Showing posts with label Kevin Bacon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kevin Bacon. Show all posts

Saturday 26 October 2019

Charged - #Oktoberfest #31 - Cigarettes and Alcohol - Oasis


A weird thing , last night I switched my phone (a Google Pixel) off and put it on charge. It is always good to switch the off at some point, I do not understand people who sleep with their phone's next to their bed (unless you are on call for something) but it was about 20% charged when I went to bed last night. Switched it on this morning and it was on 2% , yes that's 2%. So although it was off, therefore not doing anything , even if it hadn't been plugged in to charge, it should have still been around 20%, so that is just a little disconcerting. It is on charge now, and though it says it's charging slowly, it's sitting at 60% charged.

I got the PIxel on the recommendation of my youngest daughter Kirsty who pointed out that you don't get all the phone brand crap that you don't want and by going on to SIM only with EE (who still are probably the best network to be with as they are reliable , fast, and have good customer service despite the awful Kevin Bacon adverts , they need to get Brennan Brown and Steve Furst back who did the amazing classy ads for Orange also check here but one of my faves was the Elton John one advertising the dawn of 3G here)

So continuing #Oktoberfest and another reserve is "Cigarettes and Alcohol" by Oasis. Oasis always annoyed me as mouthy Mancs and Beatles rip off merchants, but they actually came up with a handful of decent tunes and this one is OK.

So have a good Saturday everyone.

Friday 16 August 2019

Turtle Power


Switched on 6Music this morning and Chris Hawkins was playing "Gravel-Pit" by Wu-Tang Clan which for some reason reminded me of  "Turtle Power" the theme from the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film, which was a surprisingly excellent song and the film wasn't that bad either.

My daughters Juliet and Kirsty were huge fans and the action figures were very difficult to get hold of, but I remember walking into Asda at Boldon just before Christmas and there were two huge baskets filled with the figures. Christmas was sorted, sometimes things do unexpectedly drop into your lap.

So it's Friday and this is effectively my diary entry to fine the Partners In Kryme song should ever want to listen to it, so just a very short post before I get off to work wondering if I've got that record, it's probably somewhere in my digital collection and that has just reminded me of a couple of streaming service surveys that i've seen.

Basically streaming music is being pushed in many forms , including podcasts and the like. The thing is when you stream music or video you have to remember that if you are not on wifi then you are using up or paying for your data and this is what the various communications companies are pushing. From an artists point of view the Spotify business model doesn't work but most of my friends are aghast when I say I don't have Spotify. Apple Music, Amazon and the rest will all devour your data.

I had a chuckle at the latest EE 5G advert advertising "Hannah" from Amazon Prime where Kevin Bacon says you can download it in seconds when the girl says she hasn't got time. If the network is that good why not stream, the data use would be the same. Also while you can download something in seconds it still takes 90 minutes to watch and generally it's better to watch on a big TV that a relatively little phone, I'd rather watch on a fifty inch screen than a five inch screen.

So now it's time for work.

I am not sure if you are aware of my writing on Vocal but these are a few of my stories if you would like to sample them:

  1. The Never Ending Story - My Directory
  2. The Never Ending Music - My Music Directory
  3. The Never Ending Poetry - My Poetry Directory
  4. An Owl In A Towel - A Beautiful Book by Lesley and Cheryl
  5. Three Reasons Why I Love Settle - Scaleber Force, The Hoffman Kiln and Castlebergh Crag
 

Sunday 16 March 2014

Coincidences and Connections

Last night I watched three unrelated programs bar the fact that they were BBC programs. Line of Duty was the first and I've been following this amazing series since the start, not for the squeamish and with plot twists to to tie your brain in several knots. It is police and crime with Dennis Wise look a like Martin Compston one of it's many star turns.

Next up was Shipwrecks: Britain's Sunken History concentrating on the destruction of the Spanish Armada on the Irish and Scottish Coasts, and how the survivors became integrated into to the local communities.

Next up was Shetland , currently on season 2 but something I noticed , based on the Raven Black books by Ann Cleeves. First up was the fact that the main detective is DI Jimmy Perez (the Armada connection) played by Douglas Henshall, next coincidence was that Mark Bonnar who plays DCC Mike Dryden in Line of Duty plays Duncan Hunter in Shetland.

Then, and she didn't know I was writing this, Fiona told me that Ann Cleeves was actual one of the protagonists of Peter Jackson's film "Heavenly Creatures" , so that was unexpected. There is an article here. Though that was fairly difficult to track down.

So an amazing number of coincidences and connections in a very small number of items this weekend. It's amazing how easily things can spread out and become connected. The seven degress of Kevin Bacon is probably true , but for obvious reasons I'd rather not co there, despite the fact he was in one of my favourite films Tremors.

Tuesday 18 December 2012

4G or Not 4G?



Well I eventually went for it. Basically 4G provides with faster downloads and uploads and will cause you to use a lot more data than you did under 3G. When you are in a 4G area you soon become used to fast response times which under 3G could take an age especially media rich web pages.


Youtube under 3G was always good , so I dont notice musch difference under 4G , but BBC iPlayer was virtually unusable on 3G , but on 4G becomes a very good media delivery channel.

I was going to do a series of posts of my experience with 4G  and this is the first . EE have given (well sold) me a a LTE enabled Samsung Note 2 , and it's an impressive device. I used my original Note to watch Cockneys vs Zombies , I see the new device with 4G being used to watch a lot more.

Today I am going down to London so I will see how it fares , when I get down there I am going to tether it with my iPad to see if that's a viable opyion. I have a monthly data allowance of 10 Gb , I have a feeling i this brave new data world that may not be enough.

To paraphrase Robert Shaw in Spielberg's Jaws :

    "We're gonna need a bigger data allowance"


Saturday 15 December 2012

Bully For You

This is one of those posts where a couple of randome things that you talk about with people sort of come together in an Edward De Bono lateral thinking kind of way , or like the Kevin Bacon , EE $G , interconnected digital world kind of way. Anyway basically I'm not sure where I should start so I'll just jump in and see where I land.

This year Malik Bendjelloul brought out a film Searching For Sugar Man about the Mexican artist Rodriguez  who brought a couple of albums out in the 70s and was very with in the southern hemisphere. The film has brought Rodriguez deserved worldwide recognition albeit 40 years late , but he can still tour , sing and deliver the goods and is now reaping the benefits. POssibly a similar situation was Nick Drake who unfortunately commited suicide , but his music is now finally recognised for how good it is / was.

 
 
Anyway I then read that another artist from the 70s , Graham Parker , was also enjoying a resurgence with his excellent band The Rumour with a major part as himself in the film This Is 40 produced by fan Judd Apatow. There's a Rolling Stone article here.It's not quite the same but will mean that Graham Parhker and The Rumour get deserved worldwide exposure. Always loved Graham Parker and this leads to another discussion I was having with a friend about bullying in the workplace.


It isn't nice or clever and it is horrible when you are subjected to . I have experienced it , fortunately that's fifteen / twenty years  years behind me now , but thinks were'net going well for Graham Parker when he was at Mercury Records and he responded by actually releasing the excellent "Mercury Poisoning" which while not being the most subtle of analogies certainly hit the spot , I think Mercury dispensed with Parker soon afterwards. He kept making great records and Mercury lost a talent that could have raked in a fortune for them. So this has turned out to be a bit of a ramble but it is and excuse to listen to the excellent "Mercury Poisoning":