Friday, April 25, 2008

Goodbye, Chairman Humph.

Jazz Legend Humphrey Lyttleton passed away today, aged 86.
He was an excellent trumpeter, an inspirational radio presenter (his long running BBC Radio 2 show "The Best of Jazz" only came to an end last month) and irrepressible Chairman of the 'Panel Show to End All Panel Shows', "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue", which I was fortunate enough to see being recorded last year (see the blog post "Samantha Live" below).

RIP Humph.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Busy, Busy, Busy

Busy day today - a very good friend celebrated her 60th birthday with a great party (from which I have just returned) and, earlier in the day, I attended a seminar on "Podcasting, Rights and Music" hosted by the UK Podcasters Association and the Open Rights Group at The Guardian's Scott Room in Farringdon, London.
It was a really great afternoon listening to experts in the field of Pod/Vodcasting and Music Licencing and talking to fellow podcasters about various aspects of producing podcasts (A quick plug for my two (at present) shows - UK C ardCast and Radio Tilling!)
The seminar was video streamed live using a Nokia N95 (which was interesting to see!)Apparently the edited highlights will be online later - for more on this visit the UKPA blog.
My thanks to UKPA for giving me the opportunity to attend.

If You, dear reader, are a podcaster based in the UK, you REALLY should consider joining UKPA - there are three levels of membership, with the most basic being free.

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

New Year, New Bike!

I've had my old Peugeot Puma mountain bike for 20 odd years - it's one of the first 'mountain bikes', and is really more of a standard Gents tourer frame but with thicker wheels, and 18 speed deraillier gears.
It's a bit big, a bit heavy and a lott juddery on the pitted road surface I use to go to and from work every day, so when I found I had enough vouchers to go get a new bike on Amazon, the old Peugeot was retired (no pun intended!)
The new bike, a CBR Java with full suspection, 21 speed derailliers, front disc brakes and alloy frame and wheel rims, arrived last Friday (the same day, by the way, that I went to see Spamalot with a friend who had a spare ticket - great show!).
The suspension take a little getting used to - I've tightened up the rear suspension as I was suffering from rather a lot of bounce - but so far, no reason to regret the decision to buy it!
The only downside is that it didn't come with mudguards - which means my back has been spattered with mucky water - but that will be fixed at the weekend.

2008 is the year I use the internet to get expensive stuff for nothing or next to nothing - the next step is to do enough online surveys to get me enough points for the iPod upgrade I want to make, from the 1st Gen Shuffle to the latest Classic (though I'm sorely tempted by the 32Gb Touch that has just been announced...)

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Cheap Choo-Choo

It's been a while since I posted here, which would suggest to any casual reader that nothing very much has happened in my life lately. This is true.
In fact, probably the most exciting thing that I did recently was to buy a train set for my brother in the Marks & Spencer sale - what can I say, he likes model trains, and this was reduced from £149 to £9...

What I have been doing is working on podcast episodes, planning a second podcast (about the author E.F.Benson), and completing enough online surveys to enable me to get an iPod Classic this year (and/or a new bicycle!) Before anyone asks, no, I don't do those pyramid-type schemes, where you end up relying on the entire population of the UK signing up to referral offers so you can get the latest gadget - these are legitimate 'answer some questions online for points which you save up for shop vouchers' type surveys.

It's my birthday soon, so if anyone wants to help the 'Paul needs a new Bike, preferably with full suspension and a bit lighter than the current 20 year old model' fund, send Amazon.co.uk gift vouchers! :)
Amazon.co.uk Gift Vouchers