Blogging in an Oxfordshire stylee

2010-03-28T15:57:00.008+01:00

Last year I was thinking that it had been a while since I last saw the divine comedy live. I popped on their website to see where they were playing next and noticed the next gig was scheduled for a festival in Barcelona and ended up going along. The Faraday Festival is set in a small seaside town, Villanova il a Geltru, about 50 mins by train from Barcelona.

The festival has a capacity of about 1000 and is set in a couple of back gardens to what may be a college, I'm not sure. The gardens are up on a cliff and look down onto a beach with a lighthouse nearby. There were two stages and only one act played at a time. There was beer on sale and a choice of either falafel in a pita or pancakes to eat. In between, and during some there's room to have a nice sit down and look at the sea. It was a really warm atmosphere, and also really warm going to a festival without a coat with you was brilliant. Also amazing were the toilets which were permanent ones, the ladies had mirrors and flushed all weekend!!

We stayed nearby at a hotel a few minutes from the site. There were also camping sites, but these were a bit of a distance from the beach and the buses didn't start running to go back there till 4 or 5am. The bands came on about 7-8pm, with the headliner starting at about 11pm, music went on till about 6am, but I don't think we made it much past 3am on either of the two nights. On the last night they put on a free gig to say thank you to the town, down on the beach which was lovely.

We spent the days doing little bits of sightseeing in the small town, walking around looking at shops and churches and an afternoon on the beach. We also got into the siestas which seemed like our only hope of staying up late enough to enjoy the festival. We also went on a little train tour, and got an unexpected EXTREME experience when the driver took us round and round a little roundabout.

Another highlight was the train museum with lots of info on train history.

Also included in the museum was one of the best ever stick your head through the cut out set ups ever.

From farday fest

Luke seemed to take to it especially well.

From farday fest

Also to be recommended is vegetarian friendly restaurant L'Oganqüit. We went there a couple of times and they were very helpful and recommended some lovely food.

On the first night Le Pianc kicked off the festival on the main stage.

From farday fest

We then walked over to the other stage to see Epaldamacetaplay some very earnest tunes in the Spanish. Bestia Ferida were quite memorable with their free-form jazz sound, which provided a good chance to nip round the corner to buy falafel.

The Leisure Society were good with some fun, catchy sounds. The crowd went wild for Spanish band The New Raemon, who I liked more than Luke. The Lucksmiths were OK too.

The second day had some great stuff, Bruna seemed like a very nice young man who played lots of samples from his laptop which built into some choones. Shugo Tokumaru from Japan had some very pretty sounds with melodicas and xylophones mixed in.

The best was lovely Neil Hannon, on his own playing piano

and then guitar,

reading out small bits of Spanish and being fantastic.

The last day on the beach was a great wind down

with boat beam playing some gorgeous songs with lots of strings

and Gary Olson out of Ladybug Transistor on trumpet and singing with a couple of friends.

He was great, even with sand in his mouthpiece.

He'd been popping up throughout the festival as most of the bands at some point would wheel him out to do a guest spot, but it was good to hear his own stuff. We got to chat with him afterwards and he was a very charming gentleman, very enthusiastic about the festival and friendly. We even got our festival CD signed as a super souvenir.

We can be spotted in some of the official photos if you look carefully, we might also be spotable down the front for the Divine Comedy on some of their videos.

We finished up the trip with a night in Barcelona, we stayed at the Hostal Gat Raval, which was mainly chosen as its close to the Manchester Bar where we had a great night on Luke's 30th. It turned out to be a pretty good option, clean and not too noisy and the Manchester Bar was still pretty cool. We tried to go back to Mama cafe, but it had decided to choose that day to be closed. We ended up in a great place in the end though, although I can't remember what it was called.

2010-03-21T10:34:00.011Z

Last summer I had another adventure when I went to the chatchily named 9th International Conference on Mercury as a Global Pollution, which was in Guizhou, China. To get over the jetlag before talking mercury and to make the most of my ticket, I went out a few days early to stay with Sara's lovely friend Nicola in Shanghai. Despite promises by virgin media, I couldn't use their phone out there so was a bit worried about how to find her when I arrived in Shanghai. I spoke to a nice man at the tube station who let me borrow his phone and managed to get in touch with her and met her at the tube station and popped to her flat.
Shanghai was great, lots going on and building work everywhere. Apparently lots of this is for the 2010 expo, to get everyone excited there are lots of statues of the mascot all over the place.

Shanghai was lots of fun, Nicola took me out for some great meals, I think my favourite was the Harbin style place which had lots of great vegetarian food. She also took me to a great prom night themed disco, in preparation she took me to the world of crap where I found some great temporary tattoos which turned out to be a little less temporary than I'd hoped which was a little bit of a worry when the conference started.

I had lots of fun wandering round Shanghai sightseeing in the days. I met a nice lady in people's square who asked me to take her picture, then took mine.

She then offered to take me to a tea ceremony, although it was the "only day I could ever see this" I turned down her kind offer to be my guide and went on with my sightseeing.

The urban planning centre was great, its full of scale models of how shanghai is meant to look when its "done" and there's a cool 360 degree screen where you fly around over a computer generated animation of the finished city.

Finding the cold stone creamery in Xintiandi was a nice little reminder of days when we used to go to the one in Wilmington for an afternoon ice-cream. The barbie shop/museum was fantastic, if expensive.
I did splash out on a Barbie passport which I should try to use when travelling, even if it is really just a fancy store card.

I also stopped for a nice cup of coffee and got to watch a fashion show

I took myself off to Yuyuan gardens
for a look at a bit of ye olde China style.It started tipping it down while I was in there, but I had quite a nice time sitting under cover listening to the rain and reading some Jilly Cooper. I had a wander round the "old city" surrounding the gardens
I wandered down to The Bund where there was ALOT of building work going on, I got the best view on the ferry over the river to Pudong thanks to Nicola's tip to avoid the sightseeing tours and just pop over the river

I managed to get off the ferry just as a massive storm was about to start. I strode off confidently to the tube station in completely the wrong direction and had a fun hour covering under a brolly trying to read my map, very glad that the tall buildings everywhere where more likely to get hit by the overhead lightning than me, but I did eventually manage to find a tube station.

On my last day Nicola took me to the top of the Marriott hotel
for a posh cuppa overlooking the city before we headed off to Nanjing Rd then I was off to Guiyang

Having been used to ignoring people in Shanghai and assuming everyone was trying to scam me, I almost walked past the people there to pick us up at the airport in Guiyang and take us to the conference. The conference was pretty cool, strange to see so many talks I wanted to see, but great to meet lots of new mercury people.

The last night of the conference we had a great conference dinner and mini-festival afterwards with some traditional stuff and a great local hip-hop band. Less great was the conference group thrown together from the scientists who could play/sing. A terrible jam of traditional Brazilian/hard rock/easy listening.

They put on some trips for us and I went off to Quigyan. It was mainly a shopping centre, but it was set in an ancient town.

I did a bit of shopping with my amazing haggling/Chinese skills. Wandering round I did manage to find some of the temples and see some sights

.

There was also loads of places where you could pick up a gun/bow and arrow and practice your shooting

I also took my self to Qianling Park on my last day. It was a nice break from the fairly grey city, also full of construction work.

I decided against going on the funfair rides

and managed to resist buying more stuff

I was also disturbed to see this sign

There were alot more little monkeys than I was expecting and they came alot closer to you than I liked. I may have screamed like a girl when one of them came to tap my leg as I reached for batteries in my bag. I gave up on that idea when I realised they thought I was going for food.

After getting through the monkey path bit of the park I found some ladies learning some marshal arts and then on the way out some more ladies doing a bit of aerobics.

I wandered back to my hotel via the market

I also managed to pop into a local opticians and with some sign language and writing/drawing get myself a new pair of frames for about £20 which if I ever get round to getting lenses will made a great China souvenir.

2010-02-03T20:14:00.004Z

Well, carrying on my travel update, 2008 saw a third visit to the US of A, and California. The third was another work trip which took me to San Fransisco in late December. Every year there is a bit of a mega-conference there for the American Geophysical Union, the AGU has about 16,000 scientists gathered to talk about all sorts like geology, oceanography, atmospheric science, climate stuff, and other earth stuff.

To make it more exciting over the road there was also a mega cancer research conference going on of a similar size. I've not been before as I've always been put off by its size, but as someone between the lines of different research themes who's a bit interdisciplinary it was one of the best meetings I've been to, if a little on the crazy side.

I also loved San Fransisco, the trams were great and it was such a treat to be in an American city you could get around without a car.

On my first day I walked and walked and learnt that some of those hills really are quite steep.

Excitingly the conference centre was just near Mel's Diner, who did a great line in tasty greasy food.

We also went off to a basketball match at Oakland, which frankly wasn't as exciting as a Seahawks match, but did mean I could get myself a foam finger.

I did some shopping wandering round the great Chinatown, the Castro and Haight Ashbury.

I checked out the windy windy Lombard Street, but I knew it wasn't as steep as the street me and Luke climbed in New Zealand.

I also managed to hire a bike and cycle over the golden gate bridge and caught a ferry back at sunset which was amazing, I took photo after photo of the amazing view.

We has a slightly less impressive view on our trip to Alcatraz,

but the rock was still fascinating and the audio tour was great.

I was very obedient as they told you where to look and where to walk on the tour, the hospital was proper creepy and I didn't like that so much.

On my final day I popped over to Berkley and snuck into the football ground for a great view back over the city before heading back in time to get my flight.

2009-11-29T19:44:00.013Z

Hmm, not been so good on the blogging lately. Where was I?
Ah yes, in Death Valley, Ca. After some amazing views from the top of a mountain at Dante's view we left the park. On the way we stopped at the Amargosa Opera House at Death Valley junction, but didn't get to sing.

From there is was south and through Baker and the world's largest thermometer

and across the border back into Nevada at Laughlin. Laughlin seemed to be a single road of casinos next to the river, although there were also some casino boats floating on the river. This is the fist place to gamble in Nv on this route and alot cheaper to stay in than Vegas. We had a night at the golden nugget casino and ate some tasty pizza over the road which seemed to be the only veggie option in the area.

From Laughlin we went south to pick up route 66, first stop Oatman, Az, a small former mining town.
Wild burros wander around later in the day but I think we were a bit early and we also had to leave before the wild west shoot-outs. It did have an excellent selection of hole-for-your-head photo ops and we popped into the Oatman Hotel where Clarke Gable and Carole Lombard stayed on their honeymoon. Luke took over the driving to take us over Sitgraves Pass, a very twisty turny bit of 66 over a mountain.

Then it was on to Kingman for some great fried food and our first find of the fantastic KGMN SuperCountry radio station. We decided to take the long route next and rather than getting on the I40 (which goes all the way to NC) we stuck with route 66 via
Hackberry,

Grand Canyon Caverns,

Seligman

and Williams.

Sadly we didn't have time to go down the Grand Canyon mines and we just about made it to the Grand Canyon before the sun went down for some great views of geology in action.

We stayed a night at Maswik Lodge, the plan was to see the sun come up but we got a pretty good view of the early morning sun over the canyon. It was a bit overwhelming, we kept stopping at different points and I kept taking pics of the amazing view, and then another. I kept worrying the next stop on my list would be the best place to see it and if we didn't stop there we'd miss out, but we headed off in the end (after just one more photo stop after another) and made our way back to Vegas. We stuck with the route 66 to get back which I could handle better than the scary interstate. We stopped off at the Hoover Dam where I had to get another souvenir coin which was $2!!!(well over the odds).

We got to Vegas just as the sun was low enough to blind Luke which combined with Vegas traffic and not really knowing where we were going made for a stressful arrival at the MGM. I'd found a deal on a suite which was very exciting, it was huge.

We had a bit more of exploring and went up to the Hilton to see Elvis.

I was very impressed with the Barry Mannilow shop and tempted by a few things but the price was just a bit too high.

We also went and had a look round downtown

and discovered some interestingly named restaurants back on the strip.

On our last night I finally figured out how to use my $15 fee fruit machine money and won BIG with it, $7 baby!

Just after that it was time to go and we went off to the airport for the last flight of the night out of Vegas. We took off with a cool view of the strip and headed to NC to catch up with the lovely people of Wilmington and eat great food.

2008-10-19T18:45:00.017+01:00

Me and Luke have also been off on holiday holidays. We went to stay with friends from the Indian Ocean cruise who live in lovely San Diego. We stayed for a few days in La Jolla, a posh seaside suburb, went to see a baseball game and got quite burnt, had a nice look at the Pacific seaside, went to the zoo for ages and watched a bit of Monday night football in the pub which was on very early as it was the west coast which was a bit confusing but just as well as we were still a bit jet lagged.

After that we set off on our road trip to Vegas.

View Larger Map
This is where we went, we left San Diego the pretty way which avoided highways but was a bit confusing. It took us over some mountains and some pretty views and windy roads. Near Palm Springs we passed a forest of wind turbines which were amazing, all a bit surreal. We took a detour on the way to twentynine palms to check out Pioneertown, built in the 1940's as a movie set for westerns. We spent the night at Twentynine Palms Inn on the edge of the Joshua Tree national Park. It was a pretty cool place, but not that relaxing as we had a desert mouse in our room and had to get up and try and trap him in the middle of the night.

The next day we had a good wander round the Joshua tree park where we saw some very cool cactus, big random rocks and many Joshua Trees.

After a morning in the trees we headed north to Vegas stopping at Amboy and hitting route 66 to get to the Mojave National Preserve to see Kelso Depot and lots more Joshua Trees.

We had to get on the big roads by then and soon got to the exciting Nevada Border and made our way to Vegas! We stayed 2 nights at Treasure Island and with a ridiculously comfy bed and a great view of the strip.

Vegas was as amazing as I’d hoped. We spent our day wandering along the strip popping into the hotels. At the MGM in exchange for money to spend in the CBS shop we reviewed a terrible sit-com Gary, unmarried. I think I lasted about 5 minutes before hitting the "I'd turn over now" button. They clearly listened to us as its now on US TV.
We also checked out the amazing fountains outside the Bellagio, it really was amazing, and we got to look down and see them from the top of the Eiffel Tower, although I was a bit gutted I couldn't make any measurements as the Volcano at the Mirage was broken.

We also went to Bill’s Gambling Casino for a brilliant free show where we got to see the fantastic Big Elvis sitting in a lounge IN VEGAS, very cool. We even stayed for the Karaoke afterwards and even though they randomly had PJ and Duncan’s Eternal Love Luke didn’t let me sing. Probably for the best.

After a couple nights in Vegas we headed north and made our way to Death Valley, stopping at the mining ghost town Rhyolite, Scotty’s Castle , got a bit work related going to Uhebe Crater and spending the night at Stovepipe Wells, I even had a quick swim, it was a bit warm. We had a good wander round the desert checking out the sand dunes at sunrise and then headed on to Badwater, the parks lowest point 282 feet below sealevel. It was really hot and I was disturbed to see a woman going for a bit of jog at about 11 am there. After that we went back up the hill to see the Natural Bridge, Artist’s Drive and wound our way up to Dante’s View.

2008-10-19T18:36:00.002+01:00

Luke's blog has been more active than here lately. I've been off in Hawaii (in July) looking at the volcanic activity and seeing how much mercury is coming out. The pics show the new activity at Halema'uma'u as well as the ocean entry point where Pu`u `O`o' lava meets the Pacific. The pen is with a bit of Pele's hair ejected from Pu`u `O`o starting to form beads. There's a fog sampler under the tree trying to see what's in the VOG. The pics are posted here.

2008-01-31T17:39:00.000Z

The lovely Terrorvision are going on tour! They're doing 4 gigs in May in Norwich, Bristol, Nottingham and London. I might pop along. There's lots of hits to listen to on here, including the whales and dolphins song, tequila and the doowap song.

2007-12-20T11:57:00.001Z

I spent about 3 weeks at sea this November sailing from Seychelles to Mauritius sampling trace metals in the atmosphere and helping out with deep sea dredging to get olivine rich basalts.
The Seychelles had some very pretty beaches and we were there a couple days before sailing.

The first few days I felt quite rough and I remember my main thought at this science meeting to plan where the first dredge sites would be was "do not throw up on the maps".

Thanks to a seasickness patch which slowly released scary chemicals I got better and was even able to have a go at some ping pong.

To pay my way I was helping out with the dredging. I got to help with the ropes which I wasn't very good at really, but I did my best.

I also had a go at helping with sorting out the rocks once they got on the boat from the sea floor. Mainly writing on bags and takings pics.

I collected aerosol samples and measured Hg in the gas phase while we were moving. I also tried to collect rain water, I managed to get 2 samples which wasn't bad although I got lots of calls at 2 am and kept just missing the rain.

After 3 weeks we got to Mauritius

As it was a US boat there's no bar on board so we went out to play on our first night in Port Louis.

The next day feeling a little fragile, we headed off to Rodrigues to get some more rocks.

and then to Reunion to hike for 8 hours to get some newer lava samples .

before heading back to Mauritius for more rocks and one last beach

All in all not a bad way to spend a November, although it was a bit of shock getting home. There are about 200 more photos here.

2007-12-06T11:45:00.000Z

I'm back from my travels at sea (photos to follow once I replace the cables I lost in Dubai airport) and find that Dolly has been in the news giving books to the kids of Rotherham. What a lady. Luke's band Keshco have also been busy posting new videos on the internet, there's the famous climate dance and the seasonal halloween.

2007-10-19T09:32:00.000+01:00

Bunny suicides are on the guardian website today. There's also a goodbye kitty shirt for my next conference.

2007-10-17T19:03:00.000+01:00

Looking at some country news I noticed there's a mullet festival in Florida in a place called Niceville. Is this famous? Its got a good line up for a cheap price, even Blake Shelton of the fab Austin song fame. The journey to Florida on a day's notice might push up the price slightly.

2007-10-03T17:48:00.000+01:00

Neil Hannon was on Radcliffe and Maconie, with no Radcliffe, on Monday (about an hour 10 in) talking about the cake sale and the cd in aid of Oxfam.

AND here's a link to free movie screenings, which yet again aren't near me. Its Elizabeth part 2, which we saw getting filmed in Cambridge last year, well there was a big tent and Luke saw people dressed all Elizabethan going in and out of it.

2007-09-28T12:44:00.001+01:00

I should have tuned into GMTV this morning, the boys (Ant and Dec of course) popped up doing the weather. I like GMTV on a Friday it has that showbiz bit, but that starts just as I should leave. Also stopping me get to work on time has been my new discovery of Quantum Leap on ITV3 at 7:50. I can only watch this channel when the weather is just right, which is probably for the best.

2007-09-25T09:44:00.000+01:00

I like a bit of monopoly, although most people refuse to play with me and claim I'm not to be trusted as the banker, such lies. Apparently I could play online in some odd online gambling version with real cabbies if i wanted though.
There's a new UK version out with towns around the country as streets;
Mayfair=St Albans,
Park Lane= Exeter
Bond Street= Nottingham,
Oxford Street= Cambridge,
Regent Street= Sheffield
Piccadilly= Stoke-on-Trent,
Coventry Street= Oxford
Leicester Square= Birmingham
Trafalgar Square= Norwich
Fleet Street= Keele
Strand= Dundee
Vine Street= Lincoln
Marlborough Street= Plymouth
Bow Street= Derby
Northumberland Avenue= London
Whitehall= Manchester
Pall Mall= Colchester
Pentonville Road= York
Euston Road= Cardiff
The Angel Islington= Middlesbrough
Whitechapel Road= Leeds
Old Kent Road= Liverpool

2007-09-19T09:50:00.000+01:00

I heard about diggerland on the radio the other day. Diggerland is an Adventure Park with real full size construction machinery. I'm not sure if you get to build/knock stuff down and it seems very expensive, but it does have a great tune on the website.

2007-08-21T12:18:00.000+01:00

Some scary news for my old home; K Fed is going tree climbing
"Britney Spears' former husband Kevin Federline is to guest-star in the next series of teen drama One Tree Hill. The aspiring rapper will portray a cocky rock singer, said a publicist for the show. The ex Mr. Britney Spears is scheduled to begin filming later this week in Wilmington NC, where the series is filmed. He'll appear in a multi-episode story arc."

I'm pleased to hear its got another series, I enjoyed the last few I found on the telly. I like a bit of teen angst and I get to do some Wilmington spotting. Apparently "the fifth season will "fast-forward" over the characters' college years and be set four years in the future. An online diary will fill in the gaps in the plot before the series airs in early 2008."

2007-08-02T11:42:00.000+01:00

Yay!! I'm finally licensed to drive a car in the UK. Brilliant! The UK test was about 5 times the length of the US one and made me go on the fast roads and everything. Phew. I think the obvious way to celebrate this is to post the clip of the AmyJoshForever song by off Hollyoaks which was on the lowculture site today and made me smile.

2007-07-19T14:45:00.001+01:00

Last weekend I got to go to the Latitude Festival in Suffolk, my first festival in a few years. It wasn't too big at about 20,000 and the loos weren't as bad as I'd feared. We saw lots of good bands and below are some of my photos from the weekend.

Sunset on thurday night, multicoloured sheep, the lake, midlake on the main stage.

Wilco on the main stage, me and Luke at guilty pleasures, in our tent, Mr Lonely, dear and Luke.

Wheat on the sunrise stage, me and some ale, Paris Motel on the sunrise, Andrew Bird on the main stage.

Gruff Rhyss on uncut stage in a fake telly, Gruff Rhyss on a fake plane, Camera Obscura on the uncut stage, Luke with pie and mash

2007-07-02T12:47:00.000+01:00

Could Urban Groove be my next keep fit route? After all "Urban Groove is a fun and funky street dance class". To clarify "Street dance is a term used to describe the kind of dancing that you see in music videos of artists such as Justin Timberlake, Usher, Britney or Beyonce and covers a wide range of styles rooted in urban music, hip hop and R’n’B." Sounds ace.

Race for Life - Mel's racing shocker!!!

2007-06-06T12:38:00.000+01:00

I shockingly managed to finish the Race for Life
this weekend, and there's still a chance to sponsor me on that link I think.
As it was in Oxford the morning started seeing some gents playing croquet.

Then I did a bit of warming up

and watched a strange dance routine by boys in lycra

Then I set off with the walkers, but managed to overtake a few people

and even ran a few bits and it took me about 40 mins to do the 5km

I even got a medal

World66 - visited countries

2007-05-30T11:24:00.000+01:00

A map of the countries I've been to:

create your own visited country map

2007-05-17T09:47:00.000+01:00

More photos are now online from my latest adventures.
These include my trip to Vienna .
I went for the European Geosciences Union General Assembly, a scarily big general science conference where I gave a talk on mercury and a poster on metals over the sea . I also ran away for a bit to go see the big wheel and eat nice cake, and go on a tram ride in a circle as recommended by Howard.

A day or so after that it was off to Taipei for another conference, this one was the International Conference on Evolution, Transfer and Release of Magmas and Volcanic Gases. It was two days of talks then three days of sightseeing. We had dinner at Taipei 101 which was/is the world's tallest building.
Sadly we ate on the 5th floor not at the top, but we did go to the top which took about 40 seconds and was a very cool journey.

The field trip meant we got to see geologists getting excited over rocks which is always good.

We also went to a tea town which involved several hours of being fed very nice green and oolong tea almost continually. Even I had to turn it down by the end of the day.

A few of us stayed on and did some fieldwork, measuring Hg and other gases coming out of the fumaroles at Tatun in Yangmingshan National Park.

After this me and Jane went onto the Philippines to do some more field work there with Mahar Lagmay.

It seems to have gone well and now I have many many graphs to plot and ponder.

2007-04-05T10:36:00.000+01:00

Race for Life - Mel's racing shocker!!!
For some reason I've signed up to do the Race for Life this year. It'll be in Oxford in June and I will hopefully be a lean mean gentle jogging machine by then. You can sponsor me on the link above.

2007-03-29T10:27:00.000+01:00

There's some pictures on the BBC NEWS website about Life in Stanley. Its quite exciting and strange to think I've been there.
I took these snaps:

Top Left: Penguin at Gypsy Cove
Bottom Left: Gypsy Cove
Top Right: View from postal plane we went on to look at the Islands
Bottom Left: Lady Elizabeth

The British Soap Awards 2007

2007-03-14T13:08:00.000Z

make your voice heard at The British Soap Awards 2007
All you have to do is make ONE choice in the following categories – Sexiest Male, Sexiest Female, Villain of the Year, Best Actor, Best Actress and, of course, Best British Soap. You get to choose between people from Corrie, Doctors, Easteenders, Emmerdale and the Oaks. Has Stella off The Enders revealed herself to be evil now? She's up for best villain.

2007-03-09T09:46:00.000Z

Oh Rennnnneee 'Allo 'Allo due for screen return
French wartime sitcom 'Allo 'Allo is returning for a one-off special, the BBC has confirmed.

2007-02-22T18:26:00.000Z

Ode to the Doughnut
Some recipes to make your own donught and hopefully avoid the woe I suffered that fateful day I waited all day to eat a Tesco jam doughnut and found no jam. I'm quite hungry now.

2007-02-14T12:44:00.000Z

Here are a range of cards you can print out and send along to celebrate various occasions. Seeing as its Valentines Day, can anyone be lovely and tell me what's gone wrong with the bottom of this blog and why the box stops halfway down the page please?

Picasa Web Albums - melanie - Snowy Oxford

2007-02-12T18:36:00.000Z

It was cold here last week, it snowed. It was very exciting, there were people having snowball fights and building snowmen. I decided not to cycle in as I realised I'd probably fall over so I walked in and took lots of pictures of:
my street The river from Magdalene Bridge
Radcliffe Camera and the Pitt Rivers Museum next door to where I work

Oxford looks very pretty in the snow, there are some more pictures I took here.

Etna eruption

2007-02-02T09:50:00.000Z

Look, its me!!! I just got sent this photo of my trip to Etna last year, I'm the once in the orange, that orange top was an excellent charity shop find, I was most impressed.

2007-01-26T14:13:00.000Z

Louis Theroux is back on the box on BBC Two on Sunday 28 January at 2100GMT. It sounds like a bit of a best of, with some new comments thrown in too.
"His visits with eccentric celebrities have made Louis Theroux an authority on weirdness. But here, writing for the Magazine, he says his time off from TV has made him ask whether weird is just in the eye of the beholder. "

(Incidentally, looking at the photo reveals the nature of his eye ailment. Where his glasses are you can see his face looks smaller --> he's short sighted. The profile of my face is magnified by my glasses as I'm long sighted. When they put fake glasses on characters on screen to make them look nerdy, you can see they're not real as you don't see any distortion at the kind of angle of this photo.)

2007-01-22T15:02:00.000Z

I was just listening again to Jonathan Ross (who has Ben Folds on about 2 hours in this week) and was curious after the chat about finding a celebrity lookylikey. Here are mine which seem to be based on being able to see my teeth in the photo....

2007-01-17T18:31:00.000Z

I have made myself yet another online photo album which has some picture taken of my trip home to the "big smoke" for chrimbo. You can marvel at my mad skillz with the camera. I had the carraige to myself on the way home and snapped away
I also got a bit cultured and went to Tate modern, although the slides were all booked up so we couldn't go down, which was probably for the best, looked a bit scary for me.

2007-01-08T11:25:00.000Z

Do you canoe? Here is a link to a petition for "legislation to give canoeists and all other users of un-powered craft the free right to navigate all rivers and canals in England and Wales (similar to the right already enjoyed by cyclists to use bridleways, cycle tracks and roads). " It'll make my friend Liz happy, she likes to kayak and apparently isn't allowed to many places.

2007-01-03T17:51:00.000Z

Aqua Teen Hunger Force: The Movie is on its way! Yay!
"Aqua Teen Hunger Force are ready to hit the big screen – the movie has been picked up by a US distributor and is set for release there in March.

For the many who won’t be familiar with the cult cartoon, it focuses (loosely) on three living pieces of fast food – Frylock, Master Shake and Meatwad, who live in New Jersey and often have adventures involving their neighbour's pool. In the early days of the show they used to fight crime and teen hunger, but the twisted nature of the show meant that by its fourth season anything resembling an ongoing plot had gone completely out the window."

2007-01-03T13:04:00.000Z

I do like the stuff in the news today about a leaflet released by Sense about Science trying to stop rubbish science getting out of hand, and if you're a scientist type you can offer your services as someone to get in touch with to check stuff out...
"People in the public eye are often drawn into promoting theories, therapies, and campaigns that make no scientific sense. The leaflet, entitled Need to Speak to a Scientist? includes numerous examples of quackery and pseudo-scientific nonsense attributed to celebrities."

2007-01-02T15:28:00.000Z

Happy New Year!!!!
Welcome back to your puter. Here is a link to an album covers quiz where there are some details off various owlbums to identify. I only got a couple and then gave up but if you like you can have a go and maybe win a prize.

2006-12-23T12:54:00.000Z

Seasons Greetings! I had an exciting outing with my mum to a carol concert at the Royal Opera House and we got to join in on a few of them. If you're feeling festive try a chrimbo quiz or have a sing along to Good King Wenceslas...

Everybody sings this bit

Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the feast of Stephen
When the snow lay round about
Deep and crisp and even
Brightly shone the moon that night
Though the frost was cruel
When a poor man came in sight
Gath'ring winter fuel

Gentlemen
"Hither, page, and stand by me
If thou know'st it, telling
Yonder peasant, who is he?
Where and what his dwelling?"

Ladies
"Sire, he lives a good league hence
Underneath the mountain
Right against the forest fence
By Saint Agnes' fountain."

Gentlemen

"Bring me flesh and bring me wine
Bring me pine logs hither
Thou and I will see him dine
When we bear him thither."

Ladies
Page and monarch forth they went
Forth they went together
Through the rude wind's wild lament
And the bitter weather

"Sire, the night is darker now
And the wind blows stronger
Fails my heart, I know not how,
I can go no longer."

Gentlemen
"Mark my footsteps, my good page
Tread thou in them boldly
Thou shalt find the winter's rage
Freeze thy blood less coldly."

Everybody Sing!
In his master's steps he trod
Where the snow lay dinted
Heat was in the very sod
Which the Saint had printed
Therefore, Christian men, be sure
Wealth or rank possessing
Ye who now will bless the poor
Shall yourselves find blessing

2006-12-19T13:38:00.000Z

"Britain's Got Talent is ITV1's newest talent show where there are absolutely no rules - any talent, any age - simple as that!" I've heard Ant and Dec are going to be hosting, it might be time to start practicing my excellent powerpoint presentation on powerpoint presentation.

2006-12-15T09:56:00.000Z

The Best Of Adam & Joe Podcast thing on Xfm: "Adam & Joe have put together a special Best Of, with new bits, specially made pictures and downloadable album artwork."

2006-12-13T11:34:00.000Z

Josh Rouse is making some more music, a few songs as She's Spanish, I'm American with Paz Suay. There a couple of songs on the link, although they wont play well for me. Josh Rouse is also touring and plays Cat's Cradle Chapel Hill, NC. I've been there, go Heels (or something).

2006-12-12T09:40:00.000Z

Set the video...Mrs 'Arris goes to Paris is on 5 on Friday at 1:35.
Light comedy in which an English charwoman (Angela Lansbury) sets her heart on owning an exclusive Dior gown from a boutique in Paris, and sets off across the Channel to make her dreams come true. Based on a novel by Paul Gallico, the film is directed by star Angela Lansbury's son.

It also has Fred Elliott off Corrie in it. I recommend a viewing.

2006-12-08T10:46:00.000Z

Riders In The Sky are doing a cruise, cool!

"Get your suitcases and passport ready for the musical vacation of a lifetime on the Mexican Riviera! Riders In The Sky are setting sail on the 10th annual Grand Ole Opry Cruise, January 21-28, 2007 aboard Carnival's Pride. You too have the opportunity to enjoy an entire week of special Opry entertainment featuring Bill Anderson, Jimmy Dickens, Lorrie Morgan, and of course America's Favorite Cowboys, Riders In The Sky!"

I had a look at their tour dates and it looks like they're meant to be in Illinois when Dolly plays the UK so perhaps they're not support after all. I also noticed they have booking right up till march 2008, busy boys. Its their 30th anniversary next year you know? If you click on their website they have songs scrolling along to listen to too.

2006-11-30T10:51:00.000Z

Look!!

Its my sister doing her Trapeze stuff (I believe this is a half angel). She's a strong lady. Here's a website with more info on her circus skills life...
Static Moves

2006-11-28T10:36:00.000Z

Take That concert for radio 2 can be listened to online, an hour of tunes. They sing some new ones and some old ones but sadly Gary doesn't ask if anybody fancies a dance, under the moonlight.

2006-11-27T15:09:00.000Z

BBC - collective - jarvis cocker 'jarvis' review plus full tracks
a video watch and two songs to listen to

2006-11-22T10:03:00.000Z

It may be a bit late for boys to participate in this year's Movember: "Movember (the month formally known as November) is a charity event held during November each year.

At the start of Movember guys register with a clean shaven face. The Movember participants known as Mo Bros then have the remainder of the month to grow and groom their moustache and along the way raise as much money and awareness about male health issues as possible."

2006-11-14T15:50:00.000Z

What will those crazy scientists think of next???:

"Australian scientists have created a T-shirt that allows air guitarists to play real music - without resorting to a real guitar.

The T-shirt has motion sensors built into its elbows that pick up movements and relay them wirelessly to a computer which interprets them as guitar riffs."

2006-11-13T10:33:00.000Z

Holidays are coming. What to get for chrimbo? Well I should probably admit having a real life pony live with me in a terrace in town probably wouldn't be all that fair. So the obvious solution is to get me Butterscotch the Pony I'd love it and pat it and feed it carrots and plait its hair and EVERYTHING! and its only £300, what a bargain! you even get an adoption certificate.

"Meet your beautiful new pony, Butterscotch. Not only does he look like the real thing, he has animated, touch activated features and will move his neck, eyes, ears, mouth and tail. Place your head near its nostrils you really feel the air as the pony 'harumphs'. He really neighs too! And Butterscotch comes with grooming equipment - brush & comb. You can reward Butterscotch for being good by feeding him a carrot. It's time to say, 'Mummy, I want a pony!'"

2006-11-10T14:06:00.000Z

Liz sent me a link to this strange lateral thinking puzzle thing designed to make me feel thick. I have managed to get through a few of the levels now but it would probably be best if I forgot I'd ever seen weffriddles. You look at a webpage which has a puzzle in it, you then find the solution to the puzzle by typing it into the address bar. all very fancy.

2006-11-03T17:45:00.000Z

Come off it day : 4 November 2006 : People's Power Station

There's a plan to BLACKOUT LONDON tomorrow, 4th November 2006 Starting at Sunset 4.30 pm to 7.30 pm. Must be part of this demo thing that's on tomorrow....

"You are invited to take part in the largest demonstration of People Power that London has ever seen on Saturday 4th November 2006, by turning off all your lights, and switching off all your non-essential electrical equipment at Sunset.

We want the power demand in the United Kingdom to reduce so much that the newspapers are obliged to report it. We want the lights to go out in London, so that on the evening of 4th November 2006, the dimming effect will be visible from space.

If you are at home, switch off your set-top boxes, pull all the chargers out of the wall sockets, turn off lights in any room you are not using, switch off any machine with a digital clock in it, unplug the hi-fi and the TV and the games console, de-frost your freezer, switch off your fridge for a couple of hours. Turn the central heating thermostat down to 16 degrees and put a woolly sweater/jumper on if you're cold."

2006-11-02T17:07:00.000Z

Dolly in the news...'You need to shine if you're going to be a star': "As she prepares for her biggest ever tour of Britain, Dolly Parton tells Paul Sexton why she feels naked in plain clothes - and why she still loves to shock "

2006-10-30T17:48:00.000Z

Merge Records has the video to M. Ward's Chinese Translation off his Post-War owlbum. Its an animated tale and I like the video and the song lots and lots.

2006-10-30T15:01:00.000Z

Hackney council aren't very happy at being labeled the worst place to Live in the UK 2006, and have set up this I love Hackney e-card website where you can send an ecard to channel 4 and tell them Phil and Kirsty's sister were wrong. I'm never sure which bits are hackney and which are harringay and which are somewhere else. I think the great fabric shop on Mare street is in Hackney so its a thumbs up from me.

2006-10-26T17:23:00.000+01:00

This week listen again to Marc Riley's Brain Surgery on 6music and hear the Divine Comedy playing Bad ambassador, Lady of a certain age and Raspberry beret in the studio.

2006-10-25T15:49:00.000+01:00

Park the virtual car. A game Luke sent me which reminds me I probably should give up on the idea of learning to drive as I am generally rubbish at it. You have to park the car against the clock. In the real world I'm not that bad at parking (when the car is free of spectators).

2006-10-25T14:52:00.000+01:00

Count in the Square - Trafalgar Square, 4th November . There's a climate change demo type thing planned in a few weeks in London. It doesn't seem very clear what they're planning to do exactly other than say climate change is bad.

"With street bands, entertainment, film, performance and speakers - come and be part of the greatest climate chaos event of the year."

2006-10-24T10:00:00.000+01:00

Empire has a bunch of movie quizzes online at the moment. The latest one is on Back to the Future, I managed 16/20 which gives me a rating of Great Scott! You have to register to have a go though.

2006-10-19T10:08:00.000+01:00

I got sent this email to my Cambridge account this moring, some gentle reading if you like that kind of thing...
The complete work of Charles Darwin: "This site currently contains more than 50,000 searchable text pages and 40,000 images of both publications and handwritten manuscripts... More than 150 ancillary texts are also included, ranging from secondary reference works to contemporary reviews, obituaries, published descriptions of Darwin's Beagle specimens and important related works for understanding Darwin's context."

2006-10-18T11:11:00.000+01:00

A great campaign at the UK Tea Council says you should have 4 cups of tea a day (but sadly this is as well as all that fruit): "The latest research has shown that drinking your cuppa can help you maintain your health as part of a healthy lifestyle. The antioxidants, hydrating properties, caffeine and fluoride found in tea mean that you need never feel guilty about reaching for the teapot."

- Science types say so and everything!

Approximately 40% of the nation's fluid intake today will be tea
Tea without milk has no calories. Using semi-skimmed milk adds around 13 calories per cup, but you also benefit from valuable minerals and calcium
Tea with milk provides 16% of daily calcium requirement in 4 cups
Tea contains some zinc and folic acid
Tea with milk contains Vitamin B6, Riboflavin B2 and Thiamin B1
Tea is a source of the minerals manganese, essential for bone growth and body development, and potassium, vital for maintaining body fluid levels
The average cup of tea contains less than half the level of caffeine than coffee. One cup contains only 50mg per 190ml cup
Tea is a natural source of fluoride and drinking four cups makes a significant contribution to your daily intake
Only 11% of UK water supply has fluoride added
Green and black teas are from the same plant, Camelia sinensis, and contain similar amounts of antioxidants and caffeine

2006-10-09T10:53:00.000+01:00

Read about my cousin's trip to India where he is writing about conversions to Buddhism, Ambedkar 2006:

"For the first time, the movement of conversion to Buddhism among the poorest and most oppressed people in India is moving out from its heartland in Maharashtra to include people across the country. In many ceremonies across India, tens, and in some cases hundreds of thousands of people will become Buddhists over the next few weeks. This started in Nagpur on Monday in ceremonies that included 1-2 million people (most already Buddhists and some new converts). The movement is now expanding dramatically to include other communities in Maharashtra, notably the Matungs – a second group of ex-‘untouchables’ – and the ‘criminal and nomadic tribes’."

2006-10-06T13:44:00.000+01:00

I'm back from a few days in Sicily where I went to go and measure mercury at Mount Etna. Sadly there were quite a few things that went wrong like traffic jams-->missed flight, my machine not measuring any mercury, cash machine eating my card. I did get to go up Etna though which was pretty hard work. We drove most of the way and probably only climbed for about half an hour but as its ~3km high (~1.9 miles) everything is pretty hard work as the air is a bit on the thin side. I did make it up to the top, very kindly Marco and Sergeo carried my Hg instrument for me which is about 15 kg I think, its heavy anyway. I got up a couple of times and took some pictures.
Click here for more photos
The first day we climbed it was pretty windy and there was lots of the plume where we sat. The wind died down the second day and we got a pretty good view of the South East crater erupting.

Here you can see and hear strombolian activity at the crater, with bits of rock being flung high in the air.

Apparently this shows a vent opening.
all this was pretty cool, but I also caught a bit of the Italian Deal or no deal!! I was almost late for dinner while trying to tell the lady on the telly to take the 25000 euros. She didn't listen to me. There was a lot more singing than with Noel and the bit I didn't like so much, the host goes over to the box and has a sneaky peek at the number before we get to see what's inside. Wrong!

2006-10-06T11:13:00.000+01:00

Well shockingly I don't know enough about the US of A to become a citizen...

I Failed the US Citizenship Test

Oops, I only got 2 out of 10 right!

Have a go if you like

2006-09-26T12:03:00.000+01:00

N.C. Cohabitation Law Struck Down, But Legal Fight Over The Issue Might Not Be Over

"A North Carolina Superior Court judge has issued a formal ruling declaring that the state's law barring unmarried couples from living together is unconstitutional and blocked state officials from enforcing it."

"The law, passed in 1805, says 'If any man and woman, not being married to each other, shall lewdly and lasciviously associate, bed and cohabit together, they shall be guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor.'...About 144,000 unmarried couples live together in North Carolina, according to the 2000 census."

2006-09-25T17:15:00.000+01:00

W I L C O - N E W S I'm a bit confused about subscribing to podcasts, but Wilco have one here and there are many songs to listen to if you click on the link.

2006-09-25T10:14:00.000+01:00

I finally got to see The Bluetones yesterday at the Zodiac, a few minutes walk from my house. Every time they played in the past I've been off on field work or watching CD:UK or something. They were good and played a nice selection of old and new tunes and had entertaining chit chat and seemed very pleasant gents. As if that wasn't enough excitement for one weekend I also cooked some tea for some mates and got to see my nephews AND saw this AMAZING bit of artwork in hollyoaks.

2006-09-21T13:10:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow (Sept 22nd) is apparently World Carfree Day . This website doesn't mention the day they've chosen anywhere obvious, but might have something interesting. There are some things about the European Car Free Day which is also tomorrow here, it would be nice to have less cars on the scary bit of road tomorrow anyway.

"This is an opportunity for car drivers to try a different and more sustainable way of traveling to work by leaving the car at home and walking, or taking a bus or train, or cycling around town."

2006-09-20T14:24:00.000+01:00

More Beck news...
6 music have deeclared 2nd October Beck Day
"The maverick musician is taking over the airwaves throughout the day, playing live sessions, while the new record will also be our Album of the Day."

2006-09-19T17:25:00.000+01:00

Here are some pictures of Oban, I went up to Scotland for the biannual Challenger society oceanography conference. Some of these pics are from the afternoon trip to go look at the geology of Kerrera. It was quite impressive in bits, some of it was just looking at a not very pretty rock and being told its tale but the unconformities were quite impressive. Those are where you get 2 different rock types right next to each other. I got to take a step and travel a few million years in the rock record.

2006-09-19T10:05:00.000+01:00

Here's wishing you all a great Talk Like A Pirate Day - September 19

In celebration...what do you get if you cross a pirate with a pop superstar???

Justin Shiver Me Timbers Lake

2006-09-18T09:54:00.000+01:00

Hello, I'm back from 2 weeks of conferences, pics of Oban to follow. My sister sent me this link to my cousin Vishvapani's writing on meditation and Buddism. Might be an interesting read.

2006-09-07T10:29:00.000+01:00

Beck Alert
He was on Jonathan Ross's radio show last Saturday in the last 15 mins or so of the show having a chat and then they played the new single but not live.

2006-09-06T11:46:00.000+01:00

OOh, there's a whole section in the Guardian online on the British Association science fair that I'm at this week at UEA. I'm in the perspectives bit with a pretty poster to show that scientists are people too.

2006-08-31T17:54:00.000+01:00

David gets the cover pic on the Times Higher Education Supplement
"The rather dry title of "university lecturer in igneous processes" bears
little relation to how exciting David Pyle's job is.

As one of the UK's leading volcanologists - he has just been poached
from Cambridge University by Oxford University - he spends his time
scaling volcanoes all over the world and trawling library archives to
work out what makes them behave the way they do."

2006-08-17T11:54:00.000+01:00

There are plans to make a sequel to the hilarious comedy Bean, its set to be called Bean 2 and is due out on my next birthday! I'm glad that's my celebrations sorted well in advance. (I've never seen bean, but I could barely get through 10 minutes of it on the telly, its almost as bad as 2.4 children where they have to replace the expensive fish. Is bean the movie actually a masterpiece?)

2006-08-16T13:53:00.000+01:00

Divine comedy in session on 6 music can be listened to again on the internet for a bit. They do the new single "to die a virgin" and my favourite new one "a lady of a certain age". They're also off on tour again playing Leeds met and Oxford Brooks, I think tickets are about Â£17, its expensive this gig business. Maybe I'll save my pennies so I can finally see the bluetones when they play near the new house in Oxford.

2006-08-01T15:07:00.000+01:00

Finger cot rolled anti-static latex
ewww

2006-08-01T13:32:00.000+01:00

Macmillan Cancer Support
A petition about expensive parking in hospitals

2006-07-31T14:42:00.000+01:00

I didn't get to go see the Etna eruption, but there are some pictures and videos of it here.

"At 23:30 local time on 14 July 2006, a fissure opened on the east flank of the South-East Crater (SEC) summit cone of Mt. Etna. Two vents along the fissure (3000m and 3050m, respectively) produced a lava flow spreading east to the Valle del Bove.

A helicopter survey carried out on 16 July at 7:30 showed a braided lava flow field up to 1.7 km long. Mapping of the lava flow field allowed a calculation of its surface area, estimated at about 300,000 square meters, giving a mean output rate of about 2.6 cubic meters per second during the first 32 hours of eruption, assuming a mean of 2 m thickness of the flow.

Moderate strombolian activity from a third upper vent, located at about 3100 m on the east flank of the SEC, just below the wide depression that cuts its eastern flank, produced a little ash fallout on Catania during the opening phase of the eruptive fissure.

The composition of the ash is 80% juvenile, with small amount of lithics probably due to the opening phase of the vents.

The lava flow field is emplacing on the west wall of the Valle del Bove, with two main flow fronts that, at 7:30 of 17 July, reached about 2100 m a.s.l. spreading north of the Serra Giannicola Piccola ridge."

2006-07-19T12:02:00.000+01:00

Un film de papillon, a trailer for a french film which amused me (doesn't take much).

2006-07-04T16:56:00.000+01:00

B3TA :HOW TO POACH AN EGG. My dad used to poach an egg in a special egg poacher thingy, but it looks like extensive research suggests you can get away with clever use of cling film.

2006-06-21T15:24:00.000+01:00

Frances and Phil were nice enough to take me on a day out to Robin Hood's Bay to get a bit of practice walking up hills. They were even strict and got me to carry the water. Here are some pretty pictures from the walk along Cleveland Way and some of York.

2006-06-20T16:31:00.000+01:00

spooky mind reading type thing, or is it????

2006-06-14T11:29:00.000+01:00

Every week is bike week for me as I'm too lazy to walk in to work but there's an official one too. Bike2Work runs for the whole of Bike Week, Bike Week 2006 (17-25 June). I quite miss the American version, I got loads of free stuff from that, I still have my stylish UNCW decorative cushion.

2006-06-12T17:38:00.000+01:00

Me and my Mum had a nice day walking round Cambridge, there's some Photos of Cambridge in the sunshine. I also have evidence that bouncy castles are brilliant from Liz's birthday party this weekend.

2006-06-09T17:47:00.000+01:00

Into the 'Mouth of Hell' The article by the journalist we met in Nicaragua about the guys climbing into the crater on the trip.

2006-06-09T11:43:00.000+01:00

Do you want to be liked? This is a bit disturbing.

2006-06-09T09:44:00.000+01:00

Scissors, paper, stone ... judgment
"Fed up with listening to two lawyers bicker for weeks over where to interview a witness in a civil lawsuit, US district judge Gregory Presnell decided to set a precedent by ordering the pair to settle the matter with a game of scissors, paper, stone."

2006-06-08T10:47:00.000+01:00

Here's a link with some ways to make OfficeGuns from stationary produce. Maybe this is why access to stationary is quite difficult where I work.

2006-06-02T17:21:00.000+01:00

While looking for some batteries for my new pump I found this bizare Power Humor Page including Stupid Power Supply Tricks. I think my favourite joke (which is © Copyright Mark W. Lund 2005) was...

What is cylindrical, sweet, brown, and has 10,000 ohms?

A chocolate-covered resistor.

2006-06-02T10:48:00.000+01:00

Adam and Joe's Radio shows are online, or bits of them. I listened to the first couple which had about 20 minutes of chat. It was a bit scary cause I had to get that itunes thing that I don't really understand but I was amused by their commentary of the R Kelly Opera thing (which I saw on VH1 and I may have to add to my DVD rental thingy to see again as its ace).

2006-06-01T13:42:00.000+01:00

Abbey Aid the gig at Abbey Stadium didn't quite go to plan.

"Organisers said the Abbey had attracted about 1,000 pop fans on each night...Following Friday and Saturday's concerts, finance director Nick Pomery admitted the events - featuring Lee Ryan, Liberty X and X Factor stars Journey South and Chico - had lost cash."

Lee off of Blue also added "I've got a friend who used to live round here - it's a beautiful place. Is it quite boring though?"

2006-06-01T13:19:00.000+01:00

DOLLY and Neighbours are giving you the chance of a lifetime to audition to join the cast of Neighbours and live out your dream. They say you have to be between 12 and 18 but Dawson's Creek Jack was 30 odd when he was in that so surely with my youthful looks I'd be fine.

2006-05-24T17:20:00.000+01:00

All of the Eurovision Song Contest videos can still be seen on this radio 2 website. I liked the Latvian one best I think, probably for the nice puppet thing and the boy's heart flying out of his jacket. Very clever. I think France would probably have been quite a pretty song too without the lady's bad singing. I did enjoy Finland though and their day of rockoning. My mate in Sweden tells me their commentators were very upset their fundamentalist Christian Carola didn't win but did offer some grudging support for their neighbours (In unrelated news he also said he went to a wedding and hung out with Joe Mangle off Neighbours!!!!!!!!!!!!!, !!!!!!!!!!!) Luke's full Eurovision review is on the way...

I also found the world cup website has a Predictor Game, a handy spreadsheet that lets you fill in all the scores and the route to the final, if you like that kind of thing. There was also this picture of GOLEO VI, the mascot, which scares me a little bit.

2006-05-19T10:07:00.000+01:00

Sadly, the digibox I got refused to work with the weird aerial in our flat, so not only no E4 for me but also no chance to watch semi-final of Eurovision. The Finnish rockers made it through but the Icelandic lady didn't, how rubbish! Latvia were already through without the semi-final but sadly my other favourite Estonia wont be in the final. There's a Eurovision song contest score card to print off if you want a nice table to watch with tomorrow.

Latvia's entry from 2000 Brainstorm, who did the lovely my star and with the singer who hosted Eurovision, are playing in London and Brighton this week. There's also a link on their website so you can book them to play.

2006-05-18T18:11:00.000+01:00

I went to see the Divine Comedy last night at the Junction which was super. He's so little and lovely. It was the first night of the UK tour I believe. I liked the new songs (although some of them could have been old ones). The new single is here and was quite bouncy. I liked the one about a lady of a certain age too. There were lots of people on stage, some xylophones (or glockenspiels?) and a violin and cello and all sorts, some of it sounded a bit squeaky though. I enjoyed it and there was some bouncing about, although with it being a school night not that much jumping by me and it was an hours walk home.

There's a little greeting from Mr Hannon at this site where you can enter a competition I think, but its worth a look for the nice hello.

2006-05-16T13:47:00.000+01:00

Its very nearly time for Eurovision!!! Horay! Worryingly the excellent Icelandic entry from Slivia Night has to go into the semi-final and might not make it into Saturday's show. There'll be 23 countries in the semi final and 10 will go through to Saturday.

In the BBC poll the Finnish rockers are running away with the vote. Of the 6 countries to choose from, they get over 80% of the votes. What can this all mean???

2006-05-15T12:01:00.000+01:00

Summer must be fast approaching, the sign up is open for The Summer Burn 2006. This year there's an extra step to the signing up procedure, so hopefully it wont be like last year when I sent my 2 cds all the way from America to Malaysia and England and neither of them sent me one back, how rude!

In other exciting news Shipwrecked finished this weekend. I somehow got quite obsessed by it, I even had to tape it when I went away for the weekend. I did start watching it and wondered how it was still going, and I was quite disapointed with the two battling islands idea. Everyone seemed very unpleasant, but then I found myself warming to the lovely sharks and then being thrilled when they beat the dirty tigers. Hooray!!!

2006-05-12T13:16:00.000+01:00

New Photos for you to see of me and Luke's adventures in Spain last weekend. It was lots of fun, Granada was gorgeous and the Alhambra was amazing. Wedding in Marbella was great, Stefana looked great and very happy.

The lovely Alhambra, all very impressive.

and it had wonderful gardens which smelled lovely.

WE spoke a little bit of Spanish and ate some (veggie) paella here.

The bride and groom at the lovely wedding by the sea.

sadly the on way home ryanair diverted us from stansted to Birmingham, with an extra hour or two on the plane looking at our bus to the terminal.

2006-05-12T09:53:00.000+01:00

The end of an era, Kate sent me this new story. Originally only intended to run for 6 episodes, Byker Grove is to end after 17 years.

After bringing us the magical talents of not just PJ and Duncan with their singing and DJing skillz. There was also Geoff man, physcandrycs, a boy kissing a boy, her off corrie and eastenders, and spuggie!

Blogging in an Oxfordshire stylee

Race for Life - Mel's racing shocker!!!

World66 - visited countries

The British Soap Awards 2007

Picasa Web Albums - melanie - Snowy Oxford

Etna eruption

Everybody sings this bit

Good King Wenceslas looked outOn the feast of StephenWhen the snow lay round aboutDeep and crisp and evenBrightly shone the moon that nightThough the frost was cruelWhen a poor man came in sightGath'ring winter fuel

Gentlemen"Hither, page, and stand by meIf thou know'st it, tellingYonder peasant, who is he?Where and what his dwelling?"

Ladies"Sire, he lives a good league henceUnderneath the mountainRight against the forest fenceBy Saint Agnes' fountain."

Gentlemen

"Bring me flesh and bring me wineBring me pine logs hitherThou and I will see him dineWhen we bear him thither."

LadiesPage and monarch forth they wentForth they went togetherThrough the rude wind's wild lamentAnd the bitter weather"Sire, the night is darker nowAnd the wind blows strongerFails my heart, I know not how,I can go no longer."

Gentlemen"Mark my footsteps, my good pageTread thou in them boldlyThou shalt find the winter's rageFreeze thy blood less coldly."

Everybody Sing!In his master's steps he trodWhere the snow lay dintedHeat was in the very sodWhich the Saint had printedTherefore, Christian men, be sureWealth or rank possessingYe who now will bless the poorShall yourselves find blessing

Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the feast of Stephen
When the snow lay round about
Deep and crisp and even
Brightly shone the moon that night
Though the frost was cruel
When a poor man came in sight
Gath'ring winter fuel

Gentlemen
"Hither, page, and stand by me
If thou know'st it, telling
Yonder peasant, who is he?
Where and what his dwelling?"

Ladies
"Sire, he lives a good league hence
Underneath the mountain
Right against the forest fence
By Saint Agnes' fountain."

"Bring me flesh and bring me wine
Bring me pine logs hither
Thou and I will see him dine
When we bear him thither."

Ladies
Page and monarch forth they went
Forth they went together
Through the rude wind's wild lament
And the bitter weather

"Sire, the night is darker now
And the wind blows stronger
Fails my heart, I know not how,
I can go no longer."

Gentlemen
"Mark my footsteps, my good page
Tread thou in them boldly
Thou shalt find the winter's rage
Freeze thy blood less coldly."

Everybody Sing!
In his master's steps he trod
Where the snow lay dinted
Heat was in the very sod
Which the Saint had printed
Therefore, Christian men, be sure
Wealth or rank possessing
Ye who now will bless the poor
Shall yourselves find blessing