WIKIPEDIA

BAND WEBSITE

 I've been trying to brush up on my spanish (and mostly failing)

but I've had some interesting detours on the journey ...

Firstly, there's the wonderfully twisted -

DECORADO

I don't know why I never blogged about this place before -

situated in one of the best/worst neighbourhoods in Barcelona (El Raval)

They used to post all the week's punk/neighbourhood events in the window

An excellent place to find old punk records, when you've had enough of discogs

trying to sell you the Slits first album for 90 quid ... bah !

(Great zines collection if you want to learn Catalan

and avoid being water-pistoled by anti-tourist protesters !)

EL LOKAL

ANDREU  ZARAGOZA

 Glad I stumbled on this today. I must have missed quite a few of these.

Interesting to look at old topical news and think "Oh yeah, it was shit back then, too"

I enjoyed the Top of the Pops of doom, but my favourite bit was at 19.50 - hilarious.

Here's a further playlist - enjoy

CHARLIE BROOKER'S WEEKLY WIPE

And other complications

I lent a visitor my laptop recently and was assailed with

"What's this for ?" questions all day ... so, by way of an answer ...

I used to use Comodo Dragon browser. It was really fast - It came bundled with firewall

and anti-virus and they all worked together well. Just lately, though, it stopped playing some

media files - audio especially - embedded bandcamp files etc just didn't work. So Installed DuckDuckGo.

Excellent - no more youtube ads, no more cookie nags on websites ... 'cept it has its quirks, too. It's maybe a little

too security based - won't always allow you to open independent sites and some sites don't like it.

Not overly keen on it directly opening the websites pages you previously visited when you type in the search engine box -

instead of giving you a list of search results. I now use both browsers.

Roughly speaking - DDG for online, Comodo for offline/web building etc.

Firefox ? - way too chummy with Google.

Edge ? - it's microsoft, so plain evil.

I just keep them, and Comodo Icedragon, for testing, but that's about it.

Anyone who has got themselves a Windows computer or laptop in the last few years

will know how atrocious the bloatware situation is. For those of us who don't do social media

it feels like a slap in the face to have all this digital land-fill emptied into our computers.

Win 10 and 11 has a lot of this garbage 'hard coded' into the OS. Here are some tools I use to get round the problem :

O +O SHUTUP

Excellent piece of software that will let you to stop/disable unwanted

Windows feature and apps. Systematic checklist of useless progs and spyware (There's a lot !)

- run each time you do a windows update

WINAERO TWEAKER

Interesting program that helps you clear out unwanted stuff and modify

your windows setup to your liking. Comes with a pc repair prog,

which I haven't tried yet. Has interesting online tips, too.

WIN 11 DEBLOATER

A collection of scripts to run and get rid of a lot of the nastiness

(works with windows 10, too)

UNINSTALL THE 'MALICIOUS SOFTWARE REMOVAL TOOL'

This particularly evil bit of software is often included in Windows updates.

It will stop you running cracked software and will drain system resources

AS EVER - CREATE A BACKUP IN WINDOWS RESTORE

BEFORE RUNNING ANY OF THE PROGRAMS ABOVE  - JUST IN CASE

ADVANCED SYSTEM CARE - FREE

Handy for cleaning out cookies etc at the end of a day

Keeps the registry healthy, so you don't have to re-install

Windows every couple of years

IOBIT UNINSTALLER

Useful for those progs that won't uninstall properly -

cleans all traces from the registry

THUNDERBIRD

Email client ...

Microsoft has just stopped outlook from communicating with independently developed

programs like this, so I'm  forwarding emails until I can delete old hotmail addresses

TIXATI

Fave torrent downloader

DAUM POTPLAYER

Alternative media player

LIBRE OPEN OFFICE

Non-microsoft text and spreadsheet program

INTERNETOFF

Internet Kill-Switch

PRIVOXY

Freeware proxy client

 FASTSTONE IMAGE VIEWER

Picture editor/viewer and image converter

I'm sure there's more I could have added to this list.

It's a shame you can't just have an operating system without

spending time decorporatizing your machine, but these programs will help

Check out a certain Swedish website for everything else

 FILMS BY

 Not crazy about the storyline - but love the rendering

PODENCO@VIMEO

Not much you can do at 5.a.m with insomnia and toothache ...

thought I'd check out if there was an online version of Risk.

This one (above) has some groovy maps -

if you've played the game before, you'll get it pretty quickly

(You only need to register if you want to save games)

And for those connoisseurs who like to play offline -

here's a couple of the traditional versions

Mission Cards version

(Password risk@123)

World Domination version

with fancy graphics

(Has quick 15 round variation)

(Password risk@123)

 Man, this film stirred up some memories - and thoughts, too.

I realise now why I never went to New York ... so much of it was just like where I was living,

only bigger. Pretty much every pub in Hulme, Manchester was like this - and worse.

Even today, I could never respect a social psychologist who has never had a drink in a place like this.

I regret not doing the same - recording these crazy worlds ... but, thinking about it - I would only have woken up

in the street with no camera, money or shoes (a peculiar Mcr. kink)

When they pulled down my old neighbourhood, all these hidden histories were lost.

In my old home town, skyscrapers sprang up - filled with the sort of suburban zombies who

work for Facebook and Google. People who travel the world and learn absolutely nothing.

Here are some additions to the story -

TERMINAL BAR - PORTERS, BOUNCERS AND BARTENDERS

TERMINAL BAR - PIMPS AND PROSTITUTES

TERMINAL BAR - THE GARBAGE CAN

TERMINAL BAR - LAST CALL

Don't forget to check out the comments, too ...

brilliant social history for us non-college types

 CLAUDE CLOUTIER