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All posts by Malcolm Toogood

A Difficult Conversation

Posted by Malcolm Toogood on May 9, 2014
Posted in: Where's that Handcart?. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

More and more home appliances are now being developed with some degree of intelligence, allowing us to communicate with them via our Smartphones.    We can tell our Sky Box to record the footie, check what the kids are doing while we’re out for the night, even boost the temperature on the central heating when there’s a cold snap, so that we arrive home to a nice toasty environment.

On line conversation with your Fridge

Now LG have introduced a new Homechat function that allows you to talk to your Fridge, via text, to find out what you have in there.  There’s even an in-built camera that can take pictures of the shelves and automatically order new provisions for you when you run out.    All a bit gimmicky, maybe, but what will happen when these components are developed to the point where there is enough ability for a proper dialogue?  Just how difficult could that conversation become….. Continue Reading

Back to the Future

Posted by Malcolm Toogood on April 23, 2014
Posted in: Short 'n Sweet.

Here’s an interesting video from an episode of Tomorrow’s World broadcast twenty years ago, telling us all about the future using the new-fangled Information Superhighway:

 

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One Careful Owner

Posted by Malcolm Toogood on February 28, 2014
Posted in: Nostalgia ain't what it used to be. Tagged: , , , , , , .

We all remember those adverts in Exchange & Mart for a vintage car that we dreamed of owning: 1928 Rolls Royce Convertible, low mileage, excellent condition for its age, one careful owner from new, used for church on Sundays, low price to a good home.   In most cases, when we rolled-up to inspect our potential prize, the truth would be somewhat disappointing, in either having to chase the chickens out of their improvised coop or contemplate the tree that had grown up through the cab over many years, which would need to be cut down before the surviving hulk could be moved.

one careful owner

The 1928 Rolls Royce Phantom 1 Piccadilly Roadster in the picture above, however, did fit that description when it’s owner disposed of it back in 2005.   I became aware of it when one of those much-forwarded e-mails arrived in my inbox the other day from a good friend who knows of my interest in this type of vehicle.  I often send these on, as he had, to other friends, but having been caught-out several times in past years, I now check their voracity on sites such as Snopes before I do so.  Much to my delight, although it had been in circulation for some seven years, I found the contents of this one to be mainly accurate, apart from the car’s claimed mileage which had acquired an extra zero at some time in its many iterations.   What the e-mail didn’t tell, however, was the interesting heritage of the car, and the story of the remarkable man who owned it. Continue Reading

The Other Brit Awards 2014

Posted by Malcolm Toogood on February 23, 2014
Posted in: Music.

As a spectacle, this year’s Brit Awards maintained the recent high standards, particular the stunning visual effects.  But somehow the show has become too contrived, lacking any spark of spontaneity and leaving me wondering at times if the 1989 nadir of Sam Fox and Mick Fleetwood really was as cringeworthy as some of the table set-ups we get these days.

Brit Awards

Ella Eyre winning the award for Best attempt at achieving a Wardrobe Malfunction

We all like to disagree with the judges – it’s a British tradition, and not only in Awards Shows.  However, even there I found myself nodding approvingly at some of the nominations, even if most of those inevitably lost-out to that frightful combination of corporate dollars and Buggins’ Turn.   So whilst enduring the more tedious parts, I found myself creating a few awards of my own: Continue Reading

Attempted a Backside 360 Grab recently?

Posted by Malcolm Toogood on February 9, 2014
Posted in: Sport. Tagged: , , , , , .

Don’t worry, it’s doubtful it will land you in jail, even in Russia, where today Jenny Jones used one as part of her routine to land Britain’s first ever Olympic medal on snow, in the Women’s Slopestyle Snowboarding.   It is just one of the myriad of terms associated with the sport that we will all, no doubt, become familiar with over the next few days.   If you haven’t seen slopestyle yet, try and imagine doing a gymnastics routine in the middle of a ski-jump, on one ski, then doing it twice more – all in the same run.

slopestyle

Jenny Jones flies high en route to Bronze

In these days of ultra-protectiveness, we don’t often encounter new sports that provide a true spectacle, but I have to confess that watching the men’s event yesterday was a bit of an adrenaline rush – and that was just on TV.  Listening to the commentators, however,was like encountering a niche art film without subtitles, but at least they seemed to understand what it was all about.  Which is more than can be said for their bosses who pulled a live interview with one of the British competitors, because he said ‘Huck It’ on air.  I looked the term up on a snowboarding website, which is obviously more than they did, and found the definition “uncontrollably throwing yourself into the air without any regard to personal or surrounding safety”.  From what I saw all of the competitors were doing that (see video below), so perhaps the BBC  should apologise to our Olympian for their misunderstanding. Continue Reading