The Blueprint Podcast

 

 Episode 75 - Noise Theft [26:46m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

We like to stick a flag on world events once in a while, and with the recent pointless conviction of the founders of Pirate Bay, we tackle noise theft in this episode.

Having reloaded their special foot-shooting gun some years after taking down Napster and causing file-sharing to become the many-headed monster that it is today, the people who themselves live in order to make huge sums of money from the work of creative people who are paid far less have done it again.

Pirate Bay is still there, and even if it wasn’t, Mininova is, and so is Piraboogle and all the rest of them.

Spotify, which is pretty much the same thing that Napster suggested ten years ago, has now occupied a position whereby everything is legal, the music industry make money out of it, and the consumer gets instant access to free tunes. Perfect, if wholly ridiculous that they didn’t just let Napster provide the same service back in the day.

They could do the same thing with movies and TV shows if they felt like it. In fact, I can legally watch On Demand television through my Virgin Media connection, but if I miss, say Lost one day and wanted to catch up with it the next, it would be illegal for me to download the episode using bittorrent using the same connection. Mental.

The Napster case just fragmented the issue and made it unmanageable for years. The Pirate Bay issue will do the same thing again, and here’s the kicker – it was fragmented already, because bittorrent doesn’t rely on one website’s existence to work. It relies on bittorrent clients which are available for free download. Even those are plentiful.

The lawyers can play Whack-A-Mole until they retire, and it’s they who are really sucking the money out of the music and DVD industries. They’re the ones who have somehow got people convinced that chasing website owners is better than actually trying to do something positive about the way that copyrighted content is delivered in the 21st Century.

Spotify works, so create the exact same service for movies and TV shows, you absolute bunch of idiots.

Rant over. We also give you a scat singing masterclass during this episode, but not before a thrilling game of Dog Bingo.

We hope you enjoy this week’s podcast. This week’s photo is of some file sharing.

File sharing - Always use clean files

And for good measure, here’s a picture of Reveen as well, since we talk about him this week.

Reveen. He wants you to relax with him

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 Episode 74 - You Have Been Watching... [20:09m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Remember when British sitcoms used to end with “You Have Been Watching…” and then a montage of clips of each of the stars with their name captioned on the screen? There were quite a few of them, and we tackle the inaccuracies and untruths within one British sitcom this week, or at least Chris does despite Dave’s protests that it wasn’t meant to be real.

We’re coming to you from Barnsley once again, and although we are still a bit hungover, we’re a using sentences a bit more than we were last week.

Please sponsor Chris’s continuing charity moustache, then join us next week for the next thrilling installment of The Blueprint Podcast.

Ruth Madoc in Hi-De-Hi. Chris met her at the Billingham Forum when he was about 18, fact fans. She was very nice.

PS – while looking for Hi-De-Hi related stuff, I’ve just discovered that actress Dianne Holland, who played Yvonne Stewart-Hargreaves in the show, died this February aged 78.  Apparently she was a good laugh in real life.

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Day 17 of the charity moustache in aid of Hartlepool Hospice. I don’t know what people see in having a moustache. It just feels and looks weird on me, anyway.

Charity moustache - day 17

I’d be tremendously grateful to you if you’d be so kind as to sponsor this thing on my face. Many thanks for the incredible generousity of those people who have already donated, and whose kindness will help terminally ill people and their loved ones to experience a better quality of life.

http://www.justgiving.com/chris-tash

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Here’s the day 15 update photo. I am going for a sort of “evil dictator” effect today. Many dictators, evil and otherwise, sported the moustache. Hitler killed that little tash he had as a style option, but other dictators were smart enough to go for a more generic style so that people didn’t use a finger across the top lip to create a simple yet effective impersonation of them.

Please sponsor this moustache at http://www.justgiving.com/chris-tash.

Charity moustache day 15

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 Episode 73 - Hangovers in Barnsley [21:21m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

We greet you this week from some nursing accommodation in a Barnsley hospital, the morning after one of those big nights out where the world becomes your friend and everyone wakes up wondering what day it is and where they are.

We pick our way through the previous evening, and along the way find time for the noble signwriting profession and how it would fit into life in the distant future.

We have to say a very special hello and thanks to John and Patrick, whose 40th birthday party we found ourselves attending in Barnsley. Thanks to you guys, and to your friends and family for making us feel so very welcome, and for letting us have loads of goes on the karaoke and buffet.

Here’s the hospital we recorded this podcast at.

Greetings from Barnsley, one friendly town.

We’ll be back with another Barnsley-based episode next week, join us then at www.blueprintpodcast.com.

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Here’s the current state of play in the moustache world. I look quite considerably older, but not in a cool distinguished kind of way. More in a 1981 “uncle at a wedding” kind of way.

Charity moustache day 10

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