Ha, you thought the squirrel was dead

Weeks late, but had to blather on about the missus.

She collaborated with a guy called Jason Singh to make an installation in our big church here in New Mills.

Now hold on, make no mistake - this was an art installation and in no way reflects on her beliefs, which can be summed up as such: there's no God.

Anyway back to the point. The installation was called "Waste" and Jason did some of his album "The Soul's Reward". If you can't be arsed researching him here's a synopsis: he's a professional musician who makes music purely with his voice and body. A successful beat boxer when we first met him three years ago, but now he's moved into ambient and ethereal sounds, which suited the church perfectly.

A description of the installation: about 4000 feathers hung on individual invisible threads over the main church area. They were out of reach (just) but in a strange, wonderful and unexpected way you could interact with them just by standing still. The warmth from your body would create an updraft which would make them spin gently. Add candle lighting and the huge and quiet space in St Georges church and it made for quite a spiritual experience.

We had over 100 people in the church that night, probably quadrupling the normal bums-on-pews quota. The atmosphere was just the strangest thing - people were awestruck basically. It's a big church, quite grand, and that added to it all. Some of the first words uttered: "Ethereal", "Spiritual", "Peaceful", "Mystical", "Fantastic", "Wonderful" and on and on.

Jason is the subject of an upcoming BBC documentary (Alan Yentob's "Imagine") so cameras were there, and he and Lyn were interviewed after the performance. There's a chance that interview will make it to the actual programme, but since it's more about Jason and they are going to a festival in Jodhpur as well, I doubt it. Nice for her to be asked though.

Some evidence here.

Some rather more crappy photos here, taken by me in daylight just after she finished building it.

From above - evidence of how-it's-done here

From the stage. Best view in the house

From lying ion the floor in the aisle - lots of people did this. Quite amazing.

Coming soon - she's getting a website. Excitement at fever pitch.

Bye

Fun with beer

Got quite drunk at Stuart's 50th birthday party last night, got busy with the phone camera on the train home. Results:

Arty shot of Sharon



Annie seemed happy.

Showing your age there, Stu.

More swearing from S, and Lucy gets all suggestive with ... a lipstick

It was all too much for Phil.

Driver got a bit nouty as we lingered at the train door. Silly bugger.


That bloke again, being rude.


Everyone likes a shoe shot.

Most of Phil.


Dignified and responsible New Millers.

The man himslef.

My fatface shoes (the green ones on the right)

In other news, it was New Mills parade t'other week, and Alex and the outlaws came to stay. The parade was done in a brief sunny patch:

















Wifey in mid-crisis. One of her funny turns occured.

New Job

Just handed in my notice at Vital. I've been there since I came back from Thailand in May 2010 and had a much much better offer from Capula in Stone. Thirteen months in one job is quite enough, n'est ce pas?

Anyway a chance to work on the "Biggest ever implementation of an Archestra system" was not to be missed.

In other news, music weekend went well. Fell in love with a Sax player - or at least with his playing. The folk-singer-and-poet duo brought him along to do some improv between verses for their show in the Art Lounge. Absolutely stole the show, which is not to say they were bad - in fact they were very good, but he was sublime. He also played a mean flute as seen in the one photo I took on the night..


The following night's irish session was also excellent, and our singer Emma got a lovely round of applause for her two songs. Once again I'm in love. More of these sessions will be forthcoming, as soon as we find a new guitarist. Marco and Emma are off to Italy for the summer and we're all bereft at present.

Tooth update: My gob is proper sore, even five days after last week's emergency filling. I go back this friday for the root filling, but doubt he'll be able to even find the tooth through my swollen cheeks and gums. It seems I bit my cheek while it was all numb last week, and now we're in a vicious circle of more swelling/more biting. It's tear-jerkingly painful and I don't like it. There I've said it. I was premature with my no-more-comedy-faces-while-eating comment, that's for sure. I'm too young to have to suck my toast.

I can assure the reader, by the way, that I managed to get through those few sentences describing my dental problems without jamming my finger into the back of my mouth onto the offending tooth and talking like a dimwit. You all do it, you know you do.

More later, or sooner, whichever is... sooner.

Dear teeth

£700 to fix my teeth. Not happy. Mind you, at least I'll be able to get through mealtimes without pulling comedy tragic faces.

Big weekend approaching - Aidan Jolly (music) and Sai Murray (poems) at the Art Lounge Saturday night, then our lot playing Irishly on Sunday, last gig before Marco and Emma leave for Italy for the summer.

Mr Sandrew Buchanan is visiting from Rugby too.

Photos to follow.

Cats Again, Sorry

Bad news, cat lovers.

Cheese is suffering from dementia. Not a sentence you hear every day of the week I'll admit, but none the less true. Or at least we think so.

The behaviour in the video I published recently, which showed the two cats "Fighting", is a fairly recent development. Onion (the smaller one) has always been fairly protective of her personal space, and likely to have a swipe if Cheese (the larger one) happened to enter it. However, these recent episodes are mostly instigated by Cheese, normally the more docile sibling. This, along with his newfound habit of howling at irregular intervals for no particular reason (he's stone deaf), led us to believe he's declining into senility. He also conforms to other known symptoms, e.g. chasing things around the floor like a kitten (he's at least ten) and staring at walls for extended periods. He also recently became fascinated by shadows and lights. If he sees the fridge door open he usually tries to "capture or kill" the shadows on the floor created by the internal light.

I don't suppose there's a cure for this illness, and we can probably expect him to lose his remaining faculties in the months/years to come. Sadly, the time may come when we have to make the hardest decision, based on his quality of life. I'm jumping the gun of course, they could both live for another ten years, but the signs are not good.

Wow, what a depressing post. Must try to do better.

Laters

Bin Laden Rant

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy"
- Jessica Dovey.

"Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that"
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Been meaning to vent my spleen on this issue since they shot him. OBL, that is, not MLK.

Like lots of people, I will admit to feelings of glee when the news broke. We've all been hoping he would be found for years of course, that goes without saying. However, as details emerged - the "Capture or Kill" mission and the fact that he was unarmed when they shot him, doubts emerged that the event had been handled in a manner befitting the world's foremost democracy. Then I noticed people were posting the MLK quote, and that, alongside the Americans' unreservedly bullish reaction, prompted me to wade in with my six penn'worth.

It's an old hobbyhorse of mine, this confusion of justice and revenge that seems to happen over the pond. Americans will be calling this "justice" for years to come, but in my book this is as far from justice as chalk is from cheese. Without recourse to dictionaries, or even wikipedia, here's my understanding of their relative meanings; justice is a human construct, a necessary part of a functioning society. It protects the majority from the excesses of society's failures. Those who are deemed to have broken its rules, after having a chance to prove otherwise, are dealt with in a way which prevents a recurrence. Revenge is a much more human phenomenon, based on an emotional response to perceived wrongdoing. It can be misplaced, based on false information or even propaganda, and is altogether damaging to a functioning society. Always. There is no place for revenge in any system of justice, since its primary effect is to reduce its perpetrator to the same moral level as is victim. Public executions anyone?

Just realised, the previous paragraph contains a horrendous generalisation. I should say "Some Americans". Indeed, the very quote that relates nicely to this situation is from Martin Luther King, obviously an American. Mind you, they shot him....

To paraphrase Monty Python, a lot of my friends are Americans, and only a few of them are immature. In other words, if you're reading this and you're American, I don't necessarily mean you. Can a whole country be deemed to act in an immature manner? I think so. I'm sure President Obama is himself a mature individual, but he's in no position to act naturally is he? Should he do what I consider the right thing, and blurt out "Hang on we're behaving like hormonal teenagers", he'd last about ten seconds before being rugby tackled and clapped in irons. That would be justice, of course, and speaks volumes about the size of the task before a president with an agenda of change. Good luck to him.

For the record, my alternative to the way the US Special forces acted goes like this: arrest him on suspicion of encouraging terrorism, put him on trial, convict him and incarcerate him for life. I like to think that's what a British operation would have done. We could not then be accused of making complete arses of ourselves on the world stage, as I believe the Americams have once again. Maybe I'm wrong and their actions have the approval of most people in this country, in which case we're all doomed.

Laters.

How cute is this?

For the cat-lovers out there...



They seem to both get out of the wrong side of the basket some days, and even sharing a room is unbearable. A bit like humans, except much more cute.

In other news, I attended nephew Nick's wedding yesterday (to the beautiful Ria) in Leicester, and what a splendid affair it was. Most of the people there I hadn't seen for many years and it was great to catch up. Strangely, I had a dream afterwards, possibly due to too much beer, involving going backwards in a car and the brakes not working. Sort of poetic.

I did watch the Royal Wedding, and I'm not a royalist, and I enjoyed it, and I hate everything they stand for, and I'd like to know please, how can I engineer an introduction to the other sister? Mind you, both sisters could do with a good pan of scouse. And how unattractive is William? Is it just me? Mind you, I never fancied his mother. She had a hoop nose and no hips in my royal opinion.

What else? Oh, not much. I seem to be spending a lot of time in (or near) Newcastle these days, working on that damned tunnel. Night shfts as well. I feel like the notion of proper circadian rhythms is a thing of the past and I'm now able to "Micro-nap" whenever I get the chance. That, for the benefit of any budding politicians, is how to put a good spin on my embarrassing habit of nodding off at far too regular intervals.

While we're on rhythms (see what I did there?) the informal arrangement we have for getting together to play music in the Art Lounge is edging towards being a proper official session. We lose our guitarist (ciao Marco, enjoy Italy) after the next gig, for the rest of the summer so any reasonable pluckers can apply here. You just need to know your chords and keys, and be able to understand a broad and softly spoken Northern Irish accent, as spoken by the lovely Ursula, our leader and fiddle player extraordinaire. There is a favoured candidate, and I'll not name names, but his initials are Robert Hindley. oops. Yes yes I know, Dave can do it but he's always on bleeding holiday init.

While we're on leaders, I see they shot Bin Laden. As daughter Alex has ably pointed out, they may well have created a martyr and caused yet more fervour among the world's more pea-brained and gullible types. We wait and we hope not.

More soon, and hello summer.

Kayaking

Went on the canal with some ducks. Video:



(The lovely piece of African jazz in the background is White Nile by Kelan Phil Cohran and Legacy)

Laters.

Drrrrrat, drrrrrat and trrrrriple drrrrat.

Mirrorball

Hello.

Before we start, here's some music. I make no apologies for the "Heavy" nature of the Mogwai track - it's my blog after all. I do, however, urge you to turn the YYY track up to full and feel the hairs on your arms go up.

PJ Harvey - The Glorious Land
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Skeletons
Mogwai - Mogwai Fear Satan

I have loads to say but can't be arsed saying it. I'll have to do it in pictures - always remember that each one is, in fact, worth a thousand words...

Elbow! Mirrorball! I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. That guy (Guy) can surely sing. Good banter too, in fact the whole show was fantastic. I urge you all to go see them at the first opportunity.


Martin (It's that bloke again!) at the end of Paddys night. The evening was a success after an initial awkward period in which we had to move people from their saved seats to make room for musicians, then too many musicians turned up. We arranged our next "Practice evening" for 17 April.


Lyn and Lucy get vocal while Dave strums. Lyn will hate this picture - she NEVER sings in public.

Cheese getting cosy.

One for the Plexal guys. I had to retire my Plexal (Bangkok) rucksack due to the stitching on the straps threatening to give way. Took this before binning it, with a nostalgic tear in the eye.


Tyne tunnel opening - the actual moment when traffic first went through..
..my bit is the grey computer screen, second from left.


Lyn's hand a blur as she wows the crowd. Roger looks on, amazed.


Went for a nice bike ride yesterday on the old road iron. Doesn't look much does it? Ah well, it gets the job done. Note the lugggage rack - I now ride to work once a week.

In other news, I'm spending a lot of time in Newcastle doing bits and bobs on "My" tunnel. Night work, most of it. Ah well, it pays the mortgage. Wifey gets the evenings to herself, and needs them - the end of her degree is looming. Blimey, she won't know what to do with herself after this summer.

I've been busy transposing my vinyl records to mp3. Expect some extra-cheesy music on here soon. It's a long process because I bought the cheapest USB turntable, which came with the most awful software. I have to record manually, telling the system where the gaps in the tracks are, and typing in the artist, album name and track name. However, it's a labour of love, and the obvious short-cut ("Why don't you just download them all from Pirate Bay?") didn't even get a look-in.

More soon (yeah, right.)

Tunnels and stuff

For those who think my life as a reluctant engineer is in some way glamorous, here's where I spend most of my time monday to friday these days: It's a service tunnel, which is adjacent to the road tunnel, which is 50 metres below the river Tyne. It's cold, miserable and dark. Still want to be me?

In other news, today I was mostly sitting watching squash at the British National Championships in Manchester Sport City. I had a great time and the ladies' and mens' finals were both thrilling matches. My hero Nick Matthew (world number 1) was pipped in a five-set thriller by Daryl Selby (world number 10), and the love of my life Jenny Duncalf lost to Laura Massaro from Preston. Here is the lovely Ms Duncalf, off to one side while the victor speaks, proving herself to be a fairly rotten loser...

Ah well, back to Newcastle in the morning. Better go get some sleep. Night night.