There's no "Me" in Meeting

The business world gave me a salary and weekends off, I feel I owe it something back.  One day I will write my book, "There's no Me in Meeting: Inner Secrets of the Marketing Brotherhood".

It's been said that the Inuit people have two hundred words for snow.That's understandable, but the company I work for has two hundred words for meeting and I think that's more of an achievement.  Let me see now; Pre-meeting, Review Meeting, Debrief Meeting, Kick-off Meeting, Set-up Meeting, Executive Committee Meeting, Management Meeting, One-off Meeting, Sales & Operations Planning Meeting, Budget Meeting, Departmental Meeting, Inter-departmental Meeting, Supply Chain Meeting, Annual Sales Meeting, Steering Committee Meeting, Monday Morning Meeting ...

I'll stop.  I guess that was about two hundred, but to be honest I lost count.  Those meetings taught me a lot, namely, how to yawn privately without even flaring your nostrils.  That's what I feel like doing right now.

Rules of this blog

1. Visitors: Please do not surf the blog before 11 AM as I may be sleeping

2. Author: Try to write at least one entry per year if it's not too much trouble (Note: FAIL)

3. Author: Do not drop in sly mentions for sites like Vitamin Advice Shop which you are being paid money to promote

4. Author: It's supposed to be a sodding music blog. Write something about music.

5. Visitors: You are free to comment as you please. Positive or negative, I respect your point of view even if it disagrees with my own. Critical remarks will not be moderated.

They'll be fucking deleted, that's what.

6. There will be no more than five rules

I will fight to defend my reputation

As you know, I have always taken a strong stand against drugs in sport. That's why it's obvious my test results are wrong. Yes, yes, I know I'm suddenly breaking records even after three lousy seasons and it did come out of nowhere, but I've simply been trying much harder lately. I decided to get more focused and I did. Anyway they tested me for testosterone, for God's sake. That's a natural substance! Okay, the levels, as measured, were abnormally high, but in my case they often are high, especially when I'm thinking about sex or showing off in front of women, both of which I do quite a lot.
So if sports drugs are supposed to be more prevalent than recreational drugs, who's taking them? Everyone denies it, including the ones who get caught. Well, I don't know who, just obviously not me.

I stood on the shoulders of giants, but the giants were lying down

Recently some facts have come to light. Firstly, I heard that 80 people a year die because of coconuts falling on their heads. If it can happen that easily then we're all doomed. Secondly, there are people younger that me who are already dead!

You know what, I'm going to stop watching TV.

Luckily, we don't have to give in to this sort of thing. There's lots you can do which will increase your self preservation and let's start with 2 handy hygene tips I made up which will help you avoid contracting lethal diseases.

1. Try not to share your chapstick with known drug users.
2. Don't eat food which may have been chewed by animals, unless you can be sure the animal had cleaned its teeth.

There you are then. Moving onto the music.

Oops, out of time for this week. Stay tuned.

Running a straw man up the flagpole

"new music what I are listen to:

Amusement Parks on Fire
The Arcade Fire
Beck
The Divine Comedy
Fountains of Wayne
Gotan Project
Guillimots
Hope of the States
Oxes
Sara Tavares
The Secret Machines
Sigur Ros
Sonic Youth
Steve Reich
Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain
Frank Zappa"

This submission is from Simon Day of 14 Ellis Road, Cardiff. (This is not his real address. We changed it to protect his privacy. His real address is 16 Ellis Road Cardiff.) My question: what's wrong with this submission? Answer: he hasn't rated any of this on our scale of 13! We don't make up these obscure, difficult schemes for you to ignore them. Did you think we were just running a straw man up the flagpole?
If any of you have difficulties with this, please call the help line (number witheld) who don't know anything about it. Or you can e-mail me but I don't understand it either. Let's try and get through this together.

N-n-n-n-thirteen

Okay, this is bad. See, I decided to institute a music rating system for the blog based on thirteen, as in All music on the site should be rated using a scale of 1 to 13. It's "different". It's "clever". Yeh, it's sodding pathetic.

But all the other numbers were already taken by other rating systems, honest.

So, having become excited about this amazing idea I decided it needed a picture to liven the thing up. People, okay one person, told me I needed more visuals on the site. Hang in here, there's a reason I have to give you all the fine detail.

So I googled "thirteen" and now I am presented with a page full of pictures of some teenage girl TV drama for yoof.

Thus I am a pervert and will be arrested which will be the end of the blog and the end of me.

Why does stuff like this only happen to me? I go looking for a computer magazine in a shop and it's always there next to the porn, so obviously the whole world is watching me and thinks I'm pretending about the computer magazine and is disgusted that I am a perv.

On a recent trip to Mexico I was introduced to this little guy, about 4 foot ten. For some reason, every time I saw him after that I winked at him. Why did I wink at him? I never wink! Why?
The whole world: "Because you are a perv".

Alright. Time out. Deep breaths. It seems I'm not getting very far with writing about music on this blog am I? But I need the rating system first. Of course. Guess I'll save it for the next posting if I am still at liberty.


Anyway, I want to thank you for your indulgence and reading this far, you're so good to me. Hey! Hold on! You're busy googling that teenage TV series! Now get back to this blog at once or I'll call the police.

Why it's better to be a fan than a musician

Musicians need to have led difficult lives so they have enough experiences to put into their music. Broken homes. Violent relationships. Poverty. Bad drug trips. John Bon Jovi was probably beaten up as a child and if you'd known him then, you'd have wanted to beat him up too. Worse, many of them gave their lives for their art. Just think of a few. Jimi Hendrix. Dead. Sid Vicious. Dead. Robert Palmer. Dead. Daniel Bedingfield. Dead, or at least injured. Robbie Williams. Dead. The list could go on, and indeed it does. Mozart. Dead. Beethoven. Deaf AND dead. Johan Sebastian Bach. Dead, or very ill - I have to check.
Okay, you get my point, I don't need to whip this ferret to death.
A lot of suffering has gone into a piece of music and then one of us goes into a shop, says "Cheers", lays down a small sum of money and before you know it, it's playing in the background while we make love to a beautiful woman. That's what has happened to me once anyway, apart from the bit about the beautiful woman.
Do I need to be famous? Me? No way, lay down those beats. Man.

5 albums I've binged on during the last 3 years

So let's get started with a few personal selections. If you hate them all, then maybe you mistakenly came to this web site because your google porn search was full of typos. For those of you who aren't illiterate pervs, here's the list.

Want Two - Rufus Wainwright
I'm old enough to remember his dad, but his dad was never this brlliant
Vehicles and Animals - Athlete
It's pop music, but so, so much more. And every song outstanding
Half These Songs Are About You - Nizlopi
Isn't it great that people can still invent music like this, so unlike anything else out there at the moment. Featured recently on a trailer for McLeod's Daughters - because of its typical evocation of remote outbacks full of beautiful people?
Shaman - Santana
Maybe the most emotional guitarist ever, put into a context of real songs. Although probably the producer should have told him to shut the f@#! up at certain points, it's still a brilliant modern combination.

Going Somewhere - Colin Hay
Not many people can carry off an album of just (more or less) acoustic guitar plus voice. It's called talent. In case you don't know, Colin Hay was the lead singer with Men At Work, of Land Down Under fame.
Room for Squares - John Mayer
I'm working backwards through John Mayer's work and it keeps getting better. Which is good for me but worrying for him.

Was that 5?

FAQs (Fake Artifical Questions)

Q: Why did you call the site Michael! My arm? It’s not arty - in case you think it is. There’s no hidden meaning. It’s not even artful enough to be pretentious. Worse, you have bamboozled any potential readership you might have had, as well as making sure no one will find the site anyway because you’ve made it un-Googleable. Are you proud?
A: sod off
Q: Would you say that the posting ‘5 albums I've binged on ...’ was a good place to get started and get a general flavour of things? And, again, any possibility that this is a contrived, artificial question made up by the author (henceforth to be known as “the author”) who really, really wants people to visit the site but is trying to pretend he doesn’t?
A: Sod off
Q: Instead of a big enterprise like a blog, why didn’t you just make a simple My Space page like everyone else? Let’s be honest, you could have done that in, let’s say, two hours. A short biography, a list of artists, your best photo and you’d be done, with ample time left over to wash up in your favourite bar and tell your drunken friends about it.
A: Sod off
Q: Is it really necessary to read this section? I mean, what if we skipped it and sort of just scanned a few of the remaining postings? Would that get us by?
A: Sod off
Q: As an older person, aren’t you supposed to like Classsic Rock? How about some nice Deep Purple or a bit of early Eric Clapton? You’re a disgrace to your generation, and frankly they were a crap generation without counting you in.
A: Sod off

Concentration

The great thing about blogging is that you only write short aticles, so it’s perfect for anyone with a short attention spa