Mark Samuels

My daughter is three this weekend. To commemorate this momentous occasion, I’m going to record another of her five favourite games (and she’ll get some presents, too):

• Doggies – I bought a bag of small plastic dogs from a charity shop. I am always that generous. Anyway, my daughter loves this bag of dogs. There are about 100 of the little hounds and there’s accessories, too. Her favourite accessory is the toilet. The dogs spend a lot of time paying money to the shopkeeper to go the toilet. A shop of toilets run by dogs? Not one I’d like to visit in real life.
• Dinos in Houses - Similarly to the small plastic dogs, my daughter has a tin of dinosaurs – which has also been invaded by a collection of insects. Which means evolution has got mixed up and Triceratops now hangs out with his mate over-sized ladybird. My daughter uses her wooden blocks to build houses for the dinos and gets upset if you don’t play the game properly. And that’s always difficult when you don’t know the rules.
• Families - We’ve got another child on the way and my daughter is into families right now. Similarly to earlier favourite games, ‘Families’ relies on the participation of willing soft toys. The toys are not necessarilly related, which means the father is sometimes a dog and the mother is a cow. Another example of evolution gone mad, I’m afraid. One of the toys plays the little girl and the mummy toy has a baby in its tummy. Then they all go on the train for a holiday.
• Peppa Pig - One for Mummy, this one. My daughter likes Mummy to play a subtle variation on ‘Families’ with Peppa Pig and her clan. She’s got a house and a school, and everyone hangs out together. Once again, she gets upset if you get the rules wrong. Which is a particular problem for non-plussed Daddy.
• Explorers – Another game based on soft toy participation. Monkey and Leopard go to Sock Valley and find the Golden Egg. Sometimes Confused Robot comes along for the ride and gets everyone’s names wrong. And French Otter, who is actually a stoat and who says ‘de temps en temps’ a lot.

I have always loved electronic music. I am, after all, a child born in the 1970s that grew up in the 1980s. When I was still in the early years of primary school, The Human League – who are, to me, the epitome of home made UK electronica – were dominant in the pop charts.

Still, that often counts for little. Most of the people I knew as I grew up thought electronic music “wasn’t real”; it was made by computers and not by tough guys playing guitars. That opinion is rubbish. Unlike most guitar music, which simply borrows from previous bands from previous eras, electronic artists are often at the musical vanguard.

Kraftwerk, Brian Eno, The Human League, New Order and the like were followed in the 1990s by a bunch of ambient hipsters – such as Aphex Twin, Global Communication and Seefeel – that mixed sampling and electronica to create something epic and beautiful.

Now everything has gone full circle – electronic music is back in the charts and artists are busy making songs that either sound like 1980s pop or that simply sample New Romantic records. Still, I’m happy – anything is better than a bunch of indie bores recycling Rolling Stones and punk riffs.

Which brings me to the 8bitcollective – the online chiptunemedia community. Completely open, 8bc allows users to upload their take on classic pop. The rather brilliant collection of chiptunes are based on the music of 1980s gaming technology, the other sound of my early years – from the ZX Spectrum to the Nintendo Gameboy.

The following three tracks are the best I’ve found on the site as yet, but there’s probably other gems. If you like computer-based electronica, check it out. Sometimes, borrowing and re-interpreting the past really is the future:

• My Bloody Valentine – Loomer: A really beautiful version of a shoegazing classic
• The Smiths – William, It Was Really Nothing: Personally, I think this cover allows you to appreciate the brilliance of Jonny Marr’s chord changes…
• The Album Leaf – Another Day: Smashing take on a latter-day ambient track

The nature of work has changed. Want proof? Search LinkedIn and see how many people choose to define their job role with what might previously have been seen as non-traditional, even esoteric, terms:

1.    4,475,626 results for owner
2.    3,677,739 results for consultant
3.    1,911,106 results for specialist
4.    537,068 results for advisor
5.    469,201 results for founder
6.    468,044 results for expert
7.    405,901 results for freelance
8.    398,420 results for contractor
9.    365,215 results for writer
10.    138,506 results for speaker
11.    84,840 results for strategist
12.    61,032 results for ambassador
13.    50,013 results for thinker
14.    45,848 results for visionary
15.    42,614 results for guru
16.    20,318 results for blogger
17.    16,270 results for evangelist
18.    4,582 results for entreprenuer
19.    3,094 results for gatekeeper
20.    1,637 results for futurist

Old favourites – like freelance and contractor – are still popular. At the start of the last decade, such descriptions were seen as being catch-all phrases for individuals operating at the fringes of the formal economy and providing an outsourced service to larger businesses.

Twenty years ago, futurologists predicted something called ‘the internet’ would allow us to all work flexibly. Now, in a new economy driven by collaborative technologies, freelancing has become the mainstream. A global economy of contractors is fast-developing, with individuals selling their expertise on-demand.

Old monikers – such as freelance and contractor – do not necessarily encapsulate the act of work. The result is a collection of meaningful/meaningless terms that are used to describe what people actually do, or would like to do.

I wonder how the table will develop as the economy changes? Feel free to suggest other esoteric descriptions.