alfa.org.uk

Dear Customer,

Due to a European shortage of the Nintendo Wii Consoles, we regret to inform you that Play.com will be unable to supply your pre-ordered Nintendo Wii at launch. As an Official distributor of Nintendo products we are guaranteed more stock before Christmas, but Nintendo have informed us, along with all other official Nintendo retailers, that the console will not be freely available until next year.

All pre-orders will be fulfilled on a first come, first served basis and we will fulfil your order as soon as we can.

If you no longer wish to keep your pre-order with Play.com please login to your account and remove the item from your Outstanding Orders.

AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

BBC 4 has recently had a season of programmes relating to the piano. There was coverage of the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition, as well as a number of excellent documentaries, including a fascinating programme about the life and recordings of Glenn Gould. I would highly recommend watching any of them when they are repeated (as they surely will be since they are on one of the BBC’s digital channels).

I’ve also started listening to more Keith Jarrett, and I’ve produced a basic transcription of his improvisation Radiance #8.

Watching the Gould programme made me go back and listen again to his awesome recordings of the Goldberg Variations. It’s such a fantastic piece – I’ve ordered the sheet music online.

I’m going to find out exactly what damage only playing on an electric piano has done to my technique…

Ooh, the judge on the Da Vinci code case has hidden a code in his judgement:

smithycodeJaeiextostgpsacgreamqwfkadpmqzv

I started to investigate it. It is not:

1. Caesar cipher (including ROT-13 ;) )
2. Atbash cipher
3. Vigenere with key of DAVINCI or SMITHYCODE

There isn’t enough ciphertext to use any of the standard attacks against Vigenere, so I just tried a few guessed keys. If it is Vigenere then someone will have to get lucky.

A few people online have noticed that the ciphertext is the same length as “do not waste the time of the high court”….

UPDATE: It’s been solved! And it was Vigenere. The key was generated from the Fibonacci sequence (mentioned in the book apparently).

The BBC has launched an experimental interface to their programme database. It allows you to search and find programmes from throughout the BBC’s history. It’s pretty good – I was quickly able to locate the episode of Blue Peter I appeared on. Yes, I still have my Blue Peter badge – I have not sold it on eBay.

Obviously upgrading my blogging software and using a new theme is FAR more important than actually writing anything…