then came home at 8pm mildly worse for wear to our front door swinging in the wind. We entered the house obviously shit scared about what we'd find. Luckily it was only a burglary and not a 'vandalise the house and nick stuff' burglary. I remember being a bit offended because they didn't steal my tv. The policeman said that the criminals would have only have been in the house a few minutes and would have only stolen small things. They stole a VHS player, a laptop and a took a pillow case off our bed to put CD's in. I was always very anal about my CD's being in alphabetical order and the thieves took a shelf load from Pet Shop Boys to ZZ Top.

I'll always remember what the policeman said to me about getting my CDs back. He suggested I went to Cash Convertors in town and buy them back. Twat!

I put this on my CD player in my office at home this morning. Wow!!! Unbelievable!!! It sounds like a sweary hip hop version of Guru 'Jazzamatazz'. I thought this and then read the booklet notes and discovered Guru features on one of the tracks. As does De La Soul, Redman, LL Cool J and Huggy Bear. This sounds powerful, cinematic, epic and needs to be respected and played on a proper hi-fi system. So I took it downstairs for a proper loud play.

This album really sounds like a film soundtrack, quality hip hop, you can hear where The Streets, Kanye West, Gorillaz, Jay Z have got some inspiration from. This album was released in 2001 and has been sitting in the A section of my CD collection since then and today was the first time I've had a proper listen to it.

There's nothing nice about being burgled, especially when they don't even take your telly. The only upside to it was the insurance company trying to replace the list of music. I'm racking my brains for a reason why Adam F was sent to me, it must have been a 'near' replacement. I've got a few more of these in my collection and I look forward to finding them.



16 Blocks Bruce Willis and Mos Def and a bloke who looks like Simon Pegg


I watched 16 Blocks on Bluray the other day. It's an action movie starring Bruce Willis as an alcoholic cop, Mos Def as the 'baddie' and a bloke called David Morse who looks so like Simon Pegg it made me laugh all the way though the film. Below is a brief synopsis of the film from IMDB.

'New York police detective Jack Mosley (Bruce Willis) is on his way home when his lieutenant assigns him a simple task of escorting a petty criminal, Eddie Bunker (Mos Def), from lockup to the courthouse which is only 16 blocks away. Jack has been a police officer for over 20-years, and now he is over the hill with a bad leg and a drinking problem. All Jack wants is to get a bottle and go home. What Jack doesn't know is that Eddie made a deal with the District Attorney to testify against a fellow police officer at his station before a grand jury. A van with two hit men are following Jack as he leaves the station, and their job is to kill Eddie before he can testify. Jack prevents the assassination, and they escape the scene and run into a bar. Jack calls for backup, and his ex-partner Frank Nugent (David Morse) and his team are the first to arrive at the bar. Unfortunately for Eddie, one member of the team is the cop Eddie is about to testify against. Jack must choose between his fellow cops or protecting the life of a criminal.'

I won't spoil the movie or give any plots away. I really enjoyed the film. It was a random pick from Lovefilm.com. I bought a bluray player a couple of months ago but didn't want to amass a collection of blurays so decided to join lovefilm.com. They send me 2 discs at a time to watch. Brilliant!!!

Anyway, Bruce Willis is really good in this film, he looks like he smells real bad. Whiskey seems like it's wafting from every pore of his body. The funniest thing is that he shakes a packet of Mint Tic Tacs and pops one in his mouth before speaking to anyone. I don't even buy Tic Tacs because they are the worlds mildest mint. How Bruce can think a solitary Tic Tac will mask the smell of Canadian Club on his breath is beyond me. I've tried extra strong Lockets on a morning after the night before and people can still smell beerios. Tic Tacs my arse...

It's always good to spot gratuitous product placements in movies, this film had a few. Canadian Club Whiskey, Tic Tacs, Motorola Phones, Sony Dictaphone, Casio Wristwatch.

It's a really good action movie, cops gone bad etc, the ending actually made me cry. Funniest line in the film is from Mos Def when he realises Bruce is an alcoholic.

'I thought he smelt funny...'

One amusing aspect of the whole film is to imagine that David Morse is actually Simon Pegg from Hot Fuzz, How to Lose Friends, Run Fat boy Run etc. It made me chuckle all the way though.

I'm listening to the Adam F album called 'Kaos' whilst writing this, more on that later


Wednesday 16 December 2009

Naughty - Adamksi in about 1992/1993


The name of the album sums up the era in one word for me. NAUGHTY. I bought this in either 1992 or 1993. I'd left working in the City and went local. Because my job was in the next big town I decided to buy my first bachelor pad in that big town. It saved kipping on people's floors after nights out after work. I must been 21 or 22 when I bought this CD and the same age when I bought my first house.

I went out and ordered a double bed for my bedroom and I remember my Mum asking me why I had a double bed in my room. I couldn't answer that question really. Not to my mum.

Leaving home and buying my own house was an amazing feeling. Especially when having my own house meant I could do what I absolutely wanted! I was very naughty during this era. Far too naughty to write about on this blog.

Naughty is Adamski's 2nd Album, I think. There have been more but this was the last one I bought. I'm pretty sure it came from MVC in town. I'm not sure if they were a national chain. Music Video Club. You joined, got a card and then got a discount buying CD's and Videos.

Listening to this also reminds me of my 2 identical 2 seater sofas. These were the first bits of furniture I ever chose, again a huge event in my life. I remember choosing the fabric in a furniture factory in Clacton. They cost a packet because they were hand made however I sold them to a mate in 2005 so they lasted me 13 years. You get what you pay for. He's still using them. My wife of now reckoned I'd been 'naughty' with other girls on them, so made me get rid. I did have a good time then.

The standout tracks on this album are 'Born to be Alive' and 'Time Capsule'. The album has been sampled by loads of other artists. There are loads of sounds and riffs that are still being used now. I do like this album, but I love 'Musical Pharmacy' his first album. I would have played this loads when trying to entertain girls with my bad Spag Boll or Spam Curry.

This album invokes a feeling of 'freedom' and of being, a very naughty boy...

Check it out, definitely worth a listen if you are in your late 30's, enjoy proper electronic music from a pioneer of Dance.





Tuesday 15 December 2009

My earliest musical memory

I often try and cast my mind back to the earliest memory I can remember involving Music.

Time after time I can hear 'Downtown' by Petula Clark. I can remember being only about maybe 4 or 5. I can see the house. It was the first house I can remember, end of a road in the outskirts of a town in Hertfordshire. We definitely lived here during the Queen's Silver Jubilee because I remember the massive street party. ( what ever happened to street parties?)

Obviously Downtown was first released in the 60's. My memories of this song are in the early to mid 1970's. I'm not sure I can remember how I heard it. I vaguely remember a green cassette in an orange opal estate car, the smell of petrol and my dad scraping ice off the windows. Did cars in the mid 70's have cassette decks in them?

Anyway, I'm racking my memory banks for another song and I can't think of anything earlier. I have a vague hint of 'Save all your kisses for me' but I can't even place that. I'm settling on 'Downtown' by Petula Clark as my earliest Musical Memory.



Monday 14 December 2009

Fat Bottomed Girls by Queen iphone ringtone creation with Garageband and then after!!!


Monday night without Flashforward is dull dull dull. Monday night WITH Flashforward is just plain dull but at least the wife and I can watch something we both want to watch. That's the problem with spending the best part of a months wages on a Sony HD big bugger that hangs from the living room wall. Neither of us wants to watch the little thing in the bedroom. ( no sniggering at the back please...)

I decided to fire-up the Macbook and create a ringtone from Fat Bottomed Girls by Queen. I have, for ages thought that it would be THE funniest thing for my iPhone to ring during a big pitch meeting at work and have the first 20 seconds of that intro playing.

'Ohhhhh, you gonna take me home tonight...Oh you gonna something something something...Ohhh you gonna blah blah....

Fat Bottom Girls You Make the Rocking World Go Round'

So, I did it, whacked it over to my iPhone and now I'm just waiting for someone to call me. I posted about this on twitter and ended up chatting to gashead and lucasblack. Both bloggers and both far better bloggers than me. I'm going to use Google Reader and 'follow' a few blogs I've come across over the past few months since I started blogging. Thanks for the advice chaps.

I got some inspiration and some confidence tonight from my twitter friends... Cheers guys.

Now, for Fat Bottomed Girls and Bicycle Race double AA side single.

I was given this single by my Uncle B in the very late 70's. I remember this because I had my own bedroom and wasn't sharing with my brother anymore which meant we had moved to the bigger house with the cellar. My Uncle was at University at the time and was like an older brother to me. I was about 7 or 8 and he was at least 18 or 19. He had a motorbike, long hair and a leather jacket. I remember having this one 7 inch single but not having a record player in my bedroom. I was obviously amazed with the sleeve but realised even at that age that if my mum saw it, I'd get told off. My dad had a music centre in the back living room so I devised a plan where I took the record out, put it in a comic and took it downstairs to play.

I've still got this record, ironically it's in my dad's stash of Vinyl. I spent years hiding it from him and then it ended up in his records. I think I may have swapped it for a Petula Clark when I finally left home.

My Uncle B finished his degree and then went on to have his own son. Whenever I see his son, how I wished it was me that gave him his first taste of Queen. I have always wanted to offer the same kind of support and 'enlightenment' to my Uncle B's son, my cousin. He's 15 now and could probably show me a thing or three...


Thursday 10 December 2009

Vehicles and Animals by Athlete


I've had this on whilst working this morning. Haven't heard it in it's entirety for a couple of years. I'm glad I dug it out again.

Vehicles and Animals was Athlete's first album. The best track is the title track, if you haven't heard this album before, I highly recommend this. I know this album song for song and note for note.

I takes me back to 2002/2003, I'd just sold my business and went on a nice long holiday. It also reminds me of Chelmsford in Essex for some reason. Maybe because I bought the CD in the HMV in the precinct there. I remember I loved this whole album so much I bought it for my sister as a Christmas present. I also gave copies of it to some people at work. I remember I was a real Athlete evangelist for a while.

If I gave copies to people at work then it must have meant that after my holiday I must have gone back to working for someone else again. The Chelmsford memories must be the Publishing Company I worked at for a while.

It's a happy time, and a happy album about more innocent times. I think the most powerful feeling this album evokes in me is relief. Relief that I sold my business finally and it was time to start a new chapter.

I'm almost certain I downloaded a couple of tracks off this album as MP3s before I bought it. I think I must have been going through my early peer to peer downloading. I'm sure I was still on a dial up in those days.

Final thoughts, warm, happy, sunny and driving up the A12 listening to this. Actually I remember now that I had a CD player in the car at the time. Great Album, all the way through. Hope you enjoy it too.

Wednesday 9 December 2009

Doctor Adamski's Musical Pharmacy by Adamski


This is an amazing album. Definately in my top 10 best albums of all time. It was bought in either 1990 or 1991. I still listen to this CD on a regular basic. Adamski was a electronic music pioneer and discovered Seal. Top tune 'Killer'
This CD always makes me feel optimistic and positive. The era was early work and fresh out of education. Bit of cash in my pocket, my own car and a season ticket to the City of London in a suit.
I was working for an international banking group on Leadenhall Street and paying a third of my wages on my train fare and the rest of my wages to my mum and keeping my Y reg XR2 on the road.
This album triggers memories of the 'Train Club'. The same group of people who caught the same train at the same time everyday during the week. Same seats every morning. I remember watching the 'one off' travellers' sitting in a 'Train Clubbers' seat and the dagger looks from some of the older commuters.
This CD would have been taped onto a C90 cassette and I would have caned it to death on the train commute for months. I used to travel up with an old school friend and I remember we would swap tapes on the way home. This album also reminds me of Depeche Mode and Erasure because that's what my mate had on his cassettes. This is the reason why I love Depeche Mode and Erasure but don't actually own any of it in CD form.
A happy time, positive, new starts, left school, looking forward to the rest of my working life. This is a really great album in my eyes. Doesn't sound dated, if you love electronic music Adamski is the the Granddaddy.
My favorite track is N.R.G Symphony in F minor. The BPM's are a little slower than current dance music but it is truly a classic must have album.

Tuesday 8 December 2009

Aim - 'Hinterland'


I pulled out 'Hinterland' by Aim earlier. This was circa 2003 I reckon.

This is a chilled out downtempo beats type of CD. I first heard this album at my DJ mates house during an after-party with people sitting around chatting after clubbing in London. This was a Pre children but Post wedding period of our lives.

I can see a load of people sat in a lounge, bottles of Jack Daniels and ashtrays full. The atmosphere is thick with smoke and this album is playing gently from 2 Bowers and Wilkins club speakers that are definitely much too large for the room.

I'm also getting the feeling that I was getting too old to be sitting around talking shit to people until sunrise. There is some sadness felt when I heard this again today. It was like a 'time to move on ' feeling. I remember the room was full of young female hairdressers smoking and I was actually really bored with the conversations and goings on. This was also during the time when copying CDs on a PC was easy, as was colour printing on a home scanner. Instead of buying this CD, I remember my mate whizzing me off a disc and copying the cover and popping it in a jewel case for me before I let the house in a cab.

Slightly wonky and hazy time. Best track on the album is 'The Girl who Fell Through the Ice'. It's a good album but I don't really listen to it much these days.


Saturday Night by Whigfield

Who remembers Saturday Night by Whigfield? I heard it for the first time in ages on the Circuit Training PA last week.

It immediately took me back to my first holiday in the Costa del Coach trip in Spain with my girlfriend of the time. (no names will be given) First time abroad with a girlfriend and no grown ups!!!! Wayhey!!! Must have been early to mid 90's.

We were obviously quite young and skint. My girlfriend was looking to buy a 2nd bikini and we eventually found a stall in the town that sold White bikinis at half the price of the next cheapest shop. Obviously a deal was done.

The next day we went swimming in the hotel pool. My girlfriend got in for a swim in her new White bikini and when she got out of the water it dawned on us why it was so cheap! It went completely see thru went wet. I loved that bikini!

I had a Loaded magazine with me to read by the pool ( is that still being published?) and my girlfriend wore funny blocky high heels made from straw?? We drank beer and didn't smoke.

The Whigfield song was played every night at the disco and all day everywhere else. I ended up buying a cassette version of it on holiday. Ahh happy days!

-- Post From My iPhone

The Best of the Art of Noise - Re-listened and Relived


I start my new blogging hobby today. I have picked the first CD on my top shelf of CDs and it's the Best of the Art of Noise. Looking at the case I definitely remember this as being one of my really early buys. I think I may have bought it either in Woolworth's in Braintree or possibly Adrian's in Wickford during my 6th form era.

The first thing that I realise when listening to this again is how fantastic the production is. The date on the CD is 1988 and it's a 'best of' so all the tracks would have been produced and created earlier. The initial 'memory feel' I get from hearing this album is driving my dad's car on my own and parking it in the school car park. This must mean I was in the 6th form and was old enough to drive. I think I must bought this CD in 1988 or 89. I'm thinking I may have gone to Wickford to buy this because the record shop there had more stuff to rummage through. Also having an 'Adrian's Records Wickford' plastic bag was a cool 'badge' to have in the 6th Form Common Room because it meant I could drive, have access to my dad's car and I was brave enough to drive 20 miles to another town to buy music.

There's a couple of film and TV references in the CD. Dragnet 88 from the film of the same name and the Max Headroom track Paranomia which help date the CD to the late 80's. However, weirdly I don't think this album sounds dated at all. The Tom Jones track Kiss has just started. It still sounds pretty cool and sharp.

I don't want to shoot my bolt early here, there's loads and loads of CDs to go. However I do think this CD is a classic. My favorite tracks are Moments in Love and Close (to the edit).

I have had this CD out recently anyway and it always takes me back to the 6th Form, smoking in the Sainsbury's Trolley Shelter over the road from the 6th Form Building, driving my dad's car and scraping ice off windscreens.

I love this album...


Monday 7 December 2009

Revisiting my huge CD collection


I have a plan. I love music and have been buying CDs since about 1985/6. My collection started with Jean Micheal Jarre 'Rendezvous' and Now That's What I Call Music 7 in the 80's and the most recent was M.A.N.D.Y '12 Great Remixes for 11 Great Artists'.

So much has changed since I started buying CDs. The first ones I bought came from Woolworths in Braintree along with some pick and mix. The more recent ones come from Amazon or Tescos. ( I feel mildly guilty about buying music from both these places. However there are no shops in my town's high street that sell CDs at a competitive price.)

What I am planning to do it revisit and relisten to each CD in my collection and write a little about the history of the CD, where I bought it, the feelings and memories it evokes and whatever else comes to mind when I'm listening to it.

I've always been obsessed with music but have realised as I have got older and more affluent the more music I own the less I actually connect with. I remember when I'd buy some thing like 'Running in the Family' by Level 42 it would have been the only CD I would have purchased for a couple of months. I played that CD constantly and knew it word for word, note for note. I don't think it's like that for me now because of the sheer volume and accessibility of music. An album would remind me of a time and place. That's what I want to capture in the blogging.

The rules are simple. The cd and case will be photographed and pic posted. The cd will be listened to either on my proper hi fi downstairs or in my office upstairs. No iPod, iPhones or mp3 or headphones. I do love technology but I want to remain pure for this blog and listen to a real CD on a proper CD player.

I've got over 600 CDs from 25 years of buying music and I plan to start blogging tomorrow.


-- Post From My iPhone

#Mugshot from my mate Ianb74


Ianb74 and I used to hang about in the same group in the 90's going drinking and clubbing. We lost touch as everyone grew up and grew apart but we ended up 'bumping' into each other on Twitter. How random.

He tweeted me a #mugshot today, here it is. Cheers Ian!

Taxi Driver Robbed at Knifepoint in Colchester

Three men brandished knives at a taxi driver and ordered him to hand over his wallet after he had given them a lift in Essex.

The 39-year-old man picked the men up at The Hythe, Colchester, in the early hours of Saturday and was asked to stop in Brook Street.

He was threatened and ordered to hand over his wallet, which contained £200.

The men, who are white and believed to be in their late teens or early 20s, ran off behind flats in Brook Street.

Big lips

One of the thieves was aged about 19 to 21, about 5ft 10in (1.78m) tall, of medium build and had dark hair.

He was wearing a black padded jacket, dark blue tracksuit bottoms and white trainers.

Another, aged between 17 and 20, was about 6ft (1.83m) and of medium build.

He was said to have noticeably big lips. He was wearing a hooded top, dark trousers and white trainers.

Anyone with information on the incident, which happened at 0345 GMT, is asked to contact Essex Police.

Sunday 6 December 2009

Large Euro Notes, currency of choice for the international Drug Dealer


International drug cartels have abandoned the US dollar for high denomination euros to launder millions in illegal profits, Europol has revealed. The gangs no longer use $100 bills because €500 notes – the largest denomination of euro – take up less room when transporting large amounts of cash across the world.

In a single consignment on a British Airways plane bound for London from the United States, US police found £11m worth of drug profits in €500 bills. The Colombian and Mexican cartels' conversion to the European currency is even acknowledged in popular culture: American rapper Jay-Z's video for his single, Blue Magic, features a suitcase full of €500 notes as he sings about "the kilo business".

Rob Wainwright, director of Europol, said last week police forces across continental Europe were tracking the movements of smuggled and laundered euros and had traced much of it back to large drug gangs.

"We have seen examples of high denomination notes hidden in cereal packets, tyres, concealed compartments in lorries, and so on," he said.

The scale of the smuggling operation was revealed in figures from the Colombian National Directorate. Only $300,000 worth of euros were declared as entering Colombia between January and June 2007, but over $551m in euros left the country. Once in Europe, the notes can be exchanged for dollars.

Meredith Kercher Guilty Verdict, spotlight on Italian Justice


Of all the millions of words written about the marathon trial for the murder of Meredith Kercher, some of the most revealing appeared in a dispatch from Italy's leading news agency, Ansa, on Wednesday.

"Certainly, the decision facing the [judges and jurors] will not be an easy one," wrote Ansa's reporter, Matteo Guidelli, as he looked ahead to the final phase of the trial of Amanda Knox and her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito.

"Sentencing to life imprisonment two young people, aged 22 and 25, would mean destroying their lives forever," he continued, "but letting them off would mean gainsaying not only the entire investigation, but also the judges who have reached decisions before them."

It hardly needs to be said that the "danger" of contradicting police and prosecutors would not exactly weigh heavily in the deliberations of a British or American jury. But Italy is not Britain or the US.

For the "Anglo-Saxon" reporters who followed the trial, it was about bloodstains and DNA; contradictory statements and suspicious omissions. So it was for their Italian counterparts.

But for them, as for their readers, there was always a further dimension. Italy is a country in which the preservation of "face" is of enormous importance. And in this case there were many people with reputations at stake: the detectives who investigated the murder, Perugia's prosecutors, who oversaw their inquiry, and the judges who indicted Knox and Sollecito and decided that the evidence was sufficient to keep them locked up for more than two years. Since the case attracted worldwide publicity, the images of Perugia and Italy were at stake, too – Italy's standing as a country that can find and punish murderers, and the city's reputation as one to which the parents of overseas students attending its university for foreigners can entrust their children without qualms.

The question being asked – if only half-openly – yesterday was how much weight the judges and jury had assigned to the factors cited by Guidelli before deciding that Knox and Sollecito were murderers.

The centre-left daily La Repubblica said the outcome was "surprising, and has a certain [Pontius] Pilate-like quality". The paper noted that last year the third accused, Ivory Coast-born Rudy Guede, was sentenced to 30 years. Yet Guede had opted for a fast-track trial, which would normally secure him a lighter sentence. What is more, the prosecution in the trial that ended on Friday night, whose version of the killing was upheld, maintained that Guede was not the material killer. He was claimed to have sexually assaulted Kercher while Sollecito prodded her with one knife until Knox delivered the lethal, final blow with another. Yet Sollecito was given 25 years and Knox 26 years.

A theory voiced by defence lawyers and court reporters early yesterday morning was that the court that tried the two former lovers had deliberately constructed a self-detonating judgment whose internal contradictions made it, in the words of La Repubblica, "eminently changeable on appeal".

Defendants in Italy are allowed two appeals. One view was that Friday's judgment could thus be revised on the first appeal and overturned altogether on the second. That would allow all concerned to save face.

The overturning of the verdict and sentence would be widely ascribed in Italy not to any flaw in the investigation or trial, but to the foreign pressure that was already building up yesterday on the other side of the Atlantic. Clearly, this theory – or something like it – had reached the ears of the Kercher family's lawyer, Francesco Maresca, because he made a point of saying at a press conference in Perugia yesterday that it was "offensive to talk of compromise" by the court.

The decision facing the two professional and six lay judges was scarcely an easy one. And it was made even more difficult by the way investigations and trials are conducted in Italy.

In theory, the police's findings are secret until the moment at which the prosecutors ask a judge for the indictment of some or all of the suspects. In practice, everything of importance in a high-profile case like this one ends up in the media.

But what, in the heat of the chase, can seem like a vital clue or damning admission can later be shown to be untrue or misleading. The six lay judges – effectively jurors – were faced with the near-impossible task of disentangling what they believed they understood of the case when the trial opened from what they subsequently learnt in court.

Not that what they heard in court was all fact. The presiding judge, Giancarlo Massei, made a broad interpretation of what constituted evidence. Witnesses were allowed to repeat hearsay and to give their subjective assessment of people's attitudes and emotions. This was particularly important for Amanda Knox, because a key element of the prosecution's case was that her apparent lack of emotion after the discovery of her flatmate's corpse was an indication of her hatred of Kercher, and that her hatred of the British student had led her to murder her.

Yet very little evidence was produced to sustain that argument. Witnesses who knew them suggested relations between the American girl and her flatmate had cooled as they found new friends in Perugia. But no one claimed to have witnessed anything more than a contretemps between them.

Just what was the motive for the killing was never made clear. At the pre-trial hearing, Giuliano Mignini, who led for the state, hinted at satanic ritual, but that idea was dismissed by the judge in his report on the reasons for indicting Knox and Sollecito.

Other factors poured into the mix by the prosecution included cash belonging to Kercher that was found to be missing from the flat she shared with Knox. According to Mignini in his summing-up, Kercher was the victim of "an uncontrolled, unstoppable build-up of violence and sexual play", involving Knox, Sollecito and Guede. But for what reason?

"We do not know with certainty what intentions they may have had," were his exact words. "But it is possible that there was an argument, which then degenerated, between Mez and Amanda over the money that disappeared. Or perhaps the British student was upset by Guede's presence."

Possible. Perhaps. These were scarcely firm grounds on which to base 26-year and 25-year prison sentences. They were arguably sufficient, though, if the forensic evidence had been conclusive. And it was not.

The defence maintained that the traces of DNA linking Kercher to the supposed murder weapon were inconclusive. The British student's bra clip, which bore a trace of Sollecito's DNA, was not bagged by police until 45 days after the initial forensic inspection. And no evidence of any kind was produced to show Knox had been in the room where Kercher's half-naked body was found.

The room did, however, contain an all-important clue – one which was not there. In Kercher's bedroom there was not a single fingerprint belonging to either Knox or her boyfriend.

Could they have wiped them away? Impossible, said Sollecito's lawyer, Giulia Bongiorno, in her summing-up.

Had they done so, they would have removed Guede's too. Yet "that room was awash with Rudy's prints", she told the court.

Quoting the head of Italy's forensic experts, Bongiorno added that "only a dragonfly" could enter a room without leaving a trace. And, she added, "since they are certainly not dragonflies, it means these two young people are innocent."

Yesterday, as the scaffolding holding the television cameras outside Perugia assizes court was being dismantled and the radio vans were preparing to edge out of the parking spaces they have occupied for more than a week, one of the few certainties in the case was that it had yet to run its full course


The Observer 2009

Saturday 5 December 2009

Carphone Warehouse Complaint Update


I'm pleased to write that Carphone Warehouse sent me a cheque for the full amount of the faulty iphone case. The staff in the 2 shops in Colchester were useless, head office were better and I received a cheque on Friday.

So, please beware of the Griffin Elan Leather Form iPhone case. This case cost £20 and when it gets warm in your pocket or on a call the leather slips off the hard plastic case. The glue isn't set and when it warms up starts to move. The interesting thing was both the 'shop boys' I spoke to said that they had the same problems with this case. They wouldn't refund me in the stores though. I had to get online, moan about it on this blog, advertise the fact that I was moaning about it on this blog, tweet it etc... and then they said as a gesture of good will they would refund my money.

Well done Carphone Warehouse, but I'm still totally underwhelmed by them. I don't really see where they fit into the mobile marketplace anymore. I won't be buying anything from them ever again.

I've posted a picture of the Griffin Elan Leather Form case here. Don't buy it! It's rubbish!