In the early evening, a great number of Radio 4′s listeners are vehicle-bound commuters, making their weary way home. The Radio 4 news marathon starts in earnest at 5pm and continues for 90 minutes until 6:30pm when the importance of global wrangling is put to one side, and half an hour of lighter entertainment begins, enabling daddies, mummies, husbands and wives to arrive home with a less furrowed brow!

In the moments between the news ending and the next programme being announced there is a short Schroedinger’s pause, where all the possible following programmes exist in equal probability of being aired. During that period, I’ve never once hoped for anything but I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue.

In millions of cars, in many thousands of commuter traffic jams, over many many years, the welcoming monologue of the show’s host, Humphrey Lyttleton, has never once failed to crack through the countless grey immovable faces of travel tedium and raise the warmest smile.

Humph was taken ill last week and died this morning. In life, is impeccable comedic timing was rare. He specialised in the silly and the unexpected, giving just enough opportunity to appreciate the gravity or sincerity of his sentiments, before deftly revealing a surprise ending. He’ll be missed for all the right reasons. Thanks for the laughter Humph.

Now, normally the idea of a fair, replete with wicker cutlery and forced vegetables is not my idea of heaven, but factor in the fact that there will also be a multiple spit roast featuring goat, lamb and pig and you may begin to see the attraction. This is not just food: this is organic, free range, spit roasted meat, cooked by one of the countries best chefs, on a summers day, washed down with local scrumpy, and probably some local strawbs for dessert. What could be better?

River Cottage gigs often sell out fast, so this is well worth an early look! [Update: SOLD OUT!]

Tuesday saw TVH return to the Edge, so we were looking forward to seeing them in the same small venue, to properly assess if we were just deliriously happy the first time we saw them, of if they really, really are that good, that well rehearsed, and that entertaining.

They did not disappoint, with now familiar songs from their debut EP and some new ones, along with a great version of Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison. Their hour long set was studded with the same tangential harmonic gems and compelling grooves that had previously caused us to sit up and take note. Subtle variations in pace and style on couple of tracks (compared to their debut EP) illustrated just how hard working the band is, and how many gigs they must be rattling through to be so comfortable with their experimentation.

They seem to have all the right ingredients, musical talent, songwriting talent, an engaing stage presence, a charismatic front man, and possibly most importantly, the ability to have fun whilst creating something really special – which will hopefully keep them going long after a lucky record company exec stumbles onto them and gives them an opportunity to meet a larger audience.

The only problem with “making it big” is that, like a tiny restaurant that builds a loyal business based on word of mouth, there is always a risk that the magic could be spoiled and the undeserving may influence the menu and hog the dessert trolley. Ok, it’s a strange and selfish analogy, but TVH are producing an audio gourmet feast and most who see them are immediately rebooking the largest tables in the restaurant, so that their friends can try the menu.

If any record execs are about to offer these guys a contract and happen to read this, please give us prior notice of any deals so we can book our table in advance. If (and hopefully, probably, when) it happens, it couldn’t be to a nicer, more talented or harder working bunch of people.

Catch them live at one of their upcoming gigs.

When we arrived, a dimly lit bloke was quietly and confidently accompanying himself on guitar. We caught the last two songs and he was really very good. Good enough that we’d happily have stayed in the pub all night if he’d kept playing. He really set up a good atmosphere and his songs were engaging, which can be difficult with just a voice and a guitar, it’s easy to get the balances wrong. After the set we’d have bought him a beer, if he’d been old enough… so we got him a a Coke instead. Definitely a talented lad and with his studio début soon, he’s someone we’ll be looking out for. His website has a few songs, but the current quality is not a patch on how good he sounds live [Update: see below]. Thanks Luke Ferre, pleasure to meet you .

The second band on stage (it’s not a stage, it’s the in the corner of the small room) gave us one of those moments that happens rarely in a lifetime – I think we saw a band that’s going to be very successful, in a tiny venue, before they get big. A six piece called The Velvet Hearts, and they blew the pub away. It was an electric performance. From the opening harmony of Heart is Breaking through to the end of the set, the performance was exquisitely polished. At times the vocal work was so good that punters were looking around the pub at each other for validation that the this really was happening. The sound was dynamic and seemed to constantly shift in startling and beguiling directions. Like I said, not a common thing. Their first EP is released next week.

The good news, for anyone Portsmouth based is that Luke Ferre will be back at the edge on 17th July, and before that, The Velvet Hearts will return to Portsmouth on 17th June, playing at the bandstand. If it’s a sunny day, it may turn into the most perfect afternoon in history.

BBPress is, quite simply, just another PHP based bulletin board (BB) system which to the layman means it is the software that runs forum websites. So in a market where BB software is two-a-penny (or cheaper, given the open source nature of most good software) what’s BBPress got that made me use it?

1. A Trusted Open Source
   It’s core development is being handled by the same loose group of folks that build WordPress, which has powered this website for the last few years.
2. Minimalist Design
   Every other BB that I looked at was full of bells, whitls, frills and flourishes that I didn’t need or want – and I certainly didn’t want the hassle of mainting or disabling such irrelevancies. BBPress eschews these in favour if a lean core, everything else (just like wordpress) can be done with plugins.
3. Extensible
   Yep, I said plugins.
4. Integrable
   I mentioned WordPress already, well, it can integrate nicely with it’s user database, so if you’ve got wordpress ID’s and roles that you already manage, they can be seamlessly used by bbpress, keeping admin to a minimum.
5. No Spam
   BBPress can be protected by Akismet, the same service that already protects this site, which has now been blissfully spam free for over a year.
6. Released
   I started using it before it’s release because I knew I had a fairly safe walled garden in which to get friendly with it. Now that version 0.72 “Bix” to give it it’s full name has been released, others with more public websites may want to have a play.

If you’re wondering what it feels and looks like, you can have a go on this site. Eventually I plan to move most discussion over to the BB side of things and leave comments open for trackbacks and pingbacks only.

Lumie make several versions of the Bodyclock; we chose the Advanced model because we thought it looked nicer than the other models and the spec’s showed that it did all we needed.

Overall Performance

To be blunt, it’s a gem. It really does make waking up a better experience, akin to being gently welcomed by a nice warm day (even if it’s blowing a gale outside).

The first feature that’s worth a special mention (because its already proved it’s worth on more than one occasion) is that if you pull the power cable out, the time and alarm settings survive, so if there’s a power cut in the night you avoid waking up late for work. Never again will you see the flashing alarm clock displaying the exact time since power came back on. Top marks to Lumie for this.

During the summer months (and if you don’t have blackout curtains) the benefits of the Lumie are significantly reduced, because dawn often arrives long before you’d want to wake up, totally scuppering the dawn simulation. If you have blackout curtains, then this is the perfect clock for all seasons.

In Use

Lumie clocks tend to feature four controls: P, Up, Down and A. P is used to program the clock: pressing it cycles through a straightforward on-screen menu, whilst Up and Down can be used to adjust the values that are displayed for each menu item. A nice touch is that each button is a different shape, so they are easy to use in the dark.

A quirk of the interface is that the menu readout is set below the time display, and the surrounding plastic moulding conspires with this fact to render the display unreadable from a level position, so it’s not possible to adjust the Lumie whilst lying in bed, you have to sit up. This is a small issue but one which we’ve noticed surprisingly often.

The A button is a depressible toggle-switch (rather than simple button) and it is used to enable and disable the sunrise alarm. Contrary to common practice, depressing the button switches the alarm off. This can take a little getting used to depending on your mental model.

When you’ve left the P, Up & Down alone for five seconds it reverts to “clock mode”, during which time the Up and Down buttons make the light brighter and dimmer.

Room for Minor Improvement

The only real omission from the interface is short-cuts: for example, it’s not possible to instantly turn the light fully on or off, you have to hold the Up or Down buttons and wait for 3 seconds while the dimmer does its thing. If the software could recognize a double tap on the Up for full brightness and a double tap on Down for off, that would solve the apparent delay.

Another short-cut related improvement: Currently pressing and holding the Up or Down button when setting the time will accelerate the rate of change: a useful addition would be the inclusion of some two-button combinations. e.g. pressing and holding down a button change the time in increments of 5 minutes, but then also pressing the opposite direction button at the same time could accelerate the time shift to 15 minute segments. We’ve used such an arrangement on a Zeon travel clock before now and it was surprisingly intuitive.

Summary

Ultimately the Lumie Bodyclock is a fantastic bedside gadget. It’s a simple combination of basic features that just makes life better, and therefore, deserves it’s place in the Eulogize category.

Steve the Dyson engineer arrived on schedule and gave it a thorough once over. For those not familiar with the Dyson customer service policy, it’s pretty cool. If the machine is out of it’s two year warranty period, the cost of a service is fixed at £55 for a vacuum or £85 for a washing machine – this includes all parts.

What’s less commonly known is that Dyson are constantly improving the design of their machines, so during a service call it’s not uncommon for components to be upgraded.

So, Steve not only cleared the blockage (which wasn’t a coin it was sludge), he also upgraded the soap dispenser, the lock, the coin trap, the filter, and the control software; and he’ll be back next week to replace the front panel, which has a small chip out of it. He even took this photo of the inside of our CR-01 and emailed it to me (after I expressed regret at not having a digital camera with which to take such a picture).

Now, you might think £85 for this kind of service is pretty darn good. I certainly do. So you can perhaps imagine my mild astonishment when Steve told me that because (a) the sludge build up was not something we could have avoided and (b) Dyson would have come to see me about the free upgrades soon anyway… the whole service was free.

So, a message to everyone at Dyson – you rock – have a nice weekend.

Another +1 for Dyson.

The symptoms are a failure to expel water from the machine; it just sits there and sulks. The usual pumping sound is nowhere to be heard, however, I can still drop the outlet hose to ground level and drain the machine that way.

I called the Dyson help number and was honestly stunned by how good the service was. The introductory message was crisp, clear and swift, the options short and sensible, and the queue was negligible. The representative who took my call was friendly, capable and booked a man to come and look at the machine tomorrow.

Wow.

Dyson customer service rocks. Hopefully the Dyson repair man rocks too. More news as it happens.