London Olympics 2012 - An untold story

Loving the Olympics but my production company Power Out Productions will be telling the unique story of one man who is missing out on the party. Meet Lee Thompson, his story will be told this weekend.

The debacle of auto-tune

No doubt this issue will be much discussed over the coming weeks but I too must express my contempt for the people behind the X Factor and their use of auto-tune during the auditions.
According to the BBC - An X Factor spokesman said post-production work was necessary on the show due to the number of microphones used during filming. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11056050)
Admittedly I am no expert on the technicalities of sound production and recording but I would like a little clarification on this matter. What could possibly necessitate the use of this technique? As far as I'm aware auto-tune is primarily used to cover up the vocal slips of, let's call them 'performers' for now. Given the audition process is supposed to be dredging the hopeful public for those with actual singing ability surely this is the most inappropriate course of action? Why does having so many microphones mean this is needed? The nameless X Factor spokesman is without doubt telling us some unsubstantiated bollocks here. While I'm sure most people agree a singing contest isn't all that important in the grand scheme of things. I think we can all agree pissing off the British viewing public at large doesn't end well.

Music Library

Seven years ago I spent a few hours making myself three mixtapes to listen to as I took the coach down from Chester to the Glastonbury Festival. This being a longer journey than I was typically used to it seemed like a good idea to have a variety of tracks so that I wouldn't get bored on the way. These were the last mixtapes I ever made. MP3 was about to kill the tape cassette star. Ok that's far less catchy than the Buggles claim - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwuy4hHO3YQ but more true by far.
Throughout the 80s and 90s in most cases the mixtape had ruled all but now CD writers came as standard with most computers and writable CDs were cheap. The romance of sitting down with your double tape deck and following your carefully planned out lists of songs for an hour or two was dead. Now songs were merely 'tracks' and 'tracks' could be burned in mere moments. Taking a moment to make a mix cd could never speak volumes of how you felt about the recipient. The only thing it said was that you were a potential pirate selling your wares down the market.
Then along came the Ipod and other MP3 players and all of a sudden you could pretty much take your entire CD collection with you anywhere you liked. So then there was itunes and napster and peer to peer music sharing and Radiohead supposedly giving their album away. This all seemed a long way away from my 17 year old self deciding whether or not the very little money I had should be spent on OK Computer. Of course it was and rarely was a better investment made. The point being that then buying an album was taking a chance. There were multiple others that didn't quite pay off. Bands you saw play one track on Jools Holland that seemed fantastic and then after parting with your cash you discovered that was their only decent song. Now I fear less the album gamble. Now I fear the move of digital music from one PC to another and the bloody hours it takes moving fifteen odd years of music collection from one hard drive to another. This doesn't have the romance of the mixtape either this is just joyless stockpiling.

JC

I read this in The Guardian today - Members of an evangelical church in Texas travelled to Connecticut to verbally attack worshippers leaving a mosque in Bridgeport, carrying signs reading: "Jesus hates Muslims"

Now I remember 'Love thy enemy', 'Turn the other cheek' etc but what bit of the bible was 'I hate muslims' in?

Personally I'm an atheist but it really angers me that people take their own feelings and claim Jesus Christ would feel that way. Especially when those feelings are entirely contrary to what he said and did.

Cinemas

Speaking as a filmmaker of sorts I find it pretty irritating that there's an old Odeon cinema 5 minutes walk from my place. It closed down 3 years ago. Mostly down to the fact it was vastly inferior to the larger cinemas around Chester. It would however be perfect as a place to screen the independent and foreign films people like myself don't get to watch because the big cinemas dedicate 7 screens to whatever film 14 year old girls want to watch that particular week. I saw a young woman had managed to re-open an old cinema in Oldham recently. I admire her attitude and I wish someone around here could do the same.

The Garyhole

My (augmented) view for over 30 hours each week. The humanity. Although this being appears quite owl-like in physicality and nature. The owlanity?

Holiday

Currently I’m stuck between wanting to revel in the fact that I’m going on holiday at the weekend but also not wanting to jinx it and anger the volcano gods who were so irritated earlier this year.
I’m also chastened at the thought of having any potential difficult travel arrangements after I’d raged at the people stranded by the volcano cloud for not having a more ‘British’ attitude to their problems. Now I know that put in the same situation I shall be whinging about my lack of comfort and opulence. But then it all depends on how ridiculous the situation gets.
Being stuck at Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris last Christmas I was incredibly unhappy at the thought of having to wait 4 hours for a delayed flight. This unexpected delay was incomprehensible to me after a long day of travelling. However when 20 minutes later the flight was cancelled the situation became so ridiculous in my head that I was suddenly able to accept it. Now I was content to wait for the bus to the hastily arranged accommodation near the airport and entirely placid about arriving back in Blighty a day later than expected.
Anyway fingers crossed none of this will be a problem and nobody will sacrifice me to the volcano gods in an act of appeasement.