Cambridge Folk Festival 2007

30 Jul 2007: I dunno why, but the morning after, back into normal work routine, it always seems like the festival was a lifetime ago. Yet one glance out of the window shows people still packing up their tents. Hope the park isn’t in an irreparable mess. Last time it rained a lot, the grass took 9 months to get back into its usual immaculate condition. But the weather this time wasn’t nearly as bad as then – it seems we had an incredible escape, with just a few showers. Overall, I think I’d give this year’s event a fairly low mark, maybe 4 or 5 out of 10.

Cambridge Folk Festival – Thursday night

27 Jul 2007: The heavens opened in the afternoon, so – unfortunately – whatever happens now, this year’s Cambridge Folk Festival is going to require wellies. Oh well. Arrived just as Seasick Steve was getting under way, to widespread enjoyment; I couldn’t tell a great blues player from a merely good one, but I really enjoyed his set like everyone around me. Good start. Kris Drever followed, but was a little low-key and downbeat for such a short evening’s music – he’s got other appearances to come, which I suspect will show him off better. And finally the showstopping Alabama 3 “Unplugged”, who were one of those acts you get scattered throughout every festival that have that elusive quality of presence. Great fun, [...]

Oliver Fisher lights up Loch Lomond for me

15 Jul 2007: Great fun at the Scottish Open for a couple of days, where we decided to follow fellow Essex boy Oliver Fisher, just 18 years old. What a great tournament to do so: Oliver finished a very creditable joint 19th, worth nearly twenty-five grand, his biggest ever payday, and a great result so early in his first full season as a pro on the European Tour. He really looks to have the temperament to make a top class player, putting in some incredibly consistent rounds and showing no signs of visible distraction as he bangs it down the centre of fairway after fairway. Nice to meet his Mum, sister and coach too (his Dad caddies for him). This is one player [...]

Woo. Of course the iPhone had to go in the blender.

11 Jul 2007: Of course, Willitblend? is one of the best examples ever of a corporate blog, and a company using the web to sell its product. And of course they’ve “done” the iPhone and probably got a gazillion hits out of it too. And the presenter is a laugh, even if he’s not exactly the great Dr John P Kilcoyne of Brainiac Science Abuse.

Spinal Tap at Live Earth: all the links

9 Jul 2007: Well, I managed to muck up my Sky+ recording of the Tap at Live Earth because I didn’t notice the Beeb cunningly change the channel they were broadcasting the event on halfway through. But hey, the web comes to the rescue, so here’s an MTV interview with the band before their performance (which is made so much better by the fact that it segues straight into Geri Halliwell and other poptastic stars all being really serious about global warming); then on YouTube (“Hello Wimbledon!”), performances of Stonehenge and new song Hotter than Hell, and separately, Big Bottom …with every bass player at the event joining them on stage. I wondered how they were going to turn it up to eleven [...]

Best piano for a child…

3 Jul 2007: Continuing my series of useful articles about everything I buy, here’s a review of our new Yamaha PSR-E303 keyboard. Well, not so much a review (I’m hardly a musician) but more a summary of the research we did before buying it – in other words, what is the best “piano” to buy for your child?

Exclusive: the iPhone Shuffle

2 Jul 2007: No, only kidding. I don’t believe for one moment that I’m the first person in the world to think of this, and I really can’t be bothered to search Technorati to see how many people got there first, but I want a shuffle feature on my iPhone when I get one, eventually. So it rings random mates just for a laugh. Or perhaps even sends random texts to random mates. That’s what I want.