Hello,
I seem to have kept myself too busy over the last month. Big Brother has been taking up some of my time while my usual travels have kept me entertained!
On Thursday 10th, I was invited to Brainiac "Test Tube Baby" which has just started running on Sky One! I was the Star Scientist for Week 2 – I had to conduct several experiments in 90 seconds. I worked out and tested my experiments only on the Monday as I had just come back from Scotland.
The experiments were:
- Demonstrate Electromagnetism with a Battery, Wires and a Compass.
- Jacobs Ladder - high voltage sparks across a gap. The air becomes conductive and also hot and the spark rises!
- Egg sucked into flask by vacuum caused by a flame using up oxygen.
- Toothpicks on fire make a nice carbon-rich flame. Microwaves excite the flame and it glows.
- Ping pong with loudspeakers - a "thump" sound causes the cone to move pushing a cork into the air. Another speaker cone opposite pushed it back.
On rehearsal I was getting worried. The experiments were not working (not helped by the microwave not being plugged in - "Doh!"
On execution, the compass did not work too well, but the others did - not on cue, but I just think that made it funnier.
Dom Wood and Jon Tickle were really cool, Dom was really chatty and also the whole team were really helpful!
I spent a day at Daytona Racing with Mark from Shop @ Panasonic in Leicester. We came 4th and I think we would have done better if I had been in better practice and not spun off a third of the way into the race. Mark made up my gap. Mark organized the "Chase the Champ" karting competition at the Sutton Circuit near Leicester last year which was really good!
In July I have been doing the Amateur Radio! We had VHF National Field Day on the first "Wet Weekend" in July and the location was Suffolk (in the past we have used Folkestone but thought we would try a different QTH). The weather was great and they had several towers on site and many operators. Alex showed me how to use a Tilly Lamp and Simon Fox turned up and we did some filming. We even went down to Sizewell to visit the beach there and chat with the locals. Sizewell has a café called "Seizwell Beach Restaurant". It was very good, but also quite amusing.
I have just come back from Wee Bonnie Scotland. The week started off with me going to the Isle of Eigg to participate in Islands on the Air (IOTA) with some members of the West of Scotland Amateur Radio Society (http://www.wosars.org.uk).
We were based on the south side of the Island about 300 feet up and it was a little boggy - mainly as it was raining on the Friday to set up and the Saturday. My feet were soaked. However Sunday was fine and we packed up and then, with me "Eigging" it on, the tractor attempted to get to our gear and got stuck. We then were on a 2.5 hour race against time to get it out, and decided with 2 hours to go to walk down to the port to ask for some Tractor assistance. The farmer on the Island was great and towed us out and we arrived at the port just as the ferry arrived.
Also up in Scotland I visited some of my colleagues at XFM Scotland (Ex Beat106) - Fraser Thomson and Stuart Barrie and also visited my other mates up there including Ryan Morrison (River & Kingdom FM), Bill Collison (Saga 105.2) and Vicky Lee (Scottish TV). I stayed with Ross who was really helpful and we went to the Museum of Communication (http://www.mocft.co.uk/) in Burntisland which was great. It is quite small but it really is packed with exhibits. They had real old TV sets still working, brilliant demonstrations and loads of old TV cameras to see and play with. If you're in Scotland and can go over the Forth Bridge it is well worth the visit.
Off to 8 out of 10 cats – yay - for the Big Brother Special then off to the final on Friday!
Don't forget, you can hear me on Passion Radio on the web
(www.passionradio.co.uk) and on DAB in Sussex.
Eugene