Lee Jordan .org.uk

It wasn’t the sun that sent this weeks KP index up, it appeared to be a Gamma Ray Burst that hit our planet. Just days later a 7.5 Magnitude quake hit, Mozambique in Africa. A good example about how knowing a little bit about space weather and then watching out for seemingly unusual natural events. Floods are coming up in the global picture at the moment.

However the GRB could also have sparked off some pretty (but weak) light shows in the polar regions. The sun is very quiet at the moment yet the planet is being hit by other types of energy.

A Birmingham MP today warned of forced power cuts due to a recent explosion at a gas storage facility will leave supplies tight in the UK running into next week. With the recent cold snap forcast to run into next week we could be seeing the lights go out if we as a nation don’t turn off the heating when we don’t need it on.

“In the short term, however, the UK is on a knife edge in terms of gas supplies. An explosion at the country’s main storage field has left the UK with accessible supplies of just two days. If there is prolonged bad weather in the next month, the shortage of gas could lead to power cuts.” Source

Damaged gas rig ‘out for a month’
Also : Peak oil for real

Could this be a possible sign of increased volcanic activity rather than some unreported massive leak from Russia’s energy industy? Certainly is an interesting sign if a volcano somewhere did cause this.

Why volcanoes again Mr Jordan? Well the climate as we know is driven by the sun, particles from volcanoes could cause global dimming, where by solar radiation is reflected away from the planets surface , which could over decades lead us to more normal winters and then abnormal winters and then another little ice age.

Yellow snow, may be a result of the environmental pollution such as volcanic activity.

News source : MosNews.com

Last night was truely an awsome night. It’s kinda difficult to pin Broken Social Scene down, they are a network of artists based in Canada, at their most expansive are a massive group of collaborators and a core group of artists in their compact version. When I say compact I’m talking nine people on the tiny stage of the Academy2, it was a squish in every sense of the word.

No support band left the the crowd anxious for the set that started at 9pm and finished at 11pm. I realised that I only actually know about 10% of BSS’s discography, it was the two albums “Feel Good Lost” and “You Forget It In People” that introduced me, but that didn’t matter I was seriously impressed with how tight their sound is and how well they work as a group.

Nine in number the group would rearrange to take different roles on various tracks, most tunes were full of energy and some were really blissed out and chilled. With two drum kits, various brass instruments, bass, pleanty of guitars, a little synth, many microphones with many vocals, a violin, and the cutest female vocalist ever, their sound was extremly powerful, very melodic and so beatuiful.

Everyone knew the likes of “Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl”, simple in lyrcial content but quite an infectious track. Even if I didn’t know some of the tracks it was really accessible stuff. The set concluded with the lead male vocalist wading over the barrier into the crowd to hug people and he had said something along the lines of “this song will be pumping your heart while you are dying” .. which I though was an amazingly powerful thing to say

My last post of the night; I just wanted to update on everything to do with the progress of my skin cancer. Recently I’ve had a few people asking me how things are going.

My MRI came back clean and things are looking ever more stable. My next Apt is March 29th. It still remains a bad prognosis at a stage where guidelines say no treatment, like Immunotherapy should be given.The only real thing I’m dealing with is a kick down in my immune system, It has been a winter where I have been hit by a few major viral bugs, personally I know dealing with day to day life sometimes drains my energy.

Living the life of an international superstar (ok nine-five web designer, who can’t type but who has cracking musical tastes) doesn’t leave me with enough me time, I do get me time, like going to gigs and doing stuff at weekends, but my view on a career isn’t what it used to be, because of what has happened.

Moles can do grow into your skin, unseen over many years even decades while you are young, unless someone knows the signs it could go undetected, and that’s a vital message that could get this cancer detected early but it goes unheard in favour of sunscreen. Can’t reverse time to when we were kids, no matter what, but we can let younger people share the benefits of our expereince.

Just a quick post, to thank the guys over on Julia Harris’s site. Never met you and never seen Julia live (yet, play the Birmingham Barfly and elect me as head of the street team) but thank you for the quote on the gigs page. The site holds a couple of free tracks, if you can go see her!

Cheers guys

www.juliaharris.net

When I get chance I’m gonna set up an MP3 blog or something, the Podcasting didn’t work out for me, no time, worn my online time way too thin. Quick update while I’m here on gigs coming up that I’ll be at:

• 15/02/06 : Broken Social Scene (Brum)
• 19/02/06 : Magic Numbers (Wolves)
• 05/03/06 : Delays (Brum)
• 27/03/06: Imogen Heap (Brum Acadmey 3, Woooooo!)

I’ve brought so many albums I have no time to tell you, but I do want to draw your attention to Laura Veirs, singer songwriter with lush melody and unique vocals. Laura is playing the Birmingham Glee on Sunday, I’ll be seeing the Magic Numbers though.

This is backdated a little bit. I went along to the NIA with LeeK, a best friend of 10 years, to see Katie Melua. The night was brillient, although we were in the quite a way up the top block of the NIA we had a great view of the entire show. If I’m honest when she first appeared I didn’t rate Katie Melua very highly, but there was something about her first album that caught me and since then I’ve been hooked. It was her influences from Eva Cassidy’s magic that really brought me close to Katie, her band though are just as amazing as she is.

Where troubles melt like lemondrops
An encore followed, but I was holding out for “Faraway Voice”, for me personally and for personal reasons this was the highlight of the night. Katie’s first song had been writen about the woman who had inspired so many people including myself with her voice. Influence cleary rubbing off on Katie as she sang about Eva’s faraway voice and smiling in unison with the entire arena as the song finished. A really enjoyable night, and one that my signed plectrum won’t let me easily forget, even if it is a copy, get’s you through the day does nights like that.

Ooooh, check out the signed Plectrum and erm well ok it’s a bracelet, but a very nice keyring, none the less