Sheffield Monte

I was in Sheffield today; once the proud home of Britain's steel mills, when Sheffield Steel meant a British product rather than something from Kansas.

The decline of the steel industry's impact is documented in the improbable 'The Full Monty' which takes the steel mill unemployed and shows them become male strippers for a Ladies' Night.

Nowadays Sheffield has a skyline of cranes as various areas of the city are being re-constructed and some of the larger buildings appear to be owned by financial institutions. The central area around the town hall has a pedestrianised look, along with a modern tram service, akin to continental Europe.

I arrived late in the evening to almost deserted streets and then the next morning witnessed the major bustle as people went about their daily business.

Sheffield has had to re-invent itself between the thriving early 70s of the steel industry, through the recession of the 90s and now into new business of the 21st century.

lounges where no one can hear you scream

The lounge saga continues; now that the various incorrectly ordered sofas have all been removed and I'm left with the right coloured and correctly shaped ones, its about time to finish putting the room back together. Quite a lot of things have been removed forever, but now there's the small comeback of loudspeakers for listening to music.

Small is a keyword here too, with the intention to make big sound without adding lots of black oblong furniture.

I should explain that I'd already hooked up a mac mini to the television to provide iTunes playback via the television as a sort of emergency system. It actually makes quite a good jukebox. But some higher fi speakers beckoned and could also support the television's multitude of surround sound options.

So yesterday was screwdriver day and after the usual crisis of missing toolkit investments, I was able to get everything working by sundown. So a period of 'running in' the speakers with some music was first called for and then by mid evening it was time to try the fibre optic link from the Sky box, via the amplifier to the speakers.

I picked a film at random from Sky. Bad decision. It was Alien vs Predator and after listening to the near silent opening credits, it moved into a sequence on an iceberg. "Clang" went an icepick suddenly. "Ooow!", I jumped into the air. I think the speakers work. The rest of the film is set in various dark caves with alien monstors leaping from everywhere, which now includes behind the sofa and sometimes apparently the really big ones are lurking in the adjacent kitchen.

I think I need a bigger cushion to hide behind.

caucus race

"What I was going to say", said the Dodo in an offended tone," was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race."

"What IS a Caucus-race?" said Alice; not that she wanted much to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that SOMEBODY ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything.

"Why", said the Dodo, "the best way to explain it is to do it."

It was a curious scene.

First there was a marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (the exact shape doesn't matter, the Dodo said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there.

There was no "One, two, three, and away", but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over.

Some of the participants ran to schools or community centers but others weaved through slot machines and bar stools to participate.

Maids and cooks, bellmen and bartenders, nearly all of whom wore their uniforms and matching name tags, were granted a lunch break to attend.

By the Flamingo, participants at sunset registered their attendance before breaking off into a corner to stand for their preferred candidate. Whilst many of the voters ate from a boxed lunch, the caucus rules were translated into Spanish.

The course, now resembled a Strip and the clout of the Culinary Workers came into question with the dormouse repeatedly asking for fresh place settings and the people dividing nearly equally between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton.

However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out, "The race is over!" and they all crowded round, panting, and asking, "But who has won"?

Technorati Tags: rashbre, clinton, hilary, barack, obama, nevada, wonderland, sunset, strip, flamingo, Las, Vegas, caucus, dodo,

Podcast 2 : mixin' it

In the tradition of old mix tapes, here's my first 2008 "lo-fi" podcast of some recent music, as promised to Andrea a couple of weeks ago and I think I owe a few "Brit tracks" to Nat, too.

I said I'd try to keep it to modern-ish music, so I limited myself to mainly 2007, significantly British, with some 2008/2006 and "international" to balance it out.

I've put it onto my .mac site, to simplify web load times so its here

Just the podcast in another window, hit play and listen to some rashbre selections whilst browsing the blogosphere.

It's one 50 minute podcast blend with some simple track boundaries. If you like it, then buy the respective albums, of course.

2007 - Jack Penate - Spit at Stars (UK)
2008 - JayMay - Blue Skies (US)
2007 - Death cab for Cutie - I'll follow you into the dark (US)
2006 - Dresden Dolls - Coin Operated Boy (live acoustic) (US recorded Germany)
2006 - Babyshambles - Albion (UK)
2007 - Long Blondes - Nineteen (UK)
2007 - Fratellis - Vince the loveable stoner (UK)
2007 - Lily Allen - LDN UK)
2007 - rashbre and britney go toxic (US with UK remix)
2007 - Christina Nott - Wind - LA mix (UK with US remix)
2007 - White Stripes - Rag and Bone (US)
2007 - Cat Power - Lived in Bars (UK)
2007 - Newton Faulkner - Some unholy War (UK)
2008 - British Sea Power - Down on the Ground (UK)
2006 - Beady Belle - Who switched on the darkness (Sweden)
2008 - Radiohead - Videotape (UK)

Technical note: yes its low bitrate and has a choppy start. Call it impressionistic.

brits ahead?

The Brits awards for music are coming up in less than a month. A few artists seem to have been put into multiple nomination categories so the Arctic Monkeys, Take That Reunion and The Kaiser Chiefs should win something on the law of averages. I don't have a clue how they decide who gets into this; the old sponsorship from the direct mail company Britannia Music ended years ago but at leat would give a clue to some metrics for who gets what.

The show has a reputation for sometimes shambolic self seeking publicity by artists and hangers on, so we'll see what happens in the run up. Last year's hosting with Iraq friendly fire quips, rehab jokes and innuendo about the Queen seemed to illicit a share of "disgruntled of Cheam" letters to the editor.

There seems to be a 'throwing beverage at someone well-known' incident each year now and the attempts to provide a certain 'wow factor' slide in various directions from Cat Deeley riding in on a champagne bottle, drunks lurching on stage and one year stage guests unexpectedly firing a (blanked) machine gun into the crowd. Last year it was supposed to be broadcast live but the 30 second delay was enough time for the relatively tame real time swear word editing.

This year I'll support Adele, Bat for Lashes and Newton Faulkner for some kind of prize - which probably dooms all three of them as I never get TV votes right.

I realize I'm probably one of a small-ish number of people to have actually seen Adele perform. Its intriguing how an artist with no album and a hastily released download single gets into the show in the first year. There's obviously some great representation operating in the background. The car crash creepy video to accompany Chasing Pavements, has a slightly over-produced Adele track with lots of radio friendly strings. I prefer the simple acoustic version of Adele's songs and feisty though she is, I hope she doesn't get beaten into submission by a record company.

Bat for Lashes at least got as far as an album and have one which is generally good though I normally skip the same couple of tracks if I listen to it in the car. And Newton Faulkner is another surprisingly strong soloist.

I hope these kind of shows are more about new stuff than regurgitation. Which makes The Arcade Fire vs The Eagles an interesting TWO categories. And The Beatles may have been a brilliant band but is it still necessary to award Paul McCartney as 'top popster' on these kinds of shows? I suppose it will make a good finale.

kings of the wild frontier

I watched the first episode of Torchwood series two last night whilst I ate tikka masala in a short diversion from my current project.

I'm not quite sure what Adam Ant was doing there, but then, you don't see many blowfish driving red sports cars either.

Its interesting that by series two they are already taking a pop at themselves (the grumpy woman swearing at the Torchwood gang) and they seem to enjoy a few Star Wars jokes as well. Not dismissing the line about 'where's the blondes?' which was a spikey reference to Buffy from the James Marsters character who should really break out into singing 'Prince Charming' or similar. And they need to be careful with the snogging too. After Niles professed his love for Daphne, Frazier's shark was well and truly jumped.

There was some fifth element gadget assembly and some improbable DNA mixing to keep things moving along, but at the end of the first episode I sort of thought the trailer for next week looked better than this first episode. Maybe its a series that builds, but some of the formula-based 'new hero/baddie in town' business wasn't, for me, as original as others seem to imply. I'm wondering if all the reviewers were sent a pack about the new fast paced edits although I didn't really notice it as much. Maybe a few 'bumps', 'slowmo' and 'r-r-rewinds' constitute clever edits.

So, I'm remaining loyal and hope the effect in Series Two is holistic and let's not forget the Doctor Who roots of Torchwood.


excuse for daft video

And several people have been hitting rashbre central for the secret Torchwood portal. OK. Its below. No Dark Talk or Grey Thoughts.

Technorati Tags: rashbre, torchwood, dr+who, star+wars, buffy, spike, Adam+Ant, marsters,DrWho, Doctor+Who, Timelord, dark talk, Tardis

plane

Miraculous scenes today at Heathrow when BA038 crashed losing its undercarriage at the end of the runway. Everyone escaped from the Boeing 777. Apparently the plane lost all power and had to glide into the airport at the end of its flight from Beijing. Prime Minister Gordon Brown was waiting to take off to fly, co-incidentally, to China.

I've been in a serious plane incident myself once, in the desert, when an engine caught fire and our pilot had to dump all the fuel and land on one engine without the air brakes. I've nothing but admiration for the aircrew in these tough situations.

Technorati Tags: rashbre, heathrow, plane, BA038, crash, China,

London Bloggers Meet Up

Technorati Tags: rashbre, london, blogger, meetup, waterloo, camel+and+artichoke

delurk and delightful

According to bobkat its delurking week. Go on...leave a comment or a blog address. I'll drop round and leave a comment and you'll get another link!

keep taking the tablets

I was reading about the Cigbook novels used as a cigarette substitute across at keyholesurgery when I realized that here was another recent blogger in need of a few visitors.
I'm sure a few passing commenteers can help 'unlock' this new site. Its a lot better than the mp3 taser announced a few days ago.
cracking up

call out the instigator

I was a little bit off a week ago with my guesses about the new apple things from Mac World, where the real answers were Mac video rentals (got that right), new apple TV unit (got that right also) and the headline act in the form of the rather slim MacBook Air (didn't get that). Its quite impressive how Apple manage to keep their new products secret until launch date and that even the better pundits seem to only get a few items right and usually miss the main one.

I'm not planning to stand in a queue for the new things anytime soon and even the new Time Capsule is like rashbre central's LAn attached Time Machine backup of any friendly macs in the neighborhood.

My sundry bits of PC kit progressively grind to a slowdown after about 18 months because of registry bloat, defragmentation problems, memory leaks and other general weirdness including a disdain to improve performance after routine upgrades. Comparatively, even my oldest Mac Powerbook still runs pretty much like new, supports most of the latest versions of Mac software and still edits video like a professional configuration.

I'm pretty sure that some of this new Apple stuff will have good general appeal and I'll be interested to see if mac manages to become more mainstream via iPhone, iTouch, MacBook and so forth rather than its still (undeserved) slightly edge position with most folk.

bumpers

Flying back on a plane from Stockholm listening to castaways and cutouts by the Decemberists on the iPod. Feeling one beer chilled after a couple of days of back to back meetings.

We started Sunday with random meetings in the late evening at a trendy boutique hotel owned improbably by Benny from ABBA. We were so late arriving that the hotel bar had already closed provoking a little excuse for us all to wander out to find a nearby bar. I asked the guy in the corner shop and he suggested a place at number 18.

Ten minutes, roped sidewalk and then inside with guitar band already rocking to an appreciative crowd. Tables and five beers ordered along with a scan for food. We'd arrived from USA, UK and Belgium on airline snacklets so the burgers beckoned as the best bet. Fifteen minutes and we are all congratulating one another on the serendipitous venue.

Next morning's seven o'clock start with the rest of the gang was suitable shock to the system with the bundle into taxis across town to the day's rather elegant meeting room coincidentally also named abba complete with plasma television showing a crackling fire as digital welcome.

Twelve hours later back in taxis to the downtown hotel then walk to the Gamla Stan old town to the five small houses for a traditional Swedish supper...

And so it has continued until this evening when I'm sitting on the BA flight back to UK, which departed early from sleek Arlanda airport to try to beat the headwinds. Which right now means I'm being bumped around at 30000 feet.