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Saving 6Music

2010-03-06T20:06:16Z

It was recently announced that to save money, the BBC are thinking of closing 6Music and the Asian network radio strations.

I am a huge fan of 6Music - I have never listened to the Asian network - and would be most upset were it to not be around anymore.

I can't write about how to help save it any better than other people already have elsewhere, so this is just a series of links. If you are interested, please make sure you follow the advice given in the following pages.

Geeky fiddling

2010-02-08T01:31:26Z

I've spent a little time this weekend updating my Google Calendar and my phone's calendar. Half way through I realised I could probably get them synchronised and only have to do one. And I could. Which is fabulous. It's now set up to work both ways, one updates the other whenever it's altered. If only my paper based diary was so simple to keep sorted...

(Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone)

Location:Highfield View,Leeds,United Kingdom

Working on a new project...

2010-02-06T19:16:36Z

...it's all very secret. Don't tell anyone.

That is all.

I shall reveal in April.

This is my classroom...

2010-01-23T11:39:37Z

Inspired by Tom Barrett's Twitter post about his classroom, and asking for photos of others, I took these photos at the end of yesterday.

Clearly, the chairs are up for cleaning, and the room is a little messy as we'd made biscuits and there's a fair bit of drying art work lying around - but these things happen in a working classroom!

I took photos from a high angle to avoid showing you just the backs of chairs stood in each corner of the room. It's a Victorian building (just, 1901) with high ceilings. The room was converted from being the staffroom a few years ago and is quite long but pretty narrow for Year 5 children and furniture - makes getting around a little difficult.

If you want to know about any of the displays or work, just post a comment.

Photos taken on an iPhone 3GS, click for a larger version.

EDIT (12:11): Altered the pop up images to have scrollbars and be resizable.

The Weather

2010-01-13T19:55:28Z

I'm often in two minds about discussing the weather. For one thing, it's so fleeting - one sunny moment in this country could be closely followed by a raging storm. For another, it's deeply personal - I love autumnal weather the most for it's rich variety and colourful beauty. But the main reason I despair of weather based writing is that it's tediously repetitive.

We're currently in the grip of the worst winter of my lifetime. The worst since 1981 (I was born in 1983). Schools are closing for, what I'm sure seems to many parants, unnecessary reasons. Today, I couldn't get to my school to teach - I, along with many others, couldn't even get out of my street. It's only my fourth snow based reason for not working in my career. I know people who haven't been to school, to teach or learn, this decade yet.

I find the whole thing incredibly frustrating.

(Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone)

Location:Leeds, United Kingdom

An iPhone Based Update

2010-01-12T21:12:54Z

Right now, I realise that the website has suffered from one of my usual lulls of activity. As always, a number of factors create these gaps. This time around it was work, being ill, difficulties managing time and a lack of appropriate motivation.

My job being as it is, teaching children, it often means that evenings are accounted for by marking books, planning future lessons and other uninteresting things. Accompanying this is a cloud of tiredness.

The long and the short of it is that these lulls will happen and I'll try to minimise them.

It was with that in mind that I stumbled upon BlogPress, an app for my iPhone allowing me to blog when and wherever I happen to be. So there may be more things posted here, for better or worse! This post starts the BlogPress era, long may it continue!

(Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone)

Location:Leeds, United Kingdom

Now THIS Is Journalism...

2009-10-26T14:40:06Z

The Telegraph reports that Amy Winehouse has updated her Facebook status. Woo.

[Via Telegraph.co.uk]

Listen To Him. He Knows Everything.

2009-10-26T12:56:21Z

Nick Abbot, 24th October 2009:

The Prime Minister was confident, his party was certain, the City seemed sure and economists and the press were agreed. Britain had come out of recession and green shoots pushed up through dead brush of the down turn and covered the landscape for as far as the eye could see... And then The Centre For Inconvenient Truths, or The Office Of National Statistics as it's known, let slip that our economy had shrunk again in the last quarter and we were still waist deep in the clag of recession. Which means that the financial wisdom of the PM, his party, the experts in the City, the nation's economists and the press could be written on the back of a wine gum! That is if you could buy one... which, without a photo ID, you cannot.

A 15 year old boy attempted to acquire a packet of the multi-coloured sweets from his friendly local 99p store. This resulted in failure as he was patently too young to consume alcohol and it clearly hints at its presence on the packet. "They contain wine!" said the alert shop keeper. "Look. WINE Gums. It says it right there, on the label." The lad was forced to hand back the forbidden confection and received a full refund of ninety-nine pence, which amounted to three kilograms of loose change, causing a hole in his pocket, and an unrefreshed palette. A full investigation by the store's management put the over-zealousness down to an 'unfortunate glitch'. Which is no way to describe a member of their staff...

The same phrase could be appended to an incident in the skies of Minneapolis this week, when a passenger jet overshot the airport by a little bit. Or 150 miles to be exact. Ground staff frantically tried to raise the alarm, Air Force jets were on standby to intercept, hijack procedures were commenced and then stood down, and then, after an hour of silence, the pilots got back in touch. "We weren't sleeping," they said. "We were just arguing." Must have been a fascinating discussion to make them forget to land an air liner with 144 passengers in the back. Perhaps they were disagreeing over the return to economic prosperity? Or maybe they were drunk on Wine Gums, or smashed on Beer Nuts, or tripping on Acid Drops.

Wise words.

[Via Nick Abbot's LBC Podcast. Links via BBC News, The Daily Mail and The Guardian]

Fifty Years Of Space Missions

2009-10-24T14:08:48Z

An astounding infographic, showing space missions by target, country and whether the missions were successful. The bottom of the chart shows the most distant probes (the Voyagers and the Pioneers) and how far away they are (Voyager I is at ten billion miles). If you have a 4000 pixel monitor, this is what it's for.

To go along with it, all the Mars missions in one infographic.

While we're here, Voyager I had a golden record of images and sounds with it to introduce our planet to other species. This site, has copies of that particular travel brochure.

[Via The Kewl Doodz 'n' Chyx]

Finally, An F1 Team Using Their Loaf...

2009-09-06T22:38:27Z

I apologise for the pun, but there has been a lack of joined up thinking from the teams in Formula One of late... This made me smile.

Do you remember that clever Skoda advert? You know - the one where they make a giant cake version of the Skoda Fabia, which actually turns out looking better than any real Skoda we've ever seen? Well, some crazy chefs working for a Singapore restaurant seem to have embraced that crazy (and slightly wasteful) idea by coming up with an F1 car made entirely out of bread.

In our sad little minds, we like to think of Lewis Hamilton driving this in the Singapore night race; pushing the roll-shaped accelerator pedal to the floor, flicking up through the gears using his bagel paddle shifters - taking this bread-made bad boy up to speeds of 200mph and more. But then, can you imagine how soggy the doughy seats would get after a couple of hours out on the track? Yuk!

But there is a positive story behind this, with the chefs creating the car (made from 22 different types of bread) to raise money for a local school - clearly demonstrating that the Singapore F1 race is having a positive social impact on the island city-state, which is always good to hear seeing as the sport has been through some tough times of late.

Via: Orange Cars

A Fishwasher

2009-09-01T05:47:48Z

I discovered Tom Scott's web site recently and, after writing this entry yesterday, thought one of his videos would fit in perfectly. His other work in the Things I've Made section are also worthy of your time.

Enjoy!

Edit: I've now realised that I haven't just discovered him - I knew I knew the name from somewhere. Tom is behind the UK arm of Talk Like A Pirate Day, which I've mentioned before here, here and here (with a broken image). Also, International Talk Like A Pirate Day is on the 19th September and is a Saturday this year.

Via: Tom Scott

The Most Important Piece Of News You're Likely To Read This Year

2009-08-31T22:09:02Z

Iron Maiden's guitarist Adrian Smith has caught a massive fish.

He currently holds the honour for bagging the biggest catch this season - the fish clocked in at an impressive 7 pounds and 14 ounces.

Smith made this revelation in the latest issue of Angler's Mail, where he also talked his habit for taking worms on tour.

"I get to fish a lot of wild and wonderful places on tour," he explained. "We used to keep worms in containers under the tourbus and in summer they would get a bit savoury. I also remember a maggot scare in a very plush hotel in Amsterdam when I was fishing in the canal there. They're certainly not on the room service menu."

Via: Planet Rock's website (via NME.com, via Angler's Mail - I think this is the first time I've referenced a reference's source's source. Or something.)

Formula One On The BBC: A Handy Widget

2009-08-23T18:22:47Z

I thought this might be handy for some people!

BBC Radio 5 live and sports extra have comprehensive coverage of the 2009 Formula 1 season with live commentary of every race plus coverage of all the practice and qualifying sessions, plus expert analysis before and after each race weekend.
The commentary team is led by David Croft alongside new signing Formula 1 driver Anthony Davidson, providing a driver's perspective to events, and pit lane reporter Holly Samos, with all the news and reaction as it happens.

As well as all the action on the track, on the Friday before every race David, Anthony and Holly present 5 live Formula 1 on 5 live sport previewing all the weekend's action. The coverage doesn't stop there; the Chequered Flag podcast will be available for download every Monday after race weekend with expert analysis of the latest race and the big issues from the circuit.

And you can now get F1 on your favourite social network with our F1 widget which can be embedded wherever you want it. It features the Chequered Flag podcast, the latest news from BBC Sport and schedule details for F1 on BBC Radio.

Via: BBC Radio 5 Live

Circuit Snacks

2009-08-18T13:38:02Z

Possibly the best way to learn about circuits and circuit diagrams... through sweets!

Genius.

An A-Z Of The British Isles

2009-08-18T10:27:37Z

My last entry discussed how Google's search homepage has been used to celebrate many significant events throughout history - very worthwhile if you ask me.

However, Google Maps is also very useful. Most trips I make to places I don't know are planned out on Google Maps first, either using satellite images, or maps or a combination of both.

Google Maps was recently put to great use by Rachel Young. She spent 15 hours trying to find all 26 letters of the alphabet on the British Isles. Here are her results.

Via: Telegraph.co.uk