Broadband

There was an article on the BBC site the other day talking about how hard it was to switch broadband service providers. I didn’t really pay much attention to it. I was probably busy doing something sexy and glamorous with all the other beautiful people. But I discovered for myself the joys of service switching when I finally decided that it was time to attempt to get a broadband speed capable of downloading an email in less than a week.

Y’see, for a couple of years I’ve been with TalkTalk. The service was initially very tempting. Good price and the speed was pretty much equivalent to what everyone else was offering. Seemed like a no-brainer, I thought, quickly realising that thinking this showed I had no brain. Anyway, I signed up and set up my email and billing and all that guff. A few days later I was connected and all seemed well for a few months. Then I lost the net for about a week. The useless customer “service” people at TalkTalk said they didn’t guarantee a service. What? A service provider that doesn’t guarantee to provide a service? But it’s your one thing. It’s what you do. It is your purpose as a broadband provider to provide broadband… This line of reasoning got me nowhere because, presumably, I had deviated from the usual responses that the customer “service” agent was expecting. A couple of months later and the same thing happened. A few months later and it happened again. Like a lot of people I really rely on the net for my work, as well as for shopping and wanking.

Also around this time other companies were bringing out faster speeds and better bundles but I was tied in to TalkTalk by then. Oh well, I thought magnanimously, it’ll all be fine. They can’t stay this shit in the light of all the competition.

Over the next year I had more drops in service and my connection seemed to get slower. I called them up and they said (I may be paraphrasing here…), “oh, please don’t leave us! We’ll get lonely. How about we move you up to our next tier of service with quicker speeds and a slightly larger download limit.” Download limit? You never even told me you’d introduced one. I agreed - it wasn’t going to cost me any more. The next day I logged into my router to check what marvellous download speed I could now expect! It had gone up by a pathetically small amount to somewhere just over 1 meg. Forgive me, TalkTalk, if I don’t pop open a bottle of Bolly and toast your marvellousness.

Then, a few months ago, I decided to get Virgin TV. This was mainly due to the Freeview signal in this area being of such poor quality that trying to watch a programme would usually be like watching a badly edited psychotic slideshow of digital noise and farting sounds. Just recently I figured out that I could ditch TalkTalk and get broadband roughly ten times faster for less than I was currently paying. I had to wait for my contract to end… These past few months have been painful as I watched the calendar with increasing frustration - exacerbated by getting a PS3 that seems intent on updating itself every half an hour.

To cut a long rant very slightly shorter, I am expecting the chap from Virgin to come round and plug a box in sometime next week. This will please me. Not quite enough to erase the pain of having such a crap service for so long and certainly not enough to erase the memory of talking to the customer “service” person about cancelling my contract. A brief summary of that conversation follows:

“Hello, this is TalkTalk. How can I infuriate you today?”

“I’d like to cancel my account with you”

“God, really? Are you mad? Did you not know we won a customer choice award?”

“Blimey, you must have some really thick customers”

“Well, clearly we do. But still, I can’t imagine why you’d want to leave us. We can offer you fast connection!”

“No you can’t”

“It says on my computer screen that we can”

“Trust me. Your broadband service is slower than a retarded tortoise trying to climb an oily pylon in a hurricane”

“How about we move you to our faster speed?”

“Yeah, you did that. I didn’t notice”

“Oh. How about I come round and grease your private parts?”

“I’d rather suck on a hedgehog”

“Are you sure you want to cancel your account?”

“Yep”

“Really?”

“Yep”

“You do realise that Virgin broadband is powered by Devil’s jizz and all their equipment explodes in the presence of children?”

“Yep”

“And what if Virgin go bankrupt?”

“They’ll get bought by another company - it’s happened several times already”

“But you won’t have a BT line anymore”

“I never ring anyone and I rarely answer the phone”

“But you have caller ID!”

“Yep. And a life.”

“Oh. Is there nothing I can say to convince you to stay?”

“Look, this is getting embarrassing. I’m embarrassed for you. All this pleading… It’s worse than my mother when I left home”

“You won’t have a mother anymore if you go to Virgin. They will KILL HER!!”

“Fuck off”

“Certainly sir. My job sucks and my life isn’t much better. I’m just off to slice my neck open. Have a nice day”

That is a condensed and slightly fictional version of a 25 minute phone call I endured with these morons. Goodbye TalkTalk. I really won’t miss you at all. And along the way I’ll be telling everyone not to sign up to you in the first place. Oh and to anyone saying, “Why didn’t you go with BT?” I would say, “it’s too expensive for what you get and the TV package is arse”. And similarly, to anyone who says, “What about Sky?” I would say, “It’s too expensive, too full of shit, the on-demand service is pony and it’s owned by a right wing arsehole.” I know Virgin isn’t perfect but if it isn’t better than TalkTalk I will happily eat this blog, naked whilst strapped to an angry camel who’s wearing a tank top made of broken glass, razorblades and vinegar.

Oh, and the one time I did have a problem with Virgin, they immediately slapped £30 on my account so I could rent a bunch of movies from their, frankly, excellent on-demand service. And I don’t work for Virgin. And Richard Branson is a nob. There. Balance.

Inventions

This weeks blog is a list of things I wish somebody would invent.

Teleport. If you saw my previous blog on travelling, you’ll know why I want this. Everyone I’ve asked would like a teleport. Just think - at the end of a night out you could zap home and sleep in your own bed. You could visit anywhere on the planet in the blink of an eye and still be back home in time for Neighbours. It would sort out all pollution problems caused by transport. It would put all taxi drivers out of a job meaning you wouldn’t have to sit in the back of a car that smells of Dettol pretending to agree with whatever half-baked bile the driver is spewing about immigrants, gays and/or politics. You could also order something from the net and have it delivered in seconds. Come on scientists. Sort it out. Lazy.

Proper on-demand telly. I hate adverts. I hate having a house full of small plastic boxes containing small plastic discs of films and tv programmes. I want to put my telly on, request a show and have it start immediately. And if we could have it without annoyingly distracting logo’s on screen all the time that would be nice.

All the medical guff they have on Star Trek. Did you know they don’t have headaches or colds in the fictional 24th Century? Simply wave a small device that resembles a pocket vibrator over any afflicted area and we have insta-cure!

Also on Star Trek they have those machines that can make whatever you want, just by asking it. That would be handy. It would probably make me eat a lot of junk food but I could just sort my arteries out with the pocket vibrator. This would eventually make shopping and money pointless. Brilliant! Also I could own every classic synth ever made, set them all up in the studio and pretend to be Rick Wakeman. Actually, maybe that’s not such a good idea...

Education. I would happily have a port somewhere on my body (excluding the arse, obviously) that allowed me to connect a USB lead and upload whatever it was I needed to know. Teleporting to France? Download the French language and feel comfortable in the knowledge that when you order a meal the waiter isn’t standing there thinking, “prick” - unless you’re in Paris in which case this is the default thought for all waiters. Need to fix your central heating? Download Plumbing for Dummies and learn how to both clean a flue and display your arse-crack at the same time. Presumably this would eradicate chavs and unemployment.

Sexy underwear that isn’t uncomfortable. I’m sure there are exceptions to this one but it seems that the more arousing an item of clothing is designed to be, the less likely your girlfriend/boyfriend/trans-gender lover is to wear it. Wearing it and then repeatedly saying, “It’s cutting my bloody circulation off” is not erotic unless you’re into asphyxiation in which case get a grip… No… hang on...

Pears, satsumas and avocados that make a small chiming noise when they’ve achieved perfect ripeness.

Computers that recognise when somebody else is using them and automatically hide your porn collection.

A machine that proves the non-existence of God and the afterlife. This would stop me having to help pay for the Pope to come over and blow hypocritical hogwash out of his pampered papal posterior. There are several other advantages to this - for one thing we’d have to find new reasons to go around killing each other. I’d like to put ‘purposefully trying to be kooky’ into the ring.

A robot version of James Cameron that can write a decent story. I’d settle for a broken robot George Lucas that just sits there and steadfastly refuses to mess around with the Star Wars films anymore.

Celebrities that explode after six months of exposure.

An iPhone that enables you to change the message tone. FFS Apple.

A machine that can rewind time. It would only have to be able to go back 30 seconds or so. Then when you realise the words coming out of your mouth are about to earn you a slap/less friends/inclusion on some kind of government list, you could quickly rewind time and replace those words with something inane. About the weather. Or David Cameron’s hair.

There you go. Feel free to add your own suggestions. If I hear any good ones I’ll add it to this list and send the whole lot to Professor Brian Cox who is, I’m sure, destined to save all mankind with his winsome presenting style

Beards

Hello. My name is Mike and I have a beard.

I’ve had a beard for 15 years and during that time I have received threats, insults and “friendly” advice on how to style it. I’ve received complaints from lovers and workplaces. I’ve been mistaken for Jesus.

I don’t have a beard for any particular reason. I’m not trying to stand out from the crowd or give my partner a rash. I don’t have it to keep a god happy - although what body hair has to do with being a good person is unclear. I suppose it’s as arbitrary and pointless as most of the other stuff we’ve made up to convince ourselves that no matter how shit this life is, just be a nice person and in the next life you’ll get a free harp and your own cloud.

The main reason I have a beard is laziness, although I have since discovered that it might be quite good for your skin to have some hair covering it up. The problem is down to shaving. Firstly the adverts for shaving products make me want to cook and eat the nearest advertising “creative”. Secondly, the whole thing is such a massive faff. And you have to keep doing it. I’m sure there are a few female ladies of the feminine persuasion who would complain loudly about having to shave various parts of themselves in order to comply with society and all its strange conventions. Don’t complain to me. I didn’t invent that particular piece of madness. Although if you’re a girl and you have hairy armpits then be prepared for me to sneak up behind you and give them a tug. This kind of thing makes me laugh like a ninny. I’m convinced most people find it endearing - despite the punching and swearing that normally ensues.

Another result of my laziness is the fact that I merely trim my beard once a week with a small battery powered trimmer (set to No. 2, beard fans). I don’t shave it into interesting shapes. I don’t neaten the edges with a ruler. I don’t dye it despite the fact that I have one grey beard hair and to get rid of it would apparently only take five easy minutes. I’m a fan of easy minutes.

I don’t wax my moustache. I don’t want a goatee. I don’t try to look stubbly and dangerous. All of this is too much effort.

Beards used to be very popular. All sorts of people had them - politicians, kings, actors, sane people. Now I think there’s just Brian Blessed and me. I’m not counting those tough grizzled macho guys who have so much testosterone that they get a 5 o’clock shadow even though they shaved at 4:55. Actually, that last sentence applies to a girl I knew… I don’t really understand what brought this change about. Did we all suddenly decide to believe the telly when they showed us pictures of a pretty, half-dressed lady rubbing our chins and kissing our necks like the very act of male depilation was enough to create overwhelming tingles in their lady basements? I would be willing to bet that this situation has never occurred in real life.

I always said I was going to shave my beard off when I got to 40 but as I start to see that miserable little milestone approaching like an angry dwarf with a mallet, I’ve begun to wonder if I will be bothered to go through with it. Maybe I’ll do it once just for the hell of it - just to see if I really do look younger. Perhaps nobody will recognise me and I can go into town and steal some hobnobs with no fear of recrimination. As long as I stay indoors for a few days afterwards nobody would realise it was me! I think I’ve just discovered the first upside to shaving - but it only works if you follow it immediately with not shaving.

Anyway, I think that beards should make a comeback. And not hyper tweaked fashion beards either. Sure it can be neat, trimmed and presentable. Just try to avoid looking like Worf from Star Trek or Michael Jackson (I mean… seriously… did you see that beard he had..?). I’m talking about proper honest-to-goodness beards. Beards with depth, width and girth. Beards with purpose. Beards that aren’t afraid to say, “look at me - I’m on the face of a real man”. Or in some cases, “look at me - I’m on the face of a middle-aged Spanish woman”.

Anyway. If you can, why not grow a beard. See how the world treats you differently. It’ll make you grow as a person. And it’ll make your face itch for a couple of days. Please feel free to send me pictures of your efforts. I might put a nice hardback coffee table book together.

How We Write...

A few people (definitely one real person, I may have dreamt the others) have been asking me how Hot Donkey write songs so I thought I’d take this opportunity to fill you in. Then if anybody else asks me I can just give them a link to this page and I won’t have to blather on and on while they stare glassily at me and wish they’d kept their big fat mouths shut.

Firstly, this is just a general idea as some of the tunes have started out in different ways and I honestly can’t remember how some of them came about. I was probably drunk. Or Daryl was. Or, more likely, we both were.

Usually a little nugget of a tune pops into my head at a deeply inconvenient moment - more often than not the nugget is a melody line but it can also be a drum pattern or some other rhythmic idea. I used to write the ideas down in a little notebook until I realised I couldn’t read music. I tried humming ideas into a little digital recorder but was too embarrassed to listen back to the sound of my own voice. Eventually I realised that the only way to deal with the nugget was to go make a cup of tea and turn on some kind of noise making device and quickly record the idea. Fortunately, these days, I have noise making devices on pretty much every gadget I own - apart from the toaster which steadfastly refuses to download apps. To be honest, it barely toasts.

So, once the nugget has been recorded, one of two things will happen. If I don’t have to be up early and leave the building then I will usually plough into the tune and try and write as much as possible. Depending on my condition at the time of writing this can go really well or so badly that I’ll turn the mac off in disgust and go self-flagellate in the vocal booth. If it goes well then I like to get to a point where I’ve got a 16 bar loop of the main idea, some drums, percussion, bass, weird noises, massively detuned belch and/or piano, and then I’ll drag myself out of the studio and off to bed. It will then take me ages to get to sleep because the tune will be going round and round in my head. The only way to stop this happening is to watch a bit of telly so I’ll probably stick some old X-Files on and wait for Mark Snow’s ambient noodling soundtrack to send me to sleep. Later seasons of X-Files don’t work in the same way because somebody gave him some money to use an orchestra and he got a bit big for his boots and the music became noisy, turgid, thematic, swollen and samey.

The next day I’ll go and load up the tune I started and have a listen. Either it will be the greatest collection of funny noises to come together and masquerade as a tune since Miles Davis got bubble bath up his trumpet or it will be a cheese-fest of unimaginable stink. If it’s the former I’ll get my head around it and start working on a rough arrangement. If it’s the latter I’ll get some crackers out, make a cup of tea and have a nice sit down.

The arrangement portion of writing usually shows me what needs changing, where the highs and lows need to be and reminds me that FM synthesis is never an alternative for a nice sound. Besides, every time I use an FM synth all I seem to be able to make is a crappy organ sound or some nasal bell type noise that transports me straight back to the 1980’s with all the dating trauma and disastrous hair that entails.

Once the arrangement is done, I’ll go through a process that drives anyone within earshot barking mad. I play the song from start to finish over and over again. This tends to highlight areas that need work - on the drums and on the links and buildups to different sections of the tune. After a couple of hours of this I’ll bounce the tune out and copy it across to one of the other computers. This is so I can listen on different speakers and stream it around the house (ooh, get me and my space-house). At this point I either hate the tune and the whole thing gets ditched or if I still like it then I’ll attach it to some internets and send it to Daryl.

Daryl slaps the tune into his sweaty DAW and starts to work his magic. Sometimes he’ll add a bit of guitar - or in one extreme example, a kazoo - and will occasionally suggest a tweak or two to the tune. He’s usually right. He then records a demo version of the vocals and bounces that out and flings it back to me. I receive the tune, get all excited and we book in a bit of time to record the vocals in the studio. Normally any guitar type stuff he’s added will be bounced out and sent on its own for me to drop into the ProTools session.

Vocals are recorded and I do a rough mix. We listen to it for a few days and usually decide that we’re geniuses and it’s perfect and we add it to the long list of tracks to release onto an unsuspecting public. Or more frequently we first get the lovely Cara Winter to come up with some vocals for it - based around some rough ideas that Daryl will give her. Cara is booked in and recorded. Then we all have Jaffa Cakes and more tea.

Finally I will do some more mix tweaks and send final versions for approval to everyone involved. Sorted. Tune done. Back it up. Put the kettle on.

I do drink a lot of tea.