kestrel

I mailed Musicmatch to complain about a new “feature” that they have stealthily introduced in their latest “upgrade” – the abandoning of cddb.org for their lookups, in favour of their own lookup server. Which means that half our albums aren’t found, because they were, presumably, too mean to pay Gracenote’s fee.

and I got a reply today, where they very helpfully explained in words suited to AOLers how I could upload my own track listings. This is what I sent back:

“you’re missing my point. I have no desire whatsoever to feed your database with my entries – why should I? I will shortly have paid for MusicMatch _twice_ – once on my own behalf, some years ago and once via the purchase of an iPod Windows package (of which I am awaiting delivery).

when you say you’re “unable to access Gracenote’s CD lookup engine”, you presumably mean that you’re not prepared to pay their rate. Leaving aside Gracenote’s rather shabby behaviour in getting thousands of users to upload album and track data, and then start charging large sums of money to those software manufacturers who want to use it, the fact that you (MusicMatch) have changed this without telling anyone is completely unforgiveable, to my mind.

I am now ripping my albums using iTunes 3 on my iMac, because they have a licence for Gracenote and, frankly, life is too short for me to type in track names from our more obscure albums – we’ve already done it once.”

I don’t suppose it’ll make a blind bit of difference, but at least I feel marginally better …

yesterday, perlmonger and self threw ourselves on the mercy of Great Western Trains, and trundled up to Lunnun to partake of Dim Sum with Chris and Liz, and then all four of us set off to see Supertramp perform in Hyde Park, in the company of jonhoneyball and André. The tickets said “doors open at 4 pm”, and we foolishly thought that this meant the performance would start by 5. Not a hope – support band was on at 6.30, and the ‘Tramp at 7.45.

so we sat on the grass and shivered, watching the clouds get greyer and lower, and wondering just how wet we were going to be by the end of the evening. And when we did wander through the gates, they were searching bags; I’d already hidden my Ixus in my jacket pocket, but for some reason the security staff (and more about them later) were taking the tops from water bottles, so that “they couldn’t be used as a weapon”. They wanted you to buy the very expensive water on sale inside the arena, more likely … Mars were giving out free (huge) tubs of ice cream – I accepted one, and ate just a few spoonfuls; there’s only so many chemicals one can ingest in a given day.

the support act was Paul Carrack, one of those guys who’s been around forever in British rock music – he’s played with Squeeze, Mike and the Mechanics, Ace (and we have two copies of the Ace album in this house – both on vinyl!). I like his voice, but I have to say his stage presence isn’t great. I always feel sorry for support acts – they have to be very very good indeed to get people interested and listening – and Paul just couldn’t quite crack it. As he was singing How Long Has This Been Going On, Pete and I turned to each other, and said “seems like it’s been going on forever”.

at 7.45 on the nail, out came Supertramp – one hugely loud chord, instantly identifiable as the opening blast to Bloody Well Right, and the audience were screaming their appreciation. A good set, although I must confess I wanted to hear more of the old stuff – I’ve been listening to them for nearly thirty years (now, that’s scarey). And unlike valkyrie_k, who saw them in Edinburgh during the week, I did think they were missing Roger Hodgson. And they had decided not to use the camera guys and the big screens that were in evidence throughout Carrack’s set, so there wasn’t a lot to see apart from a rather elderly looking lighting rig. However, by then, the clouds had gone, and it was a lovely clear evening (if a little chill for what purports to be the summer), so I could watch the sky, and the constant stream of aircraft with their lights winking against the sunset, including Concorde – lovely to see her flying again.

during the second number, a guy near the front who had been dancing rather exuberantly, was suddenly accosted by a bunch of security guys, and after a bit of a scuffle, he was bundled out by eight or nine of them, who looked really rather more aggressive than the situation called for. When Pete asked “why?”, they claimed there had been a call from the stage crew, because this chap “might have been on drugs”. Yeah – him and half of the rest of the audience, from the smell of weed in the air. It put a damper on the proceedings for a while, but as the band warmed up, the audience rose to their feet and boogied as one. As I said, I don’t dance so if, by any chance you were in Hyde Park last night, and saw an elderly, overweight woman who looks like me bopping away in the ridiculous confined space that we had, it must have been someone else.

the ‘Tramp can still do the business, no doubt about it.

and if you’re at the Jools Holland concert at Audley End next Saturday, and see that person dancing again, well … that won’t be me either. Obviously.

a good day and evening – got the 23.30 train from Paddington, and got to bed just after 2 a.m., having had to explain our absence to nine cats and fourteen fish. They Were Not Pleased.

sometimes you see a web site that is utterly beyond words, and this is one such. Don’t let the first page put you off – it gets better further in.

went to the optician today, and despite my hideously advanced years (which are advancing ever faster, the older I get), I don’t need new glasses this time round. Two years since I got these specs, and he said to “come back in another two years”.

and given that these specs cost over £400, that’s £400 bonus to spend on something else. Which is nice.

… and that is mine. Check it out here. My keywords are:

blogchalk, English, United Kingdom, Bristol, Long Ashton, Mac, Female, 46-50.

five internet sites carrying blasphemies against God and the Virgin Mary have been shut in Italy after a complaint by the Vatican newspaper l’Osservatore Romano. More details here.

lordy – it seems to me that driving standards are getting worse and worse … I’m trundling along the M5 as ! write this, and wondering just what it is about the inside lane that offends British motorists.

instead of concentrating on speed, perhaps the Great British Plod might stop people for simple bad driving, beginning with incorrect lane discipline on motorways.

at last, I have got round to reading Northern Lights, the first volume in His Dark Materials, a trilogy by Philip Pullman. Many people have recommended these to me, but I resisted – I’m not really into fantasy (novels, you fool!). And then, walking past Waterstones the other day, there were all three books, on a “3 for 2″ offer, so I though I’d give them a whirl.

and I’m so glad I waited – I finished the first one this morning, and can crack on with The Subtle Knife without waiting for it to be published :)

interesting article here about deep linking on web sites. Which somehow, according to this page at Politech, a Danish court has just managed to find an illegal practice.

we live in a mad world.

is this the worst web site in the world?