The Spirit of Jarrow Lives On

I was more than a tad annoyed a couple of weeks ago to find that YouTube had pulled my Jarrow Song video down, on account of Warners Media Group getting antsy about the copyright issue.  The Jarrow Song was one of the best videos that I created, and clearly, this kind of treatment is just not on.

I’ve stated before that copyright controls are necessary, and it is right and proper that artists (not meeja suits) receive credit and remuneration for their work.  That is why I’m one of the handful of people who actually purchase my music from legitimate sites such as Amazon.co.uk (don’t ever try to use the useless American version) instead of following all the teenies onto the free illegal sites.  Although if the free sites offered anything other than music to inject drugs by, I might be tempted.

Once I’ve got the music, I feel quite justified in using it on Grumpy Git Productions films as these videos are for pleasure; I am not attempting to profit from them, always credit the artists and composer and feel that the videos actually publicise the music in a positive way.  You’ve seen the film – now buy the soundtrack .

Sony has just such an agreement, to everyone’s advantage.  If you upload any of their tracks, they simply place a discreet advert on the start of the video that permits the viewer to purchase the track through itunes.  What a simple and brilliant idea!  Everybody benefits, and nobody’s enjoyment is spoilt.  So why do Sony and Warners take such a different stance?  Simple.  Sony is Japanese, Warners are American.  The Japs are inventive and intelligent, whereas Americans are best summed up by an incident covered in a Top Gear programme.  Whilst attempting to film a sequence on location in America and being forbidden from doing so, a policeman told Jeremy Clarkson that "you don’t need commonsense when you’ve got rules."  This sums the mentality of the alleged Land of the Free perfectly.  In the great US of A, you can’t upload a video, but you can buy very large guns and shoot people.  Glad that they’ve got that the right way round.

I once had the misfortune to fly into Miami (long before 9/11) and was treated like a terrorist even then, in an environment that was clearly a rehearsal location for Guantanamo Bay Holiday Camp, simply because I hadn’t ticked one of the boxes on their incredibly ambiguous immigration form in the correct shade of aquamarine.  I wasn’t informed what was wrong on the form, or how to correct it – just an imbecile with a big gun shouting, “Suh, this form is incorrect.  Do not proceed.  Return and re-submit a correct form.”  I wanted to tell him to bugger off and get a life, but his buddy had a fresh pair of Marigolds hanging off his Smith & Wesson, so I quietly capitulated.  I swore then that I’d never return to America, and never will, unless I get extradited for hacking into the Pentagon’s airtight secure website when all I was trying to do was get into the Penthouse site – and that’s Hobson’s choice when you’re trying to explain it to ‘er indoors after the arrest.  I’ve travelled behind the former Iron Curtain to Belarus and the Ukraine, and received far more respect from customs and immigration in those feared Soviet bastions than I ever had from the Land of The Cheese.  America gave us the litigious society, and the litigious society gave us Health & Safety.  Think about it.

Anyway, back to filmmaking.  The Jarrow Song is a British tune, about a British event in a British town that no American has ever heard of; composed by a British composer (Alan Price) – so there was no way I was going to let any descendent of Dubya tell me I couldn’t use it.  The Jarrow Marchers didn’t roll over and give in, so in the spirit of the original participants it was time for good old British inventiveness.  Off I went into the nether regions of cyberspace to find a live concert recording of Alan Price performing the Jarrow Song at The Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester (England).

Not surprisingly, the live version differs considerably from the studio recording, so it wasn’t going to be a case of simply swapping over the tracks.  Although both versions work out to be about the same running length, the timing is different, and the instrumental break in the middle is much shorter in the live edition.  Conversely, the instrumental end to fade is a lot longer on the live performance, and has a bigger finish.  I started tweaking the film, but soon found out after the first couple of scenes that it would be easier to start from scratch.  So here is the all-British version of Alan Price performing the Jarrow Song at The Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester (England), featuring a new video by Grumpy Git Productions (UK Ltd plc) to provide a visual perspective of Tyneside, then and now.

Incidentally, the original Jarrow video may still be seen on my Vzaar page, as they’re not as scared of corporate suits in the way that YouTube are (on a very selective basis).  I trust that viewers find this new film entertaining.  Happy viewing!

Even My Mam's Got Talent!

My holidaying friends, and their fridge, are all now back from vacation mode. Consequently I was round at their house on Saturday, watching the astonishing Poland’s Got Talent (or MAM Talent to use the Polish TV Channel’s name; hence the truly horrendous title to this piece of rambling dribble) - beamed in via Polsat on a satellite dish that looks suspiciously like something that should be residing at Gatwick Airport. Unfortunately, it’s getting close to the final so the truly bizarre acts have long gone, but even so, there was still enough entertainment to pass a couple of hours.

We were offered a pudgy child performing a death rock anthem – imagine Bonnie Langford in her Just William days doing Ozzy’s Paranoid and you’re on the right lines. Two blokes did a strange take on a mime act with sound effects, and another man had managed to graft computerised drums into his shoes, so that he could play percussion by jumping up and down a lot. Er – ok. Then there was a sort of circus trapeze outfit disguised as a Tarzan, Jane and gorillas act that was followed by an inevitable acrobatic rap dance troupe that jumped up and down a lot to a noise that sounded like a plane crashing into my kitchen cupboards. Then we had a young female singer called Anna Teliczn who sang a ballad in perfect English – very nice – and ended with a boy who wants to be a girl, or a girl who wants to be a boy, or maybe a boy who is halfway to becoming a girl. With a name like Madox, the jury is still out, and either way, his / her social worker has their hands full. I thought Madox was a relaxing bubblebath, but I could be wrong. He / she / it sang Stop Before You Break My Heart – too late, the damage was done.

There are three judges – Malgosia is an actress who would be our Amanda Holden; Kuba is our Simon Cowell but looks like a very young Chris Evans so rather loses the edge, and then we have Agnieszka, a middle aged rock chic – sort of Bonnie Tyler or Suzi Audi Quattro. She must be our equivalent of Dannii Minogue / the good looking Geordie from Girls Are Loud or whoever the hell we have – I get confused. Keeping everything ticking over is Ant and Dekski who compere the show. So it’s not as if the producers have copied Britain’s Got Talent, no way.

The judges panned young Anna, presumably because she is young, pretty and could sing. They gave Madox glowing praise and the promise of a great Susan Boyle future. People power won through, though – the public voted Anna through to the final, and the judges then had to choose between Madox and the Mime Nutters. Strangely, after all the hype, they chose the Mr Beanski act, leaving Madox even more confused than he / she / it already is – so Madox left without a place in the final, but with a nice bag of toiletries. For him. Or her. Whatever.

As I like to be open minded and let people chose for themselves, here are the main performers, brought to you by courtesy of the MAM Talent website.

This is Anna singing a song I recognise, but can't remember the name.  Sorry for my less than in-depth research here:

This mime act can't be described, so you'll just have to watch it, -unless you've got something more urgent to do, like ironing your shoelaces.  I'll understand, really.

And here we have Far From the Madoxing Crowd - this must be the Georgina / George that Enid Blyton wrote about all those years ago on Kirren Island.

If you’re still with me, and I don’t blame you if stopped reading this before I broke your heart some time ago, then I’ve already invited myself up to watch the final, so watch this space for more exciting details.

A Fridge Too far

This week I have the pleasure of looking after a friend’s house while they are on holiday. It’s the usual sort of thing; picking up the junk mail, forgetting to water the plants until the last day and then flooding them, putting the appropriate coloured bin out on the appropriate day at the appointed hour and then returning in the evening to replace the unemptied bin back in the garden, because the rules about putting bins out at certain times apply only to householders, and not to the council binmen. Oops, sorry – that’s incorrect. Recycling and environmentally aware personnel, employed by a private company operating on behalf of the Council at the lowest possible price. The reason the tender was so cheap was that the private company figured it could save loads of money by not sending any bin lorries out at all, thus saving fuel and staffing costs – well, it makes sense in a twisted 21st Century accountant’s view, which is the only view that matters to Councils these days.

But I’ve digressed. Yesterday I had a text reminding me to water the plants – as if I’d forget! There was also a curious add-on of ‘Please put the fridge on vacation mode.’ Do what? Just what in hell was that supposed to mean? Do I give it a sombrero and mix a vodka martini (chilled, of course) then play Macarena while it breakdances round the kitchen like R2D2 on Ecstasy to put it into the holiday groove? I’m confused.

"Happy days are here again ..."

So after work I called around to the house and checked the fridge out. Now to me, a fridge is a big white box in the kitchen that keeps beer chilled until such time as I would like to consume it. That’s it.

A proper fridge. Deal with it.

It would appear that I’m missing something, because the fridge at my friends’ house looks like something out of a James Bond film. Apart from the fact that it’s so tall it only just fits into the kitchen, it has an operating console with lots of buttons and coloured lights. How’s this for a quick rundown of its features:

Electronic temperature control
Twin compressors
Water dispenser
High temperature warning system
Salad crisper (what the f… never mind)
Fast chill facility
Vacation mode
Built in anti bacterial protection
Airbags
Cruise control
Four USB ports
DVD writer …

… and so on. Okay, I got a bit carried away towards the end, but this beast is apparently no ordinary fridge according to the (strategically placed) operating manual that had been not so subtly left out on the worktop adjacent to it.

On the drive home I began thinking – how much of the blurb written by Hotpoint to entice the buyer into choosing this model is true, and how much is essentially total bollocks designed simply to part gullible shoppers from their cash? Here is my interpretation of the so-called features on this model:

Electronic temperature control – A dial with numbers on it. Set it once and leave it forever. Gimmick.
Twin compressors – If you need two, then obviously, they’re not big enough. So put one proper one in. Job done. Gimmick.
Water dispenser – In my experience, all fridges are located within three strides of the kitchen sink, conveniently equipped with water dispensers of their own, called taps. Gimmick.
High temperature warning system. What does this do? Yell upstairs, ‘Oi, I’m boiling down here, turn it down a bit!’
Salad crisper – will someone please tell me what the hell a salad crisper is? On the other hand, I’d rather die in ignorance. Gimmick.
Fast chill facility. Yes, this is called the DOOR. Close it, and the fridge chills down quickly. I mean, you don’t need Einstein for that, now do you?
Vacation mode. This is also the DOOR. If you go on holiday, shut the door and leave all the cold air inside. How hard can it be?
Built in anti bacterial protection. See electronic temperature control. Cold kills bugs – end of.
Airbags, Cruise control, Four USB ports, DVD writer … Okay, okay, I made this up. But the day is not far off when these will become standard. And people will buy them on the strength of this, and not because it can keep your milk chilled.

So what does all this prove – well, to my mind, it means that Hotpoint, and the rest of that crowd, have discovered that by sexing up the traditional fridge into a Chilled Food Environment Facilitator, they can double the price without the inconvenience of doing anything more strenuous than sticking a fancy mission-control ‘console’ onto it, along with some pretty lights and a 600 page manual written by a Civil Servant. And people rush to part with their £399 so that they can then have sleepless nights in Tenerife, worrying that the fridge hasn’t been told and isn’t performing Agadoo in a conga with the tumbledryer and dishwasher.

Is it me? Or do I just need to chill?

Ah, now it all makes sense.

Lights - Camera - Instruction Book

After a month of reading reviews, articles and guides, I finally came to a decision regarding my new camera – a birthday present from back in October, but I didn’t want to just rush out and get one without some research beforehand. For the last couple of years, I’ve been using this Samsung model:

It’s a great little camera, and despite it’s rather insignificant appearance, has produced some fantastic shots, not to mention everything in the Grumpy Git Productions film library. I purchased it initially upon the recommendation of a friend, as I needed a decent, but budget priced camera that I could slip into a pocket and easily take abroad – and small enough to get through Ryanair’s somewhat restrictive baggage allowance of a credit card (to spend on Ryanair add-ons) and a pair of Y-fronts. For a pocket camera priced at £60 or so, it was a great purchase, and really came into its own on holidays in Belarus and Ukraine – not to mention its achievements in the movie world. In Belarus, for example, I was even able to take night-time shots without a tripod, simply by leaning on a lamp post at the corner of a street until a certain little policeman moved me on:


The camera has few drawbacks for what it is, the main one being that the zoom isn’t brilliant and often struggles to focus regardless of lighting, which can be annoying. The second more serious problem came about during a shoot on the Nene Valley Railway, when both the camera and I were enveloped in a thick cloud of steam and ash as the locomotive City of Peterborough came off shed – a fantastic piece of film that was used in the film 1968, but one which had a detrimental effect on the Samsung.


I ended up looking a like chimney sweep on overtime, but at least I could wash it all out later. L’Oreal just doesn’t have the same effect on a camera, regardless of how much you think it’s worth it. I suspect particles of ash made their way inside the lens, as I’ve noticed marks on several films made since then, and also the protective sliding door that protects the lens when not in use frequently jams and has to be jiggled about with a small plasticard tool I’ve made (so as not to scratch the lens) when out filming. This jiggling about has cost me some great shots, so I decided that perhaps a replacement should be purchased.

The new model goes beyond point and shoot, as all this filming has awakened an interest in photography, so I hope to learn some new skills. It’s a Fujifilm S1500, which is still a digital compact, but with some traditional camera looking bits making it look more like a camera of yore (I’m a bit of a dinosaur). There are loads of things that it will do, as the 133-page manual implies, but the main attraction was the 12x optical zoom that will add a new dimension to composing pictures. I also like the fact that it takes four AA size batteries, rather than a flat lithium – easy to get spares, and the battery life of the lithiums doesn’t seem up to much in many reviews I’ve read lately. I like knowing that if I need batteries in a hurry, I can simply get them at Asda if it comes to it – and they’re a lot cheaper as well.

Naturally, as soon as I got home from Argos, I assembled everything and without bothering to print off the instruction book (I detest having complicated books like this in pdf format – a camera manual needs to accompany the camera, especially in the early learning days. I can hardly take the PC with me on a photoshoot, now can I?) I duly set off around nearby Dysart Park to play with it. And the results are in:




Back at home, I did all the usual experiments – I am mightily impressed with the macro function, as shown in this handheld shot a few centimetres from the subject:


It also does continuous shooting – unfortunately in Grantham, thanks to some ludicrous traffic calming projects (traffic lights every 50 yards) nothing actually moves fast enough to justify continuous shooting, so I tried shooting a film that was playing on the computer!


I haven’t tried the movie mode yet, other than a quick pan round the garden, which isn’t very interesting.

And what of the Samsung? Well, there’s always a use for a pocket sized point-and-shoot camera, even if it is now a point-and-fiddle-and-swear-and-jiggle-and-shoot camera, so I’m keeping it ready for active service. In the meantime, I’ve printed off my 133 page manual, which I really should familiarise myself with before going off on a photoshoot. But that’s not how blokes do things, now is it?

I Can Sing A Rainbow

I had a choice of two nice day trips today, as my boss was feeling generous (nothing to do with me sponsoring his son in a fun-run this weekend). I could do Scarborough and pop in to York on the return trip, or do Scunthorpe. Hmmm. That was an easy decision – the seaside won hands down. As this was work, I eschewed the usual popular tourist haunts in favour of collecting some second hand cars to bring back to base. The weather was extraordinarily bright almost all day, until a very heavy downpour just south of Markham Moor. This ended as quickly as it began, leaving behind a crisply defined rainbow that seemed to start right alongside the A1.

It’s not often you get the chance to photograph a rainbow close up, or one so clearly defined, so I dodged into the next available layby (I’m very good at that) and managed to get two shots on the spare camera that I carry in my work bag. Even as I was taking the pictures, the rainbow began to dissolve in front of my eyes and vanished moments later. As I was now in the layby I did the decent thing and grabbed a coffee with some Custard Creams while I read a couple of chapters of my new Jeremy Clarkson book. There’s only so much stress I can take in a single day.