Sebastian Early Anthony Payne

It has been three weeks since I last put a post out so, it is time for an update. With my return to Durham, my Facebook usage has increased while my Radio Nowhere postings have decreased. There is a link here - it never surprises me how vital Facebook is to daily life at Durham. My return at the end of April also saw me become the official Station Manager of Purple Radio. The first two weeks of broadcasting have been fantastic, stressful, exciting and worrying all at the same time. Some of the issues have included a broken compressor, a broken swivel chair, a broken studio monitor and an air-con machine blowing out hot air. Continuing to study and run the station is a major task of balance and will take a while for adjustment. Next year when my work load increases for Computer Science will bring extra challenges too.

On the other hand, some things have been excellent. The new exec team have really pulled their weight and everyone has done everything expected of them so far. Our new posters have arrived and feature everywhere in Durham - pubs, student bars, colleges, shops and random university buildings. To accompany these, two 8ft banners were ordered in the first week and arrived just a few days ago. After several emails with Estates and Buildings, they are up at the University Library and Dunelm House.

This Sunday will bring us the biggest thing the station has ever done - the Student Radio Chart Show. Several student stations around the country are taking their turn to host the show and 11th May is the turn of Purple Radio. Both the new and old exec have been working very hard to make this a memorable occasion for the station. If you want to hear the best of student radio and latest music, remember to tune in this Sunday at 3:00pm to www.purpleradio.co.uk. Fingers crossed for no technical problems, or personelle ones for that matter.

I was helping my friend Robert Oliver, a local counsellor and Conservative Party member yesterday with his campaign in the upcoming local elections. In an email, he mentioned that a special guest was coming to the area to help with the campaigning. This turned out to be William Hague - one of the top members of the party and previous party leader! I was delighted and brought my Nikon and dictaphone along with me. Unfortunately, I forgot to charge my camera fully and after a lot of shooting the previous day, I ran out of battery but I did manage to grab this shot with my iPhone.

The photographer from the Sunderland Echo (complete with Nikon D2x) has a photo of me with him, that I will try and gain a copy of. It was a fantastic opportunity and I have new respect for William. He did some door-to-door knocking brilliantly and answer a few questions of mine honestly. Good to see that high-ranking politicians can still find the time for the simple things and helping local counsellors. I will edit and gather the audio later today and upload it to the tubes.

I have made several posts in the past with this title but as you may have guessed, I'm off to London on today to see the Eagles at the O2 Arena. In the past few months, the band have become one of my favourites and are very high in recent my last.fm rankings as you can see. The tickets weren't cheap but I am very much looking forward to the show and the reviews so far are very encouraging.

I will also be staying Wednesday night and having a day of fun in London - something I have wanted to do for years - visiting places like Tate Modern, Battersea Power Station, The Photographers Gallery as well as the usual favourites like the Apple Store and Buckingham Palace. If you have any suggestions on places to visit in London, then let me know!

Finally, on the Habari front, 0.4.1 is triggering up for release, Michael is continuing to make progress on Monolith and despite the progress made with WordPress 2.5 on the Administration interface, I continue to love Habari and have great hopes for the future. It's so easy and clean to use...

As I near the date of leaving for London (tomorrow), I thought I would suggest some fantastic Eagles songs I have discovered while exploring their back catalogue in preparation for seeing them live.

• The Sad Café (from The Long Run) - Known to Eagles fans as a hidden classic, this song was the last material to heard until 1994 with Get Over It. Being a Henley/Walsh/Fray/Souther composition, it is some of the best songwriting Don has ever done and includes everything you want from an Eagles song. Soft singing and precise drumming with touching lyrics. Finished off with a saxophone solo by David Sanbourn, it makes a lovely finish to an album full of hard rocking songs and deep cutting issues. Like Hotel California, it's up to you to decide what the song is about and how it relates to you personally.
• My Man (from On The Border) - In the vain of their early sound, this is an atypical country-rock song, driven by acoustic guitar with light drumming and slide guitar to brighten the mood. A tribute by then-Eagle Bernie Leadon to Gram Parsons (who had recently passed away at that time), the song will touch anyone who has suffered the loss of a close friend. The immortal line "and we who must remain, go on living just the same" is awfully special. I can not think of another song that expresses this so eloquently (Tears In Heaven comes close), My Man is a gem of a song which has never been performed by the band.
• Journey of a Sorcerer (from One of These Nights) - The track is most commonly associated with 'Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy' but I can honestly say I have never heard it until I played it from the album, not being a science fiction fan. Space and country music have rarely been pushed together but this song shows it can be done. Driven by a banjo, strings and slide-guitar, it makes a top notch instrumental to chillax to, even if it is an uncommon path for the band. Sonic experimentation I believe is the term for such songs

That ends today's music thoughts. I've just purchased The Zutons' Tired of Hanging Around and absolutely love some of the songs on it. Expect a write up or a mention in the future. The album came out just before my interest in music really began to flourish, hence the delay in finding it. Good music and good songwriting - not something you see cobbled together in modern music. They are recording a new album so hopefully I may see them on tour soon.

When I arrived back at Durham from the Christmas break, this was what the Purple Radio office looked like

A horrendous state of old servers, old Sun workstations, boxes, cables, CRT monitors and general computing rubbish. Most visitors would comment 'was this a radio station or an IT lab' - I have wondered this myself. Slowly over Epiphany term, the situation has improved by binning lots of rubbish, cannibalising computers to get the useful bits out and seeing what isn't needed. On the last few days of term, Jake and Graham from the IT & Systems team went in with myself for a big dumping session. My uncle and I then took 12 old systems, two G3 iMacs and a laser printer to the local dump 'household waste recycling centre' and things were looking much better. All of these systems were either beyond repair or too old to be any use to anyone. Recycling them would have been better but no one was interested in them.

Over the holidays, I have been buying posters and tomorrow, I'm traveling back to start decorating with the help of some friends. Instead of the light blue, we are going magnolia with should brighten up the place and look cleaner. Expect some more photos soon of a much friendlier office (with a kettle and toaster to boot!). On another note, if anyone has any old equipment they don't need, please let me know as we may be able to use it. Monitors (flat screens), servers, desktops, RAM - anything really can be useful.