Here’s Craig’s new music video. Go and check him out at http://www.craigbevanmusic.com.

This post is by Shane and first appeared on http://sportshistoryshow.blogspot.com

Anyone who has an elder sibling has probably had to go through the experience of feeling marginalised. Whether it’s when receiving the cheaper presents on Christmas Day, having to wear their ‘hand-me downs’ at the end of August – just in time for the new school year – or getting less pocket money at the end of the week (do parents even bother with pocket money these days and if so, is ‘pocket money’ even the correct term? Christ I’m old) it’s easy to feel like your parents have earmarked their affections for the child who came first. It’s not that they don’t love you as well but the elder sibling was always part of the plan. You were more of a alcohol-fuelled afterthought.

I don’t know if Felipe Massa is the younger sibling in his family, or even if he has any brothers or sisters. But in the German Grand Prix yesterday, the family known as the Ferrari Formula 1 team have made it very clear who is the favoured son in this schism.

In what has been a compelling and closely fought title race was sullied by Ferrari’s shameless flouting of the sport’s laws. In ordering Massa – who had been leading the race – to deliberately allow his team-mate Fernando Alonso to bypass him on the track to victory is not only against all ethics of competitive sport but strictly forbidden under the laws of Formula 1. This ruling has been in place since the farce of the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix when Ferrari pulled a similar stunt in getting Rubens Barrichello to step aside to allow Michael Schumacher to take the chequered flag. Continue Reading…

Dear Kiki,

Scuse the geeky question here Kiki, but the podcast always sound sexy silky smooth, and I’m just starting to get into this whole recording business as a musician and was wondering which microphones you use mostly for the shows.

Jacob from Norwich

Dear Jacob

Different podcasters use different microphones. I myself prefer Shure SM-58 dynamic mics. Others like condensers; the Samson line is a popular choice. And then there’s that weird one they used in the Star Trek movie that looks like a ball on a stick. Beyond microphones, a key element is some sort of interface between the mic and computer, like a USB interface or a mixer. Not a food mixer, an audio mixer. I know someone who made that mistake once, but I’m not supposed to tell that story about Admiral Marius. Don’t tell anyone, but Admiral Marius uses a microphone he found backstage after a Lady Gaga concert, and now he keeps it under his pillow, and it has a special name.

Dear Kiki,

Can you send me an iPod Touch?

Ben from South Australia.

Dear Ben,

I put in the post and addressed it to “Ben from South Australia,” so it should arrive probably never. Thanks for listening!

Dear Kiki,

I am in the United States, so every time I go to order something from Simply Syndicated I have to convert dollars to pounds. Example: I need to send 15 pounds:

(15 * 9/5) + 32 = (15 * 1.8) + 32 = (27) + 32 = 59 dollars. This seems like an aweful lot of money. Can you tell me if I’m doing something wrong?

Scott in Orlando

Dear Scott,

Of course you’re doing something wrong. You’re living in Orlando.

Send your questions to askapodcaster@britain.com

Dear Kiki:

I like listening to Nerd Hurdles, but I have to wonder who would win in a fight, Igor or The Banana?

… Sam in Santa Carla, California

Dear Sam:

Igor would win, silly. The Banana is a cartoon, and Igor is a real guy.

Dear Kiki:

What happened to some of the other Simply Syndicated shows, like Craig Bevan’s Movie Minutes, Paddy’s TV Surprise, Books You Should Read and the Bollocks show? There are never any new ones.

Sean in Dublin

Dear Sean: I wish people would use their real names here, and not unlikely pseudonyms like yours. Anyway, Movie Minutes concluded its run so Craig could focus on his music. While fans hope he releases the whole run on DVD with the bonus lost episode (Date Movie), Craig is staying mum on the topic. Paddy’s TV Surprise went on hiatus when Paddy J. Forde woke up in a caravan in Doncaster with no idea how he’d gotten there. He wondered where his clothes had gone, then suddenly remembered he is actually Canadian. He now lives in Canada and is awaiting the government there to approve the installation of electricity so he can get back to podcasting. Books You Should Read is coming back this summer and will sound a little different, as it will now be presented solely in Spanish and will consist of reviews of cookbooks.

Dear Kiki:

¿Por qué son todos los espectáculos Simplemente Syndicato en inglés? Este no es justo para la gente que dice otras lenguas.

Raimondo in Buenos Ares

Dear Raimondo:

¿No leyó usted la última pregunta? Márchese y luche contra un toro.

Do you have a question for a podcaster? Email askapodcaster@britain.com!

Dear Kiki:

I have been listening to Simply Syndicated shows for a long time, but I have never signed up for the forums. I want to, because I hear them mentioned a lot on the podcasts, and they seem like an interesting place. However, whenever I lurk on them, I just see a lot of in-jokes that I don’t understand. Why are there so many inside jokes?

… Debbie in Cardiff

Dear Debbie:

Blame Kumar.

Do you have a question for a podcaster? Email askapodcaster@britain.com!

Dear Kiki,

I am a longtime listener of the podcasts on this site. I have a simple question: Do Simply Syndicated podcasters record their programmes in a fancy studio? Because the sound quality is better than most podcasts.

…Lisa in Delaware

Dear Lisa,

No, there’s no fancy studio. Most of the shows are recorded in home offices, living rooms, even bedrooms. There are exceptions, of course. Masters of None is recorded in the men’s room at a hockey rink, and For Those About To Rock is recorded on Whip Buffley’s tour bus, from under the groupies. Of course, Starbase 66 is made in space.

Dear Kiki,

I wuz gOin to post a sick pic of two homies nekkkkkked in the forumz, but they aint work? It made me say OMG WTF, U wuld of luvved it. And yo you needz a rap show.

…Jordyn in Essex

Dear Jordyn

The forums are currently being rebuilt for a fresh start. I would normally advise people to be patient and wait, but I suspect you would probably be happier at 4chan. Please move along, nothing to see here.

Dear Kiki,

I’ve been with this girl for about two weeks. How long should I wait before I tell her I think her sister is super-hot?

…Robbie in Glasgow

Dear Robbie,

Tell her right now, and make sure you get it on video, and make sure you email me your YouTube link.

Dear Kiki,

Why do you have a podcast about Star Trek with British guys on it? What do British people even know about Star Trek? Shouldn’t they be doing a show about Coronation Street or Eastenders or whatever the crap is they watch over there?

…JD in Buffalo

Dear JD,

British people love Star Trek because of Jean-Luc Picard. They like the idea that in the future, even the French are British. Old rivalry, you see.

Dear Kiki,

Who is the most awesome Simply Syndicated podcaster?

…RMS in Haworth

Dear RMS,

That one’s easy. Barclay.

Do you have a question for a podcaster? Email askapodcaster@britain.com!

Roll: 4 – 8 – 19
Result: Summun, Bukmun, Umyun by Pharoah Sanders.

Summun, Bukmun, Umyun (Deaf, Dumb, Blind) is the answer for those who ask the question, “Can world-fusion be anything other than watered-down, artistically innocuous schmaltz suitable only for Disney movies and zoo commercials?”

Of course, this album by Pharoah Sanders is also one which is partly responsible for the Putumayos of the world. Though world music has been recorded since the days of wax cylinders, the idea of blending it with Western musical styles really took off in the late-Sixties and seventies when African American musicians began exploring their roots beyond blues and jazz. Some of the best of these early fusions came out of the free-jazz scene

Continue Reading…

The date was Saturday, December 8, 1979, and my brother and I were standing in a line at the Village Green movie theater that wrapped around the building. Winter hasn’t really begun in South Florida by December, and it was a sunny afternoon, so we weren’t uncomfortable, besides we were waiting to see Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Nothing could dampen our spirits. Now before you start rolling your eyes let me explain the state of Trek fandom at the time. The Original Series (TOS) went off the air in 1969, and with the exception of a brief foray on Saturday morning television as a cartoon, and some poorly made fanzines that were not readily available to a 15 year old boy in those pre-Internet days, we had seen nothing new from Star Trek. What we didn’t know was that Gene Roddenberry and Robert Justman had been working on bringing Trek back to the small screen with Star Trek Phase II, but then in 1977 Star Wars took the world by storm and Paramount decided they wanted a movie, not a TV series. I don’t really remember when I first saw the now famous rainbow ad for ST:TMP, but I do remember the thrill that coursed through my guts. I memorized the date, scrutinized the magazine racks and newspapers for any mention of the film, and waited. Finally the day came, and my mother dropped my brother and me off at the cinema, and we happily joined the queue.
The lobby was decked out with huge pictures of the new Enterprise including a cut-away poster showing the new interior layout, which I purchased for the princely sum of $5. I don’t think anyone was in costume that day, but I do recall seeing one of my teachers in the crowd. We found seats as close to the center of the auditorium as possible and, again, waited. After what seemed an eternity the lights dimmed, and the greatest event of my life to that point began. The next 2 hours seemed to go by at warp speed as I memorized every square centimeter of that gorgeous ship. To this day I feel that the flyby of the Enterprise that most people think is too long could be longer. I left that theater elated, overjoyed, and totally satisfied. What I didn’t realize at the time, and what took me four more viewings to get, was that the movie was completely lacking in all the things that made Star Trek something other than a hardware expo. I went from joy, to unease, to boredom, to outrage. How dare they give us Trek that was substandard?! I spent the next two and a half decades calling it The Motion Sickness, or The Motionless Picture, and until Star Trek V came out I considered it the worst film ever. (but I still loved the new ship, and built many a model)
Somehow, as the years went by, I grew to dislike TMP less and less. Then, last year, I picked up the special edition DVD at a second hand store and watched it with a more charitable eye. Yes, it is still the slowest moving movie of all time, and yes probably forty-five minutes of footage could be cut out without affecting the story one bit, and yes the script is almost a carbon copy of The Changeling, but all that being said there is a lot to like about the film. The ship was, and still is awesome. The effects were very good for their time, and a lot of what has become standard in the Trek universe was established in TMP (Klingons that look like aliens, the large, glowing warp core, Scotty’s mustache). And though the characterizations were stilted and dull, they weren’t out of character, just boring. Finally, when I was starting to actually like much of the movie, I listened to the commentary track. Director Robert Wise explained a lot of things that softened my view of the film even more. Some of the complaints about the film had to do with it being hugely over budget, but what never made it to the papers was that the money already spent on pre-production of Star Trek Phase II was put under the accounting umbrella of TMP, so more than half of the film’s expenditures had little to do with the movie. They were also saddled with an unreasonable, and non-negotiable release date, and as a result of the special effects companies being terribly behind schedule Wise never got a chance to screen the film to test audiences, or even to edit it much. He literally hand carried a still-wet print to the gala premier. Finally there were many visual effects shots that just never got finished, so a lot of the scenes seemed incomplete. In my opinion the director’s commentary on TMP should be required listening for any true Trek fan. It may not make you love the film, but it might help you hate it less.

I will grant that there were many flaws in The Motion Picture that had nothing to do with budget or schedules. The uniforms, while functional, were drab and unflattering. The dialogue, while more accurate from a ‘we’re really on a space ship’ sense seemed overblown and stilted. The ship’s interiors were sterile and monochrome, again probably more realistic, but not very fun to watch. And that, to me, sums up the largest problem with the film…it wasn’t fun. I just rewatched the director’s cut this evening. Wise cut it tighter, and the studio used excellent CGI to either finish or put in bits that were either undone, or unaffordable, but the sense of humor and fun that permeated all of TOS just wasn’t there. Roddenberry had brought in a NASA scientist to help make the new Enterprise seem as realistic as possible, and that lead to a kind of clinical sterility that just didn’t fit for Star Trek. All that being said, however, none of the cast behaved in ways that were grossly out of character; they just spent too much time staring at the view screen looking puzzled, and not enough time doing anything interesting.

So, I can forgive Star Trek, The Motion Picture many of its sins because it was the film that brought Star Trek back from the grave, and because even though it was not an exciting thrill ride, and even though it was pretty much a rehash of a much superior TOS episode, it didn’t violate canon, or make anyone do or say anything that was wrong, and it gave us a beautiful new ship to play with. It certainly wasn’t the best of the films, but it was, in my opinion, far and away not the worst.

Marius

Roll: 3 – 11 – 9
Result: Illinois  by Sufjan Stevens.
 
Sufjan Stevens didn’t mess around with the second installment in his project to write an album about each of the 50 United States. Any tribute to Illinois, the state that is home to both Chicago and gave birth to John Wayne Gacy, would have to be epic and it is.

Hi everyone.

We wanted to put out this post just to make apology and explanation for our erratic show publishing schedule. We know you think its because our ever increasing consumption of beer has made us social reprobates, but unfortunately not

Summer is for both of your hosts the most hectic time of the year. The world of Casey’s kitchen become chaos personified through the summer months, and Boz’s workload pretty much triples overnight when the sun comes out.

Please rest assured that we are still completely dedicated to the show as we absolutely love doing it, but often rationalising our schedules is very difficult, and we often find ourselves recording when we really should be sleeping. But hey this ain’t about us whingeing its simply a statement of fact. Very often the recording gets done but the edit time can be hard to find also.

So in a nutshell we are saying please bear with us through the coming months, we are gonna keep hitting you with our inane ramblings but it may well be a pleasant surprise when you actually get one