Parkour

This is another “watching, not doing” blog entry. Can’t see myself doing this anytime soon:

I took this at the Thames Festival last week. It shows a member of the Free Running (aka Parkour) demonstration team performing a hand stand on the specially built stage. We were also treated to running, jumping and somersaulting from the rest of the team, all neatly dressed in their corporate sponsor’s logo. (Barclaycard - Who, incidentally, caused me a great deal of inconvenience this week, so I’m not feeling charitable enough to give them a free picture advert on my blog.)

Other highlights this week …

… the rest of the festival, of course! Plenty of bizarre musical acts from around the world, including one-man-band, Son of Dave with a clever electronic live loop sampling gadget that allowed him to accompany himself. We saw a beatboxer on the main stage use one of these, too. You can see an excellent demonstration of this gadget here.

I missed the street carnival as I didn’t want to stay out too late. You can see my pictures from last year’s event here.

I paid Dublin a flying visit for four days to do some IT work for Bank of Ireland. Didn’t get such value for money out of my umbrella this time but was still welcomed to Dublin airport by a big puddle that I stepped in, getting off the plane.

Yesterday I went along to the Audio & AV Show at Heathrow. I was slightly disappointed that none of the big hi-fi manufacturers were there but I got to hear some good music on expensive hi-fis, which was what I went for.

I was tempted by various possible hi-fi upgrades to my existing system - a Quadraspire rack to improve the sound - my current Mana Acoustics rack is apparently out-dated technology now; a second hand Linn CD12 going “cheap” on ebay at a mere £4000 (a third of the RRP); AKG K701 Headphones - my neighbours would thank me; and the very interesting Slim Devices Transporter which does away with the need for CDs, instead storing the music on a computer connected by wireless network. This means no moving parts and the potential for mechanical errors that they bring.