The Original Sims

I’ve been travelling a lot recently and I’m on the verge of launching the search for the worst airport in the UK. I suppose there are three sections; arrival, landside departure and airside departure. They are three usually different experiences and should have their own sections.

Yesterday I experienced potential winners in worst arrival (Cardiff) and worst landside (do they call it that?). Bristol Airport was so awful mainly because of the quality of the hospitality. Here is my dilemma: I am a smoker - a social deviant. But that’s OK, I don’t like to go through security if there is nowhere to smoke beyond the x-ray machines (e.g. Birmingham). I’m more than happy to avoid airside until the last minute so I can slip outside (cold and wet or sunny or dry). That’s the price of social deviancy.

Like most business travellers, I arrive at an airport in the evening tired and hungry. There was only one place to eat yesterday in Bristol. My friends - what I was presented with for £5.99 is pictured above.

Airside it wasn’t better - there was a place to smoke, but why was the nasty loud music playing in that area only?

One positive thing about the experience was that the security staff were pleasant and unlike too many security at airports treated the travellers as humans.

The nomination for worst arrival goes to Cardiff. The airport is miles away from the city and the links are appalling. The nearest train station is a (free) bus ride away, but trains only pass once an hour!

Granted, I’ve only experienced Cardiff, Bristol, Belfast City, Belfast International, Glasgow, Birmingham, Heathrow recently. But perhaps there are "worse". All nominations welcome.

I’ve been talking to people about the US version of Current TV since I came across it over a year ago.  You’ve probably heard it was launched in the UK yesterday.  It’s highly interactive combining TV, web, Viewer Created Content (which they call VC2, significantly cooler than our "UGC") which forms one third of the output - and this is not YouTube standard; it is broadcast standard. There are even viewer made adverts.

The web previews films, and the audience - who can sign-up and become active members - can vote a film on to the TV, essentially "Green Light" it.

Current.tv is on satellite on 229 and cable on 155.

It might not be the future of all TV, but I expect it is going to be significant particularly among younger audiences who have on their home computers all the software they need to produce high quality video.

Check it out

Current (UK) http://uk.current.com/
Current (USA)  http://www.current.com
Guardian report: http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,2032434,00.html

Large fat middle-aged men should not be allowed to pogo … by law. I know this goes against my instincts that people should be allowed self expression - but all that weight, unpracticed since the 1980s at the latest well it’s frightening.

Stiff Little Fingers topping the bill was only part of the reason Dawn and I went to the Ulster Hall on Friday 9th March. Adam’s band The Dangerfields and Shame Academy were doing support - that’s significantly more important.

I can’t remember the last time I was at a gig in the Ulster Hall, but thinks have changed: you can buy a drink - but you can’t smoke a cigarette. And everyone was so polite (apart from the Big Fat Middle-aged Pogoer beside me).

Now Brian Young (ex-Rudi) and Greg Cowan (ex-Outcasts) are my rock and roll heroes - so an evening of Sing-a-long-a-Rudi-and-Outcasts was just the thing. Oh, how we sang, "Big Time" and "Just another teenage Rebel" (which I think pre-dates SLF. Pretty sure Outcasts released their singles in IT records before Inflammable Material). How we joined in the haunting chant "SS RUC". That says something about the enduring nature of the Punk movement, I guess.

The Stiffs? Tight, loud, honed even polished. So half an hour of that was good enough for me.

From the stage Adam reports leads of 16 year old girls singing along to the Stiff’s songs. But enough was enough. After two hours standing, I was crook backed and knackered - so early retreat. Waving goodbye to other former rockers who have more stamina than me; Henry McDonald from the Observer, Seamus O’Neill ex-Bank Robbers and Tim MGarry (Da).

The concert seemed timely - if not fitting. During the bad old days of the Troubles, a few Punks kindled a spark in the general gloom. Thirty years ago we were going through a collective hell not knowing how it would all turn out. Punk in Belfast was anti-sectarian and anti-violence. While big campagnes were being waged in Britain in projects like Rock Against Racism were getting masses of publicity, Belfast punk bands did more by just turning up at the Harp or the Pound and just playing.

9 March 2007 was also the day that the results of the Assembly election were announced. The Pound, The Harp (and the Trident in Bangor - to quote the song) have gone - as has the punks favourite police force - the RUC. Yet the final negotions are not - quite - complete.

So Alternative Ulster - are we there yet?

We punks have grown up - we’re all middle aged now - and most of us overweight but still inclined to pogo - enen though it’s not good for our knees or our neighbour’s nerves.