General News and Musings for Week of 26th April

Thanks to the kind gentleman earlier this week who decided to sit next to me on the train absolutely reeking of garlic. When folks next to you are tearing up and holding their breath it's time to do something about the seasoning, buddy!


Also thanks to the guy the following day who sat opposite me and sniffed every 8 seconds for the whole 1 hour journey. If you're sick, stay home!


Props to my man Paul Fisher who's working with me at the moment and got his process models approved and signed off last week. Way to go Taffy.
One thing I like about living out in the country - the wildlife. I woke early one morning this week and looked out of the window to see a deer walking down my drive and out into the lane. Can't get that in Hedge End.

Had an interesting exchange on Twitter the other day with someone connected with a major BPM software vendor. They had written a long, detailed, and quite boring post about the difference between two programming languages. I tweeted about the fact that I fell asleep in the middle of reading it. This invoked the wrath of the poster who basically accused me of being the reason there was a misunderstanding in the first place. A fellow tweeter chipped in to say that maybe the problem was 'a bit too much detail'. This resulted in a catty reply to him to. No names but if you search my Twitter stream you'll find the guilty party.

My cat is recovering this week after being attacked by an unknown assailant. He appeared filthy, wet, cold and covered in cuts a weekend back. Nothing could console him as he retired to bed without eating or cleaning himself. Closer examination revealed that he had a jaw injury resulting in both his upper and lower canine teeth being thrust through his lip, effectively stapling his mouth together. A quick trip to the vet and an antibiotic jab cured that. Now he's back at peak performance. Bless.

Friend of this blog Tallulah Rendall has put together her second album after the awesome Libellus from last year. She is now fundraising to release it and I urge all of you to check it out. Donate if you can, it's well worth it.

I love it when people I know quite well but haven't spoken to for a while get back in touch and have to try and explain how it is you know them "We worked together in the tanning factory and you used to hand me the twenty-litre tubs of urine to pour over the hides. We did that for six months. I was short and skinny with a lazy eye and a stutter. Do you remember me?". Chances are if you're on my Facebook I remember you, Em!

Fancy mainlining coffee? What about inhaling it? How about just pasting it on your lips? All these are different ways of getting your daily caffeine fix and this article explains how to get that extra buzz when your morning Starbucks doesn't quite cut it any more.

So chocolate can cause depression? I know a lot of females who would swear the exact opposite.

This comes as a surprise (but not a big one) Heathrow airport has no visibility into the inbound flights until about 10 minutes before they land. Anyone who's ever landed there and had to wait 15 minutes for a jetty or steps will understand that.

To the two Harley Davidson riders who shouted at the London bus driver who cut them up in the City of London yesterday: bravo!

More next week.

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General News and Musings for Week of 19th April

Ex colleague Alistair Hart heads off to Canada - Maybe Canada in the late winter wasn't the best place to go but early reports say he's enjoying himself. Stay tuned, we'll find out soon.

Subscribers to 'The Process Cafe' have just reached 400. Thank you to everyone who subscribed, who reads and who comments.

The early British summer has arrived and fooled everyone into thinking the warm weather is here for good. In London yesterday there were hundreds of people sitting having their lunch on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral looking for all the world like pale-skinned pigeons. I was tempted to run at them flapping my arms and shouting 'Scram', but I suspect they wouldn't have moved an inch. Turning a fire hose on them would probably have worked though.

After the news that Ning are removing free access to their social networks the BPM Nexus is looking to find a new home. We are probably looking at something like Grou.ps. Anyone got any experience with this?

The British election is starting to heat up. After the first leaders debate Nick Clegg came out a clear winner. After the second debate Nick Clegg came out a clear winner unless you read the opinion polls rather than watched the show. It's now, apparently, a battle of personalities and looks rather than policies and manifestos.

From several days last week the sky was clear, blue and unmarked by aircraft con-trails I now look out the window to see the familiar criss-cross of white lines blighting the view. But what would happen if commercial air travel were to be permanently grounded? So professional sports in the UK would be damaged. Hmmm..... Bring back the airships, I say.

In other news:

The warm weather has finally persuaded my cat to start shedding his winter coat. My house is COVERED in ginger and white fur. Those who know me well will say 'How can you tell the difference?'

Bond 23 - The latest in the James Bond franchise has officially been shelved for the time being until MGM work out their issues and manage to sell themselves to someone. Who'd have thought it was so hard finding a buyer for the longest running and most profitable franchise in film history, not to mention some all time classic movies...

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Movie quiz (The male edition) - The answers

Image via Wikipedia

Here are the answers to the movie quiz posted last week. Remember a couple of these were tricky!

1) Benjamin Braddock - Dustin Hoffman - The Graduate
2) Albus Dumbledore - Richard Harris - Harry Potter And the Philosophers/Sorcerers Stone
3) Captain Benjamin Willard - Martin Sheen - Apocalypse Now
4) Roy Neary - Richard Dryfuss - Close Encounters
5) Ray Ferrier - Tom Cruise - War of the Worlds
6) Capt. John Miller - Tom Hanks - Saving Private Ryan
7) Amon Goeth - Ralph Fiennes - Schindlers List
8) Matt Hooper - Richard Dryfuss - Jaws
9) Bud Fox - Charlie Sheen - Wall Street
10) Craig Schwartz - John Cusack - Being John Malkovich
11) Sam Witwicky - Shia LaBeouf - Tranformers
12) Joe Buck - John Voight - Midnight Cowboy
13) Harris K. Telemacher - Steve Martin - L.A. Story
14) Tommy 'Five-Tone' Messina - Danny Aiello - Hudson Hawk
15) Rupert Pupkin - Robert de Niro - The King of Comedy

How many of you got John Cusack as Craig Schwartz? What about John Voight as Joe Buck (not the American Football announcer!)

If you didn't try the female version of this and would like to, here is that quiz.and here are the answers.

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Who on Earth Is that ? - The male edition: A movie quiz.

I recently did a quiz here on the Musings Cafe which asked you to identify a movie character and name the person who played that character first, and in which film. That quiz was focused on female actors. At the time I said I would do a quiz focusing on male characters.

So here goes.

Remember the rules are easy: For every name below identify the name of the actor who first played this character, and the name of the first film that character appeared in.

1) Benjamin Braddock
2) Albus Dumbledore
3) Captain Benjamin Willard
4) Roy Neary
5) Ray Ferrier
6) Capt. John Miller
7) Amon Goeth
8) Matt Hooper
9) Bud Fox
10) Craig Schwartz
11) Sam Witwicky
12) Joe Buck
13) Harris K. Telemacher
14) Tommy 'Five-Tone' Messina
15) Rupert Pupkin

There are a couple of real teasers in there (10 and 12 in particular) so put your thinking caps on.

Answers at the end of next week.

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What's under the fridge? What??!!

There’s something living under my fridge.

It’s not very big - after all it has to live under the fridge - bit it is there. How do I know? Good question. I can’t hear it, I can’t see it, but I know it’s there because it cleaned my kitchen floor. Not all of it, obviously, but it did do something very peculiar. Let me explain

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Movie quiz - The Answers!

Image via Wikipedia

Here are the answers to the movie quiz posted last week.

Remember the idea was to take the character name provided and identify the person who first played that role and in what film.

Here goes:

1) Hermione Granger: Emma Watson, Harry Potter and the Philosophers/Sorcerers Stone
2) Katherine Trammell: Sharon Stone, Basic Instinct
3) Sarah Connor: Linda Hamilton, The Terminator
4) Lindsay Brigman: Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, The Abyss
5) Vivian Ward: Julia Roberts, Pretty Woman
6) Dr Ellie Sattler: Laura Dern, Jurrasic Park
7) Selene: Kate Beckinsale, Underworld
8) Clarice Starling: Jodie Foster, Silence of the Lambs
9) Holly Genarro: Bonnie Bedelia, Die Hard
10) Tina Carlyle: Cameron Diaz, The Mask
11) Daphne and Josephine: Jack Lemmon, Tony Curti, Some Like it Hot
12) Elisabeth Swann: Keira Knightly, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of The Black Pearl
13) Eleanor Arroway: Jodie Foster, Contact
14) Kathryn Merteuil: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Cruel Intentions
15) Larita Whittaker: Jessica Biel, Easy Virtue

So, how did you do? How many did you get (and you didn't check Google did you?)

Keep you eyes out for a male version coming soon.

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Who on earth is that? - The new movie quiz

Image by ego technique. via Flickr

Time for another quiz, I think. This one is a little different to the others. Usually I give you a quote or something from a movie and you have to identify the movie (and/or who said it). This time we're going to go for identifying the actors playing a given role.


It's simple: I will give you the name of a character from a movie. You have to identify who played the character in what film. If the character has appeared in more than one film just give me the first appearance of the character in a film. For example; If the clue was 'Tony Stark", the answer would be 'Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man'. All the names in this quiz are female. I'll do a male version at a later date.

Remember it is really easy to look these answers up on Google but there's no fun in doing that. Try to think your way around the problem.

Here goes:

1) Hermione Granger
2) Katherine Trammell
3) Sarah Connor
4) Lindsay Brigman
5) Vivian Ward
6) Dr Ellie Sattler
7) Selene
8) Clarice Starling
9) Holly Genarro
10) Tina Carlyle
11) Daphne and Josephine
12) Elisabeth Swann
13) Eleanor Arroway
14) Kathryn Merteuil
15) Larita Whittaker

There might be one or two trick ones in there, so be careful.

Post your answers in the comments, please. Kudos go to the person with the most correct answers and I'll run this quiz until Friday 18th September 2009 (and I might add a couple of clues a little later in the week..)

Enjoy!

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Thought for the day: Kitteh's and their weird sense of taste

Why is it that my cat, Zeke, will catch mice, shrews, birds, snakes & frogs, eat them all whole (feathers/bones and scales included), and yet turn his nose up at me when I offer him 'The dry cat food' instead of 'The moist pouches'?

Surely it can't be the taste?

Can it?

If so I'm speaking with the cat food manufacturers to make sure their food smells and tastes of 'freshly killed rodent'

There's got to be a marketing opportunity here.

Just a thought . . .

Posted via web from The Posterous Cafe

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On the British weather...

Picture courtesy of Athena's pix
Released under a Creative Commons Attribution license

It has to be said that the British are obsessed with the weather. Being a relatively small island (in the big scheme of things) our weather is both changeable and unpredictable. Therefore it is a frequent topic of conversation. The one thing that can be said about the British weather with a level of assurance is that it is 'mild'. We don't tend to have extremes of hot and cold like, say, some of the American midwest towns, but neither do we have levels of predictability for weather like, say, Australia.

The fact of the matter is that Britain is a mild, reasonably wet island attacked by weather from both continental Europe, Scandinavia and the Atlantic. The gulf stream which surrounds the westerly sides of the country warms the water sufficiently that we don't get weather so cold it freezes the water (Liverpool is on the same latitude as Goose Bay in Canada. They regularly freeze over, we never do) and generally makes out winters less severe than some of our European neighbours.

I worked with a mid-west born manager by the name of Steve a number of years ago. He was a good ol' boy from central Indiana. Born and bred there, he barely left the state. Whilst a lot of his opinions were very parochial and a little 'twee' he did say one thing which I kind of identified with. "You know, Gary," he said "I couldn't live in England because I like to be in a country where the seasons are different. I like a good winter followed by a nice summer".

The reason I brought this up is because we have been having a spell of warm weather here in England recently and it seems to be following the pattern dictated by the meteorologists. They stated that the summer would be 'Warm but with some heavy rain storms'. This contrasts with last summer which was 'Heavy rain but with some light sun bursts'. A summer like this is generally a two edged sword though. The nice weather means that outdoor events such as the ICC World Twenty-20 Cricket, Glastonbury, The Ashes and Wimbledon will not be rained off, whereas everyone in England knows that if we have more than 1 week of consecutive hot weather the water companies start warning about droughts and threatening to put us all on standpipes to get our water (It has happened many times, most noticeably in the "Great drought of '76" when people were almost reduced to drinking their own urine to survive¹). Britain even has an Emergency Drought Order which allows the water companies to cut supplies to houses and force the use of Standpipes.

Nevertheless I think we must all be thankful that the weather is looking to be a bit warmer here in Britain. Being of Irish extraction and thus fair skinned I, personally, will not be venturig out into the sun too often - bright red skin doesn't become me at all - but I dare say it will stop people talking about the weather we're having this summer and move them onto some other topic of conversation - such as "Will we have to pay for this nice summer with an awful winter?"

¹Of course people weren't reduced to drinking their own urine. This was an attempt at humour. Drinking your own urine is not recommended. Apparently.

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That most English of pastimes : cricket

Image via Wikipedia

I spent a very enjoyable afternoon on Sunday on the local village green watching a game of cricket.

Ah, the sound of leather on willow and the polite applause of a knowledgeable crowd as the batsman hits a four or a six. Nothing beats it on a warm summers day. Especially as the drinks were coming in a steady stream from the local pub adjoining the common.

At one point I tweeted that the score was 48 for 5 off 19. It occurred to me then that a lot of folks will probably not understand what that means or, indeed, what the rules of cricket are. So - as a public service to the non-cricket lovers out there - I present the rules of cricket.

1. There are two teams. One out, one in.


2. The team that's out try to get the player that's in, out.


3. When they do get him out, he goes in.


4. Then the next player goes out. As long as he's out, he's in.


5. The object is then for the team that's out to get the second player out. When they get him out, he goes in.


6. This process is repeated for each innings until the team that's out gets the team that's in all out.


7. When the whole team is out, the team that was in goes out, and the team that was out goes in.


8. Then they play a second innings until they're all out. Except one player. He remains not out

9. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out.

10. When both sides have been in and all the men are out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game!


Nothing really hard about that is there?

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Things I didn't know last week - April 11th 2009

This is the next in a regular series of posts about things I learned over the last 7 days or so.

This week "I don't know the verse to 'Build me up, Buttercup'"

I do a bit of acting from time to time and I was sent to a casting this week. For those who don't now, a casting is when loads of potential actors/extras etc are sent to see a casting director, wait for ages while everyone has their time in front of the main guy, and then leave wondering how much better they could have done given more preparation time.

The job was billed as 'Karaoke' and I believe it was a commercial for one of these console based sing-along games (although nobody told us).

As usual the queues were long and the wait was interminable. But - as we were waiting - word came down that when you go in there (in groups of 6) you would be asked to tell an embarrassing story about yourself and then sing bits from one of three songs- "Don't go Breaking My Heart", "Walking on Sunshine" and "Build me up, Buttercup". My little group of six got together and decided we would go for "Build me Up Buttercup" as we all knew the words to the chorus and could get quite a good sound going when we started singing.

So before I go any further I ask you to think about the tune and the words to "Build me up, Buttercup". You've all seen "There's Something About Mary" where everyone in the film ends up singing it over the end credits, right? You can all put together a reasonable impression of the song, right? Good!

So my group went in. We stood in a line in front of the casting director. We told our embarrassing stories and then the music began. The microphone started down at one end of the line and everyone sang a couple of lines before passing it down to the next person.

Now here's the thing about 'Buttercup". It's actually one of those songs that starts with the famous chorus that everyone knows and then goes into a verse (How many other songs do you know that do that eh?) So the bit that we had all rehearsed came up on the screen and we were all nodding our heads and mouthing the words. The microphone was being used to belt out the lyrics by the first two or three people in the line and everything was going fine.

And then the first verse came.

Now quickly. Can anyone hum the tune to the verse of "Buttercup?" (Hint: it's the bit that starts '"I'll be over at ten", you told me time and again') No? I didn't think so. I bet for every person who reads this and thinks "Yes, I know that. I could have done that." there's about 30 others who think "I have no idea what the tune is...."

I'm one of those 30. Believe me, trying to read karaoke words off a machine and sing them to a tune you don't actually know is not easy. Unluckily I was one of two people who got this nasty 'verse' before we all picked it back up and went onto the chorus Which we sang with gusto.

So the thing I didn't know last week that I know this week is that I don't know how to sing the verse from "Build me up, Buttercup" (Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it might have cost me a job)

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The Movie Quote Quiz : "Hereeeeeee's the answers"

Image by merfam via Flickr

The answers to the movie quiz are listed below: As I said at the time some of these were easy, some less so.

My thanks go out to Algo who answered the highest number of correct entries. By his own admission he did this without using Google. He also got "He'd kill us if he got the chance" from The Conversation which I had hoped would be my most difficult one. Well done, I am awed and amazed by your talent.

Here are the answers: ("Quote" - Movie, Character and actor.)

1) "Plastics!" - The Graduate. Benjamin Braddock, Dustin Hoffman
2) "Get in there, you big furry oaf! I don't care what you smell" - Star Wars, Han Solo, harrison Ford
3) "I think he's attempting re-entry, Sir" - Moonraker, Q, Desmond LLewellyn
4) "Ever since I can remember, I've always wanted to be a gangster " - Goodfellas, Henry Hill, Ray Liotta
5) " Oh, he was a little guy... Kinda funny lookin " - Fargo, Mr Mohra, Bain Boehlke
6) "Your clothes... give them to me, now" - The Terminator, Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger
7) "No you gotta get up like this and, badda-bing, you blow their brains all over your nice Ivy League suit" - The Godfather, Sonny , James Caan
8) "Slow ahead." I can go slow ahead. Come on down here and chum some of this shit"- Jaws, Chief Brody, Roy Schieder
9) "I understand you're a man who knows how to get things" - The Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne, Tim Robbins
10) "Wait a minute. If we let it in, the ship could be infected. You know the quarantine procedure. Twenty-four hours for decontamination" - Alien, Ripley, Sigourney Weaver
11) "What are you going to do, charge me with smoking?" - Basic Instinct, Kathryn Trammel, Sharon Stone
12) "Fists with your feet? Huh!" - Die Hard, John McLane, Bruce WIllis
13) "Back when I was picking beans in Guatemala, we used to make fresh coffee, right off the trees I mean " - The Usual Suspects, Verbal Quint. Kevin Spacey
14) " Modern cars - they all look like electric shavers" - Sin City, Marv, Mickey Rourke
15) " I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do" - 2001, HAL, Douglas Rain
16) "Rather anatomical " - Atonement , Cecilia Tallis, Keira Knightley
17)" Not the greatest anecdote, then? " - Notting Hill, William Thacker, Hugh Grant
18) " Remind me to thank John for a lovely weekend" - Jurassic Park, Dr Ian Malcolm. Jeff Goldblum
19) "California, tell your people to stay away. Stay away now, don't - don't come in here. Whatever you hear, stay away! " - Se7en, William Somerset, Morgan Freeman
20) What are you, an idiot? Do you think they ever asked Cecil B. DeMille if he wasted his time on nudie shots? No! They respected the filmmaker! They showed some class! Not that YOU would know what class is, you cheap lowlife - King Kong (2007), Carl Denham, Jack Black
21) " You want a sandwich, Bacon? " - Lock, Stock, and 2 Smoking Barrels, Soap. Dexter Fletcher
22) "If anyone was to ask for my opinion, which I note they're not, I'd say we were taking the long way around" - Fellowship of the Ring: Gimli. John Rhys-Davies
23) " He'd kill us if he got the chance " - The Conversation, Ann, Cindy Williams
24) "Ask her if SHE greased the brakes " - The Queen, Alistair Campbell, Mark Bazeley
25) "Decaffeinated?" - Hot Fuzz, Det. Nicholas Angel, Simon Pegg

Hopefully after seeing the results a lot of you have slapped your foreheads and said "I knew that. Of course that quote was from....(fill in the movie)". Although hopefully there were one or two others that you looked at and said "I would never have guessed that" especially if you haven't seen the film!

Thanks to the people who replied. Thanks to everyone else who read and, maybe had a stab at the answers.

I might do another one of these later in the year.

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The Movie quote quiz

Last year I ran a quiz (prompted by Algo over at Wall Shadows) where I gave 25 song lyrics from my collection and you had to guess the song and the artist. (Incidentally Wall Shadows is running another first lines lyric quiz. Check it out)

Well, the time has come for another quiz. This time it's movie based.

Below are 25 quotes from movies in my DVD collection (Just as a warning I have over 300 movies spread across 469 discs. . . . . .All legal and purchased).

All you have to do is name the movie that the quote comes from. For extra bonus points you can name the character saying the quote, and for even more extra movie points you can name the actor playing that character.

The quotes get generally harder as the quiz progresses so if you're having trouble with the first few the last ones are going to be really difficult

Good luck

1. "Plastics!"
2. "Get in there, you big furry oaf! I don't care what you smell"
3. "I think he's attempting re-entry, Sir"
4. "Ever since I can remember, I've always wanted to be a gangster "
5. "Oh, he was a little guy... Kinda funny lookin "
6. "Your clothes... give them to me, now"
7. "No you gotta get up like this and, badda-bing, you blow their brains all over your nice Ivy League suit"
8. "Slow ahead." I can go slow ahead. Come on down here and chum some of this shit.
9. "I understand you're a man who knows how to get things"
10. "Wait a minute. If we let it in, the ship could be infected. You know the quarantine procedure. Twenty-four hours for decontamination"
11. "What are you going to do, charge me with smoking?"
12. "Fists with your feet? Huh! "
13. "Back when I was picking beans in Guatemala, we used to make fresh coffee, right off the trees I mean "
14. "Modern cars - they all look like electric shavers"
15. "I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do"
16. "Rather anatomical"
17. " Not the greatest anecdote, then? "
18. "Remind me to thank John for a lovely weekend"
19. "California, tell your people to stay away. Stay away now, don't - don't come in here. Whatever you hear, stay away! "
20. "What are you, an idiot? Do you think they ever asked Cecil B. DeMille if he wasted his time on nudie shots? No! They respected the filmmaker! They showed some class! Not that YOU would know what class is, you cheap lowlife"
21. "You want a sandwich, Bacon? "
22. "If anyone was to ask for my opinion, which I note they're not, I'd say we were taking the long way around"
23. "He'd kill us if he got the chance "
24. "Ask her if SHE greased the brakes"
25. "Decaffeinated?"

As usual the lazy folks can probably Google the results but that's not the point. Do it the proper way!

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The art of the advert..

Image via Wikipedia

I'm going to show you links to a number of UK TV commercials.

Here's the first one. Click here to watch

Now the second one. Click here to watch

So far so good...

Now watch this one, and this one.

I think you'll agree that they were all very memorable and very different. The first sets of adverts use 'traditional' methods of advertising (i.e. placing the product - or icons related to the product - first and foremost in the minds of the viewers) where as the second two adverts focus more on some sort of 'left-field' kind of imagery not related to the item being advertised, but which is meant to bring the viewer to a place where they 'talk' about the product itself and create almost an advertising 'meme'

So here are some questions (and answer these without cheating, please)
- The first commercial was advertising an airline. Which one?
- The second commercial was advertising a car insurance comparison site. Which one?
- Now tell me what product the last two were advertising?

I'll lay money on the fact that you can't answer that last question. (Answers at the end of the post). If you can answer it and haven't seen the advert before then well done!

The four adverts were chosen for two reasons:

1) They are specifically memorable adverts on UK TV which have all been remarked upon in either the print or TV media as being fine examples of the art (there are of course, others. But these suffice for the discussion today)
2) They are examples where the advert itself was memorable probably as much - or more so - than the product or service being advertised.

The first advert was memorable because of the fact it invoked the spirit of the 1980's: The appropriate clothing, mobile phones, references to the miners strike. Our Price records, Wimpy burgers etc.

The second advert introduced us to a character with potential to become a brand icon. This is quite similar to the US Gecko/Geicko character who ran in a long chain of commercials over there. Indeed Alexander the meerkat has already appeared in a second commercial for the same company. Furthermore both of these commercials had the 'brand' uppermost in the visuals.

The third and fourth adverts both introduced 'shock value' to their product's commercials. More so because at no point do the visuals make any mention of the brands they are advertising. Interestingly, in my (albeit limited) survey of viewers, everybody liked the first two adverts and everybody found the second two adverts 'slightly disturbing'.

So what does this tell you about advertsing executives and creative types?

Personally I think all the adverts are excellent examples of the kind of thing you want your commercial to have : "Word of Mouth". Regardless of whether folks are talking positively or negatively about the commercial they are talking about it. My own brother in-law can be heard wondering around saying "Simples" in day-to-day conversation after Alexander the meerkat and the number of blog and social media mentions for the airline commercial in the UK is huge.

Before we wrap up this discussion with a final question, here are the answers to the earlier ones:

1) Virgin Atlantic
2) Comparethemarket.com
3) Cadbury's dairy milk chocolate.

Did you get all of those? I'm betting you probably got the first two but not the third. If you didn't get the answer to the last question then I would have to question the effectiveness of the Cadbury's adverts. Striking they may be. Memorable too. But if you can't remember what they're advertising, are they useless?

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Egregious Movie Mistakes

I am a big fan of the movies and I have an extensive DVD collection. One of my favourite sites to read is Wall Shadows by my good friend (and fellow Supporting Artiste) Algo. He provides some well reasoned and thought through reviews of his favourite movies. If you can ignore some of the rants he produces from time to time (which may prove to be a little radical for some readers) his site is well worth a look.

On the subject of movies one of the things that really annoys me is those egregious movie errors that seem to make it through onto the final print. Every movie has some errors in it (if you want to see what sort of errors check out the goofs section on the IMDB), but a lot of these errors are fairly minor ("The length of the burnt down cigaretts was different between shots" - well I'm sorry, but that's moviemaking), but I'm talking about the really 'how on earth did they let that through' kind of errors.

To clarify, these are errors in film-making as opposed to errors in film logic (or plot holes). For this reason you won't find things like "How did they manage to mate an Apple computer with an alien spaceship in Independance Day?" or "Why didn't Ann Darrow's neck get broken when she was being flung around by Kong in Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong?"

No these are errors made by the people who were involved in making the movies. Here are 4 examples.

1) Cruel Intentions:
Right at the end as Reese Witherspoon drives away from New York in the sleek little sports car we can clearly see hills and desert reflected in the ide of the car. Not much desert around new York City is there? Obviously a pick-up done in California. Very well framed so you don't see anything other than the car - but the reflection gives it away

2) An Officer and a Gentleman.
Richard gere and the othe raw recruits are lining up in front of Louis Gossett jr just after their induction. he is walking up and down in front of them hurling abuse in their faces - and in the bottom of the screen quite clearly there isa set of dolly tracks for the camera that Louis is walking along

3) Diamonds are Forever.
Bond is being chased around the streets of Las Vegas in his red Mustang. As he gets trapped down a alley his decides the only way to escape is to lift the car onto it's two right wheels and slide out through the narrow walkway at the end. As the car appears out of the other side of the walkway it is on it's two left wheels! (also later int he movie the moon buggy loses a wheel, but is back on again a few moments later)

4) A Fish Called Wanda.
When Wanda comes to visit Archie at his office they sit and talk about the law and she asks him questions. Another client comes to see Archie and he introduces Wanda and the visitor. On the back wall of the office is a large mirror which clearly reflects the camera and certain members of the crew.

Any other egregious movie making errors that come to mind?

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Friendfeed vs Twitter - Is this the new Mac/PC debate?

I recently read a wonderful post by Robert Scoble (@scobleizer) where he was enumerating the relative benefits of Twitter over FF. Having read this a little closer (and knowing Scoble's predeliction for FF) I realised that it was a very tongue-in-cheek attempt to convert Twitter users to FF ("FriendFeed doesn’t have Direct Messaging. Twitter does. Twitter FTW!").

Despite that there is - from my personal experience - a marked leaning toward Twitter for a lot of people. I wonder why that is?

I think the Twitter "community" is bigger than FF. I don't know the figures for FF but I know that Twitter is growing exponentially. Tweets to the Twittersphere are higher in volume. In terms of market share it is 'the market leader'

But it's not necessarily the best.

Twitter has LOTS of 3rd party apps to add to it to 'improve it'. These include apps such as Tweetdeck, iTweet2, Twhirl etc. FF has, basically, FF. You do what you need to do and FF will add the functionality you need to be more efficient. For example in FF you can group your Friends into classifications according to how you want to view them. You can join 'rooms' where specific topics are discussed. You can do a detailed search of all the content being updated. You can stream real-time. In Twitter you can.. Tweet.

Twitter needs the third party apps to make it the useful app it can be (how many of you can honestly say you use Twitter only through the web interface..?). Twitter have taken the approach of 'We'll provide the platform for you, it's up to others to leverage that'. FF has followed the wishes of its users and added functionality to make it useful.

I believe the mass market view is that Twitter is the tool of choice. I also, believe the cognoscenti use FF as their tool of choice. Scoble, Louis Gray, Leo Laporte, Jason Calacanis, etc. are all active posters to FF. Somewhere in the middle of that is a set of fanatics and evangalists for FF who are trying to persuade the world and his friend that FF is the way to go.

The aim in writing this was not to try and fan the flames of "Twitter vs Friendfeed', but as I look at the FF/Twitter debate I am reminded of another ongoing discussion we hear a lot about. Look at the facts:

We have two products working in the same space with markedly different approaches. One provides out of the box functionality that its users evanglise about. The other provides mass market appeal but needs add-on's to make it perform as well as it can. Both have supporters who wish to denigrate the other side and prove their choice is the 'right' one.

For years now the zealots have been debating the relative merits of Macintosh computers and OS vs Windows based computers/OS. It seems that on both sides of the argument there are fanatical people who will not understand that there is a time and a place for each one (For the record I have both).

Could it be that FF is the new Mac and Twitter is the new PC?

Thoughts and feedback in the comments, please.

(Image Courtesy of Carrotcreative. Used under a Creative Commons, Attribution license)

Technorati Tags: Twitter, Friendfeed, Mac, PC

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A little out of the ordinary.... (WITH UPDATE)

I got a frantic call from a guy yesterday afternoon wanting to know if I was free in the morning and could I speak with a Yorkshire accent.

Being born and bred in that particular part of the country I told him I could have a fair crack at it, told him I was free Tuesday and asked him why.

Apparently a major UK department store chain are putting together their Christmas Advertising campaign and need some different accents to do a voiceover and was I interested?

Having thought about this for all of 10 milliseconds I said 'Yes'.

The details came back later on: The company has already shot some visuals for this advert and are backing it up with a 'rough' version of the Beatles "With Love From Me to you" which will be played rather clumsily on a piano with various accents singing over the top. They want to try a lot of different accents and will then decide which mix would sound best over the images.

I had to be in Soho, London at midday.

Being terminally punctual as I was I took an early train and arrived at 11.30 at the Trident Studios. This is, apparently, a place of great reverence amongst audiophiles. It's actually a rather old, rather sad, brick terraced building sandwiched between an ad agency and a digital media company. There is nothing magical or special about the place just a very small plaque on the wall saying "Trident Studios" and a bell push. I pushed the bell, announced myself and entered.

Inside is rather plush, if cramped. Walking down the corridor to the ADR studio the corridor is lined with gold discs and various rock memorabilia. If you look on the back of some of your favorite old records, there's a good chance you'll see the Trident Studio name. Trident opened back in the late sixties and was the launch pad for many legendary artists such as David Bowie, Elton John, Queen and Marc Bolan. The names don't stop there. Trident was also booked by The Beatles (and later on Ringo Starr, George Harrison, John Lennon and Paul McCartney as solo artists / producers), Lou Reed, Carly Simon, Genesis, Supertramp, Black Sabbath, the list goes on. In fact their 8 track machine was why The Beatles came here in 1968 to record Hey Jude (Abbey Road still only had a 4 track machine).

The White Album tracks Dear Prudence, Honey Pie, Savoy Truffle and Martha My Dear were also recorded here. Many other artists were recorded for the Beatles' Apple label including Billy Preson, Mary Hopkins, James Taylor, George Harrison's triple album, All Things Must Pass, containing the massive hit My Sweet Lord, and Ringo Starr's It Don't Come Easy. Harry Nilsson recorded Without You here and met up with John Lennon, forming a long association of drinking and socialising. Paul McCartney inadvertently helped Queen on their road to success — he used to block-book the studio and not always turn up. Queen, signed to Trident's management arm, were allowed to use this down time for free and the result was Bohemian Rhapsody.

And now I'm here with my backpack and fleece ready to bastardise a version of "With Love From Me to You". Sweet!

Charlie - the producer was seated in the control booth next to the engineer. They had already done about 5 other voices that morning and played the audio through for myself and Stewart - the Scot who was scheduled in before me, had arrived on time but was still later than me! The quality was fabulous despite the fact that the voices were decidedly amateurish - which was the effect the guys wanted.

Stewart headed into the booth - which is exactly like you see on countless videos and movies, with heavy foam wall paneling to deaden sound, a large microphone hanging from the roof and a glass window looking out to the desk. He donned the headphones, did four takes with a heavy Glaswegian accent and left.

My turn!

The booth is actually a little freaky. There is no natural light and it is dead audibly, which is slightly unsettling. The only way you can hear anything is with the headphones on, then it becomes disembodied voices in your head.

Charlie played the tape and I sang the lyrics on the sheet in front of me - 2 verses of the song only. The only problem was that I could also hear the other vocals that had been recorded and found it difficult to hear my own voice. On take three I asked for just the backing piano and no more vocals. This was better but did manage to highlight my woeful ability to sign a) in time and b) in tune. The guys sat through two more takes of this before calling it a day.

If my voice gets chosen on the soundtrack I will find a Youtube version of it (as there will no doubt be one) and post a link here. If not, I might still put it up and see if you can work out what the voices were...

---- Update -----
Well the commercial was released today (November 11th) and here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmQ74XO_Fx0

Having listened extensively to it I am unable to isolate my dulcet tones and must, therefore, conclude that I was not included in the final mix, although to be fair I can barely identify any voices other than the little girl and the first guy who joins in.

Great advert though!

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Mini Musings....

Certain things occur to me from time to time and I wanted to jot them down.

WWF: Why would anyone pay $35 to watch a rigged wrestling match? I understand the 'entertainment' aspect of this, but not the cost..

Why can I get 101 different varieties of coffee, but only 3 decaffeinated? Where's the Jamaican Blue Mountain Dark Roast in decaf then?

Sometimes the weather says 'partly sunny' and sometimes it says 'partly cloudy'. In reality is there any difference? Why do they call it that?

Why would anyone pay more for bottled water than they do for gasoline?

Generally marketers place pictures of what's inside a package on the label of the package. So when I buy tinned peaches there's a picture of a peach on the outside, when I buy my cornflakes there is a picture of cornflakes on the outside. So what's with baby food manufacturers putting pictures of babies on the outside of their products? While we're on that subject: If olive oil is made of olives and corn oil is made of corn and vegetable oil is made form vegetables, what is baby oil made from?

Einstein's Theory of Relativity does not state that faster-than-light travel is impossible. However the mathematics supporting the theory break down if the speed of light is exceeded, so the scientists have said that faster-than-light travel is impossible. Surely, in reality, that means that the maths is incorrect rather than the principle being incorrect? And if that's incorrect, what other gems of scientific dogma are also incorrect? - Time travel....?

On the subject of time travel, one scientific 'proof' that time travel doesn't exist is that no-one from the future has traveled back to this time. How do they know? Say I were a brilliant young geek from the future who invented time travel but needed to benefit from it. What if I happened to travel back to Seattle sometime in the late 1970's and convince the world's largest computer company to buy some hashed-together operating system I had created. And supposing that led to me becoming the richest man on the planet. Would I tell anyone I was a time traveller? Or would I amass my fortune, corner the market in operating systems, retire gracefully and give my money away through a foundation?

If you had the secret to a system that would 'make you rich beyond your wildest dreams in less than 2 weeks' would you sell it on the internet for $39.99? The answer is probably 'no' (unless the system involved selling the secret to everyone who wants it for $39.99)

More mini musings as and when I think of them.....

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The Sporting Gods are Angered!

Well, what a sporting weekend!

I watched all the action in the Ryder Cup and Europe lost for the first time in forever. Then I switched over and watched the Indianapolis Colts lose to the Jacksonville Jaguars (Thats NFL or 'gridiron', for those not in the know), and on top of that the almost unbeatable New England Patriots get beaten at home BY THE MIAMI DOLPHINS! (Just to put this in context: it's akin to my Grandfather beating Lewis Hamilton in the wet at Spa Francorchamps, or my mother beating the late, great Dale Earnhardt at Talladega.)

What is the sporting world coming to?

If we look at the Ryder Cup first. I think everyone will agree that it was very well played. The matches were pretty evenly distributed. But Europe never threatened and always seemed to be playing catch-up. I think for once the US were, well not exactly dominant, but forceful. Boo Weekly was the guy to gee them up - who can forget his antics as he rode his driver from the first tee like a horse, or whipped the crowd into a frenzy (much to Lee Westwood's chagrin) - one of golf's great characters.

Anthony Kim - eager out of the gate like a little whippet - ended up being reigned back in by 'Lefty' Mickelson as he started spraying the ball all over the course on day one. He then got his act together and played superbly on the last day dominating Garcia after the latter tried playing mind games with him. Jim Furyk holed the winning putt - a reasonably simple one to guarantee the 14 1/2 points needed for the US to win the cup.

Personally I think it's a great US victory. Nick Faldo played the wrong people at the wrong time (who would put your best players out last when we were behind!!) and the US deserved to win. Well done Team USA. Hold onto that cup for two years until Celtic Manor in 2010.

Then the Colts: They just couldn't stop the run. Hell, they couldn't even stay on the field, playing 18.25 minutes in the whole game and a meagre 1 minute 39 seconds in the fourth quarter! But what a fourth quarter! Manning gets the ball on the Colts 23 yard line with 2.33 to play. He throws 2 incompletions and a short pass left to get to the 2 minute warning. Then he hits Marvin Harrison for a 27 yard completion on a fourth and 2, scrambles 12 yards for a first down himself and hits Marvin for 8 yards on the next play, Reggie Wayne for 20 yards 2 plays later and sends Joseph Addai up the middle for 2 yards two plays after that. Touchdown! 1 drive, 77 yards, 11 plays and 1 minute 26 seconds off the clock.

But they've left the Jags with 1:07 seconds! All the Jags need is to get within field goal range and they can put their fate into the hands of Josh Scobee, their kicker (Remember he's the guy who kicked the last second winner in the RCA Dome in 204 to give the Jags their last regular season win over Indy). But it's not as simple as that. A questionable pass interference call on Freddie Keiaho gives the Jags a first down on a must-win 4th and 1 after the pass fell incomplete. Without that the drive is stalled at Jacksonville's 29 yard line. With it, the drive keeps going. 1 minute and 3 seconds later Wham! - Scobee kicks the field goal and that's all she wrote.

There but for the grace of God......

So now the Colts are 1 and 2 with a bye week to recover. Could be an interesting season. Unless the sporting gods are angered. . . .

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"Guns in the home may increase suicide risk" - apparently.

(Image courtesy thegoldguys.blogspot.com/)

The Harvard School of Public Health has studied four years of data in the US and found higher rates of suicides involving firearms in states with more gun owners – up to four times higher for men and eight times higher for women. The numbers of suicides not involving firearms, on the other hand, were the same.

Let me put that into plain English for you: If you live in a house with guns you are more likely to use a gun to commit suicide than if you don't have guns in the house.

Now this is a correlation but not a causation (as Karen Norberg of the US National Bureau of Economics Research in St Louis, Missouri, mentions: other differences between gun owners and non-gun owners unrelated to firearms may explain the differences in suicide rates), but I've got to say, living in a country where there is a remarkably low amount of gun ownership (due to the fact that it is not mandated in the constitution), if you had asked me prior to this study starting what I thought the results would have been, I would have been right on the money "If you have guns in the house, they are going to be used to commit suicide"


Glad the research money is being used on intelligent items.....

(Coming soon results of a study on causes of pedestrian road traffic deaths in countries with high volumes of private vehicle ownership, and studies on causes of death for climbers stranded in sub-zero temperatures on mountains).

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