"Sweetie"
"Yes, love?"
"Can you turn it up a bit, cos I can't hear you talking clearly"
"Sure", as I crank up the volume 4 more notches, rewind to the beginning and listen again.
The opening link ends, followed by a deafening loudness of the first song.
"Jesus, where's the remote!", "Ow, too loud, sweetie", "Daddy, that gave me a fright!"
I then spend the next 90 minutes juggling the remote volume up and down as the podcast unfolds, wielding it like a samurai blade, hitting the down button as soon as the first hint of a song chord starts to emanate from the speakers, trying to remember when the song will end and flicking the volume back up again for the talking bits, right up to the final 'Bye bye'
A quiet descends on the room, you put the remote down, sit back, relax a little and ask "So, what did you think?"
"It was very funny, typical you two, and a lot of music I hadn't heard before, but..."
Ah, the dreaded 'but'. One word that, in the one second it takes to utter it, takes me from a euphoric high to a heart-clutching cold terror, like the proverbial glass of water in a drunk's face that will sober them up enough to get a clear message through to them.
"Oh god, you hated it, it was too silly, not enough factual content, too many random tangents, it took SteveB hours to edit too, I knew we went on to long..."
"No! All I was going to say was that the talking is too quiet compared to the music, that's all!"
"Ah. Oh. Good. Er, well, it sounded all right when we recorded it, it must be an editing thing, I'll text SteveB and see what we can do"
And thus began the struggle to get the balance and volume right between the talking and the music parts of our weekly podcast 'Off The Chart', and quell the initial main criticism we received over it.
So what was the problem? Well, a number of things, actually.
The microphone we were using, the type of microphone we were using, the location we were using it in, our position to the microphone, the levels, the software, how we were using the software, how SteveB was editing the podcast, and so on, and so forth...
With me only having about 90 minutes a week to be able to actually spend time with SteveB recording, there was no real time to play and get things right, so each session was 15 minutes of trying to get microphone b to work with software a, or a with b, or even b with b! Or microphone c with either software a or b, which resulted in microphone d being used with software a and b, but still not being 'loud' enough, even though during recording we were on the borderline of clipping our audio, based on the input volume, and we weren't wanting to head down that route, ha ha!
(actually, I'm not a 100% sure what I mean by that, but I know it's bad and causes problems ;o))
So about 3 weekends ago, the weekend before Eurovision, SteveB and family came round with the aim to get a couple of shows recorded, followed by food, drinkies and natterings. We used our spare room, which doubles as our study, lots of space, lovely dead sounding room. We set up a table in the middle, which we sat either side of, and promptly failed to get any of the proper mics working, which resorted in us going back to what had been our only main success so far. A USB dual mic webcam, set in between us, at an equal distance from both of us.
Guess what? This gave us our crispest sound to date. Why?
Well, firstly, the room setting was a good one, with no real echo as sound bounces off the walls, etc., normally, but this room actually deadened all other sounds. Secondly, the way we had set up the mic and were facing each other was also better. Up until now, we were normally sat side by side, with the mic sort of between us, but every lean back or turn away meant sound was not being directed to the mic, but between us, facing each other, meant the mic caught a lot more of our voices directly.
Thirdly, and rather key as it turned out, based on a discussion earlier that week on Twitter, with a mutual friend, we discovered that there was a sample bit rate setting on the actual driver of the microphone. I mean, a setting on the driver!
Fourthly, during editing, SteveB had come up with a clever way to bring the audio to the fore and not have it drowned out by the music, if he decided we should be talking over the beginning or, heaven forbid, the end of a song.
Look, I know there are a lot of blogs and info out there, which probably would have made our lives easier, but we quite like the journey as much as reaching the end, so #FumblingTowardsProfessionalism is our hashtag, look out for it on Twitter.
And if you would like to listen to what we get up to, along with all of SteveB's other stuff, you can find us via:
SteveB's 80s site SoundOfTheCrowd
The associated Mixcloud page
The associated Facebook page
the associated Twitter account.
Please drop us a message via any of the Sound Of The Crowd pages, or to @babel17 or @evibenstein. We'd love to hear from you.
Oh and I forget to mention in my last post, that my original idea for a podcast, before everyone started up and dying, was to only play music by artists already deceased. Would it be bad of me to think that there would be even more music to play now given the events of the year so far?
Yes, yes, I'm going to hell, but then, I think we always knew that ;o)
Friday, 27 May 2016
Monday, 23 May 2016
*blink, blink* Hello? is this still on?
So it's been 8 years since I started this and nary a post in over 7. So what happened?
Well, my son will be 8 next month, yesterday (Thu 19th May 2016) was my 8th anniversary at work, we aren't in Australia, I don't blog about wine, (I just drink it), I still do the same job and I'm slightly less grumpy.
I got very fed up with spending all day in front of a PC and slowly stopped using them at home. My wife has the laptop out nearly ever night, doing one thing or another. I stopped using Twitter, I kept an eye on Facebook but never posted. Worst of all, I did completely forget about this place.
But something has changed recently.
I was speaking to my good friend SteveB at the beginning of the year, over alcohol, as we do now and again, and we got talking about 80s music, as per usual, and how I had noticed, inadvertently, that he seemed to spend a lot of time tweeting about old episodes of Top of the Pops. *sigh* Yes, I had gone back on Twitter for a look see one day and sort of hung about lurking for a week or two on and off, just like when trying to get back in to being part of h2g2, back in the day.
So anyway, he said, "Yes, I do enjoy tweeting about TotP, as do many others, just like during Eurovision, and we rip the carp* out of the old DJs and the styling and sometimes we tweet about how good the music is, or isn't in certain cases. But mostly I moan about the schedule BBC4 are running to show these old shows."
"Whaddayamean?", slurs I. It was quite late by this time.
"Well, what with Yewtree, the BBC have refused to play any episodes hosted, or even co-hosted by anyone being investigated, which is quite frustrating, and also they just don't show, or change the schedule for anything else, like the Proms, or anything more high-brow then old episodes of Top of the Pops"
So, we ruminated on that for a bit longer before calling it a night and heading home, or rather we didn't and drank more which resulted in us devolving into our usual silly inane chatter that amuses us, but not our wives, which did end up with us heading home. And my wife calling me an @rse. And my son saying "Yeah daddy, you and Uncle Steve are just too silly and shouldn't drink so much, that's why you are fat"
So how has this brought about a change? Did I realize my family were right, I am an @rse and drink too much? No, but it did get me thinking. And what a thought I came up with. It was genius! And so simple and the world would thank me for my 'Eureka' moment one day!
The thought was this: What SteveB needed was to fill the void of the missing episodes by doing a podcast about them. Simple. Genius. Everybody wins!...Until I mentioned it to him.
We bumped into them outside Asda one evening and I told him about this great idea he could have, about doing a podcast based on the old TotP show of that week in history, and how we could resurrect some of the more obscure songs none of the commercial 80 stations played!
Don't get me wrong, he didn't out and out dismiss it, but there was a definite hint of "Stop talking carp*, man", so I said no more and left feeling a little deflated as the light dimmed a little in the brightness of the future.
A week later, over dinner, and SteveB said "You know, I've been thinking about this podcast thing, but I don't want to do a direct replication of the TotP chart of any given week. There are loads of things like that out there already, and I agree that there are a lot more interesting tracks out there than those we hear daily on other 80s shows, so I was thinking of this...we could do a rundown of the chart, the full chart, pick a few songs, play the top 5 and maybe have a record of the week? What do you think and do you want in?"
"Er...yeah!", says I, and that's how we started.
It took us a couple of weeks to get the time right to get together and attempt to record something, but on Thursday 31st March 2016, we had 90 minutes of free time to attempt to record something.
In one hour we managed to record.... 100 up to number 85, go off on about 15 different tangents, dissolve into fits of laughter about 5 times and generally muck about. We were running out of time, as I had to leave and pick my wife up, and SteveB had wanted to get this done and out for Saturday, so I said "Look don't worry, call this our pilot and throw it in the archive and we can try again next week. We'll be better organised. It'll go smoother, I'm sure. I've never done this sort of thing before, it'll work out".
SteveB's shoulder sort of slumped a little and he mumbled, "I suppose so", and I gathered up my stuff and headed off, thinking no more about it, apart from wondering what we could do to be better organised and make the next attempt a better one. "Maybe we don't need to go through the whole chart, maybe we just do a quick recap in batches of 15, play a track, next batch, play a track, track from the album and repeat until we get to the top 5", and I think SteveB was having the same, if not very similar thoughts to this as well, but I didn't think too much more about it until Saturday morning, when I got a text from SteveB saying "Podcast is up" and a link.
"What?", I thought, "How?" Turns out with a bit of clever editing and a quick re-record of virtually everything, he made it sound like we had both contributed to the whole podcast. It actually sounded quite good, although there was a definite issue with mic quality versus track quality. My wife was mildly impressed at both the obscurity of the tracks chosen and the knowledge going with it, plus it was funny. "So what's next week's, then?", she asked "and are you going to actually manage to get it all done in 90 minutes this time?"
"Darn tooting, we are!" and with that said, that was it, there was no going back now, we just had to get good at this thing, or give up trying.
Our first podcast is 2nd April 1988, is hosted on SteveB's website and can be found on Mixcloud here
*edited from the original in case young people read this
Well, my son will be 8 next month, yesterday (Thu 19th May 2016) was my 8th anniversary at work, we aren't in Australia, I don't blog about wine, (I just drink it), I still do the same job and I'm slightly less grumpy.
I got very fed up with spending all day in front of a PC and slowly stopped using them at home. My wife has the laptop out nearly ever night, doing one thing or another. I stopped using Twitter, I kept an eye on Facebook but never posted. Worst of all, I did completely forget about this place.
But something has changed recently.
I was speaking to my good friend SteveB at the beginning of the year, over alcohol, as we do now and again, and we got talking about 80s music, as per usual, and how I had noticed, inadvertently, that he seemed to spend a lot of time tweeting about old episodes of Top of the Pops. *sigh* Yes, I had gone back on Twitter for a look see one day and sort of hung about lurking for a week or two on and off, just like when trying to get back in to being part of h2g2, back in the day.
So anyway, he said, "Yes, I do enjoy tweeting about TotP, as do many others, just like during Eurovision, and we rip the carp* out of the old DJs and the styling and sometimes we tweet about how good the music is, or isn't in certain cases. But mostly I moan about the schedule BBC4 are running to show these old shows."
"Whaddayamean?", slurs I. It was quite late by this time.
"Well, what with Yewtree, the BBC have refused to play any episodes hosted, or even co-hosted by anyone being investigated, which is quite frustrating, and also they just don't show, or change the schedule for anything else, like the Proms, or anything more high-brow then old episodes of Top of the Pops"
So, we ruminated on that for a bit longer before calling it a night and heading home, or rather we didn't and drank more which resulted in us devolving into our usual silly inane chatter that amuses us, but not our wives, which did end up with us heading home. And my wife calling me an @rse. And my son saying "Yeah daddy, you and Uncle Steve are just too silly and shouldn't drink so much, that's why you are fat"
So how has this brought about a change? Did I realize my family were right, I am an @rse and drink too much? No, but it did get me thinking. And what a thought I came up with. It was genius! And so simple and the world would thank me for my 'Eureka' moment one day!
The thought was this: What SteveB needed was to fill the void of the missing episodes by doing a podcast about them. Simple. Genius. Everybody wins!...Until I mentioned it to him.
We bumped into them outside Asda one evening and I told him about this great idea he could have, about doing a podcast based on the old TotP show of that week in history, and how we could resurrect some of the more obscure songs none of the commercial 80 stations played!
Don't get me wrong, he didn't out and out dismiss it, but there was a definite hint of "Stop talking carp*, man", so I said no more and left feeling a little deflated as the light dimmed a little in the brightness of the future.
A week later, over dinner, and SteveB said "You know, I've been thinking about this podcast thing, but I don't want to do a direct replication of the TotP chart of any given week. There are loads of things like that out there already, and I agree that there are a lot more interesting tracks out there than those we hear daily on other 80s shows, so I was thinking of this...we could do a rundown of the chart, the full chart, pick a few songs, play the top 5 and maybe have a record of the week? What do you think and do you want in?"
"Er...yeah!", says I, and that's how we started.
It took us a couple of weeks to get the time right to get together and attempt to record something, but on Thursday 31st March 2016, we had 90 minutes of free time to attempt to record something.
In one hour we managed to record.... 100 up to number 85, go off on about 15 different tangents, dissolve into fits of laughter about 5 times and generally muck about. We were running out of time, as I had to leave and pick my wife up, and SteveB had wanted to get this done and out for Saturday, so I said "Look don't worry, call this our pilot and throw it in the archive and we can try again next week. We'll be better organised. It'll go smoother, I'm sure. I've never done this sort of thing before, it'll work out".
SteveB's shoulder sort of slumped a little and he mumbled, "I suppose so", and I gathered up my stuff and headed off, thinking no more about it, apart from wondering what we could do to be better organised and make the next attempt a better one. "Maybe we don't need to go through the whole chart, maybe we just do a quick recap in batches of 15, play a track, next batch, play a track, track from the album and repeat until we get to the top 5", and I think SteveB was having the same, if not very similar thoughts to this as well, but I didn't think too much more about it until Saturday morning, when I got a text from SteveB saying "Podcast is up" and a link.
"What?", I thought, "How?" Turns out with a bit of clever editing and a quick re-record of virtually everything, he made it sound like we had both contributed to the whole podcast. It actually sounded quite good, although there was a definite issue with mic quality versus track quality. My wife was mildly impressed at both the obscurity of the tracks chosen and the knowledge going with it, plus it was funny. "So what's next week's, then?", she asked "and are you going to actually manage to get it all done in 90 minutes this time?"
"Darn tooting, we are!" and with that said, that was it, there was no going back now, we just had to get good at this thing, or give up trying.
Our first podcast is 2nd April 1988, is hosted on SteveB's website and can be found on Mixcloud here
*edited from the original in case young people read this
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
It's Ok to not blog every day! Whew!
Came across a great Tweet today, and this is precisely why I think Twitter is such a great resource, as well as a fun and interesting thing to do.
@problogger had written this blog entry and thankfully, I feel more at ease now, not only with regards to blogging but with regards to writing too.
My main concern over starting blogging and writing, (ok pedants, blogging is writing too) was how I was going to find the time to do what I want to do, what with work commitments, (currently getting a lot busier as the project I am on is pushing further towards completion of Phase 1), the new family and associated shenanigans (roll on October and 3 weeks in Oz!) plus trying to have a life and spend time doing stuff me and my partner want to do. On top of which, I decide now is the time to learn about wine properly, and start writing and blogging and still keeping up with reading books and the now voluminous online content and information!
But it's ok! Scheduling is the way forward. A thoroughly worked out logical approach to it all can save a lot of time and trouble. Nice. Ideal for my logical brain to cope with. I can already see the benefits stretching before me.
I can also see that if things start to take off in a positive manner at some reasonable point down the line, that there will be a lot of sitting down and talking happening in my household. But then again, this will also be true of any major decision being undertaken, e.g. emigration to Australia, whens a good time to have a second child, giving up work to write full time *wink*, so having a structured approach to things is a good idea.
Ah well, fun times ahead. And yes, statistically, I did blog this from work, during work time. Me bad!
Any comments or thoughts much appreciated. Do you already subscribe to this mode of thought/work? Would this approach work for you?
@problogger had written this blog entry and thankfully, I feel more at ease now, not only with regards to blogging but with regards to writing too.
My main concern over starting blogging and writing, (ok pedants, blogging is writing too) was how I was going to find the time to do what I want to do, what with work commitments, (currently getting a lot busier as the project I am on is pushing further towards completion of Phase 1), the new family and associated shenanigans (roll on October and 3 weeks in Oz!) plus trying to have a life and spend time doing stuff me and my partner want to do. On top of which, I decide now is the time to learn about wine properly, and start writing and blogging and still keeping up with reading books and the now voluminous online content and information!
But it's ok! Scheduling is the way forward. A thoroughly worked out logical approach to it all can save a lot of time and trouble. Nice. Ideal for my logical brain to cope with. I can already see the benefits stretching before me.
I can also see that if things start to take off in a positive manner at some reasonable point down the line, that there will be a lot of sitting down and talking happening in my household. But then again, this will also be true of any major decision being undertaken, e.g. emigration to Australia, whens a good time to have a second child, giving up work to write full time *wink*, so having a structured approach to things is a good idea.
Ah well, fun times ahead. And yes, statistically, I did blog this from work, during work time. Me bad!
Any comments or thoughts much appreciated. Do you already subscribe to this mode of thought/work? Would this approach work for you?
Friday, 13 March 2009
A Five Year Plan, well technically a 4 year plan now.
Two things that have been gnawing at the back of my mind today, slowly revolving and bumping about in a Brownian Motion stylee, and surfacing now and again.
The first: Why do people have the time to blog and write stuff and be on Twitter and everything.
The second: What am I going to do with the rest of my life. I don't want to be in IT for ever. Plus there's the vineyard thing.
So to address them in order:
1. Simple, there are a number of explanations for it (I won't try and list them all). Unemployed, or already living the writing dream (or associated job related to writing), at home raising children, retired, or (and probably the most common) sciving off doing their paid job of work and farting about on the internet. Which leads rather neatly into the second one.
2. The 5 year plan! Well, as my current job post is for 5 years, I thought that this would be a good time to be able to take stock of life and see where it was heading. Now, the potential to emigrate to Australia is still there, and more so than ever before as my dad would quite like me to take over the reigns on the wine business one day and it would be best for me to at least have a working knowledge of the business before that happens. He's not getting any younger you know! And neither am I, so as long as the reason is valid, the age thing shouldn;t count against me too much. But further to that is this writing thing that I keep wanting to do and keep thinking about and looking at and not ever starting or anything. So here was my thought that's been rolling around. 5 years from now I want to be on the last legs of heading out to Australia.
But, i'm not sure I want to keep doing IT, so what else can I do? Plus I know it's not for ever, but then how long is a piece of string. It's taken dad 10 years to get to the stage whereby he can relax the number of days he has to work, to keep the vineyard ticking over. I don't want that! No, I want to be able to blog when i want, to twitter when i want, or to whatever when I want. To do that I need freedom, financial freedom. So, I now have 5 years to get this writing thing sorted, to allow me to play vineyard owner too, because it's a pretty full on job as well.
This last thought led me onto the disturbing thought that I wouldn;t have time to write because of the vineyard and juggling a normal job as well, but that's even more of a spur to get established, so that becomes my main job and the vines are the hobby.
Ok, so it's all a bit airy fairy and the details are sketchy at best, but it's a start. I've never really had a 5 year plan before, not one that's reasonably achievable at any rate. is it do-able?
Watch this space, i guess.
The first: Why do people have the time to blog and write stuff and be on Twitter and everything.
The second: What am I going to do with the rest of my life. I don't want to be in IT for ever. Plus there's the vineyard thing.
So to address them in order:
1. Simple, there are a number of explanations for it (I won't try and list them all). Unemployed, or already living the writing dream (or associated job related to writing), at home raising children, retired, or (and probably the most common) sciving off doing their paid job of work and farting about on the internet. Which leads rather neatly into the second one.
2. The 5 year plan! Well, as my current job post is for 5 years, I thought that this would be a good time to be able to take stock of life and see where it was heading. Now, the potential to emigrate to Australia is still there, and more so than ever before as my dad would quite like me to take over the reigns on the wine business one day and it would be best for me to at least have a working knowledge of the business before that happens. He's not getting any younger you know! And neither am I, so as long as the reason is valid, the age thing shouldn;t count against me too much. But further to that is this writing thing that I keep wanting to do and keep thinking about and looking at and not ever starting or anything. So here was my thought that's been rolling around. 5 years from now I want to be on the last legs of heading out to Australia.
But, i'm not sure I want to keep doing IT, so what else can I do? Plus I know it's not for ever, but then how long is a piece of string. It's taken dad 10 years to get to the stage whereby he can relax the number of days he has to work, to keep the vineyard ticking over. I don't want that! No, I want to be able to blog when i want, to twitter when i want, or to whatever when I want. To do that I need freedom, financial freedom. So, I now have 5 years to get this writing thing sorted, to allow me to play vineyard owner too, because it's a pretty full on job as well.
This last thought led me onto the disturbing thought that I wouldn;t have time to write because of the vineyard and juggling a normal job as well, but that's even more of a spur to get established, so that becomes my main job and the vines are the hobby.
Ok, so it's all a bit airy fairy and the details are sketchy at best, but it's a start. I've never really had a 5 year plan before, not one that's reasonably achievable at any rate. is it do-able?
Watch this space, i guess.
Thursday, 12 March 2009
Grumpy Old Man
Hmm, it seems that I am becoming more and more grumpy again. This does not bode well. I don't really want to be a Grumpy Old Man, but it seems that the description attributed to them in the series seems scarily familiar to anyone who knows me. Well, I'm getting to that age, I guess.
Anyway, I was literally livid on the way into work this morning. The number of people who cut me up, zoomed past in the empty lane and then cut in at the last minute, contributing to the already lengthy queue I was sitting in, and generally caused my blood to boil, all for what? To shave 30 seconds off their journey? We all have places to go pal! But imagine my chagrin when it turns out that of the 5 people that cut me up today, 3 of them were women! It seems to me that women are becoming even more aggressive drivers than their male counterparts. It never used to be that way... and now that I'm reading what I'm writing, I've realised that it's worse than I thought, the transfer to grumpy old man is complete and I've turned into my Grandfather! And a Male Chauvinist Pig! Arghh!
Ok, relax! *sips tea*
*deep breath*
I'm fine now. Really. I guess the problem is not one of road-rage etc, but one more of common courtesy. I don't mind letting people in, as long as it is acknowledged in some manner. Just like stopping at a crossing to let somebody over. yes it's a law in the Highway Code, but at the same time, surely acknowledgement of said action is little to ask? A "Thank-you" in exchange for holding a door open for somebody is all it takes to put a smile on my face, or lift my mood.
As Bill & Ted once said "Be excellent to each other" Courtesy is free and will get you a long way in life.
On another note, being a new parent, I've discovered a drawback to parenthood that I had not previously considered. I got in last night, my partner had taken my 9 month old son to baby & toddler group again. (Mondays and Wednesdays). They are holding a fund-raising event at the end of the month and so the usual requests came back for any old stuff not wanted or items for the tombola and so forth, on Monday. Fine, no problem, glad to help out the local group and so on. Until I got in yesterday.
"Hi sweetheart, how was work?"
"Fine, thanks, how was Toddler Group?"
"Oh fine, you know. "
"Ah, cool"
"Oh by the way, I've volunteered you to run the '£1 a go on the Wii' stand."
"What?"
"I thought you wouldn't mind"
"Right, right. Who's supplying the Wii?", knowing what was coming next.
"We are. Plus Guitar Hero and I thought, the projector too"
"What?!?"
So joy! I get to risk my kit getting damaged and watch it happen at the same time, all in the name of fundraising! Thus, I shall state for the record, here and now, because I know once you start doing these things it never stops, but I shall not be cajoled, bribed or manoeuvred into a position whereby I am on every blooming school committee possible for the next 18 years of my child's life. Get it? Got it? Good!
Don't get me wrong, naturally I take an interest in anything my child will be involved in, but do I honestly have to be roped into absolutely everything? I mean he's only 9 months old!
Where's my time on the Wii? I got a guitar for christmas and I still haven't learnt a chord yet. My time is precious too. So, if you ever cut me up or cause me any sort of angst and frustration whilst driving, I'm noting your number, calling DVLA, finding out where you live, coming round your house and hauling you off to the next fundraiser and forcing you to be on the Wii stand! There, that's karma at work for you ;o)
Be warned!
Anyway, I was literally livid on the way into work this morning. The number of people who cut me up, zoomed past in the empty lane and then cut in at the last minute, contributing to the already lengthy queue I was sitting in, and generally caused my blood to boil, all for what? To shave 30 seconds off their journey? We all have places to go pal! But imagine my chagrin when it turns out that of the 5 people that cut me up today, 3 of them were women! It seems to me that women are becoming even more aggressive drivers than their male counterparts. It never used to be that way... and now that I'm reading what I'm writing, I've realised that it's worse than I thought, the transfer to grumpy old man is complete and I've turned into my Grandfather! And a Male Chauvinist Pig! Arghh!
Ok, relax! *sips tea*
*deep breath*
I'm fine now. Really. I guess the problem is not one of road-rage etc, but one more of common courtesy. I don't mind letting people in, as long as it is acknowledged in some manner. Just like stopping at a crossing to let somebody over. yes it's a law in the Highway Code, but at the same time, surely acknowledgement of said action is little to ask? A "Thank-you" in exchange for holding a door open for somebody is all it takes to put a smile on my face, or lift my mood.
As Bill & Ted once said "Be excellent to each other" Courtesy is free and will get you a long way in life.
On another note, being a new parent, I've discovered a drawback to parenthood that I had not previously considered. I got in last night, my partner had taken my 9 month old son to baby & toddler group again. (Mondays and Wednesdays). They are holding a fund-raising event at the end of the month and so the usual requests came back for any old stuff not wanted or items for the tombola and so forth, on Monday. Fine, no problem, glad to help out the local group and so on. Until I got in yesterday.
"Hi sweetheart, how was work?"
"Fine, thanks, how was Toddler Group?"
"Oh fine, you know. "
"Ah, cool"
"Oh by the way, I've volunteered you to run the '£1 a go on the Wii' stand."
"What?"
"I thought you wouldn't mind"
"Right, right. Who's supplying the Wii?", knowing what was coming next.
"We are. Plus Guitar Hero and I thought, the projector too"
"What?!?"
So joy! I get to risk my kit getting damaged and watch it happen at the same time, all in the name of fundraising! Thus, I shall state for the record, here and now, because I know once you start doing these things it never stops, but I shall not be cajoled, bribed or manoeuvred into a position whereby I am on every blooming school committee possible for the next 18 years of my child's life. Get it? Got it? Good!
Don't get me wrong, naturally I take an interest in anything my child will be involved in, but do I honestly have to be roped into absolutely everything? I mean he's only 9 months old!
Where's my time on the Wii? I got a guitar for christmas and I still haven't learnt a chord yet. My time is precious too. So, if you ever cut me up or cause me any sort of angst and frustration whilst driving, I'm noting your number, calling DVLA, finding out where you live, coming round your house and hauling you off to the next fundraiser and forcing you to be on the Wii stand! There, that's karma at work for you ;o)
Be warned!
Wednesday, 11 March 2009
It's not big and it's not clever. It certainly wouldn't impress me!
On Twitter this morning, @PenguinBooks asked if anyone had ever been a Book Bluffer. i.e. somebody who has lied about reading a book, for whatever reason. This is based on an interesting article from the Times Online found here.
I confess that I have only read 2 of the top 10 books listed, but certainly, as far as I can remember, have never, nor would ever lie about having read a book when I have not. I see no point. In fact, quite the opposite! I am quite happy to say "No, I have not read <insert book here>, is it worth the read?" and see what people think,especially if it is a book I have been considering reading.
Hell, I ploughed through Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, because I found the film so fascinating. It has to be the longest I've spent reading a book. 3 months! This is purely down to the long and convoluted storyline, and the huge amounts written in Latin, which I never had the opportunity to study at school, however the context and the historical elements kept me churning on regardless! Admittedly I haven't read anything else by Eco since, perhaps due to the fact it took me 3 months for the first one, but why lie about having read a book if you haven't?
The top fib seems to be George Orwell's 1984. I tried to read this when I was about 11 and failed after a chapter or so, but within 12 months I tried again and completed it. I've read it twice since then, but that's me. I like SF.
One wonders if the majority of people surveyed were thinking back to High School days and required reading material.
"Sure I read it, here's my report!", which really means,
"Are you kidding? Waste time reading that rubbish? I copied it off the internet/made it up/bullied someone into writing it/stole someone elses copy/don't care"
So here's a question then. Rather than lie, tell me your top 3 books that you have tried to read and failed doing so, never to return to it.
I'll start you off:
1. Lord of the Rings
2. The Bible
3. Any other 'Dune' book, it took me 3 attempts to get through 'Dune'
Go!
I confess that I have only read 2 of the top 10 books listed, but certainly, as far as I can remember, have never, nor would ever lie about having read a book when I have not. I see no point. In fact, quite the opposite! I am quite happy to say "No, I have not read <insert book here>, is it worth the read?" and see what people think,especially if it is a book I have been considering reading.
Hell, I ploughed through Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, because I found the film so fascinating. It has to be the longest I've spent reading a book. 3 months! This is purely down to the long and convoluted storyline, and the huge amounts written in Latin, which I never had the opportunity to study at school, however the context and the historical elements kept me churning on regardless! Admittedly I haven't read anything else by Eco since, perhaps due to the fact it took me 3 months for the first one, but why lie about having read a book if you haven't?
The top fib seems to be George Orwell's 1984. I tried to read this when I was about 11 and failed after a chapter or so, but within 12 months I tried again and completed it. I've read it twice since then, but that's me. I like SF.
One wonders if the majority of people surveyed were thinking back to High School days and required reading material.
"Sure I read it, here's my report!", which really means,
"Are you kidding? Waste time reading that rubbish? I copied it off the internet/made it up/bullied someone into writing it/stole someone elses copy/don't care"
So here's a question then. Rather than lie, tell me your top 3 books that you have tried to read and failed doing so, never to return to it.
I'll start you off:
1. Lord of the Rings
2. The Bible
3. Any other 'Dune' book, it took me 3 attempts to get through 'Dune'
Go!
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
Am I that insensitive? Have I no feelings at all?
Mr Neil Gaiman, who's journal I have followed on and off for years, has just posted this entry, and quite rightly so. He also declared, at about the same time on Twitter, "No twittering for a few days, I think. Everything's a bit raw." His father died suddenly at the end of last week.
Whilst I myself sent my condolences via a quick Twitter this morning, I hope that all his loyal fans will understand and allow him the peace and quiet he deserves over the next wee while, to be with his family and come to terms with the empty space that there will be now.
Ok, so people die all the time, from one cause or another, but it affects you in so many different ways. It's sad that the policeman and soldiers died in Northern Ireland over the last couple of days, for no fault of their own, doing their job. That's also very maddening and needless. But at the same time, I have no real feelings on the matter, other than it being a stupid waste of life and the hope that it doesn't kick off into something much nastier. Yes it's head-in-the-sand time on issues like this.
I have a work friend who had a really good friend die a couple of weeks ago, plus another friend's partner's mum died at about the same time and I keep asking myself
"How do you deal with things like this?"
"What do you honestly say, that sounds genuine, not clichéd and conveys the real meaning that you are truly sorry for their loss?"
I just don't know.
I've seen two grandparents die and the affect it had on my parents, I've seen the affect a partners grandparent passing away had on the people involved and I've seen the affect a really good friend's mum, and friend of mine also, had but inside I don't seem to feel much at all.
Perhaps it's just because I've not been in the position of having an immediate blood relative pass away, however I still get the feeling that whilst I may feel sad, I won't be that affected by it all.
This, of course, remains to be seen.
My personal, genuine and deepest sympathy to NG and family, to AF for her friend, and to TH for her mum. May you remember your departed ones with fondness, both good and bad times but always with a smile on your lips. Sincerely, JS.
Whilst I myself sent my condolences via a quick Twitter this morning, I hope that all his loyal fans will understand and allow him the peace and quiet he deserves over the next wee while, to be with his family and come to terms with the empty space that there will be now.
Ok, so people die all the time, from one cause or another, but it affects you in so many different ways. It's sad that the policeman and soldiers died in Northern Ireland over the last couple of days, for no fault of their own, doing their job. That's also very maddening and needless. But at the same time, I have no real feelings on the matter, other than it being a stupid waste of life and the hope that it doesn't kick off into something much nastier. Yes it's head-in-the-sand time on issues like this.
I have a work friend who had a really good friend die a couple of weeks ago, plus another friend's partner's mum died at about the same time and I keep asking myself
"How do you deal with things like this?"
"What do you honestly say, that sounds genuine, not clichéd and conveys the real meaning that you are truly sorry for their loss?"
I just don't know.
I've seen two grandparents die and the affect it had on my parents, I've seen the affect a partners grandparent passing away had on the people involved and I've seen the affect a really good friend's mum, and friend of mine also, had but inside I don't seem to feel much at all.
Perhaps it's just because I've not been in the position of having an immediate blood relative pass away, however I still get the feeling that whilst I may feel sad, I won't be that affected by it all.
This, of course, remains to be seen.
My personal, genuine and deepest sympathy to NG and family, to AF for her friend, and to TH for her mum. May you remember your departed ones with fondness, both good and bad times but always with a smile on your lips. Sincerely, JS.
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