What Jessie Did Next… – Page 7 – …being the inane ramblings of a mundane Yorkshire bird.

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Canon Pro Network, EOS 50D, Jessops Part 2

Time for a bit of a sweep up on tales of photography which came to conclusions recently…

Remember my whinge about Jessops’ poor repair service where they’d taken 10 days to get it to Canon’s repair centre? I got my EOS 5D Mark 2 back with a note of ‘readjustment’ – after a little bit of research it turns out that this is a fairly common operation, and while they don’t map the pixels out they actually re-adjust the CCD (which bit I don’t know, so don’t ask). Jessops themselves are unrepentant about the delay, it’s fairly average for them and the Interwebs are full of complaints.

In the course of my investigations into quicker repair options I came across Canon Professional Network. While most of the website is open to everyone (I recommend the video tutorials/masterclasses from professionals), if you qualify for their full programme you get priority repairs and equipment loan if it takes more than a week to get the unit back to you. The entry requirements are fairly sizeable – you have to own at least 2 L-series lenses and 2 ‘professional’ bodies (base requirement is EOS 40D so your entry-level dSLRs don’t count nor do the older bodies).

They also make sure there’s a repair centre on-site at major events such as Wimbledon and other major sports events, yada yada. That way if something goes bang you can get it sorted damn quick (and they cover your lenses too, hooray).

Anyway, I qualified for it in the end because I’ve acquired a Canon EOS 50D as a body for Nicky to use. The 30D has been very heavily used (the trigger is reluctant to fire sometimes) and the accessories will fit a 50D so it seemed like a sensible purchase. Nicky’s used it a little bit on holiday and I’m looking forward to the first gig pics using it.

I guess I’ll see how the repair service deals with the G9’s failure and will report sometime in the future, but bear in mind the experience may be a little different as it’s a travel-insurance job.

On a side-note, there’s unsubstantiated rumours of the EOS 7D (again) and of course the new G11 has been announced. Maybe if the G9 is irrepairable I’ll go find one of those instead.

I’m so Canon’s bitch.

End Of An Era

August 17, 2009 / Jess / 2 Comments

ircnet.demon.co.uk – the first IRC server I used, which led to a major job and many friendships, acquaintances and the rest of it, is being shut down:

-BRd(~jamesr@127.0.0.1)- It is expected that ircnet.demon.co.uk will stop providing an IRCnet service very shortly (although an exact date is not confirmed). I would like to advise you that other IRCnet servers are available for users of demon’s server. These include uk.ircnet.org, irc.xs4all.nl, irc.snt.utwente.nl, us.ircnet.org, ircnet.choopa.net and ircnet.eversible.com. Thanks you and thanks to demon for providing a service for all these years.

It being a server in a larger IRC network means of course it’s not really that big news, but it’s still the end of an era.

Not that I’ve been on #dl-bar and #uknot in a long time…

Jessops Slow Repair Service Part 1

July 23, 2009 / Jess / 1 Comment

OK, I’m annoyed. No, scratch that – I’m fucking livid.

After some nice experiences with Jessops over the past couple of years, they’ve done something that’s really irked me: they’ve sat on my repair job without sending it off.

Let’s backtrack: my Canon EOS 5D Mark II (list price over £2300) developed a small rash of measles on the CCD – dead pixels which would come up as red blobs indicating early CCD failure. Any photos which came out had to be manually retouched (including a lot of the ones from Pride London 2009), a completely unacceptable situation. I’d previously written about Jessops in both Leeds and Wakefield being excellent so let me be clear here, I’m not laying this at the door of the shops themselves.

I took the unit to the Wakefield branch of Jessops which (in my opinion) has a competent manager and isn’t so busy that they rush you along. Quite aside from the computer being a bit odd and linking the serial number to a Canon EOS 30D (!) they managed to book it in and said the courier would pick it up same day.

That was about a week and a half ago (10th July). I’ve started getting anxious for an update since I’m off on holiday next week and wanted to spend a good while getting to know the camera in bright conditions. I dug around on Jessops’ site for a link to repair updates: nothing there, no help at all – and the helpline I did phone said ‘call Canon on 0844 369 0100 and choose option 1’. So I did.

After sitting through what seemed like eons of ‘you must call xxx if you have yyy’ and other prerecorded messages I finally got through to a polite lady who took the serial number of the camera body, and then said she couldn’t tell me anything because of ‘data protection’. Right. Finally through a two-step comprising me telling her bits about what it was in for and stuff (and that it had been booked through Jessops) she let slip it hadn’t arrived at Canon until 20th July, it was in ‘the queue’ and the average wait time was 5-7 working days.

So, just to clarify: Jessops didn’t forward my 5 month-old camera body to Canon for almost 10 days.

(Sidenote: Jessops shouldn’t have told me to phone the Canon service centre apparently; “They know they’re not meant to do that.” said Polite Lady.)

I’m not optimistic of receiving the unit back before I go on holiday on 29th July. Indeed, aside from having to go back to the 30D I’m steeling myself for either a dash back up North on the Thursday, or getting a friend to courier the body out to Montpellier if it comes back in time (which might be a silly idea anyway, we’ll have to see).

To say I’m pissed off is an understatement. More as it unfolds.

Two New BBC Micro Peripherals

July 9, 2009 / Jess / 0 Comments

Some folks just have too much time on their hands 😉 and there’s two new BBC Micro peripherals come onto the market:

John Kortink’s reco6502 is a remake of the classic 6502 Tube second processor for the BBC Micro – unfortunately still needing a Tube ULA but if you can source one then it makes a great little copro to fiddle with.
Sprow has just announced the availability of a Master 128 Ethernet interface, which is scarily useful.

Toys!

Pride London 2009: Come Out And Play!

July 6, 2009 / Jess / 1 Comment

Well, what an experience!

I am of course talking about Pride London, a day of celebration of the whole gay/lesbian/bi/trans community. I’ve always wanted to go to a Pride march but it wasn’t until Anthony from Paleday asked me to take photos of the band on stage that I got the impetus to get off my fat arse and go.

“What prodded you to go then?” I hear you ask. Easy answer: Paleday were playing the main stage, we had press passes kindly arranged for us – these gave us some fantastic vantage points along the parade and also access to the main photography pit in front of the main stage. All we had to do was turn up at the press stand to collect them, we were pretty damn excited!

I’d been kit-shopping the day before and picked up a 24-105mm f/4 IS L lens for the 5Dmk2 (sidenote: Calumet London are really helpful). This was a bit of a risk, a brand new lens for such a huge shoot but I was really pleased with it (I suppose hiring/borrowing it before means it’s not quite ‘blind’). Alongside the 5Dmk2 I was carrying the Canon 400D with the f/2.8 70-200 IS L and a rather large amount of compact flash. Sorted!

So we showed up around 11am in Trafalgar Square, retrieved our passes and had a little walk around before catching the Tube up to Baker St where the parade was due to commence around 1pm. What struck me immediately was how polite everyone was – I’m used to folks giving me black looks when I take a photo, but we got poses! There were some excellent outfits including an entire cast of “Michael Jackson’s Thriller”, sparkly dresses, a huge 16ft-wide feather set, and lots of flags. I even had a little chat with Boy George, who seems like a nice enough chap!

(Thankyou to the nice young man who wolf-whistled me at Baker St station – very complimentary, gave me a little morale and confidence boost did that!)

I’d split off from Simon and Nicky by this point and walked down Baker St towards the junction of Oxford St: the head of the parade where Sarah Brown (as in ‘wife of Gordon’) was standing. The conditions weren’t very photogenic so I thought I’d stroll down Oxford St – a disastrous move, I got stuck behind the barriers amidst the crowd which ain’t great for taking photos! Ten minutes of walking later – sheer relief – I managed to find a break in the barriers thanks once again to the miracle of the press pass (“let me through! i’m important!”)

And so I found myself standing slap bang in the middle of Oxford St, crowds on either side, walking backwards while taking photos of the head of the parade and officials jostled us to keep our distance from the very important people at the front. As we snapped away I picked up some tips (and observed how more experienced news photographers handle situations) – all very very useful.

There were about 10 of us photographing at the front, very courteous behaviour (again something I’m not used to) – and quite easy to get some fab shots of the costumed people in the parade. We were hustled behind a barrier at Oxford Circus because of the tight turn (dangerous territory as you could get snagged under the wheels) although once the officials all buggered off the photographers joined bits of the parade.

At this point I was starting to feel the heat, literally. The temperature was at least 30C in the middle of the road and although I had a hat on it was blisteringly dry: another photographer I’d hooked up with was also having dehydration problems, our water was all gone, no chance of us getting through the crowd barriers let alone the crowd to get water. Si was on the other side and had a bit of water left, as a lifesaver I texted him – he met us outside H&M and goodness me a mouthful of H20 has never been so welcomed, plus he was waved into the parade too and we started strolling down the middle of Regent St.

(In a rather unexpected moment, Si revealed a gift for me: a Gaydar Radio lanyard! Apparently these are highly prized and I shall treasure it forever, wish I’d seen them in person but t’was not to be.)

The parade participants marched around us, Simon and I occasionally joined in. We became honorary members of Norwich LGBT for about 10 minutes (“Isn’t Norwich a bit flat?” said one photographer. “Depends who you’re lying on top of.” came the reply). As the march continued we dropped back to join the Krishnas for a bit, then the LGBT Catholics, the scouts, and goodness knows who else. Thanks to everyone who let us march with them, it was great fun 🙂

Scorching hot with crowds cheering around us we rounded into Piccadilly Circus and down towards Trafalgar Square – punctuated by the shenanigans of rough lesbians, onlookers partying on scaffolding and bus-shelters, footballers, marathon runners and rugby scrums. The parade marched down Whitehall and petered out in the shades of a side-street – some hugs with participants before myself and Simon decided now would be a great time for a pint, heading for the Sherlock Holmes pub just down from the Square itself. A pint of lager never tasted so damn good.

We were both wondering what had happened to Nicky – our text messages went unanswered, our phonecalls went to voicemail. Turns out she was in the media pit in front of the stage taking pics of Peter Tatchell and her mobile phone battery had run out! We joined her for a while and photographed Kele Le Roc, Bob Crow (who got boo’d), Harriet Harman, Scooch, Mark Read (formerly of A1), Now Then Now Then, Urban Cookie Collective (fronted by Diane Charlemagne), and The Dolly Rockers. That took us up to about 5:30pm.

(I phoned my hairdresser during Scooch, he’s the spitting image of Russ; I don’t think he was impressed.)

During all this I’d been Twittering with other acquaintances who were at the event. Simon and myself decided to wander up to Soho taking in Leicester Square and Dean Street en route. Being in the protected media pit had spoilt us – we hadn’t anticipated the vast crowds and our progress was slow (especially around the Old Compton Street/Wardour Street end). We totally failed to find the women’s stage, but did gatecrash through the exit to the Soho Square dance area waving our passes (“look! we’re allowed!”).

We totally failed to meet up with @fnar although Si clocked Nadia from Big Brother, apparently. It was then we encountered a gentleman wearing briefs who, if I am going to be honest, was packing a hell of a lunchbox – I swear he was padding with a pair of socks, nobody should have a penis that big. Nobody.

I did not want to miss Paleday of course: we left Soho Square for Trafalgar Square again, enjoyed an ice-lolly on the way and picked up choc bars and water for Nicky. On our return Tina Cousins was singing on the main stage, with Paleday due up afterwards – I could see Alex tuning up his guitar, and Steve checking his drum kit.

A bit of a wibble from the compere, and they’re on! It was going to be a short set but they stormed through Eurotramp with the crowd loving it. Anthony welcomed on stage the Pink Singers (a gay choir) who launched into a medley of disco hits, before completing the act with a full choir-and-band version of YMCA which had the entirety of Trafalgar Square (well over 10,000 people) doing the actions – I looked back across and everyone from the front row up to the National Gallery had their arms in the air. Really, it was the highlight of the day for me, absolutely mind-blowing! I also have to say I love Anthony’s new costume coat – and please, more songs from Paleday next year.

Following on was Suzerain and Elouise as we snapped away from the front of the stage. The Dame Edna Experience drag queen from the Vauxhall Tavern bringing South London Action Girls Society to the party with the entire crowd singing along! Finally, Jimmy Somerville – only three songs but he finished with a beautifully calm, quiet comedown version of “Small Town Boy”. Utterly magical, taking us up to about 8:45pm and the end.

We gradually ‘came down’ in the Wetherspoons on Whitehall after meeting Clare and her friend, before grabbing some food and having a walk up through Soho once we’d finally come to the dawning realisation we were just too knackered to go dancing.

My legs hurt like hell as well – principally the top of my thighs since I was crouching, jumping up, crouching, jumping up, rinse and repeat from about 1pm straight through to 9pm. It’s making walking up and down stairs rather difficult.

I took about 14,000 photos (roughly 55GB) and I’m still sorting through although some have been filed to photo agencies already. I’ll get the lot on photo.jml.net over the next day or so I think – if you publish a magazine or are part of an organisation I photographed, and want to use any, please get in touch.

Next year’s Pride is set for 3rd July. Regardless of passes and such, we’ll be there — it was just such a wonderful experience. Meantime I’m back in the office, listening to Gaydar Radio and reliving the happy manic bounciness of the day. Smoochies, darlings.

Local Music Superstars On BBC Look North

July 1, 2009 / Jess / 1 Comment

OK, the title’s misleading 😉

Chris Sharp and myself were caught on film for a segment on our local news ‘Look North’ on overcrowded trains. View the clip here, complete with me mopping my brow in the heat!

(Actually, the train wasn’t that overcrowded – there were odd seats everywhere, the most distracting bit was the lass holding the camera who kept shoving her arse in my face.)

Mobile Phone Cameras Are Killing Live Music

June 19, 2009 / Jess / 3 Comments

And so last night we went to see the Pet Shop Boys at Manchester Apollo. I’ll blog about that in a bit but this is a little more of a grouch, so deserves its own blog entry. Actually no, it’s a full-on rant.

PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PUT YOUR FUCKING CAMERA PHONE DOWN AND WATCH THE GIG YOU PAID A FORTUNE TO COME AND SEE.

I am absolutely sick to the back teeth of paying a fortune for concert tickets to go and watch a band, purely to have some village idiot in front of me holding his camera phone sky high so I can either watch his arms or see it all through the back of his LCD display. This applies especially to large concert venues with stalls, gigs with lots of visuals, or places where we’re all crammed together and dancing.

So, tips for aspiring photographers at gigs, please:

Remember people are standing behind you – they don’t want to see you fiddling with your camera all the way through. They paid just as much as you for a ticket (and may be shorter in stature as well).
If you do want to take a few photos (which is fine, I do it myself with the Canon G9 occasionally), don’t do it throughout the entire gig. At some gigs I get asked to photograph, I’m restricted to a couple of songs where I can take pics then I have to sod off (or at least not get the camera out again) – take the lead from that, the rule’s there for a reason.
Feel free to stand in the aisles, in front of a stairwell, next to a wall, somewhere like that and hold it high if you want – at least you’re not pissing anyone off behind you.
If you’re not backed by a wall, aisle, etc. then hold the camera at head height, not a foot and a half above.
If all else fails and you do want photos, take your pics in the cheering, applause, etc. when there’s no major performance going on – folks can’t really object to that when they’ve got their hands in the air cheering!
Turn the flash off! You will get shit photos with the flash on, probably of the backs of the heads of the two rows in front of you and unless you’re an aspiring hairdresser this will not be what you want.
Likewise they don’t want to smell your armpits. It’s hot in here, don’t make the experience worse.
Avoid taking video – the sound will be terrible (loud, distorted), the quality will be awful, and the bloke standing behind you will miss an entire song.
Hey, you might be on a hide into nothing anyway: unless you have brought a reasonable point-n-click your phone photos will be rubbish – blurry, lots of movement.
The gig photographers will do a better job than you, why not look on Flickr for the event tomorrow morning instead (I found some pics of last night’s gig which are lovely)?
Remember YOU PAID HARD EARNED DOSH TO SEE THE BAND, NOT HOLD YOUR CAMERAPHONE UP.

So, last night I finally said something to the guy in front of me: “‘Scuse me feller,” says I. “Are we all going to have to watch the gig through your phone screen?” “Er, no. Sorry.” he stammered. At least he did shift it, and was suitably embarrassed. It’s just thoughtless.

This may strike you as hypocritical considering I profess to be a reasonably competent gig photographer (and get frequent requests from bands to take photos for them). Fair one. However, I try and be careful not to get in the way and I think I do that pretty well (doing stupid things like crouching next to million-decibel speaker stacks, and less stupid things like turning off the LCD) – OK there’s been one transgression (knocking a mike stand, thankfully in an almost deserted pub) which I duly beat myself up over for days afterwards but by and large I’m there to get in the way as little as possible.

Ergo, I’m not saying “don’t take photos” – I’m saying “don’t let it get in the way of other paying customers’ enjoyment of the gig.”

In other words, just be considerate eh?

That New Star Trek Movie

May 11, 2009 / Jess / 1 Comment

Predictably, I went to see the new Star Trek film at the weekend.

At the last minute I wasn’t sure I wanted to see it after all – I’ve followed its progress with interest, and once upon a time I was an avid Trekker so was prepared to nitpick and go into full-on nerd mode. I’ve also not been very complimentary regarding many of the Trek films so…

My first concern was that the ‘new’ cast would simply be actors-playing-actors-playing-characters. Certainly there were elements of that here (most notably in the character of Chekov and the V/W speech) but I look forward to seeing more of John Cho’s ‘Sulu’ or Karl Urban’s ‘McCoy’.

Another issue was that of canon: I wibbled about this a bit back saying ‘it’s just a film’ but I was wondering how it would be dealt with if at all. Yeah, OK, it’s a Trek film that contains time-travel (an oft-used device) but the difference here was that it wasn’t a deus-ex-machina – things were changed in the first two minutes, that’s it chaps, everything you know and love past stardate 22*mumble* has changed and ain’t going back. A throwaway ‘everything you could have been, isn’t’ has explained the lot without labouring the point. Excellent.

(Urgh, time travel mechanics do my nut in, best not to think about it much!)

Right, nerd starship design bit follows, I’ll get it out of my system: Moving the bridge down a level seems a good idea, excellent redesign there (I wasn’t sure I liked it when I saw the stills); nice to see them go back to the original engine room design, but there seemed to be precious few engineers hanging around; whoever did the nacelle design needs shooting; liked the new shuttlebay design. Nerding over, I’m not picking canon, right? 😉

Not many bad points: the two annoyances were when I saw a bit of Nokia product placement (really!), and the JJ Abrams trademark ‘let’s wiggle the camera around’ (which put me off the Battlestar Galactica reboot). The Spock/Uhura interaction grated a little at times.

That said, it’s a very enjoyable film, a hell of a reboot, tons of action/comedy/tragedy, thoroughly recommended and deserving of the label “the best Summer blockbuster since Raiders Of The Lost Ark“. I do hope the now-confirmed sequel is as good.

(…and please can I have the Orion girl for Christmas?)

Update: If you want the full ship nitpick, take a look at Ex Astris Scientia… sigh 😉

Waiting For Godot at Theatre Royal Haymarket, London

May 11, 2009 / Jess / 0 Comments

Waiting For Godot is one of those plays my father attempted to get through my thick skull when I was young. I remember sitting through a version of it as part of a Beckett television season sometime in the mid-80s and being bored stiff – pretty much how I viewed Hamlet last year.

So, being honest, it was my wife’s excitement and the rather excellent cast which drove me to obtain tickets to see the West End staging of the play last weekend. Of course we had already seen Patrick Stewart in Hamlet (here playing Didi), but he was joined by Ian McKellern (as Gogo), Simon Callow (as Pozzo) and Ronald Pickup (as Lucky).

(Sidenote: Godot itself has been discussed to death elsewhere by people much more qualified than I to give reasoned opinion, so please don’t expect philosophical discourse!)

First off, Ian McKellern was wonderful. I realise Beckett wrote some quite precise stage direction but it was carried off with perfect comic timing. His voice and mannerisms where absolutely spot on. There is little more I can say about that, but I am exceptionally glad I have now seen him on stage.

Simon Callow as Pozzo played, er, Simon Callow. Or maybe Pozzo played Simon Callow playing Pozzo. Or… I don’t know – the role was so suited that it could be any variant really, a role that commanded the bluster for which Callow is so famed.

Lucky’s single soliliquy I suspect is quite difficult to perform (not to say I wouldn’t mind a go) but Ron Pickup did it bang on as well.

Then Patrick Stewart – I’ve not seen him do any comic acting (aside from the odd comedy episode on Star Trek but I feel that doesn’t really count). It was just the right mix of comedy and tragedy in the part although maybe on reflection I felt he hammed it a little at the end of the first half. Nothing to be done.

To be honest, I’m now tempted to dig out the 1977 version (which may have been the one I saw back in the mid-80s on television) and view it with fresh eyes.

Anyway, I suspect the run is sold out now but you should really go and catch it – try and sit fairly centrally in the theatre though as quite a lot of ‘the action’ takes place towards the wings (we were sat at the side of the Royal Circle which meant some rubber-necking and craning was inevitable).

The Hop Gig Guide

April 30, 2009 / Jess / 2 Comments

A quick mention that I’ve put together a gig guide for The Hop in Wakefield, since it’s been removed (hopefully temporarily) from the Ossett Brewery website.

This is unofficial, compiled from various sources (including the blackboard in the pub itself) although obviously I’ll try and keep it as current as possible. That said, if you’re making a special trip to see a band it’s worth validating yourself.

See you tonight if you’re coming for the opening of the upstairs venue!

A Distinct Lack Of Source Code

April 29, 2009 / Jess / 4 Comments

I am annoyed.

I have hunted high and low, and cannot find half the code I wrote in the late 80s/early 90s. Granted it’s on 5.25″ disc somewhere, I’m pretty sure I still had the backups long after I relocated the HD to my Archimedes in 1994. In any case, I’m bloody annoyed; it should still be around after 7 house moves and 20 years.

I suppose it could also have been on the disc which ended up running CCl4, although I suspect that’s not the original disc either.

So, I’d better work out what jZip-0 format means and try and recall it without the specification. Argh.

Indeed, annoyed.

Wakefield RISC OS Show 2009 Redux

April 29, 2009 / Jess / 0 Comments

I went to the Wakefield RISC OS Show last Saturday, exhibiting a stand-full of ‘vintage’ Acorn kit with nothing more recent than 1989!

There’s a photo of the stand here, showing on display (from left to right / far end to near photographer):

BBC Master 128 with 512k 80186 coprocessor, occasionally running DR-DOS (this particular unit got switched with Jonathan Harston’s Master Compact occasionally).
BBC Domesday Project, Phillips LVROM, Master AIV.
BBC Model B with ATPL Sidewise, 6502 2nd Processor, EPROM programmer.
SJ Research MDFS (four slices: CPU, two drive slices with SCSI disks and tape drive, floppy unit).
BBC Master 128 with ‘new’ technology including 2GB CF card drive (from Mark at Retroclinic) and Sprow’s ARM7TDMI coprocessor.

We had the stand hooked up with Econet which stayed alive for the whole day! The Domesday LVROM behaved itself (mostly), only getting ornery later on in the day when a restart cured it. Having the lid off made it more interesting anyway!

The show was much better attended than in recent years, plenty of interest and new faces possibly picked up from Byte-Back and the ‘retro scene’. There were even a few Econet bits on the charity stall although I resisted at the price being asked. I did manage to pick up a SCSI slide scanner and a box of other odds and ends for the Arc.

We found out during the day that domesday1986.com has disappeared as its main contributor had died, sadly. I am therefore resolved to step up my preservation efforts – but more on that later.

Jonathan Harston (aka JGH) demonstrated his relocatable module stuff for the ARM7 by getting BBC BASIC running under a Z80 emulator on an ARM7TDMI coprocessor hosted by a BBC Master 128, I’m sure it can get more convoluted than that but I’m not sure by how much. Additionally various Econet bits and bobs were shown off including a multiuser chat and game server.

For some reason the games we sorted out at Byte-Back refused to work any more, I suspect it’s the particular configuration of the Beeb units themselves. I promise next time we’ll have Chuckie Egg running (both myself and Ian had a go at fixing it but to no avail). Granny’s Garden and Podd were popular.

Special mention to Jonathan’s PSU which exploded and smoked in a rather spectacular fashion, threatening to fill the exhibition hall with acrid smoke. Apparently it didn’t stop working but was causing such a fuss it ended up outside on the pavement!

Fantastic find of the show: a rather nice chap showed up with a brown A4 envelope of goodies – an unused Domesday submission kit including teachers’ notes, two 5.25″ floppies for compiling a school’s Domesday pages, pupil notes and user manuals. Both myself and Ian took immediate copies of the floppies but I will make available DSD files of these if anyone wants a looksee, and scan in the documentation. It also changes the copyright situation slightly – I wouldn’t say ‘smoking gun’ but it throws doubt on what the BBC were saying a while back.

I got home, set stuff up again, ate curry, and nursed my aching back – I’d forgotten how heavy that MDFS is!

The next retro show is in Leicester at the end of May, but I won’t be able to make that. There’s a big one in Huddersfield in September where we’re planning to show off quite a bit of stuff, and in the interim I’ll be penning a few articles on the whole BBC Micro revival ‘scene’ as well as the resurrection of the Domesday preservation efforts. Watch this space.

A Terrible Geek Quip

April 28, 2009 / Jess / 4 Comments

As seen on IRC:

<@Menus> $colleague was supposed to be flying to .mx yesterday
<@Menus> i think they’ve only started not letting people go today
<@Menus> and those who are there are being brought back
<@sooB> Menus: can’t he fly to a secondary mx instead?

*sigh*

Wakefield Acorn Show 2009 Tomorrow

April 24, 2009 / Jess / 1 Comment

It’s Wakefield Acorn Show tomorrow!

I have 12ft of table space, upon which I will be attempting to fit:

The BBC Domesday System
A multi-slice MDFS linking up the stand Beebs with Econet
A ‘New Stuff’ BBC Master equipped with CF card drive and Sprow’s ARM7 copro (plus anything else I can find)
An ‘unpimped’ BBC Master for games and stuff (yes indeed, there will be Elite and Chuckie Egg!)
A BBC Micro with EPROM burner and probably some other bits inside too

If any other stands want Econet I’ll be able to provide a spur over (I’m taking the stuff with me this time, *cough*).

Come and say hello, take photos, touch the Domesday, and all that 🙂

Doncaster Beer Festival 2009

April 23, 2009 / Jess / 0 Comments

I joined Lee at 19th Doncaster Beer Festival last Saturday, a pretty laid-back afternoon meeting new people and drinking lots of ale. Lovely to see Jerry again, and meet Rachel among others.

Beers:

Mallinson’s P A H (4.1%)
Great Oakley Wagtail (3.9%)
Grafters Brewer’s Troop (4.1%)
Rudgate Ruby Mild (4.4%)
Captain Cook Slipway (4.2%)
Empire Parliamentary Expenses (3.9%)
Great Gable Brown Tongue (5.2%)
Dark Tribe Admiral Sydney Smith (3.8%)
Idle West Coopers (4.3%)
Old Mill Aviator’s Ale (4.3%)
And finally, Flying Dog Dogtoberfest (5.3%), a German-style seasonal beer from the USA from the continental bar.

To be fair, pickings were sparse when I got there around 3pm – once again it seemed that Doncaster CAMRA didn’t order in enough beer so I had to be guided a bit in my choices by what was still available.

Particularly interesting was spending an hour or so with one of the brewers from Acorn Brewery in Barnsley, who do my favourite session ale ‘Barnsley Bitter’. Congrats to them who won the ‘Mild Of The Festival’ award.

Photos of the event are here.