If you only want to go to one show at the Edinburgh Fringe, I thoroughly recommend you should go to see Kahlil Ashanti’s “Basic Training”.

Kahlil does a knockout one-man show where he plays a host of characters, all of whom are completely different and instantly recognisable. I’ve never seen so much energy rolled up into a single person. Watching him is like being on a rollercoaster, as the audience is thrown from side to side, from drama to comedy to pathos. The show is a wonderful autobiographical tale of how Kahlil got to be in the USAF’s entertainment troupe, Tops in Blue.

He was so good, I’m going back to see him for a second time.

UPDATE: I saw him a second time, and he was even better! He got a standing ovation. And it looks like I’m not the only one - here’s a review in the Edinburgh Evening News.

Technorati Tags: acting, comedy, drama, edinburgh fringe

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It’s that time of year in Edinburgh again. The main Edinburgh International Festival, and most of the other specialist festivals, including The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (known simply as “The Fringe”), have either started or are due to begin soon.

Usually we never go to anything at any of the festivals, but this year we decided to be different, simply because there was too much good stuff going on to miss out. It’s a difficult thing to explain, but to most people I know in Edinburgh, “the Festival” is something that only folk who aren’t local go to, which is a real shame.

The Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival kicked off on Friday 27th July. Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames played an superb jazz-tinged set at The Queens Hall. The man has an incredibly encyclopaedic knowledge of the history of jazz and blues from the sixties, and gives the lengthiest intros to the songs the band are about to play, right down to what year he met so-and-so, when they used to play in such-and-such band and he lived in such-and-such a street. The level of detail was unbelievable. So too was his Hammond B3 (and piano) playing. His voice has lost nothing over the years, and was instantly recognisable. The amazing Alan Skidmore also played tenor sax wonderfully. All in all, it was a great night’s entertainment.

Yesterday had the Mardi Gras held in the Grassmarket (as a colleague at work said, “but it’s not Tuesday!”). We had a real rarity here - the sun came out for the best part of the afternoon. I know you think I’ve moved on to writing fiction, but I’m really not making this up - it was windy, but glorious. After that, we took in the astonishing Chris Lyons Trio at The Jazz Bar. before heading off to have a nice Italian meal at La Rusticana in Cockburn Street.

We’ve a couple more Festival-related events planned. I’ll let you know later how they went.

Technorati Tags: edinburgh, edinburgh festival, jazz

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I’m just back from a business trip to Orkney, and what a fascinating and pretty place it is. The Kirkwall Hotel is beautiful, and the food there is utterly fabulous - truly the best hotel food I’ve ever tasted. Like, ever. And the people are friendly beyond compare (with a wicked sense of humour, too!).

I’m making a mental note (and a written one) to go back to Orkney in the future, but for pleasure rather than work. I need to make some free time to go exploring these islands properly. In a word, stunning. If you’re looking for somewhere different to go in Scotland, go there: I really can recommend it.

Please note: this is not a sponsored post. There are no sponsored posts at The Far Corner. If I like it, I tell you; I’ll do likewise if I don’t.

Technorati Tags: orkney, scotland, tourism

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Is it time for another blog walkabout already? That’ll teach me to spend so much time on Facebook. If we’ve met over the wires already, and you’re on Facebook, contact me and we can hook up over there.

Well, the first country we’re stopping by today is India, to visit the blog of Joyce Babu. Joyce has written a valuable article about protecting your privacy when you surf the net. He writes about whatever interests him, which is just fine by me.

Michelle Jo from Taiwan has a humorous blog where she compiles her Planet of Funny Pictures, Videos and Jokes. I use Firefox rather than Internet Explorer, but I really liked that “page can’t be displayed” screen

Have I really never visited Andy Beard on a walkabout yet? Andy, who lives in Poland, writes about niche marketing and blog search engine performance. His posts are always deep in detail, and extremely well researched. His was the first post I read about the latest set of BlogCatlog updates. Unfortunately, BlogCatalog itself seems to be having a few problems this weekend.

The irrepressible Deborah Petersen (this lady is everywhere!) writes the Canadian blog, Life in the Fast Lane. Deborah tells us about “cat poo coffee”. Now, having smelt the “deposits” of our two domestic cats, I really don’t think I’d like to try this. But - hey - $50 a cup? Do I sense a money-making opportunity coming up? Deborah’s always off the beaten track, and is a recommended read.

Irwan Jamaluddin, from Malaysia, has a technical blog called SysAdmin’s Diary. Irwan mainly writes about Linux, and for a dual-booter like me, there’s heaps of useful information there. I also enjoyed reading about a visit to Ho Chu Minh City, which has some great photographs too.

Lisa Valentine from Leeds, England has a great read in Cotton Knickers for Africa. Lisa has written about her choice of the new seven wonders of the world. It’s nice to see the Glasgow School of Art is among them; I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never visited, but I can see that I should.

disassociated.com is the blog of John Lampard, who’s based in Sydney, Australia. John has posted some photographs of the campus of the University of New South Wales. I realise it’s winter there, but we rarely get warm colours like those here in Scotland; it’s always too busy raining.

Canadian Christine Hingray runs La Vie 101. She plays in a drum corps and apologises for not writing as often as she should, which I guess I ought to do too. Christine is in the process of writing an in-depth autobiography, which is a fascinating read.

To the Philippines now (does everyone there have a blog?) and to Rachiel Cuaresma’s Chelism. She writes about two weeks of traction and casts and muses on her career in nursing. A very worthwhile and admirable profession, Rachiel.

Our final stop today is The Blog of Kendall, which is run by Kendall Schoenrock from the US. Kendall writes about a broad range of subjects. He’s written a great post about why we need to be observant. Definitely food for thought.

That’s all for today, folks. Have a good week!

Technorati Tags: blogosphere, blogs

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My go-everywhere avatar has made it onto three mosaics on TwitterMosaic. If you’re on Twitter, you might want to add TwitterMosaic as your friend, and you may just find yourself on a fascinating piece of art.

Can you find The Far Corner on Follower Mosaic #1, Follower Mosaic #2 or Follower Mosaic #4 - Soylent Green? Just click on the picture to see a magnified version.

I found it easily enough on the first and third of these, but I’m struggling to find it on the second one! If you Twitter, are you there too?

Technorati Tags: art, twitter

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Following on from my post on free video games mp3 remixes (where everything went wrong!), I thought I’d mention some game and demoscene music streamed stations.

What follows are links to the front pages of these websites. Which radio stream you choose to listen to will depend on whether you have broadband, cable or prefer a Java player - each site offers different combinations. Choose the appropriate link to play the audio stream when you get there; it’ll usually say “listen here” or something similar. The websites also have pretty good FAQs if you get stuck. Generally, a music player like iTunes, Winamp or Amarok will be all you’ll need to listen to these stations. At an absolute push, if you can’t get them to play, contact me for more information and I’ll do my best to help.

When I dropped by at SLAY Radio today (tune in now and get a free TCP packet, they say - how could you refuse? ) there were 142 people listening to the station! SLAY Radio broadcasts from Gothenburg, Sweden and mainly plays remixes of Commodore 64 (C64) music from Remix.Kwed.Org (RKO). There are also live shows in which a DJ will play tracks from RKO, but is able to augment these by playing other music from games and the demoscene, together with tunes that didn’t originate on the C64.

Nectarine Demoscene Internet Radio is a French streamed station that has been around for a long time. It carries over 19,000 demoscene songs and has nearly 3,000 members. There were 57 listeners online when I visited. Members can request specific tracks to be played. Incidentally, Nectarine works in cooperation with Amiga Music Preservation (AMP), which is compiling the biggest and most comprehensive database ever about Amiga musicians.

Kohina, a Finnish station, plays a mixture of oldschool 8 and 16 bit computer, arcade and console music, and new scene releases. There were 18 listeners when I visited. Kohina is well worth listening to if you remember this stuff from first time around, like me, and you’re nostalgic, or if you wonder what computer musicians were able to do with little computer memory but with great enthusiasm.

A relative newcomer is BitJam, a station from Germany which plays only demoscene or related material. The highest number of listeners so far has been 34, and there were 13 listening when I was there, but that’s fine for a new station which has yet to receive much exposure. I particularly like the way the site shows little flags beside the musicians so that you can see where they’re from.

I hope you enjoy listening to these stations, and as a tip, remember to bookmark them in your music player in case you want to listen to them again. You’re sure to find something fresh on each visit.

Technorati Tags: 8bit, amiga, c64, music, radio, streaming

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Sheesh.

I had almost completed a lengthy post recommending websites where people could download remixes of video game music, when Firefox (and ScribeFire) crashed and I lost the whole damned thing. I’m not happy.

Anyhow, to cut to the chase, I had been about to recommend these four excellent sources of free remixes: OverClocked ReMix, Remix.Kwed.Org, AmigaRemix and Remix64.

Go. Download. MP3s. There. Now.

They’re brilliant. Off the beaten track, high quality, totally fresh and free. Why not? Please download the bittorrents from the first two sites if you want a lot of music. OverClocked ReMix bittorrents and Remix.Kwed.Org bittorrents. Essential.

Last.fm video game remixes tag radio is available too.

Thanks are due to RT Cunningham over at Untwisted Vortex for encouraging me to write more about the Commodore 64.

Out.

Technorati Tags: amiga, c64, mp3, remixes, video game music

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