BBC Radio 2 – Sundays

… and yes, you do have to read the title whilst doing so in the style of the Radio 2 jingle hehe! (and with regards to the news jingle I’ve linked to – naturally I think that Fenella Fudge has the best name in the world hehe!)

Recently at work, I’ve been a little tired of my usual choice of radio station, Magic, and so have hit iPlayer in search of the Proms and other radio broadcasts. Incidentally, the Doctor Who prom is AMAZING!

Yesterday, I happened to come across the ever fantastic Michael Ball’s ‘Sunday Brunch show‘ (they really should have publicised that a lot more!) and then today I came across Elaine Paige’s show (which I’d already known about for a few years, but only just had chance to listen to her).

Michael’s show is on between 11:00 and 13:00 on a Sunday, followed right after by Elaine Paige’s broadcast which is until 14:30.

I must say, I much prefered Michael Ball’s show, though both were excellent. It’s unusual for me to enjoy a show with spoken content as well as music (as I’m at work, I tend not to want to focus on what’s being said too much) however both of these shows have broken the mould for me- hurrah!

Both shows are currently on BBC iPlayer, and are updated each week. A recommended listen from me; especially if you’re really into your musical theatre as I am!

Last Choir Standing – Knockout 2

* Post contains spoilers about the 2nd Knockout stage *

Once again, I thought that the judges decision on BBC One’s Last Choir Standing programme was a sound, but incredibly tough(!), one.

The BBC offers a full rundown of how things went, however I am going to post the clips of the two winning choirs, Revelation and the delicious Only Men Aloud!. I would sincerely agree with the judges comments; namely that these two choirs were absolutely outstanding.

Revelation

Rule The World

Shackles

Only Men Aloud!

** Seemingly/unfortunately YouTube has no clips of their performances, however these can be viewed by visiting the Only Men Aloud! page on the BBC’s website for the show. **

Next week’s knockout looks to be an incredibly tough one with three of my favourites (Handbag of Harmonies, The Open Arts Community Choir and The City Of Bath Male Choir) all competing. It’ll be a nail biter, that’s for sure!

Across The Universe

I recently had the pleasure of watching Julie Taymor’s “Across The Universe“, recently out on DVD.

It’s a beautifully artistic and highly conceptual film (well, it is Taymor!) which is perhaps best known for using 32 songs from the Beatles‘ back-catalogue as it’s foundations.

Trailer:

Occasionally, due to the visual feast on offer, it can become a little to easy to lose the plot of this story and to gain the full meaning that Taymor was trying to get you to take from it, however by-and-by the plot was coherent, didn’t stagnate and molded itself well around the Beatles’ songs.

If you think of Baz Luhrman’s Moulin Rouge and then think a little more gritty and, at times, hard-hitting, then you may start to get an idea of the flavour of this movie. You could pretty much get away with calling it a musical in my opinion… who knows, maybe it will become on one day!

I think that this could very well be a contender for entry into my Top 10 favourite movies of all time!

Greg very kindly purchased the 2 Disc Special Edition DVD for me which also has some exquisite extras on it too! I also have the deluxe version of the soundtrack which includes all 32 tracks, as opposed to the standard soundtrack which contains 16 tracks. 

I was also rather taken by the gorgeous and huge piece artwork (below) that was put up over the Odeon cinema whilst this was playing in Leicester Square which differs from the official poster for the movie.

I really would recommend this film to anybody. I wasn’t a huge fan of the music of the Beatles though having watched the film I must confess to having a deeper liking of them. The Wikipedia page for the film goes into explaining all of the references to the Beatles littered throughout the film should that kind of thing also be of interest to you.

I shall end my brief review of Across The Universe with a clip of my favourite song from the movie – Let It Be – which now has me in tears every time I watch/hear it.

Enjoy! x

The Adventures of Elmo In Grouchland

So, yesterday Greg and I headed to Brent Cross to have a mooch around, and we ended up in HMV buying DVDs. We came across The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland amongst the sale items and, given our mad obsession with all things Sesame Street / Muppet related, snapped it up in an instant!

We popped it on when we got home, and I have to say, it was amazing! (*slight blush!*)

It was so weird putting the film on and finding that absolutely nothing on Sesame Street has changed in the 15 years or so since I stopped watching it – remarkable! All the ‘in’ jokes remained the same, my favourite human helper, Maria, was still there, though the only character that I didn’t see whom I would like to have seen was Aloysius Snuffleupagus (the elephant; not the random girl!).

The songs in the movie were perhaps the best thing about it (as was always the same with the TV Series).

Below is a clip of the fabulous Vanessa Williams (perhaps best known for playing Wilhelmina Slater in Ugly Betty) in her role as ‘Queen of Trash’;

Perhaps my most favoured Sesame Street music ever!! D

For anyone with kids (or just anyone like me who loves being retro), I think that this DVD is a must see!!

Top 10 most ambiguously named company websites…

Office funny that went around work yesterday. Some of the websites are genuinely real, some are funny duds – I’ll let you discover which are which! 

NB – All links appear to be safe, I’ve had no problems with any of them, though, as always, I do recommend that you have Anti-Virus and Ad-Aware active on your machine just to be on the safe side.

Enjoy!

The top 10 unintentionally worst company URLs

Attn: Entrepreneurs
Everyone knows that if you are going to operate a business in today’s world you need a domain name. It is advisable to look at the domain name selected as other see it and not just as you think it looks. Failure to do this may result in situations such as the following (legitimate) companies who deal in everyday humdrum products and services but clearly didn’t give their domain names enough consideration:

1. A site called ‘Who Represents ‘ where you can find the name of the agent that represents a celebrity. Their domain name… wait for it… is
www.whorepresents.com

2. Experts Exchange, a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views at
www.expertsexchange.com

3. Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island at
www.penisland.net

4. Need a therapist? Try Therapist Finder at
www.therapistfinder.com

5. Then of course, there’s the Italian Power Generator company…
www.powergenitalia.com

6. And now, we have the Mole Station Native Nursery, based in New South Wales:
www.molestationnursery.com

7. If you’re looking for computer software, there’s always
www.ipanywhere.com

8. Welcome to the First Cumming Methodist Church Their website is
www.cummingfirst.com

9. Then, of course, there’s these brainless art designers, and their whacky website:
www.speedofart.com

10. Want to holiday in Lake Tahoe ? Try their brochure website at
www.gotahoe.com

The Making Of Me – Nature or Nurture?

I’ve just watched a programme called “The Making Of Me” on the BBC, which is a new series which tries to look into what makes us who we are and how much influence external factors can have on certain issues.

For the first episode in the series, they asked John Barrowman to explore the possible roots of his homosexuality and attempt to address the age old question of ’nature or nurture?’

I am in mixed minds about how this programme was presented as although I am pleased to see that a programme on an issue such as this is deemed ‘prime-time’ viewing by the BBC, I sometimes thought that the presentation of some of the issues surrounding this was a little slap-dash. Similarly, I found that they took a lot of suggestive and speculative unquantified research and tried to turn it into fact, which I disagreed with (especially towards the end).

I also felt that none of the options / demonstrations in this programme were directly applicable to me really, as all of the tests that focused on the genetics (which are the most likely cause, and something I’ve always believed in) were done on the basis of comparing them to another, or an older, male sibling. Alas, I have two younger sisters, meaning that the only ‘test’ that I could do was the finger length test – which is highly suggestible and in no way scientific. Therefore, I felt a little disappointed that I was unable to take as much out of the programme as I’d hoped to be able to.

The story of Peter Price’s ordeal at the psychiatrist had me in floods of tears. I had to pause the documentary for a few moments. All I can say is that what he went through in a bid to ‘cure’ himself to make other people happy was disgusting and nobody should ever have to go through ‘testing’ like that to determine / ‘cure’ something as pointless and immaterial as their sexuality.

In summary, I thought that this was a good programme, however I was disappointed to find that I learnt nothing new from it. I think the real benefit of this programme is that lots of curious mothers, fathers, grandparents and other relatives may have seen it, and may now be able to relate to the whole idea of ‘gay’ a little more now. I know that some parents get upset and think that they have nurtured their son/daughter to be gay, and so hopefully this documentary has helped to steer them away from that notion. With around 7 million gay people in the UK, the majority of them having one or more parent ‘in the know’, then I think that is really where the positive impact of this programme will be felt, and the BBC should be commended for ‘doing their bit’ in my opinion.

Episode one is currently on BBC iPlayer, and is scheduled to remain available until 21:59 on Thursday 31 July.

Stand By Me – Timone and Pumba

ZOMG!

I just came across this clip on YouTube and I simply had to post it!

What an absolute gem of a clip to stumble across! Had me giggling and singing along, and really cheered me up!

His Dark Materials

I’ve finally finished reading the “His Dark Materials” series of books by Phillip Pullman.

The fantastic name of the series alone was more than enough to entice me into the notion of reading them.

I don’t want to harp on too much about them as there are plenty of reviews online about them (go with the books and not the so-so film version of the first novel (Northern Lights); “The Golden Compass“). All I will say is that these have been some of the best books that I have ever read; they have been brilliantly written; they’re engaging, thought provoking and conjour up visual feasts a plenty. By the end of the last novel I was in floods of tears – it has been years since a book has managed that for me.

The third book, The Amber Spyglass, is an especially amazing read, and is especially captivating when the fabric of society starts to crumble and turn in such spectacular fashion.

I really wish that I had a daemon that I could see – that would be so cool! If I had one, I would really like mine to be a cute snow leopard – pretty much like the one below…

The name of the clan-queen witch “Serafina Pekkala” always makes me giggle – perhaps it’s due to the rhythm of the name and the way that characters always address/reference the character by her full name.

This series of books is really worth investing your time in – I heartily recommend them to people of all ages and of all literary tastes.

Greg and Gari take a much deserved week off

Cor, so it’s been a little while since I made a personal post to my blog – mainly because I’ve been so busy recently!

Between Saturday 5th July and Saturday 11th July both Greg and I had a week off from work and decided to make the most of it. We had a lovely week, Greg came over and stayed at mine for the duration and we planned lots of fun things.

Saturday 5th

Greg’s 29th Birthday – whoop! It was also London Pride on this day too. Didn’t much fancy London Pride as it actually seems rather disunited and doesn’t have the community atmosphere that Manchester Pride has… well in my opinion anyway, I am slightly biased hehe!.

Greg had planned to have a birthday picnic in Regent’s Park, however due to the uncertainty over the weather, he postponed it until the Saturday after. Unfortunately/typically, the day turned out right nice (as we’d say up north) and so we should have stuck to the original plans really. Instead, Greg came over to mine a little earlier, we had lunch in ‘birthday park’ near me, and then Greg and I went to Ikea to pick me up some new pillows. I know it was hardly the best way to spend a birthday in the world, however with such short notice I couldn’t really arrange anything else (

I got Greg a few presents, including naming two stars after us (romantic really, see!), I had a Lichtenstein-style portrait made for Greg (with the tag “Will they still need me, will they still feed me, when I’m thirty-four?!”), I spent hours and hours making a set of 10 mix-CD’s for him (the personal present) and I also bought him tickets to go and see Wicked.

Going around Ikea was a lot of fun as always, and we even purchased a big bag of Swedish Meatballs, which we scoffed with chippy chips when we got back home.

Sunday 6th

Really lazy day – we basically planned what we were going to do in the week (on a geeky planner that I designed on Excel… well, I do work in accounting!). We also ordered some shopping to last the week from Tesco, to be delivered the next day.

Monday 7th

Shopping arrived – we’d ordered a little bit more for packed lunches than we’d planned to…

Oops! HEH!

Again, a bit of a lazy afternoon, in the main due to the rain that we had that afternoon. We figured that we’d be best indoors than outdoors splashing about.

In the evening we went off to The Dominion Theatre and went to see We Will Rock You (see earlier post).

Tuesday 7th

We had planned to spend the day in Southampton, and were fortunate that the weather held out for us. One of the reasons for us choosing Southampton had been due to their weather forecast! Alas, I really wish that we had not bothered. Greg and I found that we really really disliked the place! We arrived there at 14:10, and promptly left on the 16:10 train home. I was thinking “Titanic”; “Seafront”; “Harbour” and “Fish and Chips” – what we got was a deserted harbour area, a very thin strip of water, a tiny local museum which had a tiny Titanic area (we didn’t even bother going inside in the end – it looked better on the website!) and a city centre that frankly looked like a council estate. It was really weird, as the local estate agents had some gorgeous new build properties for ridiculously low prices… but yet the city centre was like Beirut! Apologies to anyone reading this who maybe lives there or likes the place, it just really wasn’t for me. Perhaps it’s one of these cities that is just a city and not really for visitors…

We did come across Martin’s Rubber though… apparently it humps for 320 yards…

… and the ‘Yummy Yummy’ Takeaway…

Wednesday 9th

We decided to go to the Vue cinema at the O2 Arena on Wednesday to watch the latest Indiana Jones movie; Indiana Jones and The Crystal Skull. I have a two-for-one card and this was one of the films that I could watch at a time that fit in with our schedule. The screen was pretty much empty, there was just Greg and I in there, and later on we were joined by one other person – delightfully quiet! The film was really good (up to a point) I thought… the ending was a bit rubbish though… it just seemed to build up to a hype and then deflate all at once. Certainly watchable though.

After that we headed across to the Tate Modern on the South Bank in Southwark. By this point it was hammering it down with rain, which really wasn’t bestest. We managed to spend a few hours looking around the galleries and whatnot, though were frequently impeded by children and adults standing in the way of the picture/the tag and saying really loudly “I don’t even like this picture”. If you don’t even like it, then move the fuck outta the way so that people who do like it can appreciate it properly! The people viewing the art in the Tate seemed to have no manners or sense of purpose whatsoever. Not a place I’m going to be rushing back to unfortunately (

We also went to see Wicked at the Apollo Victoria – one of Greg’s birthday presents. As always, the show was amazing, and I must say, I think that the current cast is the best cast that I’ve seen thus far! Alexia Khadime makes an excellent Elphaba and really managed to deliver her songs incredibly well. Mr Greg loved the show as I knew he would do and so a successful night all round!

Thursday 10th

Our Thursday morning was spent outside the Shaftesbury Theatre in the queue to pick up day tickets for that evenings performance of Hairspray. Having seen it numerous times previously, I knew that Greg just had to see this show! Day ticketing at the Shaftesbury costs £25 per ticket for that afternoon/evening’s performance, and you’re normally able to pick up tickets for the front row. Despite being right at the front, you still get a really good view of the stage, and the leg-room isn’t too limited (especially if you’re only between 5’8 and 5’10). We got there around 9am and there were already a few people in front of us, although they were largely queuing for matinee tickets.

After purchasing our tickets, Greg and I embarked upon our planned day at a few of London’s museums. The bulk of our time was spent at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington. I really enjoyed visiting the museum (and took an abundance of photo’s – honestly, I don’t think anyone will ever need to visit there in person again hehe) although I hear that a lot of the ‘better’ and more eye-catching exhibits were no longer there. We also briefly popped into the Science Museum and had a play around on some of the interactive bits and pieces for an hour or so (I also purchased some cool flying plane things), before heading back to Covent Garden for a spot of tea and then onwards to the theatre.

Whilst waiting outside the theatre, a gentleman was walking past me when his whole foot just fell off right in the middle of the pavement! Quite surreal – it was a prosthetic foot (obviously) though it was a bit weird handing it back to its owner!

I was also rather dismayed to find that Ben James-Ellis was not in my performance of Hairspray once we’d gotten into the theatre however, apart from that minor set-back, I enjoyed myself so much at Hairspray that I am already planning to go again (my fifth time) for my birthday in a few weeks. Greg absolutely loved it (surprisingly more than Wicked which I didn’t think he’d say as he loves Wicked) and has rated it his second favourite musical (after The Lion King). A whole heap of fun (I stand by my previous reviews completely!) and I sincerely can’t wait to go back!

Friday 11th

Friday was a bit of a wind-down day as we were coming to the end of our week. We went down to the London Aquarium (soon to be re-branded as a Sea Life Centre) on the South Bank, Waterloo and spent a good few hours in there, wandering around and whatnot. I was a good chap and only sang “Under The Sea” once… there may or may not have been some camp “Under The Sea dancing” which accompanied this…. Hehe! P Again, a huge number of photos were taken from the Aquarium – managed to get quite a few nice ones I think – hurrah! The Starfish which thinks it is Marilyn Monroe is my favourite (although it is digesting a crab – ugh!) along with the awesome picture of the Jelly Fish that I managed to take.

Saturday 12th

Due to the risk of rain, Greg unfortunately had to cancel the birthday picnic that he’d rescheduled from the previous week. Typically, and once again, the weather turned out nice. Grrr @ the weather man. Felt really bad that Greg hadn’t been able to celebrate his birthday properly – gah! I bought him a proper birthday cake on the way to make him feel a bit better though!

We decided to poke around the historic “City of London” and so passed the Stock Exchange, The Royal Courts of Justice and the Old Bailey on the way to St Paul’s Cathedral. St Paul’s itself wasn’t too busy given that we had gone on a Saturday afternoon in the middle of the summer and I for one really enjoyed looking around the place – the main dome is absolutely stunning! We were even brave and ascended the stairs up to the interior gallery, though once we got up there and saw how high up we were we quickly ran back down again after having spent about 60 seconds on the balcony hehe!

I finally managed to get to the Knight’s Templar pub on Chancery Lane at a time when it was actually open on the Saturday too. I’ve been trying for months to manage to get there for a meal, though usually without success. Unfortunately, the food wasn’t stunning and the atmosphere was non-existent and so it was a little bit of a let-down I thought, as I had built it up to Greg when describing how fab it is (you have GOT to see the ladies toilets at this venue [a few of my friends have pictures of them on Flickr]– they are the best that I’ve ever seen!). Still, we had a free meal out of it (I had some vouchers that their Head Office had sent me) and the peace and quiet was rather nice!

So there you have it, a rather action packed week spread into one blog post. I really enjoyed myself and it was really awesome to have Greg to myself for a whole week!

There are plenty of pictures of my week that I have posted to Facebook (far too many to post here – we’re talking around 600 pictures!) and so feel free to visit my profile and have a nosy through the galleries if you fancy it.

Thanks for reading xx

Facebook interface redesign complete… and it’s terrible!

The new Facebook design is absolutely horrible!

It is confused, badly structured, sprawls over the browser in an incoherent fashion, looks ugly and is just generally bad!

Visit http://www.new.facebook.com to see what your profile will soon look like. Alternately, become a fan of Facebook Profiles Preview on Facebook and check their recent postings if you’re not trusting my copy of the message below – nothing wrong with folk being security conscious, especially when log-in details are involved.

The Facebook Profiles Preview update has been very useful over the past few months in seeing what the developers have had planned for the site and gave users the ability to feedback to them about different components of the website during the design stage. Unfortunately, most of the feedback posted to the group seemed to come from kids squabbling amongst themselves and weirdos, and so the constructive feedback actually posted perhaps wasn’t given the weighting it deserved.

Alas, having seen the state of the new site (surely at least one of the developers must have thought ‘hang on, this looks shoddy and terrible!’) I do think that I will be using Facebook a whole lot less (if at all) once the new site goes live for everyone.

I did just feedback to them asking if they could make the change optional (which they can clearly do, as at the moment everyone has access to the old and the new version, as well as the option to switch between the two), though somehow I doubt that they will do this.

What a pity.

Try out the new Facebook now

From Facebook Profiles Preview

Today at 6:27pm

The new profile has finally arrived. We’re slowly allowing users to opt into the new Facebook so please check it out, get accustomed to it, and provide us with feedback. To access it, please go to http://www.new.facebook.com. On the top of the screen, you will see the option to send feedback as well as switch between the new version and the old version. Over the next few weeks, as the trial version winds down, we’ll be opting everyone into the new Facebook. Thanks to everyone who has been sending us feedback over the last few months.