Neil Hopcroft
A digital misfit
Book review: Who move my Blackberry by Martin Lukes and Lucy Kellaway
With thanks to Grandi for this book.
This is an utterly fantastic book, it is written as a series of emails and text messages mostly from Martin, the marketing director of a global conglomerate, to his colleagues and family, but, where pertinant, mails he receives too. It follows his life for a year, during what appear to be particularly stressful times for him (but I suspect any time you chose would appear to be).
Of course, being a marketing director, he is quite an evil person, while he talks about the value of ‘integrity’ with a public face he is off playing games with his PA behind his wifes back, cheating on his expense claims and stabbing his colleagues in the back all the time he thinks it will get him further up the management chain.
One of the most interesting insights into his character is his relationship with his coach, Pandora, he seems to mostly be lying to himself about the current state of affairs, but you can tell when he’s admitting things to himself because he’ll tell her about it.
A wonderfully written book, a very easy read, an interesting insight into how ‘the other half’ live and interact with the world. An immorality tale.
Who should read this book? Everyone. Wholeheartedly recommended. At some level a light hearted read, but also very dark satire on the state of marketing and/or capitalism.
(2007: book 3, week 4)
Oh grebo, I think I love you
(for clarity, that is the genre, not any particular individual within it, or indeed the language)
Last night was the Vileevils gig – they were billed as ex-PWEI but that was pretty much all I knew about them. They have a page on myspace, just like every other band these days, which gives you a few snippets of their tunes.
Everything seemed a little quiet when I arrived, they hadn’t put any pre-gig music on yet, so there was a weird dead-time before anything kicked off. After a little while a band emerged, only two of them a guy and a girl. They were enthusiastic but didn’t have much variety in their music, it seemed like they needed a bit more to them, a keyboardist or drummer would probably liven their music up no end.
Then the Vileevils came on stage with a somehow familiar, but somehow unknown, mix of guitars and samples. They have energy, they have drive, they have an audience that is prepared to have a good time, they have nothing to stop them *rocking*.
Some of the tracks are ones I know from the Poppies, but theres a good chunk of new material too. I’d forgotten the reason I like grebo music, nothing is out of place, punk one minute, ska the next, a sample from a fifties classic, dance, guitars, everything. No shame, no fear, no talent, no problem. It just works.
The end of their set came all to early, they’re a new band and don’t have that much material (though arguably they could plunder more of the Poppies back catalogue), the lights went up but the audience wasn’t having it, we wanted more. One final song, a repeat of one from earlier in the set (embarrassingly, one I felt I should know but didn’t) and time to go home.
Top night. Go see them if you get a chance.
Another test….wondering if location field comes out in feed…
ETA: no, it doesn’t
Anyone about in Camden this week?
I thought some of you might be interested in watching 12 million monkeys – a quick hack lj link watcher I put together by accident (damn, I *really* need to do my tax return).
In other news, I bought some chairs. Anyone want to come around and play board games sometime, now that I’ve got seatage to accomodate you?
A real and painless beauty I remember as a kid
Last night was Rockabaret at The Cobden Club, for dewdropsglistens birthday.
I didn’t quite know what to expect, we had to email our names onto the door list before arriving, which meant that entrance was a little slow because they had to check everybodies names at the door. Once inside, it was up the main staircase, with its steps at just the wrong distance apart for my feet, to the grand hall.
What a fabulous setting, part theatre, part ballroom, but much more extravagent than most places I’m used to going, there is nothing extravagent about the Camden Underworld.
The night is a mix of DJs sets and cabaret acts, much like Haus der Dekadenz in Tokyo (which I wrote a little about), only in somewhat less shabby surroundings.
Highlights of the evening included: “There should be more period costume moshing”, Ukranian Gypsy Punk (which I’ve heard before but hadn’t figured out what it was) and “I know what would be perfect for my act…a giant ostrich with a head controlled by sticks”.
…and finding that Tim and Michelle (? I’ve forgotten her name aleady…damn I’m useless) drive an MR2, and *absolutely love it* (“Its not stupidly powerful, its only a 2.0 turbo”), which is a tick in its favour as and when I need a replacement for my laguna.
Gratuitous link for the purposes of testing a feed
Book review: Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
I like Gibsons writing. This book took me a little while to get into, but by the time I did I found it an absorbing read. It is quite a departure from what I consider his normal work, being set more or less in current time. It follows the life of Cayce Pollard and her attempts to find the creator of a work of art being posted piecemeal on the internet. It is full of paranoia and digs at modern marketing methods.
What really got me into it though, was the description of her few days in Tokyo, which pretty much captured the feelings I had in the first few days I was there, but expressed it way better than I ever could.
Who should read this book? Everyone. Especially if you like Gibson.
(2007: book 2, week 3)