The Pig Yard

November 2012

Jane was supposed to have her knee operation in the middle of the month but she caught a cold which became a cough and so she had to postpone it. She had a new date for 4th December but this was cancelled by the hospital 12 hours before it was due. We had a busy month with plenty to keep us busy and our minds off other matters such as Jane's leg and her mum in hospital after a fall. 

Joan Armatrading

Joan Armatrading has been a favourite of ours for over 30 years and as Jane said as we walked away from the theatre, “she never disappoints her audience”. For Joan’s biography click here…

She was supported by an up and coming singer songwriter called Jim Brewer who did 3 interesting songs and was followed by a more experienced modern folk, singer song writer Chris Wood. Both were competent but it was easy to see that Chris Wood has been on the circuit for many years because his singing and guitar playing were very relaxed; many of his songs had a modern political slant.

Joan’s concert was a wonderful mixture of some of her old and new songs which had the audience singing along, clapping and having a great time. The last time we saw her she focussed very much on her guitar playing, which is brilliant, however this time there were more songs when she put her guitar down and just concentrated on the singing. Steve thought she looked a bit awkward without the guitar but Jane disagreed and thought she appeared relaxed and very at ease with herself and her music.

Her set list consisted of: Show Some Emotion; Single Life, Close To Me; All the Way From America; Crazy; A Woman In Love; Tell Me; Love And Affection; Tall In The Saddle; My Baby’s Gone; Starlight; The Weakness in Me; Cool Blue Stole My Heart; You Rope You Tie Me; Kissin’ And A’ Huggin’; (I Love It When You) Call Me Names; Best Dress On; Me Myself I; Encore: Drop The Pilot; Summer Kisses. Sadly there was no Willow but hopefully next time.

Samsung Tablets - Good but not perfect

Jane liked the Galaxy Tab 10.1 so much she offered to buy Steve the Note 10.1 which he leapt at. The major difference is the processing speed and the use of the scribe for handwriting and drawing. The handwriting is very good and feels almost as natural as writing on paper – Steve loves it. We now sit on the sofa and write emails very quickly, hassle free. We find it difficult to find fault however there are some issues with the software, particularly the synchronising software to the PC.

Steve discovered that he could sync his Samsung S3 phone but the tablet wasn’t recognised and after trying to connect the PC wouldn’t then recognise the phone. He did get a solution from Samsung support that involved deleting a DLB file. Thereafter syncing has been fine, if a little slow.

The other complaint is the way the music system works. It doesn’t automatically pick up album covers and if it does they’re not correct, it is slow to display the music and is just clunky. Kies isn’t a patch on iTunes which is a pity because iTunes wasn’t that good. Generally Samsung make excellent hardware and we're pleased we opted to follow the Android route rather than continue with Apple iOS however it feels as though Android still has a significant level of maturing to do before it becomes slick.

New Noisy Printer

When Steve's new printer arrived earlier this month he was pleased with it but it did seem a little noisy. The rollers were loud whenever it was printing but he accepted it. After a couple of weeks Jane persuaded him to contact the supplier to raise it as an issue. They were very helpful and offered to swap it out immediately, that is until Steve told them that he had recycled the packaging.

Now normally he hangs onto the box and packaging forever, we’ve got boxes in the loft for electrical goods that went to junk heaven (or hell) some time ago, but on this occasion, because we’re having a clear out, the box went out.

After a bit of discussion the supplier sent out an Epson engineer who listened to the noise and declared it shouldn’t be like that. Without lifting a screwdriver he produced a new model from the back of the van and hey presto we’re back up and running. This network printer means that Jane can print to colour as well which was always a contentious issue.

Alan Davies - Life is Pain

The thing about reviewing an event is to try to recapture the essence of what we were expecting and what we experienced. Well, as people who don’t watch Qi on TV we haven’t really followed Alan Davies since he was the magician’s assistant in Jonathan Creek. He seems a genuinely nice guy and so we booked our tickets.

A bit scary really because we were only 5 rows from the front and Jane was in an aisle seat so she could stretch her gammy leg out but we needn’t have worried because he didn’t really pick on anyone unless they were asking for it, and he didn’t embarrass anyone, except the woman who got up half way through the first session to go to the toilet. Didn’t she have any control?

On to the comedy – it was brilliant!!! The first half flew by and there weren’t many minutes when we weren't laughing. For the first part he just talked to people about where they’d come from, the problems they had getting there, especially for the late-comers. His humorous story telling was excellent. By definition (Raconteur - a person who is skilled in relating stories and anecdotes interestingly) he is a master raconteur and so, so funny (that’s not “so so” as in dodgy but as in “extremely”). So in conclusion it was an excellent night and highly recommended.