Stunning Lines

I've written almost two dozen original songs, so I know from personal experience that some lines stand out as being especially memorable, poignant, apposite, meaningful, moving, or beautifully crafted. And unless you're a particularly gifted songwriter, those really good, stand-out lines are few. I reckon probably three in my case, so far, and I'm probably being generous to myself. I bet everyone can think of at least a couple from their favourite songs that really grab their heart and give it a squeeze.

Never mind, I'll find someone like you.

Adele has been all over the UK and world media for the last four years or so, but nothing quite prepares you for the quality of the songs - all the songs - on her second album: 21. For me though (and apparently, since 21 has only been out a little over a month and sales are already in the hundreds of thousands, for many others too), even among the many gems on this album that single line from the chorus of Someone Like You is one of the most breathtakingly, heart-achingly powerful I've ever heard.

So few words to crystallise the loss of hope, the final realisation that love has gone, but even while it's leaving you don't wish any hurt for the other even though you're hurting. You loved them that much. Never mind. Don't worry about me. All I need to do is find another you. Simple.

The power of the words is, of course, multiplied by Adele's amazing performance. If you haven't seen it I suggest you get yourself over to YouTube sharpish. You'll be glad you did. But it is the words that do it for me every time. The album insert credits Adele Adkins and Dan Wilson as co-writers. Top job guys. It really is a line I wish I'd written.

Vinyl: Airborne

Artist: Curved Air
Owned on digital media: No
Want to replace: No

During that eventful year when I was the student union Socials Secretary, one of the bands I most enjoyed putting on was Curved Air, mainly because it gave me chance to get close to lead singer Sonja Kristina; every inch the young man's dream.

I can't honestly claim to have been a huge Curved Air fan - this was the only album of theirs in my collection - and with the passing years the memory of how it sounded, or even what tracks it held, has faded to almost nothing. So I was grateful to Wikipedia (and the *real* fans who maintain copious detail of the music) for some insight into what was on this particular album, and also for the unexpected memory jog that the title "Hot & Bothered" gave me, bringing back as it did the recollection of sitting in my garret room in halls, spinning the vinyl and singing along while pretending to write out my lecture notes for the day.

That Wikipedia page held a few more surprises. You can tell I've never been much of a "fan boy" when it comes to music. Never really followed many bands to any great extent (apart from the obvious Caravan and Genesis), or got to know the names of the band members much beyond the lead singer. So I never realised Stewart Copeland was their drummer before he went on to The Police, or that he later married Sonja Kristina. Following her Wikipedia link (purely in the interests of research, naturally) uncovered the revelation that at the age of 61 she is still touring, still making music, releasing a (compilation) album as recently as last year. Good onja, Sonja!

Book Review: If On A Winter's Night A Traveler

Well-respected author, renowned for his "experimental" style and inventive short stories and novels, Wikipedia introduces Italo Calvino thus: "Lionised in Britain and America, he was the most-translated contemporary Italian writer at the time of his death, and a noted contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature."

So it's perhaps unfortunate that my first exposure to him came through possibly his most inaccessible work. A book about a reader trying to read a book, where the odd-numbered chapters are written in the second person and attempt to tell you what you, the reader, are doing and thinking, and the even-numbered chapters are chapters from the book "you" are trying to read. So, the first question that might come to mind is "Why?" closely followed by "What?"

If you're sufficiently interested you can do some research on the concept of metafiction. This book is widely reviewed as being "fresh, original, clever, inventive, masterful," etc, etc. But there are almost as many negative reviews where you'll find words such as "boring, too clever, tedious, impenetrable."

So, the ultimate Marmite book, then? Possibly. I guess it very much depends on whether you're looking for something different and potentially intriguing, and prepared to wade through chapter after chapter of nothing much happening to get it. And, if and when you finally do "get it", was it all worth it? I firmly believe there's a reason so few books are written in the second person. It doesn't work. Or at least, it doesn't work for a fair percentage of readers (me included), and why would an author contemplate using such a device when it's guaranteed to limit his or her audience? Personally, I don't like being told that "I" am doing this or that, or thinking this or that, when clearly I am not. Suspension of disbelief doesn't even come into it, as there is no belief created in the first place.

Apparently those sequential first chapters, while initially appearing to be random and unconnected, are in fact connected in some nebulous way and contribute somehow to the eventual resolution (inasmuch as this novel can be said to have a resolution - when it comprehensively fails to end in another explosion of "cleverness") but you'd have to really want to hunt for these clues and quite frankly I was so bored with the whole thing I gave up halfway through, as have a number of reviewers before me. A handful of bookclub readers said they had given up in the past but found it easier to read at the second attempt. Maybe knowing in advance how the book "works" gives you some protection from the tedium.

But for me, I'm happy to agree with an Amazon reviewer who asked why, when there are so many other books out there to read and so little time in which to read them, would you bother wasting any of that precious time on this?

I have always had a problem with books that are too clever for their own good - Cloud Atlas being the most often mentioned example. But this takes cleverness (and hence problem) to a whole other level. It is overtly cynical and manipulative of the reader. Yes, fiction in general does this. Obviously. Stories are intended to move you, transport you to other worlds, other lives, other experiences. Have we learned anything new by having that fact rammed down our throats by Calvino? Is it really "playful" as some reviewers put it? Or is it exploitative? I don't care. I just don't want to know.

Sand(ing) in my eyes

It's done!

In the end, power tools were the answer. Or, a power tool, to be precise. A detail sander:

A recent purchase intended to speed up the task of smoothing off large areas of unfinished purlin (at which it excelled), I was always going to use it on the front door panels. They stretch the entire width of the hall and would have taken an age to do by hand. Once I got started with this little wonder and a pack of 25 sanding sheets, I thought I may as well carry on. It made short work of the dado, skirting, and door frames, allowing me to finish in a single afternoon an area almost double that which has already taken two weekends to do manually.

Power tools. Always the answer. Yes, I did wear a mask.

More acreage to paint

And just like that, the plastering is all done. It only happens "just like that" from my perspective. The other perspective - that of a plasterer balancing on a plank that is resting between a rung of a ladder and another plank, with the second plank itself stretched between a second ladder and a set of steps, holding a hawk loaded with plaster in one hand and applying it with a trowel held in the other - doesn't bear thinking about!

Two men yesterday, and three men today. Five man days. It's a big job.

For my part, after two weekends of sanding the landing is ready to paint. Four doorways, skirting and dado rail. Only I won't start painting until the rest of the sanding is done. Prep first, paint last. So still to come, there's the dado down the stairs. Apron. Window on the stairs. Front door (all wood panels, the width of three doors), five more doorways. More dado and some picture rail thrown in for good measure. Oh, and the cornice in the hall. Then I can paint all that, together with two ceilings, stair well, and all the walls that'll need two coats of high density white emulsion, and then a couple more coats of the mid-gray tone we've chosen for the sub-dado area.

And this, don't forget, is not the aforementioned Large Decorating Project. Oh no. This is just the Piddling Little Decorating Project That Will Do To Be Going On With.

Here's some "before and after" pics to keep you occupied while I finish sanding. The "before" ones are post-wallpaper-stripping. The "after" ones show the new plaster in the process of drying out.

Time slips by

One thing that's always bugged us about this house is the stairs. They're quite narrow but there's not a lot we can do about that without an extortionately expensive and invasive replacement. Width isn't the main gripe though. Worst is the newel caps, which are large and square, and just the right height to catch your upper arm as you climb past, leaving you with a sore arm at best or occasionally a bruise. Next: the creaks. Pretty much every tread creaks, some much worse than others. And finally there's the look. Tatty, old and cheap. Painted pine. Very definitely a bargain basement kind of staircase.

So we found a refurb company and decided to go ahead.

Couple of days later, I got to thinking. It's always best, I find, to do your thinking after the major decision has been made. That way any additional work created by said major decision has to be done. Immediately. It can't be put off. My thinking went something like: "the whole hall, stairwell, and landing needs redecorating. I don't want to be splashing paint everywhere when we've had thousands of pounds worth of staircase installed." My next thought was even more buttock clenching: "If we strip this paper off and the walls need replastering, I definitely don't want that doing post-staircase."

We got started with the stripping the next day, the walls did need skimming, I called the builder and he's coming tomorrow. But all of that isn't really the point of this post. It's just the background to why, this morning, the central heating timer/thermostat was balanced on the bottom newel post.

In preparation for the plastering, I'd removed everything removable from the walls. Since it's a wireless transmitter, that included the timer. But it's also the thermostat, and we soon discovered that position was critical. I stuck it on top of the burglar alarm unit at first. The small amount of heat rising from that was enough to keep the thermostat from activating the boiler. We sat shivering in the lounge until I realised what was going on, and moved it onto the microwave. But the kitchen is by far the coldest room in the house. The boiler fired constantly but the stat never reached its target. In the lounge, we sweated.

After several more attempts, we found just the right non-wall position for it. On top of the newel post. The perfect place for me, coming downstairs in the dark and reaching for support, to send it flying.

It hit the hall floor and with that unmistakably expensive sound of shattering electronics, broke into a million pieces. Well, fourteen. Only I didn't know that when I turned the light on. I only found 11. The case, the circuit board, the display, its mount and its clear plastic window, the battery trays (2 off), three of the four batteries, and a little rubber thingy. I had no idea what that was.

I carried the bits into the kitchen where the light was better and took stock. The first thing obviously missing was the fourth battery which I found, after a very brief search, under the hall radiator. Then I panicked. I'd only ever seen this device - it's called a digistat - looking like this:

It didn't look much like that now. But how damaged was it really? I took a closer look. The circuit board was still in one piece. No cracks, or displaced components. The display didn't appear to be broken, and its connector - a single strip protected by a rubber sleeve - was still attached. I discovered two other rubber thingies on the circuit board. The shape of a leprechaun's hat but only about four millimetres tall, they have a tiny carbon plunger inside. Sitting beneath the switches, when pressed the rubber deforms allowing the carbon plunger to touch the circuit board and make a connection between two half-moon shaped gold contacts. Clever stuff. I attached the third rubber dude and then panicked again. The unit has four switches.

I went back and searched the hall. Amazingly, since the gaps in the floorboards are easily wide enough for these guys to drop through, I found the fourth hat. It was then I noticed there was a hole in the case where the fourth switch should be. The one with the "+" symbol was missing. Until then I hadn't even realised the switches were separate pieces, as the "-", "SET?" and "SELECT" buttons had stayed with the case. Another search of the hall failed to turn up the last switch, but I caught sight of it under the coffee table by the living room door. It had bounced six feet further than any other piece.

OK. Battery trays slid into place. Rubber hats all attached. Display contact positioned above gold contact strip, and plastic insert in place to keep the display level. Window clipped over that whole assembly, switches all pushed into their holes, and... align... and... press. No click. Ah. You can't close the case when the battery trays are inserted. Remove battery trays. Replace rubber hat that's dropped off. Replace switch that's fallen out again. Align. Press. CLICK!

Breathe an initial sigh of relief. Now for the real test. Insert batteries.

The display lit up and showed 12:00. Setting the time worked. Setting the temperature worked. Switching the mode to "timed" made the boiler fire up. Success!

Later this morning our plumber arrived to service the boiler and I told him the story. "You did well to get that back together," he said. "I've never seen one out of its case - I wouldn't know where to start."

"And they cost about £120 to replace."

Simple Things

Stress. There's been a lot of it around lately. After a blissful couple of months following the last round of construction where not very much was happening (although the thought of the Large Decorating Project loomed... er... large), things have been hotting up both at work and at home.

I don't often write much about work. There's a few reasons. I hate it. It's government work, so I can't really give much away in any case. And it bores me, so I always assume it would bore the heck out of you too. But in recent weeks we've been reaching the end of an 18-month project and that means... it's RELEASE TIME. Anyone who has ever worked on a computing project will recognise the stress involved, as all the designs become real, all the bugs are flushed out and run scurrying around the place before they're stamped on by the right fix, and all the managers call endless review meetings and micro-manage the hell out of us to make themselves feel better about approaching deadlines and growing bug counts.

And us architects and designers scratch our heads and wonder why on Earth it is behaving like THAT when our designs say it should behave like THIS.

On the home front - well, more about that later - but Other Projects have been occupying us there too, so between looking forward to the weekends all week, and then spending all weekend on Projects, it's all go go go.

Unlike the totally unreasonable Work Managers, who demand more and more from less and less, I am blessed with a wonderful Home Manager. Nikki makes sure amid the hustle and bustle of home improvements that we always enjoy some down time at the weekend. Even when we're working to a deadline we can always take time out for a nice meal, watch a movie, and relax in the evenings. Even when we have to go shopping (yuk!) we grab a breakfast panini and a coffee at Starbuck's. She makes it fun, whatever we're doing, so it's never a chore.

There's one more thing that I find helps to de-stress me in these cold, wintry months of short days and dark mornings. A simple, natural thing. Bird song in the morning.

When I was a kid I lived a few minutes walk away from a small copse. The remnant of a larger wood that had mostly been cleared to make way for housing in the late 40s/early 50s, the copse covered only about an acre, but was full of mature trees, well-worn mud paths, the odd "secret" clearing and an abundance of wildlife. I used to love walking there on summer days, with the sunlight shooting luminous con-trails through the canopy and the birds chattering and peeping from the treetops and bushes.

The first time we viewed this house, I was immediately attracted by the huge trees all around. They support a healthy population of the usual British garden birds - finches, tits, sparrows, etc - as well as a large number of magpies and woodpigeons. We have occasionally spotted something a little more exotic - a woodpecker or a sparrowhawk - but it's the common birds kicking up their morning chorus that I love. All that bickering and calling back and forth takes me back to those boyhood days in the copse and puts a smile on my face to start the day.

Scrape sensitive

A month on, and I continue to be impressed and pleased with our new wheels. I skim-read the handbook, but after a couple of surprises I decided it was worth a closer read.

First surprise was the automatic hill start. The new Astra is equipped with an electronic handbrake - something I've not encountered before. I found it reasonably intuitive, but the salesman had been extra diligent and made sure I was familiar with both ways of using it. It has a operational interlock with the foot brake for safety purposes (you have to depress the foot brake before releasing the handbrake - avoids accidental releasing by (e.g.) kids messing about in the car) but it will also release automatically if you try to pull away when it's engaged.  Releasing the clutch slowly will allow the car to move off after a brief pause.

I don't expect I'll use that feature much, as it increases wear on both clutch and rear brake pads, but it'll probably come in handy from time to time.

What I hadn't immediately realised, but revealed itself the first time I pulled up at Nikki's workplace to drop her off, is that the car has an incline detector. If it's in danger of rolling, the car applies the handbrake automatically for a few seconds, effectively giving you a hands-free hill start. Maybe I'm easily impressed, but I thought that was pretty cool.

I like the rain-sensitive wipers too. The wipers don't have an "intermittent" setting in the traditional sense - where they flick on and off after a set number of seconds. Instead, the intermittent position on the wiper stick activates a sensor behind the windscreen which detects when a certain number of raindrops have landed, and triggers a wipe. It's possible to increase or decrease the sensitivity, but once set the wipers automatically react to changes in the rate of rainfall, all the way from full-time wiping to almost no wiping at all, as required.

I guess this is all very mundane to anyone who's had a new car in the last few years, but stuff like this wasn't even an option in 2003 (our last purchase) on the kind of model we were looking at.

The wipers caught me out one frosty morning last week though. I'd left them in the "auto" setting, turned the motor on to get the various demists going, and set about scraping the frost off the windscreen. The sensor interpreted my scraping motion as rain and set the wipers off. Didn't half make me jump I can tell you. I leave them switched off now!

Vinyl: Magic

Artist: Billy Cobham
Owned on digital media: No Yes
Want to replace: Yes

I mentioned last time that Crosswinds was for a long time the only Cobham in my collection. Eventually I added Magic, but it wasn't until I researched that previous post in my vinyl series that I realised how prolific an artist Billy Cobham is. The man whose Wikipedia entry quotes another artist saying he is "generally acclaimed as fusion's greatest drummer with an influential style that combines explosive power and exacting precision" is SO prolific that his discography warrants a Wikipedia page all to itself, running to 42 sections - one for his solo albums (of which there are 44!) and another section for each of the artists with whom he collaborated between 1968 and 1998. Wow.

The second surprise arising from my last Cobham post was that someone I've known for 11 years is also a fan, and in all that time our mutual fandom has never come up in conversation. Her collection is more extensive than mine (although still barely scratching the surface of Cobham's output) so as a result I am now the proud holder of a digital copy of Magic and that's another one crossed off my list. Thanks Annie!