Saturday 29 May 2010

Retro Blog The Interweb

If I was a PC user, I'd find one of those pony, fist-shaking emoticons and ftp* it right into the webmastery turret of the Big British Castle.

They've completely revamped their interfaces over the last week or so and are behaving like a middle-aged woman trying to squeeze into those jeans that looked so good when she was 25.
The main omission to the Adam and Joe page is in the gallery area but at the point of writing this, most of the stuff is still sitting on the server.

While I'm dissecting their page, I should say it now has one of those ludicrous alpha-numeric mumbo-jumbo addresses that doesn't so much trip off the tongue as dribble onto the floor like some weirdly named sweet from abroad that you thought would be good but actually had a strange aftertaste.

Furthermore, if it weren't for a hole full of idiots like me, you'd have to Google for the link because they are not showing up in the list of 6Music presenters at the moment. I suppose we should be encouraged that they have made a page for them at all and the artwork is double plus fun.


They've also linked this page in the tabs at the new Mixtape page and Collins and Herring have their own page at last. Richard doesn't have a castle email addy and his Twitter isn't listed but it's a start, isn't it?

I've been trawling the cached pages to gather and preserve links for as long as stuff is still stored on their servers. I saved a page last night which has subsequently gone from Google but happily, other search engines with cached pages are available.

The new format does still have a photo gallery but only seven sections have been retained so I'm listing the older links below.

The new video section points to a list of blog posts with 'video' tagged in them, similarly with the Song Wars link. Happily they've retained an area for the Video Wars which showcases A-Salt with a deadly Chris-p's wonderful Lego film for Jane's Brain and also gives a link to the runner-ups'. I still love to watch Stuart Lanceley's, by the way.

Their biography is in dire need of an update. Apparently, Joe is doing some other thing for Film4.....chortle. When will he finish writing that?

The contact page is only showing an address for Adam which sent me into a downward spiral of depression but I have to remind myself that they made this page, didn't they?

If you happen upon some of the tabbed links, you'll see a right-hand side bar that will hot you over to Adam and Garth's downloads but it's not in the top menu tabs.

They have finally removed Joe's Myspace link and replaced it with an IMDB clicker. They're still linking Adam's Blog and one of his YouTube channels. The lovely fansite is only linked on the Blog homepage now.

The tracklisting section has been tidying itself up nicely throughout the domain over the last few months and it's a really good resource these days.

My opening gambit was not intended as a complaint about the new website format as it's impossibly sexy. It was more an exasperated exhalation because it prompted a time-draining click around the endless nettosphere.
WARNING: SEVERAL LINKS ON THIS PAGE ARE OLD CACHED DATA AND WILL EVENTUALLY TAKE YOU DOWN A BLIND ALLEY FROM WHICH YOU MAY NEVER RETURN.


So I poodled around some other cached pages and it was like unpacking that box you brought with you when you moved home but never got around to opening. It's going to take a long time to go through it all as I stop to reminisce.


Things like the Guardian Webchat, Joe's Big Jaffa and this short animation.


If you're like me, you've been horribly frightened by a great big MALWARE WARNING shouting at you when you try to access the old Adam&Joe.co.uk website and whilst it looks rather old fashioned nowadays, it's got some tempting little nuggets. You can splash around a pool of cached pages if you go in through this little keyhole. There are all kinds of silly memories there, like a thingumy they did for the Might Boosh website.

In the early to mid-noughties, David Buxton used to keep Adam and Joe's net presence organised (sort of) with various incarnations. I think I'm right in saying all these are his: The Poo Pages, www.doctormacintosh.co.uk and latterly, Reliably Broken where much of the blind alley data you've been frustrating yourself with, now resides.

The Poo Pages has an entertaining piece from Adam about why there would never be a fourth series of the tv show.....erm.

Other long-since-gone sources are Martyn Gilbert's comfortingly retro site (possibly the first ever Adam and Joe fansite), The Adam And Joe Zone, and The Toy Factory with it's gigglesome profiles here.

Finally, a site that is very much alive and kicking but was brought into my memory vortex via one of David's old links is The Idler. It has the Cooking with Toothpaste Guide, list of Very Bad Things and Joe's breakdown of twenty years of Bounty bar ad campaigns.

Otherwhere around the web was a little bit in the trade mag Televisual about BUG and an addition to the Attack the Block IMDB entry about some video effects.

I know various people got a bit antsy about the current John Smith's ad featuring Peter Kay which reminded us of a Text The Nation submission and also the Graham Norton Show featuring the Lost Kawfay British accent tutorial woman.

For what it's worth, I don't have the energy to be frisked by this kind of thing. Our lovely radio munchkins and their impossibly clever brains also have an area of cosseted naiveté (how many makes a score, again?) and I'm pretty sure the John Smith's line has been knocking around the circuit long before someone submitted it to the 6Music show. That's not to say the ad wasn't written by some agency peeps who heard it on 6Music but it doesn't really have a genuine ownership. Without wishing to shock anyone of a delicate nature, ads thrive on current trends and tip-toe on just the right side of plaguerism ninety per cent of the time.

By his own admission, Adam was sent that link to the silly accent lady and it may well have been doing the rounds. For my money, Adam's presentation of the material was in another stratosphere to Mr Norton's but it's usually the researchers that find this stuff and even if they knew what Adam had done with it, I still think it's fair game to put it on a tv show - it's a visual on YouTube, after all.

Life is too short to let this stuff get you down. Adam and Joe delight in recycling their own material and I hope they're chuffed when other people pick up on stuff they've used. If we weren't so invested in these idiotholes, we'd realise it's par for the course throughout the media.

Apropos of very little at all, this idiothole gathered a lifetime of experience and came up with the brilliant discovery that "Adams big mix tape" is an anagram of "Database Gimp Mix". Priceless, if it weren't for my OCD problem with the repetition of 'mix' and the potential insult contained therein.

Adam was showing this wonderful film at BUG this month and like a heavenly, timely meteorite, he plopped it all over us on the morning of The Great Launch


Other stuff has happened this week but the main thrust (if I may be so base on a Saturday night) of this post was to preserve a few dusty old corpses before they were interred forever.

Don't miss your chance to see Richard Herring's Sony Nominated show As It Occurs To Me at the Leicester Square Theatre.

* fling to pillory (not to be confused with ftb)

Tuesday 25 May 2010

Barmy nights.....

Leading on from last weeks entry, Attack the Block had it's wrap party at a small Georgian house in Soho on Sunday. I'm sure sore heads were enjoyed by all and I'm guessing they showed the little Cannes promo reel in a loop somewhere about the premises.

Now that the production status is about to change, the IMDB is laden with credits and Big Talk have tarted up their site but not added any more ATB info. Oow, how I'd love to get my sticky little fingers on some errant coding over there.

The new BFI July booklet plonked onto the doormat revealing the dates & times for BUG20: Thur 15th July 20:45 and Fri 23rd July 20:45 (Director's Cut) BFI Members booking starts from 1st June but mere mortals have to wait until 8th June. Heck, it only seems like last week that we went to BUG 19.

Last week, we went to BUG 19. It was the usual fun night despite the fact that Adam had been too busy to view all the content they showed. Happily, he had not been too busy to create a brand new entrance song, several YouTube comment routines and present a completely awesome edit of The Footie Song. I'm trying to think whether I've even seen that on the big screen before. If I have, then it would have only been the C4 version. This was magnificent. We have to hope that Adam will put it on YouTube when his hectic life calms down a little. If you're prepared to take a chance, grab a last minute ticket for next week's show. They always have returns & it's incredible to see these films projected so beautifully.

That's the thing about BUG. The wonderful team are in a position to get right back to the source and use the optimum quality footage to throw up on the screen. It makes wish your laptop was like Stretch Armstrong & you could bother it into enormo-vision proportions. His guests were the once quartet, now trio that goes by the name of Shynola and who work under the umbrella of none other than Ridley Scott's empire. Adam has hung around these guys for a long time, exchanging awesomenessities. It all started when they began to dabble in ventriloquism and they welcomed the opportunity to relive those halcyon days with Adam at BUG.

This week's Big Mixtape was further enhanced by the warmly welcomed return of Garth Jennings. I sense that Garth idolises Adam as much as Adam idolises Joe. Garth opens the door, sits down and just giggles at everything Adam does. He must be the most rewarding type of friend a person can have. He also sounds sensible and silly at the same time. I want a go on one of those, please.

Each time I think THIS is the best Mixtape show so far, Adam manages to surpass it with the next one. I'm not the biggest fan of Adam's shouty routines but the one he did this week made me leak with laughter. I reckon this catalogue of shows will be one of those things that people talk about in thirty years time and boast about 'being there' when they first aired. I should say some of this shit to Adam on the blog really but he'd probably think I was insane. I'm really looking forward to Sharon Horgan. I have a feeling they'll be bouncing off each other like a couple of schoolgirls' playthings.

Collins and Herring will continue to take care of the Saturday morning show until August at the very least. George Lamb is leaving the 6Music family in July so conjectures will be dribbling around the mouths of the various net-based social soap-boxes.

The BBC Strategies Consultation website went into meltdown today, causing them to extend the deadline for submissions. It will most likely be months before all the entries can be read and assessed.
The second Save BBC 6Music protest day was blessed with warm weather and a good PA system. You can see pictures and videos if you poke around here.

Adam said he would try to make an appearance but I didn't see him around. What with rehearsals and recordings, Mixtapes and voice-overs, BUGs and what-nots, I quite thought he'd go home to the family before heading back to record the Horgan show and then off for the Amsterdam BUG tonight. I have only heard one person say they saw him so maybe he did just that.

Richard Herring brushed past me on the way to the stage with his side-kick. He stopped to take off his jacket right in my vicinity. He mentions Adam's Birthday Time song in their latest Collings & Herrin podcast. I think he described it as 'brilliant'. What an idiot - I think my dictionary might need an upgrade. I may have misunderstood but it would seem that Richard also played a Song Wars song before his Lyric show started on Sunday.


This couple made me smile. They'd secured their banner to a couple of feather dusters. I was fascinated as I watched them diligently roll it up again before going home. How wonderfully practical.

I snagged a quick shot of Shaun and Matt but when I looked at it back on my computer, I saw I'd also caught the iconic, Ben Mercer.
Finally, with thanks to the Love6Music.com site, I had to link this wonderful Adam and Joe t-shirt.

The dearest and most glamorous Adam and Joe fan in the twittersphere deposited her own mixtape on Adam at Bug. He was clearly so touched and chuffed. He included wonderful picture of it on the blog.

Adam did a voice over for an Oxfam ad. Click the link for a piccie.

Chesney Hawkes tweeted a picture of himself that looked so much like the kind of silly pose Joe might have struck in bygone days, I had to pop it in here. In truth, Joe would probably have done something more provocative with his eyebrows and poked his ludicrous tongue out but in this cornish desert, I take my thrills where I can find them.





==============Fiddle Zone===========
If you bump into Edgar Wright (and he's all over the place like a rash, so don't dismiss the idea) the correct way to address him henceforth shall be "Could you estimate how wide this road is?".

Nick Frost has been all over the retail outlet promoting his Amis drama "Money". I couldn't resist a little snap of him with lovely Lauren last week but I couldn't be bothered to get out of bed to snap him with sexy Shaun today. Nick has been very careful not to divulge anything spoilery about Attack The Block. Catch up with episode one of Money here and you'll be nicely prepped for the conclusion on Wednesday at 9pm.

On a sad note, the UK arm of Funny Or Die closed on Friday. I think the material will still be available on the server until the domain name sub runs out but there's a giggle shaped hole in my daily routine now.

Sunday 16 May 2010

Golden Nuggets

I suppose the biggest news since my last post is the Sony Radio Academy Gold win for
BBC 6Music's Adam and Joe Show.

Joe was too busy shooting and cutting but Adam and James Stirling were there. You can watch a webcast of the entire event here. I gave the presentation and Adam's speech to YouTube for safe-keeping.



You'll see that he thanked Video Wars genius Chris Salt and the original Stephen! Chris Evans and the rest of the room seemed to give such a warm response to the award. It's a shame Joe wasn't there to soak up the glory but he's probably relieved that he didn't have to make a speech. Adam did a wonderful job.

The entire presentation evening kicked off with an award for Best Newcomer which was given to 6Music's own Jarvis Cocker. You can listen to his speech. Sony have various interviews here including one with Jarvis but nothing with Adam though Metro has some lovely pictures.

The other news is that Adam's been prepping a pilot for a sit-com that's been bubbling around for a few months.
SAME TIME NEXT WEEK
Welcome to Toxborough Village Hall…home to a brand new comedy chat show for the BBC.
Hosted by the irrepressible housewife Celia Jesson (played by Joanna Neary) together with her ridiculously sensible husband Fred (Al Kerr) and dashing local actor Gerard Jeremy (played by Adam Buxton), these delightfully eccentric characters will be taking a hilarious look at life in and around their fictional village with video diaries, reviews, letters and songs and will also be joined by two mystery celebrity guests. It promises to be an event not to be missed!

Feel free to dress up in your finest provincial clothing for a night out at your local village hall!

The show will be recorded on Wednesday 19th May 2010 in London. If you'd like to join us at BBC TV Centre, then apply now.
Adam updated his own blog with a polite, sincere and amusing request to Mr Bowie.

The Big Mixtape show has been getting some really lovely vibes around the place. I thought I'd randomly link this one today. There was a fantastic response to Adam's request for questions to levy at Jon Ronson. I really loved this episode but don't make me choose!

In common with several 6Music DJs, they have started a Twitter account which I urge you to follow. Adam and James sent out a tweet to Victoria Coren, inviting her to guest on his show.

Adam has had three gigs - 100 Club, Are You Taking the Peace and the BUG Unkle launch special. While I remember, BUG have got a little shop with some t-shirts that might take your fancy. They have them in all the colours and sizes.

Adam will take BUG back to Amsterdam on 25th May. He's going to forget what the wife looks like at this rate, unless he takes her on a romantic trip.

BUG is also going to Norfolk for a special gig on 16th June.
Video festival open from 28 June to 10 July 2010, 10am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday. Free entry.
Adam Buxton's BUG on 16 June 2010. Tickets are £14 from Theatre Royal on 01603 630000 and the UEA on 01603 508050.

Attack the Block had a load of set visits from bloggers and journos after the Bank Holiday. These were meant to have happened a couple of weeks earlier but a catASHtrophy put the right people in the wrong places. I'll have my work cut out syphoning up the media bobbles when we get closer to the release date. If they're still shooting, I would think there can be no more than two weeks worth of principal photography left now. Nick Frost wrapped on Wednesday and this lovely lady was working that day too.

Studio Canal/Optimum will have been hard at work in Cannes and I'm trying not to think about whether they've taken a short promo package with them. HA - and even as I blogdraft, Film4 tweet this:-
Everyone here loves the Attack the Block promo reel - Joe Cornish's film still cutting but the 3 mins we saw were utterly awesome #cannes
It's quite unusual for Film London to post much about a film while it is still in production on the streets but they have this piece now.

Jodie Whittaker is going to be doing various press pieces for Royal Wedding and if this is anything to go by, Attack the Block will get a few name-checks.

In the same 80's strand as Royal Wedding, Nick Frost's Martin Amis drama, Money airs part one on 23rd May. I saw this ages ago and I'm really looking forward to seeing part two finally which I believe is aired the following week....or a couple of days later. I saw Royal Wedding a while back too and I hadn't realised it was only just coming on air. I've wittered about my unintentional Whittaker Watching before, haven't I? When she was cast in Attack The Block, I just thought "of course".

The Rajar figures had everyone at 6Music in a cock-a-hoop state this week.

If you haven't grabbed them before, the LiveJournal has links to freshly edited versions of the Coke Podcasts.

===================Below the Line======================

Since he was Adam's guest this week, I'm including a link to an interview with Hot Chip and Peter Serafinowicz.

The Love BBC 6 Music site has an amusing new video and don't forget to click for demonstration details.

Lauren Laverne did a wonderful show from Glastobury last week and announced the 6Music schedule. Sadly, Adam and Joe don't figure in it but I'll not give up hope until July. There's a lovely bit in The Times about Lauren Laverne.

Mr John Landis directed the most influential pop video of all time and that is now an indisputable fact.

Richard Herring is prepping for series two of As It Occurs To Me.

If you feel like singing a song of joy about the Sony Gold win, you could do a lot worse than this.


Finally - and added after the fact, I was not paying enough attention last week. I completely missed this priceless nonsense from Robin Cooper.