Reviews: The Pigeon Detectives - Wait For Me

I've recently purchased "Wait for Me" and also saw The Pigeon Detectives first of all at Pucklepop in Belgium, then supporting the Kaiser Chiefs at Nottingham Areana. So I feel I'm in a decent enough position to pen a quick review on their new album.

For my reviews so far I’ve bigged up the WACS7000 music system from Philips and fully lavished praise on the Racing Frogs website. So you might be thinking this review is quite likely going to be more controversial, maybe a little scathing in its opinion, well let’s see.

This debut album “Wait for me”, the reason it doesn’t hit the mark is…. Well, the reason I didn’t like it is… I thought it was second rate because… No, sorry, cant do it, this album is absolutely fantastic!

This pop/rock/indie style band of youths brought out a few excellent singles, first of all “Romantic type” then “I found out” and so it was time for an album to prove their worth.
I can safely say they have done just that with an album that is packed with sing-along, or even chant-along, songs that can be enjoyed in the car, down the pub with your mates or even just at home to brighten things up on a rainy sunday.

There seems to be quite a few bands in this same style at the moment and I have to admit I’m into most of them so it’s not really that surprising I like this album. The Twang, The Kooks, The View, The Cribs, they all have that “sing about life – things that people can relate too” style that has really caught on ever since The Kaiser Chiefs brought this idea into the mainstream (No surprise therefore they are supporting the chiefs on tour!). Some however do it better than others, the Pigeons being one of them.

I loved the lyrics in the singles and the rest of the album doesn’t disappoint.
The foot-tapping “Don’t Know How to Say Goodbye” brilliantly reassures you that the first two singles (track 1 & 2) weren’t just lucky.
The next fave in my opinion is “I’m not Sorry” which I defy anyone not to be singing along to before the end of the first listen. “Stop or go” is very similar which only leaves you with a few tracks before getting to the brilliant “Take Her Back” - “What would her dad say if he knew? She’s on her knees, he’s twenty-two”, which I don’t think I’m ever going to get bored of listening too. Then there’s still the title track “Wait for me” to enjoy… Sorry I just couldn’t do it… this album is great!

Views: Standard Leicester Night Out

Out on the town last night and it was very much a game of two halves! As with the majority of places, Leicester has its good spots and its down right bad spots.

We like to have a bit of variety when in town so we try and mix it up. Having a few in the less classy bars can prove quite entertaining.

We started off in Lloydes, which is your standard cheap drinks gordy décor style bar. No need to re-mortgage the house to pay for a round in here. As this is probably one of the less impressive pubs in Leicester, you would think we might struggle to find a worse one… step forward The Goose!

After being quite amused by the January sale on Stella! We proceeded to inform the bar staff they are working in a pretty bad bar. Ok, you probably don’t need that from customers but the response was a classic…”Well F**k off then!".
Now I'm no expert in customer service, but I'm sure that kind of response would not figure in ""Five Star Service, One Star Budget: How to Create Magic Moments for Your Customers That Get You Noticed, Remembered and Referred", don't get me worng, it was a magic moment and it will get them remembered... but probably not referred!. That said, we did take her advice and we did F**k off, to Varsity.

Again not a classic pub, but cheap (seems to be a theme here!). After watching a bit of ultimate fighting on the big screen, which is a cracking choice for a pub selling 2-4-1s on Smirnoff, it was decided we needed a good half time talking too and a change in venue type.

We proceeded to go to Fat Cats, which is a damn fine choice playing decent music and providing a quality atmosphere. Then Hush, which although does feel like your in some chaps flat, is actually alright. Finally came Manilla for a bit of boogying (yes for those that know me, I said Manilla not Liquid!), which again provided good music and fine atmosphere.

So, if your out’n’about in Leicester, I suggest… mix it up… it’s all good fun!

Views: Unwanted kids mountain bike

Right what’s going on? For the last couple of weeks I have had a mystery phantom bike rider leaving his mountain bike outside my house.

Ok, lets get things into perspective… if it was a phantom riding this bike, he probably wouldn’t be that scary, as he would be around 3ft tall at most. You see the “mountain bike” is approx 2ft big, the breaks are knackered and the tires flat.

I have tried to get rid of the bloody thing, but like the proverbial boomerang the thing keeps coming back. I wouldn’t mind, but when it’s hammering down I have to keep getting out of my car to move the little piece of sh!t, as the phantoms favourite place to leave it is in front of my drive!

So, I’ll try a few more times to get rid… if that doesn’t work I’m placing an ad in the paper and on the local co-op notice board!

Booze: Fruli, what? Strawberry Beer?

It’s a wheat beer, like hoegarden… but with strawberries! I talk not of a strange new gimmicky drink that has just been released onto the masses of alchopop drinking youth, but of a drink that has been around for nearly five years and created a cult following. I talk of Fruli.

Fruli is 70% wheat beer, 30% strawberry juice and is a refreshing sweet alternative to your standard larger. I’ll be up-front and honest. I designed and developed the two main Fruli sites on the web, the unofficial fan site, www.frulibeer.com and the official Fruli site www.fruli.com. So you could say I am a little biased in my opinions.

That said I would admit that you can’t (and probably shouldn’t www.drinkaware.co.uk) drink more than 2 maybe 3 pints of the red stuff.

I think the difference with Fruli compared to other fruit drinks, is that its immediately tasty and very sweet. It won’t be everybody’s taste, but it is well worth trying to see if it is yours.

The strawberry taste is immediately recognisable, which isn’t the case with many fruit drinks such as Belle-Vue or Samuel Smiths Cherry Fruit Beer where the fruit is far more subtle. On the flipside though, Fruli is slightly gassier than its other fruit beer counterparts.

As with most drinks like this that are a bit more unique, it really is down to personal taste. This, like marmite… is a love it or hate it relationship!

For this reason, let everyone know how you feel about Fruli by posting your comments here.

Reviews: Racing Frogs - Website Game

For nearly 5 years now I (a fully grown adult!) have been the parent of a virtual frog. Yep, I have been logging onto the website Racing Frogs so I can feed, train, buy items, talk too and build dragon fly traps for my pixelated little pal.

So why has this web site captivated me so much that my commitment to "Ribbit Redford", "Julia Ribbits" and "Bruce Leap" (too name but a few) has lasted longer than some of my relationships?... That's worrying now I've put it down in words!

I think its the same reason why the facebook/MySpace/Bebo phenomenon has happened. It has made me feel I'm part of something. Something that I can visit to do the necessary then put to the side. Safe in the knowledge, that I can do the same thing tomorrow. Although we might moan about "the same old routine", I think we all need a degree of familiarity in life.

That of course is not the only reason. It’s also a very well designed web site and one that’s intuitive and fun to use.

Your frog starts off in grade 1, so it’s racing other grade 1 frogs each night. You can choose its food to improve its energy, items in the hypermarket to improve commitment and most importantly train the little fella so your fitness is at its peak.

You race each night winning money so that you can do the same again the next day.
For a small fee you can also enter a "VIP" zone. In here you can feed your virtual hopper some dragonflies, buy more items and even set up your own league so you can race-ya-mates.
As your frog improves it moves up the grades and wins more money, although the races are harder. You also win medals to increase motivation.

All this is for one ultimate goal, to become... A Superfrog!

Don't get too emotionally involved though as when your frog reaches 240 days of age (3 frog days to every 1 human day), the little bloke retires. But stay committed, start another frog with the same account and you can start to buy items from the retirement fund to be a real contender.

This site it a little gem, and with competitions through the year, you will find yourself getting very competitive!
There's also a great community around this site, so the forum is well worth joining.

Go on... give it a go, before you know it you will be hankering after the prestigious title of Superfrog!

Anyway, why cant adults have a bit of simple virtual fun!

Reviews: Loving my Philips WACS7000

As with a lot of people, music plays an important part of my life. When I get home I fire up the music no matter what I'm doing. Cleaning the house, getting changed ready to go out, or whatever... there's music on.

Up until recently I've had a Panasonic 5 disc changer, which did a job. Being able to load 5 discs and stick it on a full random meant I wasn't bored for a while. I was content with that, even happy, but when I thought about it, 5 discs, 50(ish) tracks... come on, I can fit more than that on my phone!
So time had obviously come to upgrade my downgradings and look for a better music solution.

Having an mp3 player I could have simply brought a docking station with some nifty speakers and blasted that out whenever the mood took. But one thing that has always annoyed me is when I leave the room, only to go back in 5mins time to catch the last snippet of my favourite tune. I needed a system, which enabled me to broadcast my music around the house. Step forward the Philips Streamium WACS7000.

With this system you get a main station and a sub station that wirelessly connect. No need for a computer or even a wireless home network. These little babies can see each other quite happily and at a decent range, mine are over 10 meters apart, although I am using a wireless router, which can apparently double the range.

The Philips WACS 7000 - 80GB Wireless Music Center & Station comes with a 80gb hard drive, which is more than enough for me at the moment and certainly an improvement on my 5 disc system!
The two-way remote control is also a little belter as it reads out the menu off your system on a handy 2.5" screen, so no need to keep jumping up to see what your selecting.

As for the operating system and the software, I would say its very easy to get up and running and its an intuitive interface. All the expected features are there, such as a search function, play songs from the same artist, genre etc... etc...

The sound is also very good, although this did take a little tweaking to get the bass just right. I did go through a stage of building a separates system, spending over £2000 on all the components and gold plated banana plugs etc... The sound isn't as good as that, but I didn't expect it to be!

So what puts this system head and shoulders above others. Well, it’s the main feature. The Broadcast function and Music Follows me function. No longer do I have to miss my favourite track, and no longer do you have to have a party in only one room of your house. By pressing a single button you can either broadcast to all your substations from your centre or you can set off the music follows me to keep the same track playing in the room your going to... I'm in music heaven!

Its also very scalable. You can obtain a free ipod dock that plugs into the system or simply plug in a usb storage device containing mp3s to expand the music offerings. It also supports UPNP which is now available on some mobile phones such as the Nokia N80 or N95 and PC media servers (Tversity is worth a look).

So do I work for Philips... No. Therefore I will say there could have been some improvements. For £540 I feel there could have been a slightly larger hard-drive. Also the substations sound quality is a little second rate and the software doesn't seem to function quite as well. More than once when scrolling through tracks or turning the volume up or down it doesn't stop (sorry neighbours!). Although hopefully a firmware upgrade will solve this problem.
Transferring tracks onto the system from your computer or ripping them from a CD you can put into the unit can also take a while... but hey, you've only got to do it once and its on there.

Overall I love this system, it looks very stylish, it sounds great and it has that all-important wireless functionality, I know I won't be changing it for a while. In-fact the only thing I'll be doing is adding more substations.