My eldest son is currently completing the final piece of coursework for his A Level English which is looking at the the language used in pre and post watershed TV. To do this he is looking at various measures such as the complexity of words. One of the things he wanted to do was to look at the number of words by the number of letters. No problem I thought I must be able to find something on the web to do that. But an extensive Google search turned up nothing, perhaps because it is difficult to describe.

At that point I decided that I could do it myself and set off to write a PHP script to do it and you can see the results here! Cut and paste some text into the box below and hit the submit button and you will see a very crude set of results and a great looking bar chart courtesy of Google Charts.

It’s not perfect, it will only work for Western European characters and only for words up to 20 characters in length but it does the trick - enjoy!

Oh, and this is the chart for this article

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Having been at Bush Hall only a few weeks previously to see Liam Finn Mat and I were back again last night to see Liam’s Dad and he was just superb. The venue is tiny and there were only 350 tickets available to the public and all of them were snapped up by members of the fan club.

The great thing about Finn is that he is such a natural showman, so easy and relaxed on stage and no two shows are ever the same. Last night with only a piano and acoustic guitar he worked his way through his extensive catalogue. The playlist list quickly went out the window as more and more requests were shouted from the crowd and Finn agreed to songs that he hadn’t played in a while and the audience helped out with the lyrics.

Another great thing that makes Finn so engaging is how he is happy to share the stage with audience members and last night three got the opportunity to go up including one on the piano who brilliant played my favourite Crowded House song, Love you ’til the day i die.

The only disappointment was Finn wasn’t able to raise anyone on Skype which would have been fun to see.

I’m really looking forward to the Crowded House gigs coming up in the summer.

 

 

 

 

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Spent last night at my first concert of the year at a chilly Shepherd’s Bush Empire seeing OK GO. I had been in two minds as to whether to go as the weather was grotty still but Mat was keen to go and so we went and I am glad that I did. For a start there was virtually no snow in London and secondly OK GO were just great.

I have been to see some bands who have been great on record (remember those?) and not up to much on tour (see Genesis and John Mayer). Others meanwhile put a bit of effort into it. I have been to many Crowded House concerts and each one has been entertaining and different. OK GO certainly fall into the latter category. As you can see from the photos below it was a well staged and visually stunning show which included ticker tape, mic mounted cameras, video walls and hand bells. You might feel that all of this distracts from the music but it complemented it well and was a great evening.

If you get a chance to see them you should GO, OK?

  

  

  

More pictures and a video of OK GO on hand bells here!

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The “offer” left was spotted by boy 2 while in WH Smiths - mind you I would have to be paid to take New Kids on the Block CD!

As Mat would say “Fail!”

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It’s the time of year when everyone seems to turn to introspection and my letter box is filled with those blasted round-robin letters - why can’t these people get blogs like normal people?

Anyway, so as not to be left out this is my review of the year:

January

After the excesses of December we implement a one month spending freeze but this doesn’t extend to visits to Costa. One half of our best friends leaves for an 18 month secondment to Australia.

February

Suddenly find myself without a job after a falling out with my employer. Spurs me onto starting my own business Ammat Consulting and the search begins for clients. The other half of our best friends (and their kids) leaves for Australia. This makes us sad

March

Having struggled to keep my weight down I decide it is time for some drastic action and visit a hypnotherapist. It is a very strange sensation but I am not sure if I am more conscious about what I eat due to the hypnotism or just because the thought is more in my mind due to the sessions. Either way I lose weight.

Alternative therapies are to become a theme for this year.

April

Holiday in Florida. Every time we go we say that this will be our last time and enjoy it so much that we plan to go again. Can Alex be persuaded to go again in 2011?

May

Had an interview with a local software company about becoming their CEO but after a few weeks of negotiations it became clear that the incumbent MD was not going to give up his position easily so I walked away.

Meanwhile Alex had his first visits to potential universities ready for next year.

June

Alex takes his AS Levels and I queue outside O2 for the iPhone 3GS.

July

Mat with his guitar orchestra takes place in the regional finals of a national competition at the Festival Hall in Birmingham.

It’s a month for revisiting old friends. Firstly I meet up with Ella, a friend that I went to primary school with and haven’t seen for quite a few years and secondly I revisit Portsmouth with Alex to look round the University. Some things haven’t changed since my days there, others greatly.

Take an Insignia for a test drive.

August

Alex scores a set of fantastic AS Level results celebrates by spending a weekend ill at the Reading festival.

Quacks refuse to syringe my ear. I decide that there is no way I want to be spending 24 hours on a plane with blocked ears and so take matters into my own hands and go for hopi candle treatment. It doesn’t work and I come out smelling like a bonfire.

September

Helen and I step on a plane to fly to Australia to see our friends. This makes us happy

October

Collect my new car.

November

New car pays its first visit to the garage. Told that they couldn’t find any problem but they have done a software update. I am beholden to a team of programmers to make my car work. After 20 years in the industry this makes me more than a little nervous.

December

It snows giving us a white Christmas and a frozen boiler!

 

So that’s it for 2009.

What? You want to know why it is titled “Facebook, Face Bar and Face Palm”? Well 2009 was the year where I got back in contact with many friends from Portsmouth via Facebook, Alex spent many nights partying at the Face Bar and Mat spent much of the year doing the face palm whenever I open my mouth! Oddly Helen didn’t do anything face related this year.

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