Well worth getting hold of Pacific Ocean Blue album together with the Bamboo bootleg/unreleased album will apparently be available tomorrow or June - depending on who you read. 33 tracks in all. The vid above is one of the best tracks on a fairly faultless Pacific Ocean Blue. It's called Thoughts of you. The Bamboo album is a bit more bar room, but plenty to savour in there. Looking forward to the Dean Torrence remastered version though
The first winner of the Frontline Journalism Award is the Irish freelance photojournalist John D. McHugh. He talked about his work and the story of when he was shot and almost killed by a Taliban sniper last year. He's currently in Afghanistan on commission for The Guardian. In a similar vein, I found the chat with Anthony Loyd equally interesting. There's something about the mental makeup of the people who choose to report on war. Something I hope to explore more on this blog in the future.
I've read a lot of books about Cambodia and I've spent quite a lot of time in Cambodia. However, of all the books I've read there's one that stands out, Year Zero by Francois Ponchaud. It's a very factual book, there are no frills and that is its strength. Click on the video above to watch a report from John Pilger. It has the same title as the book. However, that's not the reason I include it. I was very young at the time this aired on British TV, but I can still remember seeing the images from this report. For some reason the shots of the empty, litter strewn streets of Phnom Penh stuck in my mind. I didn't imagine I'd end up living near there and visiting regularly back then. I was probably too busy collecting Top Trumps.
Literally just came across this. Seems to have been a big hit for The New Yorker magazine,
Nicholas White got stuck in a lift. For 41 hours. link via Pods and blogs
Think I'd have gone absolutely stark, ravin' bananas. I hate lifts.
Quite old now, but so not wrong.
Best opening sequence to a film ever. Sadly, I must admit I went to the cinema to see this upon its original release in 1982 and didn't understand a word of it. Funny how it should turn out to be one of my favourite films now.
There's plenty more where this came from, but the one above is quite restrained. Quite peaceful. Pleasant even. Oh and by the way... did some Vietnamese newspaper write about me this week or something? Getting loads of email from Vietnamese folk and 4,000 hits a day or so which is double what it normally is. But, can't see a specific link driving that traffic. Oh well.
On balance i think this was the the best newspaper article I read last year. Good to see the author won the Orwell Prize for journalism this year
You'd be hard pressed to find a better opener. In fact I bet you can't
I first heard a cover of this song before I heard the original. Both are great. Perfect even. Here are the lyrics. Now, checking my email and the last (but two) person to write to me is Michael. You got 31 interesting things inside your head?
I'm really gonna drag this one out... Our Man in Newcastle, formerly known as Our Man in Hanoi, asked me ages ago if I'd like to write a post about 31 songs that I rather like. I started and stopped the post a couple of times and just now, when the Muxtape uploader failed for the umpteenth time, I decided maybe I should just post a song here every day for 31 days. But, then I figured maybe I'd like to post other stuff, i.e. non-music, but media of some sort or other. Alors... I can't promise this'll all be songs. Maybe I'll add some audio, a film clip or a TV sketch. So, perhaps I should call it 31 very interesting things in 31 days. Oh, and I suppose I should tag 31 very interesting people along the way too.
