Book Review: Fatal Revenant

Way back in October 2008 I reported finding the first two books of Stephen Donaldson's Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. I read book 1 on our Lakes week last October and since then I've been waiting for a chance to pick up book 2. This week has provided that chance and I've been devouring Fatal Revenant's 856 pages since Sunday morning.

I don't want to give too much away, but I will say I found this every bit as riveting as the first book. It's true that you have to be prepared to do battle with Donaldson's style when he's writing about the Land. The constant repetition of his heroes' fear, anguish, trepidation, suffering, loss and uncertainty which was such a signature feature of the first two trilogies is here once again, in spades, and it can get very wearing.

But overwhelmingly, this is a monumental success. Not only does Donaldson pick up the threads of every story, race and being that has gone before, and weave them into a narrative that fits as comfortably as an old cardigan, but he then skilfully embroiders that cardigan with a host of new characters, races and situations that are so cleverly explained and so thoroughly well thought-out that you can't tell the embroidery was never part of the original cardigan.

Moreover Donaldson's skill as a story teller, already epic at the time he wrote the first Chronicles, has achieved a hitherto undreamt of level of mastery. The complexity of this tale, as Linden Avery confronts a host of opponents some of whom endure bitter rivalries of their own and hence can occasionally appear to be her allies, others who are virtually their own hero and foe simultaneously, and continues to journey with a rare admixture of characters each of whom has a mystery to solve or at least one hidden aspect, is breathtaking. One of the most satisfying and rewarding reads I can remember for many years.

I can't really get the hang of this blogging lark

I always seem to be two weeks behind with this. I watched Steve Davis finish his first round match against Mark King in the 2010 World Snooker championships last week and wanted to put something in writing about how impressed I'd been, not just with his performance - still managing to win matches at this level at the age of 52 and on his 30th appearance at the Crucible; still committed enough to put in the hours of practice he must need to counteract the loss of visual acuity and muscle tone that the ticking clock must bring - but with the reaction of the crowd. The standing ovations as he entered the arena were really very moving. The entire audience recognising his achievements not only on the table but as an ambassador for snooker in particular and sportsmanship in general, in a way I can't imagine them doing for any other player.

But despite starting that post last week, I never got around to finishing it. A few days passed, Steve won his second round match and made it to the quarters. A fantastic achievement that energised the whole competition. There were reports of people stopping him in the street to congratulate him, and somehow the lights over the baize seemed to shine brighter and the balls on the table were more colourful in the reflected glory of his success.

The dream stopped at the quarter finals, where he was beaten by the guy who would eventually go on to win - Australian Neil Robertson. Throughout all that drama I either couldn't summon up the enthusiasm to put finger to keyboard, or I was in the Lakes, away from the computer.

You may have spotted that I couldn't possibly have known that Neil Robertson won on the date this post was made. It didn't happen until the Bank Holiday Monday after we returned from the Lakes. I'm writing this up on the 7th of May, and that's what I mean by being two weeks behind. This has turned (or has always been) more of a retrospective record of events than a blog, and it's beginning to do my head in.

Trouble is, whenever I enjoy a spurt (of writing activity I mean) and catch up, this will inevitably be followed by a period where there's nothing to write about, or a total dearth of enthusiasm. Back the pendulum swings and I'm two weeks behind again. >sigh< I guess there are more important things to worry about :-\

Someone's idea of hell

...is another's heaven.

We're spending a week in the Lakes this week. Same place we stayed last time (and the time before) only it's just us this time so we've rented the cottage rather than the entire farmhouse.

Whenever we come away with mates we do tag along on the walks. The less physically demanding ones at least. All of them have been great fun, wonderful views, sights you wouldn't see unless you were walking, and we always get back from a walk feeling glad that we've done it. But left to our own devices we're considerably less energised. Yesterday afternoon we went for a walk on the beach at Seascale, but that'll be the one and only walk of the week and it doesn't really qualify as "a walk" - there and back again and no longer than an hour.

Still, this was never intended to be a walking holiday. It's a chance to get away from work, the computers and pretty much the rest of the world, and please ourselves. To spend hours over coffee at the start of each day, just reading a book. Which is something we always struggle to find time for in "normal life." And then, since this is the final week of the World Snooker Championship, to spend most of the rest of the day watching the BBC's excellent coverage.

Like I said, we know that would be the very definition of hell for a lot of people. But we're loving every minute of it.

Chocolate heaven since... er... 1657

One of the unique, clever and impeccably thoughtful gifts I received from Nikki last Christmas (her gifts always fall into at least two of those categories and more often than not all three. I don't know how she does it) was a voucher for a two-person "taste experience." A choice of any one of about two dozen venues dotted around the UK where we could turn up together and be treated to something foodie.

Options included cheese tasting, wine tasting and gourmet dining, but the only one with the combined benefits of most attractive nosh and proximity was the Famous 1657 Chocolate House at Kendal.

Normally of course this wouldn't tick the proximity box but as we set off this morning for a week in the Lakes Kendal was only a tiny diversion on the way to Wasdale. We arrived with plenty of time to spare. After a short riverside walk to kill that time we climbed the worn stone steps (which presumably have been trodden every day since 1657) and, not really knowing what to expect, crossed the threshold.

The current proprietor greeted us, ushered us to our reserved table in the window and introduced our own personal serving wench. She then ran through the details of exactly what our taste experience would entail.

We began with a mug of hot chocolate from a bewildering choice of flavours (we both selected the spicy "Aztec" option) accompanied by a slice of chocolate cake from an even larger list. Most of these are made in-house from traditional recipes developed by the original owner, although a small number (three on our menu for today, as far as I remember) are bought-in from local cake shops to swell the variety on offer.

Both were delicious.

After a short pause and a glass of water to refresh the palate, the wench returned bearing a plate of cut fruit and four small pots of pure melted chocolate - one each of dark and milk - in which to dip the fruit.

Heaven on a plate, and surprisingly filling. Once the fruit had been consumed we climbed the tiny spiral staircase to a comfy lounge to watch a short film on the growing, harvesting and production of the cocoa bean, after which we were invited into the emporium's basement shop to select 100g each from their handmade chocolate selection.

All told we were there just over an hour, and left well sated with our 100g bags (it worked out at 7-8 choccies each) tucked away for later. What a brilliant Christmas treat. Thanks babe!

Cleaning cars

I don't clean my car.

It's always been a kind of "grudge purchase" - or grudge activity I suppose - with me. I never saw the point of washing something that was going to get dirty again more or less immediately. It's not like a freshly-laundered shirt, where you can avoid dropping your dinner down it. At least for a day or so. Usually. No, with a car, you can't avoid the rain, the mud, the fumes, the dust and - most recently - the volcanic ash. Cars get dirty no matter how "careful" you are.

So I don't bother. Unless it's a special occasion. Like the arrival of the outlaws. Which means it might get a wash once a year, if it's lucky. I drive past one of those "best hand job in Manchester" places every day after dropping Nikki at work, but I even begrudge the six quid it would cost me for the minor detour (it's right there on the main road, so only a swerve or two will do it) to let someone else wash it for me.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the attraction of owning and driving a gleaming polished machine. I just can't be arsed.

But I had to smile at the guy I saw pull in there this morning in his soft-top Merc. I mean, to my mind, the damn thing was ALREADY CLEAN.

A bolt of lightning

Storm the Charts has been on hiatus since Thursday night. The first two rounds of the first week of polling had completed amid accusations of vote rigging, and some pretty heated sniping between rival bands. Despite claims that they "managed to rally the fans at the last minute" it looked pretty suss for two bands in the same poll to have both quintupled their votes in round two compared with the support they drew in the first round.

So the organiser has decided to pull the plug temporarily while he works on a way to make things fairer and less prone to multiple votes. This will undoubtedly not go down well with some factions, but will hopefully be greeted warmly and with encouragement by the majority, who apart from their obvious personal desire to find fame and fortune through their music, mostly also have the altruistic and selfless aim to promote indie music in general in the face of the suits.

Maybe I'll be a musician

I've always wanted to play a musical instrument. You'll notice I said play, rather than learn. A deliberate choice of words, because it's the learning that's always put me off. Not having the time for it, partly, but also knowing myself well enough to admit, reluctantly, that I almost certainly wouldn't have the patience or determination for it either.

Recent musical activities in the shape of Beresford & Wallace have rekindled my interest in playing, and by a strange coincidence Natalie's keyboard has been lying on the study floor gathering dust for more than a year, silently nagging me to plug it in and run my fingers along its smooth white loveliness. With occasional smooth black loveliness thrown in, in the usual way of keyboards.

We popped in to Waterstones over Easter weekend for an OS map or two in preparation for our forthcoming jaunt to the Lakes, and while Nikki was trying to find the holiday reading she was after, my browsing led me to a book entitled Learn to Play Keyboards (with a free CD!). I was tempted. Skimming the first few pages was enough to convince me to buy it.

But owning the means to learn - a keyboard, a computer, and a book of lessons - and actually doing the learning are still quite widely separate things. Nevertheless the actual learning took a step closer yesterday when Annie called around to fix me up with a new soundcard and a music editing suite. In a trice the keyboard was connected up and working, and I was having a play with my very own soundbank. Yes flutes, oboes, grand pianos, church organs and many more are all now mine for the trying.

Lesson 1...

Small fry

I haven't blogged much about our fish recently (let's be honest, I haven't blogged much about anything recently), but they've been doing fine. I'm being so diligent about doing their water tests once a week, and water changes at the same time, that I hardly recognise myself. If those poor creatures who lived in my cold water aquarium during the mid-eighties could see me, they'd stare in awe at the reformed character who does more than clean the tank once every six months.

Anyway that was then, and this is now, and I'm pleased to say our six cherry barbs have settled in very well and aren't exhibiting any of the shyness that barbs are renowned for. They all huddle at the front of the tank every time anyone walks into the room, expecting to be fed, and beyond that they pretty much look after themselves and don't do anything more remarkable than chase each other about a bit from time to time.

Until last night, when I happened to glance over while we were watching TV, and spotted a small piece of floating debris near the top of the tank. The filter usually does a pretty good job of removing anything like this, so I was surprised to see it, and even more surprised when I noticed it was moving. Against the current. Swimming, even. Scarcely able to believe my eyes I rushed over to the tank for a closer look. A tiny fish! Our barbs have spawned!

The little guy is barely half a centimetre long, but appears to be a strong swimmer. He (or she - we won't be able to tell for a few months) keeps his distance from the adults. A sensible strategy, because they tend to eat their fry when nobody's looking. He's done pretty well to survive this long under his own steam, because we've done nothing special to promote breeding in the tank, and not provided any of the recommended feeding material (like "infusoria" - whatever that is) for fry, but the fact that he's grown big enough to be seen free swimming without a black background means he must already be a few weeks old.

Which also means he's somehow managed to survive a filter change. I'll have to be even more careful from now on. We've called him Kevin. Well, you know, "Stephen" was a bit too obvious.

Anticipation

There's a definite warmth to the air this afternoon. A suggestion of incipient summer. A cursory check of the weekend weather forecast suggests it will hold nice all day Saturday and most of Sunday, so maybe we'll get our asses in gear and start the serious gardening of 2010, after last weekend's brief sojourn outside to complete The First Cut of the Year, and trim back the rampant hedge which had once again spent the winter encroaching on the path.

It's been a quiet week mainly, apart from Wednesday when I hauled myself off to the Spread to attend auditions for this year's Chorlton Players "hotpot." Normally a sketch show, this year they're having a vaudeville theme, so I thought I'd chuck my name into the hat for the position of MC.

In the seven or eight years we've been helping out with the Players I've never felt the urge to tread the boards, but I do have a track record (well, to be accurate, one previous outing) as MC in the style of Leonard Sachs, so I thought "why not?"

We're also up for singing a couple of tracks off Weird & Wonderful during the show, which should be a laugh. If I can stop shaking, that is.

The absentee landlord

Three and a half years we've lived in this house, and in all that time we haven't had a single leaflet through our door from the incumbent MP. Regular news of what the Lib Dems are doing to brighten up the neighbourhood, revamp the parks, improve safety and discourage yobbishness in the parish, but from our high profile Labour MP? Nothing. Not a sausage.

Well, it's been a day or so since Gordo let slip the news about the election (which everyone had been predicting since before Christmas) and what's this I see on my doormat? A red-top leaflet prominently featuring a photograph of a smiling Gerald, a few pathetic sentences about his recent good deeds, and a plea for my vote.

Ha!

I made up my mind many, many years ago that it would take more than election-time canvassing to secure my loyalties. I don't know where Gerald has been since the last election but there's not been a single sighting in this neck of the woods since we moved in. Too late, mate. Way too late.

PS: PVR clock display on powering down after tonight's telly? 23:33. Nice.

22:22

I've been meaning to post on this for a while, but tonight brought further impetus to the subject as the PVR went into standby and switched over from displaying the channel to telling the time.

22:22

If I was a statistician, or even moderately masterful at mathematics, I could probably (see what I did there?) work out the chances of one of these "significant" time patterns being visible for any given time you glance at a clock. But that would take all the magic out of it.

Fact is, it feels like it happens to me more often than simple statistics would suggest. I regularly get up in the night (no prizes for guessing why) to greet the bedroom clock showing what I'd call a notable time. 1:01. 2:34. A little while ago - the events that originally prompted me to write on the subject - I woke one morning at 1:11, the following morning at 2:22 and the day after that at 4:44. Don't ask me where 3:33 went. I felt like I'd skipped a day.

Book Review: The Secret History

Yet another in the seemingly endless series of novels chosen by the book club which are heralded, hyped, and lauded and yet for me don't quite live up to expectations. This is the book that took years to write, was written while the author spent time with a hugely intellectual and erudite company, and whose pecuniary success has meant that Donna Tartt has been able to spend the rest of her life (to date) languidly contemplating her literary navel, and polishing her subsequent manuscripts until they meet her own exacting standards of shininess, which results in her dropping them off at the rate of approximately one per decade.

"Haunting, compelling and brilliant," gushes the Times critic on the front cover. I'd give him (or her) one out of three at best. Brilliant it may be, but I found it neither haunting nor compelling.

It's a good enough read, don't get me wrong. In parts it fairly zips along, verging in places almost on the gripping. But then it begins to meander, losing its way in the minutiae of student life and recording the passage of time with infinite care and detail when a simple paragraph starting "The following Spring..." would suffice. One of the club members, with classical Greek learning in her background, suggested that Tartt was attempting to mirror a Greek tragedy (throughout the book and not only in the part where the group attempt to recreate a bacchanal). If true then it's a clever idea, as an intellectual challenge, but slightly pointless in the knowledge that it will bypass 99.9% of your audience. Still, don't let me be accused of supporting dumbing down.

Much of the writing is excellent but in places it loses any pretensions to grandeur and becomes almost clunky. I was left with the impression that Tartt had dashed off a draft in her own style and then spent several years going over the text, overlaying it with clever and artful prose in an effort to - well - polish it as I mentioned above, and that she'd simply missed a bit here and there.

The real downfall of the piece though, is the assembly of unbelievable characters. Dark and moody Henry, stoically battling his demons (or alternatively just being a boring snob); coquettish Camilla who can't quite manage on her own (not very 20th century that is it? But very classical Greek, apparently); charming and well-connected Julian who despite having travelled the world and met just about every famous person you ever heard of, is now content to hide away in an academic backwater teaching a handful of drugged-up ne'er-do-wells and getting up the nose of the college board.

So in the end my impression is that it's a load of old tosh. Readable, well-written (for the most part) tosh, but tosh all the same.

Vinyl: The Red Album

And, while we're at it, the Blue Album.

Artist: The Beatles
Owned on digital media: No
Want to replace: No

OK, Amazon, you are taking the piss. £15.48 for this? The music on it is almost 50 years old. Two of the artists are dead, and the other two don't really need any more money than they already have. I mean, Paul. Even after his expensive divorce he's still only down to his last 600 million.

So no. No thanks. This music may well have been part of my childhood (it was), formed the audio backdrop to many of my most treasured memories (it did) and maybe I would enjoy hearing most of the tracks again (I would), but most of the 50-year-old music I'm familiar with turns up for free on give-away CDs in Sunday papers.

The fact that the remaining Beatles, or their record company, or the estate of the late Michael Jackson, or whoever the hell owns the rights to these tracks nowadays, is STILL trying to squeeze the last scuffed penny out of the music-buying public all these years later is nothing short of a national scandal.

A fiver maybe. For the pair. But thirty quid? You're 'aving a larrrrf.

Talent Week

One of the... advantages... of working for a large corporate is that occasionally you have the chance to pitch in with one of the corporate initiatives. The one in question today is Impact On Society (IOS), where the company get to feel good about themselves by "giving something back" to the local community.

This year, that takes the shape of contributing to Business in the Community's Talent Week initiative. For several weeks, young people up and down the country have been logging on to a website to create their "talent bricks" - a brick-shaped doodle containing art of their choice, and a statement about what they think is their best talent and what they'd like to do with it when they leave school. Some of us had already spent a day in a local school talking to the kids and helping them with that part and now, in Talent Week itself, a selection of those bricks have been stuck up on a wall in the Arndale Centre, and there's a week-long programme of activities, demonstrations and stalls designed to connect the kids with the world of work.

And I got to spend the day on the Fujitsu stand.

We had a few banners, some information about the skills we use (obviously there's more to the company than just IT - like many companies we need managers, finance people, graphic designers, good communicators, sales and marketing, etc), and a taped-off rectangle of floor where we were going to play games.

Land the plane
A bunch of blindfolded passersby (the aeroplanes), instructed using only the words Forward, Back, Left, Right and Stop, by a smaller bunch of passersby (the air traffic controllers) in an effort to get them from one side of the rectangle to the other while avoiding the groups of cones (representing storms, pylons, etc) that we distributed around the play area once the blindfolds were on.

Clearly this game is all about communication skills, and realising that some people will interpret instructions differently from how you intended them. And... it's a lot of fun.

Rafting game
Small group (say 3-7) of people, same number of floor tiles, move from one side of the rectangle to the other stepping only on the floor tiles. The tiles can have a maximum of two feet and one hand on them at any one time. Any more and the tile is removed (it has "sunk"). Any tile left unoccupied for more than 5 seconds is removed (it has "floated away").

Again this is about communication, but also about teamwork and problem solving. The only way x people can stand on x-1 tiles (so that the one at the back can be passed to the person at the front) is by sharing tiles and/or standing on one leg, so you're going to end up hanging on to a total stranger. And... it's a lot of fun.

Lego building
Two boxes containing the same assortment (number and colour) of Lego bricks (well, Duplo if we're being entirely accurate). Only one box has instructions to build a tower. Three players. Player A builds the tower using the instructions. Player B watches, and relays the method to Player C (who cannot see Player A) so that s/he can build the same tower from the bricks in the second box. There is only one right way of building it, proven by being able to lift it up at the end when holding only the top layer of bricks.

This might have been a lot of fun, but no-one wanted to play it (although we did have a go between ourselves at lunch time).

So, you know, this isn't the kind of thing we do for a day job, and that was obvious from the design of our stand. BitC had done their bit by including something like "be Top Gun, learn how to land a plane" on the section of their banners devoted to Monday, but whoever designed our stand had somehow forgotten to include this important piece of information. There was absolutely nothing on any of our banners or posters that talked about landing a plane. We had "skills" and a list of customers, and the company logo. And a rectangle made of red and blue plastic tape. And... er... that's it.

If it hadn't been for the good offices of the compère, (the excellent Terence from BBC Your Game), I don't think we'd have had a single player all day. As it was, we handed out almost 100 raffle tickets during the day (play a game, get a ticket, win a laptop bag), and we got to see several demos by local cheerleaders, Olly the ball kid (Youngest Freestyle football World Champion - see him on YouTube - who knew keepy-uppy could be a life choice?) and a couple of boxing coaches who teach non-contact boxing as a keep fit regime. And we drank a lot of Starbucks.

Did we feel good about ourselves at the end of the day. You bet. Although my legs were aching a bit. And I could have done without the strange conversation with the gentleman who claimed to be "Amber Level."

There's a storm brewing

So the entry to Storm the Charts closed on Tuesday night, but Wes (the organiser) had a late flurry of entries - something of the order of 200 I believe - which obviously need to be processed before voting can start.

It was always going to be a bit of a tall order starting the voting the day after entries closed, but procrastination must be playing a huge part in this. Acts leaving it until the very last minute before submitting their details. It's undoubtedly also true that it's taken a while for news of the competition to get around, and maybe some of the latecomers were busy recording their best, new material so that they can stream it as required by the rules of entry.

As an arch procrastinator I can hardly complain at the latecomers, and their lateness doesn't affect me directly. It's not me who has to trawl through a pile of emails linking all the streaming sites and making sure the playlists are up-to-date. Wes is doing a stonking job. Can't wait to start voting though. I've been keeping up with the listening and there's some ace acts in that journal, which is now over 400 long.

For Beresford & Wallace, things are progressing nicely. As you'll have seen below the album is now available to buy online. Other retailers will come on stream soon, and we've applied for registration with the PPL Repertoire to make sure our tracks are eligible for the UK charts. It doesn't take long to organise this, and we still have more than two full months before the Storm. Plenty of time to get all our ducks in a row.

I don't listen to the words

Spent last Saturday evening with mates, being royally entertained with wine, beer, chilli and excellent conversation as always.

During the course of the evening I happened to mention to Ritchie that I'd been listening to a couple of albums by one of his current favourite bands that he'd burnt for me last time we'd seen him, and that while I liked the music I thought their lyrics veered just the wrong side of pompous for me, being quite overblown and flowery. Trying too hard to be meaningful, if you know what I mean. His response?

"Oh, I don't listen to the words. I'm only interested in the music."

To my further astonishment, almost immediately, Ian agreed.

As someone who not only has had an abiding interest in the words to songs from a very early age (I still vividly remember singing "24 Hours from Tulsa" on my way to school, aged 8, and by that time I already had several years of lyric learning under my belt) but also now writes lyrics himself, I found this more than passing strange. Actually a more accurate term would be incomprehensible. It had literally never occurred to me before that anyone could listen to a song and not be interested in the words. Instrumental pieces, sure. Orchestral pieces, naturally. But the defining part of a song, for me, has always been the lyrics.

Just goes to show how even people you think you know really well can still surprise you.

Weird & Wonderful available to buy

We've just received confirmation from our digital distribution partner cdbaby that our album is available for download. How exciting is that? You have to go direct to them at the moment, but iTunes, Amazon, and other digital retailers will have it available in a few weeks.

Anyone in the UK reading this and wanting to download it PLEASE wait until we know whether or not we're going to be selected as one of the 40 acts taking part in Storm the Charts. If we make the final 40 we'll need as many downloads as possible in June.

But if you're outside the UK and you'd like to buy it, be our guest! :o)

Malcolm X's brother

Is alive and well and living in the Slough area.

At least that's the conclusion I came to after noticing another personalised plate this morning on my journey to our (extremely salubrious and well-appointed) offices in Slough. Naturally I expect to see more such plates whenever I travel Darn Sarf, as they are so much posher (not to mention richer) than us up here in Flat Cap and Whippet Land, but even so it's still a pleasant experience when I happen across one as well done as RU55 ELX. It adorned a black, sporty-looking number, and was spaced out to spell RUSSEL X. So nice one, Russell.

By contrast I suffered a dearth of personalised plates on the journey home, but my addled brain (I'd spent six hours in a meeting examining the 3,500 option settings for Microsoft Office 2007. It was a wonder I was still awake at all) did spot AR51 LMA, which I interpreted as "ARSEY LLAMA" - entirely appropriate I thought, given llamas' reputation for being, well, arsey.

Spooky Facebook is watching

Arriving at my puter this morning, cup of steaming Java in hand, I was intrigued by one of the suggested names at the top right-hand corner of my Facebook homepage.

Facebook users will be familiar with this part of the page, where seemingly random but occasionally appropriate people are suggested as friends. It's usually people who are already friends with your other friends, or belong to similar groups, which normally accounts for the random ones (Facebook can choose any of the thousands of people who give "Manchester" as their location, of which I only know a few dozen at most).

But this was different. A guy with a name so unusual that I have only ever met one other person with the same name, and that was the bloke who used to run the karaoke and other entertainment evenings and daily poolside events at our favourite Greek island resort on Rhodes. I never knew his last name. He was universally known by his adopted first name. The unusual one. So I followed the guy's link to see if I could find out more about who it was.

And...

It IS the bloke who used to run the karaoke at our favourite Greek island resort on Rhodes!!

How spooky is that? We haven't even been there since 2005, and as far as I can tell there is no connection that Facebook could possibly have known about to come up with him as a suggested friend. He only has two other friends so clearly hasn't been on it long. Just weird.

Good verses evil

I just received one of those endless advertising emails from Amazon, attempting to persuade me to buy another game for my PS3. I bought a game, once, so naturally their marketing droids assume I'm going to be interested in any game they care to throw my way.

I noticed this one was billed as the ultimate fight of "good verses evil."

That'll be good versus evil then, you illiterate morons.

Ears burning

I've been neglecting this blog for the last fortnight or so (hence the flurry of updates this morning), but I have an excuse. It is, of course, Storm the Charts, which I admit has been occupying most of my (non-work) attention while I apply, wait to be listed, listen to all the other acts' music (over 300 acts signed up now, and the Facebook group tipped over the 17,000 member mark earlier this morning), and email all my friends - yes, actually. All of them.

So I know I'm responsible for a good couple of dozen members of the group (I saw them sign up after the emails went out) and may even have introduced a few people to the whole idea of Facebook. Not sure that's such a good thing ;o)

It is now indisputable that if every member of the group downloads the same track in the target week, that track will enter the top ten. How cool is that? Of course we're still hoping to do a lot better than that. Not everyone will be able to afford the £40 it would cost them to download ALL 40 tracks, but we should be able to do better than 1.

We're up!

After a trepidatious few days between me sending off the "for your consideration" email, and said email rising to the top of Wes's (probably absolutely overflowing) inbox, Beresford & Wallace finally made an appearance on the Storm the Charts Livejournal list of artists. At number 215.

That just means we're the 215th to apply. It's not a rank.

You can see the whole list here: http://stormthecharts.livejournal.com/

I plan to listen to every track posted. I'm not naive enough to expect everyone will do the same - I guess most bands will only be in it to promote their own work - but if only a small fraction of the thousands of group members plays Spin Doctor we'll have reached many more ears than we ever expected.

That photo

We reconvened the photo shoot yesterday evening, with Nikki behind the camera this time to save the lawn, and this - after a bit of work with the GIMP - is the result as it will appear on the inside front cover of the album.

The sepia tint, soft focus and background colour are all chosen to match the livery of the album's existing cover art (front and back). The airbrushing of the bags under our eyes was entirely Annie's idea and I should make it clear that I abhor doctored photos in all their guises (*cough*). I mean, who do I think I am? A flippin' rock star or something? I'll be on the cover of Heat magazine next, and talking about my liposuction.

I don't think.

Storm force

Storm the Charts - we're on again, thanks to Wes and the gang changing the rules to mean we don't have to be downloadable by the application deadline (March 23), only the download deadline (June 5).

Still no guarantee of being chosen, of course, but hey - at least we're in the game. And the boost to our online profile can't hurt either. At the time of writing the Facebook group has 12,000+ members and there are 130 bands/artists registered. You've got to believe that a fair proportion of the group members - who all get to vote on which songs make the shortlist for the top 40 attempt - will listen to as many tracks as they can before they make up their minds - and at least some of them might like the music even if we don't make the shortlist.

Mystery solved

Even after all these years dealing with Microsoft technologies, there are still wrinkles to learn. And more often than not, you can read "bug" where I've written "wrinkle."

A few days ago, shortly after the release of Weird and Wonderful, I changed my standard email sig to include a line directing people to the Beresford & Wallace website. As you'd expect, this worked fine when composing a new email message, but from time to time I decide to include my sig in a reply, and the first time I did this I noticed the extra line was missing.

Huh?

I checked the new sig. Yep, all fine. So where was this copy of the old version coming from? I thought maybe Outlook had cached it somewhere, so I restarted it. Made no difference. I rebooted the whole PC. Nope. So I resorted to a search of my whole disk for "Signatures."

Lo and behold, the default Signature folder had three copies of my standard sig, only one of which had the new date on it (and the new addition in it). I noticed the new one was an RTF file and of the unchanged ones, one was an HTML file and the other a text file. I had no recollection of creating these, but it was clearly no coincidence that the "problem" only occurred when replying to an email, and the two format options for replies are... HTML or text.

With a small light flickering into life in my head, I deleted the rogue files, returned to Outlook, fired up an email reply and inserted a signature. Whaddaya know... Outlook creates the other versions for you. How handy is that? Well... not very handy at all actually, seein' as it's not intelligent enough to spot when the original sig changes, and copy those changes over for you too.

Like I said. A bug.

DIY photo shoot

After a brief discussion about what should appear on the inside front cover of the album, Annie and I deployed our stunning originality to come up with the idea of: a photo of us.

I know. Don't.

After an extended period of dull weather, the sun shone on us yesterday - literally - so we decided to snatch a few moments at lunchtime and take said photo. Only there was just the two of us around. Time to deploy the tripod. Naturally this meant I had to plod up and down the garden, lining up the photo, hurrying back to be in it, trekking back again to check the result, adjusting the angle, trying another pose. I won't need to bother with the first lawn cutting of the season: I've worn it all out.

We took five in all, and as far as either of us could tell from the small screen on my camera, two of them were OK. It was only when they were displayed full-size on our PCs that the truth became apparent. The sunshine, lovely as it was, had caused severe squinting. As in, our eyes appeared to have gone into hiding. Sunken into the depths of our brains.

Another photo shoot will be required, on a marginally less effulgent day. David Bailey never has this problem.

Making do with instant

Major and ongoing disturbance to sleep patterns has its advantages. For a long time now, one or other of us has been waking up between 5 and 5.30 - occasionally even earlier - and not being able to get back to sleep. Not having to leave until 7.30 to take Nikki to work, such an early rise time translates into a 2-hour morning stint at the puter and - the real bonus - enough time to enjoy a pot of real coffee.

The downside is flaking out in front of the TV by 8.30, the consequent early bedtime, and an inevitable early wake-up again. It's a vicious circle, I tell you!

But guess what? Something even more vicious? The one day in - what? 20? 30? - that we do manage to stay asleep until the alarm kicks in at 6.30, means there's only time for one cup of (instant) coffee. And when you've been used to savouring two mugs of delicious Java fresh from the cafetière, that really bites.

Strangely quiet in the studio

After the rush (both temporal and emotional) we went through getting Weird and Wonderful out into the public domain, this week has been strangely anticlimactic.

I've likened it to an exciting train ride - a magical mystery trip if you like.

The train barrels into the station... and there's no-one there to meet you. You step down, the train pulls out with a blast of its whistle, and you're left standing on the platform. Suddenly there's no noise, or movement, or excitement. Just silence, emptiness, and a still, small feeling of expectation.

This could be the start of something. Or it could be another deserted whistle stop cafe in the long journey of life. Either way, I think it'll be a while before we can tell the difference.

Storm warning

Recently we found out about the opportunity of a lifetime... which, ironically, we may be JUST too late for.

Storm the Charts is a campaign designed to repeat the success of last Christmas's campaign to get Rage in the Machine to the number 1 chart spot in preference to Simon Cowell's "traditional" X Factor winner, who in recent years has been a shoo-in for the Christmas #1 on account of the cynical and exploitative timing of the show.

Only this time, instead of just the number one, the campaign is trying to take over the entire top 40.

And this time, instead of the profits STILL making their way to Sony BMG (who ironically own the rights to the Rage in the Machine single and therefore still made money on the back of the Christmas campaign), they're choosing unsigned indie bands who have never charted.

Bands, in fact, like Beresford & Wallace.

How cool would that have been? Mere weeks after releasing the album, to have Spin Doctor charting, and downloaded by thousands of people who only a short time ago had never heard of us?

Unfortunately, there is an application deadline for bands wishing to take part of March 23. And in order to apply, our music would have to be already available from iTunes. Even though iTunes is the quickest online retailer at processing new music, they still quote 1-3 weeks as the lead time to load up new stuff, so even if we could get it to them today we'd still only have a slim chance of meeting the deadline, and that's without taking account of the delays introduced by our chosen digital distribution partner.

No, sadly, we're gonna have to take a back seat this time round and miss out on the fun. BUT - if the campaign is successful and captures the UK music-buying public's imagination in the way the organisers hope it will, then there'll almost certainly be another go later. You can bet we'll *definitely* be there next time round.

Official release day

Today was the day we were supposed to be releasing Weird and Wonderful, and in some ways jumping the gun and opening up the sound streams on Saturday was a bit premature. With most people expecting to have to wait until today, and spending a lot less time at their computers over the weekend, early feedback was almost entirely absent. Both Annie and I found this incredibly frustrating - a side-effect, I expect, of being SO close to it for SO long. It took on a kind of immense, special meaning for us which (obviously) isn't reflected in everyone else's lives. To anyone who isn't us, or very close family, it's "just another album."

The good news is that once the comments started to flow, they were all favourable. But then, I guess if anyone didn't like it they just wouldn't bother to say anything ;o)

Surprise early release

Annie was at the peak of production prowess and took no time at all to master her last vocal, recorded on Thursday night, and complete the tweaks to those other couple of tracks we had glitches on. So having allowed ourselves an entire weekend to prepare for release, we were ready by lunchtime.

I pointed out that many people would be working Monday anyway and might not be able to listen right away, so in the end we agreed to steal a march on your expectations and release Weird & Wonderful early. At the moment you can only stream it from one of the websites, but we're busy signing up for iTunes and Amazon distribution, so it'll be available for iPods etc as soon as we can make it happen.

Meanwhile, to listen to all 12 tracks on the new album, you can use the Music Player on the Beresford & Wallace website or if you're on Facebook you can try the music player on our Facebook page.

It's a wrap!

With a remarkable lack of ceremony, the last song seemed to take almost no time at all to record and our second album, at least in terms of recording, was put to bed last night. This extract from the Weird & Wonderful cover seems particularly apt!

Not that the ease of recording made for a short evening's work. Oh no. Annie had discovered a couple of minor problems with earlier sessions, which meant going back to two of my previous recordings and re-doing a few harmonies in one case, and a final chorus in another.

On top of that there were decisions to be made. What should the track order be? How many copies of the album are we going for as a first print run? What kind of promo are we going to be doing? What's the best local venue for our first live gig? All in all, there was more talking last night than singing, but it's all good; we're still on track for a Monday (March 1) release. It's easy for me to say that though - it's not me doing all the post-production work!

Because it takes time (two weeks on average) for new material to appear on iTunes, the release date will be for "streaming only" at first. That is, you'll be able to hear the songs on one of our websites, but not download them onto your iPods or PCs for a couple of weeks. And even though we have the much-adored and commented on front cover, we're still working on the artwork for the rest of the CD, so anyone wanting a physical copy will have to hang on a little while longer too.

Book Review: The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint

Catching up with my book reviews, this was the book club choice for February - the one I've just finished reading.

It's the story of a young native American half-breed boy whose mother was an alcoholic, partly because his father had run off as soon as he found out she was pregnant, and whose head was run over by a mail truck when he was only seven. Despite serious injury to his skull the boy survives and the book follows his "adventures" through intensive care, rehab, a school for unwanted native American children with various problems, and a Mormon foster home, until he eventually fetches up in a surprising place that I won't spoil by revealing.

For only the second time in my life (the first time being with John Brunner's Shockwave Rider) I persevered with a book against all reason to find that the last third of the text made up for the hard grind of the first two-thirds. And it was a hard grind. From one perspective the story is unremittingly grim. Schoolboy violence, drugs, murder, parental abuse, societal abuse, Edgar runs the gamut. Yet Udall's narrative retains a light touch with moments of laugh-out-loud humour. Even so, by halfway through I still hadn't developed much in the way of caring about the main character. Things began to pick up a little once he arrived at the Madsen household and from there on the book began to give something back, turning eventually into a story I'm glad I read, even though I'll almost certainly never read it again.

With a couple of notable exceptions the book club denizens agreed, in general, with my feelings, giving the book relatively high scores and fifth place out of the 42 books we've now read. (You can see the latest club league table here, if you're interested)

Vinyl: Gone To Earth

Artist: Barclay James Harvest
Owned on digital media: No
Want to replace: Yes

It's so long since I listened to any BJH that I had to consult Wikipedia to remind myself of the track list on this album, which I was almost certain I must have bought after (or while) seeing them at Nottingham Uni sometime in 1973 or 74. But Wikipedia insists the album wasn't released until '77, so its purchase may have coincided with them playing Manchester in those heady days shortly after I first started work.

To be honest even reading the track list didn't help all that much (SO long ago), but I'd love to hear this again one more time so it'll stay on my want list. Just not at the top.

Book Review: The Other Hand

It occurred to me recently that I'm way behind with my book reviews. In fact the last one I wrote was in August last year, but having looked back at what's happened since, I've not been as lax as first thought. In September we read The Leopard, which was SO dull I didn't get past chapter four. October we were in the Lakes, so I missed out on reading Brave New World, and I never made it past the starting blocks with November's The Go-Between, which brings us neatly to the first book of this year: The Other Hand by Chris Cleave.

Told from two perspectives - the Nigerian refugee girl "Little Bee" and the British magazine editor Sarah whom she meets while Sarah is on holiday with her husband Andrew - this story epitomises the modern novel for me. As in, it totally fails to live up to either the hype on the cover or the effusively gushing reviews that you will find only a short Google away.

Parts of it are funny, especially the many references to Sarah's young son in his Batman persona, but much of it is dull, or contrived, or hints at possible interesting diversions which are never followed up (an example being the colourful characters who share Little Bee's time in the immigrants' detention centre, but then disappear without trace once she sets off to find Sarah and Andrew).

Sarah is one of the most self-absorbed characters I've ever read, to the point of being a cipher. Everything around her - son, husband, lover, job, house, holiday - is there for the sole purpose of providing her with entertainment and diversion. As you might imagine this rapidly becomes tedious beyond belief, and descends into farce when her lover's job (which he constantly and unbelievably recklessly verges on throwing away) proves to be nothing but a plot device designed to allow Sarah to accompany Little Bee back to Nigeria when she is inevitably deported.

The cover blurb insists that it doesn't want to reveal too much about the book in case it spoils the "truly special story." To my mind, that would be "special" in a way that might make you turn away in discomfited embarrassment, if you know what I mean. It seems most of the book club agreed with me too, since their votes but The Other Hand firmly in 39th place (out of 42 read).

Let there be light...

I mentioned recently that we've been living in the shadows for a while. On the landing, at least.

A couple of years ago I installed a security light switch. A clever little beast with a built-in timer and a photocell which provided a wealth of options on when it would turn on, and off, and how many times, and on what days. Versatile enough to make even the most observant tea-leaf believe there really was someone in the house on those all-too-rare occasions when we go away.

Shame then that those clever electronics weren't also resilient electronics. Call me picky, but I'd have thought a light switch should be able to withstand something as simple as a blown light bulb. I'm not talking massive electrical storm, direct lightning strike, or rat-inspired short-circuit. Sooner or later, your light bulb is going to turn up its toes. A light switch whose electronics are fritzed by such a common occurrence shouldn't, to my mind, be allowed on the market. But there you have it. First dead light bulb... one dead light switch.

In my normal procrastinatory fashion it's taken me several months to shift my ass into gear but today I finally coughed up the £1.48 for a replacement switch - and fitted it! Not another electronic one, mind. No, that would have set me back at least ten times as much, and probably gone pop again the next time the bulb blew, so it's back to the relative simplicity of a standard two-way for us. Let's hope there are no burglars watching.

Only one to go!

We recorded the penultimate track to Weird & Wonderful last night. The last-but-one to be recorded that is, not necessarily the last-but-one on the album - we still haven't finalised the order of tracks.

This whole thing has been a learning experience. Sometimes it's Annie learning a new production trick, or - as I mentioned last time - realising that it would make sense to write the music in a key we can sing, rather than having all the work of transposing it into the right key post-hoc.

Last night, the lesson was for me. Because quite a number (*checks* - six) of lines in this song, my last, begin with "It's." It sounded great in my head when I was writing it - the perfect way to describe all those little things that add up to a great relationship, which is what the song's about. But you try singing it. "It's" is not the easiest word in the world to articulate clearly when you're also trying to hit the opening note of a line, and follow it up immediately with two more words when you only have half a beat in which to sing them.

So my lesson was, in the same way as there are notes that are harder to reach, there are words that are harder to sing. When I'm writing, I'd damn' well better sing it out loud, not just in my head.

Games Night

The various revelries of the neighbourhood have been reported many times on here - mulled wine night; the summer street barbecue; the safari nights. Last night saw the first of what (with any luck) will become another regular feature of social life on The Road: games night.

What better way to banish the winter blues on a cold, wet, February Monday than to gather in a large, plushly-carpeted, warm living room with a dozen or so neighbours and their assorted offspring, and sit around sipping wine, nibbling nibbles and laughing and joking as we play a selection of board games?

And what an impressive selection it was! All provided in-house. We chose Articulate! to begin, followed by a round of Boggle and then, after a break for some concentrated nibbling, finished off with a game of Balderdash which proved, if proof were needed, how good we all are at the gentle art of bullshitting.

A great night, which for me was extended by an hour when my hosts invited me (Nikki having called time early on account of having to work the next day) to stay behind for "one more drink" after everyone else had left. So on top of the laughs and the excellent craic, I was treated to more fine wine and fine conversation to round the evening off perfectly. I love it round here!

Creeping death

Woke up this morning to an unusually dark bedroom. The clock was off. Bedside light? Nope.

Given that this came on top of a gradually increasing failure of the house electrics (power and light to the attic room first, and then a blown bulb causing the death of the electronics in the security switch on the landing), I lay in bed for several minutes imagining vermin burrowing through the walls, or the total discontinuation of power to the entire house by a prospective burglar. Don't ask me how - my mind gets up to all sorts at three in the morning.

A quick trip to the loo proved that the study still had power - all the computers happily glowing their sickly blue across the carpet - and the alarm panel was still powered up, so I offered a mental shrug to the world and went back to sleep.

Didn't take long this morning to discover the problem lay with a duff bedroom power socket. The one we'd moved in to find with a short length of Sellotape holding the switch in a semi-on-semi-off state. A bit of fiddling soon revealed the socket only received power when the switch was held in this unnatural position and even small movements in either direction caused it to let out an alarming fizzing noise. I moved the extension lead to the other socket of the pair and made a mental note that there would be another socket to replace when the refurbishment timetable eventually rolls around to the master bedroom.

Vinyl: The Best of Bread

Artist: Bread
Owned on digital media: No
Want to replace: Yes

I haven't heard this album for years, although I do have a couple of its tracks - Make It With You and Guitar Man - on other compilations. Wikipedia suggests Guitar Man - along with other tracks I definitely remember listening to like Aubrey and Daughter - appeared on Volume 2, so maybe it's that one I need to replace. Great easy listening stuff from the 70s :o)

Stolen shamelessly from one of the people - OK, OK the MAIN person - I get these things from...

If you're on my friends list, I want to know 34 things about you. I don't care if we never talk, or if we already know everything about each other. Short and sweet or long and detailed, all is good.

2. Answer here in a comment, and/or repost the questionnaire on your own journal (if you have one/want to)

01) Are you currently in a serious relationship?

02) What was your dream growing up?
03) What talent do you wish you had?
04) If I bought you a drink what would it be?
05) Favourite vegetable?
06) What was the last book you read?
07) What zodiac sign are you?
08) Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? Explain where.
09) Worst Habit?
10) If you saw me walking down the street would you offer me a ride?
11) What is your favourite sport?
12) Do you have a Pessimistic or Optimistic attitude?
13) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?
14) Worst thing to ever happen to you?
15) Tell me one weird fact about you.
16) Do you have any pets?
17) What if I showed up at your house unexpectedly?
18) What was your first impression of me?
19) Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
20) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
21) Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
22) What colour eyes do you have?
23) Ever been arrested?
24) Bottle or can soda (pop)?
25) If you won £10,000 today, what would you do with it?
26) What's your favourite place to hang out at?
27) Do you believe in ghosts?
28) Favourite thing to do in your spare time?
29) Do you swear a lot?
30) Biggest pet peeve?
31) In one word, how would you describe yourself?
32) Do you believe/appreciate romance?
33) Favourite and least favourite food?
34) Do you believe in God?

Vinyl: Beach Boys 20 Golden Greats

Artist: Beach Boys
Owned on digital media: No
Want to replace: No

This must be firmly in the category of albums "everyone" owned. I picked up "The Beach Boys - Best of" when I hijacked Paul's iPod and I haven't checked but I'm pretty sure I've got the track list covered. If not then their music is so ubiquitous I probably have it spread over several compilation albums of driving music, summer music, etc, that I've collected from Sunday papers over the years. No, this is definitely one that I won't be replacing. I like the Beach Boys, at the right time, but I'm no Fan Boy.

PS

Received an email from an old colleague this morning in which he'd added a PS.

It started me thinking about what an anachronism this is now. Post-script. In the days before WYSIWYG editors when text was always serial and if you remembered something after the fact you had to add it to the end. Why would you do that now? Why not just stick it inline, where it would have been if you'd thought of it at the time?

Two possibilities sprang to mind. Maybe adding it in at the right place would disturb the sense of the sentence, and you don't have time (or you're too lazy) to frig around with it. Far simpler to just jot the thought down whole, at the end, in a PS.

Or maybe you already sent the email, and you want to make it clear that what you send after it should have been part of it in the first place. Maybe we need another standard subject prefix of "PS:" to go along with "Re:" and "Fw:"

So from a point where I thought PS belonged in the age of Basildon Bond and sealing wax, I've now convinced myself that it'll be around for a fair few years yet.

Weird & Wonderful artwork

As the excitement mounts in the run-up to the release of our second album, one of the MOST exciting parts is the arrival of the cover art, which Natalie volunteered to do. My only involvement was to add the lettering to the final version - and in the very early stages to help develop the idea - and then to (try and) sit back and not nag too much, what with this being her finals year an' all, to get it finished.

And here it is. I love it. It's exactly what I wanted. No, it's *better* than I wanted, because Nat has added her own artistic flair, invention and imagination to the remit and come up with something that exactly captures the essence of "Weird and Wonderful".

Our first album was produced in something like a cottage industry, with me burning CDs and printing off the covers and the infill. It had a definite homespun feel to it, and we posted off physical copies to all our family and mates. Now, only a handful of the original copies remain, and being burnt onto CD-R has meant that some of those copies no longer play. We decided we needed a better, more professional approach this time round.

One big difference that's occurred over the last five years is that iTunes, the iTunes Store, and digital music in general has entered the public consciousness in a way that had really only just got started back in 2005. So for Weird and Wonderful we're going for a digital release, with streaming media on our websites for a casual listen, and paid downloads for those who want a personal copy. Anyone needing to get their hands on a physical disk will still be able to order one, through a collaboration with a site called CDBaby - more details on that once the album is released. At the moment, we still have two songs to record and one or two other small tasks before we can put the album to bed. Little things like deciding on the order of tracks.

Coffee and Cake

Neighbour's birthday today and in response to their e-card we received a sunny "we've got coffee and cake - see you later?" email which sounded like a good way to pass an hour or so on a cold winter's Sunday.

We arrived to an impromptu gathering of select members of the street, all enjoying coffee from a continuously-replenished cafetiere and cake from a pair of groaning plates, one holding wonderfully moist carrot and walnut and the other a mouth-watering concoction involving apple and baked custard.

Yum! No wonder we love living round here! Sadly, this time next year the guys will probably be settling in to their new home in Portugal, so this spur-of-the-moment mini party could be the last of its kind.

Tenth song in the can

Tonight's song - the penultimate one on Annie's sing list - is a pleasant little ditty about the girlfriend of an axe murderer whose head is so messed up she doesn't really know whether he's killed her, or she's killed him.

You begin to see why I picked "Weird & Wonderful" as the title of our second album.

Anyway the interesting thing about this number, for us, is that it's one of the ones that highlighted a slight problem with the way we write songs. Annie gets an idea - it might be a bass line, or a beat, or a melody - and she builds on it until she has a complete tune, which will probably have many of the elements of the final version in terms of the instruments used, etc, and it has a definite melody line, but often will still need some work to polish it into the final version.

At this point she hands it over to me and I give it a listen. Many listens actually - over and over again - which is why I need to be alone for this part, or at least wearing headphones! Eventually the song begins to speak to me, telling me the story it wants the waiting world to hear. All I do is write the words down. Simple really.

But at that stage, we haven't decided who's going to sing it. And there's the rub. Because not only has the tune not been written with one of us in mind, up to now it's not actually been written with either of us in mind. And just occasionally, this has meant that neither of us can sing it. I mean, I'm an OK singer, and Annie has some professional training from her years at drama school, but there's only so far up or down you can make your voice go.

For our first album... well, we were *so excited* to be recording music we just knuckled down and got on with it. And struggled in places. Listening back to that album now, one or two of my tracks are at the limit of my range and sound a bit painful. Definitely wanted to avoid that this time round, and there have been a few tracks in danger of the same problem. This one being the case in point.

Usually, she can solve the problem with a bit of clever transposition. This time round, after half an hour of trying to hit the high notes in the middle eight it became obvious that wasn't going to be enough. But hey, when you're an accomplished musician, that's no problem. After five or ten minutes at the keyboard Annie had rewritten the offending four lines and we were off and recording again.

We're hoping this kind of emergency measure won't be required in the future. With neat biro marks on her keyboard denoting our upper and lower ranges from now on she'll be writing nothing but notes we can reach. The songs might be about murder, but at least they won't sound like they've been murdered.

Not your usual traveller

I thought "travellers" (i.e. gypsies) always drove around in beat-up vans or army surplus jeeps towing ancient caravans. Not so the owner of today's cool number plate: GYP 5Y. This adorned a very modern 4x4 travelling in to the city centre this morning.

Another month, another picket

The concentrated striking (three working days out of the last five) may be having the desired effect, as we heard over the weekend that ACAS will be getting involved this week. That's definite progress, and not before time - the financial implications of more strike days this month were beginning to give me worry lines.

With the extreme cold weather nothing but a bad memory, it was actually quite pleasant to be stood out on the picket this morning, especially since we enjoyed another glorious sunrise and a brief honking of support from a flock of passing geese. As always though, the highlight of the morning was the breakfast at the Art College. This has become such a popular event it wouldn't surprise me if several people continue to patronise their restaurant in preference to the breakfasts offered in our own canteen.

If the loss of pay is the downside to all this, the upside is very definitely getting home before 11am and having the whole of the rest of the day to please myself. I admit to being sorely tempted to carry on doodling, but I resisted and settled down to a bit of web work instead.

Vinyl: Bad Company

Artist: Bad Company
Owned on digital media: No
Want to replace: No

Bad Company were one of the favourite bands of a mate I shared a house (and a room) with as a student, and also a regular feature of the "Heavy Rock" discos we used to host on Thursday evenings during our time at UMIST.

I was never that into them, even then, and to be honest I don't remember buying this album, so I suspect it's one of those I "acquired" by virtue of being the Student Union Socials Secretary during my second year. This in itself mired me in controversy, as some of my "friends" held the opinion that albums sent to me as Socials Secretary belonged to the Union, whereas I treated them as a perk of the job (there weren't many!), especially since most of the ones I received were duplicates that had already been sent to the Union addressed simply to "the Socials Committee" or similar, and in any case I was only ever interested in a handful of the stuff that turned up.

In view of the bad feeling this caused towards the end of my student years, it's ironic that I now have absolutely no interest in replacing this album in my digital collection (although I would like to hear it again just once to make sure!).

Doodle Do

Breakfast table conversations can have the strangest consequences. A couple of weeks ago we were discussing the old DoodleArt posters of the 70s and 80s, and how I used to have one tacked up on the wall of my flat. I spent many a happy evening totally focussed on colouring in my alien landscape in those simple days.

Cue Nikki's razor-sharp Internet search skills, and the uncovering of the wonderful world of Wildergorn. I was enthused! I ordered three posters. One (Watergorn - of which this is a small detail) for myself and one each for the girls.

I couldn't find their recommended pens for colouring - Stabilo 68 fibre tips - at anything like a decent discount from any online retailer, so I bid on a full set from eBay and won, at a saving of almost fifteen quid.

Once all the breakfasting and household chores were out of the way today, I rolled the 27" x 40" poster out on the dining table and set to. Pretty soon I was just as immersed in the detailed world of harpies, water and stone as I had been all those years ago on Planet Zog. A perfect way to relax on a drab winter Saturday, when there's no colour at all in the world outside, but 40 vibrant colours to choose from in my little tin box.

Mmmmm... leather

A hectic day today with lots of comings and goings. First off, it was another morning on the picket line, so I dropped Nikki off at work early and took up my placard shortly after 7am. The morning passed pretty much the same as Wednesday, except the sky was clearer and we were treated to a beautiful sunrise over the emerging steel skeleton of the new Manchester Police Headquarters that's being built across the road from our office.

After packing up at 10, I enjoyed what is becoming the traditional post-picket Art College breakfast and drove home, arriving in plenty of time to greet Annie and Jamie. They arrived as arranged to shift our old sofas, which had found a new home in Annie's flat. A quick whiz round with the vac and all was ready to take delivery of our new sofas. Rather than give us an approximate delivery time, DFS had told me we were the 10th drop of 12, in a working window of 8am to 4pm. According to my rough calculations this translated into an arrival time of 2.30 for the delivery men. They turned up at... 2.30. Yes. 2.30 exactly. Funny how some things work out exactly as planned when others often don't.
In contrast an extremely late bus delivered Nat to the front door just as the second sofa was coming in. Well, half of it anyway. It had to be split to get through the door, so we brewed a cuppa while the men reassembled it, and then sat on our new pouffes drinking in both the tea and the wonderful smell of the leather until it was time to set off Yorkshirewards to pick up Blythe.

Ninth recording

A late start, a late finish, but my penultimate track on our long-awaited second album - Me & My Girls - is in the can, leaving me with one more to record, and Annie with two.

It's getting quite exciting for us now, knowing the release date is in sight and pretty soon you'll all be able to hear what we've been working on for the past few months (in recording terms - the past five YEARS if we take all the songwriting into account!).

It'll never get better if you picket

Another Wednesday, another few hours on the picket line. Actually that's overstating my active involvement quite significantly, as I haven't attended the picket since that very first time, what with it being minus eleven and knee-deep in snow and whatnot.

But the dispute drags on and is beginning to bite financially, as I realised when I opened my pay slip this month, and to qualify for the union's additional hardship payments members have to be "actively involved," so here I am back on the picket line, freezing my toes off and wondering how long it can possibly take for the hours to tick away until it's 10am and we can pack up and pop over to the Art College for one of their wonderful breakfasts.

As it happened today's picket felt shorter than the last one, even though I arrived at the same time. A few people I knew were taking part, so conversation flowed, and one or two of the pickets were marginally more active in their behaviour - tooting on kazoos and asking drivers to stop etc - which provided some entertainment and helped the time pass more quickly.

Not sure if it's a result of experience, but the "very British" attitudes I noticed on that first picket are gradually being replaced by a willingness to mix it with those arriving for work. Especially the ones who seem to think the best way of making it across the picket line is to put their foot down and drive at full speed on to site. A site, mind you, with a mandatory 15mph speed limit. That they are wilfully ignoring. Calm down ladies and gentlemen! The most you'll suffer is the acute embarrassment of ignoring a small group of people who, on any other day, would be your colleagues but who for these few days you seem to think it's OK to treat as targets.

Bloody Region Codes!

We've had a PS3 for a while, you might remember. Aside from the fact that the copy of PS3 Monopoly I ordered from play.com went AWOL after New Year and never actually arrived, we've had a lot of fun as a family playing Buzz and Trivial Pursuit, the girls have enjoyed playing Avatar, Oblivion, etc, we've really appreciated being able to stream the upscaled BBC iPlayer on the plasma screen, and naturally the Bluray movies are awesome and even the upscaled SD movies are pretty good. All things considered we were pretty happy with it.

Until yesterday, when we tried to watch The General's Daughter and got nothing but a terse little "beep" and the message "this disc cannot be played as it has the wrong region code."

Not this bollocks again? I went through this with our old Samsung DVD player, having to hack it to play non-region 2 disks. We never had the problem with our chipped XBox, because the people who write XBMC have sense enough to ignore the corporate control-freak mentality of the whole region code crap. Must have just been a coincidence that in the months since we bought the PS3, we've never chosen to watch any of the DVDs we bought in Canada.

I jumped online to search for "PS3 multiregion hacks" - expecting it to be a simple matter of casting some kind of arcane spell through the remote control - and was amazed to discover that after three years, no such hack exists. The region encoding of the PS3 remains intact and, worse, no-one has really bothered to try and crack it because, as most forum-dwellers complain, Sony would simply annul the hack at the next (automatically downloaded) firmware release.

So it looks like around 20% of our DVD collection is unwatchable on the new system. At least, in its disk-based form. There are plenty of instructions online on how to rip DVDs to MP4, or AVI, or VOB format, any of which will play quite happily on the PS3. Which, if anything, makes me even more angry. It confirms the pointlessness of the regional encoding, but forces me to jump through hoops in order to watch a huge chunk of our collection that we BOUGHT LEGITIMATELY.

Is it any wonder the big media companies are losing money to pirates when they put this kind of barrier in the way of legitimate users?

The silver lining to this cloud is that it simply brings forward the day when we move our movie collection onto a media centre, where it can be accessible from anywhere in the house and not subject to these pathetic restrictions.

Vinyl: Olias of Sunhillow

Artist: Jon Anderson

Owned on digital media: No

Want to replace: Yes

Anderson's first solo album and the only one I bought. According to Wikipedia he would go on to record another 12 albums over the 22 years following the release of this one in 1976, but I was never a "completist" (in relation to Anderson at least!) and settled for just this one.

To be honest, in common with much of my vinyl collection, it's so long since I heard this I can hardly remember anything about it, except that I did play it fairly regularly and would appreciate having it as part of my modern collection. It's not on the "buy this urgently!" list - if such a list exists - but if I ever happen across it then I would consider picking it up again.

Currently available on eBay for between a fiver and £17, although no-one seems to be bidding ;o)

Vinyl

I got hooked into a Facebook meme yesterday about "music that changed your life" and once I'd started thinking about my old vinyl collection, I was reminded of my long-standing intention to dig out the box of albums and make a note of the ones I want to replace.

I've already retrieved some of the more obvious ones - Genesis, King Crimson, etc - but I knew in among the relatively modest collection (I'd acquired 85 albums by the time I abandoned vinyl in favour of CDs) were some more obscure works that I would love to hear again. I also recognised the virtual certainty that there'd be some in that box I'd even forgotten I owned in the first place.

I wasn't wrong.

On the flip side, I have a distinct memory of owning some albums - at least two by Emerson, Lake & Palmer for instance - that appear to be missing from the pile. I wonder where they went? I dabbled briefly in car boot sales in the mid-80s and must assume, although I have no clear recollection, that I ditched a few from the collection that were out of favour at the time.

Still, I thought it might be interesting to start an occasional series of posts covering (what remains of) my vinyl collection, my memories of the albums and where they currently sit in my head in terms of wanting to replace them. Or not.

Flat

Set off to take Nikki to work this morning and I knew instantly something was wrong. That familiar heavy feeling of driving with a flat tyre.

Sure enough the nearside front was pancaked. Luckily the forecast rain hadn't yet set in. Changing the wheel on a road with a heavy camber, in the dark, is hard enough without having strong Manchester drizzle to cope with as well.

After twenty minutes we were back on the road, Nikki using her iPhone to consult the opening times of local tyre fitters and me hoping the spare had enough air to get me there and I wouldn't run over anything (else) sharp on the way.

Arrived back home an hour or so later, almost a hundred quid poorer after the discovery that those three measly feet of travel on the completely flat tyre had wrecked the sidewalls and a repair was out of the question. At least, that's what they tell you.

*sigh*

My email has been spammed.

Nowt so unusual in that, you might think, in a world where well over 80% of the entire email traffic is spam, but having learned my lesson with my very first (publicly accessible) email address back in 1997, I'd taken great pains to protect it and... until yesterday at least... been pretty successful.

I've owned my own domain for several years and, having never entered either of my main email addresses at that domain in any forums, online forms, or anywhere it might have been harvested, have managed to stay blissfully spam-free.

Indeed you may remember me mentioning back in September that the aforementioned original email address had bitten the electronic bullet, which reduced my spam count from the low teens per day to one or two per WEEK. It didn't half feel quiet around my Inbox I can tell you.

A few months ago I did get a hint that the honeymoon was over, as a small trickle of spam started to arrive. I was lulled into thinking it might be a passing phase, as numbers remained small and far between. I should have known better. Having made it onto one list - I have no idea how - it was only a matter of time before the list was sold on, and the heavy spammers started to hit me. That time came yesterday, with over a dozen invitations to visit an online drugstore in the space of five minutes. The pile has been increased today, to the point where I've had to create a new rule or two.

Sad, but inevitable I suppose. And yet a small part of me retains its heated indignation that, when the email servers of the world are kicking out their metric tonnes of CO2 by the second to no other purpose than sending reams and reams of shit flying around the planet so that yet more servers can apply carefully crafted algorithms to delete them again before anyone reads them, no-one has yet considered this to be a serious enough problem to actually do much about it.