August 25th, 2010 § 0
It happened again…
[14:14] <earthman> my guitar teacher added me on facebook
[14:15] <nick> you have a teacher?
[14:15] <earthman> nick: I did when I was 15
[14:15] <nick> I thought you just burst out of a granite cocoon, guitar in hand?
[14:15] <earthman> LOLZ
–c.
PS. The guitar teacher in question is Mick Hutchinson, who is still awesome. He taught me for 18 months when I first started in December 1988, and without him I would not be the player I am now.
August 18th, 2010 § 0
Remember this…?
Jack Johnson - In Between Dreams
If you like acoustic-y singer-songwriter-y stuff, then odds are you like Jack Johnson. If you don’t, feel free to skip ahead to #49 where there is rawk and stuff. This is still one of the favoured “Sunny afternoon chillout” albums at Murray Mansions, and has been since it came out. It’s my belief (though I haven’t checked it) that Johnson was, like David Gray before him, churning away for ages before one particular major release catapulted him up the charts, at least in this country. Certainly it was this, his third release, that brought him to my attention, and it immediately became part of the soundtrack to Summer 2005 with classics like “Sitting, Waiting, Wishing”, “Better Together” and “Staple It Together”. Always puts a smile on the dial. 
TOP TRACK: #7 “Staple It Together”.
August 4th, 2010 § 1
From the time when I first heard of it, I loved the idea of the Das Keyboard. In fact, I see now that they have a few different models, but in the day they just did the one, and it matches the “Model S Ultimate” model that they do now, in that all the keys were blank. This seemed like such a cool idea that myself and my programming buddies were reaching for our credit cards, until we saw the price – something in the region of 80 quid for a normal keyboard, which they haven’t bothered to label up. I’m sure it’s a very nice keyboard, and all that, but it really felt like being ripped off for a gimmick. I note now that the price is $129, which Teh Google tells me is £80, so they haven’t gone down any in the last 5 years.
Anyway, today I noticed a really cool thing on The Awesomer – The Blank Wall Clock. A wall clock that has no numbers on it, but a writeable surface and it comes with a dry-wipe pen. Price? $155, or £97.
Fuck that right off, and come back when it’s £40. I might think about buying one then.
–c.
July 22nd, 2010 § 0
…quite. No posts (real ones) since April. I know.
Are you married? Do you know how much preparation goes into a church wedding with full reception afterwards? It’s a lot. And following that there was the honeymoon, and now of course I am back at work and life is returning gradually to normal, and I suddenly don’t have to spend every waking second thinking about the wedding.
So I’m using it to work on music for my second album. Yes, that’s right, a second Clive Murray album is slowly forming in the 1s and 0s of my hard drive. I don’t know exactly when it will be complete, or exactly how I am going to go about turning it into a real object for people to enjoy, but it will definitely happen at some stage, so stay (loosely) tuned.
I am aware that I only got halfway through my countdown of my top 100 albums of 2000-2009, and this will be resumed shortly.
And finally, through a chance occurrence on Twitter, this afternoon I played Dave Gorman at table-tennis. I won 21-17, and he is a thoroughly nice chap, as you might expect if you know his work or listen to his radio show. Thanks for that Dave, if you fancy a rematch at darts, I’m happy to accept that challenge, though I appreciate you’re busy and I won’t hold my breath.
Cheers all, and thanks for waiting,
–c.
June 20th, 2010 § 1
Yes I know.
I’m a bit busy what with getting married and all that.
Yes, married. 36 hours from now, in fact.
Yes. Really.
–c.
June 1st, 2010 § 0
This shit has gone on far too long enough by half.
Please can it be arranged that I spend the majority of my days playing guitar, writing music and drinking coffee? I mean… really?
Thanks, much appreciated,
Clive.
April 26th, 2010 § 0
A while ago I decided that the Jet Set Willy theme tune would make a cool iPhone ringtone.
This weekend I made it. Download it if you like.
–c.
April 15th, 2010 § 1
I have an iPhone.
Firstly, let’s get the obvious crap out of the way:
OK? Still here? Then let us continue.
I’ve had my iPhone 3G (8GB) for just over 17 months now, and my contract is an 18-month one, so O2 have been urging me to upgrade to the shiny new iPhone 3GS, which is something I want to do*, so I popped into the local O2 store to talk turkey, and more relevantly, money – specifically focussing on contract lengths and handset costs.
I got my iPhone on an 18 month contract at £35/mo, and the handset cost me £99 at the time. Total money handed to O2: £729. Not inconsiderable, n’est ce pas? Now, if I was just any old Joe off the street wanting an iPhone 3GS (16GB, for that is the smallest size of the new model), and wanted to keep the monthly cost down around £40, these would be my options:
Those are basically the two plans I would be interested in. They both come with the standard O2 unlimited mobile data, unlimited texts, and enough minutes for me not to have to worry about it (the £30/mo plan only has 100mins whereas these two have 300 and 600 respectively).
OK, so either of those sound about doable. But! Hey, those prices are for any old bloke who wants a new iPhone – what about me? I’ve been a loyal customer for the last 17 months, never missed a payment, never caused O2 any trouble except for the minor inconvenience of having to count the money I hand over to them on a monthly basis. Surely they’ll waive the handset fee? Surely. I’d even go to the £40/mo plan, which would mean I’m still worth £720 to them over the next 18 months – it’s not like I’m asking for the moon here. I’m asking for an £89 handset charge to be knocked off in recognition of the fact that I’ve already handed over £700+ without so much as a quibble.
Nope. Not a bit of it. They don’t want to know. It’s full bloody price, or don’t bother. Been with us a year-and-a-half have you sir? Well that’s nice, but it doesn’t count for squat. Excuse me sir, there are clamouring hordes of customers behind you all queuing up to pay full price. Don’t let the door hit you on the arse on the way out.**
Screw them. Orange’s prices are almost identical, and they have far better data coverage***.
O2 – you are the weakest link. Goodbye.
–c.
* Please, honestly, leave it. Any comments along the lines of “You should get an HTC! They piss all over the iPhone you stupid fanboy!” will be left here for all to see just how boring you really are.
** No, of course he didn’t actually say that, but that was the inference.
*** Yes they cap 3G usage, but 750MB/mo is included and I’ve never been anywhere near that.