It can’t have escaped many peoples attention lately that bird flu has dominated the headlines. Not only that, but concerns over the potential of it spreading, and worse still mutating so it can be passed from human to human, appear to be on the rise.

The point I have to make though is one a little more down to earth and less panic-stricken. To all those people who have been e-mailing the BBC with major concerns about the virus coming to the UK, get a life. If it comes here, so be it, but you’ve just got to deal with these things as and when you are faced with them, after all its not like we all keep a dosen chickens in our back gardens is it? The chances of the virus in it’s current form affecting many humans is so low its not worth mentioning. Let the scientists do their work to ascertain risks etc. before you panic, and if you must worry about something, then let it be the amount of carbon we are shooting up into the atmosphere, third world povety or something of a similar nature.  Those are our real concerns, as they are real, proven and yet we still sit around doing nothing about them. People have died from this virus, and here we are wondering if we can still have a couple of eggs sunny side up on a sunday morning. It’s beyond a joke. People should be a little less selfish, a little more thoughtful and worry a little less, after all life is short - you could get hit by a bus tomorrow; why wait by the road today, worried, wondering if it might happen?

It came and went in a flash. My birthday was yesterday and I spent almost all of it finishing an essay. Ah well, at least the essay is handed in now. I’m going out on 19th January as a late celebration because my exams will be over by then. All the people I know in Leeds are welcome to come along, and of corse anyone who feels like coming down to Leeds from York

Big thanks for all the calls, cards, texts and e-mails - much apreciated; my skype really does work, it’s marvellous.

In other news my new 19″ monitor is arriving today, and I swear I’m going to have the best PC setup in my block now. 2Gb RAM, 2 x 300Gb hard drives, the new flat screen 19″ monitor and a 128Mb nvidia GeForce 4 graphics card. Lara is going to be very happy

The York Jazz and Blues society organised a trip out to see nu York State, a new York based band lead by Danny Gough. The event was in the basement bar at the city screen cinema in the town centre. As reviewed on URY, this music is new, fresh and a very exciting form of jazz. If you didn’t think you would be into jazz, this will turn your head around. There are a variety of performances coming up, keep an eye on local press!

As shown in the picture, the informal setting of the basement bar always helps to enhance the music for the audience, not least because of the proximity to the audience and at this performance, the space to jive along with the music in front of the stage. nu York State are selling a whole new type of jazz here; I was surprised by how mellow, and yet vibrant the sound was the whole time - mixing subtle rap inputs with soulful sax - this group pack a serious jazz punch. It was also nice to feel a part of the meaning of the music too. As a young group they seem to have a large amount of feeling for the student population and the concept of rolling with it, moving on in life and indeed life lessons. These shine through in the vocal and instrumental sound of the music - “You’ve gotta keep driving!”.

The support band who appeared before nu York State left something to be desired as far as my ears are concerned, but then I’m not the authority on everything, and it’s definitely worth sitting through while waiting for Danny Gough to start the party. If you want to support a local group who have the potential to make it big in the jazz scene, this is the group to catch live. Fresh, modern and in touch with how you feel about life; nu York State are the group to see!

Speaking to a good friend of mine last night on the phone, we were just catching up generally when he told me about a recent interview he had for a job with the actuarial firm, Watson Wyatt. He has been applying to a variety of firms for quite some time now, seemingly with little success, however this lack of success was both ridiculous and amusing at the same time, and so certainly blog worthy!

After he had gone through the interview process a few days later he received a letter of rejection, stating “you have too much enthusiasm for the job” among other things. I kid you not! Is this the kind of world we live in? One where employers not only look for someone who can manage the job but decide that someone who takes their job seriously and is committed is not worth employing? To say I felt outraged was an understatement, and I wasn’t even the one applying. The people at this firm really should be ashamed of themselves. Work, like any other activity should be able to be conducted wherever possible with an enthusiasm and love for what you are doing. If we all went around sullen and just grudgingly performed the tasks allocated to us, what kind of world would we be living in?

Well, it’s been a while since things have been running, around a month actually, but my Linux box, running Fedora Core 4 (host name “lara” after Lara Croft, Tombraiding Legend) is finally back online. She has an externally visible IP (amazing considering where I am based at the moment) and slowly but surely services are coming back online.

So far the only one publically available is the “now playing” python webserver, and this is syndicated on my site in the side bar - interesting comments about the sheer variety of music I end up listening to are welcome

Skype is also running, and by all accounts is working well, so feel free to call me on my “landline” number rather than my mobile if I am online. If you don’t have the number, just text or e-mail me

Services to come (back) on lara include the beta testing ground for my web dev projects, running apache and php, and of course my beloved ftp (or what may turn out to be apache as well if ftp is blocked in the firewall) for sharing my must have files with you all.

Glancing out of my window this morning revealed the electric gates on the complex of flats where I live are stuck open, for both entry and exit. Most people would think this was some kind of power failure, but I think they have left them open deliberately to allow the free flow of traffic as students start arrving back after the Christmas break. On the plus side it gives me something to talk about, and may in fact mean some people arrive in my flat soon On the down side I am going to have my revision intermingled with Bach on the hi-fi interrupted by doors slamming, cars engines going and people running around all over the place. Ah well, such is life!

Stayed up rather late last night having a rather bizarre MSN conversation with someone I hadn’t spoken to in over 3 years, good fun and enjoyable though - if you are reading this, you have an e-mail waiting from me…

As a result of my being up late I got messaged by Laura asking why I was up so late, and then in turn asking why I hadn’t yet blogged about our night out on Thursday. Laura, the gossip and interesting musings are coming very soon

I was rudely awakened this morning at 7:45 by the fire alarm. We all tramped outside in the sub-zero temperatures to find someone had been cooking rice and it had caught on fire in one of the ground floor flats. Now on the one hand it was all alright because it got me out of bed, and they put the rice out with a fire extinguisher, but my main point here is who the hell would be cooking rice at 7:45am!? It beats me it really does. Still these are the strange ways of student halls I shall have to get myself used to.

In other halls news today; the poor wording of kitchen notices by staff. I went into the kitchen this morning to find a notice on the pin board, probably left in all kitchens by the cleaning staff at 7am. It read: “Could you please DO NOT place glass items in the kitchen bin”. The reason they gave was due to a member of staff being cut with broken glass, which I have no problem with. My problem is that in a world of instant grammar and spell checks, how could they have printed that out, copied it 100 times, and put it up all over the place and NOT noticed the fact that the word “DO” should not have been in that sentence? Someone needs to be hung, shot, or at the very least ridiculed for this stupidity *sigh*

If you haven’t yet seen what this is all about, then hop over and read the article on the BBC first.

I must confess to be surprised by all of this, and now that I’ve heard about it, I do really feel sorry for Kennedy. He has seemingly handled a drinking problem on his own; got the help he needed and put a stop to it. And yet, under immense pressure has had to call an impromptu press conference to confess to having had a problem and also, in some kind of political grovelling match, attempt to redeem himself by re-running for his position of leader in a full leadership election.

Now don’t get me wrong, no party leader or even politician for that matter, is perfect, and this shows in the way some of Kennedy’s fellow MPs clearly feel about his ability to lead the party. It’s all rather interesting though. As the reporter said just before the end of his live broadcast “the public seem to be behind Kennedy”, and this is, from what I have heard round about anyhow, entirely true.

More importantly though I think at this stage, is not the fate of Kennedy, or even in fact who ends up leading the Lib dems, more how much damage this whole episode will do to the party and the votes they receive at the next general elections and indeed local elections (although less so here). Last general election saw the Lib dems gaining a fair amount of ground over the conservatives (statistically anyway), so it should be a concern to any Lib dem or labour supporter at this stage that this business, along with David Cameron’s obvious strength as tory leader may in fact cause the tories to gain a significant number of votes.

I’m sure a few tory voters will be rubbing their hands together tonight though thats for sure. As for the synical side of me, the question I’ve just asked myself is that if the tories and the lib dems are going down the leadership election route, how long before labour does so just to keep up with the times?

I have just looked up the nearest supermarket to me in my new place and realised that without the aid of a car it is going to take me an hour just to walk there. As for walking back, with all that shopping and that… good lord I’m going to be shattered. Ah well, I can stop off at the uni on the way I guess, especially seeing as I will have to walk right past it.

Got in touch with some friends from both York and Leeds today, so hopefully can fix up time(s) to meet up

We all have opinions on “best of” albums but none the less we still pick them up in shops. For me I think it is the allure of being able to investigate music from an artist you know little about, not break the bank but still be able to enjoy the wide range of styles they inevitably have in their repertoire.Far from being new to the Jazz scene, Guitarist Lee Ritenour is well renowned in the world of Jazz guitar music and his music is often heard on many smooth jazz radio stations around the globe. His Best of… album brings together covers such as “Isn’t she lovely” with some of his own awesome creations “Captain Fingers” being my favorite example from the album.

As I have hinted his style is predominantly smooth jazz, but there are a couple of lively surprises on the album which awaken ones senses to the true skill of Lee’s work on the guitar. The enjoyable blend of jazz music on this album makes it well worth the money and of course an hour or so to sit down and lend it your ears, although on most tracks you cannot help but feel the style is reminisant of something you have heard before. You wouldn’t be wrong. Lee was one of the original members of the contemporary jazz groups Fourplay and only left the group in 1997 to branch out on his own.

His decision to branch out on his own was most probably the right one as far as my ears were concerned his experience and skill on guitar shines through in all his tracks giving you a unique sense of involvement in the music without being too imposing. I would definitely recommend this album to all fans of smoother music, but before you go out and part with your cash it is worth noting that the musical style of Lee Ritenour isn’t a straight out of the box affair and while this most certainly excites the ears of a smooth jazz aficionado like myself the clear variety of influences in his music may not be to everyone’s taste.

Rating: 3/5