Going Mobile With Entertainment

I was pleased to find that the latest version of BBC iPlayer now allows downloads to my phone, actually allowing the same as 4OD. This means that as well as music, and TED I can now watch quality TV on the move.

Mobile Phone History

A lot of mobile companies advertise how brilliant their service is, but it's only any good if you can maintain a constant signal. So it's fine if you are not moving , but when you are on the train very often there's a heck of a lot of signal drop out. That's why you need to be able to download what you want to watch and listen for when there is no signal. Devices these days have huge capacity that you can usually expand with an SD card (unless you go the Apple route) , so this week I am going to be really spoilt for choice.

Although annoyingly the 4OD app still demands you be connected to wifi when my EE 4G would be far better for downloading programs.

I thought I'd include an appropriate TED talk for this post. So Have a wonderful week my friends.

Picture Books

Hell everyone, I'm amazed that the number of views on this blog is about to hit 40,000. Most post get 50-100 views these days, so someone obviously reads it. Thank you to everyone that does.

A couple of weeks ago I discovered the art of Rebecca Cother and said that I'd put together a slideshow which you can watch above. I had a short musical motif going through my mind so played it in Garageband and used it as the soundtrack. It's very sparse and was thinking of Arvo Part's Spiegel Im Spiegel. I'm going to upload it to the various digital providers via Tunecore and will update the post at some future point.


So I hope you all enjoy the post , the slideshow and the music. Have a great Sunday everybody.

Good Things Happen ... Let Them Eat Cake

The lovely ladies at Pet Lamb in the Grainger Market

I had a good feeling about today and it started well enough, as detailed in my previous post, then after having coffee and reading the papers I decided to go in search of provender such as fruit and vegetables. The weather was a little grey so I decided to nip into town, visit the Grainger Market and finish up with a five dollar shake at the Stateside Diner.

I got my stuff from the Grainger Market, wandered passed the excellent Mmm , and came across the interesting looking Pet Lamb. I wandered inside where a lady was just receiving a coffee from the girls. I was impressed with the cake display and the girls were extremely helpful and engaging. I've missed a decent cupcake and coffee shop in Newcastle since we lost Cake on Grainger Street (Johnny Cupcakes doesn't count as it's just a franchise that brings vanloads of stuff from head office). So that really made my day. I bought two cakes and will be visiting there a lot more and I recommend you do the same if you are in or around Newcastle. They have a facebook page here.

Have a great night everyone and there's only one song for me that mentions cake on my mind at the moment, and thats:

Let There Be More Light

Well I'm still looking after myself, trying to eat healthily and I haven't touched coke for week, but the weight is only coming down very slowly . But its is coming down.

This morning I had to go and pick up a package for the local Royal Mail sorting office because my friend Jo from Darlington refused to do it for me (only joking), but rather than wait for the bus I walked and almost didn't notice the journey. Well I didn't until I walked back when I realised that the mile and a half walk to the sorting office was slightly downhill, and therefore the walk back was up hill. Still it would have done me good and I didn't really notice it.

The 3w LEDs Fitted and Working

Anyway I was picking up some LED bulbs for my new kitchen light fittings, fitted expertly by my brilliant mate Dave. The fittings had halogen bulbs and basically when switched on were using about a pounds worth of electricity a day. That is fine because you don't have the lights on all the time, but I just fitted the new LED ones and they are using £1 to £1.50 electricity a month even left on 24/7 !!

LED is the lighting to have if you can get it. And that's why I had to use the Pink Floyd song on here.

So a good start to the weekend, I hope you all have a great one .

An addendum to this , if you fit the LEDs and use them for 2 hours a day they will save you a penny a day (each bulb) against halogen. I have 12 bulbs in my house so over the year that'sover £40. No doubt the power companies will have to claw back their profits by increasing prices.

Book or TED?

I'm currently enjoying the new excellent John Niven novel Single White Male. The thing is because I'm reading that on the train I've not really had time to watch any TED talks which I also enjoy and find inspiring. Sometimes you can only to one thing you enjoy at once , this is a situation where multi tasking is definitely not an option. So I thought I'd include a book related TED talk.

The books about a writer and in one passage about planning or outlining a book comes up with an interesting observation about Stephen King, which may or may not be true. The protagonist doesn't outline his own novels , citing Stephen King's reason being "If I don't know what's going to happen next, then the chances are the reader won't either". That seems to me like a good reason for not necessarily planning you novel. I actually know the structure of my own book so it's just a case of putting flesh on the bones of the framework that is already there in my head.

Well I'm glad the weekend is here, and looking forward to being able to relax and enjoy myself. Anyway I hope you enjoy the talk and have a brilliant weekend.

Early Morning Observations

And there isn't really that much to observe as it's pitch black outside, but it seems calm , with a little wind. The good thing about getting up at 5am and getting probably a 6.45 train to work is that you get get to see the sunrise on the east coast. There are likely to be some glorious pictures, but most are unphotographable from a train because of the reflections caused by the window. But at least I will get to see them. and they do help set you up for the day.

Well lat night I was messing with the iPad / Garageband / Alesis dock set up before eventually getting it to work and got down a few ideas for a piano piece which I may continue with tonight.

Have a Nice Day

So this is just a short post, have a wonderful day everyone, and always keep focussing on the positives, there are a lot of them out there.

Reasons To Be Cheerful

Although sometimes things may not go according to plan , mistakes are made , accidents happen , it rains at the open air barbecue, it's always worth stepping back and seeing the millions of great things in life. Today has seen more beautiful blue skies,  great weather , the odd monsoon like strorm, but hey , that just waters the garden.

While working from home I have had great music playing from 6 Music which is still playing at the moment. The problem with 6 is that when it gets switched on it becomes very difficult for me to switch off. A bit like BBC4.

These are tiny instances of pleasure that make life a joy to love. My eldest daughter has just moved offices , she loves it and it's closer to hokme for her , so that pleased me no end.

Rebecca's Lion

I keep meaning to do an Einaudi / Part type piano piece which I want to do to accompany a picture montage of Rebecca Cother's artwork. If she likes it I'll publish it on Youtube for you., but have to compose it first







For some reason going to go with one of my favourite James songs.

Everyone have a fantastic night , and tomorrow is going to be another brilliant day.