Neil Hopcroft

In many ways I’m pleased that blogs have turned into what they are today. They are a technology that fills the same hole that ‘The Monthly Neil’ (or whatever I called it all those years ago) was intended to fill. They provide a passive way for readers to keep in touch with people. And an easy way to publish observations, thoughts, ideas and feelings in an undirected way.

“And in every bar there was a super star
With a seven year itch
There were fifteen million fingers
Learning how to play”

Voices. So many voices. But nothing to say. Everything has been said before. My writings here are not focused (or indeed original) enough to be of interest to anyone but the people who know me. And I don’t really have the kind of time it would take to make a single topic blog dynamic enough to be worthwhile. Besides, whatever the topic, there are already hundreds of people talking about it already.

So what? I don’t know. Its just that something feels wrong. Like theres something I’m missing.

Sexiest car in the world (worksafe)

Glow in the dark knitting

aside from the list, the ship is stable and not sinking…with 4000 Mazdas on board…safe to assume that the conditions in the hold are, at best, a gigantic mess.

“Finlands post office has issued four commemorative Lordi stamps to celebrate the Finnish bands recent Eurovision Song Contest triumph.”
(no link for this at the moment)

Move your cursor over the pylon…wonder how you click?

Foldable guitar

The worlds first amphibious motor home

new-republican makes me want to do more exploring (don’t be put off by the name, its an urbex photoblog).

Housewarming party: my house, Sat 12th August, 3pm onwards. Contact details. Let me know if you’re coming and if you’ve got any special dietary requirements.

…was the message that confronted me upon arrival in Camden for the Birthday Massacre/Screaming Banshee Aircrew gig on Thursday.

I found some of the usual suspects lurking around outside with long faces.

We resolved to go to the Dev where we would contemplate the possibility of buying tickets before arriving at the venue next time around. Meanwhile there was some frantic phoning around going on trying to find someone who had a way to get in.

“Drink up, we need to get to the venue *NOW*, we’re in”

And we were, once we’d negotiated our way past the doorstaff, who seemed determined that nobody should want to go to the gig, no matter whether they had tickets.

Downstairs it was all rather odd, since it didn’t seem considerably more crowded than I’ve seen it before, howcome this has sold out while others haven’t?

We missed DUST, but caught SBA, who seemed to be having a great time on stage, playing up to their new fanbase – the audience for BM are somewhat younger than I’m used to seeing at these nights – Jo was looking especially radiant and full of life.

It didn’t seem like it was worth fighting to the front of the crowd for the Birthday Massacre, there were a lot of very enthusiastic kids, so we stood at the back talking about Chomsky and Bruce Campbell.

“Thank you for coming to see us” – “Thank you for letting me in on your guest list” – I owe you a pint or three…

All your snakes are belong to us (warning, noisy)

Chaotic neutral, some people find sanity a little confining

I’m a little teapot

Boom box (no boom included)

Computational linguists really get my goat (non worksafe words)

Wish I’d had one of these on the way back from Sallys party

LIon car

Shocking haircut

Forest Pump and friends

10 coolest Lego creations

A whimsical potty

Dog-cooking, tree-taking school-burner may lose job

PocketPC hardware emulator open-sourced…wonder if it could be made to run SymbianOS code?

I probably didn’t want to play “everything sounds like coldplay now” back to back with the 13 Candles, did I?

For the last week I have been a sweaty mess, but you were too, so its probably not a problem. Nice storm last night, which has made it a bit more tolerable today. I’m still hiding in my basement though.

So much to catch up on – purple_perils party for a start, with lots of sitting around in the sun and geeking. Not much to say that hasn’t been said elsewhere already.

Guilfest the next day was another hot-hot day, I felt somewhat sorry for the grass under the festival, thats going to take a while to recover. After more U-turns than I’ve done for a long time I finally found the right car park, heaven forbid that the one-dayers are seen mingling with the hard core weekenders.

StereoMCs were playing Connected as I arrived, which is as near perfect a soundtrack for entering a festival as I can think of, just the right kind of atmosphere. Being Surrey, everyone is fully equipped, with chairs and macintosh squares. No hope of getting close enough to see the band.

So I went for a wander around the site, finding all the stages and seeing what else was about. On my way around I caught a bit of Who Will Miss Mary? who were musically interesting without being particularly engaging. Then it was time to find a proper line-up and figure out who I wanted to see. I caught the end of Retrograde Inversion, who were bouncy funky rock, and somewhat overheated. Voodoo Vegas were disposable. Sparks would’ve been better if I could see the stage or knew the music. Above were pub rockers. The Wot Nots unusual with a strong fanbase (small but very focussed). The Stranglers were past their best. Kila warrant another look, folky but with lots of other influences, enthusiastic. Green on Red were more stadium rock than I’d expected. And finally, Billy Idol was Billy Idol, exactly what you’d expect, I left after a few of his songs, he’s good but tiredness was getting to me by then.