We’ve both neglected our respective duties since…

We’re not a Conservative family, for a start my parents divorced when I was 3. I grew up on a Council estate and went to a state school (albeit a strange one). Both my brother and I managed to get to Uni (although only one of us, Stavros, finished). We never claimed benefits and our mother worked long long hours to do this.  I have long detested the stereotype of single parent families who sit on their arses all day popping out children and claiming all they can from the state – The Tories push this stereotype too much for my liking.  Just one of the reasons why I will NEVER vote Conservative.

In 2001, I was at University during the election. I registered to vote in Warrington and voted Labour. I felt I’d done my duty and that my vote really did count. Labour won.

A couple of years later, while I was working for a Community radio station in Wolverhampton a friend introduced me to his friend Tom Watson, MP for West Bromwich East. We became friends. Tom loved the idea of starting a similar radio station in his constituency and put me in touch with some people involved in the creative arts projects, namely The Public, a community arts organisation.  Together with the help of some good people at The Public we created a company and submitted a community licence application which we won.

It was my feeling that no other party would have made the commitment to these sort of community arts projects other than Labour; they saw the potential in Community Radio, projects like The Public and people like me.

At this time the Iraq war was kicking off, it was something I didn’t believe in.  I was adamant is was the wrong thing to do, however, in my mind Labour had made my life better.  I stuck with them.  .

Again, I voted Labour in 2005, they won.  I didn’t want Tony Blair as Prime Minister but I was sure that he was probably best of a bad bunch of leaders and I’d always hoped that he would have been ousted as leader and Gordon Brown would take over, I had faith in Gordon Brown to do a good job. I even joined the Party at some stage

All did not go well with The Public and they soon went into administration, this meant that the great support and staff that was instrumental in our Community Radio station’s progress all but stopped.  The Administrators made it clear that my project was now not financially viable, it was a great blow to our project as a whole and to me personally.

Over this period my unease with Labour’s governance was growing, from my outrage over the Iraq war and it’s atrocities to the seemingly increasing efforts to throw away our much loved (but not constitutionally bound) civil liberties.  I still hoped, deep down that Labour were the party for me.

For the past 5 years I have worked for an Internet Service Provider as a network/systems engineer, it’s a relatively small company with 100-/+ employees.  I still have a love and desire to do radio and I’m working on another project which will hopefully come to fruition in the next 12 months (more on that soon).  Yesterday a sweepingly wide bill, The Digital Economy was rushed through Parliament before the General Election.   This bill stands to have serious detrimental effects to my industry and at it’s very worst could cost jobs or even businesses.

Less and 40 MP’s debated the bill for it’s third reading yet it was whipped though the house with 189 votes to 47.   187 members voted without even being present for the debate (419 didn’t turn up), the whole bill with a few amendments was voted within a total of 7.5 hours of parliamentary time.  Despite calls from major players in the industry such as Google & Microsoft, Twenty thousand emails or letters to MP’s and serious concerns of a few knowledgeable MP’s to halt the bill and debate in the new parliamentary term.

The bill covers such a sweeping list of area’s such as copyright infringement, Digital Radio, Photographic works, Ofcom powers and many more that for the Government to push this bill through the ‘wash up’ stage of Parliament is a disgrace and slaps the democratic process firmly in the face.

This was the final straw for me, and looking back I’m wondering why I didn’t say this when I was so outraged at the Iraq War, the slaying of Jean Charles de Menezes, the conduct of the police at the G20 protest or the persistence of the ID cards issue.   For that I feel ashamed, that I did not protest my anger then, but now is the time.

Labour no longer have my vote.  It is sad, because for years I’ve believed in Labour but it’s more than evident that they no longer believe in me.  I really do hate the idea of the next 5 years being lorded over by the horribly saccharine David Cameron and his band of Bullingdon chums, I really do.  It makes me feel sick.

Labour haven’t lost my vote forever, they could get it back.  To do so they have to be prepared to listen, for too long they have simply pretended to.

For years I harangued any friends who said they wouldn’t  bother voting; “Well, they’re all the same aren’t they Merk”.  I’m starting to think they were right*.

My ballot paper will be spoiled this year, if I vote at all.

*Tom Watson’s dedication to opposing elements of this bill is to be commended, Tom is one of a few constituency MP’s who is caring, dedicated and knowledgeable. Regardless of my anger with Labour, Tom remains a friend and I wish him luck for the Election.

I was singing Christmas Carols in the round with brother Stavros, Cricketer come singer Henry Olonga (I have no idea what he looks like but he was there), Aled Jones (of ‘Walking in the Air’ fame) and that embarrassment of an MPNadine Dorries who doesn’t even know where she lives.

We used plastic cups for percussion.

When I first registered the domain it was through some random free domain company and it was my first attempt at html coding and even my first major foray into the world of the internet – it was via dial up at my mums house, on my first proper pc which I paid £1200 cash for at Tiny. My (or rather my Mums) first dial up bill was about 300 quid!

I made this really shit site which entertained the idea that BigDaddyMerk himself was some sort of celebrity hit-man, offering varied levels of violence towards people like Robbie Williams, Will Smith etc. it had animated gif horizontal rules of dripping blood and an animated Terminator saying something very shit like “Tell me which celeb you wish to be terminated‘ – Frankly it was dreadful and very embarrassing.

If I could go back 11 years and tell myself not to do something this would probably be quite high on the list, alas I can’t and I must tell you that at no time did I ever do a ‘hit‘ on anyone, celebrity or otherwise.

At the time I’d just started college near Birmingham I was doing Audio Visual Design, which is a posh name for titting around in a recording studio – I took this course because at school I spent a lot of time doing sound and light work for the theatre productions and this was what I wanted to do. The school wouldn’t run a dedicated technical course (ironic given their whole City Technical College thingy) so I headed over to Smethwick 4 times a week to do sound.

While I was there I realised I wasn’t really interested in sound engineering in a studio environment because most musicians I met during the process, while very talented, where mostly a bunch of arseholes!

Part of the course was Radio Production, something I’d really gotten into and with the influence of the excellent Mark & Lard, Chris Evans and a fast emerging Chris Moyles (although I’d rather cut my ears off than listen to him now). I met a good friend who I ended up doing a radio programme on Wolverhampton Campus Radio – a long term RSL on AM broadcasting to Wolverhampton College, it was fun. Lots of fun.

I decided to head to University, the place that offered the best course was in Warrington – a place I will never miss. I spent most of my study/work time helping set up a student radio station which last time I checked is still going. I only lasted a year, before deciding it wasn’t for me.

I headed back home and within a year I’d got a full time job with Wolverhampton Campus Radio, while I learned much more about radio, radio production and management. Just before I left WCR I started working with a place called The Public in West Bromwich and we successfully applied for a radio licence, a 5 year FM licence to broadcast community oriented radio. All went well until the The Public’s much publicised demise, the administrators were called in and the first thing to go was their support my company that would eventually run the station. Bad times.

During this time I was working in technical support for an ISP, a boring unsatisfying job – but it paid a half decent wage, so I stuck it out, after about a year or so I was given the opportunity to move into the Network Operations Team which is where I still am to this day. My computer/networking knowledge has grown tenfold and I am still learning every day, it’s sometimes fun, sometimes challenging, sometimes downright annoying.

So here we are, why am I writing this? I have no idea, I just sat here and out it came. Thinking about what I’ve just written I’m pleased my IT knowledge has grown but I’m still pretty sure it’s not what I want to do for the rest of my working life.

I have been asked to get involved with some old radio friends to help set up an Restricted Service Radio Licence somewhere in Shropshire next year, I’m so up for helping out – I just hope I can fit it around my job. I’m still desperate to work in theatre sound & light and perhaps radio again but I’m worried it might be too late – am I destined to spend a life in IT?

Only time will tell huh?

In the meantime here is a video of a Monkey taunting some tigers.

If you’re looking for mailwatch you’ll find it over at www.mailwatch.co.uk – unless you happen to try and view it while the web pixies are still doing their thing, if so try again later.

Cheers

Merkio

Chris Riddell of the Guardian sums it up.

I don’t believe for a second Stevie G was involved in a fight.

Surely, at the first sign of contact, he would have thrown himself to the turf and writhed around looking for a pen?

Observer: It’s a little early to sanctify Steven Gerrard

10 Things Merk DIDN’T do in 2008

1. Go Abroad
2. Go to a Museum
3. Buy enough Clothes
4. Lose weight
5. Save Money
6. Get a new Job
7. Woo a lady
8. Join a choir
9. Go to the theatre
10. Go to London

10 Things Merk DID do in 2008

1. Dented the car
2. Went to Aberystwyth (twice)
3. Put a picture up
4. Nearly quit this blog (for reasons I wont go into)
5. Got Sky installed
6. Learned more geeky shit
7. Became a god-father
8. Avoided any real hard work
9. Write some angry letters
10. Avoided ‘new’ music – leave that to my brother Zane Lowe Stavros.

10 8 TV Programmes Merk enjoyed in 2008

1. Dexter
2. Heroes
3. Lost
4. The Devils Whore
5. The Tudors
6. Fringe
7. Spooks
8. Top Gear

10 TV Programmes Merk HATED in 2008

1. Celeb Air
2. Celeb Scissor hands
3. Strictly Come Dancing
4. X Factor
5. Big Brother
6. I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here
7. Dancing on Ice
8. Bone Kickers
9. Last of the Summer Wine (why is the absolute fucking shite still on my telly?)
10. Tonight with Trevor McDonald

10 Films Merk watched in 2008

1. El Orphanto (Brilliant)
2. Casino Royale (ok, same old)
3. WALL-E (good)
4. The X Files: I Want to Believe (yawn)
5. Cloverfield (shite)
6. The Strangers (shite)
7. 21 (ok)
8. The Dark Knight (good)
9. Hunting Party (very good)
10. The Condemned (shockingly bad)

10 People Merk Disliked in 2008

1. Tony Blair (goes without saying)
2. Robert Mugabe (massive C-unit)
3. David Cameron (No policies, no clue)
4. Iain Dale (ill-informed Conservative darling and self proclaimed blogging ‘expert’)
5. David & Victoria Beckham (I don’t care where you’re living, just get off my telly)
6. George W Bush (you’ve helped move humans one step closer to destruction)
7. Sarah Palin (pro life, pro hunting – no logic)
8. Alistair Darling (it’s the eyebrows)
9. Lewis Hamilton (won some races, fucked off to Switzerland to avoid tax)
10. Lewis Hamilton’s dad (we don’t need to see you all the fucking time)

10 People Merk Loved in 2008

1. Stephen Fry (comedy genius, genius, all round nice chap)
2. Jonathan Ross (for pissing off the Daily Mail)
3. Obama (I think you have to love Obama or they’ll get you)
4. Jon Stewart (wished with had equivalent in the UK)
5. Stephen Colbert (wished with had equivalent in the UK)
6. Guy Garvey of Elbow (cracking album, seems like a nice person)
7. Dizzie Rascal (for appearing on Newsnight here)
8. Riahnna (for annoying the shit out of my brother!)
9. Frankie Boyle (for being hilariously funny)
10. David Dimbleby (just why hasn’t David been Knighted yet, it’s a discrace)

But if that still interests you…..stay tuned!

Before this horrible event is even over Fox News spaffs their special kind of ‘terror-porn’ all over their website with scant regard for the facts.

1) While one group has already claimed responsibility for the attack, no one can be sure if they’re Muslim terrorists, but so what if they are, a terrorist is a terrorist no?  Are ETA terrorists known as ‘Roman Catholic’ Terrorists?

2) These terrorists may/maybe not holding westerners hostage, they are also holding non-westerners hostage too – only one eyewitness account so far has suggested that they pin pointed British & US people. Terrorists are opening fire indiscriminately at anyone, a stolen police van fled the scene while shooting at anyone who happened to be in the street.   A hospital has been attacked an hostages taken, indiscriminate.  2 of the top police officers have been killed, one a high profile ranking officer has been repeatedly threatened in emails from an existing terrorist group.

I’ve just watched hours of news channels from Sky, Fox, BBC and most of all India’s NDTV and the eagerness of the US & UK media to instantly judge that this attack is a proxy attack on the west is plain to see. India has it’s own enemies too y’know.

It’s my take that while the calls were inappropriate, it certainly isn’t something which should result in the sacking of two of TV and Radio’s biggest names, apologies have been made – Ofcom will investigate and that make a judgement and that should be that.  No one died.

For me there are some issues relating to all this brouhaha (yes, I did just say brouhaha);

I find it amazing that only 2 people made complaints after the show went out and now over 10,000 people have complained since reading about it in their favourite right wing shit rag.  That means that all but 2 people listening to the show were not offended by the broadcast, if that is the case then the matter is entirely between Andrew Sachs and BBC radio 2.

Sach’s granddaughter is a Burlesque dancer who appears in the a dance troupe, she (according to her myspace) calls herself a ‘swinger’ and a ‘groupie’ and has appeared with very little clothing in more than one newspaper – yet she is somehow embarrassed enough about the revelation that she shagged one of the most sexually active ‘celebs’ in the country to quit the ‘Satanic Sluts’ European tour?

BBC News channel are showing their impartiality by covering this story to death, apparently there is nothing else going on in the world. Honest.

Shit newspapers who love a good bit of BBC bashing are baying for blood in this and will use this as any excuse to whip up a frenzy of anti-licence fee idiots to do their best ‘Angry of Tunbridge Wells‘ impression even though I’m willing to take a punt that a great deal of those 10,000 complainants haven’t even heard the broadcast.

As someone with experience in radio (albeit not the heady heights of Radio 2) – it was a shit piece of radio, really really bad, but not sackable shit.  Christ, if only this baying mob had heard some of the shit my co-presenter and I used to come out with (Lockerbie the Musical anyone?) we’d have had our head on spikes before you could blurt out “He fucked your Granddaughter“.

As I write this I see on the BBC News channel have announced that Brand and Ross have been suspended pending investigation, perhaps this is the correct thing to do and should have happened (and those involved in the decision making process for it to go out) as soon as this looked as it was going to blow out of all proportion.

The best thing the Beeb can do now is let this settle and wait for the Springfield Mob to move onto the next subject, then re-instate two of their most popular broadcasters (even Sachs has himself said he didn’t want to put any more pressure on Ross after a personal apology) on the understanding that when the OFCOM ruling comes in, Ross and Brand pay the fine (which is likely to be a big one now).

SL2 – On A Ragga Tip

M83 – Moon Child

JJ72 – Formulae

Soul II Soul – Back to Life

2 Unlimited – No Limit

2pac (feat. Dr. Dre) – California Love

10CC – I’m not in love

More to follow I’m sure.

2. Get a window cleaner

3. Join a Choir

5. Watch some live Jazz

4. Learn to count

Will the summer ever arrive or where those 2 days in May it?

Went to Manchester today, It wasn’t raining – first. time. ever.

Got asked for ID in Aberystwyth the other week, twice – I’m 27.

Fetched a drink from the bar in the local club on Sunday and proceeded to go up the two steps of the raised seating area. 2 seconds later I’m looking up at the lights and speakers and covered in a pint of Carlsberg Export. I do hope no one noticed (no one other than the kind doorman who helped me to my feet!).

Fathers Day soon, need card and beer. Two weeks to organise.

Don’t really see the point in Twitter, seems like one more thing to do.

Why do I look drunk on most of my Facebook pictures?

Thinking of joining a Male Voice Choir.

Had an ace time in Aber, cheers boys;

Links

Tom‘s blog pointed me towards some ace Ukulele covers, I’d love to see them down at the Crown.

I looked into making my own Pork Pies the other day, but it seems Offaly complicated (see what I did there?)

Those (ahem) with Parcopresis would have struggled on the Space Station this week.

Anyone who enjoys Wellington in the summer should take a look at the entertainment planned for this year, there are couple of things that take my fancy.

My name was put forward for the job and I got a call from a guy called Paul asking if I could go up north to meet him, I agreed. We arranged to meet in Manchester city centre and the plan was to phone him when I arrived at Piccadilly station and he’d meet me – it was already reasonably late in the day by the time my train pulled in, I called Paul and he said to find a quiet bar and text him the location and he’d come find me.

So I headed off and ended up in the Piccadilly Tavern (god knows why), I got a pint in and grabbed a paper and waited. Now the problem with waiting for someone when you’re in a pub on your own is that you have no one to disturb you and a pint lasts half as long as it does normally – so 4 pints and no food later Paul turns up to have our chat/interview – I’m half pissed, he gets another round in.

We have a chat about the work and other random stuff and I think we get on – he tells me about his plans for the company and I tell him I don’t have a problem moving up north for the job. Sweet, he’s interested in taking me on and I’m interested in working for him so we leave it at that. Off I toddle back home feeling good.

A few days later Paul’s assistant (who’s name fails me) calls up and asks if I could go up and meet the rest of the staff and get an idea of the surroundings, she’s already been looking in the local paper for flats in my price range and would let me know if there was anything that would be of interest. I should call them when I arrive and they’ll come pick me up and take me to the office/studio.

The ’studio’ was located above an insurance brokers or mortgage place in Blackburn. Right near Ewood Park, the home of Blackeye Blackburn Rovers. I chatted to the outgoing guy who explained the job and then chatted more with the boss and all seemed cool. This was it, In a few weeks I was going to be moving to a strange new town doing a job I’d enjoy and being able to create I was excited**, they were going to call me over the weekend to sort things out, they had my mobile number.

I’d not given it much more of a thought until I’d not heard anything by the Sunday, my phone had been off for some of the time over the weekend but there were no notifications about messages or what not, I put it down to them being busy. Monday passed I went to work in Epson call centre pretending I gave a shit that their Scanner wasn’t quite scanning properly or their projector wasn’t hooking up to their pc the way they wanted it – I wanted out of this and a radio job. Nothing. By Tuesday I called from my office phone; “I left you a message on Saturday saying that if you wanted the job to get back to me asap – I didn’t hear from you so I presumed you didn’t want it…….I’ve urrm given it to someone else nowâ€?.

What?

I looked at my mobile, no little symbol in the corner, no missed calls showing. Fuck. Is he lying? was this is way of saying I wasn’t quite up to the job, or they didn’t like me? I put the phone down, I wanted to crawl into a little ball and cry but I had to go back and pretend to give a shit about colour matching and firewire drivers.

I looked at my phone again, tried to call my mum for some much needed sympathy; “I’m sorry you have insufficient credit to place this call�….hmmm I wonder how much credit I have. I called the number; “your balance is zero pence�. I needed some credit on my way home. Cut to a few hours and a tenner credit later I was sat at home scratching off the coating to reveal the credit numbers (it was when pre paid phones we’re pretty new and credit was put on by sticking in a really long code) and punching them into the phone

“Your balance is Ten pounds and zero pence�…….Beep Beep…..Beep Beep. A message notification appears on the screen.

“you have 1 new message…….�hello this is Paul, we’d like to offer you the job if you can get back to us before the end of today cause we want to move quick on this so if you can call me…….�

I hung up. Turns out that message notifications didn’t appear on your phone unless you had some credit on the account.

I have a contract phone now!

* Don’t get me wrong, If I was offered a cushy job on some cool station I’d snatch their hand off – phone in/talk show especially.

** Looking back it would have been pretty dull to be fair, getting pre-recorded Pat Sharp links and sticking the music over the top of them, then burning about 30 copies and sending it out to stations week in, week out would have got pretty boring after a while.

Here’s to the next 5?

We spent hours there until it was time to move in, I was the youngest and just like now I got bored rather easily. I was allowed toys to keep me occupied while Mum and our Grandparents decorated or laid carpet….as long as I didn’t get in the way.

I had a fire engine, it was a playmobil one. I loved it. It was red, had the little fireman with it and a fire hose coming from the side of it. It was brilliant. More Brilliant that the the fire station was close to Nan & Grandad’s house and every now and then we’d see the fire engine race past, it was great. We went on a trip to the fire station with playschool, we got to see the station, sit in the engines and use the fire hoses, I tried to get mum with the water – sorry mum!

Back to the house, Stavros must have been bored too – because he decided he wanted to play with me and the fire engine. Only Stavros had picked up some wire cutters Grandad was using and swiftly began to cut the hose off the fire engine.

The hose was in two pieces, Stavros thought it was funny – Mum didn’t – I was distraught.

I don’t think I’ve ever really gotten over that.