rad lad

Yeah that's right. Feb 3rd is gonna be rad, radder than atheism, punk and truthful politicians put together. Or not.

vasodilation

Ok, first of all an apology for all the bulletins I haven't been sending out. I don't know why someone wants to bother hacking my site because there's nothing worth taking lol, so other than getting new antivirus stuff and changing passwords I have no idea what else to do. Suggestions are welcome.

My New Year was both good (Cockpit) and shite (losing £100 for no reason.) but tending more towards the shite. Hope everyone else's was better, although that won't be difficult!

We had to record a sax quartet last week and everybody's piece turned out fine. Except, of course, mine. Apparently what I wrote was "too hard", even though there were no real problems with the tempo. The phrasing was admittedly a little irregular but still, they are supposed professionals...I think it's all in the head. The fact that mine was the last to be performed at almost 9pm probably didn't help. My tutor went ape shit when he found out we would have to reschedule, which was funny as. The other good thing to come out of all that was they "really enjoyed playing what they could". Not sure if this is a backhanded compliment or not. One of the Deltas mentioned that he might pass it on to some colleagues at the London Sinfonietta. Either way I can't win with this tutor. I can either get an extension on the work and lose marks for having an unfair time advantage. Or I can give a synthetic score in and lose marks for bad production quality. Doh.

I'm also typing my CV and scouring the land for a new job. There's only so much of one place I can take at one time, and unfortunately the current place is somewhere where I'm ideally on my best behaviour for 8 or 9 hours a day whilst dealing with snotty customers. I want out.

Last but not least, it's almost bloody Valentine's Day again. I cannot fail to notice this because I'm constantly reminded of it at work. Anyone else being an anarchist for that day?

like a tired guy

who resents finishing work at 10.15pm and having to be up at 7am the day after for the next shift.

pneumothorax

Not okay, I'm not okay. I promise. Cheers. Don't be so rebarbative. A little humility goes a long way. The human equivalent of a plum. Plum features: hollow middle, susceptible to environment. You need to know something: I should see you more often. And for longer. Quality time. Sitting on the park bench holding hands. Like turtledoves. A matching pair. It all fits so neatly. The fantasy romance. Il dio, una sequenza di solitudine ma la felicita. Now what? Coruscating in the darkness. Should really get a haircut. Watch a helpless elderly man shuffle past Boots. Some chavs turn on him. Now what? Oh yeah. Ignore them, silly. Pretend nothing's happening. Your silence is the key to survival. Lethally addicted to blandness and neutrality. Passion-less music. Sex-less sex. Reconcile A with B. You can't do it. We'll say it again: genius manifests itself in eccentricity. So the point of blending in with the Ikea furniture is.....?

like a virgin

using Facebook for the very first time....

like a fat guy

leisure centre receptionist: "I'm sorry sir. All the places on our one-week Weight Watchers programme have been filled..." HAHAHAHAHAHA

like paint drying

that is how it is to work in a supermarket. If ANYONE knows of any musical jobs out there send them my way!! yarrrrr

featurereview

How did last year go? Let's find out.

[January] Niente.
[February] Snow angels were made. The set of four piano fantasias (Fantasiae) was completed.
[March] Catherine moved in. Bringing her dogs ensured I saw my cats about three times in the next month. House looked like a skip. Did a few temp jobs in an effort to massage the old bank balance, one of which included working for a diehard BNP supporter at the Highways Agency in Mitcham.
[April] Aunt calls from Canada. I get offered a free return ticket and somewhere to stay for two weeks in the heart of Toronto. At this point there is only one real answer.
[May] CANADA. Manage to get out of spending the entire break with my aunt and take the train to Orangeville (the 'sticks') where my cousin lives. Gave her kid a Donnie Darko-style halloween costume. I'm told that he doesn't wear anything else for five days. When I get back to Toronto 36 hours later, play lots of online poker in the internet cafes to avoid being dragged around shops old-lady style. Don't I seem grateful for the free holiday? Lol.
[June] Catch up time with the guys in Leeds. Moor Park Drive has been signed over to some other students and we all congegrate for a last time. Fab, Hard Rock, Drydock and Cockpit ensue. Applied for MA at Kingston and receive an unconditional place.
[July] 7th = 22nd birthday. Jesus Christ. Evening = Black Sheep with Adam and Bob. I chat up a hot indie girl and I start to think this might be a birthday worth remembering, but this is short-lived as Bob's had way too much to drink so we have no choice but to drag him home. He's so drunk that he pisses himself at West Croydon waiting for the last train.
[August] More Leeds shenanigans. Cockpit is predictably empty as all the students have gone elsewhere.
[September] Start of MA. Although every MA student has stumped up four grand for the one year course, Kingston still thinks it is acceptable to give us 99p red wine at induction. Cheapskates. Make a stern personal resolution to graduate in top 2 of class. Get a new job on the 30th.
[October] Several trips to the British Library because the first two bits of work for the year call for extended research. The Kingston library appears to have 50 CDs in all and possibly less books. Wonder what I have let myself in for.
[November] Miss Bonfire night as I'm slaving away at the supermarket. Naomi's birthday, imminent hangover at Assembly Rooms. Charles's birthday: the same, but in London.
[December] First marked work of MA given back. I get a 75 which is a distinction and the best in class. Drunk at O' Neills on xmas eve. Frantically try to wrap presents last minute when I get in. Christmas Day: could have been a lot better. Mostly because a lot of Catherine's family showed up. Lots of false smiles and sang froid all round. New Year's eve spent in Leeds with Dan and Chris at good old Cockpit. Only place I know where double vodka coke is £2 all night. Bender. Wake up in the afternoon at some point with raging headache.

23 revisited

Ok Bob I know that you're somewhat fixated with this number so here are some more oddities for you to feast upon:

I work twenty three hours a week.
This year I'll be twenty three.
Twenty three is the sum of the first double-digit prime number (11) and the supposed days of Christmas. (12)
2 x 3 = 6 and the sixth prime number is twenty three.

Weird.

bolometric

Two

 

He arrived at the downs and sank wearily into the fresh heather. Having barely slept the previous night, he sought solace in isolation. With his chin in his knees, he eyed the London panorama before him. The morning sky was so blue it pained him to look at it. There wasn't a single cloud diluting the image, either. The first initially latent dog walkers were now beginning to assemble sporadically on the downs, and the crisp morning air resonated with barking.

Sleep had deserted him because, in his experience, he considered it much more beneficial to work through the night hours. This new-found work philosophy did not posit well with others in the household, however. There may have been far too many distractions of all kinds in the daytime, but the canine pets still arose with their owners early in the mornings and successfully disrupted his daytime sleep patterns severely. He felt as if there was no way out, that he would be forever chained – at least ideologically – to an anti-creative lifestyle. To put it bluntly, the raw passion had been there a long time, but never before had he faced so many simultaneous obstacles: whether these were financial, physical or emotional in nature was of little relevance right now. What he did know was that these obstacles were slowly but surely draining him of the will to achieve.

At the back of his head was this concept of moderation. There were days when he felt himself so extremely off the scale that moderation would have appeared little more than a shooting star. And who decides the scale anyway? Society? If enough people participate in a particular activity does that make it genuine and 'alright'? ('Like binge drinking', he thought soberly) If few enough people participate does it automatically become a sickness, a fantasy, a delusion – grounds to throw them in a mental home and throw away the key? (Like murder? If more people were killers would the taboo aspect of killing be removed?) Some people won't go on an aeroplane without stress-reducing blankets, socks and pillows for fear of DVT. What the hell did these people do before the term DVT was even invented?

As one can see, this was a concept that especially frustrated him. He considered that all the geniuses of the past - the Einsteins, Curies and Newtons of this world – had to be eccentric on some intellectual level to derive and advocate their initially outrageous theories. Imagine if Einstein lived in modern times: would he have bothered tending to his theory of relativity if he was instead concerned with getting pissed six nights a week; (never mind, we'll sort you out a new liver just as soon as a hardworking scientist has invented the technology) closing in like a predator on a girl in a club; (perhaps a post-sex curry with the lads?) shopping at Tesco's; (oops, he's spent too much again…) wondering if he had the latest fashionable mobile phone… and then, as he lay back in the heather, the realisation came to him: ultimately we are concerned with the most asinine trivial matters that add up to nothing.