I was up ludicrously early this morning. Milo woke at 5:45 and tricked me into going and getting him because it was starting to get light. Oh well – sunrise was beautiful. The half moon all red and setting behind the trees in the mist and then the early sun.
Some passing thoughts:
Despite the fact that wars have traditionally involved casualties on both sides as well as accidents and what is now called “friendly fire” the media have decided that these things occurring indicate the war is going badly. There is no answer to this. We are going to win this war (or turkey shoot as Terry Jones described it). We have considerably more fire power and it would appear considerable will to do it. After all we have burnt diplomatic bridges with our allies and Tony Blair has alienated a lot of his supporters to wage this war. By the same token some of our soldiers will die and quite a lot of Iraqi’s will also. What the live tv coverate does is graphically show how unpleasent war is. This can only be a good thing.
Watching Tony Blair and George Bush talking on TV last night brought one thing home very clearly. Either George Bush is a very very poor public speaker and just comes across as clueless OR someone else is pulling the strings. I take back earlier comments about Tony Blair - I think that he is very sincere about this but because he is deeply entrenched in the American view he has had a very hard time communicating this to us. It may well be though that he has made the right decision. Part of me suspects that this war may indeed have been inevitable and that we are better (in terms of numbers of deaths on BOTH sides) having it sooner rather than later. The unfortunate thing from Tony Blairs point of view is that if he is right no one will ever know because the threat will have been removed - I can't imagine Saddam Hussein standing up at the end and saying - "its a fair cop".
If I was in Saddam’s position I would be:
a) blowing up “civilian targets” – houses, leisure centre’s etc. and making sure that these where the only sites that journalists got to see.
b) taking a lesson from the places where the West has had a hard time fighting wars and going in for Guerrilla warfare by abandoning all big military installations and going in for small portable weapons.
c) re-broadcasting western TV coverage as “proof” that things are going badly. For people used to state controlled television they will not have the perspective to see our media for what it is.
d) Perusing the route of asking the UN to stop the war. Given they where unable to support it would at the very least be amusing to put them in the position of having to actively stop it or come out and say – no, actually, we do agree after all.
The only way he is going to be able to save himself is to wage a media war – not the crude propaganda war he is trying via Al-Jazeera but a subtle one that plays on the wests sympathies.
On a more mundane note I seem to have cracked my spam problem with This piece of software. Having trained it for a week or so only the odd thing gets through and it hasn’t thrown away anything I wanted to keep for several days now. Highly recommended.
Tired - no - Exhausted and empty after what I think has been a productive week. I am excited about moving - change is good and this one brings many benefits. Not least the odd beer after work and a summer of considerably less commuting.
Everyone else (apart from the cats who are just waking up for a skitter) is asleep. Time to join them
Last night I dreamt (amongst other things there was a long prelude to this involving a curious music festival set amongst ruins, a take away and some travelling) that I was moving into a house that I couldn’t prove I owned. Outside my belongings where stacked into huge heaps (100’s of yards long – much more stuff than I really have). I was about to go out when I realized that all my stuff was on the street and that it would get nicked if I didn’t move it – and of course as is the way in dreams trying to move it was futile. A girl I used to be friends with called Sarah walked past with a friend and another person turned into a bat, not in a scary way or anything it just happened (in passing – it was nothing to do with anything). Everything was red and grey.
I love these really “obvious” dreams my brain occasionally produces. I remember years ago when I was worrying about my career dreaming about climbing a wet rock face with slippery shoes on.
I did a more careful calculation of the number of places I have lived and I reckon that my estimate below is one more than the places I have actually lived. I’ll spare you the list.
Listening to various commentators on the radio this morning it occurred to me that the reason we have such a big problem with the war and the reasons behind it is that we just don’t get how the Americans are thinking right now. We are used to terrorism – we have had the IRA for a long time now and because of our proximity to Europe and even the East and Africa we are used to co-existing with disparate cultures. The Americans aren’t – September 11 was a massive wake up call for them that the rest of the world is out there and they don’t understand it. And with a lack of understanding comes fear. I think they REALLY are scared of Saddam – whereas we just see him as another player in the scheme of things. We are just at the start of some massive world changes I think. Hopefully they won’t come to the same conclusions as the inhabitants of Krikket.
Listening to Optometry by DJ Spooky – flawed but enjoyable.
The house thing is good - my life feels like it is moving forwards in the right direction. Moving is always a stressful time and this will be roughly the 21st move I have made in 18 years give or take. Methinks the time to actually buy a house is getting closer.
I'm still doing a lot of programming at work which drains all of my mental resources but I think that its coming to and end and all being well it can be handed on to others and I can get on with my normal stuff. This will also mean I can get on with music and writing as well.
I pulled some samples off the radio last night including an excellent loop of the Iraqi parliment chanting. I am still messing about with them but I have an idea for a piece using them. I've also written a midi loop abstraction for PD which allows me to build up huge soundscapes so I might use that as well. Watch this space. The PD patch will also appear on my pd page sometime in the next few days.
Well the war is underway. I've got to say that I have very mixed feelings about this war. I am sure we shouldn't be having it but once we got to the point of saying to Saddam - "Disarm or be attacked" then I don't think we could or should back down. With luck it should be quick and decisive. I came a cross this weblog live from Baghdad. Not sure how long the guy is going to keep web access for but its an interesting read.
I've been listening to a lot of Muslimgauze this morning - it seems appropriate. Other listening has been the new King Crimson album which is very very good indeed. The track The Power To Belive II is just sublime. I have also discovered Beequeen a dutch drone/noise band who are rather good too.
Well the war may or may not have started but its going to. I was thinking this morning about how events over take nations creating situations like the current one where we almost have no choice but to have the war. I started thinking about how germany got itself into a collision course with the rest of the world in the frist part of last centuary and how people say - "oh that could never happen again" and how in America at the moment George Bush is able to wage this war with little opposition from his own people. Totally co-incidently I came across this. Its a bit of a long read but well worth it. As a matter of interest I do think the situations are different but it is only a small leap to see America going down an ultra right wing road.
The house thing is sorted out and we are moving to Milngavie. This means I will be closer to work and better still closer to the countryside of the west coast. The east coast is boring and everything is miles away. It also means I can have lots of fun with the name of the place - for those of you who don't know - Milngavie is actually pronounced "Mull -guy". Not quite as good as the pronounciation of Luxury Yacht but not bad.
Matt Wand once of Stock, Hausen and Walkman is a genius. This not a accolade lightly given either. I saw SHW play in Edinburgh several years ago (supporting Zoviet*France) and was utterly blown away. The two of them playing laptops, a nord modular (I think) and cd players played a set that lurched from easy listening to pure noise with an almost glib virtuosity and perhaps rarely in music a lot of humour. Their records - some of which are constructed from home organ demo records are well worth tracking down.
I'm listening to Small Rocks another recent Matt Wand project. Great electronic music thats not up its own arse but is instead quirky, fun and above all great to listen to.
Full on busy at the moment - what with looking for a new house, work and the like so I haven't had much time for this weblog. Here is a rather throwaway track I made last night before going to bed. Its unpolished and looses its way at one point but I kind of like it. I might do a better version of it if I ever have the time:
Glisten (mp3 , 3,060KB , 3:15 )
Look out for a new entry in the next day or so...
I'm in a quiet and gentle mood tonight. I've been trying to write a poem I've in my head for a couple of weeks now but its not coming which is a pain but sometimes is just like that. One or two poems have taken months until they have found their right shape.
I've just watched the last episode of Marion and Geoff. I have to say this has been one of the best things I have seen on TV for quiet some time. The writing is superb and they are not afraid of using silence or a look or gesture to get a point across. I am not ashamed to say I had a tear in my eye at the end either.
Oh well I'm off to bed now - lots to do tomorrow. There was a thing on the radio this morning about anti-war poetry. I got to thinking about what I'd write and remembered this poem:
Many (HTML)
which I wrote during the Afghanistan war. Its not quiet as explicitly anti-war as some of the stuff on that web site but then again thats not really my style.
Like a lot of Atheists I am fascinated by religion. It is interesting watching western religions trying to be moderate and acceptable in the face of science and general opinion. I was listening to a discussion about the new Arch-Bishop of Canterbury at 4 in the morning on Saturday night (picking Abby up after a night out in case you where wondering) and it was interesting to hear various church dignitaries reactions to the so called liberalisation of the church.
Now all religions have a problem in modern times and that is because things they traditionally gave explanations for – like the world around us and how it came into being etc. have got now got thanks to science perfectly good explanations that don’t need God. There are two approaches to dealing with this – refutation, that is saying that whilst it might look like we have an explanation it is in fact wrong because God did it and we are not up to understanding it. Or religion can embrace science and from then on in the religion is fighting against a “God of the gaps”. What is startling is that even some creationists try to reconcile science with their beliefs. Its not just science either. As attitudes to different social behaviours – the acceptance of women as full members of society, the acceptance of homosexuality as a valid alternative, in the increasing commercial usage of the traditional day of rest etc – then any religion must change its attitudes in line with the changes in society. However changing with the times leads to an unstoppable erosion of the basic premises of any religion and once this starts you have real issues because if one law or rule is mutable why aren’t others? and if the mechanism that drives the changing of rules is a reaction to external influences rather than theological reasoning then its difficult to maintain any theological authority either.
This is all made worse by the fact that by social convention criticism of religions is not considered acceptable and so each institution is left with a confused and often contradictory set of behaviours that have not been honed into something workable by the normal processes of debate and dissent that shape our society. I was going to say that it will be interesting to watch how the new Arch Bishop deals with this but the sad truth is that he won’t – all that will happen is that the Church of England will slide further into obscurity and irrelevance by failing to either fulfil a social need (except perhaps at grass roots level) or to provide a coherent and relevant voice as part of society.