PARKOUR

PARKOUR

Parkour is a made up word a derivation of the French word parcours.

Parkour is a form of running designed to get you through a route avoiding whatever lies in your path. The movements are performed from a dead run and a lot of the more acrobatic manoueuvers are based on monkey moves.

David Belle is a Parisian from a working class suburb of Paris called Lisse, his father was a fireman and acrobat famous for spider like removal of a Viet-con flag on the Notre Dame hanging by a rope upside down from a helicopter.

The best way to understand Parkour is to see it in action here is a best of compilation of David Belle.

To prove he is only human and not a living Spiderman the 2nd video is of a mistake he made on one of his jumps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01du2W6VJis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Kh8NeG9wf8

M-THEORY

The Standard Model

In the standard model of particle physics, particles are considered to be points moving through space, tracing out a line called the World Line. To take into account the different interactions observed in Nature one has to provide particles with more degrees of freedom than only their position and velocity, such as mass, electric charge, colour (which is the "charge" associated with the strong interaction) or spin.

String Theory

In String Theory, the myriad of particle types is replaced by a single fundamental building block, a `string'. These strings can be closed, like loops, or open, like a hair. As the string moves through time it traces out a tube or a sheet, according to whether it is closed or open. Furthermore, the string is free to vibrate, and different vibrational modes of the string represent the different particle types, since different modes are seen as different masses or spins.

From Strings to Superstrings

The particles known in nature are classified according to their spin into bosons (integer spin) or fermions (odd half integer spin). The former are the ones that carry forces, for example, the photon, which carries electromagnetic force, the gluon, which carries the strong nuclear force, and the graviton, which carries gravitational force. The latter make up the matter we are made of, like the electron or the quark. The original String Theory only described particles that were bosons, hence Bosonic String Theory. It did not describe Fermions. So quarks and electrons, for instance, were not included in Bosonic String Theory.

Extra dimensions...

One of the most remarkable predictions of String Theory is that space-time has ten dimensions! At first sight, this may be seen as a reason to dismiss the theory altogether, as we obviously have only three dimensions of space and one of time. However, if we assume that six of these dimensions are curled up very tightly, then we may never be aware of their existence.

M-theory

Apart from the fact that instead of one there are five different, healthy theories of strings (three superstrings and two heterotic strings) there was another difficulty in studying these theories: we did not have tools to explore the theory over all possible values of the parameters in the theory. Each theory was like a large planet of which we only knew a small island somewhere on the planet. But over the last four years, techniques were developed to explore the theories more thoroughly, in other words, to travel around the seas in each of those planets and find new islands. And only then it was realized that those five string theories are actually islands on the same planet, not different ones! Thus there is an underlying theory of which all string theories are only different aspects. This was called M-theory. The M might stand for Mother of all theories or Mystery, because the planet we call M-theory is still largely unexplored.

CRAZY HORSE OR JUST CRAZY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltx6w1AToi4&mode=related&search

Now there are some serious endeavors and some pretty wild notions but this is the most extraordinary thing I have heard in a while. The story is hard to believe the pictures even more so but watch the you tube video this is for real kids!
The memorial consists of the mountain carving, the Indian Museum of North America, and the Native American Cultural center. The monument is being carved out of Thunderhead Mountain on land considered sacred by some Native Americans, between Custer and Hill City, roughly 8 miles (13 km) away from Mount Rushmore. The sculpture's final dimensions will be 641 feet (195 m) wide and 563 feet (172 m) high. By comparison, the heads of Mt. Rushmore are 60 feet (18 m) high; the head of Crazy Horse will be 87 feet (27 m) high.
It was begun in 1948 by sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski, who had worked on Mt. Rushmore under Gutzon Borglum. In 1939, Mr. Ziolkowski received a letter from Chief Henry Standing Bear, which stated in part "My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know that the red man has great heroes, too." The sculpture portrays the warrior Crazy Horse, who led the Lakota at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876.
As a non-profit undertaking, the memorial receives no federal or state funding. Ziolkowski was offered $10 million from the federal government on two occasions, but he turned the offers down. Mr. Ziolkowski felt the project was more than just a mountain carving, and he feared that his plans for the broader educational and cultural goals for the memorial would be left behind with federal involvement.

Pirahã-another view

The map helps you to locate were they are in the world











I recently wrote about the Pirahã it seems to have started a little bit of a debate, for fairness I have written up a counter argument for Everett’s claims, please note that these arguments come from the anti Everett lobby, led by Noam Chomsky. They are based on Chomsky’s views on language in particular that we have a unique congnitiveability Everett’s ideas are like a "bomb" that turn a lot of his thinking on its head. Chomsky’s view is that this way of communicating is not possible.


Everett (2005) has claimed that the grammar of Pirahã is exceptional in displaying "inexplicable gaps", that these gaps follow from an alleged cultural principle restricting communication to "immediate experience", and that this principle has "severe" consequences for work on Universal Grammar. We argue against each of these claims. Relying on the available documentation and descriptions of the language (especially the rich material in Everett (1986; 1987b)), we argue that many of the exceptional grammatical "gaps" supposedly characteristic of Pirahã are misanalyses by Everett (2005) and are neither gaps nor exceptional among the world's languages. We find no evidence, for example, that Pirahã lacks embedded clauses, and in fact find strong syntactic and semantic evidence in favour of their existence in Pirahã. Likewise, we find no evidence that Pirahã lacks quantifiers, as claimed by Everett (2005). Furthermore, most of the actual properties of the Pirahã constructions discussed by Everett (for example, the ban on prenominal possessor recursion and the behaviour of wh-constructions) are familiar from languages whose speakers lack the cultural restrictions attributed to the Pirahã. Finally, following mostly Gonçalves (1993; 2000; 2001), we also question some of the empirical claims about Pirahã culture advanced by Everett in primary support of the "immediate experience" restriction. We are left with no evidence of a causal relation between culture and grammatical structure. Pirahã grammar contributes to ongoing research into the nature of Universal Grammar, but presents no unusual challenge, much less a "severe" one.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EksuA4IAQIk&mode=related&search=

PREVIN

Previn what’s in a name?


A complex tale of interwoven relationships.

In 1966 Sinatra marries Mia Farrow she is 20 years old, 30 years younger than him, the tale ends with her daughter marrying a man also 30 years older.
But first Mia was to divorce him in 1966 and later travel to India with the Beatles her younger sister inspired the song Dear Prudence in 1968, the year of her most famous role in Rosemary’s Baby. Some make comparisons of the film's satanic cult elements to the true-life torture and murder of Sharon Tate (Polański's wife) by the Charles Manson cult followers, just one year after the movie's release. Tate, who was pregnant at the time of her murder, was two weeks away from her due date.
Outside shots of the movie's Bramford apartment building were in fact The Dakota, the future home of Mia Farrow's friend John Lennon, and his wife and son, Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon. Coincidentally, the Manson Family named their murder spree "Helter Skelter", after the song written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
Sharon Tate had just starred in the Valley of the Dolls the music and songs for the film won a Grammy award for Dory and André preven.
Dory Previn’s mental health suffered, possibly as a result of traumatic experiences in early life (her dad once held her hostage at gunpoint). In the late sixties her first husband, André Previn, left her for actress Mia Farrow. Previn's mental health deteriorated soon afterwards and she spent a period of time in psychiatric institutions, where she was subjected to electric shock therapy. "Beware of Young Girls" is a savage attack on Mia Farrow and her motives for befriending the Previns.
One of their children would be SoonYi who by the time she had divorced Previn and begun dating woody Allen was still a child.
Soon-yi Previn 1st met Allen aged 10, after discovering naked pictures of her in Allen’s possession Mia realized they were sexually involved and they themselves split. Allen would marry her in Venice in 1997. Their age gap of 30 years matched Mia’s to Sinatra’s all those years ago.

The wonderful & frightening world of Mark E Smith

Last week I mentioned how I met one of my hero's the living legend that is Mark E Smith. For those who are yet to fully understand the greatness of the man here in nine 10 minute snippets is the recent documentory on the Fall to mark Mark's 50th birthday.

Part One

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-Ff-7ui9BY

Part Two

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4bP568Yrfs

Part Three

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKRyiNVsN10

Part Four

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNiZz3FwuYk

Part Five

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb9DRt6q72c

Part Six

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj6l8otkX3M

Part Seven

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj2Tiqyrpk8

Part Eight

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6qryrkmo5Y

Part Nine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECdKZC4_3zE

BANKSY

THE ALBERT DOCK

The Albert Dock

My personal choice for man made wonder in England
In Liverpool, was opened in 1846 by its namesake, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Based on plans submitted in 1839 by the civil engineers Jesse Hartley and Philip Hardwick, for a combined dock and warehouse system.
The Albert Dock was built entirely of cast iron, brick, and stone, with no structural wood; it was the first building in the UK to be built in such a manner. It was also the first fire-proof warehousing system in the world. In 1848 it was upgraded to feature the world's first hydraulic warehouse hoist system. The five Grade I buildings, covering 1.25 million sq ft, make the Albert Dock complex the largest set of Grade 1 Listed Buildings in the UK. And arguably a man made wonder.

THE ORIGINAL SEVEN MAN MADE WONDERS

Hanging Gardens of Babylon



Great Pyramid of Giza
2650-2500 BC Egyptians
Built as the tomb of Fourth dynasty Egyptian pharaoh Khufu.
Still standing -


Hanging Gardens of Babylon
600 BC Babylonians
Herodotus claimed the outer walls were 56 miles in length, 80 feet thick and 320 feet high (although some archaeological findings suggest otherwise). After 1st century BC Earthquake

Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
550 BC Lydians, Persians, Greeks
Dedicated to the Greek goddess Artemis, it took 120 years to build. Herostratus burned it down in an attempt to achieve lasting fame. 356 BC Arson

Statue of Zeus at Olympia
435 BC Greeks
Occupied the whole width of the aisle of the temple that was built to house it, and was 40 feet (12 meters) tall. 5th-6th centuries AD Fire

Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus
351 BC Persians, Greeks
Stood approximately 45 meters (135 feet) tall with each of the four sides adorned with sculptural reliefs. Origin of the word mausoleum. by AD 1494 Earthquake

Colossus of Rhodes
292-280 BC Hellenistic Greece
A giant statue of the Greek god Helios roughly the same size as today's Statue of Liberty in New York.
224 BC Earthquake

Lighthouse of Alexandria
3rd century BC Hellenistic Egypt
Between 115 and 135 metres (383 - 440 ft) tall it was among the tallest man-made structures on Earth for many centuries.

New man made Seven Wonders contenders

Results to be announced on July 7th

The 21 finalists, listed alphabetically, are:


Acropolis
of Athens

Alhambra
Granada, Spain

alogueAngkor Wat
Angkor, Cambodia

Chichen Itz
Yucatan, Mexico

Christ the Redeemer
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Colosseum
Rome, Italy

Easter Island Moais
Easter Island, Chile

Eiffel Tower
Paris, France

Great Wall
China

Hagia Sophia
stanbul, Turkey

Kiyomizu Temple
Kyoto, Japan

Kremlin and Red Square
Moscow, Russia


Machu Picchu
Cuzco, Perú

Neuschwanstein Castle
Füssen, Germany

Petra
Jordan

Pyramids of Giza
Egypt

Statue of Liberty
New York City, United States

Stonehenge
United Kingdom

Sydney Opera House
Abstraction, Creativity Sydney, Australia

Taj Mahal
India

Timbuktu
Ma

MOONBOWS & CHESS

MOONBOWS


Can a rainbow appear during the night?

Yes! (See above) The night-time rainbow is very rare and occurs only when the moon is bright enough and positioned properly with respect to falling rain to produce the beautiful effect.
Moon bow (also known as a lunar rainbow or white rainbow) is a rainbow that occurs at night. Moon bows are relatively faint, due to the smaller amount of light from the Moon. As with rainbows, they are always in the opposite part of the sky from the moon.

One for the mathmaticians


The Emperor of India put the call out to his subjects that he wanted a new game invented and that there would be a reward for the inventor of the best one. An old man came to him with Chess - after showing him the game and looking at the other inventions CHESS was declared the winner. The Emperor was so exultant over the invention of chess that he offered the inventor anything he wanted in the kingdom. The inventor thought for a minute and then said, "One grain of rice, Your Majesty."
"Just one grain of rice?"
"Yes, just one grain of rice on the first square of the chess board, two grains of rice on the second square, four grains of rice on the third square," and so on. Each square got double the grains of rice that the last square had. Doesn’t sound like much of a prize till you do the math!
The Emperor goes bankrupt because 2to the 64th power (2 to the 64 squares in the chessboard, 2 to the 64 grains of rice) is 18 million billion grains of rice. At 10 grains of rice per square inch of rice fields, that would mean that the entire surface of the earth would have to be covered with rice fields two times over, oceans included.
On the 64th square of the chessboard there would be exactly 263 = 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 grains of rice. In total, on the entire chessboard there would be exactly 264 − 1 = 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains of rice.

EVERYONES GONE TO THE MOVIES

Saw two new movies this week, one a must see and one a must miss!

Avoid SPIDERMAN


There is one great scene in “Spider-Man 3,” and you can pretty much leave the theatre once it’s over, Flint Marko finds himself in a sandpit, subjected to what we are told is “demolecularization,” a process familiar to anyone who pounds crackers to make a cheesecake crust. Once the experiment is over, the sand lies still; then it stirs and heaves, and, like a crumbling Lazarus, Marko rises again, his legs sifting and scattering with the effort. Finally, he staggers upright to reveal his transfigured self: Sandman,
The most pathetic aspect of “Spiderman 3” is that stickiness. In an early scene, a meteorite crashes to Earth and from it crawls what seems to be a tiny garbage sack with half a mind of its own: not a bad image of where this film belongs. And, would you believe, the first person this super blob attaches itself to is, yes, Peter Parker. It doesn’t choose him; nobody has targeted him—of all Earth’s inhabitants, he just happens to be close by.
The joke about Peter has always been how un cool he is. “You are such a nerd,” his girlfriend, Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst), sighs, thus giving a breath of hope to all the nerds in the audience. Once infected by the black stuff, he should by rights become an übernerd, but the movie can’t decide what it wants. One moment he is being eyed by girls in the street, and the next they are shying away from him, as he struts along like John Travolta at the start of “Saturday Night Fever.”
Dumbest of all is the change of hair style, as Peter stops combing his bangs sideways and lets them flop down over his brow.



The must see has to be 28 weeks later. If you want to be scared this is the movie. Plus it stars Imogen Poots, with a name like that you just have to be a movie star, Enough said

CSI FICTION

The real CSI


CSI the TV programme is the most watched TV show in the world right now, its great TV but it’s use of forensic evidence is shall we say, far from factual.


Sir Robert Peel created the first modern police force in 1829. It wasn’t until 1910 that Victor Balthazard published the first comprehensive study of hair he also theorised that the grooves inside a barrel of a gun leave a unique imprint on a bullet. Forensic police work was born.

The first time his theory about bullets was put in practice was the 1929 Valentine massacre, mafia shooting. Al Capone. It was established that none of the bullets were fired from a police issued weapon.

According to long established practice of hair analysis only hairs that have their roots intact can be checked for possible DNA, and therefore can be used for analysis.

In fact there are only two forms of forensic science.

1-the chemicals that are in the blood, alcohol, cocaine etc

2-fingerprints, tire marks. Hair and fibres.

The 2nd principle is based on the precept that no two specimens are alike except from the same source. This is conjecture and easily challenged as faith based science.

DNA is the only real source of locked down evidence in this respect.

If there is no DNA evidence then there is no forensic evidence.

There are ever mounting cases of false imprisonment based on hair and fibre evidence that just cannot be guaranteed as safe evidence. CSI has a lot to answer for!

DNA has been successfully taken from a coke bottle that a burglar drank from whilst robbing a house. He was an identical twin and they are the only people who have matching DNA however one of the twins was in custody at the time of the house burglary so it had to be the other, he was called Kenneth Williams the brother Andre Fuller, no one knows to this day why identical twins had different surnames!

Keep watching but don’t believe all you see!

Recent Shows-Reviews

Thursday 12 April 2007 7.30pm

The Halle Bridgewater Hall


Schumann Piano Concerto in A minor

Schubert Symphony No.9, 'The Great'

A superb evening of musical delights. My first experience of the Halle. Very impressive.

Interesting reading about the two composers tonight. Schubert was very influential to Schumann. In fact it was Schumann who discovered the lost great symphony we heard tonight.

The Chilean pianist was certainly into the music and the local conductor seemed pleased to be amongst his people.

Two small details Schumann met his wife to be when she was eight years old and dated her from the age of fourteen. She became a wonderful pianist and he wrote many a piece for her including tonight’s. They had seven children.

Interestingly both composers would die of syphilis, Schumann actually being sent insane by it and dying in an asylum after a failed suicide bid by throwing himself in the Rhine.




The Gig at the Star & Garter April 20th

Had a great night out in Piccadilly it was the album launch of Autokat’s album “late night shopping” So ex Youth Offending team mate John Allen was headlining and they certainly played hard and loud and got a packed top room jumping!

They were supported by two other Manchester bands “it’s a Buffalo” & “Orphan Boy” All three bands have to my ears a unique sound and vastly different from each other. They all seem to have their own identity and are very assured and accomplished musicians.

I couldn’t put any into a category other than great music while Orphan Boy are a nod to Punk and Buffalo a little country Autokat hark back to the glorious early indie bands of this country.

But like I say they are ploughing their own furrow. Anyway check out for yourselves.


Autokat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18XkV7UtazE

Its a Buffalo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5jpDChezPk

Orphan Boy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkeGDfE27vQ

NEW YORK

THE COMMUTE

Twenty First Century travel is perhaps the most bizarre it is said that the average
Miles per hour of a car across London is 13 MPH, the same as a horse and carriage would have been over a hundred years ago.

In America the average commute is now one and a half hours. 4 million commuters travel two hrs to and from work.

There is one guy who commutes from the Sierra foothills to San Jose daily a distance of 372 miles his daily commute is seven hours.

Ironically the word commute is from the exchange of a fare, from a more expensive ticket to a cheaper one i.e. to commute or change from one to another less severe in cost.

The modern day cost of commuting is not really in financial terms but more in social. People are trading off material goods with social ones. 9 out of 10 USA commuters drive 88% drive alone; people are becoming isolated socially through the act of commuting.

If you think of social interaction as a triangle with “home” “work” and “shops” being the 3 points, you have to think about the smaller the triangle equating to the greater chance to be socially active and the larger being more isolating. Put it another way, if you shop every day because your shops are closer the smaller your fridge the long haul commuters shop twice a month. The “bigger the fridge the lonelier the soul”

Meanwhile in China they have just built the longest and most difficult railway line in the history of train travel. The railroad that connects Beijing to Tibet is over 700 miles long and crosses the most treacherous terrain of any man made track. At a cost of 4.5 billion dollars it took 5 years and 100.000 men to build it.

At one point it is over 16.000 feet above sea level the altitude there is similar to the peak of Everest at around 30-40% less oxygen than we are used to, each train compartment comes fitted with oxygen masks!

It has to negotiate over 300 miles of Permafrost, in order to prevent this thawing out in the summer the track is elevated and a complicated system of pipes circulate liquid nitrogen and blow cold air onto the ice all year long.

The full journey takes 47 hours now that is one hell of a commute!

Napoleons missing Bonaparte

Thomas Reade was present when Napoleon died, he stated that the body was closed up, dressed, and remained attended while lying in state--although Napoleon biographer Robert Asprey concedes that both Antommarchi and Vignali might've been alone with the imperial corpse at some point. Vignali, who had administered the last rites and conducted the funeral, was bequeathed 100,000 francs and for his trouble was also given (or at any rate came into the possession of) some of Napoleon's knives and forks, a silver cup, and other personal effects--some of them really personal, it seems. In a memoir published in 1852 in the Revue des mondes, Ali the manservant claimed that he and Vignali had removed bits of Napoleon's body during the autopsy. It's unclear whether Ali specified the penis as one of the abstracted organs, but everyone now assumes that's what he meant.

In 1916 Vignali's descendants sold his collection of Napoleonic artifacts to a British rare book firm, which in 1924 sold the lot for about $2,000 to a Philadelphia bibliophile, A.S.W. Rosenbach. Among the relics was "the mummified tendon taken from Napoleon's body during the post-mortem." A few years later Rosenbach displayed the putative penis, tastefully couched in blue morocco and velvet, at the Museum of French Art in New York. According to a contemporary news report, "In a glass case [spectators] saw something looking like a maltreated strip of buckskin shoelace or shriveled eel." The organ has also been described as a shriveled sea horse, a small shriveled finger, and "one inch long and resembling a grape.

In 1969, the London auction house Christie's included in its catalogue an item enigmatically described as a "shrivelled object" about an inch long and looking like a shrivelled eel, which they failed to sell. In no time, the story was out that the object in question had - allegedly - been sliced from the corpse of Napoleon Bonaparte after his death on St Helena. Abbot Ange Vignali, who administered extreme unction to the fallen emperor and officiated at his funeral, had kept a few souvenirs - knives, forks, a silver cup and (according to Napoleon's manservant, Ali) a small part of Napoleon's person. Ali did not say which part. The Vignali collection changed ownership more than once, and, after a further sale in Paris in 1977, the part in question ended up in private hands - those of a leading New York urologist, John K Lattimer. Whether the object is what people think is open to doubt - but not for one red-top newspaper, which reported Christie's failure to make a sale in 1969 under the headline "Not Tonight, Josephine!"

Pirahã

The Pirahã people are an indigenous hunter-gatherer tribe of Amazon natives, who mainly live on the banks of the Maici River in Brazil. They currently number about 360, which is sharply reduced from the numbers recorded in previous decades, and the culture is in danger of extinction. The Pirahã people do not call themselves pirahãs but instead the Hi'aiti'ihi, roughly translated as 'the straight ones'.
The Pirahã speak the Pirahã language, which is very important to their culture and to their group identity. Members of the Pirahã can whistle their language, which is how its men communicate when hunting in the jungle.

Unrelated to any other extant tongue and based on just eight consonants and three vowels Piraha has one of the simplest sound systems known.

The piraha (pronounced pee-da-HAN) remained mostly obscure until 2005. They have no numbers, no fixed colours, no perfect tense, no deep memory, no tradition of art or drawing and no words for “all” “each” “every” “most” or “few”

If its not already part of their culture they are not interested. They have not taken on one aspect of anyone else’s culture no one has resisted change like this in the entire history of the Amazon.

They arrived in the Amazon between 10 and 40.000 years ago they were once part of the larger Indian group called the Mura but had split from the main tribe by the time the Brazilians first encountered them in 1714.

The words for friend and enemy differ only in pitch of a single syllable.

The Woman use fewer consonants than the men.

If they were asked what created them they answer “it has always been this way”

They have for instance no fixed word for colours if you show them a red cup “this looks like blood” and so on.

Similarly they have no fixed numbers it’s been noted before that some tribes have one two and then more but the Piraha have only “more” or “less”
They only exist in the now and only relate to what they can see or hear.

Only the observable experience is real to them.

So a candle light “goes in and out of experience”

It’s like an immediacy of experience principle when told about Christ they said “have you met the man”
They have no original stories to pass on to generations about how they came into being becuase if it is outside their own individual experience it doesn’t exist.


Thus they only accept reality as what they can see so their speech is littered with direct assertions such as “the dog was at the beach”

They seem unable like the rest of humanity to put thoughts within thoughts.

Chislehurst Caves

Chislehurst Caves
Artificial caverns in the soft cretaceous chalk. Highlights of the tours are fossils, Druidic altars, a maze, Roman mines, and cavalier mantraps. They are said to be built during the last 8,000 years. The twenty miles of tunnels run under south east London some tunnels come out into the back gardens of local residents.

Most of those features are rather interesting, but the explanations are plain folklore. The "fossils" are curious formed, but very common Flintstones. There is no archaeological proof for druids and even the roman history is not likely. However, the kilometers of irregular halls and passages are definitely a maze! Many people have been lost down there.

The proven facts about the caves are that they were chalk mines since 1650 and the works were continued for several hundred years. The mines were abandoned in the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1903 they were discovered by Professor W. J. NICHOLS, who wrote an eccentric scientific paper about the mines, claiming they were 8,000 years old and contained a druidic temple. The druid’s altar is still visable.

Between the wars the caves were bought by Kent Mushrooms Ltd., a part of the mines was used for the cultivation of mushrooms. The high humidity and the constant temperature made them an ideal place. Today the modern production methods make those caves obsolete. The caves are still owned by Kent Mushrooms Ltd., the present owner’s father grew mushrooms here in the 1930's. After the war the humidity had changed dramatically due to 15.000 bodies down there so mushroom growing stopped.

In the youngest history, the caves became famous as Chislehurst Hotel. Britain's largest public air raid shelter, housing max. 15,000 people, was built into the chalk during the World War II. Buses left Deptford for the caves at teatime returning the next morning. The people made their homes in dugout rooms, with a curtain for privacy. The caves had electric lighting, flushing toilets, a cinema, a chapel, a barber, a gymnasium, and even a dance floor! The caves were so popular, between autumn 1940 and spring 1941 up to 8,000 people lived here every night.

As Chislehurst Caves are rather big, several events took place here since the war. For example:
• Friday 16. December 1966 JIMMY HENDRIX played a concert in Chislehurst Caves.
• 8. December 1967 PINK FLOYD played in Chislehurst Caves. As well as Led Zeppelin bowie the stones and many others
• In February 1972 part of Doctor Who, The Mutants, was filmed at Chislehurst Caves.
• the league of gentleman filmed down here as did Vic and bob for Randall and hopkirk diseased
• Multiple other rock concerts.
• In the last years, several kilometres of the caves were used for role-playing games.

MACCA'S BACK

Memory Almost Full out Monday June 4th 2007
By Paul McCartney

"I actually started this album, Memory Almost Full, before my last album Chaos And Creation In The Backyard (released September 2005). The first recording session was back in the autumn of 2003 at Abbey Road with my touring band and producer David Kahne. I was right in the middle of it when I began talking with Nigel Godrich about a brand new project (which became Chaos And Creation In The Backyard).

When I was just finishing up everything concerned with Chaos and had just got the Grammy nominations (2006) I realised I had this album to go back to and finish off. So I got it out to listen to it again, wondering if I would enjoy it, but actually I really loved it. All I did at first was just listen to a couple of things and then I began to think, ‘OK, I like that track – now, what is wrong with it?’ And it might be something like a drum sound, so then I would re-drum and see where we would get to.

I took it from there and built it up. I went through, track by track, making changes as I went along. I fixed things I wasn’t too keen on and it just evolved from there. Without me knowing, or really trying, it started to get its own theme, a sort of thread that holds it all together. So I suppose it’s about half new stuff and half old stuff from 2003.

In places it’s a very personal record and a lot of it is retrospective, drawing from memory, like memories from being a kid, from Liverpool and from summers gone. The album is evocative, emotional, rocking, but I can’t really sum it up in one sentence.

There is a medley of 5 songs towards the end and that was purposefully retrospective. I thought this might be because I’m at this point in my life, but then I think about the times I was writing with John and a lot of that was also looking back. It’s like me with ‘Penny Lane’ and ‘Eleanor Rigby’ - I’m still up to the same tricks!
I know people are going to look at some of the songs and interpret them in different ways but this has always been the case. The thing is that I love writing songs, so I just write and write. I never really get to a point where I start thinking I’m going to write about specific subjects. Inevitably though, what I am thinking is going to find its way into what I’m doing.

The opening track of the album is ‘Dance Tonight’. I recently got myself a mandolin and I was just playing about with it and came up with the basis of this track. A couple of weeks ago we made the video, which was great fun. It’s directed by Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind) and stars Natalie Portman and Mackenzie Crook. I’m not going to give the plot away. You’ll have to go and watch it for yourself, but we had a good time doing it.

The album title came after I had finished everything. For me, that’s when they normally come, with the exception of maybe Sgt. Peppers, otherwise I don’t think I have ever made an album with The Beatles, Wings or solo where I have thought of a title and a concept. I was thinking about what would sum the whole thing up and ‘Memory Almost Full’ sprung to mind. It’s a phrase that seemed to embrace modern life; in modern life our brains can get a bit overloaded. I realised I had also seen it come up on my phone a few times. When I started bouncing the idea round with some friends they nearly all got different meanings out of it, but they all said they loved it. So the feedback helped solidify the title.

After completing the album I then started thinking about the album artwork and how I’d want it to look. I really wanted to make the CD a desirable object. Something that I know I’d want to pick up from the shelf, something that would make people curious. I hope our final concept has done that. The album sleeve itself includes an etching by a friend of mine, Humphrey Ocean. As with the album lyrics, I’m looking forward to seeing how people might interpret the artwork.

Currently I’m just starting out on the promo trail and beginning to get the first bits of feedback about the album and so far so good! It’s interesting now as I’m getting to hear what other people are making of the songs and what their feelings are. I’m also talking about the album myself and I’m really enjoying the discovery process.

I really enjoyed making this album with David Kahne and I’m proud of all the songs. We had a great time. I hope that the fun we had will communicate itself to the people who are going to listen to it."

All the best,
Paul McCartney, April 2007

Miles Hunt

At the night and day bar last night on Oldham Street I went to see Miles Hunt, the mega star performer, this Elvis Costello impersonator is a bit full of himself. I have never witnessed such overblown arrogance with such a lack of substance to sustain it. A one hit wonder stuff single with Vic reeves does not add up to much, but to listen to this soulless humorless bore u would think he was Beethoven. He had nothing interesting to say yet spent half the gig telling pointless stories that seemed to be about inflating his ego unbelievable at times.

Here’s an interview quote

AD: So what made you decide that, some eleven years after “Construction for the Modern Idiot”, now was the right time to release a new album?

MH: Well, I did carry on with my solo stuff, and the Miles Hunt Club, so it’s not as if I was ever really “away”, but when I was working with Clint from the Poppies on a couple of film scores recently, I played him some of the songs and he said to me that they sounded “more like the new Wonder Stuff album than anything else you’ve put out since you disbanded”. The record company said the same thing, so we decided that it WOULD be a Stuffies record. We started having talks about reforming the band to make it, but obviously talks didn’t go too well because Messrs Gilks and Bell decided to fall out with me in the meantime and stop returning my calls. I thought long and hard about it for ages – whether it was the right thing to do, putting the album out under the name of The Wonder Stuff…or “branding” as Gilks likes to put it when wants to take a swipe at me…but then when Malc said “Yeah, these are great songs! Let’s do it!” I thought “Well, I haven’t thrown anyone out of the band; those guys have decided to quit; we’re all grown ups so fuck it – it’s a Wonder Stuff record”!

It would seem the other band members have gotten fed up with his arrogance at different times in the career to

Some of his music seems interesting but its hard to listen through a fog of jumped up nonsense, he did have violin player who was superb. Check out this guy on his sell out tour of your local Fopp shops on your high street!

Hunt's first band (in which he played drums) was called From Eden, and featured future members of another successful Walsall group, Pop Will Eat Itself. After leaving this band he formed The Wonder Stuff and was their lead singer and principal songwriter until their split in 1994.
He toured as a solo performer for a time until he reformed The Wonder Stuff in 2000. They are still together to this day, and are facing something of a career relaunch, appearing on many summer festival bills in 2006. He also co-wrote and sang the theme tune to the CBeebies TV programme Underground Ernie.

That’s about it yes there are 6 Wonder albums and 6 solo albums but has anyone ever listened to the whole lot!
Hunt married the late-night/early-morning BBC Radio 1 DJ Mary Anne Hobbs in 1991. She was working for the NME at the time. They were married for five years.


Lets leave the last word to Miles I am sure he would insist!


Have you got lots of new stories?

“Last night I did one song then spoke for 15 minutes. I was meant to do an hour and fifteen but I ended up doing an hour and forty five and it wasn't loads of songs it was just "yada, yada, yada". I wasn't even drunk.”


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpmzS9mjz_I