Volume 72
13 May 2006
A rivet hammer? (I think it's a toffee hammer or an ice pick)
12 May 2006
"Ajax-rich messaging and collaboration tools for the enterprise" hah!
Yesterday, there was a busker at the top of Northumberland St, playing a Mike Vanden F5 mandolin. I just went and looked at how much they cost. I should definitely have gone over and suggested that he give it to me. I'm not sure that I would even take it out of its case at that price. I don't know if I would dare open the case.
11 May 2006
The trouble with Crazy Japan is that you end up trying to work out what the Spanish description of Japanese page means.
Crystal Closet Queen - try their version of "it takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry". Some work on the vocals needed.
10 May 2006
I do like the Easy Club's version of Black is the Colour.
Was up clearing weeds at the new allotment yesterday so I am stiff. It's starting to shape up slowly though. I need a big flame weeder...
Ask the couch on slang : may well offend (though it may also educate or at least illuminate)
9 May 2006
Chain reading - why is it that the people who sign up to these kinds of sites only seem to read popular widely-promoted, over-hyped books, and also seem to be unable to recognise rubbish when they read it? You could imagine a site filled with recommendations for interesting, well written and unusual books, but it never seems to tip over into reality.
8 May 2006
7 May 2006
I'm having a serious cull of the feeds I follow : so much dull self-promotion, repetition and just rubbish around at the moment. I might just stick with TV in Japan and be done with.
Yesterday we ordered our summer/winter house. Today I demolished some wall that was in the way of where it will go and then I was up digging at our allotment. I'm knackered.
Fukuwajutsu nante tsuman'nee zo
I do believe that this may be the oddest thing I have ever seen. (via TV in Japan (where else?))
6 May 2006
5 May 2006
Links on Fiddling fixed (thanks Frank)
I just saw an advert for "Renault Scenic Mats" and I instantly had this vision of landscapes that you put on the floor of your a car. Like those place mats you used to get. Probably the Hay Wain.
Moniaive - seems my great-grandmother lived here at one time. Bad information - it wasn't my great-grandmother at all but some other not really related realtive.
Just got two nice rivets tins : one in a shape that I have not seen before (which makes it pretty old I think) and one containing rivets with the company name embossed on the head, again, which I have not seen before.
Sting was recording in one of the rooms in the Sage last night, though not the actual recording studio, the one with the big windows.
If I had his money, I would have finished building the fireplace and made the pool twice as wide.
4 May 2006
3 May 2006
More good stuff at TV in Japan today. I think you should just assume that you need to read it everyday from now on.
Eurobad (It looks like a set of location shots for a pr0n movie. Make sure and check out the front page of the whole site, some lovely faux fur there, and an old favourite)
2 May 2006
If a homeopath cured using similarity, an allopath using difference and a naturopath by using natural techniques. What does a psychopath do?
The only good thing about the World Cup is that you can tell who to avoid on the road by the presence of attached flags on the car.
1 May 2006
30 Apr 2006
Comments should be working again. Sorry about that.
World's biggest ad - but since nobody can see it I suppose it must be a viral of some kind where they are trying to get webloggers to mention it because it is the world's biggest ad. That'll never work.
Woot! BR is 7 years old today.
29 Apr 2006
"A very unique look into the real meaning of freedom" Very unique? I invoke PEDANT POWER!!!!!
"We are a small family business devoted to producing the finest wooden swords in the world" - definitely a niche market methinks. Indeed the people who buy them probably have lots of niches all over their houses.
Note that the Steve Howe who was just killed in an accident is *not* the guitarist!!
28 Apr 2006
This evening I'm weblogging live from my front room. I'm in the house on my own - even the cat is out. Nothing much is happening at the moment. But of course as soon as anything does you'll be the first to know.
The snooker's been good this week. Snooker is one of those games that's great to watch because you know how hard it is because you've tried it! Ebdon just played the most incredible double.
Why is everyone so exercised by the name Wii? It's just a name for a product for goodness sake.
27 Apr 2006
"I am Mr.Formby George,Rusian citizen and Principal assurance manager for the Lloyds TSB in Scotland. I have a concealed business suggestion for you" Hidden banjoeles?
26 Apr 2006
25 Apr 2006
I just saw someone described as a "rabid liberal" which sounds very odd in a UK context at least.
What is it about the people that post comments to design weblogs? They are such sychophants : "man, you just summed up everything", "That was such a wonderful post, so insightful" and other such things. Get a grip people, particularly when a) the posting is essentially a summary of what other people have said, and b) it's entirely obvious anyway. Oh, and I know you lot, so let's just not bother with the sarcastic sychophancy in the comments. OK?
24 Apr 2006
23 Apr 2006
Planted onions today. Ran an armoured cable down the garden. Cut the grass with petrol mower someone gave me. Manured stuff. Jet-washed patios and things. We seem to have acquired an allotment too.
22 Apr 2006
I wonder if I should rename this Bfurctd Rivts
21 Apr 2006
Sesame Street (it doesn't seem to have my all time favourite which is about ten and which I would love to see again)
Here is where I was on holiday. Amazing place to stay. Of course, Portugal as a whole was excellent as usual. Did have a problem getting htere as our flight out was cancelled and rescheduled for the next day though.
12 Apr 2006
You should be able to sense the pall of silence slowly descending in these environs......
RIP June Pointer
11 Apr 2006
Shotgun - must be a transpondian thing since I have never come across anyone doing it here.
10 Apr 2006
9 Apr 2006
8 Apr 2006
Spülmaschinengeeignet
Last night we went to the pub at the bottom of our street to see a band called XYZ (it's James Hill tune named after a racehorse) : two fiddles and a guitar. They were superb - lovely selection of tunes, well played.
"Well, I'm a standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, and such a fine sight to see. It's a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford slowin' down to take a look at me" Definitely one of the great song lines.
7 Apr 2006
I do love the tune Panhandle Country - it just swings along so nicely.
Not sure about a blue mandolin, even at $5000 a throw. (I say this as the owner of a bright red mandolin of course)
Buffet Flat (I posted this because I was listening to Bessie Smith's Soft Pedal Blues which is about a buffet flat, and then two tunes later there was a reference in another song by someone else entirely)
I bought tickets for Lou Reed at the Sage in June. I suspect he'll be awful, but I thought that I ought to go and see him.
Curtis Eller - he was at the CLuny in Newcastle alst night and I didn't know. (I couldn't have gone anyway)
Ah, So What, the original version off Kind of Blue rather than the later too fast ones. Wonderful stuff.
6 Apr 2006
5 Apr 2006
RIP Gene Pitney
ãƒã‚¹ã‚¬ã‚¹ã°ãã¯ã¤ basu gasu baku hatsu : Bus gas explosion
4 Apr 2006
Oh, and look at DS's Stop Press page.... I think that the interest might just have faded chaps.
3 Apr 2006
2 Apr 2006
I do so like having Band in a Box - you can just sit and play away to a great accompaniment and nobody cares how rubbish you are. (and you can play it slow when you (well, I) can't keep up)
I typed in a rant yesterday about how dull April Fool's jokes are and then deleted it. I see now that I would only have been keeping up with the field since everyone seems to be posting about how crap AFD items are. I haven't made up my mind yet whether deleting was a good thing or a bad thing. It was a very curmudgeonly rant.
The surf cafe down in Watergate Bay used to be a really good place to go, but then someone did a American Diner style makeover on it and it was less good, but still nice. Now I read that Jamie Oliver has taken it over and is turning it into 15 Cornwall which will be expensive, exclusive and booked up months in advance. *sigh*
1 Apr 2006
Just watched Get Carter - never seen it before. Good film, and an interesting view of a long gone Newcastle.
31 Mar 2006
My daughter was in a stage performance last night and the Mayor of Gateshead was in attendance. Full-on, mayoral chain bling, over a homer simpson tie. Most odd. (The performnace was fantastic)
Hmmmm - this really needed a witty title, but I couldn't come up with one that was really snappy so feel free to imagine one of your own.
30 Mar 2006
29 Mar 2006
"It is not clear how the plane will be removed" From an air base with the longest runway in ireland? Huh?
This morning I came in on the bus listening to Phillip Glass, and then I went and sat in a soundproof booth for an hour listening to repeating 200Hz tones.
28 Mar 2006
60 second Passover Seder - nice flash, though I have no idea what's going on as it is all in Hebrew.
I assume there is some kind of Pepper's ghost thing in this photo, but I cant quite work it out.
27 Mar 2006
Which Robert Johnson song are you? I'm "They're Red Hot" which is indeed one of my favourites. (Via Thumbrella)
Bizarre selection of the top 18 urban skylines - some of the ugliest skylines I have ever seen.
26 Mar 2006
Of course P&K have a website
25 Mar 2006
I just got mail from one of my father's cousins who I haven't seen for lots of years.
RIP Buck Owens
24 Mar 2006
I see some architect has sold his UK practice because of a national aversion to risk-taking. It seems to me that, translated into real words, this means that he was designing buildings that people didn't wantor like and so his business went under - just like any other business that doesn't deliver what customers want. When did architects get a dispensation to be different?
23 Mar 2006
Ah, BIll Evan's playing Autumn Leaves from the Portraits in Jazz album. Nicccce!
This is one of the Google Idol videos and is fantastic! I particularly like the bit where the girl on the right leans into the camera to go "Ooo"
Plumber game - I gave up at level 8 because it's really just a matter of simple reasoning and it got dull.
22 Mar 2006
I had fun last night taking the Australian Ladies across the Minch to meet John McFadyen of Melfort and indeed Flett from Floota and Father John Macmillan of Barra.
21 Mar 2006
My iBook is on its last legs. I really wish Apple would stop being coy and just give me a new, top-end laptop to review - they know they want to really.