My Grandma introduced

This is Grandma. She has travelled all over the world, but likes nothing better than sitting at home with a piece of cake and a cup of tea and telling stories of her life or of the books she has been reading. She doesn't often leave her flat these days, she's just content where she is and prefers to stay in her comfort zone. She's amazing, so full of knowledge and just a lovely sweet old lady.

Now imagine her with a megaphone!

Breaking News: The Cardigans Do *Not* Like Tea!

I wrote to the Cardigans at 2am this morning, and have already had a response. It was from the bassist Magnus as it always is, and it answers the long debated question, do the Cardigans drink tea?

Hej Mags,
I have two questions for you on this chilly evening, one more serious than the other:
1) Do you have any idea about the release dates for the Best of? HMV is convinced that it is not released until March 3rd for some reason (so I didn't bother ordering today) and every website says something else. I know you have been told the date is 28th Jan in UK, but you probably know, is there normally a difference in release date depending on the record store?
2) Are you Cardigans tea-drinkers when not on the wine? [My friends think I'm obsessed with your music and with tea, so I wondered if they were linked somehow!] And if so, what is your favourite tea?
I really appreciate all the answers to fans in this place, it's wonderful
grinnyguy, 2008-01-27 02:07:35

Hej!

It shouldn´t depend on the record store, but different countries might have different release dates. March sounds very late to me. If so, Universal UK will have problems with imports from EU and why should they risk that? That´s exactly why they´ve demended bonus tracks on the last two albums, since UK albums are more expensive than Dutch for instance. Hmm... Why not order it from Amazon.de to be sure? All Amazon sites have got the same structure so you can order stuff even if you don´t know the language, I am a regular on their French site and I don´t know shit French! ;-)

We´re not big tea drinkers really, but I guess it goes well with our music.
As we say in Sweden, " taste is like the ass, split..." ;-)

Mags
MagnusS, 2008-01-27 09:16:12

Shame even Magnus doesn't know when his record is coming out

Update on "Best of the Cardigans"

Everything is now prepared and ready for the highly anticipated greatest hits album by the Cardigans. However, the record label (Universal) seems to be messing up quite spectacularly, because while the release date according to the band is 28th Jan, Virgin quotes it as 4th Feb and HMV as 3rd March. Indeed, the more you look, the more different dates are quoted. In Belgium, iTunes got hold of the album and included it in their listings, without anyone being able to buy it, and in some parts of Europe people already have the album, even though release in most of Europe is 30th Jan. So yeah, I'm confused.

The tracklisting is:
DISC ONE

1. Rise & Shine 3.29
2. Sick & Tired 3.24
3. After All... 2.56
4. Carnival 3.37
5. Daddy’S Car 3.35
6. Lovefool 3.13
7. Been It 3.41
8. Losers 3.17
9. War 3:56
10. My Favourite Game 3.36
11. Erase/Rewind 3.38
12. Hanging Around 3.44
13. Higher 4:32
14. For What It’s Worth 4.16
15. You’Re The Storm 3.53
16. Live And Learn 4.16
17. Communication 4.28
18. I Need Some Fine Wine And You, You Need To Be Nicer 3.33
19. Don’t Blame Your Daughter (Diamonds) 3.36
20. Godspell 3.29
21. Bonus Track 0:21
22. Burning Down The House (Feat. Tom Jones) 3:38

DISC TWO

1. Pooh Song 03:15
2. After All... [Demo '93] 02:37
3. I Figured Out [Demo '93] 02:05
4. Laika 01:20
5. Plain Parade 03:31
6. Emmerdale 02:25
7. Carnival [Puck Version] 02:52
8. Happy Meal I 2:36
9. Nasty Sunny Beam 2:54
10. Blah Blah Blah 3:00
11. Losers [First Try] 3:16
12. Country Hell 2:47
13. Lovefool [Puck Version] 3:14
14. War [First Try] 4:07
15. Deuce 3:32
16. The Road 6:52
17. Hold Me (Mini Version] 0:36
18. Hold Me 3:40
19. If There Is A Chance 4:15
20. For The Boys 3:37
21. (If You Were) Less Like Me 4:04
22. Slowdown Town 4:08
23. Give Me Your Eyes 3:23
24. Slow 4:01

giving me 10 songs or versions of songs that I do not yet own. It's therefore certainly well worth buying! There's also a 1CD version with the first CD's tracklisting - including all of the singles, for those fans who don't yet own all of the singles. The cover art is a bit odd, but apparently the liner notes have comments from the band on every single song, so they'll be good to read as well. Can't wait

Advice #18

Don't ask

I could do it in my sleep

This phrase could apply to a lot of things it seems. The latest thing is that I read a text message from Lee and replied to it in a coherent way, all in my sleep, only to know nothing of it the next day. Freaky.

In the past, I have also stopped my alarm clock, and instead of simply pressing off or snooze, as would be easiest (particularly when asleep), I set it for three hours later. Freaky.

If I could teach myself to work in my sleep or do something useful, that would be good, but at the moment I'm more afraid of what I'll do next!

Tick tick tick tick tick tick BOOM!

Time scares me. Losing time scares me, and losing time without being in control scares me the most. This manifests itself in many ways.

1) Unless I really have to, I don't embark on anything that I can't duck out of after 10 minutes and decide to use my time differently.
2) I don't use my time well. I sit for hours doing nothing and often get to the end of the day and realise that my whole day has been unfulfilling in every way, and been boring to boot. I'd prefer to waste time, watching the sand flow through the hourglass than use it properly and take my eye off the ball.
3) I don't plan my time well, use a calender or diary only sporadically and frequently miss things and make mistakes as a consequence.

I'm not sure how to beat it though, but I need to if I'm gonna get a degree and a job and not end up as a pauper (thanks to verticalblue for telling me about the pauper part of this terrible scenario)

Malaysian food

The food in Malaysia was fantastic. Lots of chinese style food as well as malaysian specialities. I love chinese food, and malaysian food is pretty good too!

Something I will remember for a long time is a pudding that we had after a very filling buffet dinner of Malaysian food, we were given a bowl, piled as high as would fit with food. It was mainly ice, with a kind of juice at the bottom that tasted vaguely of lychee and contained two jelly-like substances, one of which was little brown cubes and one was bluish stringy things. "Sprinkled" on top was a sauce that seemed to contain mainly sweetcorn and then some chopped nuts on top. Gradually the flavoured ice-stuff melted and we were left with a bowl of witches potion. If anyone knows what it's called, please let me know. It is apparently meant to cool you on a hot evening after a hot meal, and luckily it seemed that we weren't meant to finish it completely, because although I love trying new things, it was a strange taste and there was bloody loads!

Something more horrific in some ways was a large hall in Kota Kinabalu given over to restaurants serving fish where you can choose which animal to eat. Now, personally I don't have any problems with that, if the fish are kept in good conditions. After all, we should face up to what we eat and not try to trick ourselves that food didn't have a life first. However, the tiger prawns were kept in little plastic bottles where they could hardly move. Apparently they are dangerous and will attack the chef when they pick it out of the water, so they are forced to keep them like that. However, at that point, it is surely preferable to kill them straight away before they get to the restaurant and eat them when they are slightly less fresh. I left feeling distinctly uncomfortable and amazed by the scale of it - the hall was probably a square measuring 100m in each direction, with stacks of fish tanks all the way around the sides.

On the whole though, I love their diet of noodles or rice with varieties of stir-fried meat and veg with or without sauce. I could live with that!

Our guide on the river Kinabatangan

Sam was our guide on the trip, and he was fantastic. He had an ability to see monkeys, birds, lizards, crocodiles, wild boar, orang utans and elephants (borneo pygmy ones) from miles away. He directed our boat towards the right tree, and we sat squinting for a minute or so before we saw anything. But once we saw it, it was fantastic watching the animals in the wild. The monkeys come to the river at night, because there are fewer predators, and a whole family sits on a tree overlooking the river. We watched the young ones playing around, and the male making its funny nasal call to shut them up.


Sam is 26. He has never been off Borneo. His family are farmers, and he has a brother and three sisters (I think). He went to his sister's house for christmas, and was really looking forward to it for the days beforehand. He supports Man United. He plays a lot of poker in the evenings. He has only ten days off ever year. He is a legend. A real funky dude, and I'm sure he'd fit in well in a city as well. It was really upliting to get to know a real person from the area and see what they like and how they live. There was a danger in our holiday that we wouldn't manage that, but 3 days with Sam was a good start!

My holiday to Malaysia

Hey, I went to Malaysia over the holiday and I can honestly say it was the best holiday I have ever had. The whole family of us went and it was actually really good to see everyone, and there were hardly any arguments in the trip.

What happened was this:
We flew to Kota Kinabalu, one of the main cities on Borneo (or at least the Malaysian bit, which is the top bit). There are two malaysian provinces in Borneo, Sabah (containing Kota Kinabalu) and Sarawak (not containing Kota Kinabalu)
We stayed in a hotel until 31st December, with the exception of a 3 day trip into the rainforest, travelling up and down the Kinabatangan river and a 2 day trip to climb Mount Kinabalu.
For new year we flew to Kuala Lumpur and met a family who we know because my aunt went to school with the mother. They showed us round and gave us a good time
Then we came home

So it was unlike any Christmas I have ever experienced. I can completely recommend getting away for Christmas, because I reckon that 12 months is not long enough between Christmasses, particlarly because we start hearing Christmas carols around the place from October. And it was a great trip

Advice #17

Plan your mid-life crisis plenty of time in advance. You don't want it to sneak up on you and end up doing something rash by mistake



PS More posts will come in the next week for sure, I've been on holiday so lots to write about