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.

Clouds

You know, over the years, I've spent much time (not to mention money) trying to get my perfect device. As you know from reading this blog, I've thought on more than one occasion that this Nirvana was finally reached, only to find that there was something not quite right about the current toy. This has left me with a sometimes minor feeling of "Oh, what a pity they didn't just add..." whatever it was.

The 5800 is a really superb phone, and blew away the N78, which, as you know, took me to a whole new realm of geek-gasm when I bought that. But there I was in bed last night trying to IM a friend of mine using Nimbuzz (I'll go into that in a minute) on a phone with no physical keyboard. Now, on the Palm I'd have been writing the message on the screen with the character recognition - at which I got pretty damn quick, I can tell you (although moving from graffiti to graffiti 2 was a pig, because writing a "t" suddenly became much more of a deal - after all, it's one of the most used characters on the keyboard, and to have to put 2 strokes, well that just makes it more annoying. That and the "i"), but the character recognition on the Nokia is weird, and I've not had the time to get used to it that I'd had with the Palm.

Inevitably I began to think that maybe, just maybe, I'd got the wrong phone, and I should have gone for the N97 mini, a gadget I was able to get my hands on at an evening out with my brother and some other Nokia people not long ago. The reviews would have you believe that the touch screen, not being capacitative, is a completely unresponsive thing, fit only for the very ham-fisted amongst us. However, it turns out that I LIKE this kind of screen - my lack of desire to spread my fingerprints all over my niece's iPhone brought home this point. On the iPhone I have to use the pads of my fingers, I can't use my fingernails or a stylus - somehow I think there'll be few former Palm aficionados converting to the glossily good-looking iPhone! I found the keyboard on the N97 mini to be usable, even for my sausage-fingered self, and the touch screen did what I wanted with a small tap of my nail.

However, I've waxed lyrical about hardware for long enough (it might even be suggested that I'm a little over-enthusiastic about gadgets). I'm here to talk about something completely different. No! Not Monty Python! It's something which, somewhat sneakily, I suppose, has found it's way into my every day life without me really thinking about it that much. And what is it? It's The Cloud.

I may have the wrong interpretation of cloud computing, but for me it's all about being wherever, and having access to my stuff. My documents, my internet shortcuts, my music - my STUFF. It started off slowly with my introduction some 2 or 3 years ago, to Googlemail. There it was - all my mail, available wherever, whenever, and on whatever hardware I happened to have. And lets face it, I'll have some kind of hardware available - always.

Then I got the blog - all my thoughts for anyone to see. I mean, sure, I don't update it as often as I should, but it's a great place to throw my thoughts. I know that one person reads it - anyone else would be a bonus! There are times when I would love to be able to sit down and write a Harry Potter, but really, what the blog has taught me is that I'd be better off writing something small and snappy. I'd say "Watch this space!", but I wouldn't want to get your hopes up too much. Anyway, the real beauty of the blog is for summer updates. It's like an online, slightly geeky diary of holiday events.

Then last year I found Delicious. And it is! I can't believe it took me so long to find something so useful - that's ALL my interweb bookmarks right there - whatever the hardware, however often I re-build my machines (and I can point to a previous blog, and say it's not infrequent - in fact, its been mentioned that I should blog as often!) I don't lose my favourite internet sites.

It has to be said that a lot of my Cloud stuff is with Google, the new Microsoft of World Domination, so when they decide they've given enough away for free, I'm completely boned! I've got my calendar on Google syncing with my phone, so I can either enter appointments with Google (and a proper keyboard) or on my phone, with the not quite so easy to use touch screen.

Part and parcel of my Gmail account are my contacts. And then there are my Skype contacts. Of course, by it's very nature (Voice Over IP), Skype's going to be a Cloud type thing, but I love that I can use those contacts from any machine on which I can log in to Skype. And this is where we get back to Nimbuzz, mentioned so briefly, yet enticingly, at the beginning of this post.

This is, essentially, a social networking client. Sure, if I had a Facebook or Twitter account, I'd be able to use Nimbuzz to sign in and do whatever it is one does with those accounts. But it's Gmail/Orkut (it appears I've got a social networking account despite every attempt to avoid them) and Skype which are the important ones. (and, if I ever remember the password to my windows live account, I can get to that from Nimbuzz too.) Nimbuzz will sit in the background on my phone, connected to the world, telling my contacts on Skype and Gmail that I'm available to chat and call. And thus we return to the beginning! There I was, trying to type in a message to one of my mates on the phone, using the on-screen keypad, and I realised that the keyboard, fine for the odd text is inadequate for the rigours of a quick back and forth conversation.

The search continues...