Jon Curnow's Digital Home
Gary Lucy in football gear – on TV no less.
I don’t watch much reality television but Digital Spy is telling me that Gary Lucy has signed up for The Match, an upcoming reality show which is set to start on Sky One in October. What fun. I will be tuning it – it makes owning a Sky dish all the more worthwhile. Maybe I should make Gary a future Man of the Moment.
Fun DVD with a cute hunk as lead.
To be honest, the reason I put Camp on the DVD list from LoveFilm is because Jase’s review last year sent me to the official site which made me think it looked cool. It was, I guess, a typical teenage rites of passage movie with an interesting twist as it is based at a summer camp based on mescal theatre. It’s fun and interesting – some great performances and some fantastic singing. It’ll not blow you away but it will make you laugh (and it may make you cry). Daniel Letterle as Vlad is, of course the heartthrob that we’d all love.
Oh, just go watch it. Laugh and sign then order the soundtrack (I just did!)
A little reminder to self.
And note to self: when this entry comes up in the ‘On This Day’ link it’s time to renew my membership to OutInTheUK which might be OutInTheUSA.com to you or OutInCanada if you are gay and in Canada. Everywhere else it is probably, erm, OutEverywhere. Are you a member? What’s your ID?
Maybe it’s all too much!
So at Waterloo station an hour ago I got a call from my boss – there was a client on the telephone who needs an urgent email – can you help them tonight. On the train I used my Treo to check locations of wifi spots. Starbucks in Wimbledon is where I am sat writing mails to customers. It’s tacky and yet cool at the same time. It’s great and also an example of how technology takes over our lives. And it looks like it is about to rain!
Virgin Radio plans to launch a digital download chart too.
So, the new battle could really be for the digital download charts. I see Virgin Radio will launch a digital download top 20 before the BBC chart that I previously mentioned. I imagine this could really start encouraging more people to buy music in digital form. It could be quite an interesting few months.
Is it right to have celebrities on a panel of jurors in a courtroom when a man is charged with murder?
Is it right to have celebrities on a panel of jurors in a courtroom when a man is charged with murder? Oprah Winfrey thought she was too opinionated to serve on the jury but the lawyers said it was fine for her to serve. I wonder if anybody has looked at the psychological impact on the other jurors. Oprah is not just a jobbing actor you might have seen in the background on EastEnders. She’s a global star with a massive following, highly regarded in the field she is in and her opinions are reported worldwide. Surely, this means that people will listen to her. Does that make others on the jury more easily swayed. I am sure most of them would say ‘no’. I would say that here presence wouldn’t effect me – but I don’t think I’d be telling the truth.
I went to see Madonna at Earls Court.
So I went to see Madonna at Earls Court.
That statement does not make me a huge Madonna fan – although I am partial to many of her hits and, unlike some of my friends, I think American Life is a great album (then again I also like some of Blue’s material so who am I to judge musical tastes?) and she is most certainly a performer.
So, when commenting on a Madonna concert what should you say? Earls Court is a huge venue. For those of you who haven’t been you should be aware that it’s very stadium-like. We sat in the back left corner so it was like she was at the opposite goal post. And it’s in that context that you will understand why I didn’t think it was that good.
Madonna can put on a show. She is the undisputed queen of showmanship. And therein lies the problem. She performs a West End show of the variety that you need to be able to see. And she performs them at West End prices but to stadium-sized audiences. The audio is show-like and you doubt that she’s singing live the whole time – although I suspect a lot of it is live. It’s just very well produced and sounds like her CDs and, for me, that isn’t the point of going to see live music: somehow you need to believe that they are performing live. Add to that the fact that you can’t see the spectacular and you have a fun but, ultimately, a disappointing evening.
I never really knew what a flash flood was until Wikipedia told me.
While trying to find a medal count for the olympics for my last post, I also followed some links at Wikipedia to their current affairs section where I came upon an interesting item about flash flooding relating to the floods in Cornwall. The advice “Turn Around Don’t Drown” is something we should all take on-board.
The olympics started last week in Athens and I probably should mention them!
Purely for my own reference: Wikipedia’s Athens Medal Count. There is something compelling about watching gymnastics, sailing and boxing and I would only ever do that at the olympics. I even found myself watching synchronised diving last night. Why?
Why do I appear on email lists a few days after meeting somebody from a new company?
If you read any of what I write you will be aware that I don’t talk about work a great deal. This is supposed to be an outlet separate from anything to do with my working life but today I wanted to solicit you opinion on a trend I am seeing emerging through work.
Like all companies, on an almost daily basis we deal with new customers, prospects or organisations relating to our business. Often we will have meetings and presentations and start to build – what we hope will be – a good business relationship. Like most people who meet others in their sphere of work I hand out business cards to new contacts.
Three or four times in the past month I have found that – a few days after meeting somebody new – my email address will be subscribed to their company mailshot/newsletter etc. I know this is a reaction to the new rules on spam in the UK where there has to be some kind of business relationship before you can receive arbitrary messages from a company but I don’t like the trend. When you’re on the lookout for new business it’s a little hard to say ‘stop this’. Perhaps we should start doing something similar.
I wasn’t expecting to like it, but I loved it.
When you finally start to understand the plot of Kill Bill (Volume I) you will see that Uma Thurman wakes from a coma and is determined to seek revenge on those (namely Bill and his crew) who put her there. For me, Quentin Tarantino usually means more violence than I am prepared to stomach but in Kill Bill (Volume I) it’s almost comic book (the blood spewing from the severed arms will – sadly – amuse me for quite a while). The acting is excellent (Uma is brilliant and was Lucy Liu). The staging of the fight sequences is unlike anything I have ever seen before and, although I am still trying to figure some of it out, I am pleased I rented it and not a little disappointed that I didn’t see it in the cinema.
I wasn’t expecting to like it, but I loved it.
Is the new digital download chart a good thing?
A year ago I wrote about ringtones and the large amounts of money to be made from them (as well as one of the current boyband stars of the time) and asked when we would see the first ringtone only hit? Well, maybe not ringtones but the music download industry in the UK is taking a step towards being able to produce download only hits when Radio 1 introduces the download chart from the start of next month. I think this is fantastic news and I will be interested to see how the record companies react.
Also about a year ago, I wrote about my first experiences with downloading music from the MSN Music Club. Well, I can tell you that a year on I have bought, perhaps, ten tracks – mainly the odd chart hit jumps out at me. I’ve tried several services and find them all a little frustrating in one way or another.
Many download services don’t let you have the latest singles from an artist until they are falling down the regular charts. I assume to this is to ensure that those fans who want the track will actually buy it and contribute to a chart position before the downloads (which don’t contribute to a proper chart position). So, although I do think this chart is a superb step forward, digital music will only be legitimised when it’s included with the full chart.
Maybe in twelve months I’ll be writing about that.
What now for Gareth Gates?
Poor Gareth Gates. It seems his career is on the rocks and his record company are trying to rebrand him. Perhaps something good has come out of all the Pop Idol shows. It was widely thought that Gareth was the industry’s preference for the Pop Idol when the public voted for Will Young. Will is still having hit records. I am not sure what it says about the Pop Idol phenomenon. In this instance the public got it right but where now Hear’say, One True Voice, Michelle …
This year’s London Open House weekend is in September.
Last September I visited Bush House, the home of the BBC World Service. It was part of the London Open House weekend which is an annual event allowing visitors behind the doors of buildings not usually open to the public. This year it’s the weekend of September 18th and 19th. The brochure can be ordered from the official site. If you’re in London that weekend I would encourage you to find something to visit!
A little update on the garden work.
I suppose that I should have given you a little update earlier in the week and I certainly should have recorded it for myself. So, as you can see, we managed to clear a great deal over the weekend – although I thought I had broken the hired shredder unit (but hadn’t). We cleared bags and bags of material away and flattened tons of earth. We placed paving slabs where the new shed is to go (it actually came on Tuesday but I have no pictures yet) and then, on Monday (after this picture was taken) this fence was replaced with a newer one (of the same style) which doesn’t look like it is about to blow over when the wind gets up.