Writer's Block: BFF

[Error: unknown template qotd]It was theinquisitor .  He's not around much these days but he drops in every so often to provide useful advice.  Normally about cooking :)

Pay close attention...

Earlier this evening I watched highlights of the Radio One Big Weekend on iplayer.  I'd hoped that the whole of the Prodigy's set would be available to watch but alas just one track was featured at the end of a show focusing on Lily Allen.  Whilst watching the show it occured to me how shrewd the Prodigy (or more specifically Liam Howlett) have been recently.  The Prodigy are a long established group with a large, loyal fanbase who will forgive them the occasional fuck up (i.e. Baby's got a Temper).  The fanbase is big enough to sell out concerts at Wembly Arena and pack out fields at festivals but too small to buy enough singles to get them to the top of the charts.  Also much of their material isn't suitable to be broadcast on mainstream radio because of 'bad' language or 'adult' themes.  Now I get the feeling that Liam has decided it's time to make some serious money again.  They are releasing arguably their most comercial sounding single since 'No Good (start the dance)'.  It doesn't contain any bad language, the theme is dancing and the video is suitable to be broadcast on TV.  Last weekend they played a very commercial, free festival hosted by a national 'establishment' radio station.  The new single was performed without any bad language, even Maxim managed to MC without swearing, making it suitable for television broadcast.  Additionally, the set was an hour long thus getting them an hours airplay on national radio.  All this took place the day before the single went on sale.  Clever stuff.  You have to have serious business acumen to survive in the music industry for 18 years.  Liam (or at least his management team) certainly have that.  I have my fingers and toes crossed that they will be number one on Sunday.  Anything would be better than that awful N-Dubz track which is there at the moment.  The absolute worst type of UK Garage.

Smile...

Following on from my earlier post.  In order to watch four minutes of The Prodigy I had to sit through 50 minutes of a highlights show originally shown on BBC3.  The show mainly focussed on Lily Allen's performance.  In the past I've not been a fan of Ms Allen.  I found her annoying, a bit of a brat and a really poor singer.  One of my good friends saw her at Glastonbury two years ago, thought she was amazing and has been trying to convince me to like her ever since.  I have to say, I was impressed by the performance I watched this evening.  Her voice has become much stronger and she does seem to know how to work a crowd.  Of course, the fact that her live band is excellent helped her a lot.  She finished by singing Britney Spears' track 'Womanizer' which was a bit strange.  She did quite a good job though.

Also featured on the show were Maximo Park who I thought were a bit boring, the Gossip who I still think are a one hit wonder and The Enemy who I thought were excellent.  I could be fans of theirs.

On Thursday night I went to see an amateur productio of a play called 'Moonlight and Magnolias' at The Mary Wallace Theatre in Twickenham.  It was about the process of re-writing the screenplay of 'Gone with the Wind' back in 1939.  The setting being that production of the movie had been stopped a few weeks into production, the director had been sacked (which really happened) and the producer had decided the screenplay need to be rewritten.  The producer locked himself, a 'script doctor' and the replacement director (dragged straight from the set of 'The Wizard of Oz') in his office for 5 days to re-write the script.  It was unusal in that it was all about the relationship between three men stuck in very strange circumstances. I thought it was funny but I probably would have understood it better if I'd seen (or knew anything about) the movie.  Before I walked into the theatre all I knew was that it was set in the American Civil War and that it involved a fire!  I've always been put off of watching it by the fact it's a 3 hour long melodramatic love story.  The same thing causes me to avoid 'Titanic'.  Also my mum told me that 'Gone with the Wind' is boring.  She is the most patient person I know, so if she finds it boring I've got no chance!

In other news, I'm having a lazy weekend.  I plan to run some errands during tomorrow during the day and then I'm going out for a curry for my sis' birthday in the evening.  She'll be 26 on Monday which makes me feel positively geriatric!