Shades of Grey- retired

Now you see it- now you don't!

2011-09-05T19:45:00.001Z

This blog URL appears to have been hijacked by blogrolling.com.

WE HAVE MOVED!

2008-01-24T16:30:00.000Z

All things must pass

2007-10-28T09:58:00.000Z

I have an announcement to make. This is the last post at Shades of Grey here at Blogger.com.

What? I hear you cry, has the old fool thrown in the blogging towel?

Not at all. As one door closes, another opens. I'd like to introduce the new, improved, Shades of Grey hosted at its own domain using Wordpress.

I'm still getting the hang of it in my new home but I've managed to import the old Shades and Morleygate posts more-or-less complete. (What we IT people describe as a Partial Success).

Thank you for reading. Please update your hyper linky thingys to http://iangrey.org for your further enjoyment.

My Boomerang won't come back

2007-10-27T11:56:00.000Z

Ozzie Scot Colin Cambell says they are going to race Camels down under. He also comments that the impact of horse flu is still being felt.

As well as exporting an Arabian Derby there, how about importing an Australian Derby here? You could race Wallabys, the prizes could be soft cuddly Koala toys and the stall holders could all dress like Crocodile Dundee and wear Bush hats with corks on strings.

Elton Games could give us another opportunity to hear the "popular theme of the popular theme..."

We're racing on the Australian Derby, it's here so play it now.
Roll the balls to get the scores,
Ride the winner the prize is yours,
We're racing on the Australian Derby, it's here so play it now.

In the meantime, more snaps of the Blackpool version:

Alone again... (un)naturally

2007-10-26T19:34:00.001Z

The house is strangely quiet. Karen and David have gone off to Chessington World of Adventures, (which is in halloween season) with an overnight stay tonight and tomorrow. I was tempted to join them, but I really need to get my teeth into the Accounts for the Mercia Cinema Society which close on the 31st and need to be audited by the 1st of December.

So, thirty six hours to do whatever I want. I can leave dirty dishes in the sink,eat Spam Fritters, wander round in my underpants, play the music I want suitably loud. No-one to complain, except the Guinea Pig (& maybe the neighbours for a couple of these activities). I've failed miserably on the first one, I've had the Spam Fritters now.

I was going to link in to Gilbert O'Sullivan singing "Alone again, naturally", then I remembered that I have done that before, HERE.

Instead- here is a tenuous link. I have a Halloween Album from Andrew Gold (available on Amazon) who also performed with Graham Gouldman as Wax.

This is a fine video.

A couple of postscripts:

2007-10-25T17:25:00.000Z

I went into the tyre slashing garage again today, as I pulled up a large angry beeping noise started. After a short while, the cashier pressed a button- and the traffic lights next to all of the stinger systems went off. It must have off days...

The story of the Duchess and the slightly offensive labyrinth:

"Visitors, you have seen everything.
We thank you.
Now happily piss off".

The Duchess originally wanted it to say "Now happily fuck off" (well, this is implied in the book as in "even stronger language") but she was talked out of it.

She got an eminent Latin teacher to translate (who wished to remain nameless and ergo blameless).

And another Blackpool snippet:

The Arabian Derby Camels are an Institution at the Plesh.

Apparently visiting Arabs keep the stall concession operators in suitable headgear.

These machines are made by a Company called Elton Games of Southport. You can hear the Arabian Derby jingle here (MP3).

LEA-DER! LEA-DER! LEA-DER!*

2007-10-24T23:14:00.000Z

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Hat tip: Devil's Kitchen (& lots of Blogpower regulars)

(* as people with a strong sense of irony (or sometimes stupidity) used to chant to Garry Glitter before he was "Forgotten but not gone"...)

Celebrity Heretic

2007-10-24T19:09:00.000Z

I blogged about meeting my first celebrity a few months back as a Young Scientist.

He has a good piece on Times Online with a blast of climate change healthy scepticism. I have to say that I pay more attention to a hairy scientist like David B than a politician like (say) Al G.

You can read his piece here. Check out the comments as well.

(Image attribution: Wikipedia Commons)

Everything reminds me of something

2007-10-24T17:21:00.000Z

This is a great book. Ian Clayton was in the Morley Literature Festival and is a well known "professional Yorkshireman", a term he resents. The book is about the music of his life and it all gets brought back to his own home in Featherstone, a mining village in the Wakefield/Pontefract/Doncaster triangle. Rather than attempt to review it here, I'll link to a better one on the Beeb here.

The show consisted of readings from his book interspersed with a few stories and music. He featured a blues band put together from a selection of musicians he was friendly with and also a banjo player who was also a Publican. Ian Clayton even sang in the last song, pictured here.

We got him to dedicate a copy to David after the event and he suggested we don't let him read it for a few years yet! More reviews and how to buy on Amazon.

His book suggests an eclectic list of his top 40 recommended Albums and I've found it online on the Grauniad here.

Through a process of random connected thought and erratic surfing after reading his book I have now found out that the well known Dexy's Midnight Runners song Jackie Wilson said (I'm in heaven when you smile) was written by Van the Man. (I also now know who Jackie Wilson is as well). That reminded me of the first time I saw this episode of Top of the Pops (aired in 1982 but I was abroad at the time) and laughed like a drain when I got the in-joke. (Watch the vid below without clicking the in-joke link to see if you can get it if you don't remember it).

Remember you're a Womble

2007-10-23T18:23:00.000Z

I found out at work that someone else is a blogger today. I was wandering past his desk at lunchtime and was several paces further on when the hindbrain prodded me and whispered Blogger posting template in my ear. Womble is pseudonymous (or at least he was until I caught him today!) and has been posting for three months. He described his style as controversial but I felt that the posts I have read so far are all in my comfort zone. He doesn't have much of a readership yet but I think that could change. He blogs because he loves to write and I have seen his comments before on Iain Dale's Diary.

I love my country but I hate its government. I love freedom and I hate those who restrict it. I love AFC Wimbledon and I utterly hate the franchise. What I want from my government is far less of it, and the chance for personal freedom and responsbility (sic) to take flight again. This blog will talk about many things, but one of its common themes will be a fervent desire for the State to get off the backs of the English people.

Womble on Tour is well worth a look, he makes the Shades List and he could be worthy of the Blogpower one if he keeps it up.

Give my compliments to the Chef

2007-10-23T17:27:00.001Z

I've just finished reading a book which starts (and finishes) with the words: Everything reminds me of something. This is a great blogging metaphor- if you sit and rack your brains for something to write about you can sometimes struggle. But if you just let the muse take you, something will set the mind off on a flight of fancy.

Sometimes the results are equivalent to a First Class journey on Singapore Airlines, other times the substitute bus rail replacement service from Bolton to Chorley.

Today's mental meandering was inspired by Terry Wogan who was on Radio 4's A Good Read this evening (click for listen again, although it may still be playing last week's programme or be long gone if this is an old post). Talking about Chefs, Terry described the type of person who becomes a senior chef as "madder than a box of biscuits", an odd metaphor, with no Google hits (yet).

This got me thinking of Chefs I knew moderately well and I could only dredge up two. The first was in a posh Restaurant/Hotel in Jesmond Dene, back in the mid 70s. My friend Keith had a casual job there dishwashing and I helped him out on a few occasions. Our dish washing station was in a corridor between the restaurant (which was in an old country house) and the actual kitchen so we could hear all of the chatter, shouting and tantrums. It was silver service and the serving platters came back with encrusted piped mash scorched onto the edges. We weren't supposed to put the cutlery through the dish washer because it wore out the silver plating but we did when there was nobody looking! For amusement, we used to throw carrots through the window Vent Axia fan and watch them come out the other side, sliced. (They were uneaten cooked ones, not raw!) The head chef was fairly young and used to be friendly but mischievous. He once said we could eat what we wanted and when we suggested chips he said "fine, get on with it". After we had peeled, chipped and fried a number of spuds he pointed out the buckets of ready peeled ones in water! He give us a lift home in the early hours and used to enjoy floorboarding the car, going round roundabouts the wrong way, squealing the wheels, going through red lights and so on. However, he did it very carefully as safely as possible, being fully aware of the road conditions. (This was in contrast to Keith who used to enjoy handbrake turns and got endorsements on his (not even issued) license when he was still fifteen!)

The second Chef was in complete contrast. He was called Colin, a bit of a miserable git and he worked in the Slough Golden Egg so production line worker might be a more apt job description. He was married to an equally curmudgeonly girl called Anne and they lived in Maidenhead. I met them at Maidenhead Eighteen Plus and it was the antitheses of the fun that 18+ was supposed to be. Aligned with another couple, they were caustic cold water to any fresh idea and took pleasure in upsetting others. They had an accidental catchphrase that we used to mock them mercilessly with behind their backs:

"What's the point of having kids if they're gonna get blown up?"

Of course, we all know and love a genuinely whacky fruitloop Chef but he is just a comic creation of Jim Henson. For your enjoyment, I give you (possibly Tom) the Swedish Chef.

Is the treaty/constitution anything to get bothered about?

2007-10-22T17:53:00.000Z

I'm rather puzzled. Some people are telling me the Lisbon ~~constitution~~ treaty means the end of Britain as we know it, whilst others (including the Prime Minister) say it is nothing at all to worry about. It isn't entirely even on partisan lines; a large article in the Mail on Sunday denouncing it as a severe loss of sovereignty was written by a Labour MP and the all party European Scrutiny Committee say it is "substantially equivalent" to the Constitution we were promised a referendum on. Then again, we get Bob Piper laying in to Thunderdragon saying it cedes very little, whilst others say this will be the last treaty because it gives Brussels the power to amend it without ratification.

Some people are being economical with the truth here, but which ones?

If only we could be bothered to actually make the effort to read and understand it, along with all of the previous ones. A few do, but tend to cherry-pick the bits they want to comment on through rose (or steel) coloured specs. The rampantly Europhile (scornfully known as Federasts by Europhobes) appear to think that lack of sovereignty is a reasonable (nay welcome) price to pay and avert their gaze when the difficult issues of waste, corruption, patronage and cronyism repeatedly bob to the surface. Conversely, the rabid Europhobes often seem to hark back to some imaginary golden age when the sun never set on the British Empire.

I'm somewhere in the middle. I'm a Eurosceptic and think that on balance, we would probably be better off out- I was too young to vote in 1975 (just) and see no evidence whatsoever that the EU sees any benefits in small government. We pay lots of money to the behemoth and whilst we get lots of it back, it isn't for things we would necessarily want to fund from general taxation. Have you noticed that it is much easier to spend other people's money (badly) with impunity when there are more than two degrees of separation?

Last week's course of events certainly seemed to follow the course suggested by Civitas, in what they called The Illusionary EU Battle.

One thing is certain: this is...

The old and the new

2007-10-21T18:31:00.000Z

David's favourite Blackpool attraction is the Noah's Ark, which can best be described as a walk-through fun house. My first Noah's Ark was in Battersea Gardens back in 1969 and it was fascinating, if somewhat run down. I then visited the Blackpool one a year later and found out what lots of the inside stuff was actually meant to do as it was in good order.

These wooden circular stepping stones wobble, and Karen avoids them by shuffling along the ledge to the left.
The original Blackpool Noah's Ark was a much bigger structure, although the majority of the innards were gutted in order to make a large ticket hall. Blackpool took care, however, to replace some of the more famous elements (if somewhat scaled down) such as the wobbly floors, cakewalk and air jets. (You can see a good history of Ark rides here and another feature here).

Nowadays, you enter the ride round the back, go up an outside staircase, over a wobbly bridge and across the roof of the rock structure towards the entrance ramp, navigating the stepping stones. You enter the rocking boat at the upper deck level and enter the cabin, weaving through narrow corridors and past a cow that salutes you with its tail. (There used to be metal strips on the handrail here that zapped you if you touched them). You circle the deck and go down a steep (rocking) staircase to the lower level.

Here you weave through even narrower passages, past a table that appears to go up and down whilst the boat rocks. There is also a large Ark model, a rocking horse pig and the equivalent of a kaleidoscope with this sign outside. I can also recall there used to be a spoof weighing machine (the sort with the large upright dial) which was made from a sand bag and would clout you on the head if you pulled a handle. There is another even steeper staircase to negotiate (which doesn't move but the upper walls do as it is in the exact centre of the boat) and then you are in the lower level weaving through corridors complete with wobbly floors, spongy floors, air jets and the like. (It is fairly gloomy down here and not to be rushed).
After an apparently endless corridor you enter a room with no surface actually horizontal or vertical. There is a contraption here made to look as though water can run uphill but I have not seen it work for years. After climbing the bouncing stairs you return to the roof level briefly before going back down into the cellar bit for spinning floors, collapsing floors, cakewalks, airjets and finally the exit.

There was another Noah's Ark in Morecambe until 1999 which was also ran by the Thompson Family (who own Blackpool Pleasure Beach and also a park in Southport until a couple of years ago, it had an Ark but never seen by me). This ark was similar to Blackpool and still had a couple of the original fittings in-situ, including a visible quarter of a turntable behind bars where animals hurried past.

Another old ride that has been spruced up is the Derby Racer. The huge platform thunders round (anti-clockwise, in American Carousel tradition) and the fifty or so horses bob up and down, four abreast. They also used to slowly canter back and forth within the confines of their long slot, now sadly disabled and the slot boarded over. An old style fairground Organ accompanies the gallop and you really need to hold on if you are on an outside horse.

From the old to the new- the newest ride is called Infusion and is a large steel suspended coaster, the sort that your feet dangle from. An added special feature is that the ride is totally above the lake, with lots of decorative fountains squirting near the riders. The queues were a bit too big to wait with two small boys in tow, so we stuck to things where the wait was moderate. (The ride has the blue track, the red track is the Pepsi Max Big One).

We didn't feel too hard done by though, we had ridden it before when it used to be at Southport and called the TraumaTIZER.

In a continent (not very) far, far away

2007-10-21T14:21:00.001Z

I have a guest post over at Andrew Allison's Blog.

His is a political blog and I'm not massively political but I heard about a European Union cartoon Super Hero that was worthy of mention for the political overtones. Click on the link above to read more.

Wobbly stairs and sticky faces

2007-10-20T20:38:00.000Z

We have been at Blackpool today for a birthday treat. I'm sure that when the Dentist said we needed to floss more this wasn't what she meant!

Every time I go in Noah's Ark, I expect to see more of the dead hand of the safety 'elf at work. In practice, it is often more a case of things packing in there and getting abandoned.

This bouncing staircase is great fun and long may it continue to pass the risk assessment.

Probably the best bedding on earth...

2007-10-19T13:56:00.000Z

Our Guinea-Pig sitter advised us that wood shavings are not ideal for putting in small animal cages, even though it may be dust extracted, it can still make them cough. Instead, she suggested something called Megazorb, which is a type of horse bedding. Once a month or so, I take a trip over to an equestrian supplier in Cleckheaton to buy a sack. (There is a place in Morley but they have to order it in, the other one always has a pallet full).

Last time I was there, whilst I waited patiently in a large queue I noticed a leaflet extolling the virtues of Megazorb. It is a by-product of the pulp industry and a Company called Northern Crop Driers make it by high temperature kiln drying followed by a double dust extraction. It is five times more absorbent than straw, 2.5 times more bio-degradable than paper and only has half the waste volume of shavings.

The leaflet even tells you the best way to manage stable husbandry. I boggled at step two, the sacks are large and heavy, eight of them would be a chore!

# Start with a completely clean stable
# Place 8 or more bags of MEGAZORB in the stable (12ft x 10ft). Use less for rubber matting.
# During the first week add a further bag of MEGAZORB
# Every week thereafter add half to one bag of MEGAZORB
# Be prepared to remove solids daily (easily done using a shavings fork).
# Be prepared to remove very wet patches whilst leaving the base of the rest of the bed untouched. If needs be, replace the removed wet material with fresh MEGAZORB.

Megazorb appears to be a side-line for the York based Company, they also make three other grass based products, Graze-on, Graze-on gold blend and Grass Nuts.

One of their suppliers has registered the Megazorb domain and even has photos of how it is made.

Gizmo doesn't care about the process but appears to be a happy user. Happy pets mean happy owners.

Gizmo with David. Gizmo is the one on the left...

Footnote: When the sack is getting low, one of us says "We need some more Absorbaloff", a Dr. Who/Peter Kay reference.

Googlewhack!

2007-10-19T07:19:00.000Z

I received an unsolicited email this morning telling me that my blog is a Googlewhack. I contrived to make it one once before but this is genuine and discovered by someone else.

I'm the only website in the world with an onomatapapaeic carpet.

Check it is still the case here

(It won't last for long- I'm trying out Wordpress and have imported my blog over there so Google will pick that up in due course.)

Two faced

2007-10-18T19:29:00.000Z

Last week, I noticed that the Morley Town Hall clock was ten minutes fast. At the weekend, I heard it chiming correctly from inside and noticed that time was right from outside along Queen Street. Then on Tuesday, I saw it was fast again from the Car Park but I heard it chiming correctly shortly afterwards. This puzzled me slightly. Then, in the evening, I saw two faces from another vantage point and the mystery was solved;

Rolf: Can you tell what it is yet?

One of the four faces was ten minutes ahead of the other three.

This other clock I see in Leeds near the brewery was wrong at about 4pm coming back from the Playhouse and I imagine it has been stopped, ten minutes to two being the most aesthetic time to show on a clock face. (Check next time you are in a Jewellers, most of them will be ten minutes to two or ten minutes past ten. The digital clocks will probably just be flashing 00:00 though).

There is a UK campaign to get public timepieces working again at the Stopped Clocks website and I have sent them this. It is fascinating checking places you know and the state of the horology.

More bright sparks

2007-10-18T06:25:00.000Z

I'd blogged previously about Spark*, a community arts programme for schools. On Tuesday afternoon, I was given the chance to go along to one of the post-course celebrations held at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.
My role was to be an attendant in the main auditorium, which involved a small amount of training as to what to do in the event of a fire alarm. I was given my own special usherette seat at the back of the theatre, seen below.

From here it was possible to observe the audience and also notice if the fire alarm had gone off. In Britain, fire alarms are silent in theatres, being indicated by warning lights. A number of red strobe heads were pointed out to us near the doors and we were advised that the audience wouldn't be aware of them but we would. (This isn't strictly true as I always notice these things and have seen them go off during a show elsewhere, fortunately just a false alarm that didn't stop the show. Conversely, I have seen shows stopped at places like Butlins where evacuation messages have sounded triggered by stage Pyrotechnics and smoke machines).

Although it was a stage performance, we were being treated as a Conference so it was not necessary to follow the full procedures. (The emergency exit from my part of the theatre passed through a private area but it would be OK to direct them back to the foyer on this occasion).

When I arrived rehearsals were in progress and there were about 400 happy, noisy children in the theatre. (It holds 750 in a large fan shape). After they had been fed, they all came back for the show proper. Four schools each presented set pieces on the topics they had chosen from a range of puppetry, music, street dance, rap, banners and masks. This snap from my usherette position shows a shadow puppet show in progress with musicians behind.

The set is actually for Don Quixote (& not a windmill in sight) although the theme for the day was the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the theatre's Christmas show.

Here is an audience shot, hundreds of children with their spark* yellow T shirts on, having a great time. Long live live theatre!

Iwas surprised to notice that our "new" theatre had now been open seventeen years. Originally the Leeds Playhouse, it lived for twenty years in a temporary theatre constructed within the shell of a sports hall (originally on a ten year lease). It had a vestigial stage there but a very large thrust forestage into the audience on three sides. They liked the design so much that when the new building opened, the main house was designed in a very similar way, but with proper flying facilities on the regular stage behind.

I came quite close to selling this theatre a new lighting control back in 1989 (an AVAB Expert, with the help of Ulf Sandström). They were really impressed with the system but the product was a little bit too new, had a few software bugs that could cause it to lock up at inopportune moments and what I described as occasional lumpy crossfades (when you worked the board hard, the transitions were not always entirely smooth). Had we made that sale, the fortunes of CCT Theatre Lighting (and my career path) might have been entirely different, but it was not to be.

This stage demands big sets, or minimalist ones. The best show I saw here was Little Shop of Horrors when they created a naturalistic "Skid Row" filling this vast space, complete with simulated passing elevated railway trains at the rear. At the Finale', electric drop boxes opened around the ceiling lighting catwalks, allowing dozens of huge green tentacles to fall down close to our heads. A dramatic finish!

Stopped in their tracks...

2007-10-17T11:13:00.000Z

(Based on a two thirds majority vote from the commentariat in the previous blog entry)

I filled up at a different petrol station yesterday to my usual one in Bradford. Whilst pumping Gas, I noticed warning signs about a security system called Drivestop. In summary, if you drive off without paying, you may get your tyres spiked. This deterrent sign on the pump below explained it all- you can get a journalist explanation on the BBC (from April 2006) here or read a more technical summary and Police praise at the DriveStop website (or download the .pdf direct here).

The system has various safeguards to prevent accidental triggering and I'm amazed that I'd not heard or seen about it before now.

The first reaction I had was that I hoped they had good insurance as the implied contract is probably rather weak (and non-existent if you happen to be driving in at the time) but the manufacturers claim that there have been no accidental punctures.

I drove in entirely oblivious to the warning lights which are relatively small, although presumably if they are flashing like a North American railroad crossing it would have been much more obvious. By the way, it shows as red rather than green in this photo at the left as this is an entrance onto the forecourt rather than an exit from it.

Peering down into the slots, the short spikes can just about be seen, mounted on a rotating metal shaft. These ones didn't appear to have the high-visibility yellow plastic tips that appear in the manufacturer blurb.

So why don't Garages just fit credit card readers to the pumps? Well the margins aren't that big on fuel so footfall into the shop for sell-through makes the difference between a thriving petrol station and a closed one.

I once accidentally triggered a drive-off panic at my local Sainsburys forecourt. It was a busy one and it was quite common there for motorists to pull forward clear of the pumps after dispensing fuel so that other motorists could start to fill up. Rather than just pull up in front though, I put my car in the queue for the bagwash to the side (it was a fairly long cycle carwash so I knew I had plenty of time). I went and joined the queue, observing that the staff were huddled round screens whilst one kept going out and looking around. Eventually one of them had the gumption to ask the people waiting if anyone was from the pump I had used. (They had asked previously a few seconds before I arrived).

I've also left my watch at a garage as collateral when I nipped back to the hotel to rescue my wallet that I'd left in the room. The petrol was worth more than the watch but that was beside the point.

Decision time...

2007-10-16T17:43:00.000Z

I won't have much time to post this evening as I have a Neighbourhood Watch meeting to go to. I've had an interesting day, I'll give any wanderers the chance to influence my follow-up post, please vote for:

a) Petrol Stations that can slash your tyres, or

b) Usherette for the afternoon.

Let me know via the comments.

A welcome return

2007-10-15T19:46:00.000Z

Envirospin Watch was number nine in the most sadly missed category of the Blogpower Awards. From the pen of Professor Philip Stott, a "Humeian mitigated sceptic", it dried up last November and then suddenly sprang back into life yesterday, as Global Warming Politics.

He shares my and Andrew Allison's opinions on UHT milk.

Another couple of skeptic (or even climaphobe) blogs worth a look are Climate Audit and Global Warming Hysteria. If you are a climaphile, then I'd recommend The Conscious Earth

Totally InTOCZEKated

2007-10-15T18:20:00.000Z

What do you do with a Degree in Industrial Metallurgy? Becoming a Poet is an unexpected career move, but Nick Toczek was at the Morley Literature Festival. It was a free session, billed as:

Nick Toczek and his Million Miles an Hour Show

Writer and entertainer, Nick Toczek, will entertain children and families with his wonderful one-man show. Nick chats, tells jokes, performs magic tricks introduces you to his puppets AND performs his snappy poems, all at break neck speed! A fun event for families of all ages.

Well, the show certainly did what it said on the tin. He promised Magic, Poems and Puppetry (and fortunately the latter not of the Penis variety).

His magic was fairly predictable (to adults) but well executed, with magic wands, coloured hankies and the like. A twist to the cube on the string trick was to introduce tiny dragons that responded to his orders. One unexpected treat was to produce a telegraph pole from a Netto Carrier bag- it seems a puppet dog was tinkling on it in the bag. (David managed to work out how the telegraph pole worked). There was a certain scatological theme to his routine but kids love that stuff, unfortunately.

His puppetry involved a big spider, the Netto-kennelled dog and an endearing puppet that was a little muppet-like. I don't recall his name but he lived in this cardboard box and was a little shy.

When it came to reading poems, however, he excelled. His use of alliteration, pace, rhyme, rhythm and onomatopoeia had the children bouncing along with his stories of schools being eaten by dragons, registers when no-one is there and other topics kids could relate to. There was a squeal of delight from one young Morley hardcase when he actually recognised one of the poems and enthusiastically joined in. (You can see a sample poem of his here)

Nick was rather anarchic, shouting at the kids saying how horrible they were then giving a big laugh and grin as well afterwards. It seems there is more to Nick than meets the eye, from his Facebook page (& Google) he writes football poetry and has a passion for Punk.

David voted Nick the best show at the Morley LitFest on the smiley sheet, not bad for a free event...

How big is your bunch?

2007-10-14T11:49:00.001Z

When I was in my teens, my bunch of keys was very modest- a single tumbler lock key for the front door of our house, generally referred to as a Yale. When I was sixteen or so, I was given a school master key by the caretakers. It was one of three master keys (East, West & Lower School) and I was somewhat privileged to have one but it was to open a store cupboard where the Disco & lighting was stored. I was always a little envious of Colin at the City Hall, who had a building bunch to die for. I took great pleasure in clipping it onto by belt loops when I had just cause to borrow it (for relamping, providing access to hall hirers and being left in charge when he nipped out to Southern Fried Rat in the Haymarket). Bunch envy!

I was reminded of this last night, when I noticed the Town Hall Custodians with their big bunches clipped to their kecks. I imagine this won't be all the keys, just the ones needed on a regular basis. Anyway, I thought I'd share my bunch with the bloggersphere, currently ten keys and a trolley/locker coin on one of those rings you can split in two which was a slimmer of the month prize many years ago.

Ten keys? Front door/back door/front gate/back gate/garage/desk/UPS/car/steering lock/one I'm not certain about!

Update: I've remembered what the mystery key is- it is for network cabinets at work. I can't count either, there are ten (I had nine originally).

Blogger JMB has declared it a meme. Get your bunches out...

Walking the boards

2007-10-13T21:06:00.000Z

David was surprised to be called up onstage this evening to be presented with his Scrabble book. (We were as well!) I mucked up the camera, so have it on extended video instead of a flash photo.

He also got to draw the raffle! No mention of the lack of junior competition in the competition.

On the left, Festival Director, Paula Truman. On the right, Cllr Judith Elliott, Festival Chairman. In the centre, David holding an improvised raffle drum: a Cadbury's Roses tin with some tinsel wrapped round that they rustled up during the interval.

We were delighted that David had the courage to go up, as he gets stage fright. Perhaps if he had been given time to think about it he might have done a Gordon Brown and Bottled it.

David the Wordsmith

2007-10-13T15:52:00.000Z

We wandered in on the Morley Scrabble Club at the Town Hall today and were persuaded to enter a competition. The person with the highest score after five rounds won a scrabble related prize and the opponent did as much as possible tactically to help us. I scored 86 and David 66, David playing Junior Scrabble. (Neither of us are players, although David does have a set at home somewhere).

Anyway, we got a phone call advising us that David had won the junior prize, mainly because he was the only child to enter! We now have a Junior Scrabble Dictionary waiting for us at the Town Hall. At least he didn't come second, like this unfortunate cake baker.

(Scrabble Image from Wikipedia, Cake Lady from BBC).

Give him some Verbal

2007-10-13T13:06:00.000Z

From Dictionary.com:

Verbal has had the meaning “spoken” since the late 16th century and is thus synonymous with oral: He wrote a memorandum to confirm the verbal agreement. Slightly earlier, verbal had developed the meaning “expressed in words, whether spoken or written (as opposed to actions)”: Verbal support is no help without money and supplies. Although some say that the use of verbal to mean “spoken” produces ambiguity, it rarely does so. Verbal is used in this sense in all varieties of speech and writing and is fully standard. The context usually makes the meaning clear: No documents are necessary; a verbal agreement (or contract or order) will suffice. Oral can be used instead of verbal if the context demands: My lawyer insists on a written contract because oral agreements are too difficult to enforce.

So, what to make of this?

(Seen in Morley Leisure Centre).

This weekend is the Morley Literacy Festival and we are going to several events, I'll be there with my camera and my photographic memory*

(*oops, the light has got in).

Create a crazy monster

2007-10-13T13:00:00.000Z

David doodled this today. I wonder what inspired him?

Photo Hunt - SMELLY

2007-10-13T00:05:00.000Z

PhotoHunt

SMELLY

You'll have to trust me on this...

They looked a lot better than they smelt!

(Somewhere abandoned in Morley Town Hall, the Robing Room WC).

Giving Mr. Bown a hard time

2007-10-12T20:53:00.000Z

I couldn't resist this!

http://www.punishthepm.co.uk/

(Hat Tip- Guido.)

Written in the stars

2007-10-12T18:33:00.000Z

Astrology is all pervasive throughout society, from those of us who always check one twelfth of the daily horoscope, to others who use birth dates as a suitability mechanism for dating. "What's your starsign?" is a bit of a cliché but an ice breaker for many.

In my youth, I could see a bit of a causal relationship with personality types; friends often aligned somewhat with their stereotypes. I knew that newspaper horoscopes were at best dubious (I've met at least two journalists from local papers who admitted to making them up) but back in the late 70s I even went so far as to buy a large coffee table book called, simply, ARIES. (One of a set, of course!) With hindsight, I think I had been influenced at the time by the need to impress someone of the fairer sex who was into this sort of thing. The large book explained the main character traits of the starsign, proceeded deeper to show the various planetary influences which explained the subtleties of why we Aerians aren't all the same, then had tables and charts to be able to plot a personal horoscope based on exact date/time and latitude/longitude of birth. Why the planetary influence of being squidged out screaming was so important wasn't entirely explained and I seem to remember there may have even been a school of thought that your starsign was based on when you would have been born if you were a premature baby, but I digress.

So, anyway, I went through life thinking that stars were a bit of fun but occasionally right and maybe there was something in that personality types business.
Then, many years later, I spent a week on a very intense (and expensive) Management Course at Cranfield University. We spent a lot of time talking about different personality types and how they worked together. Eventually, on the last but one day, someone piped up and asked the instructor if there was anything in astrology. He replied something to the effect of "The results are found to align within statistical distribution norms", i.e. it was bollocks.

So why do we see the traits we want to see and play down the ones we don't? I put it down to Cognitive Dissonance, the same syndrome that lets me see the spelling mistakes in everyone else's blog but not my own.

After that point, I lost interest in even having a crafty shufty of my horoscope and if asked my sign, replied that I was a Caesarian. (Or if I had used that line before, then I was on the cusp between a Libra and a Capricorn- a Leprechaun.

(Zodiac woodblock Public Domain, Attribution for colour woodblock under creative commons here)

I name this Ship...

2007-10-11T11:53:00.000Z

I have a guest post about the tendency of naming things after people over at Sicily Scene.

Raw power

2007-10-10T19:37:00.000Z

The last post interested Lord Uber-Blogger James Higham. Developing the theme, I mentioned that you can't just turn off high voltages. This very short clip demonstrates very vividly that this is really the case.

Also, when things go wrong, the larger sub-stations can be very dangerous indeed. This is apparently a fuse failing but rather too slowly for comfort. Note the hot metal dripping onto the ground.

...and this is a substation exploding due to sustained overload causing catastrophic failure.

I had seen the last video used as an argument against BT's new 21CN IP network handling telemetry for the Electricity Generating Companies- the additional delays introduced (only in the order of hundreds of Miliseconds) have potentially disastrous consequences in fault conditions.

You can find out more detail about these videos by following the YouTube links.
There are rather a lot of unpleasant high voltage accidents on YouTube, I wouldn't recommend rooting around too deeply.

Electrickery

2007-10-10T17:57:00.000Z

I had a meeting in an Electricity Supply Sub-station a few weeks ago. I had been shown photos of it on the basis that I would never be likely to see inside in person. Then, surprisingly, I got too see inside whilst an electrical contractor assessed some work. It was warm in there, and it hummed. I don't mean that there was a smell (although there was a sort of musty, oily smell) but there was a very loud, deep, humming noise. In Britain the mains is delivered at 50 Hertz (cycles a second) and any large electrical installation will waste a small amount as sound (and rather more as heat).

The room itself was perfectly safe as all of the metal was earthed and no hazardous parts were exposed without opening covers. There was a rather hairy looking open fuse panel on one wall that looked straight out of Dr. Frankenstein but I was pleased to realise that it was disconnected long-obsolete equipment.

The power arrives on four wires at 11,000 volts (called Medium Voltage, or MV) and is connected to some large switchgear for isolation and changeover purposes. At higher voltages, you can't just switch electrical circuits off, as they will simply arc across between the contacts. Instead, elaborate mechanisms have to separate the contacts and then quench the arc. (That is why those huge electricity farms you see are so complex). The power then goes into a transformer (as pictured above, but without the big hole in) to be transformed to a more useful voltage, in Britain it is officially 230 Volts (but generally 240 Volts in practice). This is referred to as Low Voltage (LV) but it is the sort of low voltage that will happily kill you in an unguarded moment. Coming out of the transformer, the power goes through some protective fusing, measurement for charging purposes and a large isolation switch before being presented to the Consumer. To put these things in scale, you would need a crane to move the ironwork in these rooms, due to size and weight. (The transformer had enough capacity to light up 8,000 100W light bulbs and was comparable in size to a typical 12 person lift car.) Another analogy is of a 1,066 Horsepower engine!

The thing about sub-stations is that they are literally everywhere but generally un-noticed; it is very unlikely that anyone reading this is much more than a stone's throw away from one. They are also controversial and there are concerns that there are health risks due to long term exposure to the magnetic fields that concentrate in them.

Are there genuine health risks? Well, I wouldn't want to buy a house underneath a power pylon. When the West was in denial, the Ruskies were fitting Faraday Cages to their tractors where there was risk of exposure. You can now buy a book on the topic.

I've lost my Gromit

2007-10-09T18:00:00.000Z

I had a routine hearing check at the hospital this morning but sadly I've lost my Gromit, it has come out of the eardrum and caused some irritation. I had a rather unpleasant session on a couch whilst the Doctor did a clean out of my ear canal, the gunk had apparently formed a mould of my eardrum and it was excruciating having it removed. It still hurts, hopefully I'll be able to sleep OK.

My hearing was fine though!

Help- do you recognise this song?

2007-10-08T19:57:00.000Z

I've caught the audio of that PortAventura tune that I'm trying to identify. (People have had trouble getting on the site mentioned in this post)

If you can play MP3s, you can download it from my website at:

http://www.iangrey.org.uk/mystery.mp3

It is only 360k and lasts about 22 seconds before the screaming starts.(removed for brevity!)

If you can identify it, you'll make a middle aged man briefly happy...

UPDATE: Have you ever seen the rain- originally Creedence Clearwater Revival, covered by Rod, Smokie, et al.

Old photos

2007-10-08T19:43:00.000Z

My Uncle left me three old photos of me as a nipper. I've seen them before and my Mum has copies but it gave David and Karen a smile.

Here I am in 1961, still in the terrible twos. Probably taken at Turners in Newcastle.

I think I was 4 or 5 when this one was taken, in our upstairs Flat in Farndale Road.

And finally, aged 7 or so, with my NHS specs and my teeth starting to come in. I can remember this, it was in our downstairs flat (underneath the old one) and it was taken by a Photographer called Larry Dee who lived in the next street.
David laughed at this one and keeps calling me Harry Potter. Karen says this is an early manifestation of my guilty face...

From Cyberspace to reality

2007-10-08T18:22:00.000Z

I have put up a (very topical) post about cyberspace meet-ups over at Sicily Scene.

Peter Kay has one

2007-10-07T17:39:00.000Z

...an Uncle Knobhead. Every family has one and mine is called Uncle Allen.

He is my Dad's big Brother and will shortly be approaching 79. He lives in Canada and is a "professional Geordie", having a stronger accent post- emigration than he did back in Newcastle.

He is as unlike my Dad ever was as anyone could ever be; a womaniser, a hard drinker, a gambler, a waster. He was a hard worker at work, but only when he turned up. He is tall but my Dad was short. He did share one character trait, he was a very generous man. He used to turn up at our house when I was a kid with a present for me, then scrounge the money off my Mum. He used to tell me to "keep watching the post" and my trusting innocence would gradually ebb away as the days passed.

I didn't really see him again after he emigrated in the early 70s although he did come and visit me in 1983 at my first owned house in Maidenhead, where he demonstrated his ignorance of house prices. ("You paid £30,000? You wuz robbed!")

Having a couple of stints in Canada in the mid-80s, I visited him whilst I was over and he came to visit me. I was really geared up to visiting my Auntie Brenda (Allen's sister) but couldn't have really done one without the other. Allen lived (and still lives) in a rented apartment and is a confirmed bachelor in his habits. (He did marry an old flame late in life who he met again in Canada but sadly she developed a wasting disease and died a few years ago). His home is a homage to old fashioned furniture, he has mothballs in his clothes drawers and Old Spice splashed all over. (I have previously blogged about his taste in furniture)

Every few years he comes over to the UK and does a grand tour of people he knows. The trouble is that he has a bachelor's attitude that the world revolves around him so our specific warning of imminent arrival is generally the evening before. He is a railway bore, a Freemasonry Bore, strongly opinionated on everything and refers to foreigners as "Coolies" so his company gets tiresome rather quickly. He often brings David presents, but railway related, so they aren't really appreciated.

Having said that, he loves David, takes us for a meal when he stays and we reminisce about the litle we have in common. He is living on borrowed time health-wise and there will come a time when he can't travel any more. We've just seen him off on the train back up to Newcastle and there is a fair chance that we might not see him again. He might be my Uncle Knobhead, but he's family and thats what counts.

Uncle Knobhead is the invention of Bolton Comedian Peter Kay who appears to be on myspace.

Nuts to Nutella

2007-10-06T11:14:00.000Z

I've been suckered by marketing hype. I'd been advised that nuts were a good snack for diabetics, provided they weren't peanuts. Now Nutella is made from hazlenuts and I've found it a few times in hotels abroad at breakfast.

Now flash forwards to a week or two ago in ASDA, where Nutella was on 2 for 1. Picking up a jar, I was seduced by the packaging, which said

packed
with over
50 HAZLENUTS
A GLASS OF
SKIMMED MILK*
AND A LITTLE
COCOA**

On getting round to trying it on toast, however, I couldn't believe how syrupy it was. A look on the back explained all...

INGREDIENTS: SUGAR, VEGETABLE OIL, HAZLENUTS (13%), etc.

A slight mispritt

2007-10-06T09:04:00.000Z

I slightly mistyped a hyperlink on Welshcakes' blog back to here as http://iangrey.bllogspot.com. I was amused to go to a site called Bllogspot. Most other .blogspot.com URLs seem to resolve to here as well.

The site asked me:-

Are you interested in:

Song
Vagina Tightening
Better Sex
How To Blog

Come on, what a silly question, are bears catholic?

Every day hurts/Love is in the air

2007-10-05T23:36:00.000Z

Looking back at a five things post, I mentioned that I knew all the words to this song by Sad Cafe. I suspect I know most of the words to the entire Album, Misplaced Ideals, it really made my 1979 when I got round to buying it on the strength of the single.

Paul Young was in Sad Cafe, not to be confused with John Paul Young who did this ephemeral pop hit from the year before.

Photo hunt ---- CURVY

2007-10-05T23:09:00.000Z

PhotoHunt

CURVY

I never quite seem to get round to joining in with photo hunt. To make up for it, here are three photos, all Gaudi. The first two are from the Reus Museum, the third is the undulating bench at Parc Guell in Barcelona.

As prompted by photohunters at Finding Life Hard? and Nobody Important

A new knob

2007-10-05T20:34:00.000Z

Our downstairs WC door has been randomly locking itself over the last six months or so. At first I thought it was young David accidentally doing it but it turns out that the mechanism has gone faulty. When it happens, it is necessary to unscrew the outside handle and wiggle it. (There is a release hole in the centre of the outside knob but that is the bit that has gone wrong).

Having done it twice this week, I nipped out to the hardware store to get a replacement. It is of a very similar design but a slightly larger diameter. Unfortunately, the securing screws are on the inside, but the release mechanism is much more sturdy.

Mrs. Grey advises me that even though I came back with a bigger knob, the size isn't important...

I have another guest post up at Sicily Scene- about homesickness.

Mistaken identity

2007-10-04T20:24:00.000Z

Someone asked me at work today whether that was me on the Telly last night. On looking blank, he said- "On Calendar, In Morley, in the Bear Suit..."

(He had seen it, remembered I was out yesterday afternoon and put two and two together to get five).

The story (& photo) is here.

Fabulous Fjords

2007-10-04T15:16:00.000Z

I have a guest post up at Sicily Scene.

Give a little bit...

2007-10-03T22:23:00.001Z

I was over in Manchester today for a business event and to see Roger Hodgson of Supertramp in the evening.
The Lowry hotel (*****) overlooks this stretch of water with a graceful pedestrian suspension bridge leading across to the City Centre. The area is full of developments with very expensive apartments. That building with the sticky-out cubes is some sort of Court Complex at street level.

Inside the hotel, the Atrium has these two large suspended mesh figures.

Roger is the one in white on this blurry sneaky photo I took. Yes, the stage set does consist of shrubs! Note that the house lights are on low- Roger likes to see his audience. Playing Electric Piano, Grand Piano, and two guitars (one a 12 string) he went down very well to the (mostly aged 50+) audience although I was surprised to see in the interval that the upper Circle wasn't in use. Unsurprisingly he was note perfect, although a couple of the songs were weakened by the lack of expected drums & bass and would have otherwise soared. Most of the solo woodwind was provided by another musician, Aaron MacDonald, who was remarkably versatile and had the ability to stroll onto the stage at the last moment and be on the spot ready to play exactly when needed (although the lighting man was a few seconds behind him!). Aaron also provided harmonies when it was right to do so and even had a ~~Swanee Whistle~~ portamento horn (made up name) for that bit in the Logical Song when it goes a bit noisy.

One song I didn't expect in the set and was delighted to hear performed live- Rosie had everything planned from their second (& not too hot) album, Indelibly stamped.

One other treat for me- I found a staircase in the Theatre I hadn't seen before with some splendid tilework.

School Dinners

2007-10-03T06:32:00.000Z

Healthy school meals have been only a partial success*, it seems. Even David calls Jamie Oliver for doing away with tasty food and flavoured drinks at his school, even sugar free ones.

When I went to Kenton school, there was a meal choice which you decided by picking which dining hall to go into. (We had a choice of two, there were five in total with three kitchens, after all there were 1,500 kids to feed). The daily dish was chalked up on a blackboard in the corridor. One day, a new word appeared- Macedoine. It turns out this meant diced veg (generally carrots & suede or turnip) but we didn't know how to pronounce it- instead of May-say-dwan we said Mack-ee-doyne.

I now see that it originated in Macedonia, hence the name. Ahh, isn't the internet wonderful?

*Partial success- euthemism for an almost but not quite total failure where something minor went right in amongst the train wreck. As used on an Army Telecoms project I worked on in the mid-90s.

and by the way, which one is Pink?

2007-10-02T20:59:00.000Z

An interesting where are they now? story on the BBC here.

I've mentioned it before, but this reminds me of my upstairs Flat in Stavanger back in 1981, the Landlady's Son liked playing it LOUD.

I was disappointed to find that the kids in the vid were stage school. They scrub down well! (They make an appearance when the clock has counted down to 1'58").

(The title is a Pink Floyd pop at the record business).

The summer of '76

2007-10-02T20:13:00.000Z

This song reminds me of my old mate Colin from the long hot 1976 Summer between leaving school and (not) going to Newcastle Poly. He had a new live-in Girlfriend who was (just) 16 and I helped decorate their Flat in Jesmond. (Lime green walls and light chocolate brown woodwork). I don't recall her name but she worked at the huge Civil Service complex at Long Benton, trying to decode scribbles on prescriptions for correct apportionment. (She said it was very boring).
Colin really liked the Gallagher & Lyle Breakaway Album that had been released the year before and so did I, although side one was better than side two. I bought their follow-up Love on the Airwaves in Coventry the following year but it wasn't quite as good overall, although with some excellent songs on it (I particularly like the track Runaway). If you don't know them but their voices sound familiar they used to be in McGuinness-Flint with "when I'm dead and gone".

In praise of "The Glums"

2007-10-02T19:45:00.000Z

Les Miserables is the longest running Musical in London's West End. It opened in 1985 at the Barbican (based on a simpler 1982 Paris Production) and was severely panned by the critics. However, the audiences loved it and after trimming the show a bit so that it wasn't overly long, it transferred to the Palace on Shaftesbury Avenue. A few years ago, it moved down the road to the slightly smaller Queens theatre and it is still there, having celebrated over 9000 performances!

I first saw it in 1988 when I worked in technical marketing. I was asked at very short notice to entertain a couple of Danes from a Telco, picking up the bar bill beforehand and the Restaurant meal afterwards. I knew them slightly so it wasn't an ordeal and the tickets were biked down to us in Maidenhead from one of those last minute ticket agencies that charge such silly prices that only the Corporates can afford them.

We were sat centre stalls in row C, an excellent place to see the show. Not too close that you are having to look up, close enough that the stage fills your field of vision and you can see the detail of facial expressions.

Les Mis the Musical is based on the Victor Hugo novel of the same name and charts the post-prison life of a convict (prisoner 24601) who was arrested for stealing a loaf of bread, serving nineteen years overall as he tried to escape. In it there are barricades, gunfights, deaths and sorrow, counterbalanced with love and a couple of comic characters. It is wrongly assumed to be about the French Revolution although it does include a student insurrection.

The show is entirely "sung through", i.e. there is no spoken dialogue at all, every line is set to a melody. The main set consists of a large revolving stage surrounded by French looking 18th Century tenements and two large piles of what look like junk either side. These junk heaps move onstage, mesh together and transform into the barricade at a key point in the show. The revolve is frequently on the move as it is acted upon and the cast make it look easy to step onto and off (it isn't.)

The show is lit by David Hersey and has many of his trademark lighting styles, especially light curtains (narrow vertical or rear angled tight beams in a continuous row). Of particular note is the follow-spotting- it uses low voltage narrow beam projectors for very tight subtle following with a very soft edge to the beam, such that it is hardly obvious that the actors are being followed at all. It is a visual device that when an actor dies, they are briefly bathed in a brilliant white light, readily achievable by the follow-spots that are otherwise running at about one third intensity the rest of the time.

I got to see Les Mis again circa 1990, buying a Gallery tout ticket for a mid-week Matinee when I happened to be passing. (£25, face value £6.50).You feel very remote up there (particularly in the Palace which is vertigo inducing) but I was able to appreciate the gobo effects projected onto the revolve, particularly the sewer and river scenes.

Since then, we have seen it in London again, New York (when we went there via Concorde) and in Manchester (another Palace). In Manchester, the stage is so wide there that the Barricade looked less substantial. A joke was made of it on the UK Soap Coronation Street when two of the actors supposedly went to see it and they kept pronouncing it in all seriousness as "Lez Mizzer-a-Baalls"

A couple of years back, my Mum and I visited the touring set onstage at the Bradford Alhambra. She remembers it better than me and recalls being surprised when a little concealed door opened on the barricade and the driver got out! She also recalls us being let loose onto the revolve, it being set at full speed and then being encouraged to sing whilst we stepped off and back on again. It is hard to do it with full concentration so they must hold training courses for the actors. (They really are the "turns" in that show).

We have the various CDs, DVDs and making of stuff. (Stage by Stage is particularly good, only on VHS though).

Anyway, seeing it in the MAOS show has whetted our appetites and we have booked to see it again in London. The Orchestra is smaller in the Queens show, partially because the Pit is smaller, partially to save money. (The Musicians Union were not happy at the time). I imagine there is another omission- the radio controlled rectangular truck used as the Cafe in the Palace staging that occasionally had a mind of its own- some bricks at the downstage edge were actually girders preventing the truck ending up in the Pit. It was omitted in other stagings as it was troublesome and I imagine it was restaged when it moved.

It isn't the most hi-tech musical and doesn't have the best songs but it remains my favourite for its theatricality, staging, flow and level of emotional involvement. I still get a tear in my eye when little Cosette sweeps the floor and yearns for a Castle in a Cloud.

Name that tune

2007-10-02T17:31:00.000Z

I received an email from Portaventura theme park today, promoting Halloween at the theme park. They also had a link to an Internet enabled visitor scarer.

Anyway, seeing no punters to scare, I dipped in to their video archive and found someone singing a song.

Now I heard this song at the theme park and couldn't place it, although it seemed that the whole crowd could and were singing along as we exited the park after their fireworks spectacular. (It turned out that the crowd were singing along on the actual recording, as I discovered the day after when I heard it again in a quieter bit of the park.

Anyway, randomly dipping in to the archived video scare footage, I was delighted to hear the song again and indeed see someone singing along to it.

Now, all I need is to get others to go to the archive bit again, and hope a regular recognises it!

To join in the challenge, go to http://www.portaventurawatchingyou.com/, after the intro, choose Videos of Victims (third choice along the bottom), put in September 30th, 13:09 and hear the tune that goes:

Da Da Da de doo de dah,
Da Da Da de doo de dah,
Hello!
do de do de doo de dah...

It sounds rather C&W-ish and is probably really well known (except in Chez Grey).

(The bloke wasn't overly frightened but did flinch slightly.)

Answers on a postcard, or preferably in the comments section.

(Don't say "The Zombies Band", that is probably being a smartarse!

UPDATE: Have you ever seen the rain- originally Creedence Clearwater Revival, covered by Rod, Smokie, et al.

Bastard Prompt

2007-10-01T18:17:00.000Z

I received the following comment to my Musical Spectacular Post.

"At first I had concerns that the musicians may have drowned out the singers

Now that's close! Love the Witches song".

It occurs to me it is worthy of further explanation because it is not something you always anticipate on an expensive trip to the Theatre. I went to see the Musical South Pacific in London many years ago and was sitting in the front row towards the right. However, all of the Brass instruments were directly in front of us, giving a somewhat unnatural boost to the mix and rather swamping the strings & woodwind. Theatre sound people often get round this by entombing the musicians in the Pit (or sometimes putting them somewhere else entirely) and having a lot of small fill-in speakers along the proscenium edge to counteract the effect of the sound coming from the side.

Now in the days before technology, it was common to put the Stage Manager in the Stage Right corner rather than the normal Stage Left corner for this very reason- so that the act could be heard rather than the Brass. (Possibly there was the need for the Stage Manager to say something to the Musical Director in the event of something going wrong, the standard response was for the MD to say "Shipwreck Chorus Lads" and they would play a holding tune until further notice.) In Theatres, Stage (Actor's) Left Wing is always known as Prompt Side and Stage Right Opposite Prompt, even if the Prompt Corner is in the Opposite Prompt Corner. Many theatres have P.S. and O.P. directional signs backstage, although the less traditional ones have S.L. and S.R.

Now what do you call a Prompt Side that is on Opposite Prompt? Bastard Prompt. I wonder who made that up? Probably a very confused architect. (Some theatres have Bastard Prompts for architectural reasons rather than historic variety house reasons, the usual one being sod all room offstage downstage left).

A memory of a real shipwreck chorus just sprang into my head, from a 18+ Easter Holiday at Caister talent show many years ago when I was acting as Stage Manager. An appalling "Comedy" act was dying on his feet and was insulting the audience in between momentary flashes of potentially getting it together. Eventually the crowd had had enough and so had I. I said Shipwreck Chorus Lads to the Band and closed the Curtains. They knew exactly what I meant and played him off with... The Winker's song (Misprint) by Ivor Biggun. An excellent and inspired choice!

Plodging in the clarts

2007-10-01T17:54:00.000Z

We went to Saltburn Pier yesterday with the intention of doing some fishing or crabbing. Unfortunately, the tide was out!

However, walking below the pier in search of a good shot, I didn't notice an extra large wave sweep in and swamp my shoes. Having Crocs on, the water went in the sides and top holes so I immediately had very soggy socks.

We did find some small crabs in the water pools beneath the pier. We made sure we put them back though.

English <-> Geordie

Plodging- Paddling in the sea, generally barefoot with trousers rolled up
Clarts- Mud, e.g. as found at Byker Sands, Jarrow Slacks.

"Only dead fish swim with the stream"

2007-10-01T17:08:00.000Z

When we were at the Alnwick Garden last week, we noticed a new book available about the making of the Garden. Karen balked at the £25 cover price but I noticed it was only £17.50 on Amazon. (I've read it now and posted a four star review).

Not only does it have a photo of the Pump room, but it reveals a cheeky secret.

At the start of the bamboo maze is the phrase at the top of the blogpost, representing the Duchess' struggle with unhelpful conservatism that seriously got in the way of making the garden what it is today.

When you complete the maze, there is a Latin inscription in the centre. It reads:

Omnia, hospites, vidistis.
Vobis gratias agimus.
Nunc, fortuito mingite.

The real translation is NOT what is officially on their website podcast. This schools teacher guide PDF is closer...

I anticipate one of the highly educated Blogpower people with a classical education may be able to get close. (Or Colin Campbell will find an English <-> Latin translator online).

Postscript: The translators I have tried are Cak at it.

Put another nickel in...

2007-10-01T12:54:00.000Z

The singing talent of Morley Operatic managed to excel recently when they staged their Musical Extravaganza 2 which was even better than the Musical Extravaganza back in 2005. We had pre-arranged to get tickets for Saturday night in the first allocation, mainly by recognising the man who played Wishee Washee back at the Mayor's Ball. On turning up on the night, we were surprised to find ourselves in the front row, from seats where we could have readily conducted being sat directly behind the Musical Director. At first I had concerns that the musicians may have drowned out the singers but there were enough radio mics in use that we could hear from the nearby PA speaker without a problem.

The show was staged in Morley Town Hall using their standard fit-up stage (the Proscenium of which stays there semi-permanently these days, the bracing of which gave me something to hang the Dean Friedman stage lighting on back in July). They had flats and borders with a fairly neutral green leaf pattern, otherwise known as "another part of the forest" and a large screen at the rear for projected words and images.

Just before the show started, the Tabs were closed (the stage front curtains) in order for the beginners to take their positions. At this point, my Mum said "Oh Dear" as the drapes do look rather sad when closed, being a little threadbare and with insufficient fullness. (Fullness is the amount of additional material pleated into the width to give them a visual richness when hung. 50% is minimum you can get away with for decorative Tabs and 100% is better).

The show was fast paced and very song intensive, apparently 79 songs in total. The first half included songs from Phantom of the Opera and finished before the interval with a set piece from Les Miserables, with one of David's school Staff playing the foul mouthed Innkeeper's Wife, Mme Thenardier. (She said three rude words and was chastised for it by david on Monday at School!). They finished with One Day More which also leads up to the Interval in the West End show (although their arrangement seemed slightly adrift with men singing women's parts and vica versa).

After ASDA Choc Ices, it was back to the second half. The best set in this half to my mind was the Hans Christian Andersen one, excellently sung by the lead and with lively dance by youngsters, including one of David's friends who played a cute ugly duckling (who turned into a very fine Swan indeed). Special mention must also go to the Singing in the Rain number with excellent Tap dancing . It was odd, though, that the song was repeated with full supporting cast a couple of songs later without any obvious (to me) causal link.

The strangest song had to be the one from Wicked featuring a green faced Wizard of Oz style witch and a woman in a baby doll outfit singing how she was going to make the witch beautiful.

The grand Finale' was the Joseph megamix, but to my mind it didn't quite come off and felt slightly stilted at times. Too many glitter wigs & random togs so it looked a bit too much like a (mature) Student party rather than a riot of colour. Sometimes the music soars above what can be squeezed out of a drummer and two keyboard players and it can start to sound a little bit John Shuttleworth-like. Similarly, the lights can sometimes be too revealing/flattening and what really would have worked well was strong cross-lighting from the wings. (Not that there was anywhere to put them in the horribly cramped confines of the platform. The other thing is that most of the principals are very good singers and a few are genuinely excellent ones so it can be easy to forget it isn't a pro show and then be reminded of it when someone or something is only 90%. Having said that, the Joseph Coat was superb, as was the coloured cape. It must have taken an age to make, I wonder if they can be hired from others via the National Operatic and Drama Association (NODA), the Amateur Theatre UK body? (It is possible to hire other Props and Costumes on a pro or amateur basis, such as Audrey II, the metamorphosising monster from Little Shop of Horrors).

David's friend has been trying to persuade him to take part but David doesn't like performing to an audience, getting huge stage fright. (Ironically, though, if he is not the centre of attention, he can quite happily make himself one, such as when he joined me onstage for speeches at Karen's 40th a couple of years back. Karen seems to think that I harbour a secret desire to get involved, although I tend to constrain myself to a semi-pro basis, preferring to do things professionally and generally get paid for it, where possible).

The Morley Operatic is 80 years old this year, and the programme has a number of long serving members and patrons with NODA long service awards. However, it would take so little to scupper the society, such as poor sales for a run, a key individual losing interest or the price of insurance becoming prohibitive. (Just involving youngsters means chaperones and criminal records checks, neither of which come cheap). Being a Charity, their finances are in the public domain and they seem to be sending accounts again (after some missing years) so it is interesting to see that they pay their musicians (but not very much). I can recall Karen and I going to see an amateur "The Sound of Music" at Batley Town Hall (BD- Before David) and being amused to see the handing out of brown envelopes to the musicians in the interval. However, on reflection, it makes sense to pay professional musicians as there is nothing as uncomfortable (or worthy of sniggering) as the Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra.

An amateur practices until (s)he gets it right. A Professional practices until (s)he cannot get it wrong.

Famous for fifteen seconds

2007-10-01T00:15:00.000Z

(In very small writing at the back)

& he has got me down as a Tory Boy, the cheeky monkey.

Oi!

Dale!

No!

Libertarian!

Hunk of the month

2007-10-01T00:01:00.000Z

This is Simon, a young prospective Round Table member and Mr. October 2003. He wasn't quite brave enough to take his trolleys off and it amused us that they had his name on!

The trophy was celebrating his first trip to Wales and meeting his first girlfriend. (ONLY JOKING!)

#7 in a series of 12 (& I'm #11).

High School Musicals

2007-09-30T20:30:00.000Z

I mentioned recently that I was surprised to be played an interval advert for a forthcoming show. We decided to go and see it- an Amateur Production of We Will Rock You.

Written by comedian and author Ben Elton (Blackadder, The Young Ones) in collaboration with Queen members Brain May and Roger Taylor, We Will Rock You is a fantastic stage experience.

Set in a tongue-in cheek dystopia where the Earth is ruled by commercial forces and everyone uses the same computers. Rock music is forbidden and evil mega corporation Globalsoft are tapping into people's thoughts.

However, resistance is growing and the rebel “Bohemians” strive to restore freedom of thought, fashion and music! Join them as they bravely begin the search for lost instruments of rock 'n' roll as they encounter the dreamer Galileo, misfit Scaramouche and ageing hippy librarian Pop. The Bohemians are here to bring back rock n’roll!

The show was very well done but the plot can best be described as contrived, being a device for linking most of the Queen back catalogue. It will come as no surprise, therefore, to know that characters include Killer Queen, Scaramouche and Galileo, traveling to the seven seas of Rye. Being written by Ben Elton it has lots of tongue in cheek song references.

This show was "produced with the kind permission of Schools Will Rock You" and it seems that the Production is being made available to Schools cheaply and easily (£120 license for 7 shows in 18 months). I suspect that this was actually a technical tryout of the package as it seemed true to the West End Production (from what I can see here- with a bit of scaling down to fit theatre and budget) and had a full backing track. (The Musical Director appeared to start the songs and then conduct). It didn't use the schools logo above but something similar to the West End one.

Expect it in a High School near you in 2008...

reparation

2007-09-30T19:19:00.000Z

Last August, Redcar in Cleveland became a mammoth movie set for the filming of Atonement. (It is extensively documented by the Council HERE). David has cousins there and we visited a few days before filming started, walking along the beach and marveling how it had been turned into a war torn Dunkirk.

Returning again today, there are two residual elements of the Town's brief flurry with history. One building still has the French treatment (although the bombed out upper floor set has gone) and there is also a rather good sculpture that was installed to co-incide with the regional premiere at the local Regent Cinema which became part of the set. It has a rifle, ammo boxes, a helmet, a seagull, books, and a Director's chair. Thoughtfully, it is surrounded by squashy tarmac as it is crying out for children to climb on it. More here and here.

Redcar is also famous for the Lemon Top. I'd given this one a lick or two before remembering to snap it!

Election Balls

2007-09-29T18:52:00.000Z

This story below appeared in the local rag last week.

GOVERNMENT minister Ed Balls, MP for Normanton and Labour's parliamentary spokesman for the new Morley and Outwood constituency, has officially opened his new campaign office in the town centre.
Mr Balls told party supporters at the official opening of the office, in Station Road, to be ready for a general election "whenever it comes".
"I'm really pleased to have opened a new office in Morley, not least because I want to be in touch with local residents about their concerns and priorities for the area," he said.
"Since I was selected as Labour's candidate for this new seat in March I have met many local residents and community leaders. Over the coming weeks and months, I will be meeting many more local residents, business people and community leaders to hear first hand what issues we need to tackle together in the future.
"Until the election I am committed to working hard for everybody in my Normanton constituency. But, if I am elected in Morley and Outwood, I will work hard and stand up for everybody in the new constituency, whether they live in Morley, Outwood, Wrenthorpe, Tingley, Stanley, Robin Hood or Ardsley. It's up to the Prime Minister to decide when to call the general election. But our local party is now on a campaign footing because we must be ready for the election whenever it comes."
People can contact Mr Balls at his office by calling 0113 2539466 or emailing:
ed@edballs.com

"Hmm" I thought. A new campaigning office? Labour own Unity Hall in Morley and the MP office is in there. Why does he need a new campaigning office? Is an election in the offing?

Around Morley with a Fridge

2007-09-29T10:58:00.000Z

Our Fridge is a sort of instant photo album, places we've been and brought back a silly souvenir.

Hat tip Welshcakes, (meme) and Tony Hawks (title).

The Kosmic Krew

2007-09-28T17:04:00.000Z

Most journeys to and from work are uneventful and unmemorable. Ordinary cars mixed in with vans and juggernauts from the distribution sector. Occasionally an unusual load draws interest, or perhaps the signage of a smaller business I am familiar with.

Today, I found myself behind a large black van, with this odd pastiche logo reminiscent of Fuzzbox performing "International Rescue" with the cast of Return to the Forbidden planet.

It turns out that they are a theatre company who tour schools. Their website is a hoot, especially for me the bit for adults where they justify their alignment with the national curriculum. (It is my cynical former Governorness showing through).

(A blogpost challenge for James Higham- write a justification for curriculum benefits of something without educational merit or considered inappropriate, e.g. Poker. I know Max Bygraves did it with Deck of Cards.)

The Kosmik Krew had a visually attention grabbing well decorated van and a Freefone number on the Driver's door, however their memorable URL was what helped me remember it. I don't think I'm ever likely to see their show, it could be really well done or a bit naff. They certainly have a well developed image though. You can see a snippet of them here in a single promo, they are certainly polished in their dance moves.

Chilldren's shows vary considerably for the adults- Singing Kettle is very good, whilst Wheels on the Bus was really terrible, its direness only relieved by the rather lurid movement of the saxophone's horn which made a lot of us chuckle.

http://www.thekosmickrew.com/

Gnash gnash...

2007-09-28T16:50:00.000Z

I was surprised to hear my name on the Radio 4 Obituary show this afternoon. It turned out that it was Ian Robertson Gray, who worked for DC Thompson on the Beano and invented Dennis the Menace's dog Gnasher.

P.S. You can buy the figurine (and many others) here.

Overdoing it

2007-09-27T20:23:00.000Z

Our school (nearly) did a production of Jesus Christ Superstar back in 1974. We were on a run- Joseph, Rock Nativity, Godspell. At the full dress rehearsal, as Jesus stood dying on the symbolic cross, I lit the theatrical smoke pellets to show up the light beams for the resurrection.

One would have been more than enough. Two was way too much and the rehearsal quickly ground to a halt as the musicians couldn't see their music. They then couldn't see the exit as everyone coughed their way out of the hall!

Then the bombshell- we didn't have musical clearance, wouldn't be able to get it and were told we couldn't perform it. (If we had gone ahead we would have been prosecuted).

The music teacher was gutted. So was I- I had a tube of pellets left & now knew they were far too smoky! I stuck to flashes and dry ice after that.

It wasn't immaturity-just lack of experience. (H/T James)

Blogpower Roundup

2007-09-26T17:49:00.000Z

Ian Appleby over at Imagined Community will be hosting a round-up of the pick of September's posts by Blogpower members. If you've enjoyed a post on a Blogpower blog, why not send the URL to Ian at blogpowerroundup@googlemail.com? Nominations need to be received by 5pm on Sunday 30th September and you don't have to be a Blogpower member to put a blog forward.

Modesty* prevents me from suggesting one of my posts, although there are nearly fifty of them to choose from!

(* OK so I lied.)

Youthful enthusiasm

2007-09-26T11:24:00.000Z

As a kid, I wrote to a few businesses over the years and was bowled over by their going the extra mile. Three examples stick in my mind:

-I was given a board game by a friend called Scoop! that had a major piece missing (a sort of cardboard telephone/randomiser device). It was a great game but not the same playing it without the random factor. I dropped a line to the John Waddingtons Head Office and got a nice letter back saying that sadly, it was no longer in production but that they would have a rummage round and see what they could come up with. A week or so later, a parcel arrived with the piece enclosed.

-I discovered that venerated lighting Company Rank Strand Electric had a free quarterly house magazine called Tabs!, available on request. The first or second one I received was their hundredth issue and I dropped them a line asking if they had any back issues for sale. Again, a week or so later, a large jiffy bag arrived with about forty issues enclosed, some going back fifteen or twenty years. They had rummaged around their oddments and effectively given me one of each of all their spare copies.

-On knowing that I was going down to London with my Dad for something, I wrote to the Manager of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, asking if it was possible to visit backstage. I got a lovely letter back telling me that whilst they didn't normally organise visits for individuals, if I went to the Stage Door at 10am and asked for someone by name (I think it was the Master Carpenter), they would give me a quick look. He also apologised that he wouldn't be able to meet me that day as he was elsewhere and finished off the letter with a P.S. paraphrasing my own- "Stage struck for thirty lovely years!" (I think I had claimed three...)

Today, this sort of thing is called giving excellent customer service , but it isn't quite the same thing when you are disputing your gas bill. On these occasions, I would have come across as young, naive, polite but somewhat ignorant of business. However, I also would have conveyed buckets of youthful enthusiasm for the subject and someone else being genuinely interested in what you do has a great feelgood factor.

I also had this effect on adults in the flesh as well. My Mum had an Offy (Off License, a beer & Wine Store) for a couple of years and I would help out at weekends and holidays. The Tudor Crisps man once gave me a number of free bags for helping him carry the boxes in, checking the reject stock and being interested in how crisps were made (and why they didn't always get packed correctly). They were all plain though, as they only carried a surplus of plain bags for shortfalls & faults. He told me to swap them for my favourite flavours from the shop stock!

On that trip to Drury Lane, the Master Carpenter wasn't actually in so I was reluctantly taken onstage by the Stage Manager, for a "quick look". I ended up staying a couple of hours and being taken up onto the Grid by the Flyman as well as being shown all the mind boggling stage machinery.

A Bronx Cheer

2007-09-25T18:15:00.000Z

Tim Ireland's response to the UK media.

(He's back on a temporary blog)

Cash for consultations

2007-09-24T20:17:00.000Z

Great strapline for a rather shocking post from Dizzy Thinks. (I read it on Iain Dale first though).

Meanwhile, outside the Labour Party conference...

TANSTAAFL*

2007-09-24T20:06:00.001Z

(There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch...)

Has anyone seen my keys?

2007-09-24T19:01:00.000Z

Looking at some photos from my trip to Saltaire, this American toy reed organ jogged a memory. I used to borrow my school friend Stewart Weston's Bontempi, something rather similar to this. It had a regular polyphonic keyboard (i.e. each note would sound individually) and a cluster of buttons to the left. Each button played a chord with the white buttons playing major ones, black buttons minor ones. This organ is slightly confusing in that it uses regular (if truncated) black and white keys with a non-logical layout and the keys are numbered rather than showing the note. On reflection, I think that Stew's was similar in labelling, suggesting that they may have come with some kind of method songbook.

I fixed Stew's a couple of times as he had a younger Sister who also played with it and it got chucked in a cupboard when it was in the way. Opening it up, it was surprisingly simple inside, a number of mouth-organ type reeds covered by the keys and a fan arrangement underneath. When you pressed a key the corresponding reed was uncovered and it sounded. For the chord buttons, they uncovered a reed assembly with three tongues to play the harmony. For duff notes, the normal symptom was that a reed had shaken loose and was lying around in the innards.

You could also make it fart- you pressed all the keys at once and it audibly sagged.

I did ponder why the keyboard was laid out the way it is (five black notes in a group of two and three for each octave, being twelve notes before the sound repeats itself higher at double the frequency) and the more I looked into it the more I discovered that music theory is really complex. Indeed I can can recall a professional musician saying that it is like peeling an onion grasping the complexities of how key transposition works, especially when non-western music is studied that uses other scale structures. The language quickly becomes arcane and the lay person (i.e. me) gets lost.

Then you catch sight of a keyboard like this. It is known as an enharmonic harmonium and uses a tuning called 53 equal temperament. Rather than a semitone between notes making the twelve steps, there are very small increments making 84 steps. This is known as a generalized keyboard and just reading about it does my head in...

This keyboard, however, would do a musician's head in, making no musical sense at all. That is because it is used to control lights and the black keys are for colour change equipment.

(I've played with the Drury Lane Theatre Royal one when it was still installed, but unfortunately the dimmers were switched off at the time.)

Round and round the garden

2007-09-23T19:44:00.000Z

A few weeks ago, we received an invite to a garden party with Prince Charles. It was being held at Alnwick Garden as a special event for the Friends and looked good. There were a couple of problems though- the date clashed with the Morley Musical Spectacular, you had to pay for tickets, and... our friends membership has lapsed. (You can't always justify a two hour trip to visit a garden at least three times a year so we decided to go pay as you go this year).

However, it was a timely reminder, so we headed up there today with a Grandma. The new entrance pavilion has been open for over twelve months now (the white roofed building) and gives a great view of the cascade as you enter. The building fixtures & fittings still look new, although we noticed some bent forks when we dined!

The treehouse is starting to mellow into the woodland setting. This is a big building and there can't be too many that boast a pair of spiral staircases.

(Eat your heart out, Dean Friedman!)

The bamboo labyrinth has now matured sufficiently to give you a fair chance of getting lost or disoriented

Designer sinks in the toilets gracefully change colour from blue to green.

The cascade continues to impress, although I noticed one or two nozzles not squirting. A new book informs on the eighteen large pumps underneath and you can even get a post card of the pump house (although it is closed to the public, the room I'd most like to visit of course).

David particularly likes the Serpent garden which has interesting water features. This is Waterglass - Two unbroken membranes of falling water in a circle that you can enter. (Unbroken when David isn't sticking his head in it, that is!)

This is Torricelli - A celebration of the intrigue of hydrostatic pressure. A firm favourite with children, even when 19 degrees and overcast.

From the Press Release:
Torricelli, an Italian mathematician of the 17th century was fascinated by the properties of hydrostatic pressure that is to say the pressure derived from the ‘head’ or distance between surface and points below. Using these principles a central mirror-polished stainless steel column and three smaller transparent, acrylic columns surrounding it fill with water from the overflow of an elevated pond nearby to a point where the central column overflows down over the outer surface of the cylinder. Once full, a motorised valve opens, releasing the hydrostatically pressurised water into a circular manifold that feeds ninety vertical jets which slowly subside in unison with the dropping levels visible in the acrylic tubes.

My lawyer's bigger than your lawyer...

2007-09-23T00:36:00.000Z

Us bloggers don't like bullies.

(Hat tip & sidebar graphic lifted from nourishing obscurity, cartoon from the cartoonist)

Sartorial Eloquence

2007-09-22T22:32:00.000Z

Clothes have never been very important to me. I tend to wear dark trousers and white or blue short sleeved shirts most of the time, rather Homer Simpson-ish. I don't remember taking any interest at all in what I wore until the First Year Christmas Party at Senior School back in 1969. For that I chose (or my mum chose) a purple shirt with a collar that would have suited Harry Hill, a psychedelic kipper tie that was about 10" wide and a pair of platform shoes with 4" heels. I felt like a million dollars and looked like a right twat.

The party discos were during the day for lower school so the oil wheel projectors didn't show up very well, I had to wait for the third year before I could appreciate the light show. (& by the 6th Form, I was doing the school Christmas parties myself).

I can remember getting a fairly awful purple suit a couple of years later from C & A which looked suspiciously pink in daylight but the first genuine choice of mine was a black velvet jacket, in the mid 70s they were the height of cool, particularly with Denim jeans. I can recall buying a cut away vest/T shirt with the Southern Comfort logo on for humping (get-outs, not hanky panky!) and was given a "Lay Chix not Eggs" T shirt for my 18th by the girls in the VI form, organised by a girl called Jackie Powton. (My mate Wally got one as well as we had a joint party and they also had DORIS on them in large friendly letters. Doris was a bit of a VI form catchphrase, along with Ahoo!, Shitpit and Tierra Del Fuego). I probably had a half a dozen or so T shirts given by tour managers or band crew, I can recall SAHB, Osibisa, Manfred Mann, Sounds (the Music Paper) and a Supertramp one. (I got more singles and albums than clothing though). Moose & Colin (the non-concurrent resident staff) generally did much better, sometimes getting much coveted tour jackets.

My First Dinner Jacket probably wasn't until I started going to 18 Plus AGMs in the mid 80s (semi formal dance in the evening) but I am probably onto my fourth now and it is rare I go a year without wearing it at least once. Nearly every man looks good in a DJ (Tux for our Merkin cousins), my mum says every man does but I did once see a bloke who was so shabby that he didn't. (If you are British ald old enough, think Michael Foot...)

After I got into Disney (i.e. the last ten years or so) I have acquired various theme park clothes items. Alas, my favourite one is only fit to be a duster...

I can vividly recall in the mid 80s my old Boss, Richard Moore, commenting that I was great at my job but sadly lacking in sartorial elegance. (I think it was more a case of lacking a steam iron!) I'd occasionally let my girlfriends choose clothes for me as I like to feel that it stamps them with a sort of seal of shaggability. Somewhere I have a pink tie that was in fashion for several hours back in 1988...

So, I dress to impress no-one really, apart from at interviews as it is sort of expected. I don't change jobs very often. Do you think I'm giving the wrong impression?

Note that not all of these illustrative photos are of me! To finish off, here are a couple of Elton John songs back from the 80s, Little Jeanie followed by Sartorial Eloquence. (Tom Robinson wrote the latter).

Sax and the City

2007-09-21T18:15:00.000Z

Another classic track featuring Saxophonist Raphael Ravenscroft.

Shades of (infra) red

2007-09-21T14:55:00.000Z

I was trying out a thermal camera at work today. It belongs to another department but they were happy for me to borrow it (provided I fixed the software first!).

It gives you a fairly low resolution (128 x 128 pixels) picture and there are lots of tweakables for the display style but it is easiest to set it to auto-ranging.

I took this picture below of a colleague looking at some computer equipment down an aisle in our Data centre. (you can see the heat of the equipment to the left). He certainly doesn't qualify as a Doreen Slater (the stick insect girlfriend of Adrian Mole's Dad) but this picture makes him look like a Weeble.

When i showed him it he was struck by the resemblance to Mr. Stay Puft the Marshmallow man.

Stockport performances

2007-09-20T19:31:00.000Z

We went to a family wedding recently, a daughter of Karen's Cousin. I didn't know them at all, although I knew their Grandparents. It was held in three venues in Stockport, all within walking distance. The wedding was a Civil Ceremony in the Town Hall, followed by a blessing in a church and then the wedding "breakfast" (i.e. the Reception) in something called the Stockport Masonic Guildhall..

The wedding was actually held on the landing of the ceremonial staircase with the audience sat in the lobby below. It is very ornate with rich marble and worked well for a marriage (it wouldn't in Morley, the staircase is a bit too dismal and the hallway too shallow) but it felt a little odd because you knew that it went off to some other grand rooms beyond. What it did work very well for was the striking arrival of the Bride from above and the photo opportunity afterwards (as below).

Their cake was also a picture. From afar it looked oddly proportioned and plain but up close it had this really delicate butterfly motif icing work.

Stockport is also famous in entertainment circles for the Plaza Super Cinema and Variety Theatre, run by a Charitable Trust and complete with Cinema Organ & trimmings. The Plaza has a huge facade on Mersey Square and is extremely unusual in being built deep into a hillside. Note the large concrete staircase to the right of the picture.

As you climb the stairs, the fly tower comes into view, but it does look rather shallow and not particularly tall either.

From behind, the fly tower is only about six feet deep. Does the venue really have such a shallow stage?

The answer is surprising. The theatre has a 23' stage. 4' in front of the curtain, 6' with full flying height and then a further 13' with limited height actually under the pavement behind. So why is only a third of the stage equipped for flying? Well it was constructed as a Cinema-Theatre to present Cine-Variety, i.e. performances in between the movie showings. So the flying height is essentially to be able to raise the screen (and associated loudspeakers nowadays) clear so that the stage was available, dressed with drapes rather than scenery. From memory, I've only seen one other venue like this- the Lewisham Concert Hall in Catford, now known at the Broadway Theatre.

A walk through Barcelona- More on that church...

2007-09-19T20:03:00.000Z

The Sagrada Familia dominates the skyline from afar. This view is from Park Guell to the North- tall spires and cranes.

Walking to it, you can't actually see it up close until you are a few blocks away.

Here we are at the Metro exit. Now for a quick walk round.

This is the Eastern side, known as the Passion Facade. The bells are in these spires and the carved figures are stark in their styling. The wording repeated on the spires is very vibrant and colourful in the flesh, with biblical glory words like Sanctus.

The southern facade isn't actually built yet, it will be known as the Glory Facade.

The Western side is known as the Nativity Facide. It looks almost organic and is so busy that it looks a bit of a mess in this photo but I have seen professional shots that show up the detail as being stunning.

After a while, you notice that there is a huge Christmas tree at the top!

The northern side is the Apse, or dome. I think that this is where the Altar will be.

We are now back at the corner between the Apse and the Passion Facade. When you look closely, you can see stone snails slithering down the walls.

As I said, it was just a brief visit. I'd like to go back but I'll be long gone before it is finished (and it might even fall down anyway).

There is a good photo review of a visit here.

Going down like a lead balloon

2007-09-19T18:11:00.000Z

Lead is in the news again in Morley. Thieves have stripped various more roof flashings, including the Salvation Army. Also, drain grids are going walkies. (Previous local news stories here and here.).

It seems that the demands of China for copper and lead to feed their rapidly expanding industrialisation are squeezing supplies. Indeed, our Data Centre power system supplier told me today that one battery supplier has just bumped up prices by 15% and introduced an unspecified "lead surcharge" chargable on delivery at whatever cost they want to stick you with. (Data Centres have systems that protect the mains supply to the computer systems by switching over instantly to batteries during any fluctuation).

I had a look at the website of the London Metal Exchange today, out of curiosity. The graph below shows the price over the last five years, the laws of supply and demand in action. The website stats make interesting (if arcane) reading and looking at market analysis, apparently demand has outstripped supply five years running and UK tracked stockpiles have shrunk to only two days supply. (This explains why we have to wait several weeks for our order!)

The deep discharge batteries in our uninterruptable power supplies have an internal construction that demands the use of new lead rather than recycled lead so I can rest assured that the Morley scratters having a trip down to the scrap yard won't end up in me inadvertently receiving stolen goods.

I still chuckle at the Latin name for Lead that we were taught in Physics at School (If you have forgotten, it is Plumbum) and considering how toxic it is I balk on reflection at how much we used to handle it, melting it in a pan over the stove and casting fishing weights. (I wasn't a fisherman, I used them in my model theatre as counterweights).

No doubt our children will be agog at us using aluminium pans.

Number please...

2007-09-18T19:16:00.000Z

Our holiday hotel had an unusual ornament in the lobby near the lifts: the old manual telephone operator switchboard. (This style was very common in the 60s and you could still buy them in the 1980s). It had now become a curiosity for children and many of the jack cords were damaged. (I saw systems like this in the 70s, mainly during the course of replacement by electronic ones. Here are some typical UK systems)

I also took a trip up to the top floor in search of good camera angles. Spot the Croc...

Blogrush

2007-09-17T18:40:00.000Z

Something new in the sidebar- Blogrush.

It sounds good, time will tell.

Hat tip: Beaman.

Dreaming spires

2007-09-17T17:53:00.000Z

Reus was the town in Spain where Gaudi was born. They have recently opened a museum there called GaudiCentreReus.
The modern facade jars somewhat with the older buildings in the square but let us face it, designing a building that contains a homage to one of the world's most famous architects is a tough act to rise to and any form of pastiche would be scorned.

Inside is a strange mixture of both fascinating and dull exhibits, an unusual combination! I drew David's attention to this colourful object as he would be seeing it the following day in Barcelona.

After a bit of a hint, he suddenly spotted them- the capping stones for some of the spires on the remarkableSagrada Familia. Regrettably, we didn't have time to visit the Church interior and it wasn't quite enough of a draw to go back during the holiday. I did persuade David and Karen to circumnavigate the (building) site though for a number of snaps. I was disappointed that the sun had gone in then as I was hoping for a sparkle off the mosaic work up on high.

Don't tell Titus

2007-09-16T18:31:00.002Z

Today we went to the Saltaire Festival. Saltaire is a Model Village and a world heritage site to boot.
It was built by Victorian philanthropist Sir Titus Salt for his mill workers in the 1850s and is now associated with the artist David Hockney who painted the picture above found in the permanent exhibition in the former mill. (Have a look at their website and find the dentist chair in the 1853 gallery...)

I was slightly taken back to see who I first took to be Colin Campbell propelling this contraption called a Flatulator.

In the Victoria Hall, one room is given over to a harmonium museum, the only one in Britain. An organist was playing a number of the instruments as part of an informal recital. This is basically a room in one of the wings of the former institute with a large number of Harmoniums squeezed in, ran privately by proprietors Phil & Pam Fluke and free for the day.

Sir Titus didn't approve of the demon drink and about the only local amenity he didn't supply was a Pub. (He did fund a stunning & now grade 1 listed Italianate Church though, surprisingly ornate for a non-conformist building). This Pub/wine bar in the main street has a rather tongue-in-cheek name!

I asked David afterwards what he liked best, his answer: The knitted cakes! (He was holding the chocolate one out of shot).

Doggy day care

2007-09-15T18:12:00.000Z

Heritage weekend was also open weekend for the Leeds RSPCA. (For non-Brits, it is the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a charity established in 1824). They are currently based at a commercial facility near Morley as it seems that they took a good offer from a developer for their old premises and are looking for a new location to build on.

Their temporary home is rather smart though, it is at MyPetStop which is a huge facility for dogs and cats (as well as smaller animal boarding) with grooming, Hydro-therapy, a vets and a large arena for walkies when it is wet. (You can take a 3D cyber-tour here).

The kennel & cattery area would give a double glazing salesman a wet dream as they are of uPVC construction with fencing, reminiscent of a (high security) holiday camp.

The arena is substantial with lots of consulting rooms on the perimeter (& offices upstairs). The RSPCA have a couple of these rooms earmarked as they need to check out both the animals and the humans for suitability.
For the paying guests, the salon is well equipped for grooming of clients who need more than just their bonce sorted.

(The centre had a cameo appearance in a recent blogpost of mine here).

All incoming animals to the RSPCA are spayed, chipped and checked for health before trying to find a home. There are adoption fees to pay, I think they said £100 for a dog and £60 for a cat which are higher than what Bradford charges but there again, MyPetStop is not a charity and must be expensive to run.

The RSPCA people said that the cats go a lot quicker than some of the dogs due to their independence and the much simpler vetting process (drive-by rather than home visit). This was noticable in the animal areas as the cats just had names whilst the dogs had explanatory stories about their temprament and suitability.

Having a dog wouldn't be fair on the animal in the Grey household as we both work and hte RSPCA don't recommend leaving one alone for no more than four hours.

Of course, sometimes responsible pet owners have to do this, so MyPetStop has come up with the ideal of day visitors as well as boarders.

Animals are good companions and sometimes they act as surrogate children or friends for their owners, some of who can carry amphromorphism to exremes. For over-pampering your pet, I think La Maison Des Chiens at £34.99 a night is probably "more money than sense"...

(Check out the price list for some of the extras!)

A flower in the wilderness

2007-09-15T17:37:00.000Z

Every now and again, we tackle our garden to make it look a little less wild. It is superficially respectable but our pro-gardening friends would see it as a minimalist housekeeping. We have a stint weeding, clearing out moss and sharpening up the edges. (The grass gets cut weather permitting but that is a bit like sweeping dust under the mat).

I was surprised, however, to find this lovely wild flower growing through the patio flags next to our #2 shed. Sadly, it couldn't stay, but it is now in a vase so we can enjoy it in the house for a few days.

I'm not certain what it is, a Lupin or a Gladiolus perhaps?

Mr September

2007-09-14T22:31:00.001Z

This is Phil, the Round Table Community & Attendance Officer 2003. (That is our Register he is using to protect his modesty, although a pocket diary would have sufficed, of course).

Phil works in I.T. and originally had the nickname "sicknote" although he was re-christened "DSB" after various community activities...

Half the calendar gone now, six hunks to go (well, five hunks and a fat b*st*rd).

Crossing Continents- or How to hide a theatre

2007-09-14T19:00:00.000Z

Large theatres are monumental buildings, particularly if they have full scenery flying facilities. Embedded in a city block their massive bulk often goes unnoticed but when the stage house is exposed they can be a bit of an eyesore. So, if you are going to stick one in a theme park, how do you avoid drawing attention to it?

Well, the PortAventura approach is ingenious. It is buried underground so that the height is much diminished. You enter to the rear at ground level on what is the back row of a steep seating block. The theatre is actually in two lands and passed off as two different theatres.

In China, it is the Gran Theatre Imperial and there is a large Pagoda fronting (or rather siding) it. In this shot, the stage house can be seen to the right.

In Mexico, you enter via a rather creepy Mayan Pyramid complete with rich internal decoration and the inevitable robbed grave in a deep pit.

To disguise the stage house in this area, the rectangular shape is broken up by greenery and a toilet block in the foreground as well as the Pyramid structure which draws the eye.

Inside, the theatre is far too big to be intimate and the decoration is minimal as it has a bit of a split personality as far as the exteriors are concerned. It is also probably the only theatre in the world where you can exit onto different continents!

You are aided in this decision by projected lettering on the side walls at the end of the performance. The first time we saw this we didn't realise the schism and were surprised to find ourselves in familiar surroundings for our second visit there to see a different show in a different land.

Reduce, reuse, recycle

2007-09-13T20:00:00.001Z

On holiday in Spain, we noticed that the Catalonians have embraced recycling big time. Everywhere we went, we would see five sets of bins by the side of the road.

In some areas, the industrial wheelie (dumpster) had been replaced by something a bit more elegant. In Tarragona, neat street furniture was found.
David described the Cambrils variant as being Tardis bins, as the top tubular bit was above a much larger sub-street bin and the whole top swings out of the way for emptying.
I hate to think how much this would cost in Britain, as to fit such an arrangement in a typical UK urban street would require re-arrangement of all the under pavement services which are probably not too well mapped anyway. Think of it- water pipes, sewage pipes, drains, electricity cables, gas pipes, phone ducts. I'd hazard a guess that you wouldn't get much change from quarter of a million pounds.

As well as that, you have to equip your collecting vehicles with lifting gear suitable for opening the lid and getting the inner bin out then back again and you have to do it five times at each collecting station.

This particular bin has an interesting selection of allowable contents- porcelain, cigarette ends, hoover dust and dog shit. Looking into the various Tardis bins, there was evidence of what would be rejected in England as contamination, i.e. contents wrapped in black bin bags and carrier bags. Either it is happily post-sorted afterwards, or maybe it is all just lip service.

David enjoyed the opportunity to crush cans in this street furniture, an item we saw loads of, except when we actually had some cans to crush! (In the end, they went into the Hotel recycle bins). You could only fit regular 330ml cans in this design though, which made our taller, thinner Coke zero cans a bit of a faff.

Closing a door...

2007-09-13T19:40:00.000Z

I have decided to retire MorleyGate, my Poliblog. It was started to decant my anger and vitriol away from Shades of Grey after a particularly frustrating Town Council Meeting where a politically correct and contradictory policy decision was rushed through without proper debate.

My final posting can be found here, featuring a sublimely cak video of a bus journey to Morley Town Hall that I stumbled across on YouTube.

A crock of...

2007-09-13T11:12:00.000Z

When you read the title, depending on whether you are a half full/half empty glass sort of person, you probably thought of a couple of words, either shiny metal (at the end of the rainbow) or less pleasant stuff that no amount of polishing will improve.

The word Crock is frequently heard referring to those rather strange chunky foam shoes with the holes in. (More accurately known as "Crocs"). When I first saw them I thought they were jelly shoes for those in their second childhood, however, over time, I have become a fan of them. Why do they appeal? Because they are extremely comfortable, especially for people like me who suffer from occasional swollen feet and have to take extra care not to damage the nails or toes. They are soft, don't have pressure points and have a bumpy insole to aid circulation. They are well vented, lightweight and give excellent foot support.

So why do some people hate them? Probably because they are fashionable (if not actually a fashion item) and they do look rather big and clunky. Of course Doc Martens "Bovver Boots" are the latter and have been the former over the years.

I'm now on my second pair, the first were bought in Batley and they are a brown colour with lime green adjustable heel pads. Once I decided that I liked them I bought a second pair, Black RX Clouds suitable for diabetics. (I didn't go for the Silver Cloud version as my feet don't hum enough to warrant it).

It now occurs to me that I haven't worn an ordinary pair of shoes since I got my first Crocs, I even went to a Wedding wearing them!

Is there a downside? Well, yes. I occasionally find that my right sock ends up by the toes due to some strange creeping action that only affects one foot. Also, whilst I was on holiday in Spain, I was taking extra care to apply a moisturiser cream regularly. (I'm prescribed some stuff called Epaderm which is paraffin wax based and looks rather like goose grease!) Some of it must have collected in my shoes, because the day we went to PortAventura to do the water rides, on Tutuki Splash we encountered a mini-tsunami that washed over the bows of the boat and drenched our feet. As I came off the ride I was bemused to find that my shoes were frothing with wax oozing out of the holes. I then found that I was slipping backwards and forwards in the shoes as I walked so had to use paper towels later on to clean out the shoes and make my feet less slippy! (Plodging in the sea in my Crocs on other days didn't have the same effect so it may have been some chemical additive).

Charter Booby

2007-09-12T23:44:00.000Z

Paul was a prospective Round Table Member at the time back in 2003. He is holding a trophy that you didn't want to win- the Charter Booby awarded each meeting for being a plonker. (It was some sort of manifold mounted on a plinth).

From Batley Round Table Standing Orders:

8) Trophies

• The Charter Booby
Established in 1996 (and transferred from Pudsey Table), awarded at every meeting by the incumbent for the member who has demonstrated he has “the wrong stuff”. Examples include coming bottom at events, fighting with minor celebrities, eating cheese with custard, scoffing kebabs during meetings, being a DSB (note 1) and generally making a pratt of oneself. The physical trophy is a large manifold-like plumbing item.

(Note 1- DSB is an abbreviation for something far too offensive to be enshrined in Standing Orders)

Metro Memories

2007-09-12T18:08:00.000Z

I went to Moscow twice for a few weeks just over ten years ago in my early days as a Contractor. Russia had abandoned communism by then and was part of the C.I.S., jokingly referred to as the Commonwealth of Insolvent States. One of my lasting memories is the Metro system which I rode as often as the opportunity arose.

It is a very deep system and many of the stations are monumental, in a style known as "socialist realism". It wasn't very expensive (a couple of hundred Rubles of small change, the smallest note being 1000 Rubles at the time prior to the major currency revaluing in 1998).

Admission through the turnstiles was via token and it was a flat price across the system. The first thing that struck you was that the escalators were much faster than you are used to (if they were working, that is!) Until you got used to it, getting on and off could make you stumble.

Down on the platform, the signage was rather small and hard to read as the cyrillic lettering could get confusing. Many of the platforms had the start and finish of the line in large 3D on the far wall (e.g. Brixton <--> Walthamstow Central and Vica Versa) so you could work out which platform you wanted, but if both trains were on the platform, you were stuffed. The layout was somewhat similar to the London system (with the equivalent of a Circle line) and the interchanges were not too bad provided you knew the name of the line (the colour coding wasn't used as far as I recall). With a pocket map and a phonetic garbled mental pronounciation of the last couple of syllables I didn't get lost, but went the wrong way for a station or two at least once.

The trains were rather unremarkable but there was one thing I was forewarned about, namely the Mamoushkas- old biddies who would scold you if you weren't wrapped up well in the cold weather.

Warning- May contain nuts...

2007-09-10T18:29:00.001Z

Familiar tunes...

2007-09-10T17:55:00.000Z

...when we were at Port Aventura, I heard a familiar tune during the Fort Frenzee stunt show and after some churning of mental gears, announced "Green Acres". Karen looked at me blankly, as she is 6 or 7 years younger than me, depending on the time of year.

I recall it as standard 60's American import TV fare, along with Beverly Hillbillies, I love Lucy, Bonanza, Car 54 where are you?, Get Smart, Lost in Space, The Munsters, Bewitched and Rowan & Martin's laugh in.

Checking this YouTube clip, I now realise that I never ever saw it in colour as we didn't get our first colour TV until 1970 and it was a hand-me down from my Dad's Boss. (It had preset buttons for mono and a tuning dial for colour). Only BBC2 was in colour at the time on 625 line UHF- ITV and BBC were still on 405 lines VHF. We did enjoy watching UFO though, with the purple haired girls.

Banana Splits

2007-09-10T17:39:00.000Z

As made by David...

...as made by Hannah Barbera

(Lots more on YouTube!)

Dean Friedman Epilogue

2007-09-09T22:29:00.000Z

I had a nice email from Deano waiting for me on my return from holiday. He didn't mention these shenanigans though...

We have encountered the Scottish Falsetto Sock puppet Theatre before on Shades of Grey. Here they are singing Lucky Stars with Deano at the Glasgow Gig.

(It was only at the sound check though!)

More of that Spanish Mural

2007-09-09T20:16:00.000Z

Back two posts, there was a rather good mural (on a wall in Tarragona). I took two more (slightly silly) shots of it...

Its a dog's life...

2007-09-09T20:04:00.000Z

Some Spanish sights

2007-09-09T18:50:00.000Z

This colourful flower bloomed on our hotel wall during our stay

whilst this electrolier in a Casa has some artificial flower styling centuries old.

This sculpture of a human tower represents a unique Catalan festival tradition. (You can see some footage of a real one here).

The party walls of demolished buildings often tell a story. This one appears to have been augmented by an artist.

This mural is very vibrant and from a distance can be mistaken as the real thing.

Stage struck (again)

2007-09-09T17:07:00.001Z

It isn't very often that you see theatre doors open wide during the day, especially a Sunday. However, today was different.

The chalk said it all- The Leeds Grand was open for visitors, guided tours or wander at will.

The Grand dates back to 1878 (Correction- Ed) and has three balconies. David enjoyed exploring many of the boxes around the auditorium (there are a lot of them) and also got to go into the lime box where the follow spots are way up in the ampitheatre (the upper gallery) and try out a follow-spot.

As it is such a long throw, following someone discreetly is quite hard, although the theatre does have decent equipment (the well known Pani of Vienna who used be located in Candle Street!)

You can see here that the view from the back row is very, very distant. The blue splodge has David on this end of it.

The ceiling is very ornate and the chandelier is often used as a signature image for theatre publicity. The arched windows in the gallery slips are back-lit and the chairs are individual loose ones at this level (also the view is very extreme.)

The lighting is actually controlled from upper circle Box A which is the one nearest the stage at high level. It is rather narrow.

Standing on the stage (the set is for Madame Butterfly) you get the feeling of how huge the auditorium is, but also how intimate it feels. As it was the general public, there was a certain amount of hazard tape around and a plastic chain across the proscenium arch discouraged visitors from getting too close to the edge.

When the bright lights shine you become aware how uncomfortable the glare of the spotlight is.

Backstage is a real rabbit warren as not only is it a number one touring theatre, it is also the home of Opera North who also tour to Nottingham, Newcastle, Sheffield, Manchester and Bradford.

The dressing rooms are not exactly what you would call special and they get plainer the higher up the building you go.

This is a welcome sign- nice to have a backstage bar so that the cast and the crew don't have to mix with the punters. It isn't a snobbish thing, it is a very practical one, theatre bars are notorious for being too small, too crowded and too slow. (The same applies to Ladies toilets!)

We were able to go onto the Fly floor (after a very long trek from the gallery down to the pass dor and back up again), here are David and Karen watching the flying bars moving up and down with the demonstration of the new flying system.

There were quite a few public events going on in the building and this was a Dance workshop by Northern Ballet Theatre taking place in the large studio underneath the stage. (This was originally where the Victorian sub-stage machinery was located and it was removed with some controversy to make room for these facilities many years ago).

David was slightly disappointed that he couldn't get to ride on the lorry lift (as I did in January) but he enjoyed jumping on it as it made quite a noise!

A can from the Green Room, taking drinks into the auditorium, taking photos, three things you don't normally get to do in a theatre. Cheers!