Svengalimagic.com

Just a quick note for any of you out there who are sleight-of-hand inclined, or perhaps like to waste hours of the day learning to produce Doves from their sleeves..

I have been blogging away at Svengalimagic.com for sometime, so if you know your Dynamo's from your David Blaines, you might like to pay it a visit...

Visit  http://www.svengalimagic.com

#025 - 10 O'Clock Live returns to Channel 4

Tonight every Guardian readers televisual-wet-dream returned to Channel Four. I speak, of course, of the lefty love-in that is known as 10 O'Clock Live.

It's almost surprising to see it on our screens again. The reviews and viewing figures that hit the headlines after the first episode of season one would leave you believing the show was long since dead in the water.

Not the case though, and a quick look at the Twitter trends during the show reveals #10oclocklive to be sitting at the top of the list.

Mitchell is the star of the show tonight. Though his short rant pieces are proving to be a bit tiresome, his interview skills are growing at a healthy rate. So, it seems, is his facial hair - with less impressive results.

The sketches are mostly miss this week. A scene featuring Carr wrestling a bear left even the studio audience in a confused state of silence.

Despite this scene, Carr attempting to take on Mitchell in a humour-free discussion of political systems is the most surreal moment in the show. Carr struggles to be taken seriously (and why would he be - he is a comedian after all), though David Mitchell's ridiculous beard at least makes him look like he might know something about something. Laverne chips in occasionally, presumably as a token effort to look involved.
Her presence is again difficult to explain in terms of merit this series. I can only assume it is an attempt by the programme makers to avoid falling into the same trap as the BBC. When she states "Right. I'm going to make David a cup of tea, see you after the break.", you really believe you are watching a media intern who is completely out of their depth.

The show will always be patchy, but its still worth watching for the odd unscripted moments and some golden one liners from three of the four of the presenters.

#024 - Mock the Weak...

"Three women walk into a pub and say, `Hooray, we've colonised a male-dominated joke format'" - Bill Bailey

Panel shows ‘Mock the Week’ and ‘QI’ were among those criticised this week for not putting enough women in their programme. 

It seems bizarre that such a objection could be raised – after all, comedy is a male dominated world. It always has been, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. Why then, should shows that feature (primarily) comedians be forced to staff its teams in a way that is disproportionate to the business? 

Should a fear of being labelled as sexist really stop creatives making the output that they want to?  Perhaps we should ask the likes of The Wanted or The Saturdays to feature an equal amount of men and women? 

If Mock the Week and QI are to be criticised, I feel it should be on the merits of the shows themselves, rather than the gender count. Indeed, there’s plenty to get worked up about. The infuriatingly faux-academic pretense of QI has us believing Stephen Fry is some sort of Einstein of our times for simply being able to read off a card. Meanwhile his Oxbridge educated friends on the panel take it in turns to congratulate each other for presenting knowledge that may or may not be hearsay. 

Mock the Week on the other hand, serves only as a slim framework for comedians to read out the same stand-up material they have been espousing across every other TV panel show that month, propped up by the occasional excitement of a Frankie Boyle joke that crosses into very bad taste territory. 

Maybe the BBC would be better advised to put quality content first on their agenda and difficult diversity issues second. Then the answer would be surely be simple – employ the comedians that are the funniest – irrespective of their gender, age or race.

#023 - Information wants to be free.

A few words on SOPA, which there is of course worldwide protests against today.

It is of course, the wrong thing to do, and could potentially see a lot of important people who do good things (such as key whistle blowers) go to jail. Internet censorship is never going to be a viable option for the western world, nor should it be. Remember: Information wants to be free.

By that I mean that with every development of modern technology, it becomes easier for information to be accessed by the public. From the print press through to the ipad, more and more people have been able to find out what they way to know. And why not? Knowledge is there to be shared.

The problem comes with copyright. How do artists and creators protect their work against theft? Internet file sharing has seen worldwide copyright acts left behind, with no solution in sight.

My feeling is that the answer lies in individual industries evolving to create business models that work with the internet, rather than fighting its users. Censoring free speech will not work, and will do nothing to deter information's unstoppable bid to become free.

#022 - There is no white horse.

Hello, I've been busy with many things. This is one of them:

COLD IN BERLIN - WHITE HORSE

It's the new video to 'White Horse' from my band Cold in Berlin. It's the last thing we are putting out from the debut album now, and then it's off to the studio in November to start working on the new one. I'm excited for the new material - it's darker, heavier and denser than anything we've done before. I think people will like it.

In other news, I live in Mile End, East London now. If you haven't been, why not let Jarvis tell you all about it?





Apart from mild illness and the everyday struggles of surviving in London, I'm very well. Thanks for asking.

I think I will migrate this blog soon - as much as it will pain me to have a more professional blog, it is sadly a requirement of my university course. I can't bear to have two as I can't even manage to update this one.

Will let you know where I move to.

#021 - Don't call it a comeback.

Hi,

Yeah I know it's been ages.

I won't dwell on that though, because I've read about six hundred and thirty four thousand blog posts that start with the sentence 'Sorry, I know it's been ages since my last post'. Or something to that effect.
I'm not going to apologise, because I know you don't care, but you should know that I won't be posting quite so much as I don't really get much internet access anymore. I work a job where they've banned blogger, and live in a house where the internet only seems to work for about 38 seconds of each day (this is one of those windows, and thus you'll have to forgive me any mistakes born out of the speed this has been written). You can rely on a full return of my disjointed and tedious writing as of September though, when all this work and living in someone else's house nonsense comes to an end.

So what's new? Well it seems like things happen in slow motion when you work a 9-5, but some things have managed to take place. Here's one of them; I went on a tour of Italy with Cold in Berlin, which was totally mental. Weird moments included opening for Badly Drawn Boy (yes he wore the hat in 34 degree heat), and finding myself in that part of Spinal Tap where he has the small bread and the big ham backstage.
Another thing that I'm pretty sure happened was that I turned 23. It was a bit of a non-event to be honest, but served as the annual reminder that I need to get on with my life. On that note I'm working on a new theatre show called 'Laplace's Demon'. I can share no more than that but I'm working with good people and as such am optimistic.
I'd also like to talk about a great gig I went to at Hoxton Bar and Grill, but I sort of can't be bothered because I don't want to be a music journalist anymore. I'll summarise by saying that Japanese Voyeurs are everything you could ever want from a grunge band. Go listen to Yolk.

(Yolk is their album, not some weird egg band).

Anyway, thats enough about them, let's talk more about me. Cold in Berlin are on page 81 of Q, and page something or other of Clash magazine this month. Have a mosey if you see a newsagent.

I also have a new website.

Right, thats it. Post #023 will be about something that matters instead of my life, I promise*.





*I don't promise.

#020 - Son of a witch - a witch house playlist.

As promised, every tenth post will be a mixtape I've lovingly put together. I might try and create some sort of free download EP for the next one, but until then you'll have to make do with a Spotify playlist.

I've gone for a loose Witch House theme for this one, as an outlet for my excitement about Ritualzz coming over to play CAMP, London on the 20th. Here's the link.

And the track listing:

Vietnam - Crystal Castles
Frost - Salem
Ritualzz of the Crack Witches - Mater Suspiria Vision
Cold Light - Fostercare
Roses - White Ring
Misery Walk - Ritualzz
Nectarines - Raw Moans
Confetti - Cold Cave
Repetition - Tearist
Night - Zola Jesus
Silent Shout - The Knife

#019 - Casual racism is not a black and white issue.

There comes a time in almost all of our lives when we realise that our parents might just be a tiny bit racist.
For me, the day came in the unlikeliest of places - the bread isle of a supermarket. It was my mothers choice of language when describing a particular type of bread that caught me off guard. I refer not to 'Mighty White' as you might imagine (though I believe their slogan 'I know what I like and it's white, white, white' has since been adopted by the BNP). No, instead she wanted the kind of bread Kingsmill call '50/50'. You've probably seen it on the commercials, if you haven't tasted it yourself. It claims to be white bread with 'all the goodness of brown'. Fair enough - I'm not having a go, I'm a fan. Anyway, my Mum (always favouring Hovis over Kingsmill as the mediocre brand of choice) asked me to pick her up a loaf of 'Hovis Halfcast'.
While this was certainly a genuine mistake (if my mum was capable of that kind of wit she'd be on tour supporting Jim Davidson right now for sure), I couldn't but think it’s the kind of mistake the liberals of my own generation could never have made.

I should have spotted the clues earlier. When growing up the Daily Mail was a regular in our house. When I got old and astute enough to start questioning why we bought this hate spreading source of evil, I was told by my father that "I only get it because it has a quality TV guide."
Bearing in mind there was perfectly good publications available, such as the (notably cheaper) TV times, I can only conclude that the regular section of the paper denouncing immigrants as the 'new black plague' (I may be paraphrasing) was at least part of the attraction.
Then there was the 'gollywog' doll (it makes me cringe just reading it), that my sister was definitely allowed, but had to hide once when a policeman came round on a social visit.

The thing is though; this kind of unacceptable behaviour is sort of understandable, if not partly forgivable. When my mum asks me things like "but WHY do we have to call them black people, most of them are brown!", I do die a bit inside. But I also know that at 62, she is a of a very different generation to me. When she was at the age where she picked up her values and learnt about what was acceptable, it was a very different world to the one we live in now (admittedly the last 30 years of living in the country and reading the Daily Mail probably didn't help).
Do we sort of let old people off a bit because they don't always understand what words are and aren't acceptable, and because they don't load them with any malicious intent? Or do we write them off as bigots who should take responsibility for educating themselves about what is clearly a very different Britain?
As something of a cretin in these matters I can't offer you an answer, but I would guess that a lot of language we use today might be unacceptable in 40 years. Only when that is the case will I be able to decide how easy change is, and whether it is fair to judge people for their apparent inability to do it.