Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Compilation

I've just published my first iMix to the iTunes Music Store. For £8.69, you can now buy 11 songs by some of my favourite bands ever, or just listen to the 30 second previews.

In the Collective Zine review of the first Action and Action EP, we were compared to a much-vaunted British band from a few years back called Spy Versus Spy. I can't tell you how difficult it is to track down material by them - I can't find anywhere online where you can buy their CDs - but I have finally located one track of theirs, again on iTunes. Alan, if you're reading this, it's here

Now, off to Cardiff city centre for the inevitable "sales".

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Comfort Food

I have had a huge amount to do over the past couple of days, and, as ever, I haven't quite managed to do all of it.

I journeyed to Oxford this Tuesday, to hand in an application form for a job at the University, and also to sign up with an agency. The agency didn't fill me with a whole look of confidence, given that they seem to deal exclusively with the badly-paid sectors of the employment market, but we'll see if anything comes of it. In terms of Winchester, there doesn't appear to be loads of work there either, but I'll keep checking Guardian Jobs and so on.

Then, this evening, just when I was all ready to make the tube journey to Paddington, it occurred to me that I'd better check the location of my passport. I opened the top left draw of my dresser, where I was fairly certain it would be, and fished around a bit. I generally keep my passport and cheque book (i.e. the important official things) in this draw. My old passport, with the corner cut off, is there. My new one is not. Now, the last time I used it was to go to Rome, so it can't be all that far away, but after consulting my folks, they think I should find it before I come home to Cardiff. Arse.

Oh well, at least it means I can get my washing done in good time of leaving for Florida. And I might even get time to tidy my room a bit!

Right, one final things before I end this post. The first is to alert people to the truly wonderful www.uknova.com. This website lists 'torrent' files (a torrent file is a tiny file you download, then open to download parts the file from many different locations at once, thus spreading the bandwidth load) for UK television. Put simply, you find the tv show you want, then download the torrent file for it. Set the torrent file running (usually overnight, because the files tend to be quite big) and then you eventually get various British TV shows you can watch at your leisure. Apart from people uploading things like yesterday's Eastenders, there are all sorts of great shows available that people have recorded on VHS years ago, and now transferred to a computer file format (usually divx).

This might seem like a lot of trouble for anyone who's used to Sky+ and similar services. Well, it ain't for me. The primary reason why I don't just switch on the box and watch TV in a conventional sense is that the roof aerial of our house is pointing straight at the TV mast of Alexandra Palace, which has apparently been switched off for some years now. I can't really afford to pay someone to get up on the roof and reorient it so we can watch TV, and I'm sure as hell not going to do a Rod Hull myself. As a result, I'm not paying for a TV license, as I don't receive TV broadcasts into my TV (used exclusively for the Gamecube), but it doesn't stop the TV licensing people from sending me numerous, increasingly threatening letters. I'd be really interested to know the legal situation ias regards buying equipment that includes a TV tuner if you have no intention of watching TV with it.

[edit] I found my passport in the end, in the jacket pocket of my suit. Thank goodness.

Merry Christmas to one and all. Expect frequent blog service to resume in Florida, in a few days' time.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

The beginning of the end

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Not only have things been pretty crazy in terms of my workload (remind me never to work for a week and a half with only 4hrs sleep per night), but this morning I gave in my resignation at work. I'm intending to move to Oxford or Winchester; who knows what the future will hold?

Don't touch that dial....

Saturday, November 19, 2005

Famous for 15 megapixels

I'd like to alert readers of my blog to this considerably better blog about life in London and that sort of thing. He seems to make a good go of articulating his observations about London life, drawing different things together, and he's a decent photographer to-boot.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Reviews

I am overjoyed by the fact that the first review of my band's new CD (at Collective Zine) is a good one, by a source that I trust.

This has really made my day

Monday, November 14, 2005

I love my band!


303721342_l.jpg
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.
Continuing the theme of posting last week's events, I thought I'd tell you about one of my highlights which was playing at a mental health arts event for Mad for Arts. We were on a bill of predominantly jazz-related music and spoken-word recitations; I knew before we did it that we'd be the only rock band, and yet again we'd be on a line-up that wouldn't be of bands with a natural fit with the music we play, but it almost felt as if the more mis-fit, the better.

There was a very cool sampling duo with broadly jazz instrumentation called 'Rabbit' who were mesmerising to watch and listen to, particularly in combination with their freaky projected visuals. Delay pedals combined with saxophone occurred in one of the other bands as well, which I enjoyed listening to, in the same way that I'd enjoy listening to the wierder sections of The Mars Volta.

What really made the night for me (apart from the newky brown ale, obviously) was that when we went on-stage, it felt like we were hungry again, with the kind of aggression that we'd had when were a brand new band, only with much much better songs to back it up. Guitars were thrashing about, I was narrowly avoiding smacking my face into various solid objects, and there was a sense of barely-orchestrated yet fun chaos about the room, from my point of view. People were either retreating into the recesses of the crypt to get away from the completely un-jazz noise we were banging out (did I mention, it was a gig in a crypt!), or otherwise coming forward with renewed enthusiasm (we're definitely a Marmite band). This is why I'm in a band. I want to let loose, and getting some sort of reaction from the onlookers is a significant bonus. We're playing in Oxford this week, with my Uni mate (and ex-band-mate) Jake's band. I'm really looking forward to it, and I just hope we play as well as we did last week!


Monday, November 07, 2005

My view of the world


Wonderwoman at my desk
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.
Today, this was literally my view of the world. The wonderwoman mug I was given for my birthday by my colleagues, a huge pile of red plastic folders of work to go through. Aaaargh.

Keen observers will notice I have the This Ain't Vegas website loaded on the computer screen.

Okay, so what have I been up to recently? Well, tonight I went to see a rather excellent film called 'Totally Personal', by Nedzad Begovic, a Bosnian director, at the Blue Elephant Theatre. It was very touching and genuinely portrayed family life without being corny, and alluded to the conflicts of the balkans only very gently. This past weekend I went to visit Naomi in Hampshire, to recover a bit from the wierd stomach problems I've been having recently, and to catch up on some 'personal admin' as my wish-they-weren't-City lawyer friends would call it. I think I'm going to keep dealing with things in reverse order. Well, we went to see the new Wallace and Gromit film last night, which was very very funny, and had me laughing out loud many times (to Naomi's slight embarassment). I'd highly recommend it. During the daytimes, Naomi had law college classes to attend, so I sat in their computer room to get on with various things, like trying to find good value flights to Florida around the New Year for Andrew's wedding. Back on Saturday night, we went to the Alresford town fireworks display, which was actually really good. And on Friday evening we just watched some TV and generally rested.

During last week I discovered the most wonderful band, at a gig at the Betsey Trotwood. Called Itch, they were a Leeds-based bunch who reminded me of Braid, Mineral, Youthmovie Soundtrack Strategies and Owls, i.e. a collection of superb influences. Please give them a listen.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

So much control

These days I quite often find myself reading things that seem quite absurd, but are occupying our politicians to determine what's best for this country. Several topics spring to mind.

Yesterday, for instance, I was reading about the plans for a partial smoking ban in the UK.

What's now being proposed is that there will be separate smokers' rooms in pubs, so that pub staff won't have to inhale smoke from their smoker patrons. So, I'm visualising lots of pubs having to put in partition walls and have heavy fire doors so that the rest of the pub's customers won't be put at risk from smoke leaking out of the room. Apart from changing the way a lot of historic pubs actually look, this would be quite an expensive process, and would no doubt lead to a further increase in the cost of drinking for the end consumer. In my mind's eye, you'll also have drinkers who are now no longer entitled to have their empty glasses collected for them, lest the staff of the pub inhale their smoke. Or, maybe pubs will start to specifically recruit staff who are smokers themselves and don't mind customers' smoke, in order to service these new specialist smokers' enclaves. Yes, I'm being a little facetious, but this is the way things are going. Why does this government need to legislate over everything?

My friend Giles once pointed out that although there's a high cost of treating smokers through the NHS, maybe the NHS wouldn't be able to keep going if Mr Brown wasn't taxing smokers so heavily. I don't know whether it's true, but it'd be an interesting idea to test.

I don't smoke but I'm also not some kind of anti-smoking Nazi. If people want to go to the pub, they have to accept that there may be smoking going on, just as there may be smoking on the street. The next thing will be to confine smoking to the home. If there really is such concern over passive smoking, wouldn't it be a good idea to offer licensees some kind of tax break for installing powerful extraction systems? That way everyone'd be happy. The government keeps taking its tax on cigarette sales, smokers aren't sent into a special room, non-smokers aren't bothered by the passive smoking. But actually all of this misses the point. It's the meddling mentality that bothers me most - I think people are quite capable of looking after themselves with regard to smoking, and the government shouldn't get involved. I feel the same way about fox hunting, another matter that I have no vested interest in.

If the powers that be are looking for something to spend their time on, why not sort out public toilets? There aren't enough of them, many are no-go areas for those of us who don't go cottaging, and most are in a horrifying state of piss-riddled disrepair. I'd also be very interested for something to be done about coffee shops where they don't offer toilet facilities. You can walk down Picadilly in London and go into shop after shop that's selling food and hot drinks, where you can eat in, and drink in (at great cost) and they somehow seem to avoid responsibility for providing toilet facilities. If anyone can explain the rules and regulations in this area, please add a comment to this post, because I'm really interested.

Cardiac


Cardiac
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.
Owing to there being no buses this morning, I had to run to Alexandra Palace train station, which is about a mile away from where I live. My heart has been bloody hurting me all day. I hope it stops.

I mean, I hope it stops hurting me. I hope it doesn't stop.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Evening Standard Headlines

Today, I found out that somebody has started collecting Evening Standard billboard photos chronicling their daily orgy of metropolitan doom and gloom. I quite enjoyed it.

The day before yesterday, their front page bore the headline 'David Davis on Middle Class Drugs'. It looked to my eye as though Chris Morris had infiltrated their press room!

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Transport

Well, it was certainly interesting getting to work today, with there being no Northern Line. Took me nearly 2 hours to get to work, using a crafty combination of sitting on gridlocked buses and running down streets in the pouring rain, and I didn't arrive until 10:45 (gulp!). What puzzles me is that they must have known this was coming. I mean, the service has been pretty crap for the last week or so, and I can't help but wonder whether the removal of all services on the line has something to do with the major works that were in the press a while ago about having to shut the City branch for a couple of months because the track was in such a dire state.

I guess it's going to be interesting getting home tonight as well, *sigh*.

In other news, I'm reliably informed that Douglas Murray who was at Magdalen at the same time as me, and who sings at St Michael's with me on Sunday mornings, was on Newsnight last night, talking about Iraq. I wish I'd seen it. The internet doesn't seem to have any information on it, which is a shame.

And then there's the new video iPod released yesterday. I have to say that the idea of paid downloads of TV programmes actually does quite appeal to me. Yet another way to while away the lengthy commute!

Oh, and one final element to this disjointed blog post - for some reason there's a mysterious charge of $18.50 that was debited from my credit card on 16th August by "IT SOLUTIONS GROUP INC. 954-472-1656 FL", whoever they are. I informed my credit card company that it looks fishy, and they've suggested I contact the easily-identified (?!) IT Solutions Group about it. That'll be easy...

--edit-- Silly me! As Jack points out in the comments, it was the bill for a URL I'd purchased. Now my mind's at rest.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Roma (part II)

The second day, we got lost in the morning and spent an hour or so wandering around a fairly ropey area near the train station. It became apparent to me that Italian men really have no idea of what is decent conduct around women, particularly those in couples. There was one point where Naomi strayed perhaps five feet from me, and two or three men in their twenties immediately started whistling and making what I assume to be sleazy remarks. Plus there is no holding them back when it comes to staring at a woman's breasts. They don't even seem to be aware that perhaps that isn't appropriate where a woman quite clearly isn't single. I'm a pretty protective, so all of this annoyed me a fair bit.

Once we got back on track and out of the crap area of Rome, we started to make our way across the city to take in some of its wonderful sights/sites. Naomi's Lonely Planet book had a suggested route that allowed us to take in many of the most notable attractions in one journey. As we walked down a little winding alleyway, we emerged into the square that held the Treviso Fountain. The sunny weather combined with the whiteness of the statues and the clarity of the water gave the whole scene an amazing silvery appearance. There were crowds and crowds of people there to enjoy the vast fountain, and some people asked us to take photos of them and reciprocated with our cameras. There was also an oriental couple having wedding photos in front of the fountain. After a few minutes we went on to the Pantheon. It's not often you see a circular church (in this case not entirely by design, as the building had undergone a pagan->Christian overhaul at some point). Again, it was a big draw for tourists. We stopped for lunch (more excellent pizza) at a restaurant on the square next to the Pantheon, directly next to a well-disguised McDonald's with pretty outdoor parasols and seating. They weren't quite so successful in disguising the smell of McDonald's food.

After lunch we went on to see more of central Rome, enjoying ice cream and coffee along the way. Later in the afternoon we went to the Spanish Steps (that's where the photo of Naomi on the previous post was taken), popping into a wonderful little specialist glove shop on the way. We went into the church at the top of the Steps to see the Caravaggio paintings inside, then emerged out into the balmy dusk air, to sit and enjoy the encroaching evening. Sellers of plastic roses flocked to try and persuade lovers to part with their money, below.

That evening we returned to the restaurant of the previous evening, Ristorante Unicum. It doesn't appear on the internet at all, I've discovered, but if anyone's interested, it's between Via Cavour and Via Liberiana, on what I think must be Via di Santa Maria Maggiore. This time we arrived before the pianist started (which was again fun), and we ordered starters followed by a huge fish (I can't remember the name of it for the life of me!) with spicy tomato and mussels. We were given several flaming Sambuccas at the end of the meal, which rounded off a really great holiday nicely, and guaranteed the waiter a good tip! I think we'll be back there again, one day.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Roma (pt 1)


naomi in rome
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.
Well, today is my birthday (I think it's the first ever blog I've written on a birthday), and I thought I'd write about what I've done over the last week or so.

Last Thursday I woke up unusually early to get my things together and make my way to Liverpool Street to then take the Stanstead Express to the airport. Naomi was coming back via Rome (where Schola Cantorum had been asked to sing for the President of Italy), and we'd arranged that I'd meet her for a pre-birthday weekend in Rome, where neither of us had ever been before.

I arrived in the early evening, and owing to the security arrangements surrounding the presidential concert, I wasn't allowed to attend. Instead, I waited for Naomi until she'd finished the concert at a little fountain in the square next to the convent where the choir had been staying. I was engrossed in the Lonely Planet guide to Rome, when I heard an excited pitter-patter of feet across the stones of the square. I'll never forget the grin on her face as we hugged and kissed. Three weeks is a long time apart.

That evening, the choir had been invited to a rather swish dinner (cocktail dressed et al) and scruffy here wasn't allowed to go to that either, so I faced the prospect of eating dinner at a restaurant alone, something that has filled me with dread for as long as I can remember. By way of context, I've often looked at businessmen or women when I've been at restaurants with friends or family and thought that that situation of solitude is an unnecessarily miserable one, and have frequently found myself quite close to inviting lone strangers to join with us to eat together. So, gathering my courage, I went off to find a restaurant.

I found that old trick of eating a lot of food and drinking a 1 litre glass of beer to help me while away the time (you know what I'm talking about - eating and drinking at an accellerated pace when you're in a place where you don't know anyone, because you don't know anyone. It's the non-smoker's approach to trying not to look awkward by means of keeping your hands busy. Generally I'm not very successful here). I also continued to read the guide book. I was in an outdoor veranda area, and the weather changed from being balmy late-summer to rainy autumn in a matter of seconds. As the rain bucketed down, it transpired that there was a leak in the roof near me, causing rain to cascade down onto the seat on the other side of my table for 2. I felt like I'd stepped into Woody Allen's world. The next thing to make me chuckle was the appearance of no fewer than 4 umbrella salesman within minutes of the start of the rain.

Shortly afterwards, I met up with Naomi and the rest of the choir for their end-of-tour awards ceremony. This was held at the impressive flat of a local guy, not far from where we were staying. Naomi was one of two people presenting the awards, and the whole thing was as funny as it could be for someone who wasn't aware of the inevitable tour in-jokes.

The next day we left mid-morning and made our way on the Roman Metro to the Vatican, where we bumped into another couple from the choir (Paul and Helen) at lunchtime. We spent quite a lot of time going through the Vatican Museums, which contained some amazing Early Modern maps of Italy, dating back to when Italy was just a 'geographical expression', as well as all sorts of wonderful sculptures and lots of trompe l'oiel frescoes. The crowds in the Sistine Chapel were enormous, and despite signs demanding silence and no flash photography, the Vatican Police had their work cut out to keep order.

We had some lunch at a little touristy restaurant(served by a brusque waiter) and then the four of us climbed the dome of St Peter's (and Naomi managed it despite her fear of heights). I counted each step as we ascended, and by my reckoning it was around 535 steps up to the top, but well worth it for the amazing views available over Rome, and into the basilica itself. Paul had a really good digital camera and took lots of great photos of the basilica, using specialist lenses to capture the way the afternoon sunlight flooded into the white and gold of the building. As the afternoon drew to a close, we went to a good - if over-priced - cafe for some ice cream.

That evening we found a great little restaurant where I had veal and Naomi had steak, after really good pasta and risotto starters. There was also an hilarious guy banging away at the piano, doing all sorts of pastiches and generally providing great entertainment. The waiters were brilliant, and at the end of the meal we were given shots of complimentary grappa. The boss of the restaurant, who seemed to run quite a tight ship, had also made various wax work busts that adorned the walls, including one of Pope John Paul II and one of a deceased head waiter from the restaurant. There was also a rather large elk head behind our table. None of these things seemed tacky. It was a really great restaurant. So great, in fact, that we would return the following night for more of the same.

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Candle burning at both ends

Sorry for neglecting the blog a bit over the last couple of weeks. I've been really very busy, but have been having a really great time. The week that I last wrote saw two Action and Action gigs - the first with a number of bands (the best of which was The Olympus Mons, who were like a 3-piece Bloc Party. Actually I've just found that they wrote something nice about us here!) - the second with the truly exceptional Meet Me in St Louis in Kingston. MMISL were easily in the top 5 bands we've ever played with and I have to say I'm really looking forward to playing more gigs with them. They were tremendous guys, quite apart from being a spectacular (and incredibly intelligent) band.

In between those two gigs, I went to see Jake's current band, Popular Workshop, on the Wednesday. Those guys have only been together for a short while, but they're getting better every time I see them, sounding more and more like an eccentric take on Shellac and McLusky. Really good stuff. Then, on the Friday, I went to High Wycombe for one of Eddie's gigs, which was an amazing night, as ever. I got to see and hear a variety of wonderful punk rock, including Circus Act who I've been wanting to see for ages. I had rather a lot to drink, then passed out on Eddie's couch, while people carried out with discussions into the night in the same room, English and American accents invading my dream state.

(have I included enough musical links to show you what I'm enjoying at the mo?)

The next morning, Naomi called me at about 8 O'Clock. It was 4 O'Clock in the morning for her, in Argentina, and she'd completely forgotten that it was Saturday morning for me - so I wouldn't necessarily be up - but it was lovely to speak to her all the same. God knows what that phone bill will amount to!

After that, I left Eddie's and made my way back to London. I then proceeded to spend the rest of the day tearing apart my room in order to locate the wedding invitation that Richard and Philippa had originally sent to Naomi, who had then put it in my bag. I'm not good with paper work, you see. I managed to find it half way through the afternoon, just in time to put on a suit, tube down to Liverpool St, then take the train out to Colchester for the 5pm wedding reception. True to form, I arrived at 6. Dinner was good, and it was a fun evening all round, plus it was great to see Richard and Philippa so happy, and all of their extended families enjoying the occasion. They had a huge marquee in the extensive gardens of Richard's parents' house, and to cope with the numbers of people they had hired fairly large portaloos (which played back amusing panpipe versions of Queen songs - I discovered this on my accidental visit to what turned out to be the ladies' toilet). Doug and Chris (Richard's brothers) did an amazing iMovie montage of Richard misbehaving drunkenly from childhood onwards, culminating in an inebriated video apology to whoever his future parents-in-law would be). It was very very funny, as was James Bendell's speech, which included some immortal lines at Richard's expense. Richard's own speech was also funny, mainly because he kept losing his place, and was understandably nervous.

Of course, my highlight of the evening came when the disco started, because everyone knows how much I look forward to dancing... Richard and Philippa got into their taxi at the end of the night to get to their hotel before flying to the US for their honeymoon. I crashed in the hotel room of one of Richard's mates, and woke up to then get the train to St Michael's on Sunday morning. A very hectic week, but a great one.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Weekend in the Wirral

Last weekend involved a trip to the North-West of our fine isle for the stag weekend of a mate of mine, Richard, who is marrying Philippa this coming weekend. Philippa and I were friends at school and she and Naomi are good friends from Oxford, and Naomi and Richard had been friends for a year before either me or Philippa had come up to Oxford, so I've always appreciated how well we get on as a group. Anyway, that's the preamble of how I know the bride and groom-to-be.

I arrived quite late on the Friday evening. I was supposed to be working a half-day at work, but a computer problem kept me there for a few hours extra while I sorted things out. Then I came home to pack some clothes from the weekend, and David was in the house, so I stopped and had a cup of tea with him. I eventually made it down to Euston some time shortly after 7 o'clock and irritatingly had to wait for an hour or so because I'd missed the train I'd been hoping to catch (I can't count how often I've done this!). Once on the train, staffed by authentic scousers - you have to love that attention to detail on Virgin trains - I tried to while away my time on a selection of games on my Gameboy Advance, listening to some Bloc Party on the trusty iPod. All was not serene, however. A couple sitting on the opposite side of the carriage were having a barely-contained argument, with the scouse woman being unbelievably venemous in her treatment of her Irish boyfriend. I don't know what he'd done to deserve it, but she was really dishing it out, in that threatening whisper that some people seem to do so well. Meanwhile, a pair of teenage girls sitting behind them chatted and laughed loudly, oblivious to the rancour ahead of them.

Another couple sitting ahead of me also broke into an argument shortly before we reached Crewe. From what I could gather, the young man had mentioned to his girlfriend that he was thinking of having something done (I'm guessing it was a tattoo or a piercing of some sort) and then later in the same journey had actually revealed that he'd had it done already. Thankfully I didn't have to listen to too much of their argument before they alighted.

We reached Liverpool around 11pm, and I jumped on the Liverpool equivalent of the Underground, going out to West Kirby where Richard's relatives own a house we would be staying in. I arrived to a scene of poker, copious spirits and mostly-uneaten containers of chinese food. I don't actually know how to play poker, so I just watched each player get wiped out by the formidable force of Richard and the other two Dixon brothers. The evening then progressed to drinking games, and I did my usual trick of passing out through a mixture of drinks and exhaustion.

The next day we went paintballing. As well as our group of 8, there were another couple of stag parties and a contingent of about 20 pot-smoking scousers there for a 21st birthday party. The paintballing itself was a blast, but made more difficult by the fact that the scousers kept removing their masks, each time threatening to hasten a 'Biker Grove' incident. And there was very little authority to prevent this, the games being marshalled by teenagers. One of Richard's mates, Alan, got so hacked-off with this situation that he refused to play any more, and returned to the cafe in a bit of a huff. The paintballing games were fun, and quite varied. The final one was one where the stags and their best men had to run from the remainder of the participants who were trying to hunt them down. With no easy way of identifying each other, this melee ended up with me being mistaken for a stag/best man and shot repeatedly. Those pellets really hurt a surprising amount!

That night we went into Liverpool itself, for a meal, and then later on to a club. I don't feel there's any need to detail the evening fully, but suffice it to say that Richard emerged at the end of the night with some scars. These were added to when, after returning to the 'flattic' we were staying in, Richard insisted on going over to Hilbre island, staying there on his own in the middle of the night, and nearly triggering some sort of coast guard alert. He also fell over in some rock pools, hurt his back and broke his phone. A good night was had by all.

I took charge of an enormous fry-up operation the next morning, myself eating two full English breakfasts rounded off by kippers. As we nursed hangovers from the previous night, wolfing down congealed food was about all we seemed to have energy for that day!

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Foreign lands

Incidentally, Naomi went on a choir tour to Argentina this week (Tuesday). It's not a pleasant feeling knowing that a loved-one is on another continent, and that we can't have our usual daily phone call to say goodnight. This is going to be the case for the best part of three weeks, which I'm sure will get me down!

Anyway, I promised Naomi that I'd keep a decent, regular diary of blogging going for the rest of this month, so she can check up on me from time to time when she encounters a cyber cafe.

Naomi, if you're reading this, I hope you're safe, and I love you.

My banning list

Donning my Victor Meldrew beret, I'd thought I'd write that I've been thinking for some time about a list of things I'd like to ban. I will probably update this list as other things occur to me.

- Outdoor patio gas heaters: How on earth can it be possible for these things to exist in this age of environmental awareness and concern about climate change? You're pointing a gas fire straight up into the sky and burning fuel for the sake of it. People in the UK are going to have to realise that you can't expect to sit outside for most of the year because our climate doesn't permit it. Wasting precious fuel on a heater that's for the most part ineffective is, frankly, sickening and disasterous.

- Heat magazine and the like: horrible, horrible, horrible. I can't actually believe that this kind of celeb-obsessed literature sells. Week in week out it's the same tawdry tale of infidelity and weight loss. A developed society can well do without this rubbish.

- Personalised numberplates: an ugly form of self-aggrandisement for the nouveau riche. Personalised numberplates say to me that the owner has money to waste and wants you to know it. I'm not sure if I can think of a better example of why conspicuous consumption is crass.

- Microsoft Windows: when did the computing experience become about trying to fight for control of your computer? A computer should be an appliance device like any other, but Windows is so poorly-written that it's like an old lady walking through a bad part of town in the dark. You know it's going to end in a mugging. Not so with Mac OS.

OK. Rant over (til next time) :-D

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Escape velocity

I had a meeting that went really very badly this morning. I'm not willing to let this happen again, and it's endemic in what I do professionally. I think this is going to be the spur i need to make me escape my inertia.

Monday, August 29, 2005

Myspace

Well, not content with having an online presence through this blog, I've finally succumbed to having one on Myspace as well. If you've never come across this übersite, it's a place where you can create an entry for yourself and then state who your friends and acquaintances are in a virtual way, like.

Sounds useless, and I guess it is, largely, but it's useful if you're a band and you want to let people know what you're doing or when you're playing, and also useful for sharing pictures and getting in touch with friends of friends who you wouldn't necessarily have an email address for (through an extended network).

So, if you're so inclined, and don't feel like devoting the time required for a full-on blog, why not sign up for this.

If you're a bit wary like my mate Ian, you'll probably want to know that all of Myspace has recently been bought out by the evil Rupert Murdoch.... You have been warned.

Friday, August 26, 2005

Something worth fighting against

I've been angry about software patents for some time now, since I heard about VideoLan Client being threatened with removal due to supposedly transgressing software patents. VLC is an incredibly useful little application that plays a lot of media types that Quicktime, for instance, can't open. I suggest you read a little bit about why software patents are basically a completely spurious way of getting rich based on someone else's work, and these patents ultimately stifle innovation in small IT companies.

So, today I read about this idiot Mr Keung and his patent. What the guy has done there is to try and patent the idea of putting in a password to access something remotely that you've paid for. This nonsense has got to stop.

If you're so inclined, write to your MEP. I haven't done it yet, but I'm pretty sure I will at some point, because this is something of gravity for anyone who makes regular use of computers.

While I'm thinking of democracy, I think I'll also put up a link to www.faxyourmp.com, an awesome service that allows you to contact your MP directly in a speedy way, for free. Pretty cool, I'd say.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Meter In the Red

I've been really quite highly-strung for the past week or two, since I found out that I had a pretty crazy amount of work to do before I could leave London to go home to Cardiff for a week (and a short family holiday to be had in that time, hopefully). I've also been battling what I suspect is a bit of tonsilitis, just because I actually have to be here in order to get through the workload. I've been resigned to losing this weekend for some while now - I guess the measure of it will be to see when I can actually get home to Cardiff.

I'm sure my next post will be more positive, and with less of a lag!

Friday, August 05, 2005

Pavel

Regular blog readers will notice that a mysterious person call Pav occasionally posts a comment on my blog. Well, as of today, I know Mr Pavel Jiracek's web address, so those of you with a decent grasp of German can read Pav's site. Pavel is a mate of mine from University, who we saw in Oxford the weekend before last.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Leicester Square, Tonight


Leicester Square, Tonight
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.
Tonight my band is playing undoubtedly the biggest venue we've played to-date.

I'm actually not as nervous as I have been in the past, before a big gig, but I really do hope it goes well!

Cheers in advance to anyone who's coming to see us, and to everyone else who can't be there who's wished us well.

Monday, August 01, 2005

You're so needy


You're so needy
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.
Pedantic, I know, but I found the wording of this form at Turning Point drugs charity to be quite funny. Okay, you might need mental health, but why would you possibly need a learning disability?!

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Things I will do over the next 23 days

I am worried about my finances.

I have credit cards with mounting debts on them. I have two bank accounts with substantial overdrafts on them, and I am going to stuggle to make sure I have enough money in my overdraft for rent at the end of this month. The rent situation is always exacerbated by my pay day being the 20th of each month, and rent day being the 18th, meaning it's when I have least money in the month.

To this end, I am implementing various resolutions. These will be things I will be sure to achieve over the next 23 days in order to get closer to a situation of financial stability. By writing them here, I'll feel more publically accountable to actually get these things done, and I'm going to keep a record of how things progress on the blog.

1)Eat cheaply - in general, I'm going to set a limit of £2 per meal and see what can be achieved by eating at home, rather than takeaway.

2)No drinking until payday. Everyone knows how much I like drinking, but I'm going to keep this one properly for the next 23 days. It'll also be good for my health, so a double-winner there. Not drinking will help me...

3)Stay to an upper limit of £10 per day, and spend less than that if I can.

4)Sell some things on eBay. In particular, I have some Gamecube bongo drums that I don't want. I'll get rid of a few other items I have cluttering up my room also.

5)Participate in free, or already-paid-for leisure activities. The gym membership is stupidly expensive, so I'm going to start making good use of it. I also have a very good selection of Gamecube and Mac games that I should play more.

6)This one will remain a secret until I've actually done something about it.


However much overdraft money I have left on the 20th will be used to start paying off my credit card.

Here goes nothing.

Salesmen

Anyone who's ever held a job where they've needed to sell something in a competitive way will probably enjoy reading this. It was enormously resonant for me, taking me back to my illustrious 13 months at PC World in 1998.

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Mr Benn


Mr Benn
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.
Most kids brought up in the UK in the late 70s and early 80s have an almost unnatural nostalgia for the television that we grew up on. There aren't many of us who don't have those 'oh, do you remember ...' conversations with friends quite regularly. In fact, it's a good, if unoriginal, starting point for conversation with most people I've met. I've always said, and do to this very day, that much of my early education came from television. I used to wake up at 6 pretty much ever morning, as a child (God, certainly not as an adult!), to run downstairs and watch the captivating box.

Mr Benn has endured for me as a character I enjoyed watching, and probably still would to this day. I actually gave Naomi a book of Mr Benn stories as a gift once, such was my love of this cartoon's beautifully-faded animation. Today I stumbled across this site which is sure to please any serious fan.

They don't make TV like that anymore (sniff)

Nothing to see here


Nothing to see here
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.
Sometime next year or the year after, there will be a non-event called Windows Vista. Others are yawning with me.

Friday, July 22, 2005

This Isn't London

This Isn't London is one of the best blogs I've found recently. Enjoy.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

This is happening, right now


Road outside Oval tube
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.
As I write this, we're all sitting in our office reloading this Guardian unlimited page to find out if a bomb has gone off at Oval tube station, a couple of hundred yards away.

Needless to say, there's panic on the streets outside.

Anthony Worrall Thompson was actually standing outside our building as it all kicked off and I munched on my calzone. Just a bit of detail for you (!)

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Andrew and Amber

Last weekend Naomi and I visited my friend Oz in Frankfurt. It was a wonderful few days, and we had a fair bit of fun in and around 'Mainhatten'. Naomi took quite a few photos, including one of me standing in front of a giant statue to the Euro (that one will probably appear on my blog on the day they prize my beloved sterling from my hands). We also went to various nice places to eat and I discovered an awesome drink called a Fireman's Sour. Oz was hilarious as ever (I know he'll appreciate me writing this). A top weekend in all.

When I returned home to Muswell Hill, there was some great news waiting for me in my Inbox. My good friend Andrew got together with the lovely Amber while Jack and I were in Florida last January. Well, now they're getting married, on 31 December, which is the anniversary of them becoming an item. I'm really happy for them, and we're already making plans to be there for the wedding, this Christmas. Here's to Andrew and Amber.

Monday, July 11, 2005

A week ago

Last Thursday, as you probably know, was not a good day.

I woke up quite late, and was banking on the bus and the tube getting me to work, which was probably going to be a bit late, as I left home just before 9. My bus took its usual route along past Highgate Woods, to Highgate Tube (which is where I now catch my transport, since moving to Muswell Hill). Normally, as you reach Highgate Tube, most people get off the bus, but a message was passed, chinese-whispers-style, up the stairs, saying that there was no Underground service. Everybody assumed this meant that there was a problem with the northern line, so we returned to our seats, slightly disgruntled at the prospect of trying to get into central London whilst facing road traffic. The man sitting next to me, with his strange combination of greasy black hair in a ponytail and cricket jumper, seemed particularly pissed-off. At that stage I called work to tell them I'd be late.

Slowly making our way down towards Archway, the windows steamed up, and then we reached Holloway Road. I had the bright idea of trying to use the tube from Holloway Road station, near where my friends Richard and Philippa live, so hopped off the bus. I nipped into a little Greek cafe and grabbed myself a bacon roll and a cappucino, and then crossed the road to the Holloway Road station entrance. There were staff at the gates, telling people there'd been a security alert, so the Underground had completely shut down. Thinking only of the inconvenience of this, I crossed back and tried to board another bus. No joy - there were too many people waiting for the buses, and most of them were packed full of people who'd normally be using the tube. In fact, a lot were driving straight past the stops, with the drivers unwilling to take more people on board. Eventually, a bus stopped and as I was about to board it, Dominic called me. I asked if I could call him back once I'd boarded the bus, and ended the call. I called him back, from the crammed-full bottom deck of the bus and he told me there'd been explosions at Edgware Road and Aldgate. People on the bus were discussing what might have happened, and I told them what my brother had just told me. I wasn't sure at this stage if this was all some sort of exaggeration on either Dominic's part, or that perhaps the news reporters had their facts wrong.

The bus took everyone as far as Highbury Corner, where we were all ordered off, without an explanation. The driver kept tapping the top of his microphone instead of offering the reasons for the sudden stopping of service. A florist's stand at Highbury Corner seemed to have become a point of focus for people's attention, and I wondered over to see what all the fuss was about. The florist had a small CD radio hanging off a hook, and it was tuned to a London radio station. About twenty or thirty of us stood listening to the news as it was breaking. At that stage the press were being told that 'power surges' had caused the underground to be closed, but the reporter said that they'd been told by a senior member of London Underground staff that there may be a terrorist element to the events.

Realising that there were now few buses and no tubes, I called work and told them I wouldn't be able to get there, so I'd work from home instead. It did seem as though things were going a bit crazy, so I started my long walk home. About half way up Holloway Road I went into a big Cash Converters-style pawn shop to watch their TVs, and quite a few other people had had the same idea. It was there that the full horror of the terrorist bombings unfolded, and news was just breaking that a bomb had gone off on a bus. It was a numbing thing to watch. There was a feeling of being part of something completely unstable, while the physics were ever-shifting.

I stayed at the pawn shop for about 10 minutes, then started moving again, walking home a couple of miles further, up through unfamiliar suburban avenues. All of this time, I kept wondering if things were going to escalate. Maybe the tube attacks were the vanguard of a September 11th-style 'plane attack? Whichever the case, I didn't want to be in central-ish London for a second longer than necessary.

I'd already texted Naomi to let her know I was okay, and kept trying to call my Dad so that he could tell the rest of the family I was okay, but the Vodaphone service was working only very intermittently (it later transpired that they'd blocked it for the sake of emergency services, and probably to prevent telephone bomb detonation as well). Eventually I got through to one of my Grandmas, who thankfully hadn't had the TV on before I called, so didn't know about everything before we spoke. Various other friends and relatives kindly called or texted me to ask if everything was okay, including a text that pleasingly read "are you still alive?" from one of my bandmates! Oz even rang me from Germany, which was kind of him.

When I finally reached Muswell Hill (where I now live - I realise I haven't mentioned this in the blog before!), I queued up at Woolworths to buy myself a landline phone, seeing as the mobile was pretty unreliable, and I knew I might need to call people. When I arrived home, David was there, and his dog, Campbell, came bounding up to the door (David practises keyboard instruments at the house where I now live, during office hours). We sat at the table in the kitchen, grimly listening to Radio 4 as the death toll continued to rise during the day.

An awful lot has probably been written about the 7th July in blogs. A lot of people will be thinking that they easily could have been victims of this unspeakably cowardly act that now, it seems, was perpetrated by men as young as 18. For me, the most apparent feeling of the day was probably not how easily I could have been a victim (I don't think you can really transplant your feelings to that unless you are the victim), but how the bonds that tie society together are actually quite weak. Rather than the resilient strength that newscasters have expounded, it actually seemed to me like everything was falling apart remarkably easily. If there is to be a 'next time' for militant Islamo-fascists attacking Londoners, we may not be able to return to our lives with quite the same ease. If there is something more positive to be said, it's that London shouldn't be attacked again for a while, if we can go on the experience of Madrid and New York.

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

The lure of the dark


DSCF0043
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.
Okay, so in this blog post I'm not going to go into how I was fascinated with the gothic Batman universe for a good portion of my teens, but I imagine that it's the same part of my mind that finds subterranean tunnels and catacombs interesting.

Last week, I had the opportunity to go down into the Paris catacombs during some free time whilst on a work trip. By the Paris catacombs, I mean the graveyard part of the Gallic subterranean, not the 'hidden' part where all sorts of cultists meet, as the Grauniad reported last year (though going there really would be amazing). The ossiary in the catacombs literally has walls made of bones, and it was a pretty remarkable thing to see the skeletal remains of six million people. The skull in my image actually bears my initials, which was an added bonus (no pun intended).

I'm also fascinated by the disused Underground stations in London. Apparently trains still go through quite a few of these, without stopping. While it's geeky, I have to say that I think this is a really cool and interesting site.

Monday, June 20, 2005

No to ID cards

I think I'm going to sign up to this and I would recommend that you consider it too.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Ring ring, ring ring

At some point in modern times, the volume of mobile phones being purchased meant that the manufacturers had to start providing a way of differentiating one phone from the next, so that people wouldn't get confused as to which phone nearby was actually ringing. This led to the development of ever more intricate ringtones, then ringtone composers on some phones (that fad seems to have faded), then this led eventually polyphonic ringtones and 'real sound' ringtones.

That development led to two things, in my experience.

Firstly, non-musicians have started using the word 'polyphonic', having little idea as to its meaning, other than that it vaguely sounds 'better'.

Secondly, every time a certain someone in my office receives a phonecall, you hear a bizarre Caribbean swingbeat version of Bach's 'Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring'.

As Jeff Goldblum's put it in his most badly-delivered line: “your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they never stopped to think whether they should”.

Monday, June 13, 2005

Doss Jobs (part 2)

I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw that they're offering £24 - £27,000 of Heritage Lottery funds to pay for an audience development officer for the Bat Conservation Trust. Among other things, this person will be "developing and piloting new survey schemes targeted at volunteers from underrepresented groups". I'm reading this to mean that people from minority ethnic backgrounds aren't getting as much bat volunteering action as the rest of us.

If you need an excuse to stop wasting your money on lottery tickets and scratchcards, this is surely it.

Friday, June 10, 2005

And in the future, we'll get the internet

When dial-up internet access became popular, back in the late 90s (you know, when it was all about whether you could make any service other than Compuserve or AOL actually work), I used to hear people saying "yeah, I've got the internet at home".

Being a literal object, I would imagine their houses as these huge server facilities full of massive hard disks so that they could contain all of the internet.

Thursday, June 09, 2005

Wash your veg

I was just discussing with a workmate, as we ate unwashed tomatoes, that washing vegetables is pretty important, and removes a surprising amount of pesticides.

Washing also helps to avoid illnesses. See this interesting site

Laugh or cry. I don't know which

There's a strange feeling that you have when you listen to the radio in the morning, as you wake up. You're overhearing information that enters into your consciousness by the back door, and then when you hear the item of news again later, you feel a sense of deja vu. I experience this pretty much daily, since I use my radio alarm clock to wake me up. It's tuned to XFM, so a fair amount of their morning content is quite strange, veering between items for pure humour value (and I do find Christian O'Connell very funny, even if other people don't) and real news.

There are those occasions where there's a news item that's so absurd that you think it could only be an April fool, or that maybe in your half-sleep you completely misunderstood the idea being reported.

Today has yielded just such a gem, with the news that car drivers in the UK will be expected to pay-per-mile that they travel, tracked by satellite. It's as if I went to sleep in a less-than-pleasant modern society last night, then woke up today in some kind of socialist enviro-nightmare. Don't get me wrong, I would say that certain parts of my psyche lean in a socialist direction (the super-rich should be taxed a lot harder than they are to relieve the burden on everyone else - I'm thinking footballers especially). And I also have sympathy with environmental causes, because we all know that something has to be done about global warming, the depletion of the ozone layer, etc.

But pay-per-mile is insanely obtrusive. Can you imagine not only the level of individual liberty that would have to be sacrificed with the implementation of this technology, but also the cost of implementing it?

It's like the story about Prince Charles becoming Countryside Tsar from the front page of the Guardian on April 1st this year. At the time, I read that article and, being in a bout of 'flu, assumed that I was hallucinating. As I continued reading, it became clear that it was a joke.

I've now read the story about pay-per-mile several times, and the hallucinations aren't wearing off.

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Doss jobs

I was talking to a workmate yesterday about the really bizarre careers that some people make for themselves. Specifically, those women who model for the covers of crossword and puzzle books that they sell in newsagents. Imagine growing old and telling your Grandchildren that when you were a pretty young thing, you used to be a model, a crossword model.

It makes me think of the Queen's Of The Stone Age song called 'I was a teenage hand model', surely one of the greatest song titles. Now there is a great job. If I stop biting my nails, maybe one day I could make it as a hand model! But alas, all of this is a pipedream.

Friday, May 20, 2005

Beauty

I think that the song 'Your hand in mine' by explosions in the sky is one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard, and I don't even know why it took me so long to get into this band.

Look them up, and if you use the iTunes Music Store, you can hear excerpts or buy their first album there.

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Tony Blair: The Wilderness Years

A satire written by Ian Duncan Smith. Naturally.

The people who send you spam

I thought I ought to post this up on my blog at some point. It's the response that an 'Anonymous Coward' posted on Slashdot in relation to a story about a millionaire spammer. I've chuckled at this little bit of writing several times over the past couple of years, and wish I could credit the Anonymous Coward properly.

We know where this one lives. Let's go kill him.

Of course, this is a joke. Surely there isn't a single person who reads Slashdot who has been so annoyed by spam that they would go so far as to kill him and burn down his house. Nope. Nobody like that. Even if that person would almost certainly be able to escape punishment if even a tiny amount of forethought were used in the attempt. After all, Virginia police couldn't even catch a homeless muslim sniper after multiple shootings; what are the odds they'll catch some geek who is actually paying attention to not leave any evidence behind?

Of course, this really is a joke. And everyone reading it should take it as a joke. Except for that one very special person. Yes, you my friend. You know what you must do...

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Overused words of the English language

urban: this means 'of the city'. It does not mean hip-hop and it is not a by-word for cool.

eclectic: this essentially means 'of varied sources'. It does not mean outlandish or unusual, and it is not a by-word for cool.

contemporary: this means 'current'. It does not mean futuristic, and it is not a by-word for cool kitchens.

The Holy iPod


The Holy iPod
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.
I think catholic insider has to be one of the most unusual websites I've ever seen, so I decided to flag it up here. Seriously, it's unintentionally funny and earnest in equal measure. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it before.

It's actually pretty cool for there to be a young cleric who actually understands technology doing something like this.

Monday, May 16, 2005

Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike

It's been a strange weekend. In between lengthy recording sessions with the Holst Singers, I've spent the past weekend being stuck on a particularly difficult level of Rebel Strike on my Gamecube, but I'm determined to beat it.

Oh yeah, to any Gamecube owners out there, I would recommend the Logic3 Gamecube controller which Blockbuster video is selling for £4.99 at the moment. Beats paying £25 for the official one.

Thursday, May 12, 2005

Has it come to this?

Earlier today went over the Delicatessen Piacenza across the road from where I work, and picked up a fresh lasagne which I heated up for lunch. It was pretty damn excellent.

As we crossed the road, I saw a van driving towards us with 'CrackOUT' emblazoned on its side. The subheading said that it was a service to remove sex or drug related rubbish with a telephone number to call.

I've been asking myself what level of decline our society has reached where there's the need for a special separate organisation just to deal with the scale of this problem.

Thursday, May 05, 2005

The General Election: The Burning Issue (final)

New Labour will be voted in for a third term later today.

I saw an interesting programme on Channel 4 the other day that included excerpts from some sort of youth parliament. The one issue that brought together all of those present from all points on the political spectrum was the problem our generation faces attempting to get on the property ladder. I, for one, do not want to be stuck making the rentier class forever richer whilst treading water myself. By the time I'm a pensioner, I'll need a house to sell pay for my retirement anyway, and believe me I'm anxious enough about this already.

Yet MPs aren't really interested in debating this problem. The C4 programme contended that, since voter turnout among the young isn't high, or reliable in terms of party allegiance, it's not a sufficiently hot issue to occupy centre stage. A reduction of stamp duty to a level well below the average house doesn't wash either, and we all know it.

Right now, the only way I can see that I might ever be able to afford a house would be to win a gameshow or the lottery, or something. We all know that pinning your hopes on those odds is futile. But people with nice houses in nice areas hold something worth half a million or more thanks to the enormous inflation that's occurred in property.

When you think about it, the gap between the WWTBA Millionaire winner and the owner of a home has never been closer.

Deliberating in the pub (part 2)

The other thing that happened in the pub yesterday was that I went into the gents' and a man standing at a urinal announced in a strong Welsh accent: "I love a good piss, I do".

Out of friendliness, and to gloss over the fact that I hadn't had enough to drink to be discussing urine with a stranger, I asked him where abouts in Wales he was from. He replied that he was from Swansea. Tentatively I said, "Oh I'm from Cardiff".

He spat at the floor.

"You Jack bastard" I called after him, descending to his level. I remember from my days at PC World that this is the best insult for Swansea people.

This little exchange was relatively good-natured but underlines a sad truth.

A while ago I wrote about my belief that nationalism within the British Isles is a nonsense, and I still find it detestable, be it Scots, English or Welsh nationalism. But it's easy to forget that people seem to hate those closest to them geographically, and it makes little sense. It's a classic form of definition in antagonism to 'otherness' so loved by cultural anthropologists. I guess people must construct some kind of ranking system in their heads along the lines of:

Being from Swansea > Being from Cardiff > Being from Scotland > Being from England.

Dumb, isn't it.

Deliberating in the pub (part 1)

I went for a quick drink before choir rehearsal yesterday with one of my workmates. I'd bought the first drinks, but when he went up to the bar to get the next ones, he insisted on getting clean glasses. I don't understand this at all, and I've seen a lot of people do it. If you're drinking the same drink several times, why on earth would you want to have a new glass?

1) You're increasing the chances that you get a glass with germs in it that might make you ill (the obsessive/compulsive argument).

2) You're causing more glasses to be washed, therefore adding to the amount of water wasted (the environmental argument)

3) You're causing more glasses to be washed, therefore tying up staff time and electricity in the process (the economic efficiency argument).

This is why the pitcher system in America makes sense. You don't find them asking for a new glass each time they have a drink.

I think this is simple choice actually exemplifies the doublethink that goes on among young people in the UK, including my peers. The very same people who talk about ending world poverty, increasing social justice etc. are so often the same people who see no wrong in being wasteful (and this is a major sin of our generation - the 'new glass syndrome' is this in microcosm) or spending vast amounts of money on hedonistic entertainment. It's deeply hypocritical to wear some dumb plastic wristband while you consume with the best of 'em.

Friday, April 29, 2005

Language, Timothy

Having just popped over to the shop across the road from where I work (known as the Crap Shop™, the official name, in use to this day, credited to the esteemed Giles Witcomb), I heard some people standing round, speaking about McDonalds. On the one hand, I can't imagine talking about McDonalds for as long as they seemed to be. Maybe they'd watched Supersize Me which was on TV recently. On the other, I noticed that a flame-haired woman kept saying Mackdonalds really loudly, with the stress on the Mack. And then I realised that I'm a snob.

Mayday


oxfordmagdalentower1
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.
This weekend I'm going to Oxford (my favourite place in Britain) for the May Day celebrations, to catch up with both of my younger brothers, and to attend Naomi's concert at the Sheldonian Theatre. I'll hopefully be catching some bands tonight, as well.

I can't wait to get to Oxford. Without wishing to be nostalgic, I really love the city and all of the good friends of mine who are still there, and a big part of me misses the place. I think it's where I'd like to end up, eventually, and would be a good place to bring up children.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Lightning


image003017
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.
BAM! Some crazy-ass lightning just went off with a huge thunderclap. All of my workmates jumped. I ran over to unplug my iBook from the mains, to be on the safeside. Don't want this little feller getting fried.

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Product Placement 2: Sennheiser PX100 Headphones

One thing that's been giving me enjoyment over the last few days are my new headphones.

Hands up. I have a headphone problem. They tend to last me no longer than 3 months of daily usage (that's around 3 hours per day minimum), and usually end up wearing out at the jack, or exhibit stress on the wires which ends up with only one side of the stereo working.

Well, apart from sounding damn good - and I'm talking a world away from the free iPod earbuds that Apple gives you or the several other pairs I've had from Sony, Philips and so on - they also carry a 2 year guarantee. At current rate of headphone exhaustion I could potentially get through 8 of these babies without having to pay out any more money.

They're £30 at Richer Sounds (but shop around, you might be able to get them for less on Ebay), and they also fold up. The sound is very 'hi-fi' sounding, which makes me realise that the poor sound I've been living with isn't so much due to mp3/AAC compression, but the cheap headphones.

If you see me, have a listen to something through these phones, and you'll see what I mean - they are very good.

Monday, April 25, 2005

Software Piracy

Last week I found myself talking to someone who's the founder of a fairly significant software company about things that I've found interesting recently, particularly the troubling issue of software patenting.

A few minutes into the conversation it occurred to me that his company's innovations have added a fair bit to value and useability in a specific field, for a certain type of computer user (I don't want to be specific here, which is becoming obvious by this point), but that about half of the people I know who use the product are using a cracked, pirate copy.

Piracy/cracking is a funny issue: I'm against it on one level - if you're making a living from using a piece of software (or, in the case of students, gaining qualifications through work produced with that specific programme) you really can't justify stealing what is an integral tool in the process. It's like a blacksmith nicking someone else's anvil.

On the other hand, I'm ambivalent about low-level piracy performed by people who just want to try out a programme, or those who might make occasional use of something for non-commercial ends.

Cracked versus copied software muddies these waters. I can think of times when I've made use of software purchased quite legally by a friend or relative, and at least in that situation the company has made profit from one sale of the product, and I'm certainly not going to add to their costs by asking for telephone support; I may well also end up purchasing my own copy at a later date.

The software the guy's company makes employs no physical protection methods, and, having once pressed a help desk person about their copy protection codes, I realised that their system for giving out codes is pretty rudimentary. Normally I'd be against software employing a USB dongle, but not in this case. Having to use up a USB port on a laptop where you might only have 2 ports total is a pain in the arse if you're using something that needs extra external hardware, like Logic Audio, but I don't think it would be so much of an issue in this case.

I'm sure it's all stuff the company has thought of, but it is strange talking to somebody who you've just met, who you know has been stolen-from, and feeling that you would like to tell him, but deciding it would only be irritating. So I held my tongue instead.

Friday, April 22, 2005

No vote

Damn, I've just found out that I'm not on the electoral register. I called up Tower Hamlets to find out why we haven't been sent a polling card and they suggested that I should check with the last place I was registered. I called Oxford City Council only to find out that they wipe all students off the register, annually. Well, that's it then. I suppose. Too late to register for this election, and I don't exist where I last existed. I know I should have looked into it earlier, but I am frustrated that Tower Hamlets borough council don't share info between departments. You would have thought that paying council tax and all the details they get from you when you do that actually counted for something. Not currently (although they are considering it).

The deadline to register was also 6 weeks ago incidentally, i.e. before they called the General Election. That doesn't seem entirely fair, to me, either.

Thursday, April 21, 2005

Phone now working

Okay, well, it seems to be behaving now. Ignore me last post.

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Triple Drat


Triple Drat
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.
There's something strange, in the neighbourhood...

My phone has started acting up this morning, so I may not be able to make outgoing calls, if the problem persists. Therefore, if you're expecting me to call you and you're wondering why I'm not calling you, it's probably because I can't. So please ring me, and it looks like it should work for answering, at the least.

Monday, April 18, 2005

Product Placement


Botanics Shaving Foam
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.
Unlike the people at FHM, Maxim etc., when I use my blog to tell my readership something is good, it's not because I'm being paid to do it.

So, in light of my love for all humanity, I thought I'd pass on the observation that the Botanics range of products from Boots are very very good. Speaking as someone who doesn't believe in the concept of male grooming, I must say that the mens' face wash and the shaving foam (that I discovered more recently) are really good if you have sensitive or spot-prone skin. Seriously. Stay with me here, try the stuff out and then you can tell me if I'm wrong.

The gentle, unstringent nature of these products comes from them being based upon plant extracts; this leads me on to thinking about the number of adverts you see these days for products containing aloe vera (washing powders, shampoos, toilet tissues!). It's a wonder that there are enough aloe plants to meet the demand, assuming there's not a synthetic process for replicating the extract. Anyway, aloe vera is pretty cool stuff - when I went on a choir tour to the Caribbean in 2001, breaking open a leaf and putting the extract of that plant on my skin was pretty much the only relief I could get from sun burn and mosquito stings. You've got to love nature.

Ainsley Harriot


Bird Eye Chili
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.
Well, Monday, here you are again. I had a pretty great weekend, ranging between visiting Naomi at her parents' house on Friday and Saturday, to going to see a post-hardcore gig last night in Camden (Bullet Union, since you ask).

One thing that has complicated today somewhat was my decision to enter the kitchen for both of my meals yesterday. My very first attempt at a casserole, for lunch, was pretty respectable. The stir-fry I did for dinner (for Luigi and Ian) would also have been fine, were it not for the addition of a handful of bird eye chilis. Those little 'bad boys' have left me with a distinctly delicate feeling today. In future I'll be treating those little sods with the respect they deserve.

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

The joys of electronic mail

Today I have been received communications from Peter Wong of Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Ltd, Dr Graham Douglas, the personal accountant to the late head of state of Nigeria (Sani Abacha, apparently), Victor Osadolor of African Continental Bank PLC, Jiga Idris of Contract Approve Panel, Nigeria, Dr Don Amos of the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Finance, and Dr Mariam Abacha, the wife of Sanni [sic] Abacha.

They all seem to have such wonderful schemes to offer me, but I was thinking that maybe I could act as some kind of intermediary to help them work to pool their investments together into a syndicate for the National Lottery or something.

Monday, April 11, 2005

A 'right' to anonymity

One becomes accustomed to people hiding behind the anonymity of the internet from time to time (God knows, I can think of one time I did it to insult someone, drunkenly); this is why message boards on serious topics aren't always a good idea - but it's coming to something when people think they can pick up a phone and make serious claims about someone's professional integrity without being willing to disclose who they are.

That's the situation I experienced about half an hour ago, where a woman was making spurious claims of impropriety about a someone who's just recently left my place of work, and someone who I have a great deal of respect for. The conversation ended with me saying "and where is it you're calling from" to which the woman replied "I didn't say, and I don't have to" before hanging up. I must say it made my blood boil because if you're going to try and upset the applecart, rightly or not, you should at least have the courage to equal your conviction.

Friday, April 08, 2005

The Body Politic (part 1)


TuBerculosis
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.
I imagine that every UK blog under the sun is going to take on some sort of political characteristic over the next couple of months, but I think I might as well put my under-informed oar in a little, seeing as I do have strong opinions on some of the things that are being debated. Still, I do promise that I won't let the blog get totally dominated by matters political.

So, the general election has been called, after TB saying that he'd leave it for a couple of days out of respect for the mourning of Pope John Paul II.

Today, I followed a link from Jack's blog, and went to the Labour Party's website, where it appears you can now ask Mr Blair your questions in an electronic form. I thought to myself 'why not?', you have to practise what you preach, and participate in democracy as best you can, otherwise you're a hypocrite to complain about the status quo. My question to Mr Blair was on the mythos of Labour's supposedly-great economic record, and what exactly is being done to assist in the housing problem that exists for our credit-heavy generation who don't already have investments in property, because, as it stands, and unless you're callous enough to hope on some kind of windfall from an elderly relative, you are simply not in the game.

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Being Poorly


Being Poorly
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.
Dear Oh Dear, I've not been too well over the last week or so, but there's lots to report on from before that, so on with the blog entry.

Last week we went into a little studio in Battersea (in fact, I don't even know if the studio has a name!) to record the first Action and Action EP with a qual engineer and nice all-round feller called Jonny, who also works as a sound engineer at the Barfly in Camden. It was a fantastic three days, and we managed to record five tracks in two days of recording, with each band member performing the absolute minimum number of takes. I have a first mix of it, and despite my tendency to over-analyse and self-criticise these things, I really am pretty happy with it after about a hundred listens, and I think it's an accurate depiction of the nature of the band (and surprisingly melodic!).

During the last day in the studio, I started to feel ill and then by Friday morning was feeling like death warmed up, with the flu. However, I had the prospect of it being my first day due back into work after taking two weeks' holiday, and I realised that if I would then immediately be on sick-leave, it would look suspect, even though it wasn't. As it happened I was fortunately sent home after an hour of coughing and blowing my nose.

Upon realising that I'd need to spend the next few days couped up in the flat, I decided to get something to keep myself occupied. Cue the Gamecube for £59 courtesy of HMV. Soul Calibur II, Enter the Matrix and Medal of Honor:Rising Sun. Oh yes, thank you. There are definitely upsides to being ill.

Monday, March 28, 2005

Bounty-Hunter

During the January trip to Florida, Jack and I ended up telling Thurston about the plight of the indigenous British red squirrel in the face of the imported American grey squirrel. We'd started talking about this during a discussion of what would actually make an appropriate emblem for Britain in the world today, and the squirrel seemed to sum up the tragi-comedy of the whole thing.

Well, I decided to do a quick search on what's being done to help our little fellas, and the craziness of the interweb didn't disappoint me. It turns out that since 1991 there's been an anonymous email address advertised, offering to whack any offending grey squirrels for you (squirrelproblem@airriflehunter.co.uk) and a website that helpfully mentions that a conservation group, the Esme Kirby Trust, is willing to pay you for 'scalps'.

Kilroy meets the Gypsies

Yes, Robert Kilroy-Silk has decided to spend several days living with the travellers for the purposes of a Channel 4 documentary to be aired during April (see title link). All very nice, and I'm sure it'll be entertaining in a Louis Theroux's Wierd Weekends style, but something jumped out of the text of the Guardian article that's interesting:

'Matters are not helped when Clifford tells him he cannot use his bathroom, because it goes against the strict customs of the community. "It is not because we think you are dirty, it is just to maintain the purity of our unit as Romany Gypsies," he explains.'

Consider that gypsy and other travellers are arguing that they should be able to pursue their way of life (setting up camps, in some cases without planning permission) partly on ethnicity grounds, with the assistance of the Commission for Racial Equality; why has noone pointed out the absurdity of maintaining 'the purity of the unit as Romany Gypsies' - talk of purity in these terms (note the capitalisation) doesn't fall far short of racism.

Saturday, March 26, 2005

Welcome to Boom Town


Welcome to Boom Town
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.
I've spent the past week at my parents' house in Cardiff, splitting my time between sleeping, eating and singing at the Cathedral. It's been a good week, and, rarely, all 5 of us have been in the same place at once.

Coming home always seems to be different each time, yet still it's somehow reassuring, and it always makes me compare my experience of London (and Oxford before that) with Cardiff, since those are the only places I've ever lived.

As I got off the train and exited the station this Monday, I was struck by the freshness of the sea breeze and the high quality of the air, made apparent to me after having been away for about 3 months, since I went to Florida.

Then, as I walked through the city centre, I observed other changes. The centre Cardiff I very quiet at 10 a.m. on a Monday. I'd never noticed this before. Making my way down Mill Lane, I spotted that one of the nightclubs had a sign that boasted it's "Cardiff's London-style club". What the hell is that supposed to mean? That the drinks are over-priced, or that London is somehow some magic Dick Whittington metropolis? It reminds of that brilliant episode of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin where Perrin decides to have an anti-sale, increasing the prices of goods at his shop, a shop based on the premise of selling only absolute rubbish [media link]. In the case of the club it appears that if you advertise that you're more expensive, people will buy it. Such is the perversity of human nature.

As the week's progressed, I've noticed other things that are changing here. House prices and rents, for one. Jack came to visit for the day on Wednesday, and we went down to Cardiff Bay. I was astonished to see in the window of an estate agent that an ordinary one-bed flat was going for £650 a month. That doesn't place it far behind London prices at all, considering that I'd paid £600 per month for my studio in Cricklewood. Then yesterday, a medium latté (or whatever retarded Spanish-Italian-French-Esperanto hybrid term they use for 'medium' in that particular coffee chain) cost me £2.19 at Costa. They were charging £1.60 for own-brand muffins as well.

All of this wouldn't be quite so crazy if wages kept pace with those in the Smoke, but it's a completely different story. Looking at jobs advertised in the South Wales Echo this week, it seems that the contractor for rail staff is paying around £10K salary for a full-time assistant station manager. Contrast that with the London Underground worker who was in the press earlier this year for taking stupid amount of time on the sick, and was on a £32K salary as a driver of tube trains.

It's the inconsistency that's baffling. It would appear that there's some group that has enough money to pay London prices for houses and consumer goods and services, despite the enormous wage disparity between the two capitals. I can only guess that Cardiff prices are being driven up by some combination of equity in properties already owned, the rentier buy-to-let brigade (curse them), and the stupid levels of consumer credit available in this country (Britain now has a higher amount of personal debt per capita than the USA, which in turn is well above mainland Europe). It's not a pretty picture, and I am sorry to see this sort of ludicrous price inflation is now affecting even the Principality I call home.

Saturday, March 19, 2005

This Ain't Vegas


This Aint Vegas
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.
Tonight will be the first gig I've done with Action and Action for a few weeks now, and I'm really looking forward to it. All the moreso because we'll be playing with the excellent This Ain't Vegas.

If you're reading this before it happens, and are at a loose end for Saturday night, it's at Nambucca on Holloway Road, London, and entry is free before 8.

I'm excited, and also a little nervous.

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Underground, underwater


Jubilee tunnel
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.
On Sunday evening, travelling up to meet up with some friends near Finchley Road, I experienced powerful feelings of dread about the idea of terrorists planting a bomb that would cause the river Thames to flow into the Underground. Thinking about the scale of such a catastrophe, I can imagine that the water pressure would force the water down each of the tunnels and out pretty much as far as where I was soon to alight from the train (alight - a word very much loved by Transport for London - I bet they're ever-grateful for the richness of the English language), i.e. right the way out as far as the tube lines emerge over-ground.

My other thought was that it probably wouldn't even be that difficult for terrorists to do this - consider the number of subcontracted workers who end up in positions of authority for work on the various lines (see the Camden derailment last year, for instance). I don't even think I'm just scaring myself with all of this. The prospect of such a man-made disaster seems very plausible.

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Trivial Pursuits

Was I the only person who watched the news a week or so ago and was unimpressed and unexcited by the prospect of Ellen MacArthur having succeeded in her round-the-world sailing attempt?

Maybe it's me, and my own disillusionment with the whole idea of competitive sport (that set in when I was about 12), but I struggle to understand the importance that people attach to these sporting activities, never moreso than in relation to the nautical ones which don't even satisfy a tribal instinct in the way that , for instance, football teams do.

In fact, apart from wasting vast amounts of money (provided for by corporate sponsors, usually - couldn't they lower the prices of their products instead, please?), my other feeling about these sorts of endeavours is that they're so unnecessarily dangerous. Poor kids might join the army at a low level, whereas the children of the well-off go into these risky sports activities. It reminds me of the time Prince Charles and a load of his cronies went off skiing somewhere they shouldn't have and ended up having to get mountain rescue out to save them. I certainly don't think the taxpayer should have to pick up the tab for that sort of thing - if people require mountain rescue, or the RNLI, to save them, chances are they've been off somewhere doing something dangerous based on a lack of danger and uncertainty in their real lives. Ditto for all of those middle-aged men who go off trying to reach the North Pole or whatever. They're the product of a generation that never had to fight a war and therefore has to invent its own dangers.

And while I wouldn't detract from MacArthur's good works at a human level - her charitable foundation is a worthy cause - the idea of her being some kind of heroine just doesn't stack up, for me. Somebody who slogs his/her guts out to feed the children is far, far more remarkable.