I’ve just finished watching BBC’s 3 part series, ‘Sherlock’ – a modern day telling of the classic Conan-Doyle adventure stories.  I will admit that I watched with some trepidation, I’d first heard about this programme a few weeks back and had heard it was written by some guy who “wrote for Dr. Who” - immediately I discounted it because I’m really not a fan of the Time Lord for many reasons; 1) I really don’t like the writing, 2) I don’t like the acting and 3) I’m not a child.

It is only after some research did I find that the creators are actually Steven Moffat and Mark Gatis. Moffat has written some Dr. Who stuff but wasn’t the writer I was thinking about, turns out he was responsible for the awesome teen TV series Press Gang and of course, Mark Gatis is one of the genial/deranged minds behind A League of Gentlemen.

My other reservation about this programme was that it was set in the present and not in the glorious darkness of 19th century London, this means Holmes and Watson are placed among a world of mobile phones, laptops and modern motor vehicles – as someone who has enjoyed the Conan-Doyle texts I thought this might diminish the adventure somewhat. It has been pointed out to me that period scenery is rather much more expensive than filming in the present and no one wants a heavy set based programme, especially when so much of the story is based in and around a busy Central London.

Some of the use of 21st Century items I found a little bit heavy, the pushing of Watson to write his ‘blog‘ made me cringe. The more than once referrals to Holmes’ website (www.thescienceofdeduction.co.uk), and an early scene showing a press conference all receiving text messages at the same time but writing the words ‘wrong’ next to each character in the audience also seemed somewhat unnecessary.

Holmes appears to have lost his deerstalker hat, which is a shame but more shamefully he appears to have lost his trademark pipe, for Holmes is now reliant on Nicotine patches; “It’s a three patch problem” he says. What I cannot be sure of is that the writers intended this to be the case or pressure was applied to not have the leading character smoke, even this I don’t understand because the broadcast time and some of the writing clearly shows this programme wasn’t aimed at Children or family viewing. It’s a three pipe/patch problem perhaps?

The programme started with a part dream/flashback of Watson, played by Martin Freeman. Martin Freeman to me and to many others will always be Tim from The Office, I loved him then and I love him now, he’s still Tim but he’s now an ex Army doctor with a limp. We later meet Holmes who is played wonderfully by Benedict Cumberbatch, someone I seem to recognise but can’t quite remember where from. Cumberbatch has the face, the posture and the attitude of the Holmes that I’d always imagined from reading the text or listening to audio books; he and Freeman certainly make a good team.

The story was well written, and well executed. Dialogue and timing was very good, if not a bit hammy at times – but Conan-Doyle never really shy’d away from the ham himself. Overall I think it was a success, the character development was good, the acting fine and the writing clever and funny, a good tribute to a great story.

I’m looking forward to part II.

The first part of Sherlock is available on BBC iplayer until 15th August 2010.

p.s. the music throughout also really reminded me of the Dexter opening theme.

Throughout life, from our early childhood, through the school system and then in a work environment we’re told, taught and instinctively know that we have to make allowances and concessions in order to reaching our goals at least some of the way.

Clearly this isn’t the case if you are a Political party in the UK, there is very little room for maneuver. It’s almost always a simplistic Black or White, no in-between. In the days since the Election delivered a hung Parliament the idea that members of political parties, be it the grassroots or at the top, are vehemently opposed to team work.  It’s only through gritted teeth that the Conservatives and the Lib Dem’s have agreed to form a coalition government.

The Media have certainly had their role to play in this too, each publication or outlet picking their side and sticking with it no matter what (unless you’re the Guardian, in which case you sort of float around like journalistic flotsam), demanding that all sides make a decision NOW because apparently the country cannot cope without a Prime Minister for more than 5 days.

I know I’m being very idealistic and probably naive but humour me;  wouldn’t it be great if all political parties could regularly make concessions and use a bit of give & take, like the rest of us have to every day of our lives.  Sure, things might take a little while longer to get done but there’d be a lot less hatred in the political spectrum.

On that note, I’d like to wish our new Prime Minister absolutely no luck whatsoever and can’t wait for the moment you fail, you smug, expectant prick the best of luck for the next Parliamentary term.

Merk

DIGITAL ECONOMY BILL

As you are probably aware, the above Bill was passed in Parliament on Tuesday, 6th April. Despite protestations from all sides of the House the Bill was rushed through with only a few hours of debate.

Personally, I was not happy with the way the voting went, so I refused to join the ‘Aye’ (yes) lobby/vote, and abstained to register my disgust at the way this ill-thought through and flawed Bill was rushed through Parliament without correct and proper scrutiny.

Locally, I have been supported by those of differing political views because I am prepared to put common sense before party politics. I hope that my refusal to join the ‘Yes’ lobby on Tuesday has once again underlined my independence of mind on behalf of those issues that really affect the lives and liberties of my constituents.

In my view, the Bill will do immense damage and is fundamentally flawed.

Yours sincerely,
Mark Pritchard MP

In Mark’s view, the bill will do immense damage and is fundamentally flawed, but to show his ‘disgust’ in the way the bill was rushed through Mark abstained from voting?

He hopes that this shows his independence of mind, seriously? He thinks a bill is flawed and will cause damage but he wont vote against it? He choses to abstain. He might as well have voted yes.

We’ve both neglected our respective duties since…

We’re not a Conservative family, for a start my parents divorced when I was 3. I grew up on a Council estate and went to a state school (albeit a strange one). Both my brother and I managed to get to Uni (although only one of us, Stavros, finished). We never claimed benefits and our mother worked long long hours to do this.  I have long detested the stereotype of single parent families who sit on their arses all day popping out children and claiming all they can from the state – The Tories push this stereotype too much for my liking.  Just one of the reasons why I will NEVER vote Conservative.

In 2001, I was at University during the election. I registered to vote in Warrington and voted Labour. I felt I’d done my duty and that my vote really did count. Labour won.

A couple of years later, while I was working for a Community radio station in Wolverhampton a friend introduced me to his friend Tom Watson, MP for West Bromwich East. We became friends. Tom loved the idea of starting a similar radio station in his constituency and put me in touch with some people involved in the creative arts projects, namely The Public, a community arts organisation.  Together with the help of some good people at The Public we created a company and submitted a community licence application which we won.

It was my feeling that no other party would have made the commitment to these sort of community arts projects other than Labour; they saw the potential in Community Radio, projects like The Public and people like me.

At this time the Iraq war was kicking off, it was something I didn’t believe in.  I was adamant is was the wrong thing to do, however, in my mind Labour had made my life better.  I stuck with them.  .

Again, I voted Labour in 2005, they won.  I didn’t want Tony Blair as Prime Minister but I was sure that he was probably best of a bad bunch of leaders and I’d always hoped that he would have been ousted as leader and Gordon Brown would take over, I had faith in Gordon Brown to do a good job. I even joined the Party at some stage

All did not go well with The Public and they soon went into administration, this meant that the great support and staff that was instrumental in our Community Radio station’s progress all but stopped.  The Administrators made it clear that my project was now not financially viable, it was a great blow to our project as a whole and to me personally.

Over this period my unease with Labour’s governance was growing, from my outrage over the Iraq war and it’s atrocities to the seemingly increasing efforts to throw away our much loved (but not constitutionally bound) civil liberties.  I still hoped, deep down that Labour were the party for me.

For the past 5 years I have worked for an Internet Service Provider as a network/systems engineer, it’s a relatively small company with 100-/+ employees.  I still have a love and desire to do radio and I’m working on another project which will hopefully come to fruition in the next 12 months (more on that soon).  Yesterday a sweepingly wide bill, The Digital Economy was rushed through Parliament before the General Election.   This bill stands to have serious detrimental effects to my industry and at it’s very worst could cost jobs or even businesses.

Less and 40 MP’s debated the bill for it’s third reading yet it was whipped though the house with 189 votes to 47.   187 members voted without even being present for the debate (419 didn’t turn up), the whole bill with a few amendments was voted within a total of 7.5 hours of parliamentary time.  Despite calls from major players in the industry such as Google & Microsoft, Twenty thousand emails or letters to MP’s and serious concerns of a few knowledgeable MP’s to halt the bill and debate in the new parliamentary term.

The bill covers such a sweeping list of area’s such as copyright infringement, Digital Radio, Photographic works, Ofcom powers and many more that for the Government to push this bill through the ‘wash up’ stage of Parliament is a disgrace and slaps the democratic process firmly in the face.

This was the final straw for me, and looking back I’m wondering why I didn’t say this when I was so outraged at the Iraq War, the slaying of Jean Charles de Menezes, the conduct of the police at the G20 protest or the persistence of the ID cards issue.   For that I feel ashamed, that I did not protest my anger then, but now is the time.

Labour no longer have my vote.  It is sad, because for years I’ve believed in Labour but it’s more than evident that they no longer believe in me.  I really do hate the idea of the next 5 years being lorded over by the horribly saccharine David Cameron and his band of Bullingdon chums, I really do.  It makes me feel sick.

Labour haven’t lost my vote forever, they could get it back.  To do so they have to be prepared to listen, for too long they have simply pretended to.

For years I harangued any friends who said they wouldn’t  bother voting; “Well, they’re all the same aren’t they Merk”.  I’m starting to think they were right*.

My ballot paper will be spoiled this year, if I vote at all.

*Tom Watson’s dedication to opposing elements of this bill is to be commended, Tom is one of a few constituency MP’s who is caring, dedicated and knowledgeable. Regardless of my anger with Labour, Tom remains a friend and I wish him luck for the Election.

Over 500 years ago Gutenberg invented the printing press which revolutionised the world, there are now billions of books throughout the world and are reasonably cheap to buy. I’m not a person who thinks that revolutions can’t happen again, but sometimes things just don’t need revolutionising, the book is one of those.

Let’s look at some of the reasons we’re presented with in order to get us to buy an e-book reader;

Simple to use: no computer, no cables, no syncing. – Books are pretty simple to use are they not? you start at the front and work your way to the back (in the west), unless of course it’s one of those ‘Choose your own adventure’ books.

Revolutionary electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper. – looks like real paper huh? Imagine that.

Low energy use for a long battery life – I’ve never ever had to charge up a book, ever.

Get a huge choice of eBooks – A book shop has a huge choice of books, Amazon and (my favourite) The Book Depository has a massive choice of books. Even better my local library has thousands of books, and they’ll lend them to me. For Free.

The idea of being able to store hundreds of books on a device isn’t quite the same as storing thousands of music tracks on your portable music player, music is mostly instant gratification and most of us enjoy the ability to skip through thousands of tracks finding something that reflects our ever changing tastes or moods. I don’t know why anyone would want to do the same with a book.

It just doesn’t make sense, If you’re going on holiday throw 2 books in your bag. You don’t have to worry about losing an expensive gadget or getting it wet when someone throws themselves in the pool. I can read a book anywhere, on the bus standing up, on the train without looking like a twat, on the toilet, in the bath. I can lend it to my mate. I can leave it on the bus.

This isn’t to say that electronic books aren’t useful, we have tons of technical manuals at work in PDF format, they are good for looking things up, but they are useless for studying – the simple fact is people don’t like reading from a screen for any length of time.

In a world where it seems we’re sometimes doing things with Tech simply ‘because we can’ this was always bound to happen but I really don’t see the point in reinventing the wheel. If you have an e-book reader I’d be interested to know what drove you to buy it, or if you’re using it much now. Have you burned all your books in a bonfire? Leave a comment.

p.s. local book buyers will no doubt recognise the picture above as The Market Bookshop in Wellington.

I was singing Christmas Carols in the round with brother Stavros, Cricketer come singer Henry Olonga (I have no idea what he looks like but he was there), Aled Jones (of ‘Walking in the Air’ fame) and that embarrassment of an MPNadine Dorries who doesn’t even know where she lives.

We used plastic cups for percussion.

The Google Head
I was working for google, although I didn’t realise it at the time. All day at work I’d had a spot on the side of my head, my temple. It was one of those really annoying spots that grows under the skin, you can’t squeeze them cause it hurts too much and it would break the skin, sometimes they just dissapear other times they break out are are MASSIVE.

Anyway I was working, and messing with this spot all day. I headed to the toilets and squeezed it, it was massive and some people where watching me saying how much blood there was, I looked around and I was covered in blood, blood everywhere.

There was now a big hole in the side of my head, and out of it popped a metal ball. I went back into the office and my boss told me I had to write to warn everyone about it on the official Google Blog.

The Running Man
Myself and good mate Lee were running, just running, for what seemed like a really long time. It turns out we were in a computer game, an old platform game, but we weren’t running at all, the world was moving under our feed, we were in the same position.

The Big House
I let myself into a big house, from the outside it was the same manor house that overlooked the Caravan site we used to stay at as kids, from the inside it was all modern. I walked around for a while and found my way following signs to a pub, when I got to the a big gallery/landing area the path to the pub had been blocked by large fallen bricks, there was a sign pointing to an alternavtive route. I walked back and was in the entrance lobby of the house and I heard voices, it was the owner and a vistor – he was telling him about the house, I raced to run out of the door but they were coming in that way, so I went to hide in the a bathroom but it was locked, I hid behind the door. They came in and headed into the main throng of the house, I tried to get out of the front door but it was locked so I headed to a side corrador. I could see another open door at the end of this corridor but I had to creep past a small sleeping dog. I did so, but got half way down this corridor when I knocked over a mop. The dog woke, gathered his thoughts and began to follow me down this long room, the room got longer, the dog got bigger by now it was a blood hound and was chasing me down. I ran as fast as I could to get out of the door and I woke up, out of breath.

Mexico
I was driving through Mexico in an old American muscle car, I pulled over and a man sent me down some side street where there was an arcade game, I played the game for a while. It was a Ninja, and I wasn’t controlling him on the screen but on the rooftoops of the street in front of me. It was all cool until some cowboys came onto the scene and started shooting at Ninja and then at me. I started shooting back (not sure when I got the gun!) and legged it to the car.

So there you have it, some of my recent dreams.  I think I might be a bit mad, am I the only person who has crazy dreams like this and can remember them so vividly?  I suppose it’s better than dreaming about a nuclear holoucaust.

…and no, I don’t eat cheese before I go to bed.

Tonight, I caught ‘I Dreamed A Dream – The Susan Boyle Story‘ on ITV, everyone knows the story of Susan Boyle; the quiet, middle aged lady from West Lothian who became the Star of ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent in 2008 .  Since the programme (in which she came 2nd to a Dance Troupe) she has become a huge hit in both the UK and around the world, in some part thanks to the internet with over 100 million views of her videos online.  Boyle’s album broke records to be the fastest ever selling début record in British history, it’s since sold over 1 million copies.

There is no doubt that Susan Boyle has a great talent and huge appeal, which for Susan and her record company is a fantastic thing.  What worries me is the way Boyle’s rise to meteoric fame has been handled.  I worry that this huge appeal is in part a symptom of how us, the record buying, TV watching public have come to expect our entertainers to look and act.

In tonight’s programme it was hard to get away from gushy celebrities telling us how Susan had overcome many obstacles to get where she is, they might be right of course, but any more than any other artist trying to make their way? A woman who doesn’t fit the media’s (or our) idea of a pop star – she’s middle aged, she’s not slim, she doesn’t have ‘model’ looks yet sings well.  This disturbs me somewhat.

Why are we surprised by this?  Do we expect all our pop stars to be amazingly charismatic and drop dead gorgeous? If the answer is yes then I wonder who is to blame, is it the media for being so negative by thinking we’ll only buy records from good looking people or is it our fault for buying into it in the first place?

It’s nothing new of course, early Elvis sang music that had been performed for years in underground venues by unknown black artists, but he was good looking, charismatic and (unfortunately) most importantly he was white and deemed ‘accessible’ to most.

Fast forward 50 years and it seems sad to me that the idea of Susan Boyle’s rise to success hasn’t been celebrated simply as a ‘lady with great voice singing songs‘ but as a ‘unconventional lady with great voice singing songs‘, for Ant (or Dec) to talk about Trial through Adversity or Piers Morgan to claim Susan’s fame is one of the Entertainment world’s biggest success stories makes it even more negative.

Even after world wide number one records, millions of record sales and rumoured performance for the U.S 1st Lady, the people that brought Susan to the forefront are still trading in the negative idea that it’s almost impossible that an unconventional person cannot harbour superb talent.

I’m not a fan of Susan’s music but I wish her all the best and really hope that she can leave the patronising gang of TV idiots behind her.

The International (2009) – cross James Bond with Bourne Identity and an ‘Introduction to accounting’ book and you have this film.  It’s alright.

Knowing (2009) – Alien bollocks with Nicolas Cage.  Says it all

In the Loop (2009) – Superb film of the TV series ‘The Thick of It’ – Favourite Malcolm Tucker Quote: “Well, it is out there, it’s out there now, lurking like a big hairy rapist at a coach station. You know, if I could, I’d punch you into paralysis!”

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966) - I can’t belive I’d never seen this, however it’s my main reason for buying a poncho.

Tell No One (Ne Le Dis a Personne) (2006) – Ace french film about a bloke who’s wife is murdered and his attempts to find out why.

In Bruges (2009)  – Not a great film but it’s made me want to go to Bruges.

The Uninvited (2009) – Some bird comes home fromt he mental hospital (you can tell where this goes already) to find his dad shacked up with another woman who she thinks is trying to kill her and her sister.

Gran Torino (2008) – Great film directed and staring Clint Eastwood. An ignorant racist who comes good, nice story.

Eastern Promises (2007) – A great British film about the Russian Maffia.

I finish with a film that I am really excited about seeing in new year, ‘Where The Wild Things Are’, a Spike Jonze film based on famous children’s book by Maurice Sendak.

The Genius’, as you’d expect aren’t exactly Genius’ just the usual ‘follow-these-steps-if-it-doesn’t-work-we’ll-give-it-to-a-real-engineer-to-fix’ types you get in these sort of places, see PC World for similar thing.   As a self confessed geek what gets me is the sheer arrogance of the ‘Genius’ thing – Stephen Hawking is a genius, the portly bloke who ‘tested’ my Mac was not – regardless of the T-Shirt he was wearing;   “Not all Superheroes wear Capes“.   You could feel the ‘smug’ emanating from that store.

Anyway, after ‘genius‘ tried all the stuff I’d already tried he had to pass it to an engineer to look at – these are kept locked up in a room away from the shop floor, presumably because they don’t fit Apple’s ‘look’.   Two days later they phoned to tell me the motherboard was dead and wanted £730 to repair.  Much to my displeasure my employers didn’t want to pay this or indeed, buy me a new Mac Book Pro.   So I was given a budget and told to find another laptop.

I ended  up getting a nice Acer laptop with pretty decent spec, but it came with Windows Vista – an operating system I’ve managed so far to completely avoid.  Our in-house IT dept sorted ou me a copy of Windows 7 and I have to say I’m very impressed with it.  To date I’ve not had it crash, not had to manually end a non-responding process or throw it against the wall once.  While the keyboard doesn’t light up, the power is not a funky magnet power plug I still like it.

When I first registered the domain it was through some random free domain company and it was my first attempt at html coding and even my first major foray into the world of the internet – it was via dial up at my mums house, on my first proper pc which I paid £1200 cash for at Tiny. My (or rather my Mums) first dial up bill was about 300 quid!

I made this really shit site which entertained the idea that BigDaddyMerk himself was some sort of celebrity hit-man, offering varied levels of violence towards people like Robbie Williams, Will Smith etc. it had animated gif horizontal rules of dripping blood and an animated Terminator saying something very shit like “Tell me which celeb you wish to be terminated‘ – Frankly it was dreadful and very embarrassing.

If I could go back 11 years and tell myself not to do something this would probably be quite high on the list, alas I can’t and I must tell you that at no time did I ever do a ‘hit‘ on anyone, celebrity or otherwise.

At the time I’d just started college near Birmingham I was doing Audio Visual Design, which is a posh name for titting around in a recording studio – I took this course because at school I spent a lot of time doing sound and light work for the theatre productions and this was what I wanted to do. The school wouldn’t run a dedicated technical course (ironic given their whole City Technical College thingy) so I headed over to Smethwick 4 times a week to do sound.

While I was there I realised I wasn’t really interested in sound engineering in a studio environment because most musicians I met during the process, while very talented, where mostly a bunch of arseholes!

Part of the course was Radio Production, something I’d really gotten into and with the influence of the excellent Mark & Lard, Chris Evans and a fast emerging Chris Moyles (although I’d rather cut my ears off than listen to him now). I met a good friend who I ended up doing a radio programme on Wolverhampton Campus Radio – a long term RSL on AM broadcasting to Wolverhampton College, it was fun. Lots of fun.

I decided to head to University, the place that offered the best course was in Warrington – a place I will never miss. I spent most of my study/work time helping set up a student radio station which last time I checked is still going. I only lasted a year, before deciding it wasn’t for me.

I headed back home and within a year I’d got a full time job with Wolverhampton Campus Radio, while I learned much more about radio, radio production and management. Just before I left WCR I started working with a place called The Public in West Bromwich and we successfully applied for a radio licence, a 5 year FM licence to broadcast community oriented radio. All went well until the The Public’s much publicised demise, the administrators were called in and the first thing to go was their support my company that would eventually run the station. Bad times.

During this time I was working in technical support for an ISP, a boring unsatisfying job – but it paid a half decent wage, so I stuck it out, after about a year or so I was given the opportunity to move into the Network Operations Team which is where I still am to this day. My computer/networking knowledge has grown tenfold and I am still learning every day, it’s sometimes fun, sometimes challenging, sometimes downright annoying.

So here we are, why am I writing this? I have no idea, I just sat here and out it came. Thinking about what I’ve just written I’m pleased my IT knowledge has grown but I’m still pretty sure it’s not what I want to do for the rest of my working life.

I have been asked to get involved with some old radio friends to help set up an Restricted Service Radio Licence somewhere in Shropshire next year, I’m so up for helping out – I just hope I can fit it around my job. I’m still desperate to work in theatre sound & light and perhaps radio again but I’m worried it might be too late – am I destined to spend a life in IT?

Only time will tell huh?

In the meantime here is a video of a Monkey taunting some tigers.

http://www.shropshirestar.com/2009/03/31/mp-calls-for-expenses-reform/

The above URL links to an online article titled: MP calls for expenses reform, reporting that Wrekin MP Mark Pritchard has called for
expenses reform.

The quotes here are EXACTLY the same words used by Mark on the Jim Hawkins show on Radio Shropshire leading me to two possible scenarios;

1) Mark pre rehearsed the lines, and sent a written copy to the Star upon request.

2) Some lazy hack in Ketley was listening to the radio this morning and wrote his piece based upon it.

If number two is the correct answer then why not cite the source of your quotes here and give Jim and his team the respect they are due?

If number one is the correct answer then forgive my tone, but given the recent ‘borrowing’ of the Wrekin/Gem stone story from the Birmingham Post finance editor (Source), I’m starting to wonder if the Shropshire Star is being run by 6th form media students.

I would appreciate if it someone would look into this issue and explain the stance. Can I also ask that if, like many times before, my concerns are ignored I shall take this to mean that the Shropshire Star does not mind any form of plagiarism and I am okay to reproduce the entire day’s paper verbatim and sell it at a 5p lower than the Star?

Kind Regards

Merk

Update: I have an email back from the Internet Editor who writes: It could be, of course, that Mr Pritchard gave his comments to Radio Shropshire and the Shropshire Star. Have you considered that possibility?

To which I reply yes I have, thats why I have asked the question.

Update II: This isn’t some sort of personal vendetta against my local newspaper but another possible example of the dwindling standards of journalism and I think that is a shame.

While the music industry still doesn’t really get the internet and continues to dish out threats to ISP’s and court orders to your average person, some in the industry realise that court cases and legal download services might not be the only answer.

Enter Spotify, the music streaming software – an application that allows users to pick from a massive library of music, create and share playlists and discover new music.  Spotify has been launched some European Countries (including the UK) with the backing of lots of Major Record Companies.

The service simply works by installing a itunes like client to your Windows or Mac (Linux though WINE, and Mobile devices are being worked on according to Spotify) and away you go – the only proviso is that you have internet access – tracks are streamed in the Ogg Vorbis q5 format at 160Kb/s – quality is probably better than your average downloaded mp3 (although still miles away from CD Quality).

Available in three modes at the minute, free – ad supported, daily pass (Ad free for 24 hours) and Monthly subscription with no Ad’s whatsoever. At the moment I know of no one who is paying the monthly subscription fee but I would certainly consider it in the future as I imagine Spotify will grow in popularity and have to cover more costs – at this point I expect to hear more Adverts.

I’d also consider paying the daily fee for uninterrupted music at a party – this way people can search and choose whatever music they want to hear, in essence this becomes like a free pub jukebox.

Spotify has really got me thinking about this method of music delivery, with 75% and growing broadband penetration in UK households there are few reasons for people to consider downloading music to play via their home pc, media centre, music hub etc, when we can just stream everything we want – there is also less reason to illegally download tracks, this is a big plus for the record companies which is why I think they will continue to support this type of service.

The only real downside I can see to a streaming music service like Spotify is mobile music – with millions of people owning ipods and similar mp3 players it’s going to be a while before people no longer need permanent audio files on their devices but I think with the fast expansion of mobile broadband, free wifi and HSDPA and it’s faster successors I don’t think the idea of streaming music everywhere is beyond the realms of possibility.

Other option is the ability to have a closed system that downloads the tracks to a device that can only be played with the right credentials – then at least you could have music where there is no net access, a Car perhaps.

While there is much more to be be explored and developed in this area Spotify are certainly heading in the right direct and maybe just, maybe it’s enough to convince the record companies to stop dipping their toes in the water and get right in.

I have some invites left for Spotify if you would like one.

If you’re looking for mailwatch you’ll find it over at www.mailwatch.co.uk – unless you happen to try and view it while the web pixies are still doing their thing, if so try again later.

Cheers

Merkio

Chris Riddell of the Guardian sums it up.

I don’t believe for a second Stevie G was involved in a fight.

Surely, at the first sign of contact, he would have thrown himself to the turf and writhed around looking for a pen?

Observer: It’s a little early to sanctify Steven Gerrard

10 Things Merk DIDN’T do in 2008

1. Go Abroad
2. Go to a Museum
3. Buy enough Clothes
4. Lose weight
5. Save Money
6. Get a new Job
7. Woo a lady
8. Join a choir
9. Go to the theatre
10. Go to London

10 Things Merk DID do in 2008

1. Dented the car
2. Went to Aberystwyth (twice)
3. Put a picture up
4. Nearly quit this blog (for reasons I wont go into)
5. Got Sky installed
6. Learned more geeky shit
7. Became a god-father
8. Avoided any real hard work
9. Write some angry letters
10. Avoided ‘new’ music – leave that to my brother Zane Lowe Stavros.

10 8 TV Programmes Merk enjoyed in 2008

1. Dexter
2. Heroes
3. Lost
4. The Devils Whore
5. The Tudors
6. Fringe
7. Spooks
8. Top Gear

10 TV Programmes Merk HATED in 2008

1. Celeb Air
2. Celeb Scissor hands
3. Strictly Come Dancing
4. X Factor
5. Big Brother
6. I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here
7. Dancing on Ice
8. Bone Kickers
9. Last of the Summer Wine (why is the absolute fucking shite still on my telly?)
10. Tonight with Trevor McDonald

10 Films Merk watched in 2008

1. El Orphanto (Brilliant)
2. Casino Royale (ok, same old)
3. WALL-E (good)
4. The X Files: I Want to Believe (yawn)
5. Cloverfield (shite)
6. The Strangers (shite)
7. 21 (ok)
8. The Dark Knight (good)
9. Hunting Party (very good)
10. The Condemned (shockingly bad)

10 People Merk Disliked in 2008

1. Tony Blair (goes without saying)
2. Robert Mugabe (massive C-unit)
3. David Cameron (No policies, no clue)
4. Iain Dale (ill-informed Conservative darling and self proclaimed blogging ‘expert’)
5. David & Victoria Beckham (I don’t care where you’re living, just get off my telly)
6. George W Bush (you’ve helped move humans one step closer to destruction)
7. Sarah Palin (pro life, pro hunting – no logic)
8. Alistair Darling (it’s the eyebrows)
9. Lewis Hamilton (won some races, fucked off to Switzerland to avoid tax)
10. Lewis Hamilton’s dad (we don’t need to see you all the fucking time)

10 People Merk Loved in 2008

1. Stephen Fry (comedy genius, genius, all round nice chap)
2. Jonathan Ross (for pissing off the Daily Mail)
3. Obama (I think you have to love Obama or they’ll get you)
4. Jon Stewart (wished with had equivalent in the UK)
5. Stephen Colbert (wished with had equivalent in the UK)
6. Guy Garvey of Elbow (cracking album, seems like a nice person)
7. Dizzie Rascal (for appearing on Newsnight here)
8. Riahnna (for annoying the shit out of my brother!)
9. Frankie Boyle (for being hilariously funny)
10. David Dimbleby (just why hasn’t David been Knighted yet, it’s a discrace)