Track Review: Johnny Boy

Introducing the new Discord/Harmony feature! In track reviews I'll provide you gentle readers with an mp3 plus a short comment on what really thrills me about this particular track. Today's track has been around for well over a year, but I bring it up now as a public complaint that the band hasn't actually put out a full album yet. I searched around wondering if they had actually put out an album yet, and since they haven't maybe this will rekindle some interest in the world. Give it a listen!

Johnny Boy - You Are The Generation Who Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve (newly updated link!)

Johnny Boy is a UK group with only three songs to their name. Their lead single "You Are The Generation..." starts off with a lift (sample? loop? or did they do it on their own?) from "Be My Baby." Their sound is essentially an updated version of the Phil Spector wall of sound methods. There's a lot here to complain about honestly. Ripping off one of the most well known beats in the history of pop music, becoming yet another off shoot of the Spector orchestra pop group... but who am I kidding? I live for this stuff. Anyone trying to jump on the Spector-bandwagon will receive nothing but a helping hand from this blogger.

The loop is brilliant, and Johnny Boy is smart enough to use it only as a loop, and not the songs cornerstone as it was originally in "Be My Baby." Instead Johnny Boy gets your heart racing with a rush of "Yeah Yeah!" in the middle of the track to keep you going. The track builds and build... this is a rocking out song. This is a song that will get thrown onto my rotation at any party.

The lyrics, especially the chorus "You are the generation who bought more shoes, and you get what you deserve," is so outlandish and odd that it avoids pretention entirely.

They may not ever get us an LP, but I won't complain much with this track.

KWVA Playlist for Thursday, Dec 15, 2005

We hosted a very special show this morning! Guest DJ Ben came in to wrap up the end of year with a Best of 2005 extravaganza! Ben added some great music to the set that would have otherwise been neglected.

In addition we highlighted our top 5 albums of the year, indicated below. Here's the set!

Dengue Fever – Sui Bong
New Pornographers – Use it
The Subways – With You (Ben’s #5)
Danger Doom – Old School feat. Talib Kweli (Aaron’s #5)
Sage Francis – Sea Lion
White Stripes – Denial Twist
Animal Collective – Grass
Ladytron – Destroy everything you touch
The Cops – working the wall
Induce – Coltrane’s Brain
Iron and Wine – In the being (Aaron’s #4)
Harvey Danger – Moral Centralia (Ben’s #4)
Common – The Corner
Clap Your Hans and Say Yeah – Over and Over again
AFX – Reunion 2 (Ben’s #3)
Blackalicious – Powers
MIA – Pull up the People (Aaron’s #3)
Petra Haden – Mary Ann With The Shaky Hands
Sleater-Kinney – Jumpers
Sufjan Stevens – The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts
Architecture In Helsinki – In Case We Die
Kind Robot – I Waited (Ben’s #2)
Antony and the Johnsons – Fistful of Love (Aaron’s #2)
Ayinde Howell – Remember
Andrew Bird – A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left (Aaron’s #1)
Broken Social Scene – 7/4 (Ben’s #1)
Ok Go – Here We Go Again (Bonus!!!)

The Highlights: All of them man... all of them. But below let's list our top fives albums for 2005

Ben's Top 5
1) Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene
2) Kind Robot - Fragapella EP
3) AFX - Analord
4) Harvery Danger - Little By Little
5) The Subways - Young for Eternity

Aaron's Top 5
1) Andrew Bird - The Mysterious Production of Eggs (what a SHOCKER!)
2) Antony and the Johnsons - Now I Am A Bird
3) MIA - Arular
4) Iron & Wine and Calexico - In The Reins
5) Dangerdoom - The Mouse and the Mask

The Duds: The unnamed DJ's that come in after me frustrate the mind. It put me in a bad mood, and they ramble on the air aimlessly. "Which button should we push... it's around here somewhere." These guys are the kind of people that give college radio a bad name. They also received a request for Brian Eno, and on the air said they'd never heard of them. I have no disrespect for people who haven't heard of Brian Eno, but anyone who runs an electronic music show really should know who he is. Extra neck bites to those dudes. I can sum up these guys in 5 words: Dead air, um, dead air."

Requests: I decided not to take any this time. I didn't get any either, but that's all good. We had too much music to play, and the list of music that we didn't play is almost as long as the list of music we did play.

Next Show: My goodness where has the year gone! My next show is in January! I'm heading up to Seattle for some much deserved R & R. And after that, I've got some more R on the schedule. My next show will be on January 6th. I'm planning another One Hour / One Band with my friend Matt featuring nothing but the folky wonders of Iron and Wine. It's not yet scheduled, but I'll let you know when it comes up.

Word and Flesh

The fact is, I don't put a lot of stock in the Bible. On the whole, it's 2000 years old and doesn't apply much to us today. Finding the value in this text takes time, work and more brains than I can often muster. But my problem is not with the text itself, but with the clout that one book holds. Because the book begins with creation, and ends with rapture, it's all too finalized. The mistake is that the Bible, which should be more focused on questions than answers, has too clear a beginning and ending. There's no room for mystery, no room to strech your arms, no room for that great question, or even defiant shout of "We really don't know what's going on!"

With that I charge the Nicene Council with high treason against religious thought. The Nicene Council long long ago decided that it was about time we sat down and figured out just what the word of god should look like. They had a stack of written works about Jesus, or at least loosely connected to him, and decided to put it all together. And hence we have the Bible. It kind of makes the whole "divine inspiration" thought pretty weak. I have trouble believing that even god could combat the group-think of a bunch of stuffy, dead religious dudes.

But by putting such an emphasis on these selected texts, we put a stopper on the idea that anything that has come since then could be sacred. Even the most liberal of Christians emphasize the Bible before other written works.

The Bible at a basic level is a collection of writing by people who struggled with god, spirituality and their own existance. The trouble is we closed the door to anyone who came along afterwards. We essentially decided that the spiritual struggles of people who died 2000 years ago are more important than anyone who came afterwards.

Hebrew and Christian scripture has a concept of "The Word." We've all heard the phrase "the word became flesh." The word, in this concept, is not Jesus, it's not the clout of religious scripture, it is a living and breathing and changing thing. I had a professor try to explain it, and as he did he pantomimed it as if he was holding a pulsing heart in his hand. A church in the northwest wisely posted on their website "The word became flesh, not book." What this all says to me is that the word is not dead, it continues to grow and change. People continue to struggle with god, and continue to think, write and talk. That's the word.

I want the idea that the Bible ended to be abolished. There should not be a bible, but a library, filled with books and thinkers. I want to give spiritual authority to anyone who thinks about these things. I want it understood that none of the authors of the Bible possessed anything that we do not possess today.

I heard a sermon once in which the preacher said that if we are arguing over whether Mary was a virgin or not, or whether the birth of Jesus as it was told really happened, we're missing the point. The point of Christmas, he said, was the humility and the humanity of God. I think this applies here. The authority of thought and word is in our hands. It's ours, we have the right to speak with conviction about belief. It's the humanity of God, and it's valid, even moreso than the Bible, because it is being said now.

*insert the sound of Aaron stepping off his soapbox here*

sidenote: My brother and I will be on the air Thursday at 4 a.m. We'll be playing the best music of 2005 for two hours. We're going to try and record the show and post it here once we can figure out how. Stop by and listen. Just click on the KWVA link on the sidebar of this site.

another sidenote: My friend just introduced me to Degrassi:The Next Generation. My life is in fact complete. Old characters have returned as teachers, and a few even spawned new characters who are attending the school (That's right folks, it's Joey P. Jeremiah. The "P" is for "parent.") Oh the drama! Within just a few episodes of the series my man Joey is saving his dead wife's son (that's Joey W. Jeremiah. The "W" is for "widower") from an abusive father (that's Joey I. Jeremiah, the "I" is for "intervention"). Be still my quickly beating heart.

Andrew Bird Extravaganza (and the One Band / One Hour Playlist)

It was a crazy-go-nuts All Andrew Bird Day! I henceforth declare December 9th to be Eugene's city wide Andrew Bird Appreciation Day. It started with my hosting the One Band / One Hour show, and ended with a great live set from the man himself at the McDonald Theatre. Riddle me quite exhausted, hence the large delay of time between the radio show and actually posting the play list. I hope anyone that got to hear the show enjoyed it. You know it's a good one when you leave wishing you had more time for a few extra tracks. So without any further delay, the playlist!

Two Way Action (from The Swimming Hour)
Skin Is, My -- Live (from Fingerlings 2)
~ (from The Mysterious Production of Eggs)
First Song (from Weather Systems)
Sovay (from The Mysterious Production of Eggs)
Idiot's Genius (from Oh! The Grandeur)
Ides of Swing (from Thrills)
Nuthinduan Waltz (from Music of Hair)
Depressio Pasillo (from Thrills)
11:11 (from The Swimming Hour)
A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left (from The Mysterious Production of Eggs)
Masterfade -- Live (from Fingerlings 2)
Case In Point (from The Swimming Hour)
Don't Be Scared (from Weather Systems)
Fake Palindromes (from the Mysterious Production of Eggs)

Highlights: Everything.

Duds: Don't even joke with me about crap like that.

So for those of you who are interested, I also jotted down the playlist for his live set that evening:

Ravel
Sovay
I
Why
A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left
Armchairs of the Apocalypse
Skin Is, My
Tables and Chairs

It was admittedly a short set, but he was opening for Nickel Creek. The piece I titled "Ravel" was his own live rendition of a movement from Ravel's String Quartet. It was fantastic! And "Armchairs of the Apocalypse" is a slow and beautiful new song with really amusing lyrics which I wish I could remember to write for you here. His live set is becoming more and more experimental. The looping has become more dense, more discorded and more twisted, all for the better! Tonight he did a version of "Why" (which I understand he plays at virtually every performance) using his looping technique. The song really flourished in that setting.

This tour he's got his first Fingerlings CD back again! It was out of print for a while, but he's selling copies with a new cover from Jay Ryan (he did the artwork for Weather Systems and Eggs). I haven't heard it before, so we got our copy tonight. It's much more sparse thant Fingerlings 2, and a little more American Roots-ish. Nora O'Connor appears all over it, which is always welcome.

As an aside, another concert attendant directed me to this website. It's an archive of live music recordings from artists who have no problem with their performances being shared amongst the world of the internet. It looks pretty good. I did an Andrew Bird search and discovered more than 20 concerts, including some selections from his performance at C'est Lenoir. It's an incomplete concert, but I've been scowering the world for a copy of that concert ever since I first hear about it. I haven't done much searching around for other bands on that site, but you know I will. I hope you all find something there too.

Well, at this point I'd like to promise that you won't have to hear me talking about Andrew Bird for a while, but I don't like to set up unreasonable expectations.

KWVA Playlist for Friday, Dec 9, 2005

That's it! I'm done! This morning marked the limit for how much extra DJing I can do. And the limit is: Two days in a row of 4 a.m. DJing! It's just not possible! So I couldn't really give it my all this morning; right in the middle of the set there pretty much sums up my top rated iTunes tracks. I just couldn't think and didn't have the energy to figure out what to play, so I just went to my favorites on my computer. I hate to have wasted them all in one show, but my brain was just dead.

Knowing that my mind was dead I decided to keep things mellow, with only a few exceptions. This might have been a mistake. Perhaps next time I'll play a lot of REALLY LOUD music instead.

Cat Power - The Greatest
Iron and Wine - He Lays In The Reins
Bell Orchestre - The Canal
Orb - Snowbow
Brian Eno - An Ending (Ascent)
Rufus Wainwright - Banks of the Wabash
The Dirty 3 - Dream Evie
Bjork - Gling Glo
Yesterday's New Quintet - Superstition
Induce - Coltrane's Brain
Nina Simone - Little Girl Blue
Antony and the Johnsons - Paddy's Gone
Sarah McLachlan - Prayer of St. Francis (St. Francis Cover... heh heh)
Brian Wilson - Surf's Up
Andrew Bird - Oh Sister (Bob Dylan Cover)
Seu Jorge - Life on Mars (David Bowie Cover)
Ani Difranco - Both Hands
MED - Nightlife (Request by Jack McKinney)
Aesop Rock - Daylight
The Hold Steady - Banging Camp (Request by ZT)
Imogen Heap - Goodnight and Go (Request by Courtney)
Caribou - Sunsesame
Sun Kil Moon - Tiny Cities Made of Ashes (Modest Mouse Cover)
Edith Frost - Just A Friend
Cat Stevens - The Wind
Kings of Convenience - Homesick
Peggy Honeywell - Peach and Yellow
The Evans - Sara Lee
Interpol - Not Even Jail (Daniel Kessler Remix)

The Highlights: It's funny, I didn't do as much digging today, but just about everything new I played was great. It's really hard to chose which ones were the best (and I'm not counting the Brian Wilson, Nina Simone, Andrew Bird or Antony in this, since I've either lauded them myself, or you shouldn't need me to laud them) I have to call attention to the following: Orb was great. They nuzzled in right between Bell Orchestre and Brian Eno in ways that I could not have predicted. It was perfect. I only got to hear one track from Peggy Honeywell, but it was great! I'd been avoiding it because the DJ review indicated it was bluegrass, and I had never found a moment where that seemed to fit my lineup, but I took a risk today. It's slow, melow and very pretty. I'm a big fan.

The Duds: I'm happy to report that there really weren't any duds this morning! Take out Orb and Honeywell, and what's left would have slid right behind them in the highlights section. So the Dud crown of this week goes to ME. I had a pathetic, PATHETIC moment where I went on the air to announce the songs, completely blanked, couldn't find my play list or remember even the LAST song that had played. I was totally out of my game this morning. I need a drill sargent to whip me into shape! Or something. Maybe a little bumper sticker that says "What would John Peel do?" (like throw "Teenage Kicks" on two times in a row, THAT'S what he'd do!)

Sun Kil Moon is on probation however. I haven't gone as far as putting them on the Duds list yet, but this album containing nothing but Modest Mouse covers is questionable to me. That said, cover albums dedicated to one single artist (unless of course you're Ella Fitzgerald and you're doing the Cole Porter Songbook) are always questionable to me. In this case, I think the lyrics of Isaac Brock just don't match the atmosphere that they present.

Requests: Man, you guys RULE! Three different people made requests online! Thanks to Jack, ZT and Courtney for your suggestions. All were great. I was unable to acquire "Hip-Hop" by Dead Prez though. But I did find an M.E.D. track for you. If I run across that Dead Prez track I'll throw it on down.

Jack made some interesting suggestions, which I'm going to look into. I don't know how to do podcasts, but I do know how to make an mp3 out of my show. I just haven't done it yet. The second issue would be to find someplace that could host the files. Anything that happens on this front will start in January at the soonest. So keep your eyes peeled on this site for new features!!!!!

Next Show: A special One Band / One Hour dedicated to Andrew Bird! It's today folks! 4 p.m. (West Coast time) Give us a listen!

KWVA Playlist for Thursday, Dec 8, 2005

Ug. It's not all glamour at the radio station. Despite popular belief we don't relax in a Lay-Z-Boy, sipping virgin margaritas while our iPods do all the dirty work. We dig through music, try to pick out the good stuff and crank it on through, and sometimes it just falls flat. It's not that the music was all bad, it just never clicked. Combined with it being 4 a.m. and my wanting to be asleep, I think my heart wasn't in it.

Many thanks to Jack McKinney for his special request. That Andrew Bird guy seems to have potential. I might just check him out!

Colossus – You A Grown Man Now
Okkervil River – Another Radio Song
Hot Chip – Crap Kraft Dinner
MF Doom – Potholderz
Ennio Morricone – Giorno D Notte
Silver Jews – There Is A Place
Induce – Coltrane’s Brain (The Rebirth)
Blackalicious – Just What Can Happen
RJD2 – Someone’s Second Kiss
The Maroons – Ambush
Caribou – Handelschnapp
Deerhoof – Twin Killers
Her Space Holiday – The Weight of the World
The Invisible Cities – Birthday
Tangiers – A Hundred Million Feathers Weight
Metric – The Police and the Prince
Explosions in the Sky – Look Into the Air
Andrew Bird – Tables and Chairs (special request by Jack McKinney)
Tar Water – Across the Dial
Dar Williams – You Won’t See Me
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth
Tokyo Rose – New American Saint
The Futureheads – Hounds of Love
The Flaming Lips – Waiting for Superman
Animal Collective - Grass

*A change today. I've decided not to list the background music between the sets. Chances are it's either MF Doom or Madlib. Drop a note here and I'll let you know what it was.

The Highlights: Today's highlights are not new to my set, but that's ok. I can't expect to find something amazing everytime I'm at the station. Induce graced my CD player with great frequency this week. It's really very nice, in a DJ Shadow kind of way. It's not earth-shatteringly new, but it's really pretty. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah grows on me everytime I listen to them. Animal Collective also continues to climb my respect-o-meter every listen. Colossus frequents my playlist now, and hasn't received it's proper recognition. They're really nice organic hip-hop. Great stuff!

The Duds: Well, sad to say, we weren't lacking in duds this morning. Most of merely lacked my enthusiasm. They were mostly fine, but a lot of them (Okkervil River, Hot Chip, Her Space Holiday) just lacked oomph. They get the ol' indifferent shrug-o'-shoulders. But this week I have to make a special Dud award, with a tiara and everything! Tokyo Rose gets the King Dud award this week. It wasn't just bad, it was bitter-beer-face bad. I changed the last leg of my set to tracks that would wash out the sour flavor that was stuck in my ears. Ah Futureheads, you always treat me so well...

Next Show: Tomorrow morning at 4 a.m. Oh, and did I mention that I'm doing an Andrew Bird hour tomorrow afternoon? 4 p.m. Drop on by and give us a listen!

Requests: Jack McKinney is cool enough to make song requests. Are you?

KWVA Playlist for Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2005

Ah another fine early morning at KWVA! Hopefully my music is reaching the yawning and streching masses of the world, who accept it gladly and say "Y'know, I really needed some OOIOO this morning to get my day started! And MIA is like the cup of coffee I never had!"

MF Doom - Horehound*
Sufjan Stevens - The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts
Animal Collective - Grass
Andrew Bird - A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left
MF Doom - Pennyroyal*
The Go! Team - The Power Is On
Dengue Fever - We
The Reebreck Manifesto - We Still Got It
(promo break)
MF Doom - Patchouly Leaves*
MIA - Fire Fire
OOIOO - Trumpeter
Danger Doom - The Mask (feat. Ghostface)
Blackalicious - Powers
MF Doom - Orange Blossoms*
Theivery Corporation - Thievery Corporation
Celebration - Holiday
MF Doom - Horehound*
Lady Sovereign - A Little Bit of Shhh

*These tracks served as the background to my lovely voice this morning. They are all from MF Dooms Special Herbs Vol. 5 and 6, and they're all great!

The Highlights: Dengue Fever didn't get a proper shout out last time. They're fantastic. Sort of pop-ish electronic-ish Indian-ish. Very catchy! OOIOO has been sitting of the shelf and I've ignored it thus far, and decided it was time it saw the light of day on my lovely morning show. It was, as expected, really good, and far more accessible than I had expected.

The Duds: The Reebreck Manifesto just didn't quite get there for me. The description on the inside of the case (provided by other DJ's) said that it lacked lyrics to hold it together. I'm not one to say that we need lyrics to make some good music, but it definately lacked something to bring it all around. It started to get a little repetitive and didn't keep me very interested for too long.

Next Show: Thursday morning from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. But the important show is the next afternoon, Friday (Dec 9) from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. It's the One Band / One Hour show, and I'll be spinning the music of Andrew Bird. Be sure to give a listen!

Requests: In this wacky world of internet and technology, it's foolish to assume you can only make radio requests over the phone. Who wants to take the effort to use this wacky device covered in buttons when you can climb onto your computer? So if you've got something you want to hear during my next show, post a comment here and let me know what it is. Other KWVA DJ's are not part of this blog, and thus will not honor such requests. I'm offering this for my show only.

See you Thursday!

Brian Flemming Declares War on Christmas

Brian Flemming has declared war on Christmas, countering my previous assertions that there is no conspiracy by leftists and secularists to destroy Christmas. Now, if you'll read his formal declaration his motivations are a little more clear. He agrees with me that the war on Christmas is a myth, but he's decided that if critics want to think there's a war, why not give it to them?

Brian Flemming, it should be noted, is the director of a documentary out this year called The God That Wasn't There, a documentary that criticizes current Christian trends, especially that of the American fundamentalist movement. It goes on to question whether Jesus really existed. I'll be watching it over the holidays when I'm in Seattle, since my local DVD sources here in Eugene don't carry it. Scarecrow is, as usual, the wonderful savior of moving pictures and does have it, so I'll rent it from them.

Flemming is ALSO the creator of the musical Bat Boy, the stage production based off of a series of tabloid articles. I really have no comments here. I leave my dedicated readers to make the same furrowed brow look of confusion as to how the creator of Bat Boy went on to documentary filmmaking on religion.

Oh, and one final oddity, if you look at the declaration's border it appears as though Flemming printed this out on Boy Scout stationary. No foolin'. The bottom right corner I think is the Tenderfoot award, the bottom right is Second Class and the upper right is First Class. Take it from an Eagle Scout, the war on Christmas is being led by the BSA!

KWVA Playlist for Friday, Dec. 2, 2005

Lots of new music at KWVA today! I scanned the CD spines and realized that I didn't know half of the music. So it was a morning of digging through music, taking risks and hoping for the best. Fortunately I hit a lot of great music, and only a few duds.

Apologies to anyone listening for the technical difficulties (editors note: "technical difficulties" in this case means the DJ hit the eject button while a CD was playing on the air. The difficulties are more related to brain issues than equipment. It's what happens when you give this guy airtime at 4 in the morning)

Here's the list:

Dizzee Rascal - I Go to Work
Death From Above 1979 - Romantic Rights
Smoosh - Rad
Sun Kil Moon - Never Ending Math Equation
The Juan MacLean - Give Me Every Little Thing (Cajmete Remix)
Trillville - Nothing Less
Wilco - I'm The Man Who Loves You (Live)
The Roots - Double Trouble (Homegrown Version)
Caribou - The Barn
Bell Orchestre - Les Lumieres Pt. 1
Induce - Rebirth's Reprise
Azalia Snail - Scenescape
Interpol - NARC (Paul Banks Remix)
Cat Power - The Greatest
Andrew Bird - Oh Sister
Dungen - Panda
Lady Sovereign - Vertically Challenged
Dengue Fever - Sni Bong
Colossus - Innacity
The Chap - I Am Oozing Emotion
Tre Hardson - Lead I'll Follow
Canibus - Benny Riley
Jameroquai - Feels Just Like It Should
Tristeza - Bromas
Antony and the Johnsons - Fist Full of Love

The Highlights: I am quite sold as of this morning on Caribou and Bell Orchestre. Bell Orchestre was pop in a Sufjan Stevens and Brian Wilson sort of way, with some obvious comparisons (if for no other reason than location, being Montreal) to Arcade Fire. The difference is I never hopped on the Arcade Fire bandwagon, because they just never grabbed me particularly. Bell Orchestra, at least for this track, has got my attention.

Induce was very mellow, and very pretty. Hip-hop for people who don't like hip-hop. Lady Sovereign has blipped on my radar many times, without my giving attention. But I threw it on today, and I'm a fan. Another DJ compared her to MIA or Dizzee Rascal on helium. That's a pretty good assessment.

The Duds: I can't stand behind Canibus or Trillville. They did not offend my musical sensibilities, but they did warrant an overwhelming shrug of shoulders and a vocal "meh."

Jamiroquai sounded great, but he gets the dud list because it was the ONLY good track. The next DJ after me threw him on, and it was pretty intolerable.

Next Show: I'm spinning Tuesday (Dec. 6) from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. Later in the week I'm hosting the One Band / One Hour show on Friday (Dec. 9). That show will feature Andrew Bird. You can listen to the station in Eugene at 88.1 FM, or online here.

Fake Palindromes Semordnilap Ekaf

Please stop by the Oregon Daily Emerald today to check out my article about Andrew Bird. Many thanks to Mr. Bird for taking the time to talk with this humble writer. You can find the article here.

If you are in the Eugene area, he'll be at the MacDonald Theatre on the evening of Dec. 9th. I will be hosting a show called One Band / One Hour that afternoon at 4 p.m. (West Coast Time) featuring an hour of music by the man himself. You can tune in locally at 88.1 FM or listen online (anywhere in the world with this newfangled internet thing!) here.

All credit goes to my colleague Matt Tiffany for the headline on this blog. Also, if you see the man, pat him on the back for arranging to have the article printed in the Emerald. I am indebted to his kind services.