iceLife The half heard mutterings of a Kiwi a long, long way from home.

A beautiful, strangely absorbing photo of London, as photographed by Locals and Tourists.

Blue pictures are by locals. Red pictures are by tourists. Yellow pictures might be by either.

Base map © OpenStreetMap, CC-BY-SA

Uploaded by Eric Fischer on 5 Jun 10, 5.27PM BST.

Thanks to JoshuaJNoble for the tip.

They say you only get 15 minutes of fame, me, I got about 60 seconds.

Then its good enough for me!

I've HAD IT WITH NOKIA.

Nokia - your N series phones ALL SUCK GOAT.

I got sent this video ad today, for the Apple iPhone 3G and I was considering it anyway, but now... I'm in the virtual queue at the O2 store. Twice, even.

All it needs is a decent Flash player. That will come. And the camera sucks. But I can live with that. It turns out the Nokia N-Series phone camera kind of sucks, even with x mega pixels yada yada. Thats assuming it works when you want it to. And that it actually writes the file when you're done. Neither of which, in my experience, can be relied upon one little bit.

And don't even get me started on the multiple crash scenario nor the taking better than 1 minute to display SMS inbox content.

I find it interesting in a way, for years I was anti-Flash, and for years I have been anti-Apple (3 dud iPods, vendor lock-in, stinking iTunes....) but today I find myself working on the UI side almost completely in Flash, and looking forward to the day I can go Apple for my phone. I am bolstered knowing these days it is easier to side step iTunes than it used to be. NOT that I plan to side step your glorious product, Mr Jobs! No sir! Not me. ;-)

Anyway I figure, it all just goes to show its the current product offering that seals the deal.

Yesterday you sucked, but today - I'm going your way.

Adobe - Flex is the best UI tech going just now. Why didn't you do this years ago? Apple - i'm trusting you your iPhone is built better than your iPods ever were! I chewed 3 shuffles without even trying. I figure I will take better care of this baby though now I'm older and... stuff. OK I admit I have my fingers crossed just a little bit.

Oh yeah, and I find in tech it always pays to be firm, yet flexible with your opinion :-)
What way is the wind blowing today?

Those of you that know Adrian are probably not surprised he finds this funny.

"Verily," the Lord said unto me, "lifteth 250 pounds on the bench press. Thine number of repetitions shall be eight."
"Lord," I replied, "this burden is too great, as I have injured my right wrist whilst doing curls."
"My son," the Lord replied, "place your burden unto me. I shall be your strength, your rock, your light and your pectorals and sundry arm muscles."
Obeying, I reclined upon the bench of pressing. My pipes quivered, my manboobs strained. "The bar riseth," I shouted. "The Lord hath lifted me up."
Then, my wrist gaveth and my burden crashed down upon me.
"Pussy," sayeth the Lord. "Thou art a Mary and a Mary thou shall remain."
I wept.

Its from the comments on this article about gyms for Christians. I love it! Full credit to whoever Sarcasto is.

In other news - we're off to Radiohead in about.... 3 hours. They are doing a gig Saturday night in Nimes, France, in an old Roman ampitheatre.
Photos to follow (of Radiohead, they don't let you take photos in gyms, not even the Christian kind)

It was the Monday night following a great weekend, and what better way to wind down than heading down to the Royal Albert Hall to catch a true great of modern rock music laying down some fine new tunes. Mark Knopfler.

You might remember him as the last popular musician before plastic surgery was invented, or perhaps that guy with the headband. My father raised me on Dire Straits, so I remember him as the soundtrack to my childhood.

Dire Straits was the first concert I ever went to all the way back in 1985, at Athletic Park in Wellington. I was 11. My Dad took me. It was the Brothers in Arms tour. It was the first time I ever felt a kick drum in my chest. I remember it like yesterday.

And I saw them again in 199... something. Again Athletic Park. This time we sat on the hill outside Athletic Park, with my friends from school, and watched the show over the fence for free.
That was the Calling Elvis tour. I didn't like the single so much, but it was still a good show.

Tonight, my third time, with Mr Knopfler, once in each of three decades.
And he's better than ever.

A more considered, more soulful Mark Knopfler now leads a band unafraid to experiment with traditional instruments and arrangements. Although Dire Straits never particularly concerned themselves with the rules of pop song composition, Mark solo has a complete disregard. Instead, they play the tunes they wanna play, and how they wanna play them. Surrounded by the best in the business, its a formula that few would dare attempt - and it works.

This was a fantastic show, 2 and a bit hours, 3 encores. The stand out solo tune remains "Sailing to Philadelphia" but plenty of numbers from the new album got an airing and went down well.

Here is a slideshow of the 8 photos I took at this gig.

Much to our delight there was room for a few Dire Straits numbers too. I have never seen a standing ovation at the RAH, this night we saw 3.

We were treated to 6 of the best, and it was just like old times:

Telegraph Road
Sultans of Swing
So Far Away
Romeo and Juliet
Brothers in Arms
Going Home

The boy can still play.

Our friend Abbe did something totally original for her birthday - she took a lucky group of friends, including us, on a guided walk through Highgate, in North London.

We saw sites of interest including where both Dickens and Coleridge used to live, several pubs of note and almost a cemetery. Finished off with a great meal at a local meze place. It was a very fun day. Thanks Abbe!

Here are 11 photos of the Highgate Walking tour and there's a wee video of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner outside Coleridge's old gaff, innit, guvnor.

On a sunny Sunday just gone, our friends Jared and Damian, and Jo and I all went along to see a days worth of cricket at the famous Lords, here in London.
We had a great day, especially as upon reading the ticket we learnt we could bring in a bottle of wine each. Seemed a shame not to, so we took full advantage and kicked back for a session in the sun.

England batted mostly, there were a few well taken wickets though so we enjoyed the spectacle. Lords is a nice ground, to be sure, posh in all the right places, the burgers were organic and £7 each, says it all really. Highly recommended at least once.

Here are 3 photos from the game, including the above.

Portishead at the Hammersmith Apollo, London, 10 April 2008.

Jo, D, Ishbel, Simon and me headed on down to Hammersmith for a gig we'd been waiting for nearly ten years to arrive. Portishead. You remember them. Anguish stretched taut over a jazzy guitar led threepiece, with a DJ thrown in. Hadn't done a new album in nearly ten years. For this gig, the new album, "Third", hadn't even been released. So many of the audience had little or no knowledge of the new tracks.

Hopes were high for a fantastic performance, and when the band came out, they seemed a bit rusty and a little uncomfortable. Sure enough, two songs in they went off stage for a technical mishap with one of the sequencers. They were off for about 5 minutes while roadies panicked on stage.

Then they came back and delivered a set that wavered from beloved memories stripped back to their bare essentials, through to the pervasively dark, stacatto sound of the new material. A stunning visual performance added to the mix, with a gorgeous live camera montage on the backdrops.

The singer Beth Gibbons has become a little more confident since 1998. But still we often found her with her back to the crowd, preferring to sway in time with the band. When singing she stands statuesque, transfixed in the lighting effects.

It was a very very very good gig. But it didn't hit the heights of Wellington on the "Portishead" album tour. Tonight, in London ten years on, the band lacked the lush contribution from a dedicated DJ. The new songs seemed harsh, jarring even. The overall performance was excellent, don't get me wrong, but Portishead sounded, well, less than we remembered them.

A wicked gig on balance, and we're dishing out the 5 out of 5. It wasn't perfect but it was undeniably strong.

Here are some of the best gig photos I've ever done. See all 27 photos from this gig.
Setlist:
Silence
Hunter
Mysterons
The Rip
Glory Box
Numb
Magic Doors
Wandering Star
Machine Gun
Over
Sour Times
Nylon Smile
Cowboys
==encore==
Threads
Roads
We Carry On

The Black Crowes at Brixton Academy 9 April 2008.

A few weeks ago on a typical Wednesday night, we went along to the Black Crowes gig at Brixton Academy. They came on on the dot of nine and played the jammy blues rock set you'd expect, focussing mainly on songs from "Southern Harmony and Musical Companion" and a few tracks from the newer albums whose names I don't think I ever knew.
Brixton was sold out, and when it became obvious to the crowd the Crowes weren't interested in playing their old hits, a number of people seemed a bit disappointed, J included. No "Hard to Handle", no "Twice as Hard" and no "She Talks To Angels". Luckily, A loves the Southern Harmony album, and they played most of it really well. And fair credit to the lads, they did a long 2.5 hour set including an encore.
The highlight of the night? Either "Remedy" or the only song they did from "Shake Your Moneymaker" - "Jealous Again".
Good gig, but a lot of punters went home wishing they'd heard a song they knew.

3.5 out of 5, unless you are a BC fan, then maybe you'd go for a 4.

See all 11 photos in a slide show.

Hey all, just a quick note from my seat at Adobe's OnAIR London event.

OnAIR is a one day free conference from Adobe, showcasing their new AIR product (AIR allows you to deploy Flex and or HTML/CSS/JavaScript to the desktop, as a native application). Its cool tech and I think its going to be an emerging technology in the RIA space. These guys have been touring around Europe and there are still continental dates left - check the official site for registrations, dates, and all that.

As for this conference, its organised very well. Food's great, i'm on my third Red Bull and I already got the compulsory free T-shirt.

The compere for the day is Mike Chambers (site) who speaks well and has a good rapport. Mike's got a new book coming out on OReilley for Javascript developers.
Ryan Stewart gave a good quick Hello World for AIR using Flex, that was informative and easy. Then the morning was finished off with two gigs from Kevin Hoyt, who is doing the HTML/JavaScript side of things, not so interesting for me (I'm in this to get away from javaScrip! :-) but lots of interest from the audience. Its good to know you can do it, if you really must...

Afternoon sessions are about to kick off, some good stuff there.

The free WiFi is rock solid, the presentations have been concise, only downer so far is that I do feel like a bit of a loser with my not-Apple laptop out on display. But noone has been cruel enough to openly mock me..

Flex is going to be the next big thing, if it isn't already. Being able to compile Flex to a desktop app using AIR, then take advantage of file systems, clipboards, and run in no-network situations... all good. I'm still thinking most Flex will be in the browser - but if you need some of the preceding functionality, its great to know AIR is there.

Thanks Adobe - great gig, I really appreciate being part of it.
I'm thinking about Adobe MaxEurope 2008 in Milan now!

As you might know, one of the ways I keep myself amused is by shooting and editing our own travel videos, from when J and I go off travelling. Sounds good huh? But I have found (much like blog posts!) that shooting is easy, but editing and finishing them takes a lot of time, especially for a slacker like me ;-) yeah I know, blame the slacking.... but its true!

So anyway - without further ado - here is the latest video from all the way back in May 2006!
The last of our Cambodia episodes, well for that trip anyway.

Finishing this last night brought back just how much we loved it there. Gorgeous place Cambodia, put it on your list.

2006 - May - Cambodia, part 3:

Our friends Bek and D joined Jo and I for the show put on by a living legend.
So legendary in fact at one point he changed his brand to a symbol.

This is also the gig A has most come close to being thrown out for filming at. I've got a cellphone and its not very good but the admittedly very polite young man took me outside and was firm about such matters.
Quite firm.

So these aren't a couple of photos from that show. It was good, really very good, here is a review from one just like the one we saw. Also it was cheap, maybe half the price of and we got a free CD coming in the door which remains a cool thing to do.

It was a very professionally put on, highly visual show. He played many but not all of his hits - as he said, at one point, "London, what are you doing for breakfast? Cos I got SO MANY HITS I could PLAY ALL NIGHT!". It seemed true. A bit, well, confident, but undeniable. They kept coming, and we're sure he missed some out.

Here is a setlist similar to the one we heard, he played random songs every night but it all blurred into one big groove in the top floor of a basketball court:
1.Let's Go Crazy
2.Take Me With U
3.Guitar
4.Shhh
5.Musicology
6.Pass The Peas
7.Play That Funky Music
8.Sexy Dancer vs Le Freak
9.I Feel For U
10.Controversy (a sinppet of Housequake too)
11.Wonderful World
12.Cream
13.U Got The Look
14.If I Was Your Girlfriend
15.Pink Cashmere
16.Lolita
17.Black Sweat
18.Kiss
19.Purple Rain

Encore 1 - Acoustic
20.Little Red Corvette
21.Raspberry Beret
22.Sometimes It Snows In April

Encore 2 - Full Band
23. Crazy
24. Nothing Compares 2 U

Jo, I, Roger, Mary and Sandra went along to the Royal Albert Hall to see BBC Prom 36: BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

This was a world premiere of a new work composed specifically for the Proms series.

Here is what the BBC had to say:

Walton himself conducted the premiere of his warmly lyrical Viola Concerto, in a Proms concert that featured Paul Hindemith as soloist. While Walton, still early in his career, tapped into a new vein of mature expression, Rakhmaninov, in his final orchestral work, found a blistering exuberance at the end of his life; this was a work that Malcolm Sargent introduced to this country at the Proms.

The set list was (dare we call it that?) as follows:

Guto Puw ... onyt agoraf y drws ... (... unless I open the door ...)
(BBC commission: world premiere) (15 mins)

Walton - Viola Concerto (26 mins)

Rakhmaninov - Symphonic Dances (36 mins) featuring Lawrence Power on viola, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conducted by David Atherton.

Can't pretend to have understood too much of it, other than - "gee that sounds nice" - but it was very pretty to listen to, and I thoroughly recommend taking in a Prom or two if you ever get the chance.

This night it was another in the continuing series of Eighties heavy metal acts you think you remember. Tonight - the Scorpions.

For me, Scorpions are fairly summed up by the tune "Rock You Like A Hurricane". This is an absolute head banging tennis racket smashing testosterone festival of a tune, and when I was more acne than human many years ago I simply adored it. And to be fair, I still do.

Scorpions are Germany's most famous rock act, featuring not one but two legendary guitarists (Uli Roth and Rudi Schenker, and the other, Matthias Jabs, ain't bad neither) not to mention the career spanning three, no, four decades.
At this gig they ably demonstrated why they still deserve your most serious respect.

They did a long professional set with a big encore and played all my favourite tracks. Big City Nights, Still Loving You, and the big one "Rock You Like A Hurricane" saved up for last. Use the following link to see all 7 photos from this show.

It was one of those gigs where you get back on the bus still air guitaring and singing along with the tracks. J loved it, and she'd never even heard of them.

Here is a review of this gig. It gets a solid 4 out of 5, noone left disappointed, a master class in how to thrill a loyal crowd 30 years on.

Setlist, well pretty much like this:

1 - Hour1
2 - Coming Home
3 - Bad Boys Running Wild
4 - The Zoo
5 - No Pain No Gain
6 - Coast to Coast
7 - Send me an Angel
8 - Holiday (full version)
9 - Hey you
10- In Trance
11- Im leaving you
12 - Alien Nation
13- 321
14- Blackout
15- Dynamite
16- Big City Nights

*** Encore ***
17- Still loving you
18- Wind of Change
19- Humanity
20- No one like you
21- Rock you like a Hurricane