My Lovely Andorran Horse disqualified from Eurovision

Sometimes life imitates art to such a degree that you wonder what’s going on, but this is too good to miss.
Andorran Broadcaster RTVA (like the BBC here in Blighty) is currently getting ready to broadcast their national final to select a song to represent the country in the Eurovision Song Contest. Unfortunately the song Estrelles [...]

How To Get Traffic At Christmas

One of the tough times for any website is how to keep the traffic levels (and ergo the advertising income) at a high enough level during the festive season. All About Symbian generally slows down, partly because Steve, Rafe and myself have little to write about, but also because the normal mobile phone watchers are [...]

The TPN Rock Christmas Rock-tacular for 2008

Update: Due to TPN Server issues, this now points to a local copy of the file, download, stream and enjoy!
It’s Christmas time, and that means christmas music. Which is a bit of a challenge for the podcaster, as it would cost an absolute fortune to licence Slade and Wizzard (I think Chris De Burgh’s A [...]

Simon Cowell, Keith Olbermann and the Christmas Number One

I started writing a post yesterday for The Daily Dust, and rather than a paragraph or two, it started to turn into an almost Olbermann-esque polemic about The X-Factor, Simon Cowell and its effect on the Christmas charts. And I thought that with a bit of work, a bit more length, and some classy cliches, [...]

The Jury Returns to Eurovision

Yes, here’s the post that many of you have been waiting for all week – my thoughts on the national voting for the Eurovision Song Contest.
A quick recap. Since 1997, every country entering the Eurovision Song Contest has conducted a national phone vote (either by direct calling or recently by the addition of SMS voting) [...]

Loving Le Web – Conference Report

Lots of coverage on Le Web, and I’m one of those adding to the buzz with my conference report now available on the BBC News website:
“Starting up a business is similar to falling in love,” said Loic Le Meur, organiser of the Le Web conference that brought the cream of Europe’s web developers together in [...]

It Was the Best of Times, It Was The Worst of Times, It Was Le Web

So, what to make of this year’s Le Web conference in Paris? The problems of the event have gathered momentum around the web; namely the lack of heat in the conference centre on the first day; the minute portions of food served by people with split second accurate stop watches; and after last years [...]

Fly Easy Air Scotia, Vulcan Picket Lines and Environmental Protestors

One for the Scottish comedy brigade here, but the Easyjet flight that I’m on has one of its fluorescent strip lights broken. It’s on the right hand side of the aircraft a little more than half way up the aisle. I’m half expecting the cabin crew to curse and bang the overhead locker next to [...]

Why Five Mintues With… is frustrating me.

Just spotted this over on the BBC News website, a series of 5 minute interview with various people, chaired by Matthew Stadlen. They’ve just posted one for Michael Portillo, and it’s left me feeling a little bit… cheated.
It’s clear that a lot of preparation has been done by Stadlen on his subjects, and I can’t [...]

Thoughts on Graham Norton and the Eurovision Song Contest

Right, I’m not sure how I feel on this one… this one being Graham Norton confirmed as the new commentator for the BBC’s coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest, replacing Terry Wogan.
This isn’t the first time the commentator has changed – before Wogan the mighty Dave Lee Travis was the voice from the contest to [...]

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