a winter's trail?

The season seems to be changing faster than normal. Tonight, I flicked past two different sitcoms running Christmas episodes and an advertisement using snowmen. Have I missed Autumn? We still have leaves on trees around here.

iDeas

I like the new iTunes- which Apple announced today and is already sitting on my machines. It fixes a couple of old problems like listening to albums without gaps between tracks. Some concept albums and many mix albums play smoothly now. But the best piece is the new shiny eye candy for riffling through CD covers in a juke-box style. It much more fun to spin through cover art on a laptop, select tracks to play and then to beam them direct to a hi-fi. rashbre central has worked that way for a couple of years for casual listening. I'm not sure why Bjork and Moby seem to come up on unassigned covers though.

The related iPod updates are presumably the pre-Christmas versions with better video resolution ad the new tiny wearable nano, which has the same form factor as the iPod radio.

I'm undecided about the iTV. Its a slim enough box to integrate with a TV system, but I can' think why they wouldn't also include a DVD player/recorder on it. DVD players are about £35 in Tescos, so a simple reader or even better a reader/writer would be more useful. I know it then starts to sound like a mac mini, but I suppose a mac mini that doesnt need a normal keyboard and screen may also be an interesting direction to take the technology. I expect Apple has a pricepoint in mind so that may rule out some of these ideas.

But later - maybe a 12cm square, 4 cm high box, connected to television, with HDTV, internet/broadband, hard disk storage, TV recording, cut to DVD/CD, wifi, mp3 playback and it starts to get interesting. I suppose that will be release 2.

Anyway thats enough geekiness for one evening - Long Good Friday is on...I think I'll watch a few gangsters blowing each other up.

offish

Having to re-install a perfectly licenced copy of Microsoft Office 2004 yesterday three times before it passed the licencing test reminded me of this little Letterman episode with our friend Bill Gates.

Most of my mac software just works, usually without any sort of installation ritual, but Office put up quite a fight eventually forcing me to run 'remove office' several times to clear up all of the vestiges of the trial version and a prior installation. And Microsoft's site seemed to acknowledge there was some type of problem and a special update to install, but unfortunately when I clicked through I got a 'page not found' error.

story time

I suppose the current UK party political war brightens up copy for the domestic newspaper editors. The stage has been set with a couple of long time sparring partners getting ready for another round, a disgruntled ex cabinet minister who won't be coming back and a leader who has been dropping hints about dropping out for at least a year.

So the paperboys have something to write about. Who is doing what to whom and whose side is everybody on? Bliar has gone so far as to apologise for his party's behaviour over the last few days, and politicos of the others are acting as if this is a really big deal. Brown is probably quietly sponsoring the turmoil, because maybe he believes it plays to his own position, but strong rumours suggest that Brown isn't really that well liked in his own party because he plays a lone game.

The chatterati need a couple of ferrets in a sack to drive their banter, but ultimately its a soap opera until the next set of leaders step properly forward. Presumably the writers of the third estate have a stack of copy ready to deploy at the first sign of anyone particularly odious getting out in front. A lot of what we are seeing seems to be driven by personal ambition over ideals, notwithstanding the headlining. As an (ahem) orderly transition, it will probably become a case study.

So whilst this story sucks all the energy out of reportage of the global agenda, Mr Bush continues to move his soldiers around the board.

pop idol?

I thought it was about time I wrote another book review which I will, in turn donate to Bob’s Books. For somewhat arcane reasons I was reminded recently of a story in which a man takes the persona of a female singer. The writer of the book is Gordon Burn and it is about Alma Cogan, a popular British singer from the 1950s.

Burn moves the persona of Alma forward into a later time and then intertwines a story linked with mystery and crime of the 1980s.

Burn is a clever writer and there are some amusing asides in a book which ultimately has a strong and macabre backdrop. On perfume “You want a man to like it, go after the food groups” was Alma’s mother’s advice on a cantelope and orange scent.

I originally read this book some time ago and remember some of the phrases and scenes, but then blasted through it again now for a second time. I found a haunting quality about the descriptions of the early popular music world and some crossover with clubland London books like "The long firm" and some parts of Martin Amis’s work.

Alma also showed her 50s innocence towards ‘Jazz Woodbines’ new kinds of tea (made with benzedrine) and wholesome advice which would nowadays fit well on daytime television or maybe into a new age tent “Never collect inanimate objects, or in the end they will possess you and you will lose your freedom”.

But Burn’s Alma is past her singing best in the 1980s (in real life she died in 1966) and her visits to old haunts and to the places of her catalogued past are creepy, alongside references to (for example) a Marc Bolan glitzy suit and to varied other celebrity remnants of the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

Burn speaks through Alma’s voice and there is much around faded celebrity as well as the tightening of the story which transitions in the second part of the book into a linkage with moors murderer Myra Hindley.

I found the book in the back of a shelf with other books piled in front of it. That I sought it out for a re-read and that I still find it intriguing is, for me a good sign.

A recent blogging encounter reminded me of this story of a female pop icon told very effectively via a man's writing.

Kate & Neal Photos

I've been asked to add a few more full resolution pictures from Kate and Neal's Wedding last Thursday to the blog, so here's the link across to my flickr account where they are stored.

cosmic

We should all sometimes stare at the sky in wonder and today's picture is from the way out cosmos. Its a galaxy filmed by the Hubble Space Telescope called NGC5866 and is a so-called disk galaxy, which is the same type as our own Milky Way Galaxy, in which our own sun is a part.

Its a disk galaxy (like a CD and we are looking at the edge) So imagine a view of our own galaxy 'from the edge' and it would look something like this. To get an idea of size, light takes about 60,000 years to cross NGC 5866, whereas in the Milky Way it would take about 80,000 years.

Makes us kinda small, doesnt it?

Kate & Neal

A magical wedding day yesterday for Kate and Neal.

Kate the beautiful princess, to Neal her dashing prince.

Congratulations and love.

the kitchen sync

I've been somewhat busy over the last couple of weeks and so the blog has languished with occasional hastily constructed entries. I've also been using several different computers and been in different locations, so my normal photo files, handy short cuts and so forth have been mainly elsewhere.

Then I remembered Sync which is now just a standard function on macs. It allows me to reference the synchronised copy of all of my settings which live somewhere in mac-land and to use them on another machine.

So less excuses, I suppose.

diana?

I know we are not supposed to subscribe to conspiracy theories, but it is still somewhat bemusing that the inquest of Diana, Princess of Wales is expected to take place in 2007 from the event of 31 August 1997.

I have no knowledge of the prior coroner Michael Burgess or of strong reputationed judge Lady Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, but I do find it intriguing that after a sudden death of an ex royal accompanied by her high profile boyfriend Dodi Fayad, that there is already a nine year gap before any findings.

We have all heard about the Mercedes crashing in the underpass and the diagrams of passing press photographer cars, the erratic Fiat Uno, blinding white light before the impact, pregnancy theories and oh so much more. To hear that the prior judge couldn't deal with this because of pressure of work in Surrey and now Lady Elizabeth Butler-Sloss is being brought out of retirement to handle the case just seems rather strange.

Maybe some of this will help - but I warn you - its a read and a half!

rocky

A horror evening on television.

L-O-L-A lola

Today I was asked to buy a couple of memory sticks for other peoples' computers. Imagine the dilemma when the two choices were called 'dude' and 'diva'. In the end I bought one of each.

At least they won't get mixed up.

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