02 Genie

Seems like a stroke of genie-us from O2 - I heard this week about their pay-and-go package that combines the unrestrictedness of topping up with loads and loads of free texts that you get with contracts. Basically you top-up £10 every month and you get 300 free texts. But the genie-us bit (as far as I can tell) is that if you don't top up one month you simply don't get your free texts and just pay for them as you did before..Butt the next time you put £10 on you get your texts again!

So I heard about this and went along to the O2 shop in town and went "oi, lady, I gotta get myself on this" but obviously in a much polite way. So the lady makes a phone call and they ask me bizarre questions that I really wasn't expecting such as "how did you last top-up your phone?" - "Ye-wha? Oh well, I got in my car and went down the petrol station..."

So that was Thursday and the lady told me just to waiuntilll Monday before topping-up again, but then today, being Friday, I noticed I could get a signal and my phone was saying "card rejected"....great! So I wait a couple of hours and phone O2 customer service where the woman tells me to put £10 on my phone to activate the card, somewhat dubious about throwing money at the problem I went back to the petrol station and one hour later still nothing. So it's 11PM and I finally fixed it by simply turning the phone off and on again. Grrrr!

Got my free texts though!

Morning Runner

Another music post, this time about another little-known band called Morning Runner. I saw the live waay back in 2004 when they supported Snow Patrol, I thought they were fantastic back then and the next day I went on the internet to find some of their tracks of theirs but found pretty much next-to-nothing on them and they didn't seem to have anything released. Then last summer they started to gain more popularity and some of their stuff was released in the form of very short EPs.

Then today I was on iTunes and was surprised to see their newest track, Burning Benches, as No.17 on the day's top 100 downloads a quick listen and you can tell why. Sum's up Morning Runner's pretty unique combination of rock and chill-out music that makes you want to both stand up and move but also sit back and be very depressed - "it's not heaven without you"

The only annoying thing about them is that last year they supported Athlete last year and I didn't go!

www.morningrunner.co.uk

Coldplay split?

So Coldplay have dropped a bombshell but unfortunatly nobody quite knows what it means - ""People are fed up with us and so are we. You won't see us at one of these for many, many years."  Sounds like they're intending to take a damn long holiday but it leaves you wondering whether they'll ever return, much as I love Coldplay I'm actually kinda glad...

There's been a HUGE difference between the group after Rush of Blood release and the group after X&Y's release, X&Y launched Chris into becoming a household name and made the group become a stadium-filling supergroup.  They've rarely been far from the media's eye with Live8 and Glastonbury followed by their tour.  It's a pretty mad pace to keep up, while they may be able to do it I don't think their fans would.  It's hard to get excited about a huge concert when they did one just last week - in a way all the specialness wears off.  Chris said not so long ago that the 4th album was pretty much written, so in theory they could probably get it into the shops by the summer if they wished.  But I think if they did that it would be the end of Coldplay.

Why?  Because we'd go round this roundabout again, big concerts, big media coverage, award ceremonies etc. etc.  And, as with anything that becomes very popular, it becomes cool to criticise it and disassociate yourself from it.  If Coldplay put out their 4th album this year I'm pretty certain that what would happen and that reputation would be near impossible to shake off.  So I see a long break as a very good thing and vital for Coldplay's long-term success, it's a short term pain so that things can work out in the long run.

X&Y has sewn the seeds for Coldplay's future, their music will happily last for a few years in people collections, they'll come back fresh-faced, puppy-tailed and able to wow us all again.

(I hope)

£1000 Cash-Climb

All this week the local radio station has been running a game show which they play every hour. Basically you have one minute to answer as many questions as you can, you get £5 for every correct answer and if you get ten correct in a row you win £1000...but if you get one wrong you go all the way back to nothing and have to start again.

So I woke up this morning, realised I could do with winning a grand so phoned in...and got on.

Before we started the presenter was chatting to me and I made the mistake of admitting to studying Further Maths and basically got labelled a genius. Not so bad...until it comes to the question "what 'a' word is a type of maths?" (or something along those lines) "ermmm......arithmetic?" WRONG! That was quickly followed by a Flintstones question which I also got wrong making me the only person all week to win absolutely nothing!

Apparently the 'a' word was algebra but I still think arithmetic was right! Admittedly it wouldn't have made much difference, but still.

Ahh Blunty...

Just heard how James Blunt accepted his Brit award, I wouldn't normally pay much attention but it cracked me up - "I have been accused so many times of singing like a girl that it is amazing to be the best male."

Mozzarella in Carrozza

OK feeling the need to immortalize what is quite frankly the best starter course ever discovered - I'm not posting this because I think anyone else will be remotely interested it just seems the best way to ensure I can always come back and look up the name. Went to dinner with a friend from work this evening (that's a whole other post!) at Prezzo which is this Italian resturant chain and for starters we had "Mozzarella is Carrozza" which according to the menu is mozzarella that's deep fried in bread crumbs - seriously nice! Very stringy (obviously) but very nice.

Thought I'd post a recipe for it but the internet seems to disagree with Prezzo Plc. and most places seem to thing think it's mozzarella between two slice of bread that then fried - so basically a deep-friend cheese sarnie. But anyway the breadcrumbed version is here - http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_26158,00.html

(Edit: I just read the recipe...probably easier to buy the mozzarella rather that make it)

Finding Big Fish Thoughts

I always keep a close eye on my blog stats mainly becuase I want to know when I pick up a regular reader but they're also pretty interesting to see who/how people find their way to ths lowly page. Most of my hits tend to come from Blogexplosion if I'm using that but they tend to surf away after 30-seconds probably without ever reading anything, can't see much point there. Others tend to find their way here from other Blogspot blogs - probably via the little toolbar. But I do seem to get about about 2-3 hits a day through Google...never any other search engine, just Google.

What makes me chuckle is looking at the search terms to see what they were acctually looking for, in the last couple of weeks I've probably had 20 hits from people looking to download Episode 1 of the Ricky Gervais Podcast. If you're looking for that...GUTTED!!! Had a fair few hits by people searching for Undertheigloo - odd as I've only ever mentioned them once but I do have a quote by them down the bottom of the page. Bet you never noticed ;) Other searches tend to be for The National but I'm getting a couple of people interested in Mock the Week now too.

Maybe oneday someone will find my blog usefull.

Mock The Week...or not

Well last night was the recording of Mock the Week that I had tickets for so a friend from work and I drove the 2hrs to London.  Being a pretty new driver I got a bit lost on the M25 and ended up missing our junction, not a big deal except by this point we were getting very pushed for time.  Somehow we found our way to the studio without too many more problems and just one 3-point turn but nonetheless our detour cost us half an hour.  Our tickets say the studio doors close at 7:10 and we finally jog up to the front of BBC centre...at 7:10.  There's about another 10-15 people standing outside the audience entrance where we're told we're too late and the studio's full.  Great.

 

Fortunately the very lovely people said they should be able to get us into another show being filmed at the same time called The Late Edition, perhaps there was hope after all.  So we go through to the foyer and hang around for 20 minutes while all the people with official tickets for the Late Edition go through to the studio leaving just us hopefuls behind.  Half the hopefuls are taken off to be seated while my friend and I are left with a group of 8 or so others guys.  The man in a suit returns and starts apologising to the group that the studios full and they can't do anything for us.  We'll have to drown our sorrows in a McFlurry.  He ushered the group of eight towards the exit before turning to us and saying "there is however room for you two."  YES!

 

Seriously surreal experience in the studio, they did a "link up" with a reporter at the Turin Winter Olympics and the screens showed him set against a very snowy backdrop - we however could see him set against a green screen off to the side of the set.  The presenter, Marcus Brigstocke, was seriously good and I don't think it was just because he had a good team of writers behind him.  In between shots he was making jokes with the audience and pretty much ensured that for the two hours we were sat in the studio I never once felt bored....given my attention span is somewhat limited that's damn impressive!

We all headed out the studio around 10PM and I began the drive home.  All was going well until the matrix boards on the M25 told us we couldn't get off at the junction we wanted...all I could do was wave to the M3 as we sailed past.  So we got off the next junction and tried to cut back across and rejoin the M3 slightly further along.  Nice plan...but I can't drive.  We got lost and didn't have the right map so were forced to put up with the very small-scale diagram in my "condensed road map of Great Britain and Ireland."  So my friend tells me to follow signs to Chobham, I followed signs to Cobham, subtly different name but still in completely the wrong direction.  I mean really, why would you have two towns pretty much next to each other with one letter difference!  What genius did that?!

Even if I had gone the right way it wouldn't have made much difference as we spent the next hour and a half touring the surrounding countryside.  I even gave up on my macho male reputation (yeah - whatever!) by going to a petrol station to ask for directions.  But even that went wrong...it was bloody closed!  Eventually we gave up and went back to the M25 to find a different route home. 

Home finally came well over 4 hours after leaving at 2:30AM.

My story is still not quite over, I'd just finished telling a friend at college of our magical mystery tour when my mobile rang.  It's Martin from SRO Audiences ringing to apologise/explain why we couldn't get in and despite bending over backwards to get us into The Late Edition they offered us priority tickets for another recording of Mock the Week.  Proper customer service.

If you're interested the episode of The Late Edition we saw goes out tonight (Thurs) on BBCFour at either 10PM or 10:30...I'm not too sure which.

Little thought for the day...

OK lets imagine a hypothetical situation in which I've been offended by a cartoon published in a newspaper and to vent my anger at the paper's country I decide I wish to burn their flag. So, no doubt, I go on the internet with my debit card and have the appropriate flag shipped to me via UPS. So even in the technologically-advanced western world burning flags can be quite a bit of hassle.

And yet its a pretty common occurence to see people from all over the world on the news burning various flags. So where do people is less-developed countries get flags? I'm thinking maybe there are flag shops at the side of the road or something, might be a good line of business in times of trouble.

Copying/Sharing/Stealing Music

So I thought I'd make another one of those posts that have little to no relevance to anything - just me harping on about something. This time the illegal sharing of music files.

OMG does this tick me off. Anyone who knows me knows I point-blankly refuse to download music from file sharing programs instead choosing to pay to get a CD or a legal track from iTunes. I'm not overly bothered about others doing it, it's their choice after all, but what does bother me is people who convince themselves it's right and justifiable.

First of all, you are not entitled to have music. Your favourite band writing, recording and distributing a track does not have to happen and nor does it have to happen for free. That song remains their intellectual property and they retain rights over, conveiniently though they're willing to let people listen to it in exchange for a small(ish) sum for a CD copy. This is the wakey, wakey bit - buying it on CD does not mean you own the song! It is quite obviously wrong to make copies of this CD and start selling it from the back of your car, it's therefore also just as wrong to put it up on the internet for free. Buying the CD has not given you rights distribute it's contents whether you wish it had or not is irrelevant, it didn't and you knew that before you paid your money.

Far and away the biggest annoyance for me is when the people who's entire music collection is illegally downloaded and yet claim to be music fans. I mean really - shut up. If you really enjoyed and appreciated music you'd have no problems about paying for it. Think how much you listen to a good CD, £10 or whatever is awesome value for that much entertainment.

Yes I wish music was cheaper, yes I wish more money went to the artists but unfortunatly none of that is an excuse to download illegally.