For thems that don’t know, Hago is a classical guitar orchestra based in, well Hampshire surprisingly. The Orchestra was formed by Derek Hasted in 1999 and will be celebrating its 100^th concert in June of this year. The Orchestra has raised a shedload of cash for both local and national charities and fully intend to continue in that vein.

Hago has performed in venues all over the South of England and play music which is as varied as the sizes of instruments they use; from Baroque to Spanish, The Beatles to Dvorak on four different sizes of guitar. There’s the tiny Alto, the baby of the family (but the most tricky to play!) the Prime (the ‘ordinary’ one we all know well) the Bass (bigger than the Prime and lower in pitch) and finally the Contra (which the Hago Director states is a little like a wardrobe in its size!) this has the lowest pitch of all the four.

So yes, all very interesting you say but so what? Well here’s where you come in. Hago are playing a once-only concert on 26^th May 2012 at All Saints Church, Milford-on-Sea. It’s on behalf of Naomi House and Jack’s Place and tickets are £8 in advance or £10 on the door. These can be purchased by calling 01962 672457 or email Nicole.denison@naomihouse.org.uk  Or send an SAE & cheques payable to The Wessex Children’s Hospice Trust to Nicole Denison, Naomi House fundraising office, Unit 3, Sun Valley Business Park, Winnall Close, Winchester, SO23 OLB.

If you haven’t heard about them, Naomi House and Jack’s Place are two children’s hospices based at Sutton Scotney in Hampshire. They provide support to children and young people with life-limiting conditions from all over the South of England. The two units mean that the hospices can provide care structured to the needs of both younger and older children as well as now also helping young adults (over 18’s) at the recently opened Jack’s Place.

The hospices provide a range of service from end of life care to respite care, bereavement services and family support. They also provide a hospice at home service. It costs £5 million to keep the hospices running each year; only 10% of these costs are paid using money given by the department of health which means a staggering £4.5million must be found through charitable work and donations.

So there you have it, a worthy cause and a good time. Unbeatable. If you need further convincing some of the music being played is as follows;

Plink Plank Plunk

Bransle de la Torche  (See Below)

Penny Lane

Elizabethan Serenade

Danza Cubana

plus more which you’ll only find out about if you go!

There’s a simple rule for such walking, when you come to a fork in the path, choose the path which goes away from the direction you were intending to go. So we did. And ended up at the back end of Rhinefield House, a somewhat imposing hotel on the far side of the moor. Not that you can see it from the front, but there was a Dr Who moment when we realised that what we were looking at wasn’t a dark wood but a large smoked glass extension to the hotel. Hidden in plain site due to its mirroring of the Inclosure next to it. Spooky, but effective none-the -less.

So having figured out where we were we made our way to Rhinefield Road and crossed it with the idea of returning to Hincheslea Moor via Whitefield Moor by walking through the Aldridge Hill Inclosure . It was a plan which to an extent worked. It would have probably worked better if we hadn’t still been using the navigation technique outlined previously. Still, by the time we emerged from the trees blinking next to the cottage at the Aldridge Hill campsite, we were totally sure of where we were. Walking along the narrow road from the front entrance to the campsite brought us to the edge of Whitefield Moor. Plain sailing from now on.

You know how New Forest ponies just stand around eating gorse and such in a particularly studious way that you think they may have lost the ability to move? Don’t be fooled. Halfway across Whitefield Moor, grassy, no trees, we noticed a herd of about fifteen ponies hammering along on the other side of the road. It looked so impressive that we stopped to watch. The sight became more and more impressive as they wheeled right and started to belt straight towards us at a rate of knots. Knowing we had absolutely no chance of beating galloping ponies to the cover of the gorse we stopped dead and prayed they would notice. Fortunately they did about thirty feet from us whilst two ponies we assumed were stallions engaged in a bit of fisticuffs. One gained the upper hand (hoof?) and saw the other off and the herd turned to the the right and set off again.

The rest of the walk turned out to be pretty uneventful by contrast although any suggestion of hoof-beats had us both glancing nervously behind! It just goes to show that the New Forest ponies really are wild and should be treated with respect, not as some sort of petting zoo exhibits. In the end I reckon that we had walked around 6 miles, not a bad distance all told. In case you’re interested, below is a very crude map of the route we took.

One lives in hope. If my tv had its own voice it would probably have said ‘I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that’. Funny how one always expects electronic goods of any sort to start channeling HAL when things go wrong. Blue or Yellow made no odds. Change channel, turn off, turn back on, message in black box. So I thought maybe it’s imminent and therefore necessary that I do something right now. So I Googled when the digital switchover was due putting in my postcode and noticed that my house name or number was also requested. A little strange, so I made use of the ‘Why do you need this?’ link only to be told that the results would be a lot more accurate if I input this detail.

Now I’m no expert on public transmitters, digital or otherwise, but I have the sneaking suspicion that, unless you live on a road the length of the M3 the number of your house isn’t going to make that much difference to which transmitter you are getting your signal from. This suspicion was born out when the results came back saying ‘The Rowridge transmitter in the Meridian TV region is your most likely transmitter.’ So much for accuracy.

Expecting the changeover date to be that night because of the insistence of my tv, I was a little surprised to see that it was in March 2012. A horrible thought then dawned on me, what if this was going to happen every time I changed channel or switched on until Spring next year? Fortunately it seemed that there was to be no repeat the following day, or the day after. One cannot help but have the sneaking suspicion that the black box may be appearing again before we are launched into the digital wonderland next March. One last little point to give us all the feeling this will all go fine and dandy is a note on the Digital UK website which says “You won’t see these messages if you already watching digital TV (e.g Sky TV, Freview or another) or if your aerial is pointing at another transmitter that will switch at a different time.” That worked then and nice to know they can spell ‘Freeview’. Details such as they are below.

It was announced earlier today that The Torch would travel to within ten miles of 90% of the population during its roughly 8000 mile journey. You have to wonder how they do it, I suspect dark arts, or at least Google Maps. Actually at times they seem to be the same thing. Wonder if Google will sponsor it. They could put a camera in The Torch and update a whole bunch of their spy camera Street View images at the same time. I’ve been expecting a knock on the door any time with them offering untold amounts of dosh for my insightful marketing ideas for a while now. Strange it hasn’t happened yet though…

Anyways, for more information than you probably care for on the subject, the Blessed Beeb have the dope on it at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15572381

But if you’re looking for info on whether it’s going to come down your road, don’t hold your breath. At least not unless you can hold it until ‘later in 2012′ which is when the detailed map comes out.

Not suprisingly there is a Wikipedia (aka always utterly, utterly true) entry just on that one guitar. However if you view it any romantic ideas of one man, one guitar are quickly dispelled. Lucille is many. And some weren’t even Gibsons, oh the horror. I guess if you’re not into guitars then that won’t make any sense to you, but at least I didn’t start on about whether the guitar had  a Tune-o-matic bridge or a TP-6 stop tailpiece. It does amuse me how intense some guitarists get about the techie side of things. I’m not one of them, if it sounds right then it is right as far as I am concerned. So get to the point I hear you say. OK, I will.

For I while now, well since I made the mistake of looking on the Dean Guitars website, I have been somewhat enamoured with one of their acoustic guitars. Watching the documentary about the bloke from House and his blues music I saw him play the exact same model. Sounded mighty fine. But still costs money for those of us who aren’t sufficiently gifted or high-profile to have one with our own signature printed on it given free by the kindly manufacturers. But a chance to sell one of my current guitars came up and so taking the plunge I got the object of my desires and sold my previous BFF. Best Friend Forever if you’re not down with da kidz. Whatever.

Which got me thinking. I also own a Fender 12 string electro acoustic JG12CE-12 (image below) which would get played more if there were more blue moons. As it stands it is therefore not only surplus to requirements, it is also an asset. So anyone with 300 of the Queens pounds gets the guitar along with a pretty decent hard case and I get to wonder what delights I can purchase in the music shop next visit. Now that I think you will agree is what we call an equitable agreement. If interested, use the Contact page to send me a message. If not interested, find someone who is and pass it on. Simples.

Following on from that, I must have therefore unknowingly recently used the services of a member of the Techie Magic Circle. Now I don’t know for certain that there is such an august body, but a flawed use of logic suggests there has to be. Anyway, Wife wanted a iPod with all the trimmings on a budget, which could be an iPhone without a valid Sim card. As luck would have it, good friend had an iPhone which had a broken Home button, thus rendering it if not unusable, at least the most frustrating bit of tech he owned and had ditched it at upgrade time. If you have an iPhone, just consider how annoying it would be to have to turn it off and on every time you wanted to switch apps. Not nice.

Enter second friend on Facebook who had broken their iPhone screen and had it repaired in short time for reasonable amount of money i.e. not by Apple. Glowing recommendation for something called corePhone which having all lower case before the Phone bit of the name obviously had to be the real deal. Short email conversation and I was off to Whiteley to get said vagrant iPhone sorted for the very reasonable sum of two £20 promissory notes from the Bank of England. Fixed, tested and now returning home with regularity, that counts I think as a result. Should you require similar help, not just with iPhones, take a look at their website corePhone or call them on 07771 868346. I don’t get anything for this, I just happen to think Apple have a tendency to over-charge and corePhone works.

Having recently had an upgrade to a tad over 10Mbits broadband, I wanted more! So having seen BT’s new series of adverts for fibre-optic broadband I went in search of yet higher speeds. No dice. Lymington (01590) isn’t on the horizon yet, let alone in the centre of the great fibre-optic constellation. So what to do? Well if you are on the Lymington exchange and would like to see even faster than ‘up to 20Mbits’ then you need to vote. No, really. Regrettably few have yet, so get your skates on and go to The Race to Infinity. Yes I know it sounds like something from Toy Story, but if up to 40Mbits broadband appeals, you know what to do.

Having put in a wildlife pond last year, we were delighted to see that the local wildlife had taken the hint and pretty much choked up one end with frogspawn. Our excitement retreated a tad when we went through that short sharp cold snap after we’d been lulled into a false sense of security. I have to confess I have never seen frozen frogspawn before and it wasn’t boding well for Frogs: The Next Generation.

Goes to show what I know. We now have hundreds and hundreds of elongated commas swimming around the pond, and we spotted the most likely culprit when a fairly large frog surfaced only to take fright and crash dive. So a quick census ensued and we concluded that we have enough tadpoles to remake that Star Trek episode with the Tribbles only with tadpoles. Except it would be under water so maybe it would be 20 Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, or in our case a couple of inches under the pond surface. Anyway, there’s an awful lot of them.

As of today it looks like there are a few less as we seem to have a newt moved in as well. A newt with a fondness for tadpoles. And I don’t mean liable to adopt them either. Ah well, as the circle of life goes on, we now have quite a number of snails which we think were seeded when we got some pond water from a friend to accelerate the balancing of the water. Just after the frogspawn was laid, they were gently grazing the spawn so what with the newt and all, we’re beginning to realise why frogs lay quite so many eggs. They have joined a number of pond skimmers and something that looks like an aquatic wood louse, although we don’t think they are involved in culling the tadpoles.

Whisper it quietly, but when the little frogs finally get big enough to leave the pond, they may face yet another ‘life challenge’. In London we had a wildlife pond, frogs came, spawned and we had half a plague full of tiny frogs. As Tiny Cat was still around at the time, and was pretty quick, he was inclined to have some sport with them. Yes we sat him down and explained the issues involved, but since he was a cat, he didn’t get it and continued in his merry way. We still have our other cat, and truth be told she was more likely to suffocate them by sitting on them being somewhat over weight at the time. She is now quite svelte, so it depends on whether her lack of frog hunting ability was size related or just a matter of genetic makeup. For the frogs’ sake you have to hope the latter.

If we get any more wild life in the pond we may have to build an extension or else we may be done for wilfully overcrowding a pond. In the meantime our expectation is a visit from either Kate Humble, Ray Mears or David Attenborough is merely moments away.

*Cough*. Back from sepia-tinted revery. They really have to be commended on how far they have come, and if you listen you’ll realise that not only will they be shortly broadcasting in FM, they have plans for a video channel. Of course if I was any kind of a proper writer, I’d have asked them where that would be. Probably not Sky HD, but may be their own YouTube channel? No doubt we will hear when we need to know.

Now they have moved to the new HQ in Lymington (yay) all is go and the magic number has been confirmed as 96.9FM by Ofcom. If you are feeling just a tad left out that you didn’t know all the Park FM news, why not become a fan of their Facebook page . It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s oh so now! If you don’t have a Facebook account then you’ll wonder what the heck I’m on about. But then I’m told that’s quite a normal reaction when I communicate, so don’t feel bad.

Just in passing, listened to Louisa and Stephen yesterday afternoon, nice job guys. So back to the plot. They have beautifully crafted six hours of special programmes, featuring archive interviews from over the last 12 months, so lend an ear tomorrow (Tuesday) and listen to a little bit of history!

Anyway, the point in mentioning any of this is that they have just been granted a licence to broadcast by Ofcom. The normal persons version of this is they get to send their programs over the airways as well as online, thus giving the New Forest an easily accessible community broadcaster. Good news in my book.

Cat Lake, Managing Editor for NFCM, said: “This is a great reward after two-and-a-half years of hard work.  This licence will enable us to operate a full FM radio service serving the New Forest which brings local communities together. ” Seeing as one of the charms of the New Forest, the many small communities also creates one of it’s biggest problems, viz communication, The Park looks to be a good fit. What’s more having talked with some of the Park people, I have not doubt that their concern to promote community interaction within the Forest is entirely genuine.

If you need proof that it’s A Good Thing, then the fact that the leaders of both Hampshire County Council and New Forest District Council agree has to lend credence being as how their respective organisations normally agree on so many things…. they were even at the opening of the station together. But regardless of whether you live in the area, or are one of the numerous visitors to this site contemplating a move here, go to the listen again section of the website and check out some of the guests from the breakfast show. It’ll be informative and who knows, you might even learn something you didn’t know.

The Park’s strapline is “Community radio for the New Forest” and to quote a famous philosopher, it does exactly what it says on the tin.

We had one of those easy walks books which seem to have been written by a not so retired SAS sergeant major, but it seemed straight forward enough. I have mentioned before to beware of books that use trees as landmarks, particularly if they are over a couple of years old. Well here’s another proviso. If the book doesn’t define what it considers to be a path, with maps drawn by what appears to be a five year old, don’t start on the walk. See the trouble with the country is that lots of other creatures are walking around when humans aren’t and are inclined to make their own paths and not let the SAS sergeant major know so he can ask his five year old to add it to the map. As a consequence of which, you may well find that you miss a path (or two) or count too many paths (or three), and end up somewhere you were neither expecting nor have much knowledge of.

In fact if you continue around a hill too far, it’s just about possible you might end up going in the wrong direction. Now I’m not saying that is what happened, but I am grateful that there was a straight road that we could orientate ourselves to from the five year olds map. And march along in the wrong direction. Of course if we had gone the right way we wouldn’t have met the very friendly elderly couple in their camper van parked up having a cup of tea. And wouldn’t have been offered a lift back to the car by them. Mind you we may well have managed to get back to the car ourselves in that time, but it’s nice to meet new people isn’t it? The view will have to wait for another day.