Antonia and the exploding gas cylinders

I spent longer than expected in the fens of Cambridgeshire and beyond today as a result of the exploding gas cylinders of the A14. A truck toppled over and let loose its contents of metal gas cylinders. I first noticed something untoward when the map on my sat nav went red all around Cambridge. First a few warning yellow cars and then a steady procession of little red cars marched across the map like so many ants. And then four 'no entry' signs popped up at the cardinals of Cambridge.

"Hmm", I thought, as I sat in stationary traffic, "I'd better find a local radio station". And so to Antonia on Radio Cambridgeshire drivetime, who announced that there had been an accident and then that the police had closed all of the useful roads in the most of Cambridgeshire.

Antonia Brickell's(?) slightly subversive radio style was quite entertaining whilst I whiled away my normally economical fuel consumption in the gridlock of the month. Radio Cambs lasted a good hour and a half until I finally got moving again and the station faded out of reception.

I can understand the need for exclusion zones around unidentified gas canisters; even if they were described as 'empty'. Notable was the good humour and patience of the long streams of motorists caught up in today's events.

Halo 3, Halo 4, Halo 5 and beyond

tags technorati : rashbre halo halo3 halo4 halo5 halo6 halo7 halo8 halo cheats

jazzy

Waiting Friday, on Lambeth Bridge, viewing Parliament and the Eye

Not my usual form of music, but as a quick way to test Logic Pro 8, and somewhat inspired by the jazz on Friday, I've boshed together a quick track called "Waitin' for Mel", which I've also attempted to give a live vibe to. The waiting was by Lambeth Bridge.

Its traditional swing without any special electronica (well none that shows) although the instruments and so forth are all mere triggers on my Mac.

I think the cymbals are a bit overdone, but hey, I'm only practicing with the new layout of Logic.

Waitin' for Mel (live)

Or, download .mp3 to play here.

Polar Bear

I said I'd be having a jazzy evening on Friday, and a gang of us certainly did. We met in Lambeth, just across the river from the Houses of Parliament, and headed into an ex church, which was the site of the gig by the very excellent Polar Bear. I'd been listening to their back catalogue during the week such as "Held on the Tips of Fingers" as well as a few demo tapes that were loaded to their web site.

So, with softly spoken band leader Seb Rochford (drums), Pete Wareham (Tenor and Baritone saxophone), Mark Lockheart (Tenor saxophone), Tom Herbert (Double Bass), Leafcutter John (mandolin and electronics) didn't disappoint and we had an evening of eclectic fusion jazz, featuring electronica, performed to a warm and friendly audience, washed down with beer (till it ran out), then lager and cider.

Here's an extract. Handheld phone..

tags technorati : rashbre polar bear jazz london museum ex-church seb rochford leafcutter john

Logic Studio 8

Passing the Apple shop in Regent's Street today, I noticed they had one copy of the upgrade for Logic on the shelf. What could I do? More later once its installed.

Mrs Caddy's Field

A picture I took a couple of weeks ago in Mrs Caddy's field, where the recent show took place that I attended.

My surprise to read in the London Times that ths very field is the source of the latest outbreak of the terrible foot and mouth disease.

OTA : Wordless Wednesday

Bicycle Ride




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Hyde Park

I've been asked (via Mary and Julie) to load some more from Hyde Park. We'll drop it onto Christina's site, when sufficient time.

loose ends

- ease of access to the chapel and its environs
- the big hole road works
- access to the sea and boats
- previous users of hire cars
- access to tranquilisers and sedatives
- access to hair samples to check chemicals ingestion
- knowledge of medical procedures
- unidentified people carrying children
- timing, clarity and effectiveness of room checks
- Occam's razor

water

Nya, I'm sitting here looking at a big glass bottle of water which costs €4.30 to open. I'm in a hotel by the Rhine River in Dusseldorf and I can walk ten steps to the hotel bathroom, where the water in the tap is free.

The glass of water by the side of the bottle is from that tap and it tastes wonderful. Cool, smooth and probably surprisingly pure.

If I'm outdoors like on Saturday at a concert I might buy water, but for day to day consumption, the tap still provides a great choice. I admit I use a filter at home and keep the filtered water in the fridge, but the source still comes from the tap. And if I take water with me when I go cycling, I simply fill a camelback and drop it into the rucksack.

2.17 billion litres per year from bottles in the UK, costing £1.5bn. Thats a lot of landfill.

9/11

I was going to pick up a car. I arrived at the garage and they said it would be a few minutes, but I could watch the television whilst I waited. They said there'd been an accident and a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. In my mind I imagined a Cessna or something similar and idled across to the television. A few others were also watching. " plane has crashed into the Pentagon", someone commented. "OK", I thought, "the other guy said the World Trade Center - obviously a mistake". I watched for a few minutes as the enormity started to unfold. Then, like many others, I shared the world's shock at the events of that terrible afternoon.

why

Here's the thing...A couple of blogs I read fairly regularly are diamond geezer and maximum bob. They've both recently posted about how their blogs are viewed and in the case of dg there's a fairly thoughtful equation about hits, viewers, readers and those that interact.

I offer my humble chart into the discussion; Its all about activity vs words. If I'm busy, then I should have more things to write about. But then I don't always have time. So last night, tucked in the hotel, I listed a few bloggable things that I could feature over the next period. I stopped when I got to number 26.

I'm not trying to say that what I do is interesting to anyone but me, but I think it provokes an interesting quandary. Doing stuff or writing about it? There's a balance to find between the two.

Its also a challenge with ideas to 'use them up' before they go stale. As an example, the fabulous mar, a reader of rashbre central commented a few days ago about my city dweller emphasis in a number of the posts. My amused response? to take a camera out on a recent bike ride to snap a few scenes of the countryside through which I was riding. Just for fun of course. Have I posted it? Nope. And if I leave it much longer all of the trees will have gone brown and then it won't be realistic any longer.

I admire someone like dg who can develop a full blown project around a blog entry. Planning, exploring a neighbourhood, photography, meaningful commentary about what has been seen and a post of maybe 750 plus words. Similarly maximum bob who will drill into a topic to a degree worthy of a thoughtful lesson plan.

So I'm batting along at around ten minutes for a post (including a photo upload) and as a rule I sub-edit the wordage down after crashing out an initial idea. When I do a Thursday Thirteen or describe an amble across part of London or somewhere I'm visiting, then probably the time and words go up, but I must balance driving a blog with having time to read the thoughts of others and dropping an occasional comment.

ok. twenty minutes for this one (extra links to find)