A little Saturday morning distraction


Jolly good, wot! Anyone for tennis? That’ll be ten ponies, guv. You’re the epitome of everything that is english. Yey 🙂 Hoist that Union Jack!

How British are you? a quiz by alanna

Now, of course, we critique the questions;

Question 1 is, of course, a picture of the clock tower at the palace of Westminster (sometimes known as the houses of parliament). Big Ben is actually the bell which rings to mark the hour, and isn’t visible.

Question 3, according to the magna carta, its actually Parliament who runs the country. The Prime Minister is the leader of the party in government.

Question 8, the most popular food in Britain, according to a recent survey (which I can’t find online – damn) is chinese food. Its just overtaken the venerable curry. So I’ll let this one slip.

Apart from that, quite a spiffing quiz, what.

Back to Interruptions

Herself is back in St Georges. She managed to stay out for about twenty hours before she was back in for more observation. The major reason for the re-admittance is that they managed to lose her "sample". Which is understandable until I point out that it was in a five litre container. Five litres. One more than four. The thing was enormous – and they lost it. I hope they are a bit more careful with babies.

I know its a selfish thought but I have a sneaking suspicion she is making them keep her in just to avoid the chores. Anyway, I’m off home to do some washing, ironing and vacuuming. Its a wild life.

Did I Say Digital Radio?

Blimey, no sooner had I written my previous entry than I came across this story about using software rather than hardware to process radio signals in the Guardian by that fine writer and pipe smoker Ben Hammersley.

Interesting reading, and thought provoking about the future of the internet (which you probably don’t care about) as a facilitator of new ways of transmitting radio and television, which you probably do care about. Lets not even go into the implications for what this means to the mobile telephony industry, because by now you’ve got bored and wandered off to Dilbert.

Of course, anyone smugly declaring that "I don’t watch TV, I don’t even own one" will be taken outside and shot. Just a warning.

In Praise of Digital Radio

I haven’t got a digital radio, but I do have the intarweb. On it you can listen to the mighty fine 6 Music. If you like good music give it a listen. Its also available via digital satellite in the UK apparently.

Its rather good. I grew up listening to Radio 1 and whilst I have moved on, they have resolutely stuck to their target audience, the teenager. Which means that I listen for about two minutes, exclaim "all modern music is rubbish" and run for the safety of my CD collection.

Now, with 6 Music, we have the radio station for thirty something fuddy duddies like me. The great beauty of radio is that whilst it plays the sort of music you like (and own) they also play new music that you might not have heard or wouldn’t have considered. Unlike your CD collection, or the Austereo network.

To clarify their playlist (although I don’t they strictly have one), the artists featured this morning have included Prefab Sprout, British Sea Power, the Lemonheads, Frank Black. the Cure, Crash Test Dummies and Talk Talk.

Just to seal the deal, they have the 70’s throwback’s media-doppelganger presenting their breakfast show. What more could you ask?

Gawd bless the BBC. I’d willingly sell my whole family into slavery just to pay the license fee.