BlueBeat.com and The Best of British

A friend of mine on Facebook, Celeste, recently introduced me to the music service, BlueBeat.com. Having enjoyed it immensely, I wanted to share it with my readers, and offer you a little gift (see below).

BlueBeat.com is a subsidiary of Music Rights Technologies Inc., a company that creates products to distribute on-line media securely. It offers several ways to enjoy and share its comprehensive (and growing) catalog of music for free. Firstly, I should mention that the media players they provide, sound great. The default player uses Flash, and plays at 160kb/s. An upgraded player, which plays at 320kb/s, is available if you register with the site (which is free). I had a few technical problems when I used the upgraded player, probably due to lack of bandwidth, but I am perfectly happy with the quality of the default player.

What you are allowed to hear depends on where you are listening from, and whether you are registered with the service. For example, if you are in the USA and you are registered, you can actually listen to entire albums if you wish. In addition, you can listen to what BlueBeat refers to "Live Collections," which fall into one of three categories, "Artist," "Time Machine" and "Killer Playlist." Artist is somewhat obvious and represents all available tracks from an artist. A Time Machine is a collection of music from a particular time-period or genre. There are Time Machines for Synthpop and "The British Invasion" for example. A Killer Playlist is a handpicked "cream of the crop" collection based on a genre or theme.

One feature that makes BlueBeat very exciting for me is that it allows registered users to create what it calls "crates." A crate is a user-defined playlist that allows one to become a DJ. It may contain any combination of songs, albums and Live Collections. One neat thing about live collections is that they can expand when new music becomes available to BlueBeat users. The one restriction to a crate is that it must consist of at least, around 3 hours (40 tracks) of diverse material. This must meet the guidelines of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which means that it cannot deliver more than three songs from the same album within a 3-hour period to a particular listener, and cannot deliver more than four songs from the same artist within a 3-hour period to a particular listener. As long as you have a "diverse" crate, the player software takes care of the rest. Once you have created a crate, it can be listened to by anyone.

So now, I can get to the reason I wanted to write about BlueBeat in this blog. For the listening pleasure of my readers, I created a crate called Best of British. It is an evolving collection of what I consider the best of British music over the years. It contains mainly Rock, Pop and Folk and includes the British Invasion and Brit-Pop "time machines." So you might hear music by Billy Bragg, The Beatles, Fairport Convention, Erasure, Saint Etienne, Blur and Ultravox, among others.

I hope you enjoy it. Please let me know by dropping me a comment. I would also like you to think about what you might include in such a collection. If I get enough suggestions, I will create a brand new crate to include them.

I Don't Get Guns, Cowboy

I'm now convinced this is an irreconcilable cultural barrier linked to "The Old West" and other historical events, but I cannot get my head around the American fascination with guns.

Mrs. Adolph Topperwein. [with gun] (LOC)

How ever many times someone says "guns don't kill people, people kill people," I have to say that if that person didn't have a gun in their hand, they probably would not be doing as much damage.



I know there has been a big problem with knife violence in Britain, but I believe there's a fundamental difference between using a knife and a gun. You use a knife, and you actually have to connect with the person you're attacking. Forgive me for putting this image in your head, but you have to feel it going in your victim. With a gun, it's almost like pushing a button - there's no connection. Plus there's all that room for "collateral damage," not to mention gun accidents.



I originally thought the guns/no guns argument was political - that Republicans were pro-gun and Democrats were anti-gun, but that's not entirely true. On a semi-related theme, I can't understand why someone can think that keeping records of gun-owners is an invasion of individual's privacy, while at the same time thinks that keeping DNA records of participants at a perfectly legal political protest is fair game. Or for that matter why so many "pro-lifers" are also pro death-penalty.



Having talked about guns, I will point out an interesting fact for the benefit of my British friends: Maybe it's just the circles I move in, but despite living in New Jersey (legendary home to mobsters and all sorts of shady characters) for more than ten years, the only people I've ever seen with a gun in real-life are cops.

Eleven Doctors, Torchwood and Wossy!

A work colleague, who knows I'm a big fan of the British science fiction series Doctor Who, and is a fan herself, recently sent me a link to this article in the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph. I was excited to read that a special fifteen-minute episode of Doctor Who was planned to be shown for Children in Need, a big TV charity event, similar to America's Telethon. Apparently, it was to feature David Tennant, the eleventh person to play the Doctor (part of the plot has The Doctor regenerating periodically) and all the Doctors' past. That includes parts from actors no longer with us, using clips from old shows. As a fan, this got me very excited! Doing a little more research, I found the article was based on this "exclusive" from another British newspaper, The Daily Mirror. The comments on this particular article are quite revealing! The Mirror piece, quoting unnamed sources, is almost identical to a story the newspaper ran when Christopher Eccleston, the previous actor who played The Doctor, was still playing the part. My guess is that the episode won't happen, but I can dream, can I not?

Seeing this story did remind me of some more tangible news for American fans of British shows, however. Torchwood, which is a spin-off of Doctor Who, is coming back to BBC America. This year, the BBC made a five-part mini-series version of the show, called Children of Earth, and it will be aired in the UK starting tonight. Here in the US, it will be shown on five consecutive evenings, starting on Monday, July 20th. BBC America is currently showing the previous season, which might help you catch up, if you are interested.

I was very pleased to see that Friday Night with Jonathan Ross has started showing on Friday nights on BBC America. It's one of the few shows on BBC America that airs pretty close to its original broadcast date (I think it's about two weeks behind the UK). The first episode that aired featured Dustin Hoffman, Hugh Laurie and soccer player turned actor, Eric Cantona. While you might think that would be a great lineup, unfortunately, all the guests were a little subdued on this occasion. Ross (or @wossy as he is known on Twitter) had a real struggle to keep the show going. That was such a shame for the introduction to the US of this show, and probably put some off. It is worth sticking with, though. Subsequent episodes have been excellent, featuring Jack Black, and Take That, among others. Like The Graham Norton Show, also on BBC America, Ross's show delivers chat with a good dose of British humor.

Do you have a favorite British TV show airing in the US? Do you have a favorite Brit show that you wish would come to America? Brits: what goodies are we missing? Make a comment and let us all know.

Love and Dancing

I have written here before of my love of American folk music and acoustic singer-songwriters, but I do not think I have mentioned my secret weakness for 1980s synthpop. I consider it secret because my Wife hates it, so I usually end up playing it when she is not around. Fortunately, my five-year-old daughter seems to like it too, and we are often to be found bopping in the kitchen to Erasure, The Human League, Yazoo (known as Yaz in the US), OMD, Depeche Mode or The Thompson Twins.

As a late-adopter of CDs, I have a huge collection of vinyl records at my parents' house in England, left there because of the expense and difficulty in getting them over to the US. Among the collection is an album from 1982 called Love and Dancing, which is billed as being by "The League Unlimited Orchestra." I recently obtained a copy of the album, which was always very dear to my heart, and it has made me insanely happy.

Love and Dancing is essentially an album of dance remixes of tracks from the influential Dare album, which was made in 1981 by the Sheffield band, The Human League. It was one of the very first remix albums, a producer project, and as such was groundbreaking. Martin Rushent, the producer of Dare, put it together the hard way, by cutting up tapes. Rushent is now 61 and back producing after retiring from the business.

Listening again to this album after so long instantly transported me back to the eighties. I fondly remember a street performer in London's Covent Garden doing a fantastic but hilarious robotic dance to tracks from the album. Its stuttering style was perfect for the purpose. I have been playing it rather a lot just recently, so it is a good job my daughter likes it. My Wife does not, and when I asked my Brother in England what he thought of it, he said that he always preferred the original. So, perhaps I am pretty much on my own. I did ask on Twitter and Facebook if anyone remembered it and one friend in England (Hi Paul!) said he does have the album and likes it.

Getting this album has prompted me to get the rest of The Human League's albums (some of which I had on vinyl in England). It has also got me catching up with some of my other favorite artists of that period. It has even got me checking out web-resources about old synthesizers (I used to play synths myself in the eighties). I think you could say this was an influential album for me.

If you have any interest in Love and Dancing or The Human League, I discovered that a cool CD containing both Dare and Love and Dancing was released in 2002. That is a bargain!

Do you have favorite music from your past that instantly conjures up a particular period in time for you? Please do share by making a comment.

I Might Still Be in Luton If Not For the Web

Some of my American friends, knowing that I do so much on the Internet, think that I must use it to keep in touch with friends and family in England. The truth is, with the exception of my Brother, who got his first computer just a month or two back, very few of them have access to the Internet. Or if they do, they rarely use it. So, having been online since before the widespread use of the World Wide Web (I was around in the days of online Bulletin Board Systems), I've been a bit of a pioneer.


As I've written elsewhere, I met my American Wife (while I was living in my home town of Luton, England) through a mutual love of American folk music. We were both on a discussion group for singer-songwriter Dar Williams, when she e-mailed me about something I said on the group. A friendship grew over the Internet, which turned into love.


When we married, I moved here, and while I was waiting for a work permit, I took an online course to keep my computer skills up to date. A chance e-mail to my instructor led to him employing me. I've worked for the company for around ten years.


These days, I have made many friends through the Internet, on sites like Twitter and Facebook. Using e-mail, the Web and Social Media sites has helped me with my work for local nonprofit and community groups. Of course, it has enabled me to write my blog, which is a welcomed creative outlet. I'm grateful too, that I have a small group of faithful readers, scattered around the globe


As someone who has always been a little shy, I do believe that if it wasn't for the Internet, I might still be living in my home town of Luton.

My Name is Sue - How Do You Do!

While I like the idea of having an unusual name (and Graham is quite unusual in my adopted home here in the US), in practice, it can be very tedious. Mostly, because people here frequently misspell it, or mis-hear it. Very often, people think I've said "Brian," or they want to spell it "Gram," or "Grahm." It's so American to want to economize on the number of letters in a name. Perhaps it would benefit me to have an empowering name, such as "Stone," "Brett," "Brad," or perhaps the most empowering of them all, "Sue" (With a big nod to The Man In Black).

Marmite - Love It or Hate It?

There are only a few British products I must have in the US. Branston Pickle is one of them (and I am sure that will be the subject of a forthcoming post here). Marmite is another. When I first moved here, I had some difficulty finding it, and so I instructed English friends coming over here to bring a jar over. I have since found it from time to time in the so-called "International aisle" at some grocery stores, and I usually make a point of picking some up if I see it in a place like that, because it can be expensive in specialist British food stores or online.

If you have never heard of Marmite or you are not certain what it is, I am not sure a description will suffice. Of course, even if you know what it is, you may be one of those in the "Hate It" camp. Marmite is a great divider. People either love it or hate it. The manufacturers of Marmite have actually exploited this characteristic of their product, and "Love It or Hate It" has become an advertising slogan. The official Marmite website even has Love It and Hate It sections. I love it. The rest of my family hates it.

So what exactly is in the characteristic glass jar that causes such a love/hate reaction? Originally a by-product of the brewing industry, the thick, salty, sticky dark-brown goo is yeast extract. It is also rich in Vitamin B complex, which helped sales of the product when vitamins were discovered in the early 20th Century. It was also given to troops suffering from beriberi (a vitamin deficiency) during World War I. The name Marmite comes from the French word for an earthenware pot, and it did originally come in an earthenware jar. You can find out more about the history of Marmite on the Marmite Wikipedia page.

It has a very strong taste. Often used as a spread on bread or toast, I recommend people to spread it very thinly, so as not to be overpowering. Many people enjoy it with cheese in a sandwich. Because spreading the thick substance often destroys soft bread, the company introduced a slightly thinner product in a "squeezy" plastic jar ideal for this purpose. Unfortunately, this has resulted in the removal of the cute 57g size jar from the product range.

Marmite is also produced in New Zealand, although it has a different flavor, being slightly sweeter than the British version. That product is available in New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands. Readers may also be familiar with the Australian product Vegemite. I have always described Vegemite as "Marmite for Wimps."

What else can you do with Marmite? An English friend, Emma Bruce, recommends it spread on toast with scrambled egg on top, or in a sandwich with cucumber. Chef Gary Rhodes came up with some recipes featuring Marmite, to help celebrate the launch of the "squeezable" product. A British photographer, food blogger and host of an underground restaurant who goes by the nickname of MsMarmiteLover even came up with a special menu, which featured Marmite in each dish, for an evening at her dining establishment. It apparently went down rather well!

So where do you stand on the "Love it or Hate it" question? Do you have any favorite recipes or Marmite stories? Let me know!

A Tarot Reading

As some of you know, I am a part-time tarot card reader. You may recall I was interviewed for a piece in the blog Cindy's Country Corner a while back, and one of the questions I was asked was about my readings. After this, Cindy asked me to do a reading for her, and asked if I would mind if she did another article, this time about the reading.

I agreed, and I am glad I did! The article has been published and it is very fair. Actually, I would expect nothing else, since Cindy was once a newspaper editor. I'd go even further and say I was thrilled with the article, since it provides a real-life demonstration of what I do, and an excellent critique of the reading itself.

If you have considered having a tarot reading, but are a little hesitant, please check the piece out. Even if you are just a little curious, I recommend it as an entertaining read.

A Tarot Reading (Cindy's Country Corner)

Tarot Readings by Foucault (My Tarot Website)

Rumpole of the Bailey

When I think of the British Justice system, I cannot help thinking of a TV show from my youth, Crown Court. This was a daytime show that showed the British courtroom in all its glory, wigs, gowns and all. I should imagine many other people think of the long-running TV series, Rumpole of the Bailey, when they think of British courts. That is no doubt true even in the US, where the series was shown on PBS (Public Broadcasting Service).

Rumpole started life in a BBC Play for Today in 1975. It evolved into a series, which ran from 1978 to 1992. Leo McKern played the part of Rumpole throughout. The screenwriter of that show, author and ex-barrister John Mortimer, died recently, as covered in my blog post John Mortimer - A Great British Treasure. I had only read a couple of Mortimer's non-Rumpole novels, and barely remember the TV series, so I thought it was about time I read one of the Rumpole books. The books were based on the TV series. I chose The First Rumpole Omnibus, which contains three books: Rumpole of the Bailey, The Trials of Rumpole and Rumpole's Return. These cover the first two series of the show, plus a special.

Horace Rumpole always acts for the Defense, and believes strongly in the foundation of British law that one is "innocent until proven guilty." He never pleads guilty. He prefers to appear at the most iconic of all courts, The Old Bailey, and wears a wig "bought second hand from a former Chief Justice of Tonga" in 1932. An older gentleman, he often mentions winning The Penge Bungalow Murder Case, in his heyday. He is an expert on bloodstains and typewriters. He often appears, much to his chagrin, before Judges Bullingham (who is usually sympathetic towards the prosecution) and Vosper. He frequently quotes passages from The Oxford Book of English Verse (The Arthur Quiller-Couch edition). He usually visits Pommeroy's Wine Bar for a glass or two of "Chateau Fleet Street," before heading home to his Wife, Hilda, who he refers to as, "She who must be obeyed."

The first part of the anthology, Rumpole of the Bailey, contains short stories, each describing a case. Some cases Rumpole wins, some he loses. The same is true of the second book, The Trials of Rumpole. However, the second book comes to a climax with Rumpole, seemingly railroaded into retiring by his family and colleagues. The third book, Rumpole's Return, sees Rumpole and his Wife living with his son, a professor at the University of Miami, Florida. This follows an unlucky run of ten losses before Justice Bullingham, and a decision to retire. After receiving a letter from one of his ex-colleagues, Rumpole decides to return to his old chambers, where he takes on a seemingly unwinnable murder case. The accused and the victim were seen on a platform on the London Underground, and the accused was found in the possession of a note seemingly written in the victim's blood.

The book is a tremendous read. Rumpole is a very sympathetic character, and the wonderful stories are written very well. Clive James, writing in The Observer, is quoted as saying, "I thank heaven for small mercies. The first of these is Rumpole." I could not agree more!

Do you remember Rumpole? Are you familiar with the books? Please post a comment and let me know what you think.

An Englishman in San Diego - The Home Stretch

Once we had moved to the Sheraton Hotel and Marina for my Wife's conference, my daughter and I were alone during the day. I decided it was time to relax and not try to do quite so much each day. The first day (the seventh of our vacation), we had a lazy day at the hotel, watching TV, reading, playing and so on. We went down to the hotel lobby for a while, so I could take advantage of the free Wi-Fi there (it was $12 per day in the room, despite the entire marina area having a free Wi-Fi service, which the Sheraton blocked).

In the evening, once my Wife had finished for the day, we headed out to San Diego's Old Town district. This historic area has lots of restaurants, many of them Mexican, and many interesting places to see, especially in its Old Town State Historic Park. The park contains period buildings, some in their original locations and some that were moved in. Old Town also contains The Whaley House, supposedly the most haunted house in the United States. We were in the area to soak up the atmosphere and eat Mexican food.

The next day (Tuesday), my daughter and I spent time at Balboa Park. This beautiful and expansive park contains 15 museums and many other attractions. Many of the buildings in the park were originally built as temporary structures for the 1915-1916 Panama-California Exposition, and have since been rebuilt. Upon arriving there, we discovered that the day you visit is extremely important, if you have specific things you want to see. I had heard about the narrow-gauge railway and the carousel, and hoped to take my daughter there, but upon arrival, I found that they were only open on Sundays. A local Mom I spotted there suggested that my daughter might enjoy The Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, so that is where we went next. This museum, with its many interactive exhibits, was a lot of fun, and I highly recommend it. After we ate lunch, we headed for the Marie Hitchcock Puppet Theater, which we discovered closed on Mondays and Tuesdays! Still, the park has a lot to offer and it is worth spending the entire day there.

My daughter and I spent the day before we were due to leave, relaxing in the marina area and the hotel. We had breakfast at Papanani's Deli at the marina, where we discovered the antidote to the hotel's expensive offerings. The food was delicious and the people were friendly. They put on children's TV for my daughter and I had unblocked access to the marina's free Wi-Fi!

In the evening, the family went down to Seaport Village for our final San Diego dinner, this time at Buster's Beach House & Longboard Bar. This fun bar and restaurant has a Hawaiian theme, and the food and beer are both great. I ate (and thoroughly recommend) the Pork Luau and Macadamia Nut-Crusted Chicken. I enjoyed Firehouse Pale Ale, brewed by firefighters who use the proceeds to support the widows and families of firefighters and to provide equipment to local firehouses.

That wonderful meal marked the end of our San Diego vacation. By six the next morning, we were reluctantly on our way to the airport, for the smooth and trouble-free flight back to New Jersey. Thank you San Diego, for making us feel so welcome.

I hope you have enjoyed this little series documenting the wonderful time we had in San Diego. Are you familiar with the area? Would you like to visit? Please do post comments or questions - I would love to hear from you.