rashbre central

Monday, 20 March 2006

scrap?

BBC Radio 4 starts its broadcasts at 0530 each morning with a medley of tunes from different parts of the British Isles. This composition is known as the UK Theme and has been used for around 30 years. It is to be scrapped in April, although a re-recording is also to be released as a single at around that time.

The tune is a well known station identity for Radio 4, as is the one at around 0100 in the morning called "Sailing By", which is played before the frequency is turned over to the World Service.

The Beeb's rationale is that the time at 0530 is better used to provide a start of day news briefing. Here's the tune.

Or here is a really old BBC TV station ident.

Sunday, 19 March 2006

creme theme continues

We've had music by Cream, Krispy Kreem and now its Cadbury Creme Eggs to continue the theme. I had a couple of emails and comments that suggest these are not so well known in some parts of the planet.

Well the attached link won't help a lot, but it is a bit of fun.

Groovy.

Saturday, 18 March 2006

movie material

I just saw the classic "Passport to Pimlico" on television and it reminded me of this web site about Frestonia, which in 1977, tried to secede from the United Kingdom and asked the United Nations to send a peacekeeping force to prevent evictions by the Greater London Council. Freston Road was a street of squatters in Notting Hill, West London. The pictures evoke a time and edgy values worthy of a book or movie. Tony Sleep's photo website tells the story.

weird wrtinig

We all know that feeling when typing comments into someone else's blog where we have written one of our 'incredible insights on the world as we know it', hit {enter} and then realise "Oh goodness!" that half the words are spelled incorrectly and an important 'NOT' is missing from one of the sentances.

Well hope is at hand. Unfortunately I have lost the original reference to this but because of the phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. I sahll rley on this in future.

Tag: writing, research, mind, education, dyslexia, spelling

Friday, 17 March 2006

free link friday

Today, I thought it would be entertaining to create a 'free' link day. We all like getting a link from somebody else's website. Today, for one day only, you can create your own. Just follow the instructions on the form and you will have a nice link from here back to your own site.

Why?

Because we can.

or just have an Irish beer on St Patrick's day...(click)

Tag: blog, link, Free Link Friday,
blogging

Thursday, 16 March 2006

Thursday Thirteen (V15.0)

1. My shiny new iMac is now up and running properly. Although it uses an intel chip, everything seems to work;
2. I mentioned creme eggs last week, but several people commented that they didn't know what they were. A weekend photo opportuniy, I suspect;
3. I used my post from yesterday to experiment with trackback reciprocity.This means if someone does a trackback to any of my articles it will publish their trackback directly in my blog. Voila, they get a link;
4. I hid my recent foray into synthesised music 'down' my blog instead of posting it as top entry;
5. My trip next week to Florence has been cancelled. The airport is closed for building work, so we would have had to fly to Pisa. So we moved the venue firstly to Milan, but now to outer London. Fun for some and normal for me;
6. I have to sort out the credit card order from the internet which said my card was rejected but then the goods arrived anyway. I still can't tell whether I have been charged and I had already re-ordered the item from elsewhere. Irritating;
7. Plan to produce a vocally clear version of the Christina Nott dance track at the weekend;
8. Been listening to the Decemberists in the car for several days;
9. Mel played Christina again on Bailrigg, but also played Blur vs Jimi Hendrix "Born Under a Bad Sign"
10. Julie now has a large stack of concert tickets spread around the UK and is starting to talk about the European part of the tour
11. Is still my favourite number;
12. My phone said I had 19 missed calls today; Oh dear.
13. Its wrong to wish on space hardware; though theres a lot more of it when we look up at the stars nowadays.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
Leanne, Chickadee, Judy, Raehan, Janne, Andrea, cq, amanda, venus, elle, mar, tnchick, kimmy
(leave a comment, I'll add you here!)

Get Leanne's Thursday Thirteen code here!
Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! Leave your link as a comment and I will link to you and you can continue the chain!

Tag: Thursday Thirteen, free link friday

Wednesday, 15 March 2006

orange

Wandering back to my car this evening, I noticed the moon looking almost full and very, very orange. By the time I had driven home, it was back to its cheesy yellow colour again.

Tag: moon, trackback, free link friday

Tuesday, 14 March 2006

hack

I started up my pristine iMac yesterday and it figured out there was wi-fi in the area, logged itself onto the internet, downloaded my identity, configured the email and updated all the software without me doing anything. Almost magical.

And although it has an Intel processor, it works just like my PowerBook (including Photoshop Elements and Office 2004) with the added capability of a bigger screen and extra speed. Great.

However, a little later, a facility I've never needed before popped up - The Console - a really technical thing. It turns out that someone was trying to hack past my firewalls and have a look around. The system had repelled everything but wanted to tell me anyway. So, as a service to "Dave" and any other hackers, here is part of my old password and, yes, I have changed it.

Tag: hackers, security, memetic firewall

Monday, 13 March 2006

handful of dust

Annoyingly, a graphics card on a PC suddenly stopped working during the weekend in the middle of a music session. I won't explain here how we knew it was the card, suffice it to say the computer was still working, but somewhat in the dark. So we shut it down and pulled out the card from the back.

Yeuk. It was covered in a thick layer of dust.

Now the unconventional repair technique, which I don't recommend to the faint hearted. We held the card under running hot water. The dust was washed away. We dried it on a kitchen towel and briefly spun the little fan by hand. Put it back and ta-da! it was working again. Remember water and electricity don't mix. Don't try this at home.

Tag: PC, graphics card, PC repair

Milk

The lads at GuitarGAS were recording Badge by Cream during the weekend. By way of amusement, here's my quick synth-based bosh of the same tune done Sunday afternoon.

Yes, its fake drums and guitars, liberties with the tune and an extra swirly keyboard but call it artistic licence. l look forward to their upcoming version!

For proper music visit Christina's site and browse.

Tag: music, synthesizer, Cream, midi, guitar, lunacy

Sunday, 12 March 2006

tough act

I've been watching the tiny snowdrops pushing their way through the soil and then becoming small pretty flowers. I've also been meaning to take a photo of them, but rather than showing them as small and delicate, I thought this would show them as tough flowers that can break through cold wintry soil and survive through some of the roughest parts of the UK weather. So here they are, the early signs of spring, even on a still grey day in March.

Tag: photo, snowdrop, march

Kremed?

British doughnuts come in two main types - with a hole in the middle and with jam in the middle. The ones with jam always explode unmercifully onto clothes. Main places to buy them are cake shops, seaside stalls and supermarkets. They always taste best when they are fresh and warm. Oh yes and have about a zillion calories.

Recently, there has been a new visitor to the UK shores in the form of Krispy Kreme. From a quiet beginning tucked quietly into a few shadowy parts of mainline train stations, they are now marching across the country. I noticed the large square boxes containing a dozen beginning to show up in more locations. Now will this be another McDonald, Starbucks style takeover, or will they stay quietly augmenting the traditional British doughnuts?

Whoa! Stop the Press!
Kenju just told me about the Krispy Kreme Wedding Cakes in Southern State USA!! I've checked it out and its all true. I shall need to readjust my sense of reality again!

Tag: doughnut, donut, wedding cake