Sunday 26 June 2011

St Albans Festival Contd...



Photos will follow....when I have a cable for my camera.  I can't put the memory card straight in, because the little ejectable drawer thing you put the card in has...well....ejected itself somewhere!

Adieu

Saturday 18 June 2011

Vlog vloggety Vlog vlog



I've been concocting vloggage plans, so I'm hoping these will become more regular and interesting.  Watch this space

Adieu
x

Monday 13 June 2011

Getting my arse in gear!

Or more to the point, my vlog.  This post is just a way for me to note down ideas for future vlogs, so...feel free to ignore it.  Unless you're interested and want to offer up ideas of your own.

I think I need a co presenter.  My face is boring, and so is my life.  I need someone to bounce ideas off.  Unless someone has a biiiiig personality (and I consider mine biig) they need someone of an equal personality to....expand personalty....ness.  Or something.

I also want to make a weekly, like, magazine style show, where I have different sections in which I talk about different things: Fashion, music, media, news etc, just to bring in a range of different audiences with different interests.  I need to network more, leave comments on more vlogs and blogs.  Tweet more, and tag my videos more carefully and effectively.  


Hmmmmmmmmmm

My Latest Vlogs



Wednesday 8 June 2011

Oh...Harro

I feel it's been a while.  But when I can't vlog, my desire to blog seems to vanish.  I guess it should be the other way round, and I should want to blog to make up for the lack of vloggage.  Anyhoozles.  I am in a good mood today.  No reason why really.  Just one of those random "I'm happy and I don't know why" days.  I trained on the box office at work today.  I was really, REALLY nervous, but it was actually good fun.  I love having a job I enjoy.  I wish more people could be as fortunate as I am in that.  It makes me sad that people have to get themselves stuck into unsatisfying, ungratifying dead end jobs, for the sake of money and living.  The team I work with is so lovely and funny, and we have a right laugh together.  Sometimes I really don't want to go into work, and I'm kinda wanting to leave as well, just because it doesn't pay me as well as I need to be paid, but I'm so blessed.


I'm starting a thing.  It's called.....Hmmmmm....not sure yet.  I'll think about it.  But basically, I'm really fascinated by the English language; words' meanings and how they came about, words that have dropped out of use, and weird and unusual words you don't often hear.  So on each of my blog posts from now on, I'm going to introduce you to a new wonderful word, and tell you where it came from, and what it means....it will be called....




JESS'S SALMAGUNDI!


And I guess I should start with....Salmagundi.
It's original usage was to describe a dish made of chopped meat, anchovies, and eggs, garnished with onion and lemon juice.  It arrived in the English language in the 17th century, from the French 'Salmigondis', meaning hotch-potch.  One theory reckons the word derives from a dish served to King Henri IV (or VI) by a nobleman's wife, and that the dish was named after her.  Others think it derives from the Italian 'Salame conditi', meaning 'pickled meat'.  The English corrupted the word to Solomon-Gundy, in the eighteenth century, and it is possibly related to the children's rhyme "Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday..."


So there you go, you've learned something new today, whether you're interested or not.  I am, so I'm going to keep finding fab words and telling you about them.


Adieu
x

Oh....Harro

I feel it's been a while.  But when I can't vlog, my desire to blog seems to vanish.  I guess it should be the other way round, and I should want to blog to make up for the lack of vloggage.  Anyhoozles.  I am in a good mood today.  No reason why really.  Just one of those random "I'm happy and I don't know why" days.  I trained on the box office at work today.  I was really, REALLY nervous, but it was actually good fun.  I love having a job I enjoy.  I wish more people could be as fortunate as I am in that.  It makes me sad that people have to get themselves stuck into unsatisfying, ungratifying dead end jobs, for the sake of money and living.  The team I work with is so lovely and funny, and we have a right laugh together.  Sometimes I really don't want to go into work, and I'm kinda wanting to leave as well, just because it doesn't pay me as well as I need to be paid, but I'm so blessed.


I'm starting a thing.  It's called.....Hmmmmm....not sure yet.  I'll think about it.  But basically, I'm really fascinated by the English language; words' meanings and how they came about, words that have dropped out of use, and weird and unusual words you don't often hear.  So on each of my blog posts from now on, I'm going to introduce you to a new wonderful word, and tell you where it came from, and what it means....it will be called....




JESS'S SALMAGUNDI!


And I guess I should start with....Salmagundi.
It's original usage was to describe a dish made of chopped meat, anchovies, and eggs, garnished with onion and lemon juice.  It arrived in the English language in the 17th century, from the French 'Salmigondis', meaning hotch-potch.  One theory reckons the word derives from a dish served to King Henri IV (or VI) by a nobleman's wife, and that the dish was named after her.  Others think it derives from the Italian 'Salame conditi', meaning 'pickled meat'.  The English corrupted the word to Solomon-Gundy, in the eighteenth century, and it is possibly related to the children's rhyme "Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday..."


So there you go, you've learned something new today, whether you're interested or not.  I am, so I'm going to keep finding fab words and telling you about them.


Adieu
x


Thursday 2 June 2011

It's been a while!

Hey.  So....I did a silly, silly thing today.  I wanted to make a new vlog, but my camera wasn't playing ball, so...I formatted it....without transfering any of my videos so it's ALL GONE!  There was nothing that great on it to be fair, but it still sucks.

Sooooo....I had a fun bank holiday weekend, I hope y'all did too?  On Saturday I went to a gig at the Southbank Centre.  It was called "In Search of Nic Jones" and it was a group of folk artists celebrating the work of Nic Jones.  He was there, and sang in his final EVER live performance, so it was wicked to be there.  Jim Moray was there too, with his sister, Jackie Oates, who has a stunning voice.  Martin Carthy, Ashely Hutchings and is son Blair Dunlop were playing too, Damien Barber, of "The Demon Barbers" fame, and an American girl called Anais Mitchell, were all there, to honour Nic, who was really influential in the folk movement of, like...the 70s...I think.  To be honest, I don't know much about him, but I was invited by a mate and....JIM MORAY WAS THERE!  And honestly, until that day, I'd never been to a gig and felt that I was experiencing the work of legends.  Even when I've been to see my favourite people play.  But this really was a meeting of legends; people who paved the way for the folk music I adore today, and made it what it is.

I will link you to these artistes' websites at the end of this entry if you want to check them out....it's highly reccommended.

On Sunday I went to my mate's birthday bbq and had EPIC cheesecake! 

On Monday a few of us went to West Wycombe, to a place called The Hell Fire Caves.  Basically, these tunnels were comissioned to be built by Sir Francis Dashwood, with the sole intention of providing work for men during a time of enormous poverty and unemployment.  The tunnels took 100 men six years to cut out of the chalk hillside, and when it was finally done, Dashwood used them as the meeting place for his Hell Fire Club.  This men's only club was patronized (is that the American spelling?) by politicians, doctors, painters, and men of great importance and influence, and so the 300 foot deep tunnels were the perfect secret hide away for men who didn't want their naughty habits to be revealed to the public.  They drank, hung out with prostitutes, dabbled in a bit of Devil worshipping, and, according to some, did a bit of sacrificing of living creatures too...animals or humans?  I don't know.  Anyhoozles, so, I was dead excited about seeing them, because they were featured on Ghost Hunters, which I watch every morning, and I was excited to see if we could find any ghosties and ghoulies....we didn't :( but it was pretty awesome anyway.  I don't want to post up photos, because they're not mine and I don't want to get fined or...whatever, so follow the links HERE and HERE  to find out all about them.

Then we went to the Church on top of the hill the tunnels run under.  It's called The Church of St Lawrence and Golden Ball....St Lawrence after the area's patron saint...Golden Ball after....well...a giant, golden ball on top of the church tower.  We climbed up to the top of the tower, which was TERRIFYING!  I'm not normally bad with heights.  In fact, I normally quite enjoy them, but for some reason, this was awful.  It was sooooo windy, and the platform was small, and the barrier was low, and the door was an open trapdoor.  And the stairs were tiny, and a really, really tight spiral and I hated it!  The views were pretty though.

Then we saw the Dashwood family home, which was lovely.  AMAZING ceilings.  Link HERE

The highlight of the day for me was the Civil war re enactment happening in the mansion's grounds.  We learned how to make cheese, and how blacksmith's used to make their weapons, and loads of people had set up camp and were wandering around in old Civil war era costumes.  And there were loads of loud guns and muskets.  That was a good video...I'm sad I lost that one.  STUPID ME!!!  I love stuff like that, stepping back into history, and almost experiencing it first hand.

Anyway, I'm REALLY dizzy so I'm going to bed now...but I leave you with relevant links to the wonderful musicians I saw on Saturday.  Enjoy

Martin Carthy

Ashley Hutchings

Blair Dunlop

Jim Moray

Jackie Oates

Jim Causley

Anais Mitchell(She has an official site as well, but my computer doesn't seem to like it...Google her)

Damien Barber 

And, of course Nic Jones


Other musicians were there, and awesome, including Nic's son, Joe Jones.  But sadly, I've forgotten their names.  They were all awesome though.


Also worth checking out is Bright Young Folk which lists up coming gigs, reviews, releases, biogs and loads more.  It's neat!


Anyway, dizziness and nausea well and truly setting in now.  I'll vlog soon


Adieu


x