You'll Never Walk Alone, Unless You're From Liverpool

It’s ironic that Liverpool football fans sing the Rodgers and Hammerstein song about going through tough times. In fact, as Liverpool people know, it’s only when you smile that the world smiles with you. People in Britain seem to have turned on Liverpool because it’s a city not afraid to show itself as it really [...]

How I Switched My WordPress Blog to a New Web Host

Since May 2007, my Hold It Up For Ridicule site, a WordPress blog, had been ridiculously slow. It wasn’t the only slow site hosted by Powweb. The Powweb community forum was full of complaints: as slow as molasses, they said! Saving a new post would take ten minutes, and sometimes it would just give up [...]

Tony Blair the Wilderness Years 26

Tony “Bono” Blair is a bit confused. He believes he is the famed British Prime Minister of the same name, deposed after winning a third term. Things begin to look up for Tony when a letter arrives offering a position with McCreedie construction. Thinking he is taking over as CEO of a powerful NASDAQ company, [...]

Professor Richard Dawkins Rediscovers the Placebo Effect

The second part of The Enemy of Reason, Professor Richard Dawkin’s attempt to prove that science is under attack, was much better than the first. It even had a joke from the professor to lighten up the lecture: something about molecules of water passing through Oliver Cromwell’s bladder. You had to be there. But the [...]

African Music On Myspace

If ngoni, calabash, balafon, and cora mean anything to you, you’ll love these Myspace links. Balla Kouyate Kadialy Kouyate Wali Cham Cora Meets Balafon Mamadou Diabate Daouda Diabate Plays DabaBa on the Tusia Balafon I play a 10 note balafon from Ghana, like the one in the picture, brought into the UK by Ghana Goods. [...]

Professor Richard Dawkins Should Know Things Don't Just Happen

Professor Richard Dawkin’s programme, Enemies of Reason, Channel 4, Monday 13th and 20th August, seemed to defy reason itself. The spooky music, the cloudy special effects, and an irrational bunch of cranks. You couldn’t imagine funnier new age weirdos for science to be pitched against. You couldn’t create a more benign enemy. Does a west [...]

Tony Blair the Wilderness Years 25

Tony “Bono” Blair is a bit confused. He believes he is the famed British Prime Minister of the same name, deposed after winning a third term. Things begin to look up for Tony when a letter arrives offering a position with McCreedie construction. Thinking he is taking over as CEO of a powerful NASDAQ company, [...]

Friction Fiction Podcast Show 42

In show 42, I play some great new songs from Myspace: Snow Globe and Take One by Jimmy G, Some Things Will Never Change, and Collide by Ayewrite, Natchoongi Breaked Dub Rmx ft Salman Ahmad by Antony Raijekov from ccMixter.org. Poetry: I read The Insurance Claim by Peter Asher from Poetrymonthly.com. I read my bridge [...]

World Music on Myspace

This is for those of you who didn’t make it through (or even into) WOMAD 2007 at Charlton Park. This is a chance to listen for free on Myspace to some of the top world music acts you might have missed. I know it’s not like being there, but at least it’s free. Shalimar Mariza [...]

Why Reading WOMAD Festival Was Special

WOMAD, the World of Music and Dance, is a world music festival founded by Peter Gabriel and his Real World music company. WOMAD runs world music festivals around the world, and the one I used to go to was at Reading in the UK. For exactly the same time I lived in Reading, 1986 to [...]