Last day at home with the kids today, finishing off homework and stuff before they go back to school tomorrow.
Washing uniform, cleaning shoes.

My turn to cook with S and A - they chose rock cakes which always work well.
Very simple - something I'm tempted to run with in chiurch on Sunday when it's my turn to cook.
Again.

We all had a great walk this afternoon too, rediscovering local. Hopped down off the Horseshoe Bridge onto the river bank and walked a while along the shore. Bit dirty, bit smelly and too much rubbish, but weird to look back at the house from this perspective.
A great place for small boys to hang out and explore stuff.

Caught up with Ris on the phone this evening and it's really good to hear that everything is picking up. He's had a long afternoon with SM and they have now got a much stronger and mutually respectful relationship.
Or so it would seem.
I have yet to trust him entirely, given that he seems to know so little (and has so little material!!) about his charge that he was amazed how many book covers there are, and 'totally stunned' by the timeline I have put together. Surely as manager of a major established act you should KNOW this stuff??
Anyway, we're all now being asked to send in five choices for inclusion in the "secret" gig that is now being planned for October.
Great idea.
Mine have to include "I Want To Be a machine", "Burning car" "In A Silent Way", "The Garden" and "Camera".
Easy, but what are the chances.
Seems there is muchness to look forward to again this year, but the ICA performance has been 'postponed'...

And SM has read my Sideways review, relating his excited discovery of it to Ris and saying how 'brilliant'; it is. That's a result too - my name is slowly filtering in to the conscience.

Over the weekend, I have had at last a chance to play some music.
Tonight, it's TGs "2nd Annual report"
Otherwise, this week's recommended listening is

Corinne Lucy - Small Way of Life

great voice, clever songs, sexxxy lady

The Rubicks - In Miniature
John foxx and Louis Gordon - Sideways
Louis Gordon - Tell Your Mum i Saved Your Life
Tom Waits - Bounced Checks

I'm re-reading Lord of the Rings (at last!!) for the first time since I saw the films. My 20 year old paperback edition has finally collapsed and today I dumped Book 1 into the recycling.
New edition for my birthday please…

Such a great, great book.
I'm going ot work on an atlas of it one day.

But it reminds me so much of the walk we did last week, in Anderwood.
The Fellowship have just come down from Mirrormere, post Moria, and emerging from the Dimrill Dale on their way into Lorien:

Further into the forest, the path became more solid, paved with white stones. Strider lead on purposefully now, deep in conversation with Frodo at his side, telling marvellous Elven tales of the Galadhrim…

(actually its just me and Elsi. Nice pic tho!)

Away from this path, the ground was covered in golden leaves.
And skwidgy mud. Stan lost his boot!
Moments of Pleasure :-)

First time together for absolutely ages.
F and A went out with the brownies (and Guuides) on their 'Snowball Walk' meeting over 200 others at one of the large churches on the Avenue for lunch and games etc, which meant Tx and I had an opportunity to take the younger ones to the pool.
She has never seen St swimming since he started lessons in September and it was great to see how much he has come on and how his confidence in the water is blooming.
Amazingly, LC too had a fun time, mainly floating around the pool on a noodle. Nora hated almost every minute of it, but they have all felt the same on their first visit.
We reckon that in fact LC has only been three times in her life - once a year. That's ridiculous that is!! Last time I don't remember whne but she was very clingy and didn't enjoy herself at all. not surprising I suppose if we don't go very often.
Noticeable though how much fun we ALL had, and I haven't seen Tx so relaxed and vibrant for ages. Seems weird, but our experience of having five children with us most of the time means that only having three is a breeze - though it is something many people with less would probably find quite daunting!

We exhausted the kids, and with the older two having walked five miles, a quiet afternoon was called for so it was literally that. Jigsaws are the flavour of the week at the moment, and St is reading, reading, reading. He is like a sponge for books at the moment,a nd we can't give him enough. He doesn't like Dick King-Smith but has discovered the magic of Roald Dahl and was laughing aloud at The Twits earlier on. We tease him about trying to read some Jacqueline Wilson given that we have several copies of every title (!!!) but he is adamant that these are 'girls' books.
Who says boys don't read. Try and stop him. I think he felt Charlie and The Chocolate Factory was a bit 'long', but he'll be reading that in a month or three.
Wecan't keep his reading Record Book filled as he seems to finish something every couple of days and will easily read an hour during the day and before he goes to sleep. He's not six.

Like Alice. She's on Jonah too now after I suggested it to her last night.
Apparently, the smaller books at the end of the OT are much easier to read than the big ones at the front (don't we all know that) but she's very much more a New Testament fan and loves all the stories about Jesus, especially his teaching at the temple and of course, the nativity which she seems to read over and over.
Just about getting the idea of the four Gospels actually giving different versions of the same story, which she finds a fascinating concept.
Luke, apparently, is the 'best'.
Not bad for an eight year old!

Two blog entries in half an hour?
That's not very clever 'management of visitors' is it?

Shows how little it matters really - but thanks for being there.
Just seeing that number of hits slowly creeping up every week is inspiring.

And with this biography, I need some inspiration right now.
yep, that's 'biog' with an eye. Nothing to do with blogging.

I've recently copied the whole thing into Word (bleeeeurggghhh...) and even added a file suffix .doc (bloody PCs!!) in order that I can send bits and pieces to more people. The whole pdf thing was just causing so many problems.
Anyway, that gave me a chance to do a word count, and I'm at 53,000!!

Trouble is, not much of that is actually the body of the work.
I started researching two years ago, and have built the whole thing up around a definitve 'timeline' that is revisited several or more times a week. This framework basically covers all the facts both within his life and significant external events to put them into (genarally musical) historical context.
Over the last eight months or so I have been padding this out with 'soundbites' from the many hundreds of interviews I have been reading, or more honestly transcribing. This has lead me off the beaten track and taken up a zillion units of time, but has been useful, informative and generally very interesting. It's certainly something no one else has done before.
Then I discovered and acquired some OCR software that meant i could generate text files of the media interviews (which are all photocopies) from scans of the same.
This has helped me supply the webmaster with reams of stuff for his archive - but sadly none of it has appeared on line yet.
Which is mind-buggeringly frustrating

The problem with this though is that I then don't get to actually read the article properly and don't pick up the odd quirky little bit of gold.
So its the usual story - doing it manually means doing it properly.

It's probably now been a year since I started to try putting all these bits and pieces together with passages of my own linking narrative.
And therein lies the problem.
It's really hard to do that as I have virtually no experience of actually writing like this at all.
It has proved fatal to cut and paste things and try paraphrasing because obviously the style is all out of kilter and quite obviously different from one passage to the next. That has actually slowed me down and I know now not to do that but to write my own stuff from scratch using the notes and quotes as reference rather than building material.
I have got to the beginning of 1982 (only 25 years to go!!!) which means I'm more or less ten years into the story.

Challenging work though, and I'm loving every minute of it.
But of course, like my own life, its not a 'path' and various threads meander in and out over the course of time.
Does one write chronologically, or follow a thread to the present and then return. It is indeed, like weaving smoke.

Dislocated
Records of my actions
Are random observations
Not explanations

Spent an hour and a half in the company of the Church Warden and his wife this evening, getting all the background on the role etc and their place in the scheme of things.
It is the right thing for me to do, and he feels that to be able to focus on the move to the neighbouring church is better than trying to remain in post here.
I agree with that, and feel so inspired by their confidence in me.
We have agreed that I will stand for the post in April at the AGM, and that I will talk to Mr Vicar about this decision at the weekend when he comes back from holiday. I can't foresee any problem.

This step forward represents quite a Big Deal for me, because I don't feel particularly inspired by the church thing as it is at present. So often, the services on a Sunday give me nothing, and the cell has rather lost its way this year. We have been studying Christian Aid's "Act Justly" programme and its been enlightening and worthwhile in any ways, but has rather taken away the more 'spiritual' side of things and replaced it with something altogether more political.
I have been disappointed by the lack of encouragement and guidance within the church for a long time. Almost since my confirmation four years ago the nurturing has been non-existant and I have found myself yes in a beautiful garden etc etc, but with no path to follow, no direction and few signposts other than those I have brought to my own attention.
It is of course a very personal journey with God, but without much to go on I have rather wandered and drifted about.
Stood still perhaps for too long.
So I feel from a personal point of view this role will give me new focus and new purpose. From the departing Warden's point of view it is a welcome offer of support and stepping stone for his move. And from the Church's point of view I have a lot to offer and feel very confident on the PCC and around the building in general. I am however very immature and naive as a Christian, with little theological knowledge and no confidence in prayer, for instance, but it seems these are secondary requirements.
Its something I want to develop though, a few more pastoral responsibilities.

I like the idea of responsibilities.

Already answerable in many ways to Christ, but I need to feel more His presence looking over my shoulder.

Arranged last week that tonight would be spent in the Crown catching up with Mirfee for the first time since he started whatever new job he has just started.
But apart from a text about 4pm suggesting that everyting was "so far so good for tonight" I have heard nothing and so can only assume he is late back from London.
Mind you, wouldn't be the first time this has happened. More than once I have sat like this and then had a text from the pub saying "I'm at the bar, what are you having..."
So we shall see.

In the meantime, feeling very tired. First day in the office since Thursday and I'm wondering if that's enough to make a difference. First Job review today, with Jo was nerve-wracking but went well. I so need some training at this kind of thing. She ranted. There's a lot of issues to face.

And then he rings. He is still at work, but its Whiteley, not Fareham. Every intention of going to the pub and suggests we meet there at 9.30. Its now 8.41.
I have no idea how that's going to work.
What about going home, to eat. Wife/ kids? not my problem I suppose and he seemed put out that I might suggest we forget it if its a hassle.

Meanwhile, it's Lent.
We have a bracelet, a hand mixer and two books in the box.
It doesn't feel much like a journey of hardship and self-denial. More of reflection and, hopefully, some spritual maturity.
To that effect, I've just read the book of Jonah. NIV Study version is SO helpful, because I do get more understanding from the text if I can set it in some historical context. (Like the Phoenician Trade Routes between Israel and Spain, which meant he could catch a ship heading west to 'run away from the Lord.'
And the historical/narrative/literary notes fascinate me too.
Historical fact, embellished with narrative biography.

Jonah's prayer (from inside the fish) interested me most (Ch.2)

In my distress I called to the Lord,
and he answered me (2:2)

Those who cling to worthless idols
forfeit the grace that could be theirs (2:8)

Interesting conclusion to the story as well, when the Lord is questionning JOhnah's right to be angry.
The key to this message lies in the Lord's sending of the vine and the worm, and Jonah's reaction to them. He's a bit of a miserable so-and-so really.

It was announced on Sunday during the notices that the wife of one of our Church Wardens has accepted a placement at a church a mile or so away (over the river…) for six months as part of her training for ordination.
We weren't sure how this would affect the rest of her family, but I have just received an email asking for people to "fill in" gaps on the service rota that starts after Easter given that the whole family will be away.
This means, I deduce, that there will be a vacancy for Church Warden at the AGM in April and the opportunity has come to me rather sooner than I was expecting.
I feel its a bit like getting married, or having kids. You can't wait until you are ready because you never will be and it isn't up to you to decide anyway.
I have been thinking that I would like to stand for the post when MM stood down, but it looked as if that might be a couple of years away yet, which suits me fine either way. There are implications that concern Tx about the busy nature of my life already and whether or not the stress impact of the position might be overwhelming, but I see it differently. To me, it represents an opportunity to really get thngs into clearer focus and a means to putting a lot more things into perspective and allowing them to run along a parallel track more efficiently.
I've not felt that he was doing a particularly great job anyway and would prefer to see a higher profile, but he is strong in his faith and a good example of Christian sincerity and purpose.
This all coincides with my having to stand down from the PCC in April anyway as I have come to the end of my three year tenure. Seems rather frustrating when The Building is moving on and we have so many exciting plans - maybe He feels now that I have a role to play in the greater scheme of things after all. There is a vacancy for Treasurer that I can't fill because of time commitments (and being already behind with the accounts at work!) but as warden I would still be on the PCC.

So I need to start more earnest preparations, and what better time than Lent for this?
We will be repeating the "Give Away a Thing a Day" project that we started last year, and I fully intend to focus once more on the cleansing process that I started in, what, September? It's gone well and still holds, but could always do with renewed strength and purpose.
We are all going to engage in more conscientious Bible study this year too.
Last two year's I have given up coffee and tea for Lent, but that all seems very trivial now.

Let him hear, who has ears to listen

Yummy. The smaller, thicker pancakes this year were delicious.
Easier to cook, easier to keep warm and generally much less of a faff all round.
Added a couple of tablespoons of icing sugar to the batter mix which went down well. They are all stuffed and in bed.

Work tomorrow.
I must prepare a long overdue job review for Jo.

This afternoon it's raining, so we're doing 'hama' beads.

http://www.hama.dk/

Strange craft thing that they all seem to enjoy. S makes flags, A gets upset if she can't follow a picture exactly, F always makes people and designs clothes. LC is into circles and concentric rings. great to see her especially so absorbed into something.
Been out to the garden centre (lol) this morning.
Bought and fitted a new water butt.
Stayed for a cup of coffee.
And flapjacks

Chose a Rombouts(??) which I enjoyed (Javan) but it made me think.
I never realised before (as I don't indulge very often) what a terrible waste of plastic these things are??
Isn't there some way of making acoffee 'bag' like a teabag, instead of throwing away the whole top bit and the lid.
It's irresponsible and completely outrageous!
How many millions of these are 'consumed' daily??

Had another high horse rant yesterday actually when Volvo sent us there new marketing package in the junk mail.
"Because we care about the environment, all our promotional literature is printed on paper made from sustainable forests" etc...

You care so much about the environment that you send out millions of junk mail leaflets? And produce a new range of cars every year??
Do we need more new cars?

Sustainable forests?
What's that all about?
Acres of featureless conifer plantations where previously natural woodland existed. Where no birds or wildlife live.
Hmmm.

And printing on 'recyclable' paper?
Why not use 'recycled' paper??

It's too expensive.
Oh I see. But you care so much about the environment...

I get so annoyed that something so fundamental is now reduced to being a marketing gimmick.
When will products in supermarkets have labels on to say that they have been unfairly traded or they are produced in an environment that uses pesticides

Painting now.
I love mess

shoesFirst of two days at home, for half term.
Most welcome, and again turning my thoughts towards the objective (three of four years from now) when I will be only going into the office three times a week.
Simple enough day, and though I enjoy work immensely it seems to have made such a difference not going in, and knowing that I'm here tomorrow as well.
Weekly grocery run this morning and then some quiet time at home doing odds and ends of jobs (I don't clean shoes and cut firewood nearly enough!) until Trx took F, A and S out to the cinema to see Charlott'es Web. For S, his first experience of the Big Screen, and he was suitably in awe! Not surprising we don't go much as the afternoon's entertainment set us back over £30!! They enjoyed the film (though A commented that it wasn't as good asxthe book and so-and-so "didn't really seem like that" etc...) and got back in perfect time for me to serve up dinner around six.
Spent a great couple of hours alone with LC while N slept - something else I don't get nearly enough time to do. She's such a bundle of silliness, I love her to bits. We played 'barbies' for ages, and I fixed the lift in the house (which makes SUCH a horrible noise, put lightbulbs in things that flash, arrnaged furniture and put-on and took-off-again SO many clothes. read afew stories and then she played with her lego while I built up a fire, got the meal ready and… aaaagh, checked the office emails.

HOW MANY TIMES do I have to remind everyone that the ship is called the 'QE2(number two) and not QE 11 or II.
It's quite ridiculous. The later denomination ALWAYS refers to monarchs, not ships, as P&) and Cunard have both pointed out more than once!
We can't send out media packs and make presentations to London based media agencies with that kind of ignorance going on....

Anyway, babbling on. Like I said, a very low-key, modest and ordinary day - but all the better for that.

Also had a good session last night catching up with the Timeline, having sorted all the bookcovers and worked through adding in significant punk dates from this month's Mojo diary. First Clash and Damned albums etc, and Nwer Mind the Bollocks in 77 - all happening alongside Ultravox!, but in some kind of parallel universe. This contextual stuff is very important and makes the whole biog. so much more interesting.
Found a great website too, describing itself as the Encyclopedia of Britsh neo-Romanticism which makes fascinating reading.
Foxx fits in there too and has a major entry alongside Eno.
he's also very big in the whole development of the Goth culture which I will try and develop as well. Perhaps. One day.
Priority now, having transcribed the lyrics to Sideways this weekend is to work on 1982 and try to complete the linking narrative between the release of The Garden and the first version of Endlessly.
Email today from JWB is very exciting. Seems he welcomed the introductory message I sent him some weeks ago but has been busy moving house and ortganising events relating the recent funeral of an aunt. Intends to respond "more fully in a couple of weeks", and has hinted that he might give an interview if he cannot find the link I am looking for. It will be fascinating to get his take on the first album…

I recently opened a thread at a couple of forums with the philosophical gambit:

"The mechanism of contemporary society seems intent, by whatever means, on encouraging us, in every way, to be other than we are."
I ranted about this earlier in my posting about infertility.
But it covers our appearance, our tastes, our finance, our relationships with each other etc. Self-evasion generally.
Not surprsingly, few people have responded so far :-(

Seems a long time since we had a walk in the New Forest, so Biscuit's suggestion that we go this afternoon was very welcome.
Inspiring weather too - almost warm, and beautifully bright and clear.
Went to Anderwood, another 'random' car park just picked off the map this morning, a couple of miles east of Burley.
No desperately exciting, being largely a bridalway through one of the bigger inclosures, but it opens out to beech woodland at one point and is quietly impressive. The silence was inspiring - even with nine of us in one group the kids still managed to appreciate being able to hear nothing but the robins, treecreepers and occasional crow.
Some excellent mud they enjoyed skwijing around in too - and chilly enough when we got home to get the fire blazing.

B has been down here for a week, and I think leaving to go back to college tomorrow will be difficult.
She's very excited to have received an offer at the Uni. I think 320 points (ABB or AAC) is still very high, but she is confident that she will make the grades and already planning her timetable and accommodation down here in October. She's got a good atitude to it which impresses me most - the grades are high enough to make her determined to reach them. She will too I don't doubt.
So much easier when she's here on her own, although the drfiting between here and her boyfriend's Hall has been frustrating. We never seem to quite know whether she's here for dinner, or sleeping here, whether he's coming as well or quite what is going on. I thik Trx is beginning to feel the pressure of that, and showing signs of jealousy at her presence when arrangements are all being made around 'what she wants'. I think she has a point, so roll on Sunday afternoon.

Biscuit is all set to do a degree in Philosophy in September.
Very exciting.
I must say I am very impressed with the attitude of the Southampton Department who insist on interviewing candidates for places on this course rather than relying on academic results.
It's such a difficult discipline to study int he normal, modular way and its good to see a different approach both to qualification and study methods.

She's on her way down her right now to saty in halls for a week. Hope the journey goes well and she makes it safely.
So bizarre to see her behind the wheel...

Anyway, she reads lots of deep and meaningful, provocative literature and it made me think.
We all have a philosophy, don't we? So it stands to reasons there will be models, groups and patterns of thinking.

I believe we live in a society that encourages us, in every aspect of our lives and by whatever means possible, to be other than we are. Self-evasion, is a term I could define to summarise what I mean.
Here's an example, from a newspaper headline.

"50% of children born to IVF are likely to suffer infertility"
Research suggests etc, etc...

Doesn't that tell us something?
Suggests a few things to me at least. Ignoring for now the use of the word 'suffering' to describe reaction to an infertile condition. There's an issue there in itself.
There is, I suspect and speaking very generally, usually a medical or emotional reason that prevents the conception, gestation and birth of children.
Can we not be encouraged to just accept that and live with it?
It seems that in the present climate, there is a growing implication that infertility is no longer an 'excuse', and you can have children if you want by seeking medical intervention that costs millions of pounds that you can borrow. Infertile couples are coming under more and more pressure to 'deal with' the problem, and doubtless as a result made to feel almost inadequate if they do not pursue a course of, somethng like, IVF.
And now it is becoming evident that the children carry a similar 'risk' of being infertile themselves.
Is this really something we should be passing on to our children?
Are we being inherently selfish?

I accept and understand that it is the right of everyone of us to have children. That's not the issue.
My point, I think, is that sometimes for whatever reason, it is destined that some of us cannot, and I'm wondering whether it is morally, ethically, physiologically and psychology wrong of 'society' to determine that this makes us inadequate in some way and encourage action to be taken to challenge it.
Some people are more or less intelligent than others, richer or poorer than others, physical more or less able than others, even simply 'better looking' than others.
The list is endless of course, and that's what makes us unique and individual.
And therein lies the heart of the problem as I first said.
Don't be different, there's no need to be different and being different is a very 'bad' thing.
Why be different, when you could taken action a, action b or action z to be like everyone else? And if you did, just thing how much happier you would be?

Who said being a 'have not' makes you a 'loser'??

Rant ing is great, isn't it?

Sometimes I feel my (blog) is turning away
From the (blog) I thought it would be…

I can never understand why so many people get in such a state about snow?
The media circus that materialised last week when "the heaviest snow falls" for ten years came to central and southern England. It seemed to be all off about 4 or 5 inches at most, and the 'affected' parts of the country came to a standstill.
Quite ridiculous.
Why do 'they' use such negative terms to describe it, and even cold itself is presented as such an Inherently Bad Thing.
No wonder then really that Mr Ordinary don't see the problem with global warming. It will be very, very difficult to re-purpose the mindset of several generations of people in the west who think (quite logically) that being warm in winter is a Good Thing. Seems natural enough that people should enjoy and appreciate being warmer, so how will they ever be convinced that it is causing serious problems and face the issue.
When at the same time, on the same news that reports on how bad Global Warming is and what can do about it, they rant on about how terrible snow is.

Hmmm....

SIDEWAYS
John Foxx and Louis Gordon
META13CD

First I should shamefully admit the lateness of my coming to this album, the fifth offering from the partnership between Foxx and Gordon. Initially released only a matter of weeks after its predecessor, the disappointing "From Trash", Sideways has been described as a collection of out-takes and extras from the Trash sessions, which is not a recommendation that filled me with an urgnecy to get a copy. It also includes a couple of extended versions of tracks featured on that album, though sadly not the best ones. Being longer doesn’t improve either Impossible or A Room As Big As A City a great deal. It’s a little irksome that they are rather stuck on the end of here as ‘bonus’ tracks because, at least to my knowledge, they are not available anywhere else…?

But with the clear rose-coloured hue of hindsight (and having let the glittering dust on 2006) I'd like to audaciously suggest that From Trash was a decoy, a model, programmed to distract our attention from the Secret Experiment that Foxx and Gordon were secretly working on behind the closed doors of the MetaMedia Studios.

Listening to the Music No-one Else Makes I smile my relief aloud and, drifting back, find myself at Olympia in 1967. It’s Christmas on Earth, and Gordon and Foxx have abandoned the burned out car they have been driving for too long, burst in through the psychedelic walls of hippydom and plugged in the synths buried under the heaps of kaftans and three-button suits along the crumbling walls. Armed with a Sound Collector, the agents have successfully gathered the echoes of the era and transduced them through the Aural Hedge that has grown up between the 14 Hour Festival and the Third Millennium. Backwards. Sideways, at least.
Foxx has proved throughout his career time and again that his best work is that which is furthest from the mainstream. Sideways is so far away from that its practically off the scale. A soundtrack for a strange low-budget B-Movie set in xmal Deutschland somewhere, a place where you can see the polystyrene rocks moving as the Scary Monsters lumber past, their Rayguns held together by sticky-backed plastic and tape loops. Behind the safety of the bulletproof glass and away from the glare attracted by their smokescreen the agents have re-discovered their purpose. On pounding, rhythmic and cleverly vocalised tracks like X-ray Vision and In A Silent Way in particular, they revels in the chance to explore and play around with a whole nervestorm of ideas, some of which (CarCrash Flashback, and Sailing on Sunshine at least) germinated in an Earlier Man about 20 years ago.
Or is that from twenty years hence?
Time means nothing. It merely re-arranges our memory.
If Bowie and the Beatles were asked to produce a ‘make’ for Blue Peter I like to think it would inevitably sound something like this.
Foxx has risen, it seems, from the very edge of self-destruction, and fulfilled a prophecy. His closing statement is a work of sublime genius. Phone Tap wouldn’t be out of place on his landmark solo album Tiny Colour Movies, it’s such an evocative (and indescribably weird) piece of music that sounds like something from Quatermass. Where Biosphere meets BladeRunner. As ghostly torchbeams scan across the grey landscape, the Thing from Out Of Space[sic] emerges to a drone of deafening bass notes, punctuated by the analogue squeaks, squeals and squelches that have become trademark Foxx over the years.
Seems like the End of the Beginning will be an electronic happening after all.
What’s that pink smoke coming from the speakers?

9 out of 10. Breathtaking.
For my money, this is the album Foxx and Gordon have been working towards for years.
Overshadowed and overlooked. Just as The Quiet Man would like it.

Standout tracks:
X-Ray Vision
CarCrash Flashback
In A Silent Way (Foxx & Gordon’s coup-de-grace?)
Neuro Video
Phone tap

©Birdsong 2007. Terms and Conditions apply.
If symptoms persist, consult your doctor.

…nicer when they leave.

Just waved Kink and Biscuit off after an exhaustive three-day visit. First time we've had both of them here together for ages and to tell the truth its been exhausting.
Their constant bickering hasn't improved, and it really grates on the nerves after even a day of it.
Lots to catch up on despite our weekly chats, and the main purpose of the visit this time focussed around Biscuit's interview today for her place on the Philosophy course at Southampton.
Not sure that she was very impressed with how it went, but I have no doubt it will be fine and she will at least get an offer of a place within a week.
Seems a very interesting course too, and I know she'll love it.
Booked similar Visits to Reading and Brighton over the next couple of months.
K has effectively moved out of home to live in her boyfriend's new flat, but I'm a little sceptical about his commitment. Perhaps I'm just playing the cautious father card, but I am struggling to see the problem with his getting a job? Apparently now she is (more or less) living there he has even stopped signing on ('he forgot a couple of times'???) and lives entirely off benefits while trying to make a go of the event/gig promotion business. I think that's a great idea and they do it well enough it seems (at least ten more since the one I watched) but it isn't making any money yet and won't for a while.
But you can't tell people.
Her words, not mine: 'when you say it like that it makes me think I am stuck with a real loser'.
Far from true I'm sure, but I have doubts.
But on the other hand, the opportunity living with him represents is very exciting and important for her and she is clearly loving her new-found 'adultness'. We talked about shopping, the price of curtains and where she can get bits of furniture from, which is all quite surreal.
Her living independently is long overdue and will, I hope at last, add to the general happiness she seems to exude these days.

That said, I am apprehensive about the arrival of their brother at the house a few weeks ago. Fourteen years old, has lived with his dad since he was just three or so when HC decided that his mum was unfir to look after him and paternal custody was awarded. So many problems and court cases and convictions and sections since then, it has all been quiet for years and I know that a couple of years ago she was granted some supervised access. That's improved a lot recently, and now, all of a sudden, H has made an independent decision to leave his dad's home in (??Derby??) and go to live with his mum and the girls.
She's obviously delighted, but I can't help seeing problems ahead. Will his dad try to use this somehow to undermine her right to see him again. Is it all OK. K and B seem happy to that he is with them, but K is under pressure now to make the move for real and actually move in with her boyfriend.
I can't see a problem with this either. Apparently her residency there will stop him getting the housing benefit that pays the rent.
So pay the rent yourself?
How come this is such an issue. if he had even a crappy part-time job it would help towards it, and at only about £350 a month anyway it can't be beyond her means?
But you can't tell people. See above.

The car is an issue too now of course now that they can both drive.
But then D has just picked up a little Toyota for as little as £89 a month.
I think the whole car finance thing is a pile of shit and you always ending paying far more than you need. Who REALLY pays for deals like this??
I do think in their situation this kind of arrangement could be just what they need. But you can't tell people

The first two 'new' albums for 2007 came through the letterbox this morning, although the EP from The National Parks probably deserves that honour.
It's not an album though, see?

Ris has kept his word and finally returned my copy of TCM from its trip to Oxford, along with a copy of "Sideways" and Louis' second solo album "Tell Your Mum I Saved Your Life".
At least he said it was a 'copy' of Sideways, but the silly man has sent me an original! He really shouldn't be sending me these without payment, but what am I to say?
Busy tonight with cell etc so I've only played the first five tracks through once.
It has more immediate appeal than "From Trash" and 'X-Ray Vision' in particular really stands out. Distinctly psychedelic-electronica with a lot of Beatlesque vocal treatments and harmonies, but i need to give it a few more goes before making judgement and writing my review.
Busy tonight ploughing through the difficult middle third of the Hidden Man CD1.

To relieve the monotony, I've been revising the 'cover art' list in response to a suggestion by Ris that the man's illustrative work has never been classified! WHAT???
So far between us we have turned up about 30 titles and now I've just about found images for all except two and ISBNs for all of them. Difficult to get the right edition though - some have come out in a million ways. As far as I can see, only Rushdie's "The Moor's Last Sigh" bears the same cover art in every edition so far. Even the audio cassette version is the same

It's been a while since Friday, but speaking to her on the phone again this morning has thrown everything back into the fire.
And now, with Ian in, we are listening to Radio 2 in the office.
I hang up after 20 minutes pacing the room and he plays Lindsey Buckingham's "Trouble".
Funny old world

We established that the last time we actually met was 1990.
26 years ago.

My head hurts and I feel sick.

Cans, worms.
This world atlas has upset so many things…