23 September, 2005

On The Outside

September. It is getting cooler with every rainfall. Summer has ended and autumn has come.

I always feel like listening to my favourite band Starsailor when autumn comes. Their songs suit this autumn atmosphere. In fact, two of their albums were released in autumn. Love Is Here, the first album, was released in October 2001, and Silence Is Easy, the second, was released in September 2003.

This autumn is no exception. They are going to release their theird album, On The Outside on October 17th.

Starsailor / On The Outside
1. In The Crossfire
2. Counterfeit Life
3. In My Blood
4. Faith Hope Love
5. I Dont Know
6. Way Back Home
7. Keep Us Together
8. Get Out While You Can
9. This Time
10. White Light
11. Jeremiah

You can now watch a video of In The Crossfire, a song from the new album. I tried it. And I can say this is going to be as good as the master piece Silence Is Easy or even better.

***In spite of saying "two upcoming albums" in the last entry about Franz Ferdinand, two weeks has passed after it. Anyway, Starsailor's third album is another one I'm looking for.

23 September, 2005

No winner: German inconclusive election

Since the election took place and the result turned out to be a disaster on Sunday, I've been trying to write about this.

Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) won Sunday's election by three seats, however the margin was too slim for them to be the gorvernment alone. Moreover, having faced this situation Gerhard Schroeder of the Social Democrats (SPD) claims to be a chancellor.

CDU's Merkel hold her first talk with SPD's Schroeder on Thursday. But the talk ended up without any progress. She pointed out "clear differences" between two parties. On the other hand, SPD chairman Franz Muentefering said his party was keen to have more detailed talks with the CDU, but he stressed again that Schroeder should remain chancellor.

It is said that a CDU-SPD "grand coalition" is still regarded as a likely outcome to the crisis - but the talks could take weeks. They are going to have another talk next Wednesday.

There are some other possible coalition plans. One is that the CDU forms a coalition government with the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and the Greens.

Although the FDP, who came third, are traditional allies of the conservative CDU, the Greens worked with SPD. Moreover, there is a gap between the CDU and the Greens in policy in respect of environmental issues and others. Both the FDP and Greens have said they are unlikely to switch allegiances.

BBC News describes this like the following:

The CDU and SPD have been trying to woo smaller potential partners.

If no deal is reached, another election may have to be held - probably in 2006. A prolonged deadlock is thought to damage the German economy.

11 September, 2005

You could have it so much better

I'm very excited about two upcoming albums that my favourite bands will soon release.

The first one is Glasgow's rock quartet Franz Ferdinand. They are going to their second album You Could Have It So Much Better on October 3th in the UK.

Franz Ferdinand / You Could Have It So Much Better
1. The Fallen
2. Do You Want To
3. This Boy
4. I'm Your Villain
5. Evil And A Heathen
6. You're The Reason I'm Leaving
7. Well That Was Easy
8. Eleanor Put Your Boots On
9. What You Meant
10. Walk Away
11. You Could Have It So Much Better
12. Fade Together
13. Outsiders

As the review by Amazon.co.uk describes, the second album is "pretty much everything a band’s second record should be". As far as I listed to the first single "Do You Want To", the upcoming album will be what I expect or even more than it. So can we have it so much better than the first album?

10 September, 2005

New-look Guardian unveiled

The Guardian's new front page was unveiled yesterday ahead of the newspaper's relaunch on Monday. The newspaper has been drastically changed in many respects.

Size
The Guardian adopted a Berliner format, which is larger than a tabloid but smaller than a broadsheet. I thought the paper was going with a tabloid size when I heard the news.

Does this choice reflect a dilemma of the Guardian - the paper had to adopt a smaller format sooner or later, having seen its dropping sales and rivals' successful shifts to a tabloid size, namely, Independent and Times, but did not follow exactly what they had done. That's why the Guardian goes with the Berliner size?

In the wake of the Independent's and Times's experiments in dual-format publishing we played with our own version of a tabloid paper, but found it hard to achieve what we wanted. To cite only one - rather basic - consideration, a tabloid Guardian would have been well over 250 pages on some days of the week, making it impossibly bulky.

Colour
Every page will be printed with colour. The paper says it will be "the UK's most colourful national paper".

Font
A story about font always attracts designers' interest.

» Logo
The only thing that make me feel sad is that the Guardian logo will be replaced. I love it. The article describes the logo as "the titlepiece - a radical piece of eighties design genius with its then startling juxtaposition of italic Garamond and chunky Helvetica". And the new logo will be "a more contemporary one using a new font designed especially for the Guardian."

Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the Guardian, said: "The new titlepiece is the final element of our redesign and completes the new modern look of the paper."

» Headline font
Bold black sans serif headlines will have made way for a more restrained serif headline font.

» Body font
It is designed by Paul Barnes and Christian Schwartz and appropriately named "Guardian Egyptian Text". The size will be 8pt on a leading of 9.5pt and has been designed to exploit the state-of-the-art press technology to be especially legible.

Over the years different generations of typographers have experimented with different fonts - from Century to Cheltenham, from Garamond to Perpetua, from Gould Old Style to Ludlow Black.

G2
G2 will be 36 pages, stapled and half the size of the main Berliner. It will turn to be the first stitched, full-colour news magazine produced to newspaper deadlines every Monday to Friday.

The Observer
In early 2006 its sister paper, the Observer, will also shift to the Berliner format. It says that the new Observer will reflect feedbacks on this new Guardian.

» Media Guardian | New-look Guardian unveiled
9 September 2005

» The Guardian | From Monday: a new, smaller Guardian, the UK's most colourful national paper

10 September, 2005

Guardian TV ad

This is part of a promotional campaign the Guardian launches along with the newspaper's renewal on Monday.

Cranes at the Wembley Stadium starts refurbishing the paper design and layout. Headings and paragraph dances and flies. Chimpanzee Bush throws a bone for Blair. Bla bla bla. Watch it anyway.

» Watch the TV ad

» The Guardian Special Report

10 September, 2005

Like tortoises in Galapagos

I love you, Sony. But I cannot accept this. What the hell is this? This is just one of...

Sony introduced a new Walkman model just a day after Apple revealed its new iPod nano. Obviously, the release timing is planned being strongly aware of Apple.

Why this shape? Why this colour? There are many points that I cannot understand. Having seen iPod nano, I can tell that Apple has focused on size and shape. But they are originally Sony's strengths, aren't they??? Walkman, MD players, portable radio, tiny laptop computer and so on...

However, look at this. Round shape like a giant tortoise painted in incomprehensible violet. And what is worse this ugly colour is used for a main advertisement, which should be the most important thing for launching a new product. The release timing is plausive, but the product itself can be open to question.

This is as disappointing as the last model.

9 September, 2005

Hello nano, Goodbye mini

There have been so many things I want to write about.

First of all, Apple introduced a new iPod model called "iPod nano". Absolutely stunning and beautiful, isn't it?

Reportedly the sales of iPod mini isn't not bad. But Apple says that it has decided to replace the mini with the nano to go ahead of other rivals. In fact, the mini wasn't that mini and the portable music player market was full of mock-iPods of other companies.

Having seen this attractive nano, the nano can make it worthwhile that Apple bravely gave up the lovely mini and can convince Apple fans. It will also attract iPod minis owners and make them envy those who are planning to buy their first iPod - which can be the nano. And someone who has just bought a mini will have to endure their great mistake for the next few months.

I bought an iPod mini three months ago and still have payments pending for it. Hahaha.