Christmas Presents and DRM

You want to know what I got for Christmas? I'd say you've got 3 guesses, but we'd be here all day, so I'm going to let you off this time. I got an iPod Nano! Cute, huh? And RED!

While I think it's well known I'm no Apple fanboi, I'm going to go right ahead and tell you that Apple have the design on this little piece just right. It's TINY! I think it's a sliver larger than a Shuffle, and since it's all aluminium, it feels really nice. It's got a total of 3 buttons on it, because it's a touch screen device, which control the volume and lock the screen. What I like about the way the lock works is that I don't have to unlock it to turn up the volume - I think you'd have to really be trying to "accidentally" knock either of the volume buttons for this to be a problem! Another thing I like about it is that I've got 16Gb storage on it - and since my own music collection is a grand total of 10.6Gb, I can get it all on there! Well, that's 10.6Gb of actual ripped music. I've got quite a lot of CD's as yet unripped. This does, however, include my entire collection of purchased-online-and-subsequently-downloaded music, too.

And now we get to the point. Music downloads. Last century Andrew worked for a company called The Sale People, who's function was to provide music CDs for people wanting to have a Sale. Yep - the "overstocks" prevalent at this time of year are actually provided by other companies who store up everyone else's overstocks and hawk them out round various better known companies when needed. It's almost like learning Sandy Claws doesn't really exist! The point is that one of the directors of the company, a nice, if slightly weird bloke called David, had a vision. He was convinced that music sales would go online - people would stop going to record stores, and they'd buy it all from the interwebz. You've got to remember that this was mid 90's, when the interwebz was a shadow of it's current incarnation. I did what any music-loving person would do, and protested (vigorously, if I remember rightly)  that I'd NEVER be buying my music from a faceless entity. I wanted to experience that joys of flicking through the racks of CDs in a shop!

We all know exactly how right I was! I did resist, but Amazon and Play taught me the error of my ways, and for years now, I've barely looked in the windows of HMV as I go past. I have, as you know, taken quite some time to get into buying and downloading my tunes. I suspect this is, in part, due to the amount of scare-mongering going on about DRM, and how difficult it is to get it to play on any equipment apart from the first device for which you purchased it. You can all imagine how tricky that would be, not least because I haven't the first clue where my first MP3 player may have ended up. It's possible it's still in the house, but there's an equal likelihood that it's been thrown in the bin by now.

I know people still go on about how the music companies are total bastards, but gradually, glacially it seems, they have at least been getting the music on the internet so that it can actually be purchased should anyone want so to do. Yes, it's been bloody slow, although when you think about how long it takes any government to respond to ANYTHING happening on the internet, in an appropriate manner, it's actually pretty swift! The point is that I can go online and get music for my new device. I've been quite enchanted by the ability to purchase an album and have it immediately! I don't know if there have been any artificial "regional" differences - if there are, they've not come to my attention. Oh, yes, I've found it tricky to get hold of Japanese tracks. Largely, though, I've found little I can't get as either a download or on an actual CD.

So what of video? Well isn't that a bloody mess? Not long ago you could get onto Youtube and watch a chunk of video. There's even a section where you can watch, for free, and legitimately, as far as I can work out, some very old, and rather pants, films. All the way through. Nowadays it's impossible to get a hunk of video which isn't banned in one country or another. Here we are, the world shrinking faster than any government can cope with, people communicating with other people all over the globe (and often without the first clue as to where the person may be). Then one person will say, "Hey, take a look at this vid!", and the site you link to will tell you that because you're in another country, you can't watch that video. It's well time that video was able to be available to all - and I don't mean free of charge. I have no beef with paying for content - I just need to be able to GET it. The USA has Netflix, a service which allows for the watching of various series of programs, some for payment, some for free. The only problem is that, due, apparently, to "licensing" issues, you can't sign up for this if you don't have a North American address (apparently you CAN get it if you're in Canada) for your credit card.

And let's not get me started on ebooks! I find it absolutely perplexing, in this day and age, when publishing relies on having an electronic copy of whatever you're publishing in order to get it printed, that I am unable to get hold of an ebook copy of EVERYTHING available as a book. And again, I'm not suggesting that it be available for free. I'm convinced, as should you all be, that an ebook should NEVER, however, cost more than a printed copy.

You know, I worry about the future of the internet. I don't worry about people wanting to charge for stuff - I worry that there are a number of people who are trying to make the world stop shrinking and keep us from sharing, with our Worldwide cousins, those links which usefully illustrate our point.

Nothing Like the Queen's Speech!

You know, I have these plans. These grandiose dreams. I dream a better world, a world in which I'll actually start my Christmas letter in reasonable time, and you'll get a chance to look at it before the festivities start in earnest. Until that utopian day arrives, you'll all be reading this over New Year Celebrations, and I'll be scrabbling round to write it the week before Christmas.

Of course that does mean that the latest possible news can be yours! Imagine if I'd started this at the end of November, as was the plan. You'd all be missing out on the most exciting of news of all! Allow me to explain.

You know I can never actually remember what's gone on in the year. So I usually tell you all about my holidays with the girls – and let's face it, that's the most exciting part of the year. It sticks in the mind. This year, however, was a little different. I got a boyfriend! Now it's not that I've not been trying to get a boyfriend or anything like that. I'm a woman, I have needs! I need someone to help with certain DIY tasks round the house... Well, just before the summer holidays, I managed to acquire a boyfriend. So that's a pretty big part of the year!

Another big part, although not good, was that my Dad died in June. Exactly, Charlotte pointed out to me, a year to the day after Michael Jackson died. We had a fantastic funeral at the crematorium in Aldershot, to which loads of people came. Then there was a rather good do back at Mums place.

And just before the holiday (I will bore you with that, just wait a bit), I decided that it was probably time to move on, and find a place of my own to live in. After all, the big house is a pig to heat, and it's way too much for me on my own with the girls. I started looking at houses locally, thinking to get the big house on the market after the holiday and see what we could get. I got a couple of valuations, and chose the one which seemed the most realistic, and it went on the market. We had a reasonable offer within 2 weeks, and I started looking in earnest for something for myself. And found it! Compromises, always compromises! I found a gorgeous little Victorian semi – in Peabody road. Not as far from the abattoir as I'd like, but with its own off road parking, and a really nice garden. And the best part? All three of us liked it. We'd been to see 3 places the evening before, and each one had been liked by one of us, but not the other two. By the time we left the place in Peabody, the girls were begging me to buy it for them! It does have one bedroom in the basement, which may be a bit of an issue, but Lizzy was enchanted, and bagsied it for herself!

“So why aren't you there?” I hear you cry!! Well, we ended up losing our buyer just a week after they'd bugged us to move early. I'd agreed to move out at the end of October – not an arbitrary date, you understand, but half term, in which much could be accomplished! But they lost their buyers, so we ended up back on the market, our sellers also – the whole chain collapsed like a house of cards in a gentle breeze! Obviously we went back onto the market, and we had loads of people come to see the place. I even got a call from the agents telling me that one couple liked the place so much they'd put their place on the market! Oh the charming naïveté! In the end, we had 3 couples wanting to buy our house – as soon as they'd managed to sell their own. I confess – I did get a little depressed by this, and after languishing on the market for quite some time, I decided that I'd take the house off the market and try again in January. After all, it was getting close to Christmas, and I was bored trying to accommodate all the carpet treaders. And that's the big news. On Friday, after a week of being pestered, I accepted an offer on the house. So there you go – any kind of organisational skills would have robbed you of that nugget of news, and you'd all be sobbing bitter tears into your Champagne, wracked with sadness at my plight, unaware that I'm not entirely unhappy!

So all this house stuff has somewhat occupied my mind since August, leaving less vivid memories of the holiday. We did, as usual, go camping. We went back over to the West coast of France, camping at Le Truc Vert, which, as you know from previous years, is scant 300 yards from the beach. We actually got our electricity this year, although our cable wasn't quite long enough to stretch from the electricity point into the tent. Luckily I'd taken with us a VERY long 4-gang trailing socket, so I plugged that into the cable and wrapped it up in a plastic bag. And hoped for no rain! Sadly that hope didn't come true, and we had what has to have been the coldest, wettest trip to that campsite. Good job I said “campsite”, not “ever”, because I suddenly remembered the trip up to the mountains 3 years before, where the temperatures got down to 1 degree in the campsite overnight! Despite the cold and the wet (and the shameful 3 trips to McDonalds) we had a brilliant time. There was still enough warmth to allow a certain amount of depastification of legs on the beach!

It was even better than usual, because we took Emma's friend Neisha, who's a lovely girl. She is, however, afflicted with a somewhat dangerous allergy – nuts! So we had a rather scary afternoon one day, having bought a bunch of food from the Vietnamese vendor at the market, only to find that the chicken wings (you were expecting me to say chicken feet, admit it!) had something on them from the proscribed list (nuts/sesame/whatever), and the poor girl started swelling up like a balloon! A panicky rummage ensued, during which Emma managed to find and half unpack the epi pen, ready to stab poor Neisha, only to be told that all we need to do was locate the anti-allergy pills. It was a subdued bunch of girls who found their way down to the acceuil to find out where the nearest hospital was, just in case! Thankfully there were no other incidents of that kind!

I met, and made friends with a couple of Germans – Sina and Roman. They invited us to play Kniffle (the German version of Yahtzee) with them, and taught me how to play. The older girls, Neisha and Emma, would go to the beach in the evenings with the rest of the young folks, where fires are lit and much multi-lingual chatting ensues. In fact, we all decided we'd go to the beach on the last evening, and roast marshmallows. We invited Sina and Roman, and told Roman that as a man, we were sort of expecting him to help out with the fire. We collected a very large bag of pine cones (there's a surprising amount of natural fire starter in the campsite!) and set off to the beach, having been assured by Roman that he had the lighting of our proposed fire well in hand! Oh boy, did he have it in hand. He'd brought a jar of petrol with him! Still, no trouble getting the fire to light.

I was sad that we hadn't been able to persuade Zoe and Christoph to join us at the site, because they're such good company. However, I was really pleased when Zoe contacted me by email at the end of Summer to say that they weren't sure what they were going to do with their October holiday! Well, I couldn't resist the opportunity to have them stay with me – after all, when we move out of the big house it's going to be way more difficult to squeeze in an extra 5 people. As it happens, you can get 8 people into the big house with delightful ease! I figured that I didn't have to move out until the end of October, and so I'd use Zoe and Christoph to help me pack/discard junk. As you know that all fell through, so we ended up just having a really good week with the family instead. One of the days I sent them off down to Portsmouth to the Historic Dockyard, on a trip of education and history, only to have them arrive home telling me off for not mentioning that there's a brilliant shopping centre RIGHT NEXT TO the dockyard!! We had a lovely day in Farnham, where Zoe and I must have visited every single charity shop in town! We had a really nice lunch in a pub which actively encouraged us to bring Emily-the-dog in with us. And then we walked up to the top of town and visited the Castle! I can't believe I've lived in this area for the last 40 years and that's the first time I've been to the castle in Farnham.

I was sort of sorry that our holiday took us out of Farnborough for the air show week. I know I actually like to be not-here for that time usually, but the Vulcan bomber was in the skies during the show, and I was thrilled to have managed to catch sight of it on one of the practice days before we left. In fact, on mentioning to Roman that I'd seen this plane, he opened up a lot, telling me that he was really into flying and planes, and had just started learning to fly. I was surprised that he knew nothing of Farnborough Air Show!

So, allow me to take this opportunity to hope that you had a fabulous Christmas, and wish you the very best of New Years! Who knows, maybe next year you’ll get your letter before Christmas!

Love - Sian and the Girls!

Can One Install Windows 7 from a USB stick?

I wanted to make a rambling post about how I'd done this, but I'm actually trying to provide some instruction here, so I'll just go into what I did.

I googled it. The first thing I did when I realised how difficult it was going to be to get my netbook booting from an external DVD drive was to shove "install windows 7 from usb" into google search, and I got back a handful of useful sites. In fact, the first 4 links are incredible. But complicated. Needlessly so, I worked out.

There's a neat little tool to download, the Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool, which would be great, except that it refused to accept my Win7 ISO as a proper ISO. Of course I'm not longer able to download a copy of the Beta file, either, so I gave up on that route.

Many of the links were talking about using diskpart, but this doesn't work on XP, which doesn't list as real hard drives the USB sticks you have in the machine.

So, with many thanks to the results I was able to find, here's what I actually did.

You will need:

1. USB stick - at least 4Gb has been recommended, so I went with that

2. Windows 7 disk / ISO / whatever. You'll need to extract the ISO, if that's what you have.

3. A pc running whatever version of windows with which you feel comfortable, which also has a DVD drive.

You need to:

1. Format the USB stick. Open up my computer, right-click on the USB stick (and make a note of the drive letter), and choose format. It didn't matter that I chose to quick format. I just wanted to make sure it was clear before I started.

2. You need to convert this USB stick to NTFS format. Start, Run, CMD. When you have a command prompt, you can use the command

convert e: /FS:NTFS

I've assumed that your USB stick is the E: drive. This was successful for me, so I continued. Don't exit the command prompt just yet.

3. Put the Windows 7 DVD into the drive, but don't let it run. Since you're still at the command prompt, navigate to the DVD. I'm assuming your DVD is in the D: drive. At the command prompt, type

d:

then type

cd boot

bootsect /nt60 e:

replacing e: with the drive letter of your USB stick.

At this point you can exit the command prompt and finish off in XP. Open up an explorer window, and copy the contents of the DVD to the USB stick.

Voila! Ready to boot USB stick with Windows 7 on it.

I wonder if this works with XP.

What's he like?

Twice now, in response to this very question, I've received the response, "He's married."

I realise that, on the James Bond scale, where once is happenstance, twice is coincidence and three times finally becomes enemy action, this comes down to mere coincidence. However, both times it struck me as odd that such an innocuous statement should be greeted with such a guarded response. After all, in both instances we were already talking about the person of whom I asked that question.

The first time was about two and a half years ago, on a sunny beach in France. The year I met the Germans, in fact, and it was with one of those very Germans I was talking as we all walked along the beach. I can't remember the exact reason for the perambulation, possibly a picnic, probably an afternoon swim, but I happened to be chatting with Christoph, who was telling me about a friend of his, with whom, he said, I'd get on well, I suspect because I have an interest in etymology. And so I asked the question. It seemed a reasonable question to ask, and I was expecting a description of the gentleman in question, perhaps citing some of his interests. What I really wasn't expecting was a flat, "He's married." At the time I put this down to some unknown-to-me appearance of desperation, having been on the singles market for a year with no kind of movement. I assumed I must be emanating some kind of set-me-up-with-your-friend vibe, and brushed over the response.

So it was with perplexity bordering on the amazement when I received this response, again, yesterday, when speaking to a student about his father. The discussion was centering around the child's need to circumvent our security/web filtering systems in order to do whatever it is that 12-year old boys want to do. The conversation moved on to whether his father was for or against his attempts, what kind of computers he bought for the child, and then I asked the question. In this instance I was expecting a verbal description of a dad who was kind enough to buy the kid pretty much any kind of gadget he wanted. Again, I surely did NOT expect, "He's married."

WHAT. THE. BLAZES?

Assuring the child that I was, in fact, perfectly happily settled with my wonderful boyfriend, I set to wondering if I'm asking the question with a certain desperation, or if it's a knee-jerk response that men (boys) have to defend their mates (dads) from any perceived, predatory threat.

And here I sit, baffled by these immediate reactions, but with no answer to give. This is one instance where I have no insight, pertaining as it does, to the male psyche, an area of complete bewilderment to those of us from the fairer sex.

Making a Better Film

For all that I'm a little tiny bit of a nerd, possibly going as far as to be mildly eccentric, I've never really been into comic books. You all know from previous posts that I enjoy a bit of Manga, but I've not spent countless hours reading Batman or becoming familiar enough with the back story behind the X-Men that I can accurately critique the films when they arrive. I suspect my delight in Manga is that there is much of it aimed squarely at the females amongst us! In fact, I think what I most love about Manga is that there is at least some aimed at SO many niche areas of society. And I'll say NO more!

So, back to the comic books. My knowledge, therefore, of many all-American comic book hero (or villain, for that matter) relies (almost) entirely on the films I have seen. THIS is why it's no good my brother saying, on hearing my criticism of Daredevil, "But it was very true to the comic!", to which my response was something on the lines of, "But I had no idea what was happening. I've never read the comic." The problem is that these films must be able to stand on their own, because by the very nature of film, it's likely to be more accessible to the average not-geek than a comic book

And so to the films. You know what I've really enjoyed about many of the recent Comic based films? Time. The film maker has taken the time to build the world in which our hero lives, he's taken the time to develop the characters. Look at Kick Ass as we move carefully through the world of a seemingly average high school nerd as we get to know our hero and his friends. We see the forces leading to his donning of the ugly green suit, and we know of the frustrations shaping his intentions. The director has seen fit to allow us this time to sink into our hero's world. I say "seemingly average" because no nerd I've ever met was that fit, and had that few spots.

Iron Man - apart from a (forgive me) kick-ass sound track, the film works well for me because time was taken to build (cough) the Iron Man. The scene in the movie where Tony Stark was trying to fly the new suit - unsuccessfully, as it happened - is genuinely funny. A reminder that not everything works first time round, maybe. The film is story-oriented, for all that the story it has to tell is somewhat fantastic.

And I'm getting used to this. I'm getting accustomed to NOT having a film which is merely a sequence of set pieces where things blow up. For me, the least memorable part of Iron Man is the final ending, where all hell has broken loose, and the two "Iron" men are fighting. Sure, there's a certain satisfaction to some of the scenes of carnage (the beginning, in the mountains, with the Jericho - that is enjoyable), but many of the scenes where you know the outcome ("Yawn! This is where the bad guy gets it...") seem to be stretched out too far. I suppose when you have a virtually indestructible entity in a film, you're going to need an equally indestructible opponent. And then it just comes down to a basic, and usually rather unimaginative, slugging match.

And then we arrive at the inevitable sequel. You can just hear the marketing men at the studios:
"We have to do a sequel - it'll make millions!"
"And we'll put in more action - the kids love that."

And this is where it all falls down for someone of my age. I've seen action in films. I was there when Raiders of the Lost Ark came out, starting from the quietest of openings to one of the best action sequences EVER in a movie within the first few minutes. I can honestly say that I'd never seen anything like it! But just because we launched into action almost with the credits, doesn't mean that the story was neglected.

Sometimes I feel that we're being force fed vengeance. The bad guy is SO bad he has to suffer as he dies. You can't kill him quickly, that'd be too good for him. Hmmm - I'm not convinced. He's going to be dead, and usually that's quite good enough for me. Great deaths - Hans Gruber in Die Hard. Major Toht in Raiders of the lost Ark. The Terminatior in The Terminator (crushed, quickly, in a mechanical press), and Emil's death in Robocop. See - quick, but sometimes shocking deaths, which stick with you for much longer. I feel jaded by the insistence on dragging it all out. I'm bored by the way people are melted, squealing in that high-pitch, made so popular by the "dying" ED209 in Robocop. Now there was a superb film!

I'm not saying that there's no place for Revenge in a film - many great films based on some kind of vendetta (not least, V for Vendetta), I'm saying that in trying to find ever more imaginative ways for the bad guy to die, it becomes painful - for me.

And while I shouldn't, I'm going to have a bit of a go at the trend for everything to work out well. I remember my first foray into Eastern Cinema - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. What a beautiful film. What a fabulous story! What's that? The hero DIES?? In fact, for a while we had a joke that you could tell a Chinese film from a Korean film by seeing who died. In Chinese films, very often one of the main heroes will die, as well as many of the bad guys. In Korean films, EVERYBODY dies!

American films - all the bad guys die, the good guys not only don't die, everything works out well, and the guy gets the girl (which was tremendously creepy in Ghost Town with Ricky Gervais). You can tell how important a bad guy someone is by the time and method of death in the film. Offed early - you were SO not important on a scale of 1 to Badass. Offed in the middle of the film? Sorry, trusted, but you were never really going to cut it - really, it's a mercy killing. Offed at the end - Don Corleone was probably your brother.

I suspect my thoughts on this would be considered, by the big studios, the ramblings of a senile old woman, who should clearly be given a box-set of films with that Nice James Stewart, patted on the hand and sent to the mad-aunt chair in the corner. After all - the first film did well, how can the sequel be anything other than truly mind-blowing when we've stuffed SO MUCH more into it?

While I've rambled (no, really?) from the point of Comic Book adaptations, you can see that I have my concerns about the planned Kick-Ass sequel (sadly, not to be titled "Kick-Ass: Revenge of Red Mist"). For me, that film is as close to perfect as I've seen since The Shawshank Redemption - and so I have my fingers firmly crossed in anticipation. In fact with a few exceptions ( Daredevil, Catwoman and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen are notably awful), it all falls down on the sequel. Sometimes you get a couple of good films from a franchise (X-Men 1 and 2 were fun, but the third was horrible) before it all veers horribly off the rails (Batman 4? Anyone? Hell, even Batman 3 was ghastly, despite the adorable Nicole Kidman and the not-ugly Val Kilmer). I am hard pressed to think of a series of ANY films which don't get worse as they go along. Oh, hang on - Harry Potter. Patchy, granted, but film 4 was an improvement over film 3, and film 5 (the worst book, IMHO) is the best so far.

Old Dogs and New Tricks

When I was 19, I was working at the Kentucky Fried Chicken in Aldershot. I see no shame in this position - it was supposed to be a fill in for the summer (my first summer job, and I was 18 when I started), but when I failed to get the requisite grades for the Architectural Engineering course at Leeds Uni, in the absence of any other work, I carried on. Well do I remember the day my mother turned up at work with a copy of the local paper, gleeful because she'd found that the Institute of Aviation Medicine was hiring.

"Ooh!" she crowed, "Working for the government! A job for life!"

She called the number for me, requested the application form, and "assisted" me in filling it out. All I had to do was turn up at the interview and blow their socks off - or be less useless than the other candidates.

Thus it was that at the beginning of December 1982 I started my first "proper" job.

I suspect much has changed in working for the government, not least the assertion that it's a job for life. I believe that there is no such thing in England nowadays. But back in the late 70's/early 80's, not only was it an accepted, but also each department had a budget of money and staff. If the department didn't choose to take up either of these budgets and use them to the last penny/person, then it would be removed as unnecessary for the following year. And thus I was hired - the Psychology department had an Assistant Scientific Officer position available, and regardless of whether they had a need for an Assistant Scientific Officer, they had a NEED for an Assistant Scientific Officer. Or me!

And so, on that December morning I started. I sat in the reception office with the lovely reception ladies, and waited to be claimed. And waited.

3 days later I was still there, and so, when an older gentleman approached me to ask if I was interested in computers, I would have answered "YES!" to pretty much any question. Well, following the gentleman was a bit of an exercise in futility, as he had an old PDP-8 which was programmable on the front panel with switches (I believe there was a punched card system, too). And yes, I do know this is how programming started, and I realise I'd have a very exciting addition to my CV if I'd actually been able to learn any of  this, but that's not how the story goes. Just after he'd reluctantly shown me his domain, I was claimed by Graham (and I'm sorry, I forget his surname), who was just testing out the newest Apple II computers, and had a spare!

That's how the story goes. There was a spare office, a spare computer, and a spare copy of "BASIC programming". I found an old, leather, comfy chair, which I dragged into my office and mended with gaffer tape, and shortly after I arrived there, my new colleague also arrived, a fantastic lady called Marilyn.

It turned out I had a bit of a nose for programming, and started writing programs to do things. Of course I started off with the very basic "Hello World" program, and started to expand it using nested loops, ifs, thens, elses and the like. And I loved it.

I was then claimed by one of the Psychology graduates who was doing her Phd., and wanted to run certain experiments. So I wrote the programs to present the experiments, take in the response via a box I built with buttons, analyse the data and print out the results in a format desirable to my psychologist. Obviously this all took some time, but after I'd put together the initial experiment, I started adding on goodies to make it easier to use. Well, easier for me to use! It got to the point where I could lead my victim into the experiment room, explain what was required, press a button on the computer outside in my lab, and have them complete the entire experiment with no further input from me. I learned to knit that summer, too!

Now, while this is a nice trip down memory lane, I'm sure you're beginning to wonder if there isn't actually a point, and whether I'm ever going to get there. Memory Lane is long and rambling, but it goes to the right place.

One of the things I used to do was write little programs to do various tasks. I always felt that I might spend 30 minutes writing a program to do a task which would take me 30 minutes to complete manually, anyway.  I thought that it didn't matter that it would take the same (and sometimes a little more) time as the manual task, because I'd have a program to complete that task should I ever be asked to do it again. Of course my floppy disks were littered with programs I never used more than once, but I never once thought I'd done the wrong thing, because you never know when it'll come in handy.

While I am no longer programming (at all, not even tinkering with macros in Word or Excel), I still stand by my earlier insistence on writing all those little programs. It was a great way to refine my coding abilities, and gave me a desire to play with computers right from the start.

This leads, in its own, winding way, on to my achievement from last night. I know that to many people what I did was pretty mundane. You see, I've never actually edited video before. Well, there was that time I succeeded in taking 9 seconds off the front of the video so that the downloaded subtitles would work, but that, apparently was easy.

It's Remembrance Day here in the UK today, and the school wanted to have a short length of video someone found on Youtube with The Last Post playing over a selection of stills. So far, so good. I use keepvid.com to save videos (there's no internet in the assembly hall) - what could be easier? You mean apart from the one offending still of a soldier sprawled, dead, across a patch of muddy landscape? Yeah, despite the fact that the whole point of Remembrance Day is to remember what happened back during The Great War, The War to End All Wars, you know sometimes referred to as World War I, we can't show a still of a dead soldier.

While I have trouble with this (and I could rant for hours about how adaptable kids are, and how they can be the most blood thirsty little wretches within mankind, that's NOT the point of today's post), I said I wasn't sure about how to edit video, so the music teacher stepped up to the plate. Well, he volunteered the services of one of his mates, who is, apparently, rather good at that sort of thing. But when my memory stick (with, hopefully, the edited video) hadn't returned by the evening before our Assembly, I started to worry, and decided I'd have a go at it myself.

I've always said I can't edit videos, and I've never tried before. I've consoled myself with the thought that I have no art in my soul, and anything resulting would be a soulless shell of a solution. But the requirements here seemed pretty straightforward - replace picture of soldier "having a nap" in the mud with some other image of WWI, as long as said image doesn't have anyone lying down on the job. This, sadly, put paid to my excuses of lacking any kind of artistic talent, so I resolved to push out the other excuse - I don't know how and I can't be bothered. Or is that two excuses? Anyway, after my earlier faux-pas during the week (and no, I'm not blogging that one, it's still too raw), I need to make some kind of amends in the school.

I fired up Movie Maker (on Windows 7 it's Movie Maker Live). It became apparent that it wasn't going to be simply a case of dragging the image over the offending section and smoothing the transitions, so I set to work in earnest. I worked out that you can put a split in a video, and you can drag an image in where the split had been. But the sound stops, and then starts up again after your new image. OK. I need to record the sound, and put that over the whole lot. You have NO idea how long it took me to get Audacity working to record the audio stream from my own PC! Suffice it to say that at least one reboot was required to get that little part working.

So, audio saved as MP3 - what next. Yep, lay that over the video with the new picture in the middle. Oh, the video still has audio, and at the end of the picture, the audio is noticeably out of sync (and we didn't exactly start completely concurrently, either). Er - Oh, apparently you can turn down the audio on the video clip. Great. Both clips - because remember I've split it in two at this point, and removed a section.

Then I felt that the picture I'd chosen (a totally not-death-reminiscent image of some busy soldiers in the trenches - very palatable) was wrong because it wasn't in the same sort of format as the other b&w pictures. And this is the sad, pathetic part (well, one of many!) - I used Paint to put it onto a nice black background so it had a thick, black border. At least by this time I was becoming familiar with Movie Maker, and was able to replace my picture with my new black-bordered picture.

And so I saved it, copied it onto my own memory stick and published it on Youtube! At 36 seconds you'll find the new picture.

I can't think why I've taken so long to start attempting such editing. After all, I've accomplished many things I had no clue about by using the resources of the internet. I've learned a great deal about linux, an operating system I'd never even used until a few years ago. I'm still a noob, but I've been able to become comfortable using it and installing certain things (although Conky still evades me).

I don't want to be one of those old dogs who can't learn anything new! Next time I come across something I don't know how to do, I'm going to launch in with a whoop of excitement.

Shocking

I went to see Michelle Shocked on Saturday night.

Now, I'm a bit of a fan. We're not talking one of those dyed in the wool fans who have her every album, and have actually been to see her before, you understand, just a modest fan who enjoys the single album she owns. The album she, in actual fact, stole from a previous boyfriend, who introduced her to Michelle Shocked.

Now we've established my level of fandom, let's move along to the concert. I have to confess to being a little disappointed. Just a little.

You see, Michelle came on stage over 15 minutes late, to tell us that she wasn't going to be playing straight away, but that her band would be playing for about 20 minutes first. Oh, OK. She then went on to tell us that people had complained about the fact that she tended to be a bit chatty. This didn't bother me, because I quite like an artist to have a little bit of a chat with us between songs - it helps engage the audience. She proceeded to tell us that she was going to carry on with the whole chatty thing, and wasn't going to listen to her detractors (or producers), and she'd carry on with the chattiness, regardless. Well, OK. Then what she said next sort of annoyed me. She said that if she saw anyone recording her gig, she'd come in the audience and deal with the person. She proceeded to ask us to NOT record the gig, and tried to be jokey about it, saying that what happened in Aldershot should stay in Aldershot. She then went off on a rant about how anyone of us who'd ever copied one of her CD's for a friend or downloaded any of her tracks off the internet without paying for it should feel seriously ashamed. I felt this was somewhat ironic, given how she started out.

It's not even, you understand, that I'm against paying for music. I've downloaded, illegally, exactly 5 tracks in my time, of which I've subsequently purchased the album for 3 of them, and the track for one. The 5th - sorry. I just didn't get round to it. If I can get my stuff legally, I'll do it. I've even started to buy MP3 albums from Amazon.co.uk, and download them. I suspect many who know what a tech-head I am will be surprised to find that I've only actually bought 2 MP3 albums (the aforementioned 3 albums were purchased as actual CDs), and both of those since May this year. How can I pin it down to May so easily? 3 words - Eurovision Song Contest! And my copy of Short, Sharp, Shocked is legit, too.

So the band started, introducing themselves as a mandolin player from Ireland, a banjo player from America, and a fiddler from Italy. They were all very good, and the music was upbeat and enjoyable. They'd not been working together for long, and although you could see that, it didn't matter. I think it added a bit of freshness to the performance. They were clearly enjoying not only the playing, but each other's company. The music was a little country. It's possible it might even have been described as bluegrass, but I don't really know my American country music, so I'm not sure about that.

And finally, three quarters of an hour after the supposed start time of the gig, Michelle came on and started playing. It was nice that she was playing alone, because that's how I'd first heard her.

But, oh dear. Now there are many artists who understand what it is that the fans want. You and I, as fans of a band, we know what we want. We want to hear the songs as close to the version on the album as is humanly possible. This is where many tribute bands do so well. When the real bands have either died, split up, given up or just plain don't want to do it any more, the tribute bands play the songs the fans want to hear, in the way the fans want to hear them. Michelle didn't. She started with one of my favourites from the Short, Sharp, Shocked album, When I Grow Up. Which has a lovely, bluesy guitar running through it. Bluesy guitar - check. Singing same as album version - nope! I do get that it must be really boring, artistically to have to sing the same thing, the same way, every damn gig, but I'd enthused my mum into going with me by telling her all about it, and how much she was going to enjoy it. Well, it was OK, but not quite what I'd expected. Thankfully the next song, Memories of East Texas, is a pleasant ballad, and was sung in a way very similar to the album.

But this is where, to my intense dismay, Michelle wanted us to sing. Now here's the deal. I don't sing in public. I just don't. Well, I'll sing if the music is belting out loudly enough to drown me out so that no one, just no one, can hear how badly I hold a tune (and indeed, did just that at the earlier Lady Gaga concert). I have no pretence to being a singer. I'm probably not the worst singer on the face of the planet, but I'm by no means the best. I'll sing on the rare occasions you may persuade me into church, and I'll belt it out, because I have no sympathy there, but at a quiet, intimate gig like this one, there was no way I was going to sing. Mum leaned over sympathetically to say "Don't know the words, eh? We seem to be surrounded by some serious fans!" to which I just replied that I do know the words, I DON'T, however, sing in public. Leave that to those who are more at home there. Still, a good song, and one of the ones I've always enjoyed from the album.

And then came Graffiti Limbo. Now this is a great song, and shows her somewhat political roots. It took me a beat or two to recognise what we were listening to, because she was singing it, again, differently from the album, but actually it was sounding pretty good. That is until the middle of the song. Now, on the Album version she goes on to explain that the song was written for Michael Stewart, a young, black graffiti artist who was arrested while writing graffiti on the New York subway. This is not only fine and good, it's a concise explanation of the song, and detracts nothing from the singing. This time, however, Michelle went off on one. And by one, I mean a number of political rants including one on our own government. Now, as my sister in law once said, "We know Milosevic is a bastard, but he's OUR bastard!", which is pretty much how I feel about our government. While the current coalition may not be the best possible solution, it's actually a deal better than another term of Labour, and anyway, we've had it in place for a very short time - I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt, and let them work on reducing our appalling debt. What I'm not prepared to do is accept an outsider's opinion on our government when she seems to know little about the situation. I have to say that this put a serious downer on my enjoyment for quite some time.

And then we got to the last song of the ones I knew, The L&N don't stop here any more. This is actually quite a depressing song, but it's a good melody, with another lovely blues riff running through it. This was a whole lot more enjoyable, until we were exhorted, once again, to sing, sing, SING! Oh god! Anyway, I really don't know the words to this song, which seemed to go on for EVER! First we were all encouraged to sing, dirge like, the chorus. Then the ladies, then the gentlemen, then all together again. I say dirge like, because it's really not the most upbeat chorus on the face of the planet (pop over to grooveshark and have a listen - I don't know if that link will work). Although the version on the album (and, indeed, the grooveshark version) is actually quite a chipper little number, "we" were singing it way slower than it should be sung, and it sounded like a bunch of school kids greeting their headmaster!

At this point we switched to another album, Arkansas Traveller, which is not an album I know. This not-knowing could well have been a blessing in disguise, as I was unable to say that I didn't like any of these tracks. In fact, apart from her going off in the middle of the tracks, these were a lot more upbeat. She was now singing with the rest of the group, and, again, the melodies were lovely. At the end, for the encore, she played us a new track she hasn't even released yet. Now the song was lovely. However, the attendant, by now annoying, political ranting very nearly ruined it for me, because the song's about Anne Frank. Well, it's about a painting of Anne Frank done by Michelle's partner, and how it hangs in her flat, and is Always There. This was actually the chirpiest song of the whole evening, and I'd have enjoyed it a whole lot more if we hadn't been exhorted, once again, to sing! Oh dear GOD!

I hate to say it, but it was almost a relief that the concert ended there.

Now, as I mentioned, many bands know exactly what to do to make their fans happy. Usually they're on tour to promote a new album, which may or may not have been heard yet, but sure as anything the fans are there because they've enjoyed songs from the band previously. And so the bands will usually play a good mix of their earlier stuff (in the way expected by the fans), along with most of the songs on the new album.

Michelle even made a comment to the effect that one of the people viewing one of her previous gigs had told her she should sing the song as it was on the album, to which she replied, "Well I guess y'all prolly know the song better'n me, so I'll just go ahead and sing it how I want to." I'm not sure this is the statement of a person in complete accord with her fans.

Today, before this computer, sits a shaken fan. I'd say shocked, but you might hate me for the pun!

Groceries

During school term time, I do most of my grocery shopping on line. I have, for the past two years, been a regular and happy customer of Ocado, who sell, amongst the regular, every day brands, Waitrose products. And I've been shopping with them for two years because in all that time I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times they've messed up/substituted a product/arrived late. The most recent was the Juicy Apple shampoo instead of the Tea Tree Tingle (yes mums, you know why I'm buying Tea Tree Tingle).  That was a mess up, not a substitution - and I know that because for a substitution the driver will actually make mention of it as he turns up.  I've not included the number of times I've had a call from a driver saying that he's in the area, in fact just round the corner, and would I like an earlier delivery, because, being a bit skint, I have a tendency to choose the rather later night delivery times (22:30-23:30 is usually free if your order is over £75), because I consider this to be a bonus.

On the other hand, since the beginning of online grocery shopping, I've managed to shop with Tesco maybe 10 times. This despite the fact that I collect their club card points so that we can get our crossing to France for free (Eurotunnel) on their 4 for 1 deals. I truly want to shop with Tesco, because I have none of the hatred for them harboured by my mother-in-law, who views them as the Microsoft of the grocery world. I've always enjoyed my forays into their stores, especially my ability to get some items discounted because the date on them is today. Unfortunately, of the 10 times I've used them, I can remember only 2 occasions when they didn't mess up. In fact, the very first time I was actually able to place an order with them they tried to deliver it to my previous address. While I can see that they may have had my old address on their system because that's where I'd been living when I tried to see if they'd deliver in my area (remember the early days of internet shopping - "Put in your post code and see if we deliver in your area!"), I'd checked while making my order that my new address was down as delivery address, and they still messed up.

I didn't use them again until I got to a week when Ocado, for some reason, didn't have a an available delivery on the day I wanted, leaving me with a choice between Tesco or an actual visit to a store. I chose the former. That time they succeeded in arriving just over half an hour later than the end of the two hour delivery time slot I'd chosen. On querying this with the driver, he assured me he was only just late, because my slot was the 9:30-10:30 slot. When, on finding out my assertion that the booked time had been 8-10 was correct, he said, "Oh."

Just "Oh."

Not, "Oh, I must have been looking at someone else's time, sorry."

Or even just "Oh, sorry."

And this doesn't even go into the interesting substitutions the pickers have, on occasion, chosen. It's almost as if they see a note saying, in the case of the 3 toothbrushes I wanted, "No substitutions, and see if you can choose 3 different colours, thanks", and decide it'll be a laugh to mess with it. If I ask you to guess what I got, and if you say, "You got 3 Colgate toothbrushes, all the same colour, didn't you?" I'd give you top marks.

In fact, the latest delivery, on Friday last week, was a complete "I hate my bloody job, and I'm going to make someone suffer!" statement from the picker.

Look:
I ordered Cadbury's drinking chocolate, 2 (cos they were out of the Tesco's own), and received nothing.
I ordered Quavers, cheese flavour, and got mixed.
I ordered a 6 pack of corner yoghurts - got 2 individual pots.
I ordered 2 packs of coco shreddies, got none.

So, my question today - actually, I've got two questions!

1. How can Tesco mess up so often when Ocado manages to be truly fantastic?
2. Should I continue to bang my head up against the wall of frustration just so I can pick up club card points?

What's worse than the Mormons?

Recently I've had visits from do-gooders. You know the sort of people I mean. They turn up just like the Mormons, in their pretty pairs, and they chatter at you the moment you open the door. It all seems pretty innocuous, especially having established that they're not Mormons from the outset, but that just makes it worse.

They start their chatter by telling you their names, these appallingly upbeat children, Becky and oh-dear-God-I-forget, and then they launch into telling you that they're from (in this case) a charity called Every Child, and that you might have heard if them. Your insistence that you don't know them from Adam having no effect, they then proceed to tell you that they've just been chatting to your neighbours, and reel off a couple of names of people you've never heard. All the while, wittering on about how they're walking leaflets for the charity, and isn't that more eco-friendly than all those paper ones?

And THEN they want to come into your house, just a small flat area where they can show you their slides and, presumably, beg you to donate a regular not-very-much-every-month to make sure that the children are safe! At which point I told them I was very sorry, but I was also very not-interested in their appeals. Confused, hurt, bewildered - these looks raced across those pretty young faces, before Becky rallied, reminded me of her name, and dropped that last bomb on me, "And you are...?"

At which point my wits abandoned me, leaving me stuttering, "Living here, goodbye!" as I firmly closed the door. Seconds later the correct response sprang into my brain - "Not interested in being used as bait for my poor, unfortunate neighbours!" should have dripped from my smirking lips, as I closed the door, softly. Bugger!

Now, this is the second lot of similar people to have bothered me since the beginning of the year, although I can't for the life of me remember what the last lot wanted, so let's hope that I'll actually have a better response to hand when I'm next pestered. Sadly I wasn't on the ball at all that time, and gave my name.

Clearly as a woman they expect me to disintegrate into a pathetic donation-giving heap at the mention of "the children" (as in, "Wont somebody think of the children?"), but these tactics are obviously being taught as a standard trust-gaining method for doorstep beggars. I mean, you can imagine the scenario:

"But what if they say they're not interested?"
"Well, at that point, you want to say, 'If you change your mind, I'll be in the area for a bit. My name's Becky, and you are...?' That way you'll be able to use their name when you call at the next house. It'll make people trust you, because you've clearly been chatting with their neighbours!"

While I do support charities, and I get that they have to use stronger tactics in these credit-crunchy times, the fact is that there appear to be more charities than people to donate, and one ends up having to be a whole lot picky about it. And anyway, I hate these charities which want a regular donation every month. "It's only £15 a month - you'll barely notice it!" Except that it requires more of me. It requires that I take an interest in your charity, and having been persuaded to give once, maybe I can be persuaded to give more. And actually, £15 per month works out at £180 every year.

Nah, you can keep your regular giving - I'll pop some change in the collection boxes (except those people from the Rotary who come round with their ghastly speaker systems, blaring "seasonal" music every year - but I've already said that before) when I see one, I'll gladly spend at your charity fete, especially since someone's baked a great cake I can buy from you.

An open letter to Hawley Place School

I love that the school make the effort to put on concerts and shows, I really do. I especially love that, right from an early age, all the children are encouraged to perform, and I see many happy, confident children, who appear to feel largely at ease in a public performance. This is great, and while there may be some who will prefer, in later life, to be behind the scenes, I believe that this early exposure can only be a good thing.

However, there are a couple, well, a few, points I'd like, if I may, to make.

A few months ago I attended the school for "An Evening of Glee!", which was a truly inspirational performance. I gather this had been a follow on from a day of theatre and dance provided by an outside agent. Allow me to praise this excellent concert/show. It was one of the best things I've seen performed at the school. And do you want to know why it was so good? Of course you do.

It was good because it was short. It was good because every single number the girls performed had been practised until every girl performing was able to do the dances without looking round to check on their mates, and they were able to sing the songs in tune and in tempo. I know that, in any setting, there will be people who can sing better than others, but making sure that the girls know all the words, and have practised until they are confident goes a long way to making the whole sound a lot better. The girls were excited to perform in the show, and I was on the receiving end of none of the "We're supposed to do this song, but we've not had any time to practice it." whining to which I am usually subjected.

While the performance was not faultless (and this is much of the excitement of live music), nothing stands out as grating.

Let's revisit that "short" part, shall we? This performance was, by the time I watched it, compressed into a merciful 45 minutes. What? How can you have a performance lasting only 45 minutes? I was so surprised I actually checked my watch, and was hesitant to leave, in case I was going to be considered rude!

Now, let's move on to the normal Hawley Place concerts.

I’m really tired today because last night I had to pick up Lottie from the school after an evening performance of "Songs inspired by Hairspray." This thing went on until past 10:30.You'd have thought, given that this was an evening show, I'd have attended. Well, I probably would have done, except that the first I was aware of this show was when Lottie told me, either earlier this week, or late last week, that she would need to be in school by 7 o'clock. Yes, you read that right, the show was 3 hours long. The next indication that there was such a show was one of those aforementioned whines.

Have none of you ever heard of advertising? Marketing, maybe? No? Well let me explain. It's the method by which you inform your intended audience that something fabulous is coming. And no, I'm sorry, but the single line in the printed calendar isn't advertising. Since the calendar is a singularly opaque document in the first place, I find myself missing more than I see, despite my termly attempts to go through and mark everything and anything pertaining to my girls' year groups. In the junior school the children are encouraged to draw pictures of which the best/favourites are chosen to appear on the cover of the program handed out to the audience. That's not advertising or marketing, either.

It may be childish, but how about getting each girl to produce, either on the computer, or using pens/pencils/crayons and paper a poster. Enough of those plastered round the school should catch the odd eye, I'd have thought.

They are all, without exception, too damn long. Sure, I would like to see my girl sing. Of course I would, but given the number of girls in either the junior or senior school, I'm quite happy to see her do just the one number. Unfortunately, every single concert I've attended at the school has consisted of many (sometimes 4) songs from each group. Since this isn't limited to just year groups, but various vocal groups as well (not to mention the inevitable instrumental solos), 4 songs starts to look more like 40 songs for the entire of the junior school. And between each song, all the children need to be led on or off the stage and microphones need to be handed out or collected. All this change over routine adds minutes to each song, because getting children to sit/stand exactly where you want them is akin to herding kittens (or octopuses!)

In addition to which, I'm subjected, in the days leading up to the concert, to the cries of "I have to do a duet with Johnny, but we're not allowed to practice!", and "We haven't been given the words or tune, and we're supposed to sing it tomorrow!" Every time my girls say one of these things to me, my heart sinks a little, as I realise how shaky the performances are going to be.

Rehearsals, rehearsals, rehearsals. I'd say it again, but if you haven't got it now, it's never going to sink in. Allow me, if I may, to digress. When I was in secondary school, our choir group was asked, by the Sixth Form College, to learn the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah. We rehearsed this for weeks, excited because we were going to be singing with the sixth form, in a proper concert. We were good! Well, as good as a school choir can be, you understand, but we were certainly confident, and had the words only because we were all to wear the same, and carry the crib sheet - it was the look the music director wanted. As it happened, we were great - when we sang the Hallelujah Chorus. Sadly we didn't realise that we were supposed to knowALL the choral parts of Handel's Messiah, so for everything else we tried hard not to raise our voices above those of the "proper" choir, because we were clueless.

And that's what you get if you don't allow the children to rehearse. As it happens, Handel's Messiah was a huge success, but it wasn't a success because of our school.

Last year both my girls were involved in a showcase for Renton Dance Studio, at which I know a number of your girls dance. They were, at the time, attending a tap class every Tuesday, and this class was given a dance to perform at the show. That's right, just the one dance. Some of the girls in the class attended more than one dance group, and thus were involved in more than one number in the show. But each class spent the entire term practising only their number until they were almost sick of it and the music for it. But do you know what the end result was? A fabulous showcase, highlighting the talents of the girls (and the organisational skills of the staff). Each dance was not too long, the changeovers between the numbers had been rehearsed so that each person knew where they were supposed to be at any time during the show.

But my question, today, is "Why can Hawley Place, with it's abundance of enthusiastic, energetic and talented teachers, not produce a performance of equal brevity and professionalism?"

Oh, I know, you've still got to teach lessons to the children. That'll be one of the excuses, wont it? But that's not good enough - you're trying to teach the children half a dozen songs for the show. Cut it down to one song for each performing group, and maybe they'll actually get to know the song they're supposed to be singing. And only teaching one song per group cannot be too much of a burden on the staff or cut into teaching time too much. Can it?

This one little change to the planning of your next concert could reap astounding rewards. The concert, instead of being discussed as the behemoth they usually are, will be praised by students and parents alike. We, the parents, will begin to look forward to, not dread, the coming shows.

THIS is how Marshmallow came to wake us at 02:30 this morning.

Lady Gaga at the O2

Last night was full of firsts. I had wondered whether to make this blog a bit of a rant about the Nokia navigation software, or a review of a really fun evening out. Because I can't make up my mind, it'll end up as a little of both, I expect.

Lottie and I went to see Lady Gaga at the O2 arena!

I've only recently discovered that I like Lady Gaga, having been a bit taken-aback by my first hearing of tracks like Poker Face and Bad Romance. However, I was surprised to find myself enjoying Bad Romance, and humming along to it whenever I heard it on the radio - it's not the easiest song to like, but it stuck with me. So when I found out that she was playing in England, I had a look, but tickets were only available for Manchester, which, with the best will in the world, is SO not going to happen. To my delight, on telling my niece that both the London dates appeared to be sold out, she informed me about Seatwave, a ticket exchange site. Now, while they may tell you they're a fan-to-fan ticket exchange, you can be sure they're not in it for the love!! Neither are the fans! They all want to get their money back, plus a little extra because they can. And Seatwave are making a damn fine living on this, too. Suffice it to say that our £50 tickets certainly didn't end up costing £100 for the two of us! I could, at this point, launch into a rant about "booking fees", something which caused RyanAir to lose me as a customer, probably for all time, but I'm concentrating on the happy of the event!

Over the weekend, in anticipation of the event, I had visited the Tube website to check that our route from Waterloo was still going to be the Jubilee line. I'd found no reason to suspect that we might have trouble with this, and so it was with quite some surprise that, on visiting the O2 web site (in the hope of finding out what sort of time I might expect the actual gig to start (the only information on the tickets was that the doors open at 1800), I found a great big box telling me that the Jubilee line was, in fact, NOT in service at all for the Bank Holiday!! OK, I'm no pansy, I can change my plans at a moment's notice! One thing I did learn, a fact of which I was completely unaware before this unexpected change, is that you can drive to the O2, and there are some vast car parks available. I toyed, briefly, with the idea of taking the train to London, and booking the Thames Clipper to get us to the O2, but there were only 2 stated boats available, one at 16:00, and one at 18:40, neither of which was really suitable for what we wanted. That idea being unworkable, I began to think about this driving plan. I mean, why ever not? The "special" price for pre-booked car park tickets for the show in question was £16.90 (including the aforementioned booking fee!!), and they had spaces. So I booked.

Allow me, for a moment, to digress. There was a part of me that remembered the horror of driving to Wembly Stadium (although I still remember, fondly, the Bruce Springsteen gig, to which I was driven on the back of a motor-cycle), and our complete inability to exit the car park after the gig - that was the Prince gig, to which I went with BMW sports and social, which is, by far the worst gig I've ever attended. Prince played for 1 hour. That's it. 1 hour. At Wembly. He then, after quite some time, came on and did 3 songs for the encore. 3 short songs. DAMN! We then sat in the car park for a further 45 minutes in the bus, first waiting for the rest of the S&C to arrive, and then for the bus to exit the car park, as thousands of fans streamed, probably unhappily, home. You can imagine my concern, I think?

I did spend some time fiddling round with the Nokia, trying to make the maps program navigate for me - after all, they've promised us free navigation, forever. I wont go into the whole thing, although at one point the program seemed to think that I was entitled to 11 free days of navigation between now and 31 August! Since that doesn't sound much like free navigation forever, I swiftly upgraded my copy of Maps from version 3.04(165) to version 3.04(165). Yeah - I dunno what's going on with that, but until I'd "upgraded", I couldn't get the free navigation forever part of it working for me.

Well, Nokia Maps has helped me out in the past, so I figured that unless I wanted to go round the M25 (on the evening of a Bank Holiday Monday? With all those holiday makers streaming home? Nu-uh!), I'd have to see what my phone could do for me. I'm not sure what sort of navigational decisions were made, but we ended up going the scenic route through London. Up the A316, down past the Kings road to Chelsea Embankment, across the river at MI6 (actually, that was pretty damn cool!), across various bits of London I've never seen, eliciting comments from Charlotte that London was a bit of a dump, and then across Tower Bridge, past the Gherkin, the Lord Mayor's office and the Tower of London - again, pretty cool! Actually, I lie - I know Elephant and Castle, but after Aldgate, I was completely at the mercy of the phone. Now, I say it seemed like a scenic route, but if you look at it on the map (I've started on the M3), you can clearly see that it's largely a straight line. I suspect that the detour at Earls Court was to avoid the congestion charging - I suppose it's not going to know that a) it's a bank holiday, or b) charging doesn't happen on bank holidays.

Actually, traffic aside (and there were some serious hold-ups after we'd crossed the river for the second time), we were directed wrongly only once. A turn that the sat-nav told me about, but about 10 seconds too late. An easy re-route.

Once at the Greenwich Peninsular, it was easy to find the O2 arena, and our car park. Inserting my card into the pre-paid entrance gate opened it smoothly, and within moments we were parked for the evening. It had taken us close on 2 hours to get there, but as always in London, it was the last quarter of the journey which took most of the time.

And so into the arena itself. After purchasing the obligatory merchandise (a t-shirt for Lottie and a flashing bangle for Lizzy), we decided we'd better get something to eat before the show. The choice of restaurants is huge - I saw a Slug & Lettuce pub, a Pizza Express and a Brazilian eatery before we found a Japanese sushi and bento place called Wasabi. I was delighted that Lottie, who isn't into Japanese food to quite the same extent that Lizzy is, said she'd rather like to try that. I've never been to a place where the dishes of food come round on little conveyor belts - not only was it pretty cool, but the food was largely good. I was a bit mean, not knowing how much we'd want to eat, and limited Lottie to the 3 cheapest dishes. The people with whom we shared a table were trying all colours of plates, including the violet and dark pink.

Satisfied after a lovely supper, we decided it was time to find our seats. And what seats they were. OK, I know, it's an arena, and there is, apparently, seating for 23,000 people - that's right, twenty three thousand!! So any seats we could afford were not going to be the really GOOD seats. Actually, they weren't bad seats, for all that they appeared to be up the side of a cliff, to which we'd have to cling in order to avoid falling headlong into the standing area. So precipitous was the climb, in fact, that Lottie spent the first 10 minutes after we'd removed our carabiners and coiled our ropes, pressed back in her seat, looking down with worry on her face. Thankfully it didn't take long to acclimatise to the constant danger, and by the time the concert started, we were able to dance with the rest of the audience. I have to confess, when Lady G shouted "Jump!", I'm afraid my response was more of a jiggle, because I really didn't feel comfortable getting both feet off the floor at the same time!

Oh! But she did a brilliant show. Costume changes every other song (indeed, some costumes saw only one song), light displays, a bit of a story, fire on the stage (now there's an accident waiting to happen), piano's, blood (stage blood, don't worry) and some great music made for a fantastic evening. I think that music tastes are so individual that I'm not going to try to convert you - either you enjoy Lady G, or you're not so keen. I enjoy the music, I find the spectacle delightful. I wouldn't want to criticise, but I'm surprised, given the lavish production of her videos, that the stage set was so, well, staid. Mind you, the monster and some of the more outrageous costumes made up for that. I have to say that by 22:20, on exiting the arena after the encore, Lottie and I were buzzing with pleasure!

Just before the encore, some people squeezed past us, so I explained to Lottie that sometimes people like to leave before the end of a show so they don't get caught up in the car park at the end of a show - remember Prince? I said, "Don't worry, we'll just sit in the car park as long as necessary so that you can see the whole show." But you know what? It took us maybe 10 minutes from getting into the car to being out of the car park. All those parking worries were unfounded.

Remembering our, um, interesting trek across London to get to our destination, I decided that our route home would be straight down the A2 and round the M25. That took us a bit less than an hour and a half!

I think the only thing wrong with the whole night was that my life would have been substantially better had Lottie NOT woken me at 02:30 this morning to tell me her hamster had escaped, and she'd woken to find him crawling on her! Yeah, could have done without that...

A Eurovision Evening

I've been a fan of Eurovision for a number of years now, probably since Abba won with Waterloo back in 1974. In recent years it's been my habit to go to my sister-in-law's place, drink wine and get hugely over excited. We love watching, and the highlight of the evening would be Terry Wogan's charming, yet slightly barbed, commentary. We liked Terry because he was never cruel. We've yet to love Graham Norton, whose commentary is likeable, but he's quite mean to the contestants. Now, whether or not I actually agree with him, I feel that he has a duty to poke only the gentlest of fun at these people - it's supposed to be an evening of escapism, after all.

However, that's not really why I'm ranting tonight.

I find myself disappointed that the UK achieved such sad and pathetic place. We succeeded in coming last again. While this year wasn't the debacle of the truly horrible year (2003, and a performance so completely out of tune it was hard to be totally sympathetic) in which we succeeded in scoring the dreaded "Null Points!", I'm afraid 10 points is hardly a great showing. I think it was 10 points, anyway. We were overtaken at the last minute by Ireland and Belarus, both of whom started even slower than we did, but enjoyed a belated surge of minor votes.

I will say, to the credit of many of the countries, there was substantially less political voting than has been oh-so-evident in recent years. It was nice to be trying to guess to whom certain Eastern European countries would give their 12 points, only to find myself confounded as they voted for a good song rather than their "Good Neighbours" as has happened so often in the past. This apparent lack of politics served to show up the countries who DID vote in this way.

But, again, I'm not really getting to the point. This year, and indeed every year for a few years now, the UK organisers have said "This year we're serious! We're not going for a jokey song this time. We actually want to WIN!!"

So what do they do? Do they choose an established singer who may be able to perform a well written song, possibly mostly in tune? After all, even Israel, with their singer's voice meandering through the scales in a way I'm convinced hadn't occurred to the writers of the song, achieved more points than us. No they don't. We choose a boy who had apparently 20 minutes to practice the song before he first sang it on stage about a month ago. A lad with, as far as I could work out, no actual singing success to his name yet. Do they then, choose a song written by a writer/team with proven success? Well, yes we did that but, hang on, is that the phone - Hello! It's the 80's, and they'd like their song back please. Sure, Stock, Aitken and Waterman have achieved monster success - but not so much since the 90's.

Actually, I thought the song wasn't horrible - in fact, there were many songs substantially worse than ours, but somehow we didn't manage to get it right. Is this because the boy had so little experience? You know, given the success of recent artistes on the show, I've started to wonder if there isn't really a rule which states "You can only enter the Eurovision Song Contest if you've only just been discovered and have never had any kind of recording success in the past." I know that sounds daft, but I've been convinced that there really is a rule just like that, because, to my knowledge (and remember, it's late, and my memory's not so good) we've never submitted a song by an established artiste.

The eventual winner was a lady who's song is already a number 1 hit in more than one country.

Edit: Time to add some real information. The last time the UK won the Eurovision was back in 1997 when Katrina and the Waves performed. It's perhaps ironic to note that Katrina and the Waves formed in the early 1980's, and had had some not inconsiderable success, internationally as well as in the UK. Lena from Germany, while still young, has also had amazing success! I was surprised to find that there even IS a Wikipedia page for Josh Dubovie, who's career to date seems to consist of rejection letters from such illustrious shows as The X Factor, and Britain's Got Talent.

In fact, remembering some of the commentaries from The Lovely Terry Wogan, I seem to remember that quite a few of the bands/performers on the show have been huge celebrities in their own countries. While I'm fairly sure this was a point of ridicule for our esteemed presenter, I really don't think it's a point that can be ignored.

In fact, a little search round the interwebz reveals the sad truth. The only UK band to have been formed specifically to sing in Eurovision and win were Bucks Fizz. Now, this kind of luck has undeniably happened - Bucks Fizz beat an already established band (and another made-for-Eurovision group) to be allowed to take their song into the contest. Hardly luck, really. Some of the band were already singers in their own rights (indeed, Sheryl Baker had already been to Eurovision once with another band 4 years earlier), and they were all recruited by audition.

The first time a song from the UK slipped below single figures in the final rankings was back in 1978 - a totally forgettable song called Bad Old Days. Really, don't follow the link! After that, though, there was only one occasion (1987) when the UK slipped out of the top 10 until 1999. And do you know, the British public is so self-effacing that this is, in fact, good enough for us.

I remember hearing, while watching "Eurovision: Your Country Needs You" earlier this year (what, maybe 6 weeks ago, max) that Pete Waterman thought the Boy/Girl band (and I really am sorry, I don't remember their names, or which SAW song they sang) didn't seem to sing well together, and a comment from someone else that they'd had only a few weeks to practice together. Every single "artiste" who sang that night was a total noob!

It strikes me that while the "OK year 3, who wants to sing a solo in the summer concert?" approach may be workable for my children's school, it's hardly the best way to ensure a reasonable showing in the Eurovision Song Contest!

Some days are just crap 'til the end

Yep, it's been one of those days.

Yesterday. Now there was a great day. That was a day by the end of which I was filled with complete satisfaction. Everything went well yesterday.

Yesterday I wore a frock (this is almost unheard of, you understand), and I looked Damn Hot (for a 46 year old). Work was awesome, because I fixed more problems than usual, everything went well, and I ate lunch with the Bursar - a charming man who flirts outrageously with me!

Today, on the other hand, was a disaster. Well, not BP-oil-spill disaster, just low level, nothing-bloody-works disaster. I've been testing Windows 7 in school, and I'm coming to the conclusion that we'll be an XP school for a while longer. I mean, it's easy at home - if a piece of software doesn't work, I'll browse the web and find something, usually better, which will do the same job. The financial commitment we've put into our software in the school is monumental, and there never IS a freebie replacement (except for Ranger - you just wait, your time is coming...)

But worse, my phone gave out on me today.

Yep, the 5800 had a bad day, too. Actually, it's been a bad nearly-week. Last week, I think on Friday, I was messing with some software on the phone (Wifi stuff, I think), which hung up, so I flipped out the battery, waited a second or two, and put it back in. This is pretty standard, it takes all power from the machine, usually allowing a clean reboot. But the phone refused to boot up beyond the large, friendly "Nokia" logo. I power cycled (battery out and back in again) a couple more times, but still nothing happened. So when I got back home I slid out the SIM and shoved it into the old N78, much to Lizzy's disapproval - after all, I'd let her have that phone when I moved on. I don't know why she's getting quite so cross, it's not like she actually makes any calls on it. On this I called O2, with whom I have my contract, and who have, in the past, been able to help me with some technical difficulties. Their suggestion was to take the phone to the nearest O2 shop, if I didn't want to send it off and wait for a repair. In fact, since I didn't know if there was an O2 shop in Farnborough, the guy suggested that a Carphone Warehouse would be able to fix it for me too.

As it happens, I slipped out both the SIM and the memory card when I moved over to the N78, and, just for the hell of it, I decided to try to reboot the phone one last time. To my surprise and delight, it booted up fine. So I powered it down, inserted the SIM and powered up again. Yes! So I just clicked in the micro-SD, and all went well for a few days. Until Monday. Same again, although this time I wasn't messing about with any software. So I thought I'd pop into the Carphone Warehouse on the way home and see if they could suggest anything. Sadly, because I bought the phone directly from O2, Carphone W don't have any information for me, and wanted some kind of proof of contract - which I could get, except that my phone was hung up!

Once again, when home I slid out both cards, and rebooted. And it did. At this point I began to wonder if it was the SIM or the SD card which was causing the problems. And because the phone failed again today, I was able to check this - the SD card.

So I thought to myself - I have been messing with a load of software recently (you know how it is, you install a bunch of software, look at it, decide it's useless, and if you remember, you un-install it again), so I thought - I'll take it back to factory settings, and completely erase the memory card.

To my surprise (and NOT delight), while this totally buggered my nicely setup interface, it left a whole bunch of settings still in the phone. In addition to which, it rendered parts of the "home page" as it's called, unworkable. Tapping on the dialler refused to bring up the numeric keypad so I could call anyone. Tapping on the contacts icon did nothing. None of my shortcuts showed, and on trying to edit them so they would, I was told there were no configurable shortcuts for my chosen theme.

Having found that there is an O2 store in town, I resolved to go there directly after school. Sadly it turns out that 3 days ago the shop shut for 3 weeks for some renovations - Oh, I could have cried! So I stole the N78 again, and made the call. I was prepared to risk the wrath of Lizzy for a week or so in order to get my phone back to O2 for the fix.

Only... I don't need to! After much messing round, I finally got one of the lovely people to give me the REAL reset to factory settings keypresses. Just in case you need to know, it's *#7370#. This really will reset to oh-my-god-this-is-so-exciting-I've-just-got-a-new-5800, right out of the box, true factory settings. So just make sure you really want to do that. I was able to make a back up first, so I could bring back my contacts and calendar information.

You see, it didn't take much to cheer me up in the end. You know I don't mind starting from scratch. It's quite a lot easier, sometimes, than trying to fix the problem when everything you try fails completely.

So although I'm still no nearer sorting out many of the problems in school, at least my communication woes are currently settled.