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Harry Patch (in memory of)

Radiohead have a new song, an epitaph to Harry Patch, the last survivor of WW1 who died on the 25th of July at the age of 111. I find it hard to imagine that we now live in a world which contains no-one with any first hand experience of the war, 'lest we forget'.

The song itself is a simple 5 minute series of rising strings, with Thom Yorke lamenting over the top; clearly Radiohead in the same mindset as they were when they wrote 'Last Flowers'. It's by no means a masterpiece; I find the juxtaposition between the sweeping string orchestra and Thom's arhythmic lyrics quite difficult to handle, but then I should be used to that sort of thing with Radiohead. Probably a grower, certainly a song written about a very important subject - lets hope its presence in millions of iPods will help to keep people reminded of the sacrifice these men made.

You can download the track from http://download.waste.uk.com/Store/did.html for £1, and all the proceeds go to the Royal British Legion.

The Golem - Flyering

The run of Broken Glass Theatre Company's "The Golem" finished on Sunday, and what a run it was. I didn't write about it during the run, because it soon became clear that the main route for people to find our website was through search engines, and with the huge number of online listings for the show (timeout etc.), I didn't want any blog posts to appear in the way to distract people from the broken glass website. The show ran for 4 nights, and you can see a series of blog posts posted during the run by one of the cast members here.

Camden Town is a unique place - it seems to contain people that only exist in Camden; I'm not sure any of the tattooed, mohicaned, ear-lobe-plugged, dressed-in-leathers-with-metal-studding people ever leave Camden, or if they do, they are so quickly diluted by the less eclectic of us that they go relatively unnoticed. In Camden however, they suddenly burst to the top of the demographic pile, so that those of us dressed in jeans and a t-shirt suddenly fade into a minority.

There are also, of course, a large number of tourists in Camden, who waft around in the breeze of Camden-residents rushing from stall to stall picking up random paraphenalia emblazoned with the Union Jack. In trying to discern who to hand a flyer you find yourself trying to calculate people's grasp of the English language from 10 feet - if someone says "merci" on taking one of your flyers you know you've probably wasted it. But then you never know, the Frenchwoman who briefly forgets the English for thank you might be a massive fan of physical theatre regardless of whether or not she can understand the language. Even then she might be multilingual. At the end of the day, you have to hand out your 500 flyers to the first 500 people who show an interest in taking one from your hand. I'd love to know what they flyering success rate is. Perhaps 1%?

More Camden Fringe related posts to come - I'm going to split them up, because there's so much I could talk about!

Florence and the Machine - Lungs

When I first started the CD spinning (or, more accurately, hit play on Spotify) I was hugely disappointed that here was another young female singer, having been brought up on her parents' Kate Bush records, trying to create that 'alternative sound', and instead sounding like all those other singers that think London-sound is cool. The voice is reminiscent of Kate Nash, Laura Marling and, dare I say, Lily Allen, and the first track, Dog Days Are Over doesn't do anything to dispel this.

However, as the album continues. her accent very quickly melts into the background as you get carried away into a jolting, almost tribal wall of music. Every song is like a great book; you really can't put them down until you've found out how they finish. An underlying pattern of verse-chorus is hidden under the evolving drums, guitars, harps that build up and up until you can't help yourself joining in. Drumming Song opens with a pattern of drums that's reminiscent of 'People Party' by the relatively unknown band, "For Stars" and builds into an epic that makes you feel like you're flying through the Amazon rainforest at the speed of sound in the arms of a superhero that you're passionately in love with. Your face is being scratched by the creepers as you fly, and you're missing getting to see the monkeys, but damn you just don't care!

In short, this Florence has a massively powerful voice and can't half write a tune, and is clearly supported by some incredible musicians. I have been surprised, but pleasantly so! Yes it's easy to like, and yes it's going to be hugely popular, but that shouldn't be a reason to ignore something that is both pleasing to the ear and intrigues the mind. I for one am delighted that popular music is going in this direction - people are starting to think about their music again.

Sum

I've just read "Sum" by David Eagleman. I didn't intend to buy it, and I'd never heard of it before this afternoon, but I was drawn to it in Waterstones today, and am incredibly glad I was. It's one of the most unique fiction books I've read in ages. It consists of fourty short (2-4 pages) narratives explaining how the afterlife might be. It expounds beautifully on the huge range of possibilities that our universe presents, and how no-one really knows the answer to any ultimate questions.

A particular favourite quote of mine comes from 'Missing' where it is explained that God is in fact a married couple, and that when you die, you enter a parent-child relationship with them. I love how cleanly it explains the synergism between science and religion

"Every human in the world is a child to them, and they devote a tremendous effort to their parenting skills.
It is heartening to see that they learn from us in the same manner that all parents learn from their children. For example it turns out they didn't know how to express the workings of their universe as equations, so they are greatly impressed with the ideas of their physicist children, who phrase clearly for them for the first time what they wrought"

This is a fantastic book, and I would unreservedly recommend it to anyone. It's well thought out, imaginative, unique, entertaining, humorous and moving, all at once.

Photos!

Today has been an absolute scorcher (as has the whole weekend really), and I took the opportunity to go into the garden and Richmond Park to wave my camera around. I had a £2 off 1hr processing voucher at Snappy Snaps so I bashed the film in there in the afternoon, and here are a selection of pics I got.

From my Mum's sweetcorn plant. This little anemone is, believe it or not, the part of the plant that will grow into the cob.

A ladybird I spotted while patiently waiting for a damselfly to land on the patch of grass by my feet.

Another silly photoshopping escapade


This photo is less focused than I had expected. I used a macro lens at 70mm, 1/1000 sec, f/32. Should have had enough depth of focus (maybe a few cm anyway, which is all I needed!). I'm not sure why it's so blurred!

My lab coat out drying in the sunshine a few days ago.

Diving geese.

Warmth and Rain.

Today has been a beautiful day. It was sunny, warm, and yet just cool enough to be bearable. And it had that sort of rain that comes when it's hot, and the sky still remains blue. You can just stand outside, hold your hands wide and enjoy the cooling drops of water falling on your face, and evaporating within a second; like natural air-conditioning. I didn't enjoy the rain as much as I should unfortunately, as I was trying to get my head around my elective project. As part of the initial research, I'm trying to fathom how farmers might perceive risk... relative? Economic? Not quite sure yet, but hopefully some pubmed scouring will be revealing over the next few days. Unfortunately, the few papers I've wanted to read have been just outside the university library's dates of subscription, so I haven't been able to read them. Grr.

Other than that, Dad and I cleared out the shed today, as we had a few cwt of sand to squeeze inside. It's always a very cathartic experience cleaning it out, removing piles of dust and rearranging everything at right angles, and in an organised fashion. A little bit of an OCD pleasure. I also had a little bash at photoshopping an old photo I took in Norwich a few years ago. I've made the foreground black and white, and changed the colour of the sky. It's not perfect, but let me know what you think.

An Afternoon in Camden

Yesterday I cycled to Camden. I'm feeling it a little this morning, but nowhere near as badly as I expected to. I left Richmond Park at Sheen Gate, then headed up Castlenau to Hammersmith Bridge, then through Kensington, past Hyde Park, then through Regents Park to Camden; It's about a 25 mile round trip.

I found myself sat in the window of a coffee shop slowly imbibing the days coffee and devouring Heller's Catch 22, but my literary meal was regularly interrupted by the sights, sounds and smells of the street.
My nose was assaulted with a strange combination of roasting coffee, exhaust and the sickly aroma of caramelised peanuts from a street seller just a few paces up the street. It's probably the last job you'd want to do with a hangover (besides being a wine taster), particularly if you had a nose as large as this chap did, yet somehow he showed no signs of nausea from the warm toffee aroma surrounding his head.
From the back of the shop, the wailing of a small child was all but drowned out by the sound of the road, but when I moved further into the shop, I realised that the child's mother was engaged in a vociferous argument with someone over the behaviour of her child - "Don't you have children?". Ironically, the kid was so fascinated by this exchange that she was entirely silent while they shouted at each other, only to recommence her wailing when they stopped. Thus the piercing sound of child-scream was replaced by deeper adult-bark, and then back again, oscillating like this for what seemed like an age. Neither adult seemed prepared to step down from the argument, presumably because they both realised it was the only way to keep her quiet.
The street itself was a 3 lane one way high-street which led into a 5 lane junction. The front of the coffee shop was open, and so I was all but sat on the pavement. My first observation was the melting of the paint on the road, which resulted in small tyre prints being left in the red-zone line as cars squeezed too close to the kerb. This was followed by the sight of a man sat on a 1 foot wide ledge, 2 storeys up, in an apartment across the road. He wasn't planning on jumping, just happily sat there reading and enjoying the sunshine. I imagined an elaborate system of hoists within the room helping him to balance so precariously, and yet so nonchalantly, perhaps just to salve my conscience as I did nothing to stop him falling, merely took a photo on my phone.

Tee hee

Bike tinkering complete!

The bike has now been tinkered with, and is new and improved. Here's a list of the adjustments

• New lights added as old bracket had broken
• Brakes adjusted so both rear levers have action, rather than just one (thus removing irritating squeaking)
• Wheels added (as they had to be removed for transport) and tyres pumped
• Gear lever secured (as bolt had been lost)
• Washed and hosed down
• BOX ADDED (very exciting). I've attached some pictures below so you can see. I've used an old recycling box - if my parents need it they can have it back (I'm sure they wont mind that I've drilled a few holes in it) and I'll get a proper box. A really useful box would be good (as they have water-tight lids), but I'm not sure how to make sure the lid doesn't get stolen. I'd need to attach it to the bike with a chain or something. It's attached using an ingenious combination of holes and cable-ties, with another hole drilled to take the light bracket.

I'm back home. The car took a long time to cram, mostly because I decided to bring my bike home. This involved pulling off its wheels (easier said than done, as some of the screws had rusted), and then balancing the frame on the back seat. The chain had to be wrapped up in a plastic bag to stop the seats getting oily, and then wheels were balanced on the middle of the frame. It needs a lot of work doing to it (cleaning, gear lever broken, rust removing, mud guard filing etc), and I'm most likely to do it at home.

The Golem has gone well - we're all rehearsed up now until we begin before the performances in August. I've written out a full score and musical prompt sheet, and must remember to keep practicing this holiday, both so I remember it, and so that I maintain my callouses.

My room in London is now impassable for boxes - it's amazing how much stuff you accumulate over a few years. Today will see a massive unpacking session, and also some bicycle fixing.

In other news, I've put some new pictures up on deviant art

The Golem

The Golem rolls on. It's all slowly coming together. All the scenes have now been rehearsed, and the next few days will see the slotting together of everything into a continuous piece. I'm very excited about the music now, having written myself a short prompt sheet and the whole score (in mandolin tabulature). I'm managing to use the mandolin in a number of diverse ways on top of the usual string plucking or strumming. The body makes a perfect percussive drum, while the strings behind the bridge sound almost like clanging metal when plucked, all of which are proving invaluable in the performance. It's thrilling to hear such a range of sounds coming out of one small instrument, and really is putting it to its maximum use. The last few days have also seen the creation of the publicity flyer, and soon the poster. My recent discovery of photoshop, and the wonders that can be performed with a few mouse clicks have made image design much easier, and the flyer is looking very good. Alex's brother has designed a very classy image, which, with a little digital juggling, has fitted beautifully. Hopefully it'll be online soon.

If you want to see the play, it's being performed from Thursday 13th August to Sunday 16th August at 7.30 pm at the Studio Theatre, Roundhouse, Camden. Click here for more details, or here to buy tickets.

A few weeks ago, I took my Grandad's old Minolta SLR to a repairers in Ilkley (Annings), to fix the shutter (which would open but not close), and to replace the blackouts on the film casing. I took it along to Derbyshire earlier this week, and also waved it around on our trip to Coton last week and really enjoyed playing with it.
I finally took the films to Boots to be processed, and there are some lovely pictures. However, I opted for a boots photo CD only, as I didn't urgently want the prints as I usually store my pictures on my computer, and it was much cheaper to just get the CD. When I got home I excitedly opened the CD, and the pictures looked great. That was, however, until my eyes got attuned to the photos. Within a few seconds the photos appeared incredibly grainy, and extremely poor quality. In fact, the whole CD (24 photos) is only 22mb in size. I've put some up here - they're fine for the internet etc, but they're nowhere near as nice as the originals would be (even if scanned from a print), so I'm going to go have to go back and get some prints made. Will not be using the photo CD service again!

Returned.

I've just returned from the 5th Year Holiday in the Peak District. It was incredibly beautiful, and presented the opportunity for much walking (we must have walked 20 miles in 3 days), and picnics, barbeques, ball games and sitting around drinking beer. The perfect way to celebrate the end of exams. It also gave me chance to wave my camera around and take some snaps, of somewhere completely different. Every corner presented something picturesque, which made it quite difficult to select what to snap. I'll put some pics up over the next few weeks. I've recently made a deviant art page, where I've kept some of my favourite photos for the world to see. If you like, please add a comment or favourite one of the pics! T'would be fab.

Exams

And so it begins. Exams tomorrow. Scared, but hopeful.

Today's discovery (apart from the primordial stew of knowledge swimming around my head) was this 1937 Cold poster. That's my kind of pathology (unfortunately not veterinary, so is of no use to me tomorrow!).

Avez vous?

I am absolutely loving "avez vous deja vu?" - a fantastic series of French cartoon shorts I discovered from Sarah's blog here.

My particular favourite is Avez vous deja vu Poppi qui joue Hamlet au Royal Shakespeare Theatre?
They all end with "Maintainent, oui!" which I assume is - "now you have!"