Cricalix.Net

Decided to go to the Great Western Festival (in aid of the regional air ambulance) last weekend.  You’d think that having spent an entire weekend there, accumulating several hundred photos to process, I wouldn’t be going back so soon to take even more photos.  Well, I’m not always that logical, and some of the bands playing were pretty darn good the weekend before, and I like good music.

In the week running up to last weekend, I did some frantic processing of the photos from the previous weekend, and shot them off to BonusPrint for a run of 8″x12″ glossys.  This turned out to be problem number one that week - the credit card payment system screwed up, so I had to call them and get things fixed.  What I didn’t realise (because it wasn’t made clear at the time) was that they had to put a hold on the print job indicating that the prints had to go to their office first… I also ran off some business cards using Vista Print, even though I knew they wouldn’t arrive in time for the weekend (they actually arrived yesterday). (more…)

Sunday afternoon saw me returning to the Great Western pub for the Americana / blues bands they were hosting.  This time I carried my green chair with me, as the prospect of spending another 8 hours sitting on the wooden benches at the pub was not very enticing.  Acts included the Dustbowl String Band (featuring (reportedly) the best flatfoot dancer in the UK), Under the Influence, Wes Finch and the Dirty Band, Cindy Archer / The Dolly Rockets, Kel Elliott (complete with brass section), The Tree Horns, The Bellows, Clayton Denwood and the Street Shepherd Group.

The afternoon rocked past, with 300 photos or so ending up on my SD cards - time just flew.  Excellent music, decent hamburgers and plenty of water.  Also ended up chatting to a staff writer from Americana UK who was there to cover the event, and swapped details (and cameras).  Having played with a Canon 30D, I still don’t like it much - it’s an excellent camera, but I just can’t hold it properly, the grip is that fraction too shallow.  The 17 - 35mm lens was nice and fast on the auto-focus though.

Musical highlights for me were Kel Elliott and her band (or was it the Kel Elliott Band?) - the brass section really completes the lineup; Libby Fielding, the dancer in Wes Finch and the Dirty Band - whirling dervish seemed to describe her at points, and I’m sure if you look in a dictionary, you’ll find her as the definition of energetic; and Jack Blackman, a young man (not yet 16) who had blues dripping from his fingers.

The evening wrapped up with a performance by the Street Shepherd Group - flamenco guitar, cajon drum, violin and a percussion instrument I can’t identify.  The pace was slower and quieter than what had preceded for most of the day, but it was a nice way to cool off after a day of shooting, and just relax to some good music.

Picked up a ticket for the GW Fest as well, with the intent of coming back for more good music, and the chance at some more photography.

Having rolled home around 00:45 on Saturday (Oysterband ran long due to encores), I slept in a bit.  Decided to wander over to the Festival around 11:30 A.M., and looked for lunch.  Fortune smiled, and there was a Caribbean food stand offering curried mutton, saltfish fritters, jerk chicken and more.  Enquired after the curried mutton, and was told that it would be about another 30 minutes before it was ready.  At this point, the person who I assume was the main cook came around from the back for whatever reason, and heard me answering that 30 minutes was fine.  What ensued was her jaw dropping because of a Bajan accent (in hiding) coming from white guy, and then a bit of conversation in broad Bajan.  30 minutes later, I had one of the best curries I’ve had in the past year or two (and I’ve had some pretty good curries) - it wasn’t curried goat, but it was still damn good.

My next decision was to head over to the Great Western pub in Warwick for the afternoon, as they were supposed to be hosting a decent number of bands from 13:30 or so.  Well, who tell me do dat without directions?  See, I knew that the pub was near the train station, and therefore, the train station must be near the train line, and I knew where that was.  The only problem with that plan is I didn’t know where the station was, only where the line crossed a main road between Warwick and Leamington.  So, a bit of going ‘Huh, where the heck is it then?’ ensued, with me finally finding someone to ask.  Had I continued up the road for another 100 yards or so, I would have found the pub - life is funny like that.

I had intended to stay at the pub for the afternoon, and then cycle back over to the main Festival grounds in the early evening to catch the rest of the main stage performances, especially Kel Elliott.  Somehow (probably laziness, and good music), I ended up staying at the pub for the entire afternoon and evening, listening to music by acts such as Davey Looth, Lydia and Celestina, Matt Hernandez (who happened to be the organiser, and a decent flamenco guitarist), Shanade, Kristy Gallacher and 1/2 of Jamsons Nook.  I also shot somewhere around 260 photos of the performers - if my usual numbers hold true, 20 - 30 of them will be acceptable, and one or two will be excellent.  150 have made the first cut, but I usually iterate over the photos two or three times, chucking out the obviously bad ones first, then refining the selection until I’m happy.

I rolled back out of the pub around 21:15, and went back to the main Festival ground to find dinner - which turned out to be curried mutton again.  What can I say, I like curried mutton.  I pondered going in to the main tent, but opted to go home instead to catch up on my sleep, and re-charge the batteries for the D80.

It was the Warwick Folk Festival over the weekend just gone, and I decided that I should enjoy summer while it’s here.  Nipped down to the ticket office on Friday afternoon, purchased a ticket for the entire weekend, and then zipped home after work to grab the D80, lenses, flash, and battery packs.  Hopped on my bicycle, and headed over to the Warwick School grounds somewhere around 6 P.M - a nice, easy 3 mile ride, mostly downhill.

Turned out that the main show didn’t start until 8 P.M., so I kicked around a bit, taking a few photos of various stalls and people, growing hungrier by the minute - smart me forgot to stop at a hole in the wall to get some money, and I also forgot to eat dinner before I left.  Once the show started up though, I pretty much forgot that I was hungry, as I was rocking along to the music (if one can rock along to folk music).  Artists for the night were 4Square (a group consisting of 4 young musicians), The Maerlock (a jazz-folk mix), PJ Wright & Dave Pegg (the latter an ex-member of Jethro Tull) and Oysterband ended the show.

Oysterband.  I’ve attended rock concerts before, and I know how manic fans can be.  I never expected to see a folk group get welcomed by screams of adoration.  Except, Oysterband aren’t a folk band, they’re folkrock - a slightly subtle difference.  They’re damn good showmen, and pretty darn good as a band too - the music on their MySpace page is nice, but it doesn’t hold a candle to their live performance.

Managed to wiggle myself into the front of the stage, and shot around 200 photos, all flashless.  Also managed to have a brief conversation with one of the professionals shooting the concert, and got confirmation that all of them were shooting ISO 1600 or higher to avoid flash use.

I’ve been bitten by the ‘how much electricity am I using?’ bug recently - prompted by looking at my 6-monthly statement from my current electricity supplier.  $work happens to have a utilities component to it, so I asked if I could borrow one of our in-the-house whole-house electricity monitors to see if an offer for electricity service made any sense (vs my current supply).

The hookup is fairly easy - insert two batteries into the device, open the meter cabinet outside, and clamp an inductance sensor around the live tail going to the consumer unit.  Then power up the inside metering device, pair the two devices up, and get an instant reading as to how much juice the house is consuming.

So, what did I find out?

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Slowly getting my endurance level up on the bike.  Really need to invest in a pair of cycle shorts, just for the anti-chafe and padding abilities - can always wear them under a pair of other shorts.  Did a 10 mile loop on the towpaths today, avoided running over various ducklings as I did so.  The nice part is I’m not even really that tired after the ride, nor am I sweating hard, so I know I can go even further without issue.

Found that the national cycle network runs along the towpath for a distance, and then there’s a branch off past Offchurch called the Offchurch Greenway - good climb up from the towpath, and then across a ridge with fields rolling away into the distance.

Heard one heck of a ruckus outside yesterday evening, neighbours fighting (which had happened a few nights before as well).  It seemed to be a bit more vitriolic than the previous event, so I got off the phone and grabbed the dSLR, just in case.  Turns out it was a good move, the man was getting fairly violent with the woman - pounding on the car, breaking the glass of the car (I think windscreen from the fragments).

Called 999 as well (as did one of the other neighbours) - police showed up a bit later, too late to catch anything happening unfortunately.  They’ve been around again tonight though, asking a few more questions, and the PC seemed quite pleased that there were photos that put the man at the scene.

I suppose this raises the question of whether I should have intervened at all - but I now know more facts about the incident than I knew at the time when I made the judgment call not to.  I could play the Internet Tough Guy and say I would have stepped in, but reviewing the photos also tells me that it was wise that I didn’t - humans don’t fare well against hard, blunt objects wielded by angry people.

The PC just called, he’s coming back for the photos, they’d like a copy.