Feb 28, 2010 | Books, Dance!
OK; so where was I?
As happens every so often, time has no time to spare and before you know it two weeks have gone by and no blogging.
In my last entry I talked about the visit of Snark Rapper to Edinburgh: last Saturday Mons Meg went off to enjoy one of our intermittent trips to the East End of Glasgow. This was the third time we’ve done this particular tour and easily the best of the Glasgow tours which we have done in terms of enjoyment and “buzz” I think. We had almost a full team, we had a melodeon as our main instrument (louder in pubs) and we are a better dancing side able to give a better “performance”.
It was also a first for me because, due to some tired ankles, I opted out of dancing leaving Andy to dance number one for the first time while I donned the top hat and gladrags and Tommied (effectively MC-ing for the evening). We found a couple of pubs in which we hadn’t danced before – and in which we were very well received – and generally just had a great time.
It was interesting being part of the tour and not actually dancing. For one thing the perspiration levels were lower! More seriously, although my preference is always to dance, it was good to play a different role and to know that the team has the flexibility to restructure and dance well as needs must.
We did have one very lucky escape, mind you. In the Scotia Bar when Dot tumbled she inadvertently kicked the pint glass out of a bloke’s hand. The glass went straight up and shattered on the ceiling sending beer and glass tumbling down. Everyone was good about it but had the angle been slightly different that could have been very nasty. We carry insurance just in case but still…
After many years of not reading him, I finally succumbed to the lure of Terry Pratchett and read Guards! Guards! and Mort (and am currently reading Reaper Man). I have found them enjoyably entertaining, though not as laugh-at-loud funny as others report, and clearly infused with a keen literary intelligence at a deeper level (in Guards! Guards I picked up sly references to The Lord of the Rings, Beowulf and The Third Policeman all within four pages). I’m not an instant convert of the fanatical kind, but since Lindsay has many of the books in the house I shall probably work my way through them over a period of time
In the meantime, my friend Michel Ameline commented here a while ago (in a note to this post) that my thoughts arising from a reading of Hesse’s “Siddhartha” reminded him of reading Andre Gide’s Journals. I think I’m flattered but as I do not know anything by Gide am not sure! So in a second hand bookshop on the southside of Edinburgh this afternoon I saw a copy of the Journals 1889 to 1949 in good condition and it is my next serious read. Looking at it, though, I did wonder how many of the literary journals handed down would, in modern times, be written as blogs!
The pocket watches photographed at the head of this post are mine, by the way, and I’m currently trying to get them running to good time. I picked them up over the years in junk shops because I like the classic artisanal Smith’s Empire type rather than the fancier ones. Thousands of them will have been thrown out and hence – I discovered to my surprise yesterday – they are beginning to attract a collector’s market. Of the three pictured two have “pristine” movements according to the horologist who oiled them for me yesterday for less than a tenner and one needs a good clean but is otherwise fine. I don’t plan to sell them but rather, once they are in fully working condition, to use them even if only as part of my Tommy gear.
Should anyone, especially outside the UK, spot good looking cheap working pocket watches lurking in junk shops, by the way, feel free to send me them! I am more interested in what would have been working men’s watches. Similarly with fob chains and medals, especially if connected to mining or railways.
Feb 14, 2010 | Uncategorized
Snark Rapper were in town this weekend and we joined them for a tour down Leith Walk yesterday. We started out by dancing in alernative pubs (that is Mons Meg in one then Snark in the next) but for the last three we each danced in each pub.
Although there was a novelty for us in dancing in daylight hours, it was a very enjoyable afternoon and for the most part our dancing was very good although we were a bit ropey in the last bar.
After a meal in the evening we finished off the night with a final dance in the Malt and Hops around 23.30 as did Snark and I headed off around midnight, the rest of Mons Meg and Snark still being happily esconsed in the bar.
A remarkable amount of beer was drunk over the piece. In many bars in the afternoon we were on half pints anyway and I made a conscious effort to include several soft drinks to keep things well diluted in my system. It was nice to find draft Dragonhead in the Malt and Hops though – the only time I’ve had it previously was in bottled form in its native Orkney last summer.
The only downside is that a problem I’ve started to have with some swelling in the ankles (I think a side-effect of the BP medication) was aggravated somewhat and I’ve found it quite uncomfortable to walk today. Unless it settles down this is a bit of a worry as it effects not only dancing and running but also basic mobility since when ever it is practical (which is everyday in Edinburgh) I walk everywhere as a rule. So a trip to the docs. is required I think.
Today Kirstin and I went out for lunch for Valentine’s Day. It was a pleasant lunch and when we went in the music playing for the occasion was a selection of songs by the inimitable Barry White and the Love Unlimited Orchestra. Amusingly, I thought, they then had Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” on. I had two thoughts about this: first it has stood the test of time remarkably well and I may have to dig out my old vinyl copy; secondly, the album chronicles the divorces of John and Christine McVie and Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks and so is an interesting choice for Valentine’s music.
Feb 11, 2010 | Uncategorized
Those of you who use gmail or googlemail will have encountered Buzz and those of you who have found yourselves linked to my Buzz feed will recognise chunks of this blog post!. It’s very early to say but I am not sure what to make of Buzz. I don’t use Twitter (I did for a short time but didn’t see the point and discarded it pretty quickly) but I do use Facebook a lot and I have blogged since 2002. I also have a Google home page which brings in some RSS feeds and I have a Google Wave account which I would like to use a lot more but which has seen no action since before Christmas. So I can see a long term utility in something like Buzz which operates, at least in part, as a kind of agrregator for other social networking activities (and is quite reminiscent of Wave in many respects).
On the other hand, one reason why I like gmail is that it has excellent spam filters which keep the signal:noise ratio to a healthy level and Buzz has the potential to flood me with chatter. I have addressed this through labels and filtering but still I suspect a lot of junk ahead.
On yet another hand, I am concerned by Google’s underlying business model which is that they are an advertising vehicle disguised as an applications company. Their efforts to bring various applications together, while admirable, do have the happy effect for them of making the distribution channels for ads very much more efficient. One of the reasons I discarded Twitter, apart from it being an utter waste of time, was that I started to see invitations coming through at work to seminars about how to use Twitter as a marketing tool and I decided to bale out early. Similarly I blocked a Facebook “friend” whom I know socially when he began to put marketing materials through his status updates and links.
But most irritating of all is that there is no support for Buzz on my Android phone because it is too an early a version. They still manage to get it to work on an iPhone though! I’m not concerned about the application itself,just the apparent slide into Microsoft-like backward compatibility issues and that sucks big time.
Having said all that, and as I mentioned, I find Buzz quite reminiscent of Wave and it probably has equal potential, assuming that it becomes more intuitive to control and manage so that it doesn’t become a glorified spam channel.
Feb 7, 2010 | Uncategorized
Last July I mentioned that I had been in the departure lounge of Edinburgh Airport and had been struck by the futility of the exercise – taking an early flight to London to meet a couple of people and then flying all the way back home again.
I was in the departure lounge again this afternoon, this time flying dahn sarf to Sunningdale for a training course. And my mood is different – partly because I like coming to Sunningdale and partly because I am re-reading Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, a novel which I have not read for a great many years – thirty or so I think. These two things seem to me to be linked.
One of the reasons I like Sunningdale is the element of retreat, the element of having an opportunity to be alone and to think whilst in pleasant surroundings.
And, of course, me being me, I find Hesse’s tale of the man who rejects the company and teachings of the Buddha in order to find enlightenment for himself to be a good text to set the pattern of my mood.
I am going on my way – not to seek another and better doctrine, for I know there is none, but to leave all doctrines and all teachers and to reach my goal alone – or to die.
There is a feeling which I often have that some kind of epiphany is just around the corner and that it will be here shortly. It doesn’t happen, but that doesn’t stop me keeping my eye open for it lurking in the bushes somewhere.
There is a cliche aspect to this but perhaps it is no surprise that I am drawn to wild places and isolation, or to activities which encourage concentration to the exclusion of distractions in one’s surroundings. I think, perhaps, that it is also linked to why I like rapper so much – being simultaneously an insider and an outsider – an eccentric if you will.
Rapper is not about the dance, it is about the assertion of the dance, about doing something which the observer may consider odd or eccentric because it is important to celebrate the odd and the eccentric and too eschew the bland homogeneity which would otherwise pass for existence.
We live in an age where homogeneity and conformity are revered; where corporate behaviours, attitudes and ideologies run rampant as the new orthodoxy (though this is not that far from the old orthodoxy):
- why build a guitar for yourself when you can buy a perfectly good factory made one from a shop?
- why go out into pubs and sword dance when you can go and watch football on the telly instead (and was there ever a more evilly destructive invention than football on telly in pubs)?
- why think for yourself when the press will do it for you?
- why seek out the wilderness when you can get steaming on a package trip to Ibiza?
No! I reject that thinking. We need to find and celebrate self-hood and to listen to our inner voice and follow its calling. Not greed, not selfishness, but self-awareness until that time comes when, in the lovely words of Chris Wood, we just close our eyes and let go.
Feb 5, 2010 | Uncategorized
Lindsay at play
Just to keep honours even, after the previous set of prints of Amy, here’s one of Lindsay deeply engrossed in something or other.
It’s been a funny week and I’m in a funny mood. I was sorely tempted by an early retirement offer which came round the office in the past couple of days although when I worked out the numbers as best I could it didn’t look like a goer.
I think that this is the first time that I have given this kind of thing some serious thought and it is at least in part a function of my age. There are quite a few things that I would like to do more of and time has no time to spare. While I am not going to apply for this, thoughts of the future are not far from my mind these days.
I’m flying down to London on Sunday for a training course out at Sunningdale. I generally find the surroundings at Sunningdale very conducive to reflection and thought. That is a good thing.
OK; so where was I?
It was also a first for me because, due to some tired ankles, I opted out of dancing leaving Andy to dance number one for the first time while I donned the top hat and gladrags and Tommied (effectively MC-ing for the evening). We found a couple of pubs in which we hadn’t danced before – and in which we were very well received – and generally just had a great time.
In the meantime, my friend Michel Ameline commented here a while ago (in a note to this post) that my thoughts arising from a reading of Hesse’s “Siddhartha” reminded him of reading Andre Gide’s Journals. I think I’m flattered but as I do not know anything by Gide am not sure! So in a second hand bookshop on the southside of Edinburgh this afternoon I saw a copy of the Journals 1889 to 1949 in good condition and it is my next serious read. Looking at it, though, I did wonder how many of the literary journals handed down would, in modern times, be written as blogs!
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