Now, there’s a novelty. The Guardian and lots of other press have been waxing lyrical over the fact that digital radio sales are beginning to outstrip analog radio sales. There’s also lots of fornication over The Bug because — shock, horror — it can pause, rewind and record live radio. Plus, it has USB connectivity, an SD slot and can play MP3s. It’s also portable. Everyone’s impressed with the fact you can now get loads of digital radio stations with pristine quality sound.

I’m not Everyone though. If you have Sky Digital, you can get scores of digital radio stations. Catering for most commercial tastes, and those for ethnic minorities. If you have The Bug and you live where I do, you pretty much get all the BBC ones, MFR and a few other non-descript ones. Take, Core.. oooh look, they play Avril Lavigne. Cutting edge huh?

I already have the digital radio I need. Whilst I cannot pause and rewind live playback. I can record – timed if I want too. I can chop recordings into individual songs, and I have a choice of thousands of channels. I have MP3 support, USB connectivity. And, most importantly, radio plays the music I want to listen to. Some channels are commercial, but don’t play commercials. They support unknown artists. They don’t compress the hell out of the music either to make them sound good on little speakers either. Wanna know what it’s called? It’s called the internet.

It’s not what you think it is. Alex Salmond of the SNP made some rather bizarre remarks yesterday. He was expressing why young voters are disenfranchised and are less likely to vote than the rest of the population:

Firstly, he said that young people find Polling Stations to be intimidating. I was gobsmacked. How is a Polling Station intimidating? Mine’s a classroom at a local primary school (word of the day ‘blaze’ for those who are interested). Yesterday it had two people checking people off and two little booths to choose from in order to make your vote. Scary huh?

Then he said that young people don’t know how to vote and that whilst ‘our’ generation were taken to vote by our parents, this doesn’t happen nowadays. Well guess what? The first time I voted I went with a bunch of friends. Not a single parent in sight. Nothing particularly difficult there. Oh, and let’s not forget that the polling postcards have instructions on the back of them, and the polling booths have step by step instructions on how to vote. Truly frightening.

Needless to say the interviewer chose not to comment on these two pieces of wisdom, nor was there any mention of the real reasons young people don’t vote. Typical.

It’s been dogging these guys ever since they first formed in the late 80s. Now they’ve reformed and started touring the music press and the ordinary newsie press are touting the influence that Pixies had over other bands to follow. Notably Nirvana, whose Smells Like Teen Spirit was intentionally written as a Pixies rip-off.

But folks, let’s get one thing straight: It’s just Pixies. There ain’t no The anywhere. So, the BBC and The Herald get kicked out of my class for not paying attention.

No one gets The The confused. They don’t suddenly get called The The The. No one with a semblance of intelligence called Cocteau Twins The Cocteau Twins (although I do recall some instances). So folks, it’s just Pixies. Okay?

The thing I hate about writing software is when you can’t see progress for days and days. I’ve spent the last week working on one part of a project, which if it works out okay sets the foundation for the next batch of development. So, just at the time that my client is pressuring for a end date, I spend time carefully planning and hypothesising and drawing state machines. In parallel with that I do straightforward coding: a bit of architecture, develop some views, add a couple of new classes, add some methods to the classes and make little notes for refactoring later (if I ever get a chance!)

During all that time, I’m never 100% sure I’m on the right track. I think I am, but despite everything written down, there are still these thoughts, ifs and buts that suffocate my thoughts 24/7. It’s very depressing. Part of me wants to chuck it all in, but another part of me tells me to deal with it. Needless to say, being an Aquarian, the ‘deal with it’ wins out. So, I plough headlong into the final stretch of this small phase of development. The phase that has borne no rewards for the past week. Sure, I can check things off one by one as I do them, but I can’t see any difference. Very early on in my career one of my programme managers always used to ask the question “what if it all turns to rat shit?”. I know what he meant now.

But, this afternoon was a landmark. I finished the work, tested it, and all is well! I now make some further notes for the next stage of development and I feel a lot better for it. So, I can find time to do a post on this website

Tomorrow it’s back into the cauldron.