Category: Blog

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Blog

Get middle aged kicks right through the night – good news not bad :)

Last night me and mrsunclewilco went to see the Bad Shepherds at the glee club Cardiff Bay.

The badshepherds & shed- photo David-Angel
The badshepherds & shed- photo David-Angel

They are the folk band that does punk covers lead by comedian Adrian “Ade” Edmondson (yes Vyvyan) who was sweary on Vocals & ‘thrash mandolin’, the shepherds were supported by Ella Edmondson, well if you can’t give your own family a support slot when can you.. she was a good singer songwriter.

Adrian was backed up by some superb folk musicians Troy Donockley on Uilleann Pipes was brilliant and Iam sure fiddler Andy Dinan had sold his soul, also Tim Harries competes the quartet on Double Bass.

As you know Iam more a rock fan than punk (unless its about sheds) – but as I reach my middle years folk is spreading into my listening more and more, in fact I don’t think it ever went away as Iam closet Jethro Tull fan so the chance to see punk classics reworked as folk was something we could not miss.

My favourite cover was Friday Night Saturday morning the b Side of the first record I every bought Ghost Town by the Specials, but the reworkings of God save the Queen, Teenage kicks & Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue by The Ramones and Down in the Tube Station at Midnight were top class.

The only downside was that a room full of middleaged folk/punk fans at an all standing gig, cmon promoter gives us some chairs our backs could not take it.

Anyway they will be back in Wales Jun 24th, 2010 at the Muni Arts Centre in Ponty, well worth a ticket.

Buy Tickets

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Blog

A toe in the water of Online advertising for sheds

This is shed site related, so if you are not interested in sheds stuff then look way now! but it does cover SEO & online advertising..a bit.

The other week I set up a test advert for www.readersheds.co.uk on the Guardian’s Local Cardiff website, using the addiply “platform”.

It’s the first time in the history of readersheds (9 years) that I have ever bought any online advertising, traffic to the sites has always been about Word of Shed and you great sheddies, then SEO, and side things like shedblog & flickr and now twitter (which brings some great traffic to both sites)

I have been lucky to have got some great press over the past few years running the Shed of the year competition which has help my search engine ranking with links from all sorts of high ranking sites such as boingboing and makezine and many newspaper sites (who don’t share the linklove), and of course this year having a large cash prize tends to get people interested :), thanks to Cuprinol Sprayable 😉

According to the stats I had a

I had a lot of views of my advert (according to addiply) but of course there is no way of knowing if anyone actually bothered to read it, maybe using some sort of heatmap stats may be a future feature but considering my budget not that many clicks.

I dont think it was a total waste of time/money as its was very easy to set up and was just a trial, but as my yearly marketing budget is now spent, may try something else next year.

what are your views on small time advertising on facebook/google adsense, or is word of mouth and SEO the best way to go?

of course if you are a local shed company that wishes to give this a way of targetting local ads to poeple actually intrested in the subject matter try why not use the addiply.com boxes on the righthand side of the shedblog.co.uk .. from only £5 a week, cheap I would say.. 😉

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Blog

Am I turning into a man of a certain age?

I received an email from Chums last night and instead of deleting it I click , ok I am know to wear cords on some occasions (and have a beard and like real ale), but do I really subconsciously want these? Iam 39 in October (19th if you need to get me a pint) but still wear band tshirts and jeans with holes in and boots.. but maybe it’s a sign from Chums, maybe it is time for me to turn the beige side?

TROUSERS WITH GROWING ROOM
TROUSERS WITH GROWING ROOM
MT040
From £12.99
LEISURE TROUSERS
LEISURE TROUSERS
MT054
From £14.99
SIDE SLANT POCKET TROUSER
SIDE SLANT POCKET TROUSER
MT004
From £12.99

The list goes on and on..



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Blog

I think I need a Leg Master after seeing it on gadget show, do they do a Gut master?

Watching the gadget show and they showed a great device called the Leg Master.

Can’ t get on the Leg Master website but ebay have some.

Or amazon sell a related Leg master type thing…

But can you get one for a Beer belly?

in the states its called the Leg magic!

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Blog

Bree Louise , Ale, Spilt Pint & Jameson Whisky and the film Moon

Yesterday I had a great afternoon/evening in that London with my mate James Cuff.

We were going to see the Jameson Cult Film Club presentation of the wonderful Duncan Jones Film Moon, we met up with our other mate Neil from Birmingham who just happens to be the officially the unofficial blogger about Moon 😉

We decided to meet up a pub that Rob has been going on for a while the Bree Louise in Euston

Bree Louise

They had a shed load of ales on (no wonder they are Camra pub of the year).

adnams irish Dry,O Hanlon's port stout

redemption beer Urban Dusk

I was a little bit excited about going and I even split a pint as I was lifting it off the bar, the barman and regulars said dont worry “everyone does it” must be the heart palpitations seeing all the great beers on.

We also met up with a mate of Cuffys mate nickthorpe which was nice only had a few pints then it was off to the main event.

But the whole point of the boys trip was to see Moon at The Royal Institution, what a great film and it was the first time to see it on the big screen!

Thanks to neil we got in via the “Special Queue”

Moon - Media Guests & Bloggers

A few members of the technical crew from Moon where there look out for a video of them soon on Neils blog.

Moon Posse in London Hood

The venue was decked out in a moon style and thanks to Jamesons we had some great whisky! and some great “Moon Dust”

Moon Space Dust

The had a great bloke in a Sam suit hanging from the ceiling of the institute.

Sam Bell

Moon

anyway one of my favorite shot of the night is Neil looking very happy with himself pictured with the actual Sam Spacesuit from the film.

Moon unklerupert and Sam Suit

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Blog

Happy St Patrick’s Day & Happy St MOON day

I am off to London later today with @jamescuff and @unklerupert for the Jameson’s Whisky Cult Cinema club tonight – with a showing of the wonderful film Moon and hopefully a few small (large) Jameson’s for St Paddy’s day and maybe a visit to a few great pubs.

Anyway Happy Saints day to my lot in Longford -Slàinte

Guinness Original Thing A week

And if you are in Cardiff tonight have a pint of Brains Black Stout:)

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Blog

Three years on Twitter what have I learned? nothing I hear you shout.

Iam no expert on this twitter thing, but have used it long enough to make so many mistakes – and I still tell people what I have for tea, where I walked the dog and what beer Iam drinking, maybe if I just concentrated on the sheds, I would have more followers.

Anyone this post is on of those Ten things to do on twitter, but only Severn, well you have to do something for SEO.

1) I have made 7937 (and counting ) tweets, even I don’t know how! (ok some are automated from the Flickr Group and when a sheddies adds images to their sheds) but the rest are from shedblog and this blog and my own mixed up sheddie brain.

2) Dont’ pee off the twitters, you will regret it, as some hold a grudge longer than some 😉 , but on the whole most are wonderful! so as long as you are not having at go at their mothers then you should be ok

3) It’s ok to reply to celebrity twitters, but after two tweets and they don’t reply then don’t bother  😉 unless you would stalk them in real life – cough  MrsStephenFry – it was me in the shed

4) Think about your hashtags and research it before going ahead with some madcap plan – 9.9 times out of 10 it will never trend

5) Is it worth setting up different accounts for different subjects – you will soon see a shedweek account just for shedweek stuff, but try not to confuse your readers – I know I do.

6) Great tools to use like Friendorfollow, Backtweets

7) Wait for the next big thing. still waiting… 4sq pah ..

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Blog

Last nights Cardiff Bloggers meetup went for James Cuff stayed for the Polenta Chips #cdfblogs

Being that my day job is as the development powerhouse behind the Walesonline/YourCardiff team (yes It’s not just sheds with me and sarcasm, oh it is) then I had to go last night to PicaPica for the first Cardiff Blogger Meetup of the year, even if it was just to carry the projector.

It was well organised by @ed_walker86 and @hrwaldram and the free drink went down well.

Of course the real reason I had to go was to support my mate and some would say better looking and younger jedi padawan James “Cuffy” Cuff, who did a very good job (You were lucky Ed did not ask me cause I drone on and on ) even though the singing and dancing next door did drown out some of his buzzwords, Ed maybe a PA next time 😉

But the main aim of the night was the meet up and I think that worked very well, alliances were started, online arguments were quelled and friendships made.

It was great to meet up with @CardiffBites finally and I think the Food/Drink bloggers should have a splinter FoodDrinkTweetup sometime, maybe at PicaPica as the Food was great… First time I had Polenta Chips and they were #nomnomnom.

I got talking to a few people and one thing that was an occurring theme a lot of them are after the same eyeballs – in terms of they want people to look at their Local news blogs/sites and a few see it as a step up to mainstream media companies, which is all good for the future of local journalism.

Unlike some of the bloggers networking last night I am quite happy to keep my passions in the shed, if I did slip out sometimes and bored a few people (Iam sorry) a quiet inside shed voice should tell me that people are not interested in sheds at these sort of events, I should bore them with WP template tips.

So I suppose I am lucky in a way as I can develop Web stuff in my day job (and get paid to to it) and do the same in my 5to9 work (and get my beer/curry/camera money) so I make both of them pay, both financially and developing my skills and still enjoying it after 15 years as a techy (or should that be tetchy if you know me)

Anyway here’s a photo of a few of us, via Dom from Welshicons, nice to meet him again after our previous Bloggers meeting at the Vulcan last year.

[flickr]photo:4426401356[/flickr]

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Blog

Did #ignitecardiff relight my social media fire?

Last night I went with my work operatives from Walesonline (@jamescuff @joniayn @ed_walker86 and a vistor from Midlands @brumroadrunner) to the ignitecardiff event.

Bascially geeks and online lot get up and talk about something for 5 minutes? You get 20 slides for 15 seconds a slide. They are automatically timed so you are forced to move forward when your slide does, we had amongst other subjects Salt, cats who design, karaoke chat & thingaweek.

ignite Cardiff - "ENJOY"

I thought I could see point a bit, but maybe

1) I am a grumpy SOD
2) Prefer a quiet pint
3) my Social Media circle should stay online – is it wrong to meet people you only talk to online – you only get disappointed.
4) Don’t get it – must be my age and could never make paper planes anyway
5) Networking – I don’t have anything to sell (well apart from sheds and most of these lot are not interested in those)

Maybe all of the above.

Some of the the younger members of the MediaWales (cough Ed) team enjoyed the meeting and greeting, or maybe they are just more social than I.

I may pop to the next one in June.. but will not relay on Cardiff Bus or the wait for a Sam Smiths for 15 mins in the Water Torture Pub.

Sams Smith Oatmeal Stout

Anyway Congrats to all those that organised the event and all that had the wossnames to get up and talk out of their comfort zone.

I think TEDxCardiff would be more my sort of thing..

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Blog Food

The Best British Pie goes to Wye Valley Pie from the Goat Major

I know I seem to be posting about the Goat Major a lot recently in fact more than actually going there for a pint!

anyway the Trumpet of Truth (South Wales Echo) reports that head chef Adam has won a pietastic award.

THE best pie in the country is to be found at a Cardiff pub, a competition run by British Pie Week has found.

Adam Pavey, head chef at the Goat Major on High Street in Cardiff, created the award-winning Wye Valley Pie, which was named the winner of the British Pie Week Challenge 2010.

His winning effort includes locally sourced chicken, leeks, asparagus and Tintern Abbey cheese.

Chef Adam, 22, said: “I was really taken aback that I’d won. We were in competition with about 60 other pubs nationwide.”

No brains ale in it? ReciPie here

British Pie Week starts next week more details here