I want to tell you

Hmmmmm...it's been a while since I sat at my keyboard & wrote something to go on here.

So what's been going on? Well my 50th birthday celebrations actually seemed to last well over a week.

They started on the Friday before with a Chinese meal with friends. It was that night that I learned that this was a "big" birthday and that badges and wacky cards would be the order of the day (I've always tried to duck that sort of thing!!). It was a great evening and got the celebrations off to a good start.

The next day my Sister and her family were staying with Mum so we all went out and had lunch near Romsey. It was the first we had all been out like that without Dad so there was an element of sadness, but I still got presented with chocolate cake with candles.

The Sunday was quieter until the evening, when my friends Steve & Luann, who live in Cincinnati and were over visiting, held their normal "at home" at the King Rufus pub. I went along to see them, but friends we have in common took the chance to bring helium balloons with my age on them! On the actual day (a Monday, which I took off of work)) I had lunch with my Mother and then took my sons for a meal in the evening.

The big finale was on the following Friday, when my friends Diana & Roger kindly hosted a party at their house for me. There were about 40 of us there and yes I added another balloon to my collection. It was another wonderful evening, with DJ Matt providing suitable 70's and 80's music. No Yes though, he drew the line at that! Lots more rude cards, some fine conversation and even some dancing (of the Dad variety).

The final post script was last Sunday, when at church, before the service I received my third and final balloon!!

In between all that has been work (challenging to say the least) and dealing with Dad's estate which is nowhere near a conclusion and will need a few more hours yet! Why are tax forms so confusing?

Born in the 50’s

If you drew a Venn diagram of two groups comprising "People born in the 50's" and "People who have not had their 50^th birthday" the overlap would be very small, but I, as I write this, would still be in it!

After Monday however I will only be in the first category.

But thanks to the excellent "Word" magazine I can tell you that I'm not alone in reaching this milestone this year. The following are also 50 during 2009:-

• Simon Cowell – slightly wealthier than me!
  
• Hugh Laurie – I'm the same age as Bertie Wooster
  
• Morrissey – So I can play "Heaven knows I'm miserable now" and connect to the man singing it.
  
• Morten Harket – well let's face it he's not old is he...and I'm the same age as him!
  
• John McEnroe – hmmm thought he was older than that!
  
• Susanna Hoffs (lead singer of the Bangles) – I've taken the day off so it won't be a "Manic Monday"! Ta-da!
  
• Sheena Easton – female version of Morten above.
  
• Ben Elton – no longer "alternative" then.
  
• And finally....the Mini and Barbie - I've only owned one of them.
  

So I'm in good company and actually not old at all!

This is the modern world

"The only constant I am sure of, is this accelerating rate of change" Peter Gabriel from the track "Downside – Up".

Recently two new "concepts" have reached me, namely "Spotify" and "Twitter". Each has had large amounts of media coverage. But my instinct is that both have still not really been understood as to the impact they could have, on both the way we listen to music and we receive the news.

Firstly Spotify. This is a music service where you can "stream" music to your computer, for no charge, and listen to whole albums or if you want, put together a playlist and listen to all sorts of things. . The only price you pay is that every 20 minutes or so you have to listen to an advert, which appears for 20 seconds or so between songs. Last weekend I listened to the new U2 album, before its commercial release. Ok we've had services like this before, but this one is legal. Yes, Spotify are working with the record labels and legally offering this service.

Now I'm of a generation which has a physical attachment to owning music, buying that vinyl gatefold album, reading the lyrics and liner notes and the smell of the vinyl were a large part of the "listening experience"! Those days are largely gone, however, CD's diluted that and downloading music has moved us further away. There is still some demand for a product to hold, but Spotify will allow you to have your music when ever or wherever you want (subject to a broadband connection) and you don't have to pay for it! It has the ability to completely change the music industry. It also raises a number of questions if you are a musician as how you get paid for your art but increasingly live work is where an artist makes any money rather than the music itself. Will a generation ahead look back at us and laugh at how we either owned copies of music or paid for it?

Secondly - Twitter. This is a web based service where you can post "tweets", which are messages of no more than 140 characters. Other uses of Twitter can follow you, and thus read your posts. Then they can reply to you, if appropriate, or post tweets themselves. Following is very easy, you find the person on Twitter and then click on the "follow" button and you're connected! As a technology it transfers easily to mobile phones and iPods and means that mobile tweeting is fairly simple. Out of that has grown a whole phalanx of "Twitterers" mainly well known TV and radio stars, which we can follow and know either what they are doing or what their shows etc are showing, doing or what guests are coming in. In addition media outlets now have twitter accounts and it is becoming the best way of receiving the news as quickly as possible. The Hudson River plane crash was all over Twitter far quicker than the news broadcast media could achieve it. You can also post photos, via a link to twitter, so there were also photos of the rescue on twitter, via mobile phones on the shoreline, while the TV director was ordering his film crew to go there. The potential is unknown, but in an age of hunger for knowledge as soon as possible, Twitter will be, at least for the moment, an important technology.