I've still got it.....I was chatted up...

Yesterday was a beautifully sunny day so I went for a walk in one of the many local parks, taking my camera of course. I have been disillusioned with my photographs more recently, bored with myself and my lack of creativity and just generally feeling that I'm waiting for something to happen, a catalyst that will move me to the next level.
This time of year is tricky, it looks like Winter but feels like Spring. The snowdrops are out and the daffodils are readying themselves for life but there are no leaves on the trees and life is hidden beneath sodden earth and bark.
I decided that I would take some infra red photos to see if I could give a different slant to my surroundings.

The reason for this post isn't the photographs but the simple fact that I've still got it.

Oh yeah, I was walking in the park on a bright and sunny day, camera in hand and I was propositioned. I was chatted up and as I played hard to get, the suggestions were pretty blatant. In the end I had to tell him that I was married with children and straight. Go ahead and laugh, my boss, wife and kids did. Well my daughters laughed until they realised that I had been chatted up by men more than they had. On one occasion I was chased by an old farmer round a pool table in a pub, it didn't occur to me that the fact he was buying me drinks was a signal of some sort. I don't have a "gaydar" and actually don't really care if someone is straight or gay, it just isn't something that I think about so it doesn't figure on my list of things to care about, simply put, my opinion on anyone's sexuality is not worth a jot, who cares what I think? I am pretty blinkered and don't see signs or signals, I pretty much accept as I see and if someones being nice to me it is because they are a nice person.....hmmm, now I think about it......

Of course I texted my wife to brag:

Me: Just got chatted up by a gay man. Must have been obvious, even I noticed!
Her: Was he fit?
Me: Not a bit, maybe fitter than me, not sure I could outrun him without the adrenalin and fear.
Me: And yes, I know what you really meant. He's a bloke, how the hell would I know?

My youngest daughter put this little story on Facebook and Twitter to the amusement of several hundred of her friends.
The thing that did shock me was being told that this park, the place I walk with my camera to take photos, is a gay hotspot when men pick up other men for some fun in the bushes. All of a sudden I saw a mirror image of myself, a middle aged man cruising round a known gay hangout, camera in hand, even I could see that it didn't look good and I can't help but wonder how naive I really am?

Anyway, here is one of the photos, nothing particularly interesting though. I did a colour swap using Irfan, for a change where normally I would take a custom white balance in the camera and stick with the results but I decided to go for a more natural look this time, well as natural as infra red allows.

Ginger Wildheart: Hey! Hello!

For those that don't know Ginger Wildheart is a man with an innate ability to find the most addictive of pop hooks and meld it to rock music and is in the process of releasing his most instantly addictive album to date....well not just him, this is a partnership with Victoria Liedtke.
The album is called "Hey Hello" and was intended as a piece of fun in between real work, maybe release a few singles and leave it at that but it has met with such a rapturous response from us Pledgers that he is now in the envious position of having to decide what to do next with this "one off" project. Thankfully it is going be commercially released in April, mind you, what do I care, I have a green vinyl version winging its way to me at some point....hang on, it's actually winging its way to my youngest daughter. Ah well, mine by proxy.

He has released a track for free "Black Valentine" here: http://heyhellomusic.bandcamp.com/

It is Ginger's ability to take a multitude of influences and create music addiction, ear candy, aural worms that you will be humming for days. More power to the man from the North particularly as he writes on his own terms, no record company between him and us and it is that closeness that makes him more than a little special and much more genuine.
I, along with a multitude of people, supported his Pledgemusic campaigns and he released regular video updates that made us feel a part of the recording process, a real experience for all of us and it ramped up the excitement of the pending release, us for the chance to listen to the finished gem, him for the feedback, a win/win situation.
If you like pop rock, you will love this and even those of a heavier disposition should give him a spin.

The future of music belongs in the musicians hands, as it always should, support your local bands and solo musicians and let's help them all create some magical musical moments that a record company will hate but we will love. Promote them to anyone that will listen and maybe, just maybe, one of them will make it big and make us all proud. Music used be about people power and less about the record companies and marketing budgets, it's time to take it back.
 http://www.pledgemusic.com/

...a Nokia Lumia Win 8 phone... I was excited...briefly.

I dropped my Samsung Note and cracked the screen....I felt sick but the phone still worked so I soldiered on but then it started having issues charging so I sent it off for repair. The company sent me a loan phone and I was intrigued as it was a Nokia Lumia Win 8 phone.
Never having used one of these, I was excited....briefly.

Let's cover the plus points first.

It sync'd with my car blue tooth connection and asked me if it should read out a text message and it did. It gave me the option of responding or calling the number. Now as this is a feature that it automatically  did with no setup, I was impressed, it is a feature that Android should embrace.

The battery life is not bad, better than both my Note and Apple.

Build quality.

That's it for the good points.

It needs rebooting almost daily.
It lost all signal in the middle of a phone call....in the middle of London.
The signal appears to be flaky and the call quality poor, particularly in the car.
You need to install Zune to be able to load music on to it.
No card slot for expandable storage.
Not particularly friendly to navigate with all the settings hidden away.
** suggest they use the top pull down menu bar as Android and more recently Apple, do.
I can't find anyway to stream music from the phone to my car. Android, Apple and Blackberry do this very easily. Even connecting it to the USB port in my car presents an errors.
Slow.

It is terrible. OK, I have to admit that I didn't read the manual but should I need to? I didn't with Apple, Blackberry or Samsung and they were all far more intuative.

My advice to Microsoft is to stop following the Apple route, ditch the need for an application to load songs onto your phones. Embrace memory cards. Produce a cut down version of the OS so we don't have to keep rebooting the phone. Put in a decent browser. Look into the signal issues and lastly, what is the point of having a phone that can hold music if I can't stream it to an external device, such as my car? It means I either buy another music player or carry CD's.

I was keen to have an alternative to Android and briefly, it appeared that Microsoft may have produced a better phone than Apple but alas, it was not to be, it is built well, just as Apple is but also requires hokey software to be able to do anything with the phone and you pay far too much for extra memory which in this day and age is a crime. I am missing the huge screen and my custom menus, I am also madly missing my Swiftkey Pro keyboard and the ability to "flow" in the beta version. It sucks not having Android and has made me appreciate more fully my Note, can't wait to welcome it back.