After three years away, how exciting is this?
Archive for April, 2010
Kylie: All The Lovers single and Aphrodite album
Tuesday, April 20th, 2010Diana Vickers: Once
Monday, April 19th, 2010I don’t know how I missed this. It certainly came out of the blue. Recording the 4Music Top 20 this week resulted in this being played at no 17 and the 2008, fourth-placed X Factor contestant’s rocky stomper getting into my head, turning into an instant digital purchase. It proves that you don’t need marketing. I hadn’t taken much notice of, and didn’t know that much about Ms Vickers’ pop career until yesterday, but on the back of Once. I’ll be taking a more closer interest. Once is one of the best songs of the year so far.
Sounding like a cross between Björk and Ellie Goulding in vocal style, in the fun video Diana looks more like Ms Goulding than the real thing does. And sitting pretty at the top of the iTunes UK single tree will surely do her no harm either, building up anticipation for her first album release Songs From The Tainted Cherry Tree, due out on 3 May. What a Bank Holiday weekend that’s shaping up to be. With Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s new tune Bittersweet out the same date, who’ll get the most listens? I don’t know the answer to that one yet, but I suspect that both of them will get heard more than [ahem] once…
Apple iPad
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010
Say ‘Hello’ the iPad. I played with the new Apple device after Nik brought one home from work at the weekend, and I can honestly say it’s as good as all techie geeks dared hope. And I wasn’t expecting to ‘get’ that much from the much-hyped Apple tablet (I have little desire for an iPhone as I barely use my mobile as it is), but, I will have to admit, it could – rightly – be the start of something big. Swiping and tapping has never been so easy.
If Apple plays it right and keeps up the development, it could have another iPod on its hands, it’s that good. It’s just so intuitive to use, the Apps look good and as is customary practice from the Californian developers, it looks beautiful. Just playing with it for 90 minutes on Saturday night was enough to make me want one. It’s perfect for using sitting in front of the TV, or for watching TV on.
The sound’s good, too. And then there’s the Maps, the Mail and the internet browsing. All easy, all fast and all very well integrated. Whether or not the iPad will change the publishing world is yet unclear (and it’s something we’re debating at work at the moment), but the iBooks store and application is as impressive as any other aspect of this lovely machine. Due for launch in the UK later this month, try one and see the future of computing.
And while it might be best to wait until a second, third, or even fouth-generation additional feature-packed device, I think the outcome will be the same. You may well just be saying ‘Hello’ to your own personal iPad sooner than you imagine.
The phantom egg-layer?
Thursday, April 8th, 2010We’ve had our new chickens for just over a month now and we thought they were 17 weeks old, which meant that egg laying was still 7 weeks away. But, for a couple of weeks now we’ve collected almost half-size eggs (think Cadbury’s Creme Egg dimensions) every day, and some days more than one. That can only mean one thing; one or more of our new hens is popping out eggs a little prematurely.
That would explain the size, but the new girls’ combs are nowhere near sizable yet, while their legs are still more yellow than white (the brightness fades as maturity nears). They could just be older than we thought of course, but then should the eggs still be so small? if we were in any doubt, I opened the pop hole to the nest box to find one of the new Rhodies sitting on a very warm, small egg.
It was the right colour, too, so we might have our answer. Our older chickens all lay eggs or varying shades (Barbara lays white, Gerry lash flesh colour and Margot lays brown) and although these have differed in colour each day, why would they be suddenly laying smaller eggs? Yes, they have been down in count over the winter as we had expected them to be, but now that we’re back up to collecting a more sustainable number, why would they then shrink in size?
So many questions. We’ll definitely watch the situation, but yesterday morning, did I accidentally find our phantom egg-layer?
Easter geocaching at Pakefield church and The Third Crossing, Lowestoft
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010
A few steps here, a few steps there and we still couldn’t find it. Due to an already used GPS device waypoint, Nik almost sent us 127km out of the way to find the treasure, but, in the end, find it we did. Another weekend, another geocache, although this time we took Ean and Vicki on their first. Mum and Bart where there with us at Pakefield church, too, but we let the younger two of our party do all of the work. Well, almost all.
As well as treasure, there were sheep. Two, to be exact, sleeping in a fenced off area next to the gravestones at the western end of the churchyard. The woolly pair had the run of the eastern tip of the church’s grounds, too, which was where there straw-filled house was nestled, quite rightly resembling a mini manger. I don’t know how long they’ve been there, but I never knew that the churchyard had live residents, even if they are members of the bovidae family.
Before our treasure-seeking and windy cliff walk, we enjoyed our lunch (Bart and Vicki even had Lobster Thermidor) at The Third Crossing restaurant at Haven Marina, watching the boats bob and up down on the inlet, masts chinking in the low wind while the jetty swayed in the low swell. Cards and yet more hot cross buns followed the rendezvous at the church, and although Bart isn’t quite yet winning at ‘Palace’ (the polite name), he’s getting there.
He certainly did better than on Sunday night, where we think he worked out that no strategy is possibly better than one at all..
