Infamous version of the Sex Pistols classic from TFI Friday which has made Shaun Ryder the only person not to be allowed on any Channel Four  programme that is transmitted live:). Very strong language.

Rachel is the winner, Rachel? Yes she is the one that did nothing for 93 days other than letting everyone that she ‘’was not fake’’. Best friend of Michael and Kat, as you can see I am struggling to say much more.

Who did I want to win? I be honest I could have cared less. As for BB10, I don’t think so.

Think on Channel Four, time to come up with new ways of displaying the general public for our voyeuristic pleasure 

By Martin Couper

A-LIST celebrities including Billy Connolly and The Scissor Sisters will be appearing in television ads due to air this week to promote Scotland to Londoners.

The ads are part of a £1.5 million campaign launched this month to entice UK visitors to the country during the autumn.

They will see the celebs - that also include singer Sharleen Spiteri - either attend or take part in events throughout the country including the Merchant City Festival in Glasgow or the Hogmanay celebrations in Edinburgh.

This latest push for increased tourism comes as the Scottish Tourist Board builds towards Homecoming Scotland 2009 - a year long celebration of Scots culture, heritage and our contributions to the world.

The ads will be aired on ITV, Channel Four and Channel Five as well as a number of satellite channels during prime-time slots.

Bosses at VisitScotland want to reach over 36 million viewers with the campaign that will also see 25 massive outdoor posters around main arterial routes in London encouraging consumers to “celebrate Scotland.”

The majority of Scotland’s visitors already come from within the UK It is hoped that holiday-makers who have been unable to travel abroad because of the credit crunch will now make the journey north of the Border instead.

Philip Riddle, VisitScotland’s chief executive, said: “Scotland has a fantastic range of events, and it is important we look to our strengths during this period of economic uncertainty.

“VisitScotland has a clear and consistent marketing strategy but we have the ability to change our tactics to react to any situation and this is exactly what we have done by targeting UK consumers with this campaign.

“It is particularly relevant to promote our events as we are building towards Homecoming Scotland 2009, which will see 100 superb events taking place across the country.”

The London Underground is also set for A Scottish PR offensive with the use of a pioneering new digital cross track advertising in over 30 stations.

VisitScotland have hailed the new advertising system, believing it is sure to make an impact on Underground users.

Philip Riddle said: “The new digital cross track advertising will be a great way to get London commuters thinking about Scotland. Because it is new, it is sure to catch people’s eye and make a real impact.

“We are the first national tourism organisation to use this type of promotion and along with a month of TV advertising across the UK and other poster advertising in London we hope that we can encourage more people to book a trip to Scotland this autumn.”

The Scottish Government have backed the promotion campaign in London but claim they are also focussed on promoting Scotland as a global brand, as well as domestically

Jim Mather, minister for tourism said: “UK visitors are a key target market as we seek to attract more people to our wonderful country. From our stunning scenery to our compelling history, diverse culture, and friendly people, we have a fantastic tourism product.

“This campaign will be an important tool in our efforts to show the world exactly what Scotland has to offer. It will also be an opportunity to extend an invitation to visitors to join us in our celebration for the year of Homecoming in 2009.”

The noble Romans wiping out those barbaric Brits, this would be the same Romans who turned human sacrifice into a state institution and then sold tickets to come watch it? The blind blokes fighting the midgets, yep, that one always feels my heart with a sense of how civilised the Roman Empire was in comparison to the Celtic and other Barbaric clans. Getting animals to rip eachother to bits and then throw in a few Christians just to spice it up..lovely. They sure knew how to act in a dignified and life enhancing way. Maybe, the Celts sacrificed criminals and prisoners, but it was no worse than any other peoples behaved in those times. In fact, the Druids and the clans of this isle were probably pretty civilised in comparison to others, we didn't ask for the bloody Romans to come marching over here anyway, we were doing very well on our own.

There are many more pressing issues to contend with; war, disease, hunger. Yet the idea of whether there is a god responsible for everything, if so what plans does this being have, and whether such a being is worth bothering about seems to have a hold on people despite the era of magic and superstition giving way to empirical observation and the scientific method.

Dawkins admits that evolution convinced him that there was no need for a god. His honesty that this personal realisation based on facts of the origin of species has for those that wish to build bridges or at least well codified areas of separation between faith and science roll their eyes. That some people believe that the earth has to be a few thousand years old (Answers in Genesis) and that a species could not over time evolve into a recognisable different one seize, not so much on the facts and what they do reveal, but on that evolution leads to a lack of belief in god. Also, that secularism too leads to a lack of belief in god and so both hand in hand lead to a slide into deprivation and immorality.

When it comes to education children need the tools to analyze the facts, what people are saying, and differentiate between the subjective and the objective. These reasoning skills are essential for children to come to their own realizations about life, the universe and everything. Dawkins was careful not to tell the children not to believe in god. However, what he did do was to explain evolution and what fossils are.

There really are people that literally think there was a talking snake in the Garden of Eden. That god can order genocide as in 1 Samuel 15 against the Amalek (including babies) and get pissed off when the best animals are kept alive but that is alright because by the New Testament god is all loving although the idea of eternal hell as a burning torture gets it's first airing there. The Church of England allows Christians not to believe in hell - not on pragmatic or theological grounds but by Act of Parliament. The law recognises that just disavowing hell does not stop you being a Christian.

So in the face of these things we may argue that religious indoctrination should be left out of the classroom, and that people should be given the tools to discover the world for themselves. But as those children revealed they were already prejudiced against something they had not yet learned. The reason why we should care about faith and its battle with science? Quite simply because whether overtly or by undertone how war, disease and famine are tackled is effected by those that claim that faith has an impact on issues from overpopulation to sex to just war. We must recognise that people differ in how their religious belief impacts on their politics, philosophy and understanding of the natural world.

For example when I introduced my friend to Dawkins and she mentioned that she read Theology at our university I jokingly mentioned she should have said that she knows the earth is billions of years old. Faith is not a barrier to science and understanding the world. The issue is that some people try to make it a barrier saying that evolution is not compatible with a belief in god - people are using their own dogma to close people to finding out what and how we know things, often resulting to slight of hands which at best are misleading implications of observed events as I discovered at a talk by Ken Ham.

Watching the episode it was clear that Dawkins was opening the kids up to evolution as a scientific fact, only criticising that allowing the faith you happen to be born in stop you investigating what science reveals - not to fear other ideas despite the faith you happen to be born in. That is not about saying it is either god or science. That is about being open to what gets us closer to the truth of how things are.

Richard Dawkins, the naive professor

It's not a simple choice between God and evolution: none of us can know that there is nothing out there

Firmly I believe and truly that Professor Richard Dawkins is an honest scientist and great communicator. He's magic on telly: his programmes sending up New Agers were fun, especially when he let a lady “replace his Atlantean cells” by blowing on him. As for his reverence for Darwin and evolutionary theory, I share it. Have done ever since school.

My convent school, to be exact. The chief science-nun, despite her wimple and veil, was dead keen on Darwin. Most educated Christians are. Which is why the first episode of the professor's Channel 4 series, The Genius of Charles Darwin, had me alternately cheering and cursing. Talking about evolution, he is terrific. But every few minutes he spoils it by announcing that natural selection means there is, categorically, no God. Not needed as wildlife designer - ergo, non-existent.

Professor Dawkins met a class of children, some of them indoctrinated by that crazily literal minority who think the world began 6,000 years ago on a divine drawing board. Instead of explaining natural selection and letting them work out that maybe the Creator works in more mysterious ways than the Genesis myth, he offered them a choice as stark as any bonkers tin-hut preacher from the Quivering Brethren shouting: “Repent or burn!”

Evolution or God - take your choice, kid! The moment one of them found an ammonite on the beach, Professor Dawkins demanded instant atheism. OK, he is provoked, as we all are, by nutters. But most believers are not creationists. Some are scientists. They reckon that an omnipotent being capable of giving humans free will is equally capable of setting a cosmic ball rolling - Big Bang, abiogenesis, all that - and letting it proceed through eons of evolution, selection and struggle. One of the oddest aspects of Dawkins's TV programme, rich in antelope-mauling and gobbly snakes, was his emotional implication that, gee, Nature is too cruel to have been invented by God! A wet, mawkish, bunny-hugging argument.

Darwin shines; evolution is as marvellous as Dawkins says. But it is not fair to use Darwin's beautifully evolved brain to bang the drum for your private conviction that there is nothing out there. Nobody knows. Not really. Teaching children real science is one thing, making them choose God or evolution is another.

Stupid, too, in a Professor of the Public Understanding of Science. If you offer a choice between science on one hand and faith and tradition on the other, too many people will reject science. A subtle and well-evolved species like us can accept both ammonites and Alleluias. Live with it, Prof.

Richard Dawkins replies to Libby Purves

Professor Richard Dawkins on his television programme about Charles Darwin, evolution and atheism

Yesterday, Libby Purves wrote about Professor Richard Dawkins' television series about Charles Darwin. Richard Dawkins writes in reply:

Sir, In her article about episode 1 of my television documentary, The Genius of Charles Darwin, Libby Purves says that I offered the children a choice “as stark as any bonkers tin-hut preacher from the Quivering Brethren shouting: ‘Repent or burn!’ Evolution or God — take your choice, kid! The moment one of them found an ammonite on the beach, Professor Dawkins demanded instant atheism” (Opinion, August 7).

That is unjust, to the point of outright mendacity, and an insult to any professional educator. It was the creation-indoctrinated children themselves who made the leap: “Evolution = atheism”. I was scrupulously careful not to make that connection in the presence of the children, although I have made it elsewhere, spelling out the nuanced argument in The God Delusion.

She goes on to say, “OK, he is provoked, as we all are, by nutters. But most believers are not creationists.” I expect it’s true that the few believers Libby Purves meets over canapés are not creationists. But “most believers”? Most believers in Bradford? The Scottish Highlands? Pakistan? Indonesia? The Arab world? South America? Indeed, North America? Polls suggest that more than 40 per cent of the British population are creationists. For the subset who call themselves believers, the figure must be considerably more than 50 per cent. Please don’t say “most people”, when what you really mean is Islington and Hampstead Garden Suburb.

I don't know Joanne Massey, 35, personally (thank Heavens) but already I want to wring her stupid fucking neck like a turkey on Christmas Eve.

"I put on some lovely Frank Sinatra music and am completely lost in my own little fantasy world. In our marriage, I am very much a lady and Kevin is the breadwinner and my protector".

At the moment, I am mentally booting Joanne in the gee hole with hob nailed doc martins decorated with nails.

"I don't even put petrol in our Ford Anglia car, which is 43 years old, because I think that is so unladylike. I ask Kevin to do it".

So, Joanne, what do you do if...horrors! You have to drive to the shops and on the way back, run out of petrol? Do you quickly pull into a garage and fill her up, or do you drive until the gague goes to E and just splutter to the side of the road, waiting for the heroic Kevin to come along with a milk carton full of petrol? Actually, do you drive at all, Joanne? Given that it's a man's job and all?

Stupid cunt Joanne is the subject of a Channel 4 documentary called Time Warp Wives which peers into the fucked up lives of women who decide to live in a past decade of their choosing, because modern life is rubbish.

And she's not alone. Debbie, 34, from Staffordshire lives in the ‘40s and won't leave the house without gloves. Diane inhabits some time in the ‘30s and avoids newspapers because the world today is "so depressing".

Nonwithstanding the horrors or war, disease, persecution based on sexuality, sexism, child labour, poverty, HITLER! the Great Depression, prohibition, the arrests of Ghandi, Argintinin military coups, the Holocaust, the Berlin Blockade, Chinese Civil War, The Cold War, Hiroshima, Korean War, Suez Crisis, racial segregation and the Irish Civil War, oooh I guess the past WAS a period of total bliss.

Perhaps the real issue should be addressed. These people are delusional and mentally disturbed. Maybe these women were so ineffectual in the workplace and life in general, they must retreat into some bizarre world which dictates they are second class citizens?

It's like suffrage never happened.

The men who are married to them suffer a similar ego issue. How happy they must be to whistle their way to work every day knowing the little woman is cooking up a stew and will make sure her fanny is sparkling and ready for action when he comes through the door.

The lot of them should be taken out and booted in the genitals.

http://uk-tv-guide.com/programme-details/Channel+4+Plus+1/8+August+2008/19:30/Time+Warp+Wives/Documentary/

It seems to have been a week of good and bad moves by the BBC in terms of their relations with the UK's online community. A schoolboy error with Shiny Media, and hopefully a conversation-opening exercise via TechCrunch. A few thoughts of my own below - and, you'll be pleased to hear, links to much more thorough posts too...

Shiny Media & Panorama

Finally got round to having a read of Ashley Norris from Shiny Media's righteous rant about the uncredited use of Catwalk Queen interviews on the Primark-Panorama expose. I didn't catch the show but it's been talked about TV amongst friends and colleagues so I'm so annoyed for the girls at CQ, and Shiny in general, that they didn't get credited for their input in a major UK fashion story. They were rightly asked to be involved as one of the biggest online voices in UK fashion, but not given the status they deserve. Especially as CQ gave the show some good on-site promotion, going right to the sort of Primark-buying audience who probably wouldn't normally have had Panorama on their radar.

I often hear stories about and from bloggers, about the weird ways they get treated in comparison to journalists and this is just another example. It's good to see the open BBC apology on Ash's post, but it still as he says, leaves a bit of a bad taste in the mouth.

TechCrunch & the BBC

I made it the really interesting BBC-TechCrunch UK debate on Wednesday. The BBC picked up on Mike Butcher's challenge about why they're not doing more to open up and work with the UK's talented and exciting web businesses. A very good question.

So, with TechCrunch they invited other broadcast reps (C4, BBC and Of Com), TechCrunch and UK start-ups to come down and openly discuss what should be done. An encouraging and interesting event, which drew lots of passionate opinions and was generally positive.

What other people have been saying:

Both stories have collided and overlapped a bit this week - see posts below

TechCrunch UK: Live Blog: The TechCrunch BBC debate - MIke's live blog of the debate

Neil McIntosh: The BBC goes a'trampling - interesting resonses form the BBC and Jeff Jarvis

Charles Arthur: Bad form, BBC, re: the bloggers

Arthur Guy: BBC TechCrunch debate - covers the all-important right issue in a bit more detail

Grapevine Consulting: Where have all the women gone? - Points out the rather blokey panel

Virtual Economics: Screwing the Shinies

(Disclosure: I work for Shiny Red, who are connected to the Shiny Media network)

Pues esto último fue lo que lamentablemente sucedió. Un avión de fabricación suiza, de los que se utilizaron para el comercial, se desplomó en tierra española muy cerca de Toledo matando a uno de los paracaidistas y al piloto al instante,  sin embargo dijeron los ejecutivos de Honda: “...el accidente no involucró a nadie conectado con la filmación del comercial, nadie en el avión estuvo en forma alguna vinculado con Honda ni con la agencia o productora del aviso”, agregó el comunicado.

Todos esperábamos que la hazaña publicitaria fuera concretada positivamente, ahora tendremos que esperar para ver qué sucede con los demás comerciales -mismos que se iban a filmar y transmitir en vivo de la misma forma-, ya que al menos iban a ser cuatro más.

Further proof if it was needed that Honda is a great brand.

If leadership is the process of influencing others to achieve your goal then Andrea Williams is one the clearest examples I have come across of that species. In that respect she would be a candidate for running many a commercial organization

This week, political attention in Britain brought into focus issues of the most contested and deeply held kind for many people. Parliament debated the Human Fertilization and Embryology (HFE) Bill.

The Government chose to make it a conscience vote. This was to lead to some differences in how the processes of influence played out. The process of lobbying by interest groups did not disappear, but rather took on a different guise.

Mentioned in Dispatches

The role of one particular lobbyist was captured in a riveting TV documentary by David Modell in the Despatches series.

Modell has won praise and prizes for his work through which he reveals the operations of various groups whose behaviours tend to be labelled as extremist and fundamentalist. Neo-nazis, Animal Rights Activists, Football Hooligans, and now Fundamental Christians. His skill is to win from group members acceptance for his presence as a non-judgmental recorder. While this is an over-simplified view, his filming has a non-judgmental quality, leaving the viewer space to a better understanding of individual behaviours regardless of whether the beliefs and practices are found acceptable.

In this programme one personality dominated by her sheer energy and capacity to make a difference to situations in which she engaged. The central character was Andrea Williams, who seems to be increasingly devoting her efforts to causes within religious networks. Among her roles is that of Policy Director of The Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship.

The Lawyer turned Activist

In an interview for The Church Times, she explains how her upbringing had led to her activism. She also explained how her husband’s job as a senior executive of a telecommunications company gives her the opportunity to devote her time to her religious beliefs

In the programme, we follow Ms Williams in a series of scenes in which she repeatedly displayed a capacity to take control of events by her words and actions. Let her loose in many corporate battlegrounds, and she would quickly emerge on top. Or, perhaps more subtly, as the person influencing the top cat.

Maybe this will happen. If not, it is because Andrea Williams has signed up to a different cause. Her motivations are primarily non-secular.

Modell, writing in The Independent describes one recent example of her influencing skills at work on the Conservative Peer, Norman Tebbit:

Lord Tebbit meets us in Central Lobby and takes us to a meeting room. He and Ms Williams perch across the corner of a huge oak table. Ms Williams is persuading him of the importance of laying an amendment to the Bill. "You can get a slot on the Today programme," she says. "Because you can say, 'I'm tabling an amendment to reduce the upper limit on abortion'."

Ms Williams has already written the amendments she wants incorporated into the legislation. Lord Tebbit is asked if he'd be willing to lay one, and he agrees to consider it. Ms Williams doesn't hesitate in closing the deal. Without missing a beat, she reaches into her bag and pulls out an A4 sheet. The document is passed to Lord Tebbit and he takes it away with him. It seems too easy.

Other examples of the leader captured in action also caught my eye. There is confirmation of the rapid rapport, turning to friendship and political alliance, between herself and Conservative MP Nadine Dorries.

Charisma in action, I muttered to myself.

Indeed, Ms Dorries sponsored an amendment to the HFE bill debated in Parliament (May 19th -20th, 2008), and spoke in the debate in tones that seemed to echo those of her close friend Andrea Williams.

In yet another episode in the film, Ms Williams arrived at a demonstration where events were somewhat complicated by a general lack of focus, exemplified by a well-intentioned supporter who was capturing media attention with a ranting performance. Andrea swiftly marshaled the more media-attractive supporters into line, and made a good stab at shifting the ranting one off-stage.

Modell had also been energetic advancing his own cause. Writing in The Telegraph timed to plug the programme, he noted

I met [Andrea Williams] on a demonstration against the Sexual Orientation Rights [gay rights] legislation outside Parliament at the beginning of last year. The protest had been organized by the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship (LCF) – or, more specifically, by Andrea Williams, its public policy director.

Ms Williams believes any law that goes against her strict biblical beliefs must be fought. Her latest target is the Human Fertilization and Embryology (HFE) Bill … Ms Williams tells me why she is campaigning against it. "I believe there's a spiritual battle going on," she explains. "These laws reject God, and any rejection of God is the work of the enemy, Satan."

In yet another cameo within the programme, we heard the evocative use of statistics which characterizes the charismatic leader. (Yes, I encourage my students to bring statistics to life, but I think I’ll not use this particular example). The number of abortions in this country, she told a rapt audience of fundamentalist Christians, has now reached a scale comparable with that of the holocaust. Her mission is to stop another holocaust.

Leadership Watch

I have no hesitation in offering the case for study towards understanding the nature of exceptional leadership behaviours. The performances of the wannabe apprentices in the Alan Sugar series rarely demonstrate the raw influencing skills witnessed here.

The Problems with Charisma

One of the problems with charisma is one which has troubled earlier researchers into leadership. The very elements that had been attributed to transformational leaders turned out to be too similar to the characteristics found in leaders such as Hitler.

The evaluation of any set of leadership behaviours forces an examination of the leader’s beliefs. Here we have a leader who is driven by a deep sense of mission, and of evils to be tackled. In efforts to achieve the ends she so fervently seeks, she resorts to a form of rhetoric that often attracts descriptions such as spell-binding or magical. It appeals to visceral values and fears.

The style worked for President Kennedy and Martin Luther King many years ago. It seems to be working for Barack Obama at the moment. But in its mechanisms of influence, it can not be disconnected from the performances of an Andrea Williams. Nor unfortunately can it be distanced from the style of leaders who have also been labelled with various clinical terms from narcissism to megalomania.

Andy Till is a Manchester based professional bass guitarist. Andy is experienced in touring, travel, live performance, studio, recording and music media.

Andy has spent the last ten years playing bass guitar, an instrument he started to play at fourteen, but took up and had a serious interest from the age of nineteen.
Before Andy's bass career Andy was a drummer for Nine years working on a drumming career, but after taking up the bass guitar made the switch and has been playing bass and enjoying the life of been a bass player.

Starting out at nineteen on bass Andy joined various Northwest cover bands before moving on to working with an origional band gigging and writing material, looking for a record deal. After this period of time Andy joined a few bands working semi - pro and moved to playing various venues and clubs.

After a period of time working with the semi - pro bands Andy joined full time established touring bands and acts working through out the UK playing the professional venues, events, festivals and Live music venues.

From the full time touring bands Andy has carved a career working as a freelance session bass player.
Andy has toured with various live bands hired in to cover for bass players working on the road, playing recored bass lines and also performing origional music and doing promotional tours for a chart single, origional band promotions and working with the working bands.

Andy is also exeperienced in working in the studio and doing various recording sessions, recording bass on various origional CD albums and promotional CD's.
Andy has also worked on recording bass lines already written, but also worked on sessions writing with bands and writing bass parts and arrangements.

Along with Andy's bass playing, Andy has spent a number of years working as a Televison Background artiste and working in media.
Andy has took his media experienced and started to take his Bass playing into featuring on music videos, music photo assignments and music televison, Andy is experienced as a bass player in front of the camera for various promotional work and music features and video's.
Andy has also been succesfull doing interviews and various music articles about his bass playing and advice for bass players starting out as a professional musician.

Andy Bass influences come from a hand full of players from Paul Mccartney of the Beatles, Bruce Foxton from The Jam, Phil H Mitchell from Dr Feelgood, James Jamers from Motown, Herbie Flowers session player and session bass player Pino Palladino.

Andy loves all music and will give various styles of music a listen, His personal taste in music comes from Motown, Paul Mccartney, The Jam, Stax, The Who, The Hollies, Oasis, The Love Affaite, The Selecter and Dr Feelgood to mention a few.

Andy's bass playing is influenced mainley by Pop, Rock, Reggae, Ska, Swing and has a love for the famous bass lines that have been created over the years that people know and love.
The main thing is the music and making people dance!

With a great groove and feel, Andy plays for your music live and in the studio, Playing recorded bass lines live with bands of all kinds on the road, Andy has 10 years experience in bass playing and working in music.

Work credits include:

JC & THE GROOVE Touring band,

PP & the Floorshakers,
Touring Band.

Alternative Influence,
Touring, Recording, Writing, Television & Film.

George Agan,
Singer songwriter, Studio work, recording
debut CD, filming music video's, Photo shoots.

The Deadbeats,
Touring Band.

MamaRoux,
Touring Band.

Definitely Mightbe,
Touring Oasis Tribute.

Adorded,
Stone Roses Tribute

The Replicators,
Function Band.

The Jamm,
The Jam Tribute Touring.

The Kommitments,
Touring Commitments Tribute, Soul Band.

Groove Nation,
Touring band.

Seven Days,
Professional band.

Elbowroom,
Professional Band.

Jimmy Cricket,
Comic.

Mr Methane,
Comic.

Ronan Keating, support

The Animals, support

The Love Affaire, support

The Selecter, support

The Weather girls, support

Heatwave, support

Andy has performed at many venues from small venues and functions to festivals,
live music events and live music venues.

Andy has worked on events The Pop Party Tour's, Festival's of the 60's, 70's, Soul & Motown festivals, Live unsigned festivals, Dawen Music festival, Manchester United Football Stadium, Leister Walker stadium, Events and performances at Oxford, Manchester, Sheffield, London, Cambridge universitys, Bistro Live chain, Butlins, Warners, Chicago Rock, Jumpin Jaks, Old Trafford Cricket Club, Dublin Castle Camden, London, Lincoln Drill Hall, Manchester Hilton, Royal Victoria Sheffield, Buxton Opera House, various UK Theatres and Blues festivals, Tour of the Netherlands and Germany and many more.

Music Media credits. (As bass Guitarist)

George Agan music video's for www.georgeagan.com
and studio tracks:

George Agan It's my way music video 2007

George Again Running for your time video 2007

George Agan Get off your feet video 2007

Alternative Influence Live at Satans Hollow Manchester
Live DVD 2006.

Alternative Influence Take a look inside music video
2006.

PP & The Floorshakers Live at Showcall Showcase, Barry Stardust
Theatre. Live DVD 2003.

PP & The Floorshakers Blackpool 2005, Live DVD.

Alternative Influence Live at Satans Hollow Manchester
Live DVD 2006.

Alternative Influence Take a look inside music video
2006.

PP & The Floorshakers Live at Showcall Showcase, Barry Stardust
Theatre. Live DVD 2003.

PP & The Floorshakers Blackpool 2005, Live DVD.

Bubble Hits TV 2006.

Hello Magazine, Media work

George Agan photo shoot for debut CD - Album

Music photo Shoot for David Lloyd

BBC 1

ITV

Channel Four

Andy Till 2008.

As I watched and listened, it struck me that people are amazing -- amazingly similar, yet amazingly different due to developing cultures.

Yes, I know that the collective fear is that technology (such as mobile cell phones, the internet and TV) will make the world's peoples converge and become uniformly bland -- and possibly also able to be manipulated easier. But I don't subscribe to that fear; people are always coming up with new stuff. I couldn't believe skateboarding, body-popping, moon-walking or BMX tricks -- or, more recently, Sébastien Foucan & co with their 'parkour' (free running).

When you think about it, it's probably down to economics, because economics has changed everything; it has turned the "arts" into an investment and pop entertainment business.

It follows that the "real" value and worth has to be "culture" (rather than "art") -- in other words the inventive product of groups over that of individuals.

And I am perfectly happy with that.

Good old economics has also made world travel, tourism, and technology available to more and more people. This means that more people can experience other cultures and appreciate the sheer diversity in humanity.

We can take snapshots and video clips and post them on YouTube, or blog our trips directly to Wordpress, or through Facebook, Bebo or MySpace. But I liked what I saw on Channel Four's What About Me? This is an highly original project dreamt up and carried out by Jamie Catto of 'Faithless' and Duncan Bridgeman, the producer of 'Take That'. I had caught the tail end of last week's program, and was intrigued -- leading to my waiting until midnight to see tonight's 'Episode 4 - Love and Need'.

This is what the MySpace website states:

When Jamie Catto and Duncan Bridgeman joined forces to create the project 1 Giant Leap, they embarked upon a global journey that included Senegal, Ghana, South Africa, Uganda, India, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, America and Europe, equipped solely with a digital video camera, a laptop and a vision -- to capture and weave together a unique fusion of sound, image and spoken word from some of the world's most happening musicians, authors, scientists and thinkers and to explore 'The Unity in the Diversity'.

Their treasure hunt brought many unexpected collaborations with such inspirations as Michael Stipe, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Robbins, Dennis Hopper, Brian Eno, Asha Bhosle, and Baaba Maal. The resulting double-Grammy nominated DVD consists of 11 short films - INSPIRATION, MONEY, FAITH, SEX, DEATH, CONFRONTATION, TIME, BLASPHEMY, UNITY, MASKS, HAPPY, and 30 behind the scenes movies. You might have seen 'The Making Of 1 Giant Leap' which has been broadcast globally by National Geographic Channel. Or perhaps you've seen them playing live with their 10 piece band and cinema screens.

[ from: http://www.myspace.com/1giantleap]

It's a crazy idea to mix up music in this way. It is possible because of TV, because of the music software, because of the laptop, the internet, and because of cheap flights around the world!

Sound on Sound's Matt Bell wrote a really good article back in 2003, about the methods and equipment they used.

1 Giant Leap --Duncan Bridgeman -- Travels With A Laptop Studio
Many people love the idea of laptop recording, but few have put it into practice like 1 Giant Leap. Their acclaimed album and DVD project was recorded on an Apple Powerbook during a six-month journey round the world — with a little help from some friends...

[From soundonsound.com]

They have various websites...

• www.whataboutme.tv/
• www.1giantleap.tv/
• www.1giantleap.com

But www.myspace.com/1giantleap has a player, so you can listen to the music. However, I think that seeing the people in their local settings and natural habitat is what makes this, so try to catch the TV show if you can. If you cannot, then check out the various clips posted to YouTube.

This is what Channel Four ought to be doing, this is the antidote to rolling news, reality TV, sport, game shows, 100 best lists, and celebrities! They have a shop for buying the DVD, but it has a videoplayer embed, so might be worth a wee visit! [Play.com].

Things are getting a little frenzied as I prepare for the Opening Night of "The Chorlton Bench Project" this coming Friday, but I wanted to give some air to something called 'b.TWEEN 08' a 2-day event which sounds like an interesting gathering of the great and the good @ MOSI, Manchester. With a leaning towards New Media, Advertising and Creative Technology, the sponsor's are pretty high profile including Channel 4 and the BBC.

The website is worth a visit, the Interactive Gallery page gives the opportunity to view and vote on interactive new visual work, the winner will be shown @ MOSI during the event. You can also book onto a personal One-2-One Session with some of the speakers. Featuring representatives from amongst others; TwentyTwenty TV, Bebo and Fluorescent Media lots of talented specialists in areas such as branding, audience engagement, trends and digital strategy.

Despite all those sponsers, I am sad to say it ain't free, it is quite expensive from £60 for a one-day student pass and £95 freelancers/micro company rate but could be worth it for the quality of speakers and networking/advice on offer. The website is free to browse though and many of the presentations will be available on YouTube after the event. Click here for some of the talks from "b.TWEEN 2007."

UPDATE This event has now been and gone. If you wish to read a little about what went on then click over to "The Mancunian Way" were they blogged each day on the event. Also try the "Real Fresh TV" site for some really in-depth analysis by someone who was actually there AND took part in one of the sessions.

I am very very fat and being very very fat makes me feel useless and ugly which makes me unhappy and unhealthy.  This is not good for the people I love and who love me.

I know it's becoming a bit of a poor-me-wailing-breast-beating-cliche but I also believe that most of the rest of the world sees obese people as stupid, lazy, weak willed and as socially inferior.  The only bit of that I agree with is the bit about a weak will. Sadly, some people do not restrict making their nasty comments to me, but take perverse pleasure in telling my children what they think of fat people, especially their mum.  I am sad that my children are made to feel unhappy about something that is not their fault and I can change.  That makes me feel ashamed.  

So why haven't I got on with it and lost the excess blubber? 

I've already admitted I'm weak willed.  I can't stick to a restrictive diet. I hate dieting.  I am no good at it.  I like food.  However, life is never simple and the reasons I have failed in the past are complex.  I'm not a psychologist and I am aware I have bored my friends silly with my excuses so I'm not going to make any.  However, I am prepared to admit becoming obsessed with counting things and keeping a forrest full of records about what I have counted. As soon as I start counting things I spend my whole day thinking about what I can and can't eat and when I'm not thinking about it I'm trying to calculate how many : calories, grammes of carbs/fat/saturated fats/weightwatcher copyright points/ green and red units/blah blah blah I have consumed or will consume or would like to consume and can't. BORING!

I have not always been fat.  I started putting on serious weight about 10 years ago.  Before that, for most of my adult life I was at the heavier side of a normal weight range for my height with a BMI of between 24 and 25.  That's not supermodel thin, and like most women I wanted to look like the girls in magazine pictures, but it's healthy. The only time in my life I have really successfully lost weight was when I ate what I wanted but managed to moderate the quantity.  How did I do that?   I used to decide that I had eaten enough for that day and eat no more.  If I started to think about food I simply used to tell myself that I wasn't going to eat anything and to think about something else.  That was it.  I didn't get hungry, I didn't crave food that I couldn't have, I didn't make myself unhappy by depriving myself of pleasure and punishing myself with huge plate of food that bored me or I didn't like.  I dropped my excess post pregnancy weight in weeks and weighed in at my healthiest weight ever.  I was happy with my body, I felt liked and respected and my self-esteem was at its best.  As a result, the people around me especially my children were happy. 

I'm not going to go into what went wrong, it just did.  My children are older now and I believe in sitting down for good home cooked meals with them in the evening.  It's an important oasis of calm and collectiveness in our busy lives. That makes it difficult for me to decide that I have eaten enough for one day and not think about food again.  As the chief cook and bottle-washer in our home, I have to cook.  I rarely use ready meals, although I have to concede that they have improved beyond recognition in the past few years and I have started to buy a select few when I know that time is going to be tight, but that's another subject.

I like the Idea of the Chew-Chew diet.  It's not an idea new to me.  I remember my Grandad, a doctor born in1902 and therefore a true Edwardian, telling me about it.  As far as I am aware he never carried an excess pound in his life.  When I saw the Channel Four program called  Diets That Time Forgot that used the principles that Horace Fletcher advocated, it brought back so many memories that I was truly inspired. 

I have managed to find a copy of Horace Fletcher's book Fletcherism What It Is on the Internet, so I have ordered it, but for the time being I am going to chew thirty-two times and eat three sensible meals each day.

On paper it sounds like a crazy idea. Take four comedians; no script; add suggestions from the audience; blend and serve. Yet surprisingly, that simple formula helped make one of the funniest and most highly original programmes of the 1990s, and helped to make Channel 4 the home of intelligent and funny comedy.

Spanning ten series in the UK (before it was Americanised) and making improvisation look sexy, Whose Line is it Anyway mixed the best of British wit with the anarchic world of the American improvisation circuit. The show featured not just well-known faces on the British screen (Stephen Fry, Peter Cook and Tony Slattery among them), but it also introduced the British to the likes of Ryan Stiles, Colin Mochrie and Mick McShane, who were all big players in America. The show also helped to launch the careers of a certain Mr Paul Merton and Ms Josie Lawrence, who now seem synonymous with improvisation.

With games like Sitting, Standing, Leaning and Theatre Styles, as well as the infamous Hoedown, the show was a heady blend of fast-paced gags, quick retorts and audience suggestions. Much of the charm of the program lied in the sheer impressiveness and speed with which the performers manage to take the different and often bizarre requests and challenges that are thrown at them. While some performers were better than others (anyone who doesn’t laugh at the comedy partnerships of Stiles and Mochrie or Sessions and Merton clearly need to get out and experience life a bit more), the consistency and pace of the show keeps the viewer entertained at a level that modern day equivalents like Mock the Week or Thank God You’re Here could only dream of.

To celebrate the release of the first two series of Whose Line is it Anyway, The Void managed to blag some time with the bitter, bespectacled American one they call Greg Proops.

What first got you interested in comedy?

I grew up in the 60s and 70s and there were great comics on TV plus shows like Laugh-In. George Carlin, Richard Pryor and Lily Tomlin were huge and comedy seemed like an option to me.

You are probably best known in Britain for being on Whose Line is it Anyway? How did you first get involved with the show?

They came out to San Francisco in 1988 to audition American comedians for the show, but I was at a gig in Idaho on the day so missed out. Thank fuck they came back again the next year and I got on. The producer loved yanks.

Why do you think Whose Line... became such a successful show?

It was new and legitimately spontaneous. Plus the likes of Tony Slattery, Josie Lawrence, John Sessions, Mike McShane and Paul Merton made it great to be involved with.

Is there any particular moment from the show which sticks in your mind for a good or a bad reason?

Tony's pants split during a taping and I saw everything. That sticks in my mind for the wrong reasons.

What is worst in improvisation: making a gag that fails or not making a gag at all?

Failing funny is one of the most important improv tenets.

You have previously lived in London and the UK, how does living in Britain compare to living in the US?

Well it’s certainly a lot wetter! I love the UK, the people could not be cooler to me over there.

You have also done several stand-up tours in the UK as well as America, which tend to be fairly politically based. Do you have a particular style or brand of comedy that you adhere to?

I’d probably describe myself as a snotty, sarcastic, caustic humanist. That’s fairly accurate.

Did you have any heroes that you wanted to emulate when you started performing?

Of course. I don’t think there’s one comedian who could say they didn’t. Mine were probably George Carlin, Will Durst and my late friend Warren Thomas.

Have you achieved everything you want to in comedy yet? If not, what else would you like to do?

I’d like to travel the world more. Apparently Americans can do that now.

You recently have started posting videos and podcasts online. Do you feel that the internet is comedy's new home?

It’s certainly one of them, but I still dig performing live best.

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Quick Fire Questions:

• Favourite Film? Butch Cassidy
• Last CD you bought or listened to? I listened to Led Zep 2 this morning
• Drink of choice? Vodka, rocks
• Favourite comedian at the moment? Lenny Bruce
• Which Star Wars character would get your vote if they stood for President? Probably my own one, Fode the pod race announcer from Phantom Menace.
• If America could adopt one country as a 51st state, what country would it be and why?
  Well, we have already kind of adopted Britain, but you don't have voting rights like Puerto Rico.

Whose Line is it Anyway? series one and two is available to buy here. Get a blast of bittersweet comedy from the Proopdog by visiting his website.

If you’re late to the party, Skins centers around the Bristol-based antics of the hugely unlikeable Tony (played with a charismatic relish by Nicholas Hoult) and his bunch of wacky friends, all of whom manage to be basically one crazy teenage stereotype after another. Throw in some swearing (this show has edge, by the way) not to mention a heady cocktail of sex and drugs liberally sprinkled over a bunch of delightful individuals each with their own broken moral compass and repeat for forty-five minutes.

It didn’t help that to begin with, the series didn’t know what kind of tact to take with its ostensible protagonist, Tony. A womanising sociopath, we were clearly supposed to take to this chap as a super-cool antihero, except he’d been written as so much of a bastard that when he was run down by a bus in the denouement to the first series, there was no emotional weight, just a smug satisfaction that the cretin had got what he deserved. He was supposed to have gone on a journey of self-realisation but he’d been so odious to begin with, it was hard to care.

When we re-join Tony and pals at the start of the second series, he’s still battling with the fall-out of his accident – a “traumatic subdural haematoma with motor and receptional complications”. It’s simply no excuse to say that this was planned all along, nor should it be the case that someone has to wade through nearly three and a half hours of middling teen-drama just to get some kind of pay-off. Tony’s friends are on his periphery now but still continue to feel as if they have been written by someone who has forgotten what it was like to be a teenager.

Tony’s condition is one of the more dramatic changes the series has seen and it’s reassuring that there’s no quick fix (and nor should there be, although one senses a recovery money shot is not too far away - close-up on the eyes, eyebrows arched with Lucifer-like evil, complete with exclamations from everyone like ‘Tony’s back!’ before he shags his way around half of Bristol).

Like that, Skins suddenly gets a dose of badly needed depth that it still lacks whenever Tony is off-camera. Much has been made of the appeal Skins has not just to anyone over the age of 15 but to adults too, but such intangible magic is in short supply. An effort has been made to seed a few narrative strings which implies promise of what is to come but it still feels a little predictable and dare I say it, slow going.

In fact, the only thing more mystifying than Skins’ suddenly all-encompassing demographic reach is how it remains so bloody compelling.

Catch Series Two of Skins on E4 on Monday nights at 10pm, or on Channel 4 on Thursday nights at 10.35pm. For more Skins related shenanigans, click here.

Småroliga, brittiska ungdomsserien Skins som Kanal 5 visade under hösten är på måndag tillbaka i tv-rutan. Brittiska Channel Four sänder andra säsongens första avsnitt, betitlat till Tony & Maxxie, och efter den fantastiskt smakfulla cliffhangern som avslutade säsong ett är i alla fall The Starman lite småsugen på nypremiären.

Har du ännu inte upptäckt denna serie finns import-dvdn att köpa via Discshop till det fashionabla priset 349 kr.

If, like me, you are, then fret not as I was actually at the recording on Monday - in the BBC of all places - so I can tell you all about it.

Apart from watching a real-life TV show being filmed in general, what was quite weird was they recorded a good two hours of material for what is scheduled in the Guardian Guide as a one hour programme. So it'll be interesting to see what they left in.

Mind you, I've got a good idea of what they'll cut out because they were recording the audience's response and I doubt they'll broadcast anything that failed to raise a titter.

Russell Brand was very good - I hated him when he first appeared on TV but he's turned out to be a rather intelligent comic. With wanking jokes. Which is what I like. God, I hope they leave in his ten-minute bit on wanking.

The format of the show was a bit like that BBC2 one a while back which was compered by Dara O'Briain, and it was all a little contrived for what is billed as a one-off special.

His sidekick during the show was an Irish gentleman called David O'Doherty with a crappy keyboard and some nice whimsy.

They had some vaguely topical celebrity-based sketches by some comedy troupe which included the racist in Peep Show and were a bit forced and died.

Also on VT was a welcome revival of the classic Bo Selecta! character Craig David, who was trying to relaunch his pop career with Kanye West lookalike Ken West, who had a Tourette's style tic that made him keep saying "Pigs and dooses" or something similarly messed up.

The audience's median age was about 18 but that didn't stop them wheeling out Roseanne Barr of popular US 80s sitcom Roseanne who told some jokes about the menopause and basically died on her arse. She kept starting jokes by checking stuff like, "do you have Viagra over here?"

Apparently Paul "Dennis Pennis" Kaye has a foul-mouthed new character called Mike Strutter and they had him present a game show called Mr and Fuckin' Mrs which wasn't so much a little near the bone as amputating the whole limb. I wouldn't have minded the gratuitous offensiveness if it had actually been funny.

The last guy I can think of was Michael McIntyre. He was the final act and the off-air compere was trying to get the audience to be enthusiastic about him after our response to all the weak stuff we'd been subjected to had probably made us seem a bit moody. He needn't have bothered because McIntyre was a class act and got it spot on. Seinfeld-style observational comedy from a vaguely posh English guy. If you listen closely think I was the first one to clap after the Keyser Soze line.

Tune in tomorrow for what ought by rights to be an hour of ol' Russ, DOD, Craig David and Michael McIntyre.