I love overproduced music so it’s no sureprise I love the Chris Moyles opening Jingle. Almost 3 minutes long with a full orchestral backing for a light hearted chat show.
I’m specifically reminded of a great episode of Frasier where he creates an over the top orchestral jingle for his radio show. Alas he didn’t succeed in getting it on his show.
Here they both are to enjoy:
In Durham Oxfam has an excellent charity shop that specialises in books. It’s a lovely old shop with 3 floors of various books. All of the books are significantly cheaper than the Waterstones across the road plus it’s nicer to visit and you are giving to charity with each purchase.
I’ve observed that there are more and more of these book only charity shops popping up around the country and that got me thinking.
Most charities must have a huge inventory of books nationwide but there are two obstacles between them and the customers. The first obstacle is geography. If I want John Grisham’s “The Innocent Man” and the Amnesty shop in Durham doesn’t have it I’m unlikely to be comforted by the fact they have it in stock in Darlington. The second obstacle is stigma. Some people speak with pride about buying from a charity shop while others see it as a very poor thing to do. Personally I see no problem with buying used books. It’s not as if you really notice a difference in the content.
A website could solve both problems. Oxfam already has a great website for books and it seems to be doing well. However, there are still thousands of books on shelves across the country that aren’t seen by the people that want them. As a result they are left unsold or sold for less than they could be to someone else.
An ideal solution would be a database centralising all the books in all the different charity shops to one website. Here’s how it would work:
Now, there are a few problems with such a system I foresee, however they can all be overcome. The book could be sold or lost sometime after being added to the system leaving the customer buying a book they can’t have. This would happen occasionally and the customer should be warned of that possibility, when it occurs and the book isn’t available from another store, a quick refund and apology is offered just like when stock can’t be found at Argos.
The other big problem is the logistics. How do you create such a big database. Starting with a local roll out, each shop will be given a computer and the interface will be all web based. Books are added using a well designed system, ideally using some sort of barcode scanner and Open ISBN book database to speed up the process. Using this system each shop can be an autonomous unit within the overall system.
It’s only an idea at the moment but when I get some free time I hope to look into it a bit further and see if I can make it a reality.
I’ve just got back from a great concert held in the heart of New York City. The NFL Kickoff concert, held on the edge of Central Park, had a massive line up for a free concert. Starting out with a superb DJ set, from a music producer who’s name I didn’t catch, the standard for the afternoon was set.
Natasha Bedingfield was up next. I’m not a massive fan but she put on a really entertaining set, finishing with “Unwritten”. Keith Urban, my personal favourite, performed a rousing set including him running throughout the crowd, stopping occasionally to sing and play a guitar solo.
Usher capped things off in style. Like his music or not he puts on a great show. And he sure can dance. His set included all his biggest hits, finishing with “Yeah!” and “In this club”.
One of the event organisers said there were over 60,000 people in attendance.
