This week I have learned: if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...the football stuff is getting nerve wracking.without a massive shindig every year in Barcelona, some companies' business models start to look a bit threadbare.I'm still hiring - 5 days to go...buildings are living, socio-technical systems.a new angle on thinking about … Continue reading Weeknote 493: End of term
Category: Projects
Ms Jackson was the song that got me into OutKast, but by the time they got to Speakboxxx/The Love Below they hit the big time with the single Hey Ya!, radio friendly pop with the wonderful "Shake it like a Polaroid picture" which immediately makes it seem like decades ago, and deeply, deeply dark lyrics … Continue reading 51 for 50 – 2003
This week I have learned: that a combination of rain and back to back meetings means I've barely left the house this week.there is a fine line between therapeutic and annoying.parent/child relationships exist all over the place. Often switching mid sentence.it's one thing to know what you need to do, but quite another to convince … Continue reading Weeknote 492 – housebound
Blazing Arrow by Blackalicious is a stupendous album. No track better illustrates it than Chemical Callisthenics. And then you've got guest slots from Gil Scott-Heron, Chali 2na and Cut Chemist too. https://open.spotify.com/album/0DyXkWHnFMIJSuHfLgNfcc?si=_5myObGfRRaYiipQsQgPow You can see the #51for50 project to date here: https://mmitii.mattballantine.com/category/projects/51-for-50/
Roots Manuva was the first time that I heard an authentically British hip hop voice. Something that made sense... Lyrics like "Taskmaster burst the bionic zit-splitterBreakneck speeds we down ten pints of bitter" are not the sort of things that come out of New York rapper. It's a bit like how all American films seem … Continue reading 51 for 50 – 2001
And so we enter my fourth millennium and one of the few guitar-based albums to enter my noggin in my mid twenties and thirties. Badly Drawn Boy’s The Hour of Bewilderbeast is touching, sweet, whimsical. Almost folk music. And it captures a feel of my time back then. It’s only now though that I’ve realised … Continue reading 51 for 50 – 2000
It's hard to remember that 21 years ago the run up to the end of the millennium was a Really Big Thing (even if there was mathematical dispute about whether December 31st 1999 actually was the end of the millennium or not). Prince had told us that it was time to party like it was … Continue reading 51 for 50 – 1999
This week I've learned: do I spend too much energy trying to make other people happy?we really should have turned the WB-40 Donate Page on earlier.the relentless tide of meetings is starting to get to all of us.football eh? Ask me again after the 12.30 kickoff on Saturday.being asked by someone to mentor them is … Continue reading Weeknote 489: bolt upright
Making Bones is an album I'd completely forgotten about until making this list, and more is the pity. A mix of hip hop, drum and bass and a heavy side helping of jazz. Pretty much perfectly sums up my listening in the late 90s. https://open.spotify.com/album/43T9blwnSifY6kro3uZUFe?si=9VtBsZpHSse4FVRqY3YEHw You can see the #51for50 project to date here: https://mmitii.mattballantine.com/category/projects/51-for-50/
This week I have learned: I think my core purpose in life is bringing communities of people together. I certainly get an immense sense of pride from doing it.That 29 years after I founded the Student Radio Association with a bunch of other folk in a draughty lecture hall at Loughborough University, the organisation is … Continue reading Weeknote 488: rock turning
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