vino veritas

Friday evening and a trip to a wine tasting venue just south of the river in central London. Quite a gang of us, to try a variety of grapes from fizzy Champagne through Pinot Noir into Burgundy and a momentary flit to Chile for some robust red. Then finishing the tasting with what I call 'pudding wine' - Sauternes. At the end of the tour we were given further vouchers to try the Bombay Sapphire gin, but in the cocktail - in my case a Cosmopolitan.

At this stage we getting limbered up for the evening and so as we left the venue, we decided perhaps to find somewhere to eat nearby, but somehow got waylaid at a well known pub, which became the setting for the next stage of the evening. We bulk purchased a random selection of beers and wines (o, and some water) and joined the large throng of people spilling out of the pub into the adjacent street. We'd chosen a pub that, improbably, had a gourmet sausage shop next door, and s at random intervals supplies arrived as a form of sustenance. I think around eighteen of us made it as far as the pub, but then as things moved towards the West End and even more raucous moments, incrementally more people dropped out. Survival for me was important because of my eight am meeting on Saturday, so I eventually quit too, and made my way to a bed with a view across the City of London.

canals and car parks

This could have been a Wordless Wednesday, but I think I'll use it as some early inspiration for the start of NaNoWriMo instead.

First of November marks the kick-off, so i'll be flipping the 'on' switch of my leaded word processor as I start to dive into some improbable world or other for this year's competition. Right now I don't have a plot, or characters or a setting. Maybe last weekend's canal will give some early inspiration. I may even post an extract later!

doorway

Tonight is the end of Summer (Samhain) and the doorway to the dark months that were the beginning of the year in Celtic Times.

As a Scorpio, I'll stick with Samhain being the important festival, marking the start of the next full cycle. So I won't be so much looking for extra terrestrials and kids with candy, but more towards the positive symbols of 'new beginnings'.

Novus Infinite 16...

...or Sweet Sixteen as the not entirely unpredictable nickname is developing.

I mentioned last Thursday that I'd received a package from Australia, and I'm delighted to say it had arrived from Flying Star Toys in Sandgate, Queensland. Some of you will recognise this as the domain of Florence and the whole gang of personalities which make up the Flying Star world.

Now the Novus package arrived from our postman just as I was about to hit the trail to Birmingham, so what else could I do but pop the bag into the car and take it along for the ride? So Novus Infinite Sixteen first saw the light of day in Birmingham and is, as we speak, still recovering from around 20 days in transit from the other side of the world.

So far Novus Infinite 16 has been fairly quiet, and seems to prefer spending time in the daintily spotted bag which was the basis of the way to travel in comfort. Safely back in rashbre central now, I'm sure the electrical waves which these creatures thrive upon will soon restore full vigour. At the moment, a half in/half out of the bag appearance seems to be the preferred one.

I have a feeling that Novus is going to want to check out some of the places that I frequent in my travels. We'll have to see!

in the shop

A piece of shopping theory that didn't work was being in Birmingham on Friday. I'd expected Saturday to be really busy and that Friday would be easier for wandering around a mall. Wrong. The place was rammed with people from mid-day until I surrendered around 16:30.

I know its the end of the half term holidays, but there seemed to be an awful lot of busy business folk also around the shops. Outside Birmingham's Apple Store in the Bullring, there was also a roped off area with people queueing to buy the new version of Apple's OS/X - the so called Panther. I'd already bought it online and it was delivered on Friday morning, so the artificial 'store opening' at 18:00 was somewhat beaten by white vans delivering copies from internet purchases.

The 'family pack' version is for 5 machines and so far I've installed it on my iMac and a Mac Pro. Sure enough, it just works. It took about 45 minutes to load, gave a big green tick, rebooted the Mac and has been reliably working ever since. I doubt if I'll need to reboot for another month or two now.

I won't go on about the improvements, which are slick to an already smooth user interface and once more I find a Mac upgrade seems to make the machines run more smoothly. This is a different sensation from my disappointing Vista upgrade a few months ago, which refused to recognise my Matrox video accelerator, some of my special sound drivers, one of the printers and required about 5 reboots as well as plenty of megabytes of downloads.

I suppose the simplicity of the mac update gives me more time to spend on other tasks... Like shopping.

scared yet?

A few days yet to halloween, but its close enough to gather a few preparatory items. The empty bucket with "I'm out, please take one" is quite a good idea.

For some harmless fun, here' s Ben and jerry's comprehensive site of mild scariness. The slightly bonkers extreme pumpkins continues its art forms, this year with the addition of candy traps.

Addtionally, a walk around the flickr Graves, Tombstones and Cemeteries web site may add some atmosphere, or you could simply play a couple of tunes to get in the mood. I'll go with Frankenstein's place and a bit of Science Fiction.

over at the Frankenstein's place

science fiction

subvert

I happened to watch a small segment of the X Factor TV show on Saturday evening. That's the 'talent show' vaguely connected with pop music and featuring Simon Cowell amongst others. They have telephone voting every week and clearly are not affected by the Eckohs from all of the recent scandals about mis-cast votes and similar.

Anyway, the show seems to be set to finish in time to get a single released in the period leading up to Christmas. A nice little earner, some might say. I quite like the idea to offer another track as a competitor, and to see whether everyman can really affect the rather commercially 'stitched up' charting process. So what better than 'XMASCHARTATTACK'? There's just about enough time to create and hype a non main artist record into the number one spot and (shhh!) here's the site to help do it.

Its all a good idea in theory, but I suppose the machine that makes pop singles will plough on regardless, so a ringer would only be a net increase in total volume during the lead up period.

Its a fun idea though. Vote early and vote often, as they say.

tags technorati : rashbre xmaschartattack christmas xmas pop music singles wonga bung

Rufus Wainwright

Part of the reason for visiting Birmingham was to see Rufus Wainwright at the Symphony Hall on Thursday evening. It was only a few minutes walk from the City Inn which is a modern urban type hotel in the remodelled part of Birmingham near to the canals.

The tickets said 19:00 start, which usually means 19:30 or 20:00, so it was surprising to have to wait outside at ten past seven because the support act were already playing!

More than compensated by discovering the pleasing seats were in Row A just to the right of the centre stage. A lone spare seat next to me on one side eventually yielded a Rufus Wainwright fan who had been to 15 of the performances on the current tour as well as seeing him at the Albert Hall and the Carnegie in New York.

"Hmm", I commented, "I thought his performance at Glastonbury was pretty good", knowing my knowledge was limited to the last CD (which we'd somehow lost, instead of having it for 'revision' on the motorway journey to Birmingham).

Anyway as luck would have it, when Rufus appeared with his flamboyant looking band, they immediately started with one of the numbers I knew, from the latest album, and then moved into the very sweeping song about a broken America, called "going to a town". Rufus (who I believe is Canadian?) has a sort of stars and stripes on the back of the stage in black and white with broaches for the stars.

As the first track started I remembered the feeling from hearing his Glastonbury tracks. Here was a musician who I'd somehow bypassed but who commands strong, clever lyrics, a unique and tuneful voice, and a soundscape that sucks one into the performance. So, maybe not as strongly as the person to my left, I was hooked for the performance, which changed from full band rocking pieces, through jazzy and semi orchestral sounding numbers to quiet pieces played with piano or guitar.

In between there was some banter with the audience and clearly there were other songs very well known to people who applauded as various songs started. People did stay seated though, which is somehow unusual compared with quite a lot of concerts, where there's a certain amount of dancing in the aisle. Perhaps its because it was a Symphony Hall, or maybe because of the fairly strict ushers who were also on camera watch. I worked out that pictures from where I was located were a no-no (I need another variety of the StarCam for concerts). Some people managed to take a few though and so I've taken the liberty to post one of Ella's above. In amongst the strong songs, we had a fan join Rufus on stage to worthily accompany one of the tracks. Rufus and the band were out to please and packed the available time with numbers. Changeovers of guitars and instruments were fast and slick, this is a touring band who know what they are about.

The first half finished with a rocker and, yes, there was still a second half to look forward to.

So what to top the first half? It turned out the show in two halves really had at least three main sections. More well-played album tracks (with Rufus wearing Lederhosen(?)) and then a diversion into folk music. The microphones were off, the horn section played the sympathetic accompaniment and Rufus sang a traditional Irish song. Pin drop material.

Then more album tracks which demonstrated further his word crafting as well as the versatility of his band.

Then to the end and a play-out by the band leaving the stage one by one. An unusual way to finish.

And sure enough, after a pause longer than Prince at the O2 arena, the band and Rufus in a bathrobe reappeared for further songs. And part way through this section he sat front centre, applied some makeup, removed the dressing gown and became Judy Garland! Oh, and the band somehow appear wearing dude-ish suits and started a dance routine.

Okay. improbable and I suspect that number was mimed, but immense fun as an interlude in the set. Afterwards the band soon picked up the pace again with proper instruments for the closing part of what had been a long set.

And my overall impression; here's a singer songwriter of great talent, with a strong and adaptive band. Together they put on a great show, capturing the entire audience from start to end. Rufus released the stars tonight.

tags technorati : rashbre rufus wainwright gig birmingham symphony hall brum

day off

...supposedly, although I've only just stopped being online.

In a work sense.

This blogging doesn't count because its play.

But now I'm hitting the road. I may have to take with me the package that just arrived from Australia ;->

never happens

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Thanks, Dave.

cut hands

I cut my hands on the razor wire as I scrambled across the river on the rusty pipe leading to the other bank. It wasn't a long crossing, but there were now a couple of angry looking dogs where I'd been moments earlier, so there was only one direction available.

As I slithered on loose stones and found higher ground, I could see two people walking along the tow path opposite. At first it looked as if they were exercising the dogs, but within seconds I could see the flash of some high-tech equipment.

Then the earth behind me rattled and smoked as I heard the delayed mechanical chatter of a weapon. They'd spotted me and broken cover. I was too quick for them and found the Suzuki bike where I'd expected. I flipped on the crash helmet, gunned the engine and bumped out of the rough ground before they had a chance to follow.

I expect my hands will be in a worse state than this derelict storyline, by the time I've attempted this year's National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which starts in a few days.

Oh well.

tags technorati : rashbre NaNoWriMo novel writing

the planes are in the air again

Before the Iraq war, I used to watch Arabic televison from hotels when I spent time in various middle eastern countries. There would often be news broadcasts about aircraft taking out pieces of defence infrastructure along the Iraq borders. I sometimes wondered how news management worked that meant this received coverage in some countries but was almost unreported in others.

Same today with the Tupolevs flying close to British airspace and being intercepted by the Royal Air Force. There have been reports of similar incursions into Norwegian airspace from around July but suddenly we are getting British news crews interviewing the Russian pilots who have been flying their deceptively museum piece looking bombers potentially loaded with high octane armaments.

Of course, we've also had the news today of Americans flying their own somewhat armed nuclear planes across the United States, so there seems to still be plenty of ways to acccidentally blow one another up.

here's one we prepared earlier - zoom in to take a look at the fighters and bombers
I count twelve USAF bases in the UK at present : Alconbury, Barford St John, Blenheim Crescent, Croughton, Fairford, Feltwell, Lakenheath, Menwith Hill, Mildenhall, Molesworth, Upwood and Welford. SInce the 1990s, these bases have been changed from cold war storage bunkers for cruise missiles and B52 runways into refuelling depots and extensive listening posts, but there is almost a suggestion that the recent wing waggling could start some tacit re-escalation.

For the purposes of novel writing or film making, the nuclear warplane backdrop creates an interesting context. For real life living, there have to be better ways to restart a flagging and edgily recessive global economy.

tags technorati : rashbre tupolev cold war nuclear bombers