10 to watch on Twitter March 20, 2009
Posted by Paula in Webshite.Tags: barack obama, john cleese, jonathan ross, lance armstrong, Lily Allen, mtv, paulo coelho, popjustice, russell brand, stephen fry, twitter
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Jonathan Ross
Ross updates his Twitter page every few minutes, but grudgingly stops every so often when his fatherly duties call. “Am going now to help Honey with her history homework. The Crusades. Haven’t got a bloody clue”.
Barack Obama
Obama’s Twitter page is followed by almost 400,000 users, and he’s returned the favour to 370,000 of those. While it’d be nice to say that the US President loves to sit down and read your Twitter updates, Obama’s page died a feeble death late last year. Since he was elected as the US President in November, Obama’s only Twittered once. Strange, that.
Lily Allen
Another obsessive Twitterer, Allen updates her page twenty or thirty times a day. She steers away from using Twitter to promote her new album though- most of Allen’s posts are totally unrelated to music. “Shit. I’ve just been shown photographic evidence of myself podium dancing last night. God I’m a dick.”
Popjustice
The Popjustice Twitter feed is the little sister of the Popjustice blog. Both are updated frequently. Popjustice (in both forms) should be bookmarked by anyone with an interest in pop music. Or anyone with an interest in slating pop music. “In the post today: Kelly Clarkson album with promotional lollipop that looks like condom. Probably not unintentional.”
Stephen Fry
Fry follows the updates posted by 54,000 other Twitter users, and he constantly updates his own page. His obsession with Twitter is a little unhealthy though- is it necessary to wake his 281,000 followers up at 7.30am to say “Morning Darlings. Happy Sunday”? Fry recently started another Twitter feed with his QI pal Alan Davies called Qikipedia. It’s full of useless facts, like the original QI. But, like QI, it has a certain charm.
MTV
The MTV Twitter page is basically an online version of MTV News. It’s updated every hour with stories about Britney, Rihanna and the rest. Most updates are accompanied by a link to videos or articles, which saves Twitter users the effort of trawling the MTV site to find out more about Amy Winehouse’s arrest or the new series of American Idol.
John Cleese
Cleese is surprisingly technologically able for a 69 year old. Aside from his Twitter, he also has a blog (www.cleeseblog.com) to which he regularly adds videos. Cleese’s Twitter feed is worth following for the gems that he comes out with every few hours. “A pet hate is a hate which you nurture as if it were a small animal for which you have great affection”.
Lance Armstrong
www.twitter.com/lancearmstrong
Armstrong’s Twitter posts vary between training updates and promotions for his Livestrong charity events. The best part of his Twitter feed is probably the occasional picture of Armstrong and his muscular cycling pals in their skintight gear. Keep them coming, Lance!
Paulo Coelho
Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist, has over 10,000 followers on Twitter. Most of his recent updates have included links to extracts from his new book, The Winner Stands Alone, released in Ireland and the UK this week. If you can’t afford to buy the book, Coelho’s Twitter page should be your first stop.
Russell Brand
Brand is fairly new to Twitter, with just a couple of hundred posts so far. He’s definitely one to follow though, as Brand is taking advice from fans via Twitter on what to include in his second autobiography. It’s due out next year- plague Brand with your ideas now, and you never know, they could end up in My Booky Wook 2.
[Appeared in March edition of The College View]
Image from here
Academy, Dublin, 16 March: Lily in the flesh… March 19, 2009
Posted by Paula in Muzak.Tags: Lily Allen, The Academy Dublin
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…was surprisingly friendly, sober and sweet. I was expecting a sullen drunk, but got quite the opposite. Lily chatted with the audience throughout and seemed genuinely delighted to be in Dublin. While the majority of the set consisted of songs from Lily’s new album, she also through in a few good ‘uns from her first album, including Smile and LDN.
My biggest problem with the gig was less to do with Lily and more to do with the very tall, very drugged up girl who stood directly in front of us for most of the show. That, and the fact that we missed support act La Roux by about ten minutes, though we arrived shortly after she was due to start.
Wednesday’s Irish Independent featured a surprisingly negative review of the gig, referring to parts of her set as “hideous”, “irritating” and “inane”. But there’s always one. My pal Joey’s blog post about the same gig was decidely more forgiving and, I think, more accurate. Read it here.
I wish I could say the above photo was mine, but my camera received a hefty amount of water damage the night after the gig so my photos from the Academy are trapped somewhere in my camera’s soggy motherboard. I’m slightly devastated.
Photo from here
Lily Love February 13, 2009
Posted by Paula in Muzak.Tags: Lily Allen, The Academy Dublin
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It was a welcome surprise the other day to find out that Lily Allen had uploaded her new album ‘It’s Not Me, It’s You’ to her MySpace player. Considering it’s been three years since her last album I was really looking forward to hearing Lily’s latest offering. I’d just found a ticket for her gig at the Academy on March 16th too so that added to my need for a Lily fix.
It turns out she was only teasing us, though. The full album’s since been taken down, except for the her current release, ‘The Fear’. I did manage to have a quick listen before the other tracks were removed, and liked what I heard.
One of my favourite tracks was ‘Not Fair’- musically it’s definitely not the best of what the album has to offer, but lyrically it’s a keeper. I’ve heard Lily descibed as ‘gobby’ by more than one writer, and in this song she definitely fits that description.
‘Everyone’s at It’ opens the album and I hope it’ll also be the second single released. It’s a bigger sound than ‘The Fear’- I’d love if the second single released was one we could dance to rather than just…sway to…
I’m too broke to afford the album and the interent connection in my campus apartment doesn’t allow downloads. Not Fair. I’ll just have to rely on You Tube until March 16th…
Patrick and Paula
Patrick
Paula