Norwich city Italian inspired advert to unveil the new kit.

New Norwich kit for 2011-2012 by Italian company Errea.

One of the best kits we have had in a while.

Norwich new signing Steve Morrison

adburrows:

iOS 5 is coming…is it September yet?

iOS 5 - My 3 Favourite Features

So yesterday Twitter was ablaze with #WWDC, for the technophobes of the blogosphere, and social network it may have been the most confusing and boring two hours of their life. Their timelines would be filled to the brim with lions, clouds and apple geniuses.

So without having a Mac, Lion was viewed from a pure interest in technology standpoint, it really won’t effect me at all. Cloud is an interesting development on the technology that both google and Amazon already offer, however as an IPad user, IOS 5 was the keystone in the key note speech for me.

If you are reading this post and you have got this far then you probably already know what IOS is, it is apples operating system for the IPhone, IPad and iPod. A multi-touch manipulation system that most apple users absolutely love. However like with any technology, it can of course be improved and customers as customers do had many gripes.

If you watched the keynote speech presented yesterday, then it is quite obvious where the improvements were craved. So here are 3 aspects of the new updated operating system that I’m most looking forward to this fall.

5- Notifications

A problem more on the iPhone than on the IPad but notifications interrupt whatever you are doing. It’s frustrating and it ruins many a top score achievement. With the new IOS 5 software you will be notified of any push notifications towards the top of your screen, without it effecting your current action on your device. With one scroll from top to bottom, you will be able to see all your notifications, from calls to texts, MLB updates to voicemails. Its smoother and more organised with less action needed to run through your notifications.

4- Newsstand

iBooks is great, it’s a virtual bookcase collecting and showcasing every book (and PDF) file that you have downloaded onto your device. It looks good and it has easy functionality. However if like myself you use your iPhone, iPod or iPad for magazine and newspaper subscriptions, you’ll know that they all come with separate apps. A times newspaper one here, a sports illustrates one there and an Empire on somewhere. Basically this clutters your home screens and makes it a chore to flick between magazines.

Well newsstand will rectify this, basically it will do to your magazines what iBooks does for your book collection. It will store (with automatic background download of latest issues) all your magazines and newspaper subscriptions to one place. Cleaning up your homepage and making it a lot easier to manage your reading.

3- Reader Button (Safari)

This is one of my favourite new features on IOS 5. When trying to read any articles online, the constant advertisement, hyperlinks and page breaks annoy the hell out of me. So this innovation will lower my aggravation levels significantly. When reading a web page, there will be a button to the right of the address bar which will take what you are reading and put it into one uninterrupted document. No advertisement, no hyperlinks and nothing to distract you from what you are reading, no need to flip pages, it will be one long document (pictures included) for you to scroll and read.

It will also allow you to create a reading list of articles that you may have started or found, but just not finished. So more trailing through your history trying to locate that webpage that had that article on that you meant to read.

Another advert that I absolutely love. To add to my long list on here. 

Personal MLB Team Ranking

Baseball season is getting closer and I thought this was the perfect time to bring this blog up from the swamps of inactivity.

I honestly have no idea what will happen with the Cubs this season, but I’m pretty happy about that to be honest. It feels like a little bit of a fresh start after the Lou Piniella era went stale.

The Cubs are obvious though, I’ll watch as many games as I can but when they are not on, here would be my preference of teams to watch from top to bottom. For no other reason than I’m bored senseless, and if anyone is actually still reading, so are you.

1. Chicago Cubs

2. San Francisco Giants

3. Boston Red Sox

4. Texas Rangers

5. New York Mets

6. Los Angeles Dodgers

7. Tampa Blue Rays

8. Cleveland Indians

9. Baltimore Orioles

10. Colorado Rockies

11. Oakland Athletics

12. Minnesota Twins

13. Kansas City Royals

14. San Diego Padres

15. Florida Marlins

16. Pittsburgh Pirates

17. New York Yankees

18. Arizona Diamondbacks

19. Cincinnati Reds

20. Seattle Mariners

21. Los Angeles Angels

22. Toronto Blue Jays

23. Washington Nationals

24. Houston Astros

25. Milwaukee Brewers

26. Atlanta Braves

27. Detroit Tigers

28. Chicago White Sox

29. Philadelphia Phillies

30. St Louis Cardinals

"We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans. We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island, whatever the costs may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender. And if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or large part of it, were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British fleet, would carry on the struggle until in gods good time, the new world with all it’s power and might steps forth to the rescue and liberation of old."

Winston Churchill (Was part of Carries War tonight, which made me think of it)

Carries War, A Show Of Perfection

Knowing the story of Carries War quite well, Nina Bawden was a favourite author of my parents and I was a little surprised to hear that she is still writing books, with her latest novel “The Birds On The Trees” being nominated for the Last Man Booker Prize for 2010. Like most adaptations however the question was how were they going to move to the stage. Especially as the stage at the Theatre Royal, although not small is hardly the largest.

The Set design was actually perfect. I don’t think there can be any other word to describe it, so a well deserved hat tip to Edward Lipscomb who was the set designer for this production. The move between scenes was as fluid and as effortless as I’ve ever seen for any performance, including West End productions.

However the enjoyable aspect came with the acting, like it always should. All the other aspects are added bonuses. Nobody on this cast let the team down, from the main characters to the supporting cast. Sion Tudor Owen as Mr Evans and Lorna Gayle as Hepzibah Green deserve special praise for their performance tonight.

There was comedy (sparse but it was there), drama and tension. The crew didn’t try to do too much especially with the fire scene, it was very basic, very simple but very effective. The program (very reasonably priced at £2.50, which is excellent especially as you can pay upwards of £15 for one in London) listed Sarah Lark as Mrs Davies, however I didn’t see her in tonight’s production so perhaps illness kept her out, or maybe I just missed her (I was dealing with distractions). Sarah Lark appeared on the BBC show “I’d Do Anything” to find the next Nancy, she reached the final but unfortunately didn’t win (I voted for her).

Overall though the price of the ticket (£20.50), program (£2.50) and Drinks (£5.00) were worth being able to sit through two hours of excellent theatre. Britain has a a great tradition with theatre, and some have suggested it is not as strong as it once was. However tonight’s performance was near capacity with people of all ages (some too young) and the usher said it had been like that for every production.

If you are around the Norwich area, it’s well worth going to see. Unfortunately last night is tomorrow so you’d have to get a move on.

"It shrinks my liver, doesn’t it, Nat? It pickles my kidneys, yes. But what does it do to my mind? It tosses the sandbags overboard so the balloon can soar. Suddenly, I’m above the ordinary. I’m competent, supremely competent. I’m walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls. I’m one of the great ones. I’m Michelangelo, molding the beard of Moses. I’m Van Gogh, painting pure sunlight. I’m Horowitz, playing the Emperor Concerto. I’m John Barrymore before the movies got him by the throat. I’m Jesse James and his two brothers - all three of ‘em. I’m W. Shakespeare. And out there it’s not Third Avenue any longer - it’s the Nile, Nat, the Nile - and down it moves the barge of Cleopatra. Come here…"

Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend (1945)

Was just talking to a friend of mine about the merits of alcohol and this monologue popped into my head. One of my favourites of all time