Totnes Rotarians video on 'YouTube'

I had a video all lined up to go in this post and then heard about these antics by the Totnes Rotarians. I thought it so amusing that I couldn't resist adding it to the blog. Just in case you didn't get the message the Totnes Rotary Club are having their Annual Conference next February at the 'Langstone Cliff Hotel', Dawlish Warren! Nice free advertising for that establishment. Doesn't that well known tune lend itself to a variation of its original words!

Zircus Renz played by Silvia Plegniere

Although my intention had been to insert no more than one video a week on this blog and it was only yesterday that the last one was added I just couldn't resist this one. Again it's Silvia Plegniere and her Yamaha Tyros keyboard and the tune is Zircus (or Circus) Renz. Is there a happier tune on the planet than this? Or a better rendition of it? For anyone whose spirits are a bit low then watching and listening to this one can only help I feel.

Normally this is played on the xylophone, I can't begin to understand the technical wizardry that's in the Yamaha but the xylophone sound is the right one to use and Silvia uses it to great effect. Please feel free to comment on this video, and anything else I write or add for that matter.

Banjo and Hammered Dulcimer

For some time now I've thought that I should regularly share some of the great musical videos I've found on the internet, YouTube in particular being a wonderful free resource. There is a lot of really good music (to my ears at least!) out there - I'm not keen on heavily amplified music and there's no chance of any 'heavy metal' getting a show on this blog, that's for sure!

This evening then there is this recent addition to YouTube featuring two of my favourite instruments: the banjo and hammered dulcimer. I'm trying to learn to play the hammered dulcimer and would love to be able to play the banjo as well. To me this is a wonderful relaxing video to watch and to hear. I was a little bemused by what was happening outside to distract Christie; the answer is in her blog: she wrote a piece about doing this recording and someone added a comment querying what she was looking at right at the start. It turns out from her reply that her neighbour was just about to get out his lawn mower but realised she was recording and just came over to listen outside the window! Mystery solved then. After watching this video I shut my eyes to just listen to the sound and let it wash over me. Enjoy!

Additional note posted 29 September:
I should have added that the two musicians seen playing in this video are Matt Evans and Christie Burns who both teach at the Mountain Music Folk School in Chattanooga in the USA. Now when one embeds videos from YouTube there is a choice of sizes - with such good definition I selected the largest which I see cuts across the blog labels in blue on the right hand side but I think that loss is worth it to get a nice large video!

'Red Arrows' return to Falmouth

It has been ten years apparently since folk at Falmouth have been able to witness a display by 'The Red Arrows' over the town but last Wednesday residents and visitors alike were able to see a thrilling display by the aerobatic team. There is a video giving a flavour of the event on the website of the 'Falmouth Packet', the relevant webpage being here from which one can click on the video. It's really good to see the traditional media getting internet savvy and having video on their websites. I don't know enough about it but would guess that such a website would have limited capacity and it might be that a video such as this would be taken down after a week say and something else put up in its place. As I say I don't really know, just making an assumption, so if it's not there in a month's time please don't blame me!

Now here is a thought - if The Packet does remove the footage from its site I wonder if it would be worth them considering putting it on YouTube. Good publicity for Falmouth and it would seem that YouTube have almost limitless capacity for displaying videos. Apart from a personal passion for listening to and watching hammered dulcimer music on YouTube (as I write there are 1890 results under that title, will I ever see them all?) there are videos of anything and everything under the stars. I have even watched some Dads Army clips! For my less than fast broadband it is better to use YouTube earlier in the day, otherwise loading can be dreadfully slow. Nevertheless it is a wonderful FREE facility!

Gordon Brown and YouTube - update

Well there you go. You pick up on a story from one of the better known political bloggers and then find that either he wasn't quite up to speed with the facts or alternatively things have just moved on since he started to run this particular item. This is all about our PM inviting people to send him a question by video and his reply using the same medium on YouTube. He has replied to at least 8(!) questions submitted and, contrary to my concerns in my entry a few days ago, he has made a reasonable fist of it. He has endeavoured to portray himself as the calm man of reason and comes over in a better light than expected. But will people come to like him? He is so much in the mire now that it would be extraordinary if he found a way back.

Going back to my earlier post is this a really good use of his time I wonder. One of his perceived failings is his apparent inability to connect with the ordinary person in the way Tony Blair did. But of course he is a very very different person to Blair - thank goodness many might say! I think it would be possible to have a reasonable sort of conversation with Brown on a good day. No it's the dithering, incompetence and lack of judgment that concerns me most about him.

Gordon Brown and YouTube

Last Saturday political blogger 'Guido Fawkes' (real name Paul Staines) wrote an interesting piece about the PM's use of, or more accurately non-use of, YouTube. A couple of months ago team Brown came up with the idea that we could send Mr Brown a question and he would answer it via the YouTube video site. It was being proclaimed as a sort of 'Prime Ministers Questions' for the people, utter rubbish in my opinion. Surely it wouldn't have been very much like PMQs on Wednesdays in the House of Commons: there would have been no direct person to person sparring as happens in Parliament, I would only be happy if I could interrogate Mr Brown properly. Another thing is that he could just cherry pick the questions he wanted to answer and my feeling is we would have the "now we are spending 'Y' pounds on the NHS, back in 1997 only 'X' pounds was spent on it" sort of responses. As I have said before on this blog such statistics are meaningless to the man in the street.

Now according to Guido, Brown was supposed to start his video replies by the end of June but nothing has happened so far. This is the problem, his advisers come up with an idea intended to make the PM look 'with it' and really connected to the computer age. This is rather silly because at the moment Gordon Brown has much to much on his plate especially with his propensity to micro-manage everything, a trait for which he has been highly criticised. Right now there are a hundred and one problems for him to deal with, I don't want him diverted on to relative trivia. The other thing that has to be said is that Brown isn't a natural speaking to camera, I'm not blaming him for this because not everyone can do it. But I fear he would only be mocked if this experiment in trying to connect with the electorate ever went ahead.

Brixham police on YouTube

Here's an interesting sign of the times regarding communication: Brixham police have started broadcasting on YouTube! You can see their first offering, which is just under 10 minutes long, by going to the YouTube site and entering Brixham police. Slightly nerve wracking for the station sergeant but he manages OK. One of the primary features of this first video is to introduce the various constables, PCSOs and specials that make up the team. Unfortunately though it's been done somewhat on the cheap as we don't get to see the officers named and I would have thought that combining names with faces would have been the way forward when using a visual medium. But perhaps that will come in episode two because this isn't a one off as the intention is to produce a regular output.

Brixham appears to be well covered compared with my parish of Calstock. Currently I don't think we have any police assigned to us, we had a PCSO but she has now moved elsewhere. I think it is fair to say that nearly all the crime in this neck of the woods is of the nuisance variety but the return of a PCSO would be welcomed.

If the Brixham experiment gets a favourable reception then we might see the process replicated in many other parts of Devon and Cornwall. I shall post up any further information that comes my way.