Place Quote: Gypsies & Communism

'Most Gypsies liked communism because it gave them houses, paid them to have children,' adds Henry, who grew up in East Germany. 'They don't see the faults in the communist system as we do. Censorship never affected them as they had no desire to read Western literature or talk of politics. And when the revolution came Gypsies were the first to lose their jobs in the factories'.

• Garth Cartwright, Princes amongst men, p.209

Place Quote: Yugoslav immigrants in New Zealand

Many Yugoslav immigrants shared my West Auckland suburb, relieved at escaping a nation that had known so much grief during the first half of the twentieth century. Yet they surely missed things - cafés, markets, farm smells, local humour, weary blues, old buildings, the ruins of history, messy everyday stuff that knits a community's soul. And the Gypsies. I bet, tucked up in their suburban comfort, hearing the sound of lawnmowers and sprinklers, radios and TVs, they missed the chatter and music and nuisance of the Gypsies.

• Garth Cartwright, Princes amongst men, p.146-147

Place Quote: Corruption in ex-communist countries

...the corruption continues. Maybe for people in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, life is better now communism has ended. But in Bulgaria, we have never had good government and life is so much more difficult. OK, we have more freedom and it's much easier to buy things. You used to have contacts to get certain things. But beyond that, everything is worse. Before, Sofia was a clean city. They had lots of people employed to keep the city clean. Now, well, someone has a contract to keep the city clean but the money vanishes rather than is spent on employing cleaners. And before you never worried if you could feed your children, what you would provide for dinner that night. Now, it can be so tough. Before, life was very easy. We used to take two holidays a year. One on the Black Sea and one in the mountains. Now we can't afford to take holidays.

• Garth Cartwright, Princes amongst men, p. 274-275

No Walk in New York

Protests were staged at New York's St Patrick's Day parade yesterday to highlight, yet again, the parade organisers' refusal to allow Irish and Irish-American gay groups participate in the parade.

In amongst all the shouting and chanting in the US, however, are a much smaller group - the Northern Ireland Gay Rights Association who picket offices and the American Embassy in London.

NIGRA president PA MagLochlainn told reporters, "Gay women and men can take part in St. Patrick's Day Parades in Dublin, Cork and Belfast - but they cannot in New York. This bigoted ban is long since out of date."

Most people see St Patrick's Day as a celebration, but New York's goodwill does not extend to all men and women.

Polski-pop

A compilation album of the best Polish music is released next week in the UK - evidence of the growing market for all things Polish in the UK, due to recent arrivals, but hopefully the songs will gather some British fans also.

This is fantastic: part geography, part europop.

The album has a whopping 76 songs, with many Polish Eurovision acts appearing - Edyta Gorniak features multiply, as well as Blue Café, Kasia Kowalska & Justyna.

One song title jumped out at me - Natalia Kukulska's Sexi Flexi. It turns out to be a slice of funky pop, with a simple but ace video. This song is from her tenth album - how many UK popstars achieve such an accolade?

• Check out The Best Polish Songs Ever

Let's get quizzical: the answers

We have a winners: International pop blogging sensations PopPosterGirl & RobbingTheDead. Well done! & thanks to all who replied!

The answers are:

Song 1 - Netherlands - Jim Bakkum - Altijd
Song 2 - Spain - dancetastic Rosa Lopez - Más
Song 3 - Poland - Gosia Andrzejewicz - Nidgy Juz
Song 4 - France - the legend Mylène Farmer - Libertine
Song 5 - Finland - Antti Tuisku - Levoton
Song 6 - Ukraine - Ruslana - Kolomyika
Song 7 - Sweden - Amazing Lena Philipsson - Stopp! Nej! Gå Härifrån!*

(*Amazing pop song name. It means Stop! No! Go Away!)

Let's Get Quizzical

Every week, in my office, we have a quiz. The quizzes usually have a geography theme (we're nerdy like that). This week I provided the EuroPopQuiz!

Now I'd like to offer the quiz to the dear readers of acediscovery. I may make this a regular occurance as quizzes are the ace fun.

So - listen to or download the mp3 and reply. The mp3 has 7 sound clips - each from a different country. The task is to identify which country the songs come from - hint: all the countries are in Europe.

I'll select a winner, and there will be a prize! (most likely a CD)

Reason to love Sweden #83

During Melodifestivalen, at all Statoil petrol stations, drivers can fill their tank with soemthing called a schlager mix...

Each petrol pump will be equiped with a magic button called the schlagerbutton. Press the button, and the sounds of schlager can be enjoyed while refilling.

How amazing. Get me a car and a Sveriges road map, and I'm there. No pyrotechnics allowed, mind.

Deutsch schlager

Today, I made a gift CD of German pop and schlager. What a gift! Here's are two songs - from the very same year.

Joy Flemming gives it some welly at Eurovision 1975. I'm in awe of the dress, her punching the air, the soaring chorus, and the wonderfully rousing brassy sound. It's brilliant. Also loving the composer doing a leap between verses, and Joy's cheeky line of English at the end of the song.

And German favourite Marianne Rosenberg in another fabulous frock sings the gay disco classic Er gehört zu mir, trying out to represent Germany in Eurovision - but Frau Fleming beat her to it!

Tokyo musicians, Swedish pastoral, Romanian river

This week, I saw three exhibitions:

• Marco Bohr's photographs of Tokyo riverside musicians at Mummery & Schnell
• Sigrid Holmwood's paintings of Swedish peasant life at Annely Juda
• Serban Savu's paintings of contemporary Romanian life at FA Projects

Marco Bohr's photographs of Tokyo show musicians on the banks of the Tamagawa river. The open spaces are the opposite of the modern, neon image of Tokyo. With usual Japanese respect, the musicians practise their music on the river banks, rather than disturb their neighbours who are so close due to Tokyo's density.


Sigrid Holwood's paintings shine with colour: neon yellows, fluorescent oranges and greens. The colour seems at odds with the subject: Swedish rural landscapes and scenes of peasant life. The paintings are alluring - my favourites were the landscapes. I saw them glowing with atmosphere. The colours express the joys of being in the landscape.

The paintings of humans, however, play with reality - many of them were painted in folk museums, so their inauthentic colours match the inauthentic nature of the scenes.

Most of Serban Savu's work saddened me: painted from a distance, and with dull, oppressive colours. They show people on the banks of a river in Romania. The painting above seems to sum this up: the scene looks very jolly, a family or group enjoying a day by the river, a holiday. But the colours have no fun. Perhaps this is to suggest that social life in Romania oppresse, but I found this to be sombre, sad, depressing.

Maps with borders, by Katharina and Jaan

My project to collect a map of every European country drawn by a citizen of that country is ongoing.

I recently asked Katharina from Denmark & Jann from Estonia to draw their countries.

Both their efforts are interesting, as they differ from what comes before.

Whereas other maps have shown just the country in question, Katharina and Jann's place their countries in context. Thus, Katharina's map shows Germany and Jann's shows Finland, Latvia, Lithuania.

All countries are placed in their bordered contexts, but Jann & Katharina's inclusion of these highlights how those before them had not done this.

Japan,

I asked Tomohiro to draw Japan. He had recently moved from Japan to rural Ireland, and had previously lived in California.

Japan, in his map, is smaller than I expected it to be.

Geometrique France, by Hervé

Hervé has drawn France for me. Hervé has mapped France a l'Hexagone.

Stuff I liked yesterday

• The line Respectfully, I say to thee I'm aware that you're cheating / But no one makes me feel like you do from Ms Diana Ross' Upside Down
  
  
• Any DJ that sees fit to play Kylie's Your Disco Needs You
  
  
• The inimitable campy queeniness of someone who is cabin crew
  
  
• The weird and wonderful experience of meeting a fox on a drunken ramble home, especially if the street is empty and it's only you and the fox.

Discoveries #3

• The phrase creakingly posh.



• The Wet Look Jersey Maxi Dress by Kate Moss for Topshop. I can't wait to see it on the drunken streets of London. It would be amazing to strut in.
  
  
• I've been reminded of the immense gloriousness of Sia's Breath Me.



• Eurovision 2008 has a stage, with a great big phallic pole up the centre, and tentacles.




• Eurovision 2008 has a logo. It is intriguing. I'm quite excited to speculate what the purple shape is - a plum? a pepper? a wind-based clay instrument? Your suggestions please!

Discoveries #2

• The Norwegian church in London hold a traditional Norwegian Constitution Day Parade in London every year.
  


• Camden Arts Centre's new website is ever so nice.
  
  
• Finland and Estonia's national anthems share the same melody, but different words.
  
  
• Port Cities documents the seaward life of the UK's cities. London's Chinatown was once in Limehouse.
  


• Bhutan's stamps are amazing - 3D, metal, colour, bonkers. Great!

Web 2.0 x 5,000

Web 2.0: it's the buzz word on every net-person's lips. This video is a whirling, trip-like flick through the logos of 5,000 Web 2.0 sites, applications, or companies. Bonkers. It's baffling to think that there are 5,000 out there, and probably many more on the way.

Roads & Rodez

This news story caught my eye last week. Three Norwegian tourists ended up in the small French city of Rodez, having bought a flight which they thought was for Rhodes in Greece.

Sadly the trio (Bente, Marit and Knut - 3 ace Norwegian names) did not stay in Rodez. I would have thought it would be something of an adventure, a journey into the unknown as it were.

Journeying and wandering for their own sake are fun (Norwegians take note!). I love wandering city streets with no particular aim in mind, taking photographs and soaking it all up. The two images here come from two such wanderings: a wander from Broadgate to Bank and a wander along East London's Christian Street.

Sounds Sveriges

I went to see Swedish rock-poppers The Sounds play Hoxton Bar & Grill on Tuesday night.

They came on stage about 40 minutes late. When popstars are late on stage, I naturally assume they're preening their hair. So when Maja came on stage with a right dodgy mop, I wasn't overly impressed.

Maja is fierce, and I don't mean in an fabulous way. Woman is scary. She marched across the stage, ducking and diving, spitting and snarling. Her voice is more shouty and harsh than floaty and high. She's a woman among men, but has definitely a touch of the masculine.

Still, she was wearing a nice headband. And has amazing legs.

Crucial fashion error: double denim. Maja teamed a light blue denim jacket with dark charcoal denim high-waisted buttoned-up hot pants. Double denim is never a good look. The whole effect, avec headband, was very 80s European rock.

As it happens, this image works for the band, whose songs are best when they're Europe-style anthems. Living in America, Painted by Numbers, Ego and Hurt You were sing-a-long, arms-in-the-air highlights.

Check: The Sounds site // The Sounds myspace

Discoveries

I'm in a blogging quandary. Part of me wants to just stop. A bigger part of me wants to go on, boldly going forth and exclaiming, "ace!" I'm not sure what a blog is for any more, as everyone blogs now, in one way or another, thanks to Facebook.

Acediscovery will change - it was always to be somewhere I'd write about things I've found that I think are cool. This became hijacked with Eurovision and pop music, and that's great... I just miss the other stuff, that's all. (Thanks, Robyn.)

So.

These two articles about Ireland are very interesting.

• Irish lap up cappuccino culture and put tea up the spout

Tea drinking in Ireland is on the decline. Buzzing Ireland now drinks coffee, coffee to stay awake, coffee to keep up, coffee to drink on the go. All this coffee being sold is instant coffee.

• For whom the bell tolls . . . line goes dead for phone boxes

Ireland's main telephone provider are removing over 20% of their phone boxes, because of under use. Mobile phones, Blackberries, PDAs have taken over. Ireland's commuter culture has no time to stop at a phone box, it just calls from the mobile, on the go.