The catalogue of brand-naming disasters got a new entry this week, when Russia’s Gazprom entered into a joint venture with Nigeria’s state-run gas company and decided to call the new entity… Nigaz. What could possibly go wrong? [Read more →]
Gazprom with attitude
July 2nd, 2009 · Posted by Skuds in Life
→ 2 CommentsTags: Idiots·Language·WTF
Question time
July 2nd, 2009 · Posted by Skuds in Life
I normally avoid BBC’s Question Time, but I may make an exception tonight: Jarvis Cocker is on the panel. I wonder if he will get a question about Michael Jackson…
→ 1 CommentTags: TV
Benn says blog
July 2nd, 2009 · Posted by Skuds in Politics
Tony Benn said lots of things last night. There were observations, reminiscences, aspirations, explanations, theories, jokes, and so on, but unlike most politicians he did not give out instructions. Maybe that is what makes him different. Anyway, one of the few specific pieces of advice was to blog. He said that he intends to start doing it himself and says it is like having your own newspaper.
I look forward to adding his feed to Google Reader if and when it happens.
→ No CommentsTags: Blogging
Meeting Tony Benn
July 1st, 2009 · Posted by Skuds in Politics
Me & Tony Benn, Worthing, June 30th 2009
Today I went down to Worthing for ‘an evening with Tony Benn’. This was a fundraiser for his grandaughter, Emily, who is the parliamentary candidate down there, and a very pleasant evening it was too. [Read more →]
Walkman
June 30th, 2009 · Posted by Skuds in Music, Technology
The BBC made a 13-year-old swap his ipod for an original Sony Walkman for a week and then asked him what he thought. What he said, and I am paraphrasing here, is: “Skuds - you are so old! How did you ever get by with one of these?” Well that’s how I interpreted it anyway. [Read more →]
Crawley from above
June 29th, 2009 · Posted by Skuds in Life
Three Bridges station from above
Earlier today I saw a description of how to do fake tilt-shift photos, using aerial photography from multimap and a website called TiltShiftMaker, so I thought I would have a go.
The results are not as good as using a proper tilt-shift lens. They are not even as good as taking a decent high-res photo and doing some Photoshop trickery on it, but they don’t come out too badly and the whole process is ridiculously easy - and how would I ever be able to take an aerial photo of my house anyway?
Here are a few fakes of Crawley from above - bigger versions are available on Flickr.
EDIT: a belated thought… I still like tilt-shift and fake tilt-shift photos because of the way they make everything look like a model. Its a gimmick, but one I have yet to tire of. The thing is… now I wear varifocals everything looks a bit like that anyway!
→ No CommentsTags: Crawley·Photos
Jacko and the perils of publishing
June 29th, 2009 · Posted by Skuds in Life, Music
Q Magazine, August 2009. In the shops from the end of June
Over the weekend it has been hard to ignore Michael Jackson. His name was on the front of all the papers in the newsagents, his songs were all over the radio and there was an unfeasibly large display of his greatest hits in HMV. On top of that there was Q magazine with Jackson all over its cover. Knowing that magazines have a bit of a lead time from the writing to appearing in the shops this looked like quite an achievement, but it turned out to be just luck. Not sure whether it is good luck or bad luck though.
Is this the sort of thing that magazine editors dream about or have nightmares about? [Read more →]
→ No CommentsTags: Doh!·Magazines
Glasto
June 28th, 2009 · Posted by Skuds in Music
I did not see much of Glastonbury this year, not compared to last year anyway - although I have a few hours’ worth recorded for a rainy day. One thing I did see was Spinal Tap singing Big Bottom, which was pretty bizarre. They had Jarvis Cocker joining them on bass guitar, but I’ll swear that two of the ‘real’ band were also playing bass, so that was one guitar and three bass guitars.
Seemed very subdued though. I know they are getting on a bit, but for a band given to boasting about amps that go ‘up to ten’ they didn’t seem very loud.
I also caught a bit of Dizzee Rascal doing ‘Bonkers’ which seemed to go down well. I do hope my recordings include a bit more of Dizzee.
→ No CommentsTags: WTF
Drop ‘em
June 28th, 2009 · Posted by Skuds in Life
What a clumsy day it was today. This morning I dropped and broke a cereal bowl while drying it. Later on I was putting the kettle on and knocked over a cup that still had some old coffee in it. When I was doing dinner I dropped the lid from the olive oil bottle and still haven’t found it. I think it is the unspeakable zone - under the cooker.
With that sort of cack-handedness I think I was lucky to manage mowing the lawn with no more than the normal minor injuries.
→ No CommentsTags: Doh!
Tennis
June 26th, 2009 · Posted by Skuds in Life
I think I would be more likely to watch tennis if the commentators were more like Richard Herring’s twitter feed. His comments on yesterday’s Murray game:
- This guy is all over Murray. No wait! What a comeback 30 each!
- First to 100 right?
- Now they’ve both got 40. Can’t be long now
- 1 nil. Murray out of Wimbledon. It was an exciting match
- Hold on. Look like it’s best of 3
- @gazbeirne I think you get 15 if it’s a really good shot and only 10 for mediocre one. The crowd have keypads to vote. 1-1 next game wins it
- Both these players look the same. Let’s just say whichever one wins is Andy murray
- Man this goes on way too long. Surely they can tell who is best by now.
It would be nice, for a change, to have commentators who knew even less than me rather than who think they know absolutely everything.
→ No CommentsTags: Sport·TV
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