bum issued by.....

....H.O. Wills...........no comment except to say I've hardly been over the doors all day and sometimes you have to work with what you happen to have on the kitchen table!

OTHER STUFF.....

Some alternative Christmas music.....very alternative.....but I like it!

"Cigar Box Nation offers our own gift of music to you.  This album is free for everyone this Christmas...just go ahead and download.  We've compiled almost one hour of holiday music played on cigar box guitars, ukuleles, dulcimers and more.    Please spread the word (and holiday cheer)!  May the world ring with the awesome sounds of cigar box guitars this Christmas." Download it here 

(sample track on the next link......)

This is just a screengrab from UMapper (the original plan was for an embedded map, but Blogger didn't like their code, and I haven't got time to work out why) so here's the link to my very first map (which is rubbish, but if you click on the '2' you'll find the audio file promised above!). You'll guess you can add your own photos and audio, even make your own map-based game, there's some video tutorials here if you fancy checking it out and doing a photo tour of YOUR block.

Shepherds pie/lots of veg/large pot of tea/couch, vintage videos and cuddly blanket here I come!

Looking up

A couple of free downloads for looking at the night sky.....if the clouds clear!

"Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. It is being used in planetarium projectors. Just set your coordinates and go."

Download page

"The free space simulation that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions. Celestia runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X"

Celestia homepage

Documentaries online

Watch lots online here

Sumo Paint

My steam-driven kitchen table laptop doesn't cut the mustard when it comes to running high-end graphics editing programmes like PhotoShop, I've been using the free to download package PhotoFiltre for all my day-to-day basic cropping and editing needs for ages (and to be honest, most of the time it does everything I want) But sometimes I want just that little bit more. Enter Sumo Paint, a free online image editor that packs a substantial punch and runs in your browser.....I think I'm a convert!

Link to SumoPaint 

A Passion for Poladroid

And no, that's not a typo!

Even though Polaroid is now no more you can still experience the joy (and the wait/anticipation while your picture develops in front of your very eyes) of taking a snap old-style by trying out Poladroid....a free download from the authors website, there's versions for Mac and Windows. (5.35mb download)

Here's a Quayside view through a slightly world-weary lens.....

iPod fodder

"Audio drama lives! We are the Wireless Theatre Company and here you will discover an exciting new world of radio theatre. We produce a great selection of audio downloads - from full length radio plays to audio comedy sketch shows, poetry, short plays, stories, satire and even quirky audio guides! And the best news is that every single download is completely free."....UK based, and they've got Prunella Scales on the cast list!

Link to the Wireless Theatre Company homepage

Environmental recordings

Closet of Curiosities had a nice audio download last week in their regular 'environmental recordings' series (Links to download .rar files at the end of their post) Owls, bullfrogs and cicadas......recommended late-night listening after a busy day.

The Longest Day. So that must make tomorrow the start of the run-up to christmas then....

....and Ma tells me that she's already seen a festive-themed TV advert, so it must be true (our resident grumpy-old-woman.....OK, so that'll be me....was reported to have said, "in MY day we weren't even allowed to MENTION christmas until after bonfire night otherwise it was tears before bedtime") In recognition of the fact that the nights will be 'drawing in' starting tomorrow, I thought I'd better go looking for winter-themed music to suit the downturn in mood.....though just a suspicion of summer would have been kinda nice.......

Found this, celebrating the winter solstice in all it's forms, at Na Bula Bula.....always my first port-of-call when I want music that's just that little bit out of the ordinary (first dicovered when I wanted some background music for a family, middle-eastern themed feast). You can download the whole CD/LP via RapidShare, links at the bottom of the post (the first file, 0, is the album art should you want it, links 1 and 2 take you straight to the music download pages....you may have to wait a few minutes before downloading the 2nd file if you're using the 'free' option as I do) Files are in .rar format, to unzip you'll need Winrar installed....download it free here

Enough blether, here's a taster from Georgia.....

Vintage Sci-Fi

It's 50's Sci-Fi for me tonight.....44 episodes of "X minus 1" available for download at RadioLovers

....and this Flickr slideset sort of fits the mood....


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Classical music for free....

.....here at Musopen.

Free books

Free eBooks in a multitude of formats, also audiobooks read by volunteers at MANYBOOKS.NET.

They say.....

"Browse through the most popular titles, recommendations, or recent reviews from our visitors. Perhaps you'll find something interesting in the special collections. There are 19,733 eBooks available here and they're all free!"

Worth a click!

Google books

About this book Read this bookThe Ports, Harbours, Watering-places, and Coast Scenery of Great Britain By William Finden, Edward Francis Finden, William Henry Bartlett

A plug for Google books

Type a search term in the box and when the results page comes up click on "Full View" for available (downloadable) books in all their scanned glory.

Another clever way to display pictures

Click on the thumbnails to enlarge

Vintage fodder for your ipods

Now me, I'm a sucker for vintage radio (currently listening to "Omar, the Wizard of Persia", that's him up above. Verdict.....bloody brilliant example of high-camp american acting circa mid 30's last century. Favourite quote, "Quiet Jerry, it's the bells....the mystic bells of Omar") Thought you guys might be interested in some of my sources for 'stuff to snooze on the metro to' (all free AND legal)....and not just vintage radio shows!

There's lots of old-time-radio (OTR) downloads available here (including "Omar" should you feel like setting up a discussion group talk about its literary merits in depth!)

Science fiction your bag? Try "The Seeing Ear Theatre"....even though they're American they've made an effort to spell theatre right and they do a damned good drama! Then of course there's that old classic "The War of the Worlds" with Orson Welles

Moving swiftly along to the weird and wonderful (usually vintage jumble sale type material)...and you can't do better than the "365 days project". As suggested by the name a new gem is posted each day this year. The parent site is worth a look too.

Look, there's loads more and not just audio......but I'll wait to see whether anyone is interested before I post the links