Thursday, August 31, 2006

There will be no white flag above my door

I meant to mention a while ago something I'd seen recently as part of the bloom of St. George's Crosses during the World Cup. One, probably intended for a car but seen sitting on a garage, bore the name of a well-known manufacturer of glue products in one of the white squares. You know, in a lot of countries people would find it offensive to do that to their flag.

The other morning I saw it in the gutter. It had probably been blown there by high winds, but it caught my eye precisely because it hadn't occured to anyone to remove it from there. Myself included actually; and for all that "English" isn't the first word I think of to describe myself, it's odd that it had no effect on me. It only struck me as something I could mention to Laura as a counterpoint to her experiences in the US and as an amusing point to make on the blog. Strange nation, we are.

posted by Chris Brown @ 10:56 pm 0 comments

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

But there's no reason to cry

In recent years there haven't been a lot of reasons to praise the world's record companies. So I thought it was only fair to give some public recognition to Lo-Max Records, the label that released the final Go-Betweens album I mentioned in a previous post. After complaints about the sound quality on the original CD, they not only remastered the album but kindly offered to exchange the discs for those of us who bought the original version at no charge. I got mine by return of post too. How many other labels would do that for you?

One good turn deserves another, so here's a plug: if you haven't got the album at all, you can obtain it in the usual places, or Lo-Max's online shop.

posted by Chris Brown @ 11:16 pm 0 comments