Author: richard

The Economist are doing something quiet interesting at the moment. If you go to their home page, you may be given the opportunity for a free day pass to the site, in exchange for watching a short Nokia advert. It’s worth it, as you get full access to all the archive. Cool. Now if only they could stop recording their audio content in a toilet…

Turing, the Enigma, the WWII code breaking efforts… these are all important parts of our geek heritage. So we were unable to resist a visit to Bletchley Park on a day when they’d invited back veterans who had worked the machinery there, and the team who had re-built and were demonstrating a working version of the Bombe: Photos are up with a bit more of an explanation.

There’s also some video, showing the Bombe working, the Colossus, and an un-watchable bit of geeking around an SGI’s file system:

I think the TV show Who Do You Think You Are? is a perfect example of the BBC meeting their charter to inform, educate and entertain all in one programme. You’ve got celebrity for the entrainment, information in terms of history, and education in terms of genealogy. And just to reinforce the BBC stamp on it, you’ve got Doctor Who turning up in it on 27th September.

The other day we were lost for a moment in Brighton, driving around a new development
called the New England Quarter. “New England Quarter”…. Ok, nice enough name.

A few days later, I spotted that we also have an Artist Quarter on the beach.

So does this mean there’s a land grab in progress? Quick! Get a sign up and grab your quarter before they’re all gone.

People who bought Señor Coconut or the Balanescu Quartet might also like a couple of tracks from
The Puppini Sisters (I’m thinking of Panic, I will Survive and Heart of Glass).

“Hang the DJ, ba do ba de bop…” etc.

Two thumbs up to Dave for suggesting we go and listen to Pauline Taylor at the Western Front. As it turns out we weren’t able to hang around to hear her set, but we did catch Ferris (myspace: Other / Folk Rock / Alternative). I look forward to clicking “buy” on their music in iTunes at some point.

So we now know we have a great little live music venue two minutes from our front door.

The US Navy Band have made MP3s sort of available for quite a few national anthems. It’d be super if they were available under a creative commons license, rather than this one: “The music files on this website are intended for official use by Department of Defense and U.S. government offices only. Exceptions to this policy will be considered on a case-by-case basis”.

And some of these bugle calls would make cheesy ring tones.

We had every intention of spending Sunday at Fruitstock, but it didn’t happen. We jumped on the train and headed off to see Heather, and Heather’s pad in SE17, and we thought we’d then go over to Fruitstock. But it turned out there was a festival just down the road from her in Burgess Park. It seemed only right and proper to check it out, so we ended up spending the day at Carnaval del Pueblo (“the largest Latin American event in Europe”). A couple of beers, lots of food and lots of food choice, four stages… yeah, it’s a good good thing.

We grabbed the last chance to go and see Jerry Springer the opera at Brighton Dome the other week. We didn’t see it on TV, and so couldn’t appreciate the outrage it caused in relation to the language and “religious themes”.

Apparently a third of venues dropped the show after being threatened with prosecution. Which is very silly. The show does contain strong language, and it does have religious content in the second half, but it’s not something you’d want to get worked up about. It’s funny, but as with all things, not to everyone’s taste.

The show itself is worth seeing: performances were excellent, the idea was superb, and the writing contained some moments of genius. The Hollywood-style dance routine by the Ku Klux Klan is going to stick in my memory for some time, I suspect.