Last year LugRadio wrapped up after five seasons, over 2million downloads and six live events. For over a year Tony Whitmore from the ubuntu-uk Podcast has been working on a documentary chronicling the history of the show, and packed with interviews, behind-the-scenes footage of how the show was planned, the studio, LugRadio Live USA and more. He premiered the hour-long documentary at LugRadio Live 2009 to resounding applause and acclaim, and it is now available online, and freely available under a Creative Commons License.

“Don’t Listen Alone: author: Tony Whitmore License: CC-BY-SA
http://ia341328.us.archive.org/2/items/Dont_Listen_Alone/dont_listen_alone.ogv

So LugRadio Live and Ogcamp is over for, possibly, another year and what phenomenal success it’s been. I have attended every LrL except 2005, volunteered for the crew twice and this year was invited to help out with the marketing which probably explains why it was such a hit.

This year was different in that LrL was a one day only event but the folk from Linux Outlaws and Ubuntu UK Podcast stepped up to the mark and filled the Sunday gap with their own event for the very first time and what a marriage it is. Everything was just, well; perfect Adam Sweet kept up tradition by arriving horrendously late and covering up the fact that he was still blindingly drunk by saying “I’ve got a terrible hangover” the Chinny Raccoon put in an appearance as well as Aq, Jono and Chris.

LugRadio Live holds a special place in the community a number of people I spoke too who was attending for the first time stated how they loved the laid back attitude not only of the speakers but everyone there, unlike some conferences the event prides itself on a Feel Free attitude, sitting in a talk you don’t like? Get up and leave nobody will mind; want to set up your own little group in the corner? Hey that’s fine too it’s this unpressured approach that defines LrL along with those who attend. The presenters yet again stated that it was the very last LugRadio Live there was even a banner verifying that statement however as you would expect the crowd refused to let them stop and so it was announced that they would attend an event next year but that someone else will need to organise it.

Finally Brunooooo was his usual hysterical self with his talk (Which was billed as Not A Talk) about communication the idea of telepathic spam had me laughing my guts out. What can one say about Bruno, I spoke to him on the stairs at OggCamp where he had just come back from buying a Wolves football shirt “What possessed you to buy that?” I asked, Bruno replied “I un-dear-stund you ave zer credit crunch I lik to elp your economee”.

Bruno, very French, very funny

As if one day of a Linux event was not enough Oggcamp on the Sunday was just the icing on the cake considering this was the first time the gang had put this kind of event on, and you could tell they was pretty nervous as to weather it would work or not, it was absolutely brilliant the format was similar to LrL but they firmly stamped their own vision of what they wanted from the outset.

Unfortunately I could only spend a few hours at OggCamp so missed half of it but I made sure I paid my £5.00 and bought a mug and had a go on the raffle the free drinks for everyone was a nice touch well done guys (and Laura).

I think I look forward more to seeing everyone I know and meeting new people more than some of the talks, some people I only get to see once a year at the show and some people like those who combined the events with a holiday and flew in from America or other places I will probably only see once in a life time. We had a conversation whereby it was felt that what other community could you walk into a room having flown in from the US and start talking to people you had never seen face to face before as if you had known them for years on a personal level?

As I’ve said many times before “The World is my Lug”.

looking forward to lugradio live and oggcamp this weekend.

finally meet the linux outlaws and maybe have a drink or 2…

see you there…

The tickets are now available for LugRadio Live 2009, visit http://www.lugradio.org/live/2009/ to reserve yours now!

Three strikes

As I write, the internet is awash with articles, all talking about the UK governments involvement with “policing” peristant illegal file sharers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8219652.stm

The ISP’s (Internet Service Providers) are in uproar, they were given the task of policing their users ) as per the Digital Britian report.

Why would the Government change their mind on this issue? What do they have to gain from this?

Digital Britain was created to ensure a basic level of access for all UK residences, I agree that those that break the law should be punished, but policing something as big as the Internet is a futile act. Yes we can downgrade their connection speeds, but for how long and how fast should the bare minimum be?

I had an idea to try and limit the number of filesharers, use a carrot instead of a stick to entice users. Give them all they can eat music legally for a fixed charge. These sites exist and should be used, if you can. Better still get people using Jamendo, an open source, and free site, that lets you download music from unsigned / undiscovered acts.

The bottom line for all my rants, is that users should be punished for what they do, but the punishment should fit the crime, by which I mean, you download a song (unless it’s Celine Dion, then you deserve the firing squad my friend), you get a letter saying naughty, naughty. If you download the entire top 40, then expect the Police to knock on your door and “take you for a chat”.

Lugradio Live

Lugradio, possibly the finest (defunct) Linux podcast ever (the title of finest current Linux podcase goes to Linux Outlaws), is hosting a one day “conference” of all things Linux, called Lugradio Live 2009 (Catchy!!)

It is being held on the 24th October (Saturday) at the Newhampton Arts Centre, Wolverhampton (UK) Map of the venue

Lugradio is not a serious podcast, in fact there are times where I have laughed out loud on the train, much to the bemusement of my fellow passengers. The lads who do the show are Linux users, and have cut their teeth in the world of Linux, in fact two of them work for Canonical (of Ubuntu fame) Jono Bacon, and Stuart Langridge. I urge you to listen to some of the old shows, yes the news is now really old, but the content is fantastic, the banter (ranging from playful to downright insulting) is just what you need to cheer up any Linux geek.

OGGCamp

The day after Lugradio live, is another big day.

25th October (Sunday), Venue to be announced, but it is in Wolverhampton (just like Lugradio Live the day before)

The first “unconference” from the Linux Outlaws and the Ubuntu UK podcast hosts.

Both of these podcasts are excellent, so go now and download some (and if the Police turn up, tell them that they are open source and freely available for download)

Linux Outlaws is hosted by Dan Lynch and Fabian Scherschel, and they have succesfully created a light, funny and topical podcast, that encompasses all things Linux (and beards, morris dancing and drinking games strangely)

Ubuntu UK podcast is hosted by Alan Pope, and focusses on Ubuntu,and has excellent reviews and news, a bit more serious than Linux Outlaws, but none the less enjoyable.

On the day, there will most likely be comedy, beer and Linux, the hosts are looking to record their shows live (in front of a studio audience), and their is the possibility of a quiz.

Other Adventures

On Sunday 23rd August, I tuned in to ratholeradio.org, another podcast, hosted by Dan Lynch (of Linux Outlaws fame). And I was lucky enough to stumble into a live set, the DJ being Proffesor Kliq

His music is electronic, dance, funk…in fact just plain fantastic.

It was amazing, this guy is awesome, and even better, you can download all of his music legally from Jamendo

Go now and download his music!!!

Anyway enough for tonight, off to bed.

Night

Les

“Psst don’t say anything but things are starting to happen”

I met up with some of the guys behind LugRadio Live at the Wolves Lug meeting on Wednesday night, Adam Sweet, Chris Proctor and Big Ron. Like most people the big question on my mind was “What’s happening with Lugradio Live 2009?”

After lots of mumblings and looking at feet shuffling to and fro the general consensus was “Um dunno really we’re waiting on Jono and Aq”. Apparently the problem is when Jono will next be in the UK? Thing is we are running out of time fast to get things organised for July, really the planning should have started the day after LrL08 finished.

The idea of having a one day event has been muted but I’m not sure thats such a good idea given that people travel from abroad for the event and I doubt they would want to spend what little money they have given the present financial climate on a one day venue.

As always I like to ask controversial questions and put it to the guys “If Jono and Aq are too busy or having difficulties now they are no longer West Midlands based couldn’t we sort it out ourselves?” obviously after asking if that was OK and getting certainly Jono and Aq’s consent. Cry’s of Plots! Plots! then ensued which was funny really so while huddled round a beer stained table we roughly mapped out some ideas just in case we get the green light.

A major problem is Jono and Aq have all the ‘Contacts’ which is vital for arranging speakers, vendors and that guy that walks around saying “I know you don’t I?” personally I cant see why Big Ron or A-another cant be entrusted with this information the thing is the ‘Call for Speakers’ needs to go out now before they all get booked up on other activities.

I get the feeling if it does go ahead we may be looking at later in the year this time around September/October seems to be the general feeling given the time it all takes to organise not to mention the £5000.00 needed to put the event on, as you can imagine the kitty stands at a big fat zero!

Apparently my role in this years offering has already been mapped out Big Ron: “Oh I’ll be calling on you all right, you can do the …… that’ll take a lot of work off my shoulders” Nice

So unfortunately its still a waiting game I’m afraid but there are plots afoot.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, November 19 (RT) — Hein-Pieter Van Braam, self described as “an arrogant viking,” has engaged in a David Blaine-style self-imposed total isolation experiment. The task: to survive a week using all proprietary Software. Van Braam has dubbed it, “The Freedom-Free Week.”

For seven days, or until he chickens out, Van Braam will use the proprietary operating system Windows Vista for all of his daily computing needs. In an early, exclusive interview Van Braam stated: ”Well, I hate to admit it, but after you’ve looked at it for a while it looks kinda slick.” Adding, “But I haven’t gotten much further than the desktop, Internet Explorer, and the screenshooter app.”

Best knownfor his blogroll link on the prominent open source blog Open Source Advocacy with Reverend Ted, and minorly for his participation in the LugRadio community, Van Braam is well known for his extremist Free Software viewpoint. Said Ubuntu community manager and LugRadio host Jono Bacon, “Oh, yeah, he’s a real nutter, that one. Seems like he gets on one of his barely articulate Free Software rants just by telling him hello. Makes me quite uncomfortable, actually.”

As Van Braam slogs his way through this seven-day trial, he reports his findings on his blog. In our exclusive interview, Van Braam shared that, “The small [Aeroglass] 3d effects are executed quite nicely, in my humble opinion. I can’t really compare it to compiz as I don’t run it.” Concluding, “Although…user interface consistency is an entirely alien concept to Microsoft. It feels like I’m running WxWidgets, Qt, GTK+ and Tk apps.”

To learn more about Van Braam’s “Freedom-Free Week” experiment and findings, visit http://blog.tmm.cx.

____

Addenda and Errata:

• If I have mischaracterized Mr. Van Braam in any way–especially in a libelious way–it was entirely unintentional.
• The genesis of this fake news report was a simple request from Hein-Pieter to me, asking me to simply mention and link to his project.
• Jono Bacon’s quote is not so much a quote as a paraphrasing of Mr. Bacon’s general sentiment about Mr. Van Braam, albeit with far fewer expletives, colorful gesticulating, and complete-loss-for-words halting pauses. Check comments below, frequently, to confirm whether Mr. Bacon refutes, endorses, or embellishes upon the quote.
• The link to David Blaine implies that Mr. Blaine is an idiot. I do not support this position, as it could be proven libelious. However, I do support the position that Mr. Blaine is a self-absorbed, batshit fucktard.

I arrived at the unofficial breakfast and hooked up with Barbie and some of his fellow Perl mingers (Mongers) where we had a quick chat over an 8 item English (Fry up) breakfast after which we walked down the sunny streets of Wolverhampton (We’ll actually a little chilly with a hint of rain to be honest) to take our place in the orderly queue forming outside the venue.

After paying our £5.00 entrance fee and grabbing a goodie bag each we headed off to the various stalls to see what other swag was available. This might sound a little mercenary but four years of this event has taught me that computer geeks are like locusts they’ll clean out a vendors carrier bags quicker than a piranha gnawing on a tasty leg.

Having retired to a quiet corner to asses our punitive strike on the unsuspecting stall owners we took our seats clutching our ill gotten gains and waited for the four drink sodden presenters to take the stage.

I have to say that the attendance seemed down on last year which surprised me given as this is possibly the last ever LugRadio Live but maybe more attended on the Sunday which I didn’t go to but for example I was expecting long waits to go on the Bytemark game rig but to be honest there was plenty of seats available (although I understand there was a bigger take up in the afternoon).

Some of the talks was not really “Up my street” although I thought Bruno’s talk “Baguette on Snails” was hysterical. I also enjoyed Neuro’s “Second Life and Open Source” and of course Gong-a-Thon.

I shall miss the event now that supposedly there will be no more unless the guys relent and put something on next year, the finality only hit me when I heard my wife on the phone to her sister just before my daughter and I left for the event “Oh he’s off out all day to a Linux show, he goes every year” I realised that I’d have to find something else to do on July 19th 2009.

So another chapter closes in the Linux annual calendar, LugRadio Live UK 2008 is over and possibly forever.

I should imagine that most you guys reading this know about LugRadio Live. For those who don’t (I’m looking at you Sam), go check out the website. Just like the last two years, you’ll find me amongst the mass of beards, long hair and O’Reilly books. However – unlike the last two years – all attending will have the opportunity to contribute towards a colaberative artwork, this is where I get involved.

Indeed, I shall be hosting an exhibition during the weekend long event where anyone can walk up, grab a pen, pencil, pastel, paintbrush, prittstick or many other wonderful things begining with ‘p’, and apply them to a large piece of paper. The aim being to create at least one piece of art produced in a (vaguely) similar fashion to how Open Source software is produced. Seemed like a fun, and reasonably apt idea – and the handsomely large gents over at LugRadio towers appear to have agreed.

The idea behind this originated while I was studying art a sixth form, as for one of the modules I did I could choose anything so long as it could be connected to the subject of “freedom”, I believe – something like that… So I chose FOSS, somewhere near the end of the course I remember talking to a friend about how great it would be to produce a piece of artwork in a similar fashion to the collaberative way that FOSS software is developed. Unfortunately, it was too far into the year to actually arrange that. However the idea stuck with me all this time – gently simering in the depths of my brain, like some kind of exqusite stew – and finally I decided to mentioned to the LugRadio guys earlier this year. The idea, not the awful stew analogy.

Anyhow, as much as it pains me to admit, I am only one of many great reasons why you need to attend LugRadio Live UK this year. In addition to the swarths of great speakers at the event – there will also be parties held each night starting on Friday. In addition to this you get to meet loads of great people also exhibiting at the event, talk to people about stuff you’re interested in during BoF sessions, see some poor guy in a thong banging on a gong, and – most importantly – shed a tear while whitnessing the very last LugRadio Live live LugRadio.

As it happens, I’m going away to make some final preperations for the exhibit (or rather, eat some tortilla chips and then go do something useful like that). Incidentally, for those who don’t know, I’m a big fan of LugRadio and it does feel a little strange that I’m exhibiting at the finale of this cherished thing. Although, at the same time I’m very excited about what might come out of this exhibition.

Don’t forget to pop round my table and draw/paint/pen/verb something if you are attending!

Chris Hayes

Say it isn’t so!  After LUGRadio LIVE in the UK, the blokes at LUGRadio are hanging up thier microphones for good.  For details, listen to the latest LUGRadio.

Bueno como muchos sabran andube por alli diciendo que me iva a LugRadio USA 2008, para los que no saben que es pueden entrar en la website de LugRadio eh informarce un poco.

Como buen Ecuatoriano llegue un poquito tarde al evento pero no muy tarde. Mas por que con mi amigo que iva se habia comprado un GPS nuevo y como todo lo nuevo pues ya se imaginan, el conductor decia vamos por aqui y el GPS por otro, osea todo un relajo.

Bueno llegando que llegando como fui uno de los primeros 50 en registrarme para el evento recivi a parte de la bolsa de regalitos que siempre dan los promotores del evento un DVD de Postal Fudege Pack.

Despues de eso lo primero que hize es buscarle este man de Jono pero no lo encontraba por ningun lado, asi que me sente a ver la exposicion de Miguel de Icaza a cerca de Mono que es una aplicacion muy interesante para los developers muy interesante.

Despues de dar una vueltita por los escritorios de los Exibitores como Google, Gnome, OpenSuse, FreeBSD, Ubuntu, Inkscape, Mandriva one Laptop per Child San Francisco, Drupal, por el momento por que los demas aun no llegaban los exibitores.

Bueno estaba probando Guitar Hero en una maquina con Ubuntu que a proposito un Rocker alado mio me humillo tocando una cancion 100% correcto, cuando me doy la vuelta y atras mio Jono con la pelada (que por cierto muy simpatica la chica ), no le dije nada por que anda embelesado con la novia.

Bueno despues de eso asisti a algunas charlas y luego vino el Gong-a-Thong Lightbulb Talk Extravaganza que se traba de ciertos de los expositores oh cualquieraque queria hablar de lo que hacia en la comunidad de SL y Linux. Aqui unas fotitos.

Sorry por las fotos pero estan tomadas con mi BlackBerry 8130.

Despues de todo las exposiciones aqui unas fotos de los chicos de LugRadio

aaa Crazy guys. Y como ultimono podia faltar LUG RADIO LIVE AND UNLEASHED.

Despues de todo un dia salgo Felizzzzzzz como una lombirz y con algunos stickers en mi laptop y uno principal

El de Ubuntu Sticker

Bueno vamos a ver como nos va maniana a ver si logro hablar con Jono a cerca de Ubuntu Ecuador. Le iva a regalar una camiseta de las de Ubuntu Ecuador pero ni a valas le queda si este man es flaaaaaco como una lombris pero es alto.

This week, we went from zero to two “tech” Guests of Honor. They are Jono Bacon, and Benjamin Mako Hill. We also confirmed Chris DiBona will be coming back as a “Nifty” guest, Jorge Castro , and Kyle Rankin as well. On the off chance you don’t know who any of these people are, here’s the official write-up. I am so looking forward to this. I’ve been plugging Jono as a good choice for GoH since the first season of LUG Radio, and his credentials have only gotten more impressive since then. Looks like I’ll be attending a lot more Linux stuff this year at con than the past couple years. Of course, I also need to make time for the perennial favorite, Tom Smith, and one of my favorite cartoonists who barely even draws: Randall Munroe (who, I understand, is also an Ubuntu geek).

This blog entry  entry will be updated to include photos as soon as I get around to it… But, for now – enjoy;

Indeed, it was that time of the year again – the greatest event of the entire entirety of the year. LugRadio Live.

Well, the 7th of July started with me running like a maniac across the countryside holding a partially wet oil painting at about half-past 7 in the morning. Thankfully the wet Chinny Raccoon painting made its way – unsmudged – all the way from Nottinghamshire to Wolverhampton, across 3 train routes and one pretty packed train. Annoyingly, after getting to the event it got slightly smudged about 10 minutes after I put it down, so I had to try to smudge it back to normal with my fingers as best I could :p

It was great, meeting people I’d only known on irc or the forums – MrBen, Neuro, Dave2, Xalior, DotWaffle, Tig – as well as meeting cool people I don’t think I’d ever known before anywhere, which is cool. Chating with Teg Hager, that was interesting. Having my oil painting of the Chinny Raccoon admired by the LugRadio team – it was absolutely awesome! And as for the painting – when Jono came up to me at first to comment on it, I said that if he thought it was any good they could give it away as a prize or something. And strangely enough, it was given away as one of 3 prizes to mrben who’d won the community hero award again, I say strangely because me and mrben had been working on the Linkpot.net creation of his – I’ve been helping out with the graphics and webdesign stuff, it certainly felt like the painting hadn’t drifted too far away from me and that it was in safe hands.

But back to the original point – it really was great to put faces to these people I’d known for the last year online. That was probably the best thing about this years LRL for me – last year when I was at LRL I didn’t even know what LugRadio was, a friend called me a week before the event and asked if I wanted to go, I said yes and it was pretty cool – even at that point I looked forward to the next one. After that I started listening to LugRadio and became a pretty hardcore fan of their show – and during that time I made to almost complete switch to using Linux. Those are the reasons why I enjoyed it more this year – I didn’t feel like a fish out of water, I felt more like I was part of it.

While at this years LRL, I ensured that I picked up a large amount of free stash, Ubuntu CDs, t-shirts, lanyards, baseball caps, keyrings, badges, stickers, pens, pencils, drinks mats, and other bits and pieces. Anyway, what I meant to say was, I’ve acquired a fairly reasonable amount of Ubuntu and SuSE CDs – these, and a lot of my other stash, I’ll be giving away at Newark LUG events – unfortunately Craig wasn’t able to attend LRL this year, hopefully he’ll be able to make it next year as I’m sure he would have enjoyed it tons.

It was a little disappointing that I wasn’t able to stay for the Sunday night post-event LugRadio Live drinkies and chatter – but I guess that’ll be something to make next years LRL even more worth looking forward to. And talking about hashlugradio (as the Sunday night is the #lugradio meet up) – the hashlugradio BoF was fantastic, I really found that to be one of the most highlit of the highlights. And the gong-a-thong, that was pretty good even without the hilarious Adam Sweet oiled up and on stage in a thong – he just made the difference, turning it into something that I doubt I’ll ever be able to forget.

Gah – I must admit, it doesn’t feel like I’m doing this event justice with what little I can say about it. It was friggin awesome – it is the kind of event where before hand, there are so many cool things going on – you just can’t decide what you want to go and see! Anyone even remotely interested really ought to try and make it to LRL next year, if you can – it really will rock, that I’m sure of.

Finally, I now own a very lovely little GP2X handheld games console – and over the next few months I hope to start developing some simple games for it in SDL during my spare time. But I’ll save this for a new post.Chris Hayes / cbhworld

As you may know, I intended to create a piece of art that encompassed the ethic and motivations behind the Open Source / Free Software community. This piece of art would both form the final piece of my A2 level art exam – and be a scrumptious exhibit for the Geek Art Exhibition at the recently passed LugRadio Live 2007. Unfortunately the deadline for the A2 exam work was too close, so instead I provided a mediocre picture for that, and decided to still do the fantastic design of symbolism and abstracted concepts for the LugRadio Live event.

Unfortunately there wasn’t really enough time to do this either, as it is such a difficult thing to do I feel – so instead, it was time to go with what you know – so I decided to do a picture of the Chinny Raccoon. However! At the time when I needed to bring the finished background of it back home from school and complete the darn thing – about a week before LugRadio Live, I came down with some horrible infection, two in fact – and was unable to do this. But! Two days before LugRadio Live I was feeling a fair bit better and saw the doctor whom said that is wasn’t contagious and that I’d be fine to go to the event! Straight after this I picked up the oil painting. Unfortunately there was no time to work on it that day – and besides, I had to work out where I was staying for the Saturday night! Now – unfortunately – all the hotels seemed booked, but thankfully my uncle was able to put me up for the night – even on such short notice.

Right, so I’ve now sorted out everything except for… The painting. Right, so then – the following day – I had about 4 hours spare to do the Chinny Raccoon’s stylised head upon the background. Worse than that was that this meant there was no chance of letting the paint dry so that I could build it up and do decent coats of paint – upon dried layers – like the background was created from. Of course – me and my father did attempt to try and dry the paint using a fan and then a strong hot lightbulb – and finally a hairdryer. However all this was in vain.

But thankfully, something half decent was done before LugRadio Live – now the only issue is… how to keep the wet oil painting from getting smudged on the journey from Notttinghamshire to Wolverhampton… Hmm, I’ll cover how well this went in my post about LugRadio live itself.

Chris Hayes / cbhworld

In a recent fortuitous turn of events, the Chinny Raccoon has been brought back to his usual lodging; chin.lugradio.org – also making appearances for the fans at mychin.org

Although no one has publicly taken credit for this so far, it is likely that Jono Bacon was the good samaritan able to talk the raccoon into coming back home. This truely is great news, and now it is looking quite likely that the Chinny Raccoon will once again be able to make some kind of appearence as the mascot of LugRadio at the The Lighthouse, Fryer Street, Wolverhampton, UK this year on the 7th and 8th of July for this years LugRadio Live!

There’s not much more to say at this point other than, good luck Chinny Raccoon – we’re truly glad to see you back, and everyone – go to LugRadio Live this year! It’s gonna rock like never before!

And for those who are interested, I’ll be there – of course. And furthermore, I should be leading an Art Contribution BOF – where people who are interested in contributing art to the open source / Free software community can come along and talk to developers about doing this. Any questions that you’ve wanted to ask, anything you’re unsure of – this is your chance, and the same goes for developers too. It’s open to all and I hope people will find it useful. Any questions or suggestions about this, feel free to contact me at cbhworld (AT) gmail (DOT) com

Enough said, go there if you can! (and never attempt to listen to LugRadio alone: http://www.lugradio.org/listenalone/)

Chris Hayes / cbhworld

In the young history of my blog, this is quite possibly the first important and serious issue that I’ve ever brought up on it. It concerns the famous cultural icon known as the Chinny Raccoon. Here (on Adam Sweet’s blog) is some background concerning the roots of how the Chinny Raccoon became the personification of the essence of chin, as well as a brief definition as to what the term ‘chin’ means within this context.

The Chinny Raccoon is an illusive and shy creature now, of course – with his launch into fame occurring so fast, it’s quite conceivable why this is the case. Unfortunately the raccoon has gone missing, it is unknown when the raccoon was last sighted at its official place of residence at chin.lugradio.org of Bacon Towers – however he was spotted twice in the UK city of Wolverhampton during LugRadio Live 2006. Some have speculated that he may have found the fans present at the event too much to handle and absconded at some point while everyone in the building was distracted by Bruno’s inspiring talk. Others had suggested that the raccoon’s hasty retreat may have been caused by some conflicts within his family – however these claims appear to be completely unfounded.

In a recent development of the story, Stuart Langridge of LugRadio was able to piece together evidence concerning the whereabouts of the Chinny Raccoon and finally report that he had tracked down the raccoon at its current location, which is here.

So far there has been no official comment as the to the celebrity’s current mental state, some have suggested that the raccoon is in need of some counselling before any attempt at returning him back to his home. Others have suggested that this year’s LugRadio Live could prove problematic if the raccoon is not up for making a live public appearance for the fans.

Right now, it has been suggested that Jono Bacon, also from LugRadio and known as being a lifelong close friend of the raccoon might be in a position to issue some kind of solution. So far Mr Bacon has made no comment in relation to this.

With it only a matter of weeks left before LugRadio Live 2007, it is becoming less clear as to whether the Chinny Raccoon will be making a public appearance now. However fans seem not to be giving up hope that this is still a realistic possibility.

If you know anything that may help, either contact LugRadio directly or leave a message of support on their forums.

Chris Hayes / cbhworld