Daily Archives: January 3, 2009

Our queer old dean*

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We went to see Dean Spanley this evening and enjoyed it hugely. Implausible plot (about reincarnation) but a lovely, literary script, and great performances by Peter O’Toole (playing a curmudgeonly old bugger not unlike himself), Jeremy Northam as his son (in a truly magnificent hat) and Sam Neill as the Dean. Can’t improve on the IMDB reviewer, Jamie Robert Ward, who wrote:

For all its eccentricities, dry humour and rich sense of character however, it must be noted that the experience of watching Dean Spanley certainly isn’t for everyone. A drama rooted in classic prose, focusing heavily on character, philosophy and small nuances of psychology and life, Toa Fraser here sticks to his guns and delivers an unapologetically intelligent, cultured and insightful character study kept in check by warmth of heart and unique personality. If there is one major selling point for the feature that will allow all audiences to get something from the feature however, it simply lies within the timeless presence of Peter O’Toole who gives a wonderful performance befitting of his stature and the character in which he resides. It can be a touching, humorous and even thought-provoking experience, but like a fine wine, you’re best not to get too involved here; this one’s for sitting back and soaking in one sip at a time, and yes, it might be a little syrupy but it’s enough to get lost in and enjoy all the same.

The big surprise was learning that it was based on a book written by an eccentric Anglo-Irish peer, Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany who was, among other things, a friend of Yeats and Lady Gregory and a great dog-lover. This last attribute explains much about the film.

*Footnote: A Spoonerism. The celebrated Warden of New College was proposing a toast to the Queen.

Mr Fry’s gadget bag

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I always thought that Quentin and I must be the most chronic cases of travelling geeks (in terms of the amount of kit we take with us) in the western world. But I was wrong. We are mere amateurs, nay boulevardiers, compared with Mr Stephen Fry. Here is the list of what he has just unpacked in his New York hotel room.

7 x Mini USB cables: 2 of them are the new Micro type that Blackberry has switched to for the Storm only, the rest are standard.

4 x iPod/iPhone chargers: I seem to use one iPhone exclusively for mad hacking, jailbreaking and frigging about with, another as a pedometer, another for music, another as a – guess what ? – phone. I know I’m putting my botty on the line by confessing to jailbreakage and hackery, but I think Apple (while each update brings a new weapon in their war against Pwnage and SIM-card skulduggery) are man enough to take it.

3 x Hard drives: Took the hasty decision to come to America (I shan’t be back in Britain till late January) with just one computer, one of the new MacBooks. It doesn’t have Firewire. Duh? Maddening, since my favourite hard drive is Firewire only. But at least the MacBook allows a proper connection, unlike the underpowered USB of the original version of the scrumptious MacBook Air. You know that feeling when you have a whole lump of data on one device or peripheral and you want to get it on another and you suddenly realise you can’t? ‘Okay, so I upload it onto a compact flash card. No onto an SD card. Hell where’s my card reader? Right. I email myself the file…’ etc., etc. That happens to me a lot.

1 Snowball USB Microphone: just in case I have the sudden yen to record a podgram. You never know.

6 x SIM cards: Orange, Vodafone, 2 x O2, T-Mobile, AT&T. My UK mobile number is Orange, that’s my regular number, but one needs to swap and shuffle and use other networks in order properly to play. I know. I’m weird. I’ve long accepted it. But weird is just another way of spelling “wired”. I drew weird in another way and got wired.

1 x Blackberry Bold
1 x Blackberry Storm
1 x HTC G1 Android ‘Googlephone’
1 x Pocketsurfer
n x iPhones (too many, you’d only laugh or snort with derision if I told you the exact number)

Assorted CDs

Assorted Manuals and Quickstart Guides.

Mind you, he probably travels by private jet. Try getting that pile of stuff past a RyanAir check-in.

The Gmail diet

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Chris Nuttall of the FT has become a Gmail user.  (He’s on the run from the dreaded Lotus Notes.)  He’s posted some helpful notes on how to make Gmail more efficient. I’ve learned some tricks I hadn’t known. Gratias!

Microsoft: the slide continues

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From Good Morning Silicon Valley.

Last month, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was used by 68.15 percent of the Web surfers monitored. In January 2008, that figure was 75.47 percent; in January 2007, it was 79.98 percent. If you’re in Redmond, that’s got to give you a litte shiver. The agents of this erosion? Mozilla’s Firefox browser, which started 2007 with a 13.70 percent share and finished 2008 with 21.34 percent, and Apple’s Safari, which climbed from 4.72 percent to 7.93 percent in the same span. Even Google’s new Chrome browser, still a blip in the market after being introduced just this fall, did what IE could not and won some new fans.

The Net Applications stats on operating systems were no more encouraging for Microsoft. In January 2007, 93.33 percent of the Web travelers monitored were running Windows; last month, that figure was down to 88.68. Across the same period, the Mac share rose from 6.22 percent to 9.63. And while the use of the iPhone for Web browsing is still comparatively tiny, the growth rate gives Apple even more reason to smile. In just the last six months, its share rose from 0.19 percent to 0.44 percent.