Blog

For a fair while now we’ve been using a Cisco Linksys WRT160N router – a fairly bog standard wireless router that connects to our Cable connection and spreads out the interweb via both ethernet ports and of course wirelessly.  You can probably get them dirt cheap now, although when I bought it it was reasonably new and shiny!

I’m not right sure whether or not it has always done it, or whether it’s a recent phenomena now we have more-things-than-ever hooked up to it by hook or crook (at last count two phones, three laptops, one desktop, one Wii, one XBox 360, one PS3, one Blu-ray player, one Television and one NAT.  I think that’s it.  Rarely all at the same time too, I might add!

Anyway, for whatever reason the router required rebooting to restore connectivity.  It seemed to have topped out at twice a day this occurred – annoying when you may be downloading a big torrent or hoping to use AudioGalaxy to access your music library when at work or out and about, I’m sure you’ll agree!

I investigated new official firmware releases – I was already up to date, and eventually happened upon this alternative firmware (having done something similar with the NAT which was playing up before).  Not only has this added all manner of geekish functionality that I don’t fully understand, more importantly it has delivered a much more stable router that has been up for nearly three days and counting…

So, if you’re having difficulty with  your router I can recommend DD-WRT if you’re feeling suitably confident in fiddling around with things at a fairly fundamental level.  It’s a shame the router doesn’t have more space to install a few more things on it – but never mind!  At least the internet connection in the house stays up now!

Not the most illuminating or fascinating of stories – the main reason for writing it was because I only pieced together the solution from numerous different sources, so should someone else out there with the same router as me be suffering the same fate, they may well – thanks to Google – stumble across this solution!

The only teeny issue is that since the change an amber warning light is now illuminated on the router, but this is down to the rogue firmware not quite properly talking to the hardware on this small instance.  It’s a small price to pay!

Unfortunately you can’t, with any good conscience, review a Derren Brown show as such – because it’s packed full of things I could spoil by doing so, which would be rather unfair to performer and readers as-yet-to-see-the-show alike.  Not that my site gets that much traffic, but well, you know what I mean.

Rich and Em kindly bought Cat and I tickets for Derren’s ‘Svengali’ tour this weekend at Liverpool.  Unfortunately Cat was poorly, so sensibly opted to stay at home whilst the rest of us set off early in the morning due to some diversions – because Rich and Em had to meet up with their wedding venue, which is kinda en route, we found ourselves with a whole day to kill before the gig.

We decided to visit The Monkey Forest near Stoke, which was ace – it’s quite easy to describe really, a woodland enclosure full of monkeys.  Barbary Macaques to be precise, and they were great fun – watching the baby monkeys playing in particular was hilarious.  I don’t think it that you could make a full day out at the place, but £7 for an hour or two’s monkey magic is well worth it.

Onward we headed to the North West and went to Ikea to get some tealight holders for the impending wedding, and took the chance of course to grab some meatballs – nom!  On the trip we managed to offer Cat’s ticket to Mark, who lives in Manchester, so we arranged to meet him in Liverpool in time to watch England stroll past Wales.

So we watched the match in the Walkabout in Scouseville on one of the best definition big screens I’ve ever seen.  To say it was a walk in the park for England is an understatement – game over after 15 minutes or so, and barely a sweat broken.  Despite not really being into international football to any great degree it’s nice to watch on occasion.

For some reason Torres doesn't seem popular!

After further mooching around – a Subway, a quick drink in a really dodgy pub near the theatre (that stank of piss, and was tastelessly bedecked in Liverpool FC memorabilia – I suppose that’s an occupational hazard in Liverpool itself though!) it was time to take to the theatre itself.

The show was at once excellent, enthralling, stimulating and entertaining – I won’t spoil any content, but Derren Brown never disappoints.  I think, on balance, I liked his last show Enigma better – but this was plenty beguiling and confounding enough.  And a little sinister.  Also hilarious, because Mark was singled out quite early in the show and as a result revealed an ingenius story about himself (after being warned about surreptitious camera use and threatened with being asked to leave!)

I didn’t manage to grab a frisbee, again – indeed, only one came up to the circle where we were sitting.  Never mind!  It was still tremendous show, and well worth missing out on more direct involvement because of Mark’s revelations – which admittedly was trumped somewhat later, all I can say about that is ‘Hammer Time!’

Then it was for poor Rich to finish off a very long day with a nightime drive back to Nottingham.  All in all, a long but thoroughly entertaining day.  Not looking forward to being back at work in the morning…!

After my last couple of celeb and action-fuelled blog posts there’s not much of excitement to follow them up really – aside from the annual work Christmas fancy dress party that took place last week.  As ever, the team threw themselves into their ideas and some of the costumes were frankly stunning.  Lots of photos on Facebook to showcase this!

Myself and Matt bedecked ourselves in zebra-print suits and hats and home-made beards along with expertly-crafted-by-Matt furry guitars and finished off with a pair of sunglasses apiece to strut our stuff as Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill of ZZ Top fame.  Whilst at the time of donning them we were feeling rather smug at our excellence in fancy dressing, I must say that I would suggest we were trumped by a number of our colleagues’ efforts!

A jolly fun evening was had by all – very little by way of drama, and t’was preceded by an afternoon of ten-pin bowling action for the newly purchased ‘department champion’ trophy – to say I can recall going bowling for about 14 odd years I was quite pleased with getting through to the final, where I was defeated by our inaugural team champion Neil – with an impressive score, albeit perhaps more applicable to darts, of 180.

Of course, where there’s a Christmas party, sure as eggs is eggs there’s a Christmas Day to follow – I’ve prepared pretty well this year so I’ve been sorted for gifts for some time.  Which leaves the weather as the only real talking point.  I don’t like to be held back by nature so haven’t really let the smattering of snow we’ve endured prevent me getting to where I need to be.

Unfortunately the football world seems to have succumbed to over-reaction as does the rest of the nation – so Forest have already had two games called off, mercifully last weekends game vs Palace went ahead and saw the Reds stroll to an easy win.  Whether our Boxing Day trip to Middlesbrough (which I wasn’t planning on attending) goes ahead remains to be seen..

So yeah, aside from that – seasons greetings and all that guff… to be honest, I’m slightly more looking forward to Forest’s reacquaintance with local rivals Derby County on the 29th…

It’s been fairly eventful of late – since I last wrote about didgeridooing I’ve also taken part in a charity footy match which was great fun, and gave me a chance to play alongside my boyhood hero – Steve Hodge.  My mate Neil at the BBC did the legwork in organising the event, venue and some celebrity players and asked me to rustle up a team from Boots to face them.  It was a great evening.

There were blushes for yours truly though – early in the game Hodgey went down like a cheap whore in the penalty area and the referee awarded a spot kick.  Lurking at centreback he shouted back “Skipper! You have it…” at me.  Gulp.  I duly listened to my team-mates shouting “Smash it!” behind me and did just that… against the crossbar – d’oh!

The game ultimately ended 5-5, thanks to a controversial last minute penalty where Pudsey Bear took a tumble in the penalty area giving the BBC a penalty to finish the game off and share the spoils.  I really enjoyable day – not least thanks to the ex pros Steve Hodge, Lawrie Dudfield, Michael Johnson and Nigel ‘the elbows’ Jemson.  Not to mention our managers Kenny Burns and Steve Sutton.

Following that up for Children in Need itself our team at work actually threw themselves into the event much more so than in the past (thanks largely to Kate) and raised a fair chunk of cash with a couple of stalls at our head office.  The usual all night stint in the call centre gave me my annual dose of feeling great about humanity and meant it didn’t feel too bad about the early start the day after to travel to Cardiff to see Forest actually win away!

However, more eventful potentially is today’s shenanigans – Jimmy and I hotfooted it to Birmingham this morning to audition for Total Wipeout and made it through all the stages today so are both eagerly awaiting contact from the production company organising it, in less happy news Matt – who was on the afternoon audition session – didn’t get through, so then there were two.  Gutted for him.

Within a couple of weeks we should find out whether or not we’ve made the final final shortlist – from which they’ll select the 160 lucky people to take part in the show being filmed in January and February.  To say that it’s potentially unfeasibly exciting is understating it – it would be awesome!

Aside from Matt’s unlucky news, the day was further marred by arriving home to find we had a dead dove in the garden.  Perched on one of the seed feeders that Cat keeps well stocked for our garden-based feathered friends, the cold weather had obviously proven too much for it to cope with.  So a quick bit of digging and it was at least laid to rest with some degree of dignity.  Poor bugger.

To end on a happier note: BRING ON THOSE BIG RED BALLS!!!

I finally got around to converting a recording that Cat sent me of Rich and I performing alongside a beatboxing dude in the Flying Horse.  The beatbox was amplified and the didges weren’t.

It would seem that it’s not particularly child friendly music if you listen ’til the end!!

Didgebox

People seem to think I often get regularly involved in ‘shenanigans’ and that it somehow must be a complex and well-engineered existence I live.  Quite often my partner in crime is my esteemed brother Rich, who has a similar reputation in his own right.  In an attempt to quell such cynical thoughts, I feel compelled to document the lead-up and culmination of possibly one of the strangest mornings I’ve ever spent in my life.

It all started on Thursday… I was on a very interesting (I am a bit of a geek, after all) but quite head-explodingly intensive course on how to improve my SQL writing skills.  In between taking in vast quantities of information I was often checking my various social media feeds to give my brain a bit of downtime.. (in truth, that’s something I do frequently anyway when I can!)..

So, on Twitter I happened to notice a plea, which was retweeted by somebody I follow (for none Tweeps, ‘retweeting’ is simply an act of somebody ‘forwarding on’ something from somebody they follow to their own followers – a bit like those inane email surveys or collections of pictures of people who shop in Walmart you might receive). On this occasion it was anything but inane…

http://twitter.com/#!/Sarah_Davenport/status/2759082096201729

Since I am from Nottingham, owner of a didgeridoo which I can play – falteringly (I hasten to add!) – and do have a slightly unhealthy obsession with Rolf Harris, I duly replied…

http://twitter.com/#!/winnits/status/2769150967549952

It turns out I was wrong on my final point, but more on that later – a few exchanges on twitter, an email or two and the arrangement was made. I, and my didgeridoo, were to be at The Davenport Shop of Originality in Nottingham for around 10am on 13th November.  I duly texted my brother Rich, also a Rolf fan, to see if he was up for it – he was, and also has a Didge, so he was up for it too.

As all social media obsessives do, I posted on Facebook and Twitter about my excitement at being involved in a Rolf Harris extravaganza, with the slim chance of meeting the man.  The next day my friend Alex got in touch to offer me the use of his authentic eucalyptus termite-eaten Didge, as we discussed logistics of me collecting it it occurred to me that I should just invite him along, so I duly did that!

Cat was roped in, as she so often is, to provide chauffeur services and general being patient and hanging around duties whilst Rich and I did something silly.  We parked up in town and walked to meet Alex – controversially – at the right Lion! (Well, it is closer to Flying Horse afterall).  As we walked up Exchange Walk we spotted him, it’s easy to spot people carrying Didgeridoos around.

Which was something we’d both spotted – because at the Cashpoint just around the corner was a distinctive looking gentleman carrying a Didgeridoo, a rucksack with some drums in it and was donning a top hat.  We assumed naturally he was heading to the same place as us and stopped to chat – he wasn’t, he was heading to a gig at another gallery – but had a couple of hours to kill.  This of course was a sign of fate, so we duly invited him to join us in our own uncertain quest.

It turned out that Ben could actually play the Didge properly so would make an invaluable addition to our impromptu band.  So now a quartet we headed to the venue, eventually finding it in the downstairs section at the end – Sarah’s shop is a real treasure-trove of, well stuff – be it corsets, t-shirts, designer clothes, furniture, jewellery – not exactly my typical shopping destination, but fascinating, and they made us a nice cup of tea and gave us biscuits!

After being refreshed and comparing didgeridoos (I brought mine and my spare, Rich brought one, Alex brought one and Ben brought one) we were ushered into the window upstairs which faces out onto the street.  After a few minutes of getting into our stride (including moving a rocking chair worth over £900 which was the comfiest thing I’ve ever sat on despite it being solid plastic!) we started to get a reasonable sound going, and it seemed the passing shoppers were enjoying it.

The timing is difficult to determine, but at one point I looked up and saw none other than Rolf Harris standing grinning at the window, visibly moved at the tribute to honour his appearance at the Whitehall Gallery further up the arcade.  After a moment of watching and taking in the performance, he got into the window area with us to offer tips on circular breathing (he noted my inability to do it from outside..), and showed he could indeed do it..

Given his appointment at the gallery there was really only time for a quick chat, handshake and general attempt to take in the bizarreness of how this day was panning out.  He continued to his duties at the gallery, and we carried on playing for around an hour and a half or so, and after a while I think we actually sounded pretty good – four didges and two drums on the go.  Unfortunately for us, Ben – our only real actual talent – had to leave us for his gig elsewhere, and then Alex followed as he had to be somewhere for lunch.  Rich and I called it a day and were treated to more tea in the shop.

So, that’s surely it?  Well, we were walking back up the mall so Rich could go to the bank, when we stopped to check out an art installation being run by Nottingham artist Rikki Marr (creator of the amazing ‘Byron Clough‘ painting you might’ve seen in the Cross Keys in Town.  If you haven’t you should!).  Also there was a fella performing beatbox (which Rolf is surely the godfather of), along with two full-grown men dressed as schoolboys in homage to ‘Two Little Boys’.

They beckoned us behind the velvet rope seperating them from the public so we could accompany the beatboxing with a spot of didge.  Indeed, at one point the performer (who, to my eternal shame, I forget the name of..) ‘beatboxed’ down one of the didges into the microphone, which sounded amazing!  We obviously all took opportunities to play the didges directly into the mic too, it’s made me want a mic and amp now, because it sounds amazing!

We hoped to lure Rolf after his signing finished back down the Mall, so played a few impromptu sessions but Rolf was being very dutiful to the people who’d been queuing patiently to meet him, and as time was creeping on so the kick off for Nottingham Forest’s game against QPR got ever closer.  We stayed as long as we dared, and it was a real pleasure to chat with the guys involved in Sarah’s project and artist Rikki who’d finished his homage.

Indeed, he even took time out to rattle off a quick caricature of me whilst we were waiting.  Unfortunately Rolf’s kindness to his patient fans meant we didn’t get to hang around and see him again – Rich and I hotfooted it to the game, and I left my spare Didge in Sarah’s custody as a chap filming the various events had proven quite a proficient player – so they could still try to lure the Antipodean legend.  I hope they succeeded.

So that is how within less than two days a single tweet took me on a journey from attending an SQL coding course to performing in a life ‘art installation’ in a shop window in Nottingham, meeting Rolf Harris, experimenting with a Didgeridoo-Beatbox fusion and finally having a portrait drawn of me by one of Nottingham’s most noted and exciting artists.  I’m not sure whether it’s ‘me’ or not – I don’t see ‘me’ all that often – and generally don’t like it when I do…

Just another day in the life of me and Rich – but I hope you can see that sometimes things ‘just happen’ and aren’t always a cynical ploy.  My desire to help somebody out, admittedly driven by a shared-interest in Rolf, spiralled into something altogether more absurd – and it was brilliant!  Big thanks to Sarah and team for the opportunity to have such a laugh.

I feel like I’ve missed out loads of little things that made today awesome, but looking at my word-count rapidly approaching 1,500 I’ve clearly written rather a lot too!  If Forest could’ve snuck the goal they threatened to against QPR it would’ve made today all the more awesome!