Dan McNeil's Blog

On Friday, we saw AC/DC at Wembley Stadium.  And they rocked.  With a capital R. It wasn’t subtle, it wasn’t classy.  It was tacky, it was loud and it was fantastic! Last night, we saw an altogether different act.  Bruce Springsteen in Hyde Park.  He was classy – but still loud and fantastic. It made me think how many gigs we’ve been to over the years – it’s in the hundreds somewhere.  And over time you notice patterns, some of which I’d like to share with you now. The first thing you notice about a gig is the venue.  People have different tastes when it comes to venues.  Some people like the raw grubbiness of the Kentish Town Forum, whereas some like the clean toilets and shiny escalators of The O2 or the new Wembley Stadium.  Personally, I prefer the latter.  In the same way that I don’t believe that music sounds better through the crackle of vinyl, I don’t believe that a gig is better when your shoes are stuck to the floor and...

Time flies as you get older – and this year has certainly flown. It doesn’t seem like a year ago that the news was broken to the world that Symbian was changing.  A lot has happened in the year – a change as large as the one Symbian underwent can’t happen overnight! – but still it doesn’t seem like twelve months ago! I wonder whether it’s a sign of age that the years are going more quickly.  Or maybe it’s having a garden… Since we’ve had a garden at home, the seasons fly by so quickly.  One minute you’re watching the leaves brown as the view from the view turns from verdant to winter and as soon as the Christmas lights are taken down you see the first signs of the crocus pushing their way bravely through the frozen earth in search of some winter sun. The flurry of bulbs – daffodils, tulips, hyacinths – pushes on through the spring, and is soon joined by the white sprinkling of magnolia.  As the spring marches on, the vibrance of the summer colours start to sp...

Friday night, we went to see the Pet Shop Boys at the O2.  And what great fun is was too! I’ve seen them a fair number of times before, and the shows have ranged from the high-concept to the rather minimal.  This tour falls into the former category. White boxes feature prominently in the show, as do hats of various levels of weirdness.  Maybe I should say headpieces rather than hats, as some of them are not hats in the traditional sense.  I’m an unashamed PSB fan, so I think it was obvious that I was going to enjoy the gig. But I enjoyed it even more than I expected to.  Most of the hits were there (except Rent) even if only in one of the many medley-esque arrangements of the new songs which started drifted to a chorus of a previous single and then back again during the course of a few minutes. But it was nice to hear “Do I have to?”, “Kings Cross”, “Why don’t we live together” and “Two divided by zero” dredged from the vaults and given a new lease of li...

I can't believe I've not written in here for a month. I've started an entry a few times, but self-censorship has always cut them off halfway through for reasons of "not being interesting enough". But, today I shall throw caution to the wind and simply dump my thoughts down into this little window and press "submit" whether it not I judge the quality to be worthy. It's been quite a month - our MPs have been claiming far too much money for ridiculous things and the parliamentary Labour Party came within a whisker of committing regicide. Iran had a free election, in which anyone could vote whichever way they wanted - but then disregarded the votes cast in a bastardised version of democracy. Gordon Ramsay upset an Australian TV presenter and Margaret Mountford announced she's not going to be on The Apprentice next year. All exciting stuff, I'm sure you'll agree. But let's talk about democracy today. Democracy is very important. Equal...

Today was the launch day of the Herschel and Planck satellites (I have as much trouble spelling the word satellite as I do spelling the word disposable!). I followed it on twitter. It's the first time I've followed anything happening that quickly on twitter and the excitement of the teams was very clearly shining through in their tweets during the hour or so from just before launch to first signal from the satellites once in space. Of course, the satellites have a long way to travel. L2 is a long way from earth, and even travelling at that many kilometres per second, it's going to take a while to get there. To paraphrase the wonderful Carl Sagan from the opening line of his book "Cosmos"... "Space is big" It's enormous. And it's got a lot of stuff in it. No matter which direction you look in, there will be an enormous amount of stuff laid out in front of you. Some of it you can see, and some of it you can't. But that doesn't mean i...

Last night, I was considering what it means to be disposable. We're all familiar with the concept of disposable razors, disposable pens and disposable nappies - but what would it mean to have a disposable mobile phone, or a disposable computer? Disposable means, in the purest sense, something which can be thrown away - but of course, anything can be thrown away so that's not a good definition. How about if we look at those things which are designed to be thrown away rather than repaired. Well that applies to almost everything we have in our homes - we don't tend to repair a rug if it gets worn, yet we wouldn't describe a rug as disposable. You can buy razors which you sharpen or replace the blades in. You can buy pens to which you add more ink when they are empty. And you can buy nappies you put in the washing machine rather than throw away. So maybe the distinction lies in the fact that rather than spend extra money on the item in question (by replacing a part of i...

I like to think of myself as relatively bright. I can prove that pi is irrational or do a cryptic crossword. So why do I do stupid things? I'm not talking about making mistakes - that's only human - but there are some things which run contrary to everything I know to be true - yet I can't help myself from believing them. Don't worry - this isn't going to turn into anything deep, although it was heading in that direction. Earlier this evening, I cooked myself some lamb. The oven needed to be hot, but not at the maximum temperature. I know how thermostats work, and I know how ovens use thermostats to keep at the correct temperature. Yet, if I want the oven at 180, I still turn it up to 220 in the hope that it'll heat up more quickly. I know it doesn't work. I know that. But it doesn't stop me doing it.