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Student Festival under threat

Sunday, December 16th, 2007

A most interesting article appeared in The Sunday Times today called “Save our student Festival” reporting that the National Student Drama Festival may have its Arts Council funding withdrawn.

The history of the festival dates back 50 years and has an amazing alumni of British talent behind it. It usually takes place around Easter time over a period of seven days and is scheduled to take place between the 15th – 21st March 2008 next year.

Even Sandi Toksvig, the wonderfully witty and entertaining broadcaster who appears in The Sunday Times magazine today has used the festival as a stepping-stone to her success.

We have joined in the call and signed the petition in the hope that the Arts Council will change their minds and return funding to a much needed arts institution.

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Marketing Interview to come…

Thursday, December 13th, 2007

Technology: you love it or hate it! Some performers are comfortable with it and some are not! Oliver Lansley appears comfortable with technology and has produced three Virtual Flyers promoting his show, The Terrible Infants: 2006 Ed Fringe; 2007 Prague Fringe; and the 2007 Ed Fringe. He has just returned with his theatre group after a successful tour performing his show in Poland.

I wanted to learn more about how Oliver approaches the marketing of his show. When I managed to catch up with him he was happy to talk about how he goes about marketing his show and producing his Virtual Flyers.

With the festive season approaching things are slowing down….. so stay tuned for a great interview to come…..

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Hacker Attacker

Sunday, December 9th, 2007

Following the hacker attack on its customer database, Fasthost has asked all customers to change their passwords. Yesterday we received the following:

Due to continued efforts to increase the security of our servers and the security/protection of all of our customers, on 13 December 2007 all mailbox passwords will be reset.”

Since mid-October we have been experiencing occasional problems accessing our website (writing up new web pages; setting up customer’s Virtual Flyers; and problems with our e-mail services).

We regularly watch the BBC2 programme Working Lunch, which reported on the problem, and we wondered if this was the reason for our email problems and being locked out of the website. The BBC reported that all customer passwords will be reset on the 13th which co-insides with what we have just been sent yesterday. Basically it would seem to boil down to: (1) they previously stored the passwords in plain text and (2) they’ve been hacked. Incredulity was expressed in the programme that the passwords were stored in plain text.

We can confirm that we are not aware of any intrusion on our website and that all our customer details are secure. We sincerely apologise for any slowness in responding to emails, writing up of your virtual flyers and your requests for new festival web pages.

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Trans Musicales Festival

Friday, December 7th, 2007

The Trans Musicales Festival takes place in Rennes, France each year. This year it celebrates its 28th birthday and is the place to discover all the latest talent out there. This annual festival is the hub for all those young and aspiring musicians to strut their innovative and revolutionary musical styles, gain an audience and hopefully fame. Over the three days and nights of the festival (6th December – 8th December) Rennes rocks in the cold weather but nobody feels it, the atmosphere is too hot!

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Festival of the Radishes

Tuesday, December 4th, 2007

The humble radish is celebrated in Oaxaca, Mexico at the “Fiesta de los Rabanos”. This normally boring vegetable is carved, spliced, chopped, nipped and tucked into exquisite shapes and scenes offering up all manner of fascinating sculptures. These are not however your normal everyday radishes; these are locally grown and weigh approximately seven pounds.

Prizes for the best and most original artwork are awarded to the local contestants. Live music, traditional dancing, local food stalls, various musical events, evening fireworks and piñata contests make this a most unusual festival. I came across Suzanne Barbazat’s amazing photos which let you see these remarkable sculptures in detail!

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