Craig Watson - Web Designer, Sound Engineer

Well. What a night of football. Credit has to go to Chelsea - and in particular to Didier Drogba - who have played some brilliant football. Drogba’s goal proved to be the winner in a match that literally hung in the balance at several points. From a personal point of view, I can’t not be disappointed not to be through to the third Champions League Final in four years.

However, I have to hold my head high and wish Chelsea luck for the Final. There’s not much I can say about the match itself. Liverpool showed the spirit that they’re infamous for, fighting until the bitter end - all I can say is that the cards weren’t quite right and that it wasn’t meant to be “our year”. To try and pick holes in each player’s performance wouldn’t be right. Some could sit and pick holes in performance, decisions, what-ifs and such for hours. However, we did what we could, and this year Chelsea had the luck.

I would also like to take this opportunity to say why I support Liverpool Football Club, despite my birth roots being in Essex and having no physical link with the north - let alone Liverpool - and my reasons are showcased beautifully in the match tonight. I support Liverpool because of what can only be described as their spirit; the grit, determination and “never say die” attitude has brought us back from 3 - 0 down in Istanbul in 2005, and equalised in the dying minutes of added time in Cardiff in 2006, and also the same attitude which almost took us through against Chelsea tonight. Liverpool is a club which intrinsically instils a genuine sense of belief and hope with everything that they do, and it isn’t just a football club, it’s a way of life - one you’re a Red, you’re always a Red.

That is why I support Liverpool Football Club, and it’s why I’m not actually feeling that annoyed about tonight’s result. The result itself is material; it’s something which can’t be changed and therefore should be accepted. I still believe in the club, I still believe in everything that it stands for and everything it has been, continues to be and will be - and, in my mind at least, that is all that matters.

You’ll Never Walk Alone!
Craig

Well, well well. I’ve watched some Liverpool matches over the years but this has to be one of the most thrilling I’ve ever seen - up there with Istanbul 2005 and Cardiff 2006. The occasion was the third match against Arsenal within a week - the second of two Champions League quarter-final legs sandwiching a Premier League clash. The first two matches were pretty drab and boring, but the final match was anything but.

It had everything. Goals, moments of brilliance (from both teams), controversy, grit and determination. We were awful in the first 25 minutes with possession, giving the ball away with stupid passes and not getting the tackles in and all credit to Arsenal, they deserved the opener.

The equaliser couldn’t have come from a more deserving player, I really do rate Sami Hyypia - his work-rate and loyalty to the club is awesome. The same goes for Dirk Kuyt, he was always down the right flank giving Arsenal problems. Fernando Torres (left), though, is completely out of this world. Skill, pace, youth, he’s worth every single penny of the £26 million. He’s got the Gerrard-esque ability to turn games around, and he did it again.

The last 20 minutes were probably the most edgy I’ve seen all season. End-to-end, literally. The penalty - in my opinion - was clear. Ryan Babel was brought down in the box by Kolo Toure (although the contact was only minimal) when he had a clear scoring opportunity, therefore it had to be a penalty. I do have a certain amount of sympathy for Arsenal because we were let off the hook big-time in the first leg. In the end though, I think we wanted it more and it showed.

After that, all I can say is this … bring on Chelsea!

You’ll Never Walk Alone!

After a nice relaxing Easter break at home, I’m now back in Aberystwyth for the final two months of this term, before returning to Essex for a year and a half in May.

I’ve been offered a position at Colchester Sixth Form College as an IT technician (the official job title is “IT Support Officer”) - I was originally a student at the College between 2003 and 2005 studying the International Baccalaureate and I’m really looking forward both to being back there and being in a normal job.

Even though I’ll be coming back to Aberystwyth in September 2009, an awful lot of the friends that I’ve made in my two years here won’t be, as they will have all completed their final years and graduated - my industrial year is a “sandwich year” between the second and final years of the course - so essentially this is my last term with quite a lot of my friends, which is an extremely sad thought!

OK, so this has been a pretty short entry (by my usual standards), but not a lot else happened in the three weeks I was back in Essex, apart from three We Will Rock You shows at a rate of one per week, taking my show-count to 54 (yes, fifty-four) and concreting my opinion that the newest cast are - quite possibly - one of the best I’ve seen. I finally got to see Sabrina Aloueche as Scaramouche, and I was completely blown away. I’ve got reviews on my WWRY-London.co.uk Forums for the shows on Monday 17th March, Tuesday 25th March and Thursday 3rd April.

I’m also taking on another freelance web design job for a local singer and the obligatory chocolate-scoffing. Even the journey back to Aberystwyth went without a hitch - for once! I was tempted to include my views on Liverpool’s awe-inspiring win in the Champions League into this blog, but I think it deserves its own entry.

Up the ‘kin Irons!
Craig

Well, after watching Liverpool against Inter Milan in the UEFA Champions League, I can safely say that I have now returned from Cloud Nine.

I said in my previous blog that it would be win-or-bust for Liverpool and Rafa Benitez against Inter, and in typical Liverpool style, we won - but only after 85 minutes. Inter’s defence and goalkeeper were brilliant, Fernando Torres forcing an excellent save from Julio Cesar and the makeshift Inter defence (centre-back Materazzi having been sent off after 30 minutes and Cordoba being stretchered off on 75) keeping Liverpool at arm’s length for the majority of the second half before Dirk Kuyt and Steven Gerrard broke through.

For all my previous criticism of Benitez, he has an uncanny knack of pulling the proverbial rabbit from the hat on European nights when the pressure is on and the backs are against the wall. It seems like the Champions League is Liverpool’s competition. Ever since the disappointment early in the group stages, we’ve come out with scores of 8-0, 4-1, 4-0 and 2-0 against Besiktas, Porto, Marseilles and Inter respectively.

I read an article on BBC Sport’s 606 Message Board about why Liverpool supporters should actually expect to be challenging Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea for the Premier League title season after season, as we always seem to be scrapping around the fourth Champions League spot. It’s results like this that prove why we should be expecting to challenge for titles - because we deserve to, given performances like last night.

Whatever critics, newspapers and pundits say, Liverpool always has been and always will be a special club, giving it’s supporters special nights and special results. Jose Mourinho may have been “The Special One” but Liverpool are “The Special Ones”.

You’ll never walk alone!

So, what’s been happening in the last two months?

Linux - Transition Complete

I’ve now finally got Fedora 8 up and running on my desktop PC as well as my laptop so Linux is my main operating system - with Windows being used from time to time for various web design tasks (the recent redesign of my university webspace being one of them) and I have to admit that despite my stance as a self-confessed “Windows user” a year ago, I’m now really enjoying the Linux experience. Everything is so streamlined, but it does take some getting used to and playing around with to get it the way I want it (some of the difficulties and shortcomings being detailed in my transitioning blog) - but I’m generally happy to play around and try different things so maybe this suits me better than others.

SonicaCMS goes live!

SonicaCMS - my plain-text PHP content management system - has now been released as an alpha version (meaning for very early testing and evaluation purposes). It’s been a work-in-progress for quite a while and with a general lull in university work I’ve decided to go public and make the first version available, so if you’d like to download it and try it out, by al means head over to www.sonicadesign.com/scms - I’d be very grateful for any bugs/feedback.

University - New term

As far as university goes, I’m awaiting the results of my first semester exams on Thursday 28th February - some more eagerly than others though. I’ve also actually given a lecture on web development to first years - a somewhat daunting experience but turned out well in the end once I’d gotten over the nerves and into the flow of things. The lecture mainly covered bits and pieces that I’d picked up over the last year and a half of doing websites on a semi-professional freelance basis as well as some search engine optimisation (SEO) material. By the end I actually started enjoying it, so I could be making a return to the lectern at some point in the not-too-distant future…

Along with the new term comes new modules - one of which I’m actually (shock, horror) enjoying: CS35910, aka Internet Services Administration. It generally covers a lot of the things I’ll need to know when I’m out in industry, and it’s material I’m genuinely interested in which always makes a difference. I’ve yet to be given any assignments this semester, but I’m sure they’ll start rolling in soon, as there’s only four weeks left before term ends for Easter.

Liverpool FC - Benitez to go?

Away from computers and all things geek, Liverpool FC are having a bit of a rough period recently, with several high-profile spats between manager Rafael Benitez and the club’s American owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks. After being knocked out of the Carling Cup by Chelsea and the FA Cup today by Barnsley, as well as being effectively ruled out of the Premier League title race by a string of sub-standard performances against sides we should have been beating, we have to yet again concentrate all efforts on the Champions League, which despite all my optimism, isn’t looking too promising either seeing as we’re up against the Italian Serie A champions Inter Milan in the last 16.

I have a feeling that if we don’t progress against Milan, then Benitez’s job will definitely be on the line - more than it ever has done in the past - and, to be honest, I wouldn’t mind seeing him go. Obviously he brought Liverpool the Champions League in Istanbul in 2005 (a night which I will never forget and get goosebumps every time I watch the replays on YouTube) as well as the FA Cup in 2006 in Cardiff and he has secured one of the most important signings in recent LFC history in Fernando Torres, but something tells me that Benitez’s time has come. Maybe I’m being over-critical, but time will tell I think.

We Will Rock You 2008: A New Dawn?

Over Christmas I boosted my show-count to 51, seeing the new cast that took over in September for the first time - and what a cast. You can read detailed reviews about each show on my WWRY website forum, but the shows on 17th December and 10th January certainly gave me the impression that the show is in extremely capable hands, although I haven’t yet seen Sabrina Aloueche in the Scaramouche role - being treated to Sarah French-Ellis on both visits - but I have it on extremely good authority that she is every bit as good as the rest of the cast. My advice - if you’re anywhere near London and are even remotely interested in musical theatre or rock music (or both), book and see this show - you will not regret it.

To go with the new line-up of cast members, an all-new souvenir brochure has bee released, and I have been lucky enough to have been posted a copy by a friend. All fifty-four scans are online on the WWRY-London.co.uk Gallery, I’ve also been busy making my first new banners and wallpapers for over a year, so please check them out! Also in a completely shameless plug, please also feel free to join up on the WWRY-London.co.uk forums.

OK, maybe this entry has been slightly longer than I originally intended, but with two month’s having passed, I thought it was about time for an update.

So….where the hell have the last two months gone? Well, university work has really picked up,but I’m now just two weeks away from being back at home for Christmas and some well-deserved (or at least I think so) rest, so I’m really looking forward to getting back. I’ve also got my first We Will Rock You show (and 50th overall - I miscounted by one in September) booked, so I’m also looking forward to that - it should be interesting to see a refreshing take on the show from the new cast - from what I’ve been told, they really do the show justice.

Backtracking slightly to university work, I’ve just finished a programming assignment which involved coding a program in Java to decrypt a variety of ciphers - namely the Caesar, substitution and Vigenère ciphers. Not really being much of a programmer, I only managed to implement the Caesar cipher decryption, but I’m still pretty proud to get it working that much.

The other assignment that was handed in a week ago (26th November) was Formula 1 results analysis using the C programming language. I’m quite a keen follower of F1 - and have been since the Michael Schumacher/Damon Hill battles of the 1995 and 1996 seasons - so even though the assignment itself was a hell of a lot of work, I half-enjoyed it because it was on a subject I actually knew something about! In the end, I over-engineered the assignment slightly, getting a bit carried away and going above and beyond the original specification! I’ll probably end up putting my source code for both assignments on my University Webspace at some point.

As well as all of these assignments, I’ve also had to start actively job-seeking for my Industrial Year placement, which runs from July 2008 through to September 2009. I’ve got a pretty solid idea of what type of job I would like to do and where I’d like to be - network/systems administration in the Essex/London area. Ever since leaving my job at Rickstones in August 2006, I’ve wanted to go into the network/technical support area because it’s something I’m interested in and also something I enjoy. So - if there are any prospective employers out there, check out my CV and drop me an e-mail!

Away from university work, Liverpool are now almost through to the knock-out stages of the Champions League after thrashing Besiktas and Porto 8 - 0 and 4 - 1 respectively at Anfield. I watched the 8 - 0 drubbing live on ITV and it was one of the most beautiful games of football I have ever seen. Also, staying on the note of football, England are now out of Euro 2008. The night of the fateful match against Croatia it was a flatmate’s birthday so we held a surprise party for her, so it took quite a lot of the disappointment out of the defeat!

In music news, Iron Maiden have announced that they will play Twickenham Rugby Stadium on 5th July 2008 - just four days before my 21st birthday. As a Maiden fan club member, I got exclusive pre-order for one day, so I booked up along with a friend and his brother. I’m really, really looking forward to the gig - it’s Maiden’s only date announced in the UK on their entire Somewhere Back In Time tour, which reprises tracks from the band’s biggest albums - Somewhere In Time, Powerslave and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son as well as all of the classics and also includes their legendary “pyramid” stage-set. It should be an awesome show!

So I guess that’s your lot, cheers for reading and up the ‘kin Irons!

Craig

Evening all,

Well, having been offline for the best part of a month, I figured I’d better fill you lovely people in on what’s been happening in an insanely busy month and a half. The reason for being offline is a combination of BT screwing up royally with getting our phone line up and running (due to a “system glitch” our original order was lost, so we had to do it all again) and Orange springing the surprise that the “upto 8meg for £5 a month” offer was only available to customers starting a new contract. The upshot is that I had to upgrade my phone with an upgrade fee of £100 or keep my current handset for another 15 months. While I do like the Samsung D900 (my current phone) I wasn’t too keen on being tied to it for 15 more months, so I upgraded through gritted teeth, but at least I now have Internet!

As you may have guessed by now, I’m now safely back in Aberystwyth and into the third week of the new university term, the term itself is going pretty well, but I’m sure that will change when the assignments start rolling in. I’ve also started developing my own Content Management System, called (aptly) Sonica CMS in PHP, to try and forward my knowldge of the PHP lanaguage. More on the CMS is at www.sonicadesign.com/scms. I’m hoping to have beta (test) versions of the software available in the next month or two, depending on university workload.

Away from such geekery, my vinyl collection is slowly growing (click on the link for a phot of the collection), just bought Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell as well as Iron Maiden’s eponymous album, both are in the post, so they should arrive in the next few days - strikes permitting of course. I’ve just finished a couple of freelance web projects for Colin Charles, who has just left the cast of We Will Rock You after playing the role of Britney for the last few years - AD Agency and Impact International Management (a link to Impact will be coming very soon, the site should be live in the next few days).

We Will Rock You itself has had a few major changes in the past month as well, with five new principal actors and a host of scene and script changes. I haven’t had a chance to see the new cast myself due to the fairly obvious fact that I’m at university in the depths of Wales, but I have it on very good authority that they’re awesome, which is just what the show deserves and needs. These changes are also wrapped in an amount of sadness, because I really do respect the outgoing cast - they’re an amazing bunch of people (and extremely talented vocalists and actors).

Anyway, that’s your lot, cheers for reading.

Up the ‘kin Irons!
Craig

Well well well boys and girls. After quite a nice slow, relaxing start to the summer, things have gone slightly crazy. For the past month, I’ve been working as a call centre operator for O2 Insure, taking calls from people who have misplaced, dropped or otherwise broken their mobile phones. While I’m bound by the company’s confidentiality aggrement and can’t discuss specific claims I’ve taken, I can say that certain people have provided me with quite an entertaining day.

Apart from that, I’ve managed to squeeze a few more We Will Rock You shows in, bringing my running total up to 49 by the time I leave Essex again for Aberystwyth on Saturday 8th September. I can honestly say that my last show before I go will be quite an emotional one - as I’ll be seeing the present cast for the last time. While this may seem quite sad and geeky, I’d like to take this opportunity to say what this show (and more specifically, this cast) has done for me in the past. They’ve given me an outlet for so much enjoyment, brought me closer to some very good friends who I wouldn’t have met otherwise. I have never in my 49 shows left the theatre not wanting to go back, and that’s certainly a great testament to the effort and energy that the cast (and also the band - these guys are often forgotten up in the wings) put in, night after night and week after week. So, if you’re in the London area before 29th September (or indeed at any point in the future), get down to the Dominion Theatre and see this completely mind-blowing show.

It’s also brought me (indirectly) a bit of web design work. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Tony Bourke, the show’s drummer, to set up his personal website and I’m currently in the process of completing work for another of the show’s cast - further details will be on the way soon!

Away from web design and more We Will Rock You shows, I’ve also taken my first step into the retro world of vinyl (as in the black stuff that was the predecessor of the CD) - snapping up a Dual 505 turntable and Cambridge Audio A1 amp on eBay. While a lot of people will disagree with me, I think that vinyl has a certain resonance and “personality” that a CD just doesn’t have - by definition a CD is digital and will therefore produce the same results every single time. At the moment, I just have a slightly crackly copy of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells and The Goons’ The Last Goon Show Of All to my name, so if anybody has some vinyl that they would like to get rid of- please drop me an email - you can find out a bit more about my music tastes on the about me page of this website.

So, with all that said, I’m now looking forward to getting back to Aberystwyth, seeing people who I haven’t seen in 4 months and actually having to work for a change. It’s hard life…..

Up the ‘kin Irons!
Craig

I’ve just finished a minor site layout change, hopefully you approve

In other news, apologies for not updating this for another three months - things have changed quite a bit. I’m now back in Essex after finishing my first year at Aberystwyth. It feels strange being back - although I am actually broke. So if anybody out there is looking for a freelance web designer, take a look at www.sonicadesign.com and get in touch!

I’m currently doing a bit of recording for a friend’s various metal projects as well as being a general unemployed student. Probably unsurprisingly, I’ve already crammed one We Will Rock You show into the month I’ve been back and I’ve got a couple more booked for the coming months.

One of two highlights of the last month though is seeing Iron Maiden live at Brixton Academy on 24th June with a good friend - courtesy of some quick bidding on eBay. We managed to get a pair of tickets for £60 - which is £20 below the combined face value :D. The setlist was the same as they played at the Download Festival, with a mix of tracks from A Matter of Life and Death and The Number of The Beast complete with Eddie and tank during the encore. Some photos will find their way onto the Gallery pages quite soon.

Needless to say the gig was a complete stormer, and standing back next to the sound desk gave us a brilliant view of the whole stage. The support acts deserve a mention too, Indian metal outfit Parikrama were surprisingly good - their Indian influences were pretty well integrated into traditional metal, the violin was a brilliant addition in my opinion. Lauren Harris was also very good - I recognised a couple of the songs from seeing them at Earl’s Court last year.

The other highlight of the last month is about my new laptop that I covered in the last update in April. I have now configured it to quad-boot. Yes, you read right. Four operating systems - Windows Vista, Windows XP Media Center 2005, Apple OS X and Fedora Core 7 Linux all on a 120Gb hard drive with some room left for my music and documents. I’m not going to bore you listing all the details, but needless to say that I am thouroughly pleased with my efforts :D. It was a bitch to get Grub (the Linux bootloader) to work properly, but nothing ever goes smoothly with technology.

I’m hoping to expand the site with a few computer tutorials and how-to’s in the near future, so watch this space

Up the ‘kin Irons!
Craig

Well well well. After a bit of a break (well, more than a bit; almost three months), I’m finally writing another blog. Life has been pretty busy in recent months, with university assignments galore as well as my Easter break back in Essex and three more We Will Rock You shows, including two within the space of two days!

I’ll start off with university, the assignments are going very well, with 100% in the first of my Web Design assignments and 80% in the first of this semester’s Java programming assignments. I’m still waiting for results of the second one for Web Design, and the second project for Java is well under way. It feels quite strange to think that in just over two months, my first year at Aberystwyth will be over. It seems like only yesterday I was moving into a completely unknown world. Still, I’m extremely happy in Aber and I wouldn’t have changed the decision for anything now.

Now onto Easter, and my two-shows-in-two-days stint at my spiritual home, the Dominion Theatre. A mini-review of both shows on my We Will Rock You website at www.wwry-london.co.uk, but these were two absolutely awesome shows with Rebecca Trehearn in bloody good form as Killer Queen. My third show in as many week is booked up for this Wednesday (the 18th), so I don’t doubt that I’ll be going back to Aber on Saturday on a high note.

Other than watching We Will Rock You and doing university assignments, I’ve managed to sell my trusty laptop to upgrade to a nice new Acer model. The specs (if they mean anything to you) are Core 2 Duo 1.6GHz, 1Gb RAM and 120Gb hard drive, so it’s a considerable upgrade from my current one.

I’ve also been trying (and failing) to write a track for a band that I’m now part of in Aber. As yet, we’re un-named, but we’re aiming to be gigging by September and so far we’ve got a couple of Queen tracks, some Whitesnake and a few others as well (you’ll have to wait and see for the exact set-list ;)).

So, all-in-all, its been a pretty good couple of months. Actually, it’s been a bloody awesome couple of months. I’ll try to keep this blog more updated in the next few, but with my first semester exams coming up, I’m not sure if I’ll have the time.

Cheers for reading