“He’s finally been recognized as an important and influential figure. His importance lies in his ability to slap an earth-quaking hook on top of glacial synths and therefore join the dots between KRAFTWERK, BOWIE and BRIAN ENO on one side and the rise of synth-pop, techno and industrial music on the other.” The Sunday Times

This time around we’re going all supernatural. Gary shares the time he encountered a ghost on the subway.

“Ghost stories are two a penny, and I have no doubt that mine is no more believable to most people than others are to me. I really don’t care. I have no interest in whether it’s believed or not. I know what happened. I have a witness who saw exactly the same thing and our conviction has never wavered.

I made regular trips into London, usually with Gary Robson, to hang out in music shops mostly, look at gear, buy tickets for shows, that sort of thing. On one trip we had a scare that has stayed with us our entire lives.

We always travelled on the Underground, as we were still too young to drive – a bus to Hounslow and the Piccadilly line train from there to London. As a rule, the front and rear carriages of those trains tended to have fewer people on them, so that’s where we’d aim for.

One day we’d done just that, so as we got off at Piccadilly and started to make our way up to the street exit, we were two of the last in that stream of passengers. As usual, we were excited and chatting to each other intently about teenager things, not really taking much notice of the other people around us, just following the people ahead.

I was aware of a group of girls behind us, who seemed to be the last off the train – the bulk of the passengers were up ahead, and there was an old man directly in front of us. Everything was normal. There was nothing at all to indicate something strange was about to happen: no creeping coldness; no hairs standing up on the back of your neck. Nothing.

As we reached the top of the long escalator the old man in front, who I was vaguely aware was dressed with more than a hint of the 1940’s about him, including a hat, turned left. Garry and I turned left, still thinking we were following the flow of passengers from our train. But no.

Within a few feet, ten at the most, we came hard up against a wall. No way through, no old man. For a moment I was startled, and my attention was now fully on what had happened to that man. I turned to Gary and said, “Were you following the old man in the grey coat?” “Yes”, he said. “Where did he go?”

In the few seconds it had taken us to turn, stop and talk, the group of girls behind us had gotten off the escalator, turned right and were now out of sight, and we were suddenly alone and terrified. Without a word we ran and didn’t stop running until we burst out of the station into the daylight and noise of Piccadilly Circus.

Gary has used the image of the ‘subway man’ as the basis for his ‘look‘ on a number of album covers.

Before we leave off, there’s always time for a song (this one with full orchestra accompaniment) from the not so…

READ IT HERE

Gary Numan is old school. No arguments there. It won’t do any harm to mention then an update from another member of that fraternity – THE ROLLING STONES.

Kind of old news now I know, but next month Mick and the boys release their first studio album HACKNEY DIAMONDS in 18 years. That’s one year short of the time local team the BRISBANE BRONCOS have gone without a premiership (with a chance to end that drought on Sunday).

The 12 song album apparently includes the talents of Lady Ga Ga, Elton John, Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney amonsgt others. Good luck fellas!

In case you missed it….

Any time a world record that’s stood for six years gets not just beaten but destroyed, well… it’s kind of a big deal. Ethiopian Tigst Assefa shaved more than two minutes off the previous world record for the Women’s marathon a few days back.

Human achievement – in ANY field – is worth celebrating, I reckon. Double fist pumps all round for Tigst !

Let’s call it an experiment.

A few years back I got the feeling my appetite for what I’ll term ‘modern movies’ was on the wane.

I went searching for an alternative and hit upon the idea of seeing live theater instead. Sparkling dialogue and amusing witticisms delivered by real life actors on stage would be mine for the enjoying.

Only problem is it hasn’t quite turned out that way.

What I got instead was a whole bunch of contemporary ‘issue’ plays. Do you know the type?

With a preference for overly long monologues, characters in these types of get-up are reduced to being little more than mouthpieces for a particular point of view on a so-called ‘hot’ topic currently doing the rounds.

Mix together characters with opposing points of view and whammo – you’ve got yourself 90 minutes of ‘woke’ – style dialogue and what might pass in some quarters as a story.

But entertainment? Not even close. Not in my book. Not in a lot of people’s ‘books’ I would guess.

Over the course of the last two years, I and all the other unlucky souls that have endured this ‘edu-tainment’ have been subjected to dull discourses on gender politics, climate change, the immigration policy debate, mental health, environmental responsibility, all manner of perspective on social justice and social reform, discrimination, and human rights.

And let’s not forget topics and themes related to First Nations people, their struggles and continued search for identity. They’ve managed to weave this divisive chestnut into portions of probably somewhere close to half of these often tedious plays over the time I’ve been a subscriber.

Granted, the Shakespeare plays (updated to include ‘contemporary’ themes and ‘modern sensibilities’ – of course) were always going to be a hard sell for me. But the rest? How else to say it other than it’s not really my idea of a good time to have to sit in a heavy-handed ‘lecture theater’ for two hours, squirming in my seat all the while, while I’m ‘educated’ on all and sundry ‘issues’.

Being a State Government-funded theater company, I understand part of it’s ‘charter’ is going to be shining a light on some of the issues of the day, ‘consciousness raising’ if you will. But this malarkey is too much. Too woke. Too UNLIKE entertainment. Too difficult to plough through.

I’d settle for an old-fashioned murder mystery, thriller or comedy… even a musical, just to break up the unrelenting heaviness of all this… this…I don’t know… ruminating blather? Maybe something like –

Sorry Queensland Theatre. There won’t be a 2024 season renewal from me. If I want to be across all the firestorms and issues of the day – which I believe I am – it’s far easier and cheaper to just switch on ABC radio or television.

With this off my chest it’s time for a stiff lemonade and something I know will entertain me – not try to educate me.

This 1977 masterpiece of a movie should do the trick nicely…

Ready for your HAPPY DAYS hit? Then better click HERE.

In this month’s excerpt from Gary Numan’s 2021 autobiography, we travel back to what would turn out to be a life changing moment. 

For a person that would go on to become known and respected as one of the pioneers of electronic music, the time he first cast eyes on the famed MINIMOOG ANALOG SYNTHESIZER was a moment worth writing about.

The minimoog was manufactured between 1970 – 1981.  It was the first synthesizer sold in retail stores. In 1975 they sold for approx. $2400 (Aust currency) which in today’s money would be approx $13 000 (Aust currency).

“While Paul and Jess were unloading the equipment from the van, I went into the control room with Mike and noticed a synthesizer on a desk in the corner. It was a MiniMoog.

I’d never seen a real synth before, and it was a fascinating machine to look at. Dials and switches from one side to the other.

I was intrigued, so I asked Mike if I could have a go. After Mike had turned it on, the sound that came out of it when I pressed a key was just awesome, in the truest sense of the word.

The room shook and you felt the sound as much as you heard it. I had never experienced anything like it, and I was absolutely blown away.

This was everything I’d been looking for.

The sheer weight of the sound was shocking. It was like a huge bulldozer of noise, a vast wall of sound. It was a sonic assault on the ears. It felt unstoppable, immensely powerful and totally exhilarating.

For me everything changed in that one moment.” p51

Before we finish off, there’s always time for a song from the…

READ IT HERE

Ok, I haven’t read this book but should that stop me from talking about it? No sireee!

From the author who gave us the 2012 guide HOW TO TALK ABOUT PLACES YOU’VE NEVER BEEN comes this humorous reflection on what it means to read and join in on literary banter.

On the eve of the 22nd anniversary of the September 11 attacks on what was New York’s World Trade Centre, comes this…

It’s a true story that takes place on that fateful day, but a story more specifically about something else – computer passwords: those tiny personal codes that can strain our memory and lead to fist-clenching when we can’t remember them.

One of the world’s largest financial services firms, CANTOR FITZGERALD, occupied the top five floors above where American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower. 658 employees of the company lost their lives that day.

Amidst the chaos, heartbreak and tragedy, Chairman and CEO Howard Lutnick was responsible for ensuring the viability of his company. The biggest threat to that? No-one knew the passwords for hundreds of accounts and files that were needed to get back online in time for the reopening of the bond markets.

CANTOR FITZGERALD did have extensive contingency plans in place, including a requirement that all employees tell their work passwords to four nearby colleagues. But now a large majority of the firm’s 960 New York employees were dead.

Hours after the attacks, more than 30 security experts dispatched from Microsoft arrived at an improvised CANTOR FITZGERALD command centre.

Many of the missing passwords would prove to be relatively secure – the JHx6fT!9 type that the company’s IT department had implored everyone to choose.

To crack those, the Microsoft technicians performed ‘brute force’ attacks, using fast computers to begin with ‘a’, then work through every possible letter and number combination before ending at ‘zzzzzzz’.

But even with the fastest computers, brute-force attacks, working through trillions of combinations, could take days.

Microsoft’s technicians knew that they needed to take advantage of two facts: many people use the same password for multiple accounts and these passwords are typically personalized.

The technicians explained that for their algorithms to work best, they needed large amounts of trivia about the owner of each missing password, the kinds of things that were too specific, too personal and too idiosyncratic for companies to keep on file.

Howard Lutnick soon found himself on the phone calling the spouses, parents and siblings of his former colleagues to console them – and to ask them, ever so gently, whether they knew their loved ones’ passwords.

Most often they did not, which meant Lutnick had to begin working his way through a checklist that had been provided to him by the Microsoft technicians. “What is your wedding anniversary? Tell me again where he went to University? You guys have a dog, don’t you? What’s her name?”

This was all less than 24 hours after the towers had fallen. Families had not accepted their losses. Conversations teetered between crying and agonizing silences. Sometimes it took more than an hour to work through the checklist, but Lutnick made sure that he was never the one to hang up first.

In the end, Microsoft’s technicians got what they needed. CANTOR FITZGERALD was back in operation within two days.

Click HERE to get a HAPPY DAYS hit.

WONDER WOMAN 1984 was the last movie that got me to a cinema. That was three years ago.

These days, the only motivation to see something at the ‘ol bricks ‘n mortar is if a sequel or remake to a film I once liked gets a showing.

So it was a few days back with the release of THE EQUALIZER 3.

How did it rate? So as not to be underdone in the opinion stakes, here’s how I’d score all three in the series…