A touch of damning with faint praise?
Ex-broadcaster and data-wrangler … copyright, infrared and Elektra Records fan … archiving my past … music collection not as big as it was … the odd photo … and with a disobedient memory.
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A touch of damning with faint praise?
… always made me think of Animal, the drummer in the Muppets band Dr Teeth and the Electric Mayhem (IIRC).
Those Stewart/Gaskin singles were delightful. I’m sure I still have a couple somewhere.
No, surprisingly. (I don’t want to jinx the supposed redelivery on Monday. which was actually the initial promised day.)
Mo, Larry and His Majesty.
What is it with delivery companies who say they’ll be here in a one-hour window but then halfway through that window say ‘sorry we missed you’ and they’ll be back on Monday. #Rant
@sentimentbot.bsky.social how bad am I?
I once visited out local pub during a power cut. No music, no slot machines … bliss!
“OK 007, we have planted the ‘what-three-words’ locations for the cache drops. Now we wait to see who picks them up.”
Surely you just had to follow the ‘block voting’ over the years to realise that there has always been a political element.
open.substack.com/pub/rorycell... Can’t remember when I last met a UK tech leader as impressive as quantum computing pioneer Chris Ballance. On the @brands2life.bsky.social podcast he explains how he built a quantum computing unicorn in 6 years - and why its sale to a US company is good news
I wonder what happens if you switch her to latin mode.
I vividly remember the welly-boot dance. A mainstay of Peel’s Night Ride cornucopia of non-needletime delights.
So far I think I need to buy Mini ASAP and hope for (or install) Sonoma. Rats!
Something to check out. Two options come to mind … get a Sonoma mini or hope I can run Sonoma on what I get … or wait and see if someone produces a fix.
A boy can hope 🤪.
But as Gerard Hoffnung told the Oxford Union in his ‘Advice for tourists visiting London’ … “Upon entering a railway carriage it is customary to shake hands with everyone present”.
@kevinmarks.com I just discovered that the new Mac OS, Tahoe, lost Firewire support. As I have a Firewire slide scanner I would like to continue using when I (soon) get a Mac Mini, is there anything I could do to? Install new drivers? Use USB>Firewire converter (dangerous apparently)? Any thoughts?
“We had to bring our own rain!”
Behave!
Those photons can cause so much damage!
OK … I give up 👏👏😃👏👍
If it was Ry**air it would have been a bus on the tarmac. #FourYorkshireman
Frozen seal meat for you then Nanook. 😎
Done it once … a free upgrade from BA flying back from Ottawa. “We thought you’d like to fly back in Club” they said. Is the bear a catholic? I got a free eye-mask as well 😏. A mate, however, flew to NY in Concorde to edit some TV video thing. Paid the upgrade himself … but still rather envious.
OTD in early British television On Friday 16 September 1938 a television OB unit was among newsreel cameras at Heston Aerodrome to provide live coverage of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s return from meeting Adolf Hitler at Berchtesgaden. www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/otd-in-early...
I would occasionally go business if flying with SAS to Scandinavia as you got a free night at one of their hotels … so it would actually be cheaper. Just a wider seat and a cm more legroom however. Hearing about flying beds makes me feel like one of the four Yorkshiremen.
Same problem at Stockholm airport!
Must clean my glasses!
Mondo Canario sounds like a rather dodgy ‘70s film genre.
See also: Steve Martin kitten juggling
The only sane option!
Best wishes for all the fun to come … and thanks for the vicarious fun gone by.
As has the Bolex ☹️
I think com-opt and com-mag 16mm might have been single sprocket.
That’s 17.5 mm … which I only realised was a thing recently. Standard 8mm is split 16mm and has only one set of sprockets. My old Bolex shoots half a spool which you then reverse and it shoots the other half
“I got those Bodleian Blues …”🎶
If you filmed upside down on 16mm, it played in reverse when you showed it the right way up. (Only works with double sprockets.)
This was in Stoke … there were a lot of Shufflebottoms and Shufflebothams about. She was as lovely as your first teachers usually were.
My first infants school teacher was miss Shufflebottom.
It was very memorable … open for Heritage weekend. No photos allowed however (it’s a private house).
A few days ago I visited a house literally built around some of the fixtures and fittings from the liner Mauritania … bought at auction when she was decommissioned.
C is very Lead Belly!
Bogie Wonderland 🎶
Woodstock Grove? … and wasn’t the BBC mainframe computer in Threshold House? (Never went there.)
During my days at the BBC building, Kensington House … previously a railway cutting, now a hotel … a notice would often implore us to give blood at the Inland Revenue office at the end of the road.
Have any Labour ministers or MPs spoken out about Musk inciting insurrection in the UK today?
Ah. I had thought they might not be in Schengen. Have a safe crossing.
Cut to shot of Arthur C Clarke studying instructions with a bemused expression … accompanied by a random piece of Strauss (either is acceptable).
Here’s me thinking you were heading for the Azores.
Rings a vague bell … just as for satellite bundles. BTW was Rediffusion baseband? I remember someone hooking into it to get an audio feed at the radio station.
If Private Frasier edited a newspaper …
I loved my 12-string (sadly stolen). Difficult to finger-pick however … do you know Leo Kottke’s playing? Are you tuning to E or lower? A C-tuned 12-string is a real stomper.
When I was working in the digital switchover data, there was one town where a Rediffusion-type network still operated and I had to get a list of post codes covered from them. (Can’t remember where!)
I was on an Amtrak train that climbed a surface corkscrew somewhere in Oregon (I think). It was extremely weird to see part of the train I was on passing underneath.
I guess the argument would be that ‘we’ are welcoming the office not the incumbent … but it’s a paper-thin one.
One has to cut them some slack … just very quietly.
Made the ‘mistake’ of visiting the amazing @blackwells.bsky.social bookshop in the Broad. Wallet now lighter; bag heavier. 📚
Having just spent a few days in Oxford, I regret to inform @davidallengreen.bsky.social that @bodleian.ox.ac.uk refer to their copies as ‘The’ Magna Carta. Surely some mistake? BTW … their ‘Treasures’ exhibition in the Weston is absolutely fascinating.
I don’t remember why I didn’t do the interview ☹️
Years ago I asked Geoff Lane to interview Emmylou for one of my shows. To keep the acoustic reasonably ‘dead’ they chatted sprawled on her hotel bed. Memorable … said Geoff.
Bit loud innit?!?
Oh dear ☹️
Vogon was he?
This frontispiece in my book just made me laugh a lot. Is this Buddhist reincarnation, or some other form of afterlife?
No good asking whether “it looks like rain, dear?” then.
I’d have him up before the beak for making it almost impossible to determine the issue date of his postage stamps.
I wouldn’t want to risk the French anthem … oh bugger! It’s kicked off! Allons-y!
When I hear about all these billionaire hedge-fund managers I question my wisdom in having our hedge removed.
This is really good. It's clear, it's urgent, it's a warning. Democrats need to get their shit together, and soon. (gift link) www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/o...
I didn’t get it (avoided the last one) … on O2.
Looks like an infrared photo … Cuba perhaps?
This is strangely delightful:
Weird but real question, i.e. not a joke Is anybody here in touch with Brian Eno? I have a decent reason for asking. Honest!
EARWORM 🎶
Gone the way of 35mm film canisters!
Sobering to think that when I first got involved with the Beeb, it was less than 50 years old … since then a further 50 years have passed and even BBC local radio is over 50 now!
Can you get a ‘proper’ croissant in the UK? All the ones I find have the shape but not the taste.
On Angela Rayner and tax law - a brief post by me Substack - emptycity.substack.com/p/on-angela-... Own blog: davidallengreen.com/2025/09/on-a...
Word of the day is ‘tamalou’: a French name for an older person who no longer greets their friends with ‘how was your holiday?, but with ‘t’as mal où ?’, ‘where does it hurt?’. There follows an enthusiastic account of aches and pains and doctor’s appointments.
A bit disappointing that Sky didn’t have some security of their own in such a volatile environment. They could have protected their interviewee.
On 3rd September 1939, the BBC announced that Britain was at war. A brief behind-the-scenes story of how the BBC prepared for that day, as told through programme recordings, oral history interviews, written documents, and Mass Observation
Good luck Tom. Enjoy!
Irritating blighters aren’t they!
Absolutely delighted that Dan Briggs, son of the BBC's first official historian Asa Briggs, has written to The Observer supporting the need for on-request vetting to re-instated at the BBC Written Archives Centre (p.29; not I think online). Letter's wording is in the .alt element. #waccampaign
Herewith a definitive example of the power of social media …
I hear he speaks well of you.
That’s why the name of the month in French sounds like the damned railing against the void … or else just having stubbed a toe.
🚨US president Donald Trump this week delivered an ultimatum to countries that dare to regulate Silicon Valley tech giants: drop your rules or face punitive tariffs and restricted access to American technology — including AI chips. Will copyright be next? grahamlovelace.substack.com/p/parents-ac...
‘The’ record cleaner to have, I believe, if you can afford it.
@marklewisohn.bsky.social (though I guess you probably know)
Don’t forget to save the Port Ellen distillery visit for after the presentation.
Interesting that it looks like a U-Matic deck of the time.
… or two jubilant G-men showing their captive - Hot Lips Hendy - to the passing Weegee.
This is one of the most beautiful things I have witnessed, the craft here is impeccable.
Just got a few records cleaned. A couple now righteously silent as the tomb but a couple more now revealing antediluvian groove wear. (Shouldn’t be listening on cans!)
‘No Regrets’ off this album is one of my favourite tracks. And this (the original) is definitely the best version. Not based on a real event, so Tom told me.
I wondered when someone would get around to mentioning Tor.
A reminder alert popped up. "Oh," the Supervisor said, "it's time to check in on Sol-3 again. Szrpt, can you handle that?" Szrpt bowed a frond. "Yes, of course." "Don't forget to reset the killer asteroid if the sapients pose no threat." "Once!" Szrpt bristled. "I only forgot that once!"
Many thanks for the pointer to that. As for the series, as the legendary Oz from Auf Wiedersehen Pet once said … “Double bollocks”. I half expected a credit for Sellar & Yeatman.