Category Archives: Music

The Coronavirus – a brief guide

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Sol beer sml 2Unlike people, viruses are smart and evolve quickly, making them a challenging adversary.

Scientists are racing to perfect a vaccine, but in the meantime what can you do to protect yourself and your loved ones?

Here’s the handy halfbananas guide to the (almost) pandemic.

 

Avoid drinking Corona beer, a possible source (allegedly) of infection. You’ll be safer with Sol!

One meaning of corona is a crown, so it makes sense to avoid royalty at all costs. They travel a lot, spreading all sorts of nasty bugs.

Cheap surgical masks are not very effective, but add a few drops of chloroform and voila! You can stay home and take a nice nap instead of going out and risking infection.

Viruses can be disrupted or destroyed by heat and possibly by certain sound frequencies. Initial lab results show promise, especially with Christian rock music and anything by Vanilla Ice.

There are numerous conspiracy theories in circulation, and many believe it is no coincidence that the virus has a crown-like appearance. Perhaps further proof that the royal family are indeed alien lizard beings here to conquer the world. The truth is out there.

A cold bottle of Sol with a wedge of lime might not cure the coronavirus, but boy it goes down well after a long hard day of worrying about it.

Many wonder if crystals might be a solution? A combination of amethyst and clear quartz is said to reduce tiredness in bees, and may also offer some protection against werewolves. But so far they have proved ineffective in pretty much all other cases.

Homeopathy has also been touted as a way of fighting the virus and other ailments. Putting your faith in little bottles of expensive magic water seems unwise. Placebo effect aside, these remedies have been widely debunked as just more snake oil. Although snake oil is probably more effective.

Alcohol however, has been shown to eradicate the virus. It is not known if Sol beer counts, but it certainly can’t hurt to try!

At the end of the day, the best protections are simply good hand hygiene, avoiding sick people and a fully functional underground bunker/lair in the desert.

For more detailed (and reliable!) information about the Coronavirus outbreak, see the WHO’s information page here

In the immortal words of Mr Spock, “Live long and prosper”.

This post could be (hopefully) brought to you in partnership with Sol beer – the lager of pandemics.

© Copyright Jason Lennick 2020

Photo by Iago DL on Unsplash

Play that fungi music white boy*

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Spanish_SlugYesterday felt like a day of strangeness and magic. First came a great deluge that threatened to wash away the parked cars and the occasional cyclist in an almost biblical-style flood. I stood under cover, caught between my local store and home after returning from work. I was listening to some sublime electronica at the time, a unique soundtrack to the cascades of water splashing and bouncing off roads and pavements. For a few minutes I just stood and watched, mesmerised by the experience. I found I was smiling broadly and felt an easing of the hangover headache that had dogged me all day. It was just a moment of subtle, indefinable magic.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the downpour ceased and I broke cover and headed the few hundred metres home, trying to avoid lake-Ontario-sized puddles. A rainbow appeared briefly above our block of flats, a fitting appearance at the end of Copenhagen’s Gay Pride week.

I will backtrack slightly to me leaving the cafe where I work, about an hour beforehand. I ran into a lady of mature years, standing outside. She wanted to know more about the place. It turned out she was a fellow Brit and after basic pleasantries were exchanged, I told her all about our lovely little non-profit cafe and the many activities we host within. The lady seemed most pleased at my invitation to come and sample our food and perhaps make some new friends. “You are my angel of the day” she announced, in a warm northern accent, and I was perfectly happy with this description. I have been called lots of things, but don’t often get called an angel.

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Capes and japes

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batmanI love odd coincidences and weird moments of synchronicity. Recently I heard / read something that reminded me of Laurie Anderson’s track (and surprise hit) ‘O Superman‘. It’s been a while (1981!), so I looked up the lyrics out of curiosity (Memory can play tricks). It seems disturbingly sinister and prescient now:

“….This is the hand, the hand that takes.

Here come the planes.

They’re American planes. Made in America.

Smoking or non-smoking?

And the voice said: Neither snow nor rain nor gloom

of night shall stay these couriers from the swift

completion of their appointed rounds.

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Ninety-eight red balloons

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dont-look-now-smallA journey into the city recently turned into one of those Mondays of minor irritations and muse-inspiring moments that just sticks in the mind.


It didn’t start well, since my watch strap, the subject of a few recent repair attempts, finally gave up the ghost and snapped. This turned into something of a metaphor as shortly afterwards I literally ran out of time and missed my bus to the station by seconds. Oaths and dark curses were muttered as I waited in the cold for its successor.

After transferring from train to the Metro, a guy got on with luggage but neglected to hold on as the train lurched forwards. He fell against me and trod heavily on my foot. It’s fortunate that I’d neglected to pack my razor-sharp ninja sword that morning, else he’d have been completing his journey minus his head.
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What’s in a name

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I’ve always been fascinated and entertained by clever, funny or weird band names. Clearly it’s a challenge for any musician or group to find the perfect moniker, that name that sets them apart and captures a sense of what they are about. Or maybe just got chosen in a moment of drunken / stoned madness and stuck.

I grew up listening to the likes of Pink Floyd and Bowie and one of my first LP purchases was Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, so perhaps it’s no surprise I developed an ear for good music and interesting names.
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The Halbananas hotlist

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I’ve noticed quite a few of my fellow bloggers have been doing some nice round-ups of fave movies, TV shows or other popular entertainments. Never wanting to miss a popular bandwagon to leap on, here is my own humble halfbananas listicle of my top five banana-related entertainments. Enjoy.

Movies

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1. Bananas – Woody Allen’s hilarious tale of love, dictators and fruit
2. Pulp Fiction – Tarantino’s fruity masterpiece
3. Bananas is My Business – Carmen Miranda documentary
4. Herbie Goes Bananas -1980 thrillfest featuring the magical VW
5. Banana Joe – 1982 film about a man who grows bananas
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The future is here, almost

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albert_einstein_medNew year’s eve is often a time of reflection and even regret, as well as anticipation and hope for the year to come. But we can only live in the present, so as a great sage once said:

“Be not afraid for the future or regretful of the past, for the past was once the future, and the future will soon be the present, until it quickly becomes the past, again. In this way there is no past, present or future. Or something.”

Wise words indeed and ones we can all easily choose to ignore.

We lost many wonderful people in 2016, including some personal heroes like David Bowie. I suspect we also lost a bit of faith in human nature, with the UK’s Brexit debacle and the US presidential election demonstrating once again how the masses can be manipulated by ruthless sociopaths and morally bankrupt media organisations to vote against their own best interests. We now live in a post-truth world we are told, although I’m not sure if that is true or not.

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Saturday night fever

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One reaches a certain age where the thought of a wild night out on the town, crowded bars and long queues for packed and sweaty nightclubs slowly begins to lose its appeal. Over the years we certainly had our fair share of such nights, but then one day you start to see the advantages of a nice quiet, non-crowded living room. No dress code, no queues for drinks or bathroom, very cheap booze and you can be in bed at the end of the evening in seconds rather than endure the awful slog home via night buses or trains.
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Me, me, me!

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There was a survey a while back that showed that a quarter of the American population believe that the sun revolves around the Earth, and not the other way round. This was of course the mainstream view until our old chum Nicky Copernicus upset the apple-cart with his heliocentric model, published in the 16th century. At last the Earth was put in its rightful place, although not everyone was thrilled with this particular advance in human knowledge. There were certainly some major grumblings from the Catholic church. Still, at least Mr C managed to avoid the fate of his defender and fellow astronomy clever-clogs, friar Giordano Bruno, who apparently was just too much of a rebel for the church and had his chestnuts roasted on an open fire, along with the rest of him.

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Calling all weirdos

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Are you a bit weird? How would you know for sure? How does one even define such a term?

The OED defines it thus:

Weirdo: A person whose dress or behaviour seems strange or eccentric.”

Okay, so we have a working definition, which is a start. But things may not be quite so simple. Because you see there are so many other categories that seem to impinge on this one: oddballs, eccentrics, characters, visionaries, freaks, outsiders, introverts, writers..

It’s a fine line between eccentric and bonkers, between visionary genius and delusional crackpot. Stay just on the right side of it, and you might find yourself lauded, loved and sung about (although maybe not in your lifetime). Wander across that imaginary line too far though and you might find yourself mocked, attacked or even taking up residence in a locked room with heavily padded walls and terrible room service.

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