Hebrides-0545, originally uploaded by timbearcub.

Those of you might remember my Hebrides podcasts back in September 2006.

Well I’ve finally posted the 1,100 photographs I took then, and I still think it’s best photographs I’ve ever taken…hence hoarding them away from the gannets who scour Flickr for images to rip (and they do). But then I realised what’s the point of these never being seen?

Those of you who listen to digitaldebris (or have seen the site ) might recognise some of these photos. They provided the inspiration for the site design and ethos.

I might post the odd highlight on LJ, but really there are too many, go have a look

A deserted shieling building, the Shielings, Lewis.

To those of a certain age, the porcine NOW! compilations (aka Now That’s What I Call Music) were a fundamental part of their youth….I remember the first ones, my sister had NOW 8. Well to make me feel utterly old they have now reached 25 years of age, and the 25th anniversary edition is soon to be out.

So let’s see:

Disc: 1
1. Backstreet Boys I Want It That Way
2. Belinda Carlisle Heaven is A Place On Earth
3. Beyonce feat Jay-Z Crazy In Love
4. Billy Joel Uptown Girl
5. Black Eyed Peas feat Justin Timberlake Where Is The Love
6. Bon Jovi Livin’ On A Prayer
7. Boyzone No Matter What
8. Britney Spears Baby One More Time
9. Cher Believe
10. Coldplay Fix You
11. Crowded House Weather With You
12. Culture Club Karma Chameleon
13. David Bowie Modern Love
14. Diana Ross Chain Reaction
15. Duffy Mercy
16. Duran Duran The Reflex
17. Elton John Are You Ready For Love
18. Eurythmics There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart)
19. Fatboy Slim Praise You
20. Feargal Sharkey A Good Heart
21. Frankie Goes To Hollywood Two Tribes
22. Gnarls Barkley Crazy
23. James Sit Down
24. James Blunt You’re Beautiful
25. Jermaine Stewart We Don’t Have To
26. Kaiser Chiefs Ruby
27. Katy Perry I Kissed A Girl
Disc: 2
1. Kylie Minogue Can’t Get You Out Of My Head
2. Leona Lewis Bleeding Love
3. Mark Ronson feat Amy Winehouse Valerie
4. Mika Grace Kelly
5. Natalie Imbruglia Torn
6. Nelly Furtado Maneater
7. New Radicals You Get What You Give
8. No Doubt Don’t Speak
9. Oasis Wonderwall
10. Outkast Hey Ya!
11. Pet Shop Boys It’s A Sin
12. Peter Gabriel Sledgehammer
13. Phil Collins You Can’t Hurry Love
14. Phil Collins / Philip Bailey Easy Lover
15. Queen I Want To Break Free
16. R.E.M. Everybody Hurts
17. Ray Parker Jr Ghostbusters
18. Ricky Astley Never Gonna Give You Up
19. Rihanna feat Jay-Z Umbrella
20. Robbie Williams Angels
21. Roxette It Must Have Been Love
22. RUN DMC feat Aerosmith Walk This Way
23. S Club 7 Reach
24. Shaggy feat Ricardo ‘RikRok’ Ducent It Wasn’t Me
25. Shania Twain That Don’t Impress Me Much
Disc: 3
1. Simple Minds Don’t You (Forget About Me)
2. Sinead O’Connor Nothing Compares 2 U
3. Snow Patrol Chasing Cars
4. Spice Girls Wannabe
5. T’Pau China In Your Hand
6. Take That Patience
7. The Beautiful South A Little Time
8. The Killers Somebody Told Me
9. The Proclaimers I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)
10. The Scissor Sisters I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’
11. The Sugababes Push The Button
12. The Verve Bittersweet Symphony
13. Timbaland pts one Republic Apologise
14. Tina Turner The Best
15. Tony Christie (Is This The Way To) Amarillo
16. U2 Pride (In The Name Of Love)
17. UB40 Red Red Wine
18. Westlife You Raise Me Up
19. Wet Wet Wet Love Is All Around
20. Wham! Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go
21. Whitesnake Here I Go Again (87 Remix)
22. Will Young Leave Right Now
23. Yazz The Only Way Is Up

Can you get a mostly blander set of hits than this? NOW used to be a mix of the shit and the good, cred and the crap…now sadly success is probably only measured in sales rather than whether it’s good or not.

There are some Pop Classics™:

Kylie, Yazz, UB40, RUN DMC, Beyonce, Bon Jovi (I hate to say it, but yes) Ray parker Jr., Sinead O’Connor, Scissor Sisters, Britney Spears, Robbie Williams (ditto), R.E.M, Queen, Gnarls Barkley, FGTH, Outkast, PSB’s, Peter Gabriel, Spice Girls (double ditto), The Proclaimers, Diana Ross

but there are a lot even with the benefit of hindsight which should have been suffocated at birth:

Will Young, Fergal Sharkey, U2 (ooh controversy!), Tpau, Roxette, Cher, Phil Collins, The Verve, Westlife, Tony Christie, The Killers, S Club 7, Shania Twang, Boyzone, Backstreet Boys, Rihanna, Duffy, Wet Wet Wet, Belinda Carlisle, Mika, Natalie Imbrooglywoogly, Crowded House, James Blunt, Katy Perry

and others which are like ‘yes but not that song?!?!’

David Bowie, Take That, Tina Turner, Wham, Elton John, Coldplay, No Doubt, Timbaland, Eurythmics, Kaiser Chiefs

And talking of DJ Timmy Tim as he was known, why no Missy? Distinct lack of Eminem too. As we all know Madonna has never graced a NOW album either, having been kept off the No. 1 slot by one, but Prince has, so why the no show?). And no New Order – not even Blue Monday.

So what would be your NOW 25 years wonder playlist?

Downtempo acoustic tracks – part 1 of 2.

HPBD2ME (or was 57Mb, 75mins)

• Frank Turner – Photosynthesis
• Vitaly Dmitriev – Zolotaryov – Partita no.1 / Toccata in d-moll BWV565 (backing)
• Au – RR vs. D
• Bourbonese qualk – Lukunzi
• Mark Mothersbaugh – My Home Town
• Radiohead – Videotape (Amplive Remix Feat Del The Funky Homosapien)
• Stephen Smith – New World Worder
• The Breeders – We’re Gonna Rise
• Frank Turner – Love Ire And Song
• Jeffrey Lewis – Walls
• Jeffrey Lewis – Punk Is Dead (Crass cover)
• Neil Innes – How Sweet To Be An Idiot
• Allen Ginsberg, illyB – End the Vietnam War (DJ Spooky remix)
• Gnarls Barkley – Who’s Gonna Save My Soul
• Mrs Crackburn – Ghosts 2008
• Bullion – I’m Waiting For The Day
• The Beach  Boys – Feel Flows – The Beach  Boys – Feel Flows
• Nancy Wallace – We Don’t Talk Anymore
• Neil Innes – Something to say
• Vitaly Dmitriev – Fuga in d-moll BWV565 (backing)
• Dusty Springfield – Goin’ Back

Ruined Shieling, Lewis

Second part of the Scottish podcasts from the Outer Hebrides – where we free the enslaved swings, explore the Butt of Lewis, meet a lot of wind and rain in Harris.

Do the Highland Fling (38Mb, 66min): http://www.realityengine.co.uk/radioclash/show-archive/rc_91.mp3

Sunset on Harris

I’ve mentioned Get Your Bootleg On mashup messageboard in the past, although sometimes had my differences in the past, it always has great humour and sometimes comes up with classic and extremely funny threads.

A recent one was this thread, which mostly about a crap site I won’t mention here, and quite serious in part about sites that leech off the scene for Google hits, then evolved into a thread taking the piss out of software mashups by ‘mashing up’ names of bands and songs and computer terms.

There is comedy genius in there, and it’s a long thread, so I thought I’d save the best ones for posterity.

The ones I came up with:

Men at Quark
P.C. Allstarz
OSX Drugs and Rock n’ Roll
Sly and FireFox
John Firefoxx
Twisted Resistor
Crowded Mouse
Zip Zip Uncompress Me!
New File Order
Joystick Division
Flaming Chips
CPUs on Speed
Power Spike Hayes
My Bloody Vaxmachine
TerminalVision

And the classics so far harvested from the thread (mostly frenchblokes, quite a few from eve massacre too, but mostly a collaborative effort):

johhny cache
dolly partition
Powerpoint Sisters
Prince & The New Powerpoint Generation
Excel Rose
gnu order
myspace bloody valentine
the google dolls
The Mousemartins
Proxy Music
Modem English
the .commodores
windowflickr
Billy Ray Virus
extreme renoise terror
Rocket From The Script
Microsoft Cell
rootkit manuva
render sandman
papas got a brand new compaq
peter toshiba
Bugs Fizz
Hotspot Chocolate
Router Manuva
raid against the machine
soundblaster flash and the furious five
iMac the Knife
Compaq Velocet
blue screen of death metal
the rar band
The Phantom of the Opera(ting system)
yahooey lewis and the news
linux ritchie
fiona applet
instant messenger in a bottle
gnu shooz
George Format – When I’m Cleaning Windows XP
Freelance Shellraiser
rss speedwagon
hotbot chocolate
depeche safe mode
the birthday partition
the gmail of the species
richard direct x
Centrino & The .wavs
theme from the .exe files
xvideo killed the radeon star
Led ZIPpelin
Chips On Speed
Sex & Drugs & OGG’n'Roll
Hit Me With Your USB Stick
.zip .zip sputnik
Kernel Abrahams
.exe’s Midnight Runners
SCSI & the Banshees
Annie Linux
HAL and Oates
the goto team
lou read only
the cartridge family
oa.sys
Sigur DOS
Sabre Wulfs of Paradise.
Jet Set Willie Nelson
DJ Hype-r Sports
Ping Floyd
Earth Wind and Firefox
eBay City Rollers
renegade soundcard
Carter USB
POP3 will eat itself
A GUI Called Gerald
Soundcarden
Guns Don’t Kill People, Frapprs Do