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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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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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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As Mat would say “Fail!”

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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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Nevertheless a good time was had by all and providing the temperature doesn’t drop too much we shall be repeating the journey a few more times this winter.

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Driving home this evening I was amazed at the number of cyclists that were cycling on the roads without lights. There were at least half a dozen idiots that were willing to risk their lives and get mown down by a car. Actually, there could have been a few more that I didn’t see as they didn’t have any lights.

Given that I was driving past the university there is a good chance that they could have been students, although one was a mother with a young child on a seat behind her.

And then my mind drifted back 25 years to when I was at university and the first time that I was stopped by the police. for cycling without lights on my bike. To be fair to me I DID have lights it was just that the batteries didn’t work. An excuse I seem to remember using on the bobby.

I can remember the evening very clearly. I was off to see my girlfriend and was cycling through Southsea when this policeman appeared in front of me. He told me that it was dangerous to cycle on such a busy road at night without lights (well duh!) and that I should get off and push. He somewhat spoilt the whole thing by actually saying “I want you to get off and push. What you do when you get round the corner and are out of my sight is up to you”. Inevitably I pushed round the corner and then got on and cycled the rest of the way. Well, I had a lady waiting! I did, however, manage to procure a set of batteries for the return journey.

So on the one hand I am clearly a hypocrite but on the other those cyclists are bloody hard to see with no lights. If only they would push until they were round the corner and out of my sight.

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Just going through the photos taken when on our tour of Australia and Hong Kong and came across this one taken at Melbourne airport. Now I know that “aviation security” or terrorism as it is called outside of airports, is important but I have never considered jokes as “a threat to commit an unlawful interference with aviation”. Obviously I didn’t point this out to the security officers!

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I have flown BA a number of times in the past, in fact there was a seven month period in my life where I fly with them to and from Amsterdam every week. I like BA and I consider them to be a premium brand.

When I fly for business and cost is an issue I will choose a low cost carrier. When I fly on holiday and with the family I like to get the holiday off to good start and choose to premium carrier. What differentiates the two are things like food included in the flight and being able to check-in online and choose seats and ensure the family flies together. Now BA have removed those differentiators.

So why should I continue to fly BA? I am really struggling to find an reason.

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I know that it is called the “Big Buddha” but I wasn’t prepared for just how big it actually is – it is huge. Just how they managed to get it to its position I have no idea. (A quick look at wikipedia shows that it was only built in 1993 so I can imagine plenty of heavy lifting gear being involved – also given that it cost $68M they had the money to put it there). It is reached up 260 steps and I made this trip (Helen sensibly elected to stay in the shade) at just about midday – talk about mad dogs and Englishmen. Around the base are a number of smaller statues. The setting is impressive set amongst the hills.

The monastery at the base of the Buddha was a beautiful and tranquil place with the shady areas providing some relief from the searing heat.

We had intended to get the cable car back down to the bottom and the train station but it was shut so it was back on the bus. Fortunately we didn’t have Michael Schumacher as our driver on the way back down.

Given our flight back to the UK wasn’t until midnight we had plenty of time to kill and so we took the ferry back to Kowloon to go to the Avenue of Stars. This had the handprints of a number of famous Asian stars. Not up on my Asian cinematography there were only a handful of people I actually recognised (Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee). There was a great statue of Lee in a pose from Enter the Dragon.

Then the trip to the airport and the long wait for the plane back home.

Click here for more pictures from Hong Kong Day Two

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