This one made me laugh the other night. Might have been because it was after several vodka cocktails.
Make sure to visit the BCC Collective for more of David Shrigley’s and other good art…
Latin rhythms: Monica Vasconcelos and Nois
The other day we were invited to “a concert in a church” by some friends. To our pleasant surprise, it was Monica Vasconcelos and the group Nois (us) performing.
We were swept away by Monica’s smooth voice and passionate performance. The beauty of her voice is only rivalled by her own beauty.
As a guest, Monica had invited “Chinga” who turned out to be an exceptional guitar player. His two solos, accompanied by light percussion, were possibly the highlight of the concert.
The concert was performed at the Union Chapel, Islington, London and there was even a small bar where you could get a double scotch to go with the Jazz.
Make sure to check out some of the albums by Monica Vasconcelos and Nois.
Don’t try this at home
I managed to swallow some descaler liquid the other day. Active ingridients sulphamic acid and citric acid.
I was descaling the hot water kettle in the morning and decided to leave the descaler product working during the day while being at work.
When coming back home I had obviously forgotten all about the descaler and put the kettler on.
I soaked some rice noodles in the acid water and I made some nice miso soup from it.
The noodles tasted a bit funny (sour) but it wasn’t until I had a few sips of the soup I suspected something was very wrong.
The soup was very sour and soon my lips and tounge had a tingling sensation. While thinking why on earth the food would all taste so sour it struck me that I had left the descaler in the kettle.
I summoned the pack quikly to see whether it provided any warning texts. Right after “keep away from children” it said “seek medical advice if swallowed“.
It was a bit late so instead of seeking medical advise I drank a couple of pints of milk and decided to weather it out. A quick search on the internet for “swallow descaler” led me to the helpful page of Emergency treatment of self-poisoning or overdose. The page assured me that diluted commercial descaler shouldn’t be lethal.
Woke up in the middle of the night due to a rumble in my tommy. Had a couple of bowls of Crunchy Nut with some more milk which seemed to settle it a bit.
Couple of days later and all seems fine. Bit worried about possible complications: “Oesophageal stricture and pyloric stenosis can occur after 14–21 days”. Any doctors around? What’s that when it’s at home?
To bank or not to bank in the UK
A friend recently moved to London. Once again I was reminded about the basic things that are so difficult to accomplish once relocated to London.
Having a bank account is the main thing to arrange to be able to live and work in the capital. While some people manage to get by with cash only, I would not recommend it.
Banks in other countries I have lived in are very keen to secure new customers. They often give new customers perks just to sign up for a new current or savings account. In the UK it seems to be the opposite.
The process to open a current account is so complicated, many people fail trying. Among other countless things you need to provide is an utility bill (electricity, gas, phone, etc) to prove your identity and address. This may seem reasonable until you realise you need a 3-6 months of bank statements to be able to register with an utility company.
Another requirement in order to get a current account is having a monthly salary going in. Since most employers require you having a bank account to put your salary in you have to beg persuade one of them (the bank or the employer) to make an exception from standard protocol.
The thing that seems to work best, regarding bank accounts, is having a lump sum of money to deposit. Having £1,000-2,000 in cash greatly helps to get a bank account quickly but should that really be necessary in a developed country like the UK?
Update 10/11/20
The amount of cash that you are able to deposit into your account without providing evidence where you generated it has just been lowered considerably. It is supposed to be a money laundering deterrent.
A manager I talked to was not able to disclose the exact sum, not even in loose terms but it seems to be below US$100.
Funny thing is that the big fish criminals do not deposit money in their local branch. They just wire it from or to their off-shore accounts. It is average Joe customers, exchange students and tourists that will be affected the most.
An interesting incident below:
Sharing is loving
So I am giving away an Expansys voucher because I don’t need it.
£5 off any order over £20. Enter voucher code in ‘How did you hear about us box’ or quote the code to your sales advisor.
Leave a comment with your email if you need it (expires 25th December 2004)
Bankside – London
(~35mm, Sony DSC-FX77) – click for larger version)
Every time I venture down town London I get reminded that I should do so more often. London is a breath taking city but this fact is easily forgotten during the every day working life.
This splendid view was from a Greek restaurant, just by the Shakespeare Globe Theatre.
In the foreground you can see the (controversial) Millennium bridge and in the background the magnificent St. Paul’s cathedral.
PS Brownie point if you can guess what the light/item in the top left corner is…
iTrip FM transceiver for 4th gen iPod review
The Griffin Technology iTrip for iPod is a very good gadget if you want to listen to your iPod via a car stereo or a friends sound system.
Older car stereos that take cassettes can use cassette adapters with good results but many newer car stereos only have CD slots and no auxiliary input. The iTrip sends the music on a custom FM radio channel and may be your only option in that case.
All you have to do is to tune in to this channel and you have a wireless connection. There are slight differences between the FM band used in USA, Europe and Japan but the iTrip supports all three formats.
Since the iTrip gets it’s power from the iPod (see the little connector next to the micro jack) there is no need for extra batteries. iTrip turns it self on when you start streaming music and turns it self of after 30 second of silence.
The design of the iTrip is very good. It fits like a glove on the iPod and looks like it should have been there by default.
To tune your iTrip to different channels you play short sound files that command iTrip to use a different frequency. The installation CD comes with UK channels from ~88-108MHz in 0.1MHz steps.
The iTrip costs around £30..
New star in town
This girl will make it to your radio stations in the future. She just has to be discovered first.
So here is one of her demo songs, feel free to pass it on. Especially to music agents 🙂
I’m with you – (demo song) (right-click, Save As…)
[This is a cover of a song with the same name by Avril Lavigne. I you like the song, feel free to purchase the album Let Go by Avril Lavigne.]
..
BBC Proms in the park (Hyde Park)
We have watched Proms in the Park occasionally on TV and were always amazed by the amount of people that showed up and how much they seemed to enjoy them selves. This year we decided to have a look.
The 4pm opening of the gates was delayed to 5pm, most likely due to additional security checks.
Björn Again performance was as tacky as expected but people around us seemed to love it. The band was bellowing out crowd pleasers like Waterloo and Super trooper. Spontaneous group dance routines broke out in various places around us.
The classical parts of the concert were performed by Ramon Vargas, BBC Concert Orchestra, Denise Leigh and more. Ramon Vargas braved the windy conditions and sang well know pieces from Tosca. The strong winds distorted the various performances a bit but were very powerful nevertheless.
Some people were prepared; others were very well prepared. Most had their blankets and pick-nick baskets with them including plenty of booze. Others had in addition brought foldable tables, inflatable sofas and portable lanterns. Clearly, it wasn’t their first time at the proms.
I suspect that most people in the park, certainly our party, had been waiting for The Corrs finale as a highlight of the evening. It was loud and captivating as The Corrs can be. It was the first time we had the chance to see them live and it was worth the (5.5 hours) wait.
We didn’t want to leave our golden retriever Ginger at home alone all of the day. Especially since weekends are her quality time days. So she came along, and was the only dog on ground, and behaved extremely well, and made many new (drunken) friends, and was fed to the bursting point…
GMail invites
Ok, I never thought I’d be saying this but I am.
I have GMail invites to share in case you *still* aren’t on GMail.
It’s a very good service with 1GB of storage space. If the so called privacy issues do not scare you away, let me know.
Leave a comment with your email address and a reason why *you* need a GMail account 🙂
d.
Cool GMail hack: GMailFS – GMail file system
Update 08/09/04
Another clever Gmail hack – Gallina, a blog engine based on Gmail