Steve Litchfield

I know, I know, it serves me right for getting drawn in by an advert on (cough) Facebook. However, the idea behind this simple Koseo product is so genius that I couldn't resist. And the price was low enough that it wasn't the end of things if it turned out to be a dud. As it turned out, it was, yet wasn't. As you'll see below. The problem being solved here is that between a car front seats and the centre console is often a slim gap. And into this fall sweets, phones, pencils, whatever. Which are then a devil of a job getting out again, squeezing fingers and tools in from odd angles.  These 'personalised filler cushions' then fit between the seats and the console, plugging the gap and stopping things falling down. Simple idea, but how well is it implemented? I can't resist listing all the attributes from the video advert and web site, in part for fun (because regardless of what I say, I did end up using the cushions): Bright red (at least in the video versio...

It's utterly bizarre, but I wanted to document this for others. Normally my Mac outputs great Bluetooth audio, with a Creative Pebble Pro stereo set either side of my desk giving me great music while I work. However... Every now and then, the glorious high-def stereo changes to a VERY low-fi mono mix, reminiscent of Bluetooth headsets 20 years ago.  Turning Bluetooth off and on again does nothing to fix things Turning the speakers off and on again does nothing, ditto Closing the Mac, ditto Rebooting the Mac, ditto At this point despair sets in, but there's a fix. In fact, two fixes. And they only take a few seconds. First method: Click on the Bluetooth icon in the top system bar Click on 'Bluetooth Settings' Click on the 'i' besides the speakers in your setup Click on 'Forget this device' Click on ''Forget this device' again when asked if you're sure(!) Find the speakers again (listed under 'Nearby devices') and click on 'Con...

A provocative headline, sure, and if all cars were white then the world and its roads would be pretty darned boring. But at the same time, I do believe that there is sound physics behind the statement. And that my decision to go with a white car over the last decade has saved my life more than once... It's all about visibility, you see. I know this sounds obvious, but hear me out. In daytime, in great light, a white car is around 10% more visible than other colours. By which I mean that it will be spotted slightly more quickly in someone's peripheral vision and that this will reduce the risk of an accident. In low light, think dusk, with the sun having just dipped below the horizon, through to actual night time, darker car colours (blues, reds, greens, and - of course - black itself) become largely invisible. When the colour of your car resembles a dull shade of grey (or worse) when not illuminated, it's hard to be seen against a low light background. Which means that visib...

Sourced from Simply Cars , for about £25, I have to apologise if I gush a little in praising what is, at heart, a bit of moulded plastic. But it's also genius. Let me explain... We've all been there. It's time to transport, perhaps once a month, something really dirty in our otherwise well-kept car. So it's seats down and start loading. Old hardware that's been in the rain for weeks, rusty iron, tree branches and stumps covered in flaky wood and general biological muck, garden rubbish such as mown grass, you name it, we've all stuffed it in our cars at some point. And then, when returning from the recycling centre or rubbish dump, the back of the car is littered with damp sawdust, grime, water, mud, and so on. Which then needs drying and vacuuming. What a pain. So I leapt on this tailored boot liner. Yes, you could line any boot, for a few pennies, with plastic sheeting, ostensibly protecting your car and making clean-up easier. And I've done this in the pas...

Adapted from the four part YouTube series on my channel (videos embedded below), I thought a readable version might also be useful. Note that all of this is from my own, utterly subjective (but technical) viewpoint.  Introduction So... my long form videos have re-emerged - into related mobile tech. Starting with this - a 2024 CAR. With its own embedded, permanent Internet 4G connection, and with its compatibility with Apple’s CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto, a new car in 2024 is just as high tech as a phone. With dozens of computers, two large main displays, lifetime OS updates, and real time baked in real time, road speed limit and speed camera warnings, a new car today both satisfies the geek in me and also…gets me and my family around. I’ll come to the tech in a later video, but this one’s more automotive, and I wanted to lay out my reasoning for choosing… the Toyota Yaris Cross 2024. Other cars are available, of course… My existing mobile office - err… I mean my Ford CMax, se...

It's not just 1970s bands that I try to get my head around who did what and when - in this case Erin Bennett is very much a live and going concern, along with her band EBB. But there's history here to be documented in one of my 'famous' chronologies - existing mini-bios of Erin are brief and omit a full context. So I'll try and rectify that here. Who is Erin Bennett and who are EBB (née the Erin Bennett Band - gettit!)? She's a singer/songwriter, and, first Syren, then EBB, produce heartfelt pop through pop-rock and into full on progressive rock. All with genuine emotion, terrific lyrics, and thoughtful arrangement. And special mention to her backing band, especially the original drummer Jo Henley (RIP) and replacement (since 2014) Anna Fraser, with Erin's songs being given genuinely intelligent driving rhythms by two virtuosos on the kit. So to the chronology, right up to date, since EBB (as a band) are still relatively new to the scene and are expanding t...

This foxed me for ages. And I'm hoping that relating the tale will help someone else. We have a Ford CMax (2015), but the same systems apply for the Ford Focus, on which the CMax is based. We bought it in 2018 and the auto-stop-start system worked fine for a couple of years. As a reminder, this auto-stops the engine when stationary in traffic and when the handbrake is on (and gear in neutral, obviously). Then, when you engage a gear and release the handbrake, the engine is auto-started and you're off. A nice fuel-saving measure, in theory. Alas, around 2020, the auto-stop-start system ceased to work. The green 'A' above was greyed out and with no explanation. Research online pointed to this system not working in very cold or hot weather, or when the engine's not warmed up enough, or if you have all the lights and wipers on. Sensible reasons. But not applicable in our case - it remained a mystery. There was a clue in that 'low battery state' was also listed, ...

There, I said it, I don’t use any streaming music service. Unlike, it seems the majority of people, certainly from younger generations. But I thought it would be interesting to delve into the main reason why I’m errr… different! I think I’ve mentioned this a few times in the past, for example on my podcast Chewing Gum For The Ears (which I bet you didn’t know about!), but it’s a necessary caveat to my music experiences. Roughly half the music I like listening to is custom or obscure in some way. Most is from the 1970s and is either too niche for the likes of Spotify or has been customised or remixed by me in some way. To give an example, when I ask specifically for Hawkwind, with Lemmy on bass and lead vocals, playing ‘The Watcher’ live, I do actually want my personally remixed version of their 1999 Party Chicago gig from 1974, rather than about 10 other versions that Spotify or Amazon Music might select. Streaming services are fine for generic music and pop and so on, where people ...

The titular question is one we debate often on podcasts and the like. The most obvious answer is 'Yes', of course. Any smartphone made in the last five years will be waterproof, can run anything you care to throw at it, its screen will still be fine, the cameras eminently good enough for what most of us 'snap', and so on. So for uncle Joe and cousin Betty, and probably for you, the reader, tech plateaued some time ago. With the likes of the iPhone X onwards, the Pixel 5 onwards, the Samsung S10 onwards, even if some niche security updates have now stopped, they still run up to date apps and have updated middleware - they'll do the job for everyone. And with the tech from such flagships rippling down to mid-priced phones and even really budget options,  even examples from those worlds in the last few years are now perfectly useable and long-lived. (True, in most case, you'll need a case these days, but that's a given.) Making for a short blog post. But talk t...

The use case here isn't universal, but it is quite common. There are tracks ripped from old vinyl, or available as 'extras' from various sources, and which haven't been attended to by a professional publisher already. You know, those 'Unreleased demo 2' tracks on band Y's latest re-release of a 1975 classic. They all add value to the re-release, but no one has taken the time to actually improve the quality. Well not until now. Using the tools that we have in 2024, it's possible to take tracks apart to a degree and then put them back together in a way that presents the vocals and instruments more clearly. So, where there was originally a mono-ish, muddy mix, probably a capture of a cassette copy of a rehearsal, or similar, we can now have a much clearer, wider stereo version that sounds as if it was recorded in 1995 rather than 1975. Well maybe. Perhaps nearer 1985 in some cases! But better, that's the point. Begging the question 'How do I do thi...

Hawkwind's seminal 1977 album Quark, Strangeness and Charm remains one of my favourites, but as I've previously discussed in these days of digital music, it's possible to curate your own 'version' of anything.  And with that in mind, I've been 'fiddling' with my digital bits and bytes to create my own 'best' album. Culled from the remaster of the actual album, from live bits and out-takes, as you'll see. I'd call it 'definitive', except I keep fiddling further, so it's always being changed in some small way. Happily, the original album, especially in super-clear remastered (by Steven Wilson) form, is so good that there's not quite as much needing doing as on some other albums by this or any other band. Side 1, in particular, is editing to perfection. The 11 minute 'take one' 'Spirit of the Age' was stripped back to verses 2 and 3, 'Damnation Alley' is complete and perfect in itself, and 'Fable ...

I realise that this is a cliche, but I have to rant just a little. I completely understand the point of a holiday. The derivation of the word is from 'holy day', i.e. a day when you don't work and relax instead. At which point I also understand that staying home and not going into work (for example) is also a nice 'holiday'. As is, presumably, if you have no responsibilities and unlimited budget, where you could travel around and enjoying yourself enormously. But.  In between these two stress-free extremes is what most of us understand as a holiday, and it's a hundred times more stressful . There are three factors and I rant and rail at each one when someone starts enquiring after your holiday plans, past or future, and coos "Well, that's nice for you". No, it's usually (mainly) not nice. And I'll explain why. 1. Arrangements For starters, there are 'arrangements' to be made. Nothing to do with getting to your holiday or what to do ...