The trouser Press

Mist

2012-01-29T20:44:00.002Z

Misreading the signs

2012-01-27T17:22:00.003Z

Misread at the main office at work today:

Please mock before you enter

(there, that one's rather more straightforward, no?)

Contains swearing

2012-01-22T13:49:00.002Z

Here is one of a number of very sweary but amazing rants delivered in fine style by a guy who has posted a whole series of them up on youtube. Kind of an unfettered "thought for the day" delivered by an angry taxi driver.

They're incredibly entertaining and of every one of them I've watched so far, I've barely disagreed with a single word.

Misreading the signs

2012-01-18T19:04:00.002Z

Soviet Toilet Tissue

I'm sure I don't need to tell you what it actually reads as - it's hardly rocket science (whether of the Soyuz variety or otherwise).

A Polite Request

2012-01-15T18:29:00.003Z

I know I haven't been the most sociable blogger these last few months, and apart from my posts being few and far between, I haven't exactly been active in terms of replying to comments or visiting other people's blogs (still, I greatly appreciate that people still stop by here and leave comments - thank you). Life has just had different things which I've needed to focus on.

Well it may, as a result, sound a bit rich for me to request that you go and read a blog post that I'm linking to - but I'm requesting it all the same. It isn't about me. It's posted on the excellent - and increasingly crucial - Diary Of A Benefit Scrounger blog. I just think that it, and other posts on that site, need to be read. I feel very strongly about this stuff, but such posts say it far better than I ever could.

Please, would you? Thanks, in anticipation.

Pictures not words

2012-01-11T17:58:00.004Z

Misreading the signs

2011-12-27T18:32:00.002Z

As I left the pub after a rather lovely Boxing Day Carvery, here's what I misread on the exit door:

Thanks for nothing!

It took a moment to realise that it actually said, "Thanks for calling!"

Today I want to hold a black cat

2011-11-10T17:48:00.002Z

For some reason the shift keys have decided not to work. no idea why, but sod the idea of pressing 'caps lock' every time i want a capital letter. so i will have to remain resolutely lower-case for the sake of this post. a post - from me - what a novelty.. i can't even use parentheses or exclamation marks, which the last couple of sentences would clearly have benefited from.

anyway, all day i've had this feeling that i want to hold a black cat. i had a dream last night. nothing different to any given night over the last few weeks, in that respect - most nights have been punctuated by extremely vivid dreams - sometimes genuinely entertaining/intriguing, other times unsettling/disquieting, often a mixture of all three. or four.

well last night's dream saw me at the top of a very high tower, with a close friend and his family. we were on a little circular balcony which went around the top of the tower, with railings and lots of gaps in the ironwork to see the vast distance to the ground below. the other people all seemed comfortable and relaxed, whereas i felt rather precarious and nervous. with me was a black cat which was exploring, and i was terrified - as unconcerned as it appeared to be - that it was going to lose its footing - or pawing - and fall.

the dream has stayed with me all day, as has this feeling of wanting to hold a black cat - to comfort it, or more likely to comfort myself.

that's without even mentioning the later part of the dream where i was safe on the ground and had gone for a meal in a lovely pub/restaurant, but the toilets were in full view of everyone. they consisted of a seat with a hole in it, underneath which hung an empty plant pot. i decided i ought to complain.

Woo-hoo!

2011-10-08T15:31:00.002+01:00

I've been a busy bee today, but here was a strange interlude a little earlier on..

I was out on the high street, drawing my life savings out of the nearest ATM so that I could afford a coffee before hyperinflation really kicks in (including emergency savings so that I could afford a shot of vanilla with it), when suddenly I heard what sounded like an expression of absolute glee.

"WooHOOO!!"

I turned round, eyebrow raised, to see a little old lady walking past. Must have been her, I thought, there was no-one else nearby. She eyed me with a look of vague melancholy, and I turned back to stuff my wallet with the increasingly-devalued paper money spewing its way out of the ATM.

Hang on, I thought? WTF? Why would an old lady be whooping for joy like that? I wondered if I'd imagined it, when suddenly -

"WOOHOOOO!!!"

I spun round to see the same old lady walking a little further past, but still close enough for her to have caught my reaction. She looked at me with that same hint of melancholy, stopped, fished a handkerchief out of her pocket and blew her nose.

I was wondering whether I should tell her she had the most joyful, life-affirming sneeze I had ever heard. I thought better of it though, for fear of it sounding a little weird.

She shuffled on, and I went for my barely-affordable coffee.

Brilliant Bonkers

2011-09-22T09:02:00.001+01:00

I love this. I wish I could dance like that.

Actually, after a few drinks, I often can.

Floored

2011-09-07T21:41:00.002+01:00

I know the last few posts I've done have been pretty minimal: this one will be no exception, at least in terms of the word count. I'm tired tonight but I've forced myself to be busy working on musical things. During a few online searches to find some particular source material to play around with (my search terms being choirs/drones), I came across this, and was - am - stunned.

Haunting and beautiful in abundance, and I'm glad I've packed up my work for the night, since this has left me utterly floored.

I think I see a pattern emerging..

2011-09-02T21:32:00.001+01:00

The day I went to the death camps

2011-08-13T09:34:00.004+01:00

I've written here, at some point, about the amount of books and related material that I've read, or watched, about the two world wars. My thirst for knowledge about it was based on, on the one hand, the need for historical perspective: to be able to have a sense of what informed the flow of events and how these have shaped the subsequent decades upon which they still have a huge impact.

On the other hand there has been, in my mind, a need to find some kind of insight, or attempt to come to terms with on some level, the sheer impact on human lives at an individual and collective level that those wars brought.

What this has meant, during those extended periods of reading and viewing, is a lot of exposure to material which is heartrending, depressing, bleak, unfathomable, yet also inspiring and humbling. All this, of course, in the vulgar comfort of my armchair.

Quite what it says about me that I've kept a corner of my mind open to information about such extremes of existence, I'm not sure - but there's a desire in there to try to comprehend or at least apprehend such suffering and adversity. I know that part of it is informed by the sheer proximity of such great and terrible events to my own lifetime: WWII ended a mere twenty-five years before I was born. Long enough to render me at a safe distance from it, but otherwise a mere blink of an eyelid, and still very much shaping the world I was born and brought up in.

It's too neat to suggest that this inward flow of words and images served as preparation for my visit earlier this week to Auschwitz: that wasn't my intention, though in retrospect it did have that effect. But it's a largely separate set of circumstances (not of particular relevance here) that enabled myself and a couple of friends to go there a few days ago.

Reflecting on all this, I'm not quite sure what I can meaningfully say about the experience, yet I do feel the need to express it somehow. There's the ever-present chance that I could write an extended, convoluted post which could be summed up as I really don't have the words. Also, an account based on my own subjective experience feels like it would be indulgent: yet should I try to open it up into more large-scale observations then I think I would fall flat on my face.

Perhaps my own subjective experience, indulgent as it may be, will be the only way I can express anything at the present time. Right now though I feel the need to go out and get a temporary change of scenery.

Another perfect pop song

2011-08-06T08:06:00.000+01:00

In my opinion, anyway.

Misreading the signs

2011-07-29T07:57:00.002+01:00

As I was on one of my many bike rides this week, I spotted:

Sale By Public Unction

Perchance I still had The Devils Of Loudon at the back of my mind..

Voracious

2011-07-16T16:41:00.005+01:00

Having finished one book (as reviewed extensively in the previous post) I'm now reaching the end of another - the middle one in the picture, Huxley's The Devils of Loudon. Following Like Bees To Honey I was eager to continue reading, particularly while my mindset feels attuned to such things.

In that respect, embarking on The Devils of Loudon was an unexpectedly good choice. I say "unexpectedly" because his prose in this book seems much more dense than in his novels. One lengthy chapter in which he expounds some of the philosophical theory underlying his approach to the historical events that the book focuses on, I found almost impenetrable. I suspect that a second reading at some point would remedy this - but, given my currently-revived enthusiasm for reading books, I persevered and am now reaping the rewards of having done so.

It feels like the initial third or so of the book is an extended exercise in scene-setting, and at times it seemed excessive - but, as I reach the final couple of chapters, the detail given to 17th-century social conditions and the interface between that and religion (not least heresy), medicine, applied reason, law et al more than warrants its inclusion. What at times was an effort to plough through, ends up being a rather rich slab of thorough context which has helped me to more fully appreciate what is a series of gripping and rather horrific events.

I'm not about to embark on another review here, I mainly wanted just to set down a marker, as it were. After this, another sideways step: I'm greatly looking forward to reading Keef's autobiography, I picked it up yesterday for a mere £5.

Like Bees To Honey: an overdue and very rambling review

2011-07-08T09:55:00.012+01:00

(The review is in black type below, scroll down to avoid the rambling intro. REVIEW CONTAINS A SPOILER)

Around May 2010 or thereabouts, I began to read Like Bees To Honey by Caroline Smailes.

About 150 pages in (ok, to be precise, 162 pages in: the bookmark, a ticket for a gig by The Fall from the same month, was still there this week) I had to stop reading the book.

Not that I wanted to stop. It was just that in the glorious, sunny days in which I'd begun to read it, some seriously challenging events suddenly came my way and took up much time and energy, and were to continue to do so for some time. On the one hand this meant that I didn't have the concentration levels to adequately do justice to an activity such as reading a book. On the other hand, I didn't want to sully the book in question with the memory of the rather difficult circumstances in which I would have read it.

So I stopped, and apart from a different novel which I read late last year (and which I knew I'd get through quickly), I haven't read any fiction since. I decided that I'd start reading again whenever it felt right to do so.

In the meantime, Like Bees To Honey has been with me on at least two trips to Poland, two camping holidays in Wales, and several expeditions around the UK - just in case I felt the urge to read again.

Finally, this week, I opened its pages once more and, from the beginning (as opposed to page 162) I read it. It feels like now was definitely the right time to have done so.

Whether due to my age or certain life circumstances, I've been experiencing an acute sense of nostalgia in recent months. Nostalgia feels like a double-edged sword, there to be noted, understood, yet viewed with suspicion, not to be wallowed in. As mentioned previously, for me it is best summed up by the phrase

A vehement desire to return home.

If home, however, is not just in a different place but also in a different time (in my case, the 1970s/80s) then returning is an impossibility. To go back to that physical place now is a reminder that things have changed: progress and decay have simultaneously impacted on buildings, people, things in general. Static memories are placed in tension against the dynamic changes that everyday life brings as time inevitably passes.

I mention this because such questions of home, and more specifically of belonging, are central to Like Bees To Honey. So I'll stop rambling on about myself now, and talk about the book:

Caroline's previous novels, In Search Of Adam and Black Boxes were as dark and bleak as they were compelling. The main protagonists in each were defined by dysfunction, desperation and all-too-human frailty, the narratives weaving them together were often unflinchingly brutal, yet never less than readable - rather than be repelled, there was enough about these characters to sympathise with, to want everything to be alright for them.

Like Bees To Honey is much gentler by comparison. For the most part, bleakness is replaced by beauty, at least in terms of the main setting of the story, the island of Malta. Something it has in common with the two previous novels, however, is its deft and intimate portrayals of people, who are as convincingly flesh-and-blood as I've read on the printed page. Even the spirits of dead ones, and there are plenty of those in the book.

So it is with the main (and very much living) character, Nina, who is checking in at Manchester airport at the very beginning of the novel: a mess of snot and tears as she sobs uncontrollably, having made the decision to leave her husband and daughter and fly back to her homeland. The insight into the apparent logic behind her less-than-rational behaviour at the airport is balanced against the awkward stares and reactions of other passengers. Throughout the book, there is the sometimes uncomfortable feeling of being able to identify with such a character despite simultaneously knowing how she would be viewed by outside observers.

Then again, it's notable how quickly I got used to the idea of her dead son drinking in a bar in Malta with Jesus (Malta, it transpires, is a haven for the spirits of the dead). Though the central themes of the book are very weighty - and I'll come to those in a minute - they are counterbalanced by some very playful narrative devices: at times strange and slightly dark, but cleverly interwoven and making this a very rich read.

The main thrust of the story is that Nina is returning to her homeland of Malta to try and make amends with her parents: having left the island to study in England, she had a baby out of wedlock and was disowned by her family. Her son is killed in a car crash aged 10, and she feels that this is retribution for her actions . Her return to the island is an attempt to resolve the resulting feelings of regret, loss, guilt and displacement, a perhaps-forlorn hope that everything will be alright if she goes back home.

Many elements combine to make the story come alive, the aforementioned playfulness being one of them. The spirits which Nina can see are wryly handled, and avoid the huge potential for cliche. A beer-drinking, nail-polish-wearing Jesus and a restless, lesbian Geordie house ghost help see to that.

Similarly, the descriptions of Malta are seductive and alluring, yet they never fall into the trap of reading like an extended tourist brochure. They are given depth by the fact that they are being seen through the eyes of someone full of conflict and the uncertainty of their status: a returning native or, indeed, a tourist. The perceived comfort of returning home is balanced against idealised memories being shattered.

The themes of life and death, love and loss are handled in a multilayered way, too: again, without the more violent imagery of earlier novels, but with a similar level of emotional rawness that had a real impact on me. Grief arising from separation and dislocation is given as much weight as the grief from the death of a loved one: nonetheless, one of the more traditional depictions of grief - a deathbed scene - was almost too close for comfort for me.

Questions around identity and belonging - one's internal life and how this interacts with a more external cultural identity - are woven into the fabric of the book from start to finish. Time passes, traditions alter subtly, sometimes not-so-subtly. Culture and religion intermingle with superstition. One of the many things which really stayed with me was the description of the Maltese church which had a bomb dropped on it during the war (the dome of the church was damaged but the bomb didn't explode). An interesting story in its own right, it serves as a metaphor for the dynamic, changing nature of things - and how we change our relationship with them as a result.

Big themes notwithstanding, this was not a difficult book to read: in many ways a complex book, but never at the expense of readability. At times wonderfully odd, funny, poignant, heartwrenching, it was never less than a delight.

Oh and I had to wipe the tears from my eyes more than once while I was reading the last few chapters in a cafe yesterday.

Oh and I want to go to Malta.

A few notes, before I post a book review

2011-07-07T20:41:00.008+01:00

A friend of mine posted the following recently: Nostalgia: a vehement desire to return home.

I don't know whether they were my friend's own words, or quoted from elsewhere. But, my word, they really hit home - straight away, before I even had the chance to think about them. Properly floored me, because they resonated.

I've always been cynical of at least one strand of nostalgia: the "let's take you back to the 80s" (or 70s/60s etc) variety: the sort that suggests a hermetically-sealed and idealised form of fashion, music, politics, lifestyle. Karaoke nostalgia, as exemplified, say, in the tribute artists who do the rounds playing 80s (or 70s/60s etc) pop in bars across the country.

The kind of thing which debases, to my mind, the very personal and profound nostalgia suggested by the quote at the top of this post. Karaoke nostalgia? Maybe the word karaoke should be subsituted by the word commodified.

Separately - years ago - I remember reading the words of an artist (I don't remember which) talking about photography. He said that photographs are a reminder of death. I found it hard at first to understand his reasoning: after all, photographs can capture the most vibrant and lively moments. His point was that, in capturing a moment, a photograph denotes exactly that: it frames but a fleeting glimpse, a split second in time, gone forever at the point of its rendering. To revisit it - to look at the photograph - is to witness something which is frozen in time, in the increasingly-distant past.

I think the only reason that second point took longer to hit home, was my age at the time. I could be wrong.

But, in terms of the narrative that I may put on to my own existence, there is no contradiction whatsoever between the two points mentioned above.

76 pt 2 (final return)

2011-06-29T22:35:00.002+01:00

A few months ago I posted about the first ever band that I was in - consisting of me, my brother and my grandad - and the concerts (to use the term at its loosest) that we used to perform on Saturday afternoons at the top of the stairs in my grandparents' house. (I hope I've got the apostrophe in the right place there.)

Fun and silliness in abundance was what I remember.

My grandad is long gone, over a decade and a half ago (he would be 100 were he still alive), and the house has been uninhabited for just over 18 months, since my grandmother was hospitalised. She's still around, but the level of care that she needs means that she could never return to that house. I fear, too, that it would unsettle her: somehow, I think, in her addled mind, she has reached some kind of uneasy truce with her present surroundings. Comfortable, but not home: never home.

Nor had I been in the house since she was taken to hospital. No reason to, for one thing, and in my mind I now pictured it as an empty shell. I thought little about the residue of memories, the ghosts that might lie in wait there should I turn the key, open the door and walk in.

It was put up for sale not so long ago. My mother has been there regularly to check for mail and to keep an eye on things which may need attention. On visiting my mother one weekend, I found myself accompanying her on the short walk up to this empty house to check on a faulty kitchen tap and to see if there was anything I could do to remedy it. There had already been a steady trickle (pun intended) of potential buyers for the property in the weeks leading up to this point.

Kitchen tap repaired (no I don't have any plumbing skills, it wasn't such a technical task), it occurred to me that this would surely be the last time I would ever set foot in the house. I didn't have much time since I would be heading to the station fairly shortly, so I asked my mother to wait just a moment before we left.

I'm glad I had no time to linger, actually, no time to indulge in sentimentality there and then. I was glad just to have a most perfunctory final wander around this house with my mind very much on the present. But I had to stop at the top of the stairs for just one moment longer, and to feel some quiet satisfaction that I was at the exact co-ordinates of the memory described in the post I linked to. Here's where it happened. Three and a half decades ago.

Yep.

Back down the stairs, back to my mother's, and then off to the station.

The house was sold the following day. I'm glad for that last little opportunity to return.

IV

2011-05-22T15:57:00.001+01:00

This here blog turned 4, a few days ago.

Happy Birthday blog. I'm really limping along with it at the moment, though, and perhaps need to decide what to do.

All I have

2011-05-14T08:31:00.003+01:00

This last week could be divided into two distinct halves. We could start by calling them the "nice" half and the "any number of descriptive words which are the binary opposite of nice" half.

I'm grateful, at any rate, that there is such a distinction to be drawn, and that it hasn't all fallen into the latter category.

Work, anyway, has been stupid, stressy and miserable. The balance is such that, although I'm trying to address such issues, I'm now feeling that the answers no longer lie within the organisation. The more I meet with senior figures to sort things out, the more I feel like a turkey asking a chef to help resolve matters.

Onto the nice half of the week: despite feeling like my energy and motivation has really been sapped, I've spent significant portions of each evening working on music. After a fairly humdrum couple of sessions early on in the week, I've been progressively feeling like the drive and the momentum have returned, and that I'm beginning to turn a corner. The different ideas I've been working on have all felt rather disparate and scattershot - and that's been a purposeful thing - but now I seem to be reaching a point in which they're starting to reveal a common thread in some ways, and that's rather exciting.

Nice also to want to get home and get stuck into working on such things, rather than the times when I feel myself putting up barriers to any engagement with creative processes. Plus it's good to be at a stage where I can get into specifics: this particular track needs this to be done to it.

I can't afford to make excuses for not engaging with it any more, because really it feels like it's all I have.

Disparate thoughts in different colours

2011-05-04T19:14:00.006+01:00

So I got back to my music last night, after a frustrating period of inactivity (well - not entirely frustrating. Thanks to the nice weather I have many more bike rides under my belt).

I worked on a new idea, revisited an old one, and tinkered around with a couple of fairly recent ones.

They all sounded shit.

This is a good thing, since it serves to compel me to make them stop sounding shit. Also since it makes me less precious about all the work I have in progress. Perhaps a few weeks away from the stuff hasn't been a bad thing, but it feels imperative to regain a sense of compulsion (which happens to consist of a large amount of enjoyment) and push the whole thing forward again with the kind of momentum I was previously feeling.

I may have a couple of gigs coming up in the near future - nothing definite yet, but confirmation would certainly up the ante.

Tomorrow I exercise my democratic right, for what it's worth: local elections.

I hope the weather is good. Somehow it feels right to go along and vote on a beautiful, sunny Thursday evening. Voting is one of those few things which makes me feel like a grown-up. I wonder if this is true for anyone else who I see when I go to vote. I like the sense of purpose I have when I stroll down to the polling station.

I'll let you know if I spoil the ballot paper or write none of the above across it.

One post I never wrote last year was to mention my favourite lp of 2010. This just occurred to me as I was listening to it a little earlier. It's called Latin, and is by Holy Fuck.
It's one of those few lps which can make me feel like shouting COME ONNNNNNNN and dance and jump about and whatever else, which is no mean feat.

Oh and I will visit other blogs soon, I promise.

Clockwork

2011-05-02T20:48:00.002+01:00

My neighbour, like clockwork, leaves the house at 6.30am and gets back home at 8.15pm. You could set your clock, such is the steady reliability.

Today, he left at 6.44am and returned at 8.29pm.

Maybe it's just because it's the Bank Holiday, maybe because he slipped a little, I don't know. When things are so routine, you notice the difference.

Whining and dining

2011-04-29T10:29:00.002+01:00

I've been neglecting my poor blog, haven't I?

It's just that my attention has been elsewhere and, as I mentioned in a comment on my last post, things have been a little out of balance. Nothing life-shattering or dramatic, just a little trying and draining. Witness the fact that I have to go off and do some work today and Monday just as I did on the bank holiday last weekend.

I know that a large amount of people will have to work over all the weekend, and put in far more hours than me; that such is hardly a violation of my human rights or tantamount to being thrown into a pit or a dungeon and made to eat pins while everybody else parties: it's just a little tiring when I feel that I'm denied a certain amount of respite that I could really benefit from, especially in my line of work.

Ho hum.

The other thing is that, since we've had decent weather for most of this month, I've spent as much time as possible (when you factor in the amount of energy I've had available) out on the bike, out into the rural areas. I bumped into some friends yesterday who described me as looking jaded: I said that I think a bike ride is in order, so as to de-jade me.

You know what? It worked.

Soothe sayings.

2011-04-19T20:50:00.004+01:00

I've taken advantage of the fine weather this week. Two bike rides in as many evenings, which have been very cathartic and necessary, as well as enjoyable in their own right.

10 minutes and I'm out of the city, a further 15 minutes and it's positively quiet and rural.

Thanks to the warmth remaining well into the evening, I'm aiming to squeeze every last beneficial drop out of the good weather today. Apart from popping back in here to post this, I'm sat on the yard and soaking up the calm and the outside air, watching the sky change from evening hues to dusk, watching the shapes turn to silhouette.

It's very soothing.

I like soothing.

...

2011-04-15T18:56:00.002+01:00

Still no words to post at the moment, so I thought I'd post a link to "Come On In My Kitchen" by Robert Johnson, since it always stops me dead in my tracks.

Recommended late night, quiet listening.

Misreading the signs

2011-04-08T08:14:00.001+01:00

Denial Floss

Ice sculptures on the retina

2011-03-31T22:44:00.005+01:00

I just read Zhisou's excellent latest post, a series of interconnected musings which I would recommend you have a look at (hope you don't mind me linking to it, Z).

One of the themes he touches upon is that of staring at the sun despite/because/regardless of the dangers involved: this triggered a memory for me, albeit only tangentially related to the aforementioned (aforelinked?) post.

Years ago I did numerous photography courses and projects, during my art college days. I loved photography, both the creative and technical aspects of it: generally speaking I was as happy spending hours in the darkroom as I was being out and about armed with camera and rolls of film (this was, of course, in the days before digital photography).

Often there'd be two or three of us crammed into a relatively small darkroom space - either because we were collaborating on a project, because no other darkrooms were available, or because we were just dossing about for the sake of it. On one such occasion, my self and two fellow students had just wrapped up an hour or two of developing photographs, and were about to switch the main light on (since it was now safe to do so without ruining any films or light sensitive paper).

Somehow, whoever was making for the light switch managed to accidentally trigger off the camera flash unit that he'd also just picked up. At first we cursed him due to the sudden and startling (not to mention blinding) flash, the effect was very disorientating - all bright colours and amorphous shapes suddenly burned onto the retina. It was almost like being punched, and the three of us collectively spent a moment trying to compose ourselves again.

Then a most weird sensation occurred. As I was looking round the darkroom (still pitch black - we hadn't found the light switch yet), I noticed, clear as day, a pair of hands floating around the room. Wherever I looked, up or down, there they were.

I quickly realised that my hands must have been in my line of sight when the flash went off. Now, after its momentary, almost explosive visual effect had subsided, what remained seared into my retina was what the light had hit when the flash went off - the image of my hands rendered with startling, monochrome clarity.

The other two students had noticed the same thing happening, corresponding to what had been in their own respective lines of sight at the moment in question.

So we didn't switch the light on. We waited a few moments for the images to fade, and then triggered the flashgun again. The same bright burst for a fraction of a second, quickly subsiding to reveal a monochrome imprint of whatever we were looking at.

Regardless of the potential for damage to our eyesight, we carried on playing with this. For example, if you looked down at your leg when the flash went off, and then looked upwards, you'd see your leg floating right above you - or at eye level if you were looking straight ahead. The flash rendered the images like ice sculptures - beautiful and clear and black and white, which added to the eeriness of the sensation.

Sometimes it would be genuinely unsettling - triggering the flash when someone's face was about two feet away from yours was to see a horror-mask flying around the room wherever you looked. Nonetheless, there was something quite addictive about the whole thing. It was like we were creating momentary, frozen scenes - stark, other-wordly, and lasting for just a few seconds before fading away forever.

Finally - after something like half an hour - we decided to stop and head out of the darkroom, blinking. Did our eyes ache? I can't remember. We repeated the whole thing numerous times though whenever we were back in the darkroom: despite wondering about the potential for retinal damage (it was certainly headache-inducing) there was too much novelty value not to give it another go.

The space between

2011-03-29T19:05:00.006+01:00

"Spring? I'm so over it..."

Had a few days away last week. Most welcome, they were. My passport, and some Polish paper money, are still on the kitchen table.

It was a fabulous few days, though it already seems maddeningly distant. Seems disconcertingly easy to slip away, and into a change of pace and surroundings (though the latter are now becoming very familiar) and to catch up with pleasant and engaging company.

The return to the everyday is becoming disconcertingly more difficult, though I'm sure it was aided this time by switching the clock back by an hour on my return on Friday and then back forward again by an hour just over a day later. All the necessary, albeit minor readjustments, not least sleep patterns...the space between holiday and weekday mode is, shall we say, becoming a management issue.

I've trying to find ways to express this without being downright tedious or repetitious, and struggled. So when I saw the daffodil just outside, I thought, that'll do nicely. Problem solved: post-holiday syndrome in full expression.

Waking up

2011-03-17T18:32:00.005Z

In fact, while I'm on the subject of alcohol, here's something I wrote (as part of a barely audible monologue for a piece of related music) while I was in the middle of the difficulties I refer to in the previous post. I make no claims for any kind of facility with words, it might read really badly (which is fine by me), but it did seem to sum up where I was at.

Drunk again
Spitting/pissing blood
Blind to my own thoughts: blank
Bruises sustained in ways unexplained

Clothes stained
(must have eaten, fallen or worse)
Some things are lost (like whole sections of time spent)

A case of memory versus imagination
Panic at something which triggers off the merest suggestion:
A balance between what might have been/what I'm capable of;
What other people might have seen

What's the worst thing I could be guilty of (there are no signs of anything telling)?

Plenty of unturned stones ready and waiting,
Once the pain has eased and thirst has been sated

The first moments of realisation, the opening lines of a little eternity:
Nameless and shapeless, yet capable of harm more than anything else

The smallest thought, the slightest suggestion
The merest aside, the darkest elation

All the a's

2011-03-17T17:36:00.004Z

I thought this was an interesting article, in some respects, on alcoholism and addiction, and whether they fit into the straitjacket of the disease model.

Some years ago I went through a phase in which, for a while, my drinking could be described as problematic. Yet it wasn't drinking that was the problem in itself, it was merely (yes feel free to raise an eyebrow at the use of the word merely) a rather poor and unhealthy coping mechanism.

The article describes things very much from a US perspective, and in terms of someone who is very much in the news at the moment, nonetheless there are plenty of worthwhile general points regardless of the specific context of the article.

Defacing the signs

2011-03-13T15:48:00.001Z

No, it wasn't me.

10 years ago today

2011-03-09T09:02:00.005Z

...I woke up and, before I moved, I knew it: I'd got flu. Proper flu. An attempt to roll over into a more comfortable position confirmed it - unveiled all the latent aches, pains, discomfort and downright dis-ease which had been waiting to reveal itself to my conscious person.

I'd been out with friends the previous night, to see a band play. A fantastic and rather riotous evening in full, clear recall to this day, for I was stone cold sober, and was to remain so for years. On my late-night walk to the bus stop I can remember feeling a little cold and shivery, but nothing more than minor discomfort.

Now, on waking, it must have been a Friday morning, since I was due to go and see my mother for the weekend, later that day.

I knew I wasn't well enough to go anywhere (in the event, my health kept me a virtual prisoner, in solitary confinement at that, for almost two weeks). I made two phone calls: one to my workplace to inform them that I wouldn't be going in; the other to my mother to inform her that I wouldn't be able to make it over, and that I was really sorry about it, but there was nothing I could do.

I wished her a happy 60th birthday.

Bleary eyes

2011-03-08T23:19:00.005Z

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I've spent a little while trying to write a post, scrapping it, trying to write it from a slightly different angle.

I've given up for one night. See the title for more information: I'm off to bed.

Night, all.

Misreading the signs

2011-03-01T17:29:00.002Z

On a public information notice:

Don't make it easy for burglars - keep tights on and lock your windows and doors.

Clearly then, people who don't wear tights are more vulnerable to being burgled.

New toy

2011-02-27T14:14:00.006Z

So in a bit of rather aggressive stress management, I decided to stop stewing over all the nonsense that had got me worked up over the last few days, and stomped off into town to spend some Christmas money that had been in ever-present danger of being swallowed up into everyday expenditure.

Yes, it was time to treat myself, and I bought this digital audio recorder, which should prove useful for all sorts of things. Having a new toy to play with should also serve as a spur to pick up the momentum with my music again, which has frustratingly been a casualty of my energies being directed (and, as often as not, wasted) elsewhere in recent days.

Misreading the signs

2011-02-26T20:49:00.002Z

It's getting silly.

Earlier today, passing a bank or building society, I read an advert which, to me at least, read

Give your child the gift of starving

WHAT??? Was my immediate response, before I reread and saw that it was actually

Give your child the gift of saving

I'm not even trying to make this stuff up, this was as much of a genuine misreading as the many others that I've posted. What it says about me, well...

Swimming

2011-02-25T18:51:00.005Z

February appears not to have been particularly conducive to blogging for me, doesn't it?

There's plenty I could talk and rant about, but I've ranted enough - in the workplace, hardly a surprise - and want to try and put it behind me for the sake of the weekend. I don't know how easy that's going to be though, after (as I just put in my reply to Carol on the previous comment thread) a frustrating end to a bewildering and difficult week.

I can tell I'm under stress:

I lost some keys. Only for a few minutes, but I never lose keys. Ever.

I was on my way out of a shop when the man at the counter called me back, I'd left my debit card in the card reader on the counter. I've never ever done that before. Ever. This was after renewing my weekly travel ticket, a day late, which meant that I'd been unwittingly travelling on an out of date pass. I never do that.

Ever.

I walked into a door today. Ouch. It was half-open, I could see that, yet as I passed through the doorway I still managed to hit the door itself.

I've felt too exhausted most evenings, once home, to do much at all. Nothing constructive anyway. Feeling the tiredness in my legs, and the knots in my back and shoulders.

I really hope the weekend is ok, and I hope yours is too.

76

2011-02-16T17:30:00.003Z

I heard someone say seventy-six a number of times in quick succession today. It was during a phone conversation they were having: I'm not sure what the seventy-six in question referred to.

It suddenly reminded me of the first band that I was in, though. The personnel consisted of me, my brother, and my grandad. Armed with a motley selection of antique instruments - a slightly battered trombone, a banjo with more than one of its strings missing, a wooden flute - we would sit at the top of my grandparents' stairs at a certain point on Saturday afternoons and perform our own, erm, idiosyncratic version of Seventy-Six Trombones.

We were great. Or at least I thought so at the time - I used to be giddy with enjoyment and excitement at the prospect of our "performances", like it was the highlight of my week. My grandad would conduct and play along, no doubt enjoying the sheer silliness of it, and perhaps stifling giggles at what a tuneless racket we were making.

Nonetheless, I still remember the melody, but that's probably from my grandad's singing.

I can only assume we chose the top of the stairs so that we were suitably elevated to enable the audience (otherwise known as my grandma) to view us without impediment. I never thought about this at the time though: for me it just went without saying that us musicians would sit at the top of the stairs.

Misreading the signs

2011-02-08T08:31:00.002Z

A newspaper sub-headline this time:

Cats put extradition procedures in spotlight

Which brings about some wonderful mental images, though the correctly-read words were, of course, rather more prosaic (ie, "Case puts....").

A suitable title, for once, escapes me

2011-01-30T20:37:00.004Z

I was visited by an unfamiliar, almost bewildering sensation yesterday: contentment.

I wasn't expecting it. I'd gone to visit my mother for the weekend, never an unpleasant experience in itself, but one which tends to be dusted with a residue of poignancy for a number of reasons.

Adding to the surprise was that, when I arrived there on Friday evening, I felt exhausted, and imagined that the tone of the weekend was going to be set accordingly. By Saturday, I was still heavy-lidded and limbed, but my mood became paradoxically light. I was able to switch off and relax, something I never felt fully able to do when I visited over Christmas.

I embraced this contentment. I had an awareness of the reasons for its presence, which gave me a sense of quiet satisfaction - but I didn't wish to analyse too deeply in that respect, nor to indulge the temptation to view such contentment with sheer suspicion.

That it was there, was enough: it might not last, after all.

On a separate note, the month of January seems to have passed remarkably quickly. Most years I take a complete break from alcohol for the whole of the month: not so this time, but these days I generally drink at weekends only. I wonder if my lack of complete abstinence has served to make the time pass more speedily.

Liver little

2011-01-26T17:58:00.004Z

Just before the New Year, I received a letter from my GP asking me to attend for what they termed a "wellness check". I rang up to enquire about this and they said it was a routine set of tests just to see how I'm doing.

I confirmed an appointment with them, and went along last week. I didn't have any particular worries.

Well actually, I did.

What worried me, if anything, was what the results would be like, given that this was so soon after the holiday season. I was a Christmas cliche, having eaten and drank in a manner which would not befit the word 'moderation'. I did put on weight during that time, but I was less concerned about that than about the state of my liver and my kidneys, which must have taken a bit of a battering.

Still, what they were able to tell me at the time wasn't too bad: blood pressure fine, waist measurement within the acceptably healthy range, overall weight 3kg less than when they last did these tests with me. They took blood samples to test for: liver, kidney, and thyroid function; diabetes; cholesterol; and blood cell count.

The test results were due today, and I must admit I did get a bit nervous when the doctor started to go through my results.

Thankfully my liver, kidneys and thyroid are all functioning normally; no sign of diabetes; blood cell count fine; cholesterol....well, cholesterol slightly high, but nothing to worry about as such. I said to the doctor that I assumed this was the Christmas effect as much as anything, though I imagine it's more due to a love of cheese and beer.

Still, I'm relieved to have had a clean bill of health. Bodily organs aside, there's been more than enough to put my blood pressure to the test over the last year.

Indigestion

2011-01-23T19:42:00.002Z

I was roused from some very strange dreams this morning by the muffled sound of my upstairs neighbour bursting into song. He got as far as one note and then immediately stopped himself: cognisant, perhaps, of the horrific implications of continuing.

I soon fell back to sleep and resumed my weird dreams which were caused, I'm sure, by a bout of indigestion. In one dream, every time I picked up the phone, and before I had the chance to dial a number, the phone automatically connected me to someone I really didn't want to speak to. I would slam the phone back down with a shudder.

The day, like the rest of the weekend, has been a pleasant one - but like the indigestion, the residual effect of such subconscious outpourings has remained with me all day, like a slightly bristly texture.

I've felt sleepy this evening but have still put an hour or two into working on music, though mainly listening - to stuff that I was working on rather gleefully last night, and to stuff I haven't revisited in years. Listening, listening, then listening some more, attending to a couple of technical or process-based things, then listening further.

Sooner or later, when some of these external sounds and processes have wormed their way further into the recesses of my mind, something will click and I'll be able to move them further on.

Not today though, today was mainly for listening...and digesting.

In brief (2)

2011-01-19T22:07:00.003Z

Just had a walk around some of the nicer city suburbs for a couple of hours. Pleasant and leafy, and with a slight other-worldly aspect thanks to the clear night sky and the brilliant moonlight. The temperature had dropped tangibly by the time I was nearing home, I could feel it in my fingertips - by no means an unpleasant sensation.

I heard the lovely hooting sound of an owl, and saw two foxes.

Freshened up and sat in my usual chair, a snack of bread and butter feels like the nicest food ever.

In brief

2011-01-18T22:00:00.003Z

Somebody mentioned the Panama Canal today, and it suddenly triggered off a memory of a dream last night, in which I was smoking cigars.

I don't remember much else about it (the dream), except for a vague sense of decadence. I used to be very anti-smoking when I was growing up, and then not too long after I started art college, I found myself on the cigars, and inhaling them fully.

Navel gazing alert

2011-01-16T23:34:00.008Z

I suppose if I see myself as anything, it's as a thinker. I don't mean as an intellectual - whenever I have moments of that, I get a bit scared and go for the comfort of crassness instead - but rather, as a very reflective person.

Which has its strengths and weaknesses.

At the moment, in some ways, I think I'm trying to fight against that. Maybe I feel more comfortable defined in such a way (as a reflector, or whatever), but I'm better off when I'm actually doing stuff.

When I'm doing, I'm less likely to get anxious. The flip-side of this, is equally true (when I'm anxious, I'm less likely to get doing), and far more toxic.

My aim, lately, has been to think a lot less about the music that I'm working on, and just to do a lot more of it. One of the barriers that I put up for myself happens to be when I have really good ideas - the barrier being that it's far harder to put an idealised construct into practice from scratch, than it is to arrive at something good from an hour or two's messing around with actual sounds and processes, and therefore have something tangible to work with in the first place.

Of course there's a balance to be struck between such polar opposites, but at the moment it's definitely falling on the side of actually getting on with it and seeing what I can come up with, rather than have the best music ever going on in my head, and being paralysed by the sense that I'm never going to be able to adequately transcribe it.

So - what I've been able to come up with in the last few weeks is

a) a mixture of rubbish and of semi-interesting stuff which is hardly likely to go anywhere, at least in its present form

b) a few things which sound pretty good to my ears, but which need direction and focus

c) a couple of things which I'm really, really excited about.

The point is, a), b) and c) are all tangible. They all exist in some external sense, as opposed to just being in my head. All there to be built on, ignored, ripped apart or finely tuned accordingly.

The last couple of weeks, I've been putting the hours in on all this stuff. As often as not, that will mean a few hours of getting precisely nowhere. But it's still a few hours of doing, of engaging, of responding to these tangible things on some level. Such that at a certain point, something will click and will enable me to push things further on or take a different and potentially more interesting avenue.

Right now, I'm feeling - and I don't know if this is the right word, but it'll do - rather militant about all this. Working on this stuff is my escape, my nourishment, the ear-to-ear grin on my face when things are taking shape - and I'm feeling intolerant to the tendency to put my own barriers up to it. I'm feeling alive to a combination of volume, texture, repetition, layering, sculpting and happy accidents, random interventions and anything which keeps the process going.

The last couple of nights, after a couple of drinks, I've listened back to some recordings of the last few gigs I played - all relatively few and far between - and I've thought, shit, I'm actually ok with how that sounds.

This year is, I'm sure, going to be a tough year (given that I found last year to be one of the toughest I've had). I intend to make it a better year regardless, by way of the above.

That feels like a bold claim. I'll see what I can do in that respect, because doing really is the operative word.

Wasp

2011-01-15T13:03:00.001Z

I spotted this stripey fellow earlier. He wasn't very well - on his last legs, in fact. But - seriously - a wasp? In January?

Slovenia

2011-01-13T17:13:00.004Z

As long as I spend no more than £3.10 during the daytime tomorrow, then I will have achieved an aim: the start of some serious budgeting. This week's budget for daytime spending was £12.50. I've never exactly been a profligate spender, but thus far it's been instructive to see just how much I can save without any really drastic difference to my day-to-day living.

In fact, I had an appointment this week regarding some longer-term monetary planning. I had an initial appointment last month, and this was to be the follow-up.

To be being the caveat in the last sentence, since I cancelled the appointment. Not because of a wish to bury my head in the financial sand, nor because I find such things dull, far too grown-up, and rather anxiety-provoking in equal measure. Nor because of an unconscious tendency to picture the advisor as an ogre and a bully who wants to take a jackboot to my rather laissez faire approach to such measures.

No, I didn't cancel it for any of those reasons. I would certainly have felt like doing so, since all the above reasons have weighed on my mind, but I would have been seriously disappointed in myself had I done so.

I cancelled it because work is once again at a point of precariousness. Despite the current climate it looks like, at the very least, I should still be in employment for the foreseeable future. But such details as if, when, why, what, how, who with, how often and for how much depend on a bewildering number of variables.

Thus, I see no sense in pushing ahead with longer-term plans just yet, not until such pressing short-term issues have been resolved: it will be collision time in that respect before the end of next month, I'm guessing. Plus I'd rather have just the one headache at a time, thank you very much.

In other, erm, "news", I find myself keep asking the question, "what does one do with January?". I've yet to find a definitive answer.

As well as cutting down on the amount of money I spend, I realised a few nights ago that I also need to cut down on caffeine - endless cups of tea in my case, coffee being more of a weekend indulgence - having lain awake for a good while and really not feeling able to relax. My mind was racing and not switching off, as I fervently tried to remember the name of a country on the Adriatic coast. No way was I going to get up and leaf through the book I'd been reading which mentioned said country, I had to remember without any external help.

Ted

2011-01-08T17:34:00.001Z

A Christmas day walk

2010-12-30T12:50:00.005Z

Reading the wrongly-written signs correctly

2010-12-29T10:56:00.003Z

A sign spotted on the bus yesterday:

Passengers are advised to remain seated until the bus is stationery

I suppose it makes some sort of sense, given the amount of shops I've seen which purport to sell stationary.

Trout Mask Original

2010-12-18T09:41:00.005Z

Slightly shy of twenty years ago, I recall some balmy summer evenings sat around a table with three other friends. This was in a student house but it was pretty well-kept, any rough edges being part of its charm. Wooden floorboards, and a long open-plan living room, and the double-doors open to the garden.

Low lighting.

A bottle of whisky at the table, generous measures being regularly topped up. A mixture of easy conversation and hard concentration. Cigarette smoke. We four would be playing bridge. I was a novice (still am - I've hardly played since) but would enjoy the challenge, and no-one was too bothered if I asked for advice: it didn't hinder the flow of the game.

These were marvellous evenings.

As often as not, an album would be playing on the stereo that complemented - or maybe completed - the atmosphere. A trippy, unfettered thing that really got under my skin. Interlocking yet contrapuntal slide guitar riffs, loose and syncopated drum beats, and bursts of growled vocals and freeform sax playing.

This album was "Mirror Man" by Captain Beefheart: a series of extended jams which really seemed to capture the woozy meanderings of our conversation and gameplay (and whisky) set against these hot summer nights.

That was an ideal introduction to Beefheart's music for me and, when these particular nights in question tailed off, I gradually found myself searching for his albums.

Trout Mask Replica is the one most people talk about, and not without good reason. I'll just say that I loved it on first listen, and have done since: it seemed to perfectly fill a musical gap for me, given the various types of music I'd been listening to for a while.

But, on hearing of Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet)'s death yesterday, I've just sat listening to Doc At The Radar Station very loud, and am struck by not just how original it is, but how - despite playing it and his other work countless times over the years - startling it still is for me.

For some reason, it's this album that I've listened to the most. I know the notes and layers really well, since I was near-obsessed with this album for a long time. Yet there's still something surprising about it as I hear it for the first time since he died. It seems there's always something beyond those notes, layers, nuances, dynamics and discord, which never fails to engage.

I always wonder how it sounds, to talk about emotions and loss and so on, when the person who's died was not someone known to me in any personal sense. But, my word, the impact of the music that he created, and what it did for me: it's difficult not to get emotional about such a unique and utterly enriching music knowing that the driving force behind it has gone forever. There was nobody like him, ever - and I doubt that there ever will be again.

The week in groans and creaks

2010-12-17T17:17:00.004Z

I had a fabulous weekend last weekend, notably going to see one of my favourite bands on Sunday night. It was worth the long drive and the late night to witness them play as an ensemble for the first time in about 8 years, and to experience again at first hand the swirling, intense, epic and often heartbreaking music they play.

They really were nothing short of remarkable, and the quantity (a 2 and a half hour performance) matched the quality.

It was fantastic to be there, to see some other old friends, and to have really made the most of my weekend.

I was at work the following day and, whilst feeling in reasonable fettle physically speaking, I was in a flat mood which intensified as the day went on.

I felt more like myself on Tuesday, but it proved to be a long and hectic day and I do feel that it's no coincidence that I've been run-down, sneezy, achy and bunged-up for the latter part of the week.

I'm as physically fit as I've ever been, all things taken into consideration, but I just don't have the stamina anymore to even have just one or two late nights without there being some all-too-tangible repercussions.

Not that I would have missed a night like Sunday night for anything - I just have to brace myself for the seemingly-inevitable aftermath.

Like when I got back from Krakow, having had a wonderful week of relaxing, socialising, and drinking all at a nice holiday kind-of-pace: by the latter half of my first week back at work, I was in pretty much the same state as I am now.

So it looks like it'll be a quiet night in tonight - the thought of beer isn't even an appealing one, it wouldn't taste right thanks to my current minor ailments.

Ringtone

2010-12-16T18:47:00.005Z

I was sat on the bus today, across the aisle from a very prim and proper-looking woman, perhaps starting to head towards late middle age. She was stylishly but not extravagantly dressed. She looked a mixture of approachable and no-nonsense; assertive, independent; possibly in a senior, powerful job.

These were my immediate assumptions, anyway, I've no way of knowing how accurate they might be.

What I certainly didn't expect was that, when I suddenly heard the opening riff to Paranoid by Black Sabbath, it would be the ringtone on her telephone.

I like being surprised like that.

End of the week

2010-12-11T00:27:00.003Z

I was in conversation with a senior member of staff today, at a social event. Given the intensely fraught nature of the work and of the organisation itself in recent months, this member of staff was talking about how the atmosphere was, when he had recently been at the main office.

Poker-faced, I replied that I hadn't been there for a while, but that I could well imagine the atmosphere there, given that I've seen Downfall.

I'd like to think that, at certain times, there is a value in such gross exaggeration: that a carefully-calibrated overstatement can allow the actual truth of the situation to pass through and to register almost undetected.

One giant leap

2010-12-08T19:46:00.003Z

I just used that knife again.

No maiming or mishap occurred. I have clearly learned something this week.

I'd better be careful when I do the washing up though - the knife is in the bowl and may be lurking, shark-like.

A letter to my younger self

2010-12-06T17:44:00.002Z

To me, aged about 20 minutes younger than I am now:

Dear trousers (yes I still use the lower-case, even in the future),

That new knife you bought for chopping up food. It's very, very sharp. That's why you bought it.

So if you happen to be surprised when you cut your fingers open when you're preparing your dinner - because you've forgotten that the knife is very, very sharp, even though that's why you bought it - then don't expect any sympathy from your future self. In fact, your future self thinks that you're a bit of a twat right now.

Yours, trousers (with sticking plasters on his fingers).

ps you're aging well.

Misreading the signs

2010-12-03T18:41:00.003Z

Misread at the counter of a local pharmacy:

Effective relief for the symptoms of margarine.

Which is far better on every level than the one I misread in the dairy section of the supermarket a few days ago:

Manure Cheddar.

You'd think I might have developed a little more manurity than that by now.

Last few conscious thoughts in November

2010-11-30T21:42:00.006Z

Before my ears start to ring, I've turned the laptop and all the music software and various bits of equipment off. Immediately after I last posted on here, on Saturday morning, I spent a while on the music: as if to prove the thrust of that post wrong, I was very quickly in the middle of it all and making a few leaps forward, and having a great time with it.

Tonight's work has left me feeling altogether less satisfied, but for all the leaps and bounds there are many sessions like this one: valuable in that I've retained continuity, but otherwise less decisive or inspiring, or indeed inspired.

One of the reasons for me to pick up my various sound-generating devices and programs this evening was to consciously put a few daytime cares out of my mind for a while, and therein also lay the value. There have been tempers, tears and despair at work both today and yesterday. Not mine, I may add, though that's not to make any claims for some kind of resilience on my part. Nor am I unaffected by seeing what others are going through: I can readily recognise the anxieties, tribulations and doubts that I'm witnessing in a couple of key colleagues: I've known those things well enough myself, recently enough, and hardly consider myself immune from any fresh inroads that they may attempt on me at any given point in the future.

The 1st of December always makes me think of the same date in the mid-1970s ('75, perhaps) when I was eager to get to school, since I knew that we'd be starting to do Christmas-themed things: making decorations, reading stories and so on. The weather was as cold and icy as it is now and I remember approaching the school, walking at an incautious pace despite my mother's gentle reproaches. Sure enough I slipped on the ice and my excitement turned to tears, at least until my mother had got me up off the floor, consoled me and ensured I took more care for the remaining steps of the journey.

Looking in

2010-11-27T09:06:00.004Z

I'm not sure where, if anywhere, this post is going to go. But I feel compelled to write about something.

It stems, in part, from childhood memories, let's say from around the mid-70s. That something is represented by the pub. More specifically, about the fact that I couldn't go into the pub - nor would I have necessarily wanted to. But the pub was a domain which resonated with mystery, with grown-up things, with things which were other and separate and about which I could only imagine.

Most pubs then, at least as far as memory serves, had high windows (no doubt that's more about the fact that I was knee-high to your average grown-up) and frosted glass. The latter in particular fuelled this sense of otherness - bright lights or dim lights, amorphous shapes moving around accompanied by the sound of chatter, laughter and music in the background.

The pub seemed like a gateway to an adult world, where people talked about grown-up things. Where they could spend some of the money they'd earned at work (another unimaginable concept for me at the time).

I imagine the talk to be of the politics of the day: miner's strikes, power cuts, the three-day week, OPEC, the EEC (the "Common Market") - or more frequently, about the football, last night's television, a smattering of gossip and a serving of bawdy humour on the side. All dressed up in the attitudes and mores of the day. Over a pint of Mansfield, or Double Diamond maybe.

I couldn't imagine entering that world. In fact, as far as my local pub (from where I grew up, and occasionally revisit) is concerned, I still feel slightly self-conscious when I happen to walk in there. Plus I've still never ever gotten over the novelty of walking into any pub or bar and ordering a pint of ale.

But I suppose it's not really about the specifics (nor about the nostalgia), and more the sense of access - or lack of - to something other, something esoteric. Something tantalising perhaps, due to a combination of proximity (eg being able to peer through the frosted glass) and distance (the same frosted glass acting as a barrier).

I remember the feeling though, akin to what I've described above, aged 21. There was a school reunion at the local welfare, and I remember standing at the top of the stairwell and suddenly halting at the (again) frosted glass doors. There was a different sense of the other at this point - I had moved to the city and was in the middle of my art college days. I had long straggly hair, ripped jeans, outsize, baggy jumpers and all the rest, and knew I would stick out like a sore thumb when I walked in to see my old school mates. I stood there, hesitant, wondering whether I might even just turn and walk back home.

Then, as it happened, SJ turned up, and he was dressed in old army stores gear, big Dr Marten boots, and his hair was a jubilant mass of dreadlocks. He boldly strolled into the function room and I followed him, suddenly not feeling quite so other.

The underlying point to these musings is, I think, that the combination of barriers and gateways - both real and imaginary - is something which has permeated my outlook.

One barrier to my creative side, I've realised, is that to fully immerse myself in it and in what it requires, to fully get into the flow of it, often requires a leap: a leap which takes me from the outside looking in - a view which shows one's ideas and methods in a diffuse and rather abstract light - into being right in the centre and fully, intuitively conversant in it all, to a different and more fluent (or fluid) relationship between the self and the realisation of those ideas.

Sometimes this leap is fairly easy. Sometimes it is aided by a sense of permission (hearing or seeing the work or approach of someone else which serves to lend a certain validity). Other times it's forced by sheer will, usually accompanied by the sound of me chiding myself to stop being so bloody silly.

Milestone

2010-11-24T19:12:00.001Z

2 things:

My Grandmother is 95 today.

She's never owned a phone of any kind.

Bar scenes

2010-11-21T15:48:00.005Z

A week of immersion in these kinds of colours, and the atmosphere that they suggest, is a good week in my book.

Thank goodness for soft furnishings

2010-11-14T16:59:00.002Z

It happened rather more quickly than I expected. Falling apart, that is. It happened yesterday afternoon.

I'd been for a bike ride, and for a while after that I felt a mixture of contentment and tiredness. I relaxed.

Well, I thought I relaxed. The tiredness took a greater hold and the contented feeling was replaced by agitation and unease and a whole bundle of dark, rather stressy thoughts. I tried to distract myself with a few things: a couple of programmes on iPlayer, a few small tasks here and there, but this thing really had me in its grip.

All this on a fine, clear Saturday afternoon with a whole week away from work (and, as of tomorrow, away from these shores) ahead of me. It was frustrating as much as anything, wanting to let go of it all but not being able to.

I knew I was probably dehydrated from the bike ride, and the water I drank took the edge off it a little bit, but I still wasn't ok. I was trying to dismiss the stressy stuff - none of it was anything that I could act upon or make any kind of difference to - but it wouldn't go away.

After another hour or so it felt just a little less intense. I decided I would treat myself, and went to the local curry house for a takeaway. Starter and main course.

Once home I realised just how incredibly hungry I was. I put the starter and the dips onto a plate and swiftly sat down and tucked in. Little pause between that and the main course. Wolfing it down like there was no tomorrow.

I felt tired again, but more of a pleasant, calm tiredness. With it came a steady easing of the stress, and a return of a sense of perspective and rationality: I was ok again, much more settled at last. I now feel like I can look forward to the week ahead, and make the most of it.

Maybe I needed to go through that mini-meltdown to come out the other side. Shed some work-related shite. Now it's time to properly relax and (gasp) enjoy myself.

All swings and no roundabouts

2010-11-12T18:31:00.003Z

An eloquent riposte to the political betrayals (and chief betrayers) and ideological u-turns that are setting Britain on a course for bleak austerity.

Unravel

2010-11-11T21:30:00.007Z

Suddenly I remember what it's like.

I feel like I've worked non-stop this year. The breaks I've had, a few days here and there, have been during times when I've not been able to fully switch off, when things have been too intense. During one such break, for a few days back in May, a friend noted afterwards that I really wasn't my usual self.

No, I suppose I wasn't my usual self - I was trying my best, but was already carrying a lot of shit around at that point, and bracing myself for more (it was a good job I did brace myself too).

This will be the first full week - ie Monday to Friday, bracketed by the weekend on either side, that I've been away from work this year.

I'm ready, and suddenly I remember what it's like.

What it's like in the remaining days before a holiday, when the prospect of winding down for a little while is so close, so tantalizingly close...but just another day or so to go.

What it's like to start to unravel a little, to fall apart a little, because one can actually allow that to happen. In the working week such an occurrence feels like dysfunction, whereas having the space to fall apart a little is actually a luxurious one (in this particular context).

I've one more day to go. I'm in that crossover point. Not quite there, but straining to be there.

Whatever happens during the working day tomorrow (and these days I'd be a fool to be surprised by any eventuality, no matter how seemingly unlikely), the working day will end in the late afternoon regardless, and then I'll be there.

Then I can fall apart, and I'm looking forward to being able to.

I think I'm ready.

Big Society

2010-11-07T15:46:00.001Z

Spotted on a litter bin in central Nottingham.

This post..

2010-11-04T19:49:00.002Z

..is a quiet post.

No complaints, no observations, no whining, no allusions or cryptic references.

Just quiet.

Sometimes, I like it like that.

Misreading the signs (I've lost count of what number we're on)

2010-11-01T22:05:00.003Z

Misread on a display whilst out walking earlier:

Be risible this winter.

I'm sure that won't be difficult to achieve.

Flu perspectives

2010-10-29T20:13:00.008+01:00

I've been a bit run down the last few days. Nothing major, but I've been under par, and some of it is certainly self-inflicted, thanks to a heavy (in a good way) weekend. I booked leave from work for the first two days of this week, knowing that I'd be of little use to anyone, and in fact I damn well enjoyed being of little use to anyone.

Typically, though, a three day working week has felt like it lasted twice as long. There are still plenty of ructions and instabilities and uncertainties (and stuff) happening in the workplace. However the main reason for the time drag was that I felt, on Wednesday and Thursday in particular, like a teabag that had been used twice and then left to dry and shrivel up (look I'm still not quite 100% so don't expect any better analogies).

Anyway, though it's meant I've had less energy and stamina and perhaps the occasional hint of cold symptoms (which appear to have passed), that's been the worst of it. It certainly reminds me that I can no longer party like I'm half my age, without expecting any consequences.

What it most definitely isn't though, is the 'flu (I'll forgo using the apostrophe from this point because I can't be bothered with it).

I've realised that I get very annoyed...well ok I can get annoyed with most things, I'm more than aware of that. Still. I get very annoyed when I hear people, especially in the workplace (but anywhere else for that matter) say, through a blocked nose and punctuated by snuffles or a sneeze, I've got the 'flu.

(Yes I know I said I would forgo the apostrophe, and I remain consistent with that, but the person saying the above quote used it.)

No you haven't got the flu (see), you've got a cold or possibly some sort of viral condition which might have a few mild symptoms in common with the flu. Otherwise you'd be at home bedridden, drenched in sweat and in a mild delirium, feverish, aching and feeling like death warmed up - or alternatively, death cooled down. Flu knocks you for six, it can make you feel filthily depressed, unable to eat, move or concentrate, and you certainly don't feel able to get up and go to work and sit in an office (or a laboratory, if that's where you happen to work) and say I've got the 'flu.

If you did manage to drag yourself that far, you'd be more likely to be saying Taxi? Yes, can you take me to [insert home address here] as quick as you can, thank you, and saying sorry boss, I'm really not well enough and I shouldn't have come into work today in the first place.

Plus, if you did manage to drag yourself that far and somehow felt like you could at least sit in your office/lab/abattoir etc and try and work, hopefully it would only be a matter of time before a more sensible colleague or boss quickly phoned a taxi on your behalf and ordered you home - both for your own sake AND SO THAT YOU DIDN'T BLOODY WELL PASS IT ON TO ANY OF YOUR WORKMATES YOU UNTHINKING IDIOT. WHAT ABOUT DAVE AT THE DESK NEXT TO YOU, HE'S GOT TWO WEEKS HOLIDAY ABROAD STARTING THIS WEEKEND AND WHAT HE REALLY WANTS IS TO FEEL LIKE SEVEN DIFFERENT KINDS OF SHIT WHEN HE CATCHES WHAT YOU'VE GOT, DOESN'T HE?

Anyway. So no, I'm not feeling too bad at all (and rather better for a rant, actually - did you notice that I ranted? Did you?), and certainly well enough to go for a walk with the lovely Fire Byrd tomorrow. But then I haven't had the flu, or anything remotely like it. Sometimes it seems like not many people know the difference anymore.

Checkout

2010-10-21T17:44:00.005+01:00

I was in a queue at the supermarket earlier today. Hardly a long queue, though a little busier than usual. When I got to the checkout, the lady who served me said, I'm sorry about your wait, to which I immediately replied, with faux indignation, but I've lost a stone!

She laughed, and I remarked that I was glad that she did - bless her, she said it had really cheered her up.

In an alternative, imaginary scenario which immediately started playing out in my mind, I said to her, well, you've got to enjoy the laughs and good cheer when you can get it, haven't you, because after yesterday's euphemistically-titled spending review, we're all well and truly fucked, aren't we?.

I may have then either trudged out of the shop with an aura of tragedy, or continued on to musing intently to my surely-now-less-than-appreciative audience about misery, alienation and death, depending which scenario seemed more entertaining in my mind's eye.

Probably the latter, because it would have annoyed the shoppers being held up further in the queue behind me. In the event though, I (thankfully) kept all this within the confines of my skull, and left her still in a moment of levity.

On reading

2010-10-15T21:19:00.006+01:00

I'm reading again. Reading a book, that is.

Earlier this year - May, I think - I stopped reading, before I'd finished a book. I was about a hundred pages in, and then lost the will to continue with it.

It wasn't the book itself that put me off reading any further, far from it: what put me off was a sudden dollop of Challenging Stuff in that there real life. It forced my attention onto other matters largely beyond my control and, crucially, I didn't want to associate a book which had such promising and intriguing qualities, with such a challenging time.

So I stopped reading because I felt I had to, and I was in a frame of mind in which (rightly or wrongly) I felt I wouldn't be able to find any refuge in such an activity.

So now, months later, I've started reading again. Not the same book - I'll come back to that, all in good time, it will be read - but one which feels appropriate to now. Which had to be the case, or I wouldn't have started again for a much longer time, I'm sure.

I'm not going to mention the book(s) in question, at least one of which will become the subject of a different post. The point, though, is that something has shifted - I can at least concentrate upon the act of reading again, I may well have finally incorporated or assimilated those aforementioned challenges to some degree.

400 posts

2010-10-14T18:05:00.002+01:00

I had a series of dreams the other night, each one had a different scenario with a connected theme: the sense of becoming aware of an alternative and very beautiful space, yet which had a dark element of some kind or another about which I/we (you know how it is in dreams, there's a bunch of people with you sometimes and you know who they are, but there's no way you can define them when it comes to explaining it all to someone else) had to be very wary.

In one such dream, "we" (see extended parenthesis above) found ourselves in an almost Eden-like place, lush and fantastic, and yet there was an individual there who was deviant and aiming to corrupt. Despite the obvious reference, there were no Biblical allusions - not least since we decided to take direct action and spent most of the dream pursuing him, lynch-mob-style, shouting "WANKER PATROL! WANKER PATROL!" repeatedly.

When I remembered this the following day, I burst out laughing, but it wasn't appropriate to explain why to the company I was keeping.

I Misread a Sign today, for the first time in a while, on a leaflet I saw somewhere. What I read was

Think about your excrement

Whereas it was actually

Think about your retirement.

What I do think, is that I would be an analyst's dream (but not like my dream as detailed above) at the moment. But I shan't ramble on about such things more than I already have, that would feel just a little too indulgent.

So that's what I write about in my my 400th published post. Typical.

I shall treat (!) you to a self-portrait: I'm in the pub.

Not just a walk in the park

2010-10-11T20:22:00.008+01:00

The weather, in London at least, was unseasonably good at the weekend. It's rare that I get to spend any more time than the odd day here and there in the capital, so it was a blessing that, apart from a dull Saturday morning, it was all warmth and sunshine.

Then again, we seem to get fine weather with sufficient regularity at this time of year, that it's perhaps no longer accurate to use terms such as "unseasonable". I remember being quite startled one afternoon in late October, back in the mid 90s (the decade, not the temperature), that it was warm enough not only to sit outside and have a pint, but that it was practically t-shirt weather as well, even as the sunlight was starting to fade.

That was during a weekend in London, coincidentally, and I remember thinking that being down south was surely a factor in the relative warmth so late in the year. These days - whether there or further north - it's a much more familiar, less startling scenario all round.

There could be (and probably are) any number of reasons why I was descending into such a rubbish mood as I strolled through Hyde Park last Saturday, but it wasn't due to the weather. A gorgeous, warm afternoon with bright sunlight, which began to gain a delightfully soft and hazy aspect as time wore on. Plenty of people were around but there was so much open space that it felt calm and quiet.

I strolled over to my destination, the Serpentine Gallery, and picked up a guide to the show of works by Anish Kapoor which are installed in nearby locations.
My mood quickly and definitely lifted as I spent a good chunk of time in apprehension of this piece, initially, and then pondered and explored the remaining three pieces. Their monumentality combined with their reflective (both literally and metaphorically) qualities drew me in, and I greatly enjoyed the adventure of heading from one to the next.I felt like I could have stayed for many more hours, not least since the slowly fading afternoon light imbued the whole place with a gentle, meditative atmosphere.

I had other things to do later on that evening, however, so with a mixture of anticipation tinged with slight reluctance, I headed out of Kensington Gardens. Needing a rest for a while, I had a very contented couple of pints at a pub across the road. It was still warm enough to sit outside and drink in the atmosphere as fully as possible, as afternoon slowly became evening.

Pop

2010-10-05T17:30:00.001+01:00

I love this song, it has a certain majesty and melancholy, and is very much a pop song.

That's all.

Work in progress

2010-09-30T03:21:00.000+01:00

Right, I could make excuses or apologies or feel awkward or whatever, but I shan't. The title of the post says enough anyway, so I'll just hit "publish" and go and hide in a corner.

Oil and water

2010-09-29T19:48:00.004+01:00

I was once in the middle of a very intense conversation with a fellow student at art college. This is going back a while, I don't remember what the conversation was about (it's beside the point at any rate), but I do remember that we were both drinking lots of coffee whilst we wittered on.

Come the eventual reflective pause, we each of us realised that we'd had far too much coffee and were highly-strung, fraught and a bit shaky.

We decided that the antidote lay within the confines of the nearest pub, and trotted over there as fast as our chemically-boosted metabolisms would allow. Which was pretty fast, in fact.

Two or three pints later we were much calmer, more settled, feeling like we'd achieved a sense of parity through countering the intake of stimulants with those of depressants. We returned to college, and I recall having a lengthy conversation with another fellow student. I felt lucid and level.

When I bumped into this latter student the following day, she asked if I was ok. I wondered why she needed to ask, and she said that I'd seemed a little odd during our conversation the day before. I mentioned to her that we'd had our chat after I'd had lots of coffee then some beer.

Ah, that actually makes sense then she said, laughing. She explained that half the time whilst talking to her, I'd appeared very taut and tense in my body movements and general demeanour, whilst my words were issuing forth in a slightly unfocussed and slurry way.

Conversely, the rest of the time, I was speaking quickly and a little forcefully, whilst my body movements were loose and languid.

Clearly, the beer and coffee didn't mix in quite the way I'd perceived.

I mention this now because my working days are split, and have been for some months. The split seems to be getting wider. Mornings now feel like drudgery and tedium to a large degree, and leave me feeling flat and introverted by the middle of the day.

Afternoons (in which I spend my time helping to facilitate creative group work) are nourishing and sustaining, and that feels like an understatement.

I've become aware that for the first hour or so of the afternoon, however, I hardly talk to anyone, keep myself in the background, don't wish to engage. As time wears on during the afternoon I feel like I regain my life and confidence and can take a leading role in the group, advising, encouraging and motivating others.

That first hour in the afternoon bothers me. I know that it's about the transition from one role and the place I occupy within it, to a very different one. But it seems more prominent now, and feels as though the distinction between the two roles is getting harder to manage. I hope this situation doesn't last.

Cigarettes and piss

2010-09-27T22:05:00.005+01:00

My stat counter is down, and blogger seems to want to randomly announce "service unavailable" as though it's just joined a Union or something.

Anyway, I'm rather pleased with myself this evening. There's a melody which has been going through my head today - quite an insidious thing it is, perhaps rather cheesy too..but I wouldn't really know, I can't quite objectify it - and I've managed to remember it long enough to be able to record it along with an accompanying chord progression (well, there are three chords).

The reason I'm so pleased is that there have been several previous times that I've had this particular melody going through my head, and I've thought to myself oh, I'll remember that easily enough. Guess what - each previous time, I've forgotten it, I'm not sure how. It came back into my head today, for the first time in months. Yes, this is one of those which has been nagging away at me for years - perhaps three or four years - and I've finally nailed it.

Where I take it from here, I'm not sure - but at least it's there, recorded, tangible and accessible, and I can at least take it somewhere.

Conversely, after a weekend away in beautiful scenery in mid-Wales, I have many photographs I would like to post up here. I can't, however, because they're all in my head: I was hurtling around on a mountain bike and capturing the views with a camera just wouldn't have been very wise from the point of view of my health and safety.

Tired but not quite so grumpy.

2010-09-17T17:26:00.004+01:00

Hi.

(Just felt I should get the formalities out of the way first)

It's been a long week, and much treacle has been waded through. It's been, to borrow someone else's sense of the grandiose, a journey.

It's about an hour ago that I finished my last work appointment of the day, and stood at a bus stop in a less-than-salubrious part of town, eager to put work behind me and to contemplate some level of relaxation or enjoyment or some equally strange notion.

Rush hour was starting to hit full flow, and in the traffic queue on the other side of the road was a sleek black car containing a young, streetwise-looking driver and (presumably) his girlfriend. They had their windows closed but the sound system was pumping out a sufficient amount of decibels that I could hear the music well enough.

Loud music it was, and this young couple were nodding their heads back and forth in time to its relentless onslaught.

I wouldn't normally take any especial notice of this. It's hardly a rare occurrence on the city streets these days.

However, what they were churning out over the speakers was orchestral music. Really rousing, stirring, Last-Night-of-the-Proms stuff. It really made me smile, and they were clearly loving it. They spotted me and I grinned and put my thumbs up, so they wound the window down to allow me further appreciation of it, grinning back at me as they did.

A minute or two later they were off, the traffic queue finally moving on. But it was just one of those nice and unexpected little moments, and it seemed to mark in clear terms that work was over and that the weekend had begun.

It's not all grumpiness round these parts.

Question

2010-09-13T19:50:00.002+01:00

Does anybody know if there's a way to upload audio files to blogger?

Contains more grumpiness

2010-09-10T15:51:00.002+01:00

Following on from my previous post, I may as well carry on in a similar vein.

I'm utterly sick of people who walk right across your path like you're not there. It's ignorant and annoying in the extreme. You're walking along and you notice someone in the periphery of your vision, entering your personal space and then straight in front of you even though - you would have thought - they damn well know that you're there, and that you'll have to stop abruptly to avoid bumping into them and tearing a few strips of skin off their heels.

Well, when that happens, I don't stop anymore. If they won't show me the courtesy of at least acknowledging that I'm there, then I'm tired of extending that courtesy to them in return.

It happened a couple of days ago. Somebody approaching from my left and, rather than wait a moment until I was gone, this guy just walked right across my feet.

I don't actually like confrontation (no, honestly I don't), but I carried on, and walked right into his heels.

He turned around, and it was hard to read the tone of his voice when he said, are you alright?

So I just said, you walked right across me. Watch where you're going, please.

I held his gaze and he turned and carried on. And so did I, after a moment, in the direction I'd been walking before I'd been so rudely interrupted.

Actually what's triggered off my posting about such further grumpiness is a very highly petty thing which happened just now in the supermarket. I was just in the middle of putting my shopping on the conveyor belt at the checkout, when the lady queuing behind me took it upon herself to take one of the dividers that you put down between your shopping and the next person, and to put it down next to my items before I'd actually finished.

Yes, I might be veering into sheer pettiness here but I thought that was a little presumptious - if not downright discourteous - of her, so I took the divider off and put it back where it was, until I'd put the rest of my shopping down.

I think she got the message, standing back until I'd made it clear I'd finished.

...and relax, breathe out, it's the weekend.

Contra Indications

2010-09-07T18:44:00.005+01:00

I was crossing a busy road this morning, half-hoping I could jump on the bus that had just pulled up to the stop on the opposite side. Looking to my right, I noted that it was safe to cross, since both cars that were advancing from that direction were indicating to turn left at the junction, way before they got near to me.

I'd looked two or three times - clear. I took a step out, then a second step, then suddenly was startled when I heard the loud beep of a car horn from the right hand side. There was one of the aforementioned vehicles, driver gesticulating furiously, presumably wondering as to why I was stepping out in front of him.

He was still indicating left, despite having passed the junction. I gesticulated furiously back, pointing at his indicators and shouting words to the effect that they were to show where he was going, not where he wasn't (I was quietly grateful for the fact that he'd sounded his horn correctly, so as to avoid causing me serious injury or worse).

Later this afternoon, I was crossing a wide junction on a very quiet stretch of road, doubly cautious now. Just as well then that I'd spotted the car coming in the opposite direction, the driver of which decided he would show me the courtesy of using his indicators after he'd actually started turning.

Twat.

So I decided I wouldn't rush across this particular road, he would have to wait given that he hadn't made his intentions clear.

This on the same day that I got a call on my mobile purporting to be from my bank (like hell was it - they'll have to try harder than that to scam me), and, on my landline, another of those irritating, automated "free messages" from some company or another - I couldn't say who or what, since I'd slammed the receiver down long before the recorded voice could get any further.

What's even more irritating, however, is that if you pick up your handset before the message has finished, it's still there burbling away and you can't use your phone until it's reached the end.

Right, that's one or two annoyances dealt with. Time to relax, if such a thing isn't too far beyond the realms of possibility.

Why I like cycling (3)

2010-09-02T19:23:00.004+01:00

Cycling has been a constant since I was able to take it up again in earnest at the start of April - certainly, it's felt like the one constant. Good things and bad things and all sorts of things inbetween have happened during this time, but there's been a definite sense of very destabilising upheaval (if that's not overly tautological).

The weather has been so good these last few days that I've been anxious to get back on the bike as soon as the circumstances allowed. I hadn't been out for a spin for a couple of weeks, until just now.

I set to it with sheer glee, and after a certain spell of time, felt that sense of mood enhancement and the rest of it can all go to hell that often results. Helped by being out of the city and in pleasant scenery.

I feel better for it.

Oh, my

2010-08-29T18:12:00.003+01:00

I listened to this last night for the first time in a few years.

It astonishes me and, though I was in the company of a friend, it felt like a very singular, private moment, and I quietly wept a few tears.

Stormclouds

2010-08-28T08:59:00.004+01:00

Negative changes are impacting on the remaining things which I value about work, and indeed which have been the only things making me want to stay there.

They also are likely to impact on things such as free time, morale and so on.

I feel I could do something rash, like resign, which is perhaps not the most sensible thing in the current climate. For the immediate future it's a case of grit my teeth and carry on.

I continue to work on my music a lot more, and I feel that in some respects this is driven by a sense of sheer spite.

Noodle

2010-08-24T10:20:00.004+01:00

It used to be that I'd go to London with some kind of itinerary, even just a vague one - some record shopping here, a gallery or two there (not least a wander around Cork St), perhaps some sightseeing.

During college days when the Tate was all one gallery (as opposed to Tate Britain & Tate Modern) and when we'd be heading down to see specific shows, a few of us would always eat a big fry-up in a lovely cafe a few minutes' walk away. In the end, eating at the cafe became synonymous with a visit to the Tate.

In more recent years when I've usually headed down on my own, I've followed the same very loose plan: do a couple of specifics and then let the rest of the day just take its own shape. On my return from a stroll round the halls of the Tate Modern, I tend to find myself taking a relatively lengthy walk around and over the river and through Embankment tube station.

There's a nice, fairly cheap noodle bar just near there, takeaway only. It slowly became the stuff of habit - if not ritual - to pick up a carton of deliciously spicy food from this place after such a walk. Summer or winter, rain or shine, I somehow find that I would rather stand up and eat my food from the carton - whether sheltering under a tree or sitting overlooking the adjacent park - than to go to a cafe or a pub and eat sitting comfortably down.

Yesterday I decided, snap decision, that I'd head down to London. On the train journey, I realised that it's reached the point where the only clear thing on my agenda was getting a takeaway from this particular noodle bar, and that was what I really looked forward to.

Straight out of Marylebone, caught the tube to Embankment, and felt utter contentment when I ordered a spicy pork dish with noodles, eating them whilst leaning up against a wall, under a tree to shelter from the light rain.

I was then left to wonder exactly what I was going to do with the rest of the day. Not that I struggled to find ways to fill my time down there, but post-noodle it didn't really matter: I'd had my fix.

The shorter the week = the thicker the treacle

2010-08-20T09:33:00.004+01:00

In which I demonstrate my hitherto undisplayed facility for equations.

Well no, not really.
I'm now off work for a few days, but there seems to be a sense of inevitability as regards what one has to wade through in the period leading up to a bout of holiday. This week has been no exception and working hours have left me variously angry, bewildered and tired out.
I'm not going to dwell on that though, the onus is now upon me to do some serious switching off and leaving such things behind for a spell.

What has been a Good Thing this week though is that, following on from my previous post, I've spent a fair few hours in the evenings hunched over my laptop and working on more music.

Not, it has to be said, that I've been able to translate (or transcribe or whatever) the various ideas that were swimming around in my head last weekend - nonetheless, I've been able to maintain a sense of flow, of continuity and of sheer absorption in it all. To dig up many scraps of older, unfinished ideas and to either discard them, or to begin working on them afresh, or to incorporate one piece into another.

I've maintained an environment for myself which allows for escapism and concentration: candlelight only, internet switched well and truly off, other distractions pushed to the background.

It's been lovely, actually, and if a bit of toil at work has pushed me to further engage with the things which make me feel better, then I've done the best I could over the last few days.

I now have a change of scenery until after the weekend, and I'm sure that will help me to switch off too.

Windows to the soul

2010-08-15T19:36:00.004+01:00

I like the fact that someone landed on these here pages after searching for dying trousers. I would hope that I need not point out that rumours of my death, or indeed my being dyed, are greatly exaggerated.

I was away to see my mother this weekend. As usual, distanced from laptop/musical equipment and any other such creative tools, the ideas flowed in abundance. Part of me thinks that this is a case of Sod's Law. Separated from the means to create, my brain starts working overtime on what I could be doing.

On the other hand, I know for sure that that's less than the whole picture. What I get from such weekends, in this particular respect, is space: in a literal sense, thanks to a non-urban environment; but also in the sense that, away from the pressing (ha ha) demands of the week, my mind can wander with far less constraint. Thoughtful, reflective at times, but alive, buzzing.
During my art college days I was drawn to landscape as subject matter, which was later to inform more abstract concerns. For so much of that time I felt immersed in such space, and it really fired me creatively.

Though too often buried beneath layers of the stuff of more everyday matters, it heartens me to feel that I can and do still respond to such stimuli. Indeed, I have to - these things are as important to me as life itself.

Chilli for the time of year

2010-08-11T17:55:00.002+01:00

I was given a chilli plant.

This was back in April.

I wondered if it was ever going to provide me with any chillis.

How did I miss this?

R.I.P.

2010-08-08T19:37:00.003+01:00

I just found out that Tony Judt died.

I only became aware of him last year when I bought a rather sizeable book called Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, he being the author. It's an excellent read, and one which I would recommend to anyone with an interest in modern history . I feel like my perspective has been greatly enriched, not just on past events but also many aspects of very current events.

I began reading it in March last year, and it immediately felt like one of those books to savour, to read at a leisurely pace and to take it in as fully as I possibly could (still plenty of it went over my head, it will merit another read some time). I finished it at the beginning of December, happy to have got through it all but with a tinge of sorrow at putting down something I'd been immersed in for so long.

I know next to nothing about the man himself, except that he became ill with motor neurone disease in recent years. Nonetheless, that one book has had a huge impact on me, and it felt only right to say as much here.

Respectfully then, R.I.P. Tony Judt.

Captain Obvious

2010-08-07T08:49:00.003+01:00

I was in a restaurant last night, waiting in the corridor to make a quick visit to the conveniences once they became free. As I stood there I saw various waiters and bar staff coming and going through the door marked Staff Only.

I then spied a gentleman in a chef's hat stroll out of the same door and down the corridor where I was waiting - possibly he was going out the back for a cigarette break.

I'd really enjoyed the meal I'd just eaten, and thought that now was as good a time as any to pass on my compliments.

I've just had a really nice meal - it was lovely, very good food, thank you! I said, or words along similar lines.

Yes, it was me that cooked that food, he said, with an air about him as though he was imparting some insight or nuance that I hadn't actually picked up on.

-

2010-08-04T19:26:00.003+01:00

I'm struggling with words at the minute. Oddly, I'm finding it easier to engage in various technical processes which facilitate the making of music - something that I often find myself putting barriers up against (and moaning about it on here).
So I'm switching the PC off and the speakers and bits of equipment on, before the urge escapes me.

A thing

2010-08-01T20:57:00.001+01:00

Today I had a meltdown

2010-07-29T21:48:00.008+01:00

I'm not going to suggest it's easy to deal with major stresses.

Because it isn't.

But, with some major stresses, you at least know what you're up against. It doesn't make it easy or, necessarily, easier, but there's a sense of tangibility, and you know damn well why you're stressed.

And, perhaps, it helps other people to understand more easily what you're dealing with (or trying to), too, and to empathise. If you're bruised and battered from fighting a bear that's entered your porch, others can look at you and immediately say, "no wonder you're bruised and battered."

Whereas comparatively minor, more insidious but (perhaps) no less insistent stresses are, by their nature, more diffuse, less definable, and less easy to position yourself against. They can build up, catch you off your guard, you think you're ok - when really you're not - and, after all, I dealt with the big stuff just fine, didn't I?

In that respect, it's harder to explain to other people, and I'm slower to make sense of such things myself. People are less likely to be understanding if you can't adequately define what you feel you're up against, particularly if it's many little segments of this and that. If you're not bruised and battered, because you've spent the day merely attempting to rid your house of flies, wasps and an infestation of ants, it can be harder for those around you to take you quite so seriously from the word go.

Today, when I was really starting to feel more than hopeless, I was able to offload. Not before time.

Beside the sea

2010-07-27T23:06:00.002+01:00

Not the most evocative piece of film ever, but it was nice just to have that gentle moment, all the same.

Misfortune tellers

2010-07-23T16:43:00.008+01:00

In my lunch hour, I decided to pop into my bank. I'd just noticed that my debit card had a split in it, and would need replacing. It's still usable but is likely to be rejected by some card readers, more so as the split gets bigger.

So, once in the bank, I was approached by a member of what they seem to call "floor staff," to whom I explained the problem. Ah, you'll need to use the phone line. Dial ** and that'll put you through.

Ok. So far, so good. This particular branch is a big, city-centre branch, and yet there are just two phones available for such things. Both were in use, so I stood and waited a suitably discreet distance behind the guy using the nearest one.

I waited for around 20 minutes, getting rather impatient. Not with the guy on the phone, it wasn't his fault. He sounded fraught, and he kept turning round and saying sorry, which was nice of him. I kept making it clear that it was ok. The person on the other phone was there for just as long too, and there was a guy also standing and waiting for use of that one.

Anyway - back to where I was and I noted that the poor chap trying to make some progress with his phone call had by now managed to get the attention of one of the floor staff, who intervened and soon sounded exasperated herself, not least with the fact that it was a bad line. Finally she got this guy an appointment to see somebody, to sort out whatever his problems where.

I went and sat down at the phone booth, and dialled **. I got an automated service telling me which option to press for having had my card lost or stolen. I hadn't had my card stolen and it certainly wasn't lost, it was right in front of me. The other options were equally irrelevant, except for pressing x for other options.

I pressed x for other options. I then had to enter various numbers: my sort code, my account number, my security number. What they didn't make clear was this this was not the security number on the back of my neither-lost-nor-stolen card.

They made it clear enough when they said (still the automated voice) that I had entered the wrong number, that I needed to enter various digits from the longer security number on my account, and that if I either hung up or wrongly entered the number again, any transactions on my account would be frozen.

Great, so I'm already starting to feel like a bloody criminal and I'm supposed to remember the 3rd and 5th numbers out of an 8-digit security number which I haven't used in months.

I was by now uttering curses under my breath and feeling like throwing the phone receiver against the wall. Twenty minutes of waiting, to be given a bogus set of options followed by being patronised by an automated fucking voice.

I entered the numbers correctly and was given my options again, none of which applied. I held on, hoping to be put through to someone. No chance. The voice informed me of my account balance - lovely, but that wasn't what I was after, thanks - and then gave me the non-applicable options once more. I waited, and was given my account balance again (which, interestingly, was exactly the same as it had been but 20 seconds previously).

I slammed the phone down, shouted one of the floor staff over and told him to get me through to a human being on the other end of the line because I was losing my temper and getting very annoyed. The chap dutifully did so.

The voice at the other end was in a hard-to-understand accent on a very crackly line, so I was having to ask her to repeat every other sentence as I went through the whole rigmarole of telling her everything from this number, that code, my address and my inside leg measurement.

Finally - finally I was able to tell her that all I wanted to do was get a replacement debit card through because mine was damaged. She dealt with this, and then "having had a look at your account with us," started telling me about a bank account which I could change to if I so wished.

Meanwhile an atonal howl of feedback informed me that I had a call on my mobile phone (the howl of feedback being my ringtone) and I was scrabbling in my pocket for that whilst still hearing "..enhanced rate of interest...travel insurance.....family members covered for x amount of trips abroad per year..."

I'd missed the call on my mobile.

Excuse me I said sharply, my indignance at fever pitch that I was now receiving sales patter for an account which I couldn't give two shits about. I've been offered this account before, and I don't want it!.

Oh...is there anything else I can do for you today?

NO!! THANK YOU!!

I slammed the phone down again and stormed out, glaring at all the floor staff.

If this is what it takes to ask for a simple task to be done, then thank goodness that - at least at the present time - I have no major financial issues that I need to sort out with my bank, that would surely be a Kafka-esque nightmare.

Which, judging by the haunted, bewildered look in his eyes, is exactly what the guy on the phone before me is going through. Damn.

Ohne titel

2010-07-20T20:11:00.003+01:00

Hmmm. I'm in one of those moods where I really want to write a blog post, but I'm just not sure what about.

Weight lifting (2)

2010-07-13T17:58:00.004+01:00

According to my scales, I've lost almost a stone in weight in the last few weeks, which means that I'm not so far at all from what I'd consider to be my ideal weight.

One trigger for this is the very stressful stuff that was happening at work for a spell. It's not that my losing weight was a stress reaction, it's that I found myself knowing that if I really started doing sensible stuff like looking after myself with a little bit more rigour, then I'd be better equipped to handle whatever came my way.

Which, so far at least, has worked.

The other trigger, I think, is that (apart from the last few days) we've had a pretty decent summer so far. It makes it easier to just go out, stay out, and do more stuff - particularly stuff that doesn't revolve around the pub - and to eat lighter meals too. Last time I managed to lose this amount of weight - and more - was around four years ago, which was the last summer not to feature stupid amounts of torrential rain round these parts.

Changing tack slightly, there's some writing I want to do. It's been on my mind on and off for a little while, and I hope in a way that it develops into more of a kind of compulsion, since that will mean it's more likely (as with music) that I actually get on with it.

I make no bold claims (nor italic claims, nor sans serif) for this intention to write. It's just something, a little idea I want to explore, and not necessarily anything more than that. But I just want to make the point - to myself first and foremost - that I have to bloody well sit down and make the effort to type out the words, if I'm to allow any chance of seeing whether there's any merit in it whatsoever.

The nondescript

2010-07-11T16:22:00.003+01:00

Going back to see my mother for the weekend often sees me experiencing mixed feelings, for all sorts of reasons. Last time I was there I was like a grumpy, semi-mute teenager, I couldn't have been good company, but that was while I was in the midst of some rather intense work-related dramas.

This weekend I was able to appreciate being there much more. The first thing I noticed was the background noise (I've described it on this blog - somewhere - before), the subtle and very alluring hum from the road in the middle distance, as it cuts across the countryside. I popped out for a couple of drinks on Friday evening, and sat outside away from conversation and hubbub, so that I could be enveloped as much as possible by this hum.

I attended a barbecue with my mother on Saturday evening, it was a family friend's birthday. I didn't stay late, I made the most of the weather and had a walk round later on, allowing my head to fill with narratives and ideas as I wandered the near-silence of the paths and lanes. Looking back on the barbecue, there was a really nice atmosphere, something almost heartbreakingly gentle about it.

Blogger, interrupted

2010-07-07T17:57:00.003+01:00

I didn't want to have a quiet spell, blog-wise. I've had computer problems, this time it was the motherboard which needed to be replaced. Thankfully I've lost nothing, nor even needed to reload anything. All I've needed to do is tinker with a few settings and things are back to normal after a week or so away.

Still, I hope it's as easy to regain my bloggy momentum, since I'd been far more active on here in recent weeks. It'll also be a relief tomorrow morning when I'll be able to look at the weather forecast online and know whether, e.g., I need to take a waterproof with me or not. These are the things I take for granted, and really miss, when I don't have my internet access.

I've missed the company of my fellow bloggers too.

Oh, and a moan (not blog-related): why is it ok for everyone to interrupt me?

Contains words about football, and another dream

2010-06-29T20:29:00.005+01:00

This will be the one and only comment I make about England and the World Cup - specifically about the England-Germany game the other day.

A lot of people have said that we would have lost to Germany regardless of the fact that our second goal was disallowed, that we just weren't good enough. Up to now, I've agreed. In general, we most definitely weren't good enough, throughout the whole tournament. Pretty poor in fact.

So - we were losing by two goals to nil. Yes, our midfield and defence made very basic errors which allowed them through. But how many teams, in that position, make a good enough comeback to equalise within the first half against a team such as Germany, on a high-profile stage such as the World Cup finals? I'm finding myself starting to agree with those who suggest that if our second goal had been allowed - which it obviously ought to have been - that, at the very least, England were in with a chance to regain the initiative...we could well have been up against the prospect of an enthralling and more evenly-matched second half, possibly (just possibly, mind) with a different outcome.

Still, I did have the sense that if we'd won against Germany, we would only be prolonging the agony until the next game. Regardless of the what-ifs I've just posted, overall we were really walking a tightrope the rest of the time. We're out now, and I'm neither bitter nor am I exactly smarting about the outcome such that it was.

Right, that's that out of the way.

Last night I dreamt that I was in a shop and, as I walked along a particular part of it, everyone turned to me and told me I wasn't supposed to stand there. There was nothing to indicate that this was the case, it was just a normal part of the shop, with shelves displaying goods that were on sale - but everyone looked at me with sheer disapproval.

Meanwhile, in a different dream (or part of the same one, I'm not sure) I was sat with three security guards. One of them was actually a greyhound but also a dinosaur. He was a very decent sort of chap, all the same.