Blog

  • Photo: along the sea at Sidmouth

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    Bright blue sky, sunny and warm. Can’t ask for more from a British holiday.

  • Photo: Chesil Beach from above Abbotsbury

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    Heavily processed in Camera+ with the HDR filter but I think it created a strangely pretty glow. It’s another sunny day in Dorset.

  • Photo: sun and sea

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    The view looking west from my sister’s apartment near Christchurch in Dorset. Beautiful autumn weather on the south coast.

  • Photo: Salisbury Cathedral (#camera+)

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    Taken with iPhone 4 and Camera+. Used backlit mode, golden crop and cross process filter.

  • Photo: Blueberry cakes

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    Today’s cakes for the office.

  • Photo: Garden & bridge at Woburn Abbey

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    Today was the first time I’d actually visited the house at Woburn. It’s a fabulous stately home with great paintings, porcelain and silverware. In particular, the 21 Canalettos are definitely worth a viewing and the Sevres porcelain in the crypt.

  • Photo: Size comparison – iPad vs Kindle

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    The Kindle is tiny and incredibly lightweight. If you just want to read books it’s the better solution. But let’s be honest, the iPad is way more useful and fun.

  • Photos and comments: Muse at Wembley – September 11th 2010

    OK, the photo quality is moderately terrible as I was using an iPhone but hopefully these pictures give some idea of the scale of Muse's fabulous concert at Wembley on Saturday night.

    It's not the first time I've seen Muse live, but it was the first time I've seen them play a stadium size gig. Also, the first time I've visited the new Wembley. Muse are a band who've always been designed to play huge venues, even their earliest songs have the air of being giant performances, and in this huge venue Muse found a perfect home. The crowd spent the whole set (comfortably over 2 hours) on their feet and knew pretty much all the words – even to the trickier tracks (Citizen Erased – I'm impressed!).

    You can't fault a band who believe appropriate set dressing is something that looks like a lit up office block and a bunch of glowing "Rovers" from "The Prisoner". Add in a confetti cannon and that's before you get to the encores featuring a "UFO" with acrobat and eyeball balloons filled with blood-like confetti.

    Regarding the songs played – there were sort-of 23 tracks with some extra bits and pieces around the edges. I think by comparison to the Friday night list this one was more for Muse purists with a pretty good variety from the 1999 Nishe to a heavy dose of tracks from The Resistance. Once a band are a few albums into a career they'll always have more songs that people want playing than time to perform them. If I miss anything it's probably "Butterflies & Hurricanes" but hopefully that'll be there next time I go to see Muse.?? Or the whole of Exogenesis but that's not likely to happen unless Muse play somewhere like the Royal Albert Hall with a full orchestra!

    The set list for completeness was:

    1. Uprising
    2. Supermassive Black Hole
    3. MK Ultra
    4. Map of the Problematique
    5. Bliss
    6. Guiding Light
    7. Hysteria
    8. Citizen Erased
    9. Nishe
    10. United States of Eurasia
    11. Ruled by Secrecy
    12. Feeling Good
    13. MK Jam
    14. Undisclosed Desires
    15. Resistance
    16. Starlight
    17. Time Is Running Out
    18. Unnatural Selection
      Encore 1
    19. Exogenesis: Symphony Part I (Overture)
    20. Stockholm Syndrome
      Encore 2
    21. Take a Bow
    22. Plug In Baby
    23. Man with a Harmonica intro + Knights of Cydonia

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