Jan 29 2012
Heard this song a couple of times in the last week, and now I can’t get “Somebody That I Used To Know” out of my head. If you don’t like the first one, it is probably safe to skip the others 🙂
Five people, one guitar
Gotye – Somebody That I Used To Know (Loot & Plunder Remix)
studio performance
Peter Gabriel Sledgehammer reminding video
Oct 02 2011
Dubstep & some slick moves. Waiting for beats and moves to drop, worth the 5 minutes 2 watch. http://t.co/F0sygdkx via @youtube & YerbolP 🙂
Sep 19 2011
@daninkaz Yes I think that was the old name for it. Sure SteveBW will be along to confirm it, he is nearly as ancient as you!
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Jun 12 2010
So, as I mentioned in a tweet, Irina and I were invited to the Queen’s Birthday Party (organised by the British Embassy) on the 10th of June at the Radisson Hotel here in Astana. This was the first QBP since the new ambassador here in Kazakhstan took over.
A short summary would be no speeches (apparently the correct tradition for celebrating HRH’s birthday), a good local band that played a wide variety of covers, free good food (fish and chips in cones again, as well as a buffet (curries, beef kebabs, potato wedges 🙂 ) and free drink. I’ll leave the details of my mishap on the way home until another day.
The following videos were supposed to be uploaded on the night, but I was too drunk TBH. They were then supposed to be transferred via Qik, but once again the program got very tempremental. So, I reverted to YouTube.
I’ve not yet had a chance to actually watch all the videos, but I wanted to post these up tonight, as I’m away from the PC tomorrow for half the day, then giving a lesson and running an English Talking club in the afternoon and evening, then hopefully off to watch the England vs. USA football match during the night.
So it was now or at some random point in the future for embedding these clips.
Oh, and Irina took some proper photos with a real camera, so I’ll try ad post those up soon as well.
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Jun 08 2010
As I write this post, the following video has been watched over 25 million times (and that is just with the original, some of the pointless re-posts on YouTube have had over a million as well!), so it is reasonably likely you’ll already have seen this song.
If Greyson Chance (12 year old boy) singing Paparazzi (a Lady GaGa song) doesn’t ring any immediate bells, click play below now!
I’m glad to see the YouTube comments are now mostly positive, he had a lot of haters on there for a while. OK, so this isn’t the sort of thing I normally post here on ChrisMerriman.com , but the vocal talent (and arrangement skills) of someone so young just blew me away. Some of the girls in the back manage to maintain a totally not interested look throughout, but I’m guessing the blond in the top right might just be interested… Anyway, Greyson tweets and is on facebook, so leave a message of support if you want to show that lip syncing, fame grabbing, talentless media stars (Simon Cowell, you have a lot to answer for) aren’t what impress everybody.
Jun 06 2010
A quick compilation of clips shots today in Chubary. Featuring Anna, Assel, Walton, Irina and Ira’s Mum.
Guest starring Anna’s new play area and house in the garden…
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Jan 01 2007
OK, a couple of people have already e-mailed and asked “so how much money should I bring?”
Well, I’m not sure on an exact total, but if I give you an idea of how much stuff costs here, you’ll be better informed to guess a holiday total I suppose…
20 fags (Parliament) – 80pence
20 fags (Marlboro) – 40 pence
20 fags (Russian smokable stuff) – 20-35 pence
Bottle of coke in a shop – 50 pence
Bottle of vodka in a shop – 90 pence to 5 pounds, depending on brand (drinkable – nice), can pay more, but what’s the point?
Bottle of beer in a shop – 40 pence to 90 pence (Russian to European brands)
In a restaurant/cafe, fags, coke and beer maybe double the price, or there abouts, vodka costs maybe two pounds for 200ml
PC Games/Applications/MP3 collections – 2 pounds to 5 pounds, depending on amount of discs in box, and how obvious the copy is
Music CDs – between 40-80% of UK price
Taxi ride (real taxi) – 2 to 3 pounds for a 10/15 minute ride
Taxi ride (flagging a random car off the street) – haggle price, normally little cheaper than real taxi
Meal in a cafe (salad (ha ha ha), meat dish, chips, coke, vodka) – Between 4 and 12 pounds per person, depending on type of place you go to
Meal in a restaurant (same stuff as above) – Between 6 and 20 pounds tops, per person
Obviously, if you want to get drunk, rather than merely relaxed, add more money for the extra vodka/soft drink/beer
Entrance fee to a club – 5 to 7 pounds – basically, the more ‘exclusive’ an activity or brand is, the higher the price soars, prices for drinks in clubs a little higher than elsewhere.
Next door to China, so disposable electronic trinkets, that might last 5 years, or 5 days, are to be found in plenty of shops.
If you want any ‘Kazakh’ souvenirs – cultural stuff, definitely bring along a little bit extra cash.
Re. Money – bring at least 100 euros or a little more in dollars, the rest is up to you – there are ATMs over here (don’t forget to budget for banks comission/charges for this service), and there is ONE place that we know of that will exchange English pounds for Kazakh Tenge, but Irina says you shouldn’t rely on it still working/taking UK currency by the time you come over. Your choice basically.
Re. CDs/DVDs vs. portable hard drive. I’ve read around, and people have less difficulty taking hard drives out of the country than lots of discs, apparently. Couldn’t find any info on importing. Personally, I’ve never had a problem in either direction. There is apparently a rule, on your way out of the country,that if Customs discover discs in your luggage, they must have been previously inspected and sealed by a dept. elsewhere in Astana. You’ll need to do this four or five days before the flight.
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