A key decision when shopping for a piano

Not what I bought, but maybe one day...

Having survived the first few weeks back of the New Year after a relaxing, enjoyable and pleasingly economical Christmas it seemed appropriate to head into London and reward myself for working for three weeks in a row by making a purchase on the trusty credit card.

The object of my desire was a keyboard – a piano keyboard, not a computer keyboard – in order to help continue with my efforts at home over Christmas at trying to learn the infernal instrument some eight years after I gave up lessons while living at home.

My brother being a bit of a whiz on the old Joanna meant I had free tuition for several days and many aspects of the instrument that had always confused me before – what’s different about the black keys (answer: nothing), how do you make minor chords (answer: invert the 4/3 finger pattern for major chords to 3/4 (simple right?)) – I thought I should give the thing another shot.

So I wandered into Denmark Street – the music shop district of London – and this left me facing a bewildering array of choices at all manner of price points and styles. Some with light up keys, some with terrible tinny soundings keys, some with stands, some without, and prices from £50 to £300 for “beginner” models.

In the end I went for…nothing, as I was so overcome with choice I didn’t know what to do and thought I should check with my hermano (that’s Spanish for brother, I don’t know why I know that I studied French for four years) to see what he thought.

His answer: have my old keyboard. Ah, well, that’s an idea that should have crossed my mind when I was at home, but didn’t. Still, never look a gift-horse in the mouth, especially one that can play the piano – imagine that, a piano-playing horse.

So, now I am the proud owner of a second-hand keyboard and can happily tinkle away learning tunes such as Mary Had a Little Lamb and other nursery rhyme classics. What?

Still, at least my credit card survived a hit: well it did until I ended up splashing out on a new blazer instead for about the same price. It was in the sales, though, so was a bargain really…

Singing out for Christmas

So, that was Christmas 2011. It always goes so fast, after such a long build-up. Still, it was a nice one this year, with mild weather, plenty of cocktails and nice dog walks with the family. My brother and I spent some time noodling around on the guitars and piano too, and even got around to bashing out a Christmas song, after discussing whether or not it was that hard to actually write one. You can take a listen to our efforts in the embedded video below. Enjoy, and roll on the New Year!

Cyril Hartley Moore

History is a fascinating subject. I should know I studied it for three years at university so it makes me something of an expert in the field. One of the most interesting areas, on an individual basis at least, is that of the family tree and the lives of unknown relatives. Certainly the success of shows like Who Do You Think You Are? is a clear indication that people discovering the stories of their family prove highly popular.

As such it was with great interest I received an email from a current family member with information on some research he'd done into my great grandfather's brother Cyril Hartley Moore. Through some clever emailing and tracking of information to Canada he'd been able to reveal a bit more light on his life, and the fact it was actually cut short in 1901 in the Boer War when he refused to surrender to overwhelming opponents:

"The Boers succeeded in cutting off the retreat of a small party of ten men he commanded. Three times the enemy called on him to surrender, but on Lieutenant Moore refusing to do so, he was shot through the heart," reads the report of his death.

Refusing to surrender three times despite clearly being beaten and ending up shot through the heart certainly sounds like the behaviour of someone in my family.

Overall, while I'm not going to cry about it (unlike the folks that go on the BBC show who the producers must surrounded with onions to produce the money shot), it's a fascinating and bizarrely profound insight into the life of someone who, while dimly related to me, is nevertheless part of my family's lineage and make-up.

What goes up...

I can remember, when I were a lad, helping my Dad navigate endless pages of Teletext share prices at the end of the day, trying to understand what the endless rows of capitalized digits and letters actually meant. My Dad had, and still does have I believe, a canny knack (a jazz musician from the 40s, Canny Knack), of being able to spot a company whose shares were about to soar, but then he would always forget to buy them and watch forlornly as they rose in value, daily, on that digitized Teletext display page, leaving him and his fistful of pounds behind. Ah well...

I am now endevouring to follow in his footsteps (somewhat) but entering the world of stocks and shares. Buy low, sell high, greed is good, money money money, all that. Might as well yes? It's been two days. I have lost money. I am excited, it is quite fun. I suddenly feel immense loyalty to the two companies I have invested in. I hope they do more 'good' business to help their shares go 'up', rather than performing 'badly' and therefore going 'down'. Apologies if the financial language there confused you.

Teletext was a funny old service, it would always revolve around to the page you wanted after endless refreshes 8/13, 9/13, 10/13 until you were about to reach the one you wanted, before it would randomly jump to 12/13 leading to huge levels of exasperation as you had to wait for it to work its way around again. I used to leave Teletext on when big football matches were taking place, just to hope the little pixilated name would flash up Giggs, 34, or Kanchelskis, 74. A different world that.

Brave new worlds

This morning, in the queue to vote, I got caught up in some electoral confusion as the ballot officials managed to get their numbers confused (how do those people get those jobs? any security / criminal checks? Who's in charge of dispensing the boxes? I digress...). As I stood there, watching the three of them recite a list of arbitrary numbers to one another, I said to the chap behind me, "We need that electoral reform, eh?", he nodded, said,"Yeah..." and that was that.

Elections are funny things. This was my second, but the first of much significance. I remember my Dad refusing to tell me who he voted for in the 1997 Labour landslide and I invested a lot of meaning in this, this sacred act of voting meant that even my own Dad wouldn't, or as I viewed it, couldn't, tell me who he had voted for.

Now, everyone bangs on endlessly about why you must vote Labour or Lib Dems, but just not Tories, for all kinds of reasons, in openly public arenas such as Twitter and Facebook. Yet, place people in a box, with a piece of paper and a pen(cil), and all the online posturing goes out the window. I imagine a lot of people may vote very differently from how they act/talk in public, where they are acting in an effort to keep up of appearances with, or an unwillingness to disagree with, the views and ideals their chosen social networks / friendship groups talk about and promote.

The Americans must find out one month sprint election process very odd, when set against their eight month effort which begins with primaries in various states for leadership choices within their own parities, before moving on to the epic cross country traversing they must endure between NY and San Fran.

Imagine, DC (Cameron, not Washington), might have to travel, at most, between say, Plymouth and Newcastle. Barely a stone's throw in the US. Such a small country.

Whatever happens tonight and into tomorrow, there was a definite sense today that, even if only seen through the highly distorted leftist view of Twitter, people realised today was a day that could shape all our lives for the next four or five years time. Especially for those, like me, who will be going through some (potentially) highly transformative years in our lives, as we move out of post student years, and on towards our 30s, and the ideas of mortgages, housing, children, schools, education (x3) and all the other trappings of the endless momentum of time.

Adding up

Caught Outnumbered last night, very good as ever. I think I actually prefer the adults to the children: you can sometimes see them both trying hard not to laugh such is the ridiculousness of the children's ad-libbing.

In fact, I fail to believe the amiable and likeable father played by the excellent Hugh Dennis is the same man who appears on the dire Mock the Week.

The scene in which Ben wanted a Tasmanian Devil eating a chicken in Trafalger Square was fantastic but the real laugh, for me at least, was the pay off for Dennis' character saying, "Well, that's the fourth plinth solved". Secondly, the scene in the bridge of HMS Belfast when he acted out the idea of the ship sinking was hilarious.

Have to say though, once the television is off, I am certainly glad they aren't my children, they would be bloody irritating to have to deal with.

It's a funny old world

Here we are then, the shortest day in living memory (of 2009) and the day before we (I) finish for Christmas. I can't wait.

My apologies to my readership (Hi Mum! Hi Dad!) for dropping off so suddenly from the blogging world. Moving to a new job of news reporting makes time a lot more precious each and every day, rather than a monthly/bi-monthly print magazines where busy-ness came in waves, rather than as a bubbling river (oh, a nice water metaphor there).

Snow and ice (more water!) on the ground makes things feel wintery doesn’t it? I remember being in Cardiff in 2005 and it being boiling hot on the last day of term and my personal tutor telling me he could remember snow being 2ft high and university closing in late November as it was impossible for anyone to get in. So I suppose global warming is in some ways very real? Is that right?

It's been a memorable year. I ran a marathon, formed a band (although only practicesed twice...bad form), broke a world record, went to Slovakia and flew in a Hind Military Attack helicopter, tasted whisky in Scotland (most northern I've ever been - except when I eat mushy peas), went to Benicasim music festival with very good friends, read many interesting books, gave an after dinner, black tie, speech, wrote more for The Guardian, for Word through some bizarre circumstances, and a couple of bits for Runner's World and a couple bits for Cornwall Today, got a new job, two of my best friends got engaged (to each other), and everyone else I care about is well and good and more.

Twitter took over the world, many notable people passed on (it's the first year of the endless deaths of media / mass entertainment personas if you ask me), Rage Against the Machine had a number one for Christmas (?), SuBo was discovered, we still haven't invented time-travel, and the world seems unsure whether it thinks money is good or evil. I think a bit of both.

In the decade itself we've had mobile phones, ipods, broadband internet, 9/11, foot and mouth, 7/7, Cristano Ronaldo, Obama, the rise and fall of Top Gear, the continued and unabated domestication of the dog (although nothing else - when was the last time we domesticated anything?) YouTube, Facebook, the decline of newspapers, I went, studied, and graduated from university (as did countless millions more), we had endless disasters, global warming became an issue, and a man named Howard became a minor celebrity through singing on adverts.

It's a funny old world.

See you on the otherside, Internet.

Photo diary

I thought pictures would sum up the sort of things I got up to over the bank holiday weekend. Enjoy!

Music men

Here is a little piece my brother and I recorded while at home for a few days. I quite like it. Enjoy!

What do you want from me?

I've not got the energy for a proper blog today so I'll do some bullet points

• I went to Brighton on the weekend for a family birthday (click image to enlarge - stupidly impressive quality for a mobile phone camera taking in that much detail).
  
• It was lots of fun and good to catch up with people I hadn't seen for a few years. Brighton was nice and it was great to see the sea again. The old, burnt out pier really adds character to the sea front.
• One funny moment was, when talking to my cousins the same age as me, I referred to the older adults (their parents basically) as 'the grown ups'. Years ago when we went on holiday together this was an accurate assessment (and usually said in hushed, conspiratorial tones).
  
• I haven't been running for a while and I feel bad about it.
• I read Shakespeare by Bill Bryson which was very good. I'm now reading his Neither Here Nor There. He is a good writer.
• James May in Space was truly amazing television and I would urge anyone who hadn't seen it to watch on iPlayer, especially the last 15 minutes or so when he does indeed go in to space. Breathtaking.
• I won a moleskin notebook via Twitter. I will use it to record interesting ideas - not 'to do' lists.
• I received one of my old poems from my tutor from my Creative Writing course at Cardiff University. I might enter the National Poetry Competition with it. Maybe.
• I must get back to work. Bye.