Sunday, 16 January 2011

Kevin Montgomery and the Endangered Livers

Friday night, Tingewick, and first gig for 2011. Disappointed to see on arrival all the seats had been spread out and were at least occupied by the crowd seeing the support. Bad omen, as it will depress atmosphere. Had a quick one in the pub opposite, and notice Kevin Montgomery and band come in and take drinks back to their Winnebago parked outside the hall. Get in and position myself very close right of stage but standing up leaning against the wall.
KM opens up with him and his regular guitarist and another guy on electric piano. 3 songs during which I feel my phone going off in my pocket. Third song ends, and Weather Report's Palladium erupts from my trouser pocket, KM fortunatly makes a symphatic joke about it, I go to switch off, notice alot of repeat messages, read one,  and discover bad news which I am powerless to do really anthing about. Go outside and find higher ground as signal very poor and get the real news. Not good.
Go back inside and sit on large storage radiator at rear of hall only half listening to show so was not receptive to what was going on.
However, show was distinctly average, I suppose I imagined something a bit more, but not be. Nothing new, nothing fresh, nothing that stood out. Best song was Jackson Browne's 'These Days' where his guitarist did sound like David Lindley and there was another self composition but cant recall what is was called.
Good bloke though, and by the end at least two more orders of pints had been delivered from the pub, endangered livers indeed. I know find that although from Nashville, he lives in Glasgow, has been a backing singer for Presley and Dylan, and his father Bob, was best mates and song writing partner to Buddy Holly, so some pedigree there.

Somehow I think he needs a new and better producer.

Sunday, 9 January 2011

Like Water For Chocolate

1992 Mexican film taken from a popular novel by Laura Esquivel, the director, Alfonso Arau's then wife. Based on food and lust it was rather charming and funny in places and rattled along at a quick pace which in someways was its pitfall as it really could have been a pot boiler.
Picture from the dvd was in a strange square format on our HD tele, and when changing to full screen, most of the subtitles went missing.
8.25 / 10

Sunday, 2 January 2011

HDR Photography

First real attempt at HDR photography. 3 images combined into one, one under exposed by 2 stops, one normal and the third over exposed by 2 stops. Notice the ghost image of the blue rope. The normal one has been tweaked in photoshop but more understanding needed.
This one is untweaked.

Saturday, 1 January 2011

New Years Goal

Set myself a target to ride 1000miles in a year. That does not sound a lot, in fact 3.65miles a day. But then I have no chance during the week so it is going to be a weekend activity, which makes it 25miles over two days.
So with the help of my trusty Garmin ETrex Venture mounted on the handlebars and Garmin Connect set up to record all my activities I was away.
So 8 miles today.

Sunday, 26 December 2010

The Promise


The Promise  is a 2005 Chinese epic fantasy film directed by Chen Kaige and is based on the Wuxia romance The Kun-lun Slave, written by Pei Hsing at the time of the Tang Dynasty.The budget was rumored to be $42M, surpassing the cost of Hero, and is yet again as with all Chinese films beautifully shot by Peter Pau.
Convoluted storyline and not the best of the recent chinese films we have seen, but its cinematography more than makes up for it short comings.
8/10

Thursday, 23 December 2010

Tales of the Red Tuft

An exclusive book to Kindle
Tales of the Red Tuft, Prince Harry's tale

Sunday, 12 December 2010

The American

Very decent thriller in the european fashion...not a lot of action...brooding silences...great photography...but an edge of seat movie just the same. Clooney yet again picks a decent role...has he had a dud role in the last decade? and he can pick his co-actresses. Which is the source of the only grumble...you would not get that class of hooker in an out of the way Italian hill town.

8.9 / 10