http://www.stuff.co.nz/

At the moment I’m delaying going to bed and have just made scones. I’ve been baking a lot. Mostly though I’ve just been tired. I’ve been on call twice this week, I’m working the weekend, then next Thursday then start nights again Friday. We’re covering an absent doc but it’s still a relentless roster.

In an attempt to even out the karma I sent someone I don’t really know a gift (with a certain amount of creative googling/internet stalking to dig out what I’m hoping is the correct address). They sound low and I felt like giving. It’s for my benefit just as much.

I might come back here more.

One of things that amused me coming to NZ a few years ago was the ‘disaster planning’ adverts on TV explaining how to create a plan and stock emergency supplies.  ‘But surely NZ is one of the most passive countries in the world?’ I scoffed before also mocking the section at the back of the yellow pages offering specific advice on a range of possible natural and man-made catastrophes (‘in the event of a volcano do not move towards the lava…’).  I never really put much belief into the local tales of small quakes every now and then.

Last year however, we actually did put together an emergency swine/bird flu kit/food cache just in case the two strains did cross and suddenly the end of the world came about.  When this didn’t actually happen we just ate it all.  Foolish.  So in the early hours of Saturday morning we finally had an occasion to utilise my well thought out (and patiently listened to repeatedly by K) ‘zombie apocalypse survival plan’.  Kind of.

How are you supposed to run and get under a door frame when the ground won’t keep still?  We got petrol and food in the morning and whipped out my camping stove and had tea.  Reaching 7.1 on the Richter scale it was pretty powerful stuff (stronger than in Haiti recently) with no deaths but a huge amount of property damage and destruction.  There was a curfew yesterday overnight in the very centre (we fall just outside) and a strange quietness to the place.  Lots of people were milling around yesterday, talking to strangers and neighbours and sharing stories.  We didn’t get power until late in the evening but water had been running since lunch and got to sleep in our own bed after spending the evening with friends.

Thankfully we got off pretty lightly with just a broken coffee jug and a minor crack by the stairs.  We’re still having ongoing aftershocks (one of the recent shocks was 5.1 on the scale) though the general queasy sea-sick feeling I had yesterday seems to have gone.  Very strange sensation.  The only previous quake I’ve had was in Nepal in 2006 (5.3) where the bed felt like it was vibrating.  I missed the one in Folkestone (my home town) a few years back, being in California (of all places) at the time.

Weirdness all round and my thoughts are all over the place.  Looks like it’s going to take a while for things to settle but it could have been a lot worse.  Amusingly I got a worried and urgent phone call from my mum this morning (almost 30 hours post event) informing me there’d been an earthquake and was I ok?  Ha ha.  She needs to watch the news more.  More photos are here or you can follow breaking events here.

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On a different but equally exciting note I met the Prime Minister last Friday at Burwood Hospital.  He wasn’t supposed to come to out ward but stopped off for a chat with the tea lady and then one of my patients stalked after him with her zimmer frame so he came back for a brief hello.  Opening gambit of, ‘yes I’m far shorter and less attractive in real life…’.  Nice.  Seemed extremely approachable and friendly with no airs or graces.  It should be one of those ‘thing to do in NZ’ eye spy tick boxes – meet the PM.

Right.  I’m off to sit quietly and try not to get too excited by the ground wobbling.

……………………..aside……………………

When my brother was younger he had an imaginary friend called Chocky.  He was young at the time and not corrupted by all the movies I let him watch way too soon.  Chocky lasted for a year or two and then one day departed.  It was only years later that I found a battered copy of Chocky (by John Wyndham) in a charity shop.  It’s about a boy who has an imaginary friend who turns out to be an alien consciousness communicating with the boy’s mind.  There’s no way he would have known of this or seen the TV version.  That freaked me out quite a bit.  It’s quite an unusual name to just make up.

……………………..return……………………

The time I wound down the writing corresponded to the time I found the wonderful xkcd – this sums up my feelings about the internet and online journals pretty accurately:

So true.  And it struck home.  I mainly exist in comments these days.  Find me there.

To mark the announcement of the full track listing for this release Mogwai will be giving away a free MP3 of the song 2 Rights Make 1 Wrong taken from the Special Moves live CD via the minisite: www.mogwaispecialmoves.com

The track list for the the cd/dvd version is:

- I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead
- Friend Of The Night
- Hunted By A Freak
- Mogwai Fear Satan
- Cody
- You Don’t Know Jesus
- I Know You Are But What Am I
- I Love You, I’m Going To Blow Up Your School
- 2 Rights Make 1 Wrong
- Like Herod
- Glasgow Megasnake

The track list for the vinyl version contains the above plus:

- Yes! I Am A Long Way From Home
- Scotlands Shame
- New Paths To Helicon Part 1
- Batcat
- Thank You Space Expert
- The Precipice

The extra songs featured on the vinyl release will be available as a free download with the CD.

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Awesome, awesome, awesome.  Alright so it’s never going to fully capture the Mogwai live experience (unless you’ve got a terrifying home music system) but it should be a lot of fun.  Not a bad set list all told (especially with the extra tracks) and the free download is well worth listening to as a taster.  As my last post detailed – my favourite song of the last 10 years.

Movies:

• Star Trek
• Moon
• Coraline (3D)
• District 9
• Inglorious Basterds
• Avatar

Albums:

• Bat for Lashes – Two Suns
• Beirut – Realpeople Holland
• Bill Callahan – Sometimes I wish I were an eagle
• Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport
• Mono – Hymn to the Immortal Wind
• Tortoise – Beacons of Ancestorship
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz!

Songs:

• My Delirium – Ladyhawke
• My Night With The Prostitute From Marseille – Beirut
• Black Hearted Love – PJ Harvey & John Parish
• Eid Ma Clack Shaw – Bill Callahan
• I’m Sorry, Baby, But You Can’t Stand In My Light Any More – Bob Mould
• Stillness Is the Move – Dirty Projectors
• High Class Slim Came Floatin’ In – Tortoise
• Carry Me – Malcolm Middleton
• Soft Shock, Hysteric – Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Overall it’s not been that great a year for music, a few good albums, none really classic.  Some good songs though and out of the above I can’t choose a top one musically.  Film wise it would be Moon which was just a wonderful experience (though Star Trek was pretty damn awesome, coming from a non-Trekkie).  And if I had to choose some favourites of the decade..?  Seeing as real thought would have me still choosing come 2020 I’m going to take these off the top of my head (and a quick scan of iTunes)

Movies:

• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• Donnie Darko
• Wall-E
• Amelie

Albums:

• Johnny Cash – American III: Solitary Man
• PJ Harvey – Stories from the city, stories from the sea
• Elbow – Asleep in the back
• Ed Harcourt – Here be monsters
• The Divine Comedy – Regeneration
• Idlewild – The remote part
• Spoon – Kill the Moonlight
• Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
• Broken Social Scene – You Forgot it in People
• Explosions in the Sky – The Earth is not a cold dead place
• Mogwai – Happy songs for happy people
• Rachel’s – Systems/Layers
• m83 – Before the dawn heals us
• Marianne Faithful – Before the poison
• Mono – Walking Cloud And Deep Red Sky, Flag Fluttered And The Sun Shined
• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Abattoir Blues / Lyre of Orpheus
• TV on the Radio – Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
• Gorillaz – Demon Days
• Gemma Hayes – Night on our side
• Eluvium – Talk amongst the Trees
• Kanye West – Late Registration
• NIN – [With_Teeth]
• Sufjan Stevens – Come on feel the Illinoise
• Clint Mansell – The Fountain (OST)
• Jarvis – Jarvis
• My Latest Novel – Wolves
• Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
• Andrew Bird – Armchair Apocrypha
• Bat for Lashes – Fur and Gold
• Battles – Mirrored
• Dan Deacon – Spiderman of the Rings
• Feist – The Reminder
• Iron & Wine – The Shepherd’s Dog
• Low – Drums and Guns
• Malcolm Middleton – A brighter beat
• Radiohead – In rainbows
• Rob Crow – Living well
• Star of the Lid – And Their Refinement Of The Decline
• Crystal Castles – Crystal Castles
• Elbow – The seldom seen kid
• Foals – Antidotes
• Fuck Buttons – Street Horrrsing
• Los Campesinos! – Hold on now youngster
• Metronomy – Nights out
• Mogwai – The Hawk is Howling
• Remember Remember – Remember Remember
• Santogold – Santogold

Song (if I could just choose one):

• 2 rights make 1 wrong

That’s it folks.

So the other big issue is that not only do very few bands come and play here but if they do they invariably skip Christchurch (apparently crossing the Tasman is ridiculously expensive).  Then even if they do come here the chance of finding out about the gig is pretty small as promotion is often non-existent (when I found out I’d missed Dan Deacon last year I was not a happy bunny).

As time has passed I’ve realised it’s not quite as bad as I first thought (I really was spoiled living in Brighton before all this).  In months to come we have Animal Collective, Dirty Projectors, The Pixies, Yo La Tengo, Camera Obscura, Pavement, Neko Case, Mono, Wilco.

And now they’ve announced Joanna Newsom with Jens Lekman no less.  In Christchurch.  While I’m on nights.  The same nights that cover my birthday none the less.

See, to go to any of these (as none of them bar the lovely Ms Newsom are playing CHCH) I have to try and book 2 days off work a few months in advance (a process which can take up to a month to confirm sometimes), get flights and accommodation in Wellington or Auckland and all the other little expenses that go along with it.  It makes it very difficult and expensive plus it’s eating into my annual leave.  I miss the day I could lean out of K’s window and listen to Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan playing across the road in St George’s church.

So I make my choices.  I chose Pavement over Pixies.  I’m losing the rest of the week to be in Auckland for Dirty Projectors 2 days later.  Mono I’ve seen before.  Neko Case I’m still deciding.  Wilco I will make happen.  I will also see JN even if I have to miss the end of her set (or be late for work which is more likely).  Tomorrow I’m off to see Jarvis Cocker in Wellington all by my lonesome.

A plea: if you are coming to New Zealand to play, please extend the tour to CHCH.  You’ve already spent all that money and time flying here in the first place so what’s a little bit more to come a bit further south.  I’ll come pick you up myself if it will help.

Now I just need to figure out how I’m ever going to see Mogwai ever again.  Fuji Rock 2010 anyone..?