Saturday March 24th

Looking into what happens with the RSS feeds?
I have feeds from three of my other sites, at least I will when I add Chris's feed. These are displayed in a right hand column. Notice the (very ancient) reference to the Correfoc in the Mainly Morris Dancing feed, also that the feed from the Morris Ring site does not include my most recent item: the one from the Morris Shop. So, how, when is this updated? I have to write the XML files on my sites by hand, and the code is very finicky, even the ftp upload has to be done carefully, by deleting the old RSS file and then loading the new one. The overall feed for the site on the URL bar works OK, but it would be nice to be able to see older items beyond a month back. Now to add Chris's feed.

Oh, and I added an autoplay="false" to my Christmas Ceilidh video, about time too! However it looks as if only Firefox and Opera recognise this, Safari still does an autostart.

Back to feeds
After adding another item, I tried deleting Chris's feed link, then adding it again. The new item did not appear!!! I wonder if this is a cache/browser problem? Same with Firefox, Safari and Opera. So how does the system update feed from other sites? NO, all that was needed is patience - see "A little bird.." That still leaves the Ring feed in limbo.

29th January

An invite to join this Blog, nothing to loose, and it looks interrrsting to an Apple Addict! Much more interesting is that this is the last Tuesday in January and is Up Helly Aa in Lerwick, take a look at the video from the BBC news page!

All Blog Templates Collection: Contents

See: Thur's templates - Nice one(s) Thur!
and All Blog Templates Collection: Coding the Template Structure.

Christmas Ceilidh - Revisited

Now using object together with a fix described at
http://realdev1.realise.com/rossa/rendertest/quicktime.html
Thanks Angus, Zajek and don't forget to read Richard's (bummer) at the bottom of the page. However ... the method does not work with Opera 9.02 with my Mac on 10.4.8 and my wife's Windoze machine (XP) Firefox is fine with the Orang Utang (see method link)but throws various wobblies with my pages and certainly does NOT work with IE. Ugh, no wonder I prefer my iMac!

Christmas Ceilidh with The Gloworms & Cat Kelly

The publication of this vlog was fraught with difficulties - not least that the system prevented me loading images! The above link should work - sans image!
On Saturday 16th December BMM gathered with their friends and families for the annual Christmas Ceilidh in St Alban's Church Hall. This year we welcomed "The Gloworms" ceilidh band, with their caller Cat Kelly. Two thirds of the band and the caller were delayed on the M4 by an accident. Nick Cooke (with his Dad's amplification system) and Colin Cotter the Gloworms banjo player, together with caller Dave Leverton leaped nimbly in to fill the time gap until the band arrived - a little late - but well worth waiting for! Thanks folks and thanks Gloworms and 'Cat'! The party was well up to the standard that BMM expect!
My part in the festivities each year is too cook part of a Navrattan Pulloa rice dish, the large dish is assembled with the aid of two friends, Pippa Cooke and Paul Rosser. Pippa and Paul cook the "white" and "green" rices, and I cook the "red" and the core of the pulloa, then all three are combined at the ceilidh to produce the Navrattan Pulloa.

"The nine courtiers or the nine gems of the Emperor Akbar, the mightiest of the Moghuls. This pulloa is a pulloa amongst pulloas and a jewel amongst jewels - Mrs Balbir Singh, Indian Cookery, Fletcher & Son Ltd., Norwich, 1975"

The dish has evolved a little through the twenty or so years that we have between cooking it. It is very popular, many reckon that all one needs for the week of the ceilidh is a plate of Navrattan, coupled with Dave Byett's famed chick peas and Phil Butler's amazing black-eye beans (both Madhur Jaffery recipes). We have often been asked for the recipe for the Navrattan, it is on the web -try Googling it as well, but see my .Mac homepage for details, and some pictures to show how it is done - and of course this vlog.

A Happy Christmas and New Year to one and all. Don't forget the Keynsham Mummers Play on Boxing Day. 11.30am Keynsham Shopping precinct Clock Tower.

Bristol Morris Men's Practice Night

I'm a member of Bristol Morris Men who meet every thursday in the gym at the Q.E.H.. So a movie of one of our dances seems like a good idea! The dance shown is "Pepper in the Brandy", this is our own creation in the style of Ascott Under Wychwood. Ascott is one of our main dance traditions - since the early 1980s. "Pepper" was recorded during practice night, Thursday December 14th 2006. Starting at the top of the set on the left of the set, the dancers are Grant, Jack, Richard, Neil, George and Joe. The musician playing the tabor pipe is Phil. If you want to find out more about our 600 year old tradition check out the Morris Ring.

Me - popup!

Michael Verdi of FreeVlog kindly answered my query about an embeded video, suggesting three ways. I like option 3) especially since I may be able to use it for posting videos to my other sites - and it does not use a popup window. However 2) looks easy - and is! Michael's Ways:
1) Upload your videos to blip.tv and have them automatically cross-post them to your blog. Use the thumbnail flipper option. (this video is a bit out of date)
2) You can use the Freevlog pop-up maker The video gets embeded but it's in a pop-up window.
3) You can try vPIP which is very cool but also pretty complicated.
So in the local venacular, Yer Tiz! Click on my picture below. {The herring was very tasty}