30°C once more.

Very busy day, the Y9 video project was very successful, they worked hard despite the heat. Windows Movie maker is more useful with the win sp2 service pack in place.

Cycle home was good today. Average 18.4 mph which is something above the 16mph average for both ways. Doubly curious because it’s thursday. Normally not my best day of the week.

Arvo Pärt concert tonight at Lichfield arts festival. Should be good, nice and cool in the cathederal too.

Kings of leon, Carling Academy, about 2 hours ago

A fairly short set, 1¼ hours; the songs themselves seemed short; the sound quality- poor (as always). The place was a river of crowd surfers, often more than 3 at once getting passed to the front. We got a good view after the start of the set as the girl on the balcony passed out as soon as they started to play. Funny how that happens.
I don’t often go to live rock gigs, and though this was one of the better ones- as far as I could tell, the PA got in the way on that one, that still doesn’t encourage me to go more often. There is a gulf between be & the music, the PA I blame. They don’t seem to have improved in quality over the last 20 years or so. A time span in which my enthusiasm for live-amplified music has never been high. The best live performances I have ever seen have been acoustic sets. This was not.

It wasn’t a bad night out by any means, it’s just a great missed opportunity on their part. The sushi before was excellent as was the coffee at Borders.

But this morning:
Clouds thick/dark/and hormonal=Heavy thinder, 22°C.

On the Ride to work, I have to approach a long hill (more like a ridge) which seemed to attract lots of lightning strikes. This made me nervous "I don’t wanna die"!!
At the top, sheltered in a metal bus-stop while I counted the lightning strikes. The rain was heavy enough to make a bow-wave in the road in front of vehicles. I got back on once the storm was more than a few miles away. the the rain had beaten the storm drains. It was jetting straight up from them – up to knee height in fountains. My feet submerged with each pedal stroke with a sploosh sound. You can’t coast through puddles more than 50 yards long, you’s stop before getting to the other puddle-shore.

always:think of the best notes when walking the dogs, let’s see how much I can remember.

Music:Today, Marilyn Manson and Arab Strap. I have a sneaking curiosity about M. Manson- it’s like revisiting the root, a return to start. It makes me think of the music listened to in the past, Penderecki, and Diamanda Galas. Both have qualities hinted at in MM, the male vocals, the mix, the choir stuff. Wait I can sense some Tricky there too. Follow my links if you have any interest in Manson. There you can listen to the real thing. I suppose manson must have some real poigniancy for listeneres of the goth/thrash rock genre. Perhaps they even feel that it’s somehow radical. I can understand that given the right frame. But do follow my suggestions!

NEXT:Paint
How frustrating, can’t say muchb about the hush-hush project, it’s made considerable strides today. On the third layer, the paints getting richer and in parts, opaque. Looking forward to linseed which hasn’t touched it yet. Colours are starting to happen, just moving away from teh children’s book ilustration look. I love it when you can start putting in wrong colours, especially in shadow areas – just to make the right colours more so.

Have you looked at those Russian painters web sites I posted yesterday? Go on…

Look what appeared in the post today, Ah-ha Shake Heartbreak by The Kings of Leon in clear 10 1/2" vinyl. This was an experimental purchase to see how efficient mail order LPs are. It came well packaged and reasonably quick, the clear vinyl looks great but I don’t like it really because the sound quality is not as good as black.

It’s a shame in a way, I wanted nice heavy black vinyl, this disc has more crackle than it should, even though the record player does really need a service ( which makes it worse). The 2nd disc is far clearer in this respect. It’s so nice to hear solid vivid sound from an album that I’d only heard on CD before.

I bought it from Diverse Vinyl of Newport, Wales. See in my links list.

Oh by the way, the Auchentoshan is a little pale looking because theres a splash of water added, normally the colour is a more amber. I suspect it tastes better that way.

Must remember to buy a new canvas tomorrow