Month: August 2010

  • Cinema Advertising

    Over the weekend I saw a couple of films, and because I showed up early, I saw most of the ad-reel in front of each film. A couple of things occurred to me with cinema ads that are relatively unique to the medium: – Advertisers aren’t scared of running long ads. The Spanish beer brand…

  • Prom 54: Sibelius’s Second Symphony

    [Not taken last night when it was pouring with rain] I love Sibelius’s Second Symphony, so I cycled over to the Royal Albert Hall last night to see it performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra. It was also being broadcast on BBC Four (and Radio 3, of course). Before that we had the premiere of…

  • Some Media Reading

    There have been a few reports, publications and press releases recently that are worth highlighting. The BBC has published its latest monthly iPlayer Performance Pack detailing results for July 2010. I always find this is worth a read. It’s interesting to note that requests for BBC iPlayer dipped a bit during both June and July.…

  • His Girl Friday on TV Tomorrow

    Tomorrow BBC2 is showing a couple of classic films during the daytime. At 11.00am there’s Holiday from 1938 with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn. And then at 12.30 is 1940’s His Girl Friday. This is a film that I’ve mentioned before as it’s one of my favourites of all time. But Wikipedia noted a couple…

  • At The Front of the Queue

    Remember when you were little, and there was always the annoying kid who had everything? He was the person who’d completed their Panini sticker collection before we’d even stuck in the free pack that came with the album. He had Bigtrak or a ZX81 even when he didn’t really like computer programming? He got a…

  • Star Island

    It’s been too long. Much too long. Carl Hiaasen has finally published a new novel, four years after his last adult novel (yes, I realise that fans of Donna Tartt or readers awaiting the next in the A Song of Fire and Ice saga have had to wait longer). In the intervening years, Hiaasen has…

  • Barclays Boris Bikes – A Few Weeks In

    The London Cycle Hire scheme has been live for a few weeks now, and although there have been the odd teething problem such as people being overcharged or the system crashing entirely, a more fundamental problem has reared its head. Logistics. As someone who’s currently cycling between King’s Cross and the West End daily on…

  • Eleven and Good Morning Nantwich

    I’ve read two books by comedians in the last couple of weeks – which is pretty unusual for me. I tend to stray away from anything written by anyone even approaching “celebrity” status. But for various reasons I made an effort to read these books both pretty much on their respective publication dates. Eleven is…

  • Pure Flow Songs

    Yesterday I went to the press launch of Pure Digital’s latest offering: Flow Songs Beta. Essentially, it allows listeners to a number of Pure’s internet radios (usually with FM and DAB built in), to identify and buy any track they hear played on their radios. The way it works is that when you’re listening to…

  • Radio Times 10 August

    Wondering what to watch tonight? Allow me to help. It’s been a while since the last one of these. As ever, it’s best viewed large.

  • Photos

     

  • Tanguera

    Having read the Londonist review of Tanguera last week, and been vaguely intrigued by the tube posters, on a whim I went to see this tango inspired piece at Sadler’s Wells this evening. It’s wonderful. It’s a 90 minute simple story told via dance, with several songs, about a young French girl arriving in Argentina…