I don’t think I could have imagined the beauty of the sunrise I saw on Monday morning at 6am. I had to get a few things sorted before the start of my day on campus and so got up at 6 and opened the blinds to see the houses lit up in a deep red colour. Upon opening the window I was greeted with fresh air and a feeling that the warm balmy days of summer were just around the corner. It was one of those red-gold sky mornings that just make you feel happy to be alive, not to mention having woken up in time to witness the sun coming up, which is all too rare for me.

I almost feel guilty about ranting on this subject but at the same time it really does need to be said. When we take the time and effort to organise going to a gig for jazz and blues society its not a nice situation when no one turns up. On Sunday night when I had work due the next day I went out to meet society members at the union to then walk down to the Grove Inn on the other side of town to go to a gig. I arrived at the union at 7:30pm and by 8pm no one had showed up. Not to worry I thought, I’ll meet people at the pub, but sadly that wasn’t to be and after arriving at the bar at 8:15pm and waiting until 8:50pm still not a single person had showed up. As I had work to do and didn’t fancy drinking alone I just went home.

Now I know this is no one persons fault but I hate it when I end up wasting time, especially where work is involved and just wish there was some way of avoiding it. I had the idea that I should get people to reply if they intended to go and that receiving no replies would mean we wouldn’t go, but the problem with this is that we advertise in many ways, some of which don’t really provide a method of letting us know if you’re coming, like posters and flyers for instance. If anyone has any ideas on how to deal with this, please reply in comments.

On a lighter note, the start of the new academic year in September should bring many more members and so eliminate the problem and make the society so much more fun

I am pleased to announce the release of the new improved calendar for WordPress, version 1.1. In addition to the previous features the calendar now supports recurring events on a weekly, monthly or yearly basis as well as the ability to specify a time of day for the events to occur. If you are looking for a personal planner for your blog or an events planner for your WordPress powered website you could do a lot worse than giving this plugin a try. You can see it action here or go straight to the download page. Thanks to Richard Brown for providing a financial incentive to code, release and support this improved version.

Ages ago I caught a snippet of a song over the radio. It was a comedy song, clearly taken from some kind of television show, and all I knew was it was something to do with cleaning windows. By complete chance I came accross a link on Google to a YouTube video of the very song with the TV clip included! Hell of a find in my humble opinion and as its pretty funny I thought I’d share it with you all.

Crazy name but brilliant band. That is a one line summary of the gig at the Wardrobe last night that I caught the second half of. The Leeds Jazz and Blues society are going to see this group in a weeks time however I wanted to give a brief review of it now to give members a reason to come along and see the band for themselves.

We initially went to see another group, Kinch, but their gig turned out to be short and didn’t live up to what we had expected so we headed to the wardrobe at about 10:30 in the hope of getting a few more drinks and some good live jazz, and we weren’t disappointed. The band played two sets that were full of vibrant jazz sounds that really lifted the mood for the evening.

Its been happening quite a lot lately but Roughneck are yet another band who give each of their musicians a chance to strut their stuff in a near solo environment by tailoring different pieces of music that way. My favorites were the guitar and keyboard pieces, they sounded brilliant and while the small upstairs stage of the wardrobe doesn’t usually lend it’s self to a superb sound, it really filled the room delightfully and it was a pleasure to listen to.

No doubt due to the superb cocktail menu the evening was over far too quickly and despite calls for an encore the band had to leave. I’m just glad I’m going to be getting a second sitting for this group!

Another great Sunday lunch at Hi-Fi and another superb band to go along with it. Last Sunday the Jazz and Blues society were once again at hi-fi and this time enjoyed the musical talents of the Bones band. The raport with the audience was brilliant, and we were soon foot-taping along with the rhythms, and enjoying the little jokes told by the band between songs.

What was so great about Bones was the way they kept bringing in guest musicians to play songs and the fact they swapped their own musicians around, it really made for a great atmosphere. They played traditional jazz which was great to hear. Not only was it suitable for the setting and in keeping with what the DJ had been playing before the band came on stage, but its not the kind of music you hear enough of on stage in Leeds these days.

Theres nothing nicer than to hear a big band strike up a tune you know from an old 1950s CD, its like a little light bulb of enjoyment pings on in the back of your head, its fantastic. I’m not sure when Bones are playing next or where, but they are certainly a great group for playing traditional jazz and thrilling an audience. If you see they are playing somewhere near you, don’t miss out!

I didn’t think I’d have to write about this again but apparently I have to because there is still a problem with free speech in LUU, a bigger problem in fact than I had previously mentioned or even imagined. To cut a long story short and get onto the business end of discussing or ranting about the issue, this post has come about because of a blatant display of censorship by LUU.

Essentially a friend of mine posted a comment up on facebook about one of the specifics of the way the union was run, the information for which had come from one of their friends that worked in the union. Within a matter of hours of posting it my friend recieved a phone call from their LUU employed friend frantically requesting the message was removed because they feared they would lose their job. This wasn’t like it was a state secret of anything, just a piece of information.

This quite frankly disgusts me. This is a students union we are talking about here, not a military operation. We know more about what goes on inside Guantanamo Bay than we do about our own union. What is so f**king special about our union that they get to hush things up, hide things from students and threaten or at the very least appear to threaten the jobs of any employee who even speaks about how the union is run behind the scenes. We have a right to know - they use our money to fund themselves (a portion of our tuition fees goes on union funding) - so why aren’t they telling us or letting anyone tell us about what they are doing with our cash? Sounds like a huge conspiracy to me.

Well I’m not willing to stand for it anymore. While my post here is a big rant, there are some proactive things that you can do. I’m linking to this post from the top of my site to raise awareness and doing the things described in the bullet points below - I encourage you to do the same

• Ask the union staff and the exec why they censor staff and its members
• Request information from LUU about its activities, finances and affiliations in an attempt to prevent them hiding behind closed doors
• Vote for people in union elections who stand for transparency and freedom of speech

Just wanted to make a quick post to congratulate Laura Bolton on getting engaged. I hope you and Anthony will be very happy together and wish you all the best for the future. Be sure to let me know when the wedding is!

More news from the facebook development camp, this time with respect to photo uploading on Facebook. So what is it all about I hear you cry, well essentially they have added libraries to the API that will allow software developers to upload photos to facebook from outside of facebook its self.

When I saw this I was quite excited. I’ve long know that a number of my friends read my blog through facebook because it is syndicated there, but conversely do not check out my photo gallery because you have to visit my site directly for it. What these new API libraries would allow me to do is to syndicate every photo uploaded to my gallery into facebook. I would even be able to create galleries with the same name as the ones on my own site.

I’m not sure when I will find the time to write such a plugin for my gallery but if and when I do I’ll be sure to shout it from the rooftops.

In case people hadn’t noticed on the news there was a lunar eclipse last night. This is where the Earth blocks the path of the Sun’s rays from falling on the moon apart from the light that filters through the Earth’s atmosphere meaning the moon glows a beautiful copper colour. Clear skies meant we were able to take in the sight easily from outside our house and it certainly was a beautiful sight. I wasn’t able to get any photographs due to the light polution from the streetlamps but the reddish glow makes the moon seem so much more spherical than the serene pale white disc we are used to seeing in our night skies. We are told it was the best eclipse we’ve had in years and having seen it myself I’m very much inclined to agree.