Pete

 Yes it’s time for another podcrawl, so make a note in your diaries and bookmark the following…. http://podcrawl.blogspot.com and the facebook event.

Some piccies from our latest vacation in Suffolk.

Had a great day at The Croydon Summer Festival on Saturday. Photographer extraordinaire, Vince Millett, was there on Saturday and Sunday and you can checout his excellent photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/brokendrumphotography/sets/72157621794816737/

Just got my grubby little hands on the 2nd album from Reverend And The Makers, called A Frech Kiss In The Chaos. It’ll probably be crawling up the charts soon and you’ll all be sick of it, but I do have a soft spot in my heart for this excellent Sheffield band that were on PC Podcast long before they made it to mainstream radio.

Get VIP access to Volatil "Refixed" EP (LCL18) to be out end july. Free mp3 download for dubstep fans.

http://bit.ly/FJGiW

Stream: Corsair

No need to sit in front of a computer to listen to music from jamendo anymore!

The 21,000 albums available on the site are now accessible on some of the world’s most popular mobile devices: Androïd, iPhone and iPod Touch. People can now discover your music in the street, on vacation, or wherever they may be.

Download the iPhone/iPod Touch application

Donwload the Androïd application

Stream: The Roots

1. Conscious Version, by Lion Of Joppa Soundsystem
2. Islamatronic Cantilliation, by The Orientalist
3. Joy, by Roots Fire System
4. Babylon Dub, by Don Fe
5. Om Tat Sat, by Vedasara Das
6. Horn And The Chalice, by Earlyw~rm
7. Light & Thunder, by Guitoud
8. Gimme Gimme Gwan Dub After Midnight, by Fried Wire
9. Balkan Dub, by Planet_Dread
10. Haq ul Yaqin Truth of Certainty, by Celt Islam Sound System
11. Jazz Dub, by D.U.B. Works
12. Cooleys Reel, by Alionsonny
13. Waka Version, by Hechoamano
14. Acting Dub, by Dubamix
15. Chorus, by Frostafari
16. Captain Pugwash A Sea Shanty In Dub, by King T
17. Killing Dub, by Dubmatix
18. Durban Dub, by Ital Roots Players
19. Argyzum, by Dub Division
20. Sunday Dub, by MakaRon
21. Magnetic Earth, by DubRifles
22. Sardinia Bass Legalize, by Sardinia Bass Legalize
23. Stay Focuz Riddim, by DoobieSounds
24. DJungle (Living Soul Redux), by Burning Babylon
25. Dub Violator, by Dubcall
26. Rude And Reckless (Manwel T Mix), by The Slackers
27. Artibella Dub, by Solomon808

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This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike2.5 License.

Just enjoyed another Great Escape festival down in Brighton, with my podcasting mate Grumbler.  As usual we podcasted throughout and you can hear the results below….

Part 1 - Thursday 14th May [Download]

• Battleships, by Baddies. Southend, England.
• Austere, by The Joy Formidable. London, England/Clwyd, Wales.

Part 2 - Friday 15th May [Download]

• People And Thieves, by Nelson. Paris, France.
• Chat with Gareth and Adam at The Hope
• Cecilia, by Thomas Dybdahl. Stavanger, Norway.
• The Estury Boys, by Hoodlums. Southend, England.
• White Zombie, by The Ultimate Power Duo. Saskatoon, Canada.
• David Cassidy, by Betty And The Werewolves. London, England.
• One Red Thread, by Blind Pilot. Portland, Oregon, USA.

Part 3 - Saturday 16th May [Download]

• The Darkside Of The Blues, by The Alexandria Quartet. Bergen, Norway.
• Interview with Betty And The Werevolves. The Hope, Brighton.
• Euston Station, by Betty And The Werewolves. London, England.
• Homesick, by The Boy Who Trapped The Sun. Stornoway, Lewis, Scotland.
• Half Asleep, by The School Of Seven Bells.Brooklyn, new York, USA.
• Don’t Take Me To Space (Man), by Brakes. Brighton, England.

Part 4 - Sunday 17th May [Download]

• Twitter, by Skint and Demoralised. Wakefield, England.
• Chain, by The School Of Seven Bells.Brooklyn, new York, USA.
• Red Lipstick, by Skint and Demoralised. Wakefield, England.
• Interview with Matt Abbott aka Skint and Demoralised. Komedia Studio, Brighton.
• Matador_(Lull’s_Channel_Switch_Mix). by Sky Larkin. Leeds, England.

A couple of silly moments from Podcrawl #003. More at http://podcrawl.blogspot.com/

I was recently interviewed by Ariel Hyatt, from ArielPublicity.com, as part of the New Media Pioneer Series. Checkout the interview at http://arielpublicity.com

I’m conducting a survey about The Dub Zone Podcast. If you can, please help by completing 5 simple questions…. Click Here.

Many Thanks

Pete

I think I might start advertising myself as an Internet Plumber. Why, well all the mess Google have created whilst they’re changing and the RSS feeds that were managed by Feedburner is causing leaks and blockages all over the place. Google should know better than fix something that wasn’t broken and now they’ve forced feedburner users over to the new feeds. Perhaps they want to take over from Microsoft as the software bullies these days?

If you do have an RSS feed that seems to have a blockage in it’s (yahoo) pipe or you’ve got your hands covered in XML grease and do’t know that to do then feel free to drop me a line… codger@bodgit.com and I’ll get my wrench and see what I can do.

Reasonable rates, payable in beer!

Checkout Vince Millett and Guy Cross’s new blog about the music business over at http://secretarchivesofthevatican.wordpress.com/ and get involved in the discussions of how an artist should promote, distribute and sell their music in today’s world.

Also checkout the Secret Archives Podcast at http://vincemillett.libsyn.com, hear some of their latest tunes and some of their influences for their constantly evolving sound.

Also checkout their new album Remembering Machine, which will soon be available as a download only release. Tracks appearing in PCP and TDZ over the next few weeks..

Fear not!  The G-Spot has finally found, courtesey of the G-man, Mr Jeremy Gugenheim, and his new Blues podcast which has been launched here.

Of course you’ll want to subscribe to the podcast using RSS  or iTunes.

A fine day was has by Messers Richard "Tricky" Doogan, Paul "Grumbler" Snelling and myself at the Bluebell Railway last Sunday. Involving lots of Steam and Beer.  Checkout MUMU#39 for audio next Sunday! 

Checkout the latest video of VU live in 2008 here

So I saw my first "I’m a PC" advert on TV last night. Interesting to see that M$ have decided to fight back against the "I’m a PC, I’m A Mac" campaign with a degree of humour. Not bad, considering there was prescious little humour from the top when I was there.

Guess what?  I’m a PC, and I’ve been a PC since the early 60’s, much longer than MS-DOS, Windows, OS/X, Linux or any other operating system. My first taste of computers was in 1979 with punch cards and ticker tape. Yep, I’m a Codger.

Wow! Just heard the sad news that Rick Wright, the legendary keyboard player of Pink Floyd, has died at the age of just 65. I, like many people, will have to play some of the Floyd collection this week by way of a tribute.  I never saw the band live, but in 1973 I bought three albums that changed my life:

• Tubular Bells, by Mike Oldfield, which inspired me to believe anyone can make music
• Autobahm, by Kraftwerk, which, along with Tangerin dream, gave me a love for electronic music, and
• Dark Side Of the Moon, by Pink Floyd.

Still great pieces of music, but Dark Side of the Moon is still the most amazing piece of music.

I’ve been updating my LinkedIn profile, so if you want to be linked in to my network of professionals, associates, IT folk, podcasters, or just friends then pop over to LinkedIn and say hello.

I’d not realized until today that a few of the AMP podcasters have been nominated for the European Podcast Awards.  If you get the time, please consider voting for your favourite, or vote for them all……!

• Suffolk And Cool
• Dark Compass
• Darkhorse Radio
• PC Podcast

Saw this the other day and thought, yes, that’s me. Need a break from the laptop for a while………

Been a great week for CD deliveries at Podcasting House. Received Max Pashm’s Never Mind The Balkans’s CD this morning and it’s bloody marvelous.  Going to be fitting a track from this into podcasts soon, you luck, luck people…!

Got my copy of Secret Archives of the Vatican’s new album Babylon halt today, courtesey of Vince and Louis. Bloody marvelous.  Tracks appearing in podcasts soon!

Yes, here we are again, during Podcrawl 2 on Friday 13th in London. L-R, Paul "Grumbler" Snelling, Pete "Codger" Cogle, Peter "The Kid" Clitheroe, Jeremy Gugenheim (the only non-podcaster, so far!!), Colin Gazely, Rowley Cutler.

Oh dear, dear, dear…..

It was October 19th last year when I blogged about Jamendo hosting it’s 5,000th album. Well it’s almost exactly 8 months later and Jamendo have made it to 10,000 albums on the site, all available via creative commons. Now that’s worth celebrating.

Help spread the word by digging this story.

So been an interesting week for me. In my spare time I’ve been crafting the new home of the Association of Music Podcasters. We’ve been thinking about doing this for some time, but our old site crashed a couple of weeks ago and we had to take immediate action. The new site is much more of a "Web 2.0" interface and we hope our podcast listeners will come and join us by registering on the new site.

Hope to see you there!

One of my regular listeners, Jan., from Amsterdam, rather enjoys creating artwork and often sends me amusing images. This is the latest, which he emailed me with the comments:-

A couple of million years time, when future paleontologists dig you up, they will be in for a surprise. What a groovy set of bones!

Now I am reliably informed by my kids that "groovy" is no-longer a "hip" word. In fact, neither is "hip", "wicked" or "Daddy-O" (apparently), so what does that make Jan?

Keep sending in the piccies dude - loving it!   Anyone else want to join in the fun, drop me a line at pete.cogle@gmail.com

Really starting to get excited about this year’s Great Escape Festival, after we had such a good time last year.  Let’s hope the weather holds out as well. Here’s some of the possible acts we’d love to see…..

• Bombay Bicycle Club
• The Bad Robots
• The Black Angels
• Cut Off Your Hands
• The Futureheads
• Lightspeed Champion
• Robots In Disguise
• Sky Larkin
• Slow Club
• Soko
• Wombats
• Young Knives

There’s even the possibility of Little Man Tate!

Just spotted this as an incoming link from birdtune.jp, the label that has Kukudodo and Gumi on it.  I’ve no idea what it says, but it’s always fun to find that someone has blogged something about you, when you least expected it.

Ever had one of those dreams where you wake up and you think "what was all that about?".  Well last night was one of those, involving Harry Potter in my house (probably doubling up for Hogwarts), various gorey battles with deamons and (this is the strange part) a cheesy pasta bake. Now I know some of the stuff I cook is a bit scary sometimes, but does a cheesy pasta bake really conjour up a vision of danger for the wizzarding world?

I do think that old J.K. should come back with an eigth novel in the series. My personal preference would be "Harry Potter And The Mid-Life Crisis", in which Harry, now pushing 50 and a veritable couch potato, takes up strange new hobbies (such as podcasting), goes off to gigs and laments the loss of his hair. Now that’s a plot I can relate to!

Seems that my podcast network has decided to drop the "pod" name and go for a completely new name, focusing on being an "entertainment network" rather than a "download company". Hear more from co-founder Ron Bloom below.

Do I like the name change? Well I guess having a show called “PC Podcast” was pretty unimaginative anyway, but that’s what it is. It’s not going to be some video experience, and I do like audio podcasts. Guess I’ll have to wait and see how the name change settles in.

Thanks to the magic of Yahoo Pipes I can now offer you, dear listener, a more simple and convenient way to enjoy the podcasts that I create. You’ll see a link above called The Full Codger which gives you all the podcasts I create on my own, and in collaboration with others (such as AMPed or Made In The UK) in one simple RSS feed.

Having just listened to the The Grumbler mention the poor villagers of the village of Lunt in Merseyside, and the vandalism that keeps changing their road sign, spare a thought for the villagers of Grabowiec in Poland, who really do live in a place called "Ulica Obi-Wana Kenobiego" (Obi-Wan Kenobi Street).

Makes you wonder if this really was the street they were looking for?

There’s also some t-shirts as well, but I shall save the picture of that until Grumbler and myself are sporting the exotic apparel!

Some of the artists I’ve featured on PC Podcast are available to download from eMusic. Why not sign up using the link www.emusic.com/pcpodcast and use your free 14 day trial to download some of these great artists:

	Blood Red Shoes		My Toys Like Me
Barry Adamson		British Sea Power
	Soko		Slow Club

Spent a rather find day away from it all with the Missus last Saturday. No podcasting, no work and no kids, just the two of us remembering more simple times when we first got together and had the odd evening or day up in London. Everyone say Ahhhh!

May seem strange to many city dwellers who may yearn for the countryside, but that’s what we have all of the time in our small village, so it’s nice to see "the Smoke" once in a while.

We took in a play; "Legal Fictions" by the late John Mortimer, followed by a wander through Covent Garden market and then dinner, followed by a gentle stroll along the Embankement. Nice to see the scaffolding and covers have come off "Big Ben" and see the enormity of the "London Eye" at first hand.

Must do it again sometime!

It seems the old versionist site (versionist.com) is coming to a close at the end of April, and a new one (versionist.net) is ready to take it’s place. But it’s not alone, and another collaborative/social network (interestingly, based on exactly the same platform jamroom.net) has also started at reggaedubwise.com. Come and meet I there…….

I’m up on AMPed#119 again today. That’s the weekly digest of the Association Of Music Podcasting, featuring some great music such as….

1. Show: Ourobouros Podcast
• Song: Death To Los Campesinos (Los Campesinos)
2. Show: The DarkCompass Podcast
• Song: Sinners of Saint Avenue (Slave To The Square Wave)
3. Show: It’s A Frog’s Life Acoustic Podcast
• Song: Ways To Pass The Time (Campbell Todd)
4. Show: The Electrical Language Podcast
• Song: Schiza (D-Alternative)
5. Show: The JogTunesIndie Podcast
• Song: Better Take a Holiday (Homespun)
6. Show: PC Podcast with Pete Cogle
• Song: State Of Mind (Visionary Underground)
7. Show: Indie Music Sampler
• Song: Something In Your Eyes (David Martin)

OK, so I’m not hosting a late night music show a la the late great John Peel, but I’m on the intro/outro of the last couple of Pods and Blogs Podcasts for 15th and 18th March 2008. 

You too can join in the fun. Record a little intro (or outtro) something like…

• "This is a download from the BBC. For more information visit our blog at http://bbc.co.uk/blogs/podsandblogs"

• "You’ve been listening to Pods and Blogs from the BBC. For more information visit our blog at http://bbc.co.uk/blogs/podsandblogs"

…and then email it off to podsandblogs@bbc.co.uk and you’ll, more than likely, get a thank you email from Chris Vallance who runs the show.

Go on, join in…… be the media!

And so, another podcasters "social network" has decided to close. This time it’s different and Pete and Emma Cooper, the site’s founders, have made the right decision, in my view. Pete and Emma started up T&P after the unpleasent demise of Britcaster. The britcaster site remains in place and still acts as a directory or "link farm" of new podcasts and episodes, but the forum was shut down after it all became rather unpleasent for it’s founders Neil and Jen Dixon.

Not a great fan of "dissing others in public" I was not a frequent poster at britcaster, and I’ve been pretty much the same at T&P, although T&P has been a fantasically civil place to hang out. As Pete has rightly pointed out the place is now just another "link farm" and is not really adding anything to the community, so it’s time to call it a day.

A big thanks to Pete and Emma for their efforts, and their typical humility encouraging everyone to head over to http://network.podcastmatters.co.uk to see what happens there!

Maybe see you there?

For those of you who havn’t heard (or bumped into) Gary Dring, or anyone else from Birmingham for that matter, then you’ll probably not aware of the excellent Clever Little Pod podcast. Well now you can get your hands on this madness for your eyes as well as your ears via Clever Little Mag magazine.

If, like me, you’ve chortled your way through The Framley Examiner and wanted a more regular addition to your readings whilst on the loo, then may I recommend this missive to tickle your humour buds!

* oh and by the way, as a fellow capricorn I would say that I’ve actually shacked up with a Virgo, not a Leo. Mind you, my sone is a Leo……. oh it’s all too complicated!

Big thanks to Ali (aka Lion Of Joppa Soundsystem) who told me about some of the posting going on about me (perhaps I should say "about I") at versionist.com. Great to see that these guys love podcasters as a promotional channel. I absolutely love the work these guys do and it’s so cool to see a dub theme be treated in so many different ways by so many dub masters. 

So, do me a favour and head over to versionist.com and checkout some of the fantastic music!

Been a weekend of two halves so far. Firstly the terrible weather on friday night ripped the felting off the shed roof, so DIY Dad (not seen round these parts recently) came to the rescue and I was up on the roof sticking and tacking down a new one by tea time!

More interestingly I finally got myself a proper mixer and mic for the "studio".Mixer is a behringer 1204FX which is a bit over the top for my current needs, but better to "think big" I reckon. The mix is the "podcast standard" Samson C-3 and I’ve got a pop-guard and stand to make life a little easier.

Still using "PodProducer" for the actualy podcasting and still using the min-jack as input (rather than USB or firewire) but maybe this will change over time.

Still got some of the weekend left, which I will be spending (a) ironing (deep joy) and (b) as roadie for my son and his drum kit. Lookout Horsham- here we come!

Saw a variation of the picture above and had to make my own copy. I like the idea of still listening once I’m gone.

Have I ever told you I love podcasting?

One of the guys in the office just told me about xkcd.com and this rather wacky cartoon. Remember your 5 fruits and vegetables per day folks!

And in case you are wondering what on earth this means, you’re going to have to go over to the pcpodcast site or have a listen to PCP#205 aren’t you!

Ok, so the post title is a joke. If you know Los Campesinos, you’ll know they like using long sentences. Good on them, I say!

So, another great performance in Brighton yesterday. This time at the (slightly larger) Concorde2 venue. I was a little surprised that the place seemed a little empty when I arrived. First on the bill were Esiotrot (that’s Tortoise spelled backwards!) who I’ve heard of, and had a couple of good tracks. Then were Johnny Foreigner, who I know are playing the Great Escape Festival in May and who were good, but a little over-mic’ed and difficult to hear clearly.

LC, were as good as last time, when they played Brighton Komedia, and I definitely got the impression the bands naiivety is starting to wear off. Definitely more "rock and roll" than last time, and a lot more alcohol being consumed by Gareth. Was that really a bottle of wine going down there youngster?  Let’s hope they don’t fall victim to their own success.

I reckon they’re going to go down a storm at the Festivals this summer. Check them out if you get the chance!

Just been having a chat with Deshi Volanti, station manager of Wicked Radio, which streams out of Edgerton, Wisconsin in the US. Like my other podcasting buddies, Pauly B at Punky! Radio and Rowley over at Dark Compass Deshi has agreed to carry both PC Podcast at The Dub Zone on his station soon.  I know Pauly and Rowley both have a strong punk/metal aspect to their shows, and this is what Wicked Radio often features, but lets hope the listeners like it. More news here and on the podcasts as it comes in.

Off up to London today for a BTPodshow shindig.  Surprisingly I’ve never been to one of these before. There was the (now ledgendary) beer and darts meet-up a couple of years ago when they were scouting for talent, and then another meet-up sometime last year which I could not attend. I suspect they’re going to show us all the Podshow.V3 goodness, which may indeed be goodness, or an overengineered confusing mess of a website. OK, so I’m a fan of the Keep it Simple Stupid approach to websites, and the first thing I want to see on a podcasting site is the RSS feed, which is really hard to find at btpodshow.com.

Anyway it’s a chance to meet up with a few others, inclusing Rowley Cutler, Neil Dixon and Pete Cooper, so should be a laugh!

Now who’d have thought it, that my old friend, Mr Paul (The Saint) Snelling (aka The Grumbling Dragon) would finally break his duck and record his first podcast?  Well it seems that a days outing with a wail of other podcasters, (Grumbler and the Wailers, perhaps?) has finally persuaded him to record his first, which you, can find here, or (better still) subscribe to here.

The old fart has made rather a fine attempt at the genre, putting my first attempts truly in the shade, and I hope there will be many more from the grumbling stables!

He does mention that MUMU may stand for:-

• Music and Mumblings (unlikely)
• Muumuu, a Hawaiian dress (which he only wears on thursdays)
• Mumu, a Filipino Monster (very likely)
• Mumu (computer worm) (very timely - and I refer you to PCP#201)
• Mumu, a short story by Ivan Turgenev (Ivor Biggun more likely)

But having looked for an appropriate image to decorate this blog post I’ve found that MUMU leads you to:-

• A VW beetle adorned with a picture of the female genetalia
• Various other pictures of female genetalia
• A picture of a dog (above)

Now, the grumbler has been described in many ways, and I’m absolutely sure that the female genetalia have been involved, but I rather like the image of the dog…… small, obedient, well trained, quiet and unlikely to bite. 

ps. what does oxymoron mean?

Whilst most of the Podcasts I listen to are either music or tech related, there is one that simply does not fit into that box, and that honour belong’s to my colleague, Tony Cocks, who presents BTHP, the Binge Thinking History Podcast.

I’ve always loved history, although have usually found myself asleep in the chair at some unearthly hour of the morning, with the chosen history book on my chest, rather than what I’d hoped was an exciting read. Now I just let Tony do the hard work for me (no, not the sleeping, fool) and allow him to provide me with an audio digest of history at it’s most complex in bite size portions that even I can understand.

May I encourage you, dear reader, to pop along and subscribe to the podcast (for free). Tell him I said hello!

So what is the collective noun for a collection of podcasters? Well, Mr Snelling, the Grumbling Dragon himself (who, of course wishes his blog to remain anonymous at grumbling-dragon.blogspot.com) suggested that as the collective noun for Whales is a "pod" perhaps the reverse should apply and a collection of podcasters should be known as a "whale" "wail".

And so this small (but perfectly formed, I’m sure you’ll agree) wail of podsters set forth into London to drink, the chat, to marvel at technology these days….. and to drink. What happened next was recorded both in both audio and picture format, and may come to light on a PCP near you soon. That is of course, providing the good audio editing fairy doesn’t throw the whole lot away as meaningless piffle.

Anyway, for those keen to see the "faces good for radio" that turned up we have (L-R): Rowley Cutler from Dark Compass, yours truly, Peter Clitheroe, who is suffolk ‘n’ cool, Colin Gazeley who’s ourobouros podcast contains some infinitely good music, and the old ligger himself, Paul (The Saint) Snelling.

Comment below or email madeintheukshow@gmail.com

Rowleys Submissions:
Little Name - Traci and I
The Boxer Rebellion - Broken Glass
Colins Submissions:
Reiser - Rockstar
Anemo - Pray
Petes Submissions:
Dexter - Tits and Biscuits
Transglobal Underground - Emotional Yoyo

Comment below or email madeintheukshow@gmail.com

So my kids tell me they’re going to be “cool” when they get to be grandparents. So how “cool” is “cool” and just how connected will we be in the post-facebook world? Will I still be podcasting as a grumpy old man? Strike that. Will still be podcasting as an even older even grumpier man? Hope so!

Rowley

GD

Colin

Pete

So, Made In The UK has gone live! This is a new collaborative podcast, primarily put together by Rowley Cutler of Dark Compass, with co-hosts Martin Devaughn, Colin Gazeley and yours truly. We hope you enjoy it. Put the RSS feed into your podcatcher now!

So, following Academy Mobile Day, I rushed down to Brighton, with my daughter and her friend to see “CSS” play at The Dome. Really enjoyed one of the support bands, “Metronomy” and hope to have them on PC Podcast soon.

Unfortunately the lead singer “LoveFoxx” was hit by a shoe thrown by one of the crowd and had to go offstage. The band, quite understandably, were not impressed and stormed off leaving us a little disappointed. Let’s hope LoveFoxx is OK!

So, it was Academy Mobile Day on Friday and a good day was had by all. The event was specifically marked by two podcasting panels, which were video’d and streamed across the Microsoft Corporate Network as well as being show on the TV screens in the restaurants. (enough to put anyone off their lunch - Ed).

Session One featured Dave Coplin, who was the main organiser of the event, plus Tony Cocks, who despite being a Microsoftie, is a hobbyist podcaster like myself, and producer of the Binge Thinking History Podcast.  Also in the line-up was John Buckley (Citizen Journalist and producer of the Citizen Scoop podcast, among others) as well as yours truly. We talked about podcasting past, present and future and how anyone can produce their own podcast.

Session Two (above) featured Dave Coplin, Ludovic Fourrage, Rob Gray and Phil Morel and focused on the technology behind Academy Mobile and where it’s going in the future.

I’ll bring you some of the audio and video as soon as it’s ready!

Just enjoy…….

Heavyweight Champion Of The World

Open Your Window

Been a while since my last blog, and oh boy, what a week.  As mentioned, the "on-call" rota caught me by surprise last weekend and I was on-call during the US Thanksgiving vacation. Well, I’d like to give thanks it’s over and I’m sure the poor folk who actually seemed to be working 24x7 will be too. 

Wednesday had a promosing, bur rather tiring start at 4:30am with a journey to Heathrow and on to Milan by 11am (local time). So far so good, but then during lunch I did feel rather queasy and, after a short to talk to God on the big white telephone I was the proud possessor of a red eye. Petecial Heamorrhaging they call it in CSI, which can be brought on by strangulation.  Guess what… it can be brought on by yodelling as well!

So, imaging the slights and sounds of Milan. Il Duomo (above) and the sound of thousands of excitable Italians ordering anti-pasti, pizza and expresso.  Well all I heard was the sound of BBC World Service (putting news first…) and unintelligible Italian quix shows before I drifted off. And then……. a text from the missus saying that following a power cut the broadband was not working at home and was I up for a bit of technical support with my son.  Why yes dear…. I’d love to.

Anyway, got the broadband sorted, sorted out a new plan for our department at work and back in time for tea!

This weekend will be podcasting, surfing and chilling with the odd nap thrown in (one nap down by the time I write this!) which is the perfect weekend for me. Almost Christmas and 10 days off……

Alas, Mikey and I will not be seeing Dexter at Pressure Point in December after all. Seems the band have pulled out of the PP gig, and I’m not exactly sure why. Bit of a shame, but maybe another time.

OK so there’s been two occasions in the past when I’ve been the Duty Manager for "you know who" and it’s been a breeze. No one called me, the phone never rang and the (liitle) extra in the monthly paypacket was cool. Third time unlucky!

Considering I’ve worked for American firms for 23 out of my 25 working years, you would have thought I’d spotted I was duty manager duting Thanksgiving… you know, that time when all the Americans go on holiday and leave the rest of the world to pick up the mess?  Well, duh! I didn’t, and the phone has been hot.

And don’t you just love those middle eastern customers who call on Thursday, are unavailable on Friday and expect everyone in Europe to work on Sunday? Oh yeah…. do your duty…. enjoy your turkey… I have a nice slice of humble pie waiting for you!

I have to say, both my son, Mikey, and I, were really excited in going to see Asian Dub Foundation live at Concorde2 in Brighton, yesterday.  We’d really wanted to see then in 2005 when their last album "Tank" came out, but we’d been on holiday in the US at that time. After that, I’d pretty much given up on the band playing live in the UK again, and then out of the blue they play at C2!

We got straight to the stage barrier and started surveying equipment when we arrived. Apart from the massive (and I mean MASSIVE) sub-woofer at the back of the hall (which was excercising my chest muscles without me even trying) the first thing we spotted was a right-handed bass guitar. So, it was true - the left handed Dr Das - was no longer going to be playing with the band. We thought as much, but still a shame.  Then Mikey made a bigger discovery - where was the drum kit?  So, no Rocky Singh, either. Things were looking bad, but let’s wait and see.

No support and straight into the band with excellent soundsystem provided by Sun-J, who managed remakably well without Rocky, in producing a fantastic sound. Then came guitarist, Chandrasonic and the new bass player, the two rappers, the scary, scary Ghetto Priest and one bloody amazing Dhol and Tabla player, Cyber. I’ve never seen a dhol being played live, up close and personal before, and it was truly amazing. They played all the top choons - "Rise", "Fortress", "flyover", "oil" and "warring dhol", but despite it being on the setlist, no "enemy of the enemy".

Throwing caution to the wind, we bounced and danced, sang and bounced some more. Some of it may be on tape, as, next to me, was the bands official video camera lady. Look out for the 40-something white guy with no hair, joined by a rather hairier, rather more junior version. Cogle and Cogle. United!

Keep banging on the walls of fortress Brighton!

If you’re not already addicted to Karoshi Bro’s single "Love The World" then you really need to click the picture above or here and see the video. Really….. go and do it now!

An average Monday Night in Brighton? Nah, tonight was back to Concorde2 for the New Young Pony Club, with my daughter. The gig has been postponed after lead singer, Tahita, had throat problem earlier in the tour, so they were really apologetic. Never fear, we had a great time, with all the hits from the "Fantastic Playroom" album, like "Ice Cream" and "The Bomb", plus some covers such as Squeeze’s "Take Me I’m Yours" (weird choice) and "Pump Up the Jam" (oh yes!!!) which has the joint rocking.

The drummer, Sarah (above right) was excellent, with a deceptively understated performance, making the most complicated rolls and fills seem easy, when I know, dear reader, they were far from that easy.

Left tired, sweaty and perfectly fulfilled. Back in 6 days for Asian Dub Foundation!  Life begins at 46!

Here are a few views from my business trip to Budapest, Hungary, starting with the view from my bedroom window in the Budapest Hilton across to a tower of the old Buda Castle.

More views of Buda Castle (above) and a church being restored (below), with amazing mosaic tiles. Someone said that all the churches with mosaic like this have been converted into museums. Not sure if it’s true.

We visited the Labyrinth, which are basically caves hewn from the rock under Buda castle, and which now serve as a restaurant for tourists.  As part of the medeaval banquet we were joined by the (mock) King and Queen (above), some belly dancing girls, complete with snake and fire eater (below).

The view (below) from Buda Castle (on the Buda side of the river Danube) to the Budapest Parliament Building (on the Pest side of the river Danube).

Moving to another hotel, this time the New York Palace Hotel, in Pest. This is the view (below) from outside.

And this was the view from inside.

It’s my one year anniversary in my (not so) new job. Mixed emotions I suppose. Good to have a job and some money coming in, but as the song says… "Is that all there is….?".  I shall be "celebrating" the start of year two with some management offsite shenanigans in Budapest, which will, at least, be a change from the norm.

I’m off to Budapest next week for, not one, but two, management offsites! Yeah, Yeah, I know it’s all going to be talk and BS, but I gather there is beer and food aftewards. I shall be taking the trusty iRiver and try and capture some sounds for the podcast!

Went to see of of my work team, Jason (aka Keegan), who is the coach of the "Reading Raptors Floorball Team", who were playing at the Dolphin Leisure Centre (now more poshly titled Olympos) this morning. Took my daughters camera, but only managed to get a few blurred images of the team playing (sse above). God, this game if fast! Or maybe I’d had too much to drink……?

Spotted that both "New Young Pony Club" and "Asian Dub Foundation" are playing at Concorde2 down in Brighton in the week commencing 12th November. Very pleased to say that I managed to get tickets for both concerts. I’m going to NYPC with my daughter and she’s very excited indeed! Of course this means I do need to listen to the album slightly more!

I’ll be going to see ADF with my son. We were going to go and see them in Brighton during their last UK tour, which was way back in 2005 when their album "Tank" came out, but it conflicted with a family holiday. Since then I pretty much thought the band has disbanded. I know Dr Das was doing his own thing, so I’ve really no idea who’s going to be in the band on the night. Neverthless they seem to have a "best of" album coming out soon, so maybe new life in the bandf yet. Most excellent!

Well finally managed to shirt the cold I’ve had, which involved a couple of days working from home and a lot of sleeping in between. Not really done an awful lot besides that.

This has got to have been the worst cold I’ve had in years!  I’m back at work but the constant stream of snuffling and sneezing is pissing off the troops, rather. Lets hope I get a decent voice back for this weekend’s podcasts. 

Another day out with my Dad today, so blew a few cobwebs away with a visit to Bognor Regis.  Been quite a few years since I’ve been - and will probably be a few more before I go back again. Bit boring out of season. Plus I’m getting a bit of a cold, so not 100%.

On a lighter note, had a chat with the Clitheroe Kid earlier on and he said he’s off to see "Los Capesinos" at Colchester tonight. So that makes at least three podcasters, me, Rowley Cutler and Peter Clitheroe, who’ve been in the audience.  I dare say a few others would have headed along as well if they’d been in their area.  Marvellous!

My Dad is having a couple of days visiting this week, so today we took a look at Chatham Historic Dockyard. It was a very cold day with a biting wind, but it was interesting. Some older warships like HMS Gannet (above) and HMS Cavalier (below), the latter of which reminded my Dad of times on troop ships in WWII.

Had a great evening on Monday night at a gig to see "Attack and Defend", "You Say Party! We Say Die!" and….."Los Campesinos", which I’d been looking forward to for some time. Tooke the kids with me, and although it was not really my son’s thing… it was live and it was free and Komedia is a great venue in Brighton.

Great set by all the bands, although the Lead singer of LC, Gareth, did say that the Glokenspiel had been damaged by a stage invastion the previous night in Birmingham and the "B" key was sounding a bit flat.  Needsless to say by the end of the evening the Glokenspiel had hit the deck and was in pieces. I hope they managed to buy a new one before their Lonfon performance, when my podcasting mate Rowley Cutler, of Dark Compass, was due to see them!

Had a great evening at Fletching Bonfire last night. Fletching is a very small village in East Sussex, but has a great reputation, wlong with many of the Sussex villages for bonfire nights, in and around November 5th, which, of course, we celebrate in the UK as "Guy Fawkes night".  Guy Fawkes was a Catholic who was protesting at the persecution Catholics were receiving at the hands of King James I, and on the 5th November 1605 decided to blow up The House of Lords, with the King in it. He failed and was executed.

It’s interesting that the celebrations, in some villages, such as Lewis, involve symbolic stoning of the Pope and very many pagan cymbols, such as the flaming brands and, almost KKK style apparel.  It’s interesting that we’re effectively celebrating the excution of a terrorist.  Would we do the same for the 9/11 or 6/6 terrorists perhaps?

I have to say I’d never heard of "machinina", the mash-up of gaming technology with cinema, until I listened to the 16th October episode of BBC 5 Live’s Pods and Blogs, which explained rather a lot. Not only was this episode of the podcast front-ended with an introduction by my fellow music podcaster Gabor Kovacs from the Electrical Language Podcast, but also featured Andrew Hugill, from De Montford University (which is one of the places I’d visited with my son on an open day) who’d organised the first Machinima Festival Europe 07.

Alsoe nice to see Microsoft (the current Cogle family billpayer) being involved in helping out with a Halo 3 Movie!

If you’ve not already tuned into either of my podcasts, then you’ll have missed out on that excellent resource that is jamendo.com. And this week they managed to host over 5000 creative commons licensed albums. That’s 5000 albums you can download and share with your friends for free!

If you’re into digg then click here to digg your response!

So, half term is coming up and the whole family is looking forward to some looooooong lie-ins and some afternoon naps! It’s still going to be pretty busy, with bonfire night, gigs, my Dad coming to visit and get togethers with friends, but at least we’ll get a chance to stop burning the candle at BOTH ends!

I’m indepted to The Grumbler (a.k.a. Snelling "Saint" Paul) who’s drawn my attention to a 7 foot tall pole dedicated to us Codgers. Now don’t you just wish someone named a pole after you?

Finally back home today after an 820 mile round-trip from Lindfield, all the way up to Gateshead and back via Southwold and a trip to see my old mates Peter and Mel Clitheroe for a pint at the Victoria, Earl Soham (pictured above).  So, as you can imaging I’m totally knackered (as usual) but brought a good end, to essentially was a sad day on Friday, saying goodbye to my Uncle.

Heading up north this weekend, back to Tyneside, where I was born.  Unfortunately it’s a sad occasion as my Uncle, and Dad’s younger brother died last weekend and I’m attending the funeral. Seems that I’ve reached that age when visits "back home" are all about sad or worrying events.

Having created by AAC format (.M4A) file of my next Dub Zone podcast (TDZ#12), I’ve been having a very interesting discussion with one of my listeners’s Jan Rigter, regarding who can consume (or even read) the new format. Jan is based in the Netherlands, and he tells me iPod’s don’t have a large market share out there, and many other MP3 players are common.  The question is can they read the new format?  Well, I tried by trusty iRiver H320, and Jan tried his Archos 104 and we both got the same result - we can tranefer the file to the player, but the player cannot even "see" the file, nevermind play it. So much for the "multi codec jukebox" written on the side of my iRiver!

Then there’s the computer you use to download. Obviously Mac users will be fine with AAC format, but on windows (my platform) I have problems with Windows Media Player and Real Player. Both of these handle MP3 files that have been converted to AAC without any chapters, but the "extended" nature of the podcast breaks the codex somehow. Jan has tried this on his platform, "Ubuntu" linux and has managed to get good results from the "totem" playter, but other players, such as "XMMS" gives audio, no pictures and "Rhythmbox" cannot read the file.

I’ve also had a go a trying to play AAc format podcasts (even from other podcasters) via my flash player on the PC Podcast and Dub Zones sites and no joy. The player sees the podcast, just can’t play it.

Ho Hum! So, it looks like this will be an experiment, but just that. I guess I need to upload an MP3 version of TDZ#12 or some listeners will be disappointed!

So, my son’s band Hippie Juice are here again today for a spot of band practice, before their next gig on 26th October at the Montefiore Institute in Crawley in aid of Oxjam. Just seen the most enormous amp being unloaded, so we’re probably going to be annoying the neighbours again. I think I may take myself off for a walk in Brighton, whilst they perfect their cover of the Police’s "message in a bottle".

Rather proud of myself today, having managed to create my first enhanced podcast (AAC format) for The Dub Zone, which will come out on Friday 12th October. It’s a bit fiddly on windows. First you create your podcast file (initially in .WAV format) then convert to AAC using iTunes. This creates a .M4A file, which you rename to . MP4, and then use a program called Slideshow Assembler, which helps you create the chapters and images required for a proper enhanced podcast. The end result is an AAC format file which you can step through the chapters, click on website links and see the artwork. Nice. Let’s see if the listeners agree.

The gym in the basement of our new building opened this week, and so you’re truly has finally got his arse in gear and got down there - three times!! I’m actually quite surprised at few aches and pains I have, which means I’ve been doing it right for a change, not the usual mad "go for it" and "suffer later" approach I’ve done in the past. Also feel so much more energetic, which is great. Let’s hope I actually manage to lose some weight as well!  Wish me luck!

Drove up to Reading University for an open day today. This was the fourth (and final?) open day Mikey and I have attended: De Montford (Leicester), University East Anglia (Norwich) and Portsmouth being the other three. I think Mikey was impressed, pretty much as I expceted he would be. It’s a really nice campus (I stayed there a couple of weekends when doing my MBA) and a couple of guys at work went there and seemed to have a good time. 

Dropped the boy off and then went off to grab a coffee in Starbucks, quick tour of HMV (way too expensive) and then back for a kip in the car before Mikey wanted collecting again. Wow, the life of an international jet-setter!

Had a great night out with the boys from the Den collective plus assorted other friends, at the Dirt South in Lewisham. After soundchecking we all headed up to Covernt Garden, where we ended up in the Punch and Judy pub, where the picture above was taken. It must be 20 years since I’ve been in that pub, and it hasn’t changed that much.

Finally recorded a really funny interview with the guys on the train back to Lewisham and managed to capture the gig on MP3 as well, which turned out better than I expected. Look out for wednesday’s PCP#168 which will have a Den special!

Spent an interesting hour listening to the folks at Missing People give a talk at work today, which I’ll be putting together into a podcast for internal use. They are starting to use social networks and new media to get messages out to people who have gone missing from their families, or from missing people who want to let their families know they’re OK.  Checkout the fact that they have pages at Myspace, Bebo or Facebook and you’ll see the sort of thing I mean.

They can also received emails from missing people, and scrambling of the email protects the anonymity until the person until they actually want to be found.

Particulary poignant was Nicki Durbin, mother of Luke Durbin, who is a missing person. Clearly a difficult issue to get up and talk about, Nikki gave a moving account of how she now believes her son is dead, but that she’ll never give up on him and declare him legally dead.

Had a great day and evening with my colleagues last night, with some team building and ten-pin bowling. I managed to win the first game, much to the surprise of everyone else, and a great example of age and experience over youthful enthusiasm!  Then I’m afraid age and experience took it’s toll, as the heavy ball became more and more difficult to handle.  So, German efficiency won through. Vorsprung Durch Technik? Maybe….

Almost completely lost my voice today as a result! (Well a result for the team, anyway!)

So, I’m sat here in the office with a load of my European colleagues on a training course I’ve arranged.  It’s great to know that the world is small enough to allow a Canadian Trainer (via the US) give a training class to a bunch of Europeans from Hungary, Sweden, Germany, Spain, France and England, here in the UK. It really is a small world…..!

Well, managed to see Milburn live again last night.  I was rather surprised to find that the gig wasn’t sold out, considering the "less well known" Reverend and the Makers played a sell-out there in July. Concorde2 seemed strangely empty whilst the support bands played, and The Envy Corps left me rather cold.

Nevertheless the guys played a fantastic set. I’m still amazingly impressed that these guys are so young and so damn good at their craft. Joe’s vocals were just excellent. Anyway, if you get a chance to see these guys - take it!  Here’s the video of "What will you do (when the money goes)?" to be going on with….

The album “These are the facts” comes out on Monday… and yes, I have it on pre-order!

I’m off to see another of those jolly Sheffield bands, Milburn this evening down at Concord 2 in Brighton, which is a smashing little venue on the seafront. This will be the second time I’ve seen them, the last being at the Leeds Festival 2006, when they played a storming performance in front of a home yorkshire crowd.

While you’re at it, you may like to checkout Clever Little Pod as well.

I got mine on pre-order of course and it’s great to hear some of the demo’s I’ve been enjoying for 18 months turned into fully mastered tracks.  I did notice that John had changed the lyrics of the second verse of the title track "The State of Things", which is a little strange, but doesn’t make it lose anything.

I have to say it gives me a really warm feeling that a band I’ve been championing for 18 months have finally made it. Not that I’m saying I had anything to do with their success - that’s down to John’s genious and the bands amazing performances.  No, it’s just great to know I was right: these guys are made for greatness. Sad thing is, I can probably not play their music any more, as they’ll not be podsafe anymore. Shame, but I’ll let the mainstream DJ’s take over and spread the love.

Did I her you say you’ve not bought the album yet?  Then do so…. and do it now!  You’ll not be disappointed!