England's sporting weekend

Three big, patriotic things are taking place this weekend. England begin their preparations for Euro 2012 by playing Norway in Oslo tonight, England take on The West Indies at Trent Bridge in the cricket....and crooner, Engelbert Humperdink represents the UK at the Eurovision Song Contest in Baku, Azerbaijan. Plenty going on this weekend so I will attempt to predict the outcome of each.

Firstly the football. Roy Hodgson takes his bow as England manager and all I can say is good luck to him. It is about time that Roy was given the opportunity to manage his own country after so many years of managing everybody elses. It is great also to have an Englishman at the helm, who can communicate better with the players, media and be more switched on to our football culture. I only hope the media give him a fair chance. Already he has been lampooned for his speech impediment and his awkward looks. There's one picture that the Murdoch press uses in particular which seems to portray him as being gawky and a bit of a pushover. For crying out loud, let's judge him on his squad selections, tactics and results rather than the way he looks or the way he talks.

He has also made a very astute signing in taking Gary Neville on board as coach, somebody surely who should have captained his country many times had it not been for the presence of John Terry and Rio Ferdinand. He always talks a lot of sense when on Sky Sports and as Roy has said in an interview is more the player's generation. It also looks like he could still do a useful job for his country on the pitch also if the clips of him training are anything to go by.

Norway failed to qualify for the Euros, but as ever will prove an awkward test for our boys on their own patch. There are some hardened, familiar names in their squad, including Fulham's Brede Hangeland and relegated Blackburn' Morten Gamst -Pedersen, who may use this game as a shop window for his talents.

Andy Carroll has a fantastic opportunity to prove what he can do in an England shirt and stake a claim for a place in the opening game against France. Steven Gerrard will captain his country officially for the first time and hope to start in his favoured attacking midfield role.

For us fans this friendly will also be a good opportunity to try out different pubs and locations to watch the football. I for one will be out somewhere in York this evening, as I had a DJ cancellation for a wedding watching the game. It's all about preparation!!

As I write this blog the cricket is on in the background. The West Indies are batting in their first innings and have reached (at the time of writing) 340-6 with...Darren Sammy hooking one straight down Kevin Pietersen's throat..make that 340-7 out for 106... The pitch looks like a flat, batting paradise, thanks to the lovely sunshine and therefore I think it will end up in a draw, unless either team has a totally disastrous session between now and Tuesday afternoon. Well played though to Darren Sammy and Marlon Samuels for their 200-run seventh wicket partnership. They have epitomised the hard-working team ethic that has been much needed in the West Indian ranks for some time. They look like a team who actually WANT to play test cricket for their country and give a good account of themselves. I think though England's extra quality will ultimately shine through  in the series, but it is great to see a team who are giving us plenty to think about before the South Africans visit later this summer.

Engelbert Humperdink at the ripe old age of 76 will take the stage for the UK at the Eurovision Song Contest. I think it has actually been a good move to send him, as he is an accomplished performer and well known throughout the world. It is better to have him than some young upstarts that nobody has ever heard of in this country, let alone the rest of Europe. So good luck to him and the song I suppose isn't too bad, although I doubt we will win it. The Song Contest seriously needs to review its judging and points system to stop the political voting that takes place. How about a rule saying that a nation cannot award 12 points to the same nation two years in a row...? or have neutral judges for each country.. as long as they don't vote for Jedward... However as the current rules stand I predict another trip to Eastern Europe next year....

Nature notes

 Introducing Donald and Delilah

Donald and Delilah are two Mallard ducks who come into my flat's garden every spring. According to my neighbour Delilah lays her eggs every year and raises her family here every year. At the moment the pair seem to be inseparable, but whether Donald will hang around once the babies are born remain to be seen. Here is a picture of them chilling in the sun on the lawn and feeding. I will update you with further news on the pair throughout the summer.

Walking the Centenary Way

I have also taken it upon myself to walk as much of the Centenary Way as I can. The 83 mile route, starting at York Minster, winds its way through North Yorkshire and ends up at Filey on the East Coast. So far I have walked from the minster to Earswick, a distance of around 4 miles, so I still have a fair way to go yet. As I walk the route, which so far has followed the course of the River Foss, I have noted the different birds I have spotted or heard. The list is as follows:

Blackbird

Carrion Crow

Moorhen

Swallow

Chiffchaff

Wood Pigeon

Robin

Chaffinch

Blue Tit

House Sparrow

Tree Sparrow

Magpie

Wren

Skylark

Dunnock

Pheasant

Mallard

Whitethroat

Goldfinch

Great Tit

Starling

Canada Goose

Greylag Goose

I shall update you on my progress and any additions to the bird list.

Why has pop music developed a bad case of tourettes?

 First of all. A big "Guten Tag" to my reader in Germany, who has somehow found this blog. I guess now would not be a good time to mention the football.... I'm sure Bayern Munich will come back again next year. But please keep reading and feel free to leave a comment.

 Today is Sunday and so I guess it is time for me to mount my moral high horse. As you know from my previous posts I did two DJ gigs this weekend, one at a Working mens Club in Leeds on Friday and the following evening at a rather posh wedding in a well known Yorkshire Stately home.

At the engagement party on Friday, about halfway through the night, which was well attended and successful in terms of numbers on the dance floor and feedback from the couple who had booked me I played "Starships" by Nicki Minaj. Nothing particularly unusual about that you may ask. On the dance floor at the time was a mother dancing with her (lets say about 8/9 year old son.) To be honest I quite like song and is a very good, lively song to play at most occasions. Halfway through the song, however is a line containing two f**** in it. That is the only bit of the song with swearing in it and I do not want to sound prudish here or like Mary Whitehouse, but it just seems highly unnecessary and also inappropriate for a family occasion. The mother sort of looked up at me from the dance floor (I was on a stage) and I sort of said over the microphone to the boy "just cover your ears mate," which raised a smile among the audience. Don't get me wrong I can swear like a trooper sometimes, but only in the presence of an appropriate audience.

When I first started DJing in 2004 there was only really the odd Eminem song that I had to be wary about playing in the presence of children, but these days it seems that almost every other song in the charts is littered with swearing and/or sexual innuendo. These are mainly about exactly what a man wants to do to a girl he has spotted in a nightclub; or in the case of a female singer, exactly what she wants the man to do to her. In fact every song that Nicole Scherzinger has ever recorded has all been exactly this subject with the words twisted round a little bit each time. It's like she's obsessed or something. There are of course radio edits, but these are increasingly harder to find on download sites as they prefer to sell you the album version, which of course contain the explicit content.

I'm sorry, but this boorish expression of sexual desire and bad language is boring, sad and is fast taking the fun out of pop. It is also taking the innocence out of childhood, and over sexualising children at a young age. Rihanna is basically a stripper who sings a bit. It must have been very chilly for her in Northern Ireland when filming her video for "We Found Love!" Chris Brown, and other similar male artists are nothing more than a nightclub voyeurs who lust after every girl they see like a herd of sexually frustrated billy goats. Even Beyonce' that symbol of female empowerment just dances along to the male view of women as a sexual objects by writhing around in her underwear. 

What is pop music teaching our children? For boys it is  that girls are merely sex objects which the more you have the bigger your "rep" becomes and for girls it is that to get anywhere in life they have to take off all their clothes and wiggle their bottoms.

I'm not saying that pop music should become full of bands like The Jonas Brothers, but I do not understand the "swearing for the sake of it" mantra that seems to be endemic in today's pop culture.

Take Eliza Doolittle's 2010 hit, "Pack Up," a lovely song to play to a family audience...that is until I discovered that it contained a swear word in it, which to the untrained ear may pass unnoticed, but in the context of the song is still highly unnecessary. Cee-lo Green's hit , "Forget You" also had an alternative version, "F*ck you, but why could he not just leave it at the former title? Moves Like Jagger as well has s*it in it, even Bruno Mars' "Lazy song," one that is commonly requested by children contain the lyrics, "had some really nice sex" and "she screams this is great."

Pop music, up until five or so year ago and with the odd exception would be far more subtle when it came to dealing with sex and barely contained any swearing whatsoever. What is more they were sung in a way that as an innocent child any content would have gone straight over their heads. Speaking from personal experience even the most notoriously explicit song of the 80s, "Relax" by "Frankie Goes To Hollywood" went straight over my head as a child and it is only until I got older did I realise what the song really meant. In 1991, Salt n Pepa's "Let's Talk about Sex" was also  controversial, but it never actually went into so much detail about the subject other than what the title says.

This pop-porn is destroying pop music, which used to be a fun and innocent pleasure for people of all ages. Now it seems that it is just contributing to an ever-more sex-crazed society which is making our children into mini Rihannas and Chris Browns and quite frankly it is not only bad for the next generation, but is actually very very boring.

It's Friday!

  For many people Friday evening means only one thing, the end of a long hard week at work and time for a few drinks with friends or stay in and watch TV. As a DJ the week is reversed and Friday evening is the culmination of the week's preparation and organisation. It is the start of my working weekend and  time to earn some money the old fashioned way... cash in hand of course! I spend most of the week organising and preparing for the weekend gigs, such as making sure I have all their requests and the Top 40 is updated, plus a few future hits if you can get hold of them. On Friday it is time to load up the car and set off on the road to wherever the party is. This weekend sees me playing at an engagement party in a working men's club in Leeds, of which the hosts have submitted me a very eclectic play list ranging from Northern Soul to LMFAO. Should be an interesting evening.

Tomorrow evening sees me head to the rather more salubrious location of a large stately home near Selby, where the chandeliers rattle to the beat of the music. This time it is a wedding, complete with play list consisting mainly of indie/rock music from throughout the decades.

Last weekend I had the privilege of DJing at this venue for the very first time and the staff  were brilliant, allowing me to store some equipment and have free drinks at the bar! The wedding party went with a swing but was unfortunately spoilt by a couple of the guests trashing their hotel rooms. As I was putting my lid on the mixer a thick-set looking man, who at the start of the evening seemed a little worse for wear, was being led down the sweeping staircase by the police in handcuffs . I am pretty sure he sobered up rather quickly after that. The 11.30pm finish allowed me though to see the dawn of my 30th birthday in relative peace, including a lovely call from my girlfriend, Samantha, who sang "Happy Birthday" to me down the phone. xxx

Surveillance Society

 17th May 2012


Welcome to my world at 30 blog (don't worry in a years time I'll change it to 31, but let's not think about that just yet!). So anyway, this is the start of the journey. Congratulations for being on board and hope you keep reading.

Today while I was walking through York City Centre I was rather alarmed to see these two large security cameras sticking out from the top of Betty's Tearooms (of all places) filming people walking down New Street and Lendal Square. "Smile, your on camera" I uttered to myself as I walked past looking upward. Now I have walked down New Street and past the hallowed tearooms many a time, but never have I noticed these Big Brother style objects poking odiously out of the top of the building at me before. How long have they been there?

I know why they are there . To monitor us as we walk past and make sure we are all being good little subjects. Now  I have nothing at all to hide. I have no intention of committing a crime with or without the presence of cameras and I am sure there were many like-minded people passing them that day. What is more are these cameras there to replace the traditional "bobby on the beat" so they can sit in their offices shuffling papers instead of getting their hands dirty? Do they really cut crime? If I was a shoplifter would I think twice about committing my crime on that particular street because of the presence of them? Probably, just in the same way that I make sure I'm doing 30mph when driving past a speed camera..but then I am not a criminal so I don't think like one.

But where does this all end? Not only is the UK the most watched and surveillanced country in the world through CCTV there were also laws proposed by the government to also monitor e-mails, facebook, and indeed this blog! Will this blog become like Winston Smith's diary in George Orwell's 1984?

Local Councils have spent £550m on CCTV in the past four years and there are just under 2 million of them in the whole of the UK, making us the most watched country in the world. If there are so much CCTV cameras in the country then why has the crime rate not gone down? I do not feel like since all these cameras have been installed, including these ones in York that Britain has become a safer place. In fact in the past ten years I think the amount of anti-social behaviour and crime has increased and is getting worse so how have cameras watching our every move actually helped us or made Britain a safer place?

        




Smile you are on camera! Do we really need to be spied upon while going about our daily business?