Red Nose Day

I'm a bit (ok, a lot) of a grumpy-old-man when it comes to charridy events like Red Nose Day. A mixture of political views (charity replacing social duty etc. - I won't rehearse the well worn arguments here) coupled with manufactured (and joyless?) organised-compulsory-mass-participation-fun!!! and all that it entails (TV, Radio etc.).
However, Charlie has been counting down the days as they are allowed to wear red noses and red T-shirts at school. Bless.

Bowie on working in a record shop in the 60's

These could be heroes . . . one day-Arts & Entertainment-Music-TimesOnline:
This is to promote DBs involvement as a "Nokia Music Recommender".
Some nice recollections about a time I don't really remember, yet can associate with.

"A record shop was just about the coolest place one could hang out in back then — perhaps not quite as cool as a coffee bar or the burger-selling innovation known as the Wimpy Bar, but it ran a very close second. People who were “aware” were attracted to record shops."

does it suck or rock?

does it suck?
Just in case you can't decide if something in your life is good/bad (rocks/sucks) these nice people have provided a simple tool to help you :-)
High scores are good.
Here's a few things that are clearly important to me - it seems the Gruffalo rocks all our worlds and I am entirely average.
The West Ham result clearly shows this system doesn't work!!!

the gruffalo 10.0
bowie 9.8
sylvian 9.5
west ham united 9.4
northstar 9.4
marmite 6.9
linux 6.3
steve adams 5.0

ARTO LINDSAY Photos

Stumbled upon these great recent Arto Lindsay photos... (dig the beard!)
DARIO VILLA - ARTO LINDSAY
whilst I was attempting to see what he is up to since his last solo CD.
Not much it seems - though he did produce this interesting sounding CD on Matthew Herbert's label: MICAH - Everything.
The photography site has some other nice jazz musician sets too.

Ask tries U.K. guerrilla marketing campaign

This News.com article reports on an attempt at an edgy, guerrilla marketing campaign by Ask.
It seems fairly lame to me, both in the approach (trying toooooo hard to be cool and edgy) and in the arguments it makes about "information freedom". Yes, we need to be careful about handing any company a monopoly.... but what makes Ask such a great alternative?
Their site seems laden with more obtrusive advertising per results-page (than google), and less relevant results (than google or yahoo)

Ask tries U.K. guerrilla marketing campaign | News.blog | CNET News.com
More here: http://valleywag.com/tech/advertising/a-botched-revolt-against-google-244111.php

Blue Peter fakes phoneline winner

Blue Peter fakes phoneline winner | The Register:
This has been covered everywhere, of course... but I had to laff at the wonderful subheading from the Register on this:

"Here's one we made up earlier"

No rules, no boundaries for Frisell

No rules, no boundaries for Frisell:
Nice interview with humble-guitar-genius Bill Frisell.
"Music has always been the place for me where anything is possible,'' he says. 'You can just do whatever you want, and it doesn't hurt anybody. You can try anything -- you can jump off a cliff, or a tall building. You can be aggressive or not. It doesn't do anything but good."

One for my Dad - twirl a squirrel...

YouTube Video - twirl a squirrel