Thanks to the immortal Robin Beck for providing lyrical inspiration for this, The Desperation Choir’s (and my) first ever blog post. You’re very welcome – thanks for looking in.

A few things about what this is for. It’s not supposed to be an ad, or a promotional tool as such. We’ve got our website, Facebook and Twitter for that. It’s more just a place for me (Rob) and the rest of the band to burble on about stuff that’s interesting to us. The chances of it being interesting to you are, if I’m honest, slim. But you never know.

Anyway, I’ll update this pretty regularly, I imagine. Sorry about that.

Am 15. Oktober war Blog Action Day 2009 – dieses Jahr zum Thema Klimawandel. Die Aktion war ein glatter Erfolg, wie einige Zahlen und Fakten aus einem Mail von Robin Beck, dem Veranstalter des Blog Action Day, belegen:

Mehr als 31.000 Beiträge aus 155 Ländern und 6 Kontinenten beschäftigten sich am 15.10. mit dem Klimawandel. Diese Beiträge stammten aus 13.000 verschiedenen Blogs und erreichten knapp 17,9 Millionen Leser. Blog Action Day 2009 wird damit als die vorläufig wichtigste Aktion angesehen, mit denen sich die modernen Medien (Blogs, Web 2.0-Plattformen, Twitter) bislang beschäftigt haben.

Unter den Verfassern der Artikel vom 15.10. sind auch zahlreiche prominente und einflussreiche Adressen. Neben dem Beitrag des englischen Premiers Gordon Brown, den wir hier bereits auszugsweise wiedergegeben haben, finden sich auch Aufrufe aus dem britischen Außenministerium, aus dem Weißen Haus, von Google, Mashable, Unofficial Apple Blog, Huffington Post, Change.org, Global Voices, Tim O’Reilly, Treehugger, Tcktcktck, Greenpeace, WWF, Oxfam, 1Sky, Mother Jones und vielen, vielen anderen.

Hoffen wir, dass in Kopenhagen wirksame Beschlüsse zum Klimaschutz gefasst werden. Wie das geht, zeigen uns die Kleinen aus dem neuen und sehr bewegenden Video von Tcktcktck:

Ok, yes, this is nerdy, but I can’t help but think this is one of the best infographics I’ve seen on evolution. I think besides those who pursue research and progress in natural sciences, those who make it approachable for laymen deserve just as much if not more applause. The sphere above is a family tree representing the evolution of mammals across 166 mln years. The timeline runs from the centre of the sphere outwards so you can track how and where the various groups split and changed. The family tree was creater by Robin Beck, a Mammalian Systematist as the University of NSW. The intricacy of the tree is quite amazing to the point of it being a little difficult to analyse, but for those interested enough, I’m sure it’ll be a joy anyway. The complete image is available as a free PDF download and to get an even better feel of it, you should watch a video by Dr. Paul Willis from ABC TV in Australia.

Now the thing to find out is whether there are such graphs available for other groups of animals and how long it might be before there is one encompassing all species! I think it would be great if someone could put this graph into a more interactive piece of software so as to make it more fun for those who might actually be able to use it in biology classes for their students.

tv and music were once an unholy alliance. you didn’t get leona lewis, you got bonnie langford. actors who thought they could sing and songs used in adverts and tv themes populated the charts.

old skool tv tracks

babylon zoo – spaceman

once used in a levi’s ad, forever lodged in a nation’s consciousness. you’d forgotten it? well in 1995, people had forgotten about the jeans. each new ad was notable for the soundtrack and model, with jeans rapidly disappearing off the radar until flat eric and destiny’s child revived them complete with sequins and glitter a few years later.

five star – stay out of my life

a rework of this five star track moonlighted as the theme tune to citv game show ‘how dare you’, variously presented by playschool’s floella benjamin and bucks fizz alumni cheryl baker. it’s a hazy memory but i do remember a lot of gunge being thrown around.

brown sauce – i wanna be a winner

cheggers and soon-to-be but now ex-wife maggie philbin wrongly assumed that their presenting roles on saturday morning tv show the multicoloured swap shop implied any kind of musical talent. so, those of you who thought his career low point was baring his arse on ‘naked jungle’ were wrong. thank god for ‘cheggers plays pop’. i loved that, always wanted the yellows to win and they never did.

marlena shaw – california soul

kfc as soul food? genius. it’s not quite momma cherri’s but as close as a lot of people are going to get. soul food, like mexican and swiss cuisine, is way underrepresented in the UK.

dennis waterman – i could be so good for you

forget little dennis waterman in the little britain sketch, funny though it is. in the 80s, in ‘minder’, dennis was cool. this fell apart roughly around the same time as we found out that minger laura from eastenders was his daughter. you remember, the one who was married to ian beale, and in her 40s, played by someone in their 20s. yep, that minging.

dexy’s midnight runners – because of you

became the theme tune to popular 80s sitcom ‘brush strokes’ featuring the actor who has appeared in mr muscle adverts for the last ten years or so, as jacko. elmo putney and his pink wine bar…what happened to wine bars? in my not very legal drinking years the last few were dying out. this, and the one in ‘only fools and horses’ that del fell over in, are places I would have liked to frequent…for the kitsch value, naturally…

grange hill – just say no

yes, just a few years later on ‘the word’ the cast collided with the early 90s rave scene and undid all that good work…one of my favourite things about watching old grange hill episodes, apart from jackie and zammo, is the accents. no one speaks like that now! i’m not even sure they did then. they’re supposed to be cockneys!

v capri – haunting me

thought angry anderson was bad? this song featured in an episode, i think, where scott and charlene had split, but he raced to a bus station (always a bus station) to stop her moving to brisbane. cue lots of flashbacks of them playing on swings, slides, roundabouts..in other words the cheesiest bit of tv you’re ever likely to see. look it up on youtube.

cathy dennis – irresistable

used in a 1992 sky campaign. pretty sure the only reason it’s embedded in my memory is the fact that i – literally - watched cable for 20 hours a day back then. studs and full house on sky one, on the air with clive pearse on super channel, most wanted with ray cokes…good times.

joey scarbury – believe it or not

possibly the most 80s theme tune ever, from ‘the greatest american hero’. inspired later efforts for ‘cheers’, ‘the golden girls’ and ‘my two dads’.

robin beck – first time

everyone in coke ads was cool. even if they were in the middle of falling over, their first kiss, being hit by a tidal wave, whatever, because they were a) in slow motion and b) had a coke in their hand, the object of their desire still fancied them and they were unflappable. no wonder 80s kids are all in therapy now…

savage garden – truly madly deeply

ah yes, melted chocolate voiced savage garden, were a perfect fit with wet blanket dawson and the other improbably sensitive and articulate river kids. can’t remember if the song actually featured in the series or was just a channel 4 hookup.

  My friend John Davis

was not only one of the real voices of Milli Vanilli, but has previously performed and recorded with such greats as Luther Vandross, Babyface, Eric Burdon, Robin Beck and more. More than 8 songs were chart hits – some of them reached the Top 10.

    After seven years as the frontman for

Soul Kitchen, now has his own Band > The official website of John Davis

John and Monika – I love you

Robin Beck /First Time/ 7″ Singel - Coca-Cola

Mercury / EMI – Copyright The Coca-Cola Company 1988 / Holland 1988

/First Time/First Time (instrumental)/