It always bugged me that in the film Braveheart, the battle for Stirling Bridge is presented as being in a big field- no bridge. It's annoying to me because in reality it was a really interesting battle- a relatively tiny amount of Scotsmen took on 10,000+ English soldiers (with cavalry), and won. They won because it was really an ambush- they waited until a large portion of the horsemen were across the bridge, then attacked- apparently driving the English back across the bridge with such ferocity that men were forced over the side. Eventually the bridge collapsed under the weight of so many soldiers and the English retreated- one of the first and only times heavy cavalry had ever been routed by foot soldiers.

Sounds like pretty exciting stuff, it's kind of annoying that they replaced that with a battle which was more or less identical to the two other battles in the film.

Mel Gibson was apparently wandering around the set (in Ireland), and one of the Scottish extras asked him why he'd removed the bridge. He said it was 'getting in the way'. The extra:

"That's what the English found."

Ha!

Hot (well, warm) on the heels of our performance at The Secret Garden Party (which I will go into more detail about soon, I promise), Grok (the band that I am in) will be opening for the album release of Ghostclub.

As usual it will be held at your favorite pub, and mine: The Spice. See y'all there if you can make it.

UPDATE! Nat & Ian are both also having their birthdays at the gig, which is very cool of them, so do come along and wish them a Happy Birthday if you are a reader.

Hello hello, back with another, EXTRA-SPECIALLY LONG episode of the only half-decent music podcast out there, the show I couldn't find so I had to make it myself. Yep it's the eighth destruct\hour, so we're doing it less than once a month but more than once every two months, which isn't bad considering. No special guests this edition, although an angry Scotsman does show up for a bit of a rant which is always fun.

I'm just about to post another exciting edition of the destruct\hour (calm down, please, you're embarrassing yourself), but I thought it might be a good time to recommend some of the other podcasts I listen to.

Pretty much the only podcast that comes close to being like the destruct\hour is the Muzak for Cybernetics Mixtape, which is run by a couple of incredibly dry Canucks who have an amazing range of new music to play. How these guys find the time to listent ot so much new music is beyond me, I listen to music almost continuously and it still takes me weeks to digest a new album. The voicebreaks are insanely droll, the boredom almost becomes amusing.

Close second is the BuRBS podcast, which is a mixtape of British independent bands, put together by Barry Burbs, who seems to have been collecting obscure British music for decades. He's obviously very passionate about British music, but also keeps his voicebreaks to a minimum.

I'd also highly recommend Claire Sturgess' podcast, which isn't updated often but it always a quality listen when it is.

If you're looking for a non-music show, Nobody Likes Onions is racist, sexist, homophobic, right-wing, fat...and hilarious! Takes a few listens to get into but it has had me gripping my stomach in laughter on many occasions.

And finally, much job is to be found in Mark Kermode's weekly film reviews. Here's a guy who gets really mad at bad films. His review of Little Man this week had me laighing out loud.

That should tide you over until the next show!

d

I like this:
I hate those promotions that like, make you jump through hoops to have a chance at winning something. In fact I hate any kind of chance in my promotions. I'd say the best promotion was that one where you won another bottle of coke by looking under the bottle cap. That ruled. I think I won like 12 cokes off of $1 when that thing was playing.

But this is a neat idea. I mean, I get a coke, I get a free song. Simple. This will make my buy more coke. Of course it will. I get a coke for 79p, and I get a 79p song. A song a day. What could be nicer? A maximum of five songs per person, apparently, but still a neat idea. If I max out my song limit I will start posting my additional codes here.

Ugh- I just went to the iTunes music store to buy my track and its auto-recommendation system was way off-base. I bought a bunch of tracks recently, because I was DJing at a friends' wedding reception, and she wanted some music that wouldn't ordinarily buy, so I downloaded some songs, like, 80's music, really. Now iTunes thinks I am an 80s-freak and keeps recommending me the best of George Michael.

Anyway, my track for the day...any suggestions? I just trawled through the top 100, nothing very interesting there.

UPDATE! Ended up getting 'We Are Your Friends" by Justice vs Simian. Mainly because I liked the video, but it's pretty catchy, too.

I spent the last two days at a conference, so I spent a lot of time doodling.

Bethan was up speaking. I liked Bethan, she was an ex-teacher and her job now was trying to encourage new ways of teaching and learning.

"You may not realize this," she was saying to us all, as I continued to listen while I doodled "but they have now identified up to eight different learning styles, with everyone possessing different combinations, yet we continue to teach students using only one teaching style. For example some students may be kinesthetic, or physical learners. They have trouble just sitting and listening. They need to do. They need to touch.

"In fact we have a kinesthetic learner among us right now," she said, scooping up my doodle and holding it up for all to see, walking as she talked. "Perfect example of physical learning. He makes patterns while he listens to help him concentrate." My boss glanced at me, not sure if I was being rebuked or praised.

"Kinesthetic learners have trouble just sitting still and taking in information, yet we appraise them by making them sit in an exam hall for three hours to regurgitate what they have been taught. Thank you Daniel," she slipped my paper back to me; "please continue." I went right back to doodling while she moved on.

As one, every engineer and architect in the room grabbed their pens and started doodling.