It’s my birthday again today. I now only have two years of my twenties left. I’ll be spending it in London.
Month: May 2012
10,000 tweets
Last night I posted my 10,000th tweet, although as I had been anticipating it, it was an announcement rather than just something random:
And this is my 10,000th tweet! Only taken almost 5 years…
— Neil Turner (@nrturner) May 21, 2012
I joined Twitter on the 1st of June 2007, so it’s taken me a mere 11 days shy of 5 years to tweet that much. My blog post at the time implied a little animosity – perhaps because this was yet another social network to join. I’d only joined Facebook a few months previously. And I don’t think I imagined Twitter would become as popular as it has today.
Although 10,000 tweets over 5 years implies 2,000 tweets per year, it’s probable that my tweet rate (number of tweets per day) has been much higher over the past 18 months, what with having a smartphone that can tweet at any time. Before, I’d have to use a computer or send a text message.
Whether I’ll still be using Twitter in 5 years remains to be seen, but it’s done well so far.
Listening to books
Those who know me well know that I don’t ‘do’ books. I’m never find reading a book – it’s always either a magazine, or, most likely, a phone or computer screen. And I particularly don’t do fiction – what I read tends to be factual, news, or opinion pieces.
However, this does not mean that I completely ignore books. One or two books have come out recently that have intrigued me, but I don’t really have the time to read them. Thankfully, someone came up with the idea of the audiobook; you can listen to someone – usually the author – read the book to you, so you don’t have to.
This may seem lazy but there are times when having your head in a book is impractical – like walking to work, or at the gym. This is why I’m growing to like audiobooks – you can do something else whilst listening (although, in my experience at least, nothing that requires a large amount of concentration).
I’m only on my second audiobook so far, which I’ve downloaded from Audible, Amazon’s audiobook store. The first was ‘How to be a Woman’ by Caitlin Moran (Amazon Link). You may wonder why a heterosexual male like me has any interest in a semi-autobiographical feminist book, but I would call myself a feminist, since anyone who believes that men and women should have the same rights and opportunities can call themselves a feminist, whether they themselves are male or female. Plus, it’s a very good read – or, listen, in my case – and may have you laughing out loud.
Having finished that, I’ve started on ‘God Collar’ by Marcus Brigstocke (Amazon Link), another lefty-liberal book, but this time on religion and atheism in particular. So far I’m only around half an hour into it, but as someone who enjoys Marcus’ stand-up routines I’ve not been disappointed.
Both books are around the same length – about 8 and a half hours – and the first took me exactly a month to listen through. Unfortunately, some days I can only fit in around 20-25 minutes of listening as I walk to and from the railway station, so it’s only when I go to the gym that I get to listen in longer stints, which hasn’t happened as often as it should lately. In fact, Saturday was the first time I’d been to the gym since, um, February. Ooops.
With this in mind, I’m on Audible’s 1 book credit per month package at the moment, whereby you pay a monthly subscription and get one free audiobook included with it. Subsequent books bought in that month cost extra, and that can be a big extra cost – although there’s a sale on, to buy ‘How to be a Woman’ at full price would set you back over £20, as opposed to £7 for the dead-tree actual book and only £3.67 to read on a Kindle. That said, the 1 credit package is £8 per month – cheaper than £20, but still quite a bit of money to pay every month. If I’m able to get through one audiobook a month, and don’t run out of things to read, then I suppose it’s worth it, but it’s not cheap. I’ll see how I go.
Playing back audiobooks from Audible can be done in a couple of ways. Support for Audible’s .aa format has been built into iTunes for a few years now and so audiobooks can be played back on almost all iPods, including those that don’t run on iOS. For those that do run on iOS, you can either use iTunes, and play the audiobooks in the Music app, or you can install the Audible app which runs on the iPhone and iPod Touch (but not the iPad as yet). The app lets you manage audiobooks on the device without having to involve iTunes, and has a few advanced features like stepping back 30 seconds if you get briefly distracted. It doesn’t, however, let you purchase more audiobooks from within the app – presumably because Amazon doesn’t want to give a 30% cut of its sales to Apple.
So, that’s me and audiobooks. If you have any suggestions for other books that I should be listening to, let me know in the comments.
Cinemas and Sowerby Bridge
When we moved to Sowerby Bridge almost 18 months ago (no, I can’t believe it has been that long either), one thing I moved away from was an easily accessible cinema. In Bradford, I was well catered for – the Cineworld multiplex by the Interchange shows all of the new releases, plus there’s the National Media Museum showing IMAX films as well as regular films in its Pictureville and Cubby Broccoli cinemas.
But Sowerby Bridge doesn’t have a cinema of its own; nor does neighbouring Halifax, although this will change this summer when a Vue multiplex opens opposite the bus station. The nearest big cinemas are back in Bradford, or the Odeon in Huddersfield, although its out of town location makes it awkward to get to without a car.
As the crow flies, the Rex Cinema in Elland is closest, although getting there by bus means changing at Halifax which is a bit of a pain (Elland’s railway station closed in 1962, and though there’s talk of building a new one, no plans have come to fruition). It’s a small, independent cinema which shows films every evening, but these aren’t usually the latest and tend not to be the big blockbusters. Same for the Hebden Bridge Picture House, further up the valley, which I wrote about in January.
But it wasn’t always like this. Sowerby Bridge, like many towns in days gone by, did have its own cinema. In fact, it had two – both on Wharf Street, the main road through the town.
Electric Cinema
The first was the Electric Cinema. The building dates from 1915, although the exact date that it opened seems to be disputed by various web sites and may have been as late as 1917. It later became the Roxy Cinema, and was operated by Gaumont Cinemas until 1951, with an impressive capacity of over 800. It closed in 1962, where upon the building lay dormant until 1972, when it became a bingo hall. Sometime around 2009, the owners converted it into a bistro and late opening venue, which is how it survives today. [Credit: Malcolm Bull’s Calderdale Companion [1] [2], Bingo VG]
Essoldo Cinema
The other cinema, which was literally around 200 metres further down the high street was the Regent Cinema, opened in 1939. It became the Essoldo Cinema ten years later in 1949, before closing in 1967, again to become a bingo hall. More recently the bingo hall shut and the building was converted into shops, and now houses a charity pound shop and a newsagent. [Credit: Malcolm Bull: [1] [2]]
Although it’s good that both buildings survive and are in use (something that sadly can’t be said for Bradford’s 1930s former Odeon cinema), it’s a shame that the town hasn’t managed to retain a cinema despite having two at one point. Still, it will be nice for Halifax to have a cinema again, even though it will be a big multiplex run by a national firm, rather than the small, independent community cinemas in Elland and Hebden Bridge.