Hi Cherryaders, just a quick heads up about an incredibly exciting gig happening tomorrow (Saturday 6th March) at Taurus Bar on Canal Street. Following its amazing debut back in December last year Pussywhipped is back with a fabulous night of punk, electro, riot grrrl and weird musical goodness to kick Canal Street up its disco dolly backside!
Bands are as follows -
CANDY PANIC ATTACK - Cherryade Records finest punk-poppers play a rare Manchester show, coming up from London to give us their sweetie-throwing, pop-punk, riot grrrl flavoured pop. Do not miss!
WILL AND RICK - the strangest duo you will find. Expect leather outfits, saw-playing, theramins and songs about hotdog men and old ladies who give blow jobs.
PETE BENTHAM AND THE DINNER LADIES - Liverpool 3-piece, politically and lyrically perfect. Bouncy punkers with dinner lady outfits and a whole lot of (good) attitude.
SALTYLIPS - You mean you live in Manchester and you haven't seen them perform yet? Queer boy-girl filthy electro performance duo. Truly outrageous and jaw-droppingly entertaining. Expect outfit changes a-go-go and retro electro dancing.
All this and of course, riot grrrl and punk DJing from our favourite TRASH-O-RAMA folks and queer punker STE MCCABE. Dancing until 2am
Four quid entry and of course another free raffle full of musical prizes galore.
Grrrls, boys, punks, queers, everyone - this is YOUR Canal Street night. Dance, sweat, and show 'em what gay culture is really about, yeeeeaaaah!
Hope to see you all there! Plus, if you're still craving more dancing after this then head along to You Me Dancing at Night and Day, a brand new club night our friends from Pull Yourself Together are putting on along with a little help from the wonderful Under Achievers and Asparagus Next Left djs!
Lots of love,
Rach and Adam Cherryade xx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
www.dandelionradio.com
Showing posts with label Adam Cherryade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Adam Cherryade. Show all posts
Friday, 5 March 2010
Monday, 4 January 2010
Ghost of Christmas Past
Hi,
Well, I’d meant to post about Christmas sooner but have been really snowed under (no pun intended) with work when not immersed in the festivities. Anyway, I’ve just taken the big Christmas tree down which makes me sad (though the two little trees stay up all year round along with some of my favourite Christmas ornaments like the Christmas Disney Princesses, the Santa ice cream van, the Santa ornaments whose stomaches somewhat disturbingly open to reveal a Christmas scene, a small bucket of plastic candy canes and lollipops and some realistic plastic sweets I bought for the tree but which looked so good I put them in a bowl in the lounge and hoping Adam Cherryade doesn’t try to eat them!)
Anyway, now the decorations are gone it’s a good time to look back over Christmas.
Christmas was, as usual, a delight. Adam and I spent Christmas with my mum and dad in St. Annes. Christmas week was great fun. My parents had invited some of their friends round on Monday to watch our second round University Challenge match against Kings College London (we won by the way, will post about it soon!) which was surprisingly fun and, in contrast, we went to see the Chuckle Brothers in panto the next day which was lots of fun! Wednesday was spent trying to get all the Christmas food shopping done with my parents which was quite an experience, partly because my parents are the worst shoppers in the world and kept having embarrassingly loud debates about what to buy and my dad kept complaining to staff about everything and partly because strangers kept coming up to me and saying they’d seen me on University Challenge, which is a bit odd, it kept happening after the first time I was on too, didn’t realised so many people watched it! Anyway, we finally got everything for Christmas dinner and that evening Adam Cherryade arrived, he’d had to work until the 23rd but once he’d arrived we were all set up for Christmas which was going to be a nice quiet day with just the four of us. Unfortunately first we had to spend Christmas Eve doing the last of our shopping and delivering presents. Braving Blackpool town centre on Christmas Eve is not much fun. It’s mostly full of pound shops and shops full of things nobody would ever want so trying to buy presents was proving impossible, it’s much cheaper than Manchester but much less impressive, suffice to say Adam Cherryade was close to a nervous breakdown by the time we’d finished, got spotted by more people who’d seen UC too, starting to feel really famous but also incredibly embarrassed! Anyway, after the stress of shopping we had a nice time delivering presents to Aunty Elsie and then to my old friend Rebekah who was also back from Cheltenham to spend Christmas with her family. It was lovely to see her and catch up with her and her family were all there too which was nice. We eventually got home and spent a lovely restful evening watching some great tv.
Had a nice lie-in on Christmas Day before getting up and tackling the important act of present opening. Got some lovely presents this year, new dresses, cds, a DVD of a Muppets Christas Carol to replace my VHS copy, lots of Hello Kitty paraphanalia including plates, a little tin case, a make up bag and throw, a jammy dodger necklace, jam jar and slice of toast necklace, ice cream necklace and a big fruit flan hair clip and lots of other goodies! Adam and mum and dad seemed happy with their presents too, I’d got Adam some clothes and DVDs and we’d bought my mum a black sequined parka.
It was then time to ready ourselves for Christmas dinner, it was mostly ready, mum had cooked the turkey the day before so once we’d got the veg on the go and put the sausages wrapped in bacon in the oven it was pretty much done. We did the usual round of phone calls to family members abroad then watched the queen’s speech before dinner was finally dished up and we tucked in. It was delicious as usual but we were so stuffed after the main course that we only managed a bit of the Christmas pudding, what a shame! The rest of the afternoon was spent dozing in front of the tv before spending the evening dozing in front of the tv, a lovely quiet and peaceful new years day, perfect!
Boxing Day was considerably less peaceful as my uncle Steven and Aunty Jackie, my Aunty Joyce and my cousin Katie and her husband Steven all came to visit for the day, it was lovely to see them all as I haven’t seen them since Katie’s wedding in May.
Sunday was our last day in St. Annes. It had been lovely to spend some time with mum and dad as it’s very rare that we get the chance to go and spend any time with them. We headed back to Manchester to see Adam’s parents before they left for Scotland for new year. We spent a nice evening with them had dinner and exchanged more presents. Got some fantastic presents including a Hello Kitty glitter lamp, 3 Hello Kitty beanie toys, a set of Strawberry Shortcake glasses, a money box in the shape of a strawberry cream cake with a picture of Strawberry Shortcake on it, a money box in the shape of a slice of cake, a trinket box in the shape of a cupcake, a miniature cake stand with tiny cupcakes hainging from it, 2 mugs with cupcakes on, Disney Princess duvet set and a Barbie bath mat (notice a theme? They all fit in beautifully in Cherryade Towers)
Afterwards we finally returned to Cherryade Towers (laden down with bags!) It was so lovely to be back, I’d really missed it! The next few days were very quiet. Nobody was back yet so we put all our new things away and I got lots of work done. New year’s eve was brilliant. We’d been invited to a party at Chorlton where our friends Dave and Kirsty (from Manchester’s premier club night Under Achievers Please Try Harder) were djing, but then we got a text from Beck asking if we wanted to go round to theirs as they were having a party. We only intended to go round for a bit but had such a lovely time that we decided not to treck over to Chorlton in the freezing cold. It was lovely to see Beck and Gaz’s new house and to catch up with Vic and Soph and the all-night games of sing star were a lot of fun, was great to celebrate the new year with babycham, like the old days! Great way to see in the new decade!
New year’s day was very peaceful as was the rest of the weekend. Normal service has resumed now. Adam’s back at work, I’m busy with uni work and nights out resume this weekend, January is always a quiet month though. Sad Christmas is over but sure 2010 is going to be brilliant! Will do a little post about my highlights of 2010 soon!
Our first University Challenge quarter final match against the excellent St. Andrews team is on on Monday (11th Jan) on BBC Two at 8pm.
Happy new year everyone and hope you had a wonderful Christmas!
Rach Cherryade xx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
Well, I’d meant to post about Christmas sooner but have been really snowed under (no pun intended) with work when not immersed in the festivities. Anyway, I’ve just taken the big Christmas tree down which makes me sad (though the two little trees stay up all year round along with some of my favourite Christmas ornaments like the Christmas Disney Princesses, the Santa ice cream van, the Santa ornaments whose stomaches somewhat disturbingly open to reveal a Christmas scene, a small bucket of plastic candy canes and lollipops and some realistic plastic sweets I bought for the tree but which looked so good I put them in a bowl in the lounge and hoping Adam Cherryade doesn’t try to eat them!)
Anyway, now the decorations are gone it’s a good time to look back over Christmas.
Christmas was, as usual, a delight. Adam and I spent Christmas with my mum and dad in St. Annes. Christmas week was great fun. My parents had invited some of their friends round on Monday to watch our second round University Challenge match against Kings College London (we won by the way, will post about it soon!) which was surprisingly fun and, in contrast, we went to see the Chuckle Brothers in panto the next day which was lots of fun! Wednesday was spent trying to get all the Christmas food shopping done with my parents which was quite an experience, partly because my parents are the worst shoppers in the world and kept having embarrassingly loud debates about what to buy and my dad kept complaining to staff about everything and partly because strangers kept coming up to me and saying they’d seen me on University Challenge, which is a bit odd, it kept happening after the first time I was on too, didn’t realised so many people watched it! Anyway, we finally got everything for Christmas dinner and that evening Adam Cherryade arrived, he’d had to work until the 23rd but once he’d arrived we were all set up for Christmas which was going to be a nice quiet day with just the four of us. Unfortunately first we had to spend Christmas Eve doing the last of our shopping and delivering presents. Braving Blackpool town centre on Christmas Eve is not much fun. It’s mostly full of pound shops and shops full of things nobody would ever want so trying to buy presents was proving impossible, it’s much cheaper than Manchester but much less impressive, suffice to say Adam Cherryade was close to a nervous breakdown by the time we’d finished, got spotted by more people who’d seen UC too, starting to feel really famous but also incredibly embarrassed! Anyway, after the stress of shopping we had a nice time delivering presents to Aunty Elsie and then to my old friend Rebekah who was also back from Cheltenham to spend Christmas with her family. It was lovely to see her and catch up with her and her family were all there too which was nice. We eventually got home and spent a lovely restful evening watching some great tv.
Had a nice lie-in on Christmas Day before getting up and tackling the important act of present opening. Got some lovely presents this year, new dresses, cds, a DVD of a Muppets Christas Carol to replace my VHS copy, lots of Hello Kitty paraphanalia including plates, a little tin case, a make up bag and throw, a jammy dodger necklace, jam jar and slice of toast necklace, ice cream necklace and a big fruit flan hair clip and lots of other goodies! Adam and mum and dad seemed happy with their presents too, I’d got Adam some clothes and DVDs and we’d bought my mum a black sequined parka.
It was then time to ready ourselves for Christmas dinner, it was mostly ready, mum had cooked the turkey the day before so once we’d got the veg on the go and put the sausages wrapped in bacon in the oven it was pretty much done. We did the usual round of phone calls to family members abroad then watched the queen’s speech before dinner was finally dished up and we tucked in. It was delicious as usual but we were so stuffed after the main course that we only managed a bit of the Christmas pudding, what a shame! The rest of the afternoon was spent dozing in front of the tv before spending the evening dozing in front of the tv, a lovely quiet and peaceful new years day, perfect!
Boxing Day was considerably less peaceful as my uncle Steven and Aunty Jackie, my Aunty Joyce and my cousin Katie and her husband Steven all came to visit for the day, it was lovely to see them all as I haven’t seen them since Katie’s wedding in May.
Sunday was our last day in St. Annes. It had been lovely to spend some time with mum and dad as it’s very rare that we get the chance to go and spend any time with them. We headed back to Manchester to see Adam’s parents before they left for Scotland for new year. We spent a nice evening with them had dinner and exchanged more presents. Got some fantastic presents including a Hello Kitty glitter lamp, 3 Hello Kitty beanie toys, a set of Strawberry Shortcake glasses, a money box in the shape of a strawberry cream cake with a picture of Strawberry Shortcake on it, a money box in the shape of a slice of cake, a trinket box in the shape of a cupcake, a miniature cake stand with tiny cupcakes hainging from it, 2 mugs with cupcakes on, Disney Princess duvet set and a Barbie bath mat (notice a theme? They all fit in beautifully in Cherryade Towers)
Afterwards we finally returned to Cherryade Towers (laden down with bags!) It was so lovely to be back, I’d really missed it! The next few days were very quiet. Nobody was back yet so we put all our new things away and I got lots of work done. New year’s eve was brilliant. We’d been invited to a party at Chorlton where our friends Dave and Kirsty (from Manchester’s premier club night Under Achievers Please Try Harder) were djing, but then we got a text from Beck asking if we wanted to go round to theirs as they were having a party. We only intended to go round for a bit but had such a lovely time that we decided not to treck over to Chorlton in the freezing cold. It was lovely to see Beck and Gaz’s new house and to catch up with Vic and Soph and the all-night games of sing star were a lot of fun, was great to celebrate the new year with babycham, like the old days! Great way to see in the new decade!
New year’s day was very peaceful as was the rest of the weekend. Normal service has resumed now. Adam’s back at work, I’m busy with uni work and nights out resume this weekend, January is always a quiet month though. Sad Christmas is over but sure 2010 is going to be brilliant! Will do a little post about my highlights of 2010 soon!
Our first University Challenge quarter final match against the excellent St. Andrews team is on on Monday (11th Jan) on BBC Two at 8pm.
Happy new year everyone and hope you had a wonderful Christmas!
Rach Cherryade xx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
Sunday, 20 December 2009
University Challenge round 2 and more Christmas stuff
Hi Cherryaders!
Hope you’re all enjoying the snow as much as I am! It’s absolutely beautiful, yesterday we went out to the Christmas markets and walked around in the snow in the shadow of the giant Santa on top of the town hall before going home to prepare Cherryade Towers for our little Christmas party, we had a lovely evening and it was so nice to see everyone! I’m now back in St. Annes with my parents for Christmas and Adam Cherryade will be joining me on Wednesday when he finishes work. We made snowmen and snowballs before I left which was great!
Our second round University Challenge match against Kings College London will be on tomorrow night (21st December) at 8.00pm on BBC Two or you can watch it for a week after on Iplayer, tune in to see if we can make it to the quarter finals!
In other news, I’ve been very busy with uni work so have been at home a lot, but, this has meant that I’ve had lovely Christmas tv (hello Slow Club, I love your song but this is about actual TV!) constantly on in the background (I like a bit of background noise to help me concentrate!) I’ll watch any old crap as long as it’s about Christmas, in fact as far as Christmas TV goes, the tackier the better! So, some TV highlights:
Sweep (Sooty’s pal) singing ‘Away in a Manger’ on the Alan Titchmarsh show
Kirsty Allsopp explaining how easy and economical a home-made Christmas can be but making it look anything but on Channel 4
The Hairy Bikers cooking and being cheerful while cooking for their celeb mates
The Paul O’Grady Christmas pantomime
What’s been disappointing is the lack of Nigella Lawson on our screens. I don’t like cookery programmes usually (well, apart from at Christmas) but I will watch anything with Nigella in, I know she’s an obvious crush but she is lovely! Some of her recipes are deadly though!
Also a reminder that the Dandelion Radio Festive Fifty will be broadcast from midnight on Christmas Day but don't worry if you miss it as it will be repeated every day throughout December and January along with the other brilliant Dandelion shows here:
www.dandelionradio.com
tune in to say if your favourites made it in!
Anyway, hope you’re all enjoying Christmas as much as I am, will try and get another post up, probably about University Challenge, before the big day!
Finally, another rollover advent calendar update:
17th December: chocolate Christmas pudding and picture of Hello Kitty with present
18th December: chocolate star and picture of Hello Kitty dressed as one of Santa’s elves and holding paint brush and hammer
19th December: chocolate shepherd (again) and a picture of Hello Kitty holding a holly wreath.
20th December: chocolate holly leaf and picture of Hello Kitty decorating a Christmas tree
Lots of Christmas love,
Rach Cherryade xx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
www.dandelionradio.com
Hope you’re all enjoying the snow as much as I am! It’s absolutely beautiful, yesterday we went out to the Christmas markets and walked around in the snow in the shadow of the giant Santa on top of the town hall before going home to prepare Cherryade Towers for our little Christmas party, we had a lovely evening and it was so nice to see everyone! I’m now back in St. Annes with my parents for Christmas and Adam Cherryade will be joining me on Wednesday when he finishes work. We made snowmen and snowballs before I left which was great!
Our second round University Challenge match against Kings College London will be on tomorrow night (21st December) at 8.00pm on BBC Two or you can watch it for a week after on Iplayer, tune in to see if we can make it to the quarter finals!
In other news, I’ve been very busy with uni work so have been at home a lot, but, this has meant that I’ve had lovely Christmas tv (hello Slow Club, I love your song but this is about actual TV!) constantly on in the background (I like a bit of background noise to help me concentrate!) I’ll watch any old crap as long as it’s about Christmas, in fact as far as Christmas TV goes, the tackier the better! So, some TV highlights:
Sweep (Sooty’s pal) singing ‘Away in a Manger’ on the Alan Titchmarsh show
Kirsty Allsopp explaining how easy and economical a home-made Christmas can be but making it look anything but on Channel 4
The Hairy Bikers cooking and being cheerful while cooking for their celeb mates
The Paul O’Grady Christmas pantomime
What’s been disappointing is the lack of Nigella Lawson on our screens. I don’t like cookery programmes usually (well, apart from at Christmas) but I will watch anything with Nigella in, I know she’s an obvious crush but she is lovely! Some of her recipes are deadly though!
Also a reminder that the Dandelion Radio Festive Fifty will be broadcast from midnight on Christmas Day but don't worry if you miss it as it will be repeated every day throughout December and January along with the other brilliant Dandelion shows here:
www.dandelionradio.com
tune in to say if your favourites made it in!
Anyway, hope you’re all enjoying Christmas as much as I am, will try and get another post up, probably about University Challenge, before the big day!
Finally, another rollover advent calendar update:
17th December: chocolate Christmas pudding and picture of Hello Kitty with present
18th December: chocolate star and picture of Hello Kitty dressed as one of Santa’s elves and holding paint brush and hammer
19th December: chocolate shepherd (again) and a picture of Hello Kitty holding a holly wreath.
20th December: chocolate holly leaf and picture of Hello Kitty decorating a Christmas tree
Lots of Christmas love,
Rach Cherryade xx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
www.dandelionradio.com
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Christmas albums I love (and you should too!)
As promised, here is a bit about my favourite Christmas music and why I love it so much. Firstly, here’s a list of my favourite Christmas albums:
A Very Cherry Christmas volumes 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 (obviously!)
I know I’m biased but they really are amazing, I started compiling these albums to satisfy my own love of Christmas music, so the fact that others love them too is amazing, some of the best bands in the world have appeared on these compilations, and they are far more than a seasonal novelty, all the songs on all 5 volumes mean a great deal to me and I am so happy and honoured that so many wonderful bands have been willing to participate. If you haven’t heard them you can buy all 5 cds for only £18 + p and p here:
www.cherryademusic.co.uk/buyavcc5.html
Other (non Cherryade) festive albums I love include:
Get Thee Behind Me Santa (Skinny Dog)
Compiled by the inimitable Spinmaster Plantpot, this is a unique and truly special compilation released in 2002 which has inspired my love of Christmas music more than almost anything else. Featuring truly amazing Christmas songs from the likes of Jeffrey Lewis, Zombina and the Skeletones, Prewar Yardsale, Fun Size Lions, Major Matt Mason USA, Paul The Girl, Herman Dune, Flamingo 50, Jack Hayter and loads more, it really is one of the great over-looked compilations of our time and something everyone should own.
A Christmas Gift From Fortuna Pop! Volumes 1 and 2 (Fortuna Pop!)
One of my favourite indiepop labels of all time, London’s all-conquering Fortuna Pop! Was even kind enough to release two truly beautiful seasonal mini-albums earlier this decade, featuring utterly magical and spell-binding contributions from the likes of The Aislers Set, Home Science, The Chemistry Experiment, Airport Girl, The Action Time, The Pines, Butterflies Of Love, The Loves, Sportique and, of course, Bearsuit! These are ‘proper’ Christmas albums, not ironic, they instantly make you feel Christmassy, these cds are for me what the Phil Spektor Christmas album is for others, while I am very fond of the Phil Spektor album, it doesn’t evoke the season for me in the same way that these Fortuna Pop! Compilations do.
The World In Winter (Cherry Red)
A label which should need absolutely no introduction, and the same should be able to be said about this lovely Christmas compilation. Featuring a selection of the legendary label’s wonderful roster, this is a truly essential compilation of heartfelt and gorgeous songs, a must for fans of Cherry Red and Christmas music alike!
It’s A Cool Cool Christmas (XFM)
Released to raise money for Shelter back in 2002, this compilation, as you might expect from anything with an XFM endorsement (not including you in that Jon Kennedy, we love you, you’re ace, just mean the rest of the predictable dross most XFM djs play!) is not entirely without its fair share of duff tracks from bands who should know better (yes, I’m looking at you Flaming Lips!), and some expected dross from musical wallpaper like Snow Patrol. However, it’s worth it for Belle and Sebastian’s truly beautiful rendition of ‘O Come OCome Emmanuel’, lovely Lauren Laverne’s version of ‘In The Bleak Midwinter’, Gorkys’ Welsh Christmas interlude and the haunting Drugstore track. Also, a few bands I don’t usually have a lot of time for, such as Grandaddy and Eels pleasantly surprise with their contributions, not a bad album then and all for a good cause!
Gold, Frankincense and Purr (Purr Records)
Compiled by probably the UK’s leading expert on Christmas music, Gareth of Lipstick On Your Collar and Go Ape fame, this is a truly special compilation released on Bath’s Purr Records a few years ago. As well as the brilliant pun of the title, there are truly memorable wonky pop songs from the likes of the sadly missed Motormark, The Seven Inches, Bucky, Velodrome 2000 and many more. Only problem is you’re highly unlikely to be able to find a copy anywhere as it sold out years ago!
Cwistmas Twee (Total Gaylord)
Now, I don’t know much about Total Gaylord as a label but this is a perfect little indiepop compilation bringinging together some of America’s finest exponents of twee with seasonal offerings from the likes of The Icicles, The Specific Heats, Lil Hospital, Colin Clary and even a Chanukah themed song from The Smittens!
An Indiecator Christmas (volumes 1 and 2)
Recent additions to the festive canon, with vol. 1 being released last year and vol. 2 just out. More sublime indiepop thrills from an international selection box of artists from the tweecore underground, very nice indeed!
12 Days Of Christmas Bubblewrap)
Another compilation that’s new for 2009. Fabulous Cardiff supergroup Little My came up with the idea of asking 11 of their favourite bands to record a song based on one of the gifts mentioned in the 12 Days of Christmas. This 12 track beauty is the result, with the likes of The School and The Bobby McGee’s joining Little My in rethinking the Christmas favourite, an absolutely brilliant little album, perfect Christmas present!
A Kindercore Christmas (Kindercore)
A lovely holiday compilation from the legendary Athens, Georgia based label, featuring label bands and friends, a real treasure trove of seasonal treats!
Ho! Ho! Ho! casgliad o ganeuon nadolidd
This Welsh language Christmas compilation was released and compiled by Radio 1 superstar dj Huw Stephens in 2006 and is very lovely indeed, even though I don’t speak any Welsh, I do speak the international language of sleighbells which are in abundance here!
A Homocrime Christmas (Homocrime)
A compilation released by the legendary club night in around 2002, it captures the spirit of the night perfectly and features truly awesome queer artists such as Blue Minkies, good luck tracking it down though!
Filthy Little Angels Christmas compilations (Filthy Little Angels)
One of the best and most exciting labels around, FLA are also extraordinarily generous and give away loads of amazing free downloads. This has been the case with their bumper annual Christmas compilations which have always been free downloads. This is the fifth in the series and boasts an eye-watering selection of amazing seasonal hits, you can download it free from:
www.filthylittleangels.com
where you can also celebrate their fifth anniversary with them by downloading another free treat, a ‘best of FLA’ compilation absolutely bursting with some of the best songs by the best bands you’ll ever hear!
Right, that’s enough for now, in a few days I’ll post something about my favourite Christmas songs that aren’t on these albums, there’s a Christmas tv post coming too!
Cherry Christmas love,
Rach Cherryade xxx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
www.dandelionradio.com
advent calendar update:
December 15th: chocolate shepherd and picture of Hello Kitty in Santa suit waving
December 16th: chocolate penguin and picture of Hello Kitty in a Christmas stocking
A Very Cherry Christmas volumes 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 (obviously!)
I know I’m biased but they really are amazing, I started compiling these albums to satisfy my own love of Christmas music, so the fact that others love them too is amazing, some of the best bands in the world have appeared on these compilations, and they are far more than a seasonal novelty, all the songs on all 5 volumes mean a great deal to me and I am so happy and honoured that so many wonderful bands have been willing to participate. If you haven’t heard them you can buy all 5 cds for only £18 + p and p here:
www.cherryademusic.co.uk/buyavcc5.html
Other (non Cherryade) festive albums I love include:
Get Thee Behind Me Santa (Skinny Dog)
Compiled by the inimitable Spinmaster Plantpot, this is a unique and truly special compilation released in 2002 which has inspired my love of Christmas music more than almost anything else. Featuring truly amazing Christmas songs from the likes of Jeffrey Lewis, Zombina and the Skeletones, Prewar Yardsale, Fun Size Lions, Major Matt Mason USA, Paul The Girl, Herman Dune, Flamingo 50, Jack Hayter and loads more, it really is one of the great over-looked compilations of our time and something everyone should own.
A Christmas Gift From Fortuna Pop! Volumes 1 and 2 (Fortuna Pop!)
One of my favourite indiepop labels of all time, London’s all-conquering Fortuna Pop! Was even kind enough to release two truly beautiful seasonal mini-albums earlier this decade, featuring utterly magical and spell-binding contributions from the likes of The Aislers Set, Home Science, The Chemistry Experiment, Airport Girl, The Action Time, The Pines, Butterflies Of Love, The Loves, Sportique and, of course, Bearsuit! These are ‘proper’ Christmas albums, not ironic, they instantly make you feel Christmassy, these cds are for me what the Phil Spektor Christmas album is for others, while I am very fond of the Phil Spektor album, it doesn’t evoke the season for me in the same way that these Fortuna Pop! Compilations do.
The World In Winter (Cherry Red)
A label which should need absolutely no introduction, and the same should be able to be said about this lovely Christmas compilation. Featuring a selection of the legendary label’s wonderful roster, this is a truly essential compilation of heartfelt and gorgeous songs, a must for fans of Cherry Red and Christmas music alike!
It’s A Cool Cool Christmas (XFM)
Released to raise money for Shelter back in 2002, this compilation, as you might expect from anything with an XFM endorsement (not including you in that Jon Kennedy, we love you, you’re ace, just mean the rest of the predictable dross most XFM djs play!) is not entirely without its fair share of duff tracks from bands who should know better (yes, I’m looking at you Flaming Lips!), and some expected dross from musical wallpaper like Snow Patrol. However, it’s worth it for Belle and Sebastian’s truly beautiful rendition of ‘O Come OCome Emmanuel’, lovely Lauren Laverne’s version of ‘In The Bleak Midwinter’, Gorkys’ Welsh Christmas interlude and the haunting Drugstore track. Also, a few bands I don’t usually have a lot of time for, such as Grandaddy and Eels pleasantly surprise with their contributions, not a bad album then and all for a good cause!
Gold, Frankincense and Purr (Purr Records)
Compiled by probably the UK’s leading expert on Christmas music, Gareth of Lipstick On Your Collar and Go Ape fame, this is a truly special compilation released on Bath’s Purr Records a few years ago. As well as the brilliant pun of the title, there are truly memorable wonky pop songs from the likes of the sadly missed Motormark, The Seven Inches, Bucky, Velodrome 2000 and many more. Only problem is you’re highly unlikely to be able to find a copy anywhere as it sold out years ago!
Cwistmas Twee (Total Gaylord)
Now, I don’t know much about Total Gaylord as a label but this is a perfect little indiepop compilation bringinging together some of America’s finest exponents of twee with seasonal offerings from the likes of The Icicles, The Specific Heats, Lil Hospital, Colin Clary and even a Chanukah themed song from The Smittens!
An Indiecator Christmas (volumes 1 and 2)
Recent additions to the festive canon, with vol. 1 being released last year and vol. 2 just out. More sublime indiepop thrills from an international selection box of artists from the tweecore underground, very nice indeed!
12 Days Of Christmas Bubblewrap)
Another compilation that’s new for 2009. Fabulous Cardiff supergroup Little My came up with the idea of asking 11 of their favourite bands to record a song based on one of the gifts mentioned in the 12 Days of Christmas. This 12 track beauty is the result, with the likes of The School and The Bobby McGee’s joining Little My in rethinking the Christmas favourite, an absolutely brilliant little album, perfect Christmas present!
A Kindercore Christmas (Kindercore)
A lovely holiday compilation from the legendary Athens, Georgia based label, featuring label bands and friends, a real treasure trove of seasonal treats!
Ho! Ho! Ho! casgliad o ganeuon nadolidd
This Welsh language Christmas compilation was released and compiled by Radio 1 superstar dj Huw Stephens in 2006 and is very lovely indeed, even though I don’t speak any Welsh, I do speak the international language of sleighbells which are in abundance here!
A Homocrime Christmas (Homocrime)
A compilation released by the legendary club night in around 2002, it captures the spirit of the night perfectly and features truly awesome queer artists such as Blue Minkies, good luck tracking it down though!
Filthy Little Angels Christmas compilations (Filthy Little Angels)
One of the best and most exciting labels around, FLA are also extraordinarily generous and give away loads of amazing free downloads. This has been the case with their bumper annual Christmas compilations which have always been free downloads. This is the fifth in the series and boasts an eye-watering selection of amazing seasonal hits, you can download it free from:
www.filthylittleangels.com
where you can also celebrate their fifth anniversary with them by downloading another free treat, a ‘best of FLA’ compilation absolutely bursting with some of the best songs by the best bands you’ll ever hear!
Right, that’s enough for now, in a few days I’ll post something about my favourite Christmas songs that aren’t on these albums, there’s a Christmas tv post coming too!
Cherry Christmas love,
Rach Cherryade xxx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
www.dandelionradio.com
advent calendar update:
December 15th: chocolate shepherd and picture of Hello Kitty in Santa suit waving
December 16th: chocolate penguin and picture of Hello Kitty in a Christmas stocking
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
A Very Cherry Christmas party
Ah, it’s been a busy old week. As I’d mentioned, The Lovely Eggs and Schwervon gig on Tuesday was magnificent. On Wednesday and Thursday I was very busy with uni work. All was going well, I had a lot to do but was running to schedule. I had a number of important things to do on Friday, a lot of seminars to go to and forms to drop off, but unfortunately on Thursday night I started with a migraine, I hoped it would be gone by Friday morning but, of course, it hadn’t, I had to cancel all my appointments (I could barely send the e-mails so making my way into town seemed a very bad idea!) I then spent the rest of what should have been a productive day trying to get ridof the migraine and panicing about everything I was missing, also I was worried it wouldn’t ease off in time for the Cherryade Christmas party on Saturday. Luckily, by Friday afternoon I’d started to feel much better and so was up bright and early on Saturday to go into town and get last minute bits for the Christmas gig. I still wasn’t feeling quite right so went home and had a nap in the afternoon before Adam picked up Jimmy from the Bobby McGee’s from the bus station and brought him back to Cherryade Towers.
It was lovely to see Jimmy, we haven’t seen him in ages and it’s always great to catch up! Unfortunately Eleanor couldn’t be at the gig because she was at a fashion show in London showing some of her wonderful dresses, she’s a very talented dress maker!
Jimmy managed to add plenty of new pictures to his latest project ‘Elvis and the ladies’ (pictures of girls holding a Lego Elvis) that night managing to get pictures with most of the leading ladies of the Manchester music scene who were there that night, all the photos are on Facebook if you want to see them!
I went and changed into my fairy outfit (it has to get worn as much in December as possible cause I love it and can’t wear it the rest of the year! Anyway, once I was ready and had prised Adam away from the snooker we all set off to Café Saki to be there for the soundcheck and setting up.
Soph was already there and had everything under control. Soph is incredibly organised and just generally amazing, the night would never have happened without her!
Anyway, all the bands turned up, soundcheck went ahead and we were ready to get started on time. Only problem was that it was still a bit quiet though this was soon remedied as lots of people arrived just in time. Rebecca (looking lovely in her newly made elf outfit, she’s incredibly creative!) kicked off proceedings by reading her beautiful Christmas poem before explaining the rules of Christmas song bingo (everyone got a bingo card with names of Christmas songs on it which they had to tick off if they heard the songs while we were djing between bands, prizes for a line and full house!) and then introduced Jimmy who played a brilliant solo set and everyone loved him, who doesn’s? He asked Lauren from Shrieking Violets and Marble Krusher to join him with a bit of impromptue trumpet playing on ‘There’s A Place’ and played a selection of favourites and new songs and got the night off to an awesome start!
Next came The Shrieking Violets who played a really lovely set, they’ve got some beautiful songs and are great musicians too, I love Natalie’s distinctive voice as well! After that came Doris and the Jumpers, they seem to get better every time I see them, their songs are amazing and they shone despite a few sound issues, especially impressive was April’s dressing as a parcel for the performance of their Christmas song with Natalie Shrieking Violet on violin. Unfortunately, it all got a bit quiet after Doris and sadly there weren’t many people left to watch the last band of the night, The 10p Mixes, who played a wonderful set mixing their own songs with a selection of festive covers including Christmas Is Cancelled (originally by The Long Blondes) and Fairytale of New York, those who stuck around were in for a real treat!
Adam and I played Christmas songs between bands and for a little bit afterwards before packing up at about 1.30am.
I’d like to thank Soph for making the whole night happen and generally being a brilliant friend and organiser, Dave and Kirsty Under Achievers for letting us have our Christmas party downstairs at their fab night, Rebecca for compering and reading her poem, Jimmy McGee, Shrieking Violets, The 10p Mixes and Doris and the Jumpers for performing and everyone who came down to watch! We had a great time!
Christmas love,
Rach Cherryade xxx
Ps advent update: December 14th chocolate tree and a picture of Hello Kitty dressed as Santa in fake beard and all!
It was lovely to see Jimmy, we haven’t seen him in ages and it’s always great to catch up! Unfortunately Eleanor couldn’t be at the gig because she was at a fashion show in London showing some of her wonderful dresses, she’s a very talented dress maker!
Jimmy managed to add plenty of new pictures to his latest project ‘Elvis and the ladies’ (pictures of girls holding a Lego Elvis) that night managing to get pictures with most of the leading ladies of the Manchester music scene who were there that night, all the photos are on Facebook if you want to see them!
I went and changed into my fairy outfit (it has to get worn as much in December as possible cause I love it and can’t wear it the rest of the year! Anyway, once I was ready and had prised Adam away from the snooker we all set off to Café Saki to be there for the soundcheck and setting up.
Soph was already there and had everything under control. Soph is incredibly organised and just generally amazing, the night would never have happened without her!
Anyway, all the bands turned up, soundcheck went ahead and we were ready to get started on time. Only problem was that it was still a bit quiet though this was soon remedied as lots of people arrived just in time. Rebecca (looking lovely in her newly made elf outfit, she’s incredibly creative!) kicked off proceedings by reading her beautiful Christmas poem before explaining the rules of Christmas song bingo (everyone got a bingo card with names of Christmas songs on it which they had to tick off if they heard the songs while we were djing between bands, prizes for a line and full house!) and then introduced Jimmy who played a brilliant solo set and everyone loved him, who doesn’s? He asked Lauren from Shrieking Violets and Marble Krusher to join him with a bit of impromptue trumpet playing on ‘There’s A Place’ and played a selection of favourites and new songs and got the night off to an awesome start!
Next came The Shrieking Violets who played a really lovely set, they’ve got some beautiful songs and are great musicians too, I love Natalie’s distinctive voice as well! After that came Doris and the Jumpers, they seem to get better every time I see them, their songs are amazing and they shone despite a few sound issues, especially impressive was April’s dressing as a parcel for the performance of their Christmas song with Natalie Shrieking Violet on violin. Unfortunately, it all got a bit quiet after Doris and sadly there weren’t many people left to watch the last band of the night, The 10p Mixes, who played a wonderful set mixing their own songs with a selection of festive covers including Christmas Is Cancelled (originally by The Long Blondes) and Fairytale of New York, those who stuck around were in for a real treat!
Adam and I played Christmas songs between bands and for a little bit afterwards before packing up at about 1.30am.
I’d like to thank Soph for making the whole night happen and generally being a brilliant friend and organiser, Dave and Kirsty Under Achievers for letting us have our Christmas party downstairs at their fab night, Rebecca for compering and reading her poem, Jimmy McGee, Shrieking Violets, The 10p Mixes and Doris and the Jumpers for performing and everyone who came down to watch! We had a great time!
Christmas love,
Rach Cherryade xxx
Ps advent update: December 14th chocolate tree and a picture of Hello Kitty dressed as Santa in fake beard and all!
Wednesday, 9 December 2009
A Very Cherry Christmas party
Hi Cherryaders!
The Cherryade Christmas party in collaboration with Under Achievers Please Try Harder is nearly upon us so here are the details, hope lots of uyou can make it, it’s going to be amazing:
Where? Café Saki, Rusholme, downstairs
When? Saturday December 12th 9pm-3am
What? The Christmas party of the year with Christmas bingo, an all night Christmas disco, lots of Christmas treats and a present from Santa for everyone who comes and live performances from the following bands (stage times are subject to change)
11.15pm The 10p Mixes
10.45pm The Shrieking Violets
10.15pm Doris and the Jumpers
9.30pm Jimmy from The Bobby McGee’s (solo set)
9.20pm Poetry reading by Rebecca Willmott
Also, there’ll be the usual brilliant Under Achievers djs upstairs if all the festive cheer is getting a bit much for you! All for only £4!
Copiesof A Very Cherry Christmas vol. 5 will also be available on the night. All of the artists performing on the night have tracks on the compilation. You can find out more about the album here:
www.cherryademusic.co.uk/buyavcc5.html
Lots of Cherry Christmas love,
Rach Cherryade xxx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
p.s. Dec 9th advent calendar update: chocolate teddy with bow and a picture of another teddy lying down next to some presents.
The Cherryade Christmas party in collaboration with Under Achievers Please Try Harder is nearly upon us so here are the details, hope lots of uyou can make it, it’s going to be amazing:
Where? Café Saki, Rusholme, downstairs
When? Saturday December 12th 9pm-3am
What? The Christmas party of the year with Christmas bingo, an all night Christmas disco, lots of Christmas treats and a present from Santa for everyone who comes and live performances from the following bands (stage times are subject to change)
11.15pm The 10p Mixes
10.45pm The Shrieking Violets
10.15pm Doris and the Jumpers
9.30pm Jimmy from The Bobby McGee’s (solo set)
9.20pm Poetry reading by Rebecca Willmott
Also, there’ll be the usual brilliant Under Achievers djs upstairs if all the festive cheer is getting a bit much for you! All for only £4!
Copiesof A Very Cherry Christmas vol. 5 will also be available on the night. All of the artists performing on the night have tracks on the compilation. You can find out more about the album here:
www.cherryademusic.co.uk/buyavcc5.html
Lots of Cherry Christmas love,
Rach Cherryade xxx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
p.s. Dec 9th advent calendar update: chocolate teddy with bow and a picture of another teddy lying down next to some presents.
The return of Christmas
So, lots of festive stuff to catch up with since our return from ATP, I’ll try and post about the weekend later, but, right now, here is a bit of a festive round-up for you:
Firstly, advent calendar updates, in case you thought I’d forgotten! This is quite a long list as we’ve been away for a few days:
Dec 5th: chocolate sleigh and a picture of Hello Kitty wearing a Santa hat
Dec 6th: chocolate nativity scene and a picture of Hello Kitty hugging a giant candy cane
Dec 7th: chocolate reindeer and another picture of Hello Kitty wearing a Santa hat
Dec 8th: chocolate snowman and a picture of Hello Kitty wearing scarf and gloves and holding a pile of presents
Some recent Christmas activities have included trips to the lovely Manchester Christmas markets, essential if you’ve never been, all kinds of delicious festive food and drink from all over the world, mulled wine, gingerbread, chocolates, chestnuts, cheese, meat and all kinds of goodies, plus it’s near the town hall with the giant Santa and the decorations are beautiful and there’s Christmas music wherever you go! Adam is particularly fond of the giant bratwursts!
We also caught The School, Little My and Help Stamp Out Loneliness at a gig at Star and Garter where both The School and Little My performed their brilliant Christmas songs as part of their wonderful sets! We also saw Marble Krusher at Fuel where they played a great set as including their Christmas song ‘Summer Toys (Winter Version), which, by an amazing coincidence, you can find along with The School’s Christmas track on A Very Cherry Christmas 5 available here:
www.cherryademusic.co.uk/buyavcc5.html
plus, if that weren’t enough you can be all five volumes (vol. 4 actually features the Little My Christmas song) for only £18 + p and p at the same link!
Last night we went to see The Lovely Eggs and Schwervon at Café Saki. What an amazing gig, I’ve already raved extensively about the genius of The Lovely Eggs and last night was no exception. What made it extra special was the fact that they played both of their Christmas songs ‘I’m Going To Build My Snowman Better Than Yours’ and ‘Tyranosaurus Rex for Christmas’, both of which are, amazingly enough, available on volumes of a Very Cherry Christmas which you can buy from the link above! Also playing were New York’s Schwervon who played a fabulous set, brilliant songs and really lovely people too, plus we got to catch up with Dave and Kirsty, Soph and Paul, Drew, Selina, Marcus and Ste, great night all round!
Will post about Christmas music and tv over the next few days,
Lots of cherry Christmas love,
Rach Cherryade xxx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
www.dandelionradio.com
Firstly, advent calendar updates, in case you thought I’d forgotten! This is quite a long list as we’ve been away for a few days:
Dec 5th: chocolate sleigh and a picture of Hello Kitty wearing a Santa hat
Dec 6th: chocolate nativity scene and a picture of Hello Kitty hugging a giant candy cane
Dec 7th: chocolate reindeer and another picture of Hello Kitty wearing a Santa hat
Dec 8th: chocolate snowman and a picture of Hello Kitty wearing scarf and gloves and holding a pile of presents
Some recent Christmas activities have included trips to the lovely Manchester Christmas markets, essential if you’ve never been, all kinds of delicious festive food and drink from all over the world, mulled wine, gingerbread, chocolates, chestnuts, cheese, meat and all kinds of goodies, plus it’s near the town hall with the giant Santa and the decorations are beautiful and there’s Christmas music wherever you go! Adam is particularly fond of the giant bratwursts!
We also caught The School, Little My and Help Stamp Out Loneliness at a gig at Star and Garter where both The School and Little My performed their brilliant Christmas songs as part of their wonderful sets! We also saw Marble Krusher at Fuel where they played a great set as including their Christmas song ‘Summer Toys (Winter Version), which, by an amazing coincidence, you can find along with The School’s Christmas track on A Very Cherry Christmas 5 available here:
www.cherryademusic.co.uk/buyavcc5.html
plus, if that weren’t enough you can be all five volumes (vol. 4 actually features the Little My Christmas song) for only £18 + p and p at the same link!
Last night we went to see The Lovely Eggs and Schwervon at Café Saki. What an amazing gig, I’ve already raved extensively about the genius of The Lovely Eggs and last night was no exception. What made it extra special was the fact that they played both of their Christmas songs ‘I’m Going To Build My Snowman Better Than Yours’ and ‘Tyranosaurus Rex for Christmas’, both of which are, amazingly enough, available on volumes of a Very Cherry Christmas which you can buy from the link above! Also playing were New York’s Schwervon who played a fabulous set, brilliant songs and really lovely people too, plus we got to catch up with Dave and Kirsty, Soph and Paul, Drew, Selina, Marcus and Ste, great night all round!
Will post about Christmas music and tv over the next few days,
Lots of cherry Christmas love,
Rach Cherryade xxx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
www.dandelionradio.com
Thursday, 3 December 2009
The third/fourth day of Christmas
As I suspected, I've not had time to finish writing up my post about favourite Christmas music, I'll post it when we get back on Monday.
So, I'll just tie up a few festive loose ends:
Advent calendar: Dec 3rd, a chocolate cracker and a picture of Hello Kitty in a Christmas stocking holding a candy cane, Dec 4th, a chocolate Santa and a Kitty holding a candy cane and wearing a hat and scarf. Will catch up with doors 5 and 6 on Monday!
Also, some great stuff happening this weekend, we're off to All Tomorrow's Parties (setting off early so should go to sleep now!), Pastels, Pains of Being Pure At Heart, Television Personalities, Sonic Youth are all playing, should be amazing, Adam Cherryade is particularly excited. We're sharing a chalet with Beck and Gaz should be fun, I'm led to believe it has a TV, I hope so anyway!
Unfortunately, going to ATP means we have to miss an amazing gig that's happening in Taurus Bar in Manchester this evening (Friday Dec 4th). 'Pussy Whipped' is the first of what will hopefully become a regular event, it's organised by our very good friend, local queer punk superstar and all round good egg, Ste Mccabe, and is going to be a queer grrrl extravaganza with performances from the fabulous Cage the Elephant, Manchester's brilliant new council flat queers Maria and the Gay and of course from Ste himself. Please go along and support this, it's only £4 and is really going to shake up Canal Street, help ensure it's not the last one and be sure to get there early as Taurus is tiny and is likely to fill up fast!
Schwervon and The Lovely Eggs are playing at Saki Bar in Rusholme on Tuesday December 8th
Dec 12th sees A Very Cherry Christmas party in partnership with Under Achievers at Cafe Saki with performances from The 10p Mixes, Jimmy from the Bobby McGee's, Shrieking Violets, Doris and the Jumpers and Rebecca Willmott, a Santa's grotto with Cherryade presents for all, an all-night Christmas disco, Christmas song bingo and mince pies, candy canes and other festive treats, it's going to be amazing and it all kicks off at 9pm! Hope to see you there!
See you when we get back from ATP,
Have a great weekend,
Rach Cherryade xxx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
www.dandelionradio.com
So, I'll just tie up a few festive loose ends:
Advent calendar: Dec 3rd, a chocolate cracker and a picture of Hello Kitty in a Christmas stocking holding a candy cane, Dec 4th, a chocolate Santa and a Kitty holding a candy cane and wearing a hat and scarf. Will catch up with doors 5 and 6 on Monday!
Also, some great stuff happening this weekend, we're off to All Tomorrow's Parties (setting off early so should go to sleep now!), Pastels, Pains of Being Pure At Heart, Television Personalities, Sonic Youth are all playing, should be amazing, Adam Cherryade is particularly excited. We're sharing a chalet with Beck and Gaz should be fun, I'm led to believe it has a TV, I hope so anyway!
Unfortunately, going to ATP means we have to miss an amazing gig that's happening in Taurus Bar in Manchester this evening (Friday Dec 4th). 'Pussy Whipped' is the first of what will hopefully become a regular event, it's organised by our very good friend, local queer punk superstar and all round good egg, Ste Mccabe, and is going to be a queer grrrl extravaganza with performances from the fabulous Cage the Elephant, Manchester's brilliant new council flat queers Maria and the Gay and of course from Ste himself. Please go along and support this, it's only £4 and is really going to shake up Canal Street, help ensure it's not the last one and be sure to get there early as Taurus is tiny and is likely to fill up fast!
Schwervon and The Lovely Eggs are playing at Saki Bar in Rusholme on Tuesday December 8th
Dec 12th sees A Very Cherry Christmas party in partnership with Under Achievers at Cafe Saki with performances from The 10p Mixes, Jimmy from the Bobby McGee's, Shrieking Violets, Doris and the Jumpers and Rebecca Willmott, a Santa's grotto with Cherryade presents for all, an all-night Christmas disco, Christmas song bingo and mince pies, candy canes and other festive treats, it's going to be amazing and it all kicks off at 9pm! Hope to see you there!
See you when we get back from ATP,
Have a great weekend,
Rach Cherryade xxx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
www.dandelionradio.com
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
The first day of Christmas
I meant to post this before midnight, it's now officially the second day of December but since I haven't gone to bed yet I'm still classing it as the first!
Anyway, it's December, in case you hadn't noticed, which means it's Christmas! I know some people might disagree with me and say Christmas doesn't start till Christmas Eve and that December is just the build-up to Christmas, but, hey, the build-up starts here at Cherryade Towers some time In July and we have two little Christmas trees up all year round!
So, I've got the big tree (artificial of course, you can't get pink real trees, and besides, the needles drop everywhere and plastic is always superior to real trees and flowers, much cleaner and tidier and shinier!) and a Hello Kitty angel for the top plus I have just bought some brand new decorations, a set of Disney Princess baubles, a gingerbread man stood on a Christmas cake, a bucket containing candy cane and sweeties (not real!), a plastic sparkly cupcake, some pink tinsel, some battery operated pink fairy lights and chocolate decorations from Aldi, it'll be the prettiest tree ever! Hoping to put it up on Thursday before we go to ATP.
I was kindly asked to write two articles on why Christmas music is so special recently. One is in the latest edition of the Pull Yourself Together fanzine, which is brilliant and can be picked up from most good record shops all over the UK. Thanks to Dan and Hannah for asking me to contribute and for putting such a lovely advert for A Very Cherry Christmas vol. 5 in there!
The lovely Natalie Bradbury of fabulous local band The Shrieking Violets has also very kindly asked me some questions about the Very Cherry Christmas compilations, why I love Christmas music and Cherryade in general. You can read the great article she wrote about it, plus a fab review of A Very Cherry Christmas 5 here:
www.theshriekingviolet.blogspot.com
where you can read more of Natalie's really beautiful writings about life in this wonderful city amongst other fascinating topics!
You can still buy A Very Cherry Christmas vol. 5 here:
www.cherryademusic.co.uk/buyavcc5.html
as well as from all good record shops (distributed by Cargo) and on Itunes but the Cherryade Website is the only place where you can grab an amazing bargain by buying all 5 volumes of our utterly amazing Christmas compilation series for only £18 + £2 p and p, in fact it's the only place to buy volumes 1-4!
The December Dandelion schedule is now streaming here:
www.dandelionradio.com
where you can hear our very special Christmas show as well as all the other amazing shows!
Tomorrow I will post a list of some of my other favourite Christmas albums and songs as well as a guide to what's coming up in this magical month!
There was a chocolate bell in my Hello Kitty advent calendar today!
Lots of Cherry Christmas love,
Rach Cherryade xxx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
www.dandelionradio.com
Anyway, it's December, in case you hadn't noticed, which means it's Christmas! I know some people might disagree with me and say Christmas doesn't start till Christmas Eve and that December is just the build-up to Christmas, but, hey, the build-up starts here at Cherryade Towers some time In July and we have two little Christmas trees up all year round!
So, I've got the big tree (artificial of course, you can't get pink real trees, and besides, the needles drop everywhere and plastic is always superior to real trees and flowers, much cleaner and tidier and shinier!) and a Hello Kitty angel for the top plus I have just bought some brand new decorations, a set of Disney Princess baubles, a gingerbread man stood on a Christmas cake, a bucket containing candy cane and sweeties (not real!), a plastic sparkly cupcake, some pink tinsel, some battery operated pink fairy lights and chocolate decorations from Aldi, it'll be the prettiest tree ever! Hoping to put it up on Thursday before we go to ATP.
I was kindly asked to write two articles on why Christmas music is so special recently. One is in the latest edition of the Pull Yourself Together fanzine, which is brilliant and can be picked up from most good record shops all over the UK. Thanks to Dan and Hannah for asking me to contribute and for putting such a lovely advert for A Very Cherry Christmas vol. 5 in there!
The lovely Natalie Bradbury of fabulous local band The Shrieking Violets has also very kindly asked me some questions about the Very Cherry Christmas compilations, why I love Christmas music and Cherryade in general. You can read the great article she wrote about it, plus a fab review of A Very Cherry Christmas 5 here:
www.theshriekingviolet.blogspot.com
where you can read more of Natalie's really beautiful writings about life in this wonderful city amongst other fascinating topics!
You can still buy A Very Cherry Christmas vol. 5 here:
www.cherryademusic.co.uk/buyavcc5.html
as well as from all good record shops (distributed by Cargo) and on Itunes but the Cherryade Website is the only place where you can grab an amazing bargain by buying all 5 volumes of our utterly amazing Christmas compilation series for only £18 + £2 p and p, in fact it's the only place to buy volumes 1-4!
The December Dandelion schedule is now streaming here:
www.dandelionradio.com
where you can hear our very special Christmas show as well as all the other amazing shows!
Tomorrow I will post a list of some of my other favourite Christmas albums and songs as well as a guide to what's coming up in this magical month!
There was a chocolate bell in my Hello Kitty advent calendar today!
Lots of Cherry Christmas love,
Rach Cherryade xxx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
www.dandelionradio.com
Friday, 27 November 2009
University Challenge: Our first round match against RVC
I’ve been struggling to write about what happened in our first round match. A lot of the day was something of a blur, but thanks to re-watching the match and thanks to David Clarke from the excellent Life After Mastermind blog:
www.lifeaftermastermind.blogspot.com
who gave me some helpful advice about writing about quiz experiences, I have managed to cobble together a vague account of what happened.
So, are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.
The day started like a military operation. Adam had taken the day off work to be able to attend the match. My dad was in such a nervous state that he drove up from Blackpool to be with us by 10am. My mum was on holiday in Portugal so it seemed sensible for him to come and spend the morning with us instead of fretting on his own at home! As I mentioned in my previous UC blog entry, it was partly because of my dad that I’d applied to be on the show in the first place, he was so excited that I was going to be on the show but he was also extremely nervous. So, I left Adam to look after dad while I went to have my hair and nails done. I wanted to make sure my hair was as bright as it could be for filming as if the pink has started to fade I’m sure my brain doesn’t work as well, the Samson effect I suppose, though I don’t think his hair was pink! Anyway, I needed all the help I could get!
Anyway, I left the hairdressers, went home and got changed in record time. I had planned my outfit carefully. Though the BBC obviously doesn’t allow product placement I cunningly managed to sneak the Cherryade logo in by wearing a dress and accessories covered in cherries!
Then we set off into town, picking up Anna on the way and, for once, arriving at Granada in time!
I waved goodbye to Adam, my dad and Anna as they went off to the audience door while we were ushered past security and into reception. From there we were taken to our dressing room and then given the much coveted lunch vouchers! Though having a dressing room was very nice, I have to say that we didn’t spend any time in there, just dumped our stuff and went off to explore the culinary delights of the Granada canteen where we all stretched our lunch vouchers to the limit (I kind of understand how politicians can get carried away with expenses now!) We sat eating our subsidised lunch while looking for celebrities to spot. We met Jeremy Paxman while we were queueing, he was a gent and let us have his tray. We also saw the actor who plays Norris in Coronation Street. I must say that I get on really well with my team, they’re great guys, and so we had a nice chat over lunch before being whisked off to make-up, where we were all dolled-up ready for the cameras. The make-up artists are amazing, really lovely ladies and it was so interesting discussing their job with them, I learned that as well as doing standard make-up for shows like UC they also do special effects make-up such as fake blood and bruises for soaps like Hollyoaks. She also told me they’re often given scripts in advance so they can pre-plan make-up based on the character’s personality and situation and the conditions of the scene being filmed. I had no idea how specialised and intense make-up artistry was.
Anyway, after that we went to the green room to relax and wait for our match. At this point we found out who we would be playing. UC matches are filmed in blocks of two, they ask the four teams in a block to arrive together, but as ours was to be the second match, we got to sit in the green room with our first round opponents, The Royal Veterinary College (a college of the University of London) and watched live footage of the match before ours, between Edinburgh and University of Central Lancashire, which was shown on the screen in the green room. The green room was lovely, lots of food and drink (tea before the match and alcohol after!) and was very relaxing. It was nice to be playing the second match as we got to relax, have a nice chat, fuel up on caffeine and get a look at what the filming process involves but from the comfort and privacy of the green room!
The match before ours was over far too soon though and the nerves set in as the production team came to take us to the studio for our match, the walk down the corridor was terrifying, I had butterflies for the first time. We hadn’t had time to talk to our opposition before the match so we were very nervous as this was the first time we met. UC is filmed in front of a studio audience and the set, albeit quite basic, suddenly seemed quite big. Each team were announced in turn by the warm-up man (who I recognised because of his 2-part BBC 7 series ‘Moths Ate My Dr Who Scarf’ and from appearances at the Comedy Store but annoyingly I can’t remember his name) and we walked on from the wings to applause. I hadn’t expected this because we’re obviously not being filmed at this point but it did make it feel like an event! We got settled behind our desk and did all the preparatory house-keeping stuff like testing buzzers, having last-minute make-up adjustments, etc. Then there was some discussion about the fact that I’m much shorter than the rest of the team and that this was going to look a bit weird on tv so a runner was dispatched to find a cushion, eventually I was raised up to an adequate height and we were set. The team then had to explain that the picture rounds would work a bit differently due to my Braille cards which would have to be changed between picture rounds. Matches are usually recorded straight through, unless there’s a technical problem or disputed question or something, but to take away the first set of cards and replace them with those for the second picture round would require stopping filming for a moment but it was done very quickly and worked out well and I must thank the production team for being so helpful with this and making the picture rounds so accessible. Once this was done we were able to take stock of the fact that we were actually sat behind one of the hallowed desks with a buzzer in front of us and Jeremy Paxman sat behind his desk ready to grill us for 26 minutes under the bright studio lights while being watched by a studio audience, it didn’t seem real somehow, but it was and it was too late to turn back!
Before filming starts, there’s a ‘knock-about’ game where Roger Tilling (the inimitable voice of UC) asks a couple of starters and sets of bonuses to give the teams a chance to get familiar with buzzing in and conferring and talking into the mics, this only lasts 2 or 3 minutes and also gives teams the opportunity to practise their introductions, this is more difficult than it sounds as you have to decide how you’re going to introduce your course (do you say reading or studying and if, like me, you’re doing a PHD in DIY music since 1995 in the UK and USA, do you say that and risk the audience at home sputtering over the rubbish they let students study now’ or do you, as I did, choose to say something vague like “I’m studying for A PHD in English and American Studies. Then there’s the controversy over where you come from. I’ve lived in Manchester for three years now but some people who saw our first round match asked why I didn’t say I came from Blackpool where I grew up, despite the fact I haven’t lived there since I went off to uni in Lancaster in 2003. So I think I was right to claim Manchester as my home town!). Then, without further ado, we’re into the game.
The distinctive theme music starts playing, this is really it, we sit there terrified as the music stops, Roger Tilling welcomes the audience at home and introduces our host and the studio audience claps. We have a quick breather while Jeremy makes his usual urbane and witty introduction to the show and then to our opponents (they get introduced first so we have a little breather as the camera focuses on them, but I’m too nervous to concentrate on what Jeremy says until he introduces us with some kind comments. We manage to get through our introductions without anyone forgetting their name or course, and, without further ado (Jeremy actually says he’s not going to explain the rules because we must all know them by now!) we’re off. First starter is one of those ‘which word connects…’ questions, this one is asking after a five letter word that is an archaic word for a sailor’s turn at the helm, a feat of magic, the cards played in a single… at this point I find myself buzzing in,before I really knew what I was doing, then Roger Tilling is saying Manchester Neiman and I’m saying ‘trick’ and it’s right, I can’t quite believe it. My main worry was going home without having answered a single question correctly, this can’t possibly happen now, no matter what happens from now on, I am very relieved and settle back into my chair for a bonus round on inscriptions on £2 coins which requires very little knowledge of the coins themselves, just a working knowledge of a few well-known facts, we duly breeze through the bonuses with a clean sweep. Next question is on a German composer and is quickly picked up by our captain Jakob who knows it’s Wagner, good stuff! We then have an odd bonus round on spots, another clean sweep, Jakob and Nick recall Bowdler’s objection to the Macbeth quotation ‘out damned spot’, I remember that the spots on a John Dory were said to be the fingerprints of St. Peter and Nick and Jakob remember Hogarth’s use of beauty spots to denote lysentiousness. RVC get off the mark by identifying a vandergraff generator in the next question and getting a clean sweep on constellations to close the gap. Tom impresses by a lightning quick recognition of a cultural cringe and we are offered a very tasty bonus round on pairs of words formed with the addition of an s. These are some of my favourite kinds of bonuses as I love word play and can actually be of some help! So, we get our 15 points without much ado! With considerably more ado we turn our attention to the first picture round. I must say at this point that I held out no hope of being any use to my team on the picture round as my Braille reading is appalling (I only learned it when I was 18 and have never really used it properly cause I read everything off the computer) and it was going to take me half an hour to read the few words on the card! The picture round involved identifying a poem by the last words of each line of one stanza. Tom had a guess which seemed fair enough but all credit to RVC who, to Mr. Paxman’s great surprise, identified it as Tennyson’s work. Unfortunately they were unable to identify the authors of the three poems in the bonus round, it was very tricky though!
Next starter is about a biblical tribe, Jakob has a guess at Philistines it’s wrong and is passed to RVC, Tom Shaw buzzes in and correctly identifies the tribe in question as the Hittites. RVC are given a particularly nasty bonus round on famous people from Gibrolta and unfortunately fail to convert any of them. Here comes a starter on a surname, ‘Which surname connects a serial killer executed in 1953, a writer of mystery stories…’ I go for the buzzer, I know this, if I don’t get this I’ll never live it down, it’s one of my specialist subjects, ‘Manchester Neiman’ for some reason I say ‘is it Christie?’ but I’m sure it is. Agatha Christie is my favourite author, I am obsessed with her work, I was hoping for a question on one of her novels, something to showcase my Christie fandom but this name question will do! We’re rewarded with a horrible round on opera. I know nothing about opera, we’re all looking at Jakob, our classical music expert, he makes educated guesses (more than I could have managed, but unfortunately none are right, still, we’re doing ok. Nick and RVC’s Hannah bones both have a stab at identifying a Thomas, both are unfortunately wrong, Jeremy was looking for Thomas Walsingham so we’re offered a new starter. Both Rvc’s Sid Sudunagunter and I have a stab at the next starter asking after a book in the Old Testament, once again we’re both wrong, Judges was the answer. So, another starter, someone’s got to get this! Tom duly identifies the Italian word being looked for is ciao and we have a set of bonuses about Canadian history which don’t exactly suit us and we fail to add to our point score. So, halfway mark and both RVC and us are putting points on the board. The halfway mark is, as always, signified by the music round, oh goody, it’s classical music, I’ll sit this one out! Luckily Nick is able to identify an extract of Holst’s planets in what seems like an indecently short amount of time, very impressive! Hooray, our bonuses are other extracts from The Planets and our job is to name the planet in question. I don’t think any of us were that familiar with the suite but we made educated guesses based on the mood of the music and thus were able to identify two out of the three planets correctly.
A starter on literary husbands is looking for Thomas Hardy, Tom has a stab at Yeats though so another starter goes begging. On the next starter we’re back to the planets a question about what’s missing from a planetary nemonic. The answer is Pluto and Nick once again picks it up to give us a bonus round on Shakespeare’s problem plays, we get Troelus and Cressida but fail to identify the next two from their convoluted storylines, Jeremy quips that he can see why they’re called ‘problem plays’! Nick’s on the case again with the definition of the law of diminishing return and we polish off a nice set of bonuses on WWII for another 15 points. Tom knows that Kubla Khan is the answer to the next starter and we’ve got a set of bonuses on sound in diagnosis, we manage to get two of them right so not too bad! Oh dear, a science starter, I zone out, RVC’s Tom Shaw buzzes in and gives the answer ‘entrapy’, Jeremy asks him to repeat it, apparently it’s not right, Nick buzzes in with ‘enthalpy’ which is right. Apparently ‘entrapy’ and ‘enthalpy’ are different things, but as I have no idea what either is it all seems very clever to me! Unfortunately our transport related bonuses don’t cover us in glory and we get a round 0! Ah, here’s the second picture round. I turn over my card and start to read. But, hang on, something weird has happened, I have finished reading this Latin phrase, I know what it means and nobody has buzzed in yet, this shouldn’t be happening, I go for the buzzer and offer my answer ‘love conquers all’ and it is, hooray! Our bonuses are more Latin phrases (I knew that Latin GCSE would come in handy one day!) Nick and Jakob deal with the first phrase ‘an ornament and a shield’ while I’m still reading, the second card is taking me so long to read that I’m forced to wave the white flag and the rest of the team aren’t having more luck with it, the last phrase ‘caput inter nubila’ is pored over for a bit, some jokes about nubile’ are duly made then I realise what it means, ‘head in the clouds’, I’m so excited about this breakthrough that I embarrassed myself by sounding a bit over-enthusiastic, Jakob takes my answer and offers it to Jeremy, it’s right, I’m pleased!
It would be disingenuous not to admit that at this point we were pretty confident that we were going to win the game. There were only a few minutes left and we were quite far ahead but RVC were putting up a good fight and the next question is about the founding of a newspaper, Tom buzzes in with News of The World, unfortunately the answer is The Times which is identified by RVC Shaw earning them a difficult set of engineering bonuses, unfortunately they fail to convert any of them. The next starter, asking after an industrial port goes begging again. The next question about a liquid measurement is incorrectly answered by RVC Shaw before Jakob buzzes in and identifies it as a pint for quite a pleasant round of bonuses on comparing land areas of countries to Wales, France = lots of Waleses, 7 Rhode Islands would fit in Wales and you’d squeeze one and a half Wales into Belgium! RVC Shaw fights back by identifying the Bernese Alps but the team fail to identify any of the academy award winning films that make up their bonus round.
My most embarrassing moment of the match follows as I answer a question on Katie Melua thereby giving the (entirely eronious) impression that I might actually like bland rubbish like that (like listening to paint dry), I didn’t really need to buzz in, we’d won already at this point but pointlust got the better of me! Anyway, we got a question on peristalsis, which we got then our second bonus on something complicated and sciencey but the gong went before we could have a go at answering it. At the gong the score was 235/60 to us. Jeremy tells RVC that it’s not the worst score they’ve had and that they seemed to enjoy themselves. I’d like to pay tribute to RVC who were a better team than their score suggested and who were very good contestants indeed, we greatly enjoyed playing them!
I’d also like to say that I think the rest of my team are awesome, really great people who are a pleasure to spend hours at Granada Studios with as well as being a very clever bunch! Their knowledge of such a wide range of subjects is astounding.
We had our photos taken with Jeremy behind the desk then went back to the green room to celebrate our victory with BBC wine, lovely stuff! We had a lovely chat and then eventually went off home. I was actually djing in Leeds that night so didn’t get much of a rest! Still, it was an amazing day!
Our second round match against Kings College London is scheduled for broadcast on BBC Two at 8pm on Monday Dec 21st. I’ll post an account of that after it’s happened!
Rach Cherryade xxx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
www.lifeaftermastermind.blogspot.com
who gave me some helpful advice about writing about quiz experiences, I have managed to cobble together a vague account of what happened.
So, are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.
The day started like a military operation. Adam had taken the day off work to be able to attend the match. My dad was in such a nervous state that he drove up from Blackpool to be with us by 10am. My mum was on holiday in Portugal so it seemed sensible for him to come and spend the morning with us instead of fretting on his own at home! As I mentioned in my previous UC blog entry, it was partly because of my dad that I’d applied to be on the show in the first place, he was so excited that I was going to be on the show but he was also extremely nervous. So, I left Adam to look after dad while I went to have my hair and nails done. I wanted to make sure my hair was as bright as it could be for filming as if the pink has started to fade I’m sure my brain doesn’t work as well, the Samson effect I suppose, though I don’t think his hair was pink! Anyway, I needed all the help I could get!
Anyway, I left the hairdressers, went home and got changed in record time. I had planned my outfit carefully. Though the BBC obviously doesn’t allow product placement I cunningly managed to sneak the Cherryade logo in by wearing a dress and accessories covered in cherries!
Then we set off into town, picking up Anna on the way and, for once, arriving at Granada in time!
I waved goodbye to Adam, my dad and Anna as they went off to the audience door while we were ushered past security and into reception. From there we were taken to our dressing room and then given the much coveted lunch vouchers! Though having a dressing room was very nice, I have to say that we didn’t spend any time in there, just dumped our stuff and went off to explore the culinary delights of the Granada canteen where we all stretched our lunch vouchers to the limit (I kind of understand how politicians can get carried away with expenses now!) We sat eating our subsidised lunch while looking for celebrities to spot. We met Jeremy Paxman while we were queueing, he was a gent and let us have his tray. We also saw the actor who plays Norris in Coronation Street. I must say that I get on really well with my team, they’re great guys, and so we had a nice chat over lunch before being whisked off to make-up, where we were all dolled-up ready for the cameras. The make-up artists are amazing, really lovely ladies and it was so interesting discussing their job with them, I learned that as well as doing standard make-up for shows like UC they also do special effects make-up such as fake blood and bruises for soaps like Hollyoaks. She also told me they’re often given scripts in advance so they can pre-plan make-up based on the character’s personality and situation and the conditions of the scene being filmed. I had no idea how specialised and intense make-up artistry was.
Anyway, after that we went to the green room to relax and wait for our match. At this point we found out who we would be playing. UC matches are filmed in blocks of two, they ask the four teams in a block to arrive together, but as ours was to be the second match, we got to sit in the green room with our first round opponents, The Royal Veterinary College (a college of the University of London) and watched live footage of the match before ours, between Edinburgh and University of Central Lancashire, which was shown on the screen in the green room. The green room was lovely, lots of food and drink (tea before the match and alcohol after!) and was very relaxing. It was nice to be playing the second match as we got to relax, have a nice chat, fuel up on caffeine and get a look at what the filming process involves but from the comfort and privacy of the green room!
The match before ours was over far too soon though and the nerves set in as the production team came to take us to the studio for our match, the walk down the corridor was terrifying, I had butterflies for the first time. We hadn’t had time to talk to our opposition before the match so we were very nervous as this was the first time we met. UC is filmed in front of a studio audience and the set, albeit quite basic, suddenly seemed quite big. Each team were announced in turn by the warm-up man (who I recognised because of his 2-part BBC 7 series ‘Moths Ate My Dr Who Scarf’ and from appearances at the Comedy Store but annoyingly I can’t remember his name) and we walked on from the wings to applause. I hadn’t expected this because we’re obviously not being filmed at this point but it did make it feel like an event! We got settled behind our desk and did all the preparatory house-keeping stuff like testing buzzers, having last-minute make-up adjustments, etc. Then there was some discussion about the fact that I’m much shorter than the rest of the team and that this was going to look a bit weird on tv so a runner was dispatched to find a cushion, eventually I was raised up to an adequate height and we were set. The team then had to explain that the picture rounds would work a bit differently due to my Braille cards which would have to be changed between picture rounds. Matches are usually recorded straight through, unless there’s a technical problem or disputed question or something, but to take away the first set of cards and replace them with those for the second picture round would require stopping filming for a moment but it was done very quickly and worked out well and I must thank the production team for being so helpful with this and making the picture rounds so accessible. Once this was done we were able to take stock of the fact that we were actually sat behind one of the hallowed desks with a buzzer in front of us and Jeremy Paxman sat behind his desk ready to grill us for 26 minutes under the bright studio lights while being watched by a studio audience, it didn’t seem real somehow, but it was and it was too late to turn back!
Before filming starts, there’s a ‘knock-about’ game where Roger Tilling (the inimitable voice of UC) asks a couple of starters and sets of bonuses to give the teams a chance to get familiar with buzzing in and conferring and talking into the mics, this only lasts 2 or 3 minutes and also gives teams the opportunity to practise their introductions, this is more difficult than it sounds as you have to decide how you’re going to introduce your course (do you say reading or studying and if, like me, you’re doing a PHD in DIY music since 1995 in the UK and USA, do you say that and risk the audience at home sputtering over the rubbish they let students study now’ or do you, as I did, choose to say something vague like “I’m studying for A PHD in English and American Studies. Then there’s the controversy over where you come from. I’ve lived in Manchester for three years now but some people who saw our first round match asked why I didn’t say I came from Blackpool where I grew up, despite the fact I haven’t lived there since I went off to uni in Lancaster in 2003. So I think I was right to claim Manchester as my home town!). Then, without further ado, we’re into the game.
The distinctive theme music starts playing, this is really it, we sit there terrified as the music stops, Roger Tilling welcomes the audience at home and introduces our host and the studio audience claps. We have a quick breather while Jeremy makes his usual urbane and witty introduction to the show and then to our opponents (they get introduced first so we have a little breather as the camera focuses on them, but I’m too nervous to concentrate on what Jeremy says until he introduces us with some kind comments. We manage to get through our introductions without anyone forgetting their name or course, and, without further ado (Jeremy actually says he’s not going to explain the rules because we must all know them by now!) we’re off. First starter is one of those ‘which word connects…’ questions, this one is asking after a five letter word that is an archaic word for a sailor’s turn at the helm, a feat of magic, the cards played in a single… at this point I find myself buzzing in,before I really knew what I was doing, then Roger Tilling is saying Manchester Neiman and I’m saying ‘trick’ and it’s right, I can’t quite believe it. My main worry was going home without having answered a single question correctly, this can’t possibly happen now, no matter what happens from now on, I am very relieved and settle back into my chair for a bonus round on inscriptions on £2 coins which requires very little knowledge of the coins themselves, just a working knowledge of a few well-known facts, we duly breeze through the bonuses with a clean sweep. Next question is on a German composer and is quickly picked up by our captain Jakob who knows it’s Wagner, good stuff! We then have an odd bonus round on spots, another clean sweep, Jakob and Nick recall Bowdler’s objection to the Macbeth quotation ‘out damned spot’, I remember that the spots on a John Dory were said to be the fingerprints of St. Peter and Nick and Jakob remember Hogarth’s use of beauty spots to denote lysentiousness. RVC get off the mark by identifying a vandergraff generator in the next question and getting a clean sweep on constellations to close the gap. Tom impresses by a lightning quick recognition of a cultural cringe and we are offered a very tasty bonus round on pairs of words formed with the addition of an s. These are some of my favourite kinds of bonuses as I love word play and can actually be of some help! So, we get our 15 points without much ado! With considerably more ado we turn our attention to the first picture round. I must say at this point that I held out no hope of being any use to my team on the picture round as my Braille reading is appalling (I only learned it when I was 18 and have never really used it properly cause I read everything off the computer) and it was going to take me half an hour to read the few words on the card! The picture round involved identifying a poem by the last words of each line of one stanza. Tom had a guess which seemed fair enough but all credit to RVC who, to Mr. Paxman’s great surprise, identified it as Tennyson’s work. Unfortunately they were unable to identify the authors of the three poems in the bonus round, it was very tricky though!
Next starter is about a biblical tribe, Jakob has a guess at Philistines it’s wrong and is passed to RVC, Tom Shaw buzzes in and correctly identifies the tribe in question as the Hittites. RVC are given a particularly nasty bonus round on famous people from Gibrolta and unfortunately fail to convert any of them. Here comes a starter on a surname, ‘Which surname connects a serial killer executed in 1953, a writer of mystery stories…’ I go for the buzzer, I know this, if I don’t get this I’ll never live it down, it’s one of my specialist subjects, ‘Manchester Neiman’ for some reason I say ‘is it Christie?’ but I’m sure it is. Agatha Christie is my favourite author, I am obsessed with her work, I was hoping for a question on one of her novels, something to showcase my Christie fandom but this name question will do! We’re rewarded with a horrible round on opera. I know nothing about opera, we’re all looking at Jakob, our classical music expert, he makes educated guesses (more than I could have managed, but unfortunately none are right, still, we’re doing ok. Nick and RVC’s Hannah bones both have a stab at identifying a Thomas, both are unfortunately wrong, Jeremy was looking for Thomas Walsingham so we’re offered a new starter. Both Rvc’s Sid Sudunagunter and I have a stab at the next starter asking after a book in the Old Testament, once again we’re both wrong, Judges was the answer. So, another starter, someone’s got to get this! Tom duly identifies the Italian word being looked for is ciao and we have a set of bonuses about Canadian history which don’t exactly suit us and we fail to add to our point score. So, halfway mark and both RVC and us are putting points on the board. The halfway mark is, as always, signified by the music round, oh goody, it’s classical music, I’ll sit this one out! Luckily Nick is able to identify an extract of Holst’s planets in what seems like an indecently short amount of time, very impressive! Hooray, our bonuses are other extracts from The Planets and our job is to name the planet in question. I don’t think any of us were that familiar with the suite but we made educated guesses based on the mood of the music and thus were able to identify two out of the three planets correctly.
A starter on literary husbands is looking for Thomas Hardy, Tom has a stab at Yeats though so another starter goes begging. On the next starter we’re back to the planets a question about what’s missing from a planetary nemonic. The answer is Pluto and Nick once again picks it up to give us a bonus round on Shakespeare’s problem plays, we get Troelus and Cressida but fail to identify the next two from their convoluted storylines, Jeremy quips that he can see why they’re called ‘problem plays’! Nick’s on the case again with the definition of the law of diminishing return and we polish off a nice set of bonuses on WWII for another 15 points. Tom knows that Kubla Khan is the answer to the next starter and we’ve got a set of bonuses on sound in diagnosis, we manage to get two of them right so not too bad! Oh dear, a science starter, I zone out, RVC’s Tom Shaw buzzes in and gives the answer ‘entrapy’, Jeremy asks him to repeat it, apparently it’s not right, Nick buzzes in with ‘enthalpy’ which is right. Apparently ‘entrapy’ and ‘enthalpy’ are different things, but as I have no idea what either is it all seems very clever to me! Unfortunately our transport related bonuses don’t cover us in glory and we get a round 0! Ah, here’s the second picture round. I turn over my card and start to read. But, hang on, something weird has happened, I have finished reading this Latin phrase, I know what it means and nobody has buzzed in yet, this shouldn’t be happening, I go for the buzzer and offer my answer ‘love conquers all’ and it is, hooray! Our bonuses are more Latin phrases (I knew that Latin GCSE would come in handy one day!) Nick and Jakob deal with the first phrase ‘an ornament and a shield’ while I’m still reading, the second card is taking me so long to read that I’m forced to wave the white flag and the rest of the team aren’t having more luck with it, the last phrase ‘caput inter nubila’ is pored over for a bit, some jokes about nubile’ are duly made then I realise what it means, ‘head in the clouds’, I’m so excited about this breakthrough that I embarrassed myself by sounding a bit over-enthusiastic, Jakob takes my answer and offers it to Jeremy, it’s right, I’m pleased!
It would be disingenuous not to admit that at this point we were pretty confident that we were going to win the game. There were only a few minutes left and we were quite far ahead but RVC were putting up a good fight and the next question is about the founding of a newspaper, Tom buzzes in with News of The World, unfortunately the answer is The Times which is identified by RVC Shaw earning them a difficult set of engineering bonuses, unfortunately they fail to convert any of them. The next starter, asking after an industrial port goes begging again. The next question about a liquid measurement is incorrectly answered by RVC Shaw before Jakob buzzes in and identifies it as a pint for quite a pleasant round of bonuses on comparing land areas of countries to Wales, France = lots of Waleses, 7 Rhode Islands would fit in Wales and you’d squeeze one and a half Wales into Belgium! RVC Shaw fights back by identifying the Bernese Alps but the team fail to identify any of the academy award winning films that make up their bonus round.
My most embarrassing moment of the match follows as I answer a question on Katie Melua thereby giving the (entirely eronious) impression that I might actually like bland rubbish like that (like listening to paint dry), I didn’t really need to buzz in, we’d won already at this point but pointlust got the better of me! Anyway, we got a question on peristalsis, which we got then our second bonus on something complicated and sciencey but the gong went before we could have a go at answering it. At the gong the score was 235/60 to us. Jeremy tells RVC that it’s not the worst score they’ve had and that they seemed to enjoy themselves. I’d like to pay tribute to RVC who were a better team than their score suggested and who were very good contestants indeed, we greatly enjoyed playing them!
I’d also like to say that I think the rest of my team are awesome, really great people who are a pleasure to spend hours at Granada Studios with as well as being a very clever bunch! Their knowledge of such a wide range of subjects is astounding.
We had our photos taken with Jeremy behind the desk then went back to the green room to celebrate our victory with BBC wine, lovely stuff! We had a lovely chat and then eventually went off home. I was actually djing in Leeds that night so didn’t get much of a rest! Still, it was an amazing day!
Our second round match against Kings College London is scheduled for broadcast on BBC Two at 8pm on Monday Dec 21st. I’ll post an account of that after it’s happened!
Rach Cherryade xxx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
Trapped in my flat: A dream come true...
This is the first in a series of (totally self-indulgent and of no interest to anyone but me) posts which will profile some of the lovely things which I have squirrelled away in the kingdom of kitsch that is Cherryade Towers! Just to explain, our flat (Cherryade Towers) is the first 'grown-up' home I've ever lived in, the first place that wasn't my parents' house, or a hall of residence or a house I shared with friends. It belongs to Adam Cherryade and I and we are very proud of it. Despite the felling of maturity that owning your own home is supposed to bring, Cherryade Towers is essentially decorated in the way the seven-year-old me would probably have wanted it to look. It's very colourful (mostly pink!) and gloriously loud and mismatched. The lounge, in particular, is the focal point of the flat, I treat it as a kind of living museum, it's full of lovely things and I do find myself wandering around it sometimes just looking at all the stuff, the wonder still hasn't worn off! But, like a museum, the lounge is not really meant to be used. When we have guests round we take them in the lounge but it's not a room we use every day and I get very annoyed if Adam tries to eat biscuits in there while watching tv! Our lounge is certainly not minimalist, there are ornaments and knick-knacks everywhere you look, little miniature collections of My Little Ponies, plastic cakes, pictures of cakes, fairies, Hello Kitties, porcelain shoes, Strawberry Shortcake dolls, Baby Cham glasses and plastic deer, snow globes and loads more. Then there are individual items such as the beautiful cocktail cabinet with lamp attached, the man painting a glass of wine on an easel and encased in a bottle of mysterious booze, a lamp in the shape of a cocktail glass, a pineapple ice bucket, a 1950s chrome electric fire in the shape of a yacht, a pink keyboard I'll never be able to play, a Tiffany-style glass lamp with strawberries on and so much more (which I'll discuss in future blogs). Essentially Cherryade Towers is full of the kind of things nobody else would probably want but which make it feel like my home, like somewhere I belong, and, even if it's not to everyone's taste, visitors certainly seem to enjoy looking at all the stuff too! My only worry is that my inability to get rid of anything, plus the fact thatboxes of records are steadily taking over what bits of the flat aren't already full of brightly coloured bits of plastic, might mean that I may one day be buried under an avalanche of treasures, ah well, it'd be worth it!
So, the first item in this virtual tour will be the latest additions to our collection. My dad found them in his shop and wanted to get them out the way and figured they'd be perfect in our flat (this is the way we acquire a lot of our junk, er, heirlooms!). They are two of those machines you used to put 10p in as a kid and get a plastic ball out of which would have a plastic ring or a wonky model of a horse or soldier in garish colours in them, remember those? Well, I do, and then imagine if you'd been given an entire one of these as a kid and could undo them and take out as many of the balls as you wanted, my childhood dream come true! I must admit, I'm perhaps not as enthusiastic about the contents as I would have been as a kid but they still look fabulous in our lounge, they're a bright red with a yellow flap where the toys come out, and with all the different colour balls inside they do look very in-keeping with the rest of the room! So, welcome to Cherryade Towers brightly coloured plastic ball machines that I don't know the proper name for, you'll never leave!
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
www.dandelionradio.com
So, the first item in this virtual tour will be the latest additions to our collection. My dad found them in his shop and wanted to get them out the way and figured they'd be perfect in our flat (this is the way we acquire a lot of our junk, er, heirlooms!). They are two of those machines you used to put 10p in as a kid and get a plastic ball out of which would have a plastic ring or a wonky model of a horse or soldier in garish colours in them, remember those? Well, I do, and then imagine if you'd been given an entire one of these as a kid and could undo them and take out as many of the balls as you wanted, my childhood dream come true! I must admit, I'm perhaps not as enthusiastic about the contents as I would have been as a kid but they still look fabulous in our lounge, they're a bright red with a yellow flap where the toys come out, and with all the different colour balls inside they do look very in-keeping with the rest of the room! So, welcome to Cherryade Towers brightly coloured plastic ball machines that I don't know the proper name for, you'll never leave!
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
www.dandelionradio.com
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