Miles Mendoza's Website of the Day ... and more!

Village Fetes (and Wallis Bird)

Last weekend we had a lovely family day at the Innocent Village Fete in Regents Park. It's a nice idea to take a big green space in the centre of London and do an old fashioned village fete (complete with ferret racing, welly throwing and scones) and add in some good live music (Wallis Bird - our absolute favourite singer songwriter at the moment) and a helter skleter and other kid-friendly rides.

As part of the site to promote the event, there's a handy Fete Finder which will help you find an actual village (or school) fete in your area. And although their fete blog is currently preoccupied with celebrating their own event, it also acts as a nice celebration of fete culture in general. I thought that fetes would be the sort of things which appeal to I Like Old Shops so I emailed Anne who runs that site to ask if she knew of any other sites which celebrate this particularly British custom. Anne says: "Not sure if this is in the right ballpark but Strange Britain is good for customs and weird folklore and Wacky Nation does similar. There's also a good book by Iain Aitch called A Fete Worse Than Death that covers the same ground." If you've never heard Wallis Bird, do listen to the songs on her MySpace page. The songs are good on cd, but live she's exceptional - a bundle of charisma and a fantastic performer. One of the songs from her set in Regents Park on Saturday has already turned up on YouTube - Click on the play button on the right of this text to enjoy.

Cambridge Folk and online Telly

>> Cambridge Folk Festival
All roads lead to Cambridge this weekend for the biggest event in the folk music calendar. Online highlights include:
- Listen again to Radcliffe and Maconie with sessions from Seth Lakeman, Laura Marling, Devon Sproule and Tunng
- Get an exclusive free download of a Devon Sproule session track (UK only)
- Video of performances from many of the headline acts appearing at Cambridge
- Mike Harding’s podcast features a full audio preview of the festival
- Full line-up details with the chance to listen to tracks from many of artists appearing
- Photos
- Folk blog featuring posts from Mike Harding and some of the biggest names in folk.

>> Blinkx remote
This is useful. An easy-to-browse (or search)guide to all the TV shows legally available to watch online or download in the UK from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel Five. All this information is already available elsewhere, but now you can find it all in the same place. Simple and effective!

Monkey Olympics, Proms, Wikipedia rivals and online Pollack-esque artwork.

New this week

>> Monkey Olympics
If you saw Eastenders last night you may have spotted the first trailer for the BBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics, featuring music and animation created by Gorillaz collaborators Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. Watch the full two minute animation featuring “the immortal Monkey King - as highly skilled in the art of magic as he is in speed, strength and agility” and his cohorts Sandy and Pigsy. The BBC Olympics site introduces the characters and explains how they were inspired by Journey to the West - one of the four most important works of fiction in China's history. More on the BBC Olympics site in a couple of weeks.

>> Google Knol
This is the first public version of a project described by Web User magazine as “Google's Wikipedia rival”. According to Google “A knol on a particular topic is meant to be the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read. The goal is for knols to cover all topics, from scientific concepts, to medical information, from geographical and historical, to entertainment, from product information, to how-to-fix-it instructions"

Something musical

>> Proms 2008
Just ahead of the first ever Doctor Who prom here’s a plug for the Beeb’s online coverage of the UK’s most popular and least stuffy classical music festival. This year’s super-colourful site includes a really good introduction to the history of the festival plus expanded 'Proms Plus' listings, embedded video and audio clips and a selection of wallpapers to download.

Something Arty

>> Wet Paint – Please Touch
We’ve seen a few online paint tools before, but this is the first one which hangs its virtual canvas on the side of an equally virtual building. Your invited to grab a brush, or roller from the side of the kerb in order to create your own “Can-you-tell-what-it-is-yet” style masterpiece. Uniquely there’s even a brush called the Jackson P which can be used to help create your Pollack-esque convas. When you run out of paint you can choose whether to pass it on to another online painter to complete, or whether to declare it finished and have it hung in the public gallery

Wimbledon and Glastonbury

>> BBC Sport: Tardis Tennis Game
By popular demand, here's the link for one of my favourite online games which first appeared on BBC Sport a few years before Doctor Who returned to our screens. The game aims help restore our national pride, by pitting Great Britons John Lennon, William Shakespeare, Winston Churchill and Queen Victoria against one another on Centre Court! No other game combines vintage Sci-fi, the thrill of a well executed backhand volley and the great figures in British history.

>> Five Live: Wimbledon Interactive Map
Our lovely colleagues over at Five Live have put together this nifty aerial zoomable map of the whole Wimbledon compound featuring clickable icons for relevant audio and video clips.

>> Glastonbury 2008 on the BBC
Having never made the long journey to Pilton, I prefer my festivals in the comfort of Website of the Day Towers. I'm especially looking forward to footage of Crowded House on the Pyramid stage (and on Shaun Keaveny's show) tomorrow afternoon. You'll find full details of all BBC coverage on air, online and on digital TV on the always excellent BBC Glastonbury site.

Paul McCartney / Beatles / Liverpool 08

In honour of Sir Paul McCartney's imminent 66th birthday:

>> Listen again to highlights from Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Sound Gig
(audio expires 2000  on 14th June 2008)
>> Watch video of Paul McCartney interviewed by Janice Long
>> Documentary: Don’t Start Me Talking About The Beatles
>> Documentary: The Day John Met Paul
>> Magical Memory Tour (Share your Beatles memories)
>> Liverpool 2008 on the BBC

Neil Diamond / Doctor Who trailers

Something Musical:
>> Radio 2 Live: Neil Diamond (Exclusive video)
A big week this week for the man who will stay “Forever In Blue Jeans” – Not only has he scored his first ever #1 album in the US Billboard charts … but even bigger than that, he’s performed his exclusive gig for Radio 2. Watch a video preview now of his performance of current single Pretty Amazing Grace, Listen tomorrow from 1900, and watch video of the concert online or by pressing the red button on any BBC Digital TV channel.

Something Creative:
>> Doctor Who Trailer Maker
I rarely get on the family computer in Website of the Day Towers, now that Henry (12) spends most of his waking hours on this site! This is a simple (but fiendishly clever) video editing tool which lets you create your own customised trailers for Doctor Who by assembling short video extracts and adding green-screen effects, sound effects and background music. You can save your trailers and email them to friends. In the two weeks since the site launched, fans have created over 80 thousand original trailers.

‘The world's biggest free music service’

>> Last FM
I’ve been a fan of this site for a few years. It’s an interesting mixture of online radio, music recommendations and MySpace-ish social networking, but until now it’s tended to appeal mainly to younger users or music geeks. This week the site has had a major upgrade which is likely to make it much more appealing even to the least geeky of music fans

Site visitors in the UK, US and Germany can now play full-length tracks and entire albums for free on the Last.fm site. They now bill themselves as ‘the world's biggest free music service’. You can listen to each track up to three times in full. After that, you can still access 30” clips, and find links to buy that track as a download or on CD.

In addition unsigned artists can upload their own music and get payed every time someone listens to their tracks via the site. If you choose to sign up and create a profile page, Last FM will track your listening habits, create an updating list your most listened-to songs and artists and generate lists of recommended tracks and artists based on your current favourites

Also mentioned today:

>> BBC teams up with MySpace

>> MySpace TV: BBC Worldwide

Music Club Live / Festive greetings

>> Radio 2 Music Club Live
Earlier this month Radio 2 hosted a concert featuring six acts we have supported from the beginning of their careers. Go online now to see photos, hear live tracks and watch backstage video of james Blunt, KT Tunstall, The Hoosiers, Tom Baxter and more. Then tomorrow from 2200 you can listen again to the whole gig and watch 30 minutes of highlights online or on digital TV (via the red button service)

Also mentioned today:
>> Elf Yourself
>> Everyclick presents Santa Swing

I Wish I'd Thought Of That

>> Radio 2: I Wish I'd Thought Of That
>> Share your experiences of using MySpace, Facebook and other social networking sites
I Wish I’d Though Of That is Radio 2's new series (hosted by Kate Thornton) profiling some of the big webby innovations and entrepreneurs. I crop up ocassionally during the series in 'talking head' mode.
Tonight's programme tells the story of MySpace - the social networking phenomenon which launched the careers of Lily Allen and Arctic Monkeys. Visit the programme's site to find out more, listen again to last week's show and share your experiences of using MySpace and other social networking sites.

Personalised Bob Dylan Video Messages (plus Rugby Tips)

>> Send a Bob Dylan video message
To promote the release of the forthcoming Dylan: His Greatest Songs compilation, this site gives all Dylan lovers the chance to create a customised version of the iconic Subterranean Homesick Blues video. Simply type in your choice of message to have your words appear on Bob’s giant cue cards. When you’re happy with the results, you can send the video to a friend.

Also mentioned today:
>> VideoJug: Rugby explained on video
We introduced you to this excellent video site last year. The site offers short clips which teach you the kind essential life skills they don’t always teach you at school, like how to get a perfect wet shave or tie a Windsor knot.
Ahead of the Rugby World Cup they have assembled a series of survival tips for both die hard fans and oval-ball novices. Find out how to avoid a tackle or brush up on related subjects like how to get served quickly at the bar. See also:
>> Rugby For The Girls
>> Rugby World Cup: Official site
>> Rugby World Cup on BBC Sport