bygjohn's blog

Grumpy old man time, folks!

Was watching what should have been a fascinating documentary last night on Channel 4, about how we came disturbingly close to World War III in 1983. Totally ruined, however, by the idiot narrator who consistently and persistently demonstrated her complete inability to say the word nuclear, pronouncing it nucular.

Aaaaaarrrrggggghhh!!!!

It's bad enough when a halfwit US president does it, and I could have forgiven it if some of the interviewees did it, but what sort of production values are operating when no-one gives an illiterate narrator a slap, instead allowing the whole narration to be peppered by this idiocy?

Grrrrr!

Well, after some tribulations with an online retailer who (eventually, after much messing about) couldn't supply one until January, I am now the proud owner of an Asus EeePC. Bought in the end from our local Toys'r'us, of all places! Who seemed to have plenty in stock, for anyone who's looking for one. Needless to say, I'll be cancelling the online order.

The EeePC itself is a thing of beauty: a miniature laptop with a 7" screen, Linux and a whole bunch of installed apps, including Firefox, Thunderbird, Skype, Pidgin (multi-messenger client) and the OpenOffice.org office suite. No Opera, though apparently it's possible to install it if you jump through some hoops. Might be worth Opera making it available via Asus's repository for really easy installation: just a thought.

Browser politics aside, the EeePC is a very neat concept. It's not meant to be all-purpose, it's meant to do most things the average person wants to do with a minimum of fuss and fiddling. So it has a simplified interface/launcher and software to do the commonest jobs: a little browsing, chat and email, some word processing/spreadsheet/presentation work and a few basic games. Plus a media player, photo manager, and basic photo editing software. No hard drive, it's all flash discs/SD memory cards, but it has 3 USB ports so you can plug in any extra storage you might want. Boots up and shuts down in a few seconds, too.

If you're mad enough, you can install WinXP on it, but why would you bother unless you had very specialised needs? It's just plug and play as it stands. You just have to set up your wireless connection and email accounts - not even that if you use web mail. How simple is that?

The real killer is that the thing only costs just over £200, all-in.PC, slip case, mains adaptor. Asus is apparently having problems making them fast enough to meet demand, and is flogging them by the million. Apparently Microsoft is working on trying to supply a cut-down installation of XP for pre-installation - Vista has no chance - because this little beauty is a) not making them a bean and b) going to convince a whole lot more people that Linux is perfectly viable for general use.

Check one out: I think you'll be impressed, even if the only place you can get one in shops is currently Toys'r'us!

Well it's ages since I posted, so here's a couple of the posts which might have been, had I actually pulled my finger out and made them!

Had a wonderful short break near Conwy at Sychnant Pass House in September. Lovely suite with a jacuzzi in the bathroom and hot tub on its private deck, excellent food too. Had my birthday there in pampered luxury :-)

Had lots of fun watching the rugby world cup, which was brilliant despite England's appalling showings at the start. Good to get to the final after that. And much of the good stuff of the tournament was down to the so-called "lesser" nations who all played out of their skins and gave the big names a run for their money. Argentina, Georgia, Portugal and the Pacific island nations stick in the memory for all the right reasons, and anyone who still thinks the world cup would be better with less of them is plainly off their rocker.

That'll do for the moment, more to come if I can overcome inertia...

Tony Wilson, the man behind Factory Records, the Hacienda and some of the best bands of the last 30 years died on Friday.

A quick trawl around the net will doubtless find obituaries and tributes from the great and good. I'd just like to say "thank you" to him for all the great music I wouldn't have had in my life without him. Which is an awful lot. And thanks for all those marvellous Factory records, many of which were beautiful artifacts in themselves, with gorgeous sleeve designs as well as the music. Section 25's Always Now and A Certain Ratio's Sextet are two that spring to mind off the top of my head.

Thanks, Tony. RIP.

These musings have been prompted by trying to sort out a belated birthday present for my friend Clive (*wave*). He asked me to track down a particular work by Mozart, which wasn't too difficult in itself. However, having established what it was, I was then faced with about a zillion versions to choose from. In the end I resorted to using Amazon and sorting the results by star ratings, then choosing the first on the list that wasn't part of some enormously expensive boxed set or a second hand rarity (similarly expensive). Call me cheap...

What worries me about this is that it's really a lottery if you don't know much about classical music, and yet how you hear something inevitably colours your opinion/taste, often for a long time. Frequently budget releases have better performances, so price isn't any kind of guide, and then there's the issue of original instruments. It probably bothers me most because I'm not a huge classical fan (so how it sounds for me isn't somehow intellectually disconnected from the work itself - it's integral to the experience), and I've found that I really prefer stuff done as closely as possible to how the composer would have heard it. I suspect this doesn't bother a lot of classical fans, but for me it makes a huge difference. I used to think Mozart was tinkly, bland chocolate-box music until I heard his stuff played on original instruments. Suddenly it had an edge to it which was absent before. Same goes for Beethoven.

I know lots of classical people place great emphasis on the value of interpretation, but for me playing stuff on the wrong instruments and mucking about with speeds etc often amounts to producing the equivalent of a bad cover version with all the edges taken off - safe music for the fainthearted (James Last plays The Beatles, anyone?).

Now I'm not spouting universal truths here: it's possible to do great cover versions (The Slits' version of Heard it through the grapevine springs to mind), and sometimes they become the definitive version (eg Soft Cell's version of Tainted Love). But I've learned to be sceptical about classical works which aren't played authentically, at least until I've heard them done "properly".