southbound

growing lad

2006-08-13T12:02:00.000+01:00

more photos of ben available now - for anyone who's vaguely interested.....

the latest from the BBC blogging revolution . . .

2006-07-09T22:05:00.000+01:00

they're getting socratic on our asses . . . OK, maybe it's got something to do with Materazzi and Zidane. But it tickled me.

mandarin dream

2006-07-08T00:13:00.000+01:00

Fulfilling one my long-term ambitions and starting to teach myself mandarin, thanks to the excellent lessons available at learnchinesepod. That I can learn to speak a new language while cycling to work, for nothing, and get updates all the time to match my speed of learning, has been one of my moments of unadulterated technophilia vis-a-vis the www. The last one (and it was the first) was probably in 1996 when I met an Italian guy after using the email address at the end of his bicycle diary of the Atlas Mountains, it turned out that he worked round the corner, we had lunch and he helped us plan a similar trip. (In fact, Andrea, if you're still out there I'm afraid I still have your Cadogan guide, please get in touch and I will gladly return it. Your technophilia was probably less encouraged than mine through our encounter.)

galactic questions

2006-07-07T23:58:00.000+01:00

Just listened to Melvyn Bragg's latest-but-one podcast (which sadly being the latest-but-one I can't meaningfully link to now) on galaxies and had to listen to it twice in order to grasp a lot of things. If I stop concentrating for a minute on astronomy I find it very easy to lose track because all the facts and numbers are so, well, astronomical. But I was left with a few burning questions (which pretty much any amateur astronomer could probably clear up for me).

1. If (as per red shift and Hubble's Law) every other galaxy in the universe is getting further away from us, then why is Andromeda going to crash into the Milky Way in a few tens of billions of years? Is the movement away from singularity not a uniform radiation from a point?

2. Apparently the kind of things we can see, the stuff made of the subatomic particles known to us, is only about 4% of the matter in the unverse. Of the rest, about 20-30% is "dark matter" , which is therefore hugle significant but mysterious. But no one asked - what about the other three quarters?

3. Glad to get straight that the universe is about 13.8 billion years old, the Milky Way about 13 billion years old (it still foxes astronomers how the galaxies formed so "quickly") and gladder still to learn that we are less than halfway through the projected life of the universe (an inference from the tens of billions of years that apparently still separate us from collision with Andromeda). But has anyone started figuring out how long they reckon the universe will last before everything sputters out (or folds up again)?

4. Apparently galaxies through "secular evolution" (i.e. even without interacting with other galaxies) very gradually "use up" the matter that originally comprised them. Why? And how? I found this point a little depressing. And what about the dark matter (and the even darker stuff)

Incidentally it made me think of Aubrey de Grey and his anti-aging and anti-death scientific crusade. More than any other argument I felt the action of the cosmos gave the lie to the notion that we could ever possibly overcome the natural tendency of systems to eventually shut down - if the sun's going to do it, and the galaxy, then surely us. What's more alarming is to think that we'll shut down the earth before time. But perhaps in the end we will only shut down the human species.

how to deliberately avoid thinking things through, or convenience morality

2006-06-15T19:44:00.000+01:00

A conversation with Pete this afternoon crystallised an unease I have felt for the last year and a half since I started ripping off large quantities of music for my MP3 collection. Pete has a much clearer moral code in the area than my flaccid, improvised convention. Mine goes something like this: I'll listen to everything and if (a) I really like and album and (b) the artist is still alive and (c) they're not already rich and famous then maybe I'll get round to buying it too, because more obscure living artists need support and don't need the likes of me to rip them off. Unfortunately that only works on the occasions when I actually get round to it. And I treat the vast area of music which falls outside these restrictive categories without compunction, partly legitimised by a dimly-perceived (be me) crypto-communism which seems to float around the area of illegal downloads - you know the sort of thing: the record companies take all the profits anyway and the corporations have hijacked the DIY ethic of file sharing, and isn't it terrible that they're brainwashing kids with copyright lessons in schools etc etc - so why contribute to the perpetuation of a corrupt economic and political system? Well I don't really follow, or know all the facts, but hey, it's good enough to get me out of actually paying for anything - a sort of "from each according to his whims, to each according to his desires" approach. Then there's the thought that I work in music, so it's kind of a fair-enough perk of the job to get my grubby hands on it (whether or not I review it, and I haven't reviewed anything for months).

So what should I do? If I delete the whole lot, I'll lose a lot of good babysitter music. And my wife will kill me. But that makes it a more interesting moral dilemma - I am stuck between a rock and a soft place. Or I could buy all 7000-odd tracks - but that would set me back, er, about 7000-odd pounds. But now that I'm a father I have to start taking my moral responsibilities seriously, or I will either start giving out bad advice or turn into a hypocrite.

nice of them to wait for me

2006-06-15T19:39:00.000+01:00

not being sufficiently passionate (but more than mildly interested) about the English team's labours in the World Cup, I decided to cycle home through a quiet city to my three-week old son rather than stick around in front of a big screen at work to watch England v Trinidad and Tobago. Imagine my gratification, then, when not only did I get home to discover that nothing had happened by the 80th minute, but both of the goals were scored while I was watching the last 10. I feel slightly in tune with the cosmos.

more good babysitting music

2006-06-15T19:34:00.000+01:00

Susanne Abbuehl and Stravinsky (Agon) were both pretty effective this week. Agon settled him down a couple of evenings ago, and Abbuehl's "Compass" kept him sweet all Wednesday morning on a continuous loop. I was pretty tranquil with it too I must say.

good conversation

2006-06-09T22:32:00.000+01:00

I love carrying the little man around in the sling and chatting to him. Now that I have him do I need a blog? Though the kind of things we end up talking about are a little different from the standard fare of the blogsphere (if such a thing exists) so perhaps I can sustain both monologues in parallel. and perhaps each will become more of a dialogue or conversation in time. But it's amazing how knowing your audience changes what you want to say. I think that's partly why I've always loved letter writing, and quite enjoyed reviewing, but struggled with fiction. It's all words, but words are nothing if not communication, so you need to know what you're communicating, and first of all to whom. Maybe that's why most good fiction writers start with autobiographical stuff (and sometimes stay with it - Bellow is one of my all-time favourites and I'm not the least put off by the fact that pretty much all his characters are North American Jews of East European or Russian extraction and a decidedly intellectual bent. A family friend once poured cold water on my brother's literary ambitions asking who would be interested in the life of a middle-class European; I think the question misses the point, as the deeper you explore any life the more interesting it gets (leaving aside the royal family perhaps), and it's not about exotcism or grotesquerie - not all literature is commedia del'arte, magical realism, travelogue or grand guignol, and in fact the very best stuff probably never is (much though I appreciate García Márquez, Poe etc) - but look, I'm digressing like the south circular so I'll close the parenthesis now).

Anyway, Ben is a good audience and today as we walked under burning sun through the back streets of East Dulwich hunting down formula milk we strayed from memories of hot days in other countries through the geometric nature of experience of the passage of time, through the search for completeness in life, intimations of ultimate reality, faith and beauty. Since he's barely two weeks old some of the vocabulary may be a bit of a stretch but I like to think that in years to come he will dream a memory of our conversations and wake up with knowledge or ideas that seem to come from nowhere (and perhaps make very little sense).

babysitter music

2006-06-09T22:18:00.000+01:00

Been a long time.... but had my hands full with the arrival of a new human being in our lives. It's striking just how much getting used to the simple business of being alive seems to take - that's leaving aside the mechanics of eating, sleeping and everything in between. Shouldn't be surprising, but of course if everything in the world is new you're going to be a little overwhelmed. I get overwhelmed when the sun comes out.

Anyway, just thought it was worth mentioning that one thing that seems to help smooth the existentially ruffled feathers of the wee ex-embryo is music. Most sound of any kind is better than nothing (especially for getting to sleep to) but we are slowly figuring out exactly what music floats his little boat. So far John Cage (preferably in live performance, however ropy, by his dad) and Youssou N'Dour (Egypt) seem to soothe the savage breast.

half full?

2006-05-09T18:43:00.000+01:00

I promised my brother I would post this message on his behalf:

I am currently researching a book about 'optimists' and recording my encounters for BBC Radio 4. As well as famous optimists I am looking for ordinary people who embody extraordinary optimism and positivity.

If you can think of anyone who has overcome (or still enduring) tremendous hardship - against long odds - I would like to get in touch. My aim is to meet and learn from people who have maintained high spirits in the face of disability, sickness, personal trauma, career or financial difficulties, war... anything which we would normally consider unendurable.

Please forward this email on to anyone else you think might have ideas - the longer the chain, the more interesting the results will be!

Please respond directly to shorter@shorter.com

floating cities

2006-05-03T13:23:00.000+01:00

This sounds beautiful - "a visually stunning panorama in which the viewer is immersed in, and floats amongst, the clouds". Saraceno's "floating cities" ideas reminded me of Iain Banks' dirigible behemothaurs, surely the greatest ever made-up taxonomy (unless you can think of any other?)

myspacecide

2006-04-25T13:47:00.000+01:00

OK, so I'm looking at my newsreader today.... anyway, another interesting piece from wired, on a nicely technophobic kick (and somewhat macabre). delving into the area of "legacy content" in ways which cast new light on the phrase. Interestingly enough though, the spoof Murdoch page seems to have disappeared as quickly as Wired drew attention to it (it's been "loading" for about 20 minutes now).

definitely time to chuck out the PC

2006-04-25T13:20:00.000+01:00

Bang goes the last good reason to hang on to the old beast. Unless anyone can suggest any others (to a two-mac household)?

spring haze on Horniman Hill

2006-04-17T23:11:00.000+01:00

Walked up around the back of the Horniman Museum with Emmanuel on Saturday. Little gardens budding timidly as we rose, high over London and feeling up a mountain, hidden and enclosed by the haze, cool in the whiteness. Among the many flowers (bright little red points of light against the white sky) whose names I don't know were the sticky buds of horse chestnut leaves sprouting, cherry blossom everywhere, sumac in fruit and a patch of baby banana plants like the ones I remember planting in Colombia. Houses being built in the gap-tooth spaces of the road (left by bombs in the war?), sprouting solar panels and skylights, things up here more friendly with the sky.

The roads narrow up to the top of the hill. If you look carefully you can see where the tiny spirits of the dead (the old woodsmen and charcoal burners of the 19th century) congregate, sitting together in the holes in fence posts or hiding next to the birds' nests, stroking their white beards and sharing a pipe over complex betting games (based on actuarial predictions of environmental devastation and played out over decades). But you have to be very quiet. And if they offer you the pipe, say no, you have to stay on this side, where you can still enjoy the museum.

Anga Diaz - Echu Mingua live

2006-04-16T09:13:00.000+01:00

Knockout gig last night from conguero Angá Díaz and the live version of Echu Mingua from La Línea 06 at the Barbican. Echu Mingua was my favourite album for a long time (and according to the nice man at World Circuit it was all thanks to my hysterical review in Fly that all the proper papers noticed when he attached the CD and sent it round a second time - the rest is history) and the live set did not disappoint. This was "fusion" at its best - unforced, spontaneous, infused with collective commitment - with a powerful core of Cuban musicians, rhythms and tunes (vocal (El Indio), trumpets, bass (Felipe Cabrera), percussion and of course congas) complemented by the Malian Baba Sissoko on talking drum, ngoni and vocals, French flautist Magic Malik and DJ Dee Nasty (OK, he got a bit irritating at times), with a guest appearance from the phenomenal latin jazz violinist Omar Fuentes (?) - and everyone pretty much mucking in anywhere with vocals and percussion. Impossible to bottle the spirit and energy of the concert, but highlights included a voice-and-bass duet version of Dos Gardenias from Cabrera and El Indio, Fuentes' blinding outing over a phenomenal groove in the rhythm section, some genuinely enjoyable audience participation in the closing set etc. (You'd have had to be there.) One major distinction from the album was the absence of piano, or indeed any harmony instruments at all. I missed it once or twice (Pueblo Nuevo was perhaps so much Rubén González's piece that the late pianist was considered irreplaceable and Cabrera gamely and expertly played the whole tune on the bass - the result was interesting but occasionally thin) and the version of A Love Supreme palled a little at times in the absence of middle. But in general, it made things more interesting. And Magic Malik has a nice line in two-part harmony - I've never heard anyone else sing and play the flute at the same time (with completely different registers, rhythms and notes).

Angá and his merry band were supported by X Alfonso, a long-haired Spanish shouty rock/hip-hop outfit who had very little in common with the main attraction. Vaguely typical of world music promotion. (It's all sort of latin, they're bound to enjoy it....)

Anyway, got to go and make breakfasts for my house guests.

full circle

2006-04-10T13:03:00.000+01:00

Spent part of the weekend with my 95-year-old grandmother and (surprise surprise) spent a lot of it talking family (though her memories of zeppelins on fire over London in the Great War were pretty good value too). It's striking how time seems to flatten out for her (in spite of being still sharp as a pin and full of good cheer). Once or twice chatting to my 35-year-old brother she clearly had him confused with my 71-year-old Dad ("that was 1938, so we'd had you already"). Apparently she occasionally confuses my uncle with my late grandad, which sounds more disturbing ("you and I were courting then....").

Anyway, she could be forgiven for that, given the stability over time of our family roots; I'd always known my Dad was born at home in Balham, just a few miles away from our current base. On Saturday I discovered that grandad's was a home birth in Sydenham - so with young master Shorter Romero due for delivery in a Forest Hill living room near us, it turns out in the long view that I (hospital on 5th Avenue, Manhattan) am the anomaly. Though of course my little one will enjoy the distinct advantage of having shaken off three quarters of his old world genes (thanks to three American grandparents).

chomsky in brockley

2006-04-10T12:58:00.000+01:00

Found a rich seam in Bob from Brockley's blog. Not only has he written this entertaining little polemic against Chomsky (thanks for the link goes to my friend the ex-neocon fellow traveller Matt) but he is also doing a round-up of sarflondon blogs. I am feeling slighted to have been left out and will put him straight.

awww...

2006-04-05T23:19:00.000+01:00

innat nice. feeling all warm and fuzzy in a web 2.0 kind of way having been asked to post my photos to a Forest Hill pool on Flickr, and been led into a pleasant little corner full of local love.

And earlier this evening I had the kind of experience I don't have too much any more. put Laurie Anderson's Big Science on the office stereo and, realising I had never really listened to it properly, listened to it again while cycling home. I suppose the endorphins and the slanting evening sunshine had something to do with it, but the combination of hearing all the sounds through headphones and the words properly, with all the joyce-ian mucking about wrapping up oblique lyrical (and can we call them timeless after 25 years and unforeseeable revolutions in information technology?) commentaries on the ache of modern life, geopolitics, the subconscious, suddenly had scales falling from my eyes, vistas falling open in front of me, jolts of amazement and recognition.

It's almost embarrassing to admit this - it's a classic album after all, containing a top ten hit. But there we go, sometimes things can just sneak up from leftfield and surprise you.

And then, in the middle of a residential street, I saw this.

forthcoming cultural highlights

2006-03-22T13:25:00.000Z

This is a long shot, but in the unlikely event that you (a) are reading this, (b) live in London, (c) are free this Thursday and Friday and (d) don't already know about either or both of these gigs (or play in the band....), then you should know about the following:

1. 9pm, Thursday 23 March, the Fleapit, Columbia Rd, Hackney: heavy metal psychedelic ambient jazz combo Moist will expand your psychic universe with no admission fee (and might even buy you a drink, apparently). Read an interview with Moist.

2. 9:30pm (doors open at 8pm, food & drinks available), Friday 24 March, the misleadingly named "Jazzlive" at The Crypt, St Giles Centre, 81 Camberwell Church St, Camberwell: Guillermo Rozenthuler with Rioplatenses with what is billed as "a powerful, evocative, refined take on contemporary songs from Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and beyond". A bit more of an unknown quantity, but I heard Guillermo at WOMAD in 2004 and have been waiting to hear more, so I'll be there. Always good to have a night out with the diaspora anyway. Tickets: £6/ £4

Mobile Music Technology Workshop, University of Sussex

2006-03-03T13:02:00.000Z

Straying once again from the South London theme - but at least in the right geographical direction. Just back from the first day of a two-day conference surrounded by very clever people talking about mobile technology and its impact on music. The day started with a proper university lecture from Dr Michael Bull, outlining a somewhat polemical view of technology in which he updated Barthes' take on the Citroën DS (the modern equivalent of a Gothic cathedral, a magical icon built by the passion of unknown craftsmen and recognised by the whole population), to apply to the iPod. His narrative is that Western aesthetics are on a trajectory from the large and public to the small and private; the space where you go for therapy, transcendence, immunity, order and security - and of course music - was the cathedral, then the car, and is now the little white box and earbud bubble. The iPod is the best line of defence against Adorno's "chill of unmitigated struggle of all against all", but in the process of making ourselves warmer, we contribute to the chill around us (a bit like a fridge in reverse, perhaps?).

Well, maybe. No one can deny that the technology of individual consumption tends to have an isolating effect. However, most of the rest of the day was taken up in consideration of prototypes where the latest incarnations of mobile devices and networks are harnessed in favour of reclaiming the publicness of public spaces; whether by the placement of site-specific sound in public urban spaces; music-sharing and recommendations based on physical proximity to "familiar strangers" (BluetunA) or most interestingly (in my breakout at least) by creating a virtual public space (Tactical Sound Garden) in which the city is "overdubbed" by a wifi-borne sound collage which can be collectively tended by its users. In all of these the atomised individuality of the mobile listening experience is subverted in different ways, each involving its own element both of community and unpredictability, and in many cases of participation. Which I would argue is part of the wider trajectory of music technology in our century which favours active participation where the dominant technologies of the twentieth century (radio, record player) favoured passive consumption.

Tactical Sound Garden has been a definite highlight so far - it's easy to let the imagination run a bit wild when considering ideas which are as yet untested, but I could imagine how this could somehow bring together the qualities of an open-ended, virtual Musicircus with those of urban architecture - the combination of planned and emergent art in a public space.

and another thing

2006-03-03T13:01:00.000Z

Regular readers will have been waiting with bated breath for the conclusion to my two-part rant on the subject of this country's attitude to immigration. Actually this bit is more to do with bureaucracy in general. I'm sorry about this, but I need to start with a quote from an official document (the SET(M) Immigration and Nationality Directorate form, since you asked, version 09/2005):

"Please provide ten items of correspondence of the kind, or from the sources listed below, addressed to you and your spouse or partner jointly during each of the past 2 years if they clearly show that you live together at the same address. At least 5 of these documents should be from different sources. If you have not received any such correspondence that is addressed to you and your spouse or partner jointly, it is acceptable to provide no less than 4 items addressed to one of you and no more than 6 items addressed to the other partner during each of the past 2 years so long as they show the same address."

OK. Leaving aside the difficulty of digging out gas bills and so on that have been addressed jointly to two individuals, let's just focus on that last sentence. Shall we have it again?

"it is acceptable to provide no less than 4 items addressed to one of you and no more than 6 items addressed to the other partner during each of the past 2 years so long as they show the same address."

It has a nice precise, anal, irrevocable ring about it, hasn't it? They know exactly what they want and they've made it perfectly clear. Or have they? Well, that's the problem - no.

"No less [sic] than 4 items addressed to one of you" - but is there a maximum?

"and no more than 6 items addressed to the other partner" - but is there a minimum?

"during each of the past 2 years" - are we talking calendar years or 12-month periods?

"so long as they show the same address" - what if, like us, you've moved house about four times?

The previous sentence spoke of "at least 5 of these documents" coming from "different sources". Does this apply here?

You might argue that I'm splitting hairs - but this is just the problem, I have to. The language is dry, official and pretends to be clear. You have one shot at this. It's costing you £500. You know from the tone that if you get it wrong you will fail. But the content is totally vague. In my experience, this is a defining feature of bureaucractic language, and it's an insidious, pervasive, low-level abuse of power. It says: we have the control, we have the authority, we will explain ourselves in our terms and if you don't understand them (or if we just don't bother to get it right) then that's your lookout. It's one of the things that makes life less worth living.

do you like reading blogs? if so, er, read on

2006-03-03T12:58:00.000Z

This is a snippet from babywelcome.com. I just thought it was funny.

gervais nonsense to cost money shock

2006-02-21T17:41:00.000Z

The news that Audible plans to charge for podcasts of Rocky Gervais laughing like a macaque at the adolescent surrealism of his sidekicks doesn't come as an enormous sorrow to me I must say. But it's certainly one to watch in terms of the web economy. The consensus on Guardian Unlimited suggests that this is an elementary mistake which fails to understand the structure of the web and who am I to disagree with the geekocracy? I'll certainly be amazed if it stays top of the charts.

getting pictorial

2006-02-16T09:55:00.000Z

If I have to thank the nice people at immigration for anything (and I'd really rather not), it's that the whole rigmarole forced me to take a day off last Friday, and found me wandering back from the station in a relaxed mode in the middle of gorgeous winter sunshine. I took the opportunity to get some photos of our new haunts. Unfortunately my camera suddenly ran out of memory after only a couple of pics from inside the house, and I was too tired and ignorant to try and do anything about it, so I went to bed instead.

blood-sucking immigrants

2006-02-13T10:04:00.000Z

I write this entry (offline) from the cold metal benches of Lunar House in Croydon. Well-named, commented my wife, given the absurd bureaucracy which daily plays out within its walls. Lunar House is the Home Office's clearing house for immigrants, where documents are produced and vast quantities of money paid for the privilege of living and working in this country and paying taxes.

I have two observations: 1. From reading the papers in this country you'd be forgiven for believing that immigrants roll off the boat in Dover to a waiting council house wallpapered with social security cheques, and live happily ever after off the sweat of the English yeomanry's common toil, stirring from their sloth from time to time only to plot the destruction of everything we hold dear. I'm willing to bet that it would come as an almighty shock to the average sun-reader to know that the price for a foreigner married to an english citizen to enter the country is in the region of £300; the price for remaining after two years is £500 (both non-refundable in the event of refusal, natch); and stipulated in both types of visa is a prohibition in recourse to public funds. Say hello to the folks who clean our toilets, drive our cabs, serve our coffee, pay taxes for our public services and generally get abused and despised by those who don't know better, and some of those who do.

The second observation will have to wait - they've just called our number. Joy . . .

It's all me, me, me

2006-02-13T09:56:00.000Z

Very belatedly catching up with Dan Hill's treatise on the context for music listening (well, it was very long, and I've been moving to south london - didn't you know?). Hard to disagree and refreshing to read such a reflective piece on an area too often characterised by heady technophilia (or luddite nostalgia). On the subject of the representativeness or otherwise of the various "presentations of self" available through digital media, that certainly strikes a chord. My audioscrobbler list is certainly skewed, for example, partly as a result of the deficiency of metadata encouraged by interface limitations which means that much of my classical music is incorrectly tagged, and partly as a result of the fact that most of it just isn't on my digital player because basically, it's no good shuffling Mahler's 3rd, and rarely any good listening to it on the move. But aren't all digital self-presentations partial, edited, filtered either by accident or design? Obviously that's part of the point. If you don't know me, you won't know what lifestooshort's real name is and maybe that's my way (like so many bloggers') of dealing with the somewhat amorphous and abstract possibility of strangers reading my intimate thoughts (though to be fair that's less likely to happen to me than it is to Dan . . .)

However, while Dan's dreaming of multidisciplinary approaches to bring analogue richness into our brittle digital world, we could also have a little think about the problem of personal history - nobody's digital life really started more than a few years ago. Nick Drake only scores highly on my audioscrobbler, for example, because I got into his music a few months ago. My mother isn't there on my flickr space because she passed away a few years ago. Some people get round these problems by introducing a back-catalogue, but that seems like a lot of effort. I suppose this isn't really a big deal for anyone but us in the in-between generation - but then I suspect that our children will be an in-between generation fo tomorrow's technologies too. So perhaps we should reconcile ourselves to these inadequacies and abandon the narcissistic quest for vicarious, virtual self-presentation?

a shocking calamity

2006-02-08T09:45:00.000Z

Generally the iPod is quite good at dishing out pleasant surprises in the way it strings things together. Last night was not one such occasion.... as my bike and I wended through the streets of south Peckham (irrelevant detail just to show I can vaguely keep this on the south london topic) my soul was somewhere else (maybe already in Dulwich?), thanks to the slow movement of Beethoven's op.132 A minor quartet. I was literally halfway through the gossamer-smooth modulation from the first D major episode, and expecting to find myself again lost in the cosmic yearning of the F lydian music of the Heiliger Dankgesang (probably the first use of the lydian mode in "serious music" since the 16th century, and my God, what a use) when what happens? I must have leant on a button or something, because instead of that, I get The Heptones' Equal Rights ('hairy man has an equal right to live and be free'). I know, value-judgements are invidious and everything has its aesthetic context etc etc..... but...

davos webcasts

2006-02-02T17:42:00.000Z

It's done! We are now officially and physically south londoners. First impressions range from mild euphoria at having a bathtub for the first time in six years to a sense of existential shock at a transcendentally grim first bike-ride home through the dimly-sodium-bathed streets of Walworth and Peckham - not helped by the freezing fog of a January evening. More to come (plus pics) soon once we get a bit more unpacking done and sort our connectivity out.

....in the meantime though, and straying off message again, just wanted to point you in the direction of a webcast of my (disembodied) father doing his amazing job as simultaneous interpreter at the recent World Economic Form in Davos. Click on the "join the webcast" button. Come on, you know you want to. Tax avoidance is the new rock & roll.

burnt by the film

2006-01-25T14:11:00.000Z

hmm, highly questionable title for a blog entry, but just wanted to lavish some praise on one of my favourite films of all time, which I saw again last night. Nikhita Mikhalkov's Burnt By The Sun starts out as if it were a Bergmanesque pastoral, all wacky aristocrats romping in and around a beautifully shot Carl Larsson-style dacha, with some Soviet-era spice thrown in for surreal good measure - and it's only gradually that the film reveals itself as an extraordinarily menacing, and moving, political/psychological thriller. Fantastic pacing, and even after watching it three times, hugely disturbing and tension-inducing.

Last night's entertainment makes me think about spoilers too - it's difficult to read much about this film, including the back of the DVD, without being told crucial plot information which is not revealed until about two thirds of the way in and radically changes the experience of watching it. (Don't follow too many links on imdb or wikipedia either if you don't want to know.) Is it only me who thinks there should be a law against this? Novels are just as bad, and I expend a good deal of effort on avoiding catching sight of the backs of books until I've finished reading them. grrrr . . . .

more dreams of glory

2006-01-24T11:00:00.000Z

Dreamt last night that I was performing with the Tord Gustavsson trio in a large concert hall, improvising on something I knew to be a bassoon, but which in fact was a huge modernist beech block (a little like an Ikea chest of drawers) with only two holes. I blew directly into one of them, and wiggled my finger in the other, altering the pitch of the note. It made a noise like a bassoon with extra overtones and was quite beautiful. I suspect if someone actually made an instrument like this the results might be somewhat different.

This is not quite in the same league as the dream where I was on a festival stage with Thelonious Monk, Pete Marsh and Björk, but I enjoyed it all the same.

saying hello, saying goodbye

2006-01-22T10:15:00.000Z

Yesterday we picked up the keys for the new place and started measuring the rooms. We think we like Forest Hill and East Dulwich a lot. This marks almost the end of a mini-era of several months living homeless-style on floors and in sitting rooms, and spending every other weekend shuttling back and forth to storage facilities laden with boxes and furniture in varying degrees of obsolescence, struggling to compress the necessities of life into overnight bags.

It also marks the end of a maxi-era as we clear out our old family home in boring North London, taking some very difficult decisions along the way. Among which, bidding adieu to the personages pictured - the principals of our animistic/polytheistic childhood pantheon. I might post some more details of their lives, myths, characters, politics etc in the future, but on the other hand it's a bit embarrassing, so I might not.

got there in the end

2006-01-20T18:46:00.000Z

It's rather complicated and I'm not convinced it's worth it. Essentially it's all about using "bookmarklets" and storing your categories in del.icio.us. But it's a many-click process, and has the disadvantage (if you see it that way) of cluttering up your tag pages in del.icio.us. I suppose I could create a separate del.icio.us account simply as an accessory to the blogger blog. But that seems a bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

Categories: blog, hack

category making

2006-01-20T18:17:00.000Z

For my second post I am trying something really clever which I will probably screw up. Here goes.

Categories: hack, design, folksonomy

venturing south

2006-01-20T17:45:00.000Z

After two months imposing on the kindness of family and friends, we pick up the keys tomorrow for our new place in South London. Hurrah! But it feels a bit like moving to Outer Mongolia. I've probably only spent a few evenings of my life south of the river and now I am making my home there. Here's where I will be telling the rest of the world what it's like, whether they have trees there, if people eat with cutlery etc. God, but you're all going to enjoy the ride!