ASH100 - Write To Know

All That Jazz

bigal — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:31:47 +0000

My local jazz festival, St. Javier, has a worldwide reputation for excellence but is in serious danger of not being held this year. Living in a fairly remote part of Spain, the opportunities to see world class artists for very reasonable cost is very important for any music lover.

Say it aint necessarily so!

Harry – The Man

bigal — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:01:40 +0000

It appears that all obstacles to the English managers job for Harry Redknap has now been removed following his ridiculous court case for tax evasion and a certain Italian`s petulance.

Harry is not the brightest button in the box but as a football manager he has something that very few have, an absolute golden touch when it comes to winning. Financially naive definitely but he was made a scapegoat and quite rightly found not guilty.

Football has made him very wealthy and quite why the tax office should think he would deliberately avoid tax on about two hundred thousand when he earns millions and pays his taxes correctly, is rank stupidity and a waste of public money.

It`s HM customs that should be in the dock and I support QPR not Spurs.

A Degree Too Far

bigal — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:40:37 +0000

When the pipes burst or a fuse blows, getting hold of a plumber or electrician is not so easy and people are starting to realise why. The British attitude to actually learning a trade as opposed to studying for a pointless degree that no employer wants is finally changing.

Academic excellence has always been regarded as superior to vocational or practical skills in British society, a legacy of our now defunct class system. All of a sudden there are thousands of well educated but practically useless young people looking for relevant jobs of which there are very few whilst there is a shortage in the practical trades that everybody requires.

It`s the teaching profession that needs re-education and for once should look to the likes of Germany, China and japan for manufacturing inspiration.

Oh but wait a minute did not a certain Iron lady all but destroy the UK as a manufacturing nation.

The Mobile Web

bigal — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 15:48:30 +0000

As smart phones get smarter and mobile network capacity gets better it’s pretty obvious that the future of the Internet is – mobile. The shift to mobile web use is growing rapidly as the technology improves and the restrictions on smart phone networks are relaxed.

The Iphone now has some serious rivals as its proprietary Apple software platform is now up against the Google Android and the Symbian systems favoured by the likes of Nokia.

Rethinking the Mobile Web by Yiibu

View more presentations from Bryan Rieger.

Most people with websites will soon be looking to add a mobile site to their portfolios before long and these look very different to the normal sites being text related but a far cry from the old WAP system.

Expect to see mobile web use overtake non -mobile browsers by 2015

Eli Paperboy Reed – Soul Boy

bigal — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 15:22:08 +0000

I recently went to see the above mentioned young man in my local city’s theatre. This young white guy from Boston USA can sing like James Brown, Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding – simply stunning. With his superb 6 piece band “The True Loves” he had the, any excuse for a party , Spanish out of their seats and dancing in no time.

Now I have only recently discovered this young protege and obviously the packed house knew more about him than I did. His songs sound like the stax soul of the 60s but they are all self penned, great lyrics, catchy melodies, great grooves, all in all, mighty impressive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMDGKjCSnmo

FIFA and sour grapes

bigal — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 14:59:14 +0000

So England are highly unlikely to see a world cup on their shores for decades, certainly not as hosts and even more unlikely as champions. The mud slinging British media must share most of the responsibility of England’s “dumping” as can be seen by the sheer vitriol that followed the recent FIFA decision to host the next tournament in Russia and the following one in Qatar.

It all smacks a bit of sour grapes, England’s sense of “fair play” deeply offended. Let’s get real that counts for nothing in the world of politics and business, can’t understand why these media idiots just couldn’ t keep their mouth shut for a bit longer.

Spain/Portugal had decent bids turned down as well, but there was not much reaction from them. Spain in particular has the stadiums and infrastructure to equal the UKs bid apart from having a team a nation can be proud of, unlike some I could name.

Who is Paul Carrack?

bigal — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:00:58 +0000

Musically Paul Carrack is the best thing to come out of the UK since John Lennon. Wow – some statement but fully justified. This unlikely looking pop star, a quiet, modest and unassuming guy is a brilliant musician revered by his peers as a solo and session artist. He writes great songs with superb melodies, plays all sorts of instruments, keyboards being his main one, and oh yes has just about the most soulful voice you’ll ever here, period.

Paul has the wonderful knack of slightly changing arrangements to his studio songs to make them sound better live – something few can achieve. “Who is Paul Carrack?” people have asked me in the past and I replied “just go and see him Live” They did and now they know.

Video 1 - No doubt about it – is a classic case of the live version being better than the original studio recording.

Video 2 – My Kind – written for his daughter is pure emotion. A beautiful song in all respects with a superb guitar solo.

Twits

bigal — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:57:17 +0000

I finally became a twitter or a twit- the significance of the word twit will not be lost if you are from the UK.

I’m playing at the moment and testing the water to see how useful it will be to my business. We shall see.

Bully Boy Briatore

bigal — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 10:05:21 +0000

UPDATE

Mr Briatore is no longer a part of the QPR setup. I understand he is looking at managing the Italian scalextric team.

Flavo Briatore the now disgraced former owner of the Renault F1 team has to be the most disliked man in Sport. The Nelson Piquet scenario defies belief and shocked the whole sporting world. Trouble is Mr Briatore owns UK soccer club Queens Park Rangers and I have supporeted them for over 50 years.

His money along with that of Bernie Ecclestone, owner of the complete F1 circus, and Lakshi Mittal, more money than Roman Abramovich, have elevated a near bankrupt soccer club’s finances to exceed those of Chelsea, Arsenal and Man.Utd. The only club richer in English football is Manchester City.

Briatore and Ecclestone know sod all about football and bully boy tactics have seen 3 managers sacked in as many years. QPR fans hate Briatore’s arrogant manner and interference in something he knows very little about. Quite what happens now is anyone’s guess – watch this space or keep an eye on the UK sporting press.

The E-Reader Revolution

bigal — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:20:12 +0000

The future of reading is Ebooks (electronic books) or so we’re told and the Ebook has been with us for years, most commonly used by people who buy information products via the internet. The most common format is PDF which is more or less the de facto for the universe. So if this has been around for years why is it that the future of reading has got to be Ebooks?

Well in the US, Amazon have a product called the Kindle which is a hand held reader and its success has been phenomenal with sales accounting for 10% of Amazons profits which is significant considering it’s one of their more expensive products ranging from $299 – $489. All this and it’s not even available in Europe yet!

There are around 300,00 Kindle books available and some of these sell for $9.99 which frankly is way too expensive and this will inevitably come down as competition hots up. Talking of which the main competition is the Sony Ereader and the mighty Iphone. The Iphone being even more phenomenal than the Kindle is the reason why the future of reading is Ebooks.

Their are free reader apps available for the Iphone which mean you can now read books, magazines and even newspapers. Imagine sat on the tube (London Underground) in the daily rush hour reading your Daily whatever whilst the guy next to you struggles to turn his page without poking someone elses eye out.

Below is a video on the Iphone Ereader app – Stanza (keep the volume low this guy has a really sharp voice!)

All this is still in its infancy as you have a variety of formats which of course are incompatible – it’s VHS and Betamax all over again. But this will of course get resolved and we will have a standard format similar to PDF (which can’t be read on handreaders at present). I should add that the videos do no favours to the quality of resolution you can expect from these readers, particularly the Kindle.