Its been quite a busy week for me again. I've spent the last week at a training course in Hammersmith. It's been really good and has been a really tremendous learning experience. The course was called Guerilla Enterprise .NET, which is run by the folks at Developmentor. I'd been on the Guerilla .NET course back in 2005, and it was good to get back to seeing what's going on out there in the real world. Another really cool feature of these courses is that they are really international affairs. Out of 15 students, only 3 were British. Only one out of the three instructors was English too. I think there were representatives from Switzerland, Slovenia, Germany, Belgium, Latvia and France. Probably more. They all, of course shamed the Brits with their language skills.

What I like about these courses is that there's a tremendous breadth and depth to the coverage of the courses. This one was primarily concerned with the two out of the three frameworks that appeared in .Net 3.0, the Windows Communications Foundation and the Windows Workflow Foundation both of which I''m really excited about getting to grips with and deploying into real world situations.

I don't want this article to be a whine, but over the last six months as I've concentrated on other aspects of my life, it's not gone unnoticed that in my professional life I've got to pick up the pace a bit. I discussed the pace of change in technology with one of the delegates on the course. We both agreed that the pace is quickening to a point where it's getting impossible to keep abreast of everything as we were once able to ten tears ago. But my main problem is that I'm not doing this stuff every day of my working life. And that's got to change. I can't afford to fall behind. It's a problem that so many of us in the industry are grappling with.

This presents me with a bit of a problem. I know that there's potentially fertile ground to apply these sort of technologies at work, but I'm also aware of the pace of change there. My greatest fear is that by the time we're in a position to deploy this type of technology, the ground will have shifted once more.

So what's a geek to do? I think the key as far as I'm concerned is this: Become knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the goodness that the new technology brings. Tell people about what you can do with it as often as you can. Impress them with it. If you fail to impress them with it, and you truly do believe in what you can do, then it's perhaps time to talk to someone else.

When push comes to shove, I'm not one of those guys who's always on the bleeding edge. I never will be. In fact I'm quite the opposite. "If it ain't broke, why fix it?" is a fine maxim. But it's inevitable that things in software change. You can either embrace the change of bury your head in the sand. The danger in not moving forward is that your software becomes more and more difficult to support as the skills required to do so dry up. Before you know it, your software is broken by default. No-one can fix it. Worse, no-one wants to fix it.

Time waits for no man. Least of all for a software architect. Every day, the clock ticks ever louder. I'm going to have to run faster just to stand still. Fun isn't it?

To anyone who regularly reads this blog, it can't have escaped your notice that it's not been updated recently. That's not been intentional but I've been otherwise engaged. Nothing exciting mind - it's just left me with little energy or inclination to keep the blog up to date. It's not permanent, so for the record I'll be back to updating it a little bit more regularly.

So what's kept me so busy recently? Well, I've been debating whether to share this with the outside world or not, but, what the hell. I've spent the last three weeks cleaning, cataloging, cleaning, recording and cleaning. What, you might be asking, would necessitate me to do that? I've had a wee domestic problem caused by bed bugs.

Like many other people, I didn't even realise that they still were a problem, but they are as I've just found out. I've got no idea where they came from, but they came to light when I did my spring cleaning about a month ago. Naturally, I was horrified. I called in the professionals. I'm glad I did. According to the man who came round, it seems that they're a growing problem in London. The company I engaged do not merely spray the affected areas. As part of their treatment program, the client is required to monitor and inspect the affected areas rigorously. After two weeks, a thorough deep clean is also required.

The problem is that the buggers are adept at hiding even in the smallest places. This means that the clutter that I'd had around my bed (books, papers, magazines etc) needed checking page by page. That's right. Page by page. In addition, I've been laundering like you wouldn't believe. I've bought storage boxes for the laundered items. I've thrown stuff out. I've even invested in a steam cleaner. In short, it's not been any fun.

But the good news is that it all seems to be working. And I'm of course really happy about that. But, I'm guessing you might want to know why I'm sharing this with the world. After all, it's not something you really want to share with all and sundry. I'd put it on a par with acquiring an STD. It happens (although thankfully not to me), but it's something you really want to keep to yourself. But it's one of those things that I think I want to make sure that people are aware of. Especially if you live in London, or indeed any big city. Once established, they're not easy to get rid of. It's best to know what you're looking for in the first place. So from me to you, my advice is this. Make sure you know that these little creatures do exist. Check carefully that there are none living with you. Do it regularly, because according to the chap who came to help me, the problem only looks set to get worse and worse. Be warned.

It's been a little while since I've seen ¡Forward Russia!. I'd seen them three times when they were touring their most excellent first album Give Me a Wall. In particular, the gig in the Garage in searingly hot temperatures in July 2006 stands out for me as one of my all time favourite gigs, not least because of my awful drunken attempts to start a conversation with the band in the bar afterwards.

Since then, the band have gone back to the studio to record their (tricky) second album, Life Processes. I only bought it a few days before the gig, but played it enough times to be familiar with the new material by the time I arrived at KCSU. I like the venue - it's the only one that gives you the chance to meet the artists on the lift on the way up to the stage which is on the 4th floor of a very utilitarian building just off the strand. It's a great size, and being a student venue, the staff are pretty friendly.

Anyway - back to the band. Or rather, back to the band before the band. We'd caught one of the support band's entire set. They weren't bad. But weren't especially good either to be honest. Their material was a bit akin to a Mogwai tribute. But without the talent. Sorry chaps, I couldn't be bothered to find out your name. It's not that the performance was bad - it was just plain boring. And that's a shame because the band they were supporting are anything but.

It came as quite a relief then when ¡Forward Russia! did come on, and they came on in their now familiar rather cool looking band T-Shirts. They're a four piece. They're a strange looking bunch. The lead singer Tom is thin and wiry, with straggly hair, and the guitarist is a beardy type (who I think is called Whiskas - well one of them is and it seems to fit him best) and a rather cute drummer, Katie. Oh and the other one's called Rob. They started with a track called "Spring is a Condition" from the new album "Life Processes". It was a good start. From then on in, the band played a mixture of new and old, but with the clear emphasis on the new material. Tom introduced the first of the older stuff in a rather disadainful manner, acknowledging that we perhaps liked the older stuff more than the new. And to be honest, when they can be compared one against the other like they could when played live it's fairly obvious to me that the newer songs don't stand up to the older ones.

That's a real pity - as part of the charm of the band is the frenetic nature both of the music and the dancing of Tom. It's quite obvious that the new songs are at once more deliberate, more insisting that you take them a bit more seriously. But it really doesn't work as well. Even when performing the stand out song of the new album "Gravity and Heat", the band don't seem to perform with the same level of, well, madness. And like I said, that's a pity. Second albums are always difficult and I think the second album for them is just an example of this well known phenomena in music making.

They finished with the last two songs on the new album "A Shadow is a Shadow is a Shadow" and "Spanish Triangles". The former was pretty good, but I'm not a fan of the second as it's clearly a end of album/gig fadeout song. Way way too cliched for my liking.

Still, I went home happy. Perhaps I'll wait for a third album before I see them again. It's not that I don't like the newer songs, it's more that the band seem deternined that we should prefer them to the older ones. No chance, Tom. Sorry.

http://www.forwardrussia.com/

Thirty six years old. Try that out for size. How does that sound? Too old? Am I getting old? Am I acting my age? Thirty six years old. So this is how it feels. Staring middle age in the face, bit by bit losing sight of my youth. Thirty six years old. Funny. Isn't it at this point I'm supposed to remind myself that I feel exactly the same as I did when I was 35? That I'm not getting older. That I'm still the same guy I was at 25? But I think I do feel a bit different. It's been a long time coming, but being thirty six is probably the age I've been most prepared for in my life. I'm thirty six years old and feel pretty good about it.

Well, strictly speaking I feel pretty good today. But I don't think I did for the two days following my birthday. Oh no. I'm fairly sure there used to be a time when a night down the pub with a few friends wouldn't require me to take a day off the next day, and if I did take the day off I wouldn't be spending that precious day off feeling sorry for myself. Because I now suffer from two day hangovers. Which gave me a lot of time to philosophise about how I feel about hangovers, or more to the point about drinking so much that I incurred a two day hangover.

Here's the thing. I've been working pretty hard to make sure I do get a two day hangover. I'm not used to drinking like that anymore. And this is a good thing. And, as the hangover began to pass, rather than saying something along the lines of "ugh, never again", then promptly doing it again and again, I realised that something strange had happened. I think I've changed. Yes, after six months, I think a change of lifestyle has occurred.

Let's get one thing straight. I like a drink. That's not going to change, thank goodness. It's just that I quite like being sober a lot more than I like being drunk. Or at least staying sober for much longer stretches than I used to before. I really quite enjoy being out with friends perfectly sober. The interesting thing is that I've found myself choosing to do it, rather than begrudgingly doing it to maintain a diet.

Take the previous weekend for example. I'd played a game of football, and over a beer in the pub, the conversation turned to the engagement party a few of us were going to the next day. "I'm going to drive", I casually mentioned thinking nothing of it. My friend nearly choked on his drink before exclaiming "What?" as if I'd just announced I was planning to arrive naked. But it really wasn't for any other reason that I didn't much fancy drinking, and I thought it would be a hell of a lot easier to drive.

Of course, my birthday was an entirely different matter. I'd done well over the last 6 months. I fancied a drink to celebrate it. I'd been planning it. And since I was planning on drinking to excess, I'd planned to eat to excess as well. So I did both. And I did both with aplomb. With only a slight loss of dignity on the night before.

It was fantastic to see so many good friends. Some of them hadn't seen me for a little while, so I think my new appearance came as a surprise to some. In fact, a very good friend of mine really didn't recognise me. So, I'd clearly made quite an outward change in the last few months. Oh, and while I'm on the subject, I didn't make my target. I was half a stone short. But I'm well pleased with that. And I'm also pleased that the doctor told me I'm in good shape. I'm still going to carry on and meet the target though. I still feel I need to.

Anyway, I've clearly made some outward changes, and I've talked previously about making some changes on the inside. And I do think I'm doing just as well there. I've come to realise that I could no longer just carry on exactly the same way as I was going. I'm quite sure without the change of lifestyle that I feel that I'm making at the moment, I really could find myself ten years from now wondering where the time has gone and wondering why my health is so bad, and why I'm not so happy.

It's an odd feeling thinking about your life with a hangover. It's an even odder feeling knowing that even though my head was pounding there wasn't a thought in that pounding head that regretted drinking the previous night. Neither was I proud of it. I was just safe in the knowledge that such nights were becoming increasingly rare in my life as I start acting my age at last.

I've still got to make my target from six months ago. I'm still going to do that. But I think it's time for a new focus and a new target. I'm not sure what it is yet, but I know I've still got much to do. There's a career to get going. A house to make the most of. And love to find. All of which should be easier to sort out without a hangover. So it's clear to me that whatever the target is, I've got to not forget the lessons I have learnt over the last six months. Everything that's happened and everything that has helped me to think about my life past and present has helped me grow more in this short time than I have done over the last six years. And I've got to keep building on that.

Whatever the target is, I hope I do well, because I'm going to enjoy the next two day hangover. Hopefully I'll have something to feel good about again.

If you want to see dance music played live you can do far worse than checking out Crazy Penis (or Crazy P as they've now rebranded themselves). House music played live. Superb. If you've never seen them, and you love live music, you'll love this band. But if you want something dirty, something a little more, shall we say down to earth, a more visceral experience, you need Holy Fuck.

They're a four piece from Toronto, and their music is a little difficult to nail down. They do live electronica. But that's not helping. So, imagine two lads each with a table full of electronic equipment in front of them (keyboards, synths, effects, and weirdly a 35mm film sequencer). Add a bass. And some drums. And watch them perform.

Which brings me neatly to my point about the audience. There were lots of Geek boys there. And a few geek girls as well. The geek boy next to me stared at every unit and effect the lads set up. Studied them to see what they were, making a mental note of everything. And I don't think that's such a bad thing to do, because if he came close to some of the sounds that these boys produced I'd be impressed. They play anything from Dub influenced beats to electro, to acid techno. But nothing sticks to a formula. And the live bass and the drums just adds a fantastic edge to the performance that just wouldn't be there without them.

They built up quite a head of steam. I looked around at the crowd. There was lots of dancing and strangely some dry humping to the music. It wasn't pretty to watch. But everyone was having a good time. Geek boy next to me suddenly had an upturn in his evening as not one, but two geek girls decided it would be fun to go over to him and give him a snog right out of the blue. Poor lad didn't seem to know what hit him. He was probably still trying to concentrate on what the effects boxes were.

What did I think of them? Well, this was the second time I'd seen them. I saw them last summer at Glastonbury and to be honest I thought they were much better then. They're the sort of band I think you have to be in exactly the right state of mind to truly appreciate. If you catch my drift. But I'd still say they're a band to go and see if you can. I'm sure that won't be difficult. It's a pretty safe bet they've got a few festivals booked this summer.

http://www.myspace.com/holyfuck

"Well, this is a bit of a shithole"

Quite an opening line from our Malcy. And to be fair, I think I did well to understand him, such is the way that he mumbles in between songs. And that's a shame, because the man has such a fierce wit that when you do hear what he's saying it's invariably incredibly funny.

But anyway, back to the comment. He was being somewhat ironic. To be entirely honest, half the reason I bought the tickets in the first place was because I so wanted to actually see what the venue was like. I wasn't disappointed. My jaw dropped even as I walked through the door. The Union Chapel is a working church, arts centre and homeless project in the heart of Islington. As a music venue it's superb. The pews are arranged in a semi circle around the stage. And there's not a bad seat in the house. The lighting is simply superb as well, making best use of the interior of the building and the windows.

So, as I stared in wonder around the place, Malcolm and his band (I say band, but it was a chap on a double bass, and the fabulous Jenny Reeve on violin and vocals) came on. He started with a rendition of We're All Going to Die, his Christmas single. It was much flatter than the recording, and I thought that this gig might be a little disappointing from the sound of the song. There wasn't much wrong with it, but I'm not sure I wanted to listen to a whole set of his songs sung in such a down beat manner.

I wasn't disappointed however. I had nothing to worry about. The songs are so well written, so well performed that there was no chance that this was going to be a disappointment. Not a chance. I've not got his latest album yet, and he played a lot of material that was unfamiliar to me. But all of them, yes, all of them were electric.

I did catch a little bit of his between songs banter. He said he was quite disappointed that there was no heckling. I think there was a reason for that. I think we were all so enthralled by the quality of the performance and the beauty of the venue that was the last thing on our mind.

http://www.malcolmmiddleton.co.uk/