Steve and Mel in Jersey

A lovely couple whom I first met and sat with at meals during an Alpha course here at the Salvation Army (SA) in Chatham, Steve and Mel Scoulding, have really gone places since those early days.

They'd come across from their home some fair distance away, every week, to participate in Alpha.

Later, they took over running our later Alpha courses themselves, and attended the Army as their church, eventually becoming full uniform-wearing officers.

Since then they have been to the Salvation Army's training college in London, and have subsequently been 'posted' to Jersey in the Channel Islands, which has had an SA presence for well over a century.

Now they are arranging a significant event on the island, and appeared on BBC Radio Jersey yesterday, on the Chris Stone programme with Simon Jupp standing in for Chris on this occasion. It's worth spending five minutes to hear their interview.

Go to 2:23:54 when replaying the programme which can be found at this link, but do be aware that this is the BBC so it will vanish six days from now (i.e. on 12 May).

Kitano Kamui

The troubled story behind this planned new vocaloid, whose purpose is to be an idol representing the Hokkaido region of Japan who will also become a vocaloid, is mentioned here as well, where people are contributing to cosplay and in other ways.

Kitano's official webpage shows her likeness (complete with SeeU-like cat ears or 'nekomimi') and gives some basic characteristics – though in Japanese, but it's easy enough to (for example) work out her height... As for her surname: yes, it's the same as Gakupo's, but I don't think there can be any significance in that as there is no connection between the two that I can see.

Because her originator and its boss are in such difficulties, this one might not now make it to completion; but there is a rescue effort under way. The plan is to have 30,000 combined Facebook 'likes' and Twitter followers by the end of October this year, whereupon the ailing company that owns her will pass everything over to a new outfit to take the project forward to release and beyond.

This short song We Are 'Tomodachi' by SukarupuP apparently uses Miku's Append 'soft' library over illustrations (by KEI no less) of the newcomer, who presumably does not yet have a voicebank available...

ZOLA Project

Yamaha, the creators of the Vocaloid engine, have been content to let others produce voicebanks and all the specifics that go with them. Now, though, they are bringing out a three-in-one male voice package under the name of ZOLA Project. ZOLA apparently stands for Zenith Operated Liaison Aggregation, which seems rather contrived to me.

I have no info on any names for the three performers, or if they are supposed to be related (three brothers, perhaps), but here they are in a short demo song called Omoide ga Ippai. They are very good indeed, though it has to be said that males have not done anywhere near as well in terms of sales relative to the female vocaloids over the years, so this looks like a bit of a gamble for Yamaha.

There is no animation in the video, and no English words. This is really just to showcase what is coming soon to the market...

Sweeps Festival 2013

I generally try to have a look-in at our annual Sweeps Festival in Rochester, and this year's (the 33rd) was no different.

The festival stems from the practice in a bygone era of the boys who were sent up chimneys to clean them having a special free day where they could have a great time away from their miserable day-to-day lives. These days, it is more a celebration of the sweeps, so boys dress up as sweeps and make themselves 'look dirty' as if it were a working day for them (I imagine they originally washed off the grime for their day out).

In reality, it is one of our slightly less interesting events, as essentially it's just a load of Morris sides performing in the street. In fact, it is believed to be the biggest congregation of Morris men (and women) in Europe, apparently with more than sixty sides taking part. Yes, there are the usual fairground, ice cream vans and burger bars in the Castle Gardens, but the event itself is rather one-dimensional.

Don't get me wrong: I am quite a fan of the Morris, and have been for many years, following a couple of sides in my home town of Wimbledon for example. It's just that it doesn't seem to be sufficient somehow, even with the dressing-up that local people do at the drop of a (Victorian) hat.

It is therefore very gratifying to find that just about all of historic Rochester was more-or-less packed, as least as much as we get during the summer Dickens Festival. The warm sunny weather will have contributed to this, but on a bank holiday weekend when many people go away for these few days it was a remarkable success story, finishing later today.

I didn't take any kind of camera with me, still or video, as others always do, and several video clips of this year's event have already appeared at YouTube, such as this rather well-produced one by a John Martin...

Yoshiwara Lament

We haven't had any Teto for a little while, so here's Yoshiwara Lament. Sadly there are no English words provided, but it is an enjoyable musical experience despite that omission.

Also, Teto's rather splendid traditional-style off-the-shoulders print dress is quite spectacular, especially the hanging sleeves. The sakura colour scheme complements the falling cherry blossoms (which are a common Japanese motif, by the way).

Overall, this is a good use of Teto's voice style and has a strong, powerful underlying feel to it...