Saturday, June 4, 2011
Birmingham & Fazeley in Curdworth
I enjoyed my farm trail around Curdworth so much i headed along the canal into the village itself. I have been this way once before, its a very nice spot and also has a cool short tunnel (52m). I wonder why they built the tunnel instead of cutting through like they did elsewhere, it doesn't seem like there was anything built on top of the tunnel, or maybe there was once but now its gone? Anyway photos are here.
Farm fields near Curdworth
Its a lovely day so why not head out and walk under the beautiful blue Warwickshire sky? Well i did, along footpaths and through farm fields near Curdworth. Such a beautiful spot and only about 10 minutes drive from where i live. On a day like today this is one of the most lovely spots on Earth i think, well its where my heart is and thats why i love it so. I took photographs of course and you can see them here.
Friday, June 3, 2011
TOTP 27/05/1976
Since the BBC began repeating Top Of The Pops from 1976 i have thought about writing a weekly review and here is the first, finally got around to it. Its kind of like in the style of a live blog though written after its actually shown as writing it "live" would mean writing it on my iPad and i'd rather microwave my own head than have to write blog posts on a virtual keyboard...
Anyway first review, and its late May 1976 and tonight's host is Jimmy Saville in a horrific yellow vest with sequins. What i liked about TOTP back then was the no-nonsense approach to the chart... as in they listed the top 30 in the opening credits. So ABBA are still #1 anyway.
Heavy Metal Kids - shes no angel
We have some rock to start proceedings, they are called the Heavy Metal Kids though this song is about as heavy as a helium balloon. The singer prances around the stage with a black umbrella wearing a fur vest and a bow tie. You will find i mention the fashions a lot, i don't think you can really write about 70s pop culture without mentioning the styles... such as they are. Anyway "Shes no angel" is not a bad song but the singer is creeping the Hell out of me.
JJ Barrie - no charge
And from lite metal to hardcore country cheese. "No charge" is a pure novelty hit as was so often popular in the charts back then. JJ Barrie narrates (as in speaks) an ultra cheesy mortality tale over a country & western backing. Its awful but strangely compelling i think mainly because JJ Barrie looks like your uncle after he gets a bit drunk at a party and tries to sing.
Pausing only to let Jimmy harass a cute young girl from Birmingham with a hilarious trick where he makes her vanish we move onto...
The Wurzels - combine harvester
I feel sorry for the kids in the audience, they must have queued up for hours and have to suffer back-to-back novelty cheese. Mr Wurzel sings about some girl he fancies and wants to marry, pity its his sister and they won't allow him. There is a green tractor in the studio though which is cool. Jimmy makes the Wurzels vanish too but unfortunately not until after the song.
Archie Bell & The Drells - soul city walk
Apparently this is at #30 in the charts. Its a passable but rather generic bit of soul by 4 men in matching velvet suits. They try some dancing though it has a strange passage when they all bend down in unison like they've all lost their contact lenses.
Mac & Katie Kissoon - the two of us
Next up a brother and sister duo (i admit i read that on Wikipedia). Its more soul but not a bad song, actually the first half decent song of the night so far as it races along with plenty of pop sensibility. Mac has awesome sideboards and dresses in a black & white checkerboard outfit a bit like the aliens in Star Trek's "let this be your last battlefield" (yes i am so geek).
Jim meets American visitor Hank Mizzel who ends up bemused when Jimmy starts talking about Blackpool.
We haven't had the dancing yet, well lets fix that. I can't remember what this mixed-gender troupe are called but they perform some acrobatic moves to David Bowie's "TVC 15" in what looks to be a typical 70s living room except for the wall of TVs which all show the same girl. One of the dancers is dressed as a jockey, just thought you'd like to know that. For sure the music in the second half of the show is a lot better than the first and it continues with...
The Bellamy Brothers - let your love flow
They can't be in the studio tonight, would you want to be on the same bill as The Wurzels? Here is some handy film of them performing.
The Real Thing - you to me are everything
But we are back in the studio for this, another good song, see it was worth suffering the novelty crap earlier on wasn't it? The singer wears a wide white brimmed hat which he of course wears with a tan open to the chest tunic. Well it is 1976. He also has a thick metal choker rather like the exploding ones in Battle Royale. Luckily his head isn't blown off, but that hat would fly for miles if it did.
ABBA are still at #1 with "Fernando" so the same film thats been shown for a few weeks gets another airing. It isn't played for long as i guess everyone is bored with the song now. Roll the credits, and so ends 30 minutes of "classic performances" so the BBC claim. Actually it was 30 minutes of sometimes horrific cheese and the odd nugget of genius. At least you get the latter with TOTP compared to say, Britain's Got Talent. Apart from when the dogs are on, obviously.
(Reposted from my music blog)
Anyway first review, and its late May 1976 and tonight's host is Jimmy Saville in a horrific yellow vest with sequins. What i liked about TOTP back then was the no-nonsense approach to the chart... as in they listed the top 30 in the opening credits. So ABBA are still #1 anyway.
Heavy Metal Kids - shes no angel
We have some rock to start proceedings, they are called the Heavy Metal Kids though this song is about as heavy as a helium balloon. The singer prances around the stage with a black umbrella wearing a fur vest and a bow tie. You will find i mention the fashions a lot, i don't think you can really write about 70s pop culture without mentioning the styles... such as they are. Anyway "Shes no angel" is not a bad song but the singer is creeping the Hell out of me.
JJ Barrie - no charge
And from lite metal to hardcore country cheese. "No charge" is a pure novelty hit as was so often popular in the charts back then. JJ Barrie narrates (as in speaks) an ultra cheesy mortality tale over a country & western backing. Its awful but strangely compelling i think mainly because JJ Barrie looks like your uncle after he gets a bit drunk at a party and tries to sing.
Pausing only to let Jimmy harass a cute young girl from Birmingham with a hilarious trick where he makes her vanish we move onto...
The Wurzels - combine harvester
I feel sorry for the kids in the audience, they must have queued up for hours and have to suffer back-to-back novelty cheese. Mr Wurzel sings about some girl he fancies and wants to marry, pity its his sister and they won't allow him. There is a green tractor in the studio though which is cool. Jimmy makes the Wurzels vanish too but unfortunately not until after the song.
Archie Bell & The Drells - soul city walk
Apparently this is at #30 in the charts. Its a passable but rather generic bit of soul by 4 men in matching velvet suits. They try some dancing though it has a strange passage when they all bend down in unison like they've all lost their contact lenses.
Mac & Katie Kissoon - the two of us
Next up a brother and sister duo (i admit i read that on Wikipedia). Its more soul but not a bad song, actually the first half decent song of the night so far as it races along with plenty of pop sensibility. Mac has awesome sideboards and dresses in a black & white checkerboard outfit a bit like the aliens in Star Trek's "let this be your last battlefield" (yes i am so geek).
Jim meets American visitor Hank Mizzel who ends up bemused when Jimmy starts talking about Blackpool.
We haven't had the dancing yet, well lets fix that. I can't remember what this mixed-gender troupe are called but they perform some acrobatic moves to David Bowie's "TVC 15" in what looks to be a typical 70s living room except for the wall of TVs which all show the same girl. One of the dancers is dressed as a jockey, just thought you'd like to know that. For sure the music in the second half of the show is a lot better than the first and it continues with...
The Bellamy Brothers - let your love flow
They can't be in the studio tonight, would you want to be on the same bill as The Wurzels? Here is some handy film of them performing.
The Real Thing - you to me are everything
But we are back in the studio for this, another good song, see it was worth suffering the novelty crap earlier on wasn't it? The singer wears a wide white brimmed hat which he of course wears with a tan open to the chest tunic. Well it is 1976. He also has a thick metal choker rather like the exploding ones in Battle Royale. Luckily his head isn't blown off, but that hat would fly for miles if it did.
ABBA are still at #1 with "Fernando" so the same film thats been shown for a few weeks gets another airing. It isn't played for long as i guess everyone is bored with the song now. Roll the credits, and so ends 30 minutes of "classic performances" so the BBC claim. Actually it was 30 minutes of sometimes horrific cheese and the odd nugget of genius. At least you get the latter with TOTP compared to say, Britain's Got Talent. Apart from when the dogs are on, obviously.
(Reposted from my music blog)
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Google +1
Google +1 is the search engine giant's latest attempt to own the social media space and aims to compete with the likes (pardon the pun) of Facebook's Like functionality. Well using this handy tool i have added a +1 button to this blog and you should see it on the right (as with the QR code post earlier if its not there then you are living in the future and things changed but as of 22:17 on June 1st 2011 it is there!)
Are these sort of social media tools actually useful? Apparently +1ing this blog will help it rise in the search results so please feel free to click it!
Update : it looks like its appearing automatically on my Blogger blogs anyway. Whoop!
Are these sort of social media tools actually useful? Apparently +1ing this blog will help it rise in the search results so please feel free to click it!
Update : it looks like its appearing automatically on my Blogger blogs anyway. Whoop!
The latest electronic toy
What is it with me and electronic gizmos this year, first the iPad then the Kindle and then the ...er... calculator but this is no normal calculator. This calculator is a Hewlett Packard HP-12C
, an icon of calculator design. A calculator that first went on sale in 1981 and continues in production to the present day, to put that in context i was about half-way through my time at primary school the year HP began making this.
Looks wise its just... fantastic. Classic tech retroism i'd call it and i love it. Its not cheap though but i don't mind because i needed a decent calculator anyway (can't stand using ones on the computer, its all wrong keying in numbers with a mouse, like making coffee in a microwave). It looks and feels... quality. It has that old skool solidity about it (i hope it doesn't break tomorrow now i've said that!)
Although the HP-12C looks the same as it always has internally it has changed completely and now has an ARM microprocessor. It uses Reverse Polish Notation which i've never used before but i've done some basic calculations with it and all seems fine. The keys are lovely and clicky by the way. I wonder what i'll get next, i did plan to get an iPhone but i think i'll just wait to see what happens with that as a new version is apparently due soon...
, an icon of calculator design. A calculator that first went on sale in 1981 and continues in production to the present day, to put that in context i was about half-way through my time at primary school the year HP began making this.Looks wise its just... fantastic. Classic tech retroism i'd call it and i love it. Its not cheap though but i don't mind because i needed a decent calculator anyway (can't stand using ones on the computer, its all wrong keying in numbers with a mouse, like making coffee in a microwave). It looks and feels... quality. It has that old skool solidity about it (i hope it doesn't break tomorrow now i've said that!)
Although the HP-12C looks the same as it always has internally it has changed completely and now has an ARM microprocessor. It uses Reverse Polish Notation which i've never used before but i've done some basic calculations with it and all seems fine. The keys are lovely and clicky by the way. I wonder what i'll get next, i did plan to get an iPhone but i think i'll just wait to see what happens with that as a new version is apparently due soon...
QR code crazy
I've added a QR code to this blog as you may notice on the right (of course if i later change the design and remove the code then people who read this post sometime in the future may become slightly bemused but just assume it was there once!) Now if you don't know what a QR code is then basically its a small barcode that can be read with a smartphone and is a quick and easy way to jump to a website. So people can scan the code on this page and... er... go to this page.
Of course you may wonder why bother? Well i have been playing around with QR codes a lot for the university i work at, pioneering their use at our open days last year and we'll be using them on a much bigger scale this year so why not deploy them for myself too? Perhaps someone will print out the page and then may find it useful to use the code to return here. Or it just looks a bit cool. That will suffice.
Actually the QR code ties into a custom bit.ly link i set up for this blog which is http://bit.ly/mix-match which is probably a little more useful. I've also set up http://bit.ly/trip-tv for my music blog.
Of course you may wonder why bother? Well i have been playing around with QR codes a lot for the university i work at, pioneering their use at our open days last year and we'll be using them on a much bigger scale this year so why not deploy them for myself too? Perhaps someone will print out the page and then may find it useful to use the code to return here. Or it just looks a bit cool. That will suffice.
Actually the QR code ties into a custom bit.ly link i set up for this blog which is http://bit.ly/mix-match which is probably a little more useful. I've also set up http://bit.ly/trip-tv for my music blog.
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