New to NA: Greentea Peng

I heard this on 6 Music the other morning. The opening guitar motif caught my ear because it was vaguely reminiscent of The Changing Man by Paul Weller (itself more than vaguely reminiscent of 10538 Overture by ELO). But, after that guitar intro, the rest of the song is very different, all lo-fi shuffle and heard-through-a-club-wall sonics, married with a vocal that calls someone else to mind that I can't quite put my finger, for the moment. Imagine Erykah Badu, maybe, if she'd spent her formative years in post-Millennium Dalston rather than 80s Dallas.

Anyway, I know nothing else about Greentea Peng that can't be gleaned from her Wikipedia entry, whence comes the knowledge that Greentea is a "neo soul" artiste, and that "peng" is slang for attractive. I have seldom felt older or more parochial but never mind that, because what I do know is this: whilst One Foot is distinctly outside the Venn diagram of my normal musical tastes, I quite like it. It's borderline hypnotic in places, I think. What do you reckon?

I like the video too, it feels like it was shot on someone's iPhone without permission, guerilla-style. Or at least has been deliberately made to look that way. Next time you see someone with headphones on, singing aloud on the tube, look around, you could be in a music video...

Getting back

Or TIWHBALYIIHBOS (Things I Would Have Blogged About Last Year If I Hadn't Been On Sabbatical) #3

Back in 2022, in my end of year round-up, I made Paul McCartney my person of the year, on the basis of his headlining Glastonbury at 80 years of age and doing an excellent job of it. At the time, I wrote, "He's basically a very few years younger than my old man who, on occasion, struggles a bit to headline the armchair. So well done Paul - I hope you tour at least once more, so I can finally see you live."

Well, he did tour again; his "Got Back" tour trundled around the globe through the latter half of 2024, culminating in two nights at the O2 Arena. Which is how I found myself, six days before Christmas, sitting way up in the stand stage left, finally getting to see the man himself. Now 82, for very nearly 3 hours Paul and his band were everything you would expect and hope for, and then some. At times it was almost too much to take in, there seemed to be so much going on, even if a lot of it was largely expected: staggering pyrotechnics during Live and Let Die, for example, or mass singalong na-na's for Hey Jude. We've all seen these things so often, haven't we, not least at the aforementioned and brilliantly televised Glastonbury set. But there were surprises: I watched it snow inside the cavernous dome of the O2, for a seasonal rendition of Wonderful Christmastime (made less cheesy by the joyous accompaniment of the Capital Children's Choir). I saw a skeletal Ronnie Wood, wizened almost to the point of self-parody, join Paul on-stage for Get Back. But the biggest surprise of all came during the encore.

Immediately after Paul's duet with a virtual John Lennon on I've Got A Feeling (again, no surprise, he did that at Glasto too), I saw a second drum kit appear at the side of the stage. "No way," I muttered, to no-one in particular. Because an extra drum kit could surely only mean one special guest?

Anyway, I was sat a long way up, and my camera is quite old, but with those apologies out of the way, this is what happened next...

There's a lot I like about this, not least that Paul's regular drummer, the amazing Abraham Laboriel Jr, watches Ringo intently throughout, the way that middle-aged children watch their parents at family gatherings, to make sure they get through it all okay.

I'll be honest, I'd booked the last night of the tour for the slightly morbid reason that, at 82, I figured it might conceivably be Paul's last live performance. "I was at McCartney's last ever gig," I could later claim. Me and 20,000 others, right? But after the (again expected) finale of Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight and The End, Paul said his goodbyes to the crowd, ending with a cheery "See you all next time." So what do I know?

Well, what I do know is that the gig, a Christmas present to myself if ever there was one, was amazing. It hasn't shot to the very top of my notional "Top Ten Gigs" list, though it is certainly a new entry to that particular chart. And it felt like more than a gig - a spectacle. At times it was almost too much to process, a feeling compounded by going alone: I had no-one to talk to about what I was seeing and hearing, and no-one to bounce reactions off. But the bottom line? Whether it was his last gig or not, I'm glad I went - the experience, the music, the sensory overload, two Beatles for the price of one, and everything else. Whatever your view of the man, he puts on one hell of a show. So, with another apology for poor quality (especially when I had to try to film around heads, towards the end), here's a video of that closing medley.

Take AIm

Or TIWHBALYIIHBOS (Things I Would Have Blogged About Last Year If I Hadn't Been On Sabbatical) #2

With all apologies in advance (especially to C, who I know gets understandably hot under her exquisite collar about this), one more AI experiment. As ever, I'm doing this crap so you folks don't have to, okay?

So I've previously played with text-based AI, and image generation. Now onto video, courtesy of Minimax. For consistency, I've stuck with the same idea of trying to generate something you would never see for real. Specifically, my prompt to the AI was "Singer Morrissey eating a hamburger in an empty McDonald's restaurant, at night". This is what it came up with.

All very impressive, I'm sure. He looks nothing like Morrissey, and doesn't actually eat the burger, just holds it whilst his jaw is moving. Plus, it's very short and has no sound but other than that ... well, it looks like real, carbon-based creatives can rest easy ... for now, at least.

Anyway, with apologies (again) to all those who don't any more, here's the real McCoy with his northern outsider pals, when they were still pals, most decidedly not eating a burger.

Forty years ago though. Stone me.

Remember when "compact" mattered?

Or TIWHBALYIIHBOS (Things I Would Have Blogged About Last Year If I Hadn't Been On Sabbatical) #1

I had to get a new phone last year, unfortunately. And it seems that if you want a decent spec, compact phones are no longer an option. My new phone is a full 20mm longer than the one it replaced - so much for progress. Add on the new protective case I also had to buy and it all adds up to a ridiculous slab. I may or may not be pleased to see you, but it really is a phone in my pocket.

Anyway, it's time to belatedly update the mobile timeline:

Because these photographs are inexplicably popular (in web searches, at least) they have their own label so, for completists (!), here are the previous posts in the series.

Simplification (or, time for it all to go)

It's time to accept the Internet is never going to make me rich.

Likewise, I'm never going to win the world snooker championships, lead the Tour de France, or write an international bestselling novel. But back to the Internet and, more specifically, this blog.

For the past two years of so, I've ended every post with this, a kind of Patreon-esque way of letting readers tip me any amount, big or small, for something I've written.

In all that time, no-one has ever tipped me anything, which is fair enough. Patreon and the like are clearly best left for high-volume, mass-market, original content creators. None of those adjectives apply to me, or my "content". Besides, if you wanted to pay to read something, newspapers are available (for now).

Never mind, eh? For the past eighteen months I've also had this in my sidebar, allowing readers to buy me a cuppa.

In all that time, no-one has ever bought me a coffee, much less a notional cup of tea that I would actually enjoy. And that's fair enough too - I'm probably over-caffeinated anyway.

So it's all going, from today. New Amusements is eschewing third-party advertising wherever possible, and becoming a public service broadcaster. With apologies to the actual BBC, whose sign I've photoshopped...

All of which is my tenuous double-link to a song, Go by Public Service Broadcasting.

I especially love the very enthusisastic "Go!" from Steve Bales on Guidance. He was only 26 at the time, can you believe?

Anyway, in the unlikely event that you do want to somehow make me pence richer, you can always buy my book. Or a t-shirt! What a time to be alive.

I can't help myself...

...so I'm back, for one more lap of the sun at least. Sabbatical over, and mostly adhered to (except when RIPs and elections prompted a few posts), I regret to say that I haven't achieved much of anything in the way of new creative writing in the last year, as I'd hoped. I'm not sure that I missed blogging that much either - make of that what you will. Maybe I'm only in it for the comments, but there's the catch-22.

Regardless, here we go again because, as we have established, I can't help myself. Will you share every sorrow?

And happy new year.