The Boss gets it right

Writing CD reviews should be the easy part of running this web site, its documenting my life thats meant to be hard. Not today, two of yesterdays purchases were run of the mill indie stuff, and one, well. Lets do the easy ones first.

Master, Yeah Yeah Yeahs If the Yeah Yeah Yeahs didn't come from New York then they should have done. Jangly punk pop complete with aggressive girly singer. Perfect for CBGB's. Master is their first recording as far as I know and its basically a five song EP. Lots to like, especially the lovely shouty Bang, and the fantastic bitchiness of Art Star. Kind of reminds me of early Blondie.

B.R.M.C. Black Rebel Motorcylcle Club There's something wonderfully old fashioned about the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Something kind of Led Zeppelinish, its like they want to pretend the whole Brit-Pop, Blur, Oasis thing never happened and just grind out big noisy rock songs. This is a bloody good thing, because while it gets a bit one paced in places and you sometimes find yourself wishing they'd vary the tempo or the everpresent wall of sound approach there are some fine fine songs in here. Love Burns, and Red Eyes and Tears provide a solid opening, and Spread Your Love makes me think of bands like Mudd as it thumps along on a heavy bassline. Top billing though has to go to the fantastic 'Whatever Happened to My Rock N Roll?'

I fell in love with a sweet sensation
I gave my heart to a simple chord
I gave my soul to a new religion
Whatever happened to you?

Couldn't have said it better myself.

The Rising, Bruce Springsteen

I'm not sure I can do this one justice, but then I'm not convinced anyone writing at the NME could either. This record is Springsteen's response to the events of September 11th and it is positively majestic in its integrity, honesty and vision. While the music may not quite be up to the same standards as the lyrics thats not the point. I can't think of anything except Marvin Gayes 'Whats' Goin On?' that compares to this in the scale of its subject matter, and the intimacy of the result. If there was ever a danger that one day the Boss would only be remembered as a straightforward rocker, with big muscles and a few hit records this is the record that puts that danger to bed. No other artist anywhere has come close to providing such a passionate, human and above all balanced response to what happened.

Its strong stuff this, and it isn't cheerful. Hometown heroes can only contemplate suicide to cope with what they've seen, the bereaved suffer the anguish of lost loved ones, and suicide bombers seek their own terrible resolution. In amongst all this though is a sense of redemption, of a realisation that life must go on, and that the quiet day to day struggle of trying to balance grief and rage is where the real heroism lies. "I want a kiss from your lips, I want an eye for an eye, I woke up this morning to an empty sky"

Its always been this way with Springsteen though. City of Ruins was written before September 11th, and the ruined city could be anything, rust belt economy or broken heart it doesn't matter. The desolation and need to carry on are the same, all you can do is what the song urges, rise up. The Boss has been saying the same thing ever since his 'broken heroes' were born to run, desperately trying to escape the lives that had been made for them. We will not go quietly, we will not lose sight of what makes us human because there is greatness in all of us.

There's more of it than usual in Springsteen though.

More reasons to like the internet

#1 : The fantastic Niall and Biffa at NUFC.com have just got back from Kiev and have penned a fascinating little piece on how far its come in the last five years, and how badly the English sports press failed to notice this when writing about this weeks Newcastle Kiev game. So, thanks to football and the internet there may just be a few more Geordies staying in Ukranian hotels this year. Good stuff. Its the piece titled 'owed an apology' on their homepage.

#2 : Just found this fantastic service at text-image.com. So through the wonders of modern technology here is my new self portrait. (200+k)

Shopping for last seasons model

Since I'm going to be playing my football on grass this season it was time to go shopping for new boots today. Now, part of me knows that you can get an entirely adequate pair of boots for about £25, and when like me you've got the skills of a one legged centipede spending £110 on a pair of boots is not going to make a difference. On the other hand, the new Nike boots look damn fine.

So, hoping to justify forking out large sums of cash I went in search of professional sports shops where I could be reassured that I was buying exactly the right boots. Footlocker was my first port of call, back when I was a kid and seriously into athletics Footlocker was where you went for spikes, (long / middle distance or sprint sir?) and specialist stuff like discus shoes. Today Footlocker is where you buy fashion shoes. Incidently if you're in the market for fashion trainers this years' Pumas look the business. I saw a documentary on their design and those folks were good - unlike Levis who were the next weeks' subject - their designers were talentless posers.

Anyway Footlocker being a dead end I tried the usual suspects but JJB, JD, AllSport and co need to learn that just sticking a £130 shoe in the window is not going to sell it. I need some pretty serious justification for spending £100 over the odds. So I went off in search of a shop that could reassure me, I was envisaging somewhere that really knew its stuff, like Footlocker used to. Well, if such a place exists in Newcastle I didn't find it. I did however find StartFitness, who were selling last years' Nike boots for £30 in their 'massive football boot sale', bargain!

So, I wisely banked my savings right? Well, you could believe that, but then you'd have to skip tomorrows reviews of all the CD's I've just bought.

Business School Blues

Adrian is scaring me again, 80 hour weeks?! I wonder if there's a slackers option.

Also got me thinking. Oxford has a tradition of fifth week blues, its half way through term, the ends not in sight, you need to go home and you're drowning in work, burnout looms large. Attendance at lectures and takings in student bars both slump. Now since the business school operates longer terms do I get my fifth week blues in fourth week this time? Or as a seasoned veteran of the real world am I now immune?

Ethical Strategy?

I've been starting in on my strategy textbook and while I'm sure its a fine read there are a few things I have to take issue with. Its fine to suggest that ethical business is good business, but when you then give as examples of ethical businesses Shell and McDonalds you're heading into deep water with concrete waterwings.

Shell are an evil oil company (the clues in the adjective) who with the collaboration of the Nigerian government have systematically raped and pillaged large chunks of that country. Back when I was doing my first degree one of the demonstrations I didn't go on was about Shell's refusal to intervene in the case of Ken Saro Wiwa, a man who was hung for his opposition to Shell's activities. Shell is a murderous corporation which should be hauled before a court somewhere. To call them ethical is not so much ignorant as offensive. When companies get to be the size of countries do we need to regulate them in the similar way? An International Criminal Court for corporations?

As for McDonalds, does the company behind the McLibel case really rate the tag ethical?

Anyway, aside from the ethical thing there was an introduction to various ways of evaluating companies. You see the goal of all companies it to maximise the return on shareholders capital. Of course throughout continental Europe companies have legal obligations to pursue broader aims, and some companies just might not have the right kind of capitalist ethics to let poets hang rather than diminish their shareholder value (its the right thing to do kids). Anyway, all companies try to maximise shareholder value (except for the ones that don't) which is good, because if they didn't some of this strategic theory might not work too well and then where would we be?

I think I'm going to like strategy.

Holding Tony Blair Hostage

At Bloggerheads Manic has temporarily abandoned his attempts to make the trains run on time, and decided instead that its time to make Tony Blair check his email more often. Can Weblogs Make a Politician Keep a Promise is a cracker, take a read and then do what the man says, contact your local journo. Come on, it'll be fun.

Its also a fine example of just how much fun could be had in the early days of the web, when few people understood exactly what was going on. Didn't stop them legislating about it though.

Fixture list piling up

Hurrah, a current student at the Said has just mailed the class list explaining that we need to sort out a football team, and that the Business School fields a team in the MCR league. A quick hunt around on Google revealed evidence of a previous 10 - 0 hammering at the hands of Keble College, so it looks like I may fit the bill. You see I may have gone to the same schools as Alan Shearer, and as a youngster I may have even had the same coach but there's a reason I never came close to threatening his goalscoring record at Grange First School (under 10's)...

Still, one flash of an authentic Geordie Accent "Haway man thats wor bal", coupled with my freshly shaven head and I should be in.

Busiest day to date

Yup, over 130 of you have visited the site today, clocking up an impressive 570 page impressions, which since till today the average visitor read 3-4 pages means you've all found the content more interesting than usual as well. Much of this seems to be down to the folks from MBA wire (hi guys) which is passing through a significant chunk of traffic (thanks Tad). But there are many folk visiting direct as well, could it be I'm developing one or two regular readers? That is a wierd feeling.

So, any feedback or comments let me know. In some bizarre exhibistionist manner I am after all here to serve...

Its not really like that folks honest

If anyone saw College Girls tonight, about the lives of undergraduates at St Hildas College I promise, it's not really like that. Well, the Oxford Union really is like that, all shallow and backbiting, but the rest of Oxford isn't, and you can ignore the union really easily.

Which is a shame because the union puts on some great stuff (recent speakers have included OJ Simpson, Michael Jackson, Yasser Arafat...), membership is for life and there's something on most nights. Its just the fact that hanging around the union means being exposed to union hacks - all trying to cultivate the moral standards needed to succeed in today's Conservative party through a series of fraudulent elections and terribly insular 'scandals'. Pitiful really.

Fresh Content

Decided to spend the afternoon working on the site. New links include Tad Holbie who's running a similar project to this one over at MBAwire. Of particular interest was his list of the essay questions for all the schools he's considering. That makes, me at Oxford, Adam at Harvard and Adrian at Melbourne / Columbia. Oh, and the soon to be linked (when I get permission) Lisa at Wharton. Tad is still applying so he doesn't know where he's going. Surely there are some more MBA bloggers out there?

Also new is the piece on Professional MBA Essay Editing. I'm the #6 result on Google for 'mba essay' and this piece is a deliberate attempt to grab traffic on its way to professional editors who in Billy Connoly's phrase are probably 'lower than a snakes belly'. So don't worry if the opening paragraph or two read slightly oddly, its all a cunning attempt at keyword arming...

Finally I've got the archives up and running. According to Blogger this should have been a doddle, however Blogger's help files weren't displaying images, so it looks like I wasn't the only one who forgot to write the full directory path in an important box somewhere.

Old jokes, new laughs

Friday night being a night for drinking, dancing and singing in Newcastle I went to see a performance of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.The company, 1399, have previously performed The Tempest at Tynemouth Priory and Macbeth at Newcastle Keep. This time the venue was Blackfriars Monastary, which is tucked away in the centre of Newcastle. Once upon a time it was behind the Mayfair Rock Club (home of the legendary and terrifying Whitesnake Half Hour), nowadays its one big building site, because what Newcastle really needs is a new shopping centre... Anyway, back to the venue - the monastary's open courtyard was perfect for this, suitably perked up with stage lights, a wooden stage and pavilions for the audience. The whole thing felt like a sanitised medieval courtyard - except for the portaloos, I'd have taken a medieval garderobe over them anyday.

The play was a reworking of the Knight's Tale, Priest's Nun's Tale, Cook's Tale, Reeve's Tale, Pardoner's Tale and Miller's Tale, which basically boils down to one romance a couple of moral stories and two 'medieval mucky stories' as the cast called them. While significant chunks of Chaucer were left in the business of trimming the tales down to twenty minutes and making them comprehensible necessitated a fair bit of reworking and the addition of plenty of slapstick comedy. Whether Chaucer ever envisaged the Priest's Nun's Tale as involving a hillbilly and an Elvis impersonating rooster is unlikely.

The cast were six strong, one for each tale and the whole thing presented as the conclusion of a medieval story telling contest presided over by the Reeve. The acting was strong throughout, with plenty of song and dance worked in for good measure. Occassionally the slightly amateur nature of the piece came through, but in all honesty that worked in their favour, I can't really imagine anyone delivering Chaucer the way the RSC delivers Shakespeare, Chaucer belongs outdoors with a enthusiastic crowd, audience participation and plenty of mulled wine.

So, Friday night, drinking, dancing and singing. Top stuff. Next week, wenching!