Thoughts On Writing

The reason I started writing this blog was because I hoped I would get an idea for writing a book or screenplay. My basic problem is that I am not motivated and too lazy to take the next step , well that's my opinion.

A blog is a diary and some contain some brilliant writing. It's a great way or remembering things you don't want to forget. There have been many incidents where I go back into the blog to have a chuckle about certain events , the B & Q application form being one that springs to mind.

I am currently reading "The Thurber Carnival" , a collection of  James Thurber short stories and realise that in order to write you have to be disciplined enough to research , or just know lots of things like , say , Stephen Fry.

As well as this you have to have a spark of originality or a muse to create a work that others want to immerse themselves in.

The internet and Amazon's self publishing package mean now that anyone can publish a book if they believe they have the capacity to produce a worthwhile work. The problem being it starts becoming literary karaoke where people believe that they are the next Dan Brown and have the key to untold riches.

I was shocked to hear that the average earnings for a writer was around four thousand pounds per annum. When you think how much the big earners make some writers must be on pennies.

I have incredible respect for my friend Paul Campbell who packed in his job and became a script writer. Similar to another friend Bob Armstrong who did a similar thing to become an artist.

This is another post I'm writing using the iPad's Note application. I reckon that the iPad with the addition of a keyboard is a very useful piece of kit, although when you have no internet connection you can feel a little lost.

Craster 2012

Back in Craster again and the digital TV signal seems to have improved . DAB radio is OK too so I can listen to Radio 6. It's close to civilisation, but has the benefit of being on the seafront resulting in an incredibly relaxing atmosphere.

The lack of mobile phone signal means that I cant post direct to my blog , so I'm using the iPad to write this. Combined with the blu tooth keyboard the iPad is a decent doing tool!

Alnwick, Bamburgh, Lindisfarne  and Alnwick are all with easy driving distance. 

Craster is around 60% holiday residences , which at first seems a bit sad , but probably means that the village can survive because of the extra revenue that this brings in.

Robson's kipper smoking factory and restaurant and The Jolly Fisherman are still going very strong in this superbly located village.

Two days ino the holiday and I am already feeling the benefits of communication cut off. The internet  and mobile phone networks connect us up 24/7 and that is probably not a good thing because you are always looking to do just a little bit more, though ironically I am cut off but I am still blogging!!

Hopefully I will find some free wifi or a mobile wifi signal and can unload my posts.

London and My iPad

Interesting , just realised that the iPad doesnt come with an inbuilt Office Suite. So I'm using the Note application to write this post. Hope I can cut and paste this lot once I've typed it.

It's a sad fact that I am getting used to London. Kings Cross is only five stops from Paddington and now I think that's nothing. It's not so long  that going from Kings Cross mainline to Kings Cross underground with luggage in tow was like a trip down the Amazon.

On the plus side stuff like the Science Showoffs night at the Wilmington Arms hosted by the excellent Simon Cross in Farringdon (six stops from Paddington) is educating me an the science of making cheese toasties,  swimming and the theory of the Quantum Car!

It's also amazing that the responsiveness of the iPad can be amazingly temperamental. Sometimes it is instant and sometimes it just ignores everything that you do.

Anyway I will now try to connect to the internet and post this. I  will put in links later unless I forget.

Oh apologies for the font. That came from the iPad application!

iPad on a Train

This is the first time I've tried to blog on a train with my iPad and blu tooth keyboard. It's a bit weird as theres a slight keyboard delay and the t key was sticking causing unwanted repetition. The keyboard case I got for the iPad is generally excellent and makes the iPad itself far more productive.

Tablets , by their nature , are good for browsing and watching and research but more difficult to actually do productive work on. While still getting used to the idea of not having a mouse but touching the screen for mousey type actions, I must say the iPad is very usable.

Charlie brooker described it as a "content deiver device" and a "twattometer" before deciding he could do without one.

I'm still in the very early stages of learning about it, but I only have an iPad 2 and its fast , responsive and easy to use. I have lots of complaints and narks about it but I have used it more in the month that I have had it that I did the Advent Vega in the 15 months that I had that.

It's an excellent e-reader and there are lots of free books avaiable , then you have Garage Band the app that persuded me to get one.

It's still early days but so far I am very impressed.

Just need Apple to accept the have faults and rectify them instead of pretending everything is perfect.

Seriously I would recommend one of these to anyone.

Never Ending Festival Year

High Bridge Stalls

Sunny , Deck Chairs and Bossa Nova

Yesterday I visited the second High Bridge Quarter Festval this is year. Very enjoyable and a great way of getting people into town. Face painting for kids , local shops such as RPM giving big discounts (I bought Graham Bonds "Holy Magick" limited edition for under £9!).

Street food from Zizzis , Dabbawal , and lots of others as well as knitted street art !
 
I've actually stared editing this  my iPad and blutooth keyboard, so apologies if  theres mistakes or odd things  about the post. It's a little odd using a keyboard and touch screen rather than a keboard and mouse. Although I've just remembered I bought some spare styli (is that the correct plural of stylus?) for my Samsung Note and am sure they will do for this. It's amazing how off track you can go without meaning to , all part of the inter connectedness of life and the world and things but I'm just going to dig out a stylus and see how that works!

Well just tried the stylus and its a great substitute for sausage fingers.

More Knitted Street Art

Knitted Street Art

But anyway back to the original point of the post. Yesterday I visited the second High Bridge Quarter Festival of the year , sampling street food , mingling with the thousands out , enjoying the sun , not enjoying the limpid bossa nove rhythms of a three piece band who were on but it was a great day and people were enjoying sitting on the NE1 deck
 chairs. Website here.

Fitzee Gets an Abyssinian Curry

Last week I cought the end of Newcastle's "World Cities Week" with a free Dave and Ansell Collins gig at Greys monument . Unfortunately due to eating in Whitby I couldnt sample any of the street foosd on offer. Far too full!! Information here , and here's Dave and Ansell Collins covering Bob Marley's Three Little Birds . A great evening:






Previous to that we'd had the Newcastle Bridges Festival which I missed due to being somewhere else , but again lots of things happening and details here.

We've already had several music festivals such as Summertyne , Mouth of Tyne , Noth Shields Fish Quay Festival, Hoults Yard Festival details of which can be found here , so an amazing year and it's still only September!!



And people wonder why I like living in Newcastle !!

I Have an iPad ... And I might just use it

I now now have an iPad and you know I will find something to complain about. First up it comes in a cardbourd box that contains the cellophane wrapped box that actually contains the damned thing. So not very green Apple , are we?

Next up everything is very whitely packages , put you have to put the damned plug together !! Its not even because it's a multiple power socket , it's just to make things awkward!!

Then you have to have an email address to use the damned thing and  need to register , this is part of the Apple Control I detest.

There are other gripes as well but ...

Garageband sold the thing to me and there are some good applications . It's fast and easy to use and it's the software that sells it. It is definitely faster and more responsive than my Advent Vega.

The apps are plentiful , some are rubbish and some are amazing . SOme are usefull and some have  a lifespan of five minutes.

I have succumbed to buying an iPad , because its a good tablett and will be a studio in my had . I wont be buying a Mac or an iPhone though . My Samsung Note will do me :)

Panic

In 1990 I remember seein a TV program in which some expert reckoned the average family had to spend £2000 a month on insurance premiums to cover them in case something went wrong. At the time my wage was about £1100 a month . I think you can spot the flaw in his argument, Basically he was trying to scare me into a situation where I'd be too frightened to do anything.

Today I saw a sign reminded us that the Digital Switchover is coming as though it wer the ent of the world . "You could lose ALL your TV channels!!" . Well no , actually , you wont , worst case is you will lose the ability to recieve the channels if you dont have a way of receiving digital channels and if you you buy a TV they have a digital receiver built in. But they're still trying to frighten people.

In Michael Moore's film "Bowling For Columbine"  he wonders why there are so many gun related deaths , compared with Switzerland who have mandatory gun ownership , and Canada where guns and ammunition are as freely available as in the USA. This is a very nice little theory cartoon from the film:


These days if you take out a new mobile phone contract you really need to insure against it been stolen of getting broken. The only insurance you really need is to back up your data and phone numbers . Insurance isn't cheap when the list price of a replacement iPhone or iPad us up to £700 !!

In Britain the Daily Mail and Express have a new crisis every week. Bird 'Flu , Pension Crash , The Economy is going to explode , Britain is going to be hit by a Tsunami , turned into a desert or flooded. The list is endless. Oh yeah and there's Al Quaeda , a convenient bogeyman . It was Iraq , now it's Iran , then it'll be China - oh sorry they have money so like the USA can do what the hell they like.

Anyway , my advice is take reasonable precaution , enjoy life . If you want to avoid pregnancy during sex , wear a condom , don't dismember  the guy or woman!!

It's Late

And I have nothing to post although I was extolling the virtues of Charlie Brooker to my friend Carol today so I will repost Charlie's initial iPad review which was hilarious and stuff about Black Mirror as well.


Oh and the trailer for the excellent Black Mirror

Apple Corps

I was quite surprised to see that the most tagged thing on my blog is the word Apple. A lot of people are under the impression that I am anti Apple , because I don't own any Apple products . Never had or wanted an iPod or and iPhone but was tempted by an iPad. My own website integrates with iTunes so thats the nearest I get to endorsing Apple.

Apple are great at appropriating other people's ideas , and produce some of the most desirable products on the market . so desireable that people oftemn don't even know why they want an Apple product , they just do , which is great for Apple.

The other thing to remember is that Apple was the label set up by the Beatles to distribute their records and anyone else they signed, resulting in some minor litigation between the two.  So another case of Apple nicking someone elses idea , they couldn't even come up with an original name (Steve Job's Apple as opposed to the Beatles' Apple).

In the team of six I work with four people have iPhones , one has a Blackberry and I have an Android device , I wonder how long before I just go with the flow and get one , but then again the new Samsung Galazy looks very nice!!

Christmas Resistability

Well I managed to resist the excellent Orange Christmas box offer  (free Angle & Curve Headphones worth £60 with any PAYG phone over £30)  , and am soldiering on with my first generation San Francisco that fulfils the main requirement of a phone , which is to make phone calls!! It also is fairly good for texts , and OK for internet access . Camera and processor are barely adequate but I can live with them

It seems to me that me are zooming to a point of no return with theese handheld devices . Unless there's another quantum leap in power storage , or distributed power becomes a reality mobile devices will become anything but that if they have to be plugged into a power source!!

No doubt Apple will come up with a marketing idea and Samsung will come up with an innovation , but I cant see for the life of me what it will be . We'll have iPhones 5s , iPad 4s , Galaxy IIIs and some new Blackberry , but we shall see .....

Steve Jobs - Fur Q

Q's Idiot Side Bar

I know I shouldnt have done it but I did. It was "Q" it had U2 on the cover , but it had "Achtung Baby" covered by the likes of Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode and Patti Smith , it was worth the risk right?

Well the album is generally exceelent if not exactly what expected , so that was a win.

However I then flicked through the nagazine ad came across this article titled "5 Ways Steve Jobs Changed Music" ,  Err let me stop you there , Steve Jobs / Apple have nothing to do with music , unless you count things like Garageband . Jobs was an OK guy and a master of marketing. He never produced or supported music unless it's ultimate aim was to make money for Apple.

1: He Made Music Truly Mobile: Did he well we've had portable radios since the late fifties , the walkman allowed you to take any music anywhere , mini disc and CD and micro HD drives increased that , then Apple jumped on the bandwaogon with a better looking product that still uses a non standard format for everything it touches!!


2: He Invented The Shuffle: Pardon CDs did random play , even with the 10 disc jukebox in your card . The iPod Shuffle was a masterstroke of marketing . It's hold 250 tracks that it can play in any order and you havent a clue what you are listening to and Apple marketed this as a desirable attribbute . Pure genius.

3: He Revived The Singles Market: Well only when downloads started being counted , adn I reckon Amazon and a lot of others did the same thing at the same time . Again a good marketing move.

4: He Changed The Retail Landscape: Er Amazon did that way before Jobs was properly up and running. Allowing peole to cherry pick albums , well I've been doing that from ripped CDs for years. Again nothing new and was pleased when Pink Floyd won the case to sell albums as albums!!

5: He Made Your Favourite Bands Go Digital: No he didnt , and Q still manage a cheap stab at AC/DC . Bands go digital because there is a market , End of discussion.

So basically a rubbish article about an OK guy , a marketing genius who got lucky and was in the right place and the right time.

Kindle vs Paper - The Final Verdict II

I am sold on E-Books , and I love paper , but was decided that I would buy myself a Kindle eventually. However that idea has just been blown out of the water. Why? You may ask.

Earlier this year after being tempted by the concept of Apple's iPad but well aware of the amount of Apple related garbage and baggage that would come with it , I purchsed an Advent Vega tablet which is Android based , and is an excellent piece of kit , but you cant actually add applications to it via the Android Marketplace as its a 10" tablet (too big) and doesnt have 3G connectivity built in . Marketplace has been implicitly promised and it does havethe WH Smiths e-Reader which will allow you to only read books purchased from WH Smiths.

This morning I visited Android Pit , which allowed install of their Marketplace App on my Vega and allowed me to install the excellent Aldiko e-Reader.

So no I have my e-reader , yes it's a 10 incher , but does the job excellently ,so I now don't need to purchase a Kindle because I have something else that will do the job. Yes the vega only has a 10 hour battery life and its backlit , but it does it for. It ends here , I can read e-books wherever and whener I want!!

My New Toy

Just bought myself an Advent Vega. Impressed so far, very nice toy. Connnects via wifi , very fast , android based , full internet browser , 10" for those who like it bigger and significantly cheaper than even an iPad 1.

Having said that the screen is covered in my grubby greasy finger marks, but it's easy to use and I've hardly touched the thing. Will try it as an e Reader and with a couple of apps , so will report back sporadically on it

Me and My Content Delivery Device (A Short History of Me & Mobile Phones)

About ten years ago my daughter forced on me an old Pay as you go Motorola phone, and through the years I eventually got a contract , a bike , and then became employed by my present company who provide me with a phone and pay my bill.

When I started I saw article that one of the big cheeses in Orange had hoped for a 25% take up of mobile phones by the population - at that time it was around  130% (a number of people have multiple phones , personal and business). Apart from being able to make calls , you can communicate by text, take photographs , send pictures , browse the internet and interact with social networks as well as playing music and watching video. The latter option could bring some truth to the phrase "It'll Make You Go Blind!!" as watching films of a certain kind on such a small screen cannot be good for your eyes!!

Thr rise of smart phones (big hitters being Apple / iPhone and Google's Android) mean that phones can do anything bar teleportation.. Apples main failing is that you need a PC with iTunes on but they do the job , though the iPad is a big iPhone you cant make calls on!!.

Anyway here's my progression:

• Samsung Tocco - My first touch screen phone - generally very good apart from the fact if you had the number pad on and put it to your ear it started pressing keys and cut you off.
• Nokia X6 - Nokia have great cameras but a terrible operating system and it wmanaged to wipe my contacts twice so it went in exchange for ..
• LG Chocolate - A Gorgeous Looking phone , absolutely brilliant until you switch it on!! This went in exchange for
• LG 505 - Worse than the Chocolate and without the looks
• Orange San Francisco - Android Phone , processor to slow , camera rubbish , but dirt cheap and brilliat in every other department - I do love this phone despite it's few drawbacks . Still have it and can't see anything I want to upgrade it for. Bought myself a tiny Panasonic camera to make up for the picture shortfall

I still can't believe how far mobiile phones have moved on since thefirst ones came out....

What Goes Around Comes Around (Literally)

A guy called Martin Skelly has come up with this device device that enables you to play your MP3 Playlists like a vinyl record !! I checked the date , It's June 13th not April 1st so it may be true. Apparently you load your playlist onto the disc , and the put the disc on the player , put the needle on the disc and away you go. I believe each track has it's own colour so you know how long you have to go !! What information there is is on the guy's web site here.




While I'm impressed with the concept , it does seem a bit pointless , though will be a talking point at parties. The whole point of MP3 is convenience , and this device jst seems to make it more inconvenient to play your MP3s , but it a very stylish way. I personally won't be buying one but reckon it will sit nicely next to that iPad you've ordered!! You can get your iPad from Orange here:



The thing about this , if Apple were marketing it , then it would sell by the lorry load , let's face it , if you can make a success of the iPad and iShuffle you can sell sand to Arabs and ice to Inuit!!