but we don't really want them either

No one wants them. Let's put them on the moon

good idea

Comedian Mick Miller has just come on the Royal Variety Performance.

I thought he'd passed away...

I have a black eye! We were packing away after the band gig and I ended up with the end of the folded stand in the eye!! Didn't half make a noise..... I'm going to look great for the gig tomorrow - but at least they know how I got it It's still bleeding slowly now, 3 hours on... And the guy holding the stand is feeling very guilty!

I didn't know playing music could be so dangerous

Ooh, that sounds nasty! If your eyelids get stuck together overnight, try bathing with warm water. Not really what you wanted for Christmas, I'm sure, but perhaps better than losing your two front teeth!

LOL True! Think that might be DS's present - he has one very wobbly front tooth. But he's 7 and the only one in his year not to have lost his front teeth, it can't come quickly enough for him!

It's not as bad as i thought it would be this morning, thankfully. Not sure I'm going to manage to get my contact lense in (which could be interesting!) but I need them for band to be able to read the music so close to my face.
I'm just relieved the stand hit where it did and not a few mm lower otherwise it could have been really nasty - some of it hit the bone above my eye, which stopped it doing more damage....

OUCH.
That sounds nasty, poor you. Do take care Sunrise.

Tie some cotton round it and pull ! That'll solve the problem !

No I couldn't do that, he's enjoying wobbling it too much!!!

Oh no! Poor you

Hope it mends quickly, and take care of yourself.

New helpdesk guy starting tommorow.

Hope he's better than the &^*%$? idiot I dealt with yesterday/today at work

Waiting for the school run traffic to finish, so I can drive through town up to the hospital to have a fasting blood test done. And then come home and eat breakfast and early-elevenses all at once

Had a random dream last night that my old piano teacher from uni died and left me ?24,000 to buy a new piano... How I wish that would really happen!! (Not her dying obviously, she was lovely!! but the money and new piano would be amazing...)

The new open platform London bus was officially unveiled today

In recent weeks I have had two strange music related dreams.

A couple of weeks ago I dreamt I was playing in orchestra, and the clarinet player (not someone whom I know in real life or forum life) was very pleased that she was going to be able to try a pair of new instruments. One was a very small clarinet, bright blue, with something stuffed inside it. The other was a very small clarinet, bright blue, stuffed inside something. "Very small" means as small as a clarinet mouthpiece joined to a clarinet bell, with four finger holes. Then I woke up.

Last night I dreamt I was taking a music exam. I had prepared two pieces, which I played, and the third one was dropped on me out of the blue - the examiner asked me to play something called "Raffaelle". It looked vaguely French and twentieth century. Somehow I had the music, but I had no idea how I was going to sightread it. However there were other people in the exam room and they suddenly then started to talk very loudly amongst themselves, so I got very cross and managed to get out of it by saying "I'm not playing anything while these people are talking like this". Then I woke up.

Just signed up to the OU's Start Listening to Music (A179), course starts in February. Anyone else taken/about to take this course? Thoughts/comments welcome

I haven't done it, but have it pencilled in for October. Have you linked it to a degree? If you haven't it is worth doing so (even if you don't think you'll do a whole degree) because that will make you eligible for the transition fees (current fees plus inflation) after the new fees are introduced in October.

Government transport spending per head over the last year :

London/South East : 3,523 GBP
North East of England : 5 GBP

And that's not a typo...

Thanks for the suggestion but I have decided to call a halt to the longer OU courses- have taken diplomas, certs and MA in the past. Great at the time but now I'm hoping A179 will help fill some very general knowledge gaps as I'm preparing for G6 theory in the summer. The grand plan is to complete all the theory grades over the next few years.
Will let you know how it goes!
Merry Christmas and a very Happy and Musical New Year!

I saw that too and you wonder why people not domiciled in the metropolis get cross!

For me to realistically use public transport, such as trains, I have a 20 mile drive to Crewe or 24 miles to Shrewsbury. Not that I could for example get to work even if I did that (oh and it costs GBP8 to park at Crewe). That would require two trains, a three mile walk/taxi and about 3.5 hours each way.

Where I live is NOT deeply rural (it is rural I agree). Heaven help those who live in mid Wales or Scottish Highlands.

I live in Greater London : and it has to be said, although there are woes, generally public transport is good in the capital, and has been for some time. We've got Crossrail coming, plans for more expansion of the DLR, the New Bus for London, an extension of the Metropolitan line in Hertfordshire and other plans I can't immediately recall.

I do think we should have spent more in the rest of the UK while we had the good times : the Metrolink extensions in Manchester are welcome, but I'm hard pressed to think of anything else significant. Why doesn't, let's say, Birmingham/West Midlands have an extensive tube network like London? Why are we thinking of cutting rural bus routes? All very short sighted...

Says who?
The Metrolink extension to Ashton is costly, disruptive and unnecessary.
The ONLY reason why it needed to go ahead is because of all the compulsory purchase and demolition to make way for it.

I live in a fairly rural area, public transport isn't bad if you want to go towards central london, have a senior citizen's bus pass so don't notice the cost per journey, aren't in too much of a hurry etc. I don't really see my car as a luxuary.

Spending on public transport in London is a necessity - if there were even more journeys being made by car than at the moment the capitol would come to a complete halt. However, it should be matched with similar spending elsewhere in the country.

I believe that the main reason that B'ham/West Mids doesn't have a tube network is that the underlying geology isn't suitable (though I may be misremembering geography lessons from a few decades ago when we were discussing this very question). The public transport in Brum though is probably the best I've ever used. Frequent busses, quite a lot of local trains, the tram going out to the Wolverhampton area and fares that are a lot lower than for equivalent distances around here. Not perfect by any stretch of the imagaination but could be a lot worse.

I can accept that only major urban areas will have a developed infrastructure of trams or metro system etc. however, for public transport in general to work it has to do three things:

• Go where you want to go
• Go when you want to go
• Be affordable

Sadly, public transport fails most of those tests in most parts of the country.

There has been a minor improvement locally: there is now an hourly service to Crewe - it was two-hourly until recently, but only every other train goes directly on to Manchester.

Because of Beeching et al you cannot get directly to Chester or Liverpool without going to Crewe.

Local bus services run during the day - don't run of an evening or at weekends.

And to add insult to injury you get those disappearing buses carrying a message not to drink and drive but to use the bus.....

Quote from my daughter's facebook status..



You have to go for authenticity don't you.....

For ages my watch was a couple of minutes slow. I tried to alter it but it seemed the mechanism was worn out/damaged. Tonight I tried again and it has magically allowed me to adjust it to the time given by the speaking clock.

If you don't know what that is call 123 from your phone.

d'oh

New Routemaster breaks down

What is actually classed as a "rural area"?

As far as public transport goes, I can probably count on two hands the times I've used it!

Oops...

You'll be telling us how reliable the bendy busses were in comparison if they continue like that.

I have thick corneas and interesting eye movement.

The bendies had a worrying tendency to catch fire...

I'm just thick...

Hmm. Well maybe they need in London to operate with the ?5 per head budget they give us in the North East.

I blasted wish they *would* operate with a lower budget! Every year fare rises and I don't see at all where it goes to.

Woo, I've just got a question right on University Challenge

*dreams of how luxurious her local public transport could be with London's budget*

What question was it?

Identified the Cardiff Uni crest

I'd never have been able to do that in a million years...

Is it worth sending an email to the carols organiser for this evening? after Sunday's disaster possibly........

I would...

I am wearing the same shirt as my manager. Clearly great minds think alike! Sky blue shirts all the way.

Isn't two people in one shirt a little cosy?

Keeps us warm in Winter.

Are you of same or different gender ?

I did! and glad

You haven't been carolling then?...



Have just read that you have...oops...