…I have heard news of two people I knew from the past who have died recently.
The first was Phil Rose, the Factory manager at CCT Theatre Lighting and an old-timer from Strand Electric in the days before Rank Strand. I spent many an hour sitting with him talking about why things were the way they were in the Stage Lighting world, both old and new. Pride of place on the wall near his desk were original lighting rig plans for the London Palladium in the 40s that I recognised as an illustration from one of Fred Bentham’s Stage Lighting books. The last time I saw Phil was at Fred’s Funeral and we promised to keep in touch, but other than swapping a couple of emails we were both somewhat remiss. Apparently the funeral will be on October 13th near Fleet, Hants and Jim Laws should have the details.
The other person was Bill Furness, the Stage Manager and eventual Chief Projectionist at the Newcastle Odeon who I remember well from my teens, as recounted here. His Son, Roger Furness, tracked me down & left a comment on the blogpost and also took the trouble to email me directly. The funeral is tomorrow at 11am in Blyth.
The Hesh (standing) and Martin Green (seated) try out the studio…
…we had six new faces to a Morley FM open evening. One of them was someone’s mum, though, and possibly doesn’t count!
…The Town Council met. I complained about decisions being referred to Council without any significant background information or justification, just a sentence or two in Committee Minutes. Are we supposed to scrutinise ourselves or just rubber stamp everything?
…I also complained about the Mayor deciding to make mini speeches during debate. In his role as Chairman, I feel it is important that he ensures fair debate in the chamber and keeps his own views reasonably quiet. The views weren’t anything off have told us we have to stick to ten watts.ensive but I think there is a principle here, it is a position of privilege which could unduly influence others.
All of the studio bits have now arrived from the supplier, we can now trigger the computer from the mixer via a little game port adapter device. We push up the fader and the computer thinks someone has pushed a joystick button!
I am refining my “First kata” at karate. Now that the pattern and the moves are committed to memory, comes the realisation that higher grades are much more expressive and elegant in performing what is essentially a style of performance Ballet.
The Radio station has also had an expression of sponsorship interest from a local double glazing company, an offer of cheap corporate membership from a local gym for our (non-existent) staff, then finally OfCom have told us we will have to stick to 10 watts for our December broadcast. They have very kindly sent an expected coverage map though…
Last week, Leeds City Council fitted our recycle bin with an RFID tag, a little passive device that spits out a unique number when interrogated electronically. A team descended on the close, following a well ordered drill. The first bloke drilled a hole in the bin with a battery operated power drill, the second popped the device in the hole and the third recorded the house number on a hand-held device with a large aerial. I happened to be out at the time, collecting the black bin when this all happened. Us having two bins caused a momentary problem for them as a) there isn’t a house number on it, and b) it appears to be unusual to have two green bins (although the council are happy to let people have as many as they want if there is a need.
We had been forewarned that this was happening by a letter a couple of weeks ago- also giving the reason.
“This is being done in order for us to ascertain the weight of materials being collected and will help with future management decisions.”
I thought the phrase sounded slightly sinister, as it might herald taxation by quantity. Will we get chastised for producing too much, or not enough? Will we get snotty letters saying green bin number 2 has little in because we don’t evenly distribute the stuff between both of them? When will they trill and fit the black bins?
Of course, these schemes always have unintended consequences. My parents used to put household waste in the street bin as they ran a shop and would be charged extra if the business bin was insufficient (which it was). I can see us distributing garden waste around town down our trouser legs as per the great escape…
