Elite 11+ shopping and chat thread

underperky

Good night folks

Savvybuyer

Serendipitious wrote: »

Should be cool enough to sleep, hopefully. No getting up for tea and biscuits at 2am like last night.

Just don't go to bed until after 2am in the first place and then you won't need to get up to get them:rotfl:. That's the answer to that one:rotfl::rotfl:.

So, via my loophole:D, you still get your tea and biscuits at 2am without getting up for them:).:rotfl:

Upside down money-saving fantastic figure, as contrary to money saving completely:(:rotfl:.

Savvybuyer

Just watching back to last night's now Newsnight (don't worry, not the triggering one:rotfl::rotfl:) and, as we were talking about pop music earlier, for example Justin Bieber (whom I assume to be within that genre, although I've never heard any of his songs to my knowledge), I notice they had part of the programme on their being fewer (am I formal here - is the correct word now the previously grammatically incorrect "less"?) songs in the Top 40. Oh no:(, from my POV, as that would mean the same few songs played even more often and get me bored and annoyed at hearing them again and again, however all is well as I am away from this situation as I don't ever tune in to the radio.

So, I didn't know at all until now that, apparently (I knew nothing!), Drake has been number 1 for 15 weeks. I've now heard an excerpt of (the pop version of) his number 1 hit on the programme and, surprise, surprise, it doesn't sound that good to me. In fact, I think the worst song I've ever heard him do:rotfl::rotfl:. I bought every one of his previous albums - assuming his no 1 is on any album that I am now unaware of - but ditched him completely on his current album when his sound changed, on there, to something I didn't like. I obviously heard excerpts of songs on there, via Amazon etc, and decided no, I don't like this album. So I stopped at his previous album (liked everything he's done, at my home, until now) - only for him to go to number 1 as soon as a song is made that I don't like. I think his getting to number 1 is called "selling out". But I would never have known, since I stopped listening to him before this track. Yes, though, now, it's clear, he obviously has gone commercial. I'm now onto some other artist, that I will cease liking any of their later stuff in the future as soon as they do anything that then goes and tops the charts:rotfl:. I think, once he's now gone and done this, I will never like any further Drake songs again (but will of course still like all his past stuff up to the point before he did this song). Unless he happens to do something in future that I come across and really like, that then will inevitably sink without trace:rotfl::rotfl:.

I think it's because there is a certain sound to popular music - and, for the last twenty years or so, it's been some sound that I don't like. But having said that, I can't see why people generally seem to like pop from the 80s, 90s, and yet still like pop from today too, when, to me, that has turned upside down and has a completely different sound, one I don't like, they say that some pop songs have a soul sound and are like some soul from the 1960s. But they're not. I like soul music but this isn't. They say it's rock, but it's not. Or I'll be claimed to have a jazz element. But I can detect no "jazz" in it at all. They say there's some heavy metal being made, but it just has no heart to it at all and is completely boring to me. There is heavy metal still being made, none of it will be anywhere in the charts, but the example people present to me and claim to be heavy metal is from my POV not - it is pop music instead.

The "dance tracks" these days aren't dance - they're pop music again instead. Dance music is other music - it's still being made - but it isn't any of the pop music that people always mention. Of course, the early 90s goes back to the time when the pop music also did qualify as proper dance. Now, all dance is underground (and I don't mean pop radio music) and completely so. It went underground towards the end of the 1990s and then vocal tracks that I didn't like started being produced but they aren't dance anymore, they're now pop. I like, you know, the dance version instead - a remix version of the song and not the pop version. I liked the garage version of a song at this time, as opposed to the one that was passed off as being garage on the radio but was the pop version not garage. The garage version goes completely differently to that. When people generally talked about garage, they were referring to the pop version. And Shania Twain was not country music btw and never has been. I like pure country. I also like the dance remix version of Shania Twain and an original song by another artist who did the song originally that she covered. Yet people think hers is the original.

As regards Drake getting to number 1 with what is to me "his worst" - and in fact the only song of his I've heard that I haven't really liked - it seems this sort of thing is typical since the late 1990s for me really:rotfl:. I used to identify songs at that time that would be number 1 in advance, by immediately switching them off when they came on the radio (there were still, at that time, some 'good' songs on there - radio in the daytime and commercial radio - although, it now seems, diminishing in number as regards whether they were within my taste - until soon there were no new songs at all that I liked and I was forced to have to go and buy records at that point (until then, I owned no record collection whatsoever and relied entirely on the radio - it was their repeated taking away of songs I liked after one or two plays, only to start playing a different song by the same artist, that I didn't like, and then on all channels for absolute months and never hearing the previous song I liked ever again. The final straw was when Spacedust "Let's Get Down" (which hit the charts at number 20, so I assumed it was pop music as it was on the chart) got removed from air - I was tuning around every station all week never to hear it again - and then Gym n Tonic, their next hit, went to number 1 and stayed there for what seemed an age. It was constant Gym n Tonic on the radio every time, to add insult to it all, and eventually I cracked and switched it all off. I also bought "Invisible" by Tilt (and indeed, the song had greater meaning as they were indeed Invisible due to radio sidelining - I went through Radio 1 all week wanting to hear that again (it was on the Top 40 every weekend only) and never heard it - only some years later did I discover that they had a "playlist" that meant the song wasn't on it and would never be heard all the rest of the week and so I had wasted my time trying to hear it.

The other song that was one of the final straw was "Shame" by the Ruff Driverz (heard only at night on Saturday nights, the lowest radio audience time of the week), which turned out to be their least successful top 75 hit. Again, Dreamin' by the same artist went to number 10 (I think) and on the radio "all the time" whilst I tried to hear "Shame" again. And, indeed, it is a shame (which gave the song another deeper meaning for me in that sense, due to it being a shame that radio wasn't playing it). I assumed because I'd heard it on Saturday it would be played at any time during the day. Songs that I heard then in the early 1990s then did go on to be played in the day - but that was because they were also pop music back then. I didn't know that the pop music scene had changed and that, despite the then Radio Authority's stipulation that radio stations were not to change their nature or character, in fact, over four years and slowly, in effect the radio stations achieved this, in my view, by the sound of the music they played altering - to something I didn't like.

So it's no surprise that Drake's song at number 1 should turn out, to my ears, to be "the worst he's ever done". If I had still been listening to the radio these days and heard it, I would have switched it off on first hearing - a sure predictor that it would therefore immediately go to number 1 afterwards. They almost always have done - for many years. I switched Coldplay's Yellow off the Evening Session many years ago, as the only song I didn't like. That one, and only that one, went onto the playlists and went to number 1. There was only one song I liked on an evening show a commercial station back in 1999. That one, and only that one, failed to make the Top 40. All the rest, that I didn't like were big hits, as predicted by my own action in rushing to switch the station off. (I'm very picky on that - and, anything at all I don't like, immediately goes off. At first, I was turning over to a different channel - but that made the situation worse, as the same songs are on every playlist of every station and, whilst if I'd stayed where I was, I may have heard that song only twice a day, on any one station, now I was hearing it every five minutes, as I switched over again and again and again. Until eventually I got so exasperated, I switched the whole lot off and then went to HMV and starting buying records. And then, after a couple of albums, I discovered I actually did like all of the songs on the radio but just not the versions they were playing. So, I like Gym n Tonic by Spacedust but not the radio edit - I like some remixed version instead - in fact every one of them except for the pop version. Of course, I like all versions of Let's Get Down as none of them popular (not with radio it seems at least) despite the radio edit being Top 20.

Back in the day, towards the end of my very regular radio listening period, I switched off Hanson's Mmm Bop only for that to immediately go to number 1. I bet I do like Hanson Mmm Bop but just some remixed version - preferably an instrumental that alters the entire song and makes it sound absolutely and completely differently to the pop version:rotfl:. Sorry, my tastes are cruel: I like your pop music artist's song, but I like the instrumental. The one that doesn't have them in it and their grating voice:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:.

Actually, as far as the pop version of Drake's song is concerned, his voice isn't grating - it's just that the song seems standard fare and a tad boring to me, potentially rather irritating as well if I ended up with that on my mind (problem with pop music is that it is catchy) so I'm happy with my current songs. Not a patch on anything that has failed the chart. Of course, I'm completely out of touch and totally wrong as people generally will think it's a good song.

A few years ago, I actually had people at work who were discussing some latest song. Yet again, of course, I didn't like it (another one of my immediate tune-out-the-radio songs that I had switched off from the radio only the day) - "of course, you like all this monotonous music" they told me, about my music that I don't find in the least bit monotonous at all - after they had spent all day talking about how this monotonous pop song was the best one of the moment.

Despite Youtube, radio is where the hits are made - which is why the songs I link to on there, where they are newer, always have fewer views. People will generally (over 90% of people listen to the radio, to my surprise but then it shouldn't be a surprise) hear the songs they like on the radio and, with greater availability of what's put in front of them (you most likely?), will search for those same currently popular songs on Youtube. People won't generally know, or remember, about things not being played and put in front of them all the time on the radio.

People think that electronic dance music is monotonous. I agree - at least towards the end of the 1990s (I have no clue what came after) - but that is pop music not dance. The commercial side of dance, which I did not recognise as dance at all by that stage, is, indeed, repetitive and boring to me. However, dance music, which is music that does not enter the Top 40 or, at that time, entered for a single week at number 35, neither sounds repetitive nor boring to me. Dance music progresses on effortlessly and without boredom. Commercial pop, such as that useless:rotfl: radio remix of Stardust's Music sounds worse with you (the real title is Music sounds better with you - my version is just my rewording that I call it:rotfl:) is repetitive and boring. There, I like the original:rotfl:.

So if they pick a remix, I'm with the original and every remix except that one. They actually mess up certain songs for me, at around this time, and slow them down and make them boring - and then the original was excellent (for example Basement Jaxx Rendezvous) but the original radio edit/album version is, to me, quite boring. I thought I'd gone off it when it went onto daytime radio. In fact, what now seems to be the case is that the radio version is a different version and has been cynically slowed down and made boring in order to, it seems, be played by every station numerous times a day in precise and absolute proportion to how bad it is. (Actually I used to listen to the charts in the early 90s, even, and they had sales only and airchart charts and, even then, the airplay charts always demoted songs in by some places depending on how much I liked them. If I liked a song a bit more, it was a bit lower on airplay chart than sales chart. And, if I really liked it, it was way lower down the airplay chart. Top 10 was sales only on both, so that, if a song fell out of the top 10, if it then stayed at number 11 for weeks on end on the airplay chart whilst the sales chart got rid of it, I would dislike it. If however it quickly fell from number 10 to number 30 on the airplay chart whilst maintaining its position in the sales chart, then it was one of my favourites. So, they weren't even really being played back then. Just that there was enough that was good - and songs at the same position in both charts, I liked but not that much. Higher up on airplay - starting to dislike it. I used to compare the two charts every week (remember when we all noted down what was in the charts when we were in our youth? The Top 40 each week on a Sunday or whenever). Cassette tapes as well, remember those? Nostalgia eh. We didn't do anything naughty. I don't know - it wasn't based on the fact I saw the songs higher on airplay and therefore disliked them, it was in fact what I like and don't and then I noticed that what I didn't like as much kept its position on airplay and what I liked kept its position on sales but not airplay, so wasn't really being played and if a song was really really lower on airplay, it was my absolute favourite of the week.

The radio is very scientific - and no wonder it ended up with almost the only music from any time period at all in the entire world ever made that I don't like. The worst songs of all - only on the radio. And presumably all the time and much more if they are one that I would thoroughly detest.

I don't know about the Drake song - maybe it's (pop music) not as bad as it was - it went through a very bad period for me in the early 2000s and has never recovered since, but, anyway, it's nowhere near as good as any of the music being made today that I am currently listening to, which comparemyradio will almost certainly give nil return, thus proving my contention again - that it isn't on the radio (people say to me "it must be" - but, no, it's not and I have the stats. to indicate it - but people aren't interested in stats. or the facts and won't listen to me when I am correct - that does not bother me, as I am so used to that being the case and expect it - I would be surprised if anyone took on any good idea I have)

But, anyway, the charts don't bother me and I don't listen to them anymore. I have no idea about even the rest of the Top 10 - presumably all some unknown (to me) artists that I have never heard of, that "all sound the same" to me - and no idea about the album chart at all either, but only the singles chart Number 1 song excerpt now from Newsnight.

They didn't, back when just after it had "gone rubbish" (for me), always mess up every dance song and turn it into a boring pop version of theoretically 3 minutes that went on forever and a day, whilst the 7 minute original was much shorter, sometimes they would make a radio edit that contained an element in the song that was better than the original (which was itself still excellent) and made it progress in a different way. An example being Maria Nayler Angry Skies [Club Radio Edit], where they have put an extra element in the song that quickly progresses it effortlessly from one bit to the next (obviously they had to miss out some of the full length 'original' and they put it a bit that wasn't in that and got the song to go from one part of the original, via the better bit that was now added, to then go onto the end part of the original song. So, whilst I still like the original (and Quake The Day Will Come [Quake's Radio Version featuring Marcia Rae] is another example for me, they did produce radio edits that had better parts in them. Then they won't be played on the radio at all.

Then there are/were songs that were - such as Ultra Nate "Find A Cure" (this is going back, shows how long it's been since I stopped listening to the radio) - where the radio version, it later turned out it was that (I wasn't aware of different versions at all back then) - goes round and round and round the houses as much as it possibly can, in order to avoid ever doing the best bit of the entire song. Turned out I like the full original (a different song therefore) and the Full Intention remix and the Full Intention Radio Edit. But did they pick Full Intention Radio Edit that still retained that 'best bit'? No, they picked useless Radio Edit that did everything possible it could to avoid doing that part of the song. So they do have Radio Edits that I don't like - turns out I liked the Original (and also, it turns out, other remixes).

Now I say to clueless pop fans when they ask me if I like a song, "Which version do you like?" They haven't a clue what I'm on about - and I'm sure no-one here has either:rotfl:.

Not very good money-saving I can tell you if I like all these different songs and was, with no Internet etc., buying them by that stage back then. I think I like every genre except pop music. I used to - or have done - listen to every one of the various specialist music shows that were on, for example, BBC Local Radio in the night. So, yes, I like something from literally everything. And I like pop music (still do) from 'back in my day' (the ones they don't seem to play on the radio nowadays as opposed to the few duffs they do that I never really liked:rotfl:. But, then again, back at that time they were, it seems, already lower on airplay even when they were popular. So I play the Top 40 from the 20th century (before the 'radio went rubbish') but the side of the Top 40 that the radio doesn't play. I like pop music but not pop music. Bet no-one can remember my pop songs - since radio (the bugbear!) isn't throwing them at you now, thus "altering your perceptions as to what you remember and don't":D.

I like the radio unfriendly songs. As opposed to what I used to dismiss as radio friendly - "crap and completely unlistenable". So, according to me, it must be rubbish in order to get radio airplay and, unfortunately, that quote description there is what I associate with radio these days.

Obviously it must not be "unlistenable rubbish", as many people manage, somehow, to listen to music on the radio. But I can't stand any of it that is more recent and I don't know how people manage to be able to listen to such, for me, boring stuff. Such a hum-drum boredom all day from my perception. It really is capable of wearing me down to have to listen to that all day (I've been in workplaces where that has been on all day - and pretended that I liked it but really I didn't. By about three in the afternoon, I felt totally worn down by it all. And then they say they put music on because it's supposed to be uplifting:shocked:?). Really, really not my cup of tea, or lunch, I'm afraid. Not complaining (not anymore:rotfl:) as I just don't bother with it. Actually, there must be other stuff as those songs causing me offence etc. But that's a different thing, as some of those songs are my favourite songs, but obviously not in those environments. So it's actually offensive songs, inappropriate for public airing, that do my head in and bother me, even if I may like some of the same songs (maybe in their different, original version but only in another situation) and songs that are boring/irritating/whatever that I don't like at all. I think the older generations, which I must long since now be in, always dislikes it's children's music - but I draw the line at actually offensive songs that cause me serious discomfort, because of the nature of the song, in some places and, eventually, PTSD. I think Drake's song could have some potentially problematic material in it for me - I don't know but I would expect it - but fortunately I've not encountered it out in public at all. The problem is that I expect it - and it makes me uncomfortable to expect something, knowing that it is going to bother me. And that sometimes happens even though it never materialises. I don't know any of the songs today, so when any new rap or rock style song comes on in public, I'm now at the stage where I always now get concerned about whether it is going to contain any problematic material for me, as those playing music in public places have so resoundingly failed to protect me in the past. I'd be almost relieved if it did have the actual words in it:rotfl::rotfl: (rather than the edited sound version that I find problematic).

At this point, years afterwards, I've already got to the stage where I've thought, a few years ago, after they've done this so much and drawn so much attention to it, and caused me to be so exasperated and go through every emotion and back again, and past the end of my tether and back several times, that I'd rather hear all of the actual words now as it would be much less bothersome for me and wouldn't have a physical impact on me now at all. Although I'm not sure that that actually would always be the case (except that, on the rare occasions when I have heard unaltered versions (originals with the actual words in the soundtrack) in wider public places, they have yet to cause me any offence. They generally don't get played - I think for 'obvious' reasons. I certainly don't think I would want to hear the unaltered original version of that sexual song out around my father and his lady friend instead of the "soundwave signature swearing" version that itself went way too far for me, particularly given the nature of what was being described in that "radio"(!) edit. I would call it pornographic actually, because it was. And I don't expect !!!!!! records like that to be played in public restaurants:rotfl::rotfl:. It's like putting an actual adult !!!!!! film on (not that I've seen any of those:D:rotfl:) in a wide-open public place but blurring the "naughty bits" just a little. It's still going to cause offence, and is still inappropriate there, for obvious reasons, especially given the soundtrack:rotfl::rotfl:. Actually, the visuals I'm sure are the problem, particularly if it's totally obvious what's going on, but the soundtrack just adds to it (don't think about it:rotfl:).

I bet the original of that song would have caused people in public, perhaps my dad and girlfriend, to react as they would then have heard what was going on. However, I heard what was going on, very clearly, in the 'radio' song (it was actually played from the venue's CD I reckon) and I don't know how no-one else could possibly not have heard that. I'd had enough, after just one lyric, I really had (that contained a vivid description of two specific things) - I got up and left:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:. And then left again an hour later when the same song was put back on again:rotfl:. Really, though, I wasn't happy and it was a disruption. There was one good thing though - whilst outside, I met a stranger who asked me for the time and also said something funny that made me laugh. However, of course I never saw her again after that - as usual, nothing ever happens. The problem, apart from the disruptions it causes in having me leave - it didn't actually trigger offence or any PTSD trigger - but it may have done so if I had stayed (a bet the song went on and on about it and would therefore have done so had I remained) - the thing is more about me thinking back about it a week or two or more later, and that's more of a problem sometimes than the actual thing at the time. It's not just the time - it's the later "flashbacks" or reminders. Anyway, I'm not feeling anything bad at the moment and I'm not worrying about it and will move on.

Savvybuyer

I ran (only slightly this time) over the character limit again:rotfl::rotfl:. So I now post this last bit of the post:


I thought I'd moved on:rotfl:. I only came here to mention the charts as we'd mentioned Justin Bieber earlier and ended up back at this. I'm like a stuck record myself, always... back to the same topic again:doh::rotfl::rotfl:. You love it, really, it's how I am:D;). Anyway, maybe I am stuck like my monotonous music:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:.

Thanks folks and goodbye for now!:)


EDIT: Actually going back and watching the rest of the Newsnight programme that I interrupted and came here to post about, listening to the Drake song now, I can hear a dance remix that it could be made into but that, unfortunately, the pop song is not sounding as. So, I like the (hypothetical) dance remix of Drake's No 1 song but not the popular hit version:rotfl::rotfl:. (Yes, the pop hit does sound to me a bit boring and needs a dance remix that it reminds me of and I wish it was, but sadly it's not. So, it all doesn't work for me now and pop music is "useful only in remix form":rotfl::rotfl:. Unless the pop version, rarely, is a remix and then it should be the original and every other remix. The version of the no 1 song as presented by the broadcast media as being Drake sounds so close and yet not there, so doesn't do it for me. Predictable now really:rotfl:, it's been like this for me since 1999. Completely different perspective, when you only listen to the other versions like I do. Of course, go back to the early 1990s - and it becomes the pop radio version is good to me. My era in pop ended ages ago:rotfl::rotfl:. Somehow, when they go back to the 1950s to late 1990s, they pick the 'right' version, but come back to the last seventeen years and they pick the wrong one again:rotfl:)

There is less music in the charts but more music being made now. So, there's actually a load more music that I like - but none of it in the charts (unless perhaps it's alternative versions of the chart songs that are versions the radio is not generally playing - they may play "my" version once at night and then never again, that's if they even play it at all nowadays - but it's all pointless, as if I listen to the radio, I will never hear it again on there, whilst the version of the same artist and same song that I don't like then gets played repeatedly on virtually all stations for absolute weeks and months on end every day numerous times. I assume, as it's so bad to me that I don't tune in to the radio anymore and haven't done for nearly 20 years:rotfl::rotfl:. Although comparemyradio.com appears to provide support for my assumption. Of course, I'll like other songs by the artist they do play but not the ones they do plus anyone else that's ever done a version of the song that they do play by the artist that they play except that one plus every other version of the song by that artist except the one they play:rotfl: I ended up discovering. I mentioned before about sometimes buying songs in the past because I found them to be on no radio playlist - and I've yet to find a song that I've bought that way, that I hadn't heard before, that I didn't like. I always turn out to like them all - in fact they are all excellent and the only rubbish, to me, is that on the radio. My tastes infuriate you if you like any of that of course:rotfl:. I really love remix songs that completely trash pop songs that I don't like and bash them back to smithereens and put them right again. Any cover version that totally ruins a pop song that I dislike I like, especially if it sounds completely different. I think the problem with some pop songs - and my tastes are so unkind! - is that the vocals need to be completely changed to sound different and the entire tune changed as well. Other than that, the more recent songs on the radio most often are perfectly fine:rotfl:). As for Drake, according to the British Phonographic Industry rep., "few of us had probably heard of him a year ago". :rotfl::rotfl:I knew about his music somewhat before then.

Actually I did once buy one track that I thought I hadn't heard on the radio, and was therefore bound to be good, that I did like, absolutely fantastic record, one of my favourites, and then remembered that I had heard it on radio after all. On the Top 40 for one week at number 39!! They just don't play pop music! At least not at any other time (as regards any newer music - of course they do play pop, from previous eras, just not enough of it IMO and it's all drowned out by other stuff played all the time and thus very difficult to find - I may as well just buy, back then, the one song I like and forget the rest, as finding that song on the radio, through all of what I don't like, is nigh-on impossible). I don't think they even play the entire Top 40 anymore, thus now manage to avoid playing any of the songs I like.

But I'm not moaning anymore as I simply don't listen to the radio's selection but my own choice instead:rotfl:. Who on earth listens to the radio these days? Only over 90% of people still:rotfl::rotfl:.

nerfdad

It's not quite carling:eek::eek::eek:

streetlights

Good morning everybody, I hope you are well and have a fabulous Thursday.
Happy shopping.

Nannylala

Good morning am pleased it is feeling a lot cooler:cool::cool: and bearable today ...the threatened storms did not arrive and the garden really is beginning to suffer now..:(

diluvsdiscounts

Nannylala wrote: »

Good morning am pleased it is feeling a lot cooler:cool::cool: and bearable today ...the threatened storms did not arrive and the garden really is beginning to suffer now..:(

Good morning Nanny yes it was a scorcher again yesterday. I'm a bit worried about my hanging baskets whilst we are away. My mum will be watering them but at the moment I am watering and dead heading morning and night I hope she doesn't skip a day because that could be disastrous. I've only got five tomato plants this year so that won't be too bad and at last the tomatoes are starting to go red I didn't think that was ever going to happen.

Dizzy_Ditzy

izzy65 wrote: »

No Wilkos here and although my db made wine many years ago all his equipment is gone, so mr t online in the easiest for me and Amazon, as buying it all from Amazon worked out more expensive , I will be shocked if anything I make turns out drinkable :rotfl:

You'd be amazed what adding a splash of lemonade will do

scamps1966 wrote: »

You can bring me over a few bottles of rhubarb wine then. Barby at mine.

Still gotta work my way through the rest of it first -I bottled up 12 bottles at the weekend plus what I already had from last years efforts :beer:

I'll be round at 6pm :rotfl::rotfl:

Dizzy_Ditzy

TrulyMadly wrote: »

You could leave one of the beds and just let the strawberries drop....then you would get loads of runners and probably pick 100lbs next year:rotfl:

It's only one bed :eek: I plan on potting up the runners this weekend to get ready to give some away and get a load at the other plot