Memoirs of a Roadie

My Generation

Posted on 17th June 2007

The Coopers

Nicole and I went to see The Coopers last weekend, as our friend Kev is the drummer. The gig was an open rehearsal, but could really be considered as their first gig. They invited friends and family and as such quite a number of regulars from The Scooter Do turn up. They play a variety of Mod songs dating from the late sizties to the early eighties, with The Who's My Generation and I Can't Explain, and The Small Faces' All Or Nothing, getting a great response from the audience.

I think the singer did get his eras mixed up as when he said they were going to do something from the 80s, then played Teenage Kicks ... from 1978. However, they did redeem themselves with a great version of Time For Action. I haven't heard that in years. I used to prefer The Lambrettas myself, but I thought My World by Secret Affair was better than Time For Action, but apparently that is one of Kev's favourite songs.

In The City

Posted on 12th June 2007

Centennary Square, Birmingham

Last year DanDan and I made several trips around the city of Birmingham in preparation for the 2006 YAPC::Europe Perl Conference. The plan was to take lots of photos, so that attendees would both already know some of the landmarks before they got here, and to encourage those teetering on the edge, that Birmingham is actually a decent place to explore. I've just uploaded five galleries of photos that we both took during June and July 2006. We managed to pick our days very well, as we had glorious sunshine to help bring out the colours of the buildings and plants. It was fun explaining Perrott's Folly to DanDan as that's part of his heritage.

I say we, as some of the photos I've included are taken by DanDan, using my old camera. He's not done too badly in some of them :)

Fly Like An Eagle

Posted on 2nd May 2007

I've been a long time fan of space photography, partly fueled by watching the movements of Jodrell Bank's Lovell Radio Telecope from my bedroom window when I lived in Holmes Chapel. Although I have never been moved enough to become an astronomer, I did used to enjoy looking at the stars in the night sky of an evening sitting on the nearby hills and watching Patrick Moore telling what to look for on The Sky At Night. These days I seem to keep meeting people who are astronomers in their spare time, and some have managed to get some amazing photographs, even though they are earth bound.

Recently I came across a site that features the Top 100 photographs taken from the ESA/NASA Hubble Telescope. All the photos are absolutely amazing, but the one that really impressed me was the one pictured on the right. There is something rather majestic about that photograph, and the colours are stunning. If I ever become the next Mark Shuttleworth and become a space passenger, I'd probably spend my whole time glued to the window .... with my trusty camera of course ;)