Mostly a music weekend

Happy sheep with their Sony Walkman MP3 players

So no Mumford tickets for me, getting up at 6 was not early enough by a long chalk. For the next big gig here I'll be getting the sleeping bag out. By the time I was there at 7 there were 500 people in the queue for 350 tickets (limited to 2 each) there were to be a lot of very disappointed folk in that queue. Still, I've got my Graham Fellows (John Shuttleworth) tickets.

The other big effort this weekend was to fight with iTunes and my iPod. My iPod is a pretty thing, pretty ~~~~~~~ useless IMHO. Anyway having returned it to default and reinstalled the software yet again de-derr the podcast function appeared and (wonder of wonders) appears to work. Managed to get some album art to download as well - using the free 100 of two bits of downloaded software, but in the end might have to buy one of these fixing products as they help eliminate duplicates and sort out most of the other iTunes bugs and glitches. Why couldn't Apple with all its zillions sort this out rather than leave it to these independant software writers? WMP is not perfect, and I'm no fan of MS but its a way better bit of software. All the glitches are of course related to Apples attempt to make me buy music via the ghastly iTunes store. What is required is some open source alternative to iTunes that will still make the iPod work... Apple won't like this idea of course. Rant, rant but for such expensive kit it is very disappointing. Now don't get me started on their recent laptops ...

On the positive side great reggae programme on BBC4 on Friday night.

Common Gulls, mostly, and some of 222 Oystercatchers at Loch of Bosquoy today

Birding, oh yes I did do some of that. Some good flocks of Oystercatchers around and about inland. A secret site (bird race coming up) produced both Red-throated Diver and Goosander. The Shunan had 55 Shelduck and good numbers of Curlew and Redshank as well as a marauding Peregrine. Black-headed Gulls are now a common site across the fields. The female Chaffinch continues to frequent the garden.