Author Archives: Tim Hall

Mailing lists vs. Web Fora

Posted on October 22, 2006 by Tim Hall

The Ministry of Information‘s take on HippyDave’s post on mailing lists vs. web forums.

On the initial topic (e-mail groups vs. online fora), I definitely favour the latter, for one main reason: threads. For me, that’s the ‘killer app’ of fora, with which e-mail lists can’t compete. I drastically prefer to read the topics I choose, rather than an undifferentiated stream of all traffic.

I can see the point on signal-to-noise ratios, but I find that the extra time spent checking and navigating web forums is longer that the time skimming and deleting off-topic postings on most mailing lists. This may be because I’m still on dialup, and I find web forums with all those graphic avatars and other ‘cute’ cruft take forever to load. But few if any web forums have an easy way of telling you which posts you have and haven’t read, or even which threads have new posts.

Most mailing lists support threading if you use a decent mail program (i.e. anything other than Microsoft Outlook, which was intended for corporate email, not Internet discussion groups, and it shows), although that gets weakened by poor thread discipline, mostly from top-posting Outlook users who don’t realise that other mail programs exist.

One of these days someone will come up with a ‘killer app’ that combines the best elements of both. Although I think the usability of web fora would be dramatically improved by the simple addition of RSS feeds which can tell you when there are new posts on a particular subject – I can’t imagine the Blogosphere without RSS.

Posted in Miscellaneous | 3 Comments

Mostly Autumn, Bury Met, 20-Oct-2006

Posted on October 21, 2006 by Tim Hall

Friday’s gig at the Bury Met was the first time I’ve seen Mostly Autumn since Rhyl back in May. Just like everyone else I had great difficultly in actually getting there; for the second day running the trains were farkled by a broken down train, and a plethora of road accidents had gridlocked the entire road network in Lancashire; the number 130 bus took an hour and a half to get into Manchester, which scuppered my plans to get anything to eat before the show.

The gig was well up to MA’s usual standards. Most MA gigs I’ve been about halfway back, but this time I met up with a bunch of regulars from the Mostly Autumn Forum, and ended up right up at the front. The downside of this is that you don’t get a perfect sound mix, since most of what you hear is from the monitors rather than through the PA. I ended up with a lot of lead vocals, flute, and Liam Davidson’s guitar, and not quite enough keyboards or lead guitar. The upside was that I was only six feet away from Heather and Angela! It was also interesting to hear exactly what Liam plays; while his guitar parts make a contribution to the overall sound, he’s not usually that prominent in the mix.

There were absolutely no surprises in the setlist, although we weren’t really expecting any. I think the only change from Rhyl was that they played “Passengers” instead of “Answer the Question”. High spot was a sublime version of “Carpe Diem”, although “Shrinking Violet” ran it close. The jigs, which some people love and some people hate went down well with the crowd, as did the call-and-response between Bryan Josh and Olivia Sparnenn on “Never the Rainbow”.

The only time they really stumbled was “Nowhere To Hide (Close My Eyes)” which exposed the limitations of Bryan’s vocals, and is precisely the sort of oldie that really ought to be retired from the setlist.

They closed with the perennial epics, “Heroes Never Die” and “Mother Nature”, the latter ending with Bryan playing a few bars of Pink Floyd’s “Echoes”.

While I’ve been critical of the rather conservative setlist, this set does strongly showcase Angela Gordon’s flute playing, and she was on really good form last night. But what was it that she found so amusing about DEMU T-shirt?

Posted in Live Reviews, Music | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Hot Axlebox!

Posted on October 19, 2006 by Tim Hall

While waiting for my train home tonight, I noticed a freight barrelling along on the other line; a long train of continuous welded rail headed by a Freightliner 66, doing something like sixty.

Alarmingly, I noticed a lot of black smoke coming from one of the bogies about halfway down the train, which looked worryingly like a hot axlebox. As the train receded into the distance, it seemed to be shrouded in smoke. The tail light, still visible through the smoke, took a long time to disappear round the curve a mile along the line. Was the train slowing?

After the train disappeared, the signals didn’t clear. My own train, due on the other track any minute failed to appear. Disturbing thoughts started appearing in my head; had the train derailed and blocked both lines? Had my local train run into the wreckage? Should I have tried to warn someone?

Another waiting passenger rang the information helpline, to be told that services were delayed due to ‘problems with a freight train’. As if we didn’t already know that.

I eventually got home by getting a lift from a later-working colleague (the office is next door to the station). National Rail stated that ‘the broken down train is now on the move’ at 19:11, with residual delays of up to 85 minutes. Sounds like it didn’t derail, but why did they close both lines?

Update: At least it wasn’t a nuclear flask train.

Posted in Railways | 2 Comments

Nostalgia vs. Progression

Posted on October 17, 2006 by Tim Hall

Insightful post from HippyDave, on the divide between innovation and nostalgia:

Marillion are a band who have never felt the need to stick slavishly to a particular sound or approach. This is to be applauded, I feel: too many bands endlessly xerox their past work until they paint themselves into a musical corner, and end up like current-day Yes, or The Eagles; fine bands, but essentially playing endless gigs on the nostalgia circuit. Condemned to play their increasingly ancient ‘fan favourites’ ad nauseaum whilst almost totally ignoring anything they’ve written in the last ten years, these bands play to expectations. Their gigs are wall-to-wall ‘classics’, the band feeling that to stay in the game, they have to play to the expectations of their fanbase, who hunger after a particular period in their favourite band’s history. Nostalgia wins, and true artistry suffers. I blame it on lazy listeners. Yes, we all like to hear a few favourites from time to time, but with bands like Yes or The Rolling Stones, that’s all you get. Nothing new and interesting, just the same old songs you’ve heard a million times before.

Actually, with Yes, the problem is that most of their output since the mid-80s has been pretty lacklustre. The one really good song from the mid 90s, “Mind Drive” was in the setlist the last time I saw them, and they played a pretty awesome version too. But I noticed that a lot of the audience didn’t recognise it, presumably they stopped buying Yes’ albums after Tormato.

I’ve been critical of Mostly Autumn in the past for falling into the nostalgia trap. They’re a band who have only been going for ten years and recorded five albums, but recent setlists seem to be dominated by the same old songs that everybody has heard many times before, to the vociferous applause from sizable proportion of the fanbase. Which is a pity when there’s a lot of good recent material that’s not getting played live. Will they end up as their own tribute band? Or will they eventually go down the Marillion route? Or find the happy medium between the two?

Posted in Music | 3 Comments

One Day In History

Posted on October 17, 2006 by Tim Hall

Today is One Day In History.

‘One Day in History’ is a one off opportunity for you to join in a mass blog for the national record. We want as many people as possible to record a ‘blog’ diary which will be stored by the British Library as a historical record of our national life.

Write your diary here reflecting on how history itself impacted on your day – whether it just commuting through an historic environment, discussing family history or watching repeats on TV.

Here’s my entry.

Wake up at 07:25

Breakfast: 2 Oatabix spread with margarine, one cup of coffee.

First half of the day was a four-hour train journey from my parents’ home in Slough to my workplace the Alderley Edge in Cheshire. The previous day I’d had a dental appointment with my old dentist in Slough; since I’ve only recently started a new job in the north of England I haven’t found a dentist up here.

Noticed that First Great Western have started painting ex-Thames Trains Turbos in the new First Group livery, dark blue with swirly bits. One passed through Slough while waiting for my own train, and I saw a second at Paddington.

Paddington was thrown into chaos this morning due to a fire in Praed Street. Several streets were sealed off, and most of Paddington’s entrances were closed, as was Paddington underground station. Everyone was being diverted to the bus station through a narrow exit that wasn’t able to cope with anything like that number of people. There were three or four fire engines visible in neighbouring streets, but so sign of the major conflagration that would have required closure of such a large area.

The rest of the journey was uneventful. I managed to catch the 9:46 Virgin Pendolino with about five minutes to spare, which arrived in Crewe on time at 11:30. Train about two-thirds full. The local connecting train to Alderley Edge was also on time (A three coach Northern Rail class 323 for those interested).

Lunch: Baked Potato with beans, bacon and red onion from the sandwich bar round the corner from the office.

Afternoon was spent working on a software change control request, the gory details of which are not appropriate for a blog.

Arrive home to find that the landlord was still away, and therefore hadn’t got my note about the air pockets in the central heating, which means the house is still cold.

Dinner: Chicken Jalfrezi and Pilau Rice, washed down with one bottle of Becks (about one-and-a-half units)

Music on stereo while I’m typing this: Second Life Syndrome by Riverside.

Posted in Miscellaneous | 1 Comment

Mainstream Tropes

Posted on October 16, 2006 by Tim Hall

Reading the Observer’s so-called 25 best novels, I’m reminded how I’ve always though that the modern literary novel is as much a genre as so-called ‘Genre Fiction’ like SF, Romance, Crime or Thrillers. Ken Hite seems to agree.

I really wish I could remember where I read the following immensely insightful piece of criticism:

The modern novel is merely a narrow subgenre of the Gothic.

It’s true, ennit? The 20th century novelist (paradigmatically, say, Updike) writes only about the emotional lives of his characters, and such conflict as there is is in their inability to adequately or fully or (and here’s what Updike has in common with Radcliffe) authentically feel or express those emotions. That’s the Gothic conflict — Authentic Love Thwarted — and usually presented in about as tedious a fashion as you can imagine. Modern novels even symbolize the various blocks and obstacles and expressions of emotion in baldly obvious emblems, just like the Gothics with their storms and dungeons.

If it’s genre, it must have tropes. Ken Hite has already identified an important one, about the primacy of the characters emotional lives. Other tropes must be that the story must be set in the present day or the recent past, and the characters and situations must be as mundane as possible. There must be little or no action, otherwise people might start calling it a Thriller, and we can’t have that….

Se we get 400 pages of beautifully-written prose about the central character contemplating his or her navel. Or semi-autobiographical stories of the protagonist growing up in some complete dump (which may be a third-world slum or may be Birmingham in the 1970s). Or, worst of the lot, tiresome stories about college lecturers having mid-life crises starting affairs.

I’m convinced that the artificial divide between ‘high art’ represented by the Serious Literary Novel and ‘popular culture’ represented by ‘trashy genre fiction’ is and has always been nonsense, and there are good and bad in all genres. While I read relatively little modern mainstream fiction, what little I have read doesn’t give me any impression that the actual writing is any better than a lot of SF I’ve read.

Posted in Science Fiction | 2 Comments

As Others See Us

Posted on October 7, 2006 by Tim Hall

Matt Webb visited the Western Model Railway Club’s show in Ruislip. Apart from some comments about the sadly typical poor running on some layouts, this quote struck me as interesting:

I was surprised not to see any futuristic trains. There was a small layout of Croydon Tramlink and a single layout which included diesel and electric era trains, but otherwise locomotives dominated. But where was the TGV, or a maglev? Perhaps this is simply because layouts with more points are more exciting, and futuristic, high speed trains don’t work like that.

So much for the ‘public want to see kettles’ attitude of some exhibition managers. This show did seem to have an excessive boiler bias, with just a single D&E layout mentioned.

It seems to me that the emphasis on historical modelling is very much a British thing. If the relative numbers of new models for different eras is anything to go by, German, Swiss and especially Japanese modellers emphasise the contemporary scene. Is it because those are countries where people still take pride in their railways, and see the present-day trains as something modern and exciting, rather than something mundane and boring?

Posted in Railways | Comments Off

Terrorists Amongst Us

Posted on October 7, 2006 by Tim Hall

TWO Pendle men have appeared before Pennine magistrates accused of having “a master plan” after what is believed to be a record haul of chemicals used in making home-made bombs was found in Colne.

What race and religion were those accused terrorists? South Asian Muslims, perhaps? Well, no. It turns out that they’re members of the neo-Nazi BNP.

This story is all over the British blogosphere, on sites like Pickled Politics and Harry’s Place. Even some American blogs have picked up on it. But so far the national media has completely ignored the story. No screaming headlines in the racist Daily Express of the sort we’d be seeing had those two would-be terrorists been brown people.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Poll on Musicals

Posted on October 7, 2006 by Tim Hall

Norm has a new Normblog Poll.

The poll is for favourite musicals. I’m inviting you to send me your top five. You can rank them one to five, and I’ll award points (5 through 1) accordingly. If you don’t want to rank, no worries – I’ll distribute the points across your five choices (3 apiece).

Loose definition of the field: operas not included; but your musicals can be either stage or screen (so Singin’ in the Rain is allowed); where the musical exists in both categories (My Fair Lady, Guys and Dolls), it counts as just a single entity for voting purposes.

Being a rock fan I’m haven’t voted for any traditional-style “Show Tune” musicals; they represent a style of popular music that belongs to the generation before mine, I’m afraid.

This Is Spinal Tap. “Stonehenge! Where the Demons dwell!”. It’s the same sort of rock-band-on-tour genre as “Still Crazy” or “Almost Famous”, with the songs appearing in context. Ironically, it’s the spoof about a has-been band that was never supposed to have been any good that has the memorable songs, even if those songs themselves are wickedly accurate parodies of rock clichés.

Tommy. Although classed as a ‘rock opera’, I think this is closer to a musical in form than anything else. Certainly the late 1990s West End stage production looks and sounds like a musical, as does Ken Russell’s rather incoherent 1970s film version.

The Wall. If you can count Tommy, you can count this; both the stage production with all those polystyrene bricks (which I saw at Earls Court in 1981), and Alan Parker’s film starring Bob Geldof. It’s reputation has suffered because it came out just at the wrong time; at the height of New Wave when the three-minute three-chord pop song was the ultimate in musical expression.

The Return of Captain Invincible. You have to wonder what they were thinking. “Let’s make a spoof of Superman. And let’s make it a musical!”. And it’s got Christopher Lee in it! Perhaps Australians are just weird…

Posted in Music | 2 Comments

Ouch!

Posted on October 5, 2006 by Tim Hall

We’re used to reading reports of cars getting onto railway lines and being hit by trains. Perhaps this might be an example of a train getting it’s own back.

I have no further information about the incident. I assume the train overran a siding and went through the stop blocks. I just hope the bits of twisted metal under the locomotive aren’t the remains of a road vehicle that got in the way.

Posted in Railways | 1 Comment