I Dreamed a Dream….

Posted on 14/12/2009 by bigdaddymerk

…when hopes were high and Television was better.

subo

Tonight, I caught ‘I Dreamed A Dream – The Susan Boyle Story‘ on ITV, everyone knows the story of Susan Boyle; the quiet, middle aged lady from West Lothian who became the Star of ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent in 2008 .  Since the programme (in which she came 2nd to a Dance Troupe) she has become a huge hit in both the UK and around the world, in some part thanks to the internet with over 100 million views of her videos online.  Boyle’s album broke records to be the fastest ever selling début record in British history, it’s since sold over 1 million copies.

There is no doubt that Susan Boyle has a great talent and huge appeal, which for Susan and her record company is a fantastic thing.  What worries me is the way Boyle’s rise to meteoric fame has been handled.  I worry that this huge appeal is in part a symptom of how us, the record buying, TV watching public have come to expect our entertainers to look and act.

In tonight’s programme it was hard to get away from gushy celebrities telling us how Susan had overcome many obstacles to get where she is, they might be right of course, but any more than any other artist trying to make their way? A woman who doesn’t fit the media’s (or our) idea of a pop star – she’s middle aged, she’s not slim, she doesn’t have ‘model’ looks yet sings well.  This disturbs me somewhat.

Why are we surprised by this?  Do we expect all our pop stars to be amazingly charismatic and drop dead gorgeous? If the answer is yes then I wonder who is to blame, is it the media for being so negative by thinking we’ll only buy records from good looking people or is it our fault for buying into it in the first place?

It’s nothing new of course, early Elvis sang music that had been performed for years in underground venues by unknown black artists, but he was good looking, charismatic and (unfortunately) most importantly he was white and deemed ‘accessible’ to most.

Fast forward 50 years and it seems sad to me that the idea of Susan Boyle’s rise to success hasn’t been celebrated simply as a ‘lady with great voice singing songs‘ but as a ‘unconventional lady with great voice singing songs‘, for Ant (or Dec) to talk about Trial through Adversity or Piers Morgan to claim Susan’s fame is one of the Entertainment world’s biggest success stories makes it even more negative.

Even after world wide number one records, millions of record sales and rumoured performance for the U.S 1st Lady, the people that brought Susan to the forefront are still trading in the negative idea that it’s almost impossible that an unconventional person cannot harbour superb talent.

I’m not a fan of Susan’s music but I wish her all the best and really hope that she can leave the patronising gang of TV idiots behind her.

Posted in Music | 5 Comments

Film 2009

Posted on 3/12/2009 by bigdaddymerk

Following from Stavros’ massive list of films watched in 2009, here is some of the films I watched this year (inpo);

State of Play (2009) – the film verison of the ace TV drama – it’s pretty good actually.

From Hell (2001) – Jack the Ripper yarn with Johnny Deep – it’s shit

The International (2009) – cross James Bond with Bourne Identity and an ‘Introduction to accounting’ book and you have this film.  It’s alright.

Knowing (2009) – Alien bollocks with Nicolas Cage.  Says it all

In the Loop (2009) – Superb film of the TV series ‘The Thick of It’ – Favourite Malcolm Tucker Quote: “Well, it is out there, it’s out there now, lurking like a big hairy rapist at a coach station. You know, if I could, I’d punch you into paralysis!”

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966) - I can’t belive I’d never seen this, however it’s my main reason for buying a poncho.

Tell No One (Ne Le Dis a Personne) (2006) – Ace french film about a bloke who’s wife is murdered and his attempts to find out why.

In Bruges (2009)  – Not a great film but it’s made me want to go to Bruges.

The Uninvited (2009) – Some bird comes home fromt he mental hospital (you can tell where this goes already) to find his dad shacked up with another woman who she thinks is trying to kill her and her sister.

Gran Torino (2008) – Great film directed and staring Clint Eastwood. An ignorant racist who comes good, nice story.

Eastern Promises (2007) – A great British film about the Russian Maffia.

I finish with a film that I am really excited about seeing in new year, ‘Where The Wild Things Are’, a Spike Jonze film based on famous children’s book by Maurice Sendak.

Posted in Entertainment, Video | 4 Comments

The Smug of Apple

Posted on 30/11/2009 by bigdaddymerk

So my work supplied Mac Book Pro died in it’s sleep the other week so it needed looking at.  The problem with the aesthetics obsessed Apple is you can’t just send it off to be looked at, No.  You have to take it in person to the Genius Bar within the cold, joyless, smug Apple Store.  The nearest one being in Birmingham.

3839677320_2a9b90deb9_m

The Genius’, as you’d expect aren’t exactly Genius’ just the usual ‘follow-these-steps-if-it-doesn’t-work-we’ll-give-it-to-a-real-engineer-to-fix’ types you get in these sort of places, see PC World for similar thing.   As a self confessed geek what gets me is the sheer arrogance of the ‘Genius’ thing – Stephen Hawking is a genius, the portly bloke who ‘tested’ my Mac was not – regardless of the T-Shirt he was wearing;   “Not all Superheroes wear Capes“.   You could feel the ‘smug’ emanating from that store.

Anyway, after ‘genius‘ tried all the stuff I’d already tried he had to pass it to an engineer to look at – these are kept locked up in a room away from the shop floor, presumably because they don’t fit Apple’s ‘look’.   Two days later they phoned to tell me the motherboard was dead and wanted £730 to repair.  Much to my displeasure my employers didn’t want to pay this or indeed, buy me a new Mac Book Pro.   So I was given a budget and told to find another laptop.

I ended  up getting a nice Acer laptop with pretty decent spec, but it came with Windows Vista – an operating system I’ve managed so far to completely avoid.  Our in-house IT dept sorted ou me a copy of Windows 7 and I have to say I’m very impressed with it.  To date I’ve not had it crash, not had to manually end a non-responding process or throw it against the wall once.  While the keyboard doesn’t light up, the power is not a funky magnet power plug I still like it.

Posted in Geekery | 1 Comment

So here we are…

Posted on 30/11/2009 by bigdaddymerk

The domain registration run out for bigdaddymerk.co.uk last week and I wasn’t sure about renewing it, thing is I’ve had this domain for such a long time now it would be like losing an old friend.

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?

Posted in General | 2 Comments

Bloggage

Posted on 2/7/2009 by bigdaddymerk

I guess I should blog more huh?

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

Posted in General | 3 Comments