overyourhead

Arsenal Best Team in the Premier League's 20 Seasons Awards...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Thu, 17 May 2012 07:23:00 +0000

Arsenal's 'Invincibles' of 2003/04 have been voted the Best Team in the Premier League's 20 Seasons Awards.

A panel of leading football figures, journalists and commentators backed the extraordinary achievement of Arsene Wenger and his players as they became the first - and, to date, only - team to go unbeaten through a Premier League season.

The Infinite Monkey Cage...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Wed, 16 May 2012 07:44:00 +0000

On Monday night Mark and I went to watch a recording of BBC Radio 4's The Infinite Monkey Cage being recorded at the Shaw Theatre in London's not so glitzy Euston.

I'm signed up the the BBC Tickets who offer free invitations to various BBC events. Most are done on a ballot and so getting tickets to the more popular ones is pretty hit and miss. This time I was lucky.

Atheist beef-cake Professor Brian Cox and and atheist cupcake Robin Ince run The Infinite Monkey Cage show and it takes a sideways glance (and occasionally head-on) at science. This week they were talking about the oceans and they had Dave Gorman joining the panel along with a biologist and a geologist. It was fascinating stuff. And funny too.

Benford's Law...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Tue, 15 May 2012 07:37:00 +0000

Benford's law, also called the first-digit law, states that in lists of numbers from many (but not all) real-life sources of data, the leading digit is distributed in a specific, non-uniform way.

According to this law, the first digit is 1 about 30% of the time, and larger digits occur as the leading digit with lower and lower frequency, to the point where 9 as a first digit occurs less than 5% of the time. This distribution of first digits is the same as the widths of gridlines on the logarithmic scale. Benford's law also gives the expected distribution for digits beyond the first, which approach a uniform distribution as the digit place goes to the right.

This result has been found to apply to a wide variety of data sets, including electricity bills, street addresses, stock prices, population numbers, death rates, lengths of rivers, physical and mathematical constants, and processes described by power laws (which are very common in nature). It tends to be most accurate when values are distributed across multiple orders of magnitude.

The graph above shows Benford's law for base 10. There is a generalization of the law to numbers expressed in other bases (for example, base 16), and also a generalization to second digits and later digits. It is named after physicist Frank Benford, who stated it in 1938, although it had been previously stated by Simon Newcomb in 1881

Arsenal Finishes Third...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Mon, 14 May 2012 07:17:00 +0000

Arsenal secured their place in next season's Champions League with a thrilling victory at the Hawthorns that owed much to a series of errors made by West Brom goalkeeper Marton Fulop.

The 3-2 victory means Arsene Wenger's side finish the season in third place which considering that we were 17th in the League last October isn't too bad.

It's sure been a roller-coaster of a season. Now if only we can hang on to Robin van Persie...

Arsenal's End of Season Maybes...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Fri, 11 May 2012 09:17:00 +0000

Arsene Wenger's side are in pole position to finish third and guarantee Champions League qualification - but any slip-up for the Gunners at West Brom could let in Tottenham, particularly as their goal difference is only one ahead of Spurs, or even Newcastle.

Arsenal will finish third: if they win; if they draw and Tottenham fail to win; if they lose (by any margin), Tottenham lose and Newcastle fail to win; or if they lose by a single goal, Tottenham draw or lose, and Newcastle fail to win.

Arsenal will finish fourth: if they draw and Tottenham win; if they lose (by any margin), Tottenham win and Newcastle fail to win; if they lose (by any margin), Tottenham lose and Newcastle win; if they lose by a single goal, Tottenham draw and Newcastle win; or if they lose by two or more goals, Tottenham draw and Newcastle fail to win.

The doomsday scenario of Arsenal finishing fifth can only occur if they lose (by any margin) and Tottenham and Newcastle both win; or if they lose by two or more goals, Tottenham draw and Newcastle win.

Two to Skaro Please...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Fri, 11 May 2012 06:00:00 +0000

Einstein on the Beach...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Thu, 10 May 2012 06:00:00 +0000

Last Friday Paul and I went to see Philip Glass's gargantuan minimalist classic Einstein on the Beach at the Barbican Theatre. We loved it. Agreeing with most of the critics. However... well, let my letter to the Barbican do the talking.

From: Jonathan Green
Sent: 06 May 2012 11:50
To: feedback@barbican.org.uk
Subject: Production Staff Behaviour at Barbican Theatre

I am writing to complain about the behaviour of production staff during the Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach performance last Friday night 4th May 2012 at the Barbican Theatre.

My friend and I sat in row S in seats 11 and 12 and directly behind us in row T were four men and one woman who talked loudly throughout the whole show. Initially we believed that they were customers like us - it then became apparent they were actually production staff. We asked them to be quiet. They ignored us. This behaviour continued throughout the whole performance - all five hours of it. Other patrons were also affects by this and moved away. Others asked them to be quiet - again these requests were ignored.

There was no member of Barbican staff that we could find to complain to on the night. This was very frustrating.

Here is a small snap shot of the ceaseless chatter that started from the beginning:-

"That's wrong. Too slow. Too slow. Where's the dry ice? Dry ice. DRY ICE! She's late. Where is she? No. NO! To the left. LEFT. Lighting cue all wrong. That's it. Slowly, slowly. What we need to do is bring that one on quicker. What's that? NO! NO!" etc etc etc etc

I understand that technical issues do need to be addressed during performances but not at the expense of paying customers.

My friend and I had waited 27 years to see such a landmark cultural show, we had been looking forward to the great music, ambitious staging and were happy to pay £100 for each ticket. However this performance was ruined for us due to the production staff talking throughout the show.

I am a Red Member , attend events at the Barbican frequently and have never had cause to complain about any aspect of the Barbican's usual excellent service. However on this occasion we both felt severely let down by the Barbican.

I feel the need to draw this to your attention so other patrons don't experience similar incidents.

Jonathan Green

Member: xxxxxxx

Booking ref: xxxxxxx

There's a sort of happy ending. The Barbican called me to apologise explaining that it was actually the director Robert Wilson behind us. They have offered me two free tickets for this Friday so I'm going again. To enjoy the opera in the way I imagine Mr Wilson intended. In peace.

Babel...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Wed, 09 May 2012 07:49:00 +0000

Last night Stu went to see Babel in London's leafy Caledonian Park in Islington. We met up with Oliver and his friend too.

Babel was a theatrical event in situ consisting of 300 actors and performers like no other. An 'immersive theatrical experience' it says here.

In the original Tower of Babel story God confounded mankind by making them speak in different languages for daring to build a tower to the Heavens. The Babel London crew were going to bring us all back together with the mantra "today's the day." It was a lofty ambition.

Upon entering the park we walked around the perimeter through the undergrowth coming across person after person. The odd thing about these people were that they weren't just standing there. They were perched in trees, they were ironing, typing, reading poetry, sleeping, cooking, watching television, vacuuming the grass, you name it. It was very "performance." But not wholy inaffective. As to what it meant - we were hoping to find out. "Today's the day" they said.

After the soujourn in the trees we entered the centre of the park proper where they were various structures - a cafe, a bar, stages, platforms etc.. There were actors, dressed mainly as members of the public, who performed songs, played instruments, danced and told stories. So far so good.

Then after an hour or so the fake 'Big Brother' policemen who had been guarding us, the ladies in white who had been standing around and various other actors all started the show proper. They had been building bamboo houses at the front of the park near the large clock tower. The speakers boomed out "everyone get back, the houses have to be moved." And the people cried out "no". The houses got moved all the same though. Someone got "arrested" for taking a stand and taken into the tower. There was a got of clever projection onto the tower. A bit of absailing up it and down it. The actors booed and hissed their oppressors. He man got rescued. The End.

To call the whole thing amateurish would be a disservice as it was indeed a part amateur production. And being the first night there were a few technical 'pauses' which were perhaps to be expected.

It was an ambitious project - in terms of scale at any rate - and ultimately it failed in it's basic requirement - to be any good. The 'Big Brother' type plot just didn't really work.

It was a bit like a festival with lots of theatre types doing their best to show off. A smaller show, more tightly produced would have worked better for me I think. Oh well. Good to have gone but hard to recommend to others I'm afraid.

Facebook Statuses...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:20:00 +0000

Did you know people are getting paid to mention products in their Facebook statuses?

That's as crazy as the discounts at Dave's Furniture Emporium...

Clinton Cards...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Mon, 07 May 2012 14:19:00 +0000

Clinton Cards is going bust. Moonpig must think all their Christmasses, birthdays, Easters, weddings, anniversaries, Valentines have come at once.

The Sunshine Boys...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Fri, 04 May 2012 09:51:00 +0000

Last night Stu and I went to see The Sunshine Boys playing at the Savoy Theatre in London's glitzy West End.

The revival of the Neil Simon comedy starred Danny DeVito (in his West End debut) and Richard Griffiths as the hapless vaudeville duo "Lewis and Clark".

The story is set after the pair have split up having worked together on stage for 43 years, grown to hate each other and not spoken for their final year together. It is now 11 years later and they are being asked to revive one of the old routines one last time for a television special. Neither really wants to do it and they bicker and argue before they eventually reluctantly agree do it. They then have a war-like rehearsal before they finally get to perform.

It's a funny show - very well written with some brilliantly created smaller roles such as the two diametrically opposite looking nurses. The show however hangs on the performances of it's two leads. And in this it is mild disappointing. DeVito is nothing less than superb. He is funny, engaging and convincing. Griffiths is sadly less so. His New York accent is all over the place, his timing not one of a seasoned comic actor and he comes across as being all too pensive for the quick wit he is meant to be portraying. Basically I think he's been miscast.

Still, it's a good show and despite us feeling a little drained from recent bad news we both laughed - a lot - especially in the final act.

Ian Martin RIP...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Thu, 03 May 2012 11:55:00 +0000

It was with much regret and sadness that I heard last night that our dear friend Ian Martin had passed away. He had been ill for some time and suffered a fall in his kitchen after what appeared to have been either a heart attack or a stroke. The family are being traced and it is hoped that his friends will be able to help celebrate Ian's life in some way at the appropriate time.

I will always remember Ian for his acerbic wit - a moniker he was quite proud of. "I like being call acerbic" he once told me, "it sounds so deliciously tart."

After a particularly waspish verbal or literal sting he'd even relish it with the phrase, "Acerbic? Moi?"

RIP old fella.

The Flying Dutchman...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Wed, 02 May 2012 07:32:00 +0000

Last night Stu and I went to see an English National Opera production of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman at the London Coliseum.

It was a great show directed by hot young thing Jonathan "Sweeney Todd" Kent although the weight of the opera perhaps dragged itself beneath the waves at times. This was by no means the fault of the creatives, Paul Brown's design is glorious, it's just that Wagner can plod at times - "some sublime moments but some terrible half hours."

Also Kent had decided that there should be no interval so with all three acts laid end to end there were a few people shifting in their seats for the two and quarter hour stretch.

The story tells of a ghost captain, The Dutchman, who having invoked the Devil to save him in a storm is cursed to roam the sea forever without rest. An angel brought to him the terms of his redemption: every seven years the waves will cast him upon the shore; if he can find a wife who will be true to him he will be released from his curse. He happens upon a sea-captain Daland who after seeing The Dutchamn's gold promises him his daughter Senta's hand in marriage. Much of this is viewed by an infant Senta in a dream.

When the captains return to dry land enter stage left femme-fatale the real Senta and with boyfriend Erik in tow.

Much toing and froing occur and let's just say it doesn't end well.

Toft Hall - The Pictures...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Tue, 01 May 2012 07:22:00 +0000

Toft Hall..,

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 10:25:00 +0000

We had a fantastic weekend away at a country pile called Toft Hall - halfway between Stoke-on-Trent and Macclesfield.

There were nineteen of us - me, Stu, Andy, Tim, Michael, Andrew, Richard, Andre, Jeremy, Jonny, Andy, Kev, Gary, Nau, Darren, Mark, Dean, Nick and David.

The excuse, if any were needed, was Andy Cook's 50th and Timmy's 38th birthdays.

The hall was lovely, the company sublime and the weather shit. Still, we had a roaring time eating, drinking, dressing up, chatting and playing games.

It is a testament to the boys in that there friends are so nice and everyone got on so well as a group.

Crap Film Catchup...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 06:00:00 +0000

Shallow Hal, Marley & Me, Water for Elephants, Burke & Hare, Super and Priest - it's been a week of crap films chez nous. We've been catching up on some TiVo films. Still got more to go: Footloose, St Elmo's Fire, 8 Mile, Dog Day Afternoon, Matilda, Sucker Punch, Solaris, Thor, The Princess Diaries, No Strings Attached,The Dilemma, Ugly Coyote and Vanilla Sky.

Philip Glass Disney Opera The Perfect American UK premiere at ENO...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 07:37:00 +0000

Philip Glass's opera about Walt Disney is to get its UK premiere at the English National Opera (ENO) next year according to the BBC.

The opera, called The Perfect American, imagining the final months of the life of Walt Disney as told by a fictional Austrian cartoonist who worked for Disney in the 1940s-50s, will have its world première at Madrid's Teatro Real on 22nd Jan 2013.

Optical Illusion #4...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 07:21:00 +0000

Optical Illusion #3...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 07:18:00 +0000

Customer Service...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 07:24:00 +0000

Lego Puzzle...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 08:57:00 +0000

The answers are below here... (written in white on white so select with mouse to show them)

The Simpsons (Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo and Donatello)
Southpark (Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny)
The Smurfs
Asterix and Obelix
Bert & Ernie
Donald, Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck i.e. Ducktales
Lucky Luke and The Daltons

100 Days To Go To the Olympics...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 07:40:00 +0000

The great irony of course, is that if all those who have said they will disappear for the Olympic fortnight actually did so, it would spare the rest of us the chaos they so fear. But inevitably, they won’t. So when it does all go wrong, blame the moaners.

It's frustrating not getting tickets for what you want to see. As a footie fan I'm used to not getting tickets to watch my team play. Sure I get frustrated. But doesn't mean I think football should be not played! Yes, they could have allocated Olympics tickets better - given more to different people rather than a straight ballot but I guess the real problem was that they were oversubscribed by a factor of 10:1! Although more tickets on sale in a week or two I think. 1.5m football ones but 1m other ones too apparently. If you didn't get any in the first rounds - have another go!

And if you're not successful don't stay in watching telly - come down to Trafalgar Square with me!

How To Fix Any Computer...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 07:28:00 +0000

Big and Small (Gross und Klein)...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 06:00:00 +0000

Last Friday night Stu and I went to see Big and Small (Gross und Klein) at the Barbican Theatre in London's glitzy Barbican Centre.

Botho Strauss's play (with Martin Crimp sparkling translation) sees Cate Blanchett play a chattering woman, Lotte, who is desperate to belong. As the ten scenes play out we follow Lotte on her slightly surreal search for meaning and friendship.

Her travels take her to Morocco where she becomes alienated from the rest of the tour party, Essen where she becomes alienated from her husband and Saarbrücken where, well you've guessed it, things don't go well meeting up with her childhood friend. Even her brother doesn't seem to want to know.

But this particular Chatty Cathy is an eternal optimist and slightly too good for this world. She is the outsider always looking in - sometimes literally - as she does through a pane of frosted glass.

Ultimately we sympathise with Lotte and want her to find a human connection with someone. To the author's credit this never realised, the open-ending mirroring the ambiguity that happiness be achieved by anyone inhabiting our grossly materialist society.

Cate Blanchett puts on a dazzlingly uninhibited performance here and the standing ovation was well deserved. A triumph.

Optical Illusion #2...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Green) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 07:48:00 +0000