What with all the current fuss about test cricket, I thought I would post this short recording of the late great Brian Johnstone and Jonathan Agnew, attempting to sum up a days play between England and The West Indies at The Oval in 1991.
I remember this moment well, as I was driving whilst listening and had to pull over to the side of the road with tears in my eyes.
There will never be another cricket commentator like Brian Johnstone, so enjoy 1 minute and 23 seconds of pure joy.

Johnners and Aggers

I needed some music for a rather melancholic slideshow of pictures of my mother who died a few years ago. I couldn’t find anything suitable, so decided to use GaragBand to come up with something. Any comments about the music good or bad are welcome, either via Twitter or at the email link at the bottom of the page. To hear the music, please click the link below.

Piano Song 1

Last Monday I went out and bought myself a Sony Reader, it’s an electronic book reader I have been thinking of buying for some time. I enjoy reading and this gives me the ability to carry around up to 160 books in it’s internal memory, and well over 1000 books if a memory card is added. So as far as the avid holiday reader is concerned, it will save a fair bit of weight in the suitcase by not having to pack a pile of books to read by the pool. The unit only weighs 260 grammes is 7.6 mm thick and in it’s leather cover, looks exactly like a slim book.

A documentary called “Beer Wars” recently shown in the good ‘ole US of A, makes Americans realise that the beer they are being sold by the big brewers such as “Anheuser-Busch” and the other conglomerates is tasteless fizzy rubbish, only fit for washing your car (my words not theirs) It’s nice to see the small American micro-breweries fighting back, and this film reinforces their message. It may eventually make the big boy’s sit up and think, but they will still try to ride roughshod over the smaller guys with their multi million Dollar ad campaigns. But let’s hope the film hits home and the average Joe starts to realise there is a choice.

This is a brilliant version of “Stand By Me” performed by street musician’s from all over the world and combined into one fantastic video.


"Stand by Me" performed by musicians around the world from SKAT on Vimeo.

Davis Cameron’s son Ivan died during the night aged 6, it doesn’t matter what your political allegiance is, or whether you like or dislike David Cameron, if you are a parent your heart must go out to the Cameron family. I have a 4 year old son, I dont know how I would cope if something ever happened to him.
Click the photo below to go to the BBC web page.

Can you imagine the uproar if a cigarette manufacturer sponsored a children’s TV programme ? The Flintstones first series on ABC Televisionin 1960, was sponsored by Winston cigarettes, thank God cigarette advertising has been banned in the UK. I am fervently anti tobacco of any sort, always have been.

Just been listening to some of the stories of Australian people caught in the horrendous firestorms currently sweeping that continent. Sitting here looking out of the window at a steady downpour its hard to believe what’s happening on the other side of the world, people burning alive in their vehicles and their homes, not able to outrun the flames. It doesn’t look good either as they are forecasting more hot weather and winds to literally fan the flames. Here are some pictures from the BBC, if I ever moan about the rain again, someone slap me.

It really annoys me when I buy a DVD and it doesn’t allow me to get straight to the film, forcing me instead to sit through loads of crap trailers for rubbish films I never have any intention of watching. Earlier this morning my son asked me to put a DVD on for him that not only blocked access to the menu until the trailers had finished but made you sit through a bloody Snickers advert, on a DVD for gods sake!!! So I took the the disc out of the player, slotted it into my Mac, removed the copy protection and produced an advert free disc, job done. We had already paid for the original commercial copy so I see no problem in producing a duplicate for my own use. As long as the companies producing the discs keep putting rubbish on the front end, people will continue to rip and copy, I haven’t got time to sit through 4 or 5 minutes of adverts, life is too short. RANT OVER !

Due to a major problem with my site yesterday and today, I have decided to alter things again, so it now looks the way I originally intended (hopefully)

Welcome to my new look website, there are a few glitches, but bear with me it will be finished soon.

I know Marmite is either loved or hated (I love it), but to take things to this length is a bit ridiculous, watch the video, Oh and Billy Joel also makes an appearance.

Who the hell is Bob May ? I hear you ask, for people of a certain age (me included) he was a regular fixture in my childhood, being the actor that played the robot in the TV series “Lost In Space”, he was 69. See here for details. Not many people seem to realise that although Bob May was inside the costume, the voice of the robot was provided by another actor, Dick Tufeld , who is very much alive.

I did well again this Xmas, among the usual DVD’s, books and socks there was an Eee PC 901 running Linux and a Canon Speedlite 430 EX II for my SLR camera. My wife amongst other things, had a Wii Fit balance board to go with the console we bought for the kids. So with my fantastic willpower ?? and the help of the Wii Fit system I hope I can lose some weight in the next month or two.