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Things I'm reading: - 'Matter' by Iain M Banks. Mostly well written, mostly compelling but some things, developments and most of all the ship names annoy me. - 'El Cuaderno de Maya' by Isabel Allende. Yep, I still haven't finished it. - hm... 'Anathem' by Neal Stephenson, again.... I've been sort of living and dreaming in that world (or worlds) for the last six months or so.... Things I'm listening to: - 'Automatic' by VNV Nation. Yep, I think Ronan got it more or less right this time. I didn't much like his previous couple of releases but there's enough in this one that I really like. - 'L'unification Des Forces Opposantes' This Morn' Omina. I just love this stuff. Things I'm going to: Today I may be going to a concert by the fantastic Chinese classical guitarist Xuefei Yang somewhere in Dulwich. Haven't got a ticket, etc, so we'll see how that goes. Good if I get in, not that bothered if I don't. Last week ... I saw the Eden House at the Slimelight. The sound was.... what you expect at the Slimelight. It never disappoints because you never expect much. The playing, the show and the new singer were very good and I enjoyed it thoroughly. They're more and more a sort of goth Pink Floyd but that's not necessarily a bad thing. No idea what I'm doing this summer. Haven't got tickets for any of the festivals, we'll see how things play as they unfold. WGT is always impossible and I'm always planning on going the following year and it is never possible. Whitby in November is a distinct possibility. Right, out of here now. Tags: stuff
Current Location: Tally Ho
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Lovely evening at the Gothsluts meet, at the Shaftesbury Tavern but mostly outside on the front terrace. First time this year I leave the house without a jacket of any kind and only one layer of shirt. It's been so warm all of a sudden. Makes me think.. not of Caracas, because although it was as warm as this, I was used to it (of course) while I was there. Makes me think of the place on the coast (15 miles from Caracas but CCS is high ground at ~ 1000 m. high) where my sister lived, next to the airport, when she was a customs officer and had to do shifts at the airport asking people to open their suitcases and stuff. It was unbearable for me and I could never sleep when I was staying there. I think it was partly the appearance on my field of vision of the, what are they called, the headlights, say, of the planes on their final approach heading straight towards me. Or the arthritic, gigantic fan in my room that keep stalling and getting stuck at one end of its turning, every time, tak-tak-tak-. And most of all, the humming from the air conditioning in my sister's room. Not, I should perhaps point out, because of the noise. Tags: life
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Gym yesterday, as always, was spent trying to get into the world of the book I was reading; swimming was a little better, at least there wasn't the awful loud trashy music from the addressing system you get in the gym. Showered, washed my hair, went to the changing room. And then something happened ,to me which I find extraordinarily difficult to describe. I started remembering, or so I thought, dreams I had had. I can't remember any of the contents or even the images in them and what little I can bring up seems to be complete nonsense, in the way of dreams. But for a minute or two it all sort of made terrifying sense, there were connections between those dreams and the real world that I had never seen. I was feeling a little dizzy as well so the part of my mind that was still functioning normally was wondering whether I was having a sugar low. Or a stroke. Or simply going mad. The whole thing lasted only a few minutes and receded little by little, I changed and put away my gym/swimming pool gear, left the place waving good-byes to the staff, hopefully all normally. On the street, though, when crossing path with a couple of teenage boys, complete strangers, one asked whether I was ok. On getting home, I emailed a friend trying to describe to her what had happened but didn't hear back from her. I still was feeling a little strange, a pupil's lesson was due in a short while so I just got on with it, I had no choice. But it did remind me again of what thin ice we so carelessly walk on, without thinking and without ever knowing how thin it is and where or when it could break. And that's the way it has to be. Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad. Tags: life, via ljapp
Current Location: United Kingdom, England,Greater London,Harrow, Harrow
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Week end was quite reasonably eventful in a good way. On Friday I went to Black Plastic 4 (only found a MySpace link! does anybody still use this?) which was, for the little while I was there, a very good night. Lovely to see ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) suicideally and chris_damage as well as krius, whose birthday it was. I left early to catch Departure, but it had been quiet there and closed early. Saturday brought about the massive Hampstead Alternative Picnic, organised by londonjon. This was very good.. there'll be pictures from me when I get around to sorting, sieving and editing them and bringing them down to a reasonable number (I took more than 600 pics). In the evening there was Reptile, with the presence of lovely lovelybug and ciphergoth amongst many. Sunday was a little more sedate, with a long local walk and some lessons to do. Today, apart from a creep harassing a friend on Facebook, has been ok, if very busy, apart from an hour and a bit stolen to do some gym/swim, of which swim was good. Tomorrow... oh, tomorrow. 5:30 am start. Eek. Tags: clubs, friends, life, week-end
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Day had started beautiful, bright and sunny but has now reverted to previous semi-winter state. One lesson done (maxvon_d in town), three more later on. A couple of hours free in the meantime, had been wondering whether to go to gym/swim or to wander around some part of town I don't often go to, or even just the park. The weather seems to have made the decision for me, but still not sure. Flash backs of rainy days like this when I was a kid, in my dad's car, mostly waiting while he went on mysterious errands, sometimes coming back with Italian sugar glazed almonds or something like that, but most of the time me just sitting there in the car, watching the rain streaming down the windscreen and the passing cars raising puddles into the air with a big splash... sometimes a sun beam breaking through and making the water drops and puddles sparkle... Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad. Tags: flavlife, memories, monday, via ljapp
Current Location: Tally Ho
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Lots of spam comments in my inbox. They just drown there, unobserved by anyone as any comments from that prolific author, Anonymous, get screened. I should imagine most people's settings are similar, so can't imagine why spammers still do it. Oh, ok, I _can_ imagine -enough people don't, and enough people fall for those things, that it is worth their while. Still soggy here in N.London. Lessons, then probably gym, then one more lesson and then Elaine's birthday in Holloway. The stream of life still runs under the bridge of contemplation. Tags: life
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Seeing posts from people leaving for Whitby for the WGW -on Twitter and FB, LJ curiously silent today. Me, early lesson, got rained on, then coffee and pain au chocolat (breakfast of champions, cough-cough..) at the Rustique Café´in Tufnell Park. A ton of errands to do, then some lessons and then much later tonight nounou has asked me to do a car favour for her. It'd been a long time since I heard from her, I think she may have needed another car favour then. Early lesson was good, my pupil is an adult learner of around 64 and playing some Dowland lute pieces at the moment. This makes for a good start of the day for me, I love that music and working on it, I don't play enough of it...
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A very good week-end in several senses. A couple of new pupils starting lessons, a couple of friends' birthday celebrations, including that of battlekitty at the Memepunks' gig, which was a lot of fun. On Friday had been to Departure which was unusually busy and lively. Yesterday went to Raf's birthday at Aces and Eights in Tufnell Park. Most of the constituency was our lot, if it is that empty otherwise on Sundays it would be ripe for a New Dev type-takeover. I quite liked the place -had not been there ever, even though it is so close to where I live. This week I go back to school. We'll see how that goes, I so quickly get used to getting up at 9 instead of 5:30 am. Ok, I have to get up very early only three times a week, but that's three times more than I like. On the other hand, it's work and in these times, etc.. Tags: life, week end
Current Location: Tally Ho
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Nice swim & gym -or the swim bit was, at any rate; the gym part slightly marred by the unbelievably loud trashy music. Now to go home for lunch (tomato, mozzarella & basil salad) and guitar practice ('El Decamerón Negro' by Leo Brouwer. The part I'm working on at the moment is the 'Ballad of the Damsel in Love', but the best title must be the central movement, 'Flight of the Lovers through the Valley of Echoes' -ok, it's just a piece of guitar music, but hey) Still reading 'Hitch 22' by Christopher Hitchens -and a fascinating account it is of those years of turmoil and change, from the Sixties to the Eighties.. (so far as I've read). Tags: books, guitar, life, the loathed gym, week end
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After two days of mostly sleep, drinking much water and not being able to eat I seem to be on the mend from whatever it was, either food poisoning or gastric bug. The mess this has introduced in my timetables and income projection for the next few weeks made me ponder, once again, what would happen if I fell really ill. I still cannot drink coffee! Yesterday it tasted really horrible. Most things did, though. Today it didn't but I could only manage a couple of sips of it. Life without coffee? Is that even possible? There is a reason why I keep two types of espresso machine in my tiny kitchen. In the meantime, drinking orange juice by the gallon and reading 'Diamond Age' by Neal Stephenson (still not sure what I think of it, the whole Victorian conceit gets a bit much at times) and re-reading Bill Bryson's 'Brief History of Almost Everything', switching between the two as I didn't seem to be able to keep concentration on anything for more than five minutes at a time. Have done practically zero guitar practice. Will try to do my evening lessons today and see how I feel. Tags: books, health, stuff
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Google plus seemed like a good idea: at the least, some balance to the omnipoly (yes, I know that's not a word) by Facebook and its manners. Unfortunately, it's turning out to be not much better than FB in several respects -I don't like the 'suggestions', some random stranger's posts suddenly appearing in my timeline because G+ 'thought' I might like them. The insistence on pushing me to add/invite my entire address book (because my friends need spam from me, of course). The whole 'nym wars thing didn't bother me much and didn't affect me personally but it wasn't a good sign. And of course it is incomplete. Picasa and Google calendars don't replace the photo and event functionality in FB -especially when there are only a handful of the people you know in it. But most of all, their policies don't seem to be that much better than Mr Zuckerberg's. I'm not going to close my account any time soon, it is useful and allows me to keep in contact with some interesting people (and groups of people) I do not communicate with elsewhere and I like some of the ideas in its design, but it's not going to replace FB any time soon. Shame -I do believe Facebook needs competition. Tags: facebook, googleplus, the information age
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Books I'm currently reading (or just finished): - 'God is Not Great- the case against religion' by Christopher Hitchens (amazon link). Hitch makes an even stronger case against god and religion than Dawkins, perhaps without some of the arrogance of the latter. - 'Snow Crash' by Neal Stephenson (amazon link). I tried this one before and didn't even finish it. Since I liked Anathem so very much I thought I'd give it another try -and try and finish it, this time. Liking it better now and seeing some of the same strands of thought he touches upon in Anathem. - 'El Cuaderno de Maya' by Isabel Allende (amazon link) -I don't think Allende is a top-notch writer in the sense that Borges or Cortázar were. She does have good stories to tell, though, perhaps in the way Lovecraft is not that good a writer either but also has a very good story to tell (in of course a very different way -and a very different story!) - 'How to Teach Quantum Physics to your Dog' by Chad Orzel (amazon link). It sounds like a good idea and at many points it is indeed an entertaining way to explain those topics but the device often wears thin and gets over-stretched and becomes tired and not-funny. Still very much worth a read. Odd that I bought this as a kindle ebook but now it doesn't seem to be listed in Amazon's kindle shop. - 'Tauran Warrior' by Lucy Luton, androktone. (amazon link). Written when she was 14 and it sometimes shows but it is entertaining and absorbing and a very good read. Tags: books
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Still enjoying playing with Notion, the music score writer app on the iPad, although the interface is rather Windows-like and it has the usual annoying buy-in-app 'features': "You want classical guitar? well, that's an extra couple of quid. You want 'solo' violin, or a percussion section? Well, that's another..." So far, only exercises for my pupils, a rather predictable guitar piece and a string orchestra doodle have come out of all that playing with it, but who knows and it's fun (and I even learn and re-learn things along the way). Interesting times, though, when you can be writing a sonata (or a song) in the Tube -and listen to the results straight away. I imagine my music teachers would wince at that. You weren't allowed a piano in the room in composition exams, you had to be able to hear it all in your head. Which makes sense, but it still is so much better to actually hear it. I expect only one person in my flist will get the quote in the subject title... :PTags: music doodles, music making, stuff
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Maybe it's that winter thing. Feeling like I'm in a sort of limbo, in transition between states, as if something was about to happen but not quite able to put my finger on it. Went to Inferno at the Electric Ballroom on Friday -it was a good night all round; then to the Intrepid Fox on Saturday to meet with my friend Michela who had returned to live in Sardinia and was (is) briefly in the country; I'm not particularly enamoured of the place, a bit loud to have a conversation (although, surprisingly for a metal pub, far easier to talk and hear there than at the Dev) but we had a good time. Yesterday was spent doing lessons away, carefully trying to avoid skidding when driving through snowed and icy side streets in Highbury... and falling on my backside in the snow a couple of times. All of this feels slightly unreal, though, as if it all was half a dream and not quite real life. I'm sure it will get better when the weather improves... Just hearing in the news about the cabin where the Queen and Philip were going to stay somewhere in Africa, which was burgled by a band of baboons (a flock? a school? a gang?). Why did that make me smile so much. Tags: life, snow, weather
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