Gritty 3 points. City 1-0 Boro

Around 1,500 "fans" marched to CCS before today's game to protest about City's dire financial situation and
demand the resignation of Chairman Peter Ridsdale. Whether they thought they'd achieve anything is a moot point. PR can't have failed to be aware of the feeling of many City supporters.

As I've said before, I think he's done a pretty decent job, though not entirely openly, and transparently, but things sem to be coming to a head now.

Anyway, City came into this match on the back of some very poor displays, and really needed to show some grit and passion. They did just that against a Boro side that have been on the up recently. It took just three minutes for City to bundle home a scrappy goal that to be honest looked way offside. Despite Boro's protests the goal stood. City were dogged in midfield, generally sound in defence, and did create some chances up front.

A classic it wasn't. City should have been 2 up on half time when Chris Burke having fought into the box was patently clipped (it was right in front of us), and the ref booked him for diving. Actually, the ref, Mr Deadman was pretty rubbish throughout making some very inconsistent decisions for both sides.

Inevitably Boro came back in the second period, and on 60 minutes appeared to have equalised from a free kick but to massive protestations from Boro players and staff, the linesman ruled a handball and the goal was disallowed.

City hung on and indeed hit the bar on a swift counter just before the end. But it was City's day and 19,800 saw a determined display from the Bluebirds.

Up the City!

Did you know?

1981

1. Prince Charles got married.
2. Liverpool crowned soccer Champions of Europe.
3. Australia lost the Ashes.
4. The Pope died.

2005

1. Prince Charles got married.
2. Liverpool crowned soccer Champions of Europe.
3. Australia lost the Ashes.
4. The Pope died.

Lesson to be learned:
If Charles gets married again, someone better warn the Pope

Toodledo

I'm still trying to find the perfect to do app for the iPhone, over a year after moving to the platform.

Recently I've been using 2Do, and it's kind of OK, though some feel it's more form than function with it's colourful, nice to look at interface, which can at times feel a bit cluttered.

I use Appigo's Notebook app for my notes, and I find this a very decent app. It syncs to Toodledo, a cloud based to do/note application, but I've never bothered with it's to do element before now.

I've forked up the £1.79 asking price for the iPhone Toodledo app (come on, it's not even the cost of a pint of beer), and of course setting up the sync was a piece of cake.

I'll see how this goes - it's more like a traditional to do list rather than the over complicated (for me) "getting things done" model, though it does have folders, a hotlist and starred list options.

Pretty much all I'm after is a basic and easy to enter in, app that tells me when a task is due to be done and can give me an alert.

I'll see how this goes for a while.

Going pear shaped:Preston 3-0 City

I've been too busy this evening to write a post as we've had visitors over. Now I'm too knackered and had a too few many drinks to do this justice.

Read the BBC report and weep.

City doing their usual post Christmas belly flop. Lucky to get a play off place at this rate

Google contacts update

I thought it was too good to be true, and so it proved. Although enabling Google Contact sync from my Macbook Pro (see post below) appeared to have synced all my contacts across to Google, when I fired up my MBP tonight, I got a message saying that Google wanted to make 40 odd amendments to the contacts in my Mac's Address book.

It wanted for example to replace a perfectly valid record such as:
Title: "Mr & Mrs" with "Mr"
First Name: "M" with "& Mrs"
and so on....

So I've turned off the syncing for the moment, until I can work out what to do for the best. All my records in the Mac Address book are accurate and up to date, and I can't risk Google's sync process buggering these up. At least of got 270 plus contact records in Google that look OK from the way they synced across originally.

You would have thought in this day and age, something as obvious as contact management would have evolved a fairly standard sync protocol. I appreciate some of the more esoteric fields found in certain address books might cause problems, but it can't be beyond the wit of man (or coders) to at least be able to come up with a standard for title/first name/ last name syncing?

Obviously it is.

Contacts in the cloud

I've used the sync to Google function in my Mac to sync my contacts to Google Contacts over the air. Everything seems to have come across although the way Google works I've ended up with a few duplicates. I'll sort those out soon.

I now have (I think), what I really wanted which is my contacts in three (or is it 4) places. They're on my Mac in the Address Book, my Phone in the Contacts app, on Mobile Me in the cloud, and now on Google in the cloud. That might sound a bit like overkill, but as someone who's got a bit of OCD about keeping things in sync, it suits me.

I'm trying hard to start using Google for a lot more. I'm migrating to it slowly as my main email address way from my long time ISP pop email, but it wasn't that effective without all my contacts available. Should be fine now.

I've migrated two of the three websites I've built and maintain (Chepstow Male Voice Choir and Dinas Powys Cricket Club) to Google Sites, and I'm in the process of switching the third (Hendre Eynon Caravan and Camping) as well.

I haven't really used Google Docs much, but as I keep all my important and most frequently accessed docs in the cloud too on Dropbox, it makes sense to start using Google Docs more as well.

And of course, Google own the Blogger platform that this blog is based on. I also use and love Picasa for photo management and organisation, and Flickr for online photo storage, and my default search engine of course is, Ask Jeeves. No it's Google. I was joking.

Add all that up, and I've almost become a Google junkie without even thinking about it.

There's no doubt that Google has matured well enough for me to stat making the move more consciously. Given that all of the above is free as well (bar the Flickr premium account), I'm amazed more people don't make the move. I've got over my concerns about cloud data storage. I haven't done anything specific to dispel those concerns, rather just accepted that provided I'm sensible, it shouldn't be any more risky than using any other storage mechanism.

Grim: City 0-2 Barnsley

I don't know what to say. I really don't. I know City are struggling to find 11 fit players to put out on the park, but the ones that are there just aren't showing the quality (or rather any quality).

Our defence is a shambles, there's no midfield to speak of, Chopra couldn't score if you put the ball on the goal line in front of him with no defenders or keeper, and our one fit keeper can't kick a ball to save his life.

Barnsley are a mediocre side and came to Cardiff on the back of three straight losses. In the first 5 minutes City were all over them like a rash, and Chopra scoped the ball about 10 yards over the bar from 4 yards out. That should have told us it wasn't going to be our day.

We were then undone by two through balls that split our defence - well perhaps split is too generous - they (our alleged central defenders) never even looked as if they were on the same park, and Bogdanovich, that well known Maltese striker showed Chopra how it should be done with two clinical finishes three minutes apart. Twelve minutes in and we're two down. Their confidence went sky high, we looked more jittery than a team who's looked very jittery for several weeks, and so that was that.

In mitigation, the ref who was about 3ft 2" high got in the way of two great passes from our boys that night have opened something up, we played marginally better in the second half, and ha a five minutes spell where the pressure on the Bransley goal was intense. But we missed a header from a yard, hit the bar and generally didn't score. Not the way to win a football match.

Even Dave Jones summary has moved on from the "we've got injuries all over the park and we're all in need of a rest" to a more pragmatic "We've not really played well". Yeah, Dave, we didn't. It was crap. Again.

But, miraculously we're still fifth.

What makes it even worse is Swansea are now fourth, and even if we win our game in hand we'll still be a point behind them.

PC Pro - smartphone labs

As regular readers will know, I'm a fan of PC Pro magazine/website. I find their "labs" comparisons informative and generally accurate, and as I've said on many occasions, have made many purchases based on their recommendations and have never been disappointed.

The current issue of the mag (April 10), has a round up of smartphones which makes for some very interesting reading. On some of the sites I visit, and PDA247 is the one that springs most to mind, the iPhone is generally seen as a decent "consumer" device but not really in the same league as Blackberries for real "power" users (whoever and whatever they are).

However, PC Pro gives the iPhone 3GS top spot and a place on its venerated "A List", citing slightly less than brilliant battery life and the tie in to iTunes as the only blots on it' copybook, whilst the Blackberry Bold aside, other BB's lose out due to high price allied to lack of features like HSDPA, washed out camera images, and no digital compass (C'mon - how crucial is having a digital compass for God's sake?)

That doesn't mean it doesn't rate any other smartphones. In fact of the 24 phones tested, and 15 that were worthy of a full review, four got a recommended award and one a best value.

If you're feeling snubbed by the iPhone's top spot, take heart if you have one of those that got a "Recommended". They were

• HTC Hero
• Nokia N97 mini
• Blackberry Bold 9700
• T-Mobile Pulse

The phone that walked away with the best value award was the HTC Tattoo.

Now as ever, everyone will have their own opinions, and I'm equally aware that a discussion about which is the best (or worst) smartphone can generate a heated debate. This at least is how PC Pro sees it. Other will see it differently. Don't blame me.

Network congestion and the iPhone

I love my iPhone.

It suits me down to the ground. It's "smart" enough that I can do all the things I want to do that aren't "phone" things - Twitter, electronic password wallets, contact/address lists, emails, to-do lists, camera for quick snaps, notes, sat-nav, internet browsing, games, utilities....the list goes on and on.

However, some people argue that in itself, it's not a very good phone. Call quality could be better etc when compared to Nokia's or Blackberries so it's said, though I rarely have cause for complaint.

One area I do have some issues with though is trying to use the thing when there's any degree of congestion on the network.

This is most apparent at what is probably an extreme end of the scale - when I'm at a football match. When I'm in the Cardiff City Stadium with anything between 14,000 and 24,000 other people, there's very little point in me trying to tweet, text, check emails or use the phone, because it just ain't gonna work - or it'll take forever refreshing Twitter for example to get anywhere.

Although it can be argued that at least immediately before the match, at half time and just post match there are thousands of other people in close proximity using their phones, so therefore it's not surprising I have problems, what's strange about this is, that it doesn't seem to affect anyone else!

I can see hundreds of other people with their phones to their ear, or texting away whilst I struggle, even though my signal meter is showing wall to wall O2 and 3G signal strength. My son sitting next to me has no problems with his SE candybar phone, though admittedly he doesn't use data. But even texting/voice for me can be an issue.

I'm beginning to think it's down to me and my "karma" - or lack of it. It's difficult to know if this is an iPhone thing, or a smartphone (data - as opposed to voice) thing. Most of the phones I see at football are standard feature phones, so it might be.

It's a miracle: City 1-1 West Brom

A miracle that is that we're still in 5th place.

This was a dire football match between the divisions two top scorers, who managed a grand total of 5 shots on target between them in 97 minutes of football.

City, ravaged by injury and struggling to find 11 fit players went ahead on 8 minutes through a Peter Whittingham penalty after Jay Bothroyd was hauled down inside the 6 yard box. How the Baggies No. 3 stayed on the pitch is beyond belief - how can a man in the 6 yard box not be in a clear goal scoring opportunity? He didn't even get booked.

After the goal, City retreated deeper and deeper and their passing and tackling became worse and worse. When they did get the ball they either kicked it away or gave it away far too easily. West Brom scored in the 3rd minute of added time in the first half. At that point I'd have bitten your hand off for a draw. Peter Whittingham had also worryingly gone off injured.

The second half was better - just, but both sides created little, and I can't think of any one City player who was worthy of a man of the match performance. Kennedy in particualr was awful (again) at left back, but he was only the worst of an average bunch tonight.

City did spark towards the end in a 5 minute spell when Chris Burke missed an open goal, but to be fair a draw was probably all each side was worth.

On this form, I can't see either side being good enough for promotion, let alone putting up a fight in the Premiership. Keep an eye on Derby who seem to be hitting their straps at the right time.

Next up for Cty, Barnsley on Saturday at home. City players all need a rest, but they aren't going to get it, so they'll have to make the best of what they have. At this moment, I'd accept sneaking into 6th spot come the end of the season.

Blooobirds!

FA Cup Dream over: Chelsea 4-1 City

So the FA Cup dream is over for another year. Thoughts of a giant killing vanished inside 3 minutes as Drogba beat the offside trap to slot past the helpless Marshall.

The day had started well, though early with a 6:30am wake up, and by 7:30am we were on the M4 heading for the Smoke along with 5,800 other Cardiff City Supporters. We parked at Hounslow and caught the tube in, a fairly painless experience and by 10:45 were in the ground for the ungodly early 12pm kickoff.

The City away support as usual was magnificent, singing their hearts out, though most of the songs were perhaps a bit on the "fruity" side, and predictably many of them aimed at Chelsea's absent captain John Terry. Frank Lampard also got some "Jack" stick courtesy of a short spell he had out our mates down the M4 many years ago .

Many of the City faithful were surprised though relieved to see Jay Bothroyd in the starting 11, and perhaps even more surprised to see Rae's name there too, thinking Jones would want to save him for Tuesday's big clash with the Baggies. However, Jones thinking was probably he needed to risk the fitness of Rae to support young Wildig and provide some experience to what would otherwise have been a very inexperienced central midfield.

Chelsea I think showed a great deal of respect for City with the side they put out, including Carvalho, Jo Cole, Lampard, Ballack, Mikel and Drogba, and bringing on Kalou and Malouda as subs. That's a pretty impressive line up - over £105m worth of talent. How City could do with some of that!

Drogba's early strike aside, the rest of the first half was pretty even, and the Bluebirds faithful erupted on 34 minutes when Chopra glanced home a pinpoint Burke cross. I'd have taken 1-1 at half time any day, and during the break, there was talk of holding on for a draw and bringing the Blues back to CCS.

Inevitably, it wasn't to be. In the second half Chelsea brought on Kalou for Cole, and stepped up the pace. City held out for 6 minutes before Ballack tipped home after a great move, and then Chelsea heaped further misery on City with goals from Sturridge (69) and a fantastic Malouda header (86).

so it wasn't to be, but City did themselves proud I thought. You could see the difference in class. Chelsea had more composure on the ball, their anticipation was better, and they were at least half a yard quicker. City tended to panic in defence, and kick the ball away conceding possession rather than holding on to the ball. That's not to say they were poor. They are an injury ravaged side, and they gave it their all today, but sadly it wasn't enough to beat a side on top of their game, and on top of the Premiership.

It's back to league business on Tuesday with a home match against second placed West Brom. Another big match for City. They must now forget today, and focus on a promotion push. It's going to be hard.

C'Mon City!

City get more time

Cardiff City were at the High Court in London today facing a winding up order over an unpaid tax bill, along with Portsmouth & Southend. Who said football's in crisis?

Anyway, the long and the short of it i that City have been given a further 28 days to "resolve the issue" after having allegedly paid £1m towards a £2.7m debt.

That's not quite the position that Chairman Peter "The Riddler" Ridsdale outlined on 8th January when he said "We have every confidence that all monies owing to HMRC will have been repaid by the end of January."

So where's the other £1.7m Pete?

Hmmm...

Blindingly good customer service

As regular readers of this blog will know, I've got a thing about customer service.

Recently I needed some spare parts for some vertical blinds - we've got them all over the house - in fact most houses on this estate gave - must have been a job lot when the estate was built. My googling took me to e-bay (inevitably) and specifically an e-bay shop called Blind Spares.

I ordered the parts I needed that arrived very quickly and as required (you never know with e-bay). I then found I needed to order some additional but different parts - digressing, our kitten, who's now 8 months old had basically eaten/destroyed all the beaded strings that keep the things together as well as the anchors on the weights that they clip to!

So I confidently ordered the extra parts, and the package again arrived quickly, but the wrong parts. Handily, there was a business card in the package, so I rang, where a very polite lady called Fran said she'd check my order and post out the new parts if indeed it was their error not mine in ordering - turned out it was as they'd had a glitch in their order page - I'd ordered the correct bits but they came up wrong on their report.

I was very surprised when the very next day my (correct) parts arrived - with an apology note from said Fran.

Although you might expect good customer service, sadly I find it's not generally universal. Blind Spares are quick efficient, and having spoke to a real person, I also find them polite and helpful.

If you need replacement blind parts, I'd recommend them wholeheartedly

Easy does it: City 2-0 Peterborough

City historically struggle against teams at the bottom of the division. When we played Posh who were second bottom at the time earlier this season we were 4-0 up at half time, and ended up drawing 4-4. Three days earlier we had lost against bottom side Plymouth.

Tonight though, City didn't struggle. In fact, to be truthful it was a stroll in the park. You can see why Peterborough are bottom. They were awful. City played the game at training ground pace for much of the match and had time and space to dominate throughout. The fact we only scored two was I think down to complacency, and perhaps one eye on Saturday's big event at Stamford Bridge.

Maybe I'm being too harsh, but I thought City should have won this by a hatful. Burke's opening goal on the half hour was a masterpiece. Whittingham crossed deep from the left, Bothroyd nodded back, Burke chested and volleyed from three yards. One nil.

Whittingham, who's having a great season took the free kick which was prodded home by Gerrard (yes we've got one too - his cousin) on 78 minutes, and that as they say was that.

Our only real concerns are both starting midfielders, Darcy Blake and the returning Steve McPhail failed to finish the game due to injury. With Rae and Ledly already sidelined, we haven't got a lot left, with the hugely inexperienced Solomon Taiwo and Aaron Wildig finishing the game. Against this opposition that's not a proble. Against Chelsea on Saturday it could be a different story.

Blooobirds!!!

Euro 2012: Split loyalties

My loyalties are going to be truly tested following the draw for the Euro 2012 qualifying campaign as Wales are drawn in the same group as England.

I'm English by birth, and have always supported England's football team as a matter of course. However, I've spent 30 of my 50 years living in Wales, and am married to a Welsh girl. My kids are both Welsh, and I always support Wales when they're playing football, rugby (including when they play England) or any other sport come to that. The two Wales v England ties in this group will sorely test me I feel.

For the record, the other teams in the group are Switzerland, Bulgaria and Montenegro. Certainly none of these teams are pushovers. I think England will win the group though (in fact I'd expect them to), and do you know what? I'm going to have a punt and tip Wales for runner up spot.

A right beating: Toon 5-1 City

It's a bloody long way to Newcastle, and a darn sight further back when you have been thrashed 5-1.

This game was all over inside 6 minutes, by which time the Toon were 2-0 up, and then 3-0 in 15 mins.

No way back for City then, and though I was only keeping up on the live text, it seems to me we were soundly beaten. Men against boys. Perhaps it was the thoughts of Chelsea in the cup next week, but we've got Peterborough before that, so I hope Jonesy is giving them a right wake up call.

A night best forgotten - apart that is to remember how it feels to be on the wrong end of a drubbing.

Ford: update to the update

You have to give praise where it's due. After slagging off the local Ford dealer a week or so ago they did get back to me (after I followed up again), and they said call in, ask for "Ray" and he'll go out in the car with you.

So this morning I pooped into the garage on the way to work. Ray was there and we duly went for a 20 minute run in the car, where he acknowledged there was a problem with the steering/alignment, but wasn't sure whate.

When we got back he asked if I could hang on for 30mins whilst he stuck it on a ramp to rule out anything obvious. Then he said, whilst it's on there we might as well do the full alignment check. 25 mins later he showed me a printout that showed the rear wheel(s) were 8mm out of alignment and they'd fixed that.

That's a pretty significant mis-alignment apparently. He didn't have time to re-road test but was pretty confident it would have solved the problem. Then he and the desk girl had a chat about why the alignment would have changed so significantly less than 8 weeks after I'd had it doen previously, given there'd been no bump.

The long and short of it was they said, let us know if there's any further problem. If there is, you'll have to bring it in, get it checked and pay whatever to put it right, but for now, hope it's OK, on your way.

Well, it feels like a different car now. Steering wheel is aligned, and it doesn't turn left hand corners on it's own.

They could have charged me. But they didn't. Finally, some good customer service. Thanks Fordthorne Cardiff, and thanks, Ray.

Review? I don't think so...

I like PC pro magazine. Sometimes it's a bit too petrol headed for me a mere end user, but I've been a long time reader and for much of that time a subscriber (in fact my sub has run out and I must renew). The columnists generally are level headed and offer balanced opinions, even if some of the content is way over my level of understanding as a mere mortal and "end user".

Their "Labs" reviews are trustworthy and I think I've said before that I've made many hardware purchases on the back of their reviews and "A-List" and have literally never been disappointed.

Inevitably, amongst all that glowing praise there has to be a "but". The latest is this "review"/road test between the Tom Tom's top of the range 940T unit, and Tom Tom running on an iPhone.

Jon Honeyball is the writer. Now Mr Honeyball is a fount of all things technical and shiny, and his writing often leaves me wishing I could work for him. He's one of a limited number of people i the world who can get seriously excited by a service pack, and he's got the ear of many a Microsoft executive. His knowledge is almost second to none - who knows, it may be first to none, and when he's not writing articles where I can only understand only every fortieth word, I really find his writing interesting.

This article though is bizarre. It's billed as Tom Tom 940T vs iPhone Tom Tom: a real road test.

For a start the article is only 433 words long. Short by anyone's standards. And, as far as I can see, the only real "testing" between the two, where the statements:

"Comparing the maps and routing of the two units was fascinating. The 940T was head and shoulders better than the iPhone, simply by virtue of the live traffic updates" and "quitting the app on the iPhone to do anything else was a pain in the posterior".

The latter statement is odd because he doesn't say the 940T is a PITA because it can only do one job. Balanced? Not very.

The rest of the article is mostly Mr Honeyball saying how he had trouble getting the iPhone into it's mount, then out of it's mount, only to find the mount had "broken" the iPhone because it was designed for an iPod Touch not an iPhone. D'uh?

He concludes that "I'd take the 940T every time". Well who wouldn't if all you wanted was a top of the range sat nav unit - that's assuming you could afford the £300 plus retail price (you can get it cheaper if you shop around), and Mr Honeyball's never short of a bob or two - he's frequently telling readers how he's bought (an expensive) bit of kit, from several terabytes of memory to a top of the range digital SLR on a whim.

Don't get me wrong, I'm really not having a pop at Jon Honeyball. I genuinely respect his work for PC Pro, but this isn't an article that road tests the 940T v the iPhone Tom Tom app, its an article that slags off the iPhone because he fitted in the wrong mount and doesn't do live updates.

By the way, I use CoPilot live on my iPhone :-)

Mobile broadband

Just a quick post as I'm in a Manchester hotel and off out in a mo for some food and "networking" with fellow colleagues (i.e. going for a drink)

I'm hooked up to my O2 mobile broadband on a rock steady HSDPA signal (as you might expect in the centre of out second biggest City (sorry Birmingham).

Tried using it on the coach on the way up - signal was a bit flaky at times, varying between all available options - no signal, GPRS, Edge, 3G and HSDPA. Anyway, the bottom line is it works, and when I'm away from home and need a more oomph and screen real estate than the iPhone can give, £2 for 24 hrs or 500mb connection seems OK.

Happy Days

O2 mobile broadband. The good and the bad

My O2 mobile broadband dongle arrived today, less than 48 hours after I ordered it. Top service O2!

Followed the instructions. Plugged it in, Mac recognised the device, opened the folder to the "mobileconnect" package. Double clicked it to install, and got a flurry of terminal window with the message "The application quit unexpectedly". Bugger.

Tried again. And again. And again....there's a pattern here.

Quick Google suggested there are problems with this particular unit, but that it was solvable. Sorted in the end. Instead of double clicking package, did a right click, "view package contents" and then ran from the ensuing package icon.

After that, up and running in no time.

Bit poor though that it doesn't work as instructed out of the box.

I'm off to Manchester tomorow for a conference, so will look forward to testing it out.

Mobile Broadband

I've just (well a couple of days ago) bought a mobile broadband pay as you go (PAYG) dongle from O2. Not entirely sure why, as I'm not often out and about that much with my laptop, but I guess it will come in handy for when I am, especially given that the prevalence of wireless hotspots isn't too great in the areas I am most likely to use it).

Clearly there was absolutely no point in me getting a monthly payment one, and the PAYG seemed a decent deal. I'm sure you can argue the toss for other network carriers, but I've been pretty impressed with O2 in the 14 months or so since my switch to them from T-Mobile. Hopefully it should be arriving on Monday, so I'll try it out next week, as I'm due to go for an overnighter to Manchester during the week. Will report back on how it goes.

My moment of glory

As I arrived at the match today, I was collared as we were walking round the stadium by a chap who asked me if I'd be prepared to say a few words to camera about the recent goings on at Cardiff City. Never the shy one, I duly obliged, and now you can see me in all my glory on this WalesOnline video-clip. You need to wait for the Holiday on Ice advertisment to complete, and then it's straight into my clip.

It's not me at my most fluent (but I didn't swear!), but it certainly helped having put some thoughts down on this blog over the last couple of days, as it meant I wasn't speaking completely off the cuff. Could have done with a make up girl around too I think.....

Needless to say they've cut a fair bit out (but I expected that), and they spelt my name wrong - it's Hiscocks not Hiscox, a common and easy mistake to make - he didn't ask me to spell it. Sometimes I just wish my family name was "Smith" or "Brown"!

City 2-1 Doncaster: Another Jekyll & Hyde performance

My God Cardiff City know how to give their fans a roller-coaster ride. Not content with all the goings on off the pitch, when it comes to the football, City are either brilliant or crap.

The 6-0 demolition of Bristol City (away) in the week showed their good side. Today, against Doncaster, we showed that brilliance for about 20 minutes - the time it took for Chopra to score his 16th of the season and miss a few more he'd score with his eyes shut on another day. City had already carved Donny open a few times by then, and Chopra's goal was well deserved. To be honest we should have been out of sight by half time after Chopra squandered several further chances and a McCormack header hit the post, and you just knew we'd regret those missed chances.

Sure enough, Donny battled hard and ended the first half behind, but much showing greater control. The second half was all Doncaster. They played the ball to feet, showed width and movement where City were static and profligate with the ball. It was truly awful stuff from us, as bad as the first 10 minutes had been good, and it was only a matter of time before Doncaster punished us - and they did. Woeful defending, a fierce low shot across Marshall 1-1.

From then on it was one way traffic, and the only likely winner would be the visitors. Jones made changes bringing off Burke, and then Rae and the awful Kennedy for Blake, Taiwo and McNaughton, and the ship steadied a bit. McNaughton looked good, and forced a couple of corners, and crosses. Two minutes into the 3 minutes of added time City managed to force a corner, and from the ensuing melee in the box, Bothroyd scrambled home the winner.

To be fair, joyous though I was, it was harsh for Doncaster who had worked so hard after an abysmal start, and had looked the more likely winners from about 30 minutes in.

Who cares though? Three more points to City, and as a bonus, Notts Forest lost for the first time in ages

Blooobirds!

Chelski here we come...

Well, despite all the grim news around Cardiff City at the moment, on a brighter note Mini & I have got our tickets for the 5th round FA Cup tie at Stamford Bridge. Should be a good day out, and we're looking forward to it.

For one reason or another we rarely get to an away game, though hardly ever miss a home game. Reading the CCFC messageboard tonight though it seems a few people have an issue with people who don't usually travel away getting preference for these Chelsea tickets. In fact there are always disgruntled people when we draw a "big" club containing they can't get tickets.

The bottom line as far as I'm concerned is I usually stump up for my season tickets 6 months or so ahead of each season, so any attempt to say I don't deserve to attend any particular match gets right up my nose. And just because I don't can't get to away games regularly, doesn't make me any less of a worthy fan. We attend all the home FA Cup and Carling Cup matches too, on top of our season ticket costs, and being one of only just over 6,000 who turned out to watch the replay against Bristol City last week, and then be there in a crowd of less than 11,000 who watched City beat Leicester 4 days later in the 4th round, does I think signify our commitment as fans.

Oops, this post started out quite positively, but's become more of a rant the further I've got. Sorry.

Up the City.

By the way, we 'll be there against Doncaster tomorrow as well.

Why can't people tell the truth? Lies, damn lies and football club chairmen

Things are looking pretty grim on the financial side of things for many football clubs at the moment.

City are in the pooh, Crystal Palace have gone into administration, Portsmouth are in dire straits, and even Man Utd are over £700 million in debit (yes, you read that right - seven hundred million) if the news is to be believed.

As well as the commonality of the financial plight that all these clubs are facing, is the complete inability of those in positions of seniority within the clubs to tell the damn truth about the state of affairs and why things are as bad as they are.

All that failure does, is lead to speculation amongst the fans and hand rubbing headlines for the media.

Why won't any of these slick (or is that slimy) chairman cum Del boys just stand up and tell it how it is.

I said in a previous post here, if Peter Ridsdale has said, "Look fella's, we're in the poop, buy your season tickets early, we'll pay off the taxman, and there might be a bit left over for players", I'd have paid up, and respected him for his candour.

Having committed to pay out almost £450 (thank God City aren't charging Premier League prices) in December 09 for 20101/11 season tickets, promises of refunds if we're promoted (Ha!) and the money going to players, I find out it's going to the taxman. Pissed off? I surely am.

All this "seeking investment" nonsense is I'm sure hard graft. You don't just stick an ad in the local press saying "Got £40 million - wanna buy a footie club?", but at least don't lead us to believe a deal is done, or almost done, and start spending the money, until it is.

I was all for giving Peter Ridsdale some respect. I thought when he came in on Sam Hamman's bequest it was a very dodgy scenario for the club, but he does did, appear to be turning the club around. But his blatant untruths in the last few weeks have turned all that on it's head, and any respect I had for him is waning fast, and his credibility has hit rick bottom with most City fans.

He can still turn it round I think, but he needs to do it quickly. It's going to be interesting at CCS on Saturday when Doncaster visit. There are already threats - probably more than threats of a big protest.

It's not so much a chant of "where's the money gone", because we've been in doodoo for a while, but it's definitely a shout of "you can't hide your lyin' eyes...."

Heard the one about....

I don't usually do jokes on this site, but my pal Stabber (don't ask) sent me this via text today. It's one of his cleaner, and more PC one's - most wouldn't get past my vetting. It's of particualr mirthiness to Cardiff City fans.

Dave Jones (Cardiff City manager), Sir Alex Ferguson, Rafa Benitez and Arsene Wenger all go out for a pint.

Davie gets the first round in, and then Sir Alex coughs up, followed by Rafa and lastly Arsene. As they're draining their last pint, Dave Jones goes up and gets himself another pint, but doesn't buy one for the other lads.

"Oi", says Sir Alex, "where's our pints?"

Dave Jones looks at him, and says "Well it's the fifth round mate, and you're not in it!"

Boom Boom!

Ford update

No-one from Ford (see a couple of posts ago) rang me back. They've had 36 hours to do so. Rang them again today. "Ray's on the phone" I'll get him to phone you back".

He didn't. Getting a bit pissed off by this now.

Apple iPad

So this is what all the hype was about. Everyone else in the world is having their say, so here's mine.

It looks very much like an oversize iPod. Apple call it their third device - something that presumably fits between iPhone/iPod Touch and Macbook/Pro laptops. It certainly didn't blow me away in terms of looks and specs, and many have commented that it's incomplete because it'll be running OS3.2, not an OS4.0 - presumably that will come in time.....I don't think there's anything staggering here in terms of new ides, so it's a little bit of a let down on that front, given the "Wow" that the original iPhone generated.

I can't really get excited by this - yet. My mobile technological need are comfortably met by my iPhone and Macbook Pro. A tablet device would be too big for when I don't need a laptop, and too small for when I do.

The most obvious use, and one which Apple are clearly pushing is it's potential as an e-book reader. Priced where it is, it surely has the Kindle in it's sights. But I'm not an e-book fan, so no point in me getting one for that.

Murray over at Palm-Mac does have a good point though, in that sooner or later you'll be able to watch TV on it, and as a mobile TV device you can pick it up, wander into the conservatory to watch the footie. But you can do it on a laptop too....or if you have a TV in the conservatory anyway.

Hard work

Some times things are harder than they should be.

Before Christmas I took my 3 yr old Mondeo to the local Ford dealer because the car is pulling slightly (sometimes more than slightly) to the left and the steering wheel wasn't centred. When I rang to arrange the appointment, I was grilled to the nth degree about whether I was holding the steering wheel centred which was causing the car to move left. No, it's because it's going left AND the steering wheel isn't centred.

To cut a long story short, took the car in, service couldn't find anything wrong (they don't test drive them these days) and sent it to the bodyshop, where they put it on an Optiflex machine that basically checks the whole alignment of the car. They found some things were out and fixed them (or so they told me when I picked the car up - they hadn't offered to tell me what they'd one).

As I drove away I got the feeling that although the steering wheel was more or less centred, the car was still pulling left. I've been so busy since then haven't had chance to do anything about it, and lately, I'm sure the steering wheel is out even more. If I do hold it exactly centred, I go right, and if I hold it so the car's driving straight it's about 10-20 degrees off horizontal, and the car definitely pulls left. If I let go of the steering wheel (I know, I know, not when there's other cars about), I sometimes go left severely enough to warrant the indicators going on.

Rang again today where I got the third degree again, got bounced to bodyshop very quickly, no-one available, promised a ring back that never materialised. Customer Service - not here matey. Very disappointed as they're usually spot on here.

And yes, before you ask, tracking has been checked - about 3 separate times.

I don't want to be questioned as if I'm some sort of moron. There's something wrong with the bloody car. All they have to do is drive it a hundred yards and they'd see. All I want is to book it in and have someone look at it and preferably fix it. Not much to ask is it?

City fill their boots: Bristol City 0-6 City: Are you watching Chelsea?

This was the third consecutive Tuesday these two sides had met, the previous two occasions being the FA Cup 3rd round and the subsequent replay. Both had proved tight games, 1-1 and City snatching a 1-0 win in the replay.

For the first 18 minutes tonight it looked like following a similar pattern, but Peter Whittingham's scrambled goal on 19 minutes started a rout of the home side, with the last goal, the sixth, coming as early as the 57th minute, before Bristol, shut up shop and concentrated on damage limitation.

Whittingham's opener was followed by McCormack on 23 minutes and Chopra on 24 before an own goal just before half time made it 0-4 at the break. Any other side would reckon "job done", but only a month ago, City squandered a four goal lead at Peterborough, and I bet Dave Jones was reminding the team of that in the dressing room over a orange.

There was to be no repeat. Within a minute City had made it five with Chopra's second of the night, and 12 minutes later McCormack bagged his second to complete the scoring.

This was a comprehensive victory, over a half decent side (though not tonight) and shows what City are capable of if they put their mind to it.

I only hope it doesn't bring a rash of offers for some of the highest scoring players in the division before the January transfer window clangs shut.

Blooobirds!!!!

Wireless woes

My daughter's nagging finally got the better of me over the weekend, and I relented and agreed to move our second, older desktop from the "study" into her bedroom. This leaves the newer desktop for me/my son, though it's mostly him as I spend most of my time on the Macbook Pro now.

So between us we undid all the connections and took it into her bedroom and set it up again, only for me to realise it had been hooked directly to the router via a cable and I didn't have a wireless card/adapter around. Ah, should have seen her little face when she realised she'd have to wait a day until she could hook up to MSN Messenger and all her chums again....even though she'd see them all at school today! (she's 13 this year by the way).

So today I popped into PC World on my way home and bought a Belkin N150 Enhanced Wireless USB Network Adapter (model F6D4050). The box didn't mention Win 7 compatibility (in fact none of the various makes/models did), so assuming everything would work (why sell kit that wouldn't eh?) I stumped up the cash.

When I tried to install it however, it refused point blank to play citing an error message about a missing *.msi file path. I hunted the install CD, and Belkin's support site to no avail, and even downloaded the latest drivers (which I think are the same as those on the install CD. Google suggested very quickly that Win 7 was a bit of an issue unless you installed in XP compatibility mode - not available on my version of Win 7. Somewhat miffed I returned post haste to PCW (which is rather conveniently or dangerously depending on your point of view, only about 5 mins away in the car). Despite my protestations that I knew what I was talking about the chap frowned, muttered and said he's be back in a minute -actually it was nearer 10. He said he'd found a forum where someone had built their own Windows 7 driver (I kid you not) for this device. I suggested to him that that's not really what I should have to do. To be fair though, he went and got all the other flavours of USB wireless adapters and did a quick search and came back to tell me that two of them had Win 7 drivers available as downloads from the manufacturer support site, and the other one from a support forum.

In the end I took the Linksys Rangeplus WUSB100, one he said needed a download from the Linksys site, and which cost £4 more than the Belkin (and looked smarter too - D'oh).

Once I got home, I just installed the thing from CD - first time. No download necessary. Up and running in 2 minutes. Good on you Linksys.

I've had some problems with Belkin kit before, so I think I'll steer clear of it for good now.

One final moan. Why do you need a box the size of a small house to sell what in effect is a thumb size wireless adapter with 1 CD and a couple of bits of paper is beyond me.

TUAW: iPhone 4.0 wants

The Unofficial Apple Weblog or TUAW as it's better known, has recently been publishing a series of open letters to Apple, outlining what users want to see in the next gen iPhone, both at hardware and software levels. This 3rd and final letter in the series concentrates on the iPhones built in apps, and how we users think they need to be improved.
There's nothing much in here to argue about, and plenty to wholeheartedly agree with, including for instance a unified in-box in Mail, or the clock app dynamically showing the time in the same way the calendar app shows the date.

It would be great to think Apple (or any other developer) take notice of these open letters from users, but I'm not sure they do. Anway, we'll just have to wait and see. First ideas might come this week when Apple are supposedly letting everyone know what's coming, with the most hyped thing being the Apply tablet/slate/pad - call it what you will.

Me, I'd settle for all the stuff in the letter in a 4th Gen iPhone, so I can upgrade asap - my contract's up in May and new iPhones have a habit of launching around July....

Blog analytics. Thanks for your custom!

I analyse (only very occasionally) my blog visits using Google analytics. For some bizarre reason, they recently stopped working. A quick flip through the Google Analytics FAQ suggested that a newer version of the analytics code should be being used. I can't rmember being advised of this, so how I was supposed to know is beyond me.

Anyway, they give you instructions to check whether you're running the old or new code, which is basically view the page source code (!). I did so and found that in fact for some reason I was running neither! I can't remember changing or deleting the code, but a while before Christma I changed the theme template, so whether this buggered everything up I'm not sure.

So having found that out I added the new code, and in one day my stats have rocketed +1,600% I'm not quite sure how that figure's arrived at, because in real terms it looks like about 20 people have visited. I've never had that many viewers, apart from my regulars (thanks - you know who you are), but hopefully things will start to pick up.

I never set out with this blog to inform the world, but more keep it as a record of stuff that happens, and see what occurs along the way.

Keep it going, and spread the word!

Thanks for reading

City to take on Chelsea in FA Cup

In the FA Cup, if you're not in the Premier League you want one of three things in a draw.

1. An "easy" tie to progress to the next round (if there's such a thing as an easy tie these days), and preferably
2. A home tie, or failing that,
3. One of the "Big" clubs

Well today, we didn't get 1 or 2, but we did get 3, with a tasty away tie at Stamford Bridge in the fifth round. They don't get any bigger than this, and it's going to be a hell of a day out. Me & Mini will endeavour to get tickets, but it's not yet clear how they'll be allocated.

As an "Ambassador" Season Ticket holder, that is someone foolish enough to pay for season tickets about 6 months in adavance, I should be in with a shout, but City have sold over 14,000 season tickets this year. The other thing in our favour based on the way it's worked historically, is that we attended both the 3rd round replay and yesterday's 4th round win over Leicester. Whether that means anything in the long run, who knows, but here's hoping.

C'mon you Blooobirds!

Will City ever sort their financial problems?

Businessman Ben Steele, a property developer allegedly interested in taking over Cardiff City was supposedly at today's game. Whether it's all rumours or not is hard to say, and there also stories about whether he's really got the necessary money. City are clearly in need of some significant investment, and soon, with another hearing in court over unpaid taxes due in a week or so. Another thing for us City ans to sweat over, but we've been sweating for a long time now.

Wobbly, but Wembley still possible: City 4-2 Leicester

Cardiff City know how to make a supporter suffer.
In the first 15 minutes City played open expansive football and carved Leicester open on two or three occasions. On 17 minutes, a long balled wide was chased down by Chopra who belted a pinpoint cross over for Jay Bothroyd to head home from 6 yards.

City then did what they always do when they get a lead. The stopped playing football, and reverted to hoofing the ball upfield, making sloppy mistakes and inevitably Leicester started playing the better football, and scored a goal from a needless free kick when Morrison, unmarked headed home Just before the half, they made it 2-1 when sloppy defending and indecision from the keeper allowed N'Guessan to prod home.

Dave Jones needed to slap a few people at half time, and perhaps he did. City came out in the second half looking the more likely, though the Foxes were sharp on the break, It looked like 2-1 was going to be good enough for the opposition but Burke's introduction on 61 minutes sparked City, and 10 minutes later Whittingham unexpectedly curled a free kick straight in from wide out to level the scores with 20 mins left. It never looked like this was going to end in a draw, although as we entered 4 minutes of added time, the replay was beginning to loom. But for once, City scored rather than conceded in injury time. Not once, but twice through Burke (92m) and McCormack (94m) to send the Bluebirds faithful into delirium and tomorrow's fifth round draw.

So a win, but hardly convincing, and Leicester may rightly feel hard done by today. They are moaning about a penalty shout but from where I was sat, the player fell over or dived - it certainly wasn't a penalty.

But let's not worry too much? Or should we? There are some significant issues for an old git like me to worry about as a "fan manager".

Mark Kennedy (left back) seems incapable of playing any other ball than a chipped/floated ball forward - Play it on the ground man!

The midfield is generally non-existent. How Leicester (and every other team we've played) haven't scored more goals through the middle this season is beyond me.

Hudosn and Gerrard at centre back lose too many 50-50 balls in the air for my liking, and Marshall, though palpably the best 'keeper we've had for a few years is still too hesistant at times.

But, I can't be too unhappy tonight after City showed some guts in the second half. We're in the last 16 now. Surely it couldn't happen again - could it?

Up the Bluebirds!

Avatar

Mini Stats and I have just got back from seeing Avatar. Girls are away for the night so we had a boys night out!

It's a superb film, I was very impressed on a number of fronts. I'd heard a bit about it, seen snatches of a trailer, but didn't really have a grip on the story before I saw it, which is nice.

It's a bit of everything really - good (Na'vi) v evil (humans - well most of them), technology v simplicity, greed (humans again) v sanctity of life, money (humans....) v nature....you get the picture (sic).

The CGI is (generally) hellishly impressive although the "tree of rope lights" was a bit naff (IMHO), and whilst most of the time the 3D (yes we all wear sunglasses all the way through) isn't at cartoon "in your face" level, it's subtle enough to make a big difference to the viewing experience.

It's a long film too at 162 minutes, but whilst it feels long, it doesn't feel overly lengthy.

Anyhow, we both thoroughly enjoyed it, and if you haven't seen it yet I recommend you do. Just make sure you don't drink too much, and have a wee before you go in.

iNews for iPhone updated

My current favourite iPhone RSS reader iNews, has just been updated.

iNews 2.1.3 offers the ability to scale images to fit screen width in summary view and fixed a few bugs.

Nothing significant, but I guess it improves an already decent RSS newsreader for the iPhone.

Bloody spammers

Not had many comments on the blog of late - not sure anyone's actually rading the darned thing according to my analytics, but I have been getting some spam comments. Loads of posts with chinese type characters in. A right PITA. I've deleted them, but if they persist I might disable comments for a while - and see if I can complain to Google.Blogger and get the perpetrator banned/suspended but I don't hold out much hope there. For the moment I'm going to enable comment moderation so every comment comes to me for approval before it gets posted- Sorry.

We're on our way to Wembley! City 1-0 Bristol City

Ah, the magic of the FA Cup. After last week's snowy 1-1 draw, we met the Wurzels on our own patch for the replay in front of a paltry 6,000 crowd.

It was a strange atmosphere, on this, the 2nd of three consecutive Tuesday night matches against the same opposition, in one of those flukes of fixtures and FA Cup draws.

After Jay Bothroyd had gone on record in the local rag saying effectively we didn't care about the Cup, and that the League match against Bristol next Tuesday was far more important, manager Dave Jones showed some good managerial guile in making Bothroyd skipper for the night!

City had much the better chances, bet never really had that final cutting edge, and many thought we'd be heading for extra time and the excitement of a penalty shoot out, before Chopra, exquisitely set free slid the ball past the keeper, only to see it rebound off the post, straight onto a Bristol City defender and into the net. Frankly, at the moment we'll take them any way they come!

For once in a blue moon, City managed to hold onto the lead, even through 4 minutes of added time.

Next up, Leicester in the 4th round on Saturday. We're on our way to Wembley, our knees have gone all trembley, la, la, la, la.......la, la, la, la

Cloud computing - Google's ever increasing dominance

A lot of people who write on the sites and blogs I frequent use and swear by Googlemail, and Google in general - Google Calendar, Google Contacts , Google Apps and so forth.

It always seems such a clean and neat idea to have everything in one place under one "brand", and I frequently think I should migrate all my email and PIM type activity to the monster that is Google, but I haven't yet done so.

I do have a Googlemail address, although my primary email address is on a long standing Pipex account (which incidentally I've been threatening to leave for years). I've slowly been advising some of my contacts of my gmail address and changing contact details on the multitude of websites I've registered with over the years, and sooner or later, my gmail address will become my primary address.

However, I'm less inclined to migrate my contacts and calendar. I used to use Outlook on my home PC (an old XP version), which was adequate rather than great. OK it was horrible.
Since buying a Macbook Pro, I signed up to Mobile Me, and now all my contacts and calendars are managed via my MBP or iPhone, syncing seamlessly via Mobile Me. OK, it's costing me, but it's a price I'm currently prepared to pay. There's the bonus of 10G of iDisk space too.

Additionally I have an irrational thought that storing my 250+ contacts on Google's servers isn't very good for data protection, but conversely seem to ignore the fact I'm happy enough having them sitting on Apple's Mobile Me servers!

My calendar and contacts needs are pretty comfortably met by the iCal and Contacts apps on the MBP (I don't use the Windows PC for this at all now), and being an iPhone user everything "just works" pretty much flawlessly, which after some of the issues I had with my Palm devices with duplicate entries, disappearing entries etc (not often, but enough to be irritating), I'm just happy to see the iPhone and MBP work like they're joined at the hip (which I suppose they are).

So, email aside, I have no real need to move Contacts/Calendars to Google currently. But the worm is slowly turning. Email is going slowly that way. One of the two websites, the cricket one I run is now hosted on Google Sites (www.dinaspowyscc.co.uk), and the other (www.chepstowmvc.co.uk) will be going that way this year, and of course this very blog is now part of the Google empire. For the moment though, Apple hold sway in calendar and contact management.

Steady: Scunthorpe 1-1 City

It's a long way to Scunthorpe on a dull, wet and cold day, and not much to look at when you get there (I went once) - so I'm glad I didn't go.

City and the inevitable travelling faithful did though, but were behind after 11 minutes.

Scunnie seemed to have the better of the opening period, and City came out with more intent after the break. Eventually, City were rewarded when a Peter Whittingham shot deflected past the keeper, but we don't care, we'll take anything.

After conceding a load of late goals recently, things must have been tense in the last few minutes, and Scunthorpe had shouts for a late penalty turned down.

So a battling point gained, rather than two lost, but City must start picking up the pace again if they're to be serious play off/promotion contenders come the end of the season.

Canon Pixma MP560 Update

As you'll know if you visit here regularly, I recently purchased this printer to replace my ageing HP Deskjet 940c, and my initial impressions were very positive.

Well I've had the device a week now, and I have to say it's been an absolute revelation to me. I'm struggling to find any fault whatsoever with it. If I had to be really picky, I'd say the draft or "Fast" mode text isn't quite as sharp as I'd like, but hey, it's draft, and for a lot of what I do, that's good enough - especially if it means using less ink. That's not to say fast mode isn't perfectly serviceable unless your printing something where you want high quality, deep, sharp blacks. It'll more than do for my cricket committee documents etc.

Having duplex printing is a revelation. So neat, and think of the paper I'm saving!

Photographic printing is near flawless on the sample Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy II. It's a long time since I had any proper "camera film" developed anywhere, but I have to say the results from the MP560 on Canon photo paper are flawless as far as I can see. I'm truly gobsmacked by the quality, and may well end up printing more photos than I ever did with the Deskjet. Having said that, I've got some HP photo paper to use up, so it'll be interetsing to see if it's as good on it's rivals consumables.

One of the main reasons I wanted to change my printer was my Macbook Pro with Snow Leopard didn't support the HP unit. No such problem with the MP560. Connection is fine, drivers settings are all there, and performance is great whether printing from the MBP or either of my Windows 7 desktops.

Wireless performance is great too. The unit is sitting on the desk adjacent to the two Windows 7 desktops, so hardly a burden for wireless printing, but I've printed from downstairs (we've a fairly big house) on the MBP with absolutely no problems. Could put the printer in the spare room I suppose if I wanted more desktop space.

The scanning is equally good. The provided scanner driver provides plenty of fucntionality and settings to do what you want, including saving to PDF and having a "My Box" function to manage all your scanned images should you so wish. No problems on that front so far.

There's no OCR software provides, but I've got a copy of Omnipage Pro 14 lying about somewhere, but I haven't bothered to install it it. PDF's are what I want to create in the main.

So, all in all, I'm a very happy bunny, and thoroughly chuffed with my new all in one. I was originally looking at the MP640, which is A Listed on PC Pro's web site (always a decent recommendation). As far as I can see, the only real benefit it offers over the MP560 is CD/DVD printing, but as it would have cost me about £60 more, and I can't remember the last time I wanted to print a CD/DVD label, I think I've saved myself the money and got everything I needed anyway.

Musical stuff

I've got a fairly eclectic taste in music. I like all sorts of stuff, but I especially like stuff with guitars, with good thumping riffs. Possibly because I play one (not very well). In fact I've got 3 guitars - one electric, a Yamaha Pacifica if you're interested, and two acoustic - neither well known makes - in fact I've had the oldest about 27 years, and it came from a mail order catalogue my dear old Mum had, but that's another story.

Back to the point of this post. There are some tracks that crop up now and again, and really hit you, like a blast from the past. I recently heard Boz Scaggs' Lido Shuffle on the radio, a song I liked way back when (1976 I think), and I vowed to dig it out on iTunes or Amazon. Typically, I forgot all about it, until tonight, but after a quick shufti on iTunes with it's new hear a clip function, decided to download the version from Boz's Greatest Hits Live album. I think this track is brilliant. Much newer than the original, but I think it's a better track all round, because of the throbbing baseline and reverb rhythm that wasn't on the "poppy" original. I never much liked any of his other stuff, this was almost a one off.

There are a few other tracks I've variously heard recently which have prompted me to go and purchase the whole album, and largely I haven't been disappointed. Specifically:

• Muse: The Resistance. Despite their massive popularity, I can't say I'd heard much Muse stuff before their Christmas ToTP appearance, when "Uprising" made me sit up and pronounce it the best song I'd heard in years, go straight upstairs and download the album (most of which is pretty decent) and Uprising has already become one of my all time favourites.
• Midnight Oil: Remember them. Doubty rockers from Oz, much of whose music supports the rights and trials of the indigenous population, and their Diesel and Dust track Beds are Burning has one of the best in your face base lines ever.
• The Hooters: Another band from way back, and again one I'd never really heard much of. Driving home from work one night Chris Evans players "Satellite" and it was another of those, walk through the door and download the superb "One Way Home" album before doing anything else.
• The Nolans: Only joking.......

As I said, my tastes are varied - I've got everything from Les Miserables to Sandy Denny, Kate Bush , Jimmy Nail, Clapton, Billy Joel, the Beatles, Seasick Steve, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Blondie, Squeeze and more besides on my iPhone. No Nolans though.

Vale of Glamorgan Council 2: Twitter

Having slagged off the VOGC in my previous post, I've got to hand it to them that their Twitter feed is great.

They're right on the ball in tweeting that the refuse won't be collected, nor will the recycling, because of the bad weather, and only some roads will be gritted, and the schools are closed.