An Age of Magic

Why don’t people dress up for a concert anymore?

We have just returned from seeing a wonderful concert at our city hall featuring a world famous conductor, a brilliant pianist and a fantastic local orchestra. I am a veteran of classical music concerts and see as many as I can afford to – the great thing about tonight’s effort is that it was part of a special series of free concerts.

One thing I noticed was the absence of evening attire – the mens ties and suits were few and far between and the women even turned out as though for a picnic in the park. Why don’t people dress up any more?

Popularity: 9% [?]

Facebook alert-button proves dangerously popular.

More than 200 Facebook users have reported suspicious behaviour online since the launch of an anti-abuse application last month, figures showed today. Investigators saw more than a seven-fold increase in the number of reports from the social networking site since the launch of the safety button which aims to protect children from bullying, suspected grooming and other abuse. A total of 211 people used the site’s ClickCEOP button to report abuse since July 12, compared with just 28 users who reported abuse through the site in the month before its launch.

The safety button has been at the centre of an embarrassing public row for Facebook, one of the world’s most popular social-networking sites, which resisted requests for a so-called panic button on all young people’s profile pages. The American company faced an unprecedented fusillade of pleas from Ceop, police chiefs, politicians, charities and campaign groups who supported its use.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Remember when dad would hold a slide-night…?

And friends and family would find all kinds of excuses to avoid being invited…? my dad was a devoted fan of the camera and slide film in particular and I have boxes of old slides from the days of my childhood. These days it is not the usual way to take photos, everything is digital now, but the slides had their own unique attraction about them and I still love to hold them up to the light and look over them. Dad’s old projector gave up the ghost years ago.

I was looking some time back through some catalogues from camera stores and was amazed at how those things have changed over the years – and their prices too. These days a slide projector will set you back a few more dollars than when dad bought one depending on what you buy and what it does. We still have the projector screen that dad bought when mum stopped him pegging up her good white sheets for screenings but I’d kind of like to resurrect the traditional slide night as we have a collection of slides of our own from as recent as eight years ago. They sit in boxes at the moment but are well stored.

The best way to buy one these days is to have a look at a site featuring projector reviews as these machines have moved on in technology since the 60’s and 70’s – they range fairly broadly in price too so if you are wanting one just to show your holiday slides you’d not be wanting to spend too much money.

Popularity: 11% [?]