Anoraks, Curved Air & Lazy Blogging

The quality of blogs varies greatly, although it’s safe to say that about 99% are sheer unadulterated crap.  But some of you might find that to be rich coming from me. 

 Blogging takes a variety of forms, but what I really take a dim view of  are those bloggers who just post a link to a clip on Youtube of an amusing incident or a music video without even commenting on it.  They fancy themselves as online DJs, but without the personality.   It doesn’t require any thought or creativity, just copy and paste.  And what also pisses me off are those cheap jokes showing side by side pictures of celebrities who look like each other.  You wouldn’t catch The Dreaming Arm doing that of course.  After a bizarre weekend of Sherlock Holmes (the pub, the film and the ale), inhaling grape-flavoured smoke through a hookah pipe in a Turkish bar, mud on the tracks I need some respite.

In times of economic hardship and cold grey winter days we often look nostalgically to the past for inspiration.  I have a thing about the early ’70s in particular.  So here’s the psychedelic sounds and visions of Curved Air from 1971, featuring the delectable Sonja Kristina on vocals with “Backstreet Luv”. Despite the tacky title it is a fantastic song. It has a hypnotic psychotropic quality about it – the sort of music Sherlock Holmes would have listened to had he been around on those days. Look out for the drummer who bears a passing resemblance to Jimi Hendrix.

چارلز برانسون and bolševník velkolepý

Isn’t WordPress’s “Blog Stats” a fantastic thing? By using blog stats to find out what people typed into their search engine to accidentally discover a link to the Dreaming Arm, I now know that چارلز برانسون is the Persian for Charles Bronson and “bolševník velkolepý” is the Czech for giant hogweed.

Amazing. This knowlede could come in handy next time I need to hire an Iranian hitman to rid the Czech Republic of poisonous invasive plant species.

Friday the 13th Bloggers mini-convention

Despite the inauspicious date, the glamorous confines of Antrim’s Comfort Hotel played host to a meeting of bloggers. Of sorts.

So thanks to Nelly from the Garden,  d@\/e of SE VEN , (and Wendy), Ed who didn’t quite catch it,  Davy Mac,  Sharon, who’s on a Voyage,  and the unforgettable Grannymar (Good luck in Cork – here’s hoping you meet another toyboy down there) for a great evening when the virtual protocols of the blogosphere became real life. 

And not one Paraskavedekatriaphobe among them.

Apparently there was even a short film made about it.

Dreaming Arm Nominated for Irish Blog Award

The Arm is pleased to announce that it has been nominated in the Irish Blog Awards for the best humour blog category. Although not specifically a humour blog per se, we at the Arm always aim to entertain. So thanks for the vote(s) whoever you are! We’re facing some stiff competition in the guise of veteran cyber-comedians like Bock the Robber, Well Done Fillet and of course the legendary Twenty Major, so good luck to all!

Three years of the Dreaming Arm(adillo)

Well it’s now three years since I sent my very first post hurtling into the blogosphere. A very short piece it was too, but as the old saying goes “from a tiny acorn grows the mighty oak”. Back then I was using my elongated blog name “The Dreaming Armadillo”, of which the last three syllables were dropped for expediency – in much the same way as the prog rock band Marillion (formerly known as “The Silmarilion” after the book by JRR Tolkien) shortened their name. Although their truncation was, I believe more connected with legal reasons and fear of copyright litigation. I’ve enjoyed my adventures in the deep, murky and uncharted depths of that vast parallel universe known as the blogosphere and met some interesting and varied people both virtually and physically. Thanks to all readers, contributors, commenters and linkers for their continued support.

I don’t plan to continue blogging for much longer and intend to wind up this blog for at some point in early 2009. It’s got to the stage where enough is enough, although it’s been a fascinating three years. I hope to write a few more posts before this arm dreams for the last time, but for the moment at least it’s business as usual.