Day: 27 October 2024

Weeknotes #92: Love Me For A Reason and Spooky Nights

Fridge saga, pub quiz, and enjoyable media discoveries shared.

Week commencing Monday, 21 October 2024

A nighttime photo of Shaknlin Chine, across to the cafe building. The coloured light illuminated the plantlife.
Shanklin Chine Illuminated
A pumpkin face lights up to scare visitors to Shanklin Chine Spooktacular
Spooktacular
Two animatronic witches talk at Shanklin Chine Spooktacular
Witches Brew
Jamies, Alex and Danny perform at Osmonds Night at The Cozy Cows
Osmonds Night

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 7/7 and Move 7/7. (100%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 66,573

Life

  • Back in the UK and noticeable that nights are darker earlier. The mention of my fridge a couple of weeks ago jinxed it. Another technician, another two minutes, and now it needs replacing. I don’t understand how this is efficient for the Hotpoint group of companies. Two visits, two engineers, and two different conclusions. Less than five minutes looking at the device. Previously, I said The ice pattern was the clue and it appears it was just a clue to something completely different than the first engineer said. So a whole new fridge saga commences.
  • Monday was pub quiz. Our worst performance by some margin, but it remains all good fun.
  • On Wednesday I asked for support from a smart home tech company. Super surprised that their response arrived in less than 24 hours. Seventy-two hours later, I’ve done nothing with their response.
  • Train south on Friday night all worked and allowed us to see Shanklin Chine’s ‘Spooktacular’. Just a whole lot of fun.
  • Railway works meant a coach back to London. Nice and relaxing. I wish I’d known it stopped in Wandsworth so we could have planned to get off there.
  • The Crazy Coqs Osmonds night featured four people who’d all been in the musical. Another lovely way to end an evening.

Media

  • Finally, we caught up on the last episode of Lost Boys and Fairies. No shame in the tears.
  • Also got around to finishing Bosch (S3). It’s so long since I watched an episode that I’d forgotten the plot lines.
  • Heartstopper S3 appears to be as wonderful as the last two. I wish I’d had this series growing up. Or as Jonathan Bailey said, “It’s for every person who is a member of a family who has a member of the LGBT+ community. It helps all of us”.

Audience Up

After a shaky start to the summer, which saw big names Danny Baker and Jon Gaunt depart, the station turned its fortunes around, with a new lineup including JoAnne Good taking the Breakfast show chair and Jono Coleman’s return to the BBC London 94.9FM airwaves.

According to the press, ‘BBC London 94.9FM has recorded its second-highest audience figures ever, with 561,000 tuning in every week, according to the latest RAJAR figures covering July to September’.As I have mentioned several times, I love BBC London right now. It was sad when Danny Baker left – his was one of the most innovative morning shows – but JoAnne Good and the team have been excellent. I am very worried about Jono Coleman, as I am not very keen on him as a broadcaster, but I guess we’ll just have to see what the rest of the year brings.

[source]

links for 2004-10-27

A little bit of context about these links, added later.

John Peel was an English radio presenter and journalist who became one of the longest-serving DJs on BBC Radio 1, broadcast­ing regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004.  He was renowned for championing a wide variety of musical genres--including psychedelic rock, punk, dub reggae, electronic music and UK rap--and for giving many emerging artists their first national exposure through features such as the "Peel Sessions". He died on 25 October 2004, and in the days that followed, lots of people wrote about what he meant to them.

cityofsound: John Peel RIP
A daring DJ, a shining pillar of the BBC and one of the greatest influences on UK music ever – he’ll be much missed.

Mark Radcliffe – ‘I thought the world of him’
He made us realise that you did not have to mellow with age – music could continue to mean as much to us now as it always did

If sometimes you’re catching a fleeting glimpse of a twelfth man at silly mid-on (Phil Gyford: Writing)
So many people have been introduced to a new musical world by Peel’s shows, without which their lives would have been poorer, if not entirely different.

    Effect Xmas

    I never knew I didn’t know this.

    Recently, I may have professed that I knew the difference between affect and effect, and it was confirmed for me today online at Common Errors in English. I did not think that Xmas was a way of removing Christ from Christmas, but rather a lazy person’s way of avoiding writing letters. Turns out, I was wrong, and the X is an abbreviation of the Greek word for Christ [Source]. Just goes to show that I know nothing.