ISpyShanghai

I’m sat in the airport wearing my heaviest possible clothes with the baggage receipts for 9 (nine) suitcases weighing down the boarding pass. Leaving on a jet plane to old London town (and then Manchester).

That’s right- this is the final blog entry for ISpyShanghai, your favourite Shanghai based Ukulele blog about shoes (well, top 10 anyway).

Because I’ve got a girlfriend now, this move was actually pretty organised; we left the house yesterday and slept in the airport hotel.

As you might expect though from a man who thinks 3D pictures of cats are a great purchase the house was completely filled with tat that we couldn’t take with us.

In the end we gave away so much stuff to the neighbourhood recycling chaps (i.e. the ones who pedal around streets ringing a bell, looking for scrap cardboard) that a queue formed outside the back door. At one point- and this is true- there were so many people fighting over our left-over salt and half broken badminton rackets, that a guy set up shop selling roast potatoes to the crowd.

Anyway we got it done, paid the excess baggage (one million dollars) and take off in about half an hour.

Thank you, goodbye and Merry Christmas Shanghai- it’s been a blast.

Jamma out

There’s a new podcast up at WoAi’s gaff.

If you’re not down with the whole concept now- it’s basically WoAi, Dingle and me sitting around a table trying to make each other laugh. No matter how long and painful that may be.

At the end we do a song on the Ukukukulele.

It’s a simple formula, but we’re simple folk. Check it out episode 9, and all the others at WoAi’s lair.

Ack- I’ve been talking about doing this for a while, and now I’m not sure whether doing this now is bad timing or not.

Anyway- here’s a Ukulele cover version of Billie Jean by the late, great Michael Jackson.

The reason I’m laughing like a crazy person over the first verse of the song (and smiling like I’m high throughout) is that Emma was behind the camera pulling funny faces and dancing. It ain’t no disrespect!

For anyone who can’t get that video (still no youtube in China!) here’s an MP3.
Billie Jean- (ukulele version)

I think Emma finds these little Ukulele videos horribly embarrassing you know- she refused to watch the Radiohead one (although to be fair she was sat 5m away when I made it, so why would she bother?) and curled up into a little ball whenever I mentioned doing another one.

God knows how she would have coped if she went out with me when I was 17 and doing gigs with my two awesome bands.
Not well I should imagine.

Admittedly they’re not great videos- there is no moment where you realise that the ugly lump with the bushy eyebrows can sing like an angel, a cat doesn’t run into the wall behind me, and nobody takes their top off. But hey, at least they’re short.

What I really need to get working on is a timelapse photography movie of some shoes, with a ukulele sound track. Then we’d be cooking with three kinds of heat.

Whilst searching for ukulele songs I found a site called, well, ukulelesongs.com.

Lots of good stuff on there, but what caught my eye was the advert at the bottom of the screen.

Now that’s what I call targeted marketing.

Walking down Jingling Lu, near(ish) the Bund on Saturday I had a sudden urge to buy a Ukulele. 

Don’t know where it came from, but it was overwhelming, like a thirst. I went into a couple of shops before finding a cheeky little yellow number.  

The asking price was 240RMB. I didn’t argue, I was in love. Anyway my bargaining power was compromised after I danced around the shop going

“Look at the little strings! And it’s covered in fruit!!” 

By the time I got home I’d picked up “Shake Rattle and Roll” (the taxi driver actually turned down his radio to listen) and now I reckon I can play a few songs reasonably well. 

This isn’t necessarily one of them:

A note on the video: Youtube is rubbish in China- takes forever to load, so I’ve also put it on a local site called Tudou (”Potato”).

It was pretty easy to do; good old Google Translate eh?

On Tudou

On YouTube.

Yellow Ukulele all covered in fruit
240RMB including bag- from a guitar shop on Jing Ling Lu (proper address to follow)