A Trip To The Theatre

As I was trying to find the Haymarket Theatre Royal in London this evening, I was stopped by a young lady asking me to sign her petition. She wasn't totally clear about her petition's purpose, but she did talk about "women's rights" and "sex equality".

So I pointed out to her that she was wearing a skirt and her colleague - another girl - was wearing trousers. Was she really wanting me to sign a petition asking for extra rights for women to ensure they became equal with men?

She stared blankly at me, so I put the question a different way. If I signed, would she be willing to promise me she would never wear a skirt, dress, makeup, and so forth ever again, thus achieving equality with men?

Her reply was rather impolite, but I believe that she was declining the deal I had offered her...

Anyone want to be Glee?

We are on the hunt for groups of singers who are open to trying some choreography to enter our competition.

The programme will be going out on Channel Five from mid July for 6 weeks. If successful, once they have filled in the online application form (link below), the group would be needed for one day for a non televised audition in late May (near your hometown). Then successful groups will be needed for two live shows (heat and final) in late July/early August. The live shows involve five acts and the public vote their favourite act through to the grand final each week. After five heats the five acts that won their heats compete against each other in the final. As you can see, it’s not a knock out show so they wouldn’t need to commit each week and would be given dates in advance.

This competition is for singing groups who have more than 5 members per group and our minimum age for the competition is 14. Please go to www.dontstopbelieving.tv to get the application form and apply for the show.

If groups are keen to apply but waiting to get together to film the footage for the application, please fill in the application form ASAP and get that in to us and then send the footage in as soon as it is able via the application form or post. Footage recently shot of the group, but not specifically for Don’t Stop Believing is acceptable. If we have a completed form off the group we can begin the application process and write a note of when to expect the footage.

Footage can be posted to:
Emma Bickers
SHINE TV
Primrose Studios,
109 Regents Park Road,
London,
NW1 8UR

Just to reiterate interest is high and time is running out so fill in the application form at http://www.dontstopbelieving.tv now to register your interest, the footage can then be uploaded or posted after.

A final note is we are looking for a vast range of groups to apply. From young to old, established vocal groups, choirs and musical theatre groups to friends and family with a mutual love of singing and dancing who want to give it a go; we welcome anyone. We will have a fantastic team of experts on hand to come help with vocals and choreography should the group get through to the semi-finals.

Here are some handy hints to help any applicants.

1. Film your group performing your application song ( nb this can be only 1 song and choose this song wisely as we have had lots of interest)
2. Dress to impress
3. If you have any members who are under 18 make sure their parents are aware and have given their consent.

We cannot offer any group an audition until we have received a completed application form and it is accompanied by a video.

Please return your completed form as soon as possible to ensure an audition in your preferred city as audition slots are likely to be filled quickly. Interest in the show is high so don’t delay!
You can contact me directly on 0207 985 7083 or reply to emma.bickers@shine.tv

Jesus Christ Superstar, Dunfermline, 29-Apr to 01-May

Jesus Christ Superstar is coming to Dunfermline's Alhambra theatre for four performances on 29-Apr to 01-May (with Saturday matinee).

The show - which many consider to be Lloyd Webber's most original score - is seldom made available to adult amateur societies. To mark the show's 40th anniversary, two of Scotland's most exciting amateur musical groups - The Melodramatics of Edinburgh and The Limelight Productions of Dunfermline - have joined forces.

The result is a show that is shaping up to be one of the most powerful theatrical events you are ever likely to see on the amateur stage.

With Iain McInnes playing Jesus, Bobby Mitchell in the role of Judas and Kirsty McLaren as Mary Magdalene, together with a top-notch ensemble, this is an event not to be missed.

The Alhambra Theatre is in New Row, Dunfermline, and has ample free parking close by. If you've not seen the theatre it's well worth coming to visit, as it has promise to become one of Scotland's top theatres in the near future.

You can order tickets (£13 for adults or £11 for concessions) from the Alhambra box office on 01383 740384, or from www.ticketmaster.co.uk

Please do come along - I am certain that it will be a night of theatre you will enjoy and remember for along, long time.

/alan

Well done Mr Connarty

Well, high marks indeed to Michael Connarty - he wrote back to me late yesterday evening (after 11pm) to reply to my mail.

His response started off by saying he had been campaigning to protect copyright holders for eighteen years in Parliament and would continue to do so.  

On Clause 43 he believed that copyright holders were protected because they could "claim back" mis-identified orphan works.  My preference would be to put more onus on the prospective user of the copyrighted material.

On Clause 46 he denied that it was a "Henry VIII" clause, which would allow substantial changes to the Bill without Parliamentary approval.  Instead, it requires a Statutory Instrument, which in turn requires a committee of MPs to make changes.  He described that as normal in legislation.

Finally, Mr Connarty said that he did not vote on the Bill as there was no amendment tabled in the House and hence no opportunity to vote.

While I still am uncomfortable about the issue of Orphan Works I am heartened by the speed of response from my MP and the fact it was clearly a direct response to the email I had sent, not some "form" reply.  

I would suggest to any reader that every image you post to the net has your contact data in the EXIF and IPTC data, and anything larger than a size you are willing to lose should have a watermark containing a copyright symbol, date, your name and some means of contacting you.

Letter to Michael Connarty

It does seem pretty underhand of the government to try to sneak through the Digital Economy Bill on the last day of Parliament before the Election is announced. This Bill will make it much harder for photographers to be paid for the work they do, and that seems wrong in a Bill that claims to be working to protect the "Creative Arts" (see http://www.stop43.org.uk/pages/read_more.html for more information)

Anyway, here's the text of a letter I sent to my MP Michael Connarty today. Let's see what response I get:

Dear Mr Connarty,

Even though it is late, and I am sure your mind will be on other things
today, I ask you to vote against the unseemly shoehorning through of
the Digital Economy Bill.

The Bill has clearly been poorly thought through. It claims to be
trying to promote the Creative Arts, yet in Clause 43 it greatly
reduces the rights of photographers to claim payment for the use of
their own works. Someone wanting to use a photograph need make only
the most cursory of searches for the photographer, and they can happily
go away and use the work without compensating the artist who created
it.

Furthermore, Clause 46 - a so-called Henry VIII clause - allows a
future minister to make changes in the scope of the law without that
being approved by Parliament. I thought we were supposed to be a
Parliamentary democracy - why should a single minister be free to make
sweeping changes to a law without consultation with MPs?

And finally, the suggestion that a family's internet connection may be
disabled because of a SUSPICION of misuse, is clearly contrary to any
form of natural justice. You always come across as a fair-minded man,
so I am sure that you would not go along with something as unreasonable
as that.

I hope you will let me know, at your earliest convenience, that you
have voted to delay this Bill for reasonable scrutiny in a future
Parliament.

Yours sincerely,
etc

Well done Pantone Europe

Colour Calibration of a monitor is the process of making sure that the colours on your monitor match what you would get it if you were to print the same picture out on a properly set up printer.

For this job, I use a Pantone Huey. However, with the recent addition of a second monitor, I wanted to upgrade to the Pantone Huey Pro. This is a software-only update.

I went to the web site for the upgrade, and found that the upgrade was no longer available in Europe. Yet it was available in the USA?

So I sent off a polite letter to Pantone customer support, who confirmed that the upgrade was no longer available in Europe. Disappointed, I asked that this be reconsidered.

So imagine my surprise to receive an email saying that the Pantone Europe people had reconsidered, and the upgrade was to be once again sold in Europe! I was probably their first customer for it, and it undoubtedly works well :-) (The link is here)

So, kudos and thanks to Pantone Europe

The downside of renting your own domain

I have a few domains - thepotters.org is my main one for the family, stagepics.co.uk is another, ross-online.org.uk and sabos.co.uk are domains that I rent and manage on behalf of others.

Completely separately, there is the subject of spam. When spammers are sending junk mail, they know that many mail servers will do a lookup to check that the mail they are sending appears to come from a valid domain.

So spammers create email addresses based on real domains, with any old string before the "@" sign.

That means that when automated reponses or hate mail come back, they go to the domain that the spammer created. And in all of my domains, I have a "catch-all" set up, so that any email sent to that domain comes back to me.

Which is why I have had over one hundred and fifty mail messages telling me that panuche [at] thepotters.org is not a member. Started the morning beautifully, that did!

IT WISNAE ME!