Tim Robson

Writing, ranting, drinking and dating. Ancient Rome. Whatever I damn well feel is good to write about.

  • Tim's Blog
William Tyndale. Lover of the internet. Probably.

William Tyndale. Lover of the internet. Probably.

The internet, porn and the opiate of the masses : 2016 Repost

Battersea Arts Centre
March 03, 2024 by Tim Robson in Reading

I thought I repost this article from August 2016 which can still be seen on my blog. As you can see, I was aware of the underlying tensions in the Ukraine and, five and half years before Putin invaded, that there were EU/US inspired tensions from 2014. My salient point that regions with a rich and complex history are being used to push other agendas still stands. In fact, better now than in August 2016 when clearly I could see the lies and manipulation even then. Which doesn’t support one side or another but just cautions blindly being led by those who seek to profit or who have hidden motives. My points about the role of the media, the gatekeepers, the custodians of the current view have also aged well. This was written pre Covid.

I’ve lightly edited out aged references or irrelevant asides but left the piece as written.

My advocating of a person curating their own news agendas from multiple sources is still my viewpoint. Interesting that when people started to do this during the Covid era, it became yet another stick in which to beat those with opposing views. Condescension is never far away from the lips of those who accept agendas unquestionably.

TR March 2024

Original Article, August 2016

One of the major differences between my parents' generation and mine and probably between mine and my children's is the way we consume news. I literally cannot stand anymore to watch the BBC (or other channels) as they push their own news agenda. The prominence they give to stories. The stories they cover. The stories they don't cover. What angle the reporters choose to push. Who the guests are.

"Tonight we're discussing spending lots of taxes on some bullshit cause de jour. Supporting this we have Mother Theresa, Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Opposing is Adolf Hitler. "

Suddenly we're all supposed to be interested in The Ukraine, or Syria, or Iran, or wherever public school educated lefties in editorial positions decide we need to be lectured about next.  And then - like magic - the issue disappears as the cameramen go onto the next story. Don't get me wrong. There are things that happen in these, and other places, that are newsworthy, but I don't necessarily agree on the broadcasters' news agenda, nor their selective editing or timings. So in 2015, for instance, there was the migrant crisis and all those pictures of young men walking across Europe was on TV every night. This year the numbers flocking to Europe is up. But during the referendum period, did we see any pictures of this? It was happening but strangely, not on our TV screens. Funny that. 

A couple of years back, The Ukraine was all over our screens. The toppling of democratically elected - but corrupt - president by the mob was shown in a sympathetic light. The fight back against this in the east of the country and Crimea, was presented as a bad thing. Especially when Russia joined in. If you supported the EU and approve of the demonising and provoking of Russia, you would push one angle. If you hated the EU, you would push another. Personally, the ignorance and propagandising of our TV coverage sickened me. 

So I decided to do some reading on the history of The Ukraine. What I found was a region so rich with history, wars, pogroms, dirty dealings, hatreds going back centuries that any non specialist would hesitate to say anything, let alone push an agenda. So the attempt by our TV and newspapers to pickle this into a Russia - Bad, pro EU Ukraine - Good narrative just seemed wilfully ignorant. Or deliberate.

The good news is that today there's no excuse to not to be your own news editor and set your own agenda. There's a big, vast internet out there. With a few clicks you can watch videos, read articles from many sources, check facts, go into depth and make your mind up. This democratisation of knowledge is one of the greatest advances in human history. Everything available at just a few seconds notice! 

But surely we need gatekeepers -  shout the statists, the control freaks. The people who were in charge or those who seek to control basically despise, forever and a day, their fellow humans. We're allowed our vote but god forbid we start to challenge received wisdom, start to push back, start to baulk at the titular binary choices we're offered that actually are just two cheeks of the same arse...

Well - getting rid of de haute en bas tossers who love control, is a good thing and actively to be encouraged. As I get older - as faith in my own certainty diminishes - my faith in the collective wisdom of people grows.

But, and it's a big BUT, if we are to be our own editors, if we are to determine our own news agendas, there comes responsibility too. It's the other side of the coin of freedom or liberty. The sentient person has to be aware of their own biases, their own agendas, their own ability to think the best of their own side and do down the other. It's human nature but the zealot, with eyes in the mid distance, ears shutted, is always to avoided.

So - what to do? Read widely. Read across the divide. Engage with arguments. Test out your own. Push your understanding. Improve yourself. 

Yeah, it's a bitch, I get that. But ignorance swirls around us, waiting for victims. Bad people await at the gate waiting to be let in. Ambitious people will try to manipulate you. 

"Libraries gave us power" sang the Manic Street Preachers, in another era about an even earlier era. And so they did. And their modern day equivalent - the internet - still does. Use them. Or lose them. There are people who'd rather you consumed the opiate of celebrity gossip and porn whilst real power was being curtailed.

Let me leave you with The Beatles semi live on The David Frost show pissing on absolutely everyone (as per usual)... 

 

March 03, 2024 /Tim Robson
News Agenda, The Beatles, Ukraine
Reading
Comment
boxing gloves.jpeg

The Greatest Album One / Two Punches

January 27, 2020 by Tim Robson in Music

There are albums that come out of the blocks with two killer tracks that are like a pissed off Mike Tyson swinging wildly at some trash talking, old timer patsy in the late 80's. Albums that decide that the best way to follow a kicking first track, is with another. 

Lock up your aunties! The Crowes in 1992

Lock up your aunties! The Crowes in 1992

The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion (1992)

The second album from the Crowes throws 'Sting Me' to the left and "Remedy' to the right. 1992 might have been Grunge Year Zero but, together with Teenage Fanclub, the Crowes held rock's banner aloft. These are kick-ass rock tunes. Basically, The Faces reimagined if their Marshalls were turned to 11 and Rod really went for it instead of pretending to be Sam Cooke. Love these two songs. Highlight - the 'fuck you' start of the guitar solo in Sting Me. A moment in rock I've ever and a day tried to replicate. Two seconds of true power!

The CD reissue doesn't 'feel' right!

The CD reissue doesn't 'feel' right!

Eden - Everything but the Girl (1984)

The impulse purchase one doesn't regret! Stood in WHSmith Rochdale's record department in 1984, I hear the wondrous album play over the store speakers. One track, two tracks, I was sold. Marched up to desk and asked, "Pray tell me good madam, who is making this bewitching sound?". Everything but the Girl apparently. Crazy name, crazy sound. So, I bought the album with its distinctive cardboard, non veneered album with the abstract painting on the front. The songs, I now know, were Each and Everyone and Bittersweet. They detail the commonplace jealousies and realities of relationships. All bedsits, screaming babies and jealousy. No holding hands and a rush towards lust with these songs. It was the clever lyrics as much as the bossa nova rhythms that had me captivated. The rest of the album's pretty good (apart from the execrable Soft Touch). I’ve framed this album.

George is a pinapple head

George is a pinapple head

Beatles for Sale (1964)

Not a One / Two, but a 1-2-3. The Fab Four of course do what other groups do - only better. Whilst other groups would put their singles on their albums, The Beatles didn't.  So Beatles for Sale kicks off with No Reply, I'm a Loser, Baby's in Black. With these stunning ditties The Fab Four literally piss on their competition. The bar is set so high, their album tracks sound like a career best single for any other group. Bizarrely, although released at the height of Beatlemania, Beatles for Sale is pretty obscure these days and these three - being non singles - are not as well known as they should be. But I love this album. Almost as much as I love...

Fisheye

Fisheye

...Rubber Soul (1965)

Pound for pound, this non single containing album, packs pretty much the hardest punch of any album. It roars out of the blocks with McCartney's funky - come on Motown have a go if you think you're hard enough! - Drive My Car. Most groups' best single ever. Just an album track. We then shift gear to the acoustic and sitar masterpiece that is Norwegian Wood. As a guitarist, this latter song - with its major to minor shift - is a dream to play. Like You've Got To Hide Your Love Away this shows why Lennon is so revered. This is effortlessly brilliant. We all fuck around on D but don't achieve anything like this. Let alone chucking in a middle 8 in G minor. Class. In a glass.

Hard. Soft. Kicks ass.

Hard. Soft. Kicks ass.

Led Zep 4 (1971)

Anything The Beatles can do, Zep does one better and louder! The whole of Side 1 of Led Zep 4. Just review these four tracks:- Black Dog, Rock n Roll, The Battle of Evermore, Stairway to Heaven. And this is just an normal album, not a greatest hits compilation. Not a filler in sight! From the sonic destruction of the first two, to my teenage fav with Sandy Denny (obligatory hobbit references!) to the ubiquitous - but deservedly so - Stairway, this is how to start a 37 million selling album. Are these guys knights of the realm yet FFS?

 

Tim's Blog RSS

This article was originally produced in 2016. Minor edits.

January 27, 2020 /Tim Robson
The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Everything but the Girl, Black Crowes
Music
Comment
beatles for sale.jpeg

20 Minute Playlist: Early Beatles

April 22, 2018 by Tim Robson in 20 Minute Setlist

So a fantasy 20 minute playlist from the Fab Four - 1963-1965.

Ticket to Ride

She Loves You

Baby's in Black

I Feel Fine

This Boy

I Want to Hold Your Hand

Long Tall Sally

Twist and Shout

 

I decided to open with the distinctive guitar riff of Ticket to Ride (which is probably my favourite Beatles single). Then in to the full on Beatlemania of She Loves You segueing into the waltz time of Baby's in Black. The bouncy I Feel Fine is followed by the I Want to Hold Your Hand single in reverse order, with the harmonies of This Boy and Lennon's stand out vocal calming things down. We end with a Paul v John face off, Long Tall Sally and Twist and Shout, the two standard Beatles set closers. These two could be reversed but they end the set on a high and V sign to anyone who has to follow. Beat that!

The video below has the Fab Four at their most energetic and really rocking. If you want to skip to 5:57 you will hear the best ever performance of Twist and Shout followed by the best ever performance of Long Tall Sally. The Beatles were on fire that night and although sometimes they seemed on tour a bit jaded or in it for the money, these performances show, when they were up, they were the best live band ever.

Tim's Blog RSS
April 22, 2018 /Tim Robson
The Beatles, Long Tall Sally, Twist and Shout
20 Minute Setlist
Comment
boxing gloves.jpeg

The Greatest Album One / Two Punches

August 30, 2017 by Tim Robson in Music

There are albums that come out of the blocks with two killer tracks that are like a pissed off Mike Tyson swinging wildly at some trash talking, old timer patsy in the mid 80's. Albums that decide that the best way to follow a kicking first track, is to put on another. 

Lock up your aunties! The Crowes in 1992

Lock up your aunties! The Crowes in 1992

The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion (1992)

The second album from the Crowes throws 'Sting Me' to the left and "Remedy' to the right. 1992 might have been Grunge Year Zero but, together with Teenage Fanclub, the Crowes held rock's banner aloft. These are kick-ass rock tunes. Basically, The Faces reimagined if their Marshalls were turned to 11 and Rod really went for it. Love these two songs. Highlight - the 'fuck you' start of the guitar solo in Sting Me. A moment in rock I've ever and a day tried to replicate. Two seconds of true power!

The CD reissue doesn't 'feel' right!

The CD reissue doesn't 'feel' right!

Eden - Everything but the Girl (1984)

The impulse purchase one doesn't regret! Stood in WHSmith Rochdale's record department in 1984, I hear the wondrous album play over the store speakers. One track, two tracks, I was sold. Marched up to desk and asked, "Pray tell me good madam, who is making this bewitching sound?". Everything but the Girl apparently. Crazy name, crazy sound. So, I bought the album - that cardboard, non veneered album with the abstract painting on the front. The songs, I now know as Each and Everyone and Bittersweet. They detail the commonplace jealousies and realities of relationships. All bedsits, screaming babies and jealousy. No holding hands and a rush towards lust with these songs. It was the clever lyrics as much as the bossa nova rhythms that had me captivated. The rest of the album's pretty good (apart from the execrable Soft Touch).

George is a pinapple head

George is a pinapple head

Beatles for Sale (1964)

Not a One / Two, but a 1-2-3. The Fab Four of course do what other groups do - only better. Whilst other groups would put their singles on their albums, The Beatles didn't.  So Beatles for Sale kicks off with No Reply, I'm a Loser, Baby's in Black. With these stunning ditties The Fab Four literally piss on their competition. The bar is set so high, their album tracks sound like a career best single for any other group. Bizarrely, although released at the height of Beatlemania, Beatles for Sale is pretty obscure these days and these three - being non singles - are not as well known as they should be. But I love this album. Almost as much as I love...

Fisheye

Fisheye

...Rubber Soul (1965)

Pound for pound, this non single containing album, packs pretty much the hardest punch of any album. It roars out of the blocks with McCartney's funky - come on Motown have a go if you think you're hard enough! - Drive My Car. Most groups' best single ever. Just an album track. We then shift gear to the acoustic and sitar masterpiece that is Norwegian Wood. As a guitarist, this latter song - with it's major to minor shift - is a dream to play. Like You've Got To Hide Your Love Away this shows why Lennon is so revered. This is effortlessly brilliant. We all fuck around on D but don't achieve anything like this. Let alone chucking in a middle 8 in G minor. Class. In a glass.

Hard. Soft. Kicks ass.

Hard. Soft. Kicks ass.

Led Zep 4 (1971)

Anything The Beatles can do, Zep does one better and louder! The whole of Side 1 of Led Zep 4. Just review these four tracks:- Black Dog, Rock n Roll, The Battle of Evermore, Stairway to Heaven. And this is just an normal album, not a greatest hits compilation. Not a filler in sight! From the sonic destruction of the first two, to my teenage fav with Sandy Denny (obligatory hobbit references!) to the ubiquitous - but deservedly so - Stairway, this is how to start a 37 million selling album. Are these guys knights of the realm yet FFS?

 

Tim's Blog RSS
August 30, 2017 /Tim Robson
The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Everything but the Girl, Black Crowes
Music
William Tyndale. Lover of the internet. Probably.

William Tyndale. Lover of the internet. Probably.

The internet, porn and the opiate of the masses

Battersea Arts Centre
August 16, 2016 by Tim Robson in Reading

One of the major differences between my parents' generation and mine and probably between mine and my children's is the way we consume news. I literally cannot stand anymore to watch the BBC (or other channels) as they push their own news agenda. The prominence they give to stories (women's football anyone?). The stories they cover. The stories they don't cover. What angle the reporters choose to push. Who the guests are.

"Tonight we're discussing spending lots of taxes on some bullshit cause de jour. Supporting this we have Mother Theresa, Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Opposing is Adolf Hitler. "

Suddenly we're all supposed to be interested in The Ukraine, or Syria, or Iran, or wherever public school educated lefties in editorial positions decide we need to be lectured about next.  And then - like magic - the issue disappears as the cameramen go onto the next story. Don't get me wrong. There are things that happen in these, and other places, that are newsworthy, but I don't necessarily agree on the broadcasters' news agenda, nor their selective editing or timings. So in 2015, for instance, there was the migrant crisis and all those pictures of young men walking across Europe was on TV every night. This year the numbers flocking to Europe is up. But during the referendum period, did we see any pictures of this? It was happening but strangely, not on our TV screens. Funny that. 

A couple of years back, The Ukraine was all over our screens. The toppling of democratically elected - but corrupt - president by the mob was shown in a sympathetic light. The fight back against this in the east of the country and Crimea, was presented as a bad thing. Especially when Russia joined in. If you supported the EU and approve of the demonising and provoking of Russia, you would push one angle. If you hated the EU, you would push another. Personally, the ignorance and propagandising of our TV coverage sickened me. 

So I decided to do some reading on the history of The Ukraine. What I found was a region so rich with history, wars, pogroms, dirty dealings, hatreds going back centuries that any non specialist would hesitate to say anything, let alone push an agenda. So the attempt by our TV and newspapers to pickle this into a Russia - Bad, pro EU Ukraine - Good narrative just seemed wilfully ignorant. Or deliberate.

The good news is that today there's no excuse to not to be your own news editor and set your own agenda. There's a big, vast internet out there. With a few clicks you can watch videos, read articles from many sources, check facts, go into depth and make your mind up. This democratisation of knowledge is one of the greatest advances in human history. Everything available at just a few seconds notice! 

But surely we need gatekeepers -  shout the statists, the control freaks. The people who were in charge or those who seek to control basically despise, forever and a day, their fellow humans. We're allowed our vote but god forbid we start to challenge received wisdom, start to push back, start to baulk at the titular binary choices we're offered that actually are just two cheeks of the same arse...

Well - getting rid of de haute en bas tossers who love control, is a good thing and actively to be encouraged. As I get older - as faith in my own certainty diminishes - my faith in the collective wisdom of people grows.

But, and it's a big BUT, if we are to be our own editors, if we are to determine our own news agendas, there comes responsibility too. It's the other side of the coin of freedom or liberty. The sentient person has to be aware of their own biases, their own agendas, their own ability to think the best of their own side and do down the other. It's human nature but the zealot, with eyes in the mid distance, ears shutted, is always to avoided.

So - what to do? Read widely. Read across the divide. Engage with arguments. Test out your own. Push your understanding. Improve yourself. 

Yeah, it's a bitch, I get that. But ignorance swirls around us, waiting for victims. Bad people await at the gate waiting to be let in. Ambitious people will try to manipulate you. 

"Libraries gave us power" sang the Manic Street Preachers, in another era about an even earlier era. And so they did. And their modern day equivalent - the internet - still does. Use them. Or lose them. There are people who'd rather you consumed the opiate of celebrity gossip and porn whilst real power was being curtailed.

Next blog post will go through some of my favourite sites...

Let me leave you with The Beatles semi live on The David Frost show pissing on absolutely everyone (as per usual)... 

 

August 16, 2016 /Tim Robson
News Agenda, The Beatles
Reading

George Martin

March 10, 2016 by Tim Robson in Music

Okay - The Clash had it right. "No Elvis, Beatles, Rolling Stones."

Because they're the big three, right? The Crassus, Caesar and Pompey of rock. And I agree. I remember being sad in 1977 at The King's death. I was fucking angry when Lennon was shot in 1980. I loved it when Travis performed a George Harrison tribute at The Brits in 2001 to kids too stupid, too gauche, to understand the death that had just happened.

And so George Martin passes away.

He would be famous for many things but his decision to sign The Beatles has to rank as one of the cleverest, smartest, most profitable decisions ever made. He auditioned the Beatles in June 1962. In March 1964 the Beatles were numbers 1-5 in America.

Let me just say that again in case any of you younger people don't get it.

In March 1964 The Beatles were numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 in the American charts. So fuck off any One DIrections out there. You are literally shit under McCartney's shoe. And John Lennon? Seriously ladies, go and get another tattoo and fuck the Queen of Chavs. Leave the music to George Martin and the Beatles. You are, quite simply, nothing.

Because behind The Beatles was always George Martin. The Beatles would still have been The Beatles without him (see She's Leaving Home and, shamefully those twats on Newsnight who highlighted The Long and Winding Road - a Phil Spectre orchestration)...  But in a million ways he pushed and facilitated The Fab Four.

- Can't But Me Love starts with the chorus because of him

- Sgt Pepper was all about George Martin

- He invented ADT (automatic Double Tracking)

- He scored Yesterday for strings 

- He made I Am Walrus the kick-ass proto-type Oasis it is

- He made Strawberry Fields Forever from pieces of Lennon brilliance.

- He came up with idea for Please Please Me - an album in a day. He also speeded the single up to give the Beatles their first hit.

- He does a mean rock n roll piano. Check out Rock N Roll Music - that's George rocking out on the ivories.

- He went independent from EMI in 1967 and so broke the monopoly of the record companies on how their artists sound

- A million, billion things large and small that created the greatest rock and pop group ever. My views on this are not sanguine, nor debatable. 

And on top of everything he was a genuine English gent who fought in the war, the sort we seem in short supply of these days - restrained, decent, modest and competent. A good bloke.

Sorry this is so inadequate George; you deserve much better from me.

RIP

Tim

Tim's Blog RSS
March 10, 2016 /Tim Robson
George Martin, The Beatles
Music
Comment

Didn't know I could edit this!