Sunday 25 January 2009

In Dublin....

And they're charging 12.5 Euros for a days wi-fi access and the bus drivers seem intent on telling which busses you can't catch rather than what you can catch.

On the plus side the Druid's Chair in Killiney is fully redecorated and still providing totally excellent service and Guinness. Also The Queen's Head in Dalkey is still doing their excellent Bacon and Cabbage which tastes far better than it sounds!

The ASUS is a bit small for my fingers so I'll expand these entries with pictures and video at a later date.

Highlights of the week included the visit to the Guiness Storehouse finishing up with a pint in the Gravity Bar.

Also theres an updating of "Playboy of The Western World" by Roddy Doyle and Bisi Adigun , which was playing to packed houses at the Abbey Theatre , see here, and is absolutely superb. Hopefuly it'll tour the rest of the world at some point.

Saturday 24 January 2009

Richard Thompson's 1000 Years of Popular Music At The Sage


Absolutely top drawer stuff (as usual from Mr T) . The 1000 Years of Popular music first run is available as this gorgeous 2 CD / 1 DVD set here well worth fifteen quid from your bank account.

The first half of the set was mostly new (but old) stuff if you know what I mean , but the post 1900 stuff featured a lot of familiar stuff.

This is the only youtube stuff I can find so hopefully it will stay available. If you can see him do so! The first is a trailer:




The man himself:



And one of my favourites:

Tuesday 20 January 2009

Anyone Can Do The Web ...

..but not everything is worth looking at. The web or net or whatever you want to call it , is a great leveller , in that absolutely anyone can create a website , which means theres an awful lot of dross out there, full of "Under Construction " signs , or just unfinished and left to rot or just plain bad. The main thing about a web site is that it must do what it's supposed to do , no more no less. Amazon is a great example of something that doesnt look great , but allows you to do what you need (ie buy stuff ) , very efficiently. Play follows it very closely in this.

Then you get entertainment sites such as JibJab which allows the sending of e-cards and is one of the few sites of this ilk that is worth visiting. You can see various examples of Jib Jabbery throughout this blog , such as here.

There's also the personal websites that are the equivalent of cards in the shop window , but can be made to look like a page out of Vogue such as Mark Johnson's Photography Gallery , with an example picture below, which is a small catalogue of the sort of photographic work he undertakes. This includes commercial photography and travel photography as well as bespoke photographic commissions:



Another is Bob Artstrong's Paintings Gallery which displays some of Bob's work (he's an excellent Lincolnshire based artist) and has news about exhibitions and the like . One of his paintings is displayed below:



And finally this last one is for Woodlands Nurseries in Louth , an excellent plant nursery in Lincolnshire,which is an online news and plant catalogue, with many pictures of the beautiful plants available to the public:


And then there's the more mundane but neccessary world of Gas Boiler Servicing and the like . And my mate Harry Willis has his own site to advertise his services, such as installation , radiatore sytem flushing as well as annual bioler serviceing in the Newcastle area here.

Thursday 8 January 2009

Walkin' The Dog : Animals We Have Seen

Just thought I'd post a bit of video and photos , including a cat in our garden , the dogs and lambs of Upton Snodsbury while we were staying in The Old Wool Loft (see here) as well as a couple of Geese. All soundtracked by Spirit's version of Rufus Thomas' "Walkin' The Dog" , a version of which you can download here:


Thursday 1 January 2009

Good New YearTechnology

First post of the New Year , and a video soundtracked appropriately by the Red Guitars' Good Technology demonstrating the NASA Ground Control that serves as the karaoke machine and beer storage in Marks house!!