November 27, 2002
The dark sea
November has been a little on the busy side. Following the return of my motivation and my generally having got on top of the sleep thing I have been insanely busy. Although not as busy as Jamie Oliver (Jamies Kitchen - tuesday nights c4 9pm) who is clearly a sucker for punishment. An excellent program because it makes me realise that no matter how tiring or stressful things get my life is a complete breeze compared to his.
We visited Leeds this month for a few days to collect the cats who have been staying there and to catch up with old friends. Abigail and I met in Leeds and I lived there for a long time. Its a city that has certainly seen an upturn in its fortunes and its a nice place to be. It was great to see people again - in particular one old friend who I haven't seen since I left.
As well as being work busy I have also been trying to move one or two of my own projects closer to completion. The poetry collection is having some new work added to it. I am learning Maya - ostensibly to do the artwork for "Out amongst the beacons" but I have always liked 3d programs and Maya is very nice. Drawing in most 3d programs feels more like programming than drawing but Maya frees you to think visually. You can get a free version from Alias | wavefront. On the music front I am still working on software and control stuff - I've reinstalled my studio pc - I've upgraded to Windows XP and I've done all the performance tuning so we are ready to go. I am also putting together a "Best" of junklight compilation - its looking like its going to be a double cd - one cd of more upbeat and experimental tracks and a second more ambient disc. Its tentatively called "Idiosyncratic Moments" and will be a cd only release (the mp3's are mostly available from here anyway). If you want a copy then email me - if you know me personally then it will be free otherwise it will be £5 + p&p to cover costs (i'll sort out my pay pal details for you if anyone actually wants it :-) ).
Haven't had a chance to read much - still working my way through The Blank Slate by Stephen Pinker. On the music front check out These guys - rather good ambient IDM from Russia. There are lots of mp3's on the web site.
Lastly I was doing my regular morning reading including the web diary of Sid Smith - author of the excellent In the Court of King Crimson and was most startled to find mention of my Website - cheers Sid.
I am finally getting on top of things and Milo (my son) is sleeping better now so look out for more regular updates (mind you I always say that don't I)
November 05, 2002
Plockton
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Click on the pictures for a bigger version
This weekend we visited Plockton (left hand picture above). It’s a beautiful village (and in fact it appears in the Wicker Man and Hamish Macbeth) and very quiet at this time of the year. It was nice to get away and see a bit more of Scotland as well.
Scotland can be an odd kind of place. People have this romantic view of the place (and the fact you can take pictures like those above doesn’t help much) but there is also a lot of it that is quite incongruous in some ways – dams, pipelines, forest workings etc. The few buildings that are around are fairly modern and often quite ugly. I guess a lot of this is down to the highland clearances. In the 1800’s the few people that owned the land in Scotland essentially cleared it of its residents. I am in the process of trying to learn more about this so I am not going to make uninformed comment about it. The end result though is that a lot of the history of Scotland is quite intangible – fields where battles took place or locations of incidents etc. The most concrete evidence is the various visitors centres dotted around.