So how about that Nicola Roberts, then?

Old man verdict - I can scarcely hear above that electronic racket
Young indie teen - not bad, not bad
Current indie'n'Gaga Jamie - really really good, almost at 'amazing' level. Mildly rubbish video, tho'

These are my views on Nicola Roberts' new single, Beat of My Drum.  They're hardly secret, and I waxed lyrical about it on twitter when I first heard it, but I just wanted an excuse to put up this video of my brother Andrew and myself doing a bit of an owl-ey cover, inspired by And's friend Taylor giving him her drawing of an owl in a suit.  It's lovely and a little bit jubbly.  Excuse my incest joke at the end.

For something completely different, the majority of you will probably like this a lot more.  The band's called Daughter, and the EP sounds quality.

Also Bee did her vlog, which is amazing.  And I got her to talk about Nazis.  My favourite bit is when my stupid question confuses her and she says she would listen to music if it came in the form of 'a cake made of shit'.

That is all; I am meant to be revising now... I'll come back on, probably, Tuesday, but Friday the 24th's my last exam, so I might do a blog party - Zoe's idea, with a post every hour, and guest bloggers - or a vlog the following Saturday.  Something special to get all my thoughts over the past few weeks in without making a really stupidly long attention-losing post, and then I'll readjust the features schedule to get more blogging in in the absence of school commitments so to try and get my follower count up a bit and have a bit more fun with it here.  Might sort out my background and stuff too - let me know your thoughts, I'll be back soon to chat away, this paragraph's grown a bit long so I'm going to cut myself off here


P.S. so Gabriel Duquette who is ace mentioned me on his walking blog, big win

So, how about... Milky

Evening all, further to my current internet silence I'm going to have to go back on myself and say I'm not going to tweet OR blog till after exams, given how hard I'm finding it to concentrate on it.  History on Friday should be alright, if I can stay focussed for two hours, aiming for an A* in that; RS on Monday is a terrifying prospect which not only requires me to learn the entire large syllabus rather than falling asleep or playing FIFA like the past two days but to keep focus for three whole hours.  Those of you that know me will get how hard it can be to get me shut up, let alone properly concentrate.  If I'm successful I'll have dragged my essays from a year's worth of Es to a C.

In hindsight it was pretty bad timing starting a blog just now, and I feel a bit silly in that I've just started to get some followers and comments before I take a couple of week's enforced break.  I just do quite long, time-consuming writing, to my own detriment, and I really really really want to get into uni.  I might not take up my insurance offer if I only get into that, either, which is how much I've been looking forward to it.

I've also lost about five followers on twitter, and to my horror when I looked at who follows me the top of the list are bots, so I must have lost like ten real people to be replaced with rubbish like @strangeinews and @iheartcharlotte (Gainsbourg).  You guys are all so ruthless with your follows! I approve but feel strangely bad about it.  My twitter and blog is all I've got to make me feel I have a voice which is at least vaguely listened to.

So yeah, I figure this is another thing I can cut out of a busy-ish routine and another vice which'll stop making FIFA look so acceptable in my mind's eye.  As you can see what was originally intended to be a quick paragraph has morphed into a full post (must ruthlessly self-edit), so it might well be a sensible decision to stop this.  Not that waffling bodes well in exams for someone with my terribly slow handwriting.

Loads of good, interesting, thoughts occurred to me this week.  But you won't hear them here, so may I present...

So, err, Milky.  WHAT A LAD

That is all, I'll see you all soon; I might do a touch of light blogging next week, post-Monday, but 24th is my last exam so after that this blog is going to be, as my philosophy teacher described ancient Greece, party central (without the free-for-all anal sex to which she was referring (don't blame her, blame OCR)).  I'll be back with a relative-to-this-blog bang, so maybe just a picture of a zebra or something.  That might be cool.  Or a video blog.  Bee, you good for that?

Sorry, in-jokes on public blog.  Bad.  Thanks for a couple of blog plugs to the lovely Zoe - who's particularly ace - and see you on the other side!

Tuesday to-do #1

My week
It's been pretty music-centric, to be honest, but actually really good.  First thing that springs to mind is over a week old, but shhh - playing with Jonny's new mentally expensive synth at band (see video) - great fun. Watch for everyone's faces.  Then there was something else brilliant I had to talk about but I've totally forgotten, so I'll just skip to Friday where I saw Flashguns at Club 85. Support was good, my mates Kenetics were, as ever, quality, and Maddox are great too. I still just don't get why Wildlife are so hyped, other than being mates with a certain promoter I won't mention.  First time I saw them was with The Vaccines, second time was when I played with them, then they played with Chapel Club, then this, and soon they've got a support slot to Peter Hook. HOW? But Flashguns were absolutely brilliant. I'd love to write more on them but I'm not sure I could put it any better. They ended on my favourite of theirs, Racing Race, and were just fantastic throughout. I think I tweeted a bit on it at the time. This is unusually fullstoppy for me.  Anyhoo, onwards, and I've written a blog here about Saturday, which was an absolutely quality day which involved two acoustic KWF sets (witha live debut for my glockenspiel) and the most fun gig we've ever played. Seriously, check this out. Then came the inception of this blog, obviously an excellent thing for lubricating my fictitious writing and idea glands and also - although quite possibly another form of procrastination - showing that I can actually be bothered to do something like this.  It's quite enriching, too; I read something the other day which quoted several studies showing that companionship, compassion and most importantly achievement.  Plus this is all about myself and the search to understand who and what I am to a fair extent, whilst edging this self into more favourable boundaries.  Realising who I am and trying to become who I want to be.  Yesterday I started reading this which is all about the ethics of sex - for my RS A2, I should hasten to add - and found it really bloody interesting, and today was excellent because of this achievement thing.  The top history coursework mark in my year, with 'stunningly good' writing and being told that it's now impossible for me to get an A because weird mark scheme stuff means any A mark would push my grade up to * provides relief beyond belief - as soon as I've bothered really trying with something, I've been successful. Although it may sound big headed, it really isn't: I envy those with any vague work ethic and ability to do anything other than write things - 'things' essentially meaning history essays.  If you're wondering, I reckon I'll get either (history/English/RS) *BD or BBC.  Anyone got any tips on work ethic?  I also quite need to decide proportions of work - is it worth putting extra effort into history and less into RS or vice versa? Or should I keep it at a fairly even spread?

~

Photos of stuff I've enjoyed this week

Absolute genius.

 SIGNS IN PRAGUE:

 Every figure on signs in Prague have to have headgear, which was hilarious when I realised

I proper want this. £280 in a charity shop.

 Nerd corner's beautique

SATURDAY:

 Luke

Luke

 Me selling EPs. We all but sold out of what we thought was an idealistically sized stock. Thanks people!

 Just a bit of our front gardenn

 How ironic

 I make the best milkshakes

 Andrew in granddad's glasses ages ago.  Came across the photo this afternoon

 I'm studying this man.  Love his plays but in a homophobic society he didn't help himself by dressing like that.  Anyway, found that in my bookshop a while back and was genuinely shocked

 Another rediscovery, saw this bloke at the Grove once and fell instantly in love

 Oh look, it's Luke again

 ANOTHER rediscovery, this is the hilarious set of a band called Police Brutality I played with back in, I think, March. Their songs are seriously called these things (the venue was a dry house. They've been banned for life for taking 'crack' in)

 I got well engrossed in Goebbels for a bit. Here I am reading 'Nazis and the Cinema' because it's an oddly hilarious title

 Heh

Another heh


~

Looking forward to...


Well, I'm seeing Blithe Spirit (a mum birthday treat) tomorrow and am expecting delivery of A) my purchase direct from Gareth Campesinos! and B) My limited edition white vinyl of this.  Other than that, I plan to revise (or, let's be honest, actually learn) a lot.  Things that I'm looking forward to doing after exams which have surfaced this week is the attempted accomplishment of much of this list and doing a free internet EP with my band, remixes, and Fokuz.  I'm also working with Gordon for a new song of his.  

~

Til' tomorrow, where we'll be seeing where I've walked this week. T'ra!