Match: England vs Sri Lanka 1st of 3 Test matches, day 2
Location: Asgiriya Stadium, Kandy, Sri Lanka

A nation will have to wait until the morning for the record to be broken, but on day 2, Mutthiah Muralidharan took 4 English wickets to finish the day with 708 career test wickets equalling the world record that he briefly held in 2004 when he overtook Courtney Walsh’s then record of 519

Shane Warne had a purple patch where he overtook Murali and extended his lead before finally retiring in January 2007

Fast forward to now where Murali has now equalled Shane Warne’s record and with England resuming tomorrow at 186/6 it’s a case of when rather than if Murali will get to 709 and beyond.

What he will achieve in the long run is anyone’s guess. Shane Warne thought Murali would take 1000 before the end of his career, but that is for the future

I’ve become a fan of the website and podcast bestofyoutube.com the last 6 months, and in doing so have discovered how much I like the comedy of Demetri Martin.
There is something about his standup comedy that really hits the spot, but don’t take it from me I think the only way to appreciate it is to check some of it out.

For those viewing this on facebook I don’t think you will get the embedded youtube videos. So, I have put the links below for you to view externally
If however this still doesn’t work you will need to view the blog from it’s source:
Demetri Martin on stonysleep.com

First up is Jokes with a guitar, a 14 minute section from a performance which cracks me up every time. I especially like the part about batteries:

Jokes with A Guitar

Next up is a shorter clip from another performance is also very amusing though doesn’t have quite the edge that Jokes with a Guitar has.

Demetri Martin’s Findings

The next time you listen to your iPod/MP3 player or use a memory stick to transfer files you should thank Albert Fert and Peter Grünberg who discovered Giant Magnetoresistance (or GMR) in the 1980′s.
Were it not for this, hard drives and memory sticks/cards could not be as small as they are today

Nearly 20 years later, they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for independent discoveries leading to the same conclusion published in November 1988 and in March 1989 respectively.
It was a discovery ahead of it’s time which probably explains the time period between discovery and the prize being awarded.

Fundamental to the phenomenon is RKKY (Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida) interaction

H represents the Hamiltonian, R_ij is the distance between the nuclei i and j, I_ij is the nuclear spin of atom i, Δk_mk_m is a term that represents the strength of the hyperfine

It’s all rather nasty quantum mechanics – but in fact this interaction discovered in the 1950′s predicted what was to become GMR

20 years ago today the Great Storm hit the UK as the remnants of one of the storms from the 1987 Hurricane Season in the carribean. It was Hurricane Floyd from the bay of Biscay which crossed the atlantic and hit the UK.
The worst storm in 284 years: 23 people died from the storm and much devastation was caused
I remember it very vividly – I was 8 years old at the time and it knocked down our huge apple tree in the back garden

However, the thing I remember was the mistake british weatherman Michael Fish made the night before

Youtube link for those reading on RSS or those who don’t see the video above

Round about the same time that I started paying attention to samples used in songs I found there are well known songs whose lyrics aren’t always about what you might think

1. Red Hot Chilli Peppers – Under the Bridge

The LA rock band released this song off their 1990 album Blood Sugar Sex Magik
It’s a fairly amicable ballad which fans of all ages can be found singing along to.
However, I suspect many do not realise that the lyrics are an introspective reflection on vocalist Anthony Kiedis’ drug addiction (in this case heroin)
The track has been covered several times, though perhaps the most well known in the UK is the one by girl band All Saints where in my opinion they murdered John Frusciante’s guitar line by taking the flow out of it cutting it with samples. They also didn’t include the final verse which is the verse that is most obvious in terms of it’s drug references.

2. Semisonic – Secret Smile

There is some debate about this song out there, but the general consensus I get about this pop ballad by another american rock band is that it’s about oral sex or at the very least has some form of sexual innuendo. Again it’s a very easy to listen to song which people of all ages listen to. Not an awful lot to say about it, but next time you hear it bear the lyrics in mind.

3. The La’s – There She Goes
Another drug reference in this song – again another apparently harmless pop song.
Like Under the Bridge, it’s about heroin:

There she goes
There she goes again
Pulsing through my veins
And I just can’t contain
This feeling that remains

“She” is the personification of heroin
It is, as with Secret Smile, debatable, but is largely thought to be about the drug

4. The Kinks – Lola

This one is not debatable at all and for years I had never thought about the lyrics for the song
But again, it’s a pop ballad with lyrics that are about subjects that you wouldn’t think about
Lola is about a ladyboy who comes onto the main character.
Verse 2 is probably the one that reveals this the most:

Well Im not the worlds most physical guy
But when she squeezed me tight she nearly broke my spine
Oh my lola lo-lo-lo-lo lola
Well Im not dumb but I cant understand
Why she walked like a woman and talked like a man
Oh my lola lo-lo-lo-lo lola lo-lo-lo-lo lola

I don’t think I properly listened to the lyrics before, but I know what it’s about now whenever I hear the track.

5. The Police – Every Breath you take

Another song that people sing along to, dance to and even get married to
It’s actually quite a scary song as it’s about the break-up of Sting’s marriage and how after he broke up he metaphorically followed her everywhere she went

Every breath you take
Every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
Ill be watching you

I’ve also heard theories that it could be interpreted as a reference to the iron curtain and how the communist governments watched everything you did to make sure you didn’t step out of line.

Make of it what you will, but I wouldn’t rate it as a song to get married to

6. Lou Reed – Walk on the Wild Side

Finally, a song that I just didn’t realise how filthy the lyrics are. I think it was this verse that really made me jump:

Candy came from out on the island
In the backroom she was everybodys darling

But she never lost her head
Even when she was given head
She says, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side
Said, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side
And the coloured girls go

Well, that concludes my lyrics post – feel free to comment if you have anything to add

As usual I’ve not posted anything for about a month now, so thought it was about time I posted something.
It’s been about 9 months since I stepped into the 21st century and got myself an iPod
It took a lot longer than I thought it would to get all my music digitised, but pretty much 99% of it is done. Have still got a few albums that are problematic, a few archives of mp3s kicking around but I don’t expect it to increase much more than the 25.1 days of listening time I have already.

Back to the iPod.
First and foremost, for those that don’t know I got the 80Gb Video iPod back in September 2006 while I was in New York. With the exchange rate it was stupidly cheap.

It makes going on holiday so much easier, because it had got to the point where I was taking 100 CDs with me which takes up a lot of space in hand luggage, and I always hated not having the covers with me to tell what tracks were.
An ipod fits in your pocket and holds my entire music collection which is amazing.
I’ve also started listening to albums I’d forgotten I owned and with smart playlists i can choose my favourites and with normal playlists i’ve created some good mixes of tracks which in the past I did with mix cds.
Overall it is truly brilliant and I can’t imagine being without it

On the downside, I’ve found I don’t listen to whole albums these days, as I am able to flick between tracks, listen to playlists or shuffle tracks
I do like the ratings ability, though I find that I don’t have time to rate all tracks, and my rating is inconsistent depending on the day.

I’ve found a glitch or two, there are features I find annoying, and there are features that I wish you could have

Glitches:
1.If you play a track through a playlist, then go into the list by album and select the same track it will restart the track from the beginning instead of selecting it
2. If you rate a track on the iPod and iTunes it will take the iTunes rating in preference to the iPod one next time you sync it – not really a glitch, but would be nice if you could choose.

Annoying features:
1. I have quite a few music videos i’ve transferred onto my iPod (i have about 120Gb on DVD which wouldn’t fit on the iPod, so have picked a select few). The music videos subsection of videos acts like a playlist in that if you go into an artist with more than one video, when it finishes it will move straight onto the next video. Compared with the movies section which will bring you straight back to the movie list
2. Podcasts: I like podcasts and have quite a few but find it difficult to listen to them because as soon as you finish playing an episode it takes you back to the main menu – stupid

Features I’d wish for:
1. Four buttons along the bottom of the screen. These would let you get additional info on the track being played. Currently the only info you can view on the iPod are Artist, Track, Album, Rating. What about all the others. You can browse by genre but can’t view the genre while playing.
2. If you are playing a track I’d like to be able to drop into a menu which would take you straight to the album you’re playing and play other tracks from that album or by that artist
3. Creating playlists – you can create on the go playlists which are good, but limited. Why restrict it to that when you can clearly create them from the iPod. Creating smart playlists from the iPod would be really useful.
4. The one i’d really like is the ability to create more sub sections to videos. You get Movies, Music Videos and Video Podcasts. I have been copying lots of videos from youtube and would like to sort them by category.
5. Similar to 4, a category section for video podcasts, I’m currently using the comments field and smart playlists to do this but it’s not ideal, as every time there’s a new file in a podcast you have to add the comments to this file.

I think that pretty much covers things, and I hope that apple will continue to upgrade their non-phone iPod with features in addition to their capacity increases.

For about 6 years I’d been toying with the idea of creating a site with some kind of voting system for the worst lyrics in Music History
I got as far as creating a list of my personal favourites in this criteria.
On a jaunt through wikipedia I found a link to a recent poll by Radio DJ’s Mark & Lard (aka Mark Radcliffe and Mark Riley) and am pleased to say that my number one tallies with their result for number one!

Their list:

1. Des’ree – Life
2. Snap – Rhythm is a Dancer
3. Razorlight – Somewhere Else
4. ABC – That Was Then But This is Now
5. U2 – Elevation
6. Toto – Africa
7. Oasis – Champagne Supernova
8. Duran Duran – Is There Something I Should Know?
9. Human League – The Lebanon
10. Black Sabbath – War Pigs

My List:

1. Des’ree ‘Life’ (toast/ghost/most rhyme)
2. Europe ‘The Final Countdown’ (heading to venus verse)
3. Crowded House ‘Weather with you’ (always take the weather…)
4. Elton John ‘Your Song’ (2nd verse)
5. Lyte Funkie Ones ‘Summer Girls’ (hits/sick/fitch rhyme)
6. Feeder ‘Buck Rogers’ (he’s got a brand new car/cider from a lemon)
7. Feeder ‘Just the way I’m feeling’ (10 feet below the ground)
8. Everclear ‘I will buy you a new life’ (I will buy you a new garden/car – shiny & new)
9. Depeche Mode ‘Everything Counts’ (career/korea/insincere rhyme)
10. The Beautiful South ‘Don’t Marry Her’ (Your love light shines like cardboard)

I’m sure there are probably better (ie worse) ones, but unless I actually get round to creating the site we may never know

I haven’t been posting much on the blog of late because I’ve been spending an unhealthy time on facebook

27th June 2007 is going to be heralding an end to an era in the UK…
An era that began in July 1994 when Tony Blair became the leader of the Labour party which then lead to him becoming the Prime Minister of the UK in the 1997 General election

I was too young to vote in those days (I was a mere 16 years old), but the result was very surprising. 12 years of Conservative party rule had come to an end. “Blairism” had begun… the theme tune Things Can Only Get Better by D:Ream was being played everywhere, and was genuinely being believed.
And I think things did indeed get better in Blair’s first term. There was a good balance of old Labour and New “Blairite” Labour.

Because they had won by such a large majority, it was inevitable that they would win the election 4 years later (in 2001), allowing blair to serve a 2nd term. This time I will always remember for the Stealth Taxes which Gordon Brown, the Chancellor used to make it seem like Labour weren’t increasing taxes, as they’d promises to do. The 2nd term was also dogged by the war in Iraq (2002), and after this there were fears that Labour would not win in 2005. They still had enough support, and with help from the Hutton Inquiry Labour was still in power after the 2005 election.

On 10th May 2007, Tony Blair announced that he would be standing down on 27th June as Party Leader, and election of a new leader began. Gordon Brown won without any competition within days as nobody else in the party could drum up enough support to mount a leadership campaign.

Why am I blogging about this you may ask?
Well… I’ll tell you one thing, that’s not what I’ll be looking forward to on 27th June. Released on that same day is the final part of the Die Hard series:

Live Free or Die Hard

I hope Tony departs with a bang!

Well, following today’s loss by Manchester United to AC Milan the final is setup for a repeat of the 2005 final
And when I think of that match I think about Jerzy Dudek and hence the Dudek dance
For those who didn’t see it or those who need a reminder I give you this clip off youtube:

Link for those who don’t see the embedded video above

On retrospect you can clearly see that on Shevchenko’s penalty (the 2nd one) Dudek was way off his line. But all the same it was some quality dancing!
The final is in athens on 23rd May 2007 at the Olympic Stadium

My last few posts have been rather cricket based, so thought I’d post something which one of my friends on facebook did which is good fun
I know these usually come in email forwards, facebook notes, and myspace bulletins but i find those things fairly silly, i don’t always read them and i hate myspace, so i’m gonna blog it here instead.

Before I get into it, you must remember what my music collection is like – quite varied. Also remember that some things on my ipod aren’t in that list because they’re on strange compilation cds, i’ve bought them online or i’ve copied them (just don’t tell the RIAA)

So, onto the soundtrack (plus the instructions so you can try it at home)

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
So, here’s how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool..

Opening Credits:
“Far From Here” – The Levellers
Interesting, didn’t know I had that, not a huge fan of them, but I can cope with that

Waking Up:
“Mine” – Sepultura
You can’t beat a bit of Brazillian death metal in the morning!

First Day At School:
“Slip Inside This House” – Primal Scream
Not the track I’d go for in that album, but I like the track, didn’t know it was called that. Quite upbeat, and I quite enjoyed my primary school from what I remember

Falling In Love:
“The Only One” – Skin
Kinda appropriate, again a track I don’t know very well – think it was on a metal hammer cover cd

Breaking Up:
“The Sky Is Broken” – Moby
I hadn’t listened to Moby in ages and again kinda appropriate
Think I’ll have to re-rip the track cos it’s very crackly (unless it’s supposed to sound like that!)

Prom:
“How Many Times Must My Heart Be Broken” – French Car and the Bulimic Wizards
I doubt many will know this track/artist (unless you’re from the French Car/Serafin clan). Can’t say I’ve actually been to a Prom, so can’t draw any parallels

Life’s Ok:
“Still D.R.E.” – Dr Dre
A a feelgood track – like it for the section, but wouldn’t normally pick it

Mental Breakdown:
“The Boy with the Bubble Gum” – Tom McRae
You can’t get much more of a contrast than singer songwriter Tom McRae – so i think it works

Driving:
“Evolution” – Ram Trilogy
A bit of synthesiser Drum n Bass sounds good to me

Flashback:
“Ed-Ucation” – Dr Dre
What’s with the Dr Dre – I don’t even like him that much. Such foul language in this track.

Getting Back Together:
“If Tomorrow Never Comes” – The Controllers
From the title it doesn’t really work – but listening to it, you could imagine it in the scene. It’s a golden oldie.

Birth of Child:
“Minnesoter” – The Dandy Warhols
I think the lyrics say enough

I saw my baby dance a latin
Number with her shirt off
Man her skins soft
But in a mood shed rather
If I jerked off.

If I found my way to minnesoter

Not sure what to make of it

Wedding Scene:
“Souljacker Part 1″ – The Eels
Would prob have worked better for the driving scene

Final Battle:
“Storm: Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven / Gathering Storm / “Welcome To Barco Am/Pm…” / Cancer Towers On Holy Road Hi-Way” – Godspeed You Black Emperor
Now that is definitely wrong – could never have a battle scene with Prog Rock as background music – it just doesn’t work. It’d be the longest final battle ever and the build up would never satisfy anyone.
The song also has a very long title to go with it

Death Scene:
“Mad Cat” – Roni Size vs Reprsentz
Some more Drum n Bass – could work

Funeral Scene:
“No” – Soulfly
Haha – that’d be funny – nobody wants me to go Death Metal styley

End Credits:
“Kotton Krown” – Sonic Youth
Could work as ending credits, not convinced though

Don’t think I’d have chosen many of those, but with 6000+ songs to choose from, the fact that any of them worked is pretty remarkable, and at least there wasn’t anything I was embarrassed at owning (though Dr Dre comes pretty close).
Gonna make a playlist out of it for novelty value