On 5 March my new Roberts Revival RD 60 DAB/FM Radio arrived. Before I bought it I spent quite a bit of time checking it out on the Internet as I tend to do with everything I buy these days.

In fact I’d been wanting to buy a Roberts Revival radio for ages. I really like the 50s styling and the 50s construction holds promise for rather a good radio.

The Revival has similar styling to the 1956 Roberts R66. It is a simple design unlike the other well known retro, the Bush TR82 which is a very heavily styled radio.

However for me the Roberts has a great deal of class. I remember Roberts radios from the eighties. They were still put together in a small factory in England and sold for a lot more money than the competition from Japan. I remember thinking there was something rather nice about putting some money into a radio like the Roberts, placing a lot of value on an object which will be with you for many years. However, at the time I bought a much cheaper Japanese alternative and it was very good.

Today Roberts are, I think, much more like the any other modern manufacturer. You don’t know where they are built, no doubt parts come from all over the world, probably assembled in different countries. The modern day Roberts radio range spans all price bands competing head on with the other manufacturers, in fact my kitchen radio is a Roberts radio, it is a plastic moulded one like those eighties Japanese imports. Its rather nice but not what Roberts represents for me.

The Roberts radios of the 50s and 60s upon which the Revival is based were rather good designs which leant themselves to future updating I think. The controls were inset on the top so to create a contemporary version it is easy to include a digital display and any configuration of buttons you like in that inset area on the top without changing the overall look of the radio.

I spent ages choosing the colour.

• Red
• Green
• Blue
• Burgundy
• Pastel Blue
• Pastel Cream
• Pastel Pink
• Washed Rose – Cath Kidston
• Piano Black

I got the green one. I know I made the right decision, I liked the idea of piano black, but I just thought that on a portable it would be a smeared mess pretty soon. It is actually green leatherette, (leatherette = leather like plastic). Roberts do a visually very similar radio called the Revival R250 and that is available with real leather, but that is an FM only radio whereas the RD60, my one, is DAB as well as FM. I might have rather liked real leather, but I haven’t seen one in the, er, flesh and I knew that I wanted a DAB radio so leatherette it had to be. The aerial and other metal parts are all gold which look very well with the green.

I wanted a DAB radio because oddly enough, very occasionally BBC Radio Three goes wonky on me in FM. I live very close to the nearest transmitter, three miles, and BBC Radio Four is never affected. However I listen to Radio Three most of the time so I wanted consistency.

The sound quality of the Revival RD60 is very respectable given the size of the radio. Peering in through the grill on the front reveals that the speaker is very small and yet the sound is very full bodied with apparently a lot of bass. The reason for so much bass from such a small speaker is that the radio body, the speaker enclosure, is a port reflex design. The port is forward firing and in the centre of the grill on the front. The speaker is surprisingly far left. I think the speaker is in its location to make room for the batteries.

The casework of the RD 60 is pleasingly straightforward. the back panel is totally flat without decoration. How I wish more designers would embrace this kind of unadorned simplicity.

The door on the back is held shut by a catch which I’m pretty sure is from the furniture world. I rather like this as the radio’s case is I guess a very small piece of furniture, like a music box perhaps. I think one of the reasons why the radio has appeal for me is that it does fit in with with furnishings and interior decor. At some point audio equipment very clearly defined a look and feel quite distinct from the other items we have in the living room. More so with the electronic component boxes than the speakers. For some reason we want the latter to be nicely finished wood but the former is to be high tech boxes.

Opening the door on the back reveals the interior of course. Roughly in the middle is the reflex port. I think the speaker looks bigger in the pic than it actually is. At the bottom is the container for batteries. It takes four D batteries and these do seem to last for a long time, which is rather good. I find I like to lug this radio around the house with me and so I don’t want to have to keep it plugged in to the mains all the time.

If someone from 1956 were looking into this radio they would be wondering what had happend to the electronics? I’m pretty sure they are all at the top inside that black plastic casing.

That the box is mostly empty doesn’t mean it is a waste of space. The comparatively large box is good for sound quality. Especially given that it is made of MDF, thought by many speaker designers to be the best material for enclosures. When the rear door is shut there is quite a good seal with the casing, but it is not the kind of arrangement you would find in a hi-fi speaker where the casing would be absolutely sealed up except for the reflex port. The seal is good enough though as opening the door while the radio is on leads to a drastic loss in bass.

The sound quality is very contemporary radio I think. There is ample bass for a radio of this size and absolutely no bloom whatsoever. This is a very well behaved radio. Voices are clear and distinct. I can’t detect any real difference between DAB and FM, but I wouldn’t have expected a difference on a portable radio like this.

I’ve used the auxiliary out socket with Pro-Ject Head Box II headphone amplifier and my Sennheiser HD 540 Ref. Gold headphones. It sounds very listenable with a surprising amount of detail, so the small tuner is doing a good job I guess. I don’t know how it would sound with other quality headphones because my beloved Sennheiser HD 540 Ref. Golds are very good at making things sound better than they are. More analytically honest headphones might not sound very good on the radio, but that would be true of any radio.

Using cheap headphones into the actual headphone socket, which would be more usual, is quite fine. It’s much the same as any personal radio. I’ve found that in this pleasant weather we are having (June) I like to take my Roberts RD60 into the garden with me. I use headphones because I don’t want to disturb the neighbours with radio. I prefer the RD60 for this to a personal pocket sized radio because I am in a pocketless mode and the RD60 will sit very squarely on the grass and is so easy to change volume or station.

On hearing of Michael Jackson’s death I found myself downloading some of his music and viewing his performances on YouTube.

When Jackson was at his absolute height of fame, releasing Thriller I was spending a great deal of my time in nightclubs, doing all the youth type things. If you’d asked me if I liked Michael Jackson I would have said no. I would have believed my answer to be honest, but in fact when Michael Jackson was played I loved it on the dancefloor, the strange thing is I didn’t really notice this anomaly. At the time I was only into groups that were “cool” and had a sense of authenticity about them. Michael Jackson was more from the showbiz world and someone I would have turned my nose up at.

I don’t listen to pop music at home now at all unless it comes on the radio. However listening to Michael Jackson’s music I can see now that it was no coincidence that he worked so well on the dancefloor.

In the later years his life was overshadowed by various allegations and his own eccentric behaviour. However if we put that aside then we see that as an entertainer he really was unparalleled.

Personally I believe he was a harmless individual who was very immature. In time we will come to see the pillaring he received as being indicative of a terrible failing of ours not to simply allow people to be different.

He was the victim of an angry small minded mob. If we think of his attempts to change his appearance as being like that of Frankenstein’s to create the monster, then we have played the role of the torch carrying mob in the Shelley’s tale.

Living as I do in Hove I became interested in the Sussex Mac Users’ Group email discussion list and susbscribed on 17 February thinking that it might be enjoyable to chat to other Mac users in the sussex area. The info at the  Sussex Mac Users’ Group website certainly suggests that this is what it is for.

Unfortunately what is not explained at the group’s website is that  the email discussion list receives and distributes promotional emails from retailers such as Cancom UK.

Two days after I joined an email was sent to the list from a Cancom UK representative with the subject title: On the subject of Quark….

But if you go to the Quark 8 page at the Quark website you will see that in fact a 60 day test drive is available from there. So, there really is no need to go to Cancom UK to get a 60 day test drive.

On the same day, 19 February, an email is sent to Sussex Mac Users’ Group asking:

Six minutes later Cancom UK responds:

What is not mentioned is that you can buy it from Amazon UK for £59.80 at this time. You will not have to pay any delivery charge with Amazon’s Super Saver Delivery option.

On 25 February an email is sent to the discussion list with the subject title: “expanding hard drive”:

All the following emails I quote take place in the thread “expanding hard drive” on 25 February.            

Within thirty three minutes of the “expanding hard drive” enquiry an email arrives from Cancom UK:

By now I’ve had enough of this, so I send an email myself:

This is followed by a contribution from another list subscriber addressing the Cancom UK representative:

The Cancom UK representative responds to my email:

And the Cancom UK representative responds to the other subscriber’s email:

He refers to the special offers he is going to continue to send, such as the Quark one. That’s the 60 days free of charge trial which you can get from Quark by simply going to their website. 

A different retailer, someone with a very large graphic “signature” in their email advertising services for Macs and PCs sends an email to the list:

One retailer defends another. The retailer refers to the iWork suite “offer” but of course iWork is available at Amazon for less than that offer as I’ve pointed out. It is revealed that the person enquiring about whether it is simple or not to upgrade the hard-drive in her Mac got an email giving a quote for her to do this job off-list as well as the quote to do the job on-list.

To this email I respond:

There then follows a series of emails which are in favour of being offered these “discounts”:

First:

Second:

Third:

Fourth:

Fifth:

I now send the following email:

Having unsubscribed I don’t have any knowledge about the discussion which followed however I felt that my expectations of the Sussex Mac Users’ Group were very different from those of the other participants.

I do feel that the description of the group at their website should be changed. That retailers use it for promotion should be explicit. It is not possible to view the messages in the list before subscribing because the archive can only be read by members.

Getting a Romanian <-> English dictionary is surprisingly difficult. At present there is only one available new, Dictionary English-Romanian Romanian-English by Mircea Manolache, from here on in I am going to call it the Manolache dictionary. Some months ago I bought the Manolache dictionary from Amazon but I’ve found that for me the dictionary has problems.

When I look up words in the Manolache dictionary the accents are different from those of my Teach Yourself Romanian book. All Romanian I see in print agrees with my Teach Yourself Romanian book and my Romanian Grammar book, but not the Manolache dictionary. Maybe there is a different system for accents historically and this was changed at some stage. Anyway the Manolache dictionary seems to put accute accents over ‘e’ and ‘i’ frequently. The one over the ‘i’ is particularly confusing because the Romanian I am learning does put an accent over the i, the circumflex but not at the same times as the accute accent in the Manolache dictionary.

For me this disparity meant that I wanted to get another dictionary, but it really seems that the Manolache is the only Romanian <-> English dictionary currently available new.

At Amazon I noticed N.T.C.’s Romanian and English Dictionary by Andrei Bantaş. This is available only second-hand, and so must no longer be in print. From Amazon, of course, I could not tell if the accents were going to be as I wanted them, so it was a gamble. Things were not made easier by the review by Morven Fyfe-Stoica who wrote:

The dictionary was actually coming from a shop in the USA, so it took a week or so to get to me. When I opened it I was delighted to see the accents as I wanted them, no acutes over the ‘e’s or ‘i’s.

The next question in my mind concerned that of Morven Fyfe-Stoica’s review, that the Bantaş dictionary does not give the genders for the nouns. However I could see that the genders for the nouns are included, beside peşte for fish, is sm., abbreviation for substantive masculine, beside peşteră for cave is sf., abbreviation for substantive feminine and beside petic for patch is sn., abbreviation for substantive neuter.

I think that if you are looking for a Romanian <-> English dictionary the one to get is N.T.C.’s Romanian and English Dictionary by Andrei Bantaş. You can’t get it new but it is worth picking up second-hand.

The Moulton Bicycle Company has a new website and it looks lovely.

Moulton bicycles have been manufactured for 50 years by several companies but recently Alex Moulton Bicycles in Bradford on Avon and the “Moulton part” of Pashley in Stratford upon Avon came together to form this new company, the Moulton Bicycle Company. Now the full range of space frame Moultons appear on this single website.

I think the Price Icon idea is rather good. According to the website:

“Moulton bicycles range in price from £900 to £10,000 depending on the model and specification. The price icon gives a relative scale for the price of each model in the range.”

I guess the prices vary from country to country, maybe even dealer to dealer, but it is good to know at a glance that the TSR 9 is cheaper than the New Series Double Pylon.

I really like the Heritage page. This gives a historical overview and key dates in the development of the Moulton Bicycle. This heritage illustrates that the Moulton bicycle has been designed as a full alternative to the classic diamond framed bicycle. Because the Moulton bicycle has small wheels often people mistake it for being a compromised folding bicycle design or something like that.

So, all in all, I feel the new website is a great success!

For some years I’d been using one of the high tech contemporary jackets with synthetic materials and for the first couple of years it faired pretty well but as it got older it started to leak quite badly in the seams.

I was very attracted to the idea of waxed cotton as the seams are just as well protected as the rest of the garment so in October 2007 I bought a Carradice Duxback rain jacket.

It gets used a lot, for the the jacket is by far the most used cycling clothing item because I use it while commuting. Only in the summer do I go without it. It seems to be wearing well. It is not yet old enough for me to assess durability of its weatherproofing but indications are good.

There are pros and cons and things to be aware of with this jacket.

The hood is great in that it allows you to look over your shoulder while you are wearing it. It seems to be cut in a particular way to facilitate this. A problem with the hood is that if it is not worn on the head and hanging down while it is raining then the hood rubs against the back of the jacket and will create a damp patch. In light rain I find this is a nuisance because there is a tendency for me to put the hood on for a while, then take it off. The hood can be unzipped completely.

When I bought this jacket I got the largest one they make. My waistline varies a fair bit over the year and when it is larger then the jacket starts to become quite close fitting. This jacket is not very big and I think that the smaller sizes must be really quite small.

The jacket only has one pocket on the back. This is a normally shaped pocket on the right side of the back, it’s not one of those wide ones going across the whole of the back. For me this is okay but some people might like more pockets.

There is no lining, just a bit up at the top near the collar and in the hood. I like this because in mild weather I can wear a light shirt and the jacket, it is an ideal combination. If I want another layer when it is colder I can put one on.

Overall I feel good about the Carradice jacket.

Owing to an improvement in the recycling facilities in Hove we can now recycle telephone directories. I never knew why it was that we couldn’t but at least now we can.

I wonder why we get them in the first place. I haven’t used one in years. It just looks to me like an incredible waste of paper to keep distributing them to everyone willy nilly.

Reinforcing my point rather, I got two identical yellow pages recently. I put them straight into the recycling box as you can see in the pic.

Isn’t it crazy?

There are two things I really like about iWork ‘09. The outliner in Pages and iWork.com. The later suits me very well indeed. I find myself doing quite a lot of collaborative projects. The last one I did I used Google Docs. While Google Docs gives 100% editability to all participants the actual Google Doc that is produced is not very pretty. I would then have to create something nice from this.

With iWork.com the uploaded document is not editable like a Google Doc, but rather participants can leave comments on it. This is fine by me because that is all that is required. However the actual document is a very nice looking thing. It is much easier for me to update the nice looking iWork document with the contents of the comments by the others, rather than convert a Google Doc into something presentable.

For those that are creating newsletters and that kind of thing with Pages iWork.com would be really a fabulous thing to have.

I have one concern about the iWork.com which is the email that is automatically sent out to the invited participants. This is an HTML email with a link embedded in a graphic to open the iWork.com document in their browser. The problem is that if they are using a plain text only email client then I suspect they are going to be receiving an incomprehensible mess. The actual link is shown at the bottom of the email that is sent but it is approximately one mile long. There doesn’t seem to be any Plain Text Alternative included with the outgoing email. What I’d like to see is a plain text alternative with a short link that would not be in risk of having line breaks inserted by the email system.

When cycling in the rain the best clothing item I know of is the bike cape. In the US this is known as a poncho.

I have two in fact. One is a cheap yellow plastic one that has lasted for years and is still good today. The only real problem I had with it was that it was just a bit too small for me. For short commutes this was no problem, but with longer commutes then it was a nuisance.

In November 2007 I bought a new cape from Carradice. It is the Duxback Rain Poncho (Super). You can see it at their website here. In that pic there are the trousers, spats and jacket. I also have the jacket but I’m saving writing about that for a future post. I bet you can’t wait!

You can see mine in the pic above. There it is taken from the back. It’s not a very photogenic item and not very flattering when worn.

The great thing about the cape is that it goes over the bars and hands and is tent-like. The bottom is open and so it remains well ventilated. It is rather an old fashioned thing but it beats the very hi-tech modern designs of bicycle clothing imho. When I do wear the cape I confess I feel a bit like the District Nurse, but I haven’t got the uniform to go with it.

For a long time I have dismissed the possibility of recumbent bicycles for wet weather cycling simply because there is no way you could wear a cape on one. However I see there is a German company called Alfred’s AWS buiding cape-like things for recumbents. I don’t know if they would be regarded as clothing or fairings. It all looks rather complicated compared with simply wearing the cape on the regular bicycle but it is good to see that such things exist.

The Sun newspaper has printed a rather good article about ghost bikes which can be found here. For those outside the UK I will mention that generally The Sun is associated with being right wing and pro car notably with a regular column by outspoken car enthusiast Jeremy Clarkson.

Amongst others they mention James Danson-Hatcher who was killed whilst riding his bicycle in the South Downs close to where I live. A ghost bicycle was placed where he died.

In a short film I made with a team called The Right of Way we mention James Danson-Hatcher at the end and film the ghost bicycle. The film can be viewed here.

I read in the Brighton Area Cyclists email group that the ghost bicycle in the South Downs has been removed. The Brighton based cycling pressure group Bricycles has been campaigning for a lower speed limit on the road where James was killed but this has not been introduced. I know the road well and cars drive along it at a very high speed.

I remember filming the ghost bike, it was very poignant. I did it with my filming friend Hyun-suk Yoo. It was cold and windy and the cars were going past at very great speed. There was something utterly heartless about the traffic. I felt angry that their desire to drive so fast is considered more important than someone’s life.

The final shot of the film is of a cyclist who is crossing the road where James was killed. He has dismounted and is crossing with great care. I felt this scene showed that it is indeed the car drivers who rule here.