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"

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":

Potatoes Eggs and HMV

The Potato and Egg Shop

It's over ten years since I moved into my current address and at the time I noticed a shop called "The Potato and Egg" shop. I always wanted to visit it just to see what was in there and about a month back when I picked up a hire car I stopped to have a look.

The shop does what it says on the front . It sells potatoes and eggs . Nothing else . Potatoes generally come in 25 Kg bags ranging in price from £9 - £15  , providing excellent quality products and more that reasonabl prices. The lady who runs it tells me she's been doing this for over thirty years.



This may seem a surreal post and hardly related to what I normally write about but we really need to support outr local shops otherise it will just be a Tesco Extra or Sainsburys Local , probably leaching money from the economy by tax avoidance.

Lots of quality Potatoes

The proprietor is an extremely helpful lady and I so prefer this sort of shop to the massive supermarkets.

And it got me thinking , that this shop is successful in providing two basic food staples and has been since the last century . I feel slightly guilty that I havent visited before now and must admit that carting a four stone bag of potatoes home on the bus was not exactly easy , but it does mean I don't have to buty potatoes for two or three months.

And Theres More

If you live in the West End of Newcastle I would recommend that you check this shop out if you use potatoes or eggs in your cooking . It's open 9 til about 4 all days bar Sunday and longer during the week.



Compare this with HMV , a music shop , who  now dedicate most of their floor space to iPod docks. The one I visited in Harrogate recently had relegated CDs to a far corner, this is a company who have lost their way. The Potato and Egg Shop hasnt !.

One Bad Apple

Most people know that I always try and find the positives in situations , as to many people try and focus on the negatives because its easier to focus on one negative than 99 positive things. The reason I'm talking about this is because after having a rolling mobile 3G broadband contract with 3 for a few years I finally don't need it anymore.

I had been stung by the costs of train , BT Hotspots and Hotel WIFI so dropped into a Carphone Warehouse shop who found me a rolling 30 day contract with 3 which would give me 5Gb for £15 a month plus £5 for the dongle. The guy sheepishly , and with a laugh said he had to ask me if I wanted to take out insurance for the dongle . With a laugh I declined but thats the sort of service that makes you go back and trust a shop. This was Carphone Warehouse in Worcester.

Things went fine , and when I bought my first tablet (an Advent Vega) I needed to get a Mifi device so I could use it away from the house. The mifi device was going to be £40 but I was told on a 3 shop that I had to cancel my current contract and take out a new one to get the Mifi device, and I had to phone up to cancel. This seemed a bit convoluted but I did so and got an asian guy on the other end , who asked why I was cancelling , was the service not up to scratch etc. I explained the situation and he said he could just continiue my contract and get me a new device for nothing which sounded good. He then said I'd be on a two year contract which I didnt want , so he said he would have to charge £40 for the device , which I was expecting anyway. \he then said he would increase my data allowance to 15Gb for no extra charge , which was nice. SO a case of excellent customer service.

Also in that time the signal from 3 has been reliable and generally excellent.

Anyway now I dont need it so gave my 30 days notice and the first guy seemed fine with my reasons and passed me to retentions......

This guy would not let it go he offered me a free iPad (I hav one , dont want anoter) , laptop (I have one dont want another ) a reduction in my tariff to £6 a month (I dont need it) , , he would not listen to me at all and eventually the connection dropped. He never called back. They sent a customer satisfaction survey in which I invited the to call me about my experience. I have heard nothing.

I can thoroughly recommend 3s Mobile 3G Broadband service but am not too happy with their retentions process . If you are losig 5-0 with 5 minutes to go , the game is over

Brennan Again and Again

Brennan JB7

I was flicking through Mojo magazine and saw two adverts for CD ripping players. One is Martin Brennan's retro box, the JB7 , which is now advertising that it can replace your iPod in the house and the other a very classy looking NAIM Unitilite which rips CDs , stores them has a DAB radio, and streams MP3s and internet radio from you web connected router and costs five times as much as the Brennan.

NAIM Unitilite

The problem with the Brennan is that it's an adequate all in one unit, but be honest an iPod or iPad looks classer and can wirelessly connect to a disc server so has effectively unlimited storage space and costs less than the Brennan and can do so much more. The NAIM is an expesive but classy item that does all you want.

Brennan are now advertising Richer Sounds as their sole high street  outlet. Remember Richer Sounds made their name selling last years model very cheaply , not the place you would expect to be looking for cuttting edge technology. By the way most of my sound system is from Richer Sounds and I would reccommend them to anyone , they have an excellent business model and a service second to none.

As I say I have no gripe against Martin Brennan , but his box would have been state of the art twenty years back, but not now.

Bakewell - Desert to Dessert

The Haul

I really didn't expect to be writing this post today. I was just expecting to go into Bakewell and have a mooch around before returning back to Cromford, The Vinyl District told me that the nearest record shops were in Sheffield , Derby and  Nottingham. However I knew there was a musical instrument shop there, so thought I might drop in and see what I could see.

Bakewell Music

Talked with the guy in the Bakewell Music Shop and bought a couple of CDs buy what I thought were local bands. Silent Time are a local band , but Hank Sundown and The Roaring Cascades despite having a song about Wolverhampton are, in fact, Scandinavian.

Reminds of an artist in the seventies called Hank C Burnette who loved rock and roll, but didnt know about bass guitars so with a muktitack tape recorder and a detuned normal guitar produced an album called Spinnin' Rock Boogie , the lead track was issued by Charly records and became a hit single several years later. As John Peel said he was probaly called Sven! Anyway Hanks Sundown's  facebook page is here. So 3 CDs and a good crack with the owner definitely worth a visit if you are in the vicinity.

Flamingo Lane Music Sign

Next I wandered in a local indoor market area and found Flamingo Lane Music. Similar experience to Bakewell Music and picked up a couple of reggae CDs and a live Deep Purple DVD. Very impressed and this makes Bakewell not a bad place to pick up some music. It was topped off by picking up a hefty tome about the Clash and a couple of punk and post punk volumes from a local book shop, So that's listening and reading catered for for a few weeks.



These are in addition to Bakewell's food shops , pubs , ice cream parlours. An unexpectedly fruitful day and looking forward to coming back in the future,

Ironic

Although Alanis Morrisette got it completely wrong, I'm here in Cromford reading a book about reggae called Bass Culture by Lloyd Bradley and I'm unable to actually go to a record shop and browse for reggae because there are no record shops within 20 miles of here.I know this thatnks to an excellent app called The Vinyl District

Scarthin Books Amazing Shop Sign

Well you could say Scarthin Books has a selection , but it's Naxos Classical and there is a clue in the name of the shop that tells you that it specialises in books. Bakewell has a musical instrument shop that has a few CDs and there's a few charity shops which have second hand CD sections.

The thing is economics and the fact that people's habits mean that record shops have to try harder , and the good ones are still very good.And there's always online if you dont have physical access.

I used to go to record fairs but todays digital age means that I can track down most things on line , and at my age I actually have virtually everything I want musically , but still look forward to new bands and new albums.

I stll love going into RPM or Reflex in Newcastle and hearing something new that I immediately buy. That's how all record shops should be. That's Entertainment I find more relevant than HMV.  HMV don't seem to know what they are selling , giving most of their floor space over to iPod docks.

Anyway this post has wandered a bit but I'm going to read more of Bass Culture and enjoy the rest of my holiday!!