OK - let’s get the boring stuff out of the way. How did you all meet and form the band ? Please don’t tell me you posted an ad in ‘Melody Maker’. D: Kathryn and I met in Dublin, we were working on a summer course together. We both played in different bands at the time, I was fronting my own band, Coyote Blue, and Kathryn was playing keys and singing backing vocals with some friends of hers. We’d been staying up late at night with the other counsellors, a few of whom were musicians too, and there were guitars floating around, but Kathryn kept refusing any chance to accept the guitar and play a song. ...

‘I Am Not Lefthanded’ are a band who produce the most wonderful music. The band are a three piece - mainly from Ireland - and the lineup is: Kathryn - vocals, guitar, piano Daniel - bass, vocals Benji - drums ‘I Am Not Lefthanded’ have released a couple of EP’s and are currently putting the finishing touches to their first album - ‘The Fire And The Sigh’. It’s hard to categorise ‘I Am Not Lefthanded’ but they produce beautiful melodies with the most fantastic vocals and lyrics. The band’s music and videos are available on their site so have a listen and make your own mind up. ...

Seasoned bloggers knows people are rarely moved to comment on a blog post. Especially, one hit wonders sent from Google, who were simply looking for ‘Train times between Clapham and Norbiton’ and instead see some commuter rant aimed at South West Trains. However, microblogging has taught us that people are slightly more likely to grudgingly acknowledge an amusing one-liner with a ‘Like’ or a ‘Fave’. Clicking a button is quick and easy - even for lazy people. ...

A few weeks ago, I signed up for a invitation to Google Music. The service is only available in the US but, by a lucky chance of fate, I just happened to be connected to my corporate VPN so I was successful and an invitation duly arrived in my Inbox. Initially, the Google Music Manager software didn’t support Linux. Nor was the Ogg Vorbis audio format supported so I didn’t pursue it any further as both of these were show stoppers for me. I don’t intend re-ripping my entire music collection to MP3 format. ...

Well - I lasted about 4 hours without a blog. This latest incarnation is powered by Hyde. This means I can write my posts in Markdown, generate and test the site locally and then upload using ‘rsync’.

BBC Breakfast ran a story this morning about the sale of woodlands. The gentlemen responsible for selling woodlands was quite a comedian. He started his act with: ‘In these difficult economic times, people are looking to invest in woodlands to hedge their bets…’ and then, referring to the potential investment opportunity and without a glimmer of a smile, he delivered the immaculate line ‘In a few years time, once the wood has matured, people will see that you can get income from trees’. ...

One of my favourite United players - for his sublime skills on the pitch and the modest, understated way he conducted himself off it. Thanks for all the memories, Paul.

The ticket allocations for the London 2012 Olympics haven’t been announced yet so I don’t know whether I’ll be watching Tom Daley competing in the 10m platform diving semi final on 9th August. If I do, I’ll be sparing a thought and probably shedding a quiet tear for Tom Daley’s dad, Rob, who lost his 5 year battle against a brain tumour yesterday. Last year, I enjoyed a BBC documentary about Tom Daley where his Dad interrupted a formal press conference to give his son a big hug, thoroughly embarrassing him in the process. You could just sense the immense sense of love and pride Rob Daley had in his son. ...

For many years, I have flitted between a plethora of different blogging platforms mainly out of curiosity, boredom, frustration or occasionally sheer bloody mindedness. I have lost draft posts in WordPress, Tumblr, Posterous and Habari due to network glitches, browser crashes, my own stupidity and a broken AutoSave plugin. One night in a lonely hotel room, the realisation suddenly dawned on me that my frustration with all of these blogging platforms was that I spent a lot of time in the post editor and none of the post editors did what I wanted. ...

Chatting with a good friend over dinner last night, he recounted how his son ambushed him late one Sunday night with some economics homework that he’d somehow manage to overlook and which simply had to be submitted the following morning. Annoyed, and after dispensing a severe bollocking, he reluctantly sat down and gave his son some lengthy help with the complex and thorny topic of ‘How does monetary policy affect the economy ?’ ...