Weird…But In A Good Way

December means  Christmas, which to most means presents and food and drink and parties…and to be fair it does to an extent to me too but I’ve been thinking lately about the spirit of Christmas, the good will to all men and peace on earth sentiment possibly the romantic view but I thought why can’t it be like that? At least a little bit anyway, All it would take is a little effort to put a smile on peoples faces…

…So this December has been decreed Good Deed December, my own advent of good deeds.

Between now and Christmas day I plan on trying to complete a good deed each day and hopefully update here and my twitter feed (@essitam) using the tag #gooddeedfortheday, (when I get around to it, I suck at keeping blogs up to date maybe this is the impetus I need).

I’m sure some deeds will be more worthy than others but it’s important to remember the little things also count……

1st December Carried a ladies bags up a flight of stairs.

2nd December Dispatched James to an elderly neighbours to get her shopping list and went to the super market after work just for her (I needed nothing myself)

3rd December took the lovely lady in the post office a Lemsip, she was suffering when she dealt with my parcels and I thought she could do with it.

(more…)

I have been “eavesdropping” in on a conversation on twitter regarding mix tapes,  Dan Slee has done a wonderful job of summing up the “history” of mix tapes so I don’t have to but I love the whole idea of them being the original Social Media – THE way to share in the 90′s and it got me thinking about some of the tapes I received as teen as Dan puts it:

They could be a love letter, a  sign of friendship or the grandstanding of musical knowledge.

…and I couldn’t have put it better myself.

When I was in senior school I used to swap mix tapes with my friend Jess. We were, in our opinion, the optimum of cool and shared  a mutual love of all the artists and bands the supposed “in crowd” hated, Nirvana, Hole, PJ Harvey, Chilli Peppers, to name a few and with our mix tapes playing through the earphones of our walkman we looked down upon the lesser beings with our musical snobbery. It cemented our friendship and I went on to purchase some of my favourite albums on the back of tracks Jess  included on those now long lost c90′s.

Yet the most impressive mix tape I have ever received wasn’t a tape at all, it was a CD and while I’m sure it started out as a “grandstanding of musical knowledge”   it turned into the greatest love letter I have ever received….

“In Steph’s Honour” given to me by James in December 2005  – 4 months before we became us. He told me then it was an “education” as we liked some of the same music, but he  has since admitted that he was trying to  impress me a little and I have to admit it did!!

Disk 1 – The Rock Show

1. One Armed Scissor (At The Drive-In)
2. A Box Full Of Sharp Objects (The Used)
3. Vessel & Vine (The Lucky Nine)
4. 57 (Biffy Clyro)
5. If You Don’t, Don’t (Jimmy Eat World)
6. The Sign (Foo Fighters)
7. The Graduate (Third Eye Blind)
8. Corduroy (Pearl Jam)
9. Sad and Lonely (Secret Machines)
10. Stockholm Syndrome (Muse)
11. My Tortured Soul (Probot)
12. Superunknown (Soundgarden)
13. Inspire (Cave In)
14. (I Am) What I Am Not (Idlewild)
15. I’m Not Okay (My Chemical Romance)
16. Beating Heart Baby (Head Automatica)

Disk 2 – Late Night Ditties

1. Wishlist (Pearl Jam)
2. I Never Came (QOTSA)
3. Blue and Yellow (The Used)
4. Switching Off (Elbow)
5. Between The Bars (Elliot Smith)
6. Pink Bullets (The Shins)
7. Walking On A Wire (The Get Up Kids)
8. The Light And The Sound (Rocky Votolato)
9. Scary Mary ( Biffy Clyro)
10. And Then You Kissed Me (The Cardigans)
11. Drop (Clarkesville)
12. Amie (Damien Rice)
13. Those Crimson Tears (Ed Harcourt)
14. El Capitain (acoustic) (Idlewild)
15. The Sun (Joseph Arthur)
16. Title and Registration (Death Cab For Cutie)
17. My Sundown (Jimmy Eat World)

Four years and a bit years on I still haven’t made this track listing a playlist on iTunes or on Spotify because nothing compares to the feeling of finding this CD off the shelf , remebering just how much effort went into it and putting it into the player and dancing around my living room. It is such shame that with digital music this is a dying art,  and while Philip John is correct when he wrote that “Spotify needs to get social” I doubt a shared play-list on Spotify or a recommendation on Mflow would have the same feel good impact as picking up something tangible and knowing that someone made it just for you!

Maybe you are my friend, or maybe we’ve never met before.
Maybe we speak to each other daily, or maybe we’ve never so much as passed on the street.
Maybe I know you virtually in my on-line world of Twitter, of flickr, of moblog  or facebook.
Maybe I know you in the real world and every so often we’ll see each other in the pub or you come to my house and we laugh and joke the night away…
…but but however we may, or may not, know each other friend, family, acquaintance or stranger may I wish you the best for this festive season and a very prosperous new year…..

Merry Christmas.
Steph
xxx