Mindsigh

12 Girls Band play Riverdance reel

Posted by Jerry on November 22nd, 2007 — Posted in Journal, Music

This is amazing – Riverdance music on Chinese instruments – and beautifully staged too!

Cheers
Jerry

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Photographing the moon

Posted by Jerry on November 20th, 2007 — Posted in Journal, New media, Technology

The Fuji Finepix camera S5700 has a ten ttimes optical zoom and is a 7 megapixel camera. I particularly like the large lens size as it copes well with relatively low light conditions, such as indoor evening shots. But my standard test for a camera is how well it takes a moon shot at its greatest zoom. And here is the result

It was taken using the the full zoom and full digital zoom on the Manual setting (shutterspeed 500, aperture F3.5 ISO100) – okay I’m impressed – and it cost no more than the canon powershot cameras I had used before. I had looked at these cameras before, but was put off by the XD card media – well now they have updated and take both XD and SD cards – making them compatible (finally) with most card readers.

This camera is excellent value for money and a great entry camera if the prices of digital SLR cameras have been putting you off.

Cheers
Jerry

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Majors Creek Folk Festival 2007

Posted by Jerry on November 19th, 2007 — Posted in Journal, Music

There was still quite a bit of daylight when we arrived at Majors Creek near Braidwood in New South Wales and we wre fortunate in being offered a camping spot in a great location on the edge of the great sports oval on which the bulk of the Music at the Creek festival was to run.

The day was still warm and once we had set up camp, it was time to check out the layout. We were near one venue which had a number of excellent acts from bluesy duos to big sound bands.

As always the highlight for me were the informal music sessions where musicians come together to play and exchange tunes. I came away with a good list of tunes to learn, and pointed others to some great tunes I had picked up during the year.

There were excellent sessions on Friday night and on Saturday night which went until well into the morning. I had another great playoff with Tony Pyrzakowski from Mothers of Intention – a great fiddler and a great mate.

Rosie McDonald and Anne Ridgeway did a lovely set at one of the concert venues, as did Nick and Liesl – an up and coming young Sydney duo.

Will O’ the Wisp was there with stilt walkers and hoop shows and workshops adding to the festival atmosphere. The Morris dancers braved the heat on Saturday and the late afternoon thunderstorm provided a welcome cool change with teh sun returning in the morning to dry everything off before packing up.

Majors is a great festival – big enough to attract great talent and small enough to remain a friendly festival – I’ll be back next year 🙂

Cheers
Jerry

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NZ travel: Christchurch surroundings

Posted by Jerry on November 13th, 2007 — Posted in Journal, Travel

The scenery in the surrounding hills around Christchurch is breathtaking – we took the road up to Mt Cavendish lookout (where the Gondola cable-car goes to), and found a delightful road the wound around various coastal villages and then up to a fabulous view of Lyttelton on one side and Christchurch on the other.

The lookout may well have been designed by hobbits!

Lyttelton is situated in a bay created by the collapsed crater wall of an extinct volcano. The water is beautifully clear and deep azure blue in colour.

It is a picturesque town – site of the landing harbour of the First Four Ships of the Canterbury Association fleet.

If you have the time, it’s worth tooling around those hills in a hire car or motorcycle – great roads (if quite narrow in places with steep unguarded drops over the side. But the surface is good bitumen and the curves make for a lovely gentle motorbike slalom. Our rather large hire car seemed a bit squeezy at times when large SUVs came hurtling around from the opposite direction!

This is the maritime time ball – a little bit of Greenwich far from the UK!

And there is an excellent museum nearby – well worth a visit 🙂

Cheers
Jerry

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NZ travel – Christchurch – An overview

Posted by Jerry on November 7th, 2007 — Posted in History, Journal, Travel

The heart of Christchurch is the Anglican cathedral of ChristChurch. The cultural life of the city revolves around the Cathedral Square. The square is dominated by the Gothic-style cathedral designed by renowned English Gothic architect George Gilbert Scott and adapted by local architect Benjamin Mountford, and built between 1864 (foundation stone) and 1904 (completion). The cathedral was part of the central concept of Christchurch. The cathedral has just completed its biggest restoration in its 126 year history.

The story begins back in 1848 when a pro-colonization group called the Canterbury Association was established by Edward Gibbon Wakefield (of Adelaide fame) and John Robert Godley. The Canterbury Association decided to found a new settlement in New Zealand, built around a central cathedral and college along the lines of Christ college in Oxford. And the first four ships carrying about 750 pilgrims of the Canterbury Association arrived in Lyttelton harbour in December 1850. The ships were: the Randolph, the Cressy, Sir George Seymour and the Charlotte Jane.

Mountford had a huge influence on Victorian Christchurch and there are a number of Gothic-style buildings that show his influence, including the original Council Chambers, the museum and the old University (now the Arts Centre) built between 1876 and 1923. The Christchurch Arts Centre is a particularly fine example.

The Arts centre is well supported with over 40 specialty shops galleries and working studios. There is an arts market every weekend and it’s also worth visiting Rutherford’s Den – site of Earnest Rutherford’s early experiments which led to his theory of the atom. This is in the clock tower (built 1870) and is right opposite a boutique cafe.

And before you leave the Arts Centre, be sure to check out the Juggler statue – please leave a comment or drop me an email if you know the title and artist who produced this sculpture)

As you head back along Worcester Street across the bridge there is a statue of John Falcon Scott (of the Antarctic) sculpted from Carrara marble by his wife Kathleen in 1917. It bears the inscription of his last message:

I do not regret this journey, which shows that Englishmen can endure hardships, help one another, and meet death with as great a fortitude as ever in the past.

Opposite is another neo-gothic building, the old municipal chambers now Our City O-Tautahi – a civic exhibition space.

The Christchurch Art Gallery is a stunning building unmatched by the rather conservative hang of its contents. The early material contains few landscapes – surprising given how the landscape has so shaped the place, instead there are a large number of English-style interiors, very few portraits of Maoris and the contemporary material is largely European-influenced ‘International Style’ – suggesting a strong tendency towards cultural cringe. But there are some good specialist exhibitions, including an Antarctic one, and regular floor talks and events are scheduled.

In the Cathedral Square, past the street performers and market, it’s worth checking out the information centre in this building – the people are really helpful and go out of their way to help you find out stuff about the city (but we managed to foil them with the writers walk, but more on that later). It also has a Starbucks on the corner and a fairly expensive Indian restaurant inside.

And the 18 metre high Chalice sculpture, by artist Neil Dawson (2001) commemorates the Millenium and the 150th anniversary of the founding of Christchurch and Canterbury. It dominates Cathedral square and its cone shape inversely mirrors the the Cathedral spire.

Is this a massive Spring Sale? No, just a well-resourced central library with a highly knowledgeable staff and excellent NZ and reference collection, free computer and internet access and free wifi. In fact all the arts and cultural institutions seemed well-resourced and as a consequence were well utilised by the local population and visitors alike.

But for some people, the alienation of modernist architecture can be so expressive…

More soon

Cheers
Jerry

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