Go forth

1) Loituma - Ievan Polkka

I first heard this tune playing over a dreamily bizarre video of a full-grown moose living as a house-pet in a family’s home – literally a moose loose aboot the hoose. It had its own mattress to lie on as it watched television, and at one point appears to carefully straighten a picture hanging on the wall. What made the footage a little sinister was that there were clearly moose antlers on the wall of one of the rooms. It brought to mind thoughts of ancient pagan rituals, where the unknowing victim is treated to a life of luxury before being sacrificed to the gods of fertility or clotheshangers or whatever.

But quite aside from that, it was the music that caught my attention. It reminds me a little of Sigur Ros, darlings of BBC nature film trailers and one of the few things to come out of Iceland apart from Bjork and garishly coloured packets of cheap frozen prawns. If you were just to take the vocals from a clutch of Sigur Ros tunes, layer them on top of each other and speed the whole lot up tenfold you might come out the other end with something like this song.

The band is from Finland and they’re called Loituma. To non-Finnish ears it sounds like a barbershop quartet who’ve experienced a life-altering religious experience that caused them to start speaking in tongues, but to a native this is a touching 1930s folk song. Be warned, this is also a major earworm that may well sneak into your head and never escape.

2) Bert and Ernie play a nice little song.

Who was it who said that comedy occurs when the familiar is juxtaposed with the unexpected? Oh yeah, it was me, just now. Watch.

An Easter weekend trip to Kent to meet up with old university friends included the always slightly disconcerting experience of being one of three Andrews in close proximity, and also culminated in a trip to Howletts to stare at exotic animals who have no doubt become quite befuddled by their sudden relocation to the ‘garden of England’.

It gave me the first real chance to try out my new fancy-shmancy camera (a Nikon D40X for the geeks among you). It was, to be fair, not the best of days for photography. Not only was the light terrible – he says, pretending he knows what he’s talking about – but biting gale-force winds turned my fingers into immovable stubs and threatened at one point to fling me into the elephant enclosure. Many of the animals quite sensibly chose to stay indoors, probably pining for their native savannahs of Africa. I imagine the prospect of living a constant struggle for life seemed at that point somewhat preferable to having your fur forcibly rearranged by the weather.

Despite all that though, I did end up taking a great many photos. I’ve been pretty self-critical in picking out the very few that I consider to be any good; there’s a lot I still need to learn about choosing the right aperture and focus to make the most of a photo. You can jump to my Flickr gallery by clicking either here or on the image at the top of this post.

German police are trying to trace the owner of a sheep which outran police patrol cars and beat up a police dog.

Just got to think up a snappy name now. The Iron Lamb? Woolverine? The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtleneck Jumper?

…when a headline like this can exist:

Cassini Spacecraft to Dive Into Water Plume of Saturn Moon

Lately I’ve been playing a little game called AudioSurf. It’s best described as a melding of music, Tetris, Formula 1 racing and strong psychotropic drugs. In essence, it takes any music you choose from your computer and converts the beats and tempo into a winding racetrack along which you travel in a little multi-coloured rocketship, collecting coloured blocks to make groups and score points.

Sounds absolutely inane, doesn’t it?

Yet for reasons I find it difficult to explain, it’s utterly compelling. The racetrack is synced so closely with the music playing that it links you intensely to the tune – strong rhythms produce regular bumps and hills, loud guitars speed you up while mellow passages slow you down again. Colours wax and wane with tempo in a way that I suspect emulates listening to Pink Floyd on lysergic acid. If this game had been around in the sixties, flower-power might well have persisted much longer. If you’re able to ‘feel’ the music (man!) you play better and gain higher scores.

And those points become important to you as, for every song played through, the score is automatically uploaded to the global rankings. The satisfaction of completing a tricky song and finding yourself at the top of the scoreboard for the entire world is immense. Want to have the world’s best score for Hysteria by Def Leppard (cheesy rock works wonderfully for this game)? Well you’ll have to beat me first. And if you do, I’ll get an email informing me that I’ve been dethroned so I can try and claim top ranking again – I’ve defended my placing once already.

If you’re someone who likes their music, it’s a new way to experience songs, and an excellent excuse to delve into those gigabytes of dubious-origin mp3’s sitting on your hard drive in search of those that give the best rides. Furthermore, AudioSurf only costs about a fiver when bought online through Steam so it’s cheaper and longer lasting than the drugs you’d usually need to obtain the same effects.

Quick endnote here: Unusually, I imagine, practically all the music on my computer – and iTunes reports nearly 13 solid days worth of it – is entirely legal, from CDs that I’ve bought myself. I think the number of tracks that I don’t own the original recording for is probably in single figures and I’d have trouble remembering which they are. I’m a bit old fashioned in that I like to have a physical CD, with the tactile artwork booklet that goes with it. That’s probably the designer in me pulling the strings there. I’ve also got great respect for the concept of a cohesive album of music – an emotional ride through the songs in the order the artist originally intended. The move to digital has lost that a little, with people able to pick and choose just those songs that they immediately like without having the chance for other songs to grow on them. I’ve often bought an album and found that tracks I didn’t originally like all that much gradually creep up on me until I realise that they are actually far better than initial impressions suggested.

When I’m bored there are times when the mind wanders in strange directions. And one of those directions has thrown up the following list of imaginary animals.

Please, dear readers, feel free to join in if you have any of your own.

Elepant: A large animal with a shiny skin ideal for making capacious trousers for popular beat artists such as MC Hammer.

Masking Shark: A vicious fish that won’t hesitate to bite, but luckily can be pulled off rather easily. Is somewhat resistant to paint.

Boeing Constrictor: Perhaps the most dangerous snake in the world – death from above at 500mph. Not to be confused with the harmless Feather Boa.

Marrowhawk: The universe’s only known airborne carnivorous vegetable.

Glue tit: Collects berries and seeds on its body by flying at speed through bushes. Mates for life, mainly because it has no choice in the matter.

Gimpanzee: A very submissive, rubbery ape. Waterproof and, should it fall out of a tree, simply bounces.

Komodo Wagon: A rather tragic reptile that – if it can’t find a slope – can only get around by lying in wait for other animals, biting one when it gets close, and hoping that it’ll be dragged somewhere new.

Tasmanian Breville: Australian marsupial which toasts its own food in a specially adapted pouch.

Chocolate Moose: Almost extinct due to hunting. Not found in warm climates.

Ford Puma: Small feline that looks as though it should have a good turn of speed, but in reality is disappointingly sluggish.

Solar Bear: Arctic bear that needs no food whatsoever. Popular with conservationists for its very low environmental impact. Has an unfortunate tendency to drown when it tries to go swimming at night.

Sporkbill: Close relative of the Spoonbill, only more adaptable.

Ray Mearskat: Gregarious rodent that can find food anywhere, and can make a shelter, four-course meal and a canoe out of a single twig and a pawful of nettles.

Armadildo: That’s quite enough of that.