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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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I want to make one thing very clear. Despite my propensity for IoT gadgetry, I did not connect my toilet to the Internet! It's 2024. Why are you still scraping your arsehole with paper like some kind of 20th century throwback? A decade ago, I got a cheap bidet attachment. It wasn't great. The water was cold, the fittings leaked, and the plastic was creaky. For our recent bathroom renovation, I …
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Recap - I want to build an NFC reader expansion card for the FrameWork laptop. So I've bought a couple of components. This is the ACR1251T-E2 - it's a USB pen-drive sized NFC reader with a side-out USB-A plug. Costs about £40. There's a recessed green LED which flashes to let you know that it is working. It doesn't beep or vibrate when it detects an NFC token. It is a little bit tricky …
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Recap - I want to build an NFC reader expansion card for the FrameWork laptop. So I've bought a couple of components. This is the ACM1252U-Z2 and Oh! It is a dinky little component! The only sign that it is working is a flashing green LED. There's no buzzer on the board. It really is a tiny thing. Side on it is almost invisible. Does it work with Linux? Oh yes! It has a Micro-USB port, so…
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There are lots of one-man plays. There are a decent number of one-woman shows. Where are the one-girl stories? This is Rosie Day's attempt to fix that imbalance. The plot isn't particularly original (it is hard being a teenage girl!!!) but the way the story unfolds is magical. It is witty, irreverent, and cringey in just the right amount. Charithra Chandran has easily enough stage presence to…
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Overwrought melodrama in London's most uncomfortable theatre. This show has been done countless times before. You, the audience, watch extracts from a murder trial. At the end, you vote on whether she done it or not. It feels more suited to a Channel 5 show which asks punters to text their verdict in to a premium rate number. Overall, it is a tawdry - but thoroughly uninteresting - tale. The…
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"This is a show which rewards punctuality!" Thus spake Ross - they only comedian I know of who can successfully heckle his own audience, chastise himself for doing so, go on a twenty-minute segue about cancer-sniffing dogs, and then return (more-or-less) to where he started. It is exhausting to watch him prance around the stage, screaming at invisible interlocutors, and miming the painfully slow …
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Bill's back! Fresh from winning some dance show on linear-TV and ready to... well, do the same thing as he's been doing for years. Rambling tales, dozens of instruments, innovative tech, and a charming whimsy - undercut with, perhaps, a little more darkness than usual. It is a classic, if unsurprising gig. There's an odd segue into Pachelbel's Canon - material which has been mined to extinction…
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For the first time in its illustrious 114 year history, the historic London Palladium will host a monthly orchestral residency beginning in February 2024, which will see iconic artists’ music celebrated. This was an entertaining, but curious, gig. It isn't a tribute act - no sequinned sound-alikes strutting the stage here - it's a a full rock-n-roll orchestra fronted by three dazzlingly t…
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