4 x 4 meme thing

Iain tagged me with this 4 x 4 meme thing. Which is exciting. Since I'm always too scared to look at my inbound links I never normally notice when I've been tagged, but this time I was actually in the room when he did it, so there's no escaping.

Four Jobs I've Had

Paper-Round. My paper-round was perhaps the job I've enjoyed most. I loved getting up early. And my parents were kind enough to buy me a Sony Stowaway (later to be known as the Walkman).  This meant I could do my paper-round while listening to Pink Floyd and singing along incredibly loud in a not properly broken voice. Must have sounded awful. But these were early Walkman days and we hadn't learned to moderate our public headphone singing yet. And no-one I met on the round knew what a Walkman was. A few of the neighbours thought it was some kind of hearing aid and made their sympathies known to my mother.

Bassist. Sometimes Drummer. Not sure if this counts as a job, but it earned me the most money before I got a proper job. This was in a folky band called Dungeon Ghyll that used to play for barn dances and ceilidh's all over Derbyshire. Mostly for Young Farmers dos. Accordian. Guitar. Fiddle. Bass and Snare Drum. We occasionally rocked.

PhotoLab. I spent one summer working in a photo-developing lab. I was completely unskilled so all I did was  cut the negatives up, match them up with the right prints and put them in the envelope. We'd often lost a print here or there so had a spare stock of misc pictures to chuck in the envelope instead. There were only ever two sorts of picture that anyone took - three old ladies on a sofa with a cake and a huge expanse of sky with a tiny, tiny plane right in the middle.

Dealer Account Guy. My first proper job was administering the advertising programme for all the Fiat  dealers across the UK. We had to make sure the dealers (who made their own ads) didn't infringe any of Fiat's advertising regulations. I remember when the Fiat Tipo won European Car Of The Year a dealer in the West Midlands managed to run an ad suggesting that the Fiat Typo had won European Car Of The Week.

Four Shows I DVR

I don't DVR shows really. (What does DVR stand for?) I occasionally buy DVDs for plane journeys and I record quite a lot via EyeTV. But if I did, I'd be DVRing:

QI It's silly and funny and clever. I can see how it might also look smug and annoying but I don't care.

Ben 10 Smart, energetic animated telly for kids. We can all watch this together.

Sports Night One of the few shows I've got on DVD and sometimes just get out and watch. This is pre-West Wing Aaron Sorkin, much of the same cast but compressed into 30 minute chunks. Incredibly sharp and funny. (Also could be seen as smug and annoying. There's a theme here isn't there?)

Scrapheap Challenge. There should be more engineering on the telly.

Four Places I've Been

I'm not much of a traveler. I've been to lots of places on business but tended not to pay that much attention. Bad I know. But, mostly, as soon as I get somewhere, I want to come home. Before we ever lived in the States, Anne and I used to go on long driving holidays there. All over the place. My four favourite places (apart from Portland) were:

Freeport - our first ever trip to The States. Three weeks driving around New England. And we happened upon Freeport and the LL Bean flagship store. I was obsessed  with anything that boasted a 'state of the art pocket system' (still am), so this was a bit of a geekout.

San Luis Obispo - another driving holiday, up the West Coast from LA to Portland before interviewing at w+k, took us to San Luis Obispo. I think this is where we decided we'd like to live in the US sometime. Not sure why really. It was warm enough for sandals, there was a good bookshop and good coffee. That's probably enough. Like to go back here sometime.

Huntsville - we spent a few days here. Brilliant place. Any city with a space shuttle on its crest has got to be good. And it's only a couple of hundred miles from Dollywood, so we had a trip there too. Best day out ever. That whole area - the Smoky Mountains and the Tennessee Valley - is fascinating. I think we started off on the Blue Ridge Parkway and ended up heading into Alabama, I remember how exciting the road was, but the chronology and geography of the holiday is a blur.

Cooperstown - after three weeks being hypnotised by the rhythms and sounds of baseball commentary, all crackly and remote on the AM radio, we had to go and see the Baseball Hall Of Fame. But we really liked Cooperstown itelf. We splashed out on a slightly fancier motel and spent and evening in rocking chairs on the porch. I seem to remember it was next to a lake and I was reading The Curious Case Of Sidd Finch.

Four Music Artists I'm Listening To Now

Well, according to Last.fm my Top Four Artists this week are:

Moondog (recommended over coffee by Ben)

Stars Of The Lid (found via the sidebar on Dan's blog)

Moodyman (found via a twitter from Matt)

Bang On A Can (via The Rest Is Noise and reminded by this).

That's mostly because I can never get my iPod to scrobble properly and therefore only reflects the stuff I've been listening to while working. (A whole category of music which has emerged during the last 20 years as more and more workers have huddled over computers with headphones on. It's music that provides a mental sniper's pad but doesn't especially intrude.)

I think if you included vinyl and iPod listening then, this week, you'd have to make it The Portico Quartet, Jellyfish , Trouble Funk and, after Friday night, more and more DJ Yoda.

And now, I have to tag four other people: how about Ben, Dan, Dan and Stefan. That lot'll be interesting.

Comments

[Charlie Gower]

I think the most dedicated I have ever been while working was on a paper round. Two rounds on Sundays, I always came off the bike on the corners because of the weight. Yet still I did it all through the holidays in the snow and rain.
Adam Crowe tagged me with this blessing / curse, so My 4x4 will appear shortly.

[RIck Julian]

Russell,

DVR = Digital Video Recorder.
Great post, I love all the variety of your experience, and find cross-pollination is a wonderful byproduct.

My most recent adventure is Twittering, just wrote about my first seven days: http://tinyurl.com/2wnlts

I'm http://twitter.com/rickjulian follow me 'n I'll follow you.

Best,
Rick

[Phil Gyford]

I had a weekly paper round (in the mid 1980s) and had the same issue with one or two people thinking my headphones were some kind of hearing aid.

[Tom Smith]

The fact you Delicious-ed "Let's Play Ukulele" referred 19 people this week. Thanks.

Did you know you can play with the Alpha and peep at a Ukulele Songbook based on your LastFM stuff?

http://letsplayukulele.com/ukulele/tabs/lastfm/russelldavies/

Now can I have an invite for FFFFOund?!

[Rob B]

Russell,
I was introduced to Ben 10 (the live action movie) this weekend when baby-sitting my God son. Two things that I noted (other than the fact that it was rather good), firstly that it was directed by Alex Winter AKA Bill S Preston of Bill and Ted fame and the music was by Andy Sturmer, ex-lead singer of the tragically over-looked Jellyfish (Split Milk is one of my desert island choices)
Just thought it was an interesting coincidence that you mentioned the two things together