Thursday 10 May 2012

Fire fire.

Having been given a 3DS, I now spend a lot of time playing Brain Training, a game I already had on the DS lite. Don't ask.

One of the games on either Brain Training or More Brain Training is a syllable counting game. Easy enough, you'd think.

I make typos, and annoyingly at the moment (baby brain, or so I tell myself as that's preferable to ageing as a concept) I forget a lot or say/do entirely differently to that which I had planned. So mistakes are a-plenty. But woe betide anyone who suggests I am incorrect when I am not. (I'm likely to cry).

Dr Kawashima marked me incorrect when I was not. And so I hate him.

The word we disagree on was "fire". I say one syllable, he says two.

So I ask my boys how to say it. They dutifully answer "fy-a" and I curse Fireman Sam. Love the Welsh; have been way over subjected to Fireman Sanctimonious Sam.

This is what great uncle google says:

fire/fī(ə)r/

Which I think means that you can add in the extra syllable if you like and is entirely non committal of uncle googs.

The Free Dictionary agrees with me. One syllable.

Oxford dictionary gives this:

ˈfʌɪə

which I don't understand. I think that may be the Welsh way.










Tuesday 8 May 2012

CBeebies 0 - 1 me

Ha! CBeebies can't defeat me with their obscure song.

The new (May 2012) CBeebies weekend trailer features "Good Times" by Gene Chandler.

Oh how long that took to find, so I'm double blogging it in case anyone else cares.
Shush.

Monday 7 May 2012

Diddy politics

So last week we had our council elections. Woo.

Now, I feel people should vote, especially women, as other people* worked rather hard in the past to ensure that we can. So I always vote regardless of the election's importance.

*Mr Pankhurst especially. Yes. Much more than his wife or daughters.

And so, on such a day as last Thursday, I find myself at the polling station. Sadly this time with not one clue what I'm voting for. I'm not sure why, I do normally find out. I think this may be due to not caring much because councils are pretty much useless regardless.

Outside polling stations there are usually candidates seeking your vote. This time there were two. So I told these two young men outside that I didn't know what I was voting for and that they had one minute to convince me.

They spoke. I listened. I asked idiotic questions. They answered. The SNP chap gave me a card with his name on and told me to copy it, which impressed me more than the non-answers they gave me.

Bloke two was the second Labour candidate, he had no card and so made less impression. But in light of the other parties being respectively hateful and hated, those are the two parties that don't hurt.

Results were good, even if nice SNP bloke didn't get in, his SNP colleague did. Bye bye 94 LibDems in Scotland, including one in my area. We don't forgive easily.

Which reminds me, I must buy the local paper so I can get a simplistic explanation of the implications.


Wednesday 2 May 2012

Music solving

As I seem to get more (genuine) hits for the CBeebies music blog than any other, I've dedicated a new blog to it here.

I spend a lot of time searching for songs I think I recognise. This is the result, shared.




Tuesday 1 May 2012

CBeebies music

Update 8 May 2012
The new weekend music is "Good Times" by Gene Chandler
.

Update 1 May 2012
The new bedtime music is "(Go to Sleep) My Little Sleepyhead by Nat King Cole.


Update: the latest Spring trailer features Spring Fever by Elvis. But you knew that anyway.

Cbeebies have begun playing old songs alongside their trailers.
They've been playing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" by Fredrika Stahl for the bedtime trailer, which is brilliant. I bought that after I heard it on the Nissan Joke, sorry, Juke advert.

Next one that caught my ear was "Imagination" by Belouis Some, which was used for the Charley Bear trailer. Good song, but ruined by the fact that the unpleasantly voiced James Corden narrates the programme.

The "woh oh oh-oh oh-oh oh-ohhh ohhh-oh" that is used in the trailer for Raa Raa the Noisy Lion drove me potty for a while; it is really catchy and sounds immensely familiar. The song it is from is "Tarzan Boy" by Baltimora, which I don't think I knew before, but it sounds so very much like I did.

And then it went hideously wrong. "Love Train" by the O'Jays is used for Driver Dan's Story Train, and is one of my most hated songs.

As is "ABC" by the Jackson 5, which is used for a generic CBeebies advert and which makes me feel mildly homicidal.

The trailer for Big Fun Time currently has another immensely irritating tune that I am reasonably convinced is "Big Fun" by the Gab Band.

Me no like. If they add "Carwash" by Rose Royce into their playlist I will cry and cry and end up watching Loose Women.