Paul's Boutique

Apple promoted Leopard for so long that I got completely swept up in the excitement - I bought and installed it on the day of release, and initially things seemed ok. Not a million miles from Tiger - some odd aesthetic changes - but generally a smooth ride and nothing to worry about.

For the last month I’ve been getting the dreaded grey screen of death on a daily basis, usually when I’m in the middle of uploading a file from Coda. Naturally the crash occurs just after the file transfer starts, which results in the file truncating and me losing most of it.

I’d never seen the grey screen of death before. The first time it happened I was quite impressed that it wasn’t as abrupt as window’s blue screen of death - the screen gracefully fills with grey and then tells me in about eight languages that everythings screwed and there’s nothing I can do about it but switch off and start again. Now it’s happening with such regularity that even if Apple sent someone around to my house with some chocolates to gently break to me that my computer was going to freeze inexplicably and I’d probably lose data, it wouldn’t be enough to stop me becoming really quite angry.

SO - here’s the quandry. Do I ‘downgrade’ to Tiger (there’s a lot of talk of it but I haven’t found a walk-through that would make me feel safe), or do I sit it out and wait for 10.5.2, which evidently weighs in at nearly 400MB and sounds to me like a lot of fixes for something that possibly shouldn’t have been released until it was ready. No release date for that fix yet…

Posted in Tech |

I was shocked and hugely disappointed to hear 1xtra’s DJ Flight announce last night that she was actually broadcasting her last show. I’ve tuned in regularly to listen to her show for the last five years and had no idea that it was coming. Despite consistently featuring in 1xtra’s top 10 ‘listen again’ ratings, it transpires that the BBC are ’shaking up’ the DJ roster and have let Flight and L Double go. It’s a huge shame for Drum & Bass fans, not only because Flight was responsible for airing lots of music and promoting artists that other DJs weren’t playing, but also because she represents another minority within the scene - women! You can read the official BBC press release here. At least they’re retaining Bailey.

Her last show was excellent, and I’ll soon be posting a link to it before it drops off the ‘listen again’ facility on the 1xtra site. The new 1xtra roster features Tim Westwood and Trevor Nelson, who will also retain their Radio1 shows. I’m wondering what they’re going to do differently for 1xtra…

Huge respect to Flight and hopefully you’ll be snapped up by another network or broadcaster that values the contribution that you’re making to the scene.

Posted in Music |

With a song that sounds like it was written for a junior school competition and then performed by Catherine Tate I find it incredibly hard to believe that Kate Nash is an artist with material to take seriously. And yet she’s somehow on the ‘play once every show’ playlist at Radio 1 and has even made it onto the 6music playlist… Is her dad high up at the BBC? When will this current slew of regionally accented not-singing-not-rapping-just-talking talentless kids be recognised and dropped by the powers that be in media-land? What’s happening? Clearly I don’t get it. Am I alone or does anyone else experience revulsion at the sound of her burbling “…cos they are much fit-ter”? Someone please explain!

Posted in Music |

This month sees the release of two eagerly anticipated albums (well, that I’ve been particularly excited about anyway). Queens of the Stone Age release ‘Era Vulgaris’, something that I’ve been waiting on for what seems like a very long time, and which I was lucky enough to receive a pre-release of last week. The other album is Dizzee Rascal’s third, entitled ‘Maths & English‘ - I’ve only heard two tracks from this but if they’re anything to go by the album won’t disappoint. Sirens and Pussyole(Old Skool) both see his lyrics super-tight, delivery styles switching up all over the place and some heavy production that gives more than a nod to Hip Hop from the 80s and 90s (apart from the blatant Rob Base / Lyn Collins sample I’m thinking that thematically Sirens is very similar to Ice T’s 6 in the morning and NWA’s 100 Miles and Running, only with an East-London lean).

Era Vulgaris is a welcome return for QOTSA and is fresh and exciting from the opening grimey percussion of Turning on the Screw through to the final strains of Run Pig Run. Familiar tracks from live performances make welcome appearances as studio recordings (Into the Hollow, Make it wit Chu) and they’ve taken their mix of blues, driving hard rock, technical ability and dark electronic sounds to a new level. I love it - can you tell?

Posted in Music |

I read (and subsequently participated in) an interesting debate on the Guardian site today. The first was around the issue of the BBC Trust stifling their ability to launch a leading edge on-demand media player. Opting to use Windows Media Player / Microsoft DRM technology and Kontiki Delivery manager for the ‘iPlayer‘ that they’re soon to launch could be a devastatingly bad move for them; Channel 4 launched their 4oD service at the end of last year based upon this cocktail and it’s not a great experience to use. For a start, I use a mac (millions of us do) and so I can’t download and watch Ugly Betty (or anything else) from them (even if I’m willing to pay 99p for the privilege). It’s a PC-only service, which is what the BBC will be offering.

Whilst Apple have demonstrated with seeming ease that DRM encrypted media can be deployed to macs and PCs with exactly the same user-experience, Microsoft have no interest in delivering content to non-windows users. Apple have even gone one step further and finally managed to convince several Media giants that DRM is no longer necessary. So why is the BBC, world media pioneer, opting for a second rate, single platform solution for their eagerly awaiting (long suffering) license fee payers?

Posted in Tech, Media |

Posted in Uncategorized |

OK, so I was watching 300 the other night (SPARTAAAAA!) and imagine my surprise when Grooverider appeared as a Persian emissary. The part is credited to ‘Kwasi Songui’ but I reckon that must be a psedonym - that beard’s fooling nobody…

Posted in Film |

Posted in Uncategorized |

OK, I so I had to head up to London yesterday for a meeting with Booktrust in the afternoon. Then i found out this morning that I missed a tiny QOTSA gig at the 100 club. I was in town! I could have gone. Admittedly I didn’t have a ticket and it would have cost me more than my right arm’s street value, but the thought of missing seeing them play in a tiny (non festival/stadium) sized venue, and that room being full of record company and ad-agency people that aren’t that interested fills me with angst. Aagh!

Posted in Music |

I spent an enjoyable morning today visiting Redruth School to talk to their ‘Art Ambassadors‘ about design, websites, and how they want to portray themselves online. I even got to visit the staffroom…

The Art Ambassadors project has been conceived by ProjectBase in a bid to get ‘young people’ (sorry, I struggle with that expression) interested and involved in contemporary arts. I’m going to be working with the groups to hopefully build a website that they feel truly represents them as a group, and more importantly that they use and enjoy and feel proud of… so watch this space, I’m back there next week with ProjectBase to talk about identity, layout, typography, colour. In about 90 minutes. Eek.

Posted in Design, Tech |