Back with another one of those Grok-rockin' tweets

The other day, the UK government tested its national Emergency Alerts system. On a quiet Sunday afternoon, millions of mobile phones blared out a siren. The alert might be needed for real one day, in case of fire, flood or Taskmaster going off air.

This was, naturally, a chance for me to be silly. Shortly before the test alert was triggered, I posted this across my social media channels:

Reminder: At 3pm today, the Fat Roland alarm will go off. Please prepare by having to hand an egg whisk, two car manuals and a cone of marbles (medium). No further instructions will be given.

Arf! Silly post, a bit of fun, let's move on.

Except...

Twitter has an AI chatbot called Grok. It likes to go round explaining things as if we were little children. And yes, I'm calling the service Twitter because it's current name makes me, er, cross.

I asked Grok to analyse my Fat Roland alarm post. Actually, that's not quite true: it was less intentional than that. I pressed the little circle next to my post because I didn't know what the circle was, and suddenly Grok whirred into life.

Grok said: "The post by Fat Roland, a Manchester-based musician and writer known for quirky performances, likely hints at an avant-garde sound experiment, given his history with albums like Hounds of Hulme and ties to Electronic Sound, where the listed items (egg whisk, car manuals, marble cone) could serve as unconventional instruments."

Nope. Wasn't even thinking about music. I was picking things out of thin air. Egg whisk. Car manual. Marbles. I am not Delia Derbyshire; I am not found-sounding my way to legendary status. I'm just thinking "marbles" sounds funny here, so let's write that.

Grok continued: "No scientific studies directly apply, but the concept aligns with research on sound art, such as a 2019 study in the Journal of Sonic Studies, which explores how everyday objects enhance auditory creativity, suggesting Roland’s alarm might be a public art installation."

I have never worked in academia, but I'd imagine that response would strike a chord with lecturers marking student essays. "I have no basis for this, but here's something I reckon." Grok was now imagining me winning the Turner Prize for my sound sculpture, in a a devastating critique of the modern milieu lauded in broadsheet magazines everywhere.

Twitter's AI bot wasn't quite done with me yet. It had one final stretch to make, one more overreach to snap another twine of credibility:

"The timing, posted on September 7, 2025, at 11:51 UTC (3pm BST), coincides with global tensions from Israeli strikes in Doha reported on September 10, 2025, adding an ironic layer—could this be a subtle commentary on chaos amidst world events?"

Thanks for the long dash, Grok, that's so very AI of you. Turns out I'm commenting on Israel's genocide now. From avant-garde sound experimentation to an auditory art instillation to critiquing the collapse of world peace. All that from me finding the word "egg" funny, and deciding that "medium" in parenthesis was funnier that "large" or "small".

At the end of the analysis, Grok cited its sources. The first two links were a Roland synthesiser owner's manual and a manual for a rechargeable egg-beater whisk. So many manuals. Grok is your dad, sitting in his stew-stained armchair, paging through an old Haynes manual, flicking to a page all about sprockets, and deciding that am illustration of a Type B reboreable chain sprocket is a comment on the cost of living crisis.

I'd generate another Grok response, however I respect the environment, and encouraging AI data-mining is something that should be done sparingly, like switching off the hall light when not in use, or only flushing after a number two, or only burning tyres on a Sunday.

Further Fats: Totally gay for Scouting For Girls (2011)

Further Fats: Twitter – a pile of collapsed scaffolding populated by only bird crap and rats (2023)

Fat Roland's blog: happy 20th birthday

At the risk of raising your heart rate until your eyelids burst, I’m happy to announce that this blog is 20 years old today.

On 13 November 2004, in a post titled ‘Fat Roland’s blog’, I wrote 49 simple words heralding a new series of “blogs”, by which I probably meant “blog posts”. Blogging made sense: I'd spent much of my life as a journalist (see picture). And the rest, as no-one has ever said about any blog ever, is history.

On that same day, BBC weather bods promised the coldest night of the year. The Strokes and The Libertines dominated the front page of the NME. And it was the end of the Wu Tang Clan’s Ol’ Dirty Bastard, who died at far too young an age, as did John Balance from Coil.

Meanwhile, in my metaphorical basement, I was tapping away on my metaphorical typewriter. Early blog posts featured my under-developed thoughts on X Factor, Bill Drummond, Sandi Toksvig and, er, the Formula One driver Takuma Sato. A lot of it wasn’t that focussed.

In 2009, I decided to take my blogging seriously. Have you had one of those friends that suddenly becomes a knitter? They’re clacking out scarfs like a machine? This was me and blogging. I went from 50 to 140 posts a year, pledging to myself that I would post at least every three days.

My blog posts became more interesting. Speculation about Aphex Twin's new album. Guides to the Mercury Music Prize. being silly about The Prodigy, my bestest Warp tracks. critiquing Michael Jackson. An ill-advised pretend letter to James Blunt. A fake Autechre album leak. My sacking as a DJ and my debilitation from a stroke. Gaining MC Hammer and Barack Obama as readers (!) thanks to this post and this, or at least the people who run their socials. It has been quite the ride. 

I won’t bore you with the rest of this blog’s history, so here’s a precis of all the things my blog has led to. Think of this as a montage sequence, like wot they did in the A-Team. 2010: win blogging awards. 2012: become columnist for Electronic Sound magazine. 2014 and 2015: win awards for my spoken word gubbins. 2016: quit my day job to earn money from literature and performance. 2022: blog is infiltrated by the deep state, who use it to control your 5G. Okay, I made that last one up. I owe all of this to my bloggerising.

This blog still limps on, like a decrepit family cat that plops around the house in places you least expect. The site's view counts once reached the giddy highs of ten-thousand-plus, and have since dropped to the hundreds. A Blogspot page flattered by some Photoshop design is not "where it's at". I'm very much okay with that: it's a humble home but it's my home.

I asked ChatGPT to write me a tribute to blogging. A heart-warming paragraph extolling the joys of web logs. Here is what the AI came up with:

Blogging is a beautiful, chaotic celebration of personal expression. Whether it’s crafting whimsical rants or profound musings, each post offers the joy of connecting with the unseen. It's an archive of thought, a playground for creativity, and a space where ideas grow at their own unruly pace. Long live blogs!

And now, here is that same text rewritten by me, but with key words replaced with electronic music artists and/or animals.

Blogging is a beautiful, chaotic Sweet Exorcist of personal X-Press 2. Whether it’s Tomcrafting Whildchild rabbits or profound Mu-ziq, each polecat offers the Joy Orbison of Kon Kan-ecting with the unicorns. It's an armadillo of thought, a Playgroup for creativity, and a Spicelab where ibexes grow at their own unraccoony Plaid. Daddy longlegs LFO blogs!

Jeez, that was rubbish. Aaaaand that's how blogging works.

Pictured: Me (right) working at a newspaper in the mid-1990s. Cheeky news man Tristan Freeman on the left. Photo by Mark Waugh^.

Further Fats: Hammer time for Fatty Bumchops: how to blog properly (2011)

Further Fats: Blogging highlights 2004-2014 (2014)

1990s techno just trended on TikTok

Latest news from TikTok land. A user has posted about a misprinted vinyl edition of Taylor Swift's Speak Now (Taylor's Version). Instead of the dulcet tones of Pennsylvania's favourite country music escapee, it played the album Happy Land: A Compendium Of Electronic Music From The British Isles 1992-1996 Vol. 1. Quite the surprise.

I have to admit something. I know nothing about Taylor Swift's music. I have a good working knowledge of a lot of pop acts – Girls Aloud, Lil Nas X, Pet Shop Boys, Years & Years, Kylie Minogue, Crazy Frog. But Taylor's music leaves me cold, with her being my least preferred speed-themed music star after Rush, Fast Food Rockers and Hurry Styles. (Sorry.) 

TikTokker Rachel Hunter was the victim of an anomaly, like buying a packet of porridge and accidentally getting a vortex to an alternative universe in which glow sticks and tie-dyed t-shirts are the norm. She accidentally found herself listening to:

Xeper's Carceres Ex Novum, produced by the bloke from The Black Dog and featured on the first Trance Europe Express album.

Soul Vine (70 Billion People) which found Cabaret Voltaire embracing 90s techno while sampling TV show The Outer Limits.

Thunderhead's 11-minute acid ambient dub monster True Romance. This also appeared on Holistic Recordings' Paul Smith EP, which I don't think has anything to do with the similarly named lead singer of Maxïmo Park.

And more. There's Matthew Herbert, Aphex Twin, and Happy Land by Ultramarine starring the melty vocals of Robert Wyatt.

The original TikTok video is great. She focusses on a sinister Cabaret Voltaire sample. "There's 70 billion people on earth, where are they hiding," says the voice. Fair point. My local Spar is always dead so they're definitely not in there. Where are they? Inside the freezer cabinet? Hiding under the frozen peas? Good question, CabVol.

I once bought an album called Anthology by the 1990s techno act Pentatonik (listen to Green here). A lovely vinyl edition bought from an underground independent Manchester record shop, the name of which escapes me. I was gutted to find two sides were identical: clearly a misprint. I never got it replaced. I've still got it somewhere – it's probably worth, oooh, at least £5.24 now.

Big up to Above Board Distribution, who I hope will sell loads more copies of their British electronica compilation. I didn't expect 1990s techno to be trending on TikTok. That's like a penny farthing competing the Tour de France. Us old timers will never win, but, y'know, it's nice to be noticed sometimes.

Further Fats: Tiny promises that get me through (2016)

Further Fats: Are number one singles getting shorter? (TL;DR: #1s shorter Y/N?) (2022)

17 interesting postman trousers: a contractually obliged blog post

I haven't blogged all month. And I'm okay with that. Blogging is yesterday's news, like reel-to-reel tape recorders, castles and the Bubonic plague.

Of course, I started the month with good intentions. I had lots of blogging ideas. So many great ideas that if I listed them now, you would cry well into the night. But like an over-worn pair of underpants, they slowly sagged at the seams and fell to the ankles of lost memories.

Still. Here I am. Blogging. I'm sat on my sofa with a half-eaten pack of Fruit Pastilles and my washing machine chugging away in the background. I genuinely don't know where this blog post is going. I should come up with a click-bait title. Fat Roland blogs: what happened next will amaze you. 17 interesting things I found in my toilet. You won't believe what my trousers just said to the postman. That kind of thing.

I feel itchy when I don't blog. I've been doing it most of my adult life, so even if I'm just being silly about Ed Sheeran or MC Hammer or whatever, it definitely feels like some kind of foundation stone. An unbloggy Fat Roland is a sad Fat Roland.

But I'm not sad this month. I've been a busy boy, so I'm going declare this past month a blogging holiday. And all the weeks I didn't blog before that: they were blog hols too. And blog holidays are allowed. The only reason why I'm writing this post now is so I've published something in the month of March, and I don't look back in a few years' time and feel disappointed at my blogless month. But hey. I'm still on blogging holiday. Look, I'm wearing a sombrero and drinking a pina colada. Holiday.

Tomorrow is different. Tomorrow is April. I need to get back to blogging in April. If I'm not posting sixteen blog posts a day throughout April, I am a failure of a human being. Every blog post will have complex diagrams and be translated into four different languages. It'll all be in 3D and also rendered as a liquid. It's going to be the best wordings on the internet ever. No pressure.

It's weird how well Blogger works for me. I'm not interested in its custom domains or its new themes. I just want a nice plain design that I can Photoshop into looking a bit better. It's immediate and encourages play: a sandpit of a writing environment. Blogger has served me well for the past, approximately, 17 and a half years.

Okay. I've written some words. I'm going to put a picture at the top. What would you like? A hippopotamus, you say? Sure, you can have a hippopotamus. That's do really well in the Google rankings. Ahem.

Further Fats: Defending blogging against Blogger (2010)

Further Fats: Blog your spleen out (with added Balki) (2014)

Selected tweeted works: pigs, peanuts, Paul, pricks and polywonk

Sometimes I go onto Twitter then I give my opinions on Twitter and then I expect the whole of Twitter reads it and think "thank goodness that guy put something on Twitter".

If you are not on Twitter, you're in luck, because I'm about to spew some tweets all over this blog. Here are some highlights from my recent Twitter feed. And by "high", I mean "pretty low" and by "lights" I mean the encroaching darkness that will one day swallow us whole. 

Enjoy my stupid thoughts.

1. Genres
A guide to the different types of ambient music. 1. Ambient = chill-out music. 2. Hambient = pig-out music. 3. Diagrambient = lay-out music. 4. Wigwambient = camp-out music. 5. Victoria Beckhambient = out of your mind featuring dane bowers music.

2. Clock part one
Even a stopped cook gives the right thyme twice a plate.

3. Rockers
Have you noticed how heavy metal fans can't wink? Every single one of them. Now I've pointed it out, you'll spot it all the time. Heavy metal fans. Can't wink. Or crochet.

4. Snack part one
I ate some peanuts. Licked each one clean good and proper. Sang them one-hit wonders.

5. New year
I can't reveal my sources, but I've heard the only music we'll be allowed to listen to in 2022 is Roxette.

6. Pricked
I had my booster jab today. On leaving the pharmacy, a phalanx of seahorses escorted me on a hammock of golden plumes into the street then dumped me in a puddle. Please advise.

7. Snack part two
I'm eating Mentos and drinking Diet Coke. Pray for me.

8. Shopping
I once spotted Paul McCartney in a Currys. He was shoplifting three hoovers, trying to hide them in his enormous side flaps. He evaded security using his invisibility conch, while playing Eleanor Rigby through his gills. Three hoovers. What a guy.

9. Clock part two
I love that Orbital sample 'even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day unless it's a 24 hour clock in which case you probably paid a little more for it so why's it stopped ffs".

10. Indifference
No-one cares: a tweet reply hammered into the keyboard, shift key pressed with stressed-white fingers. No-one cares: a caption on a gif hurled at the internet, shattering on impact. No-one cares: the strained yelp of a purple veined man, scrunching his no-one cares face tattoo.

11. Reaction
"No PCR" is trending in the UK. Quite right. Can't stand Phil Collins Records.

12. Festive food
Remember, folks, you have until January 6th to eat your Christmas tree. Make sure you start at the thin end. Good luck!

13. Movies
Se7en should have been called 5even. The Fifth Element should have been called Th3 Fifth 3l3m3nt. The 4th Matrix film should have been called MatrIX. No reason. I just like things to be wrong and annoying.

14. List
There are some things I will just never understand no matter how hard I try, namely duck hands, the concept of jeleb, the word 'xthw))rd', cloud anvils and late-career polywonk.

15. Girl power
The Spice Girls would have been more successful if they'd been called the Spine Girls i.e. they were just a bunch of dancing spines. We're all thinking it.

16. Token
This tweet is an NFT. If you read it, you owe me 92 bits of ethereal coins or something.

17. Optimism
You know it's going to be a good day when you've laid a load of blue eggs and they start whistling Van McCoy's The Hustle. No? Just me? Suit yourself.

Further Fats: Tiny promises that get me through (2016)

Further Fats: Selected tweeted works: bagel, beards, bungs and beaches (2021)

Guess a word, any word, no not that word

Everyone's into the daily word guessing game Wordle. Half my Twitter feed is people posting their Wordle results. There hasn't been an online puzzle this popular since I posted a close-up body part and people had to guess if it was my ear or my warts.

For the unaware, Wordle is a bit like hangman, but you have to guess a five-letter word each time. You enter letters and the puzzle tells you how close you are to the correct ones. It has words like QUERY and DADDY and FARTS. It's nice and simple, and all credit to software guy Josh Wardle for creating a truly viral hit. Yes, the game is a letter-changed twist on his name. It could have been called Jash, I suppose.

You can post your daily results on social media, although to avoid spoilers, you can only post your answers as plain coloured squares, with the letters taken out. No, really. It's like being shown some meat at the supermarket, and when you ask what it is, they just say it's "some meat".

Of course, anyone who plays Wordle is a sad loser with nothing better to do with their time. Have I played it? Heck yes. I need to beat all my loser friends. I've even played the limitless version where you can load new games until your thumb falls off. Best correct streak so far is 57. But yes, sad losers, all of them. Ahem.

I'm glad the puzzles are only five letters long. I can't think beyond the fingers on one hand or beyond the toes on one foot or beyond the nipples on one nose. We need a game for five-lettered electronic music acts. Yello. Bjork. Diplo. Plaid. Fluke. Clark. Tycho. Bibio. Teebs. Unkle. As One. Tosca. Zero 7. 3OH!3. Chase out of Chase & Status. Jeez, it's really difficult to think of five-letter electronic music acts.

Since lockdown, I've embraced word games. This blog turns 18 years old this year: I'm not the spring chicken I once was. I'm a withered old cockerel. I'm convinced I'm going to wake up one morning and my brain will literally be a cabbage. And not even a good cabbage: one with browned leaves and loads of fungus and it's 14p in Sainsbury's. So I play word games to keep me sparking along. BRAIN. WORKS. MAYBE.

There's one kind of word game I won't do. Cryptic crosswords seem to follow some kind of arcane rule set only communicable by invisible semaphore. I think this is only played by people who understand cricket. Like most cryptic noobs, I can get the anagram ones, but I come unstuck pretty quickly. That said, I once got 13 correct answers in the Private Eye crossword: I felt superhuman. Maybe I was just possessed.

Yazoo! I thought of another one! Plone! Sasha! Cylob! They're coming thick and fast now. I can actually literally feel my brain getting younger. Quick, let me post these names on my Twitter feed but only as anonymous coloured squares. I'm sure everyone will appreciate that.

Further Fats: Chosen Words: N is for Nintendo (2010)

Further Fats: Flatulent balls – lockdown thoughts and a cartoon of a bull (2020)

Selected tweeted works: bagel, beards, bungs and beaches

An end of a month is a time to take stock. To think about our regrets. To consider the endless void. To paint our toenails cherry red and hide inside a trifle.

Here are some recent tweets from my FatRoland account. It's a way of creating blog content with as little effort whatsoever. I suggest you put an equal amount into reading this.

Regrets. The void. Trifle. It's all here. Yes, including the trifle: each tweet will be accompanied by a trifle ingredient, which I suggest you eat at the same time as reading.

Bon apetit.

1. Breakfast
Been around the cinnamon whirl and I I I, I can't find my bagel.
Ingredient: custard

2. Appointment
I am delighted to announce I am the new CEO of Twitter. Character length increased to 20,000. Only cartoon avatars. Scratch and sniff. 5p per retweet. Cats with beards.
Ingredient: jelly

3. Grift
If any health companies or meat distributors want to give me £100,000 to ask questions in parliament, please get in touch. "Do you like ham?" "What's your fave rash?" I'd be really good at it.
Ingredient: strawberries

4. Festive
Just so people know where I stand on this, I think Christmas should be aggressively enforced all year round. Everyone to dress as Santa every day. Only trees allowed to grow are Christmas ones. Cars have baubles instead of wheels, etc etc.
Ingredient: chocolate

5. Location
Movin' to the country, gonna eat a lot of beaches.
Ingredient: prune juice

6. Hope
Okay gang, it's a new day, fresh start, new goals, we can achieve amazing things together. You get the butter and I'll start asking round for funnels.
Ingredient: sponge (food)

7. Breakfast again
Omicron? OMICROISSANT, more like. Yeah? Think about it, sheeple.
Ingredient: sponge (bathroom)

8. Anniversary
On this day 24 years ago, all five members of the Sneaker Pimps climbed into Robbie Williams's mouth and were never seen again.
Ingredient: wafer-thin ham

9. Elevator pitch
Pitch to publishers: A book based on themes in well-known palindromes. "Murder for a jar of red rum" (crime novel). "Mr Owl ate my metal worm" (science fiction dystopia). "Go hang a salami, I'm a lasagna hog" (recipe book).
Ingredient: hummus

10. Despair
The inappropriate fade-out on the Spotify version of Orbital's Lush 3-1 is why the world's gone to hell in a hand dryer.
Ingredient: baking tray

11. Etymology
Today is Halloween, which as we all know comes from the phrase "Hello, Ian".
Ingredient: armchair(s)

12. The big question
Who was the renegade master, what were they trying to damage, and were they behaving ill so they could bunk off work?
Ingredient: the 18th century

Further Fats: Come on my Selected (2006)

Selected tweeted works: synthesiser worms, big shops

Is it against the law to copy and paste a bunch of tweets into a blog post? Making the micro-blog a macro-blog? It does seem wrong somehow.

Here are some recent tweets from @FatRoland, which is me. Like all social media, reading this is mostly a waste of your time. Imagine every word covered in paint, then watching that sweet, sweet paint dry.

For the sake of completion, I have included location tags on each tweet. 

1. Ear worm
Had a banging electronic music anthem stuck in my head today. And then I realised it was the Channel 4 News theme tune.
Location: basement

2. Synth worm
What if every time someone pressed a key on a synthesiser, a worm came out? You hadn't thought of that, had you? You need to be aware of all possible worms.
Location: a different basement

3. Guest appearance
Yes, that *is* me doing guest kazoo on Kanye's new album, good spot.
Location: end of garden

4. Down time
It's a low fuse kind of day. Housework. Chilling. Writing. YouTube. Snorkling. Mind control. Turning my knees into UFOs. Just boring stuff, really.
Location: top of telegraph pole

5. Animal
WAKE UP, SHEEPLE. (This tweet should only be read by people who are a grotesque hybrid of a human and an actual sheep, and who are also having a nap.)
Location: inside tube

6. Maths
Big Nas XL > Lil Nas X
Location: left of dog park

7. Zither
I'm sorry to announce that I've quit the extreme speed zither scene and will no longer be performing my sixty second soundtrack of The Third Man.
Location: three feet high and rising

8. Big shop
Went to do my big shop but it's bank holiday closed. Am now big shopping in the park (twigs = pasta, autumn leaves = cornflakes, sparrow = toilet roll).
Location: a collection of numbers and an arrow

9. Cover version
Kinetic by Golden Girls but performed by clockwork cymbal monkeys and Rowlf from the muppets.
Location: 1970s Granada TV

10. Key strokes
I have used computers since the 1980s. If I average 20,000 keystrokes a day, that's probably about 255,500,000 times my fingers have have touched a computer keyboard. And not once in those 255,500,000 times have I wanted Number Lock off.
Location: metaphysical

11. Watching
I see your tweets. I see your tweets and I like them. I want to become them. I want to be the negative space in your weird new font.
Location: location, location

Further Fats: Selected tweeted works – young lovers and yawning (2020)

Further Fats: Selected tweeted works – 17 Fat Roland tweets as recommended by Fat Roland

Selected tweeted works: 17 Fat Roland tweets as recommended by Fat Roland

Hey Fat Roland, how do you come up with fresh blog content 16 years after starting your blog?

Thanks for asking, lovely reader. I guess I'm just extremely creative and very clever in the brain department. Also, you can just copy a load of recent tweets, dump them into a blog post and pretend it's brand new content. Result!

17 Fat Roland tweets as recommended by Fat Roland

1. Ageing
A month ago, I turned 47, so I really think it's time I started taking things more seriously. *draws the concept of existential trousers playing Twister with a sausage*

2. Politics
Ben Bradley? Ben BADLY more like!!!!! Yes? That's good, right? Please tip this tweet five pounds.

3. Time
Clogs go back tonight. Also: espadrilles go forward and tennis racket snowshoes go sideways.

4. Warning
Comrades, there's a storm coming. THERE IS A STORM COMING. Sorry, not storm. Snail. There's a snail coming. It's just over there. Look at its cute ikkle face

5. Animal
Fox making a right old racket outside my window. Went outside and read it my writing until it fell into a deep coma. Winner = ME.

6. Song
Heads and shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes /
Knees and toes and knees and toes, knees and toes /
Toes and toes and toes toes toes toes toes toes /
Toes toes toes toes toes toes TOESTOES TOESTOESTOES.
(Millipede version.)

7. Covidiot (Ian Brown)
Ian Brown crashes into the ceiling. His phone stays zipped in his Kappa jacket as he bangs into rooves, treetops, seagulls. If only I believed in gravity, says Ian Brown, knocking a helicopter for six. Every collision, an accidental pocket tweet, each more absurd than the last.

8. Planning
I just used "Let's dip our Poe in the water" in a Zoom meeting about a new poetry project. #winning

9. Success
I'm happy to announce that I have received £15 billion in government support just for being a great guy.

10. English
I'm sorry to be a grammar pedant, but the apostrophe goes AFTER the umlaut and BEFORE the white space indicating the cold nothing of eternity.

11. Stance
I'm sorry to say, but I am thoroughly Anti-Vax. I much prefer Henrys and their little smiling face!!1!!!]!

12. More politics
I would be a terrible shame if Trump's head fell off and his willy exploded and his knees turned into ants. Just saying. JUST SAYING.

13. Nature
I've just been for a walk in the park and I'm very sorry to tell you the trees are a mess. The leaves have gone the wrong colour and they're dropping off the branches like old scabs. Sad.

14. Dream
Last night I dreamt I bought some pitta bread then I ate the pitta bread so I bought more pitta bread. Sorry, not pitta bread. Hamsters. I meant hamsters.

15. Internet
Last night I was browsing videos of cats destroying model railway sets and ended up watching the whole of Duel.

16. Covidiot (me)
New Covid restrictions:
- Legs must stay two metres apart
- Do not socialise with own face when looking into mirror
- Brain must not be used after 10pm
- Please ensure your home stays home even when homing from home
- Goves are now illegal

17. Oh dear
Wrong Said Fred. Geddit?! Huh? GEDDIT?!?!? Hello? Hello? Anyone? Sigh.

Not the best music recommender in the world

My spiritual blogging brother Benjamin Judge has been asking for music recommendations. 

A simple request, you might think. But Ben is a clever bunny. He has been turning the spotlight of criticism onto his recommenders as well as the music they have been recommending.

It's a cruel twist. That's like going to the opera, settling into your seat with your glossy programme and those little binoculars stolen off an Action Man, then the befrocked cast turning to the audience and gruffly demanding "Entertain us, scum!"

It's exactly like that.

The Best Music Recommender in the World is a competition in which Ben spends his weekends listening to music nominated by his readers, then ranks everyone's choices. There's a leaderboard and everything. He's been working through the alphabet and this coming weekend will be about acts beginning with Y.

This is natural territory for me: I consider myself a pretty decent music recommender. It's why this blog exists. I write album reviews for Electronic Sound and have been guffing on about bands since my first ever job, music columnist for the South Manchester Reporter, in 1991.

I have recommended to Ben the likes of µ-Ziq, EOD, Rival Consoles and, perhaps less successfully, Transglobal Underground. Overall, I was pretty confident I would win this thing.

It all went wrong when I tried to game Ben's system, switching one of my recommendations on the basis of a Twitter conversation. I lost points for cheating. In fact, I was penalised a number of times. I was so desperate to win the affection of Ben's ears, I cut off my nose to spite my face. I became addicted to cheating. I became the Lance Armstrong of music recommending. 

My ego got the better of me, and it cost me bad. [Takes long drag on cigarette as camera pans in.] I suppose I flew too close to the sun, just like Icarus. Also I failed to covert Ben to the joys of Underworld, just like Icarus. 

I have no chance of winning the competition now. That said, I'm still in the top 20, and 261 points ahead of Rufus Hound (no, really). I'm going to keep recommending as we pass through the final letters of the alphabet. Also I'm totally going to check his tweets to see if he's into any bands beginning with Z.

Give him a recommendation. Just don't get too cocky.

Further Fats: Meet the Manchester bloggers: the gathering, July 2010

Further Fats: A little Novation motivation for my creation stimulation (ignore the cats) (2014)

Selected tweeted works: young lovers and yawning

Twitter is a gentle and beautiful environment in which everyone lovingly carves perfectly-nuanced tweets in order to make the world a better place.

Here are some of my recent tweets designed to honour Twitter's uplifting and supportive atmosphere, which in many ways can be seen as me contributing to world peace.

"But Fat Roland," you doth protest, "surely making a blog post out of tweets is terribly lazy, and is a sign that blogging long since died out as a relevant artform."

Thanks for your contribution, reader. Do me a favour, can you just take a step back? And another step? Just one more step. Neeeearly there. *opens trapdoor to crocodile pit*

Selected tweeted works

1. PPE

Today, I am wearing 14 masks across various parts of my body as all-over protection combined with cool rad fashion.

2. Fake Fake

What would you call a Nathan Fake tribute act? (See me sniffily dismissing replies here.)

3. A single tweet

and then the whale said to the vicar, "Mother Superior? I thought you said blubber posterior!!" Ha ha ha ha, oh my, I think that's the greatest story I've ever told on Twitter. (See thread.)

4. Literature

I just yawned and accidentally recited all the vowels in the complete works of Shakespeare.

5. Animal abuse

I can't BELIEVE I've been cancelled. It was just a few puppies and the blowtorch wasn't even on the high setting, I mean JEEZ.

6. Fine Time (for a tweet)

I don't know if anyone's noticed this, but New Order's album Technique is very good.

7. Television

Why were they showing the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics when they should have been showing the bit where I won 82 gold medals? Harrumph.

8. Pardon?

an bauetiful song for my beuatiful handss made of roast beeff (tweeted on my Jusbin Bebber account)

9. All the lovers

Overheard in the park today - A couple of young lovers relaxing on the grass, him saying (and adding a beat for emphasis): "I'm glad you found that funny, because that was a joke by... Will Ferrell."

10. Eating out

This pub is too packed. We've had to climb into each other's mouths to shield ourselves.

Further Fats: Video: "Orbital sample Stephen Hawking" (2012)

Further Fats: Fake news: there's a famous faux band in town (2017)

I have been blogging for fifteen years and I'm probably never going to stop

Happy 15th birthday, this blog.

The Fat Roland blog began on 13th November 2004 with a rather weak post about dry cleaning. Although it meandered in content for a while, this website eventually focused on the twin pillars of (1) electronic music and (2) silliness — two wonderful constants in my stupid life.

That humble first post back in 2004 started something special for me. Blogging came to define my creativity and, ultimately, my career.

It opened up a new world of freelance writing and performance that simply didn't exist before. I owe my uber-cool job at the Burgess Foundation to the direction blogging sent me in. And I wouldn't be writing for Electronic Sound if its editors hadn't stumbled across my sexy blog waffles.

Under the title of Fat Roland On Electronica, this blog won awards and a tonne of clicks — before clicks were the in-thing. The word "electronica" quickly became passé and, after dallying with the rather poor title "Netloafer", these days this site is called Electronic Music Stuff With Fat Roland. Does what it says on the internet tin.

This blog gets fewer clicks these days because this isn't where the cool kids hang out anymore. For example, a post yesterday generated zero comments here but 66 comments and counting over on Facebook. Still, every now and then a post gets a zillion views and I remember what it is like to be alive again. *looks meaningfully into the distance*

Here's a treat for you. I used to have a separate blog and website, for some stupid dumb reason. What follows is a screenshot of my website front page from something like 2005. I was very into black backgrounds and I designed everything in Microsoft FrontPage. And following that is a screenshot of my blog back in 2010.

What about the future? I'm going to keep blogging, and more regularly too if I can help it. This is my home. Electronic music. Silliness. And a few diversions as we go. Same as it ever was.

How I tricked the internet with 506 tweets

On Friday, I dropped this tweet bomb.

For the past 500+ tweets, the first letter of each of my tweets has spelled out FATROLAND over and over again. Read down my feed. This tweet starts with F, the one below starts with A, then T, and so on. FATROLAND FATROLAND FATROLAND for over 500 tweets. You've been FatRolanded.

— Fat Roland (@FatRoland) November 2, 2018

That's right. Go back to Friday afternoon on my Twitter feed and you'll see 506 consecutive tweets stretching back to the start of the summer, all spelling the acrostic FATROLAND over and over again.

Apart from that woman who did the whole of Bohemian Rhapsody and every other person who's done a similar thing. this is a totally unique experiment.

Why? asked several followers, incredulous at the sheer waste of time and energy.

That's easily answered. Why did King Kong climb Everest? Why did Scott of the Antarctic go to that icy place, can't remember its name. Why did Axl Rose do Chinese Democracy?

Because it was there.

Except it wasn't there. I had to write all the tweets. Nothing was "there". Twitter isn't a mountain or an iceberg or a terrible album. So that metaphor makes no sense.

Of course, I've tricked you again. Go back over this post and you'll find that all the initial letters spell OFIDTTBTRGBTF-- wait, this doesn't make sense either.

Words are difficult.

I'm going to write some more comprehensive thoughts on this, probably as a column for Electronic Sound, but I enjoyed the silliness of this, and the reaction to the reveal was a joy. Nice to have my regular Twitter feed back though.

I've finally broken my new year's resolution

I was doing so well at blogging every other day in 2017 - my only new year's resolution - and now it's all gone aubergine-shaped. I seem now to be blogging only once every three days.

This is, of course, a disaster because - as we all know - blogging is still the number one communication platform. We all get up in the morning, grab our phones, and scroll through all the Blogpost blogs. Don't we? Hello? *taps mic* Hello?

I'm really enjoying blogging regularly again. It's helped add rhythm to my life since I quite the full-time job last year. And that rhythm is the sound of clattering plastic keys, the staccato giggles to myself as I think of funny words, and the bass-heavy sobs when I realise few people blogs anymore. Apart from Richard Herring fans.

Thanks for reading this, by the way.

On the plus side, I've just realised that when I get chores done, I do a little "pyow pyow" laser noise to myself as if I'm zapping my to-do list. Washes plate. Pyow pyow, Hoovers hallway. Pyow pyow. Pops zit. Pyow pyow.

It's nice having simple goals.

How does Spotify work? I'm glad you asked

I've made a Spotify playlist of this website. What's Spotify, you ask? Don't worry, old codger, I'll explain.

When you press the play button on Spotify, the internet triggers a signal. That signal falls down the internet drain until it reaches the artist you want to play. They receive a notification in the form of a massive electrical shock. The artist then starts to perform the track you selected, which is how the music appears in your ears.

And because it's electricity, it happens almost instantly.

Every time an artist gets a piece of music played on Spotify, they receive thirty-seven hundred dollars. That's per stream, which is why streaming is seen as such a lucrative business model that offers no threat to the music industry. Unlike, of course, physical sales in which the acts only get a button and a chewed ballpoint pen for every CD sold.

The Victorians used Spotify a lot because it was the easiest way to distribute those bicycles with the huge front wheels. Its usage tailed off after the Great Hat Dispute of 1875: the Victorian's early experiments with wearable technology resulted in a large number of mass casualties. The person who brought Spotify back into public popularity was Howard Donald from Take That, although I can't explain why for legal reasons.

So make the music world a better place by launching the Fat Roland Spotify playlist here. It comprises most of the tracks I've waffled on about on Fat Roland.co.uk in 2017 - and do follow the list because there'll be more to come.

Further Fats: If you ask me, people on the internet should talk about the internet more (2008)

Further Fats: Do you pay for your record collection? (2009)

Further Fats: Best of 2013: a Spotify playlist (2013)

Thousand

This is it. This must be the end.

Welcome to my 1,000th blog post. It has taken 12 years, two months and 22 days to get to this point. When I posted "watch this stain" in 2004, I was in black and white, and all I wore was a petticoat. These days it's all skateboards, telephones and haircuts.

There have been huge musical milestones while this blog has been online. Band Aid 20. Downloads. Ed Sheeran. YouTube. Band Aid 20. Smart phones. Biebermania. Band Aid 20.

But it's the world of electronic music that has been most turbulent. This website has survived Burial dubstep, Skrillex dubstep, witch house, chillcore, the 80s revival, the 90s revival, autotuning, sidechaining, two Orbital splits, the Harlem Shake, the Technics relaunch, and Mr Aphex Twin opening the nozzle and then some.

Because of the millennium bug, there is no way a blog can continue beyond a thousand posts. So this is the last ever-- wait, hold on, the phone's ringing.

Hello?
...Yes, this is he.
...It can? That's not what the blog authorities told me.
...What do you mean I have to continue? On whose authority?
...Oh I see. Yes, they ARE a very important person.
...I am a bit annoyed, yes. I'd planned a retirement.
...What? Yes of course bloggers retire. I'll have you know, I earned money.
...Huh? Well, about 75 quid, I think.
...No, not per year. Since 2004. Why are you laughing?
...Now you're just being rude. I'm putting the phone down. Twazmuppet.
...
...Yes, I'm still here-- Hey! You just hung up on me. Dammit.

So I suppose I'd better continue, typing into the void, my keyboard spinning through the deadness of space. Thank you for reading any one of the previous 999 posts. If you want a more serious take on blogging, firstly WHY, secondly have a look at my blogging tips from 2011. Or read my decade nonsense from 2014.

And thank you to Blogger for remaining pretty much consistent all this time, even though your spellcheck still doesn't recognise "bloggers".

Take it away, Moby. I've been waiting YEARS to post this.

Tiny promises that get me through

I always say I don't do new years resolutions, but it's not true. I make tiny promises to myself. Not full fat resolutions - just wafer thin thoughts that linger at the edges of my daily routine.

Last year's promise was a success. I decided to back off from internet arguments. Increasingly, I find my energy levels to be a finite resource - particularly after a year of higher-profile performances. So why waste that energy on the fallout from oversharing, or from repeats of that famous 'someone on the internet is wrong' XKCD cartoon?

The promise came as a little mantra:
> my internet is an echo chamber;
> if in doubt, stay positive - or silly;
> if my first reaction is annoyance then back off;
> always ask "is this my battle?"

Wow, the comments I have deleted mid-draft as a result of that... This has been quite cleansing; for me, the web has become manageable.

It also led to me writing a letter to my MP for the first time in a long time.

I wanted to tweet about Syria, but the internet was echo-chambering like crazy. What was the point of yet another parroted tweet of outrage?

So I decided on a real-world action. Social media was part of this, but it was at the start and end of the process. In this case, I read about the topic, I wrote and sent the letter, and then - and only then - I tweeted about it.

I don't think I've ever written to my MP before. Who'd have thought that Syria would be the subject to break my duck.

— Fat Roland (@FatRoland) December 1, 2015

There were many more tiny promises, but I think the internet thing was the most successful one.

Not that my record is spotless. For example, I had an eye-wateringly passive aggressive argument with a Ukipper. The ensuing conversation went nowhere. (I was the passive aggressive one, I think, but hey at least we maintained a veneer of politeness.)

@SimonMrshll Absolutely. The more minor parties get a fair share, the more light can be shed on farty old racists like Ukip! #ProRep #farty

— Fat Roland (@FatRoland) May 9, 2015

My tiny promises for 2016? Not telling. The promises are to myself, so I won't tell you until the next twelve months have been consigned to the wheelie bin of history.

And now you.

Try a tiny promise yourself. Rather than a full-on detox or writing routine or whatever it is, construct a promise that is tiny, wafer thin and, yes, sometimes breakable.

Further Fats: From a poke to a shove: Facebook has chucked me off their site (2015)

From a poke to a shove: Facebook has chucked me off their site

Facebook has deleted me. They've picked my up by the scruff of my (rubber)neck and thrown me out of the number one social media party. You'll find me in the alleyway at the back door, sprawled among the bins.

The site's insistence on real name usage is a matter of public record, and it left a lot of internet noses out of joint. That policy has now locked me out of my own account.

My name is "not approved". I need to "try again".

Try again at what? I've been Fat Roland online since the 1990s, before Facebook was invented.

I'm not one for skeletons and closets, so I'm not hiding anything. Indeed, my real identity is on numerous websites. You can see my name here and here and here and here and here and here and here. 

But making my pseudonym my primary web identity allows a healthy distance between me and the web. It is a choice; a carefully selected choice.

It's good for my creativity and headspace. Also, I don't want to be tracked down by the bullies from my primary and secondary school days. That said, I'm not going to be a victim about this. There are transgender people, for example, who have much more legitimate beef with the 'book than I do.

Mention Facebook to many people, and they sneer like it's a piddle-stained relative they haven't quite got shot of. Part of me is glad it has gone. However, I will lose touch with people I love. And it will affect my ability to promote events for Bad Language and Blackwell's.

I don't think there will be a fast fix. In the meantime, this is what my profile looks like.

If you need me, I'll be on Twitter and maybe even Ello (!).

And if you fancy joining me in living a Facebook-less life, delete your account and we'll have un-status un-updated adventures together.

Edit: two weeks later, I got back onto Facebook. My new name is even more silly than before. And now I can never change it. Oh, Facebook.

Blogging highlights 2004-2014

I've been blogging for ten years.

You remember ten years ago, right? Faded celebrities sat around in jungles, UKIP made significant electoral gains and some loons re-released the Band Aid song. Seems so alien now.

This blog reached its zenith in 2009 and 2010. Before and since, it has just been a fat man shouting down an internet tube at his own knees.

Here are my eight blogging highlights since the first post dripped out onto the web on 13th November 2004.

1. Getting the word electrostepgrungebass accepted into Blogger's spelling dictionary. Turns out if you post them enough nail clippings, they relent.

2. Actually moving into a grandma's basement so I felt included in all the tabloid comment pieces about blogging. She never found out.

3. The time when I was outed as Burial. Or that graffiti guy. I forget which.

4. Changing the name of my blog to (a) Fat Roland's Internet Sickhole, (b) Fat Roland's Cranial Discharge, (c) Vice Magazine. All at once.

5. Seeing my blog open on a laptop screen in the background of the Queen's official portrait. Still, it put paid to my theory that I can't be seen in paintings, like vampires.

6. Being the millionth visitor to the world wide web. I won a timeshare. Or a large bank deposit. Or willy pills. I don't know: I didn't click.

7. Inventing the "minternet". This is like the internet, only mintier. See also: cheesels (edible easels), hot dogdogs (actual dogs made from sausages), beef (this is just beef that I pretended to invent).

8. Accidentally downloading all the music. Well, almost all. Strangely, it left off all the U2 albums.

9. There isn't a 9. I said "eight blogging highlights". Scroll up. It's right there.

10. Seriously now.

11. OH COME ON.

Thanks for reading. I've had a decade offloading my mind-crap into your face. I think I will carry on because, why not. Blogging is dead and this is not Buzzclick-Viralworthy, but if you stick around, I'll keep tapping away. Here's to Band Aid 2024. *weeps*

This is what happens when I change my Facebook profile picture

I decided to change my Facebook profile picture into a tribute to the Great Soprendo, former television magician and one-time husband to Victoria Wood.

Here is the profile picture.

It quickly attracted this comment from a Facebook friend:

"Looks like a cream egg wrapper?"

So I googled for creme eges. It kind of does. So I did this:

I thought that would be enough, but oh boy, my Facebook friends are tenacious.

This reply came back:

"Love it. Could you make it egg shaped?"

Yeah. No problem at all. Erm...

Good to see I'm putting my Photoshop skills to good use, huh? *sigh*

If you want to follow me elsewhere on the worldinternetweb, Facebook isn't the best place as I'll only accept your request if we have friends in common. So there. And also, you'll get subjected to this kind of crap.

But you can:

- stalk me on Twitter;

- wipe my This Is My Jam on your toast (expect lovely electronic music goodness every few days);

- spot me on Spotify (expect lovely electronic music goodness updated very sporadically);

- viddy me on Vimeo (expect lovely electronic music goodness made by my own hands);

- or shuffle through some other blogs by friends on this David Hartley blog post (no lovely electronic music goodness as far as I can see).