Month: June 2008

Peter Andre – legend?

DavidOne of my guilty pleasures is listening to Smooth Radio in the morning – one of the benefits is that you hear a wide variety of music…

As a commercial station Smooth does, of course, have adverts and one of the recent ones caught my ear the other week.

It advertised an upcoming gig playing at Croydon’s Fairfield Halls and the O2 Arena on the Thames at Greenwich.

The event is being put on by none other than David Gest and is called David Gest – My Life! A Musical Extravaganza.

The former Mr Liza Minnelli is giving us the opportunity to see ‘live on the show… nine legendary acts‘.

Wow, I thought. Who are these legendary acts? Shalamar, Freda ‘Band Of Gold’ Payne, Russell Thompkins from the Stylistics, Coolio – yup, I’ll just about go with them.

But then right at the end of the list was a slightly odd name – one to whom I would never ascribe the term legend. The name was Peter Andre!

Yes, Mr Katie Price is apparently some sort of living god, according to David Gest. Shurely shome mishtake?

Get to know people better meme

I was tagged by Tamzen for this one and it tickled my fancy early in the morning, so I’m going to go for it.

The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
I really had to think about this one – given that I switched jobs every couple of years, it’s not that surprising. I was working for a publishing company who no longer exist called Two-Can on a kids newspaper supplement called Young Telegraph for the Telegraph newspaper that also no longer exists.

I was living in St Albans in a small two-bedroomed terraced house with my ex-wife and things were, generally, OK – although I was earning a pittance.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list today?

a) Go and see Sex & The City tonight!
b) Buy some lovely organic pork chops for tomorrow night’s dinner
c) Call the bank
d) Email my sister
e) Catch up on last night’s football on the BBC iPlayer

3. Snacks I enjoy…

A crisp red apple, Mars or Snickers, peanuts, cheese on toast

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire…

Move to live on the coast, set up my own organic food shop,

5. Places I have lived…

Chatham, Kent; Orpington, Kent; Oxted, Surrey; Sheffield; St Albans; London (mainly south)

6. Jobs I have had…

Sunday paper round, Sales and other assorted horticultural tasks in Knights Garden Centre, Conference and Editorial assistant at Horizon House, Sub-editor, Writer, Editor and various other assorted job titles at other magazine companies who have changed name or no longer exist, Production Editor and Features Editor at Emap, Freelance journalist, and now online bod first at AOL and now at goodtoknow.

7. Bloggers I am tagging who I will enjoy getting to know better…

Hmm, not sure how many other of my friends read this. Clair (although I’m sure you’re not that fussed about doing this), Dale, Cliff, Wendy maybe…

Last.fm – the next stage!

I’ve been a big fan of last.fm for over two years now – a brilliant way of keeping track of the music you listen to and an ability to find people who share your listening tastes.

Well, it’s nearly time for the next stage in their development. They’re currently allowing users to test out their open beta site.

It looks very different – much more white space and more than a couple of echoes of other well-known social media sites.

Genius new functionality is the library – a fantastic searchable online archive of all the music you’ve ever listened to.

There are lots of doubters among users, but you’ll never please all of the people all of the time.

Personally, I like it a lot. It feels fresher and more modern and there’s far more space. I’ll be sad to see the old site go, but am looking forward to the new beta site becoming more permanent.