I just watched Neil Gaiman playing tambourine and singing backup vocals.

I remember drilling for oil on the moon.

It was a summer play scheme, back in the 70s sometime. It was held at Madeley Court, which was both the local sports centre and a rubbish secondary school. When the high point of a school is that they have access to a dry ski slope, you know that their standards are low. (I am aware that some of my ski-ing friends will disagree). Madeley Court was also the source of the worst bruise that I've ever received that wasn't inflicted by the NHS and related to that, a slight fear of mixed hockey. But that was a couple of years later.

There were a lot of different activities going on at the play-scheme, and I've no idea how or why I chose the one I did; the memory I have starts when I walked into a room. A large, low table was set in a clear space, and an even larger lump of clay on it. I remember that the clay was brown, and smelt very different to dirt; a cleaner, almost clinical smell. Not quite the taste of a petit madeleine, but still easy to bring to mind after all these years. I must have been 8, I think; nearly 9 as it was the summer. The lump of clay was huge; I remember it being larger than I could reach around with both arms, and we were gathered around it by one of the two adults leading this activity.

What's this? she said.

I'm certain that after the requisite delay that occurs when you pose a question to a group of kids who don't know each other and haven't worked out the pecking order yet, and aren't certain that volunteering an answer will result in a duffing up later, someone said 'Clay'.

She smiled.

No, that's what it is. What is it?

And she was laughing, but she was one of those people who knew how to laugh so that you got the joke, rather than thinking that you're being laughed at. I remember her being an adult, i.e. old, and dressed strangely; now I'm certain that she was in her late teens or early twenties, and dressed in that hippy / bohemian style that I really find quite attractive. Who needs psycho-analysis when you have LiveJournal?

But I digress. Eventually, one kid piped up;

It looks like the moon.

And she laughed out loud, and said Yes! That's it! It's the moon! What does the moon look like?

It has craters? one child suggested.

This doesn't have craters, does it? Then she pointed at three of us. Why don't you make some craters on the moon?

It really didn't take a lot more encouragement for three young children to get dirty, so they jumped forward and started digging holes in the clay with their bare hands.

What else does the moon have? she asked.

Rockets!  said one boy, with great enthusiasm, and she pointed at the spoil heaps that were appearing next to the crater-excavators. Show me, she said.

And that was the rest of the afternoon.

We took the clay and we told stories with it - bases were built and occupied by every nation we'd ever heard of, whether they had a space programme or not. Flags were raised and rockets erected. She kept asking us questions, and we answered, and everything we said, we built. I noticed that rockets needed fuel so started building oil rigs and wells and piles of oil drums, heedless of any envionmental consequences - but this was 1977 and I was eight; I'm not sure the environment had made it to Telford by then.

We ended the afternoon covered in splats of clay, with the world our storytelling had built in front of us.

My niece, who is 10, emailed me yesterday, and as part of the conversation said that she preferred English to Crafts at school. She didn't like "making things", she said, but she really liked writing. I can't blame her. In secondry school, I detested Woodwork;  I think my parents still have the fish statue that we all had to carve somewhere. My sisters (my niece's mum) is lithe and graceful - you can imagine it dropping off of its stand and into the water, darting away. Mine is ugly and solid; the sort of fish that we'll only eat when all the pretty ones have become extinct. So I do understand my niece; I hated not being able to transfer what was in my head into solid form. The things I made were never as sleek or graceful as how I could describe them. Never as alive. I never managed it.

Well, except once. The time I built oil wells on the moon.

Hi all,

as I've mentioned to some of you, myself and some friends are putting on a cabaret night at Madame JoJo's in Soho on Monday 10th November.

It's £10 for the show, which covers cabaret from 9pm - 11.30 and music before and afterwards until 2am.

I know it's a Monday evening, but it would be lovely to see you there if possible.

There are more details on our website at http://www.irrepressible-events.com/ including a link to Paypal if you want to buy tickets.

Cheers

John (who is neither Flay nor DeVille.)

I rarely get tagged in LJ MeMes - I'm not sure why; perhaps it's a sign that I need to write more. Anyway, just as I was thinking "Here's another meme that I won't get tagged in", both boglin and hekai tag me. I think that means I get to change two questions ....

1. What is essential for your happiness?

Time to myself and the company of friends. Something to read. That's about it, though music makes the world sweeter.

2 What clothes are you wearing at the moment?

Hawkshead boots (green), greenish gray cargo pants, a very old band teeshirt from when I was a student in Manchester, a blue jumper. What was the rule about blue and green not being worn?

3. What games did you recently finish?

Mind the Gap. An Unknown Armies / Neverwhere / Guy Ritchie crossover. Subtitled 'Geezers, Shooters, Monsters' it ran for 4 sessions and was okay, but like most of my more experimental games, needs some serious work before I run it again.

4. What is your favourite scent?

Coffee. I have a very bad nasal memory (if that makes sense?) and not a great sense of smell either.

5. What is your favourite recent memory?

On the train up to Shropshire last weekend, with mist in the fields. The train tilted as it was going round a corner, and something weird happened to the landscape to the port side. There was this moment where it felt like the train was perfectly level, but the land was just dropping away from it. It was like looking over a cliff. A magical moment, and one I'm not doing any justice to with this description. I laughed out loud with joy on the train.

6. What books are you reading at the moment?

Eric Meyer's More CSS. Cobra Trap by Peter O'Donnell (The last ever Modesty Blaise book and one of the few I've not read before.)

7. What do you drink the most?

Almost certainly black coffee, but less than I used to.

8. Do you trust easily?

Yes. And I'm trying to do so even more. People repay trust with trust, in my experience.

9. Who was your first big crush?

Probably a girl called Nicola Maiden at school; she was very cool and very very pretty.

10. What did you want to be when you grew up?

A monk - specifically a Franciscan. Then a librarian. Which I am, sorta ....

11. Do you have a good body-image?

Mostly, though it's taken a long while. I could still do with putting on about half a stone, I reckon, and I really need to work on my grip and upper body strength for climbing, but they're not things I beat myself up about. Generally, I'm happy with how I look.

12. What are you looking forward to at the moment?

My first training course of the year on Tuesday. A set of lectures that myself and a colleague are giving over this term - we've not done anything like this before. A friend coming to stay at the end of October. Planet Angel in November because I get to party instead of work. Going to Ireland next year with my Dad.

13. What websites do you visit daily?

LJ, Facebook, Planet Angel, Boing, UCL's pages and a few others

14. Random pet peeve?

I'm doing better at not letting the small stuff bug me, but people who meander on the Underground, especially if they haven't got their ticket out and ready for the barrier as they approach it are still pretty good at getting through my shield of zen-like calm.

15. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?

boglin was someone I knew of through photos of her at Whitby long before I got to know her in person. She's lovely. I respect that she holds certain beliefs very strongly, but doesn't exude that oily superiority that some people do when they're standing on the moral highground. She looks great in a pink stetson too.

hekai - I only really got to know Pete when writing for the final NWO game, and it's fair to say that we butted heads on a lot of points about that game. I'll hold my hand up and say that it wasn't one of my finest moments. But Pete is a warm and friendly person, very intelligent, and very passionate about things. And once the game was running, I realised that I really liked and respected him, once I'd taken the Quaesitor stick out of my arse. We shared a beer at the end, and realised that when we said to each other "we'll have to agree to differ" we actually meant it; it wasn't just shorthand for "I can't be bothered arguing with you any more".

16. What's the last song that got stuck in your head?

I tend not to get songs stuck in my head, because more often than not I have music playing in the background, so that fills that gap.

17. What's your favourite item of clothing?

Either my Jed Phoenix tailcoat or a big grey snuggly wooly jumper, depending on how I'm feeling.

18. What do you like to give and what do you like to receive?

I like training people, which is giving advice, I guess. I get a real buzz out of getting someone to understand something that they don't, but really want to. I like receiving cuddles and hugs. I have very easy to satisfy tastes.

19. What's the book you've read most times?

Lord of the Rings; specifically the Scouring of the Shire chapter. I re-read that chapter a lot, even if I don't read the rest of the book.

20. Is there anything you want so bad right now?

Nothing that I can't easily satisfy.

21. What should you be doing right now?

Having a shower. Going to see ingenue_the and harold_chasen. Phoning my mum.

Whoops.

22. Whats the meaning behind your LJ username/name/nicknames you go by?

It's my initials. I've never really felt the need for a more complex nom du clef.

So - who to tag? Surely everyone who's likely to respond already has? Maybe that's why no-one ever tags me ....

I know! I'll tag liz_lowlife, liz_lowlife, liz_lowlife, liz_lowlife, liz_lowlife,liz_lowlife, liz_lowlife and liz_lowlife!

Whilst writing course materials, I had cause to visit the website of the College of Arms; that body within England, Wales and Northern Ireland responsible for registering and recording coats of arms and pedigrees. I was wryly amused to find George Martin's coat of arms; I think it requires a better knowledge of the British music industry than I have to get all the jokes and references he's managed to put in it.

But I believe I'm right in thinking that 'Amore Solum Opus Est' roughly translates as 'All you need is Love'?

The image is huge, so I won't link to it - you can see it by going to the above link.

Further to this cheery little post I received a chirpy answerphone message from some woman from nPower's Complaints department saying "We've checked our records and nothing is wrong, so we've closed your complaint".

Which is lovely, and I'm glad that she's so happy, but when my complaint is that their records are at fault, using them as the method of determining whether or not my complaint is valid or not, and therefore whether it needs to be actioned or not is a little stupid, no?

It will surprise no-one that I have been on hold for 20 minutes without talking to a human being yet. But it's okay, because "my call is important to us".

Do they not realise that the longer I'm on hold, the more shit they're going to get? Surely someone in the call centre business has worked out that simple equation?

I would consider going to the watchdogs about this, but frankly, they're EnergyWatch whose website is at http://www.energywatch.org.uk/

Anyone following that link will see why I'm not holding out great hopes for them to be my best advocate.
( Read more... )

It seems like a while since I've written about Planet Angel; the downside of working at the club, I guess. The trials and tribulations of putting on a good night tend to disappear as the party unfolds, and I tend not to want to dwell on any minor niggles anyway, because generally, I'm talking to people who've been there, and who've had a good time. And that, at the end of the day, is what matters.

But September's party was a blinder.

From a personal point of view, there were a load of people there that I have a great deal of time for, and while it wasn't everyone's cup of tea, it was really lovely to see them there. There were celebrations and re-unions, and lots and lots of smiles.

The music was what really did it for me, though. We've switched the rooms around, so the trance is now getting played in a lighter, more friendly room, and the breaks and beats are going on in the larger but darker, more introspective room. And it's worked marvels. It's really changed the vibe in both rooms in well received ways.  And the DJ lineup in the trance room was one DJ short of my ideal lineup. During my breaks through the night, I kept finding myself back in the trance room, dancing instead of resting and conserving my energy to carry on working through the night. But last Friday my inner shaman was close to the surface, and kept pushing down into my feet, and I'd find myself standing on the stairs watching the dancefloor and then starting to move a little, and then, 5 or 10 minutes later, remembering that I had work to do and moving on with a grin on my face and rhythym in my step.

It helped that I'd dressed up - my red velvet frock coat, a tricorn hat and big goth boots - a cyber pirate in honour of International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Infest reminded me that I like dressing up to go out; another downside of working at a club is that it's easy to dress practically and comfortably. Friday proved that I can dress up and still do my job well. And the frock coat makes me swagger,  as it's designed to, really.

Good friends, good music, good clothes. How could I not have a great time?

For those of you that were there; thank you for being part of what is being generally agreed is one of the best parties we've put on in a long while. For those I got to meet and talk to later in the weekend, I hope you had a great time; I certainly did.

The next PA I'm working, but I'm hoping to be partying at the November one. I hope I'll see some of you there.

Incidentally; photos are now up on the PA website - some familiar faces there ....

But please don't click on it if you're scared of spiders.

http://www.onemotion.com/flash/spider/

I've been asked this several times, and thought it would be a good idea to post a step by step guide to how to record something your speakers are playing (like, say, a radio programme or the soundtrack to TV that's being streamed) and saving it as an MP3.

These instructions are for Windows XP - I may well create instructions for the Mac when I've got time (cos I have one). If you've got instructions for Linux or Vista, I'd be pleased to add them and credit you.

So, here we go; not the only way of doing this, but the cheapest I know of:

1. Download and install the most up to date stable release of Audacity.

2. Download the LAME MP3 Encoder, extract it and put the lame_enc.dll file in your Audacity program folder: (C:\Program Files\Audacity)

3. Open Audacity, go to Edit: Preferences.

3a. Under Audio I/O change the recording device to your sound card. I don't know what your soundcard is, so you might just have to try all the options there. It won't be the one that says 'Microphone' :-) Also change the channels to 2 for stereo sound. Click Okay.

3b. At the top-right of the Audacity window, there's a dropdown which probably says 'Rear Input'. Change that to 'Stereo Mix'.

4. Click on the big red record button then start your iPlayer / Listen Again / Whatever you're trying to record.

5. When it's done, click on the stop menu and go to File: Export as MP3. The very first time you do this Audacity will ask you where the lame_enc.dll file is. See 2, above.

Hope this helps. If it doesn't work on your set-up, post a comment. I don't promise to do desktop support for you, but I might know the answer.

Edit: maleghast suggests AudioHijackPro for the Mac. It wins on the ease factor but loses on the 'cheap' - it's currently $32.

""It is not just for a student's grade to depend on the willingness or capacity of a stranger to help him with his homework. I am ready to discuss this with your teacher, principal or school board."

Robert Heinlein's Form Letter.

Many people don't know that there was a pilot for "24" - the series with Keifer Sutherland - made in 1994.

This web site has unearthed a snippet from it, and put it online.

Work safe, and really, really worth checking out.

Apple announced the upgrade of several of their iPods yesterday. Unfortunately, they also withdrew the iPod I wanted. It's still available on Ebay, but I won't be able to get the back engraved like I could with Apple.
Still; you rolls the dice, you takes your chance.
What's interesting is the iTunes Genius feature announced, and now available through iTunes 8.0. Allow iTunes to send details of your iTunes library to Apple anonymously, and you can switch on the Genius function.

Once that's done, pick a song in your library, click on the Genius button, and iTunes will suggest a 25 song playlist based on that song, all from your library. (It will also open a side pane saying "here's lots of related songs available in the iTunes store that you don't have", but render unto Caesar etc.)

So far, it's pretty good. I can see why most of the songs are on the playlist I chose, starting with "Central Reservation" by Beth Orton:

Central Reservation (Original Version) Beth Orton
Hit --Sugarcubes
Number 1-- Goldfrapp
Fear --Sarah McLachlan
Take My Hand --Dido
Not A Pretty Girl --Ani Di Franco
Cuts You Up --Peter Murphy
A New England --Billy Bragg
Movin' On Up --Primal Scream
Talk About The Passion --R.E.M.
One --Cowboy Junkies
Home --Sheryl Crow
Stay (Faraway, So Close!) --U2
Sweetest Decline --Beth Orton
Long Legs --The Magic Numbers
Winter-- Tori Amos
Love And Anger-- Kate Bush
Caramel --Suzanne Vega
London Rain (Nothing Heals Me Like You Do) --Heather Nova
Missing --Everything But The Girl
You're Not The Only One I Know --The Sundays
Fly Me Away --Goldfrapp
Electrolite-- R.E.M.
Wise Up --Aimee Mann
Last Goodbye --Jeff Buckley

Now, that's a perfectly acceptable playlist for the afternoon. I hope that the same facility transfers to my old 30Gb iPod.

So, the world probably isn't ending today.

But if it is, my claim to fame is that Eddy, a good friend of mine from Planet Angel and the person responsible for webcasting the party, is the official live Webcaster of the Apocalypse.

I think that deserves a mention. Or at the very least, a teeshirt.

I got put on to Cyanide and Happiness by a friend, and thought that several of you would appreciate this particular comic:

http://www.explosm.net/comics/1392/

A couple of caveats; while this comic is perfectly worksafe, there are several on there which are wrong, wrong, wrong on so many levels. So generally, the site is Non-PC and NSFW.

But funny, in the same way In Bruges is funny.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/myth/index.htm

The Health and Safety Executive dispell some of their favourite "We can't do that because of Health and Safety" myths.

Does anyone fancy going to see Mozart's Requiem at St. Martin in the Fields on November 8th? It's their Rememberance Day performance.

Tickets from £25.

http://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/jserv/concerts/view.jsp?id=2417&command=concert

I'll probably be booking a ticket in the next week or so; I'd be happy if anyone wished to join me.

45 years ago today, and still a dream worth pursuing.

"I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed."

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

The TFL website is, to my mind, a thing of no small usefulness (mystery trips from Tottenham Court Road to Ilford via Stanstead Airport notwithstanding) and so even if I am sure of my route or destination, I will often ask its journey planner for a suggestion. Destinations can be entered by postcode, address, tube station or 'place of interest'.

I am pleased to find out this evening that Foyles Bookshop counts as a place of interest.

Perhaps there's hope in these sub-literate times after all.

I've just returned from a festival called Infest; 3 days of EBM (Goth dance music) in Bradford over the bank holiday weekend. I was there last year and the music was very varied; this year it really wasn't.

Now, don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the festival. I was with friends, met some interesting new people, had several lovely conversations and danced a lot.

But when the music stopped at 2am I went back to my room and played trance, breakbeats and very up music, just to rinse my brain out.

Firstly, EBM / Industrial (or at least the bands at Infest) is very angry music. The lead singers were generally growling or shouting their lyrics at the audience. And for some reason, a lot of the music is created by German artists, and they, unsurprisingly, sing in German. Which I don't speak. So, to be honest, even if the lyrics were all about bringing joy to all mankind, all I could really pick up on was that the singers generally looked and sounded like they wanted to pick a fight with everyone on the dancefloor.

Secondly, Goths wear black. I know; I'm an observational genius. But when you're lighting a dancefloor at a trance club, where people are wearing bright fluorescent colours, your audience radiate your light back into the room. The room becomes brighter the more people you have dancing. And that means you can see each others faces, and you can see when people smile. And you smile back. Dancing in a bright and colourful room with music that soars and thrums down your spine is exaultory.

When the room gets darker, the lights go down, dancing becomes more introspective. You can loose yourself to the beat, and ignore the rest of the world as the bass echoes in the pit of your stomach and your feet move of their own accord.

Goths wear black. They make the dancefloor darker.

That's not to say that dancing in a darkened room isn't fun; it is. But it's a solitary rather than a communal activity. And for me, I like the community on a trance dance floor.

Friends drove me home, and as we had a coffee I played them a couple of Orbital tracks that they hadn't heard, including their final single; "One Perfect Sunrise."

There's a fantastic feeling when you come out of a club into sunshine. The sky is bright blue, the air clean, the city empty. The edges of the buildings are sharp against the sky. Your muscles ache with the efforts of the long night, but it's a good ache. And you and your friends quietly reminisce as you start your journey home.

I used to try to explain that feeling to people. Now I just play them 'One Perfect Sunrise'. It captures that moment and drags me back to the many beautiful morning walks home I've had. I can listen to that track and be raised up high, no matter how down I feel.

And I've yet to find an EBM / Industrial track that does the same.

So next year? I'll go to Infest again; my friends are there. And I'll listen to the bands, and dance.

But in my heart I'll be hoping to hear a track that exaults, not grinds me down. I want to hear joyful music.

Here's hoping.

But I've just visited a website, and this is probably in my top 10 'saddest things on the internet' for now.

This site was created in June 2003
and last updated

24 June 2003

You are visitor number 1

http://www.angelfire.com/film/saragriffiths/ if you'd like to get that number into double figures before 2010. Completely work safe.

Does anyone have any recommendations for DVD authoring software? Win XP based for preference.

I'd like to be able to put in a couple of levels of menus at least.

Free would be good, cheap would be acceptable. :-) 

I spoke to one of Npower's customer service advisors today, and after taking all the details of what was wrong, including 3 account numbers, 2 meter serial numbers and 2 meter readings, she had the grace to say "Do you mind if I put you on hold for 2 minutes while I just get my head around how complicated this all is?"

Bless.

http://www.wefeelfine.org/

The explanation of it is one of the TED talks, here.

By the way, if you haven't seen the TED site, do. It justifies the Internet on its own.

When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.
Now you are like morning bread,
Smooth and pleasant.
I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,
But I am completely nourished.

Amy Lowell

Tilt Shifting :-)

Nowhere near as rude as it seems ...

Have a look at this photo



Click on it to look at it in close up.

Nice model?

( Surprise Surprise! )

...pation.

I hate the wait.

I hate that couple of hours when you're all packed, but it's too early to leave. Where there's no point in doing anything substantial, because your mind is on the road, but you can't get going yet because it will only mean you end up sitting in a railway station for a couple of hours while the rest of the world catches up with you.

So what to do? I'm not going to unpack and pack again with OCD precision. If something is forgotten now, it stays forgotten; it's rare that someone else in the party won't have what you need, or for there not to be a shop on site.

I'm not going to stare at the clock; not going to re-sort my sock drawer.

I'm going to finish this post, and then I'm going to catch you on the flip side.

Just seen episode 1.

I reckon the BBC owe me 57 minutes of my life back.

but bad for your dignity.

There's an article on LifeHacker which talks about a 6-week fitness regieme which should allow you to get to doing 100 consecutive push-ups. Reading further, a NYT article suggest that a 40 year old man in reasonable condition should be able to do 27 consecutive push ups.

I'm currently resisting the urge to try. It's lucky there's no one else in the office at the moment.

But this one is Mind The Gap related:

A while back now I wrote a story about the 12 days of Christmas. This morning, someone pointed me at http://wordle.net where you can create a cloud for all the words in a piece of writing, or on a blog.

This is the combination of the two sentences above.



Click through for a larger version.

Three years since the tube bombings.

The year after the attack, I wrote quite a long piece. Two years after? I seemed to forget, but looking at my pattern of writing last year, I wasn't using LiveJournal very much at all. This year? I only remembered because of someone else posting.

Time flies.

When it comes to web-comics, at least.

http://www.kiwisbybeat.com/minus1.html

Minus is a beautifully drawn, often surreal comic; the artist has taken the idea that if they were drawing for a broadsheet newspaper at the turn of the 20th C. (a newspaper that could print in colour, and who wouldn't mind giving up a whole page to a well drawn comic) - this is what they would turn out.

There's some gorgeous strips in there - some of which will be gracing the walls of my flat once I can decide which o