One more red nightmare

Posted on 6th Dec 2007 by essiep

15°C, grey & rainy periods.

Reassuring that visits deep into the past record collection aren’t revealing embarassing immature tastes. I say that because listening to Red by King Crimson today brought back the same hair-raising thrill that it did back in the mid 1980s, (Note- it was released in 1974). It’s down to Robert Fripp that there are harmonies and key changes that are orchestrated like "classical" music. I recall listening out for similar qualities in Mahler, or Schönberg. There is a jazzy feel in those harmonic instruments- clarinet, Sax and violin which can be heard amongst the thundering great bass guitar passages. they tap out oriental rhythms, cascades that echo the main themes and generally provide dynamic contrasts.
This album belongs in a trio with "Lark’s Tongues" and "Starless…"

Bioshock

Posted on 5th Dec 2007 by essiep

13°C, warm, wet & windy. C20miles

We live on an island in the Atlantic; it’s December and we’re swept by storms- oh well.

Bioshock: I’ve gone back to STALKER for a another run through, Bioshock keeps crashing at one point in the first level and there is not yet any sign of a patch.

Perhaps tomorrow I can post pictures of the shiney things that came in the post today. They are so very shiney, you’d not believe.

Flat earth

Posted on 3rd Dec 2007 by essiep

6-8°C, dry & clear. Hang on, no! It’s raining now.

Sunrise: I got the timing right on the way in today, the sun rose over my left shoulder, it lit up the clouds from below, and appeared over the horizon inthe next few minutes. I pondered it right there and then, during the ride along the dual-carriageway. Looking at that sunrise, the earth is clearly not flat. If it was, there could be no underlight clouds, there would bea shadow cast from the earth upwards just before the sun appeared. Imagine shining a light from slightly under a table, at an angle of 89° to the normal, it can’t light the chould layer from below. How come anyone in all of history thought the planet was flat. Not only that, but the Earth’s shadow on the moon curves too. A visit to the seaside watching ships sailaway is the final nail in that coffin, the ancients had the same accesss to these experiences as I , so there is no excuse for the idea ever being aired.

iPoddling

Posted on 1st Dec 2007 by essiep

8°C, clear; stiff W winds.

Forecasts are terrible for this weekend, cycling tomorrow looks less likely than usual. If I’m housebound then I’ll just have to fiddle with that iPod.
There are a few things I don’t understand about it-

iTunes makes me re-register it with Apple every time I plug it in to the computer.
iTunes shop hold hardly any music that I’d like to buy- often the searches just return tribute bands and compilation albums.
Some album cover pictures don’t upload to the gadget, others do.
there are 3 built-in games, how do I uninstall them?
Why would anybody want to watch a film on a screen the size of a camera monitor screen?

I’ve rediscovered King Crimson. It’s been years since I played any and my LP collection is pretty complete. They were a bit pretentious and flamboyant in the early albums, a reputation that they never shook off, but their later releases are far more interesting. Try "Larks tongues in aspic", " Starless and Bible black" or "Red". All use some superb bass and drum musicianship.

And the bear’s name is…

Posted on 29th Nov 2007 by essiep

6°C, clear.

"A British teacher has been found guilty in Sudan of insulting religion after she allowed her primary school class to name a teddy bear Muhammad." –BBC
It strikes me that that government could do with a law that prohibits any act of making Islam look ridiculous. That would have stopped this story. You just can’t defend a religion by acting like spoof characters from a Monty Python film- you just end up looking more foolish than ever.

Here is a funny page

"Speaking as a father I do not feel this was a well thought out plan by the teacher. However, I feel that she has done nothing wrong. The children themselves should be punished for having chosen the name of our great Prophet for a lowly bear. The teacher was misguided, whereas the children were malicious. They must be brought to answer for their blasphemy."
Abdullah Al-Zawawi, Sudan

Most commentators are saying that is was an "innocent mistake", No it wasn’t! It is not a mistake to say something that doesn’t matter, it’s trivial and frviolous, this teacher hasn’t done anything wrong! The mistake was made elsewhere, the mistake of taking offense at something that is inoffensive.

Y-generation

Posted on 27th Nov 2007 by essiep

9°C, grey, still.

Inset: Staff training session included an exercise in answering the question ” what are the main differences between contemporary teenagers and those of the 1980s & 90s? Primarily, it was an exercise in generating ideas collectively and with relatively little input from the leading teacher. This list contains some of the thoughts we agreed on;

Modern teenagers:

No politics, no idealism
they don’t exercise,
they are contained, driven everywhere, kept indoors; are “cocooned”
They are computer literate
They are measured constantly; SATS, targets, exams, body weight, health tests, ‘friends’ and ‘likes’ and so on
They are well fed
they are wealthy
they are afraid of risk
they are afraid of “getting things wrong”
they are image conscious
they are argumentative
they are shameless consumers
they are physically unhealthy
they are not ethical consumers

Muhammad

Posted on 26th Nov 2007 by essiep

9°C, dull all over. Sunset about ½ way through the afternoon.

Brain police: BBC story: my question is- why didn’t the thought police arrest the children? "Twenty out of the 23 children chose Muhammad as their favourite name." for teddy-bear…after voting.
Does it remind you of the Stoning scene in "Life of Brian"? Actually, the teddy-bear started all of this, so I hope IT gets the stoning!
Here’s another one, this time in the UK- Science A-level. What a bigoted world we live in!

Nine Kestrels

Posted on 25th Nov 2007 by essiep

8°C, cloudy, light NE winds. C=60.5 miles

nine in one ride, remarkable. The winter bike is handling perfectly, it’s not been that good for years! But I am anxious about a ripple in the paint on the top-tube. It could be a symptom of a crack underneath.

The National Memorial Arboretum in Alrewas is very good. The main wall is about the same proportions as Stonehenge, but there is a slit just left of South in two walls that line up with the sun on guess which hour of which day? A slightly sad note i has been posted on the doors, apologosing about the number of memorial trees that have died due to last summer’s flooding. I can’t help thinking – what do you expect? You build your site on the flood-plane of a major British river, the land is really marshy, and much of it is below river-level. More trees will be killed next time it floods, hardly a rare occurance.

NB the iPod is working really well. I’d like to find out how to remove the built-in games, they swallow up about 400MB out of the 4Gb this model has. Those and the operating system I suppose. Now- how do I uninstall those games?

Is it really?

Posted on 24th Nov 2007 by essiep

3°C, grey & rain threatening

Woke up not really believing it is actually my birthday; the confusion is- it isn’t raining.

I have more iPods now than I did yesterday, the previous figure stood at none. saturday is definitely the best day to have a birthday, last year I was finishing off writing reports after getting home from work.

Add on a nice book and things to eat, including some cheeses that I have never heard of before).

It has rained.

Snowman

Posted on 19th Nov 2007 by essiep

7°C, Snow, slushy though.

Thaw: it seemed to melt as fast as it fell, but still someone near here built an amazingly good snowman.Good enough to take a picture of.

Micycle

Mike thinks b/hikes

Author Archives: essiep