Last.fm...what a good idea

Just stumbled upon Last.fm - a kind of social networking site based on music. Its pretty cool..you can download a plugin that "listens" to whatever music you're currently playing and sends the details to the Last.fm site. They call this "scrobbling" for some bizare reason, but its pretty neat. In this way the site builds up a true picture of what music you like to listen to and can suggest other recomended artists. There are also discussion groups and obviously you can build up a "friends" list by searching for people with similar tastes as yourself. All pretty groovy. I've looked into some other networking sites before and couldn't really be bothered to fill out all my likes, dislikes, rants and raves etc in order to find some comonality with other folks. But as this will sit there in the background doing all the hard work, this might just work out nicely.

You can see my profile here http://www.last.fm/user/aragornsbeard/. You'll see there that I have been listening to Damien Rice's new album "9". Its another work of genius from the man, full of the same kind of beautiful, heart-renchingly wonderful songs as his previous album "O". I love it and you will too.

I'm going to Guildford this afternoon...what a strange cathedral they have there....

Aliens in Cardiff....?

Well, I saw the first two episodes of Torchwood on BBC2 last night - wow, what a great programme. The whole family have enjoyed the new Doctor Who series, but this spin-off is definitely aimed at adults. It follows the character of Captain Jack Harkness as leader of the mysterious Torchwood organisation, who spend their time chasing down aliens from their base in Cardiff. Hmmm...Cardiff seems like an odd choice, but I'm sure there is a good reason for it (perhaps because Russell T Davies has a house there). Anyway, its a great show and I really enjoyed it - I had seen John Barrowman in Strictly Ice Dancing and on Maria and, perhaps obviously, felt he was slightly camp. It was good to see him in an acting role and lose that.

The supporting roles all seem to be very well cast and I'm intrigued to see where the characters will go with their stories. And the set is very impressive too. The Torchwood hub is under the Millennium Square in Cardiff and the set designers have done a great job of creating a believable underground-station-like HQ for them.

Check out the Torchwood site on bbc.co.uk/torchwood - its got some great behind-the-scenes clips, interviews with the cast etc, and a preview of the next episode.

Oh and did you know that Torchwood is an anagram of......Doctor Who?

Well now you do!

Ambition #2.....Carmina Burana....Check!

Well that's it, another musical ambition taken care of. Saturday saw the Grimsby Philharmonic concert where we performed Bob Chilcott's "Songs and Cries of London Town" and Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana", something I have wanted to sing for as long as I can remember.

It went really well. We were accompanied by the hugely talented pianists Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow, who also contributed 2 sections to the proceedings. Their choices of 3 Yiddish dances and Jupiter by Holst were just right - not too long and jolly enough to keep people interested.

To finish the first half, we performed "London Town". This is a modern piece by Bob Chilcott that draws on traditional cries from old London, mixing them with poems by Dunbar and Wordsworth, while throwing in an arrangement of Oranges and Lemons for good measure. I think we all really enjoyed singing this one...the first and last movements are both very upbeat, accompanies by bongos and are very jolly. The middle section is very haunting, with some beautiful words. We were joined on stage by Sue's Scunthorpe Cooperative Junior Choir and when they sang "London Bells" it really sent a shiver down our backs.

After the break was the main attraction - Carmina Burana. For this we had a full percussion section on stage - timpani, snares, gongs, cymbals, tubular bells, xylophones, glockenspiels and even a triangle! This, added to the 2 pianos and the 2 choirs made the performance just as great as I always hoped it would be. Carmina has such a lot of good parts for the men, and I think on the night we really pulled it off. Reports were that our "In Taberna" was the best it has ever been. I think were were inspired by the baritone soloist there, who performed his "Ego sum Abbas" perfectly as a drunk spinning a yarn in a pub.

I thoroughly enjoyed the night and it was a great feeling to have achieved yet another goal in life. There are not many more left to do now, so I better get thinking of some more!

Here's what the telegraph had to say about the night - A Combination of youth and experience delighted audiences at a musical event. I have to say I'm pretty disappointed in the report - no analysis of the programme or highlighting areas for special mention. Time and again the Phil suffers this fate - seemingly marginalised in a paper that prefers to focus on crime and sport. It's such a shame as the Phil continues to produce fantastic concerts and we are so lucky to have Sue Hollingsworth as our musical director - she's a world-class MD and could be doing far more important, higher paid things than putting us through our paces. But she does, and what a great job she does of it. We should really be celebrating this fact and the impact it is having not just on the Phil, but on music in the whole area.

The one good thing about the report was that it shows a wonderful young tenor in full flow...you can order your copies here at the Telegraph Photo Archive....I'll even sign them for you ;o)

At the moment I am...

listening to...
Razorlight, The Zutons, The Feeling, Keane, Radio 1: The Live Lounge, BBC Podcasts. All constantly on my playlist at the moment.

using...
Google Reader. This is an RSS reader (billed as "Your Inbox for the web") from the lovely chaps at Google. Its really very nice indeed and I recommend it for anyone who regularly visits lots of news sites, blogs, podcasts etc. I used to spend time visiting dozens of different sites to keep up to date with stuff I was interested in. Now it all comes to me, nicely tagged and organised by Google Reader. I can even share articles that I think you might find interesting...there's now a permanent link to these on the left-hand side - take a look.

surfing...
Lifehacker - tips on cool websites and downloads to make life easier, as well as life-tips to help you work and play better.
Digg - social bookmarking site bringing together links that it's 330,000 members think are worth reading.

playing...
Air Monkey online.
Enter the Matrix on the PS2

waiting for...
Terry Wogans Janet & John Stories CD - These just crack me up, and all the money goes to Children in Need.
Lego Star Wars 2 - On Joe's birthday list...let's hope someone gets him it!

looking for...
An intensive French course - just got the nod from work that they will cough up for one, so I'm getting quotes.

Les Mis 21st birthday report

The BBC has a report from the 21st birthday  party for Les Miserables here: BBC - Les Mis takes long-running crown. Click on the "Video and Audio News" link in the top right to see some clips of the show and an interview with Michael Ball.

On a related note, The Phantom of the Opera also notched up a birthday recently, reaching 20 years. Here are some photos from www.thephantomoftheopera.com - shame about the annoying background music, but you can turn it off. Don't you just HATE sites that do that?

Such bravery

Link to ABC News: 'Shoot Me First,' Amish Girl Said to Ask

Being a complete atheist, I often struggle with stories of people and their faith, but this latest article about the horrific Amish school shooting made me stop and think.

Apparently the eldest of the girls, only 13 herself, asked the gunman to shoot her first in an attempt to buy time for her schoolmates.

How incredible that in one room there were 2 extremes of humanity...one extreme evil, prepared to execute defenseless schoolchildren...the other an innocent young girl prepared to lay down her life for the sake of her friends.

What a world we live in.

Bon Anniversaire Les Miserables!

I remember the torture of sitting in the back of my Dad's car when I was young, being forced to listen to this god-awful tape of some musical that he was mad about. Quite honestly I was pretty sick of it back then.

Now 20 years later and that same musical now plays in my car (no tapes anymore...) and ranks up there in my top 3 shows of all time. How times, and tastes, change...

This weekend, on October 8th, Les Miserables celebrates it's 21st birthday and officially becomes the longest-running musical in the world. Quite an achievement for something based on a very long, hard-going book, first published in 1862. The show was recently voted the nation's favourite in a poll by Radio 2, winning with 41% of the votes.

Our children have all grown up listening to it. We have some embarrassing video footage of Rosie and Lisa recreating that touching moment when Cosette pleads with Madame Thenardier "Please do not send me out alone, not in the darkness on my own"....only Rosie's version ends with "out in the dumpers on my own". LOL! Poor Rosie, though she was only about 4 at the time :o)

I have seen the show several times, but I never get bored of it. My next goal?....to go see it in Paris.

It may just happen!

Long time no post - lets catch up!

Well hello! Its been a while hasn't it? Since March huh?....wow, that's pretty bad of me. Ah well, here I am, back again, with something to say at last!

So what has been happening in my life just recently? Well...

Holiday
We had another fantastic holiday in France this year. We were in a gite in the dordogne and it was simply wonderful. Quite quiet, out of the way and maybe a little too remote, but we had an amazing time. We went to Bergerac - didn't see John Nettles unfortunately, but DID see Cyrano. We visited La Dune du Pyla - the largest sand dune in europe...blimey it's big. About 120 meters I believe. And we had our first boring but quick journey on the EuroTunnel. It was so different to going on the ferry (obviously, being under the water not on it....). We normally spend a very long uncomfortable 5/6 hours on the ferry, but this was 40 minutes sat in the car as we were whizzed under the Channel and deposited right on the motorway in Calais. A far better solution we felt.

Music
On the musical front, there have been no more big shows for me...no time any more to do those things. BUT, I have been getting to the Grimsby Phil quite a lot. In a few weeks we have our latest concert in which we are performing "Carmina Burana" by Carl Orff' and "Songs and Cries of London Town" by Bob Chilcott.
Carmina is a very famous work that has been used in many films and TV programs. The opening number "O Fortuna" is the most well known - back in the 70's it was the theme to the Old Spice advert...these days it's heard every Saturday night when we are introduced to the Judges on X-Factor. For me, Carmina is up there with Jesus Christ Superstar as something that I have dreamt of being part of one day and to have acheieved both of these goals within the last 2 years is pretty amazing.
Songs and Cries is a modern work which calls on traditional London cries, and poems by Dunbar and Wordsworth to create an exciting and beautiful work.

We recently went to see Starlight Express at the Grimsby Auditorium - what a great show that was. It's one that we had never seen before, and indeed never really knew the music either, so it made a really nice change seeing something totally new. The singing was superb, and of course the skating and dancing was really impressive.

Moving to France
Well, I don't want to say much on this subject, but I am very close to hopefully having some VERY positive news! I got a new boss at work a couple of months ago and he is really supportive...wheels are in motion that might just take us to France after all....watch this space!

Other stuff
Other things that have been happening....
Yesterday was my birthday! Yay! 35 at last...finally I am nearer 40 than 30, which is quite sad. And 35 is half-way to 70, which is really, really sad! But hey-ho, while there's wine theres still hope for me ;o)

Rosie started at Healing comprehensive school in September...she's doing really well and enjoying herself - lots of out-of-school clubs and things going on. We're really pleased with how she's getting on.

Molly and Joe are now officially Football mad. They both attend Healing Hotspurs football training, and Molly is even in the girls under 10s team. So far they have drawn 1-1 and last week they won 3-0! Molly is the star defender -following in her dad's footsteps in the back four :o)

As a final note, I heartily reccomend checking out Andrew Lloyd Webbers new site. Its a personal site with lots of news, photos and information about what ALW is currently up to, including all the news about Connie in The Sound of Music. I had a conversation with the webmaster who was good enough to look through my blog, so you never know, Lord Andrew might even get to read all about my expoits in JCS! (Just in case...it starts here in May 2004, and runs up to November 2004.....well, you never know!)

Slight hicough

Had some problems with the site, so bear with me. normal service will be resumed asap.

My travelling soundtrack

It’s a very lonely existence, this consulting lark…always on the move, trains, planes and automobiles. One thing I couldn’t do without during all this is my trusty mp3 player. It provides a soundtrack to a large portion of my life, so I thought I’d share it’s present contents with you. I don’t know what my selection says about me, but its seen me through some pretty long and arduous journeys, so it can’t be all that bad…

Click here to see the list on my MySpace site

Back in Blighty, at last!

So I made it to Sweden eventually...4 hours later than expected. It was about 2:00am when I arrived in my hotel room, totally knackered and fed up. Oh and this was after finding out when I arrived at the hotel that they didn't actually have a reservation for me. Bang went my preparation time. Not to worry tho as my 2 days went really well. Thankfully my journey home wasn't quite so eventful and I'm now back in London, ready to head off to another customer first thing in the morning.

Sweden was a great place - it had snowed the night that I arrived and it was really thick - about 3ft in places. And the people there weere all really nice - all spoke very good english and were very friendly.

bugger...its a bomb scare

Oh great. Well as if it wasn't bad enough that i have to in away to sweden this week, now i have to contend with a bomb scare at heathrow. I was waiting in the security queue when suddenly we were all ushered out of the area and forced out of departures all together. Its now 10 minutes past my flights departure time and i have on idea what's going on. No-one has told up anything. I don't know if my flight is waiting or if it's gone. And has my bag gone with it? What a nightmare this is.

Another week, another trip

So this week i have been in cornwall...Truro to be precise. Its a lovely part of the world and its been a successful week. I didn't feel like writing about it though, as all this travelling is really getting to me now. Its really killing me every time i have to leave lisa and the kids behind. I just don't seem to have any time to catch up these days...I'm under such pressure to be doing billable work all the time. I don't know how much longer i can keep this up...
Thankfully i am now on my way home. I left truro at 5.45am and i will get home at 2.30pm. Yes, thats nearly a whole 9 hours folks! Oh joy!

Don't mention the war...

Hello all once more. I'm on my travels again...today's destination - Hannover in Germany. M journey started this morning on the train, then down to Gatwick to catch my flight at 19:50. It's gonna be 22:30 by the time I arrive in Germany and its bloody cold over there at the moment. I really don't feel like going this week, as Lisa's still ill, the kids are all coming down with colds, and, quite frankly, I'm not too impressed with work at the moment anyway. But I guess it's an experience, so I should try to enjoy it. I'll try to take photos and post some on here.

Wot no Channel 4?

Of course, I forgot...in Wales they don't have Channel 4, they have the dreadful S4C - welsh language station. How am I supposed to keep up with Celebrity Big Brother? It's simply not fair :-o There's simply NOTHING on telly tonight, which means there's nothing stopping me from working, which is a real problem. I should have brought my "Lost Series 1, part 1" box set to keep me distracted...

The only consultant in the village...

OK, so I got home OK after my suicide-induced delays last week. In the end I got back about 3 hours late - good job I had parked my car at Doncaster. If I had needed to get the train all the way home I would have been stuck at Doncaster.

That was last week, and now here I am in Cardiff, South Wales, the only consultant in the village! LOL. This time I have taken the car all the way here - I'm not going to let delays keep me from getting home this time. Lisa is quite poorly at the moment so I need to make sure I'm back at a deent time.

My journey here was surprisingly quick and easy - I had expected a 5-hour trip at least, but it turned out to be a little over 4 hours door to door, which was great. And there was no traffic to contend with either. I'm staying at the Quality Hotel which is a fairly decent hotel, although the shower has just nearly blasted me out of the bathroom! It's either a trickle or a blast it seems. Looks like I'll not have any trouble waking up.

I had some excellent news this week - The Phil are going to be doing Carl Orff's Carmina Burana in October. This stands alongside JCS as one of my all-time-must-sing works. I simply love this, and if you've never heard it, get hold of a copy - it's one of the most exciting pieces of music you'll ever hear. In fact, I'm sure you will have heard the opening number countless times - "O Fortuna" is always being used in TV and films. It was the music that the judges walked out to at the start of the X Factor shows, for instance.

So I'm hoping to be able to manage my schedule to allow me to take part. It's a fabulous work to hear, but it would be just amazing to take part.

I'm back...and I'm mad!

OK, welcome back to me. I decided that I should try to get back into blogging again this year as I have been totally useless at it for the last few months. Mainly as I've been busy working and I've not really done a lot worth writing about, but also mainly coz I'm just rubbish.

So anyway, I'm back for now, and, yes, I'm mad. Why? Well, because, once again, someone has taken it upon themselves to commit suicide by throwing themselves under my train. I've been stuck at Biggleswade station for the last hour and a bit while the police give us the all-clear to move on. It's 8.30 and I still have another 2 hours travelling ahead of me once we get going. And I was doing so well. Got finished on time, got to the station in plenty of time, got myself a decent seat. And then this. Bugger.

I know it's very sad when people get into such a state that they feel they can't go on with life, but *PLEASE* don't involve a train full of people in your demise. Do do something quiet in the comfort of your own home/fast moving river/vat of acid. Not in front of my train! Its just so selfish.

Anyway, what's happening in my life right now...? Well, here goes:

As I said, I'm really busy with work. Upcoming trips include Germany, Sweden and Cornwall. All jolly nice.

Lisa has just had her final assessment for her HLTA (Higher Level Teaching Assistant)qualification, which I'm sure she has passed. She's worked really hard at it and she really deserves to get it as she is a fantastic TA. She is now contemplating starting a Foundation Degree which will lead her into becoming a qualified teacher, something she has always dreamed of being. So its wuite an exciting time at the moment.

The kids are all doing very well at school still. Rosie is starting the dreaded SATs, so the pressure is really on for the next few weeks. Molly continues to thrive in her class, and Joseph is very proud to be Bench Monitor this term!

The French question still remains unanswered...however, if Lisa does decide to go for her Teacher training, we will be staying here while she does that - another 3-4 years - then moving after that for definite.

Ah well, this seat is really uncomfy now, so I'm gonna stretch my legs. They're coming round with free tea & coffee, so maybe time for some refreshment. (Not too much tho, as we can't use the toilets!)

So, toodle-oo for now.

R xxx