I’m not entirely sure when I discovered Skating Polly (Kelli, Peyton and Kurtis), I think probably somewhere around 2018 or 2019. In other words, before I started my Bands New To Me series/category. But with their latest song having just been published I decided to give them a dedicated entry with some of my favourite songs by them, starting with the latest:
Skating Polly – Hickey King (Official Video)
In a similar noisy style, but also with beautiful layered vocals:
Skating Polly – Hail Mary (Official Video)
But they also have a different side, voice, piano and guitar:
Skating Polly – Don’t Leave Me Gravity (Official Video)
Back to noisier sounds from their New Tricks EP with two famous guests, Nina Gordon & Louise Post of Veruca Salt:
Skating Polly – Louder In Outer Space (Official Video)
Enjoying Hollywood life while not moving to Hollywood or joining the Hollywood crowd:
Skating Polly – Hollywood Factory (Official Video)
Another of their older songs, I love the bass line in this one, as well as the pounding and rattling drums:
Skating Polly – Pretective Boy (Official Video)
The second to last song is another quiet one with just Kelli and Peyton singing while playing the piano (and some light drums):
Skating Polly – A Little Late (Official Video)
And to close some pure simple noise from before Kurtis joining with just a basitar and drums (and of course voice):
A few days ago I was reading a Bloomberg Tech Newsletter with the title Meta, Twitter Subscription Plans Risk Turning Off Everyday Users. Twitter had its paid subscription for some time, since the Elon Musk take over that’s been accelerated. Meta (Facebook) is implementing a similar plan now. Both apparently driven by shrinking advertising revenue. So far, so understandable. What I’m wondering about is hidden in these two paragraphs:
Still, what I find most telling about these subscription offerings is that the platforms will soon prioritize content from paying users over others. It’s a reminder that social networks have evolved away from the original premise of being a place to see mostly posts from your “friends and family.” They are instead focusing on attracting a certain kind of person – the creator – who makes fun skits or videos or blog posts.
Professional creators seeking more eyeballs have historically had to pay for advertising. Now, there’s another way — and the content that rises to the top because it was made by subscribers may not actually be as entertaining or interesting.
Both Facebook and Twitter are already full with advertising (or as they call them, “sponsored posts”), often of very dubious quality. If to that the algorithms will add the posts of paying users, or as they call it, will prioritise that content, will that not make the timeline of the average non-paying user even more unappealing as the updates from their friends will almost disappear?
What are the chances of this turning off the average non-paying users? Which in turn would mean the paying users hoping to get more impressions not getting what they are hoping for as well as the advertisers not getting their ad views, further reducing advertising revenue for the social media companies.
Are they hoping to convert more non-paying users to paying users in order to improve their timeline? I doubt that, considering they have been conditioned to “free” for many years, even decades. So could this make average users to reduce their social media time? Which in turn could also turn off the above mentioned paying users as their prioritised posts are reaching fewer people? Making the social media companies losing even more revenue?
Will be interesting to see how this develops over the coming years I think.
Two years ago I mentioned The Big Moon in my Bands New To Me series. They are obviously not new to me any more, but I still love them just as much as when I discovered them, if not more. Their third album is about to be released and even though the topic of it isn’t something I can relate to I love the first single from it:
The Big Moon – Wide Eyes
The Guardian has a great interview with them, a very interesting read I think (explaining why I can’t relate to the topic of Wide Eyes). The first two singles released from it (Trouble is the second one) make me look forward to the album release in October.
PS: if you were to ask me for my favourite artist for their videos, The Big Moon is most likely to at least be among the top 3, more likely the winner. It is mentioned in the interview, the video to Take A Piece I think is brilliant. But there are plenty other brilliant videos by them. Don’t know how they do it, but they just continue to deliver as far as I’m concerned.
I go for a walk along the Kennet & Avon Canal every morning, on a weekday I usually walk from Aldermaston Wharf to just past The Rowbarge in Woolhampton. Over the weekends I often walk a bit further, past the old Lock Cottage towards Midgham.
Usually I’m walking with a pair of weights, today I decided to leave the weights at home and turn it into a photo walk. I left fairly early in the morning at about 6:45, which gave me some nice mild light for a while.
Here are 10 of my favourite pictures from this morning, click on the pictures for the larger version in the gallery:
(1) Swan cleaning in the morning sunshine(2) More Swan preening in the morning sun(3) Colourful canal boats on the Kennet & Avon Canal(4) Colourful canal boat stern at its mooring(5) White flower(6) Canal boat in the tree alley(7) Pepper growing in the morning sun(8) Tree reflections in the Kennet & Avon Canal(9) Bright green trees along the Kennet & Avon Canal(10) Green leaves in the sunshine
A variety of pictures, from Swans to colourful boats to beautiful trees and reflections. I hope you’ll find something you’ll like. Maybe let me know of your favourite picture(s) in the comments?
After one of the worst storms in decades hit the south of England including West Berkshire with storm Eunice on Friday 18/Feb/2022 there was a lot of damage. When I write this on Saturday afternoon the village of Aldermaston (just over a mile down the road from where I write this in Aldermaston Wharf) still hasn’t got any power and might not get it back until late in the evening or potentially even Sunday. I know of at least two trees having come down and having hit houses in Aldermaston Wharf, luckily as far as I’m aware nobody was injured (and I believe there was no serious damage to the houses). This morning I went out for my regular daily walk (slightly extended as it is Saturday, where I usually go on a longer walk than on weekdays), here is some of the storm damage I spotted along the way:
(01) Canal boat hit by fallen tree(02) Damaged solar panels on canal boat hit by fallen tree(03) Fallen tree next to a field with cows and sheep(04) Fallen tree fully blocking the towpath(05) Snapped tree next to a railway line(06) Two fallen trees blocking the towpath(07) Tree fully blocking the towpath, this is where I turned around(08) Fallen trees at a footbridge(09) Fallen tree near a boat(11) Twisted off fallen tree(10) Two fallen trees in the woods(12) Bonus: The obligatory fallen fenceStorm Eunice damage along the Kennet & Avon Canal in West Berkshire (click on the pictures for the large versions)
One of the first things I saw was also one of the scariest, a quite large tree had fallen across the canal and the top of the tree had hit a moored canal boat (Pictures 01 & 02). The owners had already cleared most of the tree off the boat and as far as I could see there was no significant damage to the boat itself, only the solar panels were rather smashed up.
Not very far down the canal along a field with cows and sheep there was more damage: Three smaller trees had been snapped off (I suspect the wind had enough space to run up across the field and hit them hard) and were pretty much blocking the towpath (pictures 03, 04 &11). I managed to squeeze past two of them, for the third one I had to climb over the fence for a short ‘detour’ across the field (luckily the cows with their calves were far away, so it was safe). Luckily I didn’t have to do that when I returned about an hour later as kind boater had taken his chainsaw to the trees and cleared the towpath.
After that it wasn’t too bad on the towpath, of course there was branch debris pretty much everywhere, but there wasn’t really any blockage. The fallen trees were either away from the towpath or left enough room to get past them without much difficulty (Pictures 05, 08, 09 & 10).
But my walk was stopped by a fallen tree just before where I usually turn around anyway on my longer weekend walks. While I just managed to squeeze past the first tree (Picture 06) the second one, a large tree covered in Ivy, fully blocked the path (Picture 07) and I couldn’t find a way past it. So I turned around and walked back to Aldermaston Wharf.
Just before arriving back home I couldn’t resist the obligatory fallen fence picture (Picture 12), I believe that’s a standard for after the storm pictures. Interestingly the fence at the communal garden below my flat was swaying precariously yesterday, I think at least one of the posts is pretty much gone. So far it’s still holding up, but will it survive the next storm?
