Top 50 Bands

Earlier this year, I started to collate information from my iPod and from my last.fm accounts to find out exactly what I'd been listening to. The result was a list of bands and the grand total of songs I'd listened to, and so here is a list of my top 50 bands from approximately the last 5 years...

Steely Dan	1494
Elton John	949
Frank Zappa	886
Yes	853
Paul Simon/Simon & Garfunkel	816
The Beatles	797
Pink Floyd	782
Supertramp	712
Rush	668
Genesis	641
Stevie Wonder	543
King Crimson	527
Air	513
The Who	503
Robyn Hitchcock/Soft Boys	499
Jethro Tull	477
Led Zeppelin	422
Neil Young	388
Brian Eno	384
Fleetwood Mac	375
Sparks	375
David Bowie	362
Gong	342
Richard Thompson	339
Kraftwerk	327
Super Furry Animals	322
George Harrison	322
Peter Gabriel	318
Lou Reed & The Velvet Underground	312
Jon Anderson	291
The Clash	287
Dire Straits	271
Elvis Costello	270
The Rolling Stones	262
Nobou Uematsu	253
10cc	251
Fleet Foxes	249
Talking Heads	248
Vangelis	248
Smashing Pumpkins	246
Bob Dylan	246
Van Morrison	239
Adam And The Ants	221
The Flaming Lips	206
The Doors	201
Divine Comedy	195
The Pixies	192
Donald Fagen	185
Magnetic Fields	175
Jimi Hendrix	167

Surprisingly, for a group I had never listened to before prior to 2005, Steely Dan (aka Walter Becker and Donald Fagen) top my chart by some distance. This is partly due to the fact that I listened to one album after another, and ended up buying their entire back catalogue of classic albums from between 1972 and 1980, from "Can't Buy A Thrill" to "Gaucho". Their 1976 album, "The Royal Scam" is a particular favourite, although 1977's "Aja" is also very impressive. Donald Fagen also features at #48 in the chart, thanks solely to his 1982 solo album "The Nightfly".

Elton John has always been a favourite, and in particular I listen to his earlier material from 1969-1976. Thanks largely to the fact that I've listened to Elton John for many years, he features very strongly in this chart, although I didn't expect him to be quite so high in the chart as #2! In recent years, "Captain Fantastic and The Brown Dirt Cowboy" (1975) has featured strongly, but "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" (1973) and "Tumbleweed Connection" (1971) remain firm favourites.

Another relative newcomer to my iPod has taken the #3 spot, Frank Zappa. Thanks again to my friend Stefan Gabriel, I had the chance to listen to alot of Zappa's back catalogue and ended up buying several albums. While Zappa albums are typically a mixed bag of the sublime and the ridiculous, the sheer volume of his work means that there are many, many individually great songs, and hence my Zappa playlist on my iPod features many songs from multiple different albums. As a result, the playlist count for Zappa has been very high in the last few years. My favourite Zappa albums are "We're Only In It For The Money" (1968) and "Sheik Yerbouti" (1979).

Up and coming interests in the last year or so have been Rush, Led Zeppelin, Robyn Hitchcock, The Flaming Lips and Jethro Tull - all of these bands are on their way up the chart, while some of the old favourites/big names such as Pink Floyd, Supertramp and Yes are still holding their own and are unlikely to be shifted from the top ten any time soon! It's also quite funny that my first favourite band ever - Adam And The Ants - are still in my Top 50! Must be getting nostaligic in my middle age! Anyway, I'll hopefully update this as time goes by, so stay tuned!

Chris's Interests - Formula One

Formula One, or F1, or Grand Prix, has long been my favourite sport. I have watched it ever since I can remember, although to my shame, I have still never made it to an actual race! I would also be lying if I said I could remember much about Grand Prix races I saw as a kid, but I do remember watching the races as often as I could, and keeping track of the World Championship by writing the results in my notebook or even saving them onto tape on my Commodore 64!. Still, that hasn't stopped me from loving the sport since a very early age, and F1 has always had some sort of influence on my life, from getting me into driving games as a kid, to hogging my Sunday afternoons as an adult! But as a child of the 1970's, one of my most enduring memories of Formula One is not the races the drivers, the cars,  the teams or even the circuits - but the voice behind it all, Murray Walker!

Gilles Villeneuve, 1981

As a kid, I had a small (1/43) model of Gilles Villeneuve's Ferrari, and  1/18 scale models of Ayrton Senna's 'Camel' sponsored Lotus and Michele Alboreto's Ferrari, as well as a Tyrrell of some description as well. In later years, I bought a few model F1 cars, including Schumacher's Ferrari and Hakkinen's McLaren. Some of my most enduring memories are not of individual races, but of drivers and their various cars... the Prost/Senna partnership at McLaren, Hakkinen and Coulthard's partnership, also at McLaren, and more recently, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso's partnership (if you can call it that!) at McLaren and now also Hamilton and Button at, erm, McLaren. Come to think of it, I reckon that probably makes me a McLaren fan!

Ayrton Senna, 1985

Of course, it is difficult to say that any particular driver is or was my favourite. Unlike football or some other sports, F1 allows you to support many different people to some extent or other at the same time, and for a variety of reasons... drivers shift teams, teams come and go out of form etc., and there are always the legends of the past who's legacy will never be forgotten. Indeed, the sport itself has changed, not to mention the technological advances that make the cars so very different to those of the past, even if they do still bear an external resemblance... but with that in mind, it is hard to think of a driver who had more of an impact on the sport than Ayrton Senna, who is regularly cited as the greatest driver of all time - even by Michael Schumacher. Of all the races that live long in the memory, Imola 1994 is undoubtedly the most infamous, claiming the lives of both Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna. Senna carried an Austrian flag on board his car as a mark of respect for Ratzenberger, only to be killed himself during the race. Senna was the last F1 driver to be killed, however, showing how much safer the sport has become, no doubt partly as a result of this tragic weekend in 1994.

Lewis Hamilton, World Champion of 2008

Of recent times, there is one stand-out moment for me, which was Lewis Hamilton's title win in 2008. The last race of the season was held in Brazil, and Hamilton, who has missed out the world title by a single point in 2007, needed to finish atleast 5th if Felipe Massa won the race. Massa did indeed win, and Hamilton had fallen behind to 6th with just a couple of laps left. Amazingly, it started to rain and the driver infront of Hamilton, Timo Glock, was slowing down dramatically as he didn't have the right tyres on. Hamilton stayed calm and passed Glock on the final turn of the final lap to move up into the 5th position he needed to deny Massa the title, and become World Champion for the first time. I felt very sorry for Massa, as he could have (and possibly should have) claimed the title for himself, and infront of his home fans too, which would have been an amazing spectacle. Indeed, Massa's family thought he had won the title, and celebrated wildly before a sombre looking Ferrari mechanic told them that infact Hamilton would be champion, by virtue of the last second pass on the final turn. Still, Hamilton deserved it too - not least because he came so close in 2007, but also because he had come back stronger in 2008 and had performed well all year.

Nowadays, I enjoy watching the races as often as I can, and hope sometime in the near future to make it to a race or two, either Silverstone here in the UK, Spa in Belgium, Suzuka in Japan, or perhaps even Melbourne, Australia... I'm delighted to say that Sam enjoys watching F1 already, too!

A history in computer gaming - The Machines Pt. 3

The Playstation 2

After the success of the Playstation, I naturally wanted to upgrade to the Playstation 2 when it came out, but I restrained myself until after I had finished my Ph.D studies and bought one with my first pay cheque from my first post-doctoral job in 2002. The PS2 was also a DVD player, and it saw alot of use. The highlight of the PS2 for me was Gran Turismo 3, and subsequently GT4, as well as the (in)famous Grand Theft Auto games 'Vice City' and 'San Andreas'. Between these games, not much else got much of a look in.

The Playstation 3

It would be another 5 years until the release of the next generation consoles, and the advent of the Playstation 3, which would be the first (and only) console or computer that I bought on the day of release. Sporting wireless internet connectivity, Blu-ray technology, and a 60 GB hard disk drive, the PS3 was intended to be far more than merely a gaming device, and so it has transpired. I probably spend atleast 50% of my PS3 time watching Blu-ray films, and a fair amount of time using the PS3 player as a web browser, image storage device and music player. The rest of the time, however, is dedicated to playing games. Currently, my favourite title for the PS3 has been WipEout HD - a futuristic racing game from Studio Liverpool (funnily enough, the same people that made Formula One - the first PS1 game I played). Other titles include Motorstorm, Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Grand Theft Auto IV and Final Fantasy XIII - all of these games have amazing graphics and promise many hours of playability, both online and offline.

The Xbox 360

Winter 2009, and there were a number of excellent deals on rival consoles to the PS3, and so I ended up getting an Xbox 360 as my birthday present from my family. Facing stiff competition for my time from the PS3, it was never likely to be the centre of attention, but it did have one distinct advantage, and that was the game Forza Motorsport 3. Forza is a Gran Turismo clone from Microsoft, but it is an excellent game in its own right. Given that the game came bundled with the console, it seemed like too good an offer to refuse. The offer was so good infact, that my sister bought one (complete with FM3!) as well! And that brings us to the end of the trip through my gaming machine history... almost....

Ghosts and Goblins (1985)

Final Fantasy XIII (2010)

.... I can't remember exactly when my parents first bought a Commodore 64 and gave it to me for my Xmas/birthday, but it must have been around 1983 or 1984. It is scarcely believable how much home gaming machines have changed in that 25 years or so period, coming from basic block graphics and programs  of around 100 Kb that you would load on a tape deck in about 5 minutes, to the amazing photorealism of today's games, with tens of GBs of data per disc. But despite the tremendous gulf in technology, even those basic C64 games from the early-mid 1980's are still fun to play today, and there are C64 emulators available for the PC that allow you to do just that. In some ways, some of the giant, time-consuming behemoths of games that exist nowadays are too clever for their own good - demanding that you commit 30 hours of your time just to get anywhere with the story (like Final Fantasy 13, pictured on the left). Still, if this is the difference 25 years can make, I can't wait to see what the future holds for computer gaming.

At the 2010 Edinburgh Comedy Festival

Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppets

The Edinburgh Festival started with a bang this year, and my sister Carolyn and I have already seen a whole bunch of shows, and in my case, all of them comedy! We started last Wednesday with the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet theatre, an original one-man/two-handed show that put up to date and hilarious new twists on some well known songs, e.g. Eric Clapton's classic 'Layla' became 'Vuvuzela', in homage to the droning horns that dominated this years 2010 World Cup Finals in South Africa. Carolyn and Dad also went to see Russell Kane the following night, and then we saw Andrew Bird at the Pleasance Dome (aka Potterrow) on Friday. 

Steven K. Amos

Arj Barker

On Saturday, we had a double-bill of shows lined up, with Steven K. Amos (left) at the Pleasance Grand earlier in the night, followed by The Best Of The Fest preview show at the Assembly Rooms. This was the second year in a row that we've been to see Steven K. Amos and he didn't disappoint, although the crowd filed out with the poor man still standing on stage, and he looked slightly miffed about it too! The Best Of The Fest show started after midnight and ran until about 2 am! The show was hosted by Lee Nelson, and featured Carl Barron, Arj Barker (right), Jimeoin and Terry Alderton. We managed to get seats in the front row, but luckily avoided being picked on by the comedians! It was a terrific night of entertainment, and the 'Best Of The Fest' tag was thoroughly deserved!

Kevin Bridges

Last night, Carolyn, Dad and I joined Uncle John, Grant and Gemma to go and see Kevin Bridges, a fast-rising star of the UK comedy scene. Renowed for his west of Scotland style of dry humour, his set flew by but was incredibly funny. I'd seen him on 'Live At The Apollo' before, but he seemed to connect with the audience last night and generally appeared more relaxed and on better form than I've seen him before. At only 23 years old, Bridges admits that he doesn't have a whole lot of experiences to draw his comedy routine from, but that didn't seem to stop him delivering a fluent and hilarious show, which had everyone wondering where the last hour had just gone.


All in all, it may have been a hectic few days, but it has been worth it to make the most of the fact that we have the best international festival in the world right on our doorstep. The Edinburgh Comedy festival always attracts some of the best new comedians who go on to become household names. The only regret was that our cousin Richard and his family couldn't make it to Edinburgh to join in the fun, and we all wish Richard the best of luck and medical science in the coming days and weeks in his brave fight with cancer.

Gaming - Gran Turismo

Gran Turismo by Polyphony Digital

Gran Turismo is a driving simulator and racing game for the Sony Playstation. The series began in 1997, and the fifth full iteration of the game (GT5) is due for release later in 2010. Here's a little bit about my experience with the game over the last 13 years!

Gran Turismo for the Sony Playstation

I bought both GT and GT2 for the Playstation, and while I considered them better than the competition, I didn't play them much. It was only with the release of GT3 that I became a true fan of the game. After I had completed my studies in 2002, I bought a Playstation 2 and Gran Turismo 3. I completed the game, and then the long wait for GT4 started! That game wouldn't arrive until 2005. GT4 changed the way I played the game, since although the PS2 could not be played over the internet, it was possible to connect PS2's together in a network (a LAN) and race with other people, rather than having to race against the computer all the time. 

A GT4 LAN (I'm at the end here!)

In 2006, I attended my first GT4 LAN party, organised by members of the Gran Turismo forum, GTPlanet, where I was a regular member. LANs normally involved either one or two banks of 6 Playstation 2s being manually connected together, each one with a steering wheel and occasionally complete with a full driving rig. Racing against real people instead of artificial intelligence requires considerably more discipline and respect for the opposition... take a computer opponent out and nothing happens. Wreck the race of the guy sitting next to you at a LAN, and you might find yourself in trouble!

Photorealistic graphics in Gran Turismo 5

In 2008, the first taste of GT5 became available in the form of GT5: Prologue, which was the first Gran Turismo title for the Playstation 3. GT5: Prologue was also the first GT title to be playable online, and the first title to feature more than 6 cars on the track in any single race. GT5 is due for release in November 2010, and promises to be the most comprehensive and detailed driving simulator made to date. As well as all the features of previous GT games, such as an extensive collection of cars, tuning, and photomode, GT5 promises to feature many new aspects such as the ability to share video footage of races via YouTube, a full online mode, day/night transitions, damage modelling (a famous omission of the series so far!) and possibly also the ability to either create or modify tracks. Stay tuned for plenty of updates regarding my progress in GT5 in later posts!

Science - A brief history of Dr. Chris (et al.)

Analysis of the ROA spectra of proteins, 2002

My first experience with scientific research was as a Ph.D student with Prof. Laurence Barron FRS at the University of Glasgow between 1999 and 2002. My Ph.D work involved collecting the ROA (Raman optical activity) spectra of proteins and developing a computer program to analyse the spectra in an attempt to determine the 3D structural type of the proteins. As well as my Ph.D thesis, I co-wrote a number of papers that were published in scientific journals. The image on the right shows the 'result' of my work, with each point on the graph representing a different protein - and in turn, about one week of my life as a Ph.D student!

Copper binding site of the amyloid beta peptide, 2004

After my Ph.D, I went to work at Queen Mary, University of London with Dr. John Viles from 2002 to 2005. During this time, I was mainly studying a protein involved in Alzheimer's Disease, the amyloid beta peptide. In 2004, we published a paper on the structure of the copper binding site of the peptide in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

EPR studies of the strength of copper binding to Abeta, 2009

As a result of this work, I stayed on with another group at Queen Mary and I studied a protein involved in the porphyrin biosynthesis, HemN , while continuing to work with the Viles group. Some work I had started in 2005 but didn't get published at the time was finished off by another Viles group member, Claire Sarell. As a result of her Ph.D project, the work was eventually published in the journal Biochemistry in 2009, some four years after it had started!

Raman spectroscopy of intracellular nanoparticles, 2010

After a brief stint lecturing the 1st year undergraduate course "Heredity and Gene Action" at Queen Mary in 2008, I left London and came back to Glasgow to work in the Bioelectronics Research Centre, based in the Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering. The project involves using Raman spectroscopy to study individual cells using microfluidic devices. In 2010, my colleague Siri and I published our first paper from this project in the journal Analytical Chemistry (see also this post!).

Science - Supermassive black hole?

Stars near the galactic centre are believed to be orbiting a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*)   (from Gillessen et al., The Astrophysical Journal, 692:1075–1109, 2009)

Based on observations made between 1992 and 2008, a group led by Reinhart Genzel in Germany have found the best evidence yet that there is a supermassive black hole lurking at the centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way. By watching the movement of 28 individual stars, it is possible to see that they share a common point around which they all orbit. But perhaps most interestingly, one such star (so called 'S2') was observed to complete a full orbit around the central point - the first time such an event has ever been recorded. From the speed and shape of the orbit of this star (and the others), it was determined that the central point must be relatively small, but with a mass equivalent to around 4 million times that of the Sun.