The Posh Schedule To Download

Here is a look at the image for the posh schedule. You will see this about a lot. Please note this is subject to change! As noted today, where we started an hour late due to technical difficulties and also had some issues about midday with the mic, which we have now all resolved. Currently chilling at the Studio with Tom Leedham doing a fantastic job here!

You can listen to the station: http://tinyurl.com/alrewasradio

Follow us on twitter: @AlrewasRadio

Alrewas Radio: Official Timetable

I am proud to present to you, the official timetable for Alrewas Radio, supporting Alrewas Radio 2012! I do also have to make the disclaimer that although we will endeavour to maintain this at all times, it is subject to change!

Firstly, The morning show, where we will be explaining all the day's events and looking back at the previous, then generally warming up for another fantastic arty day.

The second show of the day is with me, Tom, which will involve a lot of lovely music to keep you going until lunch, as well as some chatting and hopefully some special guests, but I better not get you too excited! I will also try to cover all the workshops going on in that morning session as well as keeping it entertaining for the rest of the village.

Interconnecting the afternoon's proceedings are various pre recording sessions involving artists and bands from the local area, including long standing band The Hoovers, who have a very special anniversary this year. more to come about that.

To look out for is the Decades show, which will take you on a musical journey from the 60's right through to the teenies, playing some of the highs (and possibly lows) of those decades. Co presented by Rob Spall, this looks to be a great show.

Also to look out for is the alternative show, for all those who are a fan of alternative music, there will be all sorts to listen to on their, with the 2 incredibly funny and talented Tom and Alex presenting that for you.

Finally make sure you catch the special Last Night Do. I can#t reveal to you what that is yet, but I can assure you it will be fantastic.

Also you can keep up to date with us on twitter @AlrewasRadio and with the hashtag #AlrewasRadio, which I am not entirely sure how that works, but I am assured by people who spend a lot of time on twitter that you can get the important info from there. also for further information please go to the Alrewas Arts Festival website. Have a fantastic festival week and I hope you can also enjoy the beautiful sounds of our voices throughout.

Here is the link for the radio internet stream: http://radio.canstream.co.uk:8032/live.mp3.m3u

I can assure you this link works as I have spent about 2 hours today trying to get it to!

A big thanks to Jim Ralley for making this happen, and James "Womble" Richardson for managing to organise this!

Will I be able to take back my comments about Apple? Ever?

Now for the Alrewas Radio project which I am involved in (god knows why somebody decided to put me on the radio, I thought youtube was bad enough!) we have had a lot of new kit, and one of these things happens to be a MacBook Pro. The one made by Apple.

Now I have said quite a lot of scathing things in the past about the aforementioned Computer Manufacturer and designer, mainly based upon the price tag about the 3 times to price of the same specifications of a PC, but also due to it's lack of compatibility, the sparse amount of software actually available for it, and the shocking bar and the bottom which disappears and re-appears. What does it think it is, the genie?

Now as I say, during the past few days I have been engrossed in such a piece of technology trying to get it all working and ready for the big Radio starting on Saturday. (If you would like to listen please go to the Alrewas Arts Fest website for more information on where about to find it)

Now even that has been the bane of my life. Not only has there been countless downloads and installations to be doing with it, we have also had find our way around the system to alter settings and the such like to get everything to run together properly, which also involves a basic way about the way it would work, which on a windows PC, I have no problems with that, but a Mac. Oh No.

I have to say though, for whatever reason, when I am working with images or video or something arty farty like that, it is something which very I have warmed to. I am not yet saying I am a mac convert, but they are growing on me. 

I am nowhere near saying I would go out and buy one, but having the chance to use one has been a pleasure. And I do have to say one thing, they have incredibly good in built audio and video facilities, which I would not have expected from a Mac!

Anyway, I have to go now, back to my lovely homely Windows laptop. Thanks for reading

Twitter: @peachy146

Real Life Minecraft

One of the current garden projects is to extend the chicken run out to accommodate double the amount of chickens. Now because my parents are my parents, they have to do it in a very convoluted way and make it as complicated as possible.

Anyway, in taking up the lawn to make space for the new part of the chicken run, I was tasked with moving the pieces of turf after taking them up so that Dad could patch up areas of the lawn elsewhere where the grass had died. Fair enough.

so I set about this in the usual manor: tea in one hand; spade in the other; and my sister bossing me about, even though she didn't really know what I was doing.

After I had moved a few pieces of turf, my sister from the other end of the garden suddenly pipes up: "Tom, that looks like real life Minecraft!"

Minecraft Huh?

twitter: @peachy146

PROJECT MINOR (Part 1): Official Morris Minor Owners Club Member!

I am pleased to announce that I am now an official member of the Morris Minor Owner's Club of Great Britain, now that I am officially the owner of a lovely 1968 Morris Minor Traveller, navy blue, a dead battery, 4 flat tyres, and seized engine, a leaky roof...

Still I am very much looking forward to the project of doing it up and will keep you well and truly updated with how it is going. Now the first thing is getting it back from North Yorkshire, with the seized engine and the 4 flat tyres.

Nonetheless, first thing tomorrow I am off down the garage to try and scab and trailer in exchange for my car to fix and make happy again. Genuinly can't wait to get in it and drive round the UK in my Moggy!

Twitter: @peachy146

Thanks!

Project OddFellows Photography

For the Arts Festival within the village, we have being taking part in a project which has been on-going to celebrate the 101st birthday of the village hall. (Don't ask, the hall is called Oddfellows Hall. I think this explains enough)

To commemorate this "spectacular occasion" we have received funding to be able to take a photograph of a person from the village for every year of the 101 years that the village hall has been around for, so we are really pleased to now officially call this project open!

It was a load of hard work for all the people involved, including the marathon of photographing 214 people in 1 weekend, between me and fellow photographer Katie Greensmith, which was a feat in itself. Also a massive thanks to Jim and Paula, as well as Joe and Peter for their support during the whole project and also the contribution to actually sticking up the pictures.

Now neither me or Katie are what one could call professional photographers, but we have really improved or love for the art and also our skill level throughout the project with the inclusion of the workshop which we took part in to learn and deveop the skills which would prime us for the crunch time of actually taking the photos!

Last but not least on this project I would also like to mention the funding which facititated the purchase of the best camera money can buy, the Canon EOS 5D Mark III (OK well maybe not THE best, but certainly up there) which is now in the possession of the village. We are looking to start up some photography clubs and workshops to pass on our skills and passion for this hobby within the near future and are very much welcoming people from the local community, not just the village to get involved. If you would like to find out any more info about this, or would really like to get stuck in with some photography yourself but just don't quite have the knowledge or the skills to do so, then please follow us on twitter for further info.

Our twitter is @OddFellowsPhoto so as I say please follow us to find out loads more about events, workshops, clubs and exhibitons which we will be putting on.

Thanks for reading!

Morris Minor Traveller... With Me Driving It!

So some may have knowledge at my lament about car insurance, but just to re-iterate, to insure my Ford Fiesta Ghia 2003 model, even with a black box to monitor my speed, cornering braking, wee stops and farting habits, it was going to cost me £4,000. No I did not add an extra nought for effect!

So when we went to my great uncle's farm in North Yorkshire at Easter this year and I fell in love with his 1968 Morris Minor Traveller, I decided I would get a quote from Footman James, the insurers recommended by the Morris Minor Owner's Club. So on Wednesday morning I rang them up and I got a quote. 

With me as the main driver, with my Mum and Dad as named drivers, the nice lady on the other end of the phone promptly took 5 minutes to find the class of the Moggy as well as another 5 minutes to explain a load of random stuff about premium interest and different colours the certificate could be printed on, she finally got round to telling me the price. And yes maybe I did scream a little bit like she had just told me I won the lottery, but there it was. £985.64! 

The only trouble was, I didn't actually have this car. So off my Dad went up to Yorkshire. And back he came with a handful of Minor Matters magasines from my uncle, as well as the good news that the car was available, but with a new set of wheels, a new battery and an MOT at best, not even taking into account the cost of getting it to run.

Now whatever, I want to be an accountant so I am kind of anal about the numbers, but the £2,000 I save on the insure, I can spend on an absolutely fantastic little machine, with a heart of steel and a backside of wooden framing. I can't express my love for this car, made even fonder knowing the price of the insurance. What a fantastic motor to be cruising around the south Derbyshire lanes and what's more, it even has a enough room in the boot for my Saxophone!

Calling All Minecrafters: Unless you have 1.75 stacks of Diamond, then You have Got to Read This!

Now I think I have mentioned that I am big Minecrafter. I have recently been truly enamoured by the little mod pack called Tekkit. If you don't know about this, where have you been, if you don't have it, then you are a fool, and if you don't know where to get it, then open your eyes. (Only joking, you can get it on the Technic pack website).

So the great thing about this is that it adds so much more to Minecraft it is incredible. I don't even know how to use all of the things it gives you, and I have been playing it for a good 3 months now! It essentially adds everything which has been invented in the real world by scientists in funny outfits and funny hairdos in the past 200 years in 1 mod pack. You can create power, electricity, engines, machines, quarries and pretty much anything you want to. It will automate absolutely everything there is to do in Minecraft, and so much more!

Once you have gone Tekkit, you can't go back!

Now here is the thing, there is also a mod included called equivalent exchange, or EquivX to all those in the trade. This is one of the best mods ever made. It basically brings alchemy into Minecraft  Now I am not a fan of magic games and things like that. I have never even been near a potion in the game and I don't really understand what the XP points are, but this mod assigns every item with a value, known as EMC, which can also be created into something else. So for example, all core items such as cobble and dirt have an EMC value of 1. on the other hand, diamonds have a value of 8000 and something. Basically whatever 64 x 64 is. Now this means you can turn cobble into diamonds.

You will have to watch this video to help you understand how it all works. The best I think is Duncan's explanation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11Hsua7bdOo&feature=plcp

Another mod called Red Power 2 adds something very neat to the game called a Block Breaker. Now what this does it break the block below it and move it via redstone pipes, another feature of Red Power 2, to a chest or whatever you choose to store it in. Bare with me.

My precious!

 If you so wish, as I do, you pump it straight into the Condenser which will turn it directly into diamonds using the EquivX EMC. Awesome right! Ok, so it you have a row of like 8 block breakers and you an create 64 every 8 seconds, which is a diamond every... hang on... 8 and a half minutes. Ok that is pretty cool right, when it is for free! You could have a massive cobblestone production facility, like I do, which in total has 64 block breakers and makes a diamond a minute! BOOM!

So yeah, free diamonds anyone?

AS Level Results... Meh

So in my parents eyes, I am a genius. In my teacher's eyes I am not so much a genius, and in mine I am definitely not. So I pretty happy with 2 As, a B and a C and a D. It is what I was expecting, if not better. My parents as you can imagine weren't so chuffed, but that's fine at the end of the day!

However there was one surprise. I am both an Art student and a Music student. Now these to subjects are what I see as the ones I enjoy, rather than the ones I need to get into university with. I always knew that my music grade would come out better than my Art, however I did not expect 4 grades higher! I got the D in my Art. Well enough said. I actually am quite pleased with the A I got in music too. Now there is a dilemma.

I have to pick one of them to continue with into my final year. Now the reasoning that I always had for art was that it would lead to more places as a career. This, my friends is utter rubbish. I don't know if you have seen any polls lately, but they all say the artists are the least employed profession in the entire world! Don't make a decision on a career based on what you think might be the case. do your research! 

Anyway, on that note (no pun intended!) I have decided to carry on with my music. I am almost relieved at this, as it means a shed load of work, and a shed load of scrappy scribbles on pieces of paper, can be forgotten about at long last! Now it isn't that I don't enjoy art, I love it in fact. I enjoy photography and manipulating pieces of recycled materials into new and wonderful things. But the way it is taught, by trying to make a creative process a physical curriculum structure is impossible, and therefore you can't examine art in the same way as you examine other subjects. It just isn't possible. Sorry. But Art isn't a proper subject on it's own. Unless you continue it on to gain skills and knowledge to move directly into that profession, it is useless. Trust me, I have done it!

Welcome

What's up guys, my name is Tom Peach. I am a sixth form student in the UK, with a life entirely revolved around music, and Minecraft. And that is really all there is to know. Oh and the fact I like to get on my soap box and recite, to whomever may be listening, what ever random facts and interesting anecdotes I can dig out of the recesses of my brain.

I hope that you enjoy reading what I have to say, and also I hope that you learn something from it too. Thanks for reading!