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Mission To Mars(ish)
It's been 18 months since we last covered it - and they're only just setting off - but the Mars 500 project kicks off today in Moscow.
6 would-be astronauts will be sealed inside a simulation space capsule to document the effects of an 18 month round trip to the red planet. The simulator even includes a mock-up of the planet's surface - so the effects of EVA can be studied after the 6 month feet-up session.
One thing that has changed in 18 months is the arrival of Twitter - which Italian pseudonaut Diego Urbina will be updating during the trip. The mission also has a blog.
Via BBC
#CSF
#CurrentAffairs
#Space
#Tech
3rd Jun 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet
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BBC One goes HD: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tv/2010/05/bbc-one-is-going-high-definiti.shtml
1st Jun 2010
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RIP: Ronnie James Dio
Further to the Six Degrees post, I've just read that Black Sabbath super-sub Ronnie James Dio has passed away, aged 67. RIP.
17th May 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet
State of Play
Thoughtful, thoroughly engaging reboot of the BBC show - with added papers vs blogs context. Excellent.
15th May 2010
Read more 4 star reviewsLCD & The National on Jools Holland
LCD Soundsystem and The National were among the acts on Jools Holland's live show last night. Watch that on iPlayer here or catch the finished show tomorrow night on BBC 1.
12th May 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet
Hair Lift
Got a lot of hair lying around? Donate it to Matter of Trust's Hair Lift program, which is collecting hair from salons all around the world to help soak up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
This is no joke. I might shave my biker tash just to chip in.
Via BBC
10th May 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet
Enjoying the BBC's new cop show 'Luther'. Stringer Bell showing his range.
6th May 2010
Read on TwitterEmotional Chimp News
Chimps feel death and mourn in the same way as humans, according to a new report....
Via BBC News
29th Apr 2010 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
East London Line Re-opens
Every hipster chimp's dream day has arrived. With the re-opening of the East london Line today, partying in Hoxton and New Cross on the same night is an easy reality.
The updated line will run 7am until 8pm from New Cross Gate to Dalston Junction - until the official re-opening on May 23rd when it will run full hours, 12 times an hour. The final route will run all the way down to Croydon, for that essential IKEA trip.
Surprisingly enough, this opening is well ahead of the original 'late 2010' schedule. Thanks Ken!
Via BBC
27th Apr 2010 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Band of Horses: Evening Kitchen
Band of Horses channeling their inner-Fleet Foxes on this exclusive clip for the BBC Later website. They were on Jools Holland Live last night, and will be on the main show this Friday ....hopefully with ampilfiers and only one singer.
22nd Apr 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet
RIP: Malcolm McLaren
Sex Pistols manager and misc trouble maker Malcolm McLaren has died, aged 64.
8th Apr 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet
Unfortunate Names
Hilarious piece on the BBC website about some of the worst names in Britain. Stan Still, Hazel Nutt, Paige Turner...... and I thought chimp75 was bad
1st Mar 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet
RIP: JD Salinger
RIP J.D. Salinger, author and legend. Despite penning uber-classic The Catcher In The Rye, Salinger has been reclusive and unpublished since 1965 - although allegedly writing constantly. Time will tell.
Via BBC
"Ask her if she still keeps all her kings in the back row."
Goddam phonies.
28th Jan 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet
Mad Men 3: Madder Men
Everybody's favourite advertising-industry-based US drama is back on the BBC this Wednesday 27th. Tune to BBC 4 or BBC HD at 10pm.
26th Jan 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet
RIP: Eric Rohmer
French nouvelle-vague director dies aged 89.
L'Ami de mon amie was one of my favourites.
STAMP to the music
Royal Mail has launched a series of stamps based on classic album covers. The chosen covers will no doubt produce debate at Chimp HQ.
Lick here
7th Jan 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet
2010! New Decade! New Stuff!
yup, another random set of arbitrarily assigned numbers has rolled over and so it's time to look forwards and get excited about some new stuff...
Gil Scott Heron - I'm New Here as you'll see from the video above, the mighty Gil Scott Heron is back with an excellent set of new songs for XL (including a Smog cover on the title track!). Voice like a mountain.
Midlake - The Courage Of Others More melancholia, stripped-down, low-key folkrock from the Midlakers. Think this is going to find its way into a lot of chimp top tens at the end of the year.
Peter Gabriel - Scratch My Back can't wait to hear what he's done with Paul Simon's Boy In The Bubble
Herbert - One One/One Pig/One Club A trilogy of new albums from the Accidentalista - one's a solo effort ("hot like a house on fire!"), one's made up from a pig and one's from a night in a club - think it's going to be 3/3 for this lot, and he's also producing albums for Eska, Rowdy Superstar and Barbara Panther
Vampire Weekend - Contra more songs about punctuation and fonts? who could resist?
Beach House - Teen Dream nice'n'woozy Flaming Lipsy rock
Washed Out - not sure what's coming out when exactly, but this Polaroidy valium pop is great
Nurse Jackie BBC2, Monday 4 Jan - Edie Falco returns as a junkie nurse, looks v good
Glee E4 11 Jan - v campy high school musical, but it's a lot of fun too. Don't! Stop! Beleeeeiving!
3rd Jan 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet
RIP: Brittany Murphy
RIP Brittany Murphy. Dead at 32 from a cardiac arrest.
20th Dec 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Non Frusciante
It's official. Guitar hero John Frusciante won't be returning for the Chili Peppers 10th album, and has officially left the band. According to his website, he left 12 months ago while the band took a hiatus.
The Empyreum still ranks as one of my albums of the year. Read the review here.
17th Dec 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Monster Waves
It might not be Bodhi's dream of the 40 year storm, but 40ft waves are pounding Hawaii following some extreme weather - and the surfers are out.
The BBC have video.
9th Dec 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Robin Cooper Week
the BBC are running a lo-fi animated version of the Timewaster Letters
3rd Dec 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Trailer Park: Blur No Distance Left To Run
woo-hoo... Blur have got a film coming out next year
2nd Dec 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Paxman v Sting
"the singer known as Sting" gets the Paxman grilling over his Amazon campaigns - starts about 16.50
2nd Dec 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
RT @redleaderlondon ART COLLECTORS See BBC's show 'Imagine...' featuring Arts Council's Own Art scheme http://bit.ly/ownartbbc \#ownartbbc
24th Nov 2009
Read on TwitterRIP: Derek B
The original Bad Young Brother, Derek B has died - aged 44.
16th Nov 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
RIP: Edward Woodward
Depending on your generation, Callan or The Equalizer has finally met his match.
16th Nov 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Doctor Who - The Waters Of Mars
(dir. Graeme Harper)
BBC One
Another fun entry in modern Who cannon as the current Doctor heads towards his final episodes. We're off to Mars here, as the Tardis lands on the red planet in 2059, just in time to find the crew manning Bowie Base One in trouble with some H20.
The Doctor's initially pleased to meet the crew, lead by Lindsay Duncan and Peter O'Brien (Neighbours, Flying Doctors and Casualty) - until he realises he's arrived at one of those points in time which just can't be changed - "certain points in time are fixed... Everything else is in flux, anything can happen, but those certain points, they have to stand... This base on Mars... what happens here must always happen." Something about altering the course of future events etc (not that it's really bothered him much in the past) (or is that the future?). So as soon as he arrives, he's getting ready to go.
Duncan's a good foil for the Doctor here - it always seems to work when they try that that Harry Potter trick of roping in some classy British thesps to bump up the acting credentials on this show. The monsters are quite engaging, even though it's hard to escape the feeling that they're wetting themselves all the time (you'll see what I mean). Even though he's only got as far as Mars, it's fun to see the Doctor getting off Earth - one of the main problems in the new Who is that the Tardis seems stuck on ending up in recognisable moments in our planet's history. Bit of a shame when you could go anywhere in the universe, at any time, really.
Basically Waters Of Mars is a set-up to remove the Doctor's man of action status and get him to angst over all his interventionist tendencies - a theme that looks like it's set to play out as we head towards his impending doom/regeneration. Will he ever pay for mucking about with time? Are there consequences when you can keep zipping back and forwards through the time stream?
Was it always this heavy when they used to get near the moment whenthe actors got worried about being typecast as the Doctor each regeneration? I remember it all being much more of a surprise when I was a kid and Tom Baker or Peter Davison suddenly morphed into view, but maybe that's because I wasn't online wading through the geek soup all day. Does seem to be wavering on that fine line between not taking itself seriously (the GADGET robot stuff here is pretty silly) and then getting disappearing up its own Tardis with the weight of it all. Still, it's a good teatime thriller, and I'm intrigued enough to want to see how they finish David Tennant's tenancy off/introduce Matt Smith in the Christmas specials.
Whoniverse extras:
The Doctor's back in his own astronaut suit, from The Impossible Planet.
Nice K-9 ref.
Looks like there's going to be a bit of a greatest hits reunion coming - The Master, Donna and the Ood are all heading our way for the Christmas finale.
7th Nov 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Read more 3.5 star reviewsMr. Brown Arrested
Ian Brown has been arrested on suspicion of wife beating, which is obviously not a very cool situation for anyone. The BBC article also notes that he's working on an album with Johnny Marr. Probably going to be Johnny Marr's 'best work for the last 25 years' as they all turn out to be....
5th Nov 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Being Human US
the BBC's vampire/ghost/werewolf flatshare show Being Human is going to get the dreaded US makeover
2nd Nov 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
The Big Pink
A Brief History of Love
Big Pink eh? Classics like ‘The Weight’ and ‘This Wheel’s on Fire’ comprised an impressive first album by The Band and in retrospect, while the songs are more divergent than their eponymous...
Hang on, where am I? This isn’t Mojo magazine. Any comparisons to Robbie Robertson’s folk-rock outfit can stop there. We’re talking Neo-Shoegaze baby, we’re talking Shoetronica, we’re talking 'bout Nu Gaze. Sonic cathedrals of noise are all the rage again right now… though when I tried playing my M83 album in the whispering gallery at St Paul’s, I was rudely ejected.
The hype machine for 4AD’s new signing is starting to crank up like a string of Kevin Shield’s effects pedals and if you listen to the radio you’ve probably already heard The Big Pink's single ‘Dominos’ – a catchy FM friendly stomp that equates girls who have inner-ear balance issues to pizzas or South London-based Indie labels.
‘A Brief History of Love’ is a big sounding album. Vast swathes of sound echo wash over you, all fizzing noise and blankets of warm guitar under sweeping skies of analogue static, with a backbone of drums and epic machine-made beats. It makes for a good headphone listen, although I imagine they’ve got other spaces in mind, like playing to the sunset crowd on the Other Stage at Glastonbury – you can pretty much see the light show in your head during the more climactic moments.
More than a few times it brought to mind School of Seven Bells’ album ‘Alpinisms’, which has a similar intricate yet expansive production. Ultimately though, that became my problem with this record, in that ‘A Brief History of Love’ kept coming out unfavourably in comparison. School of Seven Bells minus all the clever sounds would still make for a very weird and interesting listen, with their crystalline harmonies and strange poem-like lyrics. If you strip out The Big Pink’s shimmering soundscapes, what’s left?
Underneath what’s fair to say is an immaculately produced record, I kept on finding The Verve (on the slow, moody ones) or Kasabian (on the meaty, beaty ones). Lyrically, the word ‘baby’ seems to come up quite a lot. But what do I know? I don’t imagine School of Seven Bells sell that many records, while Kasabian definitely do. The Big Pink will probably become immensely successful and next year, as I’m flicking channels and come across their sunset Glasto slot on the BBC iPlayer, I’ll be able to say “I told you so”.
10th Sep 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Read more 3 star reviewsSpotify For iPhone
Apple have said Spotify can come over and play. It's been accepted for the App store and will be available 'soon' for premium users.
Meanwhile, Sony have commented that Spotify brings in more income for them than the iTunes store...
iTunes 9 seems likely to arrive next week, with added social networking features. Let's see if Apple also come up with a service to compete with Spotify, which wouldn't be hard for them.
29th Aug 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Radiohead On TV This Weekend
There's a whole bunch of Radiohead stuff on Sky Arts this Sunday, including a screening of the excellent Meeting People Is Easy, a festival performance from Eurockeennes and an interview with Dave Fanning.
Their headline set from Reading is also on BBC 3 on Sunday night, and VH1 are preceding that with a show called In Rainbows Live From The Basement on Sunday at 10.00. Set PVR to stun.
It's hard to believe the pretentious looking students in the Anyone Can Play Guitar video would end up as the pretentious-looking middle aged band they are now.... although listening back even that song had a few clues of what was to come. If only the lyrics were in a language you couldn't understand and there was no accompanying video.
28th Aug 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
How Many Roads?
yes, indeed, we'll finally be able to find out how many roads a man needs to walk down as a new Bob Dylan-voiced satnav is on the way
26th Aug 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Back To The Office
Gervais and Merchant on the Office repeats 30 Aug BBC2
18th Aug 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
UFO Spot on BBC North
UFO spotting made easy - just watch the news!
11th Aug 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
3D Monster Maze
News of the BBC's plans to shoot Syntax Era - a comedy drama based on the rivalry between Clive Sinclair and Chris Curry (ie the Curry who gave us Curry's) in the 1980s (should be on BBC4 this Oct) - got me thinking about the genius of the ZX81 (the iPhone of its time kids) - and specifically the joy of playing 3D Monster Maze. With the help of the hefty 16K external memory booster megapack stuck on the outside of the hard-drive/membrane keyboard/CPU, and several hours spent getting it to "download" from the memory stick cassette player, you could be transported into another dimension.
The object was simple: run through the maze to the exit, or be eaten alive by a giant T-Rex. You could run a bit faster than the monster - but thanks to the hours of ambient time spent walking around the identical walls, waiting for it to arrive, and the seconds it took to pounce when it did finally show up, more often than not you were chomped up instantly after waiting for ages. No weapons. No extra lives. Just the chance to do it all over again. Existential terror has never been colder or more accurately detailed in pixel form. Good times.
31st Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
SpotifiPhone
Spotify have announced an iPhone version of their excellent music streaming program - and have submitted the app to Apple for approval. Assuming it gets accepted, this could be a possible game changer for me, as the thought of owning any more CDs now has zero appeal. This thing requires a premium Spotify account, which will set you back £1 a day or £10 a month, but that will provide access to several million tracks - and no ads.
Spotify are also planning a US roll-out of their service. More info at WIRED.
27th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Attack of the Clones
South Korea has deployed cloned sniffer dogs at it's main border points. Woof.
20th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Just catching up with the BBC's credit crunch drama 'Freefall' on iPlayer. Very good.
16th Jul 2009
Read on TwitterSolved: Crop Circles
One of life's mysteries seems to have been solved - in Australia at least. Turns out Wallabies like nothing more than smoking a bowl and then heading out to make some crop circles.
13th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet