Neil Robinson's blog

What's on your iPod?

Anyone who knows me will be familiar with my love for music, I've already written a couple of posts about new music that I was introduced to during the summer - Imogen Heap and then subsequently Frou Frou.

I'm still really enjoying those albums, but didn't want to risk over playing them so went in search of some similar music, as well as anything else that I might enjoy.

My first stop was Last.fm - If you haven't used this site, you really should. It's basically a player that creates a custom radio station, playing artists similar to those which you already know. It's amazing what new tracks you'll end up hearing and new artists and groups that you'll discover.

I also listened to Chill, a radio station that started off on DAB in the UK, but now has a web stream as well. If you'd like to try it out, you can use the website, which has a java player, or you can click here for a direct link to the stream.

So, now onto the albums that I bought having discovered them on either Chill or Last.fm...

 

Empathy

Mandalay

Empathy, by Mandalay.

This album is very high quality chill out music, from the minute you listen first listen to it, you can tell how well it has been produced.

Apparantly, Madonna said that Mandalay was her favorite group when she first heard this album, which I'm sure helped their record sales.

Mandalay do have a second album, called Instinct. Both of these albums were only released in Europe, though in the US, they launched a double album called Solace, which contains most of the tracks on these two albums. 

Unfortunately it is pretty difficult to get hold of, only being available from Amazon sellers, rather than Amazon directly. I did see that HMV have some copies pretty cheap though, after I'd paid quite a bit for it!

Highlights for me are track 4 - Another, and track 8 - Beautiful; though the whole album is good.

 

I Megaphone

Imogen Heap

I Megaphone, by Imogen Heap

It's only natural that I should want to listen to Imogen's first album, but it is an absolute nightmare to get hold of. Amazon in the UK don't have any copies, and the sellers are asking a lot of money for used ones. I think I may have to order this from Amazon US and wait for it to be delivered some time between now and Christmas.

I Megaphone isn't as good as Speak For Yourself, but it is still a good album. I can't stop listening to track 9 - Come Here Boy at the moment.

Interestingly, Frou Frou is a collaboration between Imogen Heap and producer Guy Sigsworth, both English by the way! Mandalay was produced by Guy Sigsworth, and one of my other favorite artists, Alanis Morissette is now recording an album with Guy - I'm looking forward to that!

 

Scouting For Girls

Scouting For Girls

Scouting For Girls, by Scouting For Girls

This self titled debut album is a non offensive soft rock / pop album that I think sounds similar to Athlete, Coldplay and Keane.

It's nice to here something that sounds similar to these guys as I'm desperately waiting for the next Keane / Coldplay release.

It's not a bad album, but I can't see it being one of my favorites, but who knows, some albums do just grown on you don't they.

Their hit single is track 2 - She's So Lovely, and this is really the highlight of the album.

 

That's it for new CD's this month; I'm still committed to buying CD's of every album that I've ever downloaded, which is costing me a small fortune, but I'm very pleased with the leap in sound quality that I can now get by making perfect FLAC lossless rips of the originals, and there is a certain pleasure taken from the tactile handling of discs when you want to sit down and listen.

I might post another time an update to my house AV system, and how I go about ripping and playing back FLAC files in better than CD quality, that's a long post, and I'm tired now. I will give a brief mention though to my headphones which are truly amazing. They're called Shure e4c, here's a link to them, don't be put off by the price, they are well worth the money. They're also a huge step up from the e3c and e2c below them in the Shure range.

Sweet and Sour Chicken Anyone?

This may not look like much, but it's quite possilby the nicest meal ever...

What you see here is Sweet and Sour Chicken with BBQ instead of Sweet and Sour sauce, with a side order of Chips. This lovely little lot comes from Jim's Chinese and English takeaway in Basingstoke.

I've been going to Jim's since I was at secondary school just down the road.

It's not gormet, and it's not exactly good for you, but it is my ultimate comfort food!

29102007301.jpg

Georges and The Three Mallets

Paris, France - one of my favorite cities. This time I was here to meet with France Television and TF1, but that's boring, let me tell you about the evening after the meetings.

IMG_2606.JPG

My friend Samir was too tired to come out, but suggested that my colleague Kidong and I go for a meal in Georges, the restaurant on the roof of the George Pompidou Centre. I had no idea there was a restaurant here, but the view from the roof was great. Inside the restaurant it's very stylish, but we opted to sit outside and enjoy the view. We had a great meal, with the best red wine I think I've ever tasted, it was so fruity, almost thick like a grape smoothy but still dry.

Next, we moved on to a place called Aux Trois Mailletz (The Three Mallets) - a bar that Kidong had mentioned to me a few months ago. I was really looking forward to coming here, I love listening to live music, and I was told that the place has such a great ambiance. I mentioned this place to a girl that I got talking to outside the University where I learn Korean in London and co-incidentaly, she knew of the place; not only that, she plays the Double Bass and has actually performed there! Suffice to say I was quite excited about going along.

IMG_2671.JPG

08102007010.mp4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

All that I've been told about Aux Trois Mailletz was true, the ambiance really is amazing. When you first enter the place, it looks like just any other place in the 5em part of Paris, there's a bar and someone playing a piano in the corner, but it's when you go down the passage at the side that it gets really impressive. In the basement is another bar, and what I guess must have been a wine cellar, at the end of the cellar is a stage, and it's in this room that the live performances take place. It kind of reminds me of pictures I've seen of 'The Cavern Club' where 'The Beatles' used to play in Liverpool.

IMG_2621.JPG

IMG_2644.JPG

The group performing this evening were from Chile and they played a great set from around 11pm until the time we left at around 2am. Initially one guy started doing solo songs, but then his band joined him, and several girls that danced and performed. It was very interactive, with the singers and dancers dancing on the tables and down the aisles. There was one small guy who had a voice just like Prince, powerful with a great vocal range.

IMG_2613.JPG

IMG_2670.JPG

As I said, we left at around 2am, by this time I was really very drunk, and well ready for bed. On the way out, we were asked by the performers if we could email them copies of the photos that we'd taken, which was nice. Kidong was annoyed that he didn't bring a longer lense or a speedlight, I guess he'll remember for next time!

I won't go into details, but my flight was at 7am the next day - Hangover from Hell!

Oslo - dead expensive... and dead dead.

Last week, I went to Norway to talk to the national broadcaster there RiksTV - Rik isn't a person, it means National in Norwegian apparantly.

I had a bit of a disaster at home before I left; I'd done some plumbing, moving some heating pipes around in preparation for some modifications to the layout of my house. The trouble was, I didn't expect it to take so long, and be so complicated. To cut a long story short, I ended up flying to Norway not being entirely sure if I'd come back to a flooded house a couple of days later!

01102007266.jpg

I caught an afternoon flight, and the sun was setting while we were flying there. As Norway is to the East, flying that way makes the sunset last so much longer than it would normally, all of the stages and colours are different above the clouds as well, and although this picture doesn't really do it justice at all, I think it goes someway to showing you what I saw.

My first impression of Norway is that it's clearly a rich country, it's like Germany in terms of it's neatness, and quality, but with Scandinavian style - just look at the walkway from the plane, you don't get that kind of thing at Heathrow!

01102007268.jpg

Norway is expensive. I knew this before I left, but nothing prepared me for quite how expensive it really is...

I took a taxi from the Airport to the hotel - a 40km journey which cost £100! During the journey, I got talking to the Taxi driver about the high prices. He told me that he's used to it of course, but did agree. He gave me an interesting example - his taxi, a Volvo XC70, cost him 900,000 NKR. That is roughly £82,000! I'm not sure of the price of that car in England, but it's clearly well over twice the price in Norway.

01102007269.jpg

01102007271.jpg

In order to save LG some money, I'd booked the cheapest room in the Grand Oslo Hotel. At £200 a night, this isn't cheap, but it's not too crazy. I was staying on the 'Ladies Floor'. All the rooms on this floor are supposed to be ideal for ladies, I'm not really sure what that means, but there was a lot of pink, and the bed did have far too many cushions on it. My room was styled after a golfer called Suzann Petersen. Co-incidentaly, she was sponsered by LG this year. This also meant that there was a small putting mat and a set of golf clubs in the room as well!?!

That evening, my colleagues still hadn't arrived, so I went for a walk around the city. I checked out the price of a Big Mac - around £5 just for the burger!

While I was walking down the main high street, I got a call from my friend Ricki. As I was walking down the rather posh looking high street and and talking on the phone to Ricki, to my surprise I passed a sex shop, which had with some 'Lover's Anal Beads' in the window. Ricki was well impressed and asked me to post up a photo so this is for you Ricki. I don't want to know why you think Anal beads are good Ricki - never tell me!

01102007273.jpg

I got the chance to look around the city the next evening as well, but didn't really see anything new. The next morning it was time for me to come back home.

As the title of my post says, Norway is dead expensive, but it is also dead dead, hardly anyone lives there. This is a photo of the high street in Oslo at 10 to 9 in the morning. I'd expect to see loads of people heading to work, going about their daily business; but as you can see, the street is almost empty. Compare that to Oxford Street in the morning, I'm sure it's quite different!

03102007280.jpg