twice quarterly improvisation & rollup keyboards

hey there blogger, for the past year i've been improvising regularly again... posting the results... only now it's 6 and a half times less regular than the longcat weekly improvisation that i used to do...

it's called the twice quarterly improvisation, it has it's own fb page, and i'm currently editing the 8th instalment which i recorded @ tom's place in finsbury park on tuesday.

it began on the winter solstice last year, and each improvisation has taken place on (or near) each solstice, equinox & cross quarter day since then, this last one was on samhain.

it's a more relaxed schedule and it keeps me recording and video editing, my youtube audience is much smaller than it was at the peak of longcat weekly but that's to be expected...

in other news i've just got myself an LG Rolly keyboard - which i'm getting used to - bluetooth keyboards please me no end - having access to qwerty on one's mobile device completes it somehow - this is my 3rd such bluetooth keyboard and it is the most stylish - if the least easy to use -

it rolls up -

and not only that - but on holiday this year i was wandering around the town of mallaig and popped into a music shop - and bought myself a rollup musical keyboard - non bluetooth -

so long blogger - maybe i'll post again quicker than 3 years later this time x

A stick

This morning, as i stroll into the Simon Community Hilldrop Road Day Centre where I'm about to run another Music Tuesday I notice that a piece of vegetation is hanging down onto the path. It has white flowers - thorns, it reminds me of both bramble and hawthorn - but it's most likely neither of these. I setup the keyboards, then seeing that we have not yet got any punters in I reach into my bag for the secateurs and the gardening gloves and go and see about that vegetation.
I cut the offending greenery, as far back along the branch as i can, taking a couple of the white flowers with me. As i stand there - branch in hand - i find that i am admiring it's length & strength. I set about taking all the thorns from it, and it's while i'm doing this that the 1st punters turn up. So it's down tools and go and teach.
Later on during lunch i return out there and continue stripping the thorns from it, distributing the

Finding the Windmill

Hi there, it's been awhile...

I've been thinking about technology and the world and how they interact...

hmmm... not sure how best to begin so i'm just going to jump in there:

so i walk a bit, in woods if i can. in particular i walk in some lovely heathland/woods near croydon in south london called either addington hills or shirley hills, google maps calls it addington hills, locals call it shirley hills, not that i've done an exhaustive survey of locals...

gmaps

i work @ a college down there with the refugee stuff i do and after work if there is light in the sky i'll pop over to the woods for a stooge.



It's a series of small ridges and valleys roughly pointing in the same direction

So a few weeks back i was standing on the observation platform, a brick structure offering a view north towards london, when i was living in Peckham i used to try in vain to see Peckham, or the covered reservoir @ nunhead from there but a hill is in between, crystal palace i think. So i was on the observation platform and it was a glorious day, much light around, from one corner of the observation platform, just pushing up above the treetops i could see the sails of a windmill.

This is after a year or so of visiting this woodland and i was amazed that a windmill could be so close and yet i hadn't seen it before. My general stomping ground where i spend almost all my woodland time is in one of the valleys to the southwest of the observation platform and the windmill is north northeast of there so it's not that surprising i hadn't seen it. Also it's only visible from one corner of the platform.

So of course i struck out in that direction, following paths that sort of go that way, following the land down again, then rising up, then down, up... etc. Travelling across the ridges and valleys. The windmill not at all visible. It took me gradually into an area that i hadn't been in before, a different kind of ridge/valley, more heather than in the other part. And on climbing up to yet another ridge looking to my left i saw once again my Windmill. Now clearer, and this ridge i was on was heading directly to it. So i took to the ridge, that was gently coming down, back into woods so the windmill disappears from view once more.

In time i come to a road. The edge of the woodland, more woods beyond the road but it is an accursed golf course. Addington Hills is sandwiched in between 2 large golf courses (they are larger than addington hills anyway, i don't know the relative sizes of golf courses). With a sinking feeling i left the hunt, maybe the windmill is a golf feature...

...

I was back there a week later but it was a greyer day and i'd forgotten or not realised at the time that the windmill is only visible from the left corner of the platform, and i didn't/couldn't see it.

...

It struck me later on that i'd had 2 separate views of the windmill and if i'd had a compass with me and taken compass bearings from those 2 positions and been able to find those positions on a map (a satellite map) then surely i could draw straight lines - or perhaps google could draw straight lines for me - on the map, from each position, in the direction noted, and where the lines intersect - that is where my windmill is...

Now although i don't have a compass, or at least i don't know where our compass is (Emma has a compass), i do have an android phone with smart tools installed on it, which amongst other things has a compass, a compass that uses the phones camera so you hold it like a camera, find the thing your looking at and it tells you the compass bearing.

knocks & floats (a bit techy)

so the music therapy lot turned me down - knocked me a bit it did - a few weeks back now...

& one of my classes that i teach in homerton has been low on numbers for awhile and yesterday they told me they're taking that class away from me...

so i'm losing hours...

it hurts... it will hurt financially and it hurts emotionally... but life goes on - more work will have to be found...

i've got a few things keeping me emotionally afloat at the moment... one of which is my synth world which is slightly larger than it was & more interconnected now...

i've been messing around with a modular synth called jasuto - on my phone - i have the somewhat undernourished android version... it turns out there's more money writing for apple so the android version is the poorer relation in the family but even with seemingly no attention from it's creator for a few years it's still a fine beast...

over the weekend i made a sound on it which i called "peeved child"... my ladyfriend (i forget what her nomdeplume is...?) within days of meeting the peeved child expressed a wish not to hear the peeved child again...

i love it still...

yesterday - day of receiving bad news - i found myself on the overground from canonbury to new cross gate - nipping home after work before going out again to a spanner rehearsal...

i saw, behind my bicycles rear wheel, a mains plug... which i've been meaning to check out for a while now - a sign by the plug said not for public use...

so i got my Dsi Tetra out of my bag and plugged it in - all the lights came on - i found my headphones and set about converting the peeved child into a "confused hippy"...

most of the bits that make up peeved child in jasuto on my phone are similar to bits that exist in my Tetra - 4 LFO's, a low pass filter,

the sound generation in jasuto is a sampler that i drew the waveform into & that's beyond my Tetra, but Tetra's saw/triangle wave works pretty well instead... by the time i had arrived @ new cross gate i'd completed confused hippy which i later unveiled in the spanner rehearsal and it's earned itself a place in the spanner set on saturday night...

really nice that the phone synth is influencing the gigging synth... long may it continue...

the spanners are @ the round midnight in angel on saturday night if you're a londoner & you want a fine night of free music - confused hippy included x

experiments with the future (techy)

so i've got an audition/interview for the music therapy masters a week today -

it's making me think about possible future gig setups...

because for the application i had to make some video's of myself playing - and in one video i was manipulating reverb - this was part of the performance...

it's something i've been thinking about for awhile - taking the lovely things i have @ home & putting them on stage - but this particular thing takes place inside my massive G5 mac that is way too big to be lugging around for gigs...

so a macbookpro is my preferred object of fantasy future with this... but there are no macbookpro's on my horizon & this audition is a week away...

i am making my life difficult with this as the reverb that i want is 30odd seconds long - & the longer your reverb the more processing it takes to handle (in the reverb world i'm in right now - convolution reverbs)

so this week i've been looking at whether i can use this little white PC laptop for the same thing...

to be clear - the thing i want is to be able to run audio through a particular impulse response and i want to be able to control the amount that gets sent to the reverb from my lovely purple beast...

no small ask...

i've found a free convolution reverb VST... freeverb3 -

i've tried it within cubase 5 which i've got already - rigged up the purple beast with it and that's working - but the sound that's coming out has got a few glitches...

i've tried it within ableton 7 which i've got already - didn't get as far as rigging up the purple beast because the audio is way glitchy... almost a thing of beauty in a modern music sense but not what i want...

i've tried it in something called minihost - and it's worse than cubase but not as bad as ableton... didn't rig up the purple...

it's possible there may be another stand alone VST host that can do it...

i'm considering trying a whole new operating system - ubuntu studio - but that hasn't happened yet... once it's in the software will be ardour - who knows...?

and then maybe the VST isn't the way - maybe there's a different way of doing convolution reverbs in PC's without VST?

so that's where it's @... nutty chasing of something that perhaps i don't really need... that's sometimes how it goes x

tax returning

numbers, numbers, numbers...

oh so many numbers...

a certain amount of procrastination yes...

i can't deny it... but then the tax office are having a strike tomorrow & in theory that gives us another 2 days grace...

but who wants that ? get the thing done that's what i say - even as i ponder how to connect polar in digital performer to logic via soundflower... oh... hang on - wasn't i doing my tax return?

another january almost over - another tax return being toiled over - another mound of marking being ignored for the moment...

oh the eternal wheel x

round trip on foot

Fulfilling day in amongst financial worries & emotional ups & downs...

Me & Emma are back together - after a break of a few months - a touch shaky as all such things are - less than a week in & it doesn't yet feel normal... i trust it will...

gigging tonight with the spanners in angel - the round midnight - 2 sets as ever - one 8:30ish - the other 10:30ish...

about to pack down my lovely red keyboard for the trip over to the soundcheck...

half of my brain is also on editing a video that is part of my application to Nordoff Robbins Master in Music Therapy that i'm getting ready... videos that i filmed earlier this afternoon before going out to do my dusk project...

i did it yesterday as planned but i was a few minutes late due to hungover slow walking - so now i have the choice of either today's footage or yesterdays when i get to the other end...

very old friend JF rang me to say he was going to an exhibition in Peckham - being what where i live these days...

i left here on foot (bicycle out of action for too long now - slaps own wrist) dropped a shirt off to be pressed @ the dry cleaners - went down bellenden road to see JF & his new flatmate - whose exhibition it was/is... hmmm - can i link it? Yes i can...

good stuff, documenting a housing estate in kidbrooke that's being demolished - photos of residents with a film & book...

then me & JF walked over to the NC for the dusk project - the 1st time i've had anyone with me - really nice to be with JF who's round the corner (ish) these days so will hopefully see more of him (he came to last week's gig in brixton that i didn't tell you about)...

and also really nice to be able to show him Nunhead Cemetery - it's right up his kettle of fish...

directed him roughly westward & he cycled off as i walked home - stopping by the dry cleaers to pick up the shirt...

one more tea & then i'm outward bound x

bone to the rescue

he didn't turn up last week for the run through...

and i did give up on him...

i was thinking that i would have to show him where the tree is... off the beaten track as it is...

but it turns out he's still up for doing it... so i'm preparing a map/video to guide him to the right tree... part of me doesn't want to share the place with anyone - but that's foolishness and definitely in the way of anyone else helping me with the project...

so tonight i'm preparing my little video/map... packing up my keyboard for the spanner recording tomorrow... (this being the reason i can't do my dusk project myself tomorrow)... then eventually heading over to streatham for the 1st bang bang shot girl gig in an age... spski is meant to be there...

i'm mostly alone in the house - although someone's been in & out i think... haven't seen them...

x

audiovibe

ok so i'm back from the seasonal blewbury thing...

ever so lovely as it always is... i love my family...

& whilst i'm currently struggling to find someone to do my dusk project for me on friday - (spanner recording on that day) - i am also enjoying one of the fruits of the season -

i'm listening to ornette coleman through one of my under the bed storage things - (currently on top of the bed) via the medium of audiovibe...

this particular storage thing is made of plastic and is a box - the audiovibe also works well on cardboard boxes - (which i still have thousands of - post moving) - the bin - the recycling thing - tables, chairs & the floor also work - although wood is quieter than plastic or cardboard - the piano works pretty well as well..

dirt tends to build up on the sticky thing that connects to (bin - floor etc.) and although the box claims to have come with 2 replacement sticky things i seem to have mislaid mine -

i can see a future in which i have several audiovibes - permanently attached to various objects -

aaah - jazz drum solo's through under the bed storage units -

this is the life...

the whole thing reminds me of the reverb journey i've been on recently - finding different impulse responses of various different reverb spaces - then plugging the IR into logic and it's like playing in that space -

the audiovibe is similar but from the other direction - can't explain this better right now but i know what i mean -

also - just tested it & the audiovibe is only playing the left half of the stereo signal - so that's something to look at - i wonder if i could get another one and rewire it to only deal with the right signal?

or somehow send it a different signal - with the left & right reversed - hmmm..?

x

6 am thoughts

once upon a time, the fact that i'm awake right now only 2 & a half hours before my tuesday starts would have made me an anxious annie...

not that i'm entirely free of anxiety but mostly i'd say - which is a blessing... just how i'll be in 12 hours when my working day is coming to a close i can't say...

had another glorious day... met the world and their dog...

having seen someone close to me being manic all those years ago does cast my current behaviour in that kind of light - not that i'm manic exactly but i have ups & downs & these nutty meeting people days have much up in them...

took one of my keyboards back from the prog guy just as i agreed to lend another keyboard to YouMeBumBumTrain... & so far i've agreed to play next thursday for them... will almost certainly do more than just 1 night - although have yet to sort it out.

one of the men i met tonight (monday night) gave me an iced bun... he was scottish & ambidextrous...

one of the women let me have a little bit of her water x

Internet @ home yah yah yah

i honestly thought that they wouldn't turn up... you know when you've been waiting for something for way too long & the moment is approaching when you'll have it and that moment is very important to you so therefore the law of randomness comes in and of course that moment gets delayed...

but they did indeed turn up when they said they would - not that i was here then - i was @ my tuesday work... and i'm now typing this on my little laptop... wirelessly connected to the world...

now most of you haven't lived without the broadband @ home since june... so most of this post is going to sound all very yes well la la la... but honestly... i don't care about that... i'm just very pleased to be able to do this now...

it's been ages since i regularly posted on this blog & if i ever had any regular readers they've probably upped & moved (their reading) out to the sticks...

(is it sticks?)

anyway - laters y'all x ha ha ha ha ha ha... x

clothesline in summer

i love living where i live...

my cat digs it*... my piano is happy*... and indeed is played by more people than me... which is perhaps a little odd for me on occasion but is a beautiful thing none the less...

(* - yes - i know... how do i know that the cat digs it or that my piano is happy? you just have to accept that i do know these things)

i like & indeed will come to love my housemates... all 3 of them... communal living was not something i was looking forward to after living on my own for awhile but ... certainly in this honeymoon period that we're living through... i'm digging it...

and in fact you can come see one of my housemates performing live tonight in the newcross... something... for free... 10ish... send me an email if you fancy it... the band is called United Vibrations... i'm going...

i also like that it took me 20 minutes to cycle to brixton tonight - (i'm once again waiting for refugee students to arrive at the evening class that i'm doing for 3 weeks - one more next week)

i love that i live close to peckham rye park & nunhead cemetary... i haven't yet done so but i will surely be cycling to crystal palace some day soon....

and when i do - a certain thing i gave up in north london will be returned to me... alexandra palace park & it's neighbour - highgate woods - were giving me an awful lot of pleasure in the closing months of my north london living...

when i found peckham rye park, something about it gave me the feeling that highgate woods gave me (not exactly, but something like it)...

i'm hoping that crystal park will somehow represent alexandra palace park for me and that being inspired by my surroundings will continue...

not that i'm not already inspired by peckham... the surrey canal path is lovely... burgess park is beginning to offer up it's interesting places to me...

peckham library... the bussey building... all sorts of places inspire me...

but today... what is inspiring me the most... is having a washing machine & a garden & a clothesline...

the hot summer sun drying my clothes in super quick time... what's not to love...?

ok refugees here x laters x

absent

but did your heart get any fonder?

no real internet @ home still, peckham life proving pleasant, & a dribble of internet through my phone is useful...

tethering for free won't give me https places, so no gmail, or blogging, the phone itself gets me my emails and i've been occasionally popping into peckham library or the kentish drover next door for wifi...

i'm auditioning on thursday for some nutty prog rock guy, slightly nervous about it, but it'll go as it will go...

recorded the piano in the kitchen last night... foolish business that might have cost me a good night's sleep but good to do it, my moog is sounding amazing in that house and has woken a part of itself... the rhodes is very happy, balthazara is also very much at home there...

for some reason after recording the piano part quite late @ night my mind wouldn't keep quiet enough to sleep... the kind of thing that happens after a jazz cigarette, but i didn't do any of that last night...

so today's long day of working is all the longer... but i'm almost there... ten minutes more & i'll be out the door, cycling down the road to dalston junction, the train to new cross gate, cycling from there to peckham...

and the sun appears to be shining... summer solstice today...

x

Charlotte

 Charlotte by longcat 

Keyboards, Vocals: Robbie Knight

Guitar, Mixing: Chris Greene

Drums, Backing Vocals: Ben Haley

Bass, Recording: Pawel Kucharski

Tenor Sax: Pete Godin

Alto Sax: Dan Spanner

Trombone: George Simmonds

the 4-piece (bass, drums, keys, guitar) was the monday club & we recorded on the 18th of april @ core arts, with the vocals recorded by me & the drummer on that day,

the horns recorded last week:

pete on tenor sax @ mine on wednesday (4th may)

george's trombone recorded @ his on thursday morning (5th may)

& dan's alto sax recorded outside the jamboree club, limehouse, between the soundcheck & the spanner jazz punks gig on friday night (6th may),

i'd been without my lovely SV-1 keyboard all last week & i got it back @ that gig in limehouse, so i rerecorded my keyboard part also between the soundcheck & the gig, on stage, friday night...

me & chris mixed it on thursday night & saturday afternoon, it was played to the 2 year old it was written for on sunday (the 8th) which was her birthday...

i'm very pleased with it... it's possible i may put another vocal on it at some point but other than that it's pretty finished, certainly more finished than i've got anything to for a little while...

it was pretty nutty by the end, the process of chasing up all the recording & mixing. today i'm floating downwards from it all...

x

CM doco

Almost no chance you'll see me, but CM, my sometimes employer & remaining fundee of the arts council has a glitzy doco on the community channel...


online here


the tireless bobby friction who hosted this nuttily glitzy night @ the brady centre, right where i teach, all done up with sofas & a makeshift bar... back in december - it seems it was filmed - the doco is on the community channel:


Weds 6th April: 09.00, 15.00, 18.30, 00.30, 04.00
Sat 9th April: 09.00, 15.00, 18.30, 00.30, 04.00
Mon 11th April: 15.00, 18.30
Thurs 14th April: 15.00, 18.30
Sun 17th April: 09.30
Weds 27th April: 09.00, 15.00, 18.30, 00.30, 04.00
Sat 30th April: 09.00, 15.00, 18.30, 00.30, 04.00
Weds 11th May: 09.00, 15.00, 18.30, 00.30, 04.00
Sat 14th May: 09.00, 15.00, 18.30, 00.30, 04.00
Mon 16th May: 15.00, 18.30
Thurs 19th May: 15.00, 18.30
Sun 22nd May: 09.30

The Community Channel can be found on Sky channel 539, Virgin Media 233, Freeview 87 and BT Vision.


i saw a documentary on billy childish in the ritzy possibly - or perhaps the ICA, and the man himself (who me & spski have seen in the boston arms, times gone by) told this story:


there was a documentary about him shown on the BBC & the following day he was walking in the town he lives in... (chatham)... & someone shouted at him from across the street:


OI!.... DOCUMENTARY TWAT!


x

night falls over north london

emailed in a request to jarvis but he didn't play it... it was Bee Gees – Love You Inside Out  for siggi on mothers day x

left mine around 7:15pm, knowing the sunset was due @ 7:40...

wanted to get out there at least once...

cycled out northish... i love the way my mind gradually finds out where i'm going...

crossed over the railway at alexandra palace station, into ally pally park... joining the route me & dad walked on wednesday (and indeed, me & emma walked last sunday)...

could see the sunset was the other side of the hill so i tried to move up to it... joining another path traversing the hillside...

i could hear music from the palace, a random guy working the barriers told me it was indian music..

one of those lovely experiences where you can hear the sound sometimes, when the wind is in the right direction...

passed on towards the edge of the park, other side from the station, the light fading as i reached the passage under muswell hill road, then the disused to highgate...

by now i'd started singing, an imaginary gig where i'm singing with the audience at the top of the gig...

"you know you are you know you are you know" - quick, in 3's...

triggering a slower part "you know the way you are"


went past that fantastic view over london... (the journey back's dark view of it at the top, the journey there's evening view, wednesday's view with dad here , last sunday's with emma below, and old friend J's drawing from 2008 at the bottom)

cycled on the highgate, out of the parkland and then along to the entrance to highgate woods... almost cycled in but i could see they would be closing the gates @ 8 & i guess it was 7:55 or so...

so i locked up my little bike on the road and went into the woods... singing as i went, the song growing all the time...

sat on a log and smoked half of the little fella i'd brought with me...

walking on i was videoing my face, while walking - singing the song wherever it was then and i came accross two park ranger types, R & D, who told me they were locking up... i told them i'd be ok and that if i needed to i could jump over the fence... R told me to be careful...

i walked on, now in a part of the woods i hadn't been in before... with the light failing more and more... a fence, across my path, a sign announcing a conservation area... finding a way around...

now off all paths... starting to slightly worry about the darkness and tripping over... i found my way back to a path and stuck to it...

getting to a gate just as R was locking it... i asked to be let out and it was onto an odd path that goes by the side of the woods, i walked along singing my song and just as i reached the corner of the woods and walked around to where my bicycle was locked up i could see R, or her shadow between the wooden bars of the fence...

she was locking the gate just as i was unlocking my bike...

back along the disused, stopping at the amazing view to take the night time panorama that is at the top of this post...

met one more random person @ ally pally - where i took loads more potential panoramas, chatted about games, both of us keen to see portal 2 when it arrives... i smoked the other half as we talked...

then back onto the path and out of the park, over the railway @ alexandra palace station and home through woodgreen...

the song now much more complete - a chorus that i'm pleased with x

march improv walking

this from thursday morning...

today though was a killer day, the day that the moon is closest to us... i took a walk... once this video was rendering... did the 2 part... got told i looked like a movie star in jai... then up to the big green... standard circuit...

found myself saying to an almost complete stranger: "look after that leg" as she left the shop...

lovely S in there asked me about my living stuff - landlord - and of course it brought it all to mind, put the afternoon in perspective, this area that i love, coming home to this flat that i love, that balthazara loves...

and it does make me sad... seeking advice on monday...

x

fugees

just a brief one... i was working with refugees today, and i recorded a sudanese man, we made a very bare bones track called supermarket... bare bones on my end at least... how nice it is to record original music that sounds so wonderful from such an original source...

that's all... listening to last sunday's jarvis which is characteristically marvellous x

slightly further afield

funny old thing, living... i get that big shock last week and it rules my life for a week... then this week, even though the news is still the same, i'm much more relaxed and i'm back to thinking about the novel again, (not that that stopped last week),

as E tells me, i do need to to give my housing situation a lot of thought, but i will think about it in my own time... & today has been lovely...

oh & thanks felinity, it has been grim and will be grim again... but for now i'm ok...

i got up slowly, in the way that i do only on day offs in the week...

gradually working out to how to do what E wants me to do with her computer... then around 1:30 i look @ the time and i'm out of the house, doing the 2 part... just making it into jai before 2 for part 2 - the dall... then up to the big green bookshop and i order this years proust (novel writing cannot interrupt the slow moving proust)... and all three of them are in... even lovely S whose day off it is... and who has moved out of london... shockingly...

i agree to lend them my amp for their comedy night on friday, and then me & S walk up the road to alexandra palace station where he embarks further north, and i decide to cross the railway tracks and cycle through ally pally's park on the way home... not a journey i've ever really done, not like this anyway...

i met a man, watching the birds on the reservoir there - much interesting talk which may effect the novel (doesn't everything) about the ring main and the gulls... then cycling down on the edge of the park back to turnpike lane (the road) and home...

the sun shining underneath some forbidding clouds...

lovely...

x

peace

well... a kind of peace... at least peace as compared to last week...

last week was a bit mad, and it was all because my landlord is putting the rent up by 30% - £350/month more...

mixed me right up it did...

anyway - i'm staying here at least until may, one month into the new rent - assuming that happens and is legal... (i'm seeking citizen's advise)...

the novel is still going, part of it may have to be told in the form of a childrens television program that the kids in the novel are watching... i've been writing the theme tune all weekend...

and i've been reading old blog posts from years back - 2004... found a lovely one from just after me & P began (P who is reading the 1st few bits of the novel now) partly about having a smooth ride on my shopping trolly in waitrose...

and the sun is shining x

E's been here & she's coming back later... x

rising sketch - Dsi Tetra tune

 Rising Sketch Tetr4 by longcat

being a tune i threw together today... pleasant enough... i was listening to david arnold last night on jarvis cocker's show, talking about john barry... not that this thing is anywhere near that kind of stuff but it has a rousing element to it that i like x

marking jarvis

listening to yesterday's sunday service... with a very intelligent piece about the monkees...

foolish - as i'm also marking...

which of course means i'm also playing minesweeper...

@ which i have been going through a period of not being that good... my average of 24% which i sometimes get up to 25% had slipped down to 23% this morning... something i have now rectified...

i think i have been genuinely less clever over the last few weeks... an unfortunate mixture of causes... combining the end of my winter cold (or - just a continuation of my winter cold), the marking itself, which doesn't always make me more stupid, but mixed in with my peculiar behaviour with my heart these last 2 weeks (me & E broke up - floating about each other since then & could easily get back together... but haven't yet)...

however today i not only completed my tax return in record time...

i do feel a return to an older longcat - slightly more able... not that me & E are there yet - in either direction... not that i have so far managed to complete my marking - & lord knows that's something i'm looking forward to...

possibly me & E are wrapped up with the marking... once i've got through that i can really think straight about her... maybe...

this morning she went to work & i felt like the tax return would be easy - the momentum would carry me through the marking - i'd have it done by the time episodes comes on BBC2 tonight... not the likeliest outcome right now - but not absolutely out of the question...

around 1pm i was reading the new scientist whilst walking back from the cafe... i got in, sat on the sofa still in my coat... found reading a little difficult and realised i needed to sleep... so i got into bed... slept until about 3pm... woke with the sunlight and the blue sky in the thin gap of the curtains... balthazara there -

& it felt almost like i was owed this lovely waking moment from yesterday... when i was really hung over & sleep was sought after... E rang me about midday & it was still too early - it woke me up but i wanted more sleep - wanted to wake up more normally -

so - very nice to have that today - might mess with my sleep tonight, & i've got earlyless & lateness tomorrow...

anyway - more marking - less rambling x

stanfield

3rd season of fringe... and i'm enjoying it so far (just seen the 1st 3)...

of course i'm only watching it because i'm marking at the moment... procrastination is the thief of time to quote spski... he whose tax return i'm helping him with on friday... josiah's tax return is also on my list although she's yet to get back to me... so maybe she'll be dealing with it without me...

... maybe not...

then there's my tax return...

but that is not what i am posting about this evening...

nor am i posting about the slightly difficult time i'm having with my heart...

no... i am posting about the wire - and fringe...

in fact i 1st came to fringe because lance reddick - the hard police boss in the wire (his title changes throughout the seasons, but he's always hard) is playing the hard fringe division boss in fringe... and the one in the wire who let his gun go off accidentally and became a teacher... he showed up as a one off character in fringe, maybe i read about it in the guardian?

so we already know about the link... but now bubbles (junky/police informer in the wire) is a taxi driver in the alternative universe of fringe... who is bound to come back because he's bubbles... & olivia has lost her mind, thinking she's the alternate olivia in the alternate universe... & bubbles is almost guaranteed to turn up helping her remember her real life...

but also... in episode 3 there is a great character (alternate universe) who is on super mind expanding drugs & he is able to kill people by carefully putting ball point pens places, causing a sequence of events that lead to someone dying...

anyway - his name is milo stanfield...

which is almost the same name as the name marlo stanfield, the name of the mob boss in the 2nd season of the wire...

now - the wire is so much better than fringe... & fringe is helped by it's links to the wire, for me... it's still good, fringe, mostly, it does make me miss the wire all over again though...

which reminds me... did i ever get to the end of the sopranos... this time around...? yes - i think i did... also very good... in fact i was i was trying to find a link from fringe to the sopranos, the lead woman - olivia - in fringe - i was thinking that she was meadows insane college roommate in the sopranos - although that memory is getting weaker - and is it really true that that character killed herself? am i thinking of a different program? like heroes perhaps? maybe it's the cheerleaders insane college roommate...

oh - but marking - yes... marking... x

started writing a novel

if i know you, (if you're in my life), and you're interested in hearing the story, please let me know and i'll tell it to you,

i'm not yet up for emailing it to anyone, it's just being told verbally right now...

probably over a tea,

x

PS - i've started another blog, keeping track of who i've told, changes and stuff...

x

3 tweets

all on november 25th... 2 of mine...

you see i have just noticed that i was mentioned by polly cupcake on this day & she said:

"i couldn't agree more" (tweet)

but was she agreeing with my tweet about gorecki - or my tweet about misfits?

how can i know?

x

aaaah the times of the tweets gave it away, she was talking about gorecki x

february 2011 in phones

august 2009... + 18 months...

equals january/february 2011 does it not?

and if that is true then in february my 18 month contract with this phone will be over and i can get hold of something else...

my htc hero has been pissing my off of late - basically since the much talked about android 2.1 update, it's not been right... it's been good at all the other smartphone things it does but on occasion it becomes unable (and seemingly unwilling) to behave like a telephone... which is it's basic function afterall...

orange uk currently don't have a huge amount of choice in the android phone department, but these next few months will be interesting...

since i got my mac i have started to consider an iphone... although id prefer (at this point) to keep it in the android family if i can...

A desire HD would be nice... i wonder if orange will get hold of them and if i'd have to pay for it? hmmm

idly dreaming x

ode to portal... & the arguments for & against going backwards

spent the day alternating between playing the piano & lusting after portal 2 in a few different ways....

for example... for the last few hours i've been completely caught in this flash version of portal... E got in a little while ago & i was desperately stuck @ level 37 (of 40)...

& then before that i was devouring all the youtube portal 2 stuff...

from this to this... to this... it just looks amazing...

but i will need a more powerful computer... it's possible it will run on steam for the mac... and therefore on my lovely G5... which would be odd because i originally wanted to keep that computer just for the music... something i'm failing to do already...

& the G5... hmmmmmmm...

which is now running OS 10.5 so well... i'm considering going back to 10.4...

you see i got hold of something back then, something i wanted, and on trying to install it my mac told me i needed 10.5...

so i managed eventually to go up to 10.5... by which time i'd deleted (by accident) the desirable thing... a few weeks later and lovely D gave the desirable thing to me again (i'd given it to him on 1st getting hold of it) and i duly sat down and installed it... but after everything... it just refused to work... and a little bit of research (which i wish i'd done back then) told me that it wasn't only that i need 10.5... it was that i needed an intel mac... which i don't have...

so i looked at another - older version of the desirable thing... & it turns out that version will only run on 10.4...

also today i tried to do something which it seemed to me the only way i could actually do it would be to reinstall 10.5 - and therefore i may as well go back to 10.4...

and the piano playing?

alternating between a new composition & "we've only just begun" which i learnt for a student on monday and which i'm really enjoying singing...

x

improvisations

this one i did yesterday... mixing a drone i made in the TX modular synth with my rhodes...



last week it was the frohmage plugin from ohmforce that pleased me so much... with the rhodes...



and then a month ago, a week after the 1st i did (this time around)... rhodes & voice...



and while i'm in a youtube place... this rhythm tree i made as a reference for my students:



x

girlfriend

i have met and am now going out with a young lady whose name bares a striking resemblance to certain other young women in my romantic past...

i am also struggling with tryin to put mac OS 10.5 on my new mac PPC... something i've been struggling with for what seems like eternity but is probably more like a week...

me & her have been together for just under 3 weeks now... i have met her mother...

she is beautiful, with long dark hair,

she came round to buy my trombone, and didn't leave for about 5 days...

october improvisation

so today... after a weekend of setting up my new G5 computer (a mac)...

& indeed spending time with someone new... who shall remain nameless for now... but who is playing her trombone right now (used to be mine - then it was monty's - now it's hers)...

i got the m-audio sound card thing talking to logic in the G5... put the karma mics up under the knight piano...

and hey presto - a 9 minute improvisation -

enjoy x