The Phoenix Lander has made it. 7 minutes of terror during entry, descent and landing have been survived, thanks to some brillant engineering. Sitting pretty on Mars’ polar region, it will now look for water and carbon.
I for one welcome my martian single cell overlords.
Picture courtesy of Nasa.gov
The resident guest critic will today feature for the first time on ‘Messaged from the Outhouse’. C from D near M is an avid reader of this blog and wanted to share his views on that most important of TV dates in the European calendar.
Take it away, C:
“I just watched 3 hours and 16 minutes of Eurovision song contest 2008 in Belgrade (no, the contest took place there, I sat on my sofa in D and used the BBC iplayer). My only excuse is that it has been pouring down with rain all day and that I did all my gardening yesterday. So there.
I cannot begin to tell you how glad I am not to have gone to any Eurovision house party. Being quite partial to the Germans, I would have had to kill myself. Germany’s “No Angels” were worse than bad: their song (the title of which I cannot remember) was lame, the costumes were utterly crap and tasteless (even compared to the tiny glitzy Swedish, Ukrainian, Greece and Armenian numbers), and one of the four women sang constantly out of tune! They should have done the honest thing and give their miserly 14 points to the UK, who deserved better but ended up with the same result. Germany, UK and Poland (blond bombshell with crap song, good enough voice but horsy teeth) came last, although Andy Abraham’s song was quite funky and well performed (with crap lyrics).
Best voice of the show (and that’s what Eurovision is still about in my humble opinion): Boaz Mauda from Israel (The Fire In Your Eyes). He’s got an amazingly clear and beautiful voice of a mature women inside a short male muscular teenage body. Maybe he would have won if he had shaved his armpits, if he and his pretty boys-only back up singers had all taken their shirts off during the song and if they did not come from Israel (currently not very popular in international politics, is it). If they’d done all this, I bet they would have got the millions of German gay votes instead of the Russian guy.
P.S.: Just one question to all of you out there: Was I the only one thinking that when the Swedish singer came on they finally allowed aliens at the Eurovision song contest. Terry Wogan (commenting for the BBC, as usual, although maybe for the last time) uttered something along the lines of “a bit terrifying” but didn’t elaborate. I think he meant the eyes, too.”
Day 2 of The Hague Jazz Festival was spent by G and me in the large auditorium called ‘The A Train’. It started with class, panache and African rhythms thanks to the impressive and inspiring performance of Seun Kuti & Egypt 80. After that to my old friends and favourites Matt Bianco, whose gig was unfortunately hampered by terrible soundproblems (which aparently were due to the stage monitors). In the second half things got fortunately better, and ‘Lost in You’, ‘Wap Bam Boogie’ and ‘Cha Cha Cuba’ were highlights on a short setlist.
After an endless pause in which the stage hands apparently continued to grapple with the monitors, Level 42 featuring old war horse Billy Cobham came on stage just to suffer the same problems as Matt Bianco. Feedback continued to be an issue, and Billy was apparently not able to pick up the sequenced tracks from Mike Lindup’s impressive keyboard towers, so he had terrible problems to synchronise himself with the rest of the band, most obvious during ‘Lessons in Love’, when the band actually had to stop playing for Cobham to pick up the beat of the sequencers. Nevertheless, Love Games and Hot Water were fun as ever (although the rest of the set was a bit contrived with some rather unusual material being showcased).
All in all the 2008 Hague Jazz event was brillant. A relaxed, well organised festival with plenty of variety, great music and nice people. Thoroughly recommended.
Last night my friend G and myself arrived after a pleasant and uneventful trip (thanks to Netherlands Railways and KLM) at our hotel in The Hague and ambled over to the first night of The Hague Jazz Festival 2008. An impressive first night, we were able to check out Randy Brecker, Stanley Clarke and Nile Rodgers. The festival, set up in the World Forum Conference Center is immaculately organised, with thousands of happy punters ambling about, having drinkies, eating some lovely food and listening to some amazing music.
You really couldn’t wish for a more friendly party atmosphere, and there was none of the usual vomiting, violence or aggression that you associate with British festivals.
First gig of the evening for us was Randy Brecker: This was held in one of the downstairs rooms of the venue, with about 500 happy, relaxed fans grooving to the delicious funk that was oozing from the stage. Surrounded by four musicians half his age, Brecker guided his troupe through an excellent set filled with some superb solos by himself and his outstanding sax player Ada Rovatti that completey blew me (and the rest of the audience) away. Well done Brecker for featuring such a talent in his lineup, especially as her presence and her soli were so much more impressive than his.
Picture courtesy of AdaRovatti.com
Next up was Stan (the man) Clarke. A packed auditorium holding ca 1500 people his gig was both beautiful and boring. When playing with his outstanding band, his music spoke for itself without the need for any technical gimmickery. When he started to get the double bass out and dazzle the audience with his skills, it got quickly boring: while it might be interesting to see a man treating his double bass like rhythm- and melody instrument at the same time, it was quickly obvious that this was more technical showcasing than music. Shame.
Stanley Clarke before he got the double bass out.
Picture courtesy of Haags Uitburo on Flickr.
The last gig on the evening was Nile Rodger’s Chic. That, my friends, was so far the best gig of the year. Great voices, grooves that even made my scottish friend move his feet and outstanding musicianship (I would pay money to see that percussionist again: think the Muppet’s ‘animal’ antics with the looks of Siegfried and Roy) , topped by a collection of amazing songs: Good Times, The Freak, We are Family, I’m going up, Upside Down, I want your love, dance dance dance, my forbidden Lover, etc.
Thanks Niles.
And now on to the second night…
Today marks my eighth visit to London Heathrow’s flagship, the infamous Terminal 5. After my initial problems with this behemoth, I am starting to make my peace with it. I have no other choice, do I? So, here are my preliminary findings on how to make your stay at T5 as comfy as possible.
After the initial disastrous baggage handling, this seemed to have settled down (my bass guitar made it twice safely through T5), but it’s certainly not particularly fast (especially compared to Luton), so just don’t take that many frocks with you and limit yourself to hand luggage. If you have hand luggage, checking in takes literally 30 seconds thanks to the availability of numerous check-in terminals.
Security is thorough. Very thorough. If you forget that tube of toothpaste, a deodorant or some hairspray in your hand luggage, your stuff will inevitably be checked manually, and these guys take their time. You will also have to wait your turn for your mano a mano search. Today’s waiting time for a individual bag check was 30 minutes, so you better make sure that glass of Nutella is either in your checked in luggage or at home.
Gate A7. A nice place in a busy Terminal
There are numerous food outlets (my favourite being Wangamama, for the best mix of value, taste and location) and plenty of places to put your feet up, but if you just want a quiet spot to charge up your laptop and do some quiet blogging away from the masses (of which there are plenty), head to gate A7 with a coffee and a muffin and enjoy excellent views of one of the two runways, virtually empty seats and plenty of sockets to recharge your laptops.
If you fly Business or First, the Executive Club’s South Galleries are excellent spaces just under the roof of the Terminal with a good mix of food and drinks, but you’ll be invariably exposed to some rich American couple next to you who wants to talk to you about their daughter in Arkansas and the bad food and those horrible nude statues in Italy, so Gate A7 is probably quieter.
British Airways’ Executive Club Lounge. Comfy, but there’s the potential of harrassment
In quintessence: Don’t fret too much when going through T5. At present it’s quite comfy, but be afraid of the time when BA transfers all their long distance routes to the Terminal, as the place is going to be bursting with people, and Gate A7 won’t give respite no more.
Messaged from the Outhouse 