Life’s too short

Finally someone has written a song called ‘Life’s too short’, my own personal Older Than Elvis motto.

Actually they wrote it a long time ago. The record by the Lafayettes was apparently released in this country in 1962, when I was (I promise) a very small child. I finally discovered it last week courtesy of Brian Eno.

Someone at BBC4 decided that last Friday was going to be Brian Eno night. Eno has a reputation as a rock intellectual so I’m pleased to say that I learned three interesting things from the Arena documentary: 1. Brian Eno wrote the theme tune for Arena. 2. Suffolk looks very nice. 3. He loves this record.

I love it too. I also love the fact that some rock’n’rollers have subverted YouTube from a medium for sharing videos to a medium for sharing their record collections. You won’t find anything this good on Spotify.

Singles going steady

Maybe it’s a bit late for a new year resolution, but this year has been slow getting started. Something to do with the snow, I expect. So here’s mine: this year I will listen to more music.

There was a time when I would put on a record as soon as I got up; put on another as soon as I got home; spend all evening with the radio on. I don’t remember how it stopped. I think it was something to do with silence becoming more precious (see No Music Day). Losing silence was bad. But so was losing music. I think I want it back.

Why I hate shopping

I’m sure it’s true that Christmas shopping expands to fill the time available. I’m the sort of person who’s more inclined to celebrate Buy Nothing Christmas than the sales but I still find myself drawn to what passes for a high street in the small town where I live. (Just one more bag of satsumas and my Christmas will be perfect...) I’ve even found myself going round the shops in the small city near where I live.

Everybody's going surfing...

The internet is 40, apparently. I have to say I was surprised. But looking back at the mid-90s, when I first became aware of it, even that feels like a long time ago.

I remember when we still called it the information superhighway. (These days, there are times I feel like I’m in the bus lane. Thanks, Virgin Media.)

I remember working in an office when we were so excited at our ‘You’ve got mail’ message. And it was someone sending jokes to everyone he knew who had email. Because there were so few of us it was all you could do with it.

I remember when Friends Reunited was cutting edge.

...I’m getting nostalgic about the internet??

I loved the internet straight away, for the same reason I love going to libraries. All that information waiting to be discovered. I love Web 2.0 even more. All those conversations waiting to be had.

For a while I wondered whether loving the internet so much was a Bad Thing. Then I read a heartwarming story in the Guardian. Ivy Bean is more than twice my age and social networking keeps her life, well, sociable. I hope I have as many ‘followers’ when I get old.

Don’t ask me questions

It’s always tempting when you get to middle age to say that things were better in the old days. But in the case of the BBC, it’s got to be true. If Robin Day had been chairing Question Time, the BBC would never have shot themselves in the foot the way they did on Thursday. But now, thanks to a publicity stunt that misfired, the nastiest politician in the country has won the sympathy vote.

Yes, N*** G****** was scary. But so was the programme. Impartiality? I don’t think so.

Question Time in the 1980s was probably the greatest influence on my political education: brain food, not showbusiness. Question Time this week was really about entertainment, if you like that sort of thing. And I’ve never liked circuses. I recently complained that you could no longer have that ‘did you see’ conversation about last night’s TV. This was the exception: everyone seemed to have watched it, and to have an opinion. It was event television. But it wasn’t Question Time. There was just one thing that made me feel a bit better. The two people on the panel who talked the most sense were, it has to be said, the women.