Grant's Blog

iPhone 4 box After almost 2 years without an iPhone, my 4th generation  phone arrived by courier yesterday!  The new model was released here in NZ on 30th July, just over a month after the US release.  I went for a black 32GB phone, which will allow me to store my entire music collection, plus lots of photos and videos.  The iPhone 4 is noticeably faster and now comes with 2 cameras - a VGA camera for video calling and a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash for photos and videos.  Recorded videos look really good now too, thanks to the use of HD 720p .  It also now comes with 2 mics which provide noise cancellation, meaning calls should always sound clear.  The best feature though would have to be the new Retina display  screen, which is much brighter and clearer than previous models. Interestingly, it's the first model to use a  micro-SIM card , which is about half the size of a standard SIM card.  Luckily  Telecom  is now selling these new cards in NZ, which means I

Vauxhall Insignia I spent the past few days at the British International Motor Show , which is running for almost 2 weeks at the ExCeL Exhibition Centre in London.  There were some amazing looking cars on display, with 8 new models being unveiled (including the one above).  I took over 150 photos and have uploaded them  here . There was also a Music Festival during the show, with different bands playing over 10 nights.  I went along to see Deep Purple and Chicago , which were both very good.  Deep Purple's Steve Morse  was amazing on the guitar!  The performance was their only London show for the year, while Chicago were performing as part of a world tour to promote their latest album - Chicago XXXII: Stone of Sisyphus .  I was surprised how much like Peter Cetera the lead vocalist/bassist,  Jason Scheff , sounded.  I've also uploaded photos from the concerts to the link above.

Fans queuing outside the cinema I was lucky enough to attend the Genesis When In Rome DVD Premiere last night.  It was held at the Odeon cinema in Kensington and broadcast live to 20 other cinemas throughout the UK and Europe.  The Come Rain Or Shine documentary was shown, along with a few songs from the concert footage.  The concert was filmed in front of over 500,000 people in Rome last July, which I also attended.  Here's the trailer for the documentary and a video of the opening song from the concert, Duke's Intro . The event was hosted by actor  Philip Glenister , who mentioned being a fan of the band as a teenager in the 70s.  He recalled the first time he listened to One For The Vine from the album Wind & Wuthering  and thought it was the most beautiful song he'd ever heard.  Tony Banks, Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford were also in attendance for a Q&A session afterwards.  When asked, Phil said he was most proud of his drumming on No Son o

Lake Ullswater Had a great time at the Lake District  over the Easter break!  There was heavy snow on Saturday night and it looked amazing on Sunday morning.  It was a very clear day and everything was covered in thick snow. The landscape is very similar to back home in NZ, though the lakes are longer and narrower. There are some nice little towns like Ambleside and Bowness-on-Windermere . There was an aquarium beside Lake Windermere, which had both local fish as well as tropical and marine fish from overseas.  We also went on an hour long walk to see Aira Force , an impressive waterfall near Lake Ullswater. Took lots of photos and some movies on my camera.  I've uploaded photos from the trip  here .  We stayed at the  New Ing Lodge in Shap, which was about 45 minutes drive to the lakes. There were a lot of Kiwis staying there from London and one of the staff had also lived in Queenstown for a few years. He'd even put up a Speights poster on the wall in the dining area.

iPhone box The Apple iPhone  was released here in the UK last Friday, almost 5 months after the US release.  I went into an O2 store at the Lakeside Shopping Centre in Thurrock yesterday to check them out and was so impressed I bought one!  It's an amazing example of technology - a touchscreen phone with a built-in 8GB iPod and 2 megapixel camera!  It's very easy to use and the Cover Flow feature is really cool too.  There's also a loudspeaker that can be used as a speakerphone and for listening to music.  Hopefully future models will have stereo speakers. Now that I have a portable music player, I'm in heaven on the trains!  I can even check my email while listening to music.  The email application uses IMAP , so any changes I make are synchronised with my Gmail account over the mobile phone network or a Wi-Fi network.  If I'm listening to music when a call comes in, the music fades out and fades back in after the call has ended.  I don't even n

Early evening with the stage in the distance Well, I made it to Rome for the free Genesis concert on Saturday night!  The performance started at 9.30pm at the Circus Maximus park, which is where the Live 8 concert was held a few years ago.  The park is an ancient hippodrome used for chariot racing by the Romans. The concert was originally going to be held at the Colosseum, though had to be moved for logistical reasons.  The audience was huge and there must have been at least a few hundred thousand people in attendance!  It was great to see the large screen and light show from a distance this time around.  It was the band's final European show on the tour and was also filmed for a forthcoming live DVD.  I managed to book flights and accommodation through lastminute.com , flying from Heathrow on British Airways at midday on Saturday and returning on Sunday afternoon.  The flight was 2 hours, so not too long.  The weather was certainly warmer though!  Luckily, the Bettoja Ho

Phil taking photos of the audience What a weekend!  I was at Wembley Stadium on Saturday to see Genesis perform at the Live Earth concert and at Twickenham Stadium on Sunday to see their only London concert for the tour. After listening to their music for over 20 years, it was great to finally see them live.  They played a 20 minute opening set on Saturday afternoon, leaving straight afterwards to travel to Manchester for their own concert that night.  I nearly didn't get to attend Sunday night's concert, as all 100,000 tickets for the Manchester and London shows  sold out in only 90 minutes last December!  Luckily, an online auction was held a few days later, where I was able to bid for a seat in the first 10 rows :)  Twickenham was a fantastic show, I was in the second row right in front of Phil's  mic!  Great to see all the band members close up, with the stage purposely designed so they were close together.  As with previous tours, they were using the lat

Promotional poster Just got home from the Vue cinema in Finchley Road, watching Genesis perform at the LTU Arena in Dusseldorf .  The concert was broadcast live in High Definition and Dolby 5.1 surround sound to 40 cinemas throughout the UK, Spain and Sweden.  Apparently it was the largest live broadcast in cinema to date!  There were a few problems with the sound, which were probably due to satellite issues, though they were fixed quickly.  There were about 40 people in the cinema, though the audience at the stadium in Germany was huge!  Seeing the concert on the big screen was like watching a live DVD. The band are currently performing across Europe for their Turn It On Again tour .  They decided to broadcast tonight's show due to both UK concerts selling out within only a few hours last year.  Unfortunately they weren't able to put on extra UK shows, as the venues were all booked out by then. Can't wait until the real thing at Twickers in a few weeks!

Piazza San Marco Square, Venice I'm now back in London after my recent European Explorer Contiki tour , which covered 16 countries in 33 days and included a 4 day cruise through the Greek Islands! It was certainly an experience, with a very busy schedule and lots of long days on the bus.  The bus song was Love Today by Mika , which was played each morning as we set off for the day.  The highlights for me were Barcelona , Lucerne and the cruise. The views from Mount Pilatus were stunning, while the cruise was a welcome break from the bus.  There was only myself and one other Kiwi on the tour. Most of the tour group were Australian, with a few Americans and Canadians. My American roommate introduced me to a new social networking site called Facebook . Looks like most of the group will be using it to keep in touch after the tour.

Red Ginger flower, Singapore Zoo After using APS cameras for many years, I decided it was time to get a digital camera while in Singapore last week.  I went for a Sony DSC-T100  in silver, which also comes in red and black.  It has 8.1 megapixels, 5 x optical zoom and 3-inch screen.  The large screen is very clear and bright, making it great for viewing extreme closeup mode shots.  It can also be connected to an HDTV screen at 1080i resolution and supports memory sticks up to 8GB.  Sony include a 1GB stick, though I also bought a 4GB one.  I nearly went for an 8GB, though it was the same price as the camera! I also spent a day at the Singapore Zoo  testing out the camera.  I've uploaded all the photos from my Singapore visit  here .

Old Town, Lijiang I recently returned from a 3 week trip to the Yunnan province  in southwest China.  I flew from Auckland to Bangkok for a 1 night stopover, then onto the province capital Kunming the following day.  The trip also included visits to  Jinghong and Lijiang .  China was certainly an interesting experience compared to other Asian countries I've visited, namely Singapore and Thailand.  The first thing that struck me was the fact that most people don't speak any English at all.  Smoking is also more common there among the men, especially when eating. Kunming was similar to Auckland, though with around 4 million more people.  Jinghong was similar to Thailand, with palm trees and a very hot and humid climate.  The temperature was around 40 degrees most days, forcing people to stay inside during the afternoon.  The locals took this opportunity to sleep, which allowed them to stay out later in the evening.  A Water Festival was being held to ce