Making Poverty History
This afternoon, Bob Geldof stood in front of a packed press conference and launched Live 8 with the following words:
Still 20 years on [from Live Aid], it strikes me as morally repulsive that people die of want in a world of surplus.
Bloody right. He pointed out that more people die in Africa from hunger every day than die of AIDS, conflict and other major diseases combined. It's ridiculous, appaling, stupid and disgusting. But we can do something about it, and thousands of people are doing their best to get the message out.
However, in a hideous display of irony, this is a comment on the BBC Website regarding Live 8:
I was 14 when Live Aid was on and donated my pocket money to help. I wont donate anything this time because it's nothing more than a political racket!
Let me make this clear: Nobody is asking for any money. Live 8 is not asking for your money (the tickets are free). Make Poverty History is not asking for any money. While they could and would be entirely justified in doing so, they are simply asking for our voices. The G8 conference is in Gleneagles on July 8th. The G8 has it within its power to eradicate poverty by 2025. The point of the concert is to draw attention to the Make Poverty History campaign, the aims of which are:
The first two aims are for long-term benefit. Africa currently pays more back in debt than it receives in aid. That's insane. The third is for the short-term while the effects of the first two are felt.
Incidentally, Bob Geldof and Bono studied under Jeffrey Sachs, a professor of economics, until they gained an understanding of how the international economic system works. They're not seeking publicity, they genuinely believe in this. Hell, everybody believes in this. It's just a matter of convincing those in power to act.
Please, please visit the Make Poverty History website. Spend a couple of minutes reading up on their goals and aims. If you agree, and I expect you will, send emails to your MP and Tony Blair. Every voice counts. If you can march in Edinburgh on the 8th, brilliant. I want to and am going to try. It's not marching against anything or anybody. It's not politically biased or based on complaint. It's for the greater good, the betterment of humanity, of standing up for what we know to be morally right.
This is no hollow cause, no political racket, no publicity stunt. Just imagine what we could do.
MP3 Recompression
Back in yonder days when I started copying all my CDs to the computer, I decided to maximize the quality by encoding them at 320kbps. Teeny bit of overkill there. Is it reasonable to try to recompress them to a lower bitrate? Or will that lower the sound quality too much? Admittedly I could just try it, but I thought I'd ask instead 
Assumptions
Earlier this evening, while watching TV:
Channel 4 announcer: And now, Paris on ER.
Mum: Is that Paris Hilton?
Dad: I assumed it'd be set in Paris.
Me: Huh, I thought it'd be that guy from Voyager guest starring.
So I don't know what that says about us all
How to Walk Around Town
I'm not very good at walking around towns. Whether it's shopping or just sightseeing, my legs and shoulders start to hurt after a while (much worse if it's hot) and I get irritable soon after. I don't know whether this is a common problem, but I guess there must be other people afflicted. I've been trying to figure out ways around this recently, and I think I've nearly solved the problem. Here's what worked for me.
- Stretch before leaving the house. It sounds silly, but this has had by far the greatest impact for me. I don't know the names of the muscle groups, but I stretch the back of the lower leg, the front and back of the thigh and roll my shoulders. If you feel yourself tightening up again then stretch while you're out. If you're uncomfortable doing this in public, do it in the changing room while trying on some clothes While you're there, yell 'Er, I'm out of toilet paper'. Ok, don't do that.
- Breathe properly. I realised that I was taking fairly shallow breaths while walking around (probably because crowds make me nervous). No need for hyperventilation, but making yourself take normal breaths can really help.
- Have enough to drink. Carry a bottle of water, or regularly stop at cafes.
- Don't get too hot. By all means take a coat if you're worried it'll get cold, but do take it off and tie it around your waist if you start to feel uncomfortable. For whatever dumb reason I didn't do this for years. I must have been attention-seeking or something
- Start looking for somewhere to eat as soon as you start to feel hungry. Sometimes it can take a while to find the right place, and I always get very irritable when I haven't had enough to eat.
- Related to #5 - carry a small Mars bar or similar to tide you over and boost your sugar levels. It's amazing how a burst of sugar can help!
- If you're carrying a bag or anything that you hook over one shoulder (a camera, in my case) swap shoulders fairly frequently. This eases the pressure and can stop one particular shoulder hurting.
- If you're driving, park somewhere that gives you a ticket that you pay on your return. This stops you having to rush around, and you can have drinks etc. when you feel like it, without having to worry about what time the parking expires.
Millions
If you were to walk out of Millions without a huge smile on your face, I'd be very, very surprised. It's completely saturated with wonder. Infested with it. The film grains are leaking the stuff. Wonder as a metaphor for itself, you could say. Just go see it
And when you're done watching, go here, and let people know what you think.
A Flickr Recommendation
If you have a digital camera and want to put your photos online then I strongly recommend Flickr. It's just so easy that it's a joy to use. Whenever I take any photos, I copy them onto the computer, edit them if necessary, email them to a special Flickr email address with subject = title and body = description, and that's it - it's published and ready to view. I can then go in and add tags and notes if I want, but that's entirely optional - all the imporant work is done already. Incidentally, that email address means that if you've got a cameraphone you can use a Flickr account even more easily than people with separate digital cameras, since you don't have to transfer anything to the computer first.
If you were to ask me why Flickr is better than other online galleries I've used I'd probably have trouble telling you. It Just Is. It's neat, well-organised, everything works so very well, and there're all kinds of small things that come in extremely handy on rare occasions. For example, if you go to 'All Sizes' for your photos, they provide the HTML needed to link to that particular photo. Sure, it's easy enough to get the photo URL and write the code yourself, but having it right there and available saves 7 seconds or so, is surprisingly helpful and stops the process feeling like a fuss. The previous post was extremely easy to put together using the HTML links, but I could have just hit the 'Blog This' button and had Flickr link into my blog and produce a post for me - that's exactly what happens with moblog shots from my phone, I email them to Flickr with '2blog' at the end of the address, and it does everything else on its own.
Cripes, it's nearly 1800! How did that happen? There doesn't seem to be much on TV this evening so I may nip into town and see Millions. Nobody else seems very interested, but I think it looks great!
Wandering around Stratford
The weather was great for walking around Stratford, and lunch at the basin was great. Chadds, my favourite baguette shop, was closed, but I grabbed a bacon and egg baguette and sat on the grass in front of the theatre, people-watching. The street entertainers and buskers were out for the bank holiday weekend:
The basin was fairly busy:
Although this particular crowd was mainly due to people watching the boats pass in and out of the lock from the Stratford canal onto the Avon. We've had the experience of hundreds of onlookers a fair few times (we used to take the boat down to Stratford and back over the May bank holiday weekend) and I do remember one time in particular in which everybody watched me struggling with the lock gate for a minute or so - I was about 10 at the time - until finally a guy came to help just as I'd started it moving.
[the ice cream van just came by again, so I'm typing this while eating a '99]
[yum]
I wandered around town looking at what had changed since I worked there, as well as taking photos of anything interesting.
Sadly I wasn't able to get a shot of the three guys, who looked like they were on the way to see their parole officer, pushing unicycles across the main bridge. This is possibly my favourite shot of the day:
You can almost hear the inner dialogue of the kid. Incidentally, this was taken at full zoom and is still a large crop, so the perspective is fairly flattened. How old do you think the girls on the (far) right-hand-side are? I first saw them while cropping the photo and thought they looked pretty, then realised they could easily be any age from 14-22 and I should really stop thinking that!
I had a fun afternoon, and without spending large amounts of money either
Man-Bag Hunting
I've been wanting a man-bag for a while, now. With summer coming up I don't really want to be wearing my coat, but I still need to carry around all my bits and pieces. A simple bag with an across-the-body strap would be great, but I'd rather it didn't look particularly girly. They're surpisingly difficult to find. Most shops have laptop cases (which are *nearly* there, but are excessively heavy and bulky for general use) and the next step up is a small rucksack, with maybe some briefcases too.
Earlier this week I remembered that my uncle had a cool bag when we were in Paris, so I emailed him to find out what type it was. Turned out to be one of these, which seems pretty much perfect. I had a look at their retailers, and the closest store is Beatties in Solihull. I know that they don't have this particular model, however, as I was looking at their stock last week. The other major chain was Rohan, the easiest of which for me is in Stratford. So I had a trip out today to pick one up. But, I'd forgotten one thing.
It's Sunday.
Rohan was closed. Most other shops in the town centre were open, but no other outdoorsy type shops. Damn the church. So after wandering around, taking some photos and picking up a couple of other items I was after, I headed home. On the way out of Stratford I spotted the small retail outlet area next to Tescos, and figured it was worth a look. It had a Matalan, which was a possibility. Actually, though, it was the large Next store that had one of these, which I bought straight away. At
Earthgazing
If this isn't one of the coolest pictures ever taken with a 35mm + telephoto lens, I'm a penguin.
Test the Nation: 20th Century
52 / 70. Hmmm. I did take the test via WAP originally, but it went a little wrong. The idea is that you go to a WAP site via your phone and do the questions in time with the TV show. You press the 'Start' hyperlink when it tells you to on the tv, and the website automatically gives you the correct amount of time for each question. After a few problems involving a combination of digital cable introducing a 2 second delay, muppetry on my part for pressing 'Start' a couple of seconds early, a timing mistake on the live show and a whole batch of question answers not uploading correctly, I was given a score of 46/70. So I did it on the internet instead, and gained a massive 6 points. Worth it, I think you'll agree
Hello!
Hey, thanks for coming! I'm Andrew, and this is where my headthinks come to breed. They often meander around humanism and photography, but they're flighty and you can't trust them, so anything is possible.
Do feel free to email me - I get lonely:
Your hair looks swish, by the way - have you done something new?
Recent Comments
- vicky: going up this weekend having done all the welsh peaks except 4 snowdon, cant wait
on Climbing Snowdon. - vicky: what, how can u live in the 21 c and say that, probably a sexist thing
on Climbing Snowdon. - vicky: da iawn laura, cant believe what im hearing, all this fuss, anyway love the site, and i agree, normal people who swear and curse clomb mountains cos we live in the...
on Climbing Snowdon. - Andrew: Did a few quick test shots to check the light levels, then balanced the camera on the arm of a bench, set it for a 20s exposure and hoped for the best
on ISS. - lynsey: Wow, how did you take that photograph?
on ISS.
