Anyone have this service ? Is it reliable ?

More importantly, is it OK with BBC iPlayer, Apple TV, that sort of stuff. I have no objection to timed Traffic Management for torrent traffic, but I couldn't live with that interfering with other stuff.

Ta

I notice that Mixmag, famously "sister magazine" to Word has just appeared in the Apple Newsstand.

Should those of us looking forward to an iWord start to get excited ?

In the same anal way that my CDs and records used to be in alphabetical order, I am fastidious about all my iTunes library having the correct, embedded, cover art.

It would be great, however, to be able to access all the cover info that made handling album covers so satisfying - where it was recorded, the engineers names, who the band wants to thank, lyrics etc etc. Especially with an iPad, being able to bring that part of the cover up on screen would be fantastic.

Occasionally some artists produce these extras attached to purchased iTunes material, but are there any apps or other resources on the web to get the rest of album covers that could be viewed in this way?

I've Googled,of course, with no success, but I might be asking the wrong questions.

Any one know if Andy Partridge's Ape House website is permanently offline, moved or just down temporarily ? Hasn't been up
for a couple of days now.

Just heard that the man himself is on Desert Island Discs next Sunday. Looking forward to this tremendously, but in the meantime would anyone like to predict his choices ?

I suspect that this will be extremely difficult but anyone getting more than 3 right will immediately be unveiled as Danny in a Spartacus moment.

...in Game Of Thrones

Is it too obvious to suggest that I was waiting for him to get his axe out ?

Enjoyed The Social Network filum last night and also the soundtrack. Has made me want to dig out some NIN, a band who have pretty much passed me by.

Naturally I thought of you - NIN : where to start / what's best etc ?

Is anyone else having a problem with YouTube videos ? Some vids load fine but all the controls are missing so I can't adjust the volume or even stop them.

Just wondrin'

I was asked to put up the actual quiz that caused me to post the original thread :

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/strange-or-just-unlucky

So here it is. This is actually the slightly longer version, so bear in mind that I took out what I believed were the 10 hardest snippets.

It works like this :

1. The answers are all numbers
2. If the number is the artist, then also identify the song title
3. If the number is the song title, then also identify the artist
4. What year was it a hit in the UK ?

There is a "whooshing" noise in between each snippet - some of them are VERY short. The very first clip ISN'T part of the quiz, so wait for the first "whoosh".

The point here, I suppose is to get a handle on just how hard or otherwise the quiz was, in light of my comments, but I'll post the answers in a few days and feel free to knick it if you want to amuse your friends and neighbourghs (or not as the case may be)

I ran a small quiz at a dinner last night, 20 or so people and just a couple of rounds between courses, I'm sure you've been there.
The thing is, I decided to do a music-based quiz so I half-inched some of Seventies Mike's spelling tests (what I thought were the easier ones) for one round and made up a compilation of song snippets (all hits)for the other round (listen and identify, have a guess at the year etc). Being a crowd well mixed in terms of ages and backgrounds, I presumed this would all pretty well hit the middle ground in terms of difficulty, but I was genuinely shocked at how little the group could identify. Now, I know I made the quiz up, but I can honestly say that, had I been a participant, I would have known 99% of the music (nothing that hasn't been a top 40 hit, by the way) which was why I presumed that the quiz would not be found too difficult, but there were teams getting 4 or 5 out of 30, and I'm talking about knowing the songs or artists, not the years, which are obviously a bit harder to pin down.

This reminded me of something I had mused on some years before. When I left my youth behind and moved areas to work in the early 80's It was over 10 years before I came across anyone who had even HEARD of Gong. I realise Gong are an acquired taste, but NO-ONE ? In 10 Years ? This isn’t a particularly isolated case either. It seems you don’t have to step too far away from the mainstream before certain artists, people that I would describe as important, influential, etc etc just aren’t on many people’s radar AT ALL.

My presumption is that anyone reading this will, at the very least, know about Gong, even if you aren’t a fan. Substitute Gong for any one of a thousand names who aren’t ABBA or the HJHs and I suspect the same will be true. Clearly we are in this forum because these thing are shared interests, but am I and, by implication, we, the strange ones in knowing a little about this stuff, or am I just unlucky to move in a world that can apparently live without Todd Rundgren. All this stuff has been such an important part of my life to date that it can stop me in my tracks when I get reminded that not everyone is waiting with anticipation for the next ………….. album (fill in the blank with whoever you want)

Clearly The Massive has a long way to go and a lot to learn...

Update : Given how many times I have droned on about it here, I thought I'd better go back and add the link for anyone on an iOS device

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/558516

It was -8 degrees here last night. Our freezer broke down. Oh, the irony.

Happy Christmas to all the Massive.

...or have all the YouTube vids suddenly become invisible ?

It struck me recently, probably through some mention here, that I could not recollect EVER hearing anything by Wishbone Ash.

Now this is unlikely given that my formative years, musically, were between 1972 and 1979 and I grew up in this time being a firm Yes /Genesis/ELP fanboy, soaked up any and every influence, moving on to Little Feat and Zappa and beyond until 1976 happened. Secondly, I have a distinct recollection of someone using the cover of "Argus" to roll up on, so I MUST have listened to some of it. However, no memories.

Clearly I couldn't let this go on. I downloaded their newish remastered collection of the MCA years and - wait for it - it's really good.

It's amazing how this can happen. there are probably thousands of artists that have passed me by over the years and I'm perfectly happy in my ignorance of them, but one from my teenage years - that hurts.

http://freshpics.blogspot.com/2010/07/rock-stars-then-and-now.html

The Boss. Springsteen looks better now than he ever did. The Bastard.