Can we mosh it? Yes we can!

Well I never! Bob the Builder stagediving! Who'd have thought it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrsNR2XGh-o

The moshpit has clearly become mainstream!

Whatever next?

Bagpuss and Professor Yaffle laying down some ambient tracks with Brian Eno?

Thomas the Tank Engine releasing a heavy metal album?

Nothing is impossible in the wacky world of pop!

Oink oink!

He's only seven years old, but Kai is already a confirmed little macho piglet.

Today his class are going to the theatre but he'd already decided it was going to be boring. Why? Because it was a play about a princess and thus the level of bonking action would be minimal. No preconceptions or prejudices here!

Ulrika and I mentioned Amazon warriors Princesses Leia and Mononoke but he was still unconvinced.I'm sure however once he sees it he'll actually enjoy the play a lot but he certainly won't admit it!These boys have to really put on a big macho facade.

Yesterday, incidentally, there seems to have been some sort of contest at school for the dirtiest child in the schoolyard. Kai won this hands down. When I picked him up he was totally covered in mud from head to toe. Rarely have I seen such a mucky pup!It must require considerable effort and imagination to be so throughly muddy.

Great! Another visit to the washroom!

My neighbour Totoro ... the Terminator!

What child in their right mind would not leap with joy to hear the words: This afternoon we are going to the Culture House to see one of the great classics of Japanese anime, My Neighbour Totoro?

Not our son anyway!

Boring, boring, boring Daddy!

What's so boring, Kai?

My neighbour!! How exciting is that going to be? I bet Totoro is useless at slaying robot armies and blowing up spaceships!

Yes, Miyazaki's tranquil portrait of rural life in post-war Japan is indeed a bit short of car chases, explosions and the body count is non-existent.

Now if it had been called Killer Robot Totoro or Totoro the Terminator he'd have been there like a shot!

Well, it was wonderful. Kai sat still for the whole film and grudgingly admitted that the catbus was quite cool.

His pal Tycho, who is not unkeen about a bit of intergalactic carnage, has actually seen the DVD of Totoro about 20 times.

Maybe there is a glimmer of hope?

Is Kai ready yet for masterpieces of Polish animation?

Yiddish Salsa?!?

Tomorrow evening at Stallet, there is a concert of yiddish salsa, a fusion sub-genre that even I was unaware of!

http://www.stallet.st/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=302&catid=15

What would Woody Allen make of that?

Whatever next?

Polyphic reggae?

El Mundo Loco de Arturo Marrón?

More fabulous photos of the Fallas from Andrew in Valencia!


And if you want to see even more, this site has a few stunning shots of the winners:

http://www.holavalencia.net/

I wonder if any bands play in Fallas week.

The ideal booking would be a double bill of the Crazy World of Arthur Brown and Rammstein!

Burn, baby, burn!

Gig rules: No 1

At the weekend there was a free concert by Steso songs at Dieselverkstad: quiet, introspective ballads with some tasteful piano playing. Very nice it was too and appreciated by the audience. A bit too appreciated by one young lady who was waving her arms in the air,twirling enthusiastically and improvising a dance routine that Isadora Duncan would be jealous of.

I am delighted that Zo enjoys live music so much but I must teach her one of the ground rules of gigging:never upstage the band!

Fans eh! You can't live without them, but you can't live with them.

My behaviour at gigs of course is always a model of decorum!

A canny, wii salesman!

Kai really wants the family to invest in a Nintendo Wii. He's realised that the one he really has to persuade is Ulrika and today he really launched his offensive:

Mummy,it would be really good for the family if we bought a Wii because then you could do lots of yoga with it!

Charming really.He's got it into his head that yoga is something that mummies do and is good for them. And as there's a thing called Wii sports it must be possible to do yoga with a Wii which has to be A Good Thing. An unbeatable argument!


As useful to a yoga practitioner as a set of porcelain to a herd of wildebeest! But a nice try!

Baltic Sea or Sea of Balls?

This weekend I had the choice between sailing off to Riga with those trusty old seasalts Ian and Steve or staying here and taking Kai to a birthday party at a big adventure centre. As you can see I had the balls to bail out on the Baltic!

I don't think they had ballrooms when I was small (except for the Lyceum of course) and I think that I'm a bit too large for them now. Zo though was in heaven!

Steve goes shopping on Södermalm

Hove's most famous citizen is here and yesterday we went for a stroll on Södermalm. He looked at the statues in Medborgarplatsen and then bought some booze, some ice to go in his cocktails and finally some hot new Ethiopian sounds at Multi Kulti.

Steve is still struggling with the idea of Systembolaget. He asked me on Thursday evening where he could buy a bottle of wine. At 19.00!

Our man deep in the heart of Texas!

This year, Philip, my friend with his finger on the throbbing pulse of Malmö, will not be joining us at Roskilde.Instead he is currently in Austin, Texas at South by South West checking out a whole pile of bands that no one has ever heard of but will doubtless be household names by the end of the year.

Watch this space for Texan tips!

Very Important Person, Very Confused Boy

Steve from Hove is coming over for supper this evening and I was trying to explain to Kai that Steve was a VIP. He was however struggling with the concept.


You know it's like Barack Obama, Grandma Stina or Sir David Attenborough.

Uh?

Well, a VIP is like Tiger Woods, or Ian or Mr Lordi.

I don't understand ,Daddy.

A VIP is like the Queen of England or Michael Jackson or .... Super Mario.

So Steve is a bit like Super Mario? Is he good at running fast and bonking Sploshi and Poshi?

Whatever!

Charlie Gillett RIP

Got a text message late last night from Duncan telling me that the great British radio DJ Charlie Gillett has gone to that great radio show in the sky.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/mar/17/charlie-gillett-obituary

I,to my shame, didn't listen to his radio shows as often as I ought to but his compilation albums were always wonderful:

http://www.charliegillett.com/froots_article.html

And Johny's Allen's Promised Land?

Well I still have my single of that and what a stomper it is!

A sad loss to music lovers all over the world!

When Gordon met Jackie

Duncan and I are both enormous fans of Jackie Leven and religiously go to all his gigs in Stockholm which immediately doubles the audience. Recently he met an old schoolmate from Kircaldy:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/neilmccormick/100006846/the-rock-star-and-the-prime-minister/

The Farrows - A temporally challenged family!

We Farrows seem to have certain problems with the concept of time. Punctuality for instance. If Kai ever manages to appear at school before the morning bell rings,the other parents are in a state of shock. A sight as unexpected as seeing a swallow in December.

Children have a special relationship with the whole concept of time. A day for them can go on for an eternity. Part of this comes from the fact that they are experiencing things for the very first time.An exciting day is bliss, a dull day torture!


Kai is seven years old and has been going to nursery for several years so you'd think that he'd have grasped the concept of the five-day working week followed by the two-day weekend. Not a bit of it! I asked him recently how many days a week he went to school.


Is it 10? 12?

He hadn't a clue.

Ok ,let's try that another way: How many days a week does Mummy go to work?

20? 15? I'm not sure.

OK. How many days a week do I work?

Oh I know that! 5 minutes!

Kai's very first English sentence was: Mummy's working. Daddy's asleep.

I too though seem to be having problems with time. I just got a perplexing mail from our good friend Jeanie in Islington (pictured above shopping for trinkets in Amsterdam).

For those of you who don't know here, Jeanie is made of the same kind of stuff as her fellow Welshperson Professor Indiana Jones. Many years ago, we travelled around South America together. Not only did she manage to drag me through the Andes along the Inca trail, she also single-handedly defended my honour on Ipanema Beach against all the shameless garotas who clearly wanted to have their wicked way with me.

Anyway,in her mail Jeanie told me that she is currently working 17-hour days!

I was stunned. 17 hours! Are there actually 17 hours in one day? That does seem an awful lot.I'm quite sure I'm not awake that long.

I had to do some serious counting and yes! she's right. 24 hours in a day! Well I never!

I hang my head in shame when I think of her Olympian working days.In fact, I think I need to go and have a lie-down.

Regretably the Swedish Protestant work ethic just hasn't really rubbed off on me.

Ulrika asks me to do some housework:I protest!

Fredrik Skavlan - a truly Pan-Scan Man!

Skavlan, probably the most popular chat show on Swedish TV, is an interesting reflection of our multi-lingual times here in Scandinavia. Fredrik Skavlan himself is a Norwegian and, as the programme is broadcast in both Sweden and Norway, the guests are 50 % Swedish and 50% Norwegian with Fred jumping backwards and forwards from one language to the other. And then there is invariably an international guest who speaks English.

Subtitles are provided in Swedish when Norwegian and English are being spoken. Despite the similarities between the Scandinavian languages, most Swedes cannot usually understand more than the gist if listening to Danish and Norwegian. (And of course nobody understands Finnish!)


The production team have probably got a large pin-up of Parky on their wall, as they've nicked a lot of ideas from his show. Longish interviews, classy musical guests and the chance for guests to stay on after their spot to exchange witty banter with the other celebs.

That's not a complaint! It's top notch entertainment.

And would you believe it? On SVT's homepage they even provide a Swedish- Norwegian glossary:

http://svt.se/2.102096/1.1363583/lumske_likheter_lomska_likheter?lid=puff_1354066&lpos=lasMer

Watch the programme! Learn to speak Nog!


It would be interesting to find out about if there are chatshows in other parts of the world with a similarly multi-lingual approach.

Let's take a ride and run with the dogs tonight!

I thought those of you who've never had the pleasure of a visit to Björkhagen or Kärrtorp might be interested in these pics: the mean streets of our hood!

As you will see, Kai seems to be going through some kind of Conan the Barbarian phase. Every time I try to snap him he brandishes a weapon at me!

The Nuthatch (sitta europaea)

One of the consequences of my tranquil suburban lifestyle is that I have started to twitch a bit. Back in the days when I lived my glamorous, playboy lifestyle at the People's University I scarcely noticed birds. Now moving slowly along with a buggy, my eyes are far more open to our feathered friends.

I was dropping Zoe off at nursery this morning and there, having their breakfast, were two nuthatches. A joy to watch! Out with the camera and here's the result.

Their distinctive characteristic is their long beaks and the way that they will climb upside down along a tree trunk.

Sir David would be proud of me!

German POWs built Wembley Way

A fascinating little known fact of modern history:


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/wembley-way-laid-by-germans-1921823.html


There were German POWs in Britian up until 1948! It sounds like a plot line waiting to happen from the excellent Foyle's War.

All you need is mud!

Time to start planning those sunny sumer holidays!

More fabulous Fallas!

That fine chap, Senor Andrew Averill of Valencia, has very kindly given me permission to publish some more of his Fallas photos on my blog for which I am very grateful. It's different every year of course,but nevertheless they bring back a lot of memories for me of drinking lamumbas and eating donuts.

For those who've never had the chance to experience this extraordinary fiesta, I should explain that there is a big competition between the diffeent barrios as to who can build the most amazing papier-mache construction. These are often the size of a small house and wildly imaginative, satirical and frequently quite bawdy.

And then on the last day, they all get burnt up amidst an extraordinary cacophony of firecrackers and fireworks. Remarkable!

Pop guru Steve is imminent! Is Latvia the new Iceland?

There's quite an air of anticipation here this weekend as on Thursday my good pal Steve Giles is flying in from Hove for a long weekend. I'm in for a few days of witty banter, extraordinarily long conversations about obscure rock bands and a beer or two.

Steve has his finger very firmly on the pulse of pop music. A few years back, he and Pete Innes saw MGMT in a church hall in Brighton with about 10 people in the audience.Within 6 months they were a global household name and you couldn't get a ticket for one of their shows for love or money.

Some times late at night my phone will pling. A text message from Steve.

Down and dirty with Tune Yards. Check them out!

Pling pling! The Ex on stage at Audio! Anarcho jazz punks rools OK!

It makes me feel I am in touch, at least by proxy, with the glamorous world of pop.

Steve's current favourite is Brighton band: Stars down to earth

http://www.myspace.com/thestarsdowntoearth

Mr Giles seems to be the only person who attends their gigs, but if I was in that band, I'd already be planning how to spend my first million!


Steve and Ian are off on the boat to Riga for the weekend. If Steve is visiting Latvia, I suspect that Something Enormous is about to happen there in the pop world.If I had a record company I'd be sending my A & R people on the first plane.

Ooops! I only seem to have four Latvian CDs in my collection, all by the wonderful Ilgi. I'd better put that right fast, or I won't be able to show my face on trendy Skånegatan for shame!

Cousin Nelly Farrow presents....

Kai and Zoe's cousin Nelly in New York (pictured here with the terrible twosome)send me a link at a weekend showing a video clip that she'd made:

http://www.youtube.com/user/billybobjoefred100


It's obviously a whole, thriving little sub-culture thanks to YouTube.

I won't be showing it to Kai. Otherwise he'll be dragging Zoe and my laptop out onto the streets to do one himself!

Zo a go go!

I did a recent research poll among the readers of this blog about the stuff I'm posting. 50% of my readers felt that there ought to be a few more photos of Zoe and so I promised her to put that right at once. Here are a few recent pics of the family redhead.

Yes, we scoff rather a lot of cake in our family!

Andrew and Corinne - An Iberian Oddyssey

In this electronic age, it is rather fun to have friends spread around the globe who keep me up to date with what is happening in their hood. From Ibiza to Rayners Lane, from Turku to Björkhagen, excting mails just keep flooding in.

One of the delights of recent years has been to receive regular dispatches in the form of emails, photos and fab waxings from Andrew and Corrine. Previously they lived in Lisbon (the photo shows them hob-nobbing with Mariza,one of the local pop stars)and now I am getting regular reports from Valencia. Fabulous!

Fireworks in Valencia!

I am extremely envious of Andrew and Corrine who are currently living in Valencia and this week are enjoying the festival of the Fallas.

Many years ago, I spent a year or so living in Benidorm working for the Danish travel company, Tjaereborg(I must have committed some dreadful crime in a previous life to have deserved that!).

Valencia was the nearest really big town and I drove up there on several occasions to see the Fallas. And there are my pals actually living through it all!


The ladies get dressed up in their finest togs. The guys get pyrotechnical!

Here's their latest report:



It turns out the husbands of our gorgeous falleras are sociopaths . Each barrio erects a vast tent , carpa , in the street and lets rip till 3 or 4 in the morning for the next week .

Kai would love it : small boys are ENCOURAGED to let off fireworks in the street and throw them at each other . Don't tell him .

The mascletas are firecracker shows & there's one at 14h00 each day in the town square . Its aim ? Noise . We watched it on local TV one day last week & there was a decibel counter in the top right of the screen .


Boys encouraged to make a noise and let off firecrackers? Just a slight contrast to life here in Kärrtorp!

Kai's penguin and I meet Toumani

At the Roskilde Festival in 2005, I was lucky enough to catch a concert by the late great Ali Farka Toure and Toumani Diabate. Their new album is one of the best of 2010!

I also had the honour of briefly meeting Toumani just after he'd completed a breathtaking solo set. The music of angels!

I was kicking myself that my schoolboy French didn't allow me to say more than blabbering Merci! merci! I think he understood that I loved his music.

A wonderful musician and a charming man.

He was polite enough not to comment on the fact that I was wondering around with Kai's cuddly penguin!

These crazy Europeans!

I can't tell a Telemark from a Telletubby!

My ignorance in the field of winter sports is fairly enormous, so thank goodness I have Alastair in Ballymena to let me know that there is no such thing as long-distance skis( as mentioned in my Going Native posting). Here's what he says:

I have owned an extensive collection of skis over the years: Alpine skis, randonnée skis, Telemark skis, backcountry skis and cross-country skis among
them. Sometimes they are known by different names, for example
randonnée is also known as Alpine touring and Telemark is often called
freeheel skiing or even cross-country downhill but as yet I have never
come across long distance (or even long-distance) skis.

So now you know! I should of course referred to Kai's cross-country skis!

Incidentally, Alastair like me is a bit of a collector. Along with about 200 pairs of skis he has about 500 different guitars. His idea of bliss is to be zooming down a ski slope on his Telemarks, knocking out a few high-speed jazz riffs on his Telecaster.

Do feel free to comment on any factual innacuracies or anything else you find in my blog! That should keep you busy!

Two fabulous new kora albums!

If if wasn't enough to have the new Ali Farka Toure and Toumani Diabate album to enjoy, there's now another fine new album featuring the kora. This time it's Ballake Sissoko who's playing with cellist Vincent Segal!

Both CDs are stupendous.

Bookworm paradise!

Neil, my main man in Hong Kong, has come up trumps again and found this amazing site:

http://manybooks.net/

ebooks galore!

Kai and I were watching a trendy young dude on the metro the other day reading from a Kindle or whatever those screen things are called and were both fascinated.

The future is here!

More books than one has time to read! More Cds than one has time to listen to!

Truly this is the age of abundance!

School dinner in Hackney 2010

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/schools/what-no-chips-the-school-where-children-have-to-eat-healthily-1919165.html

Hindi Zahra - Handmade

Klingan's CD of the week a couple of weeks ago was Handmade By Hindi Zahra.

http://www.sr.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2347&artikel=3472210

A Berber singer on the Blue Note label of all things. Her name suggests it might be a bit ethnic but not at all! Excellent songs, very uncomplicated arrangements and a fine voice.

Classic singer-songwriter stuff!



Wretlind does it again! A treat!

Winter without end!

We can finally see the pavement again!! Can the winter finally be on its way out?

Tony, one of the teaching assistants at school, even said that he had seen a spring flower this morning.

The bad thing about this is that now the snow is melting, all surfaces are treacherously slippery and the only way to move about, if one does not want to break one's legs, is to waddle like a penguin.