Cherry Hinton Blues

Occasionally Updated. Rarely Rated.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Gigfest!

Three gigs on consecutive weekdays - something of a record, methinks. Friday, and to the Cambridge Corn Exchange for a token dose of modern pop'n'roll, with The Zutons. Their selling point is more than just the originality of a female sax player at the forefront: they've cracked the formula of the singalong quite comfortably, although after two albums' worth, they may have to find a different approach to repeating the chorus several times with full backing, then stopping the music to chant the chorus (along with the audience) before crashing back in with the music again. Terrible sound (in a venue where I've heard good sound before) which meant that only the familiar songs were worth the admission fee. And yes, I did feel old.

Monday, and to the Albert Hall to catch one night of Eric Clapton's annual residency there. When you play like EC, and have the quality of material, you can't go wrong, although I felt eleven band members made it all just too complicated. But hey, I'm not complaining. How could you with a gig that finishes with Wonderful Tonight, Layla, Cocaine and Crossroads? Wow. Another "must-do" event ticked off life's list

And finally, to The Junction in Cambridge on Tuesday for another act which was at its peak when I was in short trousers: the Average White Band. There may only be two of the original members left, but these guys can still really cut it. Long before Level 42 made white boys playing jazz-funk mainstream, AWB - from Scotland - had proved it's all in the groove, not in your background. Rather neatly, they first came to prominence as support for Eric Clapton in his famous 1973 comeback gig. "Pick up the Pieces" sounds as if it could have been recorded yesterday, the sign of a true classic. »

Monday, May 22, 2006

Eurovision, so much to answer for

Just when you think the Eurovision Song Contest is past its sell-by date, like every year, it comes back and provides you with some unmissable entertainment once more. Now, the idea of getting the public to vote, which has been running these past few years, is obviously stupid; if there was a slight regional bias in the voting before, now it's set in stone. There's simply no chance of anyone outside Scandinavia or the Balkans winning now, thanks to all the "and the 12 points goes to our lovely neighbours" stuff. But - and here's a big but - the public are prepared to do something which the old "juries" never were: and that's to vote for the nonsensical entries. This comes a few years too late for Germany, which had made the tongue-in-cheek stuff an art form, but never mind: the two countries which put in very silly songs indeed were handsomely rewarded, much to the delight of everyone in countries like the UK which stand no chance of winning any more (because everyone hates us). Lithuania's song, which consisted of a bunch of blokes shouting "Vote for the winners, of Eurovision!" for three minutes, was nothing short of genius, and for a while looked like it might even get second place. But of course Finland's "death metal" act swept all before it. It was more a less funny Spinal Tap than Bolt Thrower, but we loved it. The British public voted Finland 1 and Lithuania 2, as did at least one other country with no particular affiliations to either state, and the big question is: just how silly can it all get next year? Now we'll find out which nationalities haven't got a sense of humour. Eurovision could be about to go mental. I can't wait.

Friday, May 12, 2006

Joe Royle leaves Ipswich.

I'm delighted that Royle has gone. I didn't want him in the first place, along with all those in the North Stand who were chanting "Royle out" before he'd even been appointed nearly four long seasons ago. In all that time, I think we'd agree he really didn't win over many of the sceptics either. A few, maybe, and I'll admit at times in the second and third seasons here, his gung-ho tactics were so entertaining that I wasn't complaining.
But Royle should not be blamed for being himself. He came along as Joe Royle, and he managed as Joe Royle. Good for him. The board got what they asked for.
And there's the problem, of course. It was the 2002/03 season board who appointed the wrong manager, and it's those people who we should be saying good riddance to now, much more than Royle, who simply did what he was paid to do. The board were so seduced by the pre-match canapes at Old Trafford and Highbury in 2000-2002 that an immediate return to the Premiership was simply the only thing they could contemplate. They needed a manager who could happily think short-term, one season at a time, with promotion the only objective. Royle was a decent choice. The fact that the supporters clearly would have preferred to see a new squad develop, even if it delayed promotion for a year or two, was just ignored. What do we know? Well, maybe not much. But what we want shouldn't be ignored, because in the Championship, we represent the club's main source of income. We knew what Royle was being brought in to do, and we didn't want that. We wanted another "five-year plan" (or maybe two or three, given that we'd done it once already). Instead, four years have been wasted.
Nowadays, of course, executive management which makes a mistake never falls on its sword, as Mr Blair exemplifies. They just say "this has been valuable experience" and that it "makes us even better qualified for the job" and anyway, "who is there who could do it better?"
I think we're about to see if this is true. Let's see if we get a promising manager appointed, with a couple of years to get results. It's a fantastic time for that, if we can keep the youngsters. The supporters have the patience. Can the board stop acting like junkies desperate for another fix of the high life, and join us? »

Friday, May 05, 2006

Restaurant 22, Cambridge has a website!

Last night we ate at Restaurant 22 at 22 Chesterton Lane, Cambridge. I wouldn't normally think this worthy of a blog entry, but there seemed to be no record of the restaurant having a website when I scoured the search engines the day before. However, when we got there, its website was mentioned on its cards and menus, and indeed it most certainly has one. So I thought a quick link might get the Googlebot visiting it ASAP! Otherwise, if this entry is still the top one on Google, here's the Restaurant 22 website.
(Oh yes, and the food is very good indeed, but I'm sure you know that. Bill for two with a pretty decent bottle of wine: £80). »

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

She will put us all to shame...

Mrs R is doing the Race For Life in June, committing herself to running 5km for charidee. Doesn't sound much, 5 kilometres, but then I think: "Hang on - I'm really proud of myself for being able to run for 20 minutes on the treadmill at 10km an hour". And by my calculations, that's only three and a bit kilometres. So big respect to Dawn, who's training steadily and seems very confident she'll have it all in hand by June. I'll report back on the big day, but in the meantime, if you know us and want to sponsor Dawn, please do so. It all goes to Cancer Research UK, and you'll make Dawn very proud. »

Friday, March 24, 2006

Cambridge Folk Festival 2006 lineup announced

They've announced the lineup for this year's Folk Festival which takes place in my back garden (-ish) and it's an intriguing one. Nice to see they've continued the trend of the last few years by avoiding the pop acts (it hasn't hurt the ticket sales, so why not?)
Headlining is "a rare and exclusive UK festival appearance from the legendary Emmylou Harris" which should be interesting, and there'll be plenty of people wanting to see the first appearance here in over 20 years of The Chieftains. I'll be fascinated to hear if Cerys Matthews has gone folk, and artists returning who I've enjoyed in the past include Eddi Reader, Cara Dillon, Seth Lakeman and local faves Ezio.
Also, when was the last time the Folk Festival had the previous Christmas' chart topping act performing? I suspect Nizlopi will surprise a few people who think they're a one-song outfit. »

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Real-life Simpsons intro

Just how long did this take to do? Utterly fantastic. »

Saturday, March 04, 2006

More British than a British thing

There's a half-decent, half-British, half-American Half Man Half Biscuit interview on Popmatters today. It says: "A big part of America's problem, of course, is that Half Man Half Biscuit (HMHB to their friends) are so very British that, to a lazy listener, they must sound positively alien." Count the missus in on that one, and she's an Essex gel. »

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Sky+ ...too noisy for the bedroom?

Well, we thought so. Full marks to Sky for agreeing to exchange our new Sky+ unit for a coventional Digibox, but really, they should warn you about this in the first place. For a start, the more recent Sky+ 40Mb boxes, made by Thomson, are really noisy compared to the old ones, both in terms of their fans and a real problem with loudly accessing the hard drive almost continually (this latter "feature" is supposedly being cured by a software upgrade soon). That would be bad enough in a living room, but it's impossible to live with in a bedroom, where you have to sleep a few feet from the box. Why not put the thing into "standby" every bedtime? We tried that. It goes quiet after a few minutes. Bliss. Then in the middle of the night, the thing suddenly comes alive (I reckon it's phoning home to see if there are any software updates, but that's just a guess). You want to throw your teddy at the thing for waking you up before the birds are singing, really you do. (And I did.) The conventional Digibox, now safely installed in place of the Sky+, is silent. I don't half miss Live Pause though. »

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Cambridge Folk Festival on Google Earth!

Wow! Two great discoveries today. Not only is Google Earth available for the Mac now, but the aerial shots of Cambridge were taken while the last Cambridge Folk Festival was on. Look! That's me and me mates on that rug, no really! Type in something like "walpole road cb1 uk" to get close. Yes - the Folk Festival and My House ...together at last!. And another shot at a nice angle captured for posterity. »

Monday, January 09, 2006

Baby Tips are back!

Big thanks to Jon Severn, who'd squirrelled away a copy of our Tips for Prospective New Parents which we'd written soon after Alex was born. It's just a braindump of all the advice we wanted to give other new parents following our own experiences - stuff which you just knew you'd forget forever if you didn't commit it to print. We sent it to a few other people, but lost it. However, one of those people (Jon) thought it was so useful, they'd kept a copy. And now I've done what I should have done way back then, and posted it here on the website. »

Saturday, January 07, 2006

Best Educational Items for Toddlers ...Ever!

Alex (aged 4 and three-quarters) got given a game for Christmas from his Godfather Paul which becomes an immediate new entry in my list of "Best Educational Items for Toddlers ...Ever!" It's called Rush Hour and it's a logic puzzle which is apparently for eight-year-olds and upwards (certainly all grownups love it), but it hasn't so far proved insurmountable for a four-year-old, and I'd thoroughly recommend it. In fact, you can "try before you buy" because there are online (Flash) versions such as this one: Online Version of Rush Hour

So here is my current list of "Best Educational Items for Toddlers ...Ever!":

1. Google Earth - should be compulsory in reception years in schools. Watch in amazement as it suddenly all falls into place inside their minds: "So that's my house, and zoom out, and that's my town ...wow! My house is in my town! And zoom out, and that's my country ...wow! My town is in my country! And zoom out, and that's the Earth ...wow! My country is on the Earth! So wait a bit... zoom back in... my house is on the Earth! In space!"

2. Print out a calendar as a linear strip of 365 days, on 12 sheets of A4, and stick it on their bedroom wall. Mark on birthdays, Christmas etc with pictures. And make a little Blu-Tack pointer they can move along each day. Then marvel as they realise how time goes along in a straight line, how one event comes before another, and the speed at which it all operates. Fantastic.

3. Rush Hour. "Dad, I'm stuck on this one, can you help?" Hmm, the lesson to be learned here may well be that Dads aren't perfect and can't do everything. Oh dear... »

Sunday, November 27, 2005

In-car iPod - let's do one properly!

Why is it everyone seems to think that to play our iPods in the car we want some stupid bit of plastic on a stalk, with wires going in to the back of the existing hi-fi, all at great installation expense? What we want is an in-car hi-fi which you can slam the iPod into, just like a cassette (or an oldschooltastic 8-track). Why does nobody make one? Yes, something like this:

in-car-iPod-8-track-cassette-style

Or perhaps someone does make one. If so, let me know! »

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

It started off as a match report...

...but ended up as a rant. Sorry Joe, but it was one of those teamsheets which would have caused 20,000 people to have been gleefully emptying their wallets if Ladbrokes had been offering odds on "this is going to be a disaster". »

Monday, November 21, 2005

Best CDs of 2005 - a definitive list

Yeah, OK, maybe not that definitive, I reserve the right to amend this when people remind me of something obvious which I've forgotten. But at the moment it's definitely, definitely this:

1. Achtung Bono by Half Man Half Biscuit

2. Takk by Sigur Ros

3. Aerial by Kate Bush

4. The Girl Who Couldn't Fly by Kate Rusby

5. Tales from Turnpike House by St.Etienne

6. You Could Have It So Much Better by Franz Ferdinand

7. Confessions On A Dance Floor by Madonna

8. Eye to the Telescope by KT Tunstall

9. Warnings/Promises by Idlewild

10. Light and Shade by Mike Oldfield

Honourable mention, although it's just a bit too silly for inclusion, to Rock Swings by Paul Anka.

And I don't include compilations or live albums, but in the latter category, best efforts by far were Live at Earls Court by Morrissey and Minimum-Maximum by Kraftwerk.

So there. »

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Onsite Advertiser Sign-up: P45s for the Ad Sales team?

I've read loads of reports about the new Google Onsite Advertiser Sign-up facility and seen one semi-decent discussion of it, but nobody quite seems to have got it yet. Advertisers can now choose a site and say to Google: "manage my ads on this site please - I'm not going to book direct any longer."

For the past couple of years, I've been saying that whilst AdWords has made Google one of the largest advertising mediums in the world, the most significant thing about AdSense is that it's making Google the largest media buyer in the world. Several more pieces are needed along the way for this to fully happen, but with the introduction of image ads (giving the advertiser more choice) and now Onsite Advertiser Sign-up, we're getting there. Think about it: you can now put the ad you design on the site you want it to be on, via Google. Job done. Google takes a commission (from the publisher, just like with conventional media buying), and Google provides all the feedback and stats (just like a conventional media buyer would if they were any good).

But how will this affect publishers? Let's look at it from the advertiser's point of view. Supposing you've traditionally booked your ads direct on your chosen site with that site's local ad sales rep. Chances are, the site won't be offering nearly as sophisticated a reporting service as Google, never mind a trustworthy pay-per-click service (if that's what you want, and I suspect most B2B advertisers do). So quite frankly, why not book with Google now, rather than the site's local ad rep? If this starts to happen in a major way, it can only erode further the cost-effectiveness of having ad sales people out in the wild.

Sure, publishers don't have to allow "Onsite Advertiser Sign-up", i.e the facility for advertisers to book through Google instead of directly. But they may have to if the advertisers demand it. »

Monday, November 14, 2005

George Bush Speech cut up

I was talking to someone the other day about the famous "Bushwacked" cut up George Bush speeches, and they asked for a link, so as a public service, here it is. I think they were produced by Chris Morris. »

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Explorer Destroyer - Switch to Firefox, Make money from Adsense

You already want people to switch to Firefox. Now's the time to get serious about it. Google is paying $1 for each new Firefox user you refer.

This is pretty amazing. Now you can advance your ideals, save people from popups and spyware hell, and make some serious money. Millions of people have heard about Firefox and are ready to switch - all they need is a friendly push. »

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Oneforall remote control and Sky+

This is more of a public service announcement than anything of wider interest! But sometimes when you solve a problem, you want to put the answer on the web so others in the same situation can benefit. So, if you've got a Oneforall (One For All) remote control, like I just bought, and you want it to work with a Sky+ (Sky Plus) box (the original 40Gb one, anyway), the code is 1175. I repeat (for the benefit of a good Google search result): oneforall sky+ box code = 1175. We'll be right back after the break. »

Friday, September 16, 2005

A night of shining torches

"The Storr: Unfolding Landscape" was a remarkable 'environmental animation' created this summer on the Isle of Skye, which four of us in the Pro-Talk team (Jackie, Laura, Tony and I) were able to take part in. Participants - there were up to 200 each night for seven weeks - trekked 1500 feet up a rocky hillside, in the darkness at midnight, to a Skye natural landmark, The Old Man of Storr. On the way, the walkers experienced a number of sound and light installations designed to add atmosphere to this unusual opportunity.
Of course, at night there's no sense of scale, and very little sense of distance. But you can probably get an idea of what it's like from this daylight view of the Old Man, which is the seemingly precariously-balanced, 40m tall pointed rock:

The event was a true one-off. None of us had ever done anything like this before, and I doubt we'll ever get the opportunity again.
As darkness descended, the walkers gathered and were issued with "head torches", one of a number of initiatives contributing to the project's aim of creating an environmental event with the minimum impact on the area. Incredibly, the whole installation, with its sound systems and lighting for the whole hillside, ran off "the equivalent of four 13A power supplies".
The path to the top varied from about 2m wide to less than a metre, so it was single-file for most of the way, and that led to one of the most impressive sights, the trail of lights weaving their way up the hillside. The Pro-Talk team were lucky enough to be right at the back (although that meant the front coming down!) and got a great view of the procession.
The ascent, we were told, would be leisurely, but would take about an hour, which made it about the equivalent of walking up a shallow flight of stairs for that whole time. It was not, therefore, for the faint-hearted! The first half wound its way through fairly dense trees, and in these, the artists/designers had installed subtle lighting and eerie sound-effects. Occasionally you'd hear the words of Skye poet Sorley MacLean being read from an indeterminate distance, and you could glimpse shadows of indeterminate creatures in the trees. Fascinating, but you wouldn't have wanted to have been there on your own!
Halfway up, the path went on to open, exposed hillside, and it was a little further on that the organisers offered a get-out option to those who really didn't think they could make it up the final part of the ascent. Jackie and Laura took this opportunity!
Tony and I, however, struggled to the top (well, it wouldn't have done for the boys to have lost face, would it?) and there, at the base of the Old Man itself, there was an ethereal lightshow, accompanied by a strange recitation - in German - through a hidden but substantial sound system. In the distance, there seemed to be a dancer, or was it a mime? Difficult to tell, but that was the whole point. Pretentious? Probably. Memorable? Certainly.
After ten minutes (or was it forty? Hard to tell) the guides led the participants back down the hillside. Anyone who's ever walked in mountains knows it's harder coming down, but the path down was also a lot steeper (and slipperier!) than the one up. At one point the guide said: "Don't worry, this is the steepest part here", to which Tony said: "Oh good, I thought for a moment it was going to be the fourth steepest!" In places the path was quite narrow, and there was a fair drop to one side, so it was probably lucky that we could see only as far as the head torches would allow, and not how far down the drop was.
Then we stopped on a small natural platform, and in the distance, spookily lit from behind, was an unaccompanied singer performing Gaelic folk songs. On a silent night, with just the breeze, it was enchanting.
By the time we all reassembled in the car park, it was heading towards 3am, and Jackie had the unenviable task of driving us all home for two hours on winding highland roads. That she stayed awake and drove so safely was probably the most amazing feat of the evening, we all agreed when we met up the next day. Much later the next day, that is. »