Calton Hill, Edinburgh, April 30th.

The Big Red Door was an interesting one .. the entire crowd looked like this. No exaggeration. Some cracking music though. The Banana Sessions were a super start to the night, especially their Prodigy medley. Then just about the most ridiculous band I’ve ever seen playing catchy reggae that didn’t make much sense. A singer wearing zebra-print tights, a Newcastle United t-shirt, a sailor’s hat and a superb beard. A bassist in trousers and cape. A guitarist in boxer shorts and a t-shirt three or four sizes too small. Another guitarist who looked like he’d wandered in after a few cans on the Meadows, playing an unmiced box with strings that surely nobody could hear. It was great fun and I’ve got no idea who they were. The Horndogs finished up, they play exactly what I wish I’d got myself into when I came to Edinburgh.

Was well up for Departure Lounge -- this video of the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble had me pretty excited

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ospt8g4i-9k

The Souljazz Orchestra were cracking, some really exciting afrobeat with tenor and alto saxophonists that looked just like the two men in the Jam lizards sketch and a wonderful baritone. Highly recommend them. The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble were a bit more PARTY and YEAH! and PARTY than the tunes I hoped they’d play, but I was more frustrated by all the people trying to shove past when there was nowhere to go. Rather ruined it.

Pretty mad that of the nine members of HBE, eight are brothers, they have four mothers between them and another fifteen brothers.

I’m writing this as Gordon Brown apologises for being rude and honest.

‘I’ve just been talking to Gillian, etc. etc. GHASTLY SMILE GHASTLY SMILE.’

I really hope we don’t have to put up with another four years of Brown’s fakery.

The Conjugate Gradient Method is the most prominent iterative method for solving sparse systems of linear equations. Unfortunately, many textbook treatments of the topic are written with neither illustrations nor intuition, and their victims can be found to this day babbling senselessly in the corners of dusty libraries. For this reason, a deep, geometric understanding of the method has been reserved for the elite brilliant few who have painstakingly decoded the mumblings of their forebears. Nevertheless, the Conjugate Gradient Method is a composite of simple, elegant ideas that almost anyone can understand. Of course, a reader as intelligent as yourself will learn them almost effortlessly.

Its keywords are conjugate gradient method, preconditioning, convergence analysis and agonizing pain, and it has a chapter called ‘Eigen do it if I try‘ which (brilliant and awful title aside) is the first intuitive explanation of eigenvectors I’ve read, hurrah.

As for Ronaldo, this was one of those wearisome afternoons when he played with the soul of a pickpocket, trying to get opponents sent off, eyeballing the officials, exaggerating injuries – in short, the whole everyone-is-against-me routine. At one point he spent so long portraying himself as the victim, repeatedly pulling up his shorts to show Dowd a scrape on his thigh, the referee demonstrated how little he cared by doing exactly the same with his own leg. Dowd might as well have made a W for Whatever with his fingers.

And I’m slightly cheered that though I only got 50% for my first machine learning assignment the class average was only 52%. Fifty is something of a psychological barrier .. anything less would feel a lot worse.

I made my Last.fm charts program available for anybody to use and it’s had a positive response, hurrah, though people are far too reluctant to give feedback. It’s good to know there’s others out there who like to investigate every inch of their music history :-)

The girl I lived next to in first year (all of two and a half years ago) decided it was time I knew that whistling along to Joni Mitchell at three in the morning probably isn’t the most social of characteristics I have, so I was like ‘why the hell didn’t you ever kick my door down and tell me to stop?’ From which the only answer I could glean was that she is far too pleasant and accommodating a person to have thought like that.

Oh and most importantly of all, searching for “flamboyant american penis” on Google now returns links here.

And finally, in the news from the Middle East today:

An Iranian court has ordered a man to give his wife the 124,000 roses that he promised in her dowry, after she filed a complaint to claim it, reports say.

The woman said she was claiming the dowry because her “very stingy husband” would not even pay for a cup of coffee, according to the E’temad newspaper.

The court has seized the man’s flat until he produces all of the roses.

As you do, as you do.

New flat is coming along, I need lots of posters to fill the walls – I only have five at the moment and three are the same :\ We have hot water, so we can shower, and sharp knives, so I don’t have to use a junior hacksaw to chop chicken breasts into small pieces. And internet, so I can post this, scrobble and restart downloading from eMusic. Though it’s still a flat, not a home.

And finally: In the news today.

“Very unfortunately Mrs Coles was locked into our public toilets overnight which was extremely unfortunate.
“We’re very sorry that this happened.”

But just a bunch of flowers in apology?

Could do with a sixth eh

Two things have happened in the world in the last few days. One involves Japanese people getting carried away with their video games and breaking their arms, the other one of the worst possible ways to die. (‘A woman in Australia has been killed by her pet camel after the animal may have tried to have sex with her.‘) :/ :/ :/ :/ :/ :/ :/ :/ :/ :/ :/ :/ :/

I cracked and downloaded the FoFR theme (if only someone would say what FoFR stands for) for foobar and it’s amazing and gorgeous and all this, but it’s not my quaint foobar that can handle several playlists of 15,000 songs and rename and tag and move files and still perform wonderfully. Though it is rather nice to have some glamour to my media player.

WHY CAN’T COMEDIANS BE FUNNY?