Save the cheerleader, save the world

I have a T shirt with this phrase on, which some people have asked me about. But soon everyone will know what it means, for tonight Heroes finally arrives on BBC2! It's on at 9 pm, repeated tomorrow (Thu) at 11.20 pm, and again on Sunday at 10.55 pm. It's also featured on the front of this week's Radio Times. I suspect I may have begged you all to watch it when it was on the Sc-Fi Channel, but if you didn't, now's your chance. It's the best TV in years, and my favourite thing since Buffy finished. Don't miss out!

That's my main reason for posting today, but while I'm here I may as well clear a few more links I've been saving. In no particular order....

I had no idea that the Manchester Jazz Festival was on, until I wandered through St Ann's Square yesterday and discovered a fabulous band playing, who turned out to be Tango Siempre. I'll definitely be buying their CD if I ever get a job. (I do have an interview in a couple of weeks for a job I'd really like, so there is finally hope!)

I am now on my second reading of the last Harry Potter book, and I have now seen the most recent film 3 times (no, I can't afford it, but luckily friends insisted on paying for me, because on each occasion they had no-one else to go with). I managed to avoid almost all spoilers beforehand, by staying away from most of the internet. However, those who have read all the books may be interested in the information in this interview, which reveals some minor additional details and some exciting future news from JKR.

I hope you all managed to catch at least some of the Manchester International Festival. I didn't see as much as I would have liked, due to lack of cash, but Alison and I did go to see the Monkey opera, and thoroughly enjoyed it. If you ever get the chance to see it live, do (I'm not sure where it's going, but I think it was due to go to Paris at some point later this year, if it's not already there) - there were things in it that, if I hadn't seen them with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed possible. (Here's a very interesting interview with Damon Albarn about the musical side of it.

Midomi is a website that lets you identify music just by singing it into your computer. In my experience such things usually don't work too well, but this one does! The only restriction is that it can only identify music that's already been added to its database. So it didn't recognise the first few things I tried, but when I checked, they weren't in the database. When I sang something that was in the database, it identified it immediately. I assume it will work better and better as more songs are added. If you're bored, you can add some yourself :-)

I forgot to mention that when I updated my online choir schedule, I noticed two things I hadn't previously known, so maybe others didn't know them either. Both are about the Verdi Requiem gigs - firstly, Mikhail Petrenko (one of our favourite basses) is the bass soloist. And secondly, the London gig is billed as a Royal Gala Performance. Exciting! (Oh, and tickets will be available from the Barbican box office - they don't seem to be on sale yet, though.)

Some guy at Manchester University wants to create an internet choir. (Thanks to ChoralBlog for both this story and the Midomi one.)

Those who remember Kent Nagano (fondly or otherwise - personally I thought he was fabulous) may be interested in this article about his time in Montreal. I like the idea of him gazing down from billboards and bus stops!

And, finally... if you know the song "Torn" by Natalie Imbruglia, yet didn't see the Secret Policeman's Ball last December, you will be very amused indeed by this version of it. I saw it at the time, but was reminded of it again recently, and it wasn't till then that it occurred to me to look it up on YouTube.