Category Archives: Messaged from the Outhouse

Bap vs The Boss

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If you ever wondered whether there’s a connection between a mediocre Rolling Stones tribute band from Cologne and The Boss, don’t look no further. Yes, that’s Bruce Springsteen hugging a sweaty German.

Astro Star Cafe

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Today my travels took my into the western East End and I was in need of breakfast. When I saw the sign, I knew this had to be tried. Who knows, the owner might be a famous science – fiction writer or an astrophysicist (or a Zoroastrianist).  The amazingly and appropriately named Astro Star Cafe is situated in the middle of hip and happening Bethnal Green in the almost East End of London (also colloquially known as the centre of the known universe). As you can see, the Cafe is rather blurry and has a distinctive right shift. A physical phenomenon directly attributable to its name.

The food is as great as the name of the place. After being greeted with a friendly smile at the counter (and they are so outworldly trustworthy that you don’t even have to pay in advance) you order and sit down and read your ipad Guardian. The food soon arrives, and my god, it’s gorgeous:

Look at the extact geometrical placement of the hashbrowns (it was a bit too early for chips) and the geometrically correct semicircle of this sea of beans. The egg looked like a fiery sun with a golden corona, just about to be attacked by the threatening crispy bacon. And delicious it was as well. The cafe was clean, the swearing factor of the punters moderate (about 3 f-words per minute on average) and service efficient and courteous.

I think I might use this as a permanent deep space docking station.

Sunshine Days – The official greatest Hits of Matt Bianco

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I always think that a sure sign of getting older is when your favourite band releases its third ‘greatest hits’ album. Well, if I say third: There has been

So it’s actually ‘Best of’ Nr. 7. Not to worry, any new Matt Bianco album is a good album, and thanks to Amazon it was inside my CD player within seconds of being released. The tasteful cover informs us that it’s a mix between re-recordings of the older (=eighties) and newer (90 +) tracks, 18 tracks in total. With other words’s it’s an update of the A/Collection, which attempted the same feat in 1998. Well, that was 12 (bummer, I’m old) years ago and as I said before, there’s always room for another version of ‘Half a minute’. Well, maybe not this time. While HiFi Bossanova was a brillant reboot of almost J.J. Abramsian proportions, this is a mixed bag. It starts well enough with the title track of the last album and the rebooted ‘Lost in You’, but things sag a bit. The eighties staples ‘Get out of your lazy bed’, ‘Yeh Yeh’, ‘Don’t blame it on that girl’, ‘Dancing in the street’, ‘Good times’ and ‘Half a minute’ all suffer from some degree of muzakisation. Whether this is due to the rather uninspired drumpatterns or synth sounds that sound like something from 1994 or the sparse arrangements is unimportant, but these re-recordings don’t match the originals (or even the A/Collection). Just when you want to email Mark Fisher and complain, ‘More than I can bear’ blows you off your feat with a very contemporary reworking of this classic that sounds even better than the original. The two remixes of ‘Half a minute’ and ‘Wap Bam Boogie’ are equally excellent.

So, it’s a mixed bag: Some good stuff, some excellent tracks, some not so good.

Should you buy it? Of course you should. It’s got a nice hardcover, has smiling Marks on the front, three killer tracks and the rest is still excellent music for the car.

Italy-New Zealand

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Kia Ora,

we’re a bit late for the game of the All-Whites against those eleven men who easily fall over and cry (also known as the current World Champion) but at present (37 minutes) it’s a sensational 1:1 and the Italians either fall over and cry without any discernible contact or shoot on goal, while the Kiwis defend (slightly sheepishly) like lions

38:30 de Rossi falls over in a Shakespearan fashion. Why? Freekick fails to connect

Marcello Lippi looks like a dapper Michael Parkinson in his red track suit. Very stylish.

45:00 Half time. The Italians look like 11 very camp men trying to ram the All-Whites defenses but falling over repeatedly in the process. There is a very close resemblance to this.

65:00 There continues to be general shooting on one goal. Italians still fall over far too easlily

70:00 Great save by Paston. No Italians were hurt during this save.

82:05 BRILLANT SHOT by Wood on Italian goal. just a little wide.

86:00 Nelson gets a yellow card for being injured. Calls for a some psychoanalysis for the referee get louder.

94.23 It’s over!! New Zealand gain another point.

It’s box of fluffy ducks time!!