Big Fish Thoughts

Snow Patrol - Eyes Open....starting to get excited

2006-04-23T23:34:00.000+01:00

Snow Patrol new album Eyes Open hits the shops in UK on 1st May and it's a pretty rare event for me. I'm excited about a CD before it's release. To be honest I don't think I've looked forward to a release since X&Y from Coldplay, generally I just find music that's already out but for a band I already like to release is kinda special. So anyway, special bond with SP as they were my first concert...I still get a kinda tingly feeling when I think back to Dec '04, jumping up and down, singing at the top of my voice to Run.

I don't enthusuastically follow SP as a do for a certain other band (cough-the-national-cough) but I've bought You're All I Have from iTunes from the new album and listened to previews on Snow Patrol's website. They seem to have moved their sound on a bit, doesn't quite seem as reflective as Final Straw was. Much more guitar and upbeat stuff, hopefully there should be some slower stuff too or I'll be disappointed. One of my favourite songs is Fifteen Minutes Old from their Songs for Polar Bears album...such a simple song but very good.

I guess I can't really say much more untill I get the whole album...but rest assured I will then!

Set Yourself On Fire by Stars

2006-04-21T18:29:00.000+01:00

A couple of weeks agao I signed up to Last.fm and installed the audiscrobbler plug-in. For those not familiar Last.fm/Audioscrobbler makes a note of every song you play on your computer on then sends it to the last.fm database so as to create your own music profile. You can then get stats about the music you listen to such as favourite songs etc. OK not that interesting really but it gets cool as it finds your music neighbours who listen to the same artists as you, and then it makes recommendations based on what they listen too. So for example you listen to The National and Wolf Parade, somebody else listens to The National, Wolf Parade and Stars it's a pretty good bet that you may like Stars too. So it comes up with a whole list of recommended artists and then you can stream their tracks in full as part of you "My Recommended Music Radio"!

So I was doing listening to the recommended radio, it was really nice to be able to listen to new music that was acctually pretty close to what you normally listen to. OK there was still some rubbish music but I felt there was a chance I could have liked it. Anyway a track came on that stood out I've forgotten the name but it was by a group called Stars. I previewed a few other tracks and then paid my £7.99 to download their latest album (Set Yourself On Fire) from iTunes. My impression...

I like it. There's a kinda kitch, cheesy feel about it which I think will always prevent it from becoming one of my classic albums but having said that there are some songs that have some stunning parts. But that always the problem, they're just parts. I've listened through a couple of times now and I haven't found a song I can enjoy all the way through.

The last song Calender Girl has a stunning verse but OMG never has a song been wrecked so much by the chorus. I nearly fell off my seat on the bus the first time I heard it, I was so shocked by how a band could ruin a whole song in 15 seconds. Stars have two main vocalists, a man and a woman which gives their stuff some really good variety. Calender Girl starts off with the woman singing a very heart-felt ballad... "Well out on the landing a friend I forgot to send home who waits up for me all through the night" and then along comes the man and in the cheesiest voice possible that sounds like a TV advert jingle sings "Calenndeeeer giiiiirl" - I mean really what were they thinking?

There are similar moments in every single song, just as I'm thinking something has potential they put in a really bad bass line that I just can't forget about. I can't help but shake the feeling it's a very little bit formulaic either, yes good for one song, but a whole album with the same equation? Maybe I'm not spotting the subtlties

An enjoyable album? yes. A classic? Nope. But my congrats to Last.fm for suggesting it to me.

75 Bands

2006-04-20T10:02:00.000+01:00

I stumbled into this pretty cool picture yesterday on the net, I think it begun as a promotion for Virgin but it's pretty cool. Basically there are references to 75 bands in the picture below, all you've got to do is name them.

You'll probably want to click on the picture to get the full size version. The references describe the band's name exactly so it should be pretty obvious when you work one out, for example Guns n Roses is represented by the guns and the roses on the left. Others are a bit more cryptic but you can still be fairly sure you got it right. As an example of getting it wrong, the rat doesn't represent the Boomtown Rats.

There are lots of places on the net that tell you all the answers but thats not really any fun. Very cool picture that I keep looking back at.

Quick Update...

2006-04-18T20:36:00.000+01:00

Well I received I reply from my Ofcom complaint this afternoon, seeing as I had the number I was advised to contact my telecom provider's (BT) Nuisance Call Bureau. They didn't really say what they'd do about the problem, I presume it would be nothing more than block the number from contacting me. Ofcom is, I beleive, the independant regulator thingie and the only people who can stop the company making these calls, not just to me but everyone. They say they will continue to monitor complaint levels on this subject. So there we go...

0870 7210 445

2006-04-17T12:00:00.000+01:00

0870 7210445 - 0870 7210 445 - 08707210445 - 0870 721 0445

Continuing with the general trend of posting about random things that have absolutly no connection...today...cold calling! Over the last week or so we've had a couple of silent calls where you pick up and the line goes dead. Generally the sign of a crummy call centre where the computer dials too many numbers and there are no operators to take the calls - but damn annoying as you have to get up from the sofa. Not once have I had to get up...but twice, and that my friends is too much! So now action...

Hoping it was work phoning to offer me an extra shift on a double-pay bank holiday, I did 1471 and instead of the typical "the caller witheld their number" I get "you were called today...by 0870 7210445" which sounded remarkably familiar to the number that rang me last week. So I go to Google and type in the number, I have to vary the position of the spaces before I eventually hit upon Andrew's blog and he and a lot of people in the comments are having the same problem from the same number. So this is happening a lot to a lot of other people, assuming of course that the people commenting on the blog are the small minority who bothered to get the number and Google it.

So now we start the very first Big Fish Thoughts consumer sting with good ol' Ofcom...it's simple, everytime I get a silent call from that number I fill in Ofcom's Silent Call complaint form. By their own admission they only act if you complain lots - "We do not investigate individual consumer complaints. However, we record and monitor complaint levels. If we identify an area of concern we may raise the matter with the management of the company directly." So I figure they ony way to get them to act...is to complain lots.

Now you're probably wondering what the point is, I get nuisance calls all the time and I never bother about them. This however is different...they lacked the sense to withold their number.

Equatorial Ramblings

2006-04-10T18:37:00.000+01:00

Well following on from my post a couple of weeks ago I took a pretty big plunge and applied for a conservation project, so I can somewhat nervously announce that come October I'll be travelling to Uganda to spend 2 months assisting the Ugandan Wildlife Authority with predator conservation in a national park.

I decided I was going to apply well over a week ago but spent the time finding excuses why I would leave it untill tomorrow, eventually on Friday I filled out the online form (for the second time having not sent it the first) and then sat for 10-15 minutes with the cursor over the send button trying to pluck up the courage. Eventually I decided I couldn't do it, I had no reason why I shouldn't put in my application but instead I'd do it tomorrow. Just as I moved my mouse towards the big cross in the corner of the window I had a fleeting feeling of confidence and found the cursor move very quickly back towards the 'send' button...more worringly I clicked it. Before I knew it I was staring at the confirmation screen saying someone would be in touch shortly. I walked round and round the house for 10 minutes in shocked kinda fashion trying to get my head round what I'd just let myself in for. Finally spoke to them on the phone this morning and confirmed stuff and most importantly they said my application was accepted. Yay!

Broke the news it was going ahead to my mum this afternoon and she started to get worried about absolutely everything. I scared myself yesterday by searching BBC News for Uganda.

Conversation soon moved from Idi Amin to the fact the equator ran through Uganda and how water would swirl the other way in different hemispheres and go straight down if I stood on the equator. I mean everybody knows that? Yeh? Well I found out it's absolute rubbish! The Coriolis Force exists but compared to all the other forces in play it's pretty negligable, the direction of rotation if determined by how the sink fills up or how you move your hands about the water. You set up rotations in the water by moving your hands in it then when the plug is pulled that results in the vortex down the plug. What more I made water drain out of my kitchen sink in both directions just by changing how the tap filled it up.

Last Train To Clarksville

2006-04-07T21:50:00.000+01:00

Making the most of fantastically-summery weather we've had these last few days I decide a day out is in order and in preparation for a forthcoming trip to Africa (more on that in few days) where else could you go but a Safari Park. Obviously with this being Britain I couldn't just go to Kruger National Park but instead Longleat! Yay! For those not familiar Longleat Safari Park is kinda like a zoo with big enclosures that you can drive your car through! Very cool as you don't have to look at animals through bars or cages....but also not cool as there's not very much between you and them....

Days starts fantastically with some very cute giraffes...

Before we quickly find ourselves heading towards Monkey Country, there are signs all over the park and warnings on every leaflet saying how you enter the monkey enclosure at you own risk and any damage sustained to your car is entirely your fault and you can't sue them or anything. Now like with most disclaimers I didn't take much notice, I figured somebody had lost their BMW logo a couple of years back and they'd put all these signs up to cover themselves. So I happily drive my Mum's car into and enclosure full of monkeys very excited by the prospect they might sit on my roof. Halfway through and after a few monkeys came near and turned away again, one jumps on the back window!

But the excitement was short lived as I realized he'd taken an interest in my radio aerial and I quickly became concerned for the well being of my car. Now how do you get a monkey off your car? Obviously have to stay in the car, so I decide to try stopping quite quickly. Doesn't work, nor does kangaroo hopping. (I knew I did that for a reason!)

Nevermind he's probably not doing any damage, I told myself.

But then I started to wonder why the people in the car behind we all laughing and the people in the car infront were all turned round in the seats, laughing. The answer soon came to me and the monkey walked down my windscreen, sat on my bonnet and tried to eat my rear washer jet nozzle!

Was another hour untill I could get out of my car and inspect the damage, he pulled the nozzle right off leaving a nice gap in the roof that rain could get through, bitten right through the washer hose and left two monkey foot-prints on my rear window that I could see all the way home.

Of course when I got home I had to tell my Mum, she wasn't too mad as long as I found, paid for and fitted the new one (which I did today) - I tried to convince her it wasn't really my fault "How is it not your fault? You took the car to a place where it can get attacked by bloody monkeys."

Wolf Parade - Apologies To The Queen Mary

2006-04-05T18:34:00.000+01:00

I joined last.fm yesterday that uses AudioScrobbler (or something) to collect data about the music you listen to and then gives you Charts of your favourite songs and artists and makes suggestions on other artists based on what other people who like the stuff you like also like. I havn't listened to enough music yet so it's refusing to tell me anything, but I had a good look around at what other poeple listen to. One group that kept cropping up was Wolf Parade - I previewed some of their stuff, got very excited and rushed out and bought an album for £7.99 in HMV.

Ermm...it's interesting and to be honest not exactly the sort of thing I typically listen to. I'm on the CD's first play through so I'll have to see what tracks stand out. I tend to go for alternative-rock and wolf party seem to be alternative-alt-rock, there's a little bit of Franz Ferdinand in them and I can't help but imagine them in very tight black jeans which really isn't what I want!

Another band I recently discovered but am having a trouble tracking down a copy of is The Devastations...by having trouble I mean it was in any of the shops I looked for it in today but it is on Amazon. I heard they're supporting The National in London this May and from the little previews of their songs that I've heard they sound thoroughly depressed about it! (personally I'd be pretty pleased)

My year out...(another "me" post)

2006-03-28T08:44:00.000+01:00

I think I mentioned at the start of the year all my well thought out plans for how I was going to spend my gap year. At the time I could think of nothing more exciting than spending 6-7months travelling but now I'm having second thoughts...

It still seems awesome, I still want to travel, and I most definitely still want to go to some "more interesting" places. But over the last month or two there's been a spanner in the works. Leaving family and friends for half a year never really phased me, yeh of course I'd miss everyone but I've always been a pretty solitary who's content with being on their own. I'd meet new people on the road and my friends could easily spend time with other people too, they'd all be at uni so I would really see them anyway. That was all fine, but then I found a girl who I'd miss a hell of a lot and whats worse is she'd miss me. Sounds pretty stupid I know, I mean I've only been with her a month or so, seems pretty naive to think I'll still be with her come the end of the year. Seems more naive to change plans of a lifetime around a 1-month relationship.

Whats more, do I want to change my plans? In short, I don't want to leave her behind for 6 months. But neither do I want to give up on a trip I've been looking forward to for years only to go and break up with her a few months down the line for one reason or another. So lets imagine, that it's gonna we're gonna work out in the long-term, as in long-long-term...what difference is 6 months gonna make? If it's gonna last a long-time surely we could get through 6 months apart. But if I don't go maybe in 10 years time I'm gonna regret not going when I had the chance, maybe (I wouldn't now, but maybe in future...) I'd find myself resenting the reason I didn't go. She keeps telling me to go, she says doesn't want me to leave but that she can't stand in my way.

So this all got me thinking, maybe committing myself to 6 months travel is too big a risk - I've never travelled extensively before and I've most definitely never been anywhere like the places I'm planning to go. I'd hate to set off on my big trip only to find I hate it and wish I'd gone somewhere else - but then these are places I've wanted to go to for years...can I hate them? But I came up with an idea, while it still has it's problems it seems a lot better. Maybe I could split my trip in half, spend 2-3 months doing a conservation project at the end of this year, come back, earn some more money and then go away for another 3-4 months.

Solves the problems? I'm still spending my gap year in an awesome way, certainly not a waste. Going away for 12 weeks at a time seems a hell of a lot more managable than half a year. I know I'd still be away for the same amount of time but it has a very differnt vibe. What's more I get to change my plans halfway through, if I decide I hate Africa during the first trip I simply go somewhere else for the second one, if I hate travel I simply don't go away again.

It kinda all makes sense, trying to spot the drawbacks though. It makes getting jobs harder as I'll have to quit each one after a few months but I was planning to temp so touchwood that shouldn't pose too many problems. I'll spend more on flights as I'd have to fly out and home twice, but an extra £500 isn't too big a thing compared to what the whole year is costing me, for those two reasons it's financial blow. Plus my trip loses some of it's "tough-guy expedition" feel, 6 months accross Africa has a certain edge to it.

Essentially I'm trying very hard not to fall into the trap of young-naivity. Am I changing my plans around someone I've been with for just over a month, yes and no. It made me reconsider, without her I would probably stick to doing one trip. But in my attempt to avoid the hole of young-naivity it still makes logical sense even if we break up, there aren't really that many drawbacks to it. In a way it makes it seem a lot more real to me, spending 6 months travelling still feels like an impossible dream that I won't ever reach even though there's no reason for me not to. Going on a conservation project for a couple of months at the end of this year seems very acheivable, I get some travel experience which will no doubt help if I do decide to overland accross Africa, and I can get a good idea if that it what I want to do.

OK that was a long post, all about me, so probably not very interesting. Sorry I havn't been posting much lately, nothing to say I guess but there's a couple of things I'll write about later today or tomorrow....probably.

...fudgefudgefudgefudge...

2006-03-22T17:07:00.000Z

Discovered something crazy today, y'know when you get a text message and your phone is right next to you radio and you get the beep-beep-be-beeeep noises? Well I had my phone next to the computer mouse...a text came through and the screen started randomly scrolling up and down! Crazy!

But onto more pressing matters...

I discovered a couple of weeks ago how much I love Cadbury's Fudge bars...y'know the chocolate covered fudge bars that used to cost 10p and are now priced at an extortionate 15p. Well I've found myself eating more and more of them, to be honest I always thought I was in control, y'know I could quit when I wanted, I just don't want to thats the only reason. My friends have tried to help me, they worked out I could save £1.95 a week if I kicked the habit. They tried to shock me into realising the damage I was doing to my body, each bar contains over 100 calories meaning in a typical day I could be taking in upwards of 300 calories. But I reached a new low today, I realised buying three Fudge bars simultaneously made me look...well...fat, I felt the need to tell the canteen lady I was infact buying some for a friend. I then sat in the corner trying to eat my way out of the shame.

Woooo space shuttle!!!!

2006-03-16T08:51:00.000Z

As I'm sure I've mentioned on here I'm going to America in the summer and being a bit of a space-nut I'm really looking forward to going to Kannedy Space Centre - sooo imagine my excitement when I stumble upon the New Scientist website saying the next Space Shuttle flight had been delayed....to July....when I'm there!

I'm in America for the entire launch window so fingers crossed it doesn't get delayed again, little issue is we probably wouldn't be near Florida at the right time however seeing as this could well be a pretty much once-in-a-lifetime chance I'm willing to make sure we are!

Great...except the guy I'm travelling isn't a space nut. I just told him the news on MSN in a very excited way only for him to reply "well we'll have to wait for the date to be confirmed" shortly followed by "well if we're down south close to the launch I'm sure we can." Ye what??? Only if we're close by, and even then he's not exactly keen. We have a whole month out there with no commitments, we'd planned to go to Florida and Kennedy Space Centre anyway it's perfectly possible to make sure we're there whenever the launch is scheduled for.

I'm kinda getting worked up by his reaction, he knows how much I love space travel and he knows how much going would mean to me. Years and years I've said I wanted to see a launch, ever since we decided to go to the US I've been saying "how cool would it be.." and now here we are with a launch scheduled when I'm on the same flippin' continent and he doesn't want to go because he'd rather see Chicago before heading south.

Well I've decided. I'm gonna keep trying to persuade him but if he says no I've comprismised this trip enough and there's no way I'm letting this opportunity slip by, wherever we are I'm getting on a train a day or two before and I'm going, if he doesn't want to come then that's his problem. I'm going.

Nothing's ever easy

2006-03-10T00:07:00.000Z

Luck really wasn't on my side today, very simple task that really fell down around ears. Thismorning was my girlfriend's driving test and, thankfully, she passed! Hurrah! (4th time lucky!) So I said I'd head round her house after she'd finished work later that evening to say well done, I bought her a card that afternoon and decided to get her a little bunch of flowers too.

It was simple, I jump in my car a bit early, drive down to Asda, be a good boyfriend and buy flowers, peel price sticker off, get back in my car and drive round hers. I make it all the way to Asda before I realised I was gonna be 15-20minutes early and beleive it or not there's not much to do at Asda when you absolutely nothing to buy. So I found some flowers but (thankfully) decided to leave them in the bucket instead of carrying them round the shop looking at all the things I could possibly buy if I was ever that way inclined.

I was looking at a Pinata donkey because frankly that was probably the most interesting thing in the entire shop, when all of a sudden I was broken from my musings about whether it's right to tell kids to hit a donkey with a big stick by the sound of someone saying "Hey sweetie, fancy seeing you here!" I turn round and sure enough she's decided to drive her dad to pick up some stuff from Asda of all places! "Oh...hello...how are you?" Given I was meant to be at her house in 20 minutes I certainly couldn't be doing the weekly shop. Some quick thinking was in order. "I'm good thank you, what are you doing here?" she replied, I'd been hoping she wouldn't ask that. "Ermm...y'know, just killing time" "oh ok....in Asda?"

Just as everything was looking lost it hit me in the quickest bit of thinking I've ever done I came up with the greatest cover story ever come up with! (Mensa take note! lol) "Yeh I had to get out the house, Mum wasn't impressed with my exam results" - unfortunately that didn't explain why I'd driven two miles out of my way! But she seemed convinced. How I would get these flowers I had no idea.

So I walk round Asda with her while her dad gets the stuff he needed (12 bottles of wine and 300 balloons - don't ask!) and we headed to the exit. Fortunatly we'd parked at seperate ends of the car park so we split and 30 seconds later I did a swift turn around and straight back into Asda, told the cashier of my plight (as you do!) and I covered the flowers in a few bags. Headed back to my car and in a final stroke of genius got a woman to carry the flowers for me so my girlfriend didn't see me with them.

Sorted.

(I did come clean with how difficult our chance encounter had made things, I'd fooled her except for the fact I'd vanished when she looked back over her shoulder on the way out! Her dad had guessed I was up to something though.)

A little ambition...

2006-03-08T22:30:00.000Z

Decided to set myself a little challenge, kinda like a New Year's resolution but one that's made in March. By the end of the year I want to get into Mensa! Only little issue is I don't think I'm clever enough. But I'm not gonna let that deter me.

So to get into Mensa you've got to get in the top 2% of the population on an IQ test, now apparently there are loads of different tests and the scores vary and such but I read somewhere (can't find it now!) that that's roughly equivalent to an IQ of 148. I've done a few tests throughout my life and tend to get somewhere in the 120s so I'm falling a little short!

However I have a plan, I reckon by practicing IQ tests you can boost your score...so that's what I plan to do. Then you pay £15 and take a standardized-supervised-Mensa-approved IQ test in some funny test centre and hope for the best. Unfortunatly there's only a few test sessions so I may have to wait a while for one to be local or get in my car and drive somewhere to do one. As for why I've decided to try and join Mensa I don't know - but it would get some serious bragging rights!

Do I stand a chance? Probably not. Will I ever bother to try? Probably not.

However I take great comfort that Mensa's official website felt the need to inform me that "1 in 50 people have an IQ in the top 2%"

The Archive of Misheard Lyrics

2006-03-03T23:56:00.000Z

OMG have a I found a funny site - http://kissthisguy.com is a collection of how people have misheard song lyrics. Y'know how it is, there's something that sounds so clear it couldn't possibly be anything else despite the fact it sounds totally you stupid. But still you decide the artist must have been having a laugh and happily sing your alternative lyrics while doing karokee (as you do!) only to find another phrase thats sound pretty much the same but fits a hell of a lot better! Some classic's I've found on there...

Shaggy - Angel
Real: "Closer than by peeps you are to me"
Alternate: " Closer than my briefs you are to me"

Blink 182 - The Rock Show
Real: "I fell in love with the girl at the rock show. She said "What" and I told her that I didn't know."
Alternate: "I went down with the girl at the rock show. She said "What" and I told her Garfield was a show."

Savage Garden - Truely, Madly, Deeply
Real: " I want to lay like this forever until the sky falls down on me"
Alternate: "I want to lay like this forever until this guy falls down on me"

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
Real: "You'll go down in history"
Alternate: "You'll go down and hit the tree"

Quick Rant...

2006-03-01T19:48:00.000Z

OK just a quick rant on something which keeps bugging me. As I mentioned in an earlier post I'm taking a gap year to go off travelling, and beleive it or not travelling costs a a lot of money. I'm not in the fortunate of having stuff handed to me on a plate so I therefore have to work to get any money and then I have to save it rather than blowing it on going out and beer. I do a part-time job in a shop and work 16+ hrs each week and that's on top of college work. Obviously there's a finite number of hours in the week so to fit everything in I have to make some sacrifices, unfortunatly that means not spending my weekends at parties getting drunk, which to be honest I wouldn't be doing anyway.

So most of my friends think I prefer going to work over going out, not true at all (although it can be depending who it is/what they're doing!) and find it absolutely unbeleivable that I get by with little to no free time. That's not what annoys me, what annoys me is when the same people turn round to me and say how lucky I am to be having a gap year and going away. Hello! It's not luck, it's damn hard work and down to the fact I want to travel a hell of a lot more than I want to get drunk.

OK enough of the rant and seeing as this is already a pretty personal post rather than the random stuff I usually post may as well fill you on the fact I have my first serious girlfriend. Ahhhh! I've known her for well over a year and I've always had a bit of thing for her, we finally got togethor almost a couple of weeks ago. Met her through work which means I'm in the very slightly awkward situation of having to work alongside my girlfriend but that hasn't currently posed a problem, hopefully it won't. She's at uni which throws up another problem as we can only see eachother in the evenings when neither of us are at college/uni/work but still things are going well. Oh yeh, my other concern, there's a couple of people from work who I know had a thing for her...one of which I got on pretty well with. Don't think he knows what's going on yet so I'm a little concerned about that, we've done nothing wrong but I'm just hoping he won't react too negatively towards me.

Digital Camera's

2006-03-01T17:32:00.000Z

Trying to decide on a new digital camera at the moment, I've had a Nikon Coolpix2000 for the last few years which I've really enjoyed using and has been great for going on holiday etc. but I've always found it really clumpy to carry around when I'm out and about so it tends to just get left at home. So with my trip to America coming up I've decided to upgrade to a much smaller camera that I can just put in my pocket and take to alsorts of places without having to carry a rucksack or anything. Also, given, you can get a lot more bang for your buck I should be able to get a camera thats significantly better than my 2MP Nikon.

Currently I have my eye on the Kodak V530 mainly because it's nice and small although I havn't found seen one in real life to see just how small, it comes in groovy colours (likin' the black), is 5MP, has 3x Optical zoom and can record MPEG-4 video with sound at 30fps in 640x480!!! All for £143!

Open to suggestions though.

02 Genie

2006-02-24T23:50:00.000Z

Seems like a stroke of genie-us from O2 - I heard this week about their pay-and-go package that combines the unrestrictedness of topping up with loads and loads of free texts that you get with contracts. Basically you top-up Â£10 every month and you get 300 free texts. But the genie-us bit (as far as I can tell) is that if you don't top up one month you simply don't get your free texts and just pay for them as you did before..Butt the next time you put Â£10 on you get your texts again!

So I heard about this and went along to the O2 shop in town and went "oi, lady, I gotta get myself on this" but obviously in a much polite way. So the lady makes a phone call and they ask me bizarre questions that I really wasn't expecting such as "how did you last top-up your phone?" - "Ye-wha? Oh well, I got in my car and went down the petrol station..."

So that was Thursday and the lady told me just to waiuntilll Monday before topping-up again, but then today, being Friday, I noticed I could get a signal and my phone was saying "card rejected"....great! So I wait a couple of hours and phone O2 customer service where the woman tells me to put £10 on my phone to activate the card, somewhat dubious about throwing money at the problem I went back to the petrol station and one hour later still nothing. So it's 11PM and I finally fixed it by simply turning the phone off and on again. Grrrr!

Got my free texts though!

Morning Runner

2006-02-23T20:05:00.000Z

Another music post, this time about another little-known band called Morning Runner. I saw the live waay back in 2004 when they supported Snow Patrol, I thought they were fantastic back then and the next day I went on the internet to find some of their tracks of theirs but found pretty much next-to-nothing on them and they didn't seem to have anything released. Then last summer they started to gain more popularity and some of their stuff was released in the form of very short EPs.

Then today I was on iTunes and was surprised to see their newest track, Burning Benches, as No.17 on the day's top 100 downloads a quick listen and you can tell why. Sum's up Morning Runner's pretty unique combination of rock and chill-out music that makes you want to both stand up and move but also sit back and be very depressed - "it's not heaven without you"

The only annoying thing about them is that last year they supported Athlete last year and I didn't go!

www.morningrunner.co.uk

Coldplay split?

2006-02-16T13:08:00.000Z

So Coldplay have dropped a bombshell but unfortunatly nobody quite knows what it means - ""People are fed up with us and so are we. You won't see us at one of these for many, many years." Sounds like they're intending to take a damn long holiday but it leaves you wondering whether they'll ever return, much as I love Coldplay I'm actually kinda glad...

There's been a HUGE difference between the group after Rush of Blood release and the group after X&Y's release, X&Y launched Chris into becoming a household name and made the group become a stadium-filling supergroup. They've rarely been far from the media's eye with Live8 and Glastonbury followed by their tour. It's a pretty mad pace to keep up, while they may be able to do it I don't think their fans would. It's hard to get excited about a huge concert when they did one just last week - in a way all the specialness wears off. Chris said not so long ago that the 4th album was pretty much written, so in theory they could probably get it into the shops by the summer if they wished. But I think if they did that it would be the end of Coldplay.

Why? Because we'd go round this roundabout again, big concerts, big media coverage, award ceremonies etc. etc. And, as with anything that becomes very popular, it becomes cool to criticise it and disassociate yourself from it. If Coldplay put out their 4th album this year I'm pretty certain that what would happen and that reputation would be near impossible to shake off. So I see a long break as a very good thing and vital for Coldplay's long-term success, it's a short term pain so that things can work out in the long run.

X&Y has sewn the seeds for Coldplay's future, their music will happily last for a few years in people collections, they'll come back fresh-faced, puppy-tailed and able to wow us all again.

(I hope)

£1000 Cash-Climb

2006-02-16T11:56:00.000Z

All this week the local radio station has been running a game show which they play every hour. Basically you have one minute to answer as many questions as you can, you get £5 for every correct answer and if you get ten correct in a row you win £1000...but if you get one wrong you go all the way back to nothing and have to start again.

So I woke up this morning, realised I could do with winning a grand so phoned in...and got on.

Before we started the presenter was chatting to me and I made the mistake of admitting to studying Further Maths and basically got labelled a genius. Not so bad...until it comes to the question "what 'a' word is a type of maths?" (or something along those lines) "ermmm......arithmetic?" WRONG! That was quickly followed by a Flintstones question which I also got wrong making me the only person all week to win absolutely nothing!

Apparently the 'a' word was algebra but I still think arithmetic was right! Admittedly it wouldn't have made much difference, but still.

Ahh Blunty...

2006-02-16T00:25:00.000Z

Just heard how James Blunt accepted his Brit award, I wouldn't normally pay much attention but it cracked me up - "I have been accused so many times of singing like a girl that it is amazing to be the best male."

Mozzarella in Carrozza

2006-02-16T00:12:00.000Z

OK feeling the need to immortalize what is quite frankly the best starter course ever discovered - I'm not posting this because I think anyone else will be remotely interested it just seems the best way to ensure I can always come back and look up the name. Went to dinner with a friend from work this evening (that's a whole other post!) at Prezzo which is this Italian resturant chain and for starters we had "Mozzarella is Carrozza" which according to the menu is mozzarella that's deep fried in bread crumbs - seriously nice! Very stringy (obviously) but very nice.

Thought I'd post a recipe for it but the internet seems to disagree with Prezzo Plc. and most places seem to thing think it's mozzarella between two slice of bread that then fried - so basically a deep-friend cheese sarnie. But anyway the breadcrumbed version is here - http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_26158,00.html

(Edit: I just read the recipe...probably easier to buy the mozzarella rather that make it)

Finding Big Fish Thoughts

2006-02-10T15:39:00.000Z

I always keep a close eye on my blog stats mainly becuase I want to know when I pick up a regular reader but they're also pretty interesting to see who/how people find their way to ths lowly page. Most of my hits tend to come from Blogexplosion if I'm using that but they tend to surf away after 30-seconds probably without ever reading anything, can't see much point there. Others tend to find their way here from other Blogspot blogs - probably via the little toolbar. But I do seem to get about about 2-3 hits a day through Google...never any other search engine, just Google.

What makes me chuckle is looking at the search terms to see what they were acctually looking for, in the last couple of weeks I've probably had 20 hits from people looking to download Episode 1 of the Ricky Gervais Podcast. If you're looking for that...GUTTED!!! Had a fair few hits by people searching for Undertheigloo - odd as I've only ever mentioned them once but I do have a quote by them down the bottom of the page. Bet you never noticed ;) Other searches tend to be for The National but I'm getting a couple of people interested in Mock the Week now too.

Maybe oneday someone will find my blog usefull.

Mock The Week...or not

2006-02-09T19:47:00.000Z

Well last night was the recording of Mock the Week that I had tickets for so a friend from work and I drove the 2hrs to London. Being a pretty new driver I got a bit lost on the M25 and ended up missing our junction, not a big deal except by this point we were getting very pushed for time. Somehow we found our way to the studio without too many more problems and just one 3-point turn but nonetheless our detour cost us half an hour. Our tickets say the studio doors close at 7:10 and we finally jog up to the front of BBC centre...at 7:10. There's about another 10-15 people standing outside the audience entrance where we're told we're too late and the studio's full. Great.

Fortunately the very lovely people said they should be able to get us into another show being filmed at the same time called The Late Edition, perhaps there was hope after all. So we go through to the foyer and hang around for 20 minutes while all the people with official tickets for the Late Edition go through to the studio leaving just us hopefuls behind. Half the hopefuls are taken off to be seated while my friend and I are left with a group of 8 or so others guys. The man in a suit returns and starts apologising to the group that the studios full and they can't do anything for us. We'll have to drown our sorrows in a McFlurry. He ushered the group of eight towards the exit before turning to us and saying "there is however room for you two." YES!

Seriously surreal experience in the studio, they did a "link up" with a reporter at the Turin Winter Olympics and the screens showed him set against a very snowy backdrop - we however could see him set against a green screen off to the side of the set. The presenter, Marcus Brigstocke, was seriously good and I don't think it was just because he had a good team of writers behind him. In between shots he was making jokes with the audience and pretty much ensured that for the two hours we were sat in the studio I never once felt bored....given my attention span is somewhat limited that's damn impressive!

We all headed out the studio around 10PM and I began the drive home. All was going well until the matrix boards on the M25 told us we couldn't get off at the junction we wanted...all I could do was wave to the M3 as we sailed past. So we got off the next junction and tried to cut back across and rejoin the M3 slightly further along. Nice plan...but I can't drive. We got lost and didn't have the right map so were forced to put up with the very small-scale diagram in my "condensed road map of Great Britain and Ireland." So my friend tells me to follow signs to Chobham, I followed signs to Cobham, subtly different name but still in completely the wrong direction. I mean really, why would you have two towns pretty much next to each other with one letter difference! What genius did that?!

Even if I had gone the right way it wouldn't have made much difference as we spent the next hour and a half touring the surrounding countryside. I even gave up on my macho male reputation (yeah - whatever!) by going to a petrol station to ask for directions. But even that went wrong...it was bloody closed! Eventually we gave up and went back to the M25 to find a different route home.

Home finally came well over 4 hours after leaving at 2:30AM.

My story is still not quite over, I'd just finished telling a friend at college of our magical mystery tour when my mobile rang. It's Martin from SRO Audiences ringing to apologise/explain why we couldn't get in and despite bending over backwards to get us into The Late Edition they offered us priority tickets for another recording of Mock the Week. Proper customer service.

If you're interested the episode of The Late Edition we saw goes out tonight (Thurs) on BBCFour at either 10PM or 10:30...I'm not too sure which.

Little thought for the day...

2006-02-05T16:08:00.000Z

OK lets imagine a hypothetical situation in which I've been offended by a cartoon published in a newspaper and to vent my anger at the paper's country I decide I wish to burn their flag. So, no doubt, I go on the internet with my debit card and have the appropriate flag shipped to me via UPS. So even in the technologically-advanced western world burning flags can be quite a bit of hassle.

And yet its a pretty common occurence to see people from all over the world on the news burning various flags. So where do people is less-developed countries get flags? I'm thinking maybe there are flag shops at the side of the road or something, might be a good line of business in times of trouble.

Copying/Sharing/Stealing Music

2006-02-02T14:10:00.000Z

So I thought I'd make another one of those posts that have little to no relevance to anything - just me harping on about something. This time the illegal sharing of music files.

OMG does this tick me off. Anyone who knows me knows I point-blankly refuse to download music from file sharing programs instead choosing to pay to get a CD or a legal track from iTunes. I'm not overly bothered about others doing it, it's their choice after all, but what does bother me is people who convince themselves it's right and justifiable.

First of all, you are not entitled to have music. Your favourite band writing, recording and distributing a track does not have to happen and nor does it have to happen for free. That song remains their intellectual property and they retain rights over, conveiniently though they're willing to let people listen to it in exchange for a small(ish) sum for a CD copy. This is the wakey, wakey bit - buying it on CD does not mean you own the song! It is quite obviously wrong to make copies of this CD and start selling it from the back of your car, it's therefore also just as wrong to put it up on the internet for free. Buying the CD has not given you rights distribute it's contents whether you wish it had or not is irrelevant, it didn't and you knew that before you paid your money.

Far and away the biggest annoyance for me is when the people who's entire music collection is illegally downloaded and yet claim to be music fans. I mean really - shut up. If you really enjoyed and appreciated music you'd have no problems about paying for it. Think how much you listen to a good CD, £10 or whatever is awesome value for that much entertainment.

Yes I wish music was cheaper, yes I wish more money went to the artists but unfortunatly none of that is an excuse to download illegally.

Ar(rrrghh!)ctic Monkeys

2006-01-28T21:21:00.000Z

Everybody's talking about them, their new album and apparently how great it is. NME even had the audacity to say it was the 5th Greatest British album EVER just days after it's release! I'm sat here thinking "why?"

OK, couple of months ago they come out with ...on the Dancefloor, pretty catchy and I still play it from time to time but to be honest there's not that much to it. Couldn't bring myself to buy any of their other tracks. So out comes their album and I listen to a few samples expecting some new material, but bloody hell it was like listening to the same song over and over. All seem to follow a very similar formula, fast-paced catchy guitar riff and with sharply-spoken lyrics over the top. I thought to myself, maybe a 30-second clip doesn't do the song justice, but then I saw the full track time and 30-seconds was practically the entire song!

Well ok slight exaggeration, but a majority of the songs are just 2-3 minutes long. That basically tells me there's nothing more to it, one catchy lyric and one guitar riff that they couldn't even stretch out to a full-length song. Yeh I can't really judge an entire album by a few samples...but I think I'm right.

Arctic monkeys, good in some ways but seriously overhyped. As for being the fifth greatest british album of all time, ask NME again in a few months when they're bored of it.

Mock the Week!

2006-01-20T23:34:00.000Z

I've been so caught up in the whole podcasting thing I'm kinda ignored making written posts. I was surfing around WiK's Blog as I often do and he managed to get tickets to see Mock the Week being filmed in London from SRO Audiences - it's completely free you just put you name down as interested and hope for the best. So I did just that and last night I got an e-mail saying I had two tickets! How cool is that?

Not sure who I'll go with, have to see who's interested. I've never acctually seen Mock the Week but I hear it's a political-quiz-comedy-thing so should be fun.

Oh speaking of podcasts, Episode 2 is well under way, few more pieces to record and there's a few sounds and jingles in this one.

Big Fish Thoughts Podcast - Take 2

2006-01-18T18:27:00.000Z

OK - the first podcast was up and working for a few hours, but it doesn't look like anyone downloaded it. The myfilehut.com go back on themselves and decide to ban direct linking to mp3 files which naturally threw up a few problems. But fear not, I found, or was rather pointed to (thanks WiK) podomatic.com which *seems* happy for me to link directly to podcast episodes, creates the RSS feed and provides another website with them all listed on www.bigfishthoughts.podomatic.com

So without further ado, you can download Episode 1 or subscribe to the RSS feed or look accross to the left of the screen and see all the currently available episodes in the sidebar. Fan-dabby-tastic!

The Big Fish Thoughts Podcast!

2006-01-17T21:04:00.000Z

From time to time there is an announcement so huge, so gianormous that the whole world will stop and listen. This is....not one of those moments.

Yesterday little old me sat down in front of a microphone and recorded over 10-minutes of just me speaking in what was to become the very first Big Fish Thoughts Podcast. And yet having recorded my masterpiece, why has it taken another 24hrs for me to get it to you? Well to be honest hosting and distributing directly a 10mb file (for free) was quite a challenge. I eventually found myfilehut.com which seems to be doing the job. Then getting the RSS feed to work was another kettle of fish, but I battled through thick and thin so I can now proudly announce the very first episode of the Big Fish Thoughts Podcast.

The RSS feed for your podcatcher is http://www.myfilehut.com/userfiles/50572/feed2.xml which should automatically get you any future episodes, but if you're podcastingly challenged the direct link to this episode is below. (I'm not sure if the title and stuff comes through on the feed, a comment on this saying one way or another would be appreciated)

Big Fish Thoughts Podcast - 16/01/06
This is first Big Fish Thoughts Podcast in which I talk about podcasting, octopi and a recent trip into town.

(Please watch my bandwidth)

Of iTunes and Podcasts

2006-01-12T20:16:00.000Z

So I'm a big fan of iTunes, I hate downloading music illegally and much to the disgust of my friends am more than willing to pay for the privilege. With that out of the way...

I use the iTunes store as a good way of finding new music, the 30-sec sample of every song means you can get a good idea of the music before committing any money to it. The week's tune of the week available to download for free (from the UK store) is Silence in Space by Undertheigloo, very good tune. Either way, imagine how pleased I was when I noticed the brand-spangly new "Just for you" section that makes recommendations based on what you've bought. So I eagerly click-through to find a whole load of recommendations ranging from Bon Jovi to Gwen Steffani - not exactly my sort of stuff. Fortunately it told me what had given them the stupid notion that I may actually like Faithless, apparently it's because I bought the Scissor Sisters!

So anyway I continue to browse through recommendations based on tracks I bought well over a year and have no intention of ever listening to again, and yet I have no way to stop it making recommendations based on it. What's worse is most of the suggestions they do make are things I've already heard - I mean really, I bet almost every single person using iTunes knows if they like Robbie Williams - so why does his album keep turning up?

Anyway moving away from that.

Podcasts, not strictly iTunes but I use it to download them. Currently the No.1 podcast is The Ricky Gervais Show, now I'm not a big fan of Ricky's, The Office just annoyed me beyond belief and any mention of it just brings back memories of the time I had impersonate "the dance" (you know!) to someone who had no idea who he was. But anyway we digress, I subscribed to Ricky's podcast which found it's way to my iPod which found it's way to my jeans before I found my way to the bus.

It was the ultimate test, could I listen to 30 minutes of Ricky Gervais in public without embarrassing myself?

In short, no, I could not. Things began so well, I went probably 10 minutes raising nothing more than a smirk to myself. Then all of a sudden out of nowhere "you go into a toffee shop" - that was it, I was gone. I spontaneously laughed to myself in the middle of a bus. Everyone looked round. I continued to listen without any further embarrassment, until I was walking the final stretch to college. Lots of students around. Great.

This time I pulled my headphones out and pretended to sneeze.

Eviction threat in "respect" plan

2006-01-12T10:35:00.000Z

The BBC News headline "Eviction threat in "respect" plan" struck me as damn ironic, the article is really about evicting home owners for being a nuisance. Something Blair is proposing as part of his "respect" agenda.

But the headline (unwittingly?) was also making a dig at George Galloway's time in the Celebrity Big Brother house. I see his entrance to the house as little more than an attempt to gain support for his Respect party and a chance to spread Respect ideals to the general public. After all think about why the other celebrities are there, it's little more than a chance to kickstart their career.

Maybe I'm just being cynical I thought to myself, and then today I was reading the BBC article about Galloway's disgust at sex talk in the house and this paragraph jumped out...

Respect claims Mr Galloway's discussions with housemates about the Iraq war and other political issues had not been shown.

A spokesman said the party would be sending a letter of complaint to broadcaster Channel 4.

OK, if getting Galloway's views on Iraq was not one of the prime factors for him agreeing to go into the house, why are Respect angry that they aren't being shown? It indicates, if not proves, that Respect want to use Big Brother as a soapbox for Galloway. Now in my opinion it's unacceptable for an MP to completely ignore their constituency and skip Common's debates/votes so they can spread propaganda for their party.

But Galloway's up for the public vote, there's an eviction threat for Respect's plan.

More on The National

2006-01-09T20:22:00.000Z

Having not updated this for a fair few days, generally not much is going on, I do have one situation hanging over me which I'll probably post about when it's out of the way, sometime next week. But in the meantime I'll continue with my personal, evangelical, mission to get people to listen to The National. I mentioned them briefly having been to one of their concerts late last year but thought I'd go into a bit more detail.

The National are a five piece Indie-Alternative-Rock group from Brooklyn in the USA who play (believe it or not) Indie-Alternative-Rock music but with a hint of Folk thrown in. But don't let that put you off, it's more of an undertone and when you get into their stuff you'll really appreciate it. They've put out 3 full albums and an EP, the most recent album being Alligator which has been their most successful yet and got them relatively huge amounts of recognition.

One of the best things about them is there's a lot of variation within their songs, not in the way that you hate one song but love another, but in the way that compliments the other songs. Lyrically they're pretty depressing, failed love tends to be predominant but it's not put across in the typical predictable way - "I have weird memories of you, parking your car, you said, I'm overwhelmed."

Hardest thing about getting people into The National is finding one song that sums them up, nothing really can. I just tried to make a list of suggestions for National-virgins, it was around 15 songs long. If you head over to www.americanmary.com/music (official website) there are some songs available to download, Wasp's Nest and Cold Girl Fever probably sum them up best. For conveinience I've linked to them beneath. Some of my favourites by them are Lucky You, The Thrilling of Claire, American Mary and The Geese of Beverly Road.

So in essence, buy their stuff, any of it and you'll be glad you did.

Wasp Nest
Cold Girl Fever
Daughters of the Soho Riots (Video)

The New Year

2006-01-01T18:20:00.000Z

So here we are on the first day of 2006, I'm feeling all philosophical so I'm going to make a boring post!

As always at the start of the year I look ahead to what's likely to happen, usually it's not much, I may have started college, sat my exams, passed my driving test or any multitude of slightly mundane things. In essence the last 17 years of my life have been pretty the same. But in 365 days time, all being well, things are going to be very different. This is one hell of a year.

I'll finish college and before going to university I'm taking a gap year - I have from July 06 right through to Sept 07 completely free. 14+ months, no commitments. The first month is going to be spent backpacking America with a friend so needless to say the first half of 2006 is going to spent running into that. I'm not planning on wasting my 14 months, I'm going to use it to travel, and travel extensively. Some people have said that's a waste.

I don't want to go to New Zealand or Australia or Thailand and spend my year getting drunk on the beach, that's not me at all. I want to break from the stereotypical backpacker routes and Africa, the Middle East and Russia. What's more is I don't want to keep hopping on a plane from city to city, life's about the journey not the destination. I want to go overland. There are quite a few gap year companies which offer trips in trucks with guides and a load of fellow-travelers so you can cross places where public transport is unsafe or non-existent...plus you've got people to keep you company.

Rather than just pass through loads of countries I'd like to get involved along the way by stopping off and completing an environmental/cultural project such as teaching in an African village or helping with research of African game. There's some amazing experiences available, but it all costs. Unfortunately my big trip is still a way off, I won't be leaving until the start of 2007 but it does mean by the end of this year everything has got to be sorted...and I've got to be able to pay for it all. I've done some calculating of costs...it's looking like this trip could cost me Â£8-9000. Ouch.

I'm working very hard in my part-time job at the moment and saving what I can, my new speakers were a big splash-out for me. When I'm back from America I'm going to try and get a full time job and try and hold down some shifts at the weekend - no rest for me.

So that pretty much wraps that up, all being well in just 364 sleeps time I'll be working full-time and on the verge of leaving for the trip of a life-time.

Scared doesn't even come close, nor does excited.

New Speakers!!!

2005-12-29T20:45:00.000Z

Hurrah - spent my Christmas money already on a pair of Mission M2S bookshelf speakers. £60 from Richer Sounds - and to make it even more Christmassy it was snowing as I walked back to the car!

A Brief History of my Audio Equipment:
Up untill about a year ago I used to think spending money on audio equipment was a complete waste of money, I would get pretty much the cheapest stuff I could get my hands on - "it can't affect the sound that much". Then I got an iPod which came with iPod headphones - not fantastic but a whole lot better than my £3 Argos headphones. I was pretty much floored by the difference in sound quality.

At that time I only had a Mini hi-fi system that I'd bought nearly 10 years previously from Argos, cost me £90 back than. I decided I wanted to put my iPod through my speakers, I looked around and decided to get a seperate amplifier, ditch my old mini system but keep the old speakers. Being tight-fisted I plumped for an "Acoustic Solutions" amp from the hub of audio entertainment....Argos.

So prior to today I had my music coming through cheap 10-year-old Alba speakers - now I don't! My new ones sound really good, the amp probably lets them down a bit and I could have spent a bit more on them but I don't think the difference would have been that noticable.

They're well small though - so much so they don't fit in my wall brackets. Grrrr.....

Christmas and Work

2005-12-27T20:06:00.000Z

Last week was my work's Christmas party - nothing special just everyone sitting around talking, doing karaoke and most of them getting drunk, some getting very drunk. I was driving so didn't drink at all. Everyone was having fun and it was great to see all my work friends out of work, it got to the end of the party and people were saying their goodbyes. I was sat in group of others when this guy, drunk, went round giving people (mainly girls) a friendly kiss on the cheek (ahhh!). He came to me, "where's my kiss?" I say in a joking way. Another guy comes out with the fantastic line "go for the lips"....he does....and I didn't get away fast enough.

Sooo embarrassed. Everybody's talking about it. The guy doesn't even remember, but I did get an apology from him when he was told the following day. Fortunately everybody's seen the funny side so it hasn't been too bad though - I guess I did bring it on myself.

On another note there was only one fight and one arrest after the party.

With a couple of weeks off college for Christmas I took on a few extra shifts to get some money and I ended up working Christmas Eve, Boxing Day, 27th and tomorrow the 28th too. It's all been quite fun to be honest, everybody was really happy on Christmas and I got to wear reindeer antlers all day long. That was good until one little girl laughed at me.

Oh and then there was the customer who brought back the Thermos flask to me because it's lid was missing. All very well except the opened the carrier bag to reveal the flask covered in bubbly washing up water - "ooo yeh sorry about the suds." I mean really, how do you get yourself in situation where you're halfway through washing something that you decide to stop and bring it back without even rinsing it! How?!

Christmas was pretty good fun, got together with family and stuff which was good. Ate too much, slept too little. The usual really.

Look at him now, disappearing the cow...

2005-12-22T23:43:00.000Z

I bought myself an early Christmas present - a book called Street Magic by Paul Zenon. You can probably guess but it's an introduction in how to do up-close magic tricks, being able to do street magic struck me as an insanely cool thing to learn. So this book arrived today and I've spent most of the time reading through different tricks and practicing a few things.

A lot of them seemed quite simple, self-working, card tricks. You simply learn what to say and your audience is astounded. So I ran through a couple and then tried them on my mum. I was well gutted when as soon as I'd finished she told me how I'd done it. Feeling pretty dejected as my visions of becoming Magical Mike vanished (ironically) before my eyes.

There's some more advanced tricks in the book that require some skill, maybe with practice, I'll be able to do them well enough and will have better luck fooling people. I was in Asda earlier and was casually turning a 10p into a 50p, my Mum saw the effect but not how it was done and seemed somewhat impressed. She asked me to do it again, I of course point-blankly refused...that was the first time it had worked all day.

Hopefully I'll stick at it, there's some good sleights and stuff to learn, but knowing me I'll look back on this in a few months and think what a stupid idea it was.

Kong!

2005-12-20T13:26:00.000Z

Went and saw the new King Kong film last night. I'd never seen any version of Kong before so had no idea what it was about - all I knew was he climbed the Empire State Building. It was pretty damn good throughout to be honest, Naomi Watts was looking mighty fine and the film kept me interested which is also damn impressive as I have the attention span of a orange-finned-water-dwelling creature.

One bit I found hilariously funny, but nobody else in the cinema appeared to, was not long after they'd headed off into the island. They get chased by a load of giant dinosaurs through a rocky gorge, nothing funny about that, except one of the dinosaurs falls over and the others all go rolling over the top of him and there's a big dinosaur pile-up! Well, it cracked me up.

Only criticism was in the middle when they were on the island the running-away-from-creatures bit went on too long - I took this opportunity to releive myself of the ridiculously expensive Diet Coke I'd drunk during the first half. That said, the special effects and stuff were done well - I wasn't scared, no, not at all.

The film naturally finishes with Kong climbing a certain tall building in New York, I spent the end contemplating the morality of Ape-Woman love and how the top of the Empire State building appeared to have been made with the re-entry module from Apollo 13.

Good film - go see.

The Origins of Xmas

2005-12-16T15:51:00.000Z

I was speaking to someone this week who said something I hadn't heard before - Xmas had no religious connotations. X being the mathematical symbol for an unknown, anything, anyone. Xmas can be anybodies holiday. Ye wha?

Personally I don't buy into this theory but it got me thinking about why we put a seemingly random X in place of Christ. That idea though seems to embody the fears of many Christians - the common usage of Xmas is removing Christ from Xmas!!! I'm not trying to remove Christ....I'm just too lazy to write it all out!

Ironically, using Xmas to stay within the 160 character limit phone companies insist on forcing upon us is remarkably close to why Xmas probably came about in the first place. X is the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word Christos - you get the idea. I read that Inge Milfull at the Oxford English Dictionaries has found references to XPmas in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle dated 1021. P, I presume, is the Greek letter Ro - the second letter of Christos?

Xmas probably came into common usage for the very same reasons we use it now, not to save space in text messages or shop signs, but to save parchment. If X was used a symbol for Christ you could save quite a bit of room on quite expensive parchment when you were writing your biblical papers etc. where you'd have written Christ quite often.

Well there you go, a very brief, very disjointed (and probably wrong) introduction to the origins of Xmas.

For some reason my proposal of calling it Giftmas didn't go down too well.

...more Coldplay

2005-12-15T22:01:00.000Z

Fresh back from the stunning evening that was Coldplay at Earl's Court. I could just about make out Chris Martin from my seat in the back corner but nonetheless it was fantastic. Not much can quite beat the sound of the entire audience singing, on their own, the chorus of The Scientist.

Thousands of fans, a great band, great songs and a load of giant yellow balloons - how can you go wrong?

Coldplay baby!

2005-12-13T22:09:00.000Z

Wooo - many months of waiting have come to an end. Tomorrow a friend and I are off to see Coldplay at Earl's Court in London, despite the fact we have seated, rear corner, restricted view tickets I'm really really excited!

Of Coins and Coke

2005-12-01T22:58:00.000Z

How many times have you gone up to a vending machine to buy a can of Coke only to have your coin fall straight through the machine? Needless to say, you retreive your perfectly legal coin and put it in again - only to be greeted by the sound of it landing back in the coin return, again and again and again.

Exasperated you do what you always have done in this situation, and by the marks on the machine many others have done before you. You rub the coin on the side of the machine for a few seconds, put it back in again and as if by magic it's accepted. Now being scientifically minded I'm not generally one to fall for stupid superstitions but today I began to think. I tried to insert this one coin 5 or 6 times before rubbing it, afterwards it was accepted first time. Seems a little too coincidental in my mind - maybe there's something in this trick...

So I began to look into how rubbing it on the side could have any effect. At first, the only thing I could think of was that the temperature of the coin rose ever so slightly, causing it to expand an even smaller amount and machine was happier to accept the slightly larger coin. But surely, just a couple of seconds couldn't heat up the coin enough to have any sort of effect. That idea went the same way as my now empty can...in the bin.

So I Googled it. Great help it was too. Next to nothing addressing this phenomenon except one tiny reference to static electricity. Could it be that a statically charged coin could cause the sensors to reject it? Sounds very plausible and rubbing the coin on the machine would act as a grounding thus removing the charge from the coin. Simple. But hold on, somethings not quite right. I'd already tried the coin in the machine, it had already rolled down metal chutes and into metal hatches multiple times. Surely that would have the same grounding affect as rubbing it on the side?

The mystery continues, I've searched the web to no avail, I've asked friends who now all think I'm mad. Where do I turn next?

Dirty Dancing

2005-12-01T20:05:00.000Z

I bought a bottle of Diet Coke (well Coca-Cola Light to be accurate) in Italy which had the follwing label stuck on it for the Turin 2006 Winter Olympics. Call me immature but Mr and Mrs Polar Bear appear to be having way too much fun.

Now Coca-Cola are one of the main sponsers on the Turin Olympics, quite ironically Turin's councillors recently voted in favour of banning Coke products from vending machines in city-owned buildings. Spearheaded by two members of the Communist Party they called for the boycott following allegations that Coke mistreated employees at their Colombian bottling factory. Just to note, the vote was non-binding so hasn't really had any practical effect. Reuters Source.

Then today I stumbled across another related story - students at the University of Sussex have voted to stop selling Coke at their union bars. Same reasons, same allegations. I may have to look into this more. BBC Source. I did note the bars and shops would probably replace it with Virgin Cola. Lucky students - I wonder how long it will be until they want Coke back?

Final bit of Coke related news - Vanilla Coke is going to be dropped in the UK!

My striking view of Rome...

2005-11-28T22:17:00.000Z

Friends have always said I'm a bit mad, but even I have to admit this was pretty random. It all started about a month or two ago - I was bored and found myself on the Ryanair website. Always a mistake. I found a flight for about £50 return London to Rome inc. all taxes and, as you do, I booked it.

So last week I flew off to Italy - completely alone. I was booked into a hostel and everything went surprisingly smoothly, went to the Colloseum, Roman Forum and ate copious amounts of pizza. I also found myself on a coach of old women on a tour to the catacombs in the south of Rome, they kept mentioning a Metro strike that was planned for the next day. Not too worried I decided to skip walking to the Vatican City as I was flying back that afternoon and to be honest 7AM was way too early to be getting up.

Sure enough on the Friday morning the Metro closed, I was happilly wondering around the streets of Rome and decided to go and see the fountains on Piazza Novona. There were lots of police around which seemed pretty normal, but I got the impression something was up when I started seeing Communist Party of Italy flags. Italy was only having a general strike!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4468732.stm

So Piazza Novona turned out to be the centre of the rally - not quite the idillic fountains I'd envisaged. So with time ticking on I started my walk back to the main Termini to get my coach to the airport (which was thankfully still running.) Lots of road closures, some blockades of police and up infront a helicopter hovering. Hmm, never a good sign. As I neared the Roman Forum I met the front of the parade, spearheaded by 20+ police vans and the systematic crack of what I presume was the police firing blanks as a deterrant. "I think I'll walk back a different route."

To be honest the whole situation didn't feel that threatening, there were a fair few other tourists simply walking by and all the protests seemed very peaceful. But still, an experience nonetheless.

(If anyone cares my flight was only delayed 1 hour)

The National...

2005-11-16T22:10:00.000Z

Last night I finally made it out to what was one of the best gigs ever known, little known group called The National who played at ULU in London. It's hard to describe what they play, every song is different (beleive it or not!) and there's not really one that sums them up - best bet is just to listen to a few of them, Lit Up, All The Wine and Lucky You are probably good starting points. Check them out on www.americanmary.com!