Thursday Thirteen Unboomed (V27)

Tonight's TT is for internet star Amanda Congdon.

1) One of my favourite blogs has been Rocketboom
2) It consisted of a wall, a map and the lovely and slightly crazy Amanda
3) It fired itself into the internet firmament and through Amanda's strange attractor created huge readership with its three minute bursts of daily energy
4) A combination of excellent content filtering and whimsical presentation made it a daily internet peak as a new episode was published
5) It was breaking a mould and used strong personality to drive a new model
6) Amanda taught us all kinds of crazy things
7) Amanda normally hosted the show from the studio, but also reported directly from Internet seminars, conferences as well as some red carpet moments.
8) There was a famous "build your own Rocketboom" episode which provided editable content to build a show.
10) Sadly, Rocketboom then somehow imploded under its own forces of high acceleration. Here's Amanda's account of what happened with about 200 comments from friends and supporters.
11) And a special unboomed episode from Amanda explaining the ownership 49% and 51% situation.
12) And Amanda is making plans
13) And I'm sure something fabulous will happen.

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Tag: Thursday Thirteen, free link friday, Amanda Congdon, rocketboom

OTA Wordless Wednesday

folk music marquee

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Tag: Wordless Wednesday

mayhem or mists?

Additional mayhem provided from the more offbeat sounds of the Incontinentals, and simply fine singer songwriting from Scottish singer Jo Hamilton, taking our minds to Highland Scotland .

folk songs are your friends

Priddy Folk Festival originated from a Parent Teachers' Association. Now it is a good sized event with a very friendly vibe and a great selection of bands and singers, over a long weekend interspersed with cider, beer plenty of sunshine and a variety of tasty foods from around the world.

Everyone is friendly and the bands and singers happliy sit amongst the visitors between gigs and play and sing from the grassy areas around the venues. There's the larger tents with well-known names and the smaller club tent which is showcasing new singers. We wandered around happily between all of the areas and found almost exclusively accomplished, entertaining and tuneful singers and musicians.

So here's a few samples...We started with KTB, singer, songwriter, performing with a small ensemble of accompanying guitarists and violin players. Tuned 'Close enough for folk' and entertaining.

Then it was Ember, who I particularly wanted to see. The photos from the set were rather blurry, so see instead a moment captured on the grass the next day, with engaging and humourous troubadours Emily and Rebecca playing alongside KTB. Next we rushed to see the end of the Jim Moray set which included some sonically experimental moments. By co-incidence, we met Jim's sister and then Jim the next morning and had a good chat about life on the road, guitars and clever effects.

The final act of the evening was Waterson and Carthy, who are proper folk royalty, playing a strong set and on this occasion complemented on accordian by Tim van Eyken. We enjoyed the set which ended around midnight; an appropriate time to stroll back through the starlit village.

priddy bands

You'll have to make do with these Priddy bands until I can get blogging again. The red one means access to the whole event and the green one is for the camp site. I've just removed them from my wrist now I'm back from a sun filled weekend of music and mirth and right now am swapping sandals for smart shoes as I go straight to a global thingy which starts tomorrow.

Thursday Thirteen (V26)

This week I'm preparing to visit the Priddy Folk festival, which starts tomorrow.

1) So tonight I had two different dinner invitations and had to give up both of them because of time
2) We did have some strawberries, cream and Pimms this afternoon, though
3) I have to find several items for tomorrow including my acoustic guitar
4) A harmonica may also be useful
5) A russian tank commander T shirt with a red star is always effective at a pop concert
6) Some sort of jacket with the same water repelling capability as a trash bin liner
7) Come to think of it, some bin liners are always good for improvisations

8) Camping paraphernalia
9) One of those swiss knives with lots of different gadgets
10) A day back pack
11) A digital camera and loads of batteries
12) A book about the universe
13) Sandals and beads

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Tag: Thursday Thirteen, free link friday

OTA Wordless Wednesday

electricity

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Tag: Wordless Wednesday

Fourth of July

As a Brit with a blog often visited from across the pond, it is an important decison whether to comment about the Fourth of July (I notice it is usually quoted in this European format rather than July 4th).

Fortunately, although the day celebrates the independence of the United States from the Kingdom of Britain, as proposed on the Seventh of June by Lee and voted on the Second of July, 1776 most sentiments about Independence Day are nowadays a celebration of all things American.

So, even if there was a bit of a misunderstanding about the tea, back in 1773, and that old taxation thing was a sore point (still is today for most, I expect), and we Brits wanted to put stamps on everything, then I can see the point that some Americans thought the whole thing was Intolerable.

Anyway, the place seems to get along mighty fine nowadays, so y'all have great day!

angry alien

Sometimes I just don't have time to relive all those great moments from my favourite movies. Luckily, angry alien has sprung to my rescue with high speed version of many famous movies (such as alien, brokeback mountain, casablanca to name three from the alphabet) each lovingly told in 30 seconds by a cast of bunny rabbits.

A highly useful service.

alison

I couldn't delve far into my Sven research yesterday without remembering the work of Alison Jackson, who has a rather creative way with pixels.

This goes back at least to a Schweppes campaign using look-alikes a few years ago (there was Sven, Camilla, Cherie Blair and others) and most recently inspired a couple of UK-screened television mocumentaries about the young Tony Blair and the romps of Sven.

Alison gets published in the glossy weekend sections and I recommentd a look at her website for more subversive, amusing and edgy photographs. There's life with Bush, the Royals, various WAGs (Wives and Girlfriends if you don't read tabloid) and all manner of unexpected candid shot snapped up by every genre of UK newspaper and magazine. I believe Al Jazeera published some snaps in the past as genuine.

sven its over for England

Undistinguished Karlskoga ex-player Sven Goran Eriksson can finally leave the England team manager role after England losing tonight to Portugal.
Tactics from £100k per week Svengori concluded England only needed one striker to score goals. It didn't seem to work.

Instead of "England romps to victory", I suppose we will all be checking the google "Sven Romps" searches. Gosh I found 730.

Now Sven has always been somewhat controversial and there have been a few bad taste jokes about him through years. However, his agent Athole Still seems proud enough to support Sven who will have collected around £25m over the last few years. Here's his (ahem, alleged) video escape with the loot.

England played with spirit, and Portugal played with gamesmanship. After 90 minutes it was 0:0. Then another 30 minutes and still 0:0, so a penalty shootout. So another 4 year wait.

England's team will be at the airport tomorrow. I'm still wearing a three lions shirt, like half of England tonight.

its only a game?

The estimate is that 25 million Brits will watch the England game this afternoon on television. Thats around half the population. Another 100 thousand are in Gelsenkirchen.

Expect:
a) pubs to be packed
b) power cuts at half time when the kettles go on
c) an England win