Friday 19 September 2008

Oh Lord Won't You Buy Me a Miele Vacuum My Friends All Have Dysons etc...


I have a friend who writes for God Is In The TV he gets CDs to review and gig tickets so that he can give his considered opinion on them. I know I'm of a certain age but I do rather like to think of myself as still cutting edge so was sort of flattered to be invited to be a reviewer too. However, I was not invited to review the work of the latest indie band nor a performance poet; I was invited to write about a vacuum cleaner.

I suppose I set myself up for this really when I railed against our Dyson and its refusal to die a dignified death. The arrival of a Miele S5211 to test and write about has done little to cure us of our Dyson; in fact it has made it worse. The Miele is very pretty, sleek even - you might consider leaving it out in the lounge for people to see, rather than hide it away like an ugly child - which is what you do with the dreadful grey and yellow monstrosity.

But, in the interests of fairness I had better try to be acerbic and witty like a proper reviewer - but do you know what? I can't; the Miele 5211 is lovely, it emits a gentle hiss rather than an angry roar as it goes about it's
business. And the metaphor of cars isn't lost either - it is definitely a Mercedes: quiet, refined, understated and efficient - it oozes German efficiency.

We've had it for just over a week now and have asked it to perform on the tiled floor in our kitchen, on three different types of carpet and in the car (did I ever tell you about the time when I performed on three... never mind). And it has done exactly what
we have asked it too. The perfectly pivoted head goes around every obstacle we offer it and the easy to use single control offers suction options that are suitable for just about everything.

So what are the down sides?

I suppose if you are to be picky it is a bagged cleaner rather than unbagged but Matt at Miele tells me tha
t the seals on bagless cleaners are not that good so if hepa filtration (oh, now I'm getting geeky - just think allergies) is important to you a bagged cleaner is better. And yes I did try to whip the bag out and put it back again; and yes it was easier (although inevitably more expensive) than doing all the clip things on the Dyson before bashing it on the inside of the wheelie bin to get the muck out before disappearing in a cloud of unpleasant dust.

The only other small point, if the development folk are reading, is from Mrs C who has bad wrists. The bit you hold on to could do with a kinder ergonomically designed grippy thing to make it easier manipulate. Still Mrs C would rather have this one because she says I've never done so much vaccing since we got it!

Give me the gentle hum and soothing hiss of the Miele over the Pepperami roar of the Dyson any day. If I get to keep it a bit longer I'll let you know how it continues to perform - this could turn into a cleaning product themed blog, that would be fun!

Sunday 14 September 2008

A Beery Epiphany In The Imagined Village


I had an epiphany in a taxi home on Friday night after a number of pints of Boddington's beer. The beer wasn't to blame though; this epiphany had been gestating since I discovered the Imagined Village project. It features artistes like Paul Weller, Billy Bragg and Martin Carthy and seeks to rework English traditional songs in a modern idiom.

'Hasn't that been done before by people like Fairport Convention?' I hear you ask not unreasonably. And the answer is no, not really. In the past folk songs have been given a modern musical treatment but leaving any modern interpretation of context and meaning to the listener.

In the imagined village, centuries old songs of poverty, hardship and oppression are transformed. I've thought for some time that Billy Bragg was about the closest thing we have to a modern folk writer, so I wasn't surprised by his version of Hard Times of Old England where he brilliantly sets farmers' struggles to eke a living beneath the yoke of the oppresor - Tesco. But it wasn't Billy Bragg that caused my epiphany, it was something Benjamin Zephania said.

He was talking about what holds communities together and gives a sense of oneness - and of course, gives birth to songs that come from the heart of a nation. He was pointing out that The Imagined Village contains musicians with very diverse origins yet it is their common shared experiences of living in the UK that binds them, despite their differences or backgrounds.

Sat in the taxi on Friday me and the driver chatted amiably about the weather, the price of diesel, the goings-on at Oldham Council and about how Latics were playing at the start of the current season (he actually knew rather more than me about that one). Then we got on to how the town had changed over the last twenty years or so and whether we thought much had changed since the Oldham riots a few years ago.

That was when I had my epiphany in his taxi - this was what Benjamin Zephania was on about. Despite the driver being a dark skinned Muslim with a long black beard, we had more in common than we did not. Then it struck me - if we had compared him with someone from Alaska say, someone whom vice presidential candidate Sarah Pallin might want to appeal to perhaps, a white middle class blue collar worker maybe - someone, on paper at least, like me; who would we have said I had more in common with?

It's not the difference, that makes the difference is it?


Sunday 7 September 2008

Maps and Music: Why Stuart Maconie is Better Than Musical Sat Nav



The other week there as a bit of a sat nav spat over the quality of sat nav mapping compared to Ordnance Survey maps. Apparently sat nav, is a bit poor when it comes to taking in the full richness of the environment you are passing through and I must say, I think they had a point. I am one for the meandering path with many an interesting diversion on route, rather than the crow-fly route that considers anything other than the direct path, a distraction.

Since the demise of Andy Kershaw, I had, until recently, been a bit lost in the 'off the beaten track' areas of the musical world. Radio 2 and most of the commercial music world is much like sat nav - it takes you along the safe well trodden paths. Then I started to listen to the Radcliffe and Maconie show each evening and discovered a witty mix of banter and music that, whilst staying pretty much on the A and B roads, does take the odd detour. This was promising.

Then I discovered
Maconie's BBC 6 Music show The Freak Zone. I have found my Cedric Robinson to guide me through the Morecambe Bay of music's rarely explored regions. What is great though, is that some of the places McConie takes you are places you had been before but forgotten about. A bit like St Ives in Cornwall: you went there as a kid but only discovered its true delights many years later when you returned for a mucky weekend as an adult.

This weekend for example - not that it was a mucky one - we went from a Stan Tracey track I had never heard: Starless and Bible Black to the track of the same name I hadn't heard in years by King Crimson. Both left me breathless and wanting to dig out the whole King Crimson collection from under the stairs (something that really would require me to get my breath back before attempting). And then there was an unmentioned link between a fabulous Brian Eno track and King Crimson - my first guitar hero Robert Fripp, played with both of them.

So, my musical life is once again whole, I can enjoy a weekly musical journey into unfamiliar reaches without the need for a degree in musical geography to prevent me getting lost. Thank you Stuart Maconie.