A Fine Ale

Meet London Pride, a favourite Ale of mine. I discovered this fine ale whilst working in the UK on a film out at Shepperton. I started this film in September 02 and my boss Dennis and I would take a pleasant drive in his trusty Milano and have spot of lunch at some of the fine pubs by the western end of the Thames. This was the first time I tried London Pride, and I was hooked. The one pictured was bought here in Australia for an extreme price per 500ml (around the same price it would have cost in a London pub). I got this at Dan Murphys. If you see it, try one. Very enjoyable on mild English summer/spring days, around lunchtime. The one pictured was consumed, along with a few of it's brothers and sisters, on Friday night. Cheers!

Random Travel Photos 1: Moscow Metros

Here's some photos from various Moscow Metro stations that I took in June 2002, while visiting my friend and roving travel reporter James Jeffrey. Many of the metro stations in Moscow (and St. Petersberg) are incredible works of art, designed to show the superiority of Soviet communism. I think the construction of these mass transit systems started in the mid-1930's and was one of the first great infrastructure projects of the Soviet era. Many of these stations were replete with mosaics, paintings, ornate columns, space aged designs straight out of Dr Who or Star Wars and many other varieties. Also these Metro stations were usually deep underground, so to get in or out of them you had to ride a long steep escalator for what seems like ages. The more elaborate stations seemed to be on the inner city lines as the ones further out became increasingly drab, probably because they were built much later.

More travel snaps and stories later.

They did

Yep, they're here. Not much of an update in many ways but still a much better deal than if I'd bought one a couple of weeks ago. The new Powerbook has a higher res screen, more graphics memory, better battery and a $500 price drop. Not bad. And there's a build to order option for a 7200rpm drive, which is great for audio related work. So a new mac will be heading my way soon. Powerbooks are a serious investment. Not cheap (a G5 iMac or a G5 Powermac would cost less), but portability has been great for me in the last 4 years and this old Mac is just not up to the newer apps too well. It's going to hang on though as it can be used as a processor node for Logic Pro, and still boots OS9. Of course for anything but producing music or doing sound editing and all that its fine, so this old TiBook will be thrashed until it dies. Not bad for a four year old computer that has been around the world about 5 times.

Will they or won't they?

Well this week Apple users are waiting with baited breath to see if Apple will finally drop some G5 and Powerbook updates. I'm personally dying for a new Powerbook, and the suspense is killing me. Wednesday is the day in NYC for the next in a series of Apple "Special events". There are all sorts of rumors flying around about what configurations the new Powerbook will have, and even if there will be one. Here's hoping.

Jeffs Blog

For those interested in Electronic music, and more specifically Detroit Techno, check out Jeff Mills blog.

Jeff is experimenting with mixing films/visuals now, using some old Jospehine Baker clips and Buster Keaton movies. Interesting. He's also playing in Japan right now.

I recently bought Jeffs DVD The Exhibitionist which was pretty interesting to watch, as it showed Jeffs DJ techniques and shared some his views and expriences in the field of electronic dance music.

Beer O'Clock

Well on my days off, I like to have a brew about now (6pm or so) and todays beer of choice is a fine glass of Holsten Premium, the beer formerly known as Holsten Pilsener from Hamburg, Germany. I started drinking this beer last time I was working in London, round about this time last year, when I discovered it at the local off license on Wandsworth Bridge Road. It was only a quid a tin but turned out to be a great find. This current one came from Dan Murphy's where they have a great deal of a case for $40 which is a real bargain for a pilsener of this quality.

Cheers!

What I'm reading

Just started reading Dogs and Demons: Tales from the dark side of Japan (2001) by Alex Kerr. I read Alex Kerr's first book on Japan called Lost Japan (1996), which was very interesting, quite an insight in to Japanese culture. His second book concerns the decline of Japan in the 1990s and details Japan's loss of culture and direction and the devastation being done to Japan's once stunning beauty. Going to be a serious one I think. I've never been to Japan, and would like to visit, but the picture he paints of the situation the Japanese have created for themselves does not sound good at all.

Cricket Update

Well 25 mins have gone by since my last post and so have 2 wickets. Lara and Dravid are gone. Lara looked like he was just getting moving after a six and a few fours... is this series worth it? The ashes was gripping. This is more like a butt kicking.

Cricket World XI

I have a free day today and have made the mistake of turning on the cricket, Australia vs the World XI first test, fourth day, World XI second innings, Lara and Dravid at the crease. Score 2/48. This tour by the World XI has been pretty poor so far. The World XI were completely cleaned up by Australia in the One Day Series last week. Hopefully they can get it together in this test series.

As a side note, I'm sitting here watching the cricket, which is here in Sydney, and there's no one in the crowd at the Sydney Cricket Ground. I guess if I could predict when I'm going to get a day off I could get myself along. In fact maybe I should just go there now! Nah, too much stuff at home to do. And a great way to relax in Australia is just to have the cricket purring away in the background.

About Me

I'm a Sydney based Audio Post guy, which means I edit, record and/or mix soundtracks for film and TV. This is pretty wide ranging field, which I'm sure I'll write about as time goes on. I also play synths and keys writing my own music and performing and songwriting with sydney band Albert The Good. www.albertthegood.com. I've travelled quite a bit, while living in London for a few years (I was born in the UK, in Blackburn, unbelievably... no trace of Lancashire accent left) and keep an interest in goings on in the world. I'm engaged to a woman of Italian hertiage, called Marie, and we're in the first stages of planning our wedding. I live in an Italian district of Sydney called Leichhardt. It's also the lesbian area. I don't get it either. It's a cool little cosmopolitan part of town with a simple laid back village atmosphere, without some of the pretentiousness of some of other similar areas of Sydney (IMHO, of course I could be just as pretentious as those I feel are pretentious... you never know....). In any case it suits me for now. That's a bit of a quick profile... of course keep reading and you WILL learn more....
PS. This blog is being written from an old Mac Powerbook on OSX.

Starting gun

This is my first post in this blog. I hope to keep it updated with whatever's going on, so lets see how we go

Leon