The George Lite Zone

Ashes to Ashes - Thursday 7th February 9.00pm BBC1 Scotland It's nearly beer o'clock once again, gentlemen, the follow up to Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes is one week away and counting. So set your Sky+ series link and get ready to go for a spin in an Audi Quattro with the Gene Genie. Excellent.

Netscape's browser has been temporarily reprieved by AOL, who are extending the support period and releasing a new update for Netscape Navigator 9. This update will apparently smooth the transition to suggested alternatives. Navigator junkies can skin up Firefox to give it the look and feel of the old war horse. Meanwhile AOL are promoting Flock as suitable alternative, with it's media streaming, social site integrating, blogging and friend finding capabilities, Flock is a Web 2 browser fit for the 21st century. I've been using it for a number of weeks now and other than the occasional crash find it a most excellent product. The beta for Flock Version 1.1 is out soon and will include integration with Gmail, Yahoo and Picassa. Hopefully this release will be a bit more stable. Blogged with Flock

Susumu Hirasawa , the author of " The girl in Byakkoya - White Tiger Field ", the main theme to the Satoshi Kon film Paprika , has made it and the outtake track " Runner " available for free download to commemorate the release of the official soundtrack album. To download them in MP3 format, click on the track titles above. Before you do so though, please click here first to view the terms and conditions. I'm just listening to them now and they're pretty cool. Hirasawa also did the soundtrack for Kon's Paranoia Agent and the dreamlike quality of these new tracks is reminiscent of this show. As an aside, Kon's work would make a good backdrop to a Hawkwind concert. Paranoia Agent for Paranoia anybody?

I was playing about with Last FM last night. Last FM is an application that keeps track of the last tracks you played on your PC, then allows you to display them on social networking sites such as Facebook or on blogs, such as this one. This is done via plugins to popular music players such as Windows media or Win Amp. Sampling some of these goodies I've added, two music quilts on the right hand side of this blog. Far better than the sort that Grandma used to make, these cycle through the pictures of album covers. I created two. One for Hawkwind and one that cycles through the bands listed in my MySpace profile. I also added a radio widget which allows you to play bands in my favorites or that are similar in nature. Hit the play button on this to get some quality music to listen to while you surf the net. Finally I've added an RSS feed from the site to display the last five tracks I've played. Check it out, I've got a feeling that Radio Motörhead will be appearing o...

Watching tonights Horizon program, " What on Earth is Wrong with Gravity? ", I thought I'd google "Space Time" to get a bit of background gen on one of the topics being discussed. In so doing I found a nifty 3D browsing and searching utility called, strangely enough, Space Time . Taking this out for a spin I typed in Hawkwind and selected Google Image Search as my option. Among the myriad images resplendent on my desktop was this fine picture of the Hawks from 1973. Looking at Stacia the forces of gravity don't appear to have affected her much in those days. Onward flies the bird.

After Warner Brothers recent announcement that it was switching to Blue Ray, another death knell was heard pealing for the HD DVD player. Prior to Warner's move the hardware market sales were split roughly 50/50. Sales figures after the sale (week ending 12th January 2008) were 90/10 in favor of the blue boy. Like Monty Python's Black Knight, Toshiba are insisting that the fights not over yet and that the disparity was down to their removal of a Christmas discount and the bundling of Blue Ray players with some flat panel TV's by certain awfully nice manufacturers. In a move to fight back, Toshiba swung a mighty kick at their foe by cutting the price of their players. To paraphrase King Arthur in Holy Grail, "Look, you stupid bastards. You've got no arms left!" On the blue ray front, news that a lot of existing players wont be able to play disks coming out next year that have features included in the BD Video Final Standard Profile 1.1. With profile 1.1 persist...

And it's off to my favorite Haggis emporium, Findlay's of Portobello .

It's Friday night so it must be time for a double bill of gratuitous music videos. Yet another way to get stiff. Now that's what I'd call Grindhouse!!! First Lemmy shakes his blood with the Suicide Girls while Dave Grohl does what he does best and plays the drums. I still rate him as one of the finest drummers in the world. Shame he didn't guest with Zeppelin at the recent O2 gig. From the album Probot Then Nick Cave and the Raga Girls bring it on. I actually had the idea for that video, in the sense that the video maker Johnny Hillcoat said, "What do you want to make a video about?" and I asked him, "What do videos looks like on MTV these days?" and he said, "They look like a lot of black girls wiggling their arses at the camera," so this is basically what we ended up doing, really. Nick Cave in an interview for BBC Stoke January 2003 A much better quality version of this video can be seen on Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - The Abattoir Blu...

To a Haggis Robert Burns 1786 Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain o' the pudding-race! Aboon them a' yet tak your place, Painch, tripe, or thairm: Weel are ye wordy o'a grace As lang's my arm. The groaning trencher there ye fill, Your hurdies like a distant hill, Your pin was help to mend a mill In time o'need, While thro' your pores the dews distil Like amber bead. His knife see rustic Labour dight, An' cut you up wi' ready sleight, Trenching your gushing entrails bright, Like ony ditch; And then, O what a glorious sight, Warm-reekin', rich! Then, horn for horn, they stretch an' strive: Deil tak the hindmost! on they drive, Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve Are bent like drums; Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive, Bethankit! hums. Is there that owre his French ragout Or olio that wad staw a sow, Or fricassee wad make her spew Wi' perfect sconner, Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view On sic a dinne...

If you want to get stiff this weekend check out The Independent . They're giving away 2 free 10 track CDs that celebrate 30 years of Stiff Records . Volume 1 on Saturday 26 January 1. Madness - Baggy Trousers (Live) 2. Ian Dury and The Blockheads - Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick (Live) 3. Kirsty MacColl - A New England 4. The Belle Stars - Sign Of The Times 5. Department S - Is Vic There? 6. Chris Difford - Come On Down 7. Jona Lewie - You’ll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties 8. Tracey Ullman - Breakaway 9. Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin - It’s My Party 10. Desmond Dekker - The Israelites Volume 2 on Sunday 27 January 1. The Damned - New Rose (Live) 2. Lene Lovich - Home 3. Theatre Of Hate - Do You Believe In The Westworld? 4. Kirsty MacColl - They Don’t Know 5. Wreckless Eric - Whole Wide World 6. Tenpole Tudor - Swords Of A Thousand Men 7. Rachel Sweet - B.A.B.Y. 8. The Members - Solitary Confinement 9. Nick Lowe - Heart Of The City 10. King Kurt - Destination Zulu Land Sh...

A gang of Romanian child slaves were freed today in Slough. Smuggled, into Britain, working in slavery as pickpockets and slaves the little urchins were freed in a daring dawn raid. Poor sods; fancy having to live in Slough !!! At least Gareth McCleary managed to escape. Blogged with Flock

I hear that Forest have signed Gareth McCleary from Bromley FC . Untried at the professional level he played for England Colleges Under 19s scoring twice in the 7th European Tournament for Youth & Amateur National Teams in Italy in 2006. Gareth has also played for Oxford City. Bromley signed him from the mighty Slough in January 2007. As part of the deal there is a sell-on clause included and Forest will play Bromley in a pre-season friendly at Hayes Lane. A far cry from the days when we bought the leagues first one million pound player, Trevor Francis. My guess is that he'll mature into a great player then we'll sell him on to Spurs, that seems to be the way of the world these days. Either that or he'll go on to join strictly come dancing....

F. Paul Wilson 's The Tomb introduces the character Repairman Jack and is an absolute cracker of a novel. Jack repairs things, not your toaster or your car, but any injustice that is beyond the reach of the law. Featuring a lost amulet, an ancient curse and a horde of Bengali demons, in The Tomb Jack must put more than his life on the line to save the ones he loves. If you like Steven King, you'll love this (Steven King is president of the Repairman Jack fan club). Soon to be a major film The Tomb is a roller coaster of entertainment. Hop on board, I guarantee you'll enjoy the ride.

Does anyone have any idea what the hell Inland Empire was all about? David Lynch 's movies have always been pretty weird, but this time I think he's taken the crazy train to the mountains of madness and abseiled off into the abyss. Or was it a work of genius?

I just watched 5 hours of season one of the HBO show The Wire back to back. A damn fine series. The Wire has got to be in the running for greatest TV show ever. The show has the texture and pacing of a novel and is set in the city of Baltimore. Reaching levels of realism never seen before in a cop show (a lot of the actors actually came from the streets) it knocks programs like The Sopranos into a cocked hat. Each season focuses on a different aspect of urban life. Season 1 focuses on the battle between the police and the pushers, Season 2 the plight blue-collar workers, Season 3 the political scene, Season 4 the school system and in the fifth and final season the press. With brilliant acting, storyline and characterisation, it is as much a social commentary as a cop show. All in all the show can only be described as a masterpiece. Go watch it. As an aside, Dominic West who plays McNulty, was born in Sheffield.

Coming soon to Greasy Truckers Party Food .

Levitation, levitation, levitation.... © Calvin Ternent 2007

I just stumbled on this on You Tube. Hawkwind 's Assult & Battery/Golden Void as the backing to a Full Metal Alchemist video. Bizarre. Then again it should keep both me and Calvin happy for a while. With two main characters in Full Metal Alchemist having a surname of Elric, a track from The Chronicle of the Black Sword might have been more appropriate. Any excuse to listen to Needle Gun again. Well Jerry Cornelius was an aspect of the eternal champion, as was Elric. A good enough connection for me.

RSS Feeds are a useful way of keeping tabs on changes to websites and getting information on a variety of topics of interest to your screen without the need for trawling through a myriad websites. A bit like the internet equivalent of fast food, without the fries. There are many ways of subscribing to and reading feeds. Some browsers, such as Firefox (or my browser of the moment Flock ), have the ability built in. However by far and away the best way of accessing RSS Feeds is to use an aggregator (a.ka. RSS Reader or Feed Reader). For the last couple of years my aggregator of choice has been FeedDemon. Easy to use it is widely held to be the best of breed when it comes to bringing you your daily fix of RSS Feeds. I just learned today that Newsgator who own FeedDemon are making it available as a free download. Bah humbug, if like me you already paid the piper to subscribe, whoopy doo for everyone else. Give it a whirl. Now it's free there's no excuse not to. FeedDemon can be dow...

Following on from Warner's announcement of switching exclusively to Blue Ray , New Line Cinema , has announced an immediate switchover to the Blue Format. Not too surprising as it is owned by Time Warner, which is the parent company of Warner Brothers. New Line Cinema have the Lord of The Rings and Austin Powers series in their portfolio. So that's Austin, Dr Evil and Gandalf joining Bugs & Mickey in the blue corner. Yeah, baby, yeah.

The public alpha version of Wikipedia's search engine Wikia Search became available today. Following the same philosophy as wikipedia, this search engine is community-driven and open-source. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has stated that Wikia search will attempt to transform internet search bringing transparency and openness to search results. Currently internet search is dominated by a few large companies operating under a cloak of secrecy with virtually no accountability for how results are served up or pages are ranked. Note that at the moment Wikia Search didn't manage to find any references to any of my blogs ( The George Lite Zone , Greasy Truckers Party Food , Coded Languages or Stroll On ) when searched for. Obviously they must be veiled by the cloak of secrecy. Still, it is only the alpha version of the engine, so I'll give it a chance for now. To use this search engine the URL is http://alpha.search.wikia.com/ . The main page for Wikia Search is http://www.wik...

In a galxy not so far away, another blow was struck for the Sony Empire with Warner anouncing that they will be exclusively releasing their material on the Blue Ray format. They said that they would continue to release HD DVDs untill the end of May, with these releases following on from DVD and Blu-ray releases. This is a massive blow in favour of the blue camp. Warners are Holywood's biggest DVD seller, with a market share of 18 to 20 percent of US sales and are one of the few studios to back both formats. With both Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny batting for the blue ray team now, it will be difficult to see of a way back for HD DVD. Unless Bill Vader and his chums at Toshiba can complete work on that Death Star...

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

This post was created using the blog editor built into the Flock browser. Flock is interesting in that it integrates with a lot of the Web 2 social networking sites and allows you to post directly to various blogs. Blogged with Flock

While surfing the net looking at alternate browsers, I found a couple of Firefox add-ons that someone had reccomended. Giving them a whirl I was suitably impressed. Cooliris Cooliris allows you to preview the web page behind a link by floating your mouse over the link. This gives you a mini-me style window that shows you the content without having to open a new window. Cool. PicLens PicLens allows you to transform a web gallery into a full-screen slideshow. After installing, check it out by googling some images, positioning yuour mose cursor over one of them, then pressing the play icon. All of a sudden the images returned present themselves as a nifty little slideshow. Awesome !!! PicLens also works Internet Explorer .