So I have been really busy juggling lots of different things and then at home enjoying the festive period at home so soon I promise will be a update in a more detailed way than my twitter posts about all that has been going on.

It’s been nearly nine weeks since the Norwich Lord Mayors Festival and that was a week after then end of The War of The Worlds 2009 Tour, and what have I been doing since then?  Well not an awful lot of work I have had my trusty Mbox and G4 PowerBook over at Snape Maltings Suffolk recording a number of the Aldeburgh Music school’s recitals.  I spent a day baby sitting the PA system at Lords Cricket Ground for the county final, I’ve done some audio production for the Opening of Dance East’s new performance space in Ipswich and just recently started to add magnitude to the rolling ball that will become the Nolans Tour.  All in all quite a nice summer, as many of you will know I am generally quite a busy guy so i’ve just about to keep the bank from our door, though to be fair I think they are probably too busy trying to work out who now owns our mortgage but that’s a whole other story.
My time at home has seen me making good headway into my DIY projects list.  The tired old willow fence has been replaced, the loft is now boarded out and access is much easier with my telesteps ladder, disappointingly due to where the loft hatch is a regular one wouldn’t fit, but this telescopic one is the muts nuts.  Much to Fe’s amusement I also got a Owl energy monitor, and yes I did go around the house unplugging and turning things on and off, and I now really need to find a alternative solution to the 4 50W down lights in the kitchen.  I’ve also decorated Fe and my’s bedroom, been down the beach with Hannah and after her awesome 2nd Birthday party had a couple of days in Jersey whilst Granny and Gramps baby sat.
During my time at home I have tried to curtail my spending that normally co-insides with any prolonged period time of rest.  But last week I stuck to my long arranged plan with myself and with the release of Snow Leopard order me a new MacBook Pro I went for the 13” 2.26 version, I had carried my trusty G4 PowerBook around for over five years now and it is used an awful lot so it was due for a replacement.  It was incredibly exciting, I had put the slowness of google maps to render pages down to my fairly rural location and in-adequate broadband connection speed, oh no the new MacBook Pro renders the page much more quickly.  Oh and encoding video in HandBrake my PowerBook would peak out at about 4.8fps where as this new beast will do 45/50fps.  So imagine my disappointment when I discovered there was a fault with the left speaker.  It was lacking in HF, now you can imagine that was a difficult conversation with Apple’s representative in some far eastern territory.  None the less it has been duly shipped off and repaired though disappointingly not quite back in time for me to be taking it with me to day on my way to Birmingham for the We Will Rock You get out, however once it’s all in to Bristol it will be ready and waiting for me at home with my girls!  Oh Yeah!
So the autumn is looking nice and busy, just need to find something for late November early December, and does any one want to by a G4 15” PowerBook 1.33 GHz?

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Today found me at Lords the home of Cricket, to baby sit RG Jones’s installation for the Friends Provident Trophy Final between Hampshire Hawks and Sussex Sharks. What a great day out on my part, now I’ve never really followed cricket so today was a great day to start.  It was an early start but the PA all checked out ok and then it was a day of listening to the announcements and leaning.  A very pleasurable day everything work well and the team there are great.

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In a mode to get in with the credit crunch I’ve dropped the prices on my range of Ironclad Gloves.

• The Ironclad General Utiltiy Glove now £13.70
• The Ironclad Gripworx Glove now £15.53
• The Ironclad Framer Glove now £13.70

Please allow 7 days for delivery.  Happy Shopping

www.brewpse.co.uk/gloves.html

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Penthurst Place near Royal Tunbridge Wells Kent

So here we are in the Spirit of Man, act two at Glasgow SECC of Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds.  This is venue three of the tour and our first of a back to back.  It was Aberdeen last night and I think we were all away from there before three and then the early starters were in at 7am this morning into Glasgow.  Being a back line tech I get an easier ride and a few more hours in bed.
But after much discussion we decided to label all the back lines cases as none of them are the same size so it really is a rubix cube of flight cases, oh how I miss just doing a trailer full of 1/4 truck cases. Anyway we have numbered all the cases and taken pictures of all the walls so hopefully I should be able to recreate it every night nice and easy.  However where this plan falls down is the numbers are based on Alex and I making the pack up with all the cases in view, it doesn’t allow for a case being late out the door.  Which is what happened last night the guitar cases were late and frustratingly one of them in the second row.  We are going to preserver with this plan for a few more days even if it dose take the challenge out of it.  But it’s what all the big boys do especially on the long running tours.
Something else that is making my life a lot more pleasant on this tour is the rolling stage, as the chippies build the stage and all the band risers down in the auditorium, we got on it about 1pm today but we were able to build the band without the alien and what not in the way. Then when everyone is ready and all the important bits are flown out we roll the stage into position.  Very cool!  Anyway on to Newcastle tomorrow, the first of the ice rinks, ohhhh yeah!

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So what do you think to the way pictures are now handled and how keen are you to see a picture of my peli full of my things?

Now I could happily do days like this all the time, the original plan was Tim of coastalaudio.co.uk and my self would mooch on up to Manchester catch We Will Rock You before he had to go do a little recording at the Lower Theatre Manchester for a Creative Culture and Education seminar while I walked some of the Third Year Sound Technology and Theatre Performance Technology students from LIPA. Before we headed back down the M6 for home, however Tim got called to a meeting so I got to do the whole thing on my own. Like I said i could happily do this all the time, nice little recording, and walking around talking about my work. What more could you ask for?

Well it has been another great day on behalf of Surfhire for White Space Productions” Down at the FIPP International Federation of the Periodical Press World Congress at Old Billingsgate my self and Will Jones have mainly spent the day surfing the internet as everything is working perfectly. Every one seems nice and happy, just how we like it. Though I do wonder if reading online is possible inapropiate behaviour given this is all about the printed press. Hopefully it shouldn’t take Will and I too long to pull it all out this evening!
Fipp London 2009