These days I'm a qualified sound engineer and technician but I was always 'into' production, sound quality etc. I picked up on the weirdness of Track 18 from first listen but could never find anyone to ask or discuss it with. However Scott Smitelli outnerded me to the punch (in 2007) and wrote an entire article on his web site - with empirical evidence, good work that man! In his article he explains the differences between the portions of vocals contributed by Isaac Hayes and really goes into quite a lot of depth before coming to his own conclusion as to why the sound is as it is. Kudos to him... Because now when I'm talking to people about this I can just reference his page instead of explaining again from scratch.

His article about the strange audio on Track 18 of Chef Aid is on his web site - go read if you're a fan of the album.

An' tha's yer lot fer now...

A friend emailed me a link to a BBC article¹ discussing the 'landmark' judgment handed down by an (out of his depth?) judge regarding the enforced blocking by BT of Newzbin2 to stop its customers from accessing copyrighted materials in a piratey manner.

Everyone's dancing around the topic. (I do not advocate piracy as a means to solve the current problems the creative industries face, but I haven't paid for every single song I've ever listened to.) However the older I get, the more I understand about the importance of paying your dues - and understanding the value of a piece of music or film, and understanding why it's right to pay a fair price for it. I have, quite literally, spent thousands of pounds on my music collection, with a heavy investment into vinyl along with many CDs and even a few C90s Regrettably I believe this judgment could have serious ramifications for not only the future of entertainment industries but personal rights and freedoms. My email back to my friend turned into somewhat of a long one... And here it is reproduced for your enjoyment.

The Open Rights Group man has it right. It won't really make a dent in the numbers of people using the services - indeed, I suspect anonymous VPN proxy services (which cost from as little as £3-£5 a month) will get a lot more popular as people realise they can just use these to completely mask what they're doing with their Internet connections. I already VPN some of my web traffic, for privacy purposes, web development testing or perhaps if I'm just feeling particularly paranoid.

In an email interview before the verdict, Newzbin 2 threatened to break BT's filters.

"We would be appalled if any group were to try to sabotage this technology as it helps to protect the innocent from highly offensive and illegal content," said a spokesman for BT.

Emotive language like "highly offensive" doesn't help - who's  to say what people find offensive? Is Mary Whitehouse back in charge? I could argue that I find the mass worship of Jesus Christ as a representation of the one true God highly offensive - but they're never going to even consider a block on Il Papa (Hello Your Holiness, hope you're doing well!²). In the meantime all this does is place increased load on the ISPs - effectively policing what are CIVIL copyright claims from private sector companies - and the end result? Everyone's broadband becomes more expensive.

The issue of p2p and downloading things for free boils down to something far more fundamental - it's now a mindset firmly stuck in a subset of society. And who's to say, taking a broader look at general 'consumption' of music and video, that their outlook on the value of recorded music isn't legitimate? However you look at it, we've lost the fight with those people - so let's move on to the next generation and explain to them in a helpful, unpatronising way why things, people, works of creative and cultural value deserve to be supported and funded through paying a fair price for their creations.

My personal opinion is that if you download music and films which you quite like and enjoy listening to/watching, you should pay a few quid of your hard earned - out of respect for the artists if nothing else! Consider the price of a CD - still about £10, even though the cost of everything else (including the materials to make CDs) has risen steadily with inflation ever since the CD was first introduced. Then, think about how many times you'll play the CD (dozens of times in the car or the kitchen, probably hundreds of times once you've put it on the MP3 player and carry it round with you). Then, think about the dozens of people involved in its production, including production, mastering, engineers, the musicians themselves, studio facilities, label promotion, management, distribution...

Once you've thought about that, go take a look at the price of a gig ticket for that artist - probably £20-£40 for most mainstream groups, sometimes more. That £10 CD price suddenly looks like VERY good value for money! And there's literally thousands of people involved with making a film, how do they pay their rent and electricity bills? The machine of the "industry" obviously tries to maximise its own profits whenever possible but there has to be some kind of infrastructure in place for everyone else to be employed by it. You can't just have a wifty wafty cloud of disorganised people all just saying "yeah ok, whatever, I'll do a bit of work here and magically get paid sometime in the future". I don't particularly like how some aspects of the music industry work, but it's a vicious circle (less money's made, the industries have to try and make quicker and quicker profits with the manufactured bands which inevitably leads to a lack of *artist development* - you could never have someone like Bob Dylan around today, he'd be too expensive to fund whilst he was songwriting and 'developing' as an artist).

This could quickly turn into a 1,000 word essay on why I'm so pissed off about the music industry - I think that people who just download everything they ever watch or listen to without ever paying for a single thing are being very disrespectful towards artists and creative individuals who produce the entertainment they're enjoying. As my boss said to me a while ago, this is the essence of the divide: these people are consumers - they simply gobble up everything they can find without a thought to the sustainability of the approach... Then then bitch and whine when TV shows go under after one series or a band breaks up because they couldn't afford to live on a musician's wage. Fortunately there's still enough respectful CUSTOMERS who understand the value in paying a fair price for what is ultimately a very long-lasting, high quality piece of work. In some respects (and forgive the crude analogy) the creative industries are a little similar to a pension fund (the more people paying in, the less each person has to pay and the more everyone receives at the end).

Blocking newzbin2 will not change the mindset of a consumer, it'll only set the precedent for them to be taken to court and locked up for downloading a film. Is copyright infringement - a civil offence - akin to a criminal offence such as GBH or fraud? No. Does it therefore merit a similar level of punishment? Absolutely not. This whole issue regarding enforced blocking of sites and services is a very slippery slope; it further reinforces their opinion that Big Content (aka the "MAFIAA" - Music and Film Industry Associations of America, and their European counterparts) are simply trying to sue people into stopping downloading. Then they'll just go download even more stuff out of spite! This kind of prosecution is also a massive waste of taxpayers' money.

1. "BT ordered to block links to Newzbin 2 web site", BBC News, July 28 2011
2. he's a Friend of the Blog

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The reasons for why corporate email disclaimers are usually worth less than the electrons they're sent with is explained on Jeff's web site... To get us started, here's the email disclaimer from Scottish Widows (a part of Lloyds Banking Group, as they helpfully tell us) with linebreaks added for readability:

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In this case, the email disclaimer was over 5x longer than the content of the email - if I was feeling grumpier, I would've classified this message as spam.

More coming as/when I get them.

If you notice some of Virgin Media's "street furniture" that needs some looking after, use the form on their web site to let them know: http://allyours.virginmedia.com/forms/cabinet.html.

How a boxfresh Ronin should look...

[December 2010 - it's snowy out there! Suede and nubuck HATES snow, and rock salt to boot (natch). So, protect your shoes BEFORE you destroy them! Get some suede or nubuck protector spray, I mention some later in the article, and give your shoes a good treating before you step out! My shoes are still great, and I last protected them almost a year ago. £5 and half an hour will make a big difference.]

I recently went out in some brand new trainers (a pair of Etnies Ronin skate shoes, which are black and white suede/synthetic material mixture with a white trim round the sole). Unsurprisingly, it rained on Saturday evening, and when I came back my shoes were DESTROYED.

Unfortunately, mine weren't quite caked, but were fairly smattered in nasty looking mud. But what to do? Well, after some careful research (and even more careful testing), here's some tips for cleaning these kinds of skate shoes.

Shoes like the Ronins aren't all suede - they have what Etnies describe as an "action leather upper" combined with synthetic, woven sections (for example, the material around the E motif on the side of the shoe is a different fabric). However, in my case, the whole lot was just smothered with nasty, gunky mud.

So, what to do?

Well, first thing's first - DON'T TRY TO CLEAN THE SHOES WHILST THEY'RE STILL WET! All you'll do is rub the dirt right into the fibres, ruining them pretty much forever (or until you get them professionally cleaned which could cost a lot). Resisting the temptation to grab the scrubbing brush, put them in a warm place overnight and let the mud dry completely.

Before you start to remove the mud, you'll need a couple of things:

• A suede brush (they come in all shapes and sizes; a photo of one here - I bought mine from Timpson's)
• A suede eraser/cleaning block (or a soft white pencil eraser like a Staedtler if you can't find a suede eraser - again, I got one from my local Timpson's)
• A small dish/bucket/container, into which you'll put a mix of warm tap water and a small amount of bleach or clear vinegar (not brown malt vinegar!)
  • Optionally, something like the soapbar-shaped Vanish stain remover bar (which I used)
• A small plastic-bristled scrubbing brush and/or J-cloth/dishcloth (I just used a J-cloth)
• Some paper tissues / absorbent towels or cloths
• Some spray-on suede/leather/nubuck protector (Kiwi and Punch make this stuff, along with loads of shoe shops' own brands - I ended up finding some in Asda)

Start by using the suede brush to rub off most of the heavy soiling - you'll be surprised, as long as you brush with the nap of the fibre, just how much comes off once the mud's dried. The suede is also more resilient than you'd think - of course, having coloured or very light suede/nubuck shoes will affect the end result slightly as you may have some more permanent discolouration, but my black shoes looked almost spotless after this first brushing.

I ended up starting off gently, then slowly increasing pressure and speed as I got most of the mud off. To continue, I used the suede eraser - it's quite hard and crumbles easily, taking the dirt with it, so I used that to crack off the more stubborn mud flakes and remove some of the smaller stains and marks.

I grabbed the Vanish stain remover bar (it looks like a bar of soap, but you can rub it onto problem stains), daubing it where necessary for the more heavily soiled areas - of which there were, fortunately, not many. Once that was done, I got some water/bleach mixture onto the J-cloth and used it to thoroughly wash the shoes' outer fabric - NOT completely soaking the shoes or utterly drenching the fabric as that's really bad for it. Being methodical is the key here, and then take the time to then go round the shoes with the paper towels and dab off the excess liquid. Repeat for the other shoe, then leave to dry overnight.

Once completely dry, give your shoes a good spray treatment with the protector - this will help to stop moisture ingress and keep your suede/nubuck/leather looking newer for longer! If you have coloured material be sure to test on a discreet area first, juuuuust in case it adversely affects the dye of the material). Some protectors state that the colour of your shoes may darken slightly after application - sometimes it's just unavoidable, but it's for the best in the long run. After the shoes have dried, use the suede brush to bring up the pile of the fibre again to restore some of its natural look. Finally, enjoy your newly-restored shoes again - without having to resort to professional shoe cleaning services!

However if you do need professional suede/nubuck cleaning, a professional shoemakers like James Taylor and Son in London look like a promising place to begin your search. (Watch their VideoJug feature on cleaning suede shoes - recommended viewing for all suede shoe owners regardless)

So, at all costs:

• avoid washing your shoes straight away, avoid putting your shoes in the washing machine (AWFUL for both the shoes and the washing machine)
• avoid using suede/nubuck cleaner as some people report that it actually spoils the fabric completely
• don't leave your shoes wet after cleaning them yourself and
• don't forget to BUY A MORE APPROPRIATE PAIR OF SHOES FOR MUDDY WEATHER!

I learnt that the hard way so you don't have to (fortunately my shoes are as good as new now). Given all this snowy weather we're having, the amount of mud/snow/grit you'll be getting on your shoes is certainly not good for brand new suede or nubuck, so it pays to protect your footwear before you head out the door