My friend Ian Wallman and his friend Jim Ryan (who owns Miss Moneypenny’s) get together and do a spot of producing under the name Zoned Out. They tend to do a lot of remixes.

Here’s one of their latest ones. It’s for someone called Ashanti.
Wikipedia thinks she’s famous.

I’m so not down with the kids. But I like that ‘people-I-know-and-like’ get to work on top end stuff and, presumably, get paid for it. Go the Birmingham lads.

Juliet, Bobbie and Louise enjoy their beverages

It was a gorgeous day yesterday, and so after a strenuous morning watching the lawns being mowed, I headed to the Fighting Cocks pub in Moseley, where I met with Bobbie, Louise and Juliet for brunch.

Bob had been in town shoe shopping for summer footwear. There would have been a dress purchase as well had a suitable garment been available from a half decent store at a reasonable price - but it was not to be. She texted me to let me know she was on the way:

“On the 50 bus - two pairs of shoes and no dress.”

I replied that I thought this was inappropriate attire for public transport.

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Stef, Pete and Chris join the cow orking revolution

I dropped into the Custard Factory on the way home to see Pete Ashton and drop his copy of Chris Garrett and Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger book that I picked up for him in Chicago. He was making the most of the free wifi network at Rooty’s cafe - and he wasn’t alone.

Stef Lewandowski was there, as was Chris Unitt from Created in Birmingham. And I joined them.

Four around the table, all working on our own stuff, all on mac laptops, all doing what is commonly known in tech circles as ‘co-working’. Or coworking. Or, as it ended up - cow orking.

So there’s a new term that kept us entertained for several minutes, before we went back to our own respective beverages and tasks at hand. Until Chris googled the word orking. It’s a real thing.

And you can do it to cows.

Technorati Tags: cow, orking, coworking

Ed Doolan with producer Anna

I have 8 hours to kill on a plane journey, so I thought I’d blog this while I remember…

I did my occasional radio show with Ed Doolan earlier in the week. We talked about gadgets, as usual, and I knew very little about many of them. But I think I express my complete ignorance in a very knowledgeable way, so they keep asking me back.

I showed off my new camera (yes, on the radio), talked about the effect of ringtones on wildlife, explained once again why Macs are better than PCs (though I couldn’t cover it all - it’s only a one-hour segment), and tried to convey the idea that if a gadget is advertised in a one-hour infomercial on a shopping channel, High Street retailers have never heard of it, and it sounds too good to be true… then you should probably avoid it.

If you’re quick, you can hear the show on the BBC’s Listen Again service. You’re looking for 11am, Wednesday 30th April.

The flight’s kind of dull. Though I quite enjoyed Cloverfield, which was the one in-flight movie that I was interested in seeing. I wish they’d feed us again.

Bobbie and I went with Craig to a great gig last night. I was already a fan of Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, and have one of their albums, but I was completely blown away by just how tight this band was. It was like going to see the JBs on a good night. Just amazing.

We stood up the back, partly because we’re not a fan of crowds particularly, and partly because there was a bit of an audience participation thing going on, which is not really our cup of tea. The man with his back to us in the photo was the first of many people brought up onstage to dance with Sharon while she sang to them. Most handled it really well - but none better than ‘other’ Bobbie, who out-danced and out-charisma’d Sharon on her own stage.

It’s a shame that a) the stage was so low and b) Sharon Jones is quite short. We didn’t really see that much of her from where we were standing. But what a performance. It was a bit like this, only in a much smaller room and without the bits in French: