January 31, 2003
English Rock
No prizes for guessing who this little scamp is. I thought I'd pop a picture on my main site for those without access to Milos private site.
My motivation which flaged a little during January seems to be returning - its still a mystery what effects this but there you go. Music has seemed unusually vibrant this week so I've been doing a lot of listening. In no particular order - XTC are my current interest - they are one of those bands I have always "kind of liked" but this last week I have come to realize how truly brilliant they are. Great tunes presented in a very "English" way and without any fuss or hype. The new King Crimson album is one of their very very best. Dark Side of the Moon realy is a truly great album. Its one of those things that have been around for so long that everyone knows the tunes but if you have a copy go and give it a proper listen - get a cup of coffee or tea and sit and pay attention to it. Brilliant. As you can tell I am still in an "English Rock Music" phase....
I have a few new things brewing - a new PD external that generates Lindenmayer systems which is half built. I am working on a track for submission for something happening Sheffield - unusual in its the first time I have used one of my poems in a track. I am also getting increasingly fed up with the quantities of spam I receive. One problem of having a website and a domain name is you attract much more than usual. I have been trying out a plugin to outlook that catches some but more drastic measures are needed. Currently putting together a Perl script that tries to clear a good deal of it out.
My friend Ijonas has a new Picture of the Week project. Well worth checking out.
January 27, 2003
A Passing Monday
Mondays ,traffic, grr. Where are these people going ?
A pleasingly mundane weekend. Milo and I went out on Saturday for a bit of a walk and we went to the supermarket on Sunday. Just what was needed this week.
I finally bought The Salmon of Doubt by the late and very great Douglas Adams. I have kind of been wanting to read this but as well have been a little bit put off by the fact that it was rushed out after his death. Finding it for £3 in Asda forced my hand however. *grin*.
Like a lot of people my age I knew the Hitchhikers guide books inside out and I still reread them occasionally. Mr Adams was not the most prolific writer in the world – due primarily it would seem to his world class procrastination techniques. Reading the Salmon of Doubt however reveals just what a great loss to the world his early death was. He writes with a clarity and honesty as well as a refreshing sideways viewpoint.
I had intended to leave off music for a while. However, this last week or so I have found myself tinkering with ideas again. I guess some things just need an outlet. Not sure if any of what I am doing is going to lead to anything concrete. I am currently exploring sequencing – starting off with the kind of techniques used by the likes of Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze in the 70’s but I am now focusing more on generative systems again.
Current hot listening tips: Passage to Hades by Evan Parker and Jah Wobble, Absent Lovers by King Crimson and the wonderful Compact Disc by P.I.L (also called Album & Cassette)
January 21, 2003
A Passing rant
Is it me or does this government think we are stupid? First of all we have Kim Howells trying to claim that music piracy is "supporting" trade in drugs and prostitutes - now forgive me but I hadn't realized that these where non-profit activities. And now we have Tony claiming that despite there not being a clear link between Al-Queda and Iraq its clear that to stop Al-Queda we must indeed attack Iraq. The mind boggles.
I have yet to see any clear justification at all for this forthcoming war personally. UN resolution or no.
Oh well - back to normal programming....
Persephone
A late night poem. The images came first and found Persephone (the wife of Hades) sitting in a stone garden in tears:
Persephone
A great clay moon
swollen and bruised
climbing over the horizon
beaten, heavy and ripe
to hang over
the cold tranquillity
of the stone garden
where Persephone sits
long skirts torn and ripped
sharp rocks and bare thorn
silver clouds across
the infinite glittered sky
the colours of fire
stripped from the trees
Persephone’s fingers
twist in her hair
dead white keratin
amongst the thick black locks
her silent sobs
her iridescent tears as
her husbands love
tears life away
from the world
January 20, 2003
Retro Alert
just listening to Jeff Waynes War of the Worlds in a fit of retro entertainment. Not quite sure how it stands up as a work in itself but I'm enjoying it greatly.
More Mundanity
They're still at it - all those mysterious monday commuters. Its not a good start to the week my good mood upon leaving the house soon disolved on the outskirts of Glasgow.
The weekend was quite good. Milos current wakeup time of 6:30am leaves me forever "just a bit tired". I try to go to bed earlier but given that when everyone else is in bed is the only time I get to myself I am reluctant to eat into it. On Saturday however Abby and Milo went to a birthday party leaving me a precious whole afternoon to myself. I immediately resolved to do as little as possible and spent a pleasent few hours catching up on some reading. I also decided to have a look at one of the minor problems effecting my car. When I was young my Dad kept our cars running and it has always seemed a little bit lazy to me to get garages to do the minor repairs. When I had a company car of course this wasn't an issue but now I own my own it seems like I should be able to at least do some things to it. With this thought in mind I purchased a haynes manual a couple of weeks ago and investigated the various minor things that need doing to it. The easiest was the one that was the most serious - the brake light was comming on pretty much all the time. So on Saturday a bit of tinkering later the swtich is reset and only comes on when it is supposed to. Most satisfying.
On Sunday we went out for a walk in the Pentland hills which was most enjoyable.
My good friend Rick has entered the weblog fray.
January 16, 2003
The story of the hammer concludes
In case anyone has any interest at all in the woeful story of the lost hammer - I managed to purchase one on the way home in the Sauchiehall Street Center which despite its down at heel nature has supplied me with many useful things. And after a little banging we are now the proud owners of a stair gate - which is good because Milo can scamper upstairs to his hearts content. Roo (one of the cats) doesn't like it because he can't get past it. Oh well off to bed and hopefully some sleep - Milo seems to be teething tonight.
Hammers
Well would you believe that it seems to be impossible to buy a hammer in glasgow city center? Large parts of it seem to be being "Upgraded". Down by the Barrows they are building luxury flats and streets that where once full of shops selling this and that now contain trendy bars, piercing salons and designer clothes shops. The one or two decorating shops (the closest I could find to a DIY shop) only sell paint brushes and glue. Grrrrr.
The search continues...
Lawyers
All the good things at work (primarily sales stuff) seem to have been hijacked by lawyers who are making sure contracts are valid etc. This of course delays everything by a few weeks. I wonder if lawyers are inevitable – when we finally come across alien civilizations we will find that they too have lawyers checking their every move. I guess that its likely. In any situation where large numbers of people have to trust strangers a system of protections (contracts) will arise and this will need experts to police it.
This is one of the big problems with the free market economy. If it is allowed to run freely it will quickly establish parasitic elements. For example if the fire service was provided by private companies in an unregulated fashion you would either end up with them setting fires (if they where paid per fire put out) or running as a protection racket (if they where paid to look after properties). Either way regulation is needed.
Started reading Feeding Frenzy by Will Self last night. His writing is a joy and made me realise that mine isn’t very good at all by comparison. Despite his showy style (I needed a dictionary 4 times on the first page of the introduction and my vocabulary isn’t bad) he is eminently readable and very funny to boot. Talking of Will Self this is a must read.
Elsewhere in my life I am unable to find my hammer (or saw but I managed without that). I am off to buy another one this lunch time.
January 14, 2003
In the gaps
A Poem
In The Gaps (HTML)
its about reconstructing stories out of biographical material if that makes any sense :-).
I never really write about the weather in this journal so I though I would give it a mention: Its warm and windy at the moment - the sort of weather that Scotland really does well. I really like it when its like this.
In case you hadn't guessed I am writing a very boring document at the moment and am doing things to avoid it
January 13, 2003
Dark days getting lighter
So where is everyone going on a Monday morning? The last two Mondays it has taken me the best part of and hour and a half to get to work because of traffic queuing for 7 or 8 miles out of Glasgow. On all other days there has been little or no queuing and I have even made a sub 40 minute journey one morning. Very mysterious. Its not a good start to the week though.
A fairly pleasant weekend mostly doing bits and pieces of shopping. We went to Bar Soda. Great food and a nice treat. We also visited Livingstone shopping centre (which is awful) but we hired one of These for Milo which he absolutely loved. Other than that did very little at all except a bit of reading and playing with Milo.
With all this talk of war it seems to me that no one has really given a credible explanation of why it is needed – Good old Dubya saying that Saddam is a threat just doesn’t cut it. Iraq may or may not have weapons of mass destruction – so do lots of other people we don’t like. He seems to have little to do with Al’Queda (who clearly are a threat). Interestingly whilst we are claiming he is this great threat we seem to reckon that we can beat him easily in a war. Something doesn’t add up. It can’t be the oil thing – I have seen some pretty good arguments that it will harm the multinationals rather than helping them so what is it?
I was interested to find This which is a transcript of a George Bush speech where he says :
"You may hide for a brief period of time, but pretty soon we’re going to put the spotlight on you, and we’ll bring you to justice.
We’ve cut off millions of dollars that the enemy was using to fund operations. We’re working with friends and allies around the world. And we’re hauling them in, one by one. Some have met their fate by sudden justice; some are now answering questions at Guantanamo Bay. In either case, they’re no longer a problem to the United States of America and our friends. "
In what sense is the word justice used in this quote? Sudden justice=killing people perhaps? Guantanamo Bay where they hold people indefinately without trial...
Currently listening to a pre-release of the new King Crimson album – The Power To Believe. Powerful stuff. This band are one who have consistently kept moving – unlike a lot of bands that started in the 60’s.
January 08, 2003
Gun Culture
It might be considered that I am making more effort to make entries in this web log. Do not be fooled this is simply a statistical anomaly. And perhaps a reflection of the fact that I am rested after a couple of weeks away from the sometimes life sapping environment that is work. Actually this is a little unfair – last year was a life sapping experience – a constant struggle against imminent failure is always draining. This year we start with success very firmly within our grasp and I am hoping that it will be a much more pleasant experience all round.
There was an interesting item on the today program yesterday talking about the link between gun culture amongst the black community and rap music. Ignoring the obvious point that “black” culture and music has a much wider influence than simply black people as witnessed by its presence in mainstream culture it is interesting that people try to make this link every time something seemingly alien appears. We had it with rock music in the 60’s and punk in the 70’s and dance culture in the 90’s. The key point that people are missing is that music comes from a culture. Gangsta rap talks about guns and crack because that is the life these people know (admittedly the now wealthy rappers like p.diddy talking about it is somewhat disingenuous). It would be like blaming blues for the high rate of divorce or alcoholism.
It is much more likely, and unfortunately harder to do something about, that the gun culture spreads because these people feel disempowered, the gun is the ultimate in instant empowerment – even the skinny kid with glasses is someone when they have a gun. The police are failing these people – dialling 999 doesn’t solve problems it simply brings down more injustices, or at least it has in the past. If we want rid of this disturbing new development in our society we need to start addressing the problems that lead to people needing to establish their own system of “justice” – a decent social system, proper opportunities in life and a criminal justice system that works for all not just the white middle classes.
Music is a reflection of the lives and thoughts of the people making it. The people who think that rap music causes gun culture should listen past the swear words and “shocking” references to the context – yes a lot of it is about getting girls and stuff like that but a lot of it is about the struggle for people to empower themselves in a world that seemingly is stacked against them.
January 06, 2003
metal and snow
I have been fascinated by Grangemouth since I first came across it. Living near it you get to see it in many different lights - some of them very spectacular. I particularly like it when there are huge flares and low cloud. The entire landscape flickers with an erie glow. This picture was taken on Saturday morning at its eastern end. The hills on the right are in Fife.
We went to Edinburgh Zoo on Saturday. Zoos are odd kind of places - I love seeing the animals and I appreciate that zoos do a lot of conservation and scientific work of great value but you can't help feeling sad at seeing animals kept away from the wide open spaces they are used to. Edinburgh Zoo has a nice kind of mood to it though and I particularly liked the penguins who seemed quite happy with the freezing temperatures (odd that). You can see underwater in their enclosure and they are so graceful underwater its untrue. Milo thought they where funny too.
Listening to lots of Can at the moment. Can are one of those groups that are highly rated by musicians but no one else seems to have heard of. Composed mainly of students of 50's german classical composers they launched themselves at rock music in a highly original way.
January 03, 2003
America is waiting
America. Home of the Brave, land of the free. Or at least it used to be. I am not so sure any more. Have you tried discussing the (say it quietly) negative side of America with an American. Or in fact trying to criticse an American. Its just not acceptable - its not considered constructive. Business seems to be done like this too - you can't point out problems so everything takes ten times as long while people do it wrong, realize and then try to find a way of doing it right without admiting they did it wrong the first time.
There have been a number of things that illustrate this lately - one was on American Pop Idol where they couldn't accept Simon Cowells criticism. Now I am the first to admit that Simon Cowell is harsh and probably insensitive but these people want to work in a harsh soulless industry that doens't care one itoa about anything but making money. If they are going to deal with this without having their lives utterly destroyed then they should be able to deal with criticism. This article by Brian Eno is considered over the top, too much. I've seen comments on message boards saying things like - "America does more for humanity than anyone else - people criticising should remember that". What!. I am sorry but when you start to belive your own propaganda you are on a slippery slope. Do you think that ordinary Germans under the Third Reich all suddenly turned in to evil murderers? Or, as was really the case, do you think that they where simply being patriotic - beliving that they where helping build the greatest nation on earth, turning a blind eye to the attrocities of their leaders because not doing so was unpatriotic. Now I am not suggessting that the American government is going to start killing its people or anything like that but if people stop questioning then the interests of those with money - The Oil companies, the media companies etc will start directing the way America goes. Patriotism is not blind unswerving condonment of everything your governmenet does not matter how stupid. Patriotism is making sure that the values of your country are upheld by everyone including the government.
And for the rest of us? Well what happens when America decides it needs to start annexing other countries to help preserve democracy. Who is going to stand up to them? They already think like that, that the American way is the only way. They already bomb countries in the name of democracy...
On a lighter note someone has decided to run Pepys diary as a daily weblog. A great way to read this rather overwhelming but fascinating work. Check it out.
January 01, 2003
another year
Another year. As you get older life accelerates and you get slower. Even if science manages to crack the immortality thing people will get to the point where they are missing whole centuries by not paying attention.
On a more serious note I have decided that this year needs some life goals and I am going to be brave and state them here so everyone can point out I am crap if I don’t do them:
- Sort out the stressful ongoing crisis that is my financial situation.
- Loose weight – I have been threatening this for a while but it really does have to happen
There are others but they are more of the moment. These two really do have to happen. Feel free to point out that I am failing to achieve them.
In other aspects of my life things are going well – the company I work for appears to making some positive progress. Our survival should be assured and with luck this year will allow us to grow. There is a crazy amount of work to do however. Still that’s what makes it fun.
I have had a good Christmas away from most of my worries because of this and I have spent most of my time with Milo. It's been excellent to see him when I am not tired or stressed out.
I have deliberately not been working on any of my projects either. I have decided to let music take a back seat for a little while – its not like I am getting any opportunity to do it anyway at the moment. I am sure this will change at some point in the year though. Poetry and writing are moving to be my main focus then and I am hoping to get something published and perhaps even get paid for it. Either that or collect lot's of rejection letters.