Comfortably punk

You may recall we recently established that punk bands actually loathed the habit of crowd spitting and certainly didn’t spit on their own audiences. But that wasn’t to say a rock musician has never done such a thing.

In July 1977, at the height of the UK punk movement, the bass player in a very popular act was playing the last show of a tour in Montreal, Canada. At the gig’s climax, he marched to the lip of the stage and gobbed at fans on the front row.

This was Roger Waters of Pink Floyd.

Married bliss

It’s a college. No it’s not, it’s a record label. Sorry, it’s a TV studio. Hang on, no, it’s a computer games firm.

Let’s start again. Confetti is definitely a bar and meeting place. And all of the above, it seems.

Nestling in the centre of Nottingham, Confetti is quite unlike any media company I’ve ever encountered. And I’ve encountered a few. Established in 1994, the organisation launched as a well-equipped, creative technology school for college students and school leavers. It was the vision of Craig Chettle and initially worked with The People’s College of Further Education. As Craig puts it, “We wanted to create a place and an opportunity that was not available to us when we were in further education.”

Less than meets the eye

We’ve been spoilt. The delights of the modern media have ruined us. Our predecessors would have little or no idea what a polar bear was, let alone be presented with the vision of one giving birth to unbelievably sweet baby polar bears. But now, we merely have to activate the shimmering screen in our lounge rooms, settle back with a mug of Horlicks and the majesty of the Arctic giant reproducing is displayed in HD colour. But do we gasp in awe? Do we shed a silent tear at the sheer beauty of the wondrous event? Do we heck. Instead, we rush to the Radio Times website and type away like a secretary on speed, denouncing the whole charade because we suspect the scene was filmed at Bristol Zoo and not the Tundra.

It doesn’t much matter if avuncular naturalist David Attenborough is attacked and eaten, we want authenticity, damn it!

As I say, we have been spoilt.