Trying to contact...

I'm trying to trace Michael Steward (ex of Storrington) who we believe to be in Thailand. Posting this here in case anyone who does know him googles him - or in case he does some self-googling. Contact details for him - either electronic or a postal address - would be much appreciated! - use my contact details at the side of the blog rather than commenting on this post ( I've disabled comments for this).

The binary moment

11-11-11-11-11-11, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

As suggested here - this is a photo I took today 11-11-11 at 11:11:11, as you can see I was airborne!

Another year

For friends who don't follow my feed on identi.ca or twitter or other social media.. our Christmas newsletter is on the web as a pdf - I guess most of it has appeared on this weblog at some time or another, not a terribly entertaining read this year I'm afraid.
This month also marks 40 years since I had my first job in IT - working as part of OsTech at ICL Kidsgrove, as a pre-university trainee, where I was thrown into simulation and a high level language (S1) which allowed insertions of a lower level language - for things like I/O - it must have been a scary start but I still appear to be here and, more or less, connected to the industry!

Far too much listening

Scarily, I now seem to scrobbled (logged) 100000 tracks of my listening with last.fm

Nice piece of Fauré to mark the milestone with an interesting set of random album listening in the rest of the recent set courtesy of amarok.
If you look at the browser window - that the new appearance of firefox in the latest beta of version 4 (to be released early next year).
Nothing too embarrassing - I hope - in either the listening or the firefox tabs!

My excessively polite twitter feed

I've generated a TweetCloud from my twitter feed and, as you'll see from the screen shot it is terribly polite, 'please', 'thanks' and 'sorry' all in there! The TweetCloud app does ask for authorisation but then adds a tweet to your feed without checking with you - so if you don't want the ad you'll have to do without it!

How to be ignored

.. what twitter is for. For a suitable fee, I'll ignore you too!

Piano Diploma Programme thoughts

Over the past few weeks I've been thinking about entering the ABSRM Piano Diploma exam which has as its main component, a 35 minute recital (with programme notes!). There's a long list of repertoire to choose from but you can choose up to seven minutes of your own selection. At the moment the recital looks like this:

• Scarlatti Sonatas in C K308 and K309
• Ravel Sonatine
• Messiaen Vingt Regards No 2
• Mompou Musica Callada XIII
• Chopin Mazurka C# minor Op 50 No 3
• Brahms Op 116 No 2 A minor
• Beethoven Bagatelle b minor Op 126

I like this there's a split between Spanish/Gallic and the more Germanic styles, from major to minor, there's a central hunk of Catholic mysticism and the Beethoven acts a bit like an encore. The Scarlatti Sonatas are very simple, at least in mood and would play me in nicely so the flashy Ravel acts as a good counterbalance. The Mompou and Beethoven are my own choices. It's a mite under 35 minutes. I've put this programme on Spotify and if you have that installed you can listen here - not played by me!
The only snag at the moment (so far!!) is whether the Ravel Sonatine (especially the last movement) is too ambitious, I'll give it a try but I'm wondering about a fall back position which replaces the Ravel with the Debussy Sarabande from the suite Pour le Piano, which I was already working on and (to keep some sort of classical/modern sonata and to prevent it becoming too bitty) inserts either the Beethoven Op 90 or 54 before the final item - needs further thought by me especially as it would then be pushing towards the time limit but reactions, here, are very welcome!

Silent for a few days

... probably...
I'm heading into Northumberland for a job interview on Wednesday, warm fuzzies (or faith equivalent) appreciated!

Another Sunday steal

1. What were doing 10 years ago?
   Precisely? Tuesday in 2000? Getting through my last few weeks working at Bechtel
   
2. Five snacks that you enjoy in a perfect, non weight-gaining world
   Gain weight? me? Dark chocolate. More dark chocolate. More, more, more!
   
3. Five things you would do if you were a billionaire:
   Retire! Give money away. Time for interesting research. Definitely a holiday with friends. Excavate a wine cellar
   
4. Three of your habits:
   Answering a question with a question? fiddling nervously. Procrastination
   
5. Five jobs that you've have had:
   software engineer. numerical analyst. supermarket checkout operator. deputy head of kitchen.
   
6. Five places that you've lived:
   Southport. Leeds. Kettlewell. Cambridge. Macclesfield
   
7. Five things that you did yesterday:
   blogged. shopped. cooked. watched theatrical performance at church. slept.
   
8. Five people you would want to get to know more about:
   I am so not into celebrity culture
   
9. Abortion: for or against it?
   in particular circumstances
   
10. Do you think the world would fail with a female president?
    Why should it more than it would with an equally fallible male?
    
11. Do you believe in the death penalty?
    No
    
12. Do you wish marijuana would be legalized already?
    Not terribly
    
13. Are you for or against premarital sex?
    Bit late for me!
    
14. Do you think same sex marriage should be legalized?
    Yes
    
15. Do you think it's wrong that so many Hispanics are illegally moving to the USA?
    Don't live in the USA - I think it's fear rather than actuality (transplanting the issue to the UK)
    
16. Should the alcohol age be lowered to eighteen?
    It is 18! (well here it is)
    
17. Should the war in Iraq be called off?
    Shouldn't have started, but what we do now without causing more instability is difficult.
    
18. Assisted suicide is illegal: do you agree?
    Occasionally
    
19. Do you believe in spanking your children?
    They're taller than me!
    
20. Do you worry that others will judge you from reading some of your answers?
    Of course

Relax!

Via SueM comes this call to perform a Myers-Briggs analysis on the blog via this test script. You'll be pleased to know that this blog comes out as ESFP:

The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.

The enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions.

I think I cam out as INFP last time I tried one of these (no doubt approximate) web forms - but tested on myself.
However, as you see, you can pull up a chair and relax here. Must be all that music I've been embedding!

Sunday meme

From Sweet memes comes this meme which Sunday Stealing stole

1. Are you currently in a serious relationship?
   Been married nearly 27 years... (is that flippant enough?)
2. What was your dream growing up?
   Define growing up? (sorry) pre-teens it was definitely Space
3. What talent do you wish you had?
   Finding a job which doesn't blow up in my face
4. If I bought you a drink, what would it be?
   Red wine
5. What was the last book you read?
   Emma Craigie's 'Chocolate Cake with Hitler' ( very dark! )
6. What zodiac sign are you?
   Scorpio
7. Any tattoos and/or piercings? Explain where.
   No, couple of geeky stickon tattoos on the bedside table which I've never been uninhibited enough to attach (or had the right excuse)
8. Worst habit?
   Fuming (not so silently)
9. What is your favorite sport?
   sport?? probably skiing
10. Do you have a pessimistic or optimistic attitude?
    pessimistic
11. Worst thing to ever happen to you?
    Definitely not going there
12. Tell me one weird fact about you.
    You go to my last.fm and see the mixture of the terribly serious and trashy
13. Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
    Scary - ran away from one on a pier when young and I haven't changed
14. If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
    Don't look serious/authoritarian enough but don't know how you change that
15. Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
    conscience!
16. Ever been arrested?
    No, came close with an Italian police car
17. If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it?
    Where's the pension fund?
18. What's your favorite place to hang out at?
    sadly the computer, would like it to be the piano
19. Do you believe in ghosts?
    Probably yes.
20. Favorite thing to do in your spare time?
    Piano when I can motivate myself.
21. Do you swear a lot?
    Only inwardly
22. Biggest pet peeve?
    Other people
23. In one word, how would you describe yourself?
    Odd mixture of intensely serious/shy and flippant
24. Do you believe/appreciate romance?
    Yes
25. Do you believe in God?
    Yes
    

Hazel Grove Festival

It's a week back now but I ought to report on my performances which I'd flagged up at the Hazel Grove Musical Festival. I played the Poulenc Sicilienne from the Suite Francaise, a bit of a trifle but good for settling me in - though it was on a different piano to the afternoon classes (and, I think, a rather poorer one). In the afternoon the Schubert Moment Musicale No 2 - got the best mark for this of the three - and I was pretty happy with it. For the open class I played two Mompou Cancion y Danza (nos 6 and 2) when fairly well, some raggedness and I think I was too aware of a possible gap between the pieces. Didn't get any placings but it was a good thing to work towards. If you follow this link - scroll down to Dec 15th 2009 and before, you'll find YouTube versions of the Schubert and Mompou and here is the Poulenc (none of them played by me!!) - and in this case played by a guitar duo with rather overactive camera work!

Round robin

For friends who don't follow my feed on identi.ca or twitter or other social media.. our Christmas newsletter is on the home webserver as a pdf - I guess most of it has appeared on this weblog at some time or another but it's nice to draw together the main events of the year.

Mum, look at me! - 2

Looking again at the picture this morning there are subtle differences, and I'm definitely visible!

The people walking past seem to have shifted slightly...

Mum, look at me!

Google street view has today added some UK cities. We were standing at this York bus stop in Clifford St last October when the google camera car came past three times:

I'm not sure whether we're there or not, maybe they came past other days too!

Search engines

Couldn't resist a vanity screenshot of the top search strings which lead people here (not that there are many of them). I won't quote them to avoid skewing figures further but there seem to be a fair range of subjects but maybe nog__ the n__ is what those seamen get up to on those icebound ships?

Let's have a redesign

Fewer links seem to be what's happened, but the attention span hasn't increased!

Prick up your ears

Via Niles comes this link for testing the age of your ears and their high frequency response. With headphones I could hear all of them!? I hope this isn't cheating?

As any fule kno

Your Language Arts Grade: 100%

Way to go! You know not to trust the MS Grammar Check and you know "no" from "know." Now, go forth and spread the good word (or at least, the proper use of apostrophes).

Are You Gooder at Grammar?
Make a Quiz

Thanks to pseudopiskie giving me the change to brag.

How to lose your car

..gone
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

I suppose there ought to be a pointer to this picture on the blog. Car started making a knocking noise, overheated and... I was too busy recording the event to remember the stuff that wasn't in the boot and hence I lost a few things as well as creating a culinary delight in a most scenic Leicestershire(?) village (this was way back in 1981..)