weekend

A somewhat musical weekend ahead of me.

Its Friday evening and I'm at home watching the Guillemots playing on Jonathan Ross on television.

Tomorrow evening I'll be at the Jazz Cafe in Camden, London listening to Nitin Sawhney.

And then on Sunday evening I'm in 55th Street, New York for the 26th Lennon Tribute.

Thursday Thirteen (V35)

Hot news in this week's Thursday Thirteen! At least enough to ensure that any extracts published in the search engines don't tell the story without a click-through.

Friend Terry found this blog (not knowing I even published it) whilst he was looking for Christmas light bulb replacements, so I thought I would dedicate this week's Thursday Thirteen to the search engines.

1) So I suppose Britney Spears should feature somewhere and maybe Britney
2) And probably something related to gambling in casinos and knowing how to always win at poker
3) And anything about the new secret model Ford car that has been photographed with the new model BMW and the new model Mercedes
4) I hear that free software especially free Microsoft software and Vista attracts glamorous people
5) And anything to do with the new Apple Mac and the Mac Pro and the new iPod and the new IPhone
6) Its hard to believe that George Bush and Iraq wouldn't feature high on searches
7) I'm told that video is a good search term as well as mp3 and DivX
8) And for our German readers StudiVZ erscheint oft gesucht
9) At this time of year, Shopping would also seem to be important, particulaltly for wii, PS3, digital cameras and DVDs
10 Scandals, scams, sleaze and sex are presumably frequently sought
11) I suppose plain old You Tube, Google, Myspace, flickr and Yahoo probably get some hits too
12) And inevitably Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and celebrity from Hollywood probably make it.
13) Not to mention replacement Christmas tree lights

Add a comment, trackback or a link if you are a Thursday Thirteener!


Tag: Thursday Thirteen, free link friday, 82ask

iPhone

iFake, but would you buy one?

oh, here's the Apple patent. So a rashbre lab reconstruction would look more like this...

Tag: rashbre, iPhone, iTalk, Apple, iPod phone, Mac

OTA: Wordless Wednesday

my floridian neighbours

Add a comment, trackback or a link for Wordless Wednesday!

Tag: Wordless Wednesday

party in space

JLP's party is an event like no other. I had to borrow a friend's Stratus 400 to attend. Luckily it was an automatic, because I hate those manual shift re-entry space moments and I find reverse parking in a geo-stationary orbit so much easier with homing locks.

It was worth it though, the party rocked, I made plenty of new friends and I had a chance to try out a few new cocktails, some of which were out of this world. I decided to stay over to let the effects wear off, and I expect by tomorrow I will be down to earth again.

not bad for borrowed transport!

more polonium

Continuing the spy news story from a few days ago, I heard today that I'd been on one of the three planes that had been discovered to be involved in the recent Polonium-210 investigation.

And sure enough, I later received an email listing me as a passenger.

As it happens, my trip to Dusseldorf on the date specified had been cancelled, so fortunately there was no need for me to be concerned. And indeed, all three planes have now been given a clean bill of health, so hopefully that particular aspect of the recent alert is now over.

But Tony Blair is keeping nuclear weaponry in the public eye, planning to spend between £15bn and £20bn on new submarines to carry Trident missiles. These submarines are reported to take 17 years to develop and build, and would last until about 2050. Now I checked on the current Trident programme and guess what? its lifespan is 30-years due to end in 2024.

So, wait...if the programme started today, the new submarines will be ready one year before the end of the lifespan of the things they are supposed to carry. A great dyslexic move would be to keep the missiles until 2042 instead and maybe give them a makeover.

As a small illustration, here's a 30 year old British car; if one could still be found, maybe it could be made into a fully 21st Century compliant vehicle.

iPhone

There is suddenly a lot of interest in the iPhone, which has been rumoured for many, many months. Here's my old post from June 2005.

Maybe its almost ready?

The rumour is that it is (a) Zoolander small but (b) has two batteries, one for music, another for the phone. Intriguing.

Apple won't be iLeaking though...

Tag: rashbre, iPhone, iTalk, Apple, iPod phone, Mac

ex libris

The library at rashbre central is somewhat disorganised, with way too many books spread around in unintelligible patterns.

I'm hoping that LibraryThing will help bring some order to this. A reassuring number of book covers can still persist in virtual space but the individual titles can be safely hidden away.

Want to have a peek at my bookshelves? The first few are now open for general perusal and disapproval via my profile here.

Drop me a comment if you also use this and we can compare shelves!

steep gradient

There's an old tradition in the UK Press known as juxtaposition, where a couple of apparently unrelated stories are co-located on purpose. Sometimes this when it is not possible to draw a direct link between them for various sometimes legal reasons.

So today's Sunday Times article about Michael Grade with what appears to be cloven feet seems particularly intriguing. Doesn't it seem strange that News Corporation (who own the Sunday Times, Sky television and have just taken a 17.9% shareholding in ITV) now print the page as my photo illustrates.

Grade was chairman of BBC until a few days ago and has now jumped to a great rewards package to a great challenge to re-invigorate the ITV.

In the ancient television days of a few years ago, when there were really still four receivable terrestrial channels and less than 200 satellite, there was still a reasonable, (some would say world leading) selection of television programes from the UK and it was moderately evenly balanced between the old ITV and BBC.

Then after reality and cheap television like Love Island, Viewer of the Year, I'm a celebrity (D-lister), get me out of here, Soapstar Superstar and so forth, it may take some effort to de-mush the ITV schedules. The new (still secret?) ITV show "Fortune" with ex convict Jeffrey Archer alongside sex-shop Ann Summer's founder Jacqueline Gold handing out money to make peoples' wishes come true seems to be from the same genre. ("Jim'll fix it" with a convict and a sex shop owner?)

In fairness, Corrie (not on my personal viewing list) does seem to have a sense of humour and a heart and there have been some strong dramas although a fair few are about flawed detectives. Of course, Grade knows the entire BBC plans for 2007 and beyond anyway, so this should help his turnaround of ITV's programming.

Tag: rashbre, ITV, Michael Grade, Sunday Times, BSkyB, News International

shopping

A couple of weeks ago I was in a well known retailer trying to buy something moderately expensive; lets just say it was somewhat more than fifty quid.

I could see the item behind a glass case but there were no shop assistants to be found. I walked around the largish store and the two or three visible assistants were busy.

I returned to the area and another woman had found the remaining assistant and was asking questions about a purchase and getting unknowledgeable and insouciant replies.

I waited patiently for about another five minutes and then politely asked if the assistant could pass me the boxed item, which I would then carry to the checkout. "Can't do that", he replied, "You have to have someone take the item to the checkout". I protested there was no one etc, then left the area, couldn't see anyone else free and so I left the shop. I later found the item on the internet, ordered it and it arrived a couple of days later.

Today, I see that UK High Street giants are slashing prices as they try to tempt shoppers to part with their cash amid fears that shops may suffer their worst Christmas for 25 years. Most of the big names are doing this, but I fear they may have missed the plot. Where we find uninformed, offhand assistants they are more akin to sales prevention officers.

Retailers need to find improved ways to inspire enthusiasm from the people running their counters or we will all find other channels.

Retail analyst Footfall is saying that next four weeks of shopping could be nervous for retailers and that thre is a 15% reduction in shoppers over last year. If the only response is price cutting then I suppose we all get what we deserve.

Well as diamond geezer reports, they closed Oxford Street to traffic today to make more space for shoppers. Adjacent was an art installation called Santa's Ghetto.

Tag: rashbre, Santa, london, oxford street, banksy, retail

gambling the night away

The party last night was themed around Monte Carlo and so we had a kind of jet-set James Bond Casino Royale vibe for the evening.

Everyone sparkled with a high tux and gown count and chattered at the Champagne Bar, before we moved into the dining area.

The girl dancers showed great flexibility during the early evening and then later as the bass kicked in and the dance floor opened there was a surge to be part of the action.

There were other activities reminiscent of Monte Carlo, such as the Monaco Grand Prix, although the highly manourvrable cars were somewhat smaller than the originals.

Suffice to say my gambling was ineffective and the house won.

1734

...was the last time we had such a warm November in England. Its strange to see pavement cafes in operation at a time when we would usually have frost. In Northumberland they are picking raspberries instead of clearing snowdrifts. Now is the time to read the Sir Nicholas Stern. Or here for a guide to climate change.

Tag: rashbre, england, global warming, winter, weather, climate change