That was the Week That Was – June 12th

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Yes, this week’s TW3 is a day late due to flu. I’ve never been very good at staying in bed for any length of time, so yesterday was interminable for me. On the other hand, I managed to catch up on Battlestar Galactica, listened to the hilarious podcast commentary for last weekend’s Doctor Who, The Forest of Fear, and finally watched Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The latter is a film that is ripe for a modern remake, as the issues are far more prevalent today.

The Cult — Love

One of the beauties of the iPod is the ability to plonk my entire music collection on there and hit shuffle. Every day I rediscover an album or track I hadn’t listened to for years.

On Saturday, the white box of noise served up a random track from The Cult’s Love album – Phoenix. Five minutes later my thumb was whizzing round the click wheel to find the entire album.

This was ‘80s rock at its best; an album designed to grab you by the ears and nut you clean on the forehead like a bovver-booted bully-boy with dark and disturbing tattoos. Suddenly, I couldn’t help walking with a bit more swagger. I was that gothic rocker again, remembering the seedy underground pubs and questionable lifestyle decisions of my teenage years.

The Cult may have faded into mediocrity after the fourth album, Sonic Temple, but Love still stands out as the album that took gothic rock mainstream. She Sells Sanctuary made it onto Top of the Pops years before Andrew Eldritch got to bare his Skeletor physique to the masses with This Corrosion.

Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy unashamedly ripped off the rock giants of Led Zeppelin, Steppenwolf and a host of other classic rock acts, but they bound this Frankenstein of riffs and screaming together with a particularly new gothic sensibility that stood them apart.

Go on. If you remember The Cult first time around, pull out the old vinyl this weekend and rattle the neighbours. If you’re too young to know who I’m talking about, drop those Wolfmother CDs and destroy your eardrums the way we did at your age.

You won’t regret it.

Twitter Me This – More Competitions

Blog competitions are a remarkable way to attract traffic while building an effective community of links and subscribers. Two notable competitions are currently running of which you should be aware.

If you’re not already addicted to Twitter, where have you been? One of the best networking tools on the planet, it is also highly enjoyable for us wordy types who love nothing more than to spend hours crafting the best sentence. Daniel Smith has decided to launch a competition to test the wit of his subscribers and to see how many laughs we can get out of the 140 character Twitter format. The Can You Put the Wit in Twitter competition is already attracting some hilarious entries. Join in before it’s too late.

Meanwhile, over at Plotdog.com, plans are afoot to nominate the best blog posts on writing. There are a number of writing blogs throughout the internet, but sometimes the best articles need help to get the attention they deserve. This is where Plotdog’s campaign comes in. The design of the contest rewards the best articles with links from all the other contestants. This kind of linking activity helps build a strong community within the writer’s blogging niche.

The current Top Picks are:

About Writing

• Miss Write - A Few Tips On Content Writing

Fiction/Flash Fiction

• Jennifer Scott - Goodbye Daddy
• Cieralla – Such a Wonderful World

Descriptive Prose

• Jennifer Scott – Deepening Green

Check out the Top Picks and if you also write about writing, submit your best recent link before June 13th.

And Finally…

Prince Caspian – a much darker film to the original Narnia epic with some complex adult dilemmas explored. Definitely worth the price of admission. I adored the books as a twelve year old, and can remember the thrill of the attack on the castle or the heat of battle.

The Grammar Girl podcast has become essential listening for me on the way into work. With some interesting discussions on modern usage, it is great to hear that many of my own stylistic decisions are borne out by current thinking.

Linkbait-gate penalty – and just when you thought it was all over, Blogstorm reports that Google have finally penalised money.co.uk for the fake news piece.

As you were. Class dismissed.