EuroBSDCon 2009

A couple of weekends ago I attended the 2009 European BSD Conference, in Cambridge.

My trip report has just been posted on the official Google Open Source Blog, and includes a few of my photos from the event.

Productions

Since the start of this year I've been involved with the Zurich Comedy Club, an English speaking theatre group that's been running in Zurich for 50+ years (back when "Comedy Club" meant "We tend to put on comedies" and not the more modern "Stand up at a mic and deliver a routine for 15 minutes").

Anyway, I've got two updates that may be of interest.

First, our November production is "GamePlan", by Alan Ayckbourn.

Following the dot-com crash a mother and her daughter are abandoned by their husband. With money running out, and determined not to have to move away from her senior school, the daughter, Sorrel, hatches a plan to raise money by advertising as a prostitute on the Internet. Things are going swimmingly, until one of her clients dies of a heart attack mid-coitus. Then things start to unravel.

If you're interested in acting then you should know that auditions for GamePlan are this Monday, 7th September, starting at 7.30pm, at St Andrew's Community Centre, Promenadengasse 9, 8001 Zurich.

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If backstage work is more your thing (and it is mine) you should still come along on the Monday to meet people, find out what needs to be done, and volunteer. Or, drop me a note on here.

The second thing is that we have a production going up sooner than November. "Three Couples and a Goldfish" consists of three one-act plays, being performed from Tuesday 29th September through to Sunday 4th October at the Theatre STOK in Zurich. Performed almost in the round each evening will consist of a performance of "Henna Night", "Abortive", and "The Extraordinary Revelations of Orca the Goldfish¹". All three shows explore the nature of relationships.

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Henna Night: Judith leaves her ex-boyfriend a desperate message on his answerphone, saying that she is not coping with their break-up and that she has brought some razor blades and henna. She adds that she hasn't decided whether to dye her hair or slash her wrists. However it is his new partner, Ros, who hears the message and comes rushing to Judith's bedsit.

Abortive: Three weeks after her abortion, Roz - having been raped by Billy - and Colin find themselves in bed wondering how to carry on. Through the reproaches that are traded and the incidents that come up for discussion, the picture of a disturbing relationship emerges. Bed is no longer a safe island.

The Extraordinary Revelations of Orca the Goldfish: Henry and Alice have been married for 15 years. They are bored and have lost the zest for life and their relationship. Their lives have become a blur between fantasy and reality. Secret passions and desires explode and two seemingly separate fantasy worlds are on a collision course with reality. And it all started with a goldfish they named Orca.

Tickets are available now from Ticketcorner, and are CHF 28.

I'll be running around backstage each night with my Stage Manager hat on, trying to keep order and making sure everything runs smoothly. So don't expect to see me on stage; unless that is, it's a blackout, and we need to move some of the set...

¹ Keep this one in mind the next time you're playing charades...

Worldwide photo walk

July 18th was the second Worldwide Photo Walk, and I took part in the Zurich walk. It was touch-and-go in the morning; with the walk scheduled to start at 2pm the rain didn't let up until about 1.50.

This was also a good opportunity to catch up with Jessica, Kerrin, and Karl, who were also out and about with their cameras.

Over the course of three hours I took about 150 or shots. Weeding through them afterwards reduced that to 30 that I quite liked, and here are three of them.

There also more photos from other members of the walk on the Zurich photo walk Flickr pool page.

Visiting Zurich: Day Three

See Day One, Day Two (pt 1), and Day Two (pt 2).

I'd been scratching my head over what to do and where to go with my house guests on Sunday. The Swiss propensity to shut up shop on a Sunday means that opportunities for purchasing memorabilia were limited, and sightseeing in town is all very well, but it loses something of the local colour when everything's closed.

So I hit upon the idea of doing the Planetenweg -- or Planet Walk -- along the Uetliberg.

The Uetli-what? The Uetliberg is Zurich's local mountain, and looms large over the city, although calling it a mountain is perhaps overstating the case somewhat, given that on most days you can see the Alps from Zurich, which certainly fit my idea of what a mountain looks like better than the Uetliberg does.

Anyway, as far as I can make out the Uetliberg has three claims to fame.

1. The railway line that goes from Zurich Hauptbahnhof to the top is the steepest regular railway line in the world that doesn't make use of a rack-and-pinion system or similar to help the train up the tracks.

2. Uto Kulm, the hotel and restaurant at the top of the mountain. I've had quite a few very good evening meals up there.

3. The Planetenweg, of which more later.

By the time we'd woken up, recovered from the excesses of the previous night, dragged ourselves to the train station and arrived at the top Uetliberg station it was around midday. Slightly overcast, with a bit of a threat of rain later. Quite good walking weather then.

First stop -- lunch. We walked the 10 minutes or so up the path towards Uto Kulm, and I was able to show my guests the first point on the Planetenweg; the Sun.

This is probably the point to explain the Planetenweg. It's a scale model of the solar system, at the scale 1:1 billion. So every metre along the path represents 1 million kilometres in actuality. Along the path, sized and spaced appropriately are models of the planets that make up the solar system, along with small plaques giving snippets of interesting information.

Our plan for the day was to start at the Sun, naturally enough, and make it as far as Neptune, taking in all the planets as we went. You may be thinking to yourself "Hang on, that's not right. Neptune's not the last planet in the system, Pluto is. They're not doing it properly if they don't get to Pluto."

Leaving aside, for the moment, the controversy over whether or not Pluto is a planet, rest assured that the Planetenweg's designers had considered this. Pluto has a very erratic orbit, and for a significant period of time it's actually inside the orbit of Neptune. Accordingly, it has three markers along the walk, one at perihelion, one at aphelion, and one at the mid-point between the two.

So, by making it as far as Neptune we were guaranteed of seeing at least one of Pluto's markers.

The rest of the walk from the station to Uto Kulm also takes in Mercury and Venus.

As you can see, the models capture the relative scale of the planets.

Uto Kulm makes a good vantage point for some sightseeing, with a viewing areas with coin-operated binoculars and also benefits from an observation tower offering panaromas over Zurich and the surroundings. So we paused to take in the view.

Somewhat overcast continued to be the order of the day, but that didn't stop us from taking some more photos -- well, attempting to anyway.

We also (well, two out of three, I won't divulge who didn't fancy the height) climbed the observation tower to get a better look.

We'd planned a brief stop for lunch before striking out on the rest of the path. As things panned out this took longer than expected; partly because Uto Kulm proved to be quite busy, with waitresses rushed off their feet, so being served took a while. Also, partway through the meal the rain which had been threatening for most of the day decided to make an appearance. Fortunately this only lasted 10 minutes or so before easing off.

Getting back on the path and finding the Earth was relatively simple. The plaque and model for the Earth also included a scaled miniature for the moon too -- none of the others on the rest of the walk include satellites.

Strolling on, Mars and Ceres fell to our footsteps very shortly afterwards.

Note that Ceres is almost too small make out in this picture. I'm not certain why it was included on the path (especially given that it's not a planet). Anyway...

By this point I was starting to get slightly concerned. I was expecting the walk to take a couple of hours, more or less, and here we were having passed by half the solar system already, and after only perhaps 20 minutes of walking. I was beginning to think that I'd have to quickly come up with something else for us to do to keep us occupied for the rest of the afternoon.

As it turns out I needn't have worried. As Douglas Adams wrote, "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space." Walking the Planetenweg is an excellent way to get an appreciation of just how large the distances involved are, as we went some distance down leafy tracks (dodging the occasional cyclists who came pounding past).

The route is also littered with various observation points affording views out on to Lake Zurich and the small towns that lie up and down the coast on either side. I did my best to point out sights of interest along the way.

After 15 minutes or so I was beginning to get a little concerned that perhaps we'd passed the marker for Jupiter and not realised it. Then we rounded a corner and there it was.

With the earlier planet models amounting to little more than small ball bearings it was quite a shock to see this representation of just how large Jupiter is compared to the inner planets. Although, as you can see, it is in some danger of being overgrown.

We'd settled in to quite a relaxed walking pace now, with occasional pauses to capture a particular view on camera, and were becoming adept at hearing the noise of furious pedaling before the cyclists rounded the corner, and it was all really rather pleasant.

Twenty minutes gentle stroll brought us to Saturn's marker. I was wondering on the way whether or not they would include Saturn's famous rings, and I was pleased to see that an effort has been made.

Although it does put me in mind of those exercise balance balls that are supposed to be good for improving your posture.

The route continued, going gently up and down, passing by many fields, farm houses, and carefully looked after swathes of green.

As a slight astronomy geek (well, geek with passing interest in astronomy anyway) there were two facts about Uranus that had stuck in my mind. One is that it's blue, as evidenced by this image search. The other is that its axial tilt is the most extreme of all the planets. In effect its poles take turns pointing at the Sun during its orbut, so you can imagine that Uranus almost rolls along it's orbital path.

Anyway, I wasn't expecting of these two nuggets of information to make it on to the marker, so I was quite happy to see that they've made the marker blue -- an attention to detail that I wasn't expecting.

With just Neptune and Pluto to go our walk took on a final definite air of purpose as we strode to the notional finish line. As I explained earlier, Pluto's marker is nearer than Neptune's because of Pluto's erratic orbit. I was slightly miffed that they don't include a scale model for this marker though, just the plaque.

And then, probably not 100 metres further on was Neptune, and as far in the solar system as we were planning to go. At least on this visit.

From the Neptune marker it's possible to look back and see Uto Kulm. In this photo the taller of the two is the Uetliberg TV Tower. For an idea of scale, that tower is 186.7m tall. The observation tower that we'd climbed earlier is the smaller of the two.

Having bagged our final planet it was on to the end of our journey on the route, and to the Luftseilbahn Adliswil-Felsenegg (LAF), perhaps another 15 minutes walk distant.

Running for 55 years, the LAF is a cable car that connects Felsenegg station at the top with the town Adliswil at the bottom. Just over a kilometre long the cable cars make the journey in a little under 3 minutes, and thanks to Zurich's excellent integrated public transport system normal travel passes are accepted on the route.

Here's the route we took, from Uetliberg station to the LAF.

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From the bottom it was then a short walk to Adliswil station, where, despite being a Sunday, trains were still running regularly back to Zurich Hauptbahnhof.

Feeling somewhat walked out, we paused for coffee at a cafe, and gave our feet a bit of rest. Suitable recaffeinated and rejuvenated we strolled through the squares and streets on the west side of the Limmat down towards to the lake. By now it was getting on for 6pm, and time to start thinking about an evening meal.

P and J had recently returned from a holiday in Argentina, so I was keen to take them to Churrasco, an Argentinan steakhouse in the centre of Zurich. I've been there several times and had excellent food, and I was interested how well the restaurant held up when compared to their recent experiences in Argentina.

The ambience was perhaps slightly ruined by the associated sauces arriving at the table still in their plastic squeezy bottles, but in all other respects the meal was superb. The fillet steak was fantastic, as only the best fillet can be, and the wine (a Norton Malbec Reserve 2006) was superb. Perhaps a little tight in the bottle, but it loosened up quickly enough.

And then, because we were shattered, home.

Visiting Zurich: Day Two (pt 2)

This is a continuation from Visiting Zurich: Day Two (pt 1).

After cycling around the city and finishing at about 1pm it was time for lunch. Since some of the party were vegetarian we wandered off in the direction of Hiltl, Europe's oldest vegetarian restaurant -- founded in 1898 it's been going strong for 111 years. We took advantage of the buffet, which is priced by weight. You load up your plate, weigh it, and if I remember correctly hand over CHF 4.50 per 100g.

As J pointed out, this is something of a contrast to the UK, where any sort of buffet option normally limits the number of trips you're allowed to make, requiring a careful form of structural engineering in order to maximise the amount of food you can get away with on your plate.

This was a very important skill during our student years.

Lunch was very tasty, and quite filling, but turned out to be lacking that certain something. Discussion determined that the certain something was ice-cream, and with a Mövenpick stand one street over it seemed rude not to...

Suitably sated we strolled over to the Grossmünster for some more sightseeing. I say strolled, "Hopped on a number 11 tram" would be a more accurate way of putting it.

The church interior is quite plain, in large part because of the Swiss Reformation in the 1500s. Accordingly, there's not much in the way of internal decoration -- what is there being largely limited to reliefs on the stonework (note: it's been a while since I was last in the Grossmünster and it seems that in the intervening time they've banned photography inside the building, so these photos are from when it was allowed¹).

The north-west end of the church also boasts two very impressive stained-glass windows.

I recommend clicking on that to view the image larger, and properly appreciate the colours in the glass.

At the south-west end of the Grossmünster is the crypt, first consecrated by Bishop Gebhard III of Constance in 1107. Pride of place is afforded to a statue of Charlemagne, which dates to around 1450-1475. This statue was originally sat in a niche approximately half way up the Charles Tower of the Grossmünster (the one nearest the river) -- the statue currently in that niche is a copy of this one.

Why Charlemagne? According to legend he built the first church on the site now occupied by the Grossmünster.

The two towers of the Grossmünster dominate the Zurich skyline, and for CHF 2 you can climb most of the way up the inside of one of them for some stunning views. The climb up is somewhat cramped, which poses a bit of a problem for me at 6'6", but the view is definitely worth it.

After pausing to catch our breath at the top of the tower and take in the view we moved on to our next destination -- the Fraumünster, just over the river Limmat.

Approximately 200 years older that the Grossmünster, it was founded by Louis the German, a grandson of Charlemagne, for his daughter. Like the Grossmünster the interior is sparser than you would expect, again that's due to the effect of the Reformation.

Today the Fraumünster's main claim to fame is probably the five stained glass windows that were installed in 1970. Designed by Marc Chagall and 10m high the five windows represent the Prophets, Jacob, Zion, Christ, and the Law. To the right you should see a panaroma of the "Prophets" window (again, taken before photography in the church was banned).

...the red-orange "Prophets" window depicts Elisha watching Elijah's ascension in a fiery chariot. Above that is a blue area in which Jeremiah sits above, head in hands, lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem. At the top is a multicolored God in heaven, sending beams of enlightenment to his prophets. This window is lit artificially, as it's on an interior wall.

sacred-destinations.com

By this point we were starting to get a bit peckish again, and P had already picked out an appropriate venue for afternoon tea -- the Sprüngli restaurant at Paradeplatz. And good choice it proved, as we managed to bag the last of their gluten-free (or, as I discovered "glutenfrei" auf Deutsch) treats as a little restorative.

Next on the agenda (following a 3 hour return home to freshen up and get ready for the evening after the morning's exertions) was dinner, and I'd booked us a spot at King's Kurry at Wiedikon. Since I've come to Switzerland there aren't many home comforts that I miss, but being able to wander in to the centre of more or less any town and get a decent curry is one of them. King's Kurry is one of the very few decent Indian restaurants I've found in Zurich and the surrounding area. The Swiss seem to have an aversion to spicy food.

Anyway, the meal was great, although, note to self: opting for a table outside by the tram tracks is not necessarily conducive to uninterrupted conversation. And then on for cocktails. For what evening would be complete without a cocktail to round it off?

So we jumped in a number 14 tram and probably 20 minutes later were walking in the door of the Safari Bar, where Long Island Ice Teas, Mai Tais, and Apple Mojitos awaited us.

We did, however, drink sensibly, and in moderation, as we had another exercise-filled day ahead of us...

¹ Possibly interesting footnote. I took these the day after I interviewed at Google.

Visiting Zurich: Day Two (pt 1)

See Day One.

Saturday dawned bright and slightly overcast. Almost perfect cycling weather, which was handy, as that's what we were going to be doing.

When friends have visited in the past I've played tour guide, going on walks through Zurich and pointing out the sites. But there's only so much ground you can cover, and I've only got a fraction of the trivia to hand that a "proper" guide would have. So I was very pleased to discover the tours run by Zurich by Bike. CHF 25 per person for two and a half hours seemed like a reasonable deal, so after popping by the local baker for Mandelgipfel and Butterbrezel ("There goes three months of Benecol" commented P) we headed down to Bürkliplatz.

We arrived perhaps 20 minutes early, so wandered around the fleamarket at Bürkliplatz for a bit. Definitely the place to go if you're in need of some vintage vinyl, old electronic equipment, and, oddly, a stall that seemed to specialise in promotional shoulder bags from a diverse range of different airlines.

10.30am rolled around and our guide arrived. Zurich by Bike use bikes provided as part of the Züri rollt. This is a great scheme -- leave a (refundable) CHF 20 deposit and borrow a bike for some or all of a day from a number of locations around Zurich. The bikes were comfortable and seemed well looked after, which was reassuring.

By then our numbers had swelled somewhat, as I'd invited some other Zurich-based friends to join us, so with guide nine of us set out from Bürkliplatz heading east.

Our tour took us along the Limmat, taking in (amongst other things) the Rathaus, and the Fraumünster.

From there we went via Paradeplatz along Bahnhofstrasse, pausing up by Lindenhof to take in the view and hear stories, like how the Limmat got its name.

The route continued towards the Landesmuseum, up via Langstrasse, around and to Bäckeranlage, before bringing us back along the western-centre edge of Zurich and back down to the lake. Here's a reasonable approximation of the journey...

View Larger Map

... and if you use Google Earth then opening ZurichbyBike.kmz should let you fly along the route too.

The tour was almost exactly two hours and thirty minutes, and I can highly recommend it to anyone who wants to find out a bit more about Zurich while getting a little exercise. The route was very easy, being almost entirely on the flat, and, with a few very short exceptions busy roads are avoided. And even on the main thoroughfares Zurich is still quite quiet, even in the middle of a Saturday.

Visiting Zurich: Day One

I've had some house guests over the weekend -- friends of mine I've known since my university days -- and having spent a very enjoyable few days around Zurich I thought I'd chronicle some of what we got up to. Partly to prepare other friends who might be considering the same trip, and partly as suggestions to you, dear reader, for things you might want to do when you're in Zurich.

J and P's flight arrived mid-afternoon, and after clearing customs we had perhaps a third of the day left. Zurich Airport is easy to navigate, and I'd already purchased a pair of 72 hour ZurichCARD travel passes for them while I was waiting, which covered all the places we were likely to go, so we didn't need to spend any extra time hanging around the airport.

The trains to the Hauptbahnhof are always a pleasant contrast to the Heathrow experience, where you would spend 40+ minutes on a clanking, bumpy Picadilly line underground train, as compared to the 10 minutes in relative comfort that it takes here. A quick snack stop at Nordsee was in order -- that's the only problem with flying to Zurich over lunch; the flight leaves too early to have a decent lunch at the airport, and the food on the plane is never that great so you arrive feeling decidedly peckish -- then back to my place to freshen up.

Newly invigorated we headed back in to Zurich for a stroll down the Bahnhofstrasse. P was on a mission to track down a copy of the Swiss Constitution (it's best not to ask), and we discovered the next best thing, the Swiss Civil Code, on the top floor at the back of Orell Füssli. Rather surprisingly it was free.

The walk down Bahnhofstrasse also gave us the opportunity to admire the oversized plant pots in evidence as part of Garten City, and to point out my favourite jewellers, CHRIST (so called, I believe, as that's what you mutter under your breath when you see the prices).

Making it down to the end of Bahnhofstrasse we stopped to admire the view over the lake and off to the Alps, before deciding that dinner was a good idea. So from there to the Zeughauskeller for something approaching traditional Swiss food. To wit, sausages, potatoes, and bread. And quite a nice bottle of wine.

I'd been to the ZHK before, but hadn't really paid that much attention to the all the army memorabilia that's dotted around the place (although the signs near the entrance that say "Warning: No smoking, live grenades" are quite eye-catching). As I was to discover the following day the ZHK used to be an army munitions store, which explains the decor.

The evening was still a little young, so we meandered over to the east side of the Limmat and in to Barrique. I'd been in here earlier in the week, selflessly helping celebrate some birthdays, and it's a pleasant enough place to spend a bit of time. And drink a glass or two of wine, which is what we did.

And then home, because tomorrow was going to be a busy day...

Google Photography Prize

I extended my recent UK visit by a couple of days to attend a private viewing at the Saatchi Gallery, in aid of the Google Photography Prize, a

global competition for students to create themes for iGoogle, run in collaboration with the Saatchi Gallery London. We received over 3500 entries from 82 countries. The public voted to select the 6 finalists from a shortlist of 36 entries, and an expert jury of photographers and art critics has selected the overall winner.

Entries from the shortlisted photographer's were being projected on the walls, as various friends, family members, photography luminaries, and hangers on (I count myself in that last category of course) inspected and admired their work. And imbibed the occasional lychee mojito as necessary.

Of the finalists I was most impressed by Amelia Ortúzar, in particular this shot:

The warmth of the colours do it for me, and I think the break in composition towards the middle of the picture works very well.

The technical excellence displayed by Fahad AlDaajani's macro work was very good, and the overall composition on this photo caught my eye.

Matjaz Tancic demonstrated a very strong use of colour and form in his work, such as in this photo.

The winner, however, was Daniel Halasz, studying at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest. Here's a representative shot.

I have to confess, that doesn't do it for me; although perhaps technically well executed the subject matter, composition, and lighting don't excite me. Perhaps just as well I wasn't one of the judges.

To view these, or any of the other shortlisted entries go to http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/photographyprize/vote.html, and if you use iGoogle you can then select one of them to use as your theme.

PAYG SIMs from Three

I've popped back to the UK for the weekend to catch up with friends and family.

Over the last few months I've become very used to having an HTC Dream phone running Android in my pocket in Switzerland, with an effectively unlimited data plan. Internet access while out and about has proven to be fantastically useful -- being able to look up maps online, get restaurant recommendations, and check travel planning websites are things are now take for granted. To say nothing of being able to pass the time on a bus by keeping up to date with my RSS feeds.

I wasn't looking forward to losing this for the duration of my stay, international data roaming charges being what they are.

So I was quite pleased to discover Three's SIM-only Pay As You Go (PAYG) offer. Hand them GBP 10 and in return receive a SIM for the phone, credit for 300 SMS messages, a 150MB download allowance, and calls to other UK numbers (landline or mobile) at 20p a minute.

Once the SIM was in the phone calling 444 to activate it, waiting 10 minutes, and then calling 444 again to activate the GBP 10 credit was sufficient to allow the phone to send and receive calls. To take advantage of the 3G connectivity I had to follow these instructions to add the Three APNs to the phone. I reproduce them here, mostly so it's easy for me to find them again...

From Settings -> Wireless controls -> Mobile networks -> Access Point names, add a new APN with the following settings:

Name	Three
APN	three.co.uk
MCC	234
MNC	20

Leave the other settings empty. That should be enough for the data connection to start working, and you can keep track of how much of the credit you've used by going to http://mobile.three.co.uk/my3 from the phone.

Googleserve

I spent last Friday wandering the streets of Zurich as part of "Googleserve".

Every year the Google offices participate in "Googleserve". At the risk of over-simplifying slightly, we talk to non-profit organisations that work with the local community and ask what they'd do with a few hundred extra volunteers for the week.

This year the Zurich office took part in a number of different projects; cleaning up graffiti, teaching people to use the internet, painting murals at the Kinderspital, ...

I was involved in raising the awareness of two AOZ projects among Zurich's immigrant population (of which, of course, I'm a member). The AOZ is a state-funded organisation with the remit to make it easier for newcomers to Zurich to find their feet and integrate socially and professionally.

The two programmes we were promoting (in teams of 2-4 throughout the city) were:

MAPS Agenda -- this is a monthly free publication that lists (in 13 different languages) events that are happening throughout the Zurich area; focussing particularly on events that are likely to be of interest to immigrants, or that will help them integrate in to Swiss society. For example, one of the events is a weekly free 90 minute German course at Letzipark.

The Konfliktophon -- a telephone helpline for foreigners in Switzerland who think they are being discriminated against, or are having some sort of trouble or misunderstanding with a Swiss person; perhaps a neighbour, or someone in the workplace. They help to try and defuse the situation, and try and see that everyone's viewpoint is represented.

All told everyone who volunteered distributed several thousand of these leaflets around Zurich, and have hopefully played a small part in making things a little easier for people moving to Switzerland.

Karaoke from Hell

A Brazilian colleague was in town... and the last time he was here he'd discovered "Karaoke from Hell". The concept is simple enough -- it's like regular karaoke, but with a live band. So instead of drunkenly swaying and singing along to "I will survive" (or whatever your favoured tune of choice is) you get to rock out to one of 150 or so tracks backed up by 3 chaps on lead guitar, bass, and drums respectively.

For example, here's the man himself, from late last year.

So, he's back in town, and what do you know, it coincides with the last night of Karaoke from Hell before it goes on a summer hiatus, so it seemed only right and proper that we went along.

Now I like to consider myself to be an encourager of karaoke in others, rather than a committer of it, so I wasn't about to get up there and sing. Oh no. But it did afford me the opportunity to pretend to be shooting a rock concert, and get some practice in.

This is trickier than it sounds. In particular, trying to get a combination of shutter speed and aperture size plagued me throughout the evening. As you would expect the lighting was all over the shop -- very irregular, and frequently changing. Matters were not made any easier by singers who displayed an apparently preternatural talent for standing just outside the small circle of light from the (fixed) follow spot.

I was shooting with my venerable Canon 20D (must get around to buying a Canon 50D) with the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens, which with the crop factor behaves like 80mm. I'd lugged my 580EX II flash along with me too, but a few test shots quickly showed that any hopes I had of being able to bounce the flash off something and get some benefit that way were forlorn, what with the walls and ceiling being predominantly black.

It quickly became apparent that a shutter speed any slower than 1/60s wasn't going to cut it, the singers were just moving too quickly for that to result in anything other than a blurry mess. So with that decided I was left with aperture and ISO to adjust.

I'd expected that I'd be shooting the whole night at the lens' widest aperture, f/1.8, but proved to be too wide, with too shallow a depth of field. Focus became very hit and miss; the singers were moving too fast, and, critically, a relative large distance to and from the lens for me to just manually focus on a single point, and the narrow depth of field meant that the autofocus had trouble too. At f/1.8 having someone's ear in focus meant that their eyes weren't.

So again, a process of trial and error meant that I settled on f/2.8 for much of the night, being the best compromise between depth of field and letting as much light in as possible. Those two constraints being set I didn't have much choice over the ISO setting. Anything less than ISO 400 resulted in unusable images, and I needed to push to ISO 800 for many shots.

I always shoot RAW rather than JPEG images, and this is a good example of why -- the extra colour depth afforded by the RAW format maximises the chance that detail will be retained that would otherwise be lost when shooting JPEGs.

The results are are at this Flickr set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nikclayton/sets/72157619124715603/. I filled up a 2GB card with these, which translates to approximately 250 photos, which I weeded down to 90 or so. They required a fair amount of post-processing, and even then many of them are only suitable for web use, as 1/60 and f/2.8 still resulted in some noticeable out of focus areas in a number of them.

Here are a few excerpts, with commentary.

This chap was singing "Jumpin' Jack Flash", and doing a very credible Mick Jagger impersonation, bouncing around the stage and moving his arms every which way. This shot is more or less straight off the camera, converted from RAW, with a little sharpening and correction for the red/cyan chromatic abberation that was particularly obvious around the top of his head. Zooming in it looks as though it's his right shoulder that's most in focus, but it still works at this sort of size.

Taken during the bridge in "Basket Case", which afforded the singer an opportunity to look moody and reflective by the mic. This has been quite heavily cropped from the original, to move the singer to the left hand third of the image, and make both him and the guitarist more prominent.

The original was lit very strongly with a purple/blue combination that didn't do it any favours, so I pushed the exposure a bit, strongly increased the colour temperature, and then desaturated the image somewhat to get back colours that are, if not more realistic, at least a bit nearer reality. This had the unexpected bonus of drawing attention to the different colour washes from the lighting on the singer and guitarist that divide the picture in two, which I find quite pleasing.

Again, this one is quite close to how it came off the camera, although cropped quite severely to focus on the singer. She had a habit of flicking her head to send her hair swinging from side to side, and I probably rattled off 20 or 30 shots trying to capture it before eventually getting this one that's acceptably sharp.

I like this one a lot. For a start, it's acceptably sharp (at least to me), and the lighting picking out the edge of Leonardo's face, forearm, and fingers around the mic work nicely. It's also clearly an action shot, as he's mid-song, and quite possibly mid-note.

And to top it all off, there's the arm of an anonymous audience member in shot throwing the goat. It doesn't get more metal than that :-)

I have no recollection of seeing that through the viewfinder, it was only apparent when I was weeding through the photos afterwards.

So, that was Karaoke from Hell. It starts up again later in the year, September or October I believe. So if you fancy yourself as a budding rock star just looking for a band then I suggest you get down there.

Back from extended hiatus

It turns out that moving to a new country and getting settled takes longer than you'd think. Well, longer than I thought anyway. But having arrived, settled, and so far failed to make much headway learning Swiss-German I figured it's time to revive the blog. We shall see what happens.