After discussing “Geekyness” with Laura last night, I stumbled accross this amusing web page today. I thought Laura and indeed many others would find it funny

A Girls Guide to Geek Guys »

After my annoying encounter with the H Samual shop assitants I came home and checked my e-mail. Laura was online and we had a bit of a chat for the first time in ages due to how busy she has been. She asked me if I was busy as she fancied coming over to Leeds; well cooking for one always sucks and I hadn’t seen her in ages, so I agreed. What seemed like no more than an hour later I got a call, “I’m on the train can you meet me at the station in 20 minutes?”. I guess my code and listening to Jazz Blues Fusion would have to wait

It was a good night though; what with the combination of a rather nice stir fry, bottle of wine, the first Harry Potter film (I hadn’t seen it in so long! Hagrid’s lines rule!), and finally a trip to my favorite jazz club in Leeds - the Wardrobe and a subway sandwich afterwards, it was, in my humble opinion, almost the perfect recipie for a great evening. We must do it again sometime

I was in H Samual yesterday, I wanted to get a new battery for my watch which stopped dead a couple of days ago and nearly made me late. I handed it over, they told me it would be ready in an hour and would cost £5. A little steep I guess, but I needed it doing and I didn’t mind the short wait, so I popped to Starbucks a little way down the road and grabbed a coffee and caught up on a little reading for my course.

Came back to the shop just over an hour later and handed over the card I had been given by the previous assistant. 2 minutes later they returned with my watch and no new battery. Apparently they never had the correct sized battery from the start! And why couldn’t they have told me an hour earlier I might ask? Some people really have no sense of customer service these days do they. Little did they know that I’d do them a downer on my blog though; I guess that makes it pretty much even

I was sent an e-mail today containing a link to an article on sky news about political correctness. (read before reading on here!)
All I can say is this is polictical correctness, and indeed the world really, gone totally and utterly mad. Its all down to parents now; teach your children the right way to sing nursery rhymes. It’s not about the political correctness of the matter, it never has been, its been about entertaining kids.

Don’t tell me kids get ideas about predudice from nursery rhymes; they don’t, its just entertainment. Kids will make up their own mind when they grow up about whats correct or not; don’t take away a wholesome childhood just because the mere mention of a colour throws up racism in your mind. Its utterly insane. Black is a colour, like white is a colour, like blue is a colour. The nursery rhyme should be seen in no more sinister a light than that.

These political correctness advocates need their heads banging together - hard.

Still, on a lighter note, if you really must change what in my mind are unchangable names, why not make them future proof. Who knows, maybe rainbow will be offensive someday. Lets make sure that the rhymes are open to interpretation and are not directly related to anything. I say use HEX coding for the colours, so we can keep black sheep, but call it 000000 sheep. Then for the political correct among you it’s just a number. And besides, in a world where the future is computers and technology, can it do our kids any harm to come out of nursery knowing HEX?

Today I’m working at home. Not because I would normally, but because my lecturers are on strike. I normally have 3 lectures on a Tuesday. Its an interesting conundrum though because I was asked yesterday if I supported the strike, and I had to think quite carefully before I could provide an honest answer, and even then, it wasn’t a straight foward one.

I love my course, and lecture attendance is all part of the learning process, so I was a little disapointed to find that students would be missing out; after all, the exam content isn’t going to change, and there aren’t enough empty lecture slots left this term and staff with free time to reschedule all missed lectures today, so unless I learn it by myself I would get behind with respect to the exam.

On the reverse side of the coin however, I value the teaching that my lecturers provide and am very grateful for them imparting their knowledge and experience to me, and so I firmly believed they should be paid well for the job they do. It is clear from what staff have said, and from the statistics available however that staff are not paid as well and as fairly as they should be. Not only that but they are not put on a pay scale that gives new graduates a suitable enough incentive to want to go into teaching in univeristies. This can only be to the detriment of the furtherment of many fields of learning.

Problem is, this isn’t the whole story. In addition to a strike today, there is an assesment boycott starting from tomorow. This means that work I submit will be left sitting there, unmarked and without feedback. While for me this isn’t so bad (most of my work is formative right now), this applies to all work from all students, including the exams of finalists. In the case of those students, it really does mean their graduation or at least the release of their exam scores will be delayed. A pain for many, a huge issue for others who need those grades to go onto further study or research or for those who’s future employers want a certain degree class to accept them.

So what is my position on the whole issue? Well, I’m quite happy to support today’s strike, I believe my lecturers deserve better pay, and there is nothing that a few hours in the library won’t fix when you have missed a few lectures.

As for the assessment boycott, sorry, I don’t back it one bit. If I was graduating this year, I would be worried in a big way. Ok, lecturers pay isn’t as good as it should be, and it’s an issue that has to be urgently addressed, but for people about to graduate, the AUT are potentially delaying the result of 3-4 years worth of very hard work. Is that fair? No ones denying lecturers don’t work hard and deserve better pay, but what about the students who work hard an deserve their degree? Two wrongs don’t make a right I’m afraid; student support on AUT pickets can only help lecturer’s cause, but when degrees don’t come when they should do, I think expecting that support is expecting a little too much.

I was bored today, so as I was glancing around my room for inspiration I noticed my logitech webcam sitting on the shelf, unconnected since I moved in. Well, nuts to that I thought, and hooked it up to my Linux box. An hour or so later I had sorted out drivers, a video feed and an application to create a new image every few seconds on my apache2 webserver, running on Lara. The result is a webcam image in a pop-up window that self-updates every 3 seconds and you can view it right now, simply click the “View Webcam” link in the navigation bar.

All I have to do now is find somewhere to point it that is both interesting, and doesn’t cause me to live in big brother hell. Suggestions on a post card…..

I have just uploaded some photos to the site that I took earlier. The sunshine was just too inviting, and I got some interesting shots of some of the buildings and stretches of canal around Clarence dock.

Photos are here

I have also updated my Radio page at long last with downloads of a few of my shows (hosted on Lara of course) and some photos of me and some of my past guests on air. Enjoy

Yes, the day has come, it’s snowing here in Leeds. Coming down at quite a pace actually, got a nice white coating going on now. Only problem is it appears the fall is heavier over in York and the jazz / funk band that were due to be playing at the basement bar have cancelled, so I won’t be going along with members of the Jazz and Blues society after all.

I am mighty tempted to go back to the wardrobe again though… they have a great horn section going on tonight in the club! I think I’m in jazz heaven

What a night! Last night I met up with James and some of his friends, over from York and headed out to my favorite jazz and blues venue in Leeds, The Wardrobe. The venue as I have mentioned before is split between a cafe bar on the top floor serving food, and a club downstairs. Last night was particularly special as there was a live band upstairs and downstairs, and with my membership I got to swap between the two as I fancied, all for £5!

Upstairs there was a superb blues band, The Lightnin Rods, the lead singer from which is pitured on the left. I arrived slightly early and the band hadn’t yet started, but I was glad I didn’t miss the start, because they were an amazing combination. Although a blues band “on the tin” they had some very funky rhythms under their hats, the trumpeter and keyboard player especially served up some amazing jazz / funk style melodies. The blues focus was not lost however, and when the group came back after a break they got stuck in with some real low-down blues that soon had me tapping my foot and feeling the bluesy vibes!

Many groups attempt covers, but this band seemed to almost re-write things, and I must say do an outstanding job of it too. My favorite songs of the whole night were their version of “Got my Mo Jo working”, originally by Jimmy Smith, and “Compared to what” most recently recognised as being performed by Al Jareau. For a free entry event, this group are well worth a look. The Wardrobe is like a semi home for them, and they have had many gigs there in the past and are bound to return - keep a look out - I will certainly be returning to see them play again!

If this performance wasn’t enough, as soon as the last track was over, I made my way down into the club, situated below the cafe bar in the wardrobe, where Bourbon Y Tequila, a 9 piece latin jazz band were playing late into the night as part of The Wardrobe’s semi-season of fortnightly latin jazz gigs. The group are pictured playing live on the right.

Normally I only listen to latin jazz in small doses, and the sum total of my knowledge  on the genre consists of a few tracks by Pete Rodriguez! It didn’t stop me from quickly getting into the rhythm of the music and latin beats however, and after a couple of swift drinks at the bar, I was soon dancing my heart out and cheering the band on for more at the end of every number.

The musicianship of the group was very impressive, and the well timed vocals and precussion was complimented perfectly by an amazing brass section, most enjoyable to listen to as well as dance to. This style I’m sure will be replicated by other latin acts soon to play at the wardrobe, so its worth heading down there to check out whats on.

If the latin band wasn’t enough there was also a DJ for when their set finished, spining some superb heavy latin and salsa beats on the decks, great fun to dance along to, so much so I was almost loathed to leave when the night came to a close.

Best night out I have had in ages is the only verdict I can give to this wonderful musical infusion!

I have recently been in reciept of an e-mail or two questioning my motives for making blog postings in the past. My reasons for this are simple; I want to ensure that events I blog about are posted in the order in which they happen, however the time I have available to me to write blogs is often quite varied and so means I have to set the time stamp of some of my postings to be in the past in order that they fit inbetween the rest of my posts accordingly.

In terms of how I choose the time and date stamp, I try to pick the date and time such that if the time had have been available to me at the time, that is when I would have written and posted that particular blog. Hope this helps some confused readers!