• Henrys’ Children – Help Me Fighter
• The Displacements – Down and Out
• dufraine – DiTTO
• Henrys Children – Pictures From the Sky

I love live music and there are so many great venues in Birmingham that are currently under threat of closure due to a few complaints from local residences about noise pollution.

The guys over at Project X have produced a documentary to highlight some of the issues which will hopefully find the right eyes;

Thanks to long suffering landlord of Digbeth’s wonderful Spotted Dog (best pub in Brum?), Kent Davies at the Rainbow, Keith Marsden at the Prince of Wales and just one of the many Digbeth residents who moved to the area in order to appreciate (not complain about) the vibrant atmosphere, Adam Crossley.

Superb editing and graphics on this film by Anthony Davies.

So there you go. If you have a blog, please post about this video or head over to the Project X site, or even leave some comments here. I’ll make sure they get back to the rest of the team

12:51:14 PM: Great find by @jangles. A WordPress plugin for live blogging on Twitter http://bit.ly/43AyE

12:56:50 PM: Lots of scope for this to be used for quite a few things. Very cool

Very easy to use with the plugin looking for a simple //NLB// to start and //ELB// to finish live blogging.

I’m nursing a bad voice at the moment, so will be back with the next show sometime early next week. In the meantime, please tell everyone you can about the show and let’s get these independent musicians heard.

Have a great weekend everyone.

So in the interests of keeping the show semi-regular, I’m going to record a show today.

I’ve had a lot of interest since I decided to get back on the wagon, so to speak, but am still trying to be as active as I can in regaining the audience that we’ve lost of the years.

I’ll be recording some time today, so if you have any last minute audio/comments, send them through.

Voicemail: 07010476292 in the UK/Europe or 206-888-4773 in the US

Over the past few days I’ve been playing around with a few bits of AV that I think have made me realise that PCDC isn’t the way forward for me. It’s time to wheel out the old dinosaur that is bitjobs for the masses! and bring it back for good.

It might just be a coincidence, but it’s exactly four years tomorrow since I first started podcasting with a mammoth 90 minute show (!).  Thankfully as the shows increased in numbers, the length went down to a more manageable 30-45 minutes per show.

I’m not expecting to return to the glory days of loads of show related emails, but it will be good to use the followers I have on Twitter to get the shows heard and shared with others. BFM Daily was one of the most popular incarnations of the show; 15 minutes of independent music, minimal chatter and released everyday. It took a hell of a lot to get a show out everyday, but it was damn fun and they were some of the best shows I’ve produced.

So, here we go. It’s going to be slow to start with, but I will be devoting as much time as I can in between work and spending time with the kids and, with a bit of luck we’ll get back to the good old days of regular shows, a large-ish audience and a lot of quality music.

Facebook unveiled a new layout today. It took a while to filter through to us in the UK, but when it did a lot of my contacts on there and on Twitter told everyone how much they hated it.

If Facebook can’t afford to buy Twitter, why do they think turning it into a clone will help? It now looks as though everything else that we use Facebook for (friends, wall posts, SuperPokes etc) have been pushed to one side and it’s all about the status updates.

There are now only two things that I’ll use Facebook for; poking friends and staying connected with my extended family around the world. At least until they join Twitter, that is

During the early part of 2000, we visited Portugal for the first time. After big trips to the US and Canada, things were toned down a little with relaxing weeks in the sun.

My parents loved the place and ended up investing in a timeshare. I don’t remember too much about it, apart from it involving a three hour “tour” of Praia da Oura and a meal with a very over the top Cockney, named Mike.

From then on, for the next three years, we travelled back every March during half term. 2003 was the last time I went with them, so it feels really great to be going back this March with my Mum and Aimee for her first trip abroad. It’s hit me recently how different it’ll be without my Dad there; we used to start off every day with a good few hours reading books and listening to music by the poolside while Mum went off drinking coffee and practising her Portugese.

Although it’s our first trip without him (and my first in six years) I think it’ll be a welcome break. The past few years have been tough for us as a family, so being able to drink cheap(ish) beer and forget about the world back home for a week will be extremely enjoyable.

If I can work out how much I’ll be charged while I’m there (I’ve seen £3/£6 per mb) I’ll probably post some short updates, or at least use WordPress on the iPhone to save some drafts ready for when I get back.

We’re off to Portugal on the 1st March and, despite knowing this well in advance, we were only able to send off Aimee’s passport application last Saturday. Standard turn around time is 2 weeks, so everything crossed that it will arrive back with us before we have to go, otherwise her first trip abroad will have to wait a while.

I’m quite excited about getting away for a week, especially with the latest bad weather we’ve been having and even though it’ll be a first for Aimee, it will also be our first holiday without Dad. I’m sure everything will go OK, but there’s always going to be things that will remind us of times we’ve been there before with him.

Update: Got a letter back today rejected the photos with the application. Weekend now spent getting new ones then rushing to get them signed to be sent off. Headless chicken time!

Over the past few days, the use of Twitter in the UK has exploded. It started on Monday with mostof Twitter’s UK populace using #uksnow at the end of updates about the state of the snow in their postcode. This led to a mashup from Ben Marsh here, detailing pretty much in realtime the level of snow around the UK.

It seems that today we’ve had half of BBC Radio 1 sign up, as well as EwanMcGregor. Not to mention Phillip Schofield and his damn hedge and #schofeshedge.

Looking ahead, I think that now some “celebrities” are using it, Twitter will quickly become as much of a must have web app as Facebook.

As someone who’s been using Twitter for quite a while, it’s refreshing to see new people signing up and taking part in the discussions. Whether they stick around once the novelty wears off remains to be seen.