Unless someone invents time travel, this is probably the closest you'll get to experiencing Janis Joplin live on stage. Jukebox musicals have a variety of viable routes to success. You either do a Mama Mia / We Will Rock You and just spin a weak story around the tunes - or you do a straight biography interspersing songs with whatever anecdotes the surviving members can agree on. Janis treads a different path. It is presented as a gig, with Janis singing and telling stories. The "twist" is…
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I am easily influenced. At EMF Camp, I saw my friends Skylar and Cameron using some nifty walkie-talkies out in the field. Skye (patiently) explained to me the joys of PMR446 and - because I was quite drunk I hastily bought some radios on Amazon. Hey, they were on special - £30 for a pair! After a few days of use, I've come to the conclusion that they're… basically fine? My main reason for buying them was that they did USB-C recharging (we live in the future now). They didn't come with ch…
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I love putting stickers on my laptops. But when it's time to move to a different laptop, what happens to all those cool stickers? After spending too many nights with a scraper and isopropanol, I decided to get a pre-cut dbrand skin. It'll protect the laptop and it will peel off in one piece, allowing me to preserve all my old stickers. I got the cheapest possible one - it's going to be covered in stickers anyway - which came to US$60 with the deluxe package. Honestly, I wasn't thrilled at the…
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I thought I didn't know Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. But, like all truly great cultural phenomena, it had disseminated itself through the cultureweb so thoroughly that I felt completely familiar with it. Performed in the round, from our nosebleed seats we had a stunning view of the action. The full floor of the Royal Albert Hall is used - there's so much going on that it become hard to take it all in. The gods'-eye-view makes it feel a little like Virtual Reality - turn your head the wrong way for …
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I'll review anything with a USB-C port. When hardware companies offer to send me a gadget to review, I'll always reply back with "only if it has USB-C". The EBL C9010N has a USB micro socket. *sigh* We live in the future now. Don't buy anything which requires you to have multiple cables and adapters. In terms of what the products does, it is… basically fine. Plug in Ni-MH or Ni-CD batteries and they will slowly charge. The batteries go in at a slight angle, which makes them slightly easier …
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Several years ago, I purchased a Clevo N151CU laptop with the idea that I'd gradually upgrade the RAM, storage, and other bits. After my keyboard failed, I found it difficult to find replacement parts. The whole point of the Framework laptop is that it is specifically designed to be modular. It come in kit form, is easy to disassemble, and is (reasonably) well supported by an ecosystem of manufacturers and makers. I splashed out on the larger Framework 16. Again, I only bought one stick of RAM …
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This has to be the campest, most ludicrously sequinned, joyous shows I've seen in quite some time. I knew nothing about Pippin, but my dad saw it back in the 1970s and loved it - so I snagged us a couple of tickets. The story itself is fun enough; an over-privileged princeling goes off to find his purpose and finds himself waylaid by vices, murders, and ducks. It's a silly, wry, and self-knowing show. More like Into The Woods than anything else. As this was an "in concert" production, I was …
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Opening Night is complex, fascinating, and flawed. It is baffling that this is somehow less than the sum of its parts. The acting and singing are incredible - Nicola Hughes in particular has a magnificent stage presence. The directing and staging is wonderfully innovative - giving even the most distant seat a close-up view. The songs are all great - with "You gotta make magic" a standout hit. The whole ensemble comes together in a perfect display of a what a West End musical is supposed to…
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This is a blast from start to finish. I haven't heard such screams of laughter since, well, the last Mischief production I saw! The Mind Manger is a crap magician dealing with his shitty home life, a tosspot stooge, and an audience full of idiots. Naturally, everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Imagine a very grumpy Tommy Cooper who despises his audience and, against all the evidence to the contrary, is convinced of his own mesmeric ability. It's a fully interactive show - the whole…
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The good folks at Kaiweets have sent me their KTI-W01 Thermal Camera to review. You can use coupon code TEB15 for an exclusive 15% discount. Let's get this unboxed and working! Demo Photos The photos are stored as JPGs which can be read by any normal graphics program. They also contain the thermal metadata which you can extract with specialist tools. Here's the full photo taken with the camera. It shows the interior of an office with some computer equipment on a shelf. You aren't…
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The good folk at WAVLINK have sent me their Dual-Screen USB-C adapter to review. Plug it in to a USB-C socket and you now have two extra monitor ports. It'll even work on a USB-A socket, if it is USB 3.0. But is it any good? No. Not really. Hardware It's a fairly chunky hub, with a tragically short USB cable. The USB cable has a dongle which converts it from C to A. That's handy if you don't have enough C ports. But the cable being so short means it is sort of awkward to place. If you're …
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An outstanding and joyous show. Through Rachael Stirling we catch a glimpse of Sarah Siddons - the acclaimed 18th/19th century actress. Stirling - and the entire cast - are exceptional. They transport us backstage with a dazzling array of characters. Every single actor gets a scene-stealing moment - it's lovely to see a cast having so much fun. It is Noises Off versus The Patriarchy as we discover how hard it is to be a actress (and authoress) in a world where female celebrity was only just…
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