Once again world leaders are preparing to meet; this time at the UN World Summit in New York. If you care about the poverty in the world and the needless death of people through starvation and want of basic medicines then please take a moment to send an e-mail to Tony Blair.
The text of the default message still refers to the G8 Summit that was in Gleneagles so use the text below to make it relevant to the World Summit:
Next week you and your international colleagues have the opportunity to make poverty history by delivering crucial changes on trade justice, debt and aid.
You and the other world leaders meeting at the UN World Summit in New York can stop a child dying every three seconds. You can stop the policies that create poverty and instead begin to transform the lives of the world’s poorest people.
Please use your position and influence at the UN to:
- change the unjust rules of trade, respecting poor countries’ rights to decide on trade policies that will help end poverty
- cancel all the debt of all the poorest countries that need it
- deliver at least $50 billion more in aid each year starting now, and make it work better for people in poverty.Along with millions of others around the world, I’ll be wearing a white band to remind you of what you must do and waiting to see if you deliver.
The time has come again Mr Blair. Please do not squander this second opportunity to make a difference.
If you’re a trumpet player (or any jazz musician for that matter) or a jazz fan then you should check out this nice flash movie by Wynton Marsalis as an introduction to jazz and the trumpet.
If you live in the UK I would recommend you don’t use Google Maps to get driving directions.
It appears that the concept of roundabouts hasn’t made it to the good folks at Google as their directions proved when we used them to get from Southend-on-Sea to Broxted in Essex last week. Instead of asking us to take the 3rd exit at a roundabout to join the A12 heading towards Colchester the directions instructed us to “bear left onto the A12″. Thinking this may be one of those clover leaf type junctions that loops you round to the direction you need to be going I did bear left only to find myself heading down the A12 towards Billericay, the opposite direction to what I had intended.
Of course the instrucion is strictly correct because even when you are turning right on a roundabout you are bearing left to leave the roundabout, but it’s hardly intuitive.
I think I’ll stick to the AA‘s directions in future.
I took the plunge yesterday and made the new band website live. There were a couple of minor problems that have mostly been sorted now.
The one remaining problem concerns the map on the directions page. This is powered by Google Maps but doesn’t seem to display in Internet Explorer. It works fine in Firefox though and I can’t see any javascript errors that might give me a clue as to what’s going on.
Work that’s still left to do include pages to allow other members of the band to edit things like the list of engagements, the list of players, adding new profiles.
The new website will allow other members of the band to add news items and upload pictures (when I sort out accounts for them) so hopefully this will free me from maintaining the content of the site.
So, take a look, and send us your feedback.
No, Louise hasn’t given birth to a football!
Over the last 3 days Euan has been attending a football course at his school and yesterday he received the award for “Best Attitude”. It seems to be his ability to always make people laugh and smile that makes him so lovable.
As a reward I’m taking him to his first football match today, Watford vs. Reading. Despite my loyalties being with Sheffield Wednesday and Louise’s with Wolverhampton Wanderers, we have decided to bring our kids up to support their local team. It’s going to be an interesting season as all three teams are in the same division and Watford have been drawn to play Wolves in the next round of the Carling Cup.
I once made a remark about the hidden books of the bible (merely a fluke); it kept people looking so hard for the facts, and for others it was a revelation. Some were in a jam, especially since the names of the books were not capitalised. But now the truth finally struck home to the numbers of readers. To others it was a real job. We want it to be a most fascinating few moments for you. Yes, there will be some difficult ones to spot, others may require judges to help them. I will quickly admit it usually takes a Minister to find one of them. There will be loud lamentations when it is found. A little lady I know, she brews a cup of tea so she can concentrate better. See how well you can compete. Relax now, for there really are sixteen names of the bible hidden in this paragraph. One Preacher found fifteen books in twenty minutes, but it took him three weeks to find the sixteenth one!
Now you’ve read it, can you find sixteen books of the bible hidden in the above paragraph? Some are easy, others not so. You need to run some words into their neighbours. This is from the newsletter of a Church at Doué la Fontaine, not far from us. An English Vicar left the Church of England when women (of all things!) were allowed into the priesthood, and runs the Church there as a Roman Catholic. None of which really matters! Enjoy the puzzle!
[I got this from my Uncle who lives in France via a mutual friend in Sheffield. It took me 8 minutes to get all 16.]
It’s been a long time since I’ve posted on here.
One reason for this was because I’d been working on a web project for a neighbour. She creates thread art using a technique known as thread painting and wanted a website to show off her skills and sell some of her work. To cut what could potentially be a long story short, here’s a the finished website. It’s been based around the Coppermine photogallery software with some hacks to add in the Paypal shopping cart and the Javascript based frames. (One day I’ll get round to submitting the Paypal code back to the Coppermine people.)
I’m also working on new designs for Watford Band‘s website and our own website. You can see these at:
I’ve been getting quite into web design and programming recently, much to the chagrin of my wife, Louise, hence the increase in CSS and web design links in my del.icio.us listing.
I’ve got a couple of ideas (well it’s one idea with two applications) for using Google maps to the benefit of the Brass Band movement and the Methodist Church. Just got to get these pesky websites finished first!
In case you didn’t know…
The rehearsal with the band last night was excellent. It was lead by Glyn Williams, the Principle Euphonium of Foden’s and he took the band through some interesting exercises based on a hymn tune just to get us playing together, not only starting the notes together but also finishing together too. Unfortunately I arrived a bit late but it sounded like he’d also taken the band through some basic breathing and preparation techniques too.
We spent a long time going through the first movement of Divertimento, the test piece for the regional qualifiers next week. It was all really good stuff, but I fear it may be too late for it to make a significant difference. Interestingly Glyn altered the way Martyn was having us play some parts of the piece. It’ll be interesting to see how Thursday’s rehearsal goes on that basis.
I also took the opportunity to play a Courtois cornet. In summary it’s clearly a very well made cornet but I found it a little stuffy for my liking. The valves were good and very responsive though I suspect they could have done with a little oil. After playing it for about 40 minutes I switched back to my own cornet and was immediately much more comfortable as it’s more free blowing.
I’ve been talking to a fellow band member about the issue of the getting everyone to play the same instruments and the possibility of the band buying a set of instruments for such a purpose and he says, and I completely agree with him, that we’d be better off getting the existing instruments repaired (or replaced where appropriate) and spending time and money on having a weekend brass workshop with some people of the calibre of Glyn, perhaps we could persuade Glyn to bring some of his other Foden’s colleagues.
Getting the players playing properly would be the biggest gain for the band without a huge outlay of cash and we could use it to give those who play on band instruments the opportunity to try some other makes of instrument under expert guidance to try and find the right instrument for them.
It appears that my gripes about how rehearsals were being taken have been reinforced by others in the band and the recently rehearsals have been a lot better, though there’s always a danger of it slipping back through habit.
I’m particularly looking forward to next Tuesday’s rehearsal as we have members of Fodens band coming to give instruction and also to let us try some of their old Courtois instruments. It’s always good to get advice from other players, particularly from those who play in one of the top brass bands in the UK.
One concern I have though is that we have been told that it is the band’s intention to purchase a set of instruments, possibly the set from Foden’s, with a view to everyone in each section playing the same type of instrument. This concerns me because I currently play a Besson Sovereign cornet and choose this instrument after auditioning it alongside other cornets from Schilke, Getzen and Holton. I settled on the Sov because it was comfortable for me to play, offering the right amount of feedback, had the right weight and produced a nice tone. I don’t pretend that I can play it well, but for me, it was the right instrument.
I don’t mind trying new instruments, after all I’ve never played a Courtois cornet and it may be that I get on with really well. But what if I don’t? Am I going to be forced to play an instrument that I don’t find right for me? If it comes down to this I suspect I’ll be looking for another band.
There are four of us in the Wiley family in Watford. There's me Greg, my wife Louise, our son Euan and our daughter Eva. There's also our cat Fundi. You'll find a bit more information on our about us page.