ITG 2009 - travel

Yes it’s a laugh a minute with Vogel’s adventure-o-licious travel stories.

Er, or not.

• ITGdex 2009

ITG 2009 - venues

Oh alright then. I’ll regret this, I can see it now.

• ITGdex 2009

ITG 2009 – food

Did you really expect me to ignore this important, nay consuming (ahahaha) topic? No, me neither.

• ITGdex 2009

ITG 2009 - Harrisburg

About the very pleasant city. Am I including venues in here? Hmm not sure, watch this space.

• ITGdex 2009

ITG 2009 – Gettysburg

We went to Gettysburg. I’m working on my write-up. Honest I am.

• ITGdex 2009

ITG 2009 - gigs

Well you’ll find lots of coverage online – see my main ITG 2009 page for links – so I am just going to pick out a few things which appealed for one reason or another.

• ITGdex 2009

ITG 2009

Well at the risk of stating the obvious I did make it to ITG 2009, the International Trumpet Guild’s 34th annual conference, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Here are some external links:

• Main conference site
• ITG conference coverage
• Twitter
• Trumpet Herald forum
• Facebook
• ITG home page

It became pretty obvious that I couldn’t even attempt to do proper blog entries while at ITG so instead I'm going to try to do some short sketches in the hope of getting something of the flavo[u]r down. I’m not quite 100% clear in my head (well actually I am usually not even 8% clear in my head, but that’s another story) how exactly I will structure this … but I’ll think of something.
I had a wonderful time!

Oopsie bumbum - never wrote a word. Shall I just zap the lot, or keep them here in the hope that one day I will write something, perhaps when the guilt overpowers the laziness? What do you think? Tamsin? Colin? Anyone??

• ITGdex 2009

ITGdex 2009

• ITG 2009 - Intro and external links
• Food
• Gettysburg
• Gigs
• Harrisburg
• Miscellaneous weebling on about stuff
• Travel
• Venues

Yes, they’re in alphabetical order after the home page. Or did you think I’d just put food first anyway? Thank you Colin, see me afterwards please.

Horrible crap disaster reporting

Distraught relatives prepare for the worst as they wait for news of Air France flight 447, which disappeared off the radar between Brazil and France early on Monday.

Well thank goodness they were allowed to do so in the calm and privacy of, er, having 63 cameras shoved up their noses. I should think that that will have made them feel much better, plus we the public really needed to see those photos. Come to think of it, maybe they could be asked to pose again, looking a touch more photogenic, and with more tears visible please? And get that woman to move her hand so we can see her grief-stricken face better? That would be nice.

I know I sound like a retired colonel, more and more so, but really, is there no room for restraint at all in a story like this? Hmph.

Orange mobile customer services

Totally brilliant, 10/10. Martha's lost mobile phone sorted out in seconds, replacement on its way, absolute minimum pain and hassle. And a nice Geordie accent too. What could be better?

As you know I like to be rude about companies being useless. This lot, on the other hand, deserve a big bunch of flowers and a strawberry yoghurt for their superb service. Thank you very much, roger dodger, Vogel out.

So, am I actually going to the US on Sunday?

So, am I actually going to the US on Sunday? I am supposed to be at the ITG conference yay woo. My Dearest Muvver is a guest at the very fine (though architecturally bizarre) Southlands Hospital. Come Monday, am I going to be in Harrisburg, PA, or in Shoreham, West Sussex? Tamsin, I don’t know, dear child: you tell me. 

Hmmmm.

Hip hip boo

Brief summary: things seemed difficult already, then my mum broke her hip.

We apologize for the gap in blogulistic service. As you know I do not blog about serious matters, and the broken hip is fundamentally unfunny.

Thank you.

                      Da Management

 

Language note to Americans and others: “mum” is a BrE word similar in meaning to the AmE expression “mom”. Strangely they have quite different origins, “mom” being descended from the epidemiological term “multiple of the median” which has escaped into everyday language during statistical discussions on perinatal health figures, while “mum” is a contraction of “maximum”, a reference to the size of a pregnant lady close to term. It is the purest coincidence that they have ended up sounding similar. Compare “boot” and “trunk” – no-one would have guessed they are both parts of a helicopter. Isn’t English funny? Aha.

My sensible part

Goodness me!

Someone purporting to be the Abbey has kindly written to me to ask me to log into their site and sort my account out. Oddly their site is not at Abbey.com as you might expect

Unfortunately, we are unable to verify your online banking account successfully. To ensure your protection, we've now blocked access to your sensible part of your accounts.

I must say that I am a little upset about them having blocked access to my sensible part. I guess I'll just have to live with it. Ah me.

Sunshine, woohoo!

It’s another beautiful morning in Londontown, Englandland. The city looks lovely; our site looks lovely. Even the man in the Italian cafe looks lovely as indeed does his wife.

Talking of spouses (do you see what I did there?) Mrs von Neustadt was in Vicenza and Udine Sunday-Tuesday, doing some teaching and flying the flag, and was extremely miffed to find that we seemed to have swapped weathers – we were cavorting (well, up to a point) around in the sunshine while she was trudging through rainswept though beautiful streets in Italy with a brolly borrowed from the hotel. Life is just so unfair sometimes, he roared with laughter  empathized.

I am going orienteering tomorrow – a little local event run by my own club at Mardley Heath (pdf). I am not sure what the weather is supposed to be doing but I really really hope it holds. I’ve been seeing bluebells in greater and greater numbers over the last week or two and the last time I was at Mardley it was spectacular – indeed it was breathtaking, and I don’t just mean because of my wheezing attempts to run. It’s the insane intensity of bluebells that gets to me so if it’s a good display tomorrow I will really be in floral heaven.

And now I must address issues of databases, scanned graphics, and linking charts in a web site. Hi ho, hi ho, etc.

Have a nice day now y’all!

Jewish Mother

There are already a good many definitions of a Jewish Mother, with close to 100% featuring Chicken Soup. And why not?

I would like to suggest, however, that a new subspecies of definition might be considered. This is not yet properly formulated but broadly speaking would propose that Jewish Mothers do not see autostereograms, either because they can’t, or because they won’t. (They do after all have Chicken Soup to prepare.)

Obviously this is just in the early planning and consultation stages but I may consider taking it to t’Committee with a view to refining it into a pithy witty aphorism (whatever one of those might be) for release in Q2 2011.

Thank you for reading. Pass the gefilte fish. Thank you. Mmm.

Pessimist

A pessimist is someone who accepts the offer of a loyalty card at the hospital coffee shop.

Error-Message-I-Like-a-Blog™

Yes! Yes! I like this error message! There should be more like this, more I tell you. More, more! Muuuahhhahahaha haahahah ahaha hahahah ahahahah ahah ahah aha haha haha!

In other news: as you can see, I am installing SQL Server, well the client side of it anyway (if that is not too, ah, oxymoronic for you) on my office PC. Oddly, I find that I am enjoying myself…

The Sage Gateshead is not in Newcastle

Look. The Sage Gateshead is not in Newcastle. It just isn’t. If it were, it would need to be a bit further North and then they could have called it The Sage Newcastle, and its website could be at thesagenewcastle.org. But it isn’t, and they didn’t, and it isn’t … because it is not in Newcastle.

I know people like to weeble on about the mighty river-spanning conurbation of, ahem, NewcastleGateshead as if it were Buda and Pest or Ankh and Morpork but I feel this is mostly a marketing term – I have yet to see an example of its use by a normal human being. And even so I might be smacking my head on my desk a little less if I were complaining about someone saying, or at least implying, that the Sage is in (akk!) NewcastleGateshead: but I am not.

Let’s get this right:

• The Sage Gateshead is not in Newcastle
• The Sage Gateshead is in Gateshead
• Gateshead is not Newcastle
• Newcastle is not Gateshead
• Bessie Surtees House, for a further example, is not in Gateshead
• … and while I’m at it, the Baltic isn’t in Newcastle either. No Tamsin it is jolly well not.
• Newcastle and Gateshead are close together but two different places. Say it with me:
• “Newcastle and Gateshead are close together but two different places.” Good, good.
• Gah!!!

Thank you for your attention.

Head of parades body to step down (Pun-o-Beeb-a-Blog™)

Is it just me, or is that a particularly funny and excellent headline? No, dammit, it’s not just me: it’s a classic. It’s on a BBC News story which goes on to explain that the Chair of the Northern Ireland Parades Commission is leaving his job. Sure, but if the wonderful humour and poetry of this headline is an accident then I’m the Mayor of Maastricht. Some Beeb subeditor or whatever they call them nowadays is well pleased with it, I’m sure.

Nice one. I’d send them a yoghurt if I knew their address.

Happy Birthday Lot

The Iarlles Loötës is 22 today. Hurrah! Half-holiday for the village schoolchildren and a commemorative plate for the peasants, if you please, Mr Thompson!

The Iarlles was originally scheduled to be 22 on or around the 4th July which you, observant and numerate reader, will note is about 12-and-a-bit weeks hence. It does not seem like 22 years since the most frightening 10 weeks of my life; in fact if I close my eyes I am right back there now. That I am a Sad Old Git™ – though we knew that already - is confirmed by the fact that I still cannot get through a complete hearing of the Athlete song Wires without crying. (Though in a very manly and dignified way, of course.)

Lottie is up to her eyes in it today due to Stringwise. Indeed, Lot, her Dear Muvver and – for the first time – her Beloved Sister of Youngernosity the Infanta Marfs – are all working on it, along with just about everyone I know except Becca and me, chiz and chiz and multiple rechiz on both accounts. I have messed up on the supply of birthday presents – a long and painful story, with which I shall not bore you just yet – but nevertheless the odd giftoid or two will change hands later today.

Tonight we are going to a delightful Italian restaurant in Norf London, into which I stumbled in my usual confused state a couple of weeks back. Ever since, I have been ranting at my family about how good/nice it was on this brief visit and how we must go there mobhanded sometime. They have now called my bluff and by this time tomorrow I will either be vindicated or (brace for side-splitting humorous food reference, brace brace brace) have egg on my face, aha. Watch this space. If we love it, I’ll tell you – OK? What I can say right now is that the signals – if you can trust the interwebnetsconnectatron at all – are very very positive.

More soon.