Lost
I was busy crafting another four tunes article the other day and was possibly less diligent in my file maintenance routine than normal (I didn’t save it). Somewhere between me leaving my laptop and returning with a glass half full of inspiration (and tonic), the laptop prepared to update itself and rebooted, seemingly annihilating my document in the process.
Sleep
Do androids dream of electric sheep? Why? Why would they? I don’t dream about sheep. I dream about annoying things like never-ending, meaningless IT projects, or being chased through acid rain into a field of knives by a pack of hungry wolves (preferable). Perhaps android shepherds would dream about electric sheep. But one could also argue that if electric sheep had been built properly then they wouldn’t require a shepherd and therefore the concept wouldn’t exist. Only possibly then, electric sheep might develop a theory of android shepherds through machine learning... Whichever way you look at it ‘Blade Runner’ was always going to be a better movie title anyway.
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Time
‘Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day, and for once I'm inclined to believe Withnail is right. We are indeed drifting into the arena of the unwell. Making enemies of our own futures.’ “Marwood” – Withnail & I
Time is the one thing we all have in common. We are all subject to its unavoidable march forward and we all have a limited amount of it whilst we qualify for the classification of the living. This year has perhaps made many of us examine our relationship with time a little more closely. I for one feel like the time has accelerated. Read more
Ginger
I know before I start to write this, that there are several dangerous off-ramps on the road through this article. I have thought sensibly about avoiding them all and pursuing the destination in the most trouble-free manner. However, it is entirely possible I will end up down some dark path, entrenched in marsh and thistle with the tree canopies closing in over my head. Onward then. I’ve bought some Kendal Mint Cake and a penknife just in case.
Bond Undercover
After an extended hiatus I have decided to restart this project. I did not ever really explain why I stopped, and so true to form, I will not indulge to present the details on why I have started again. It just is.
There are a number of small pleasures that I have been partaking of during the enforced pandemic isolation. Mostly involving eating and drinking and the results are becoming increasingly apparent through the expansion of my corpulent form.
In it together..
I was inspired to find this list by a couple I met the other night. Her a vocalist (and aspiring bass player) and him a designer and guitarist, formally of a band on the edge of success. Now together, the creativity swirling between them has inevitably overflowed into collaboration. Having only met them briefly I for one am excited to hear the results, but is it a dangerous path they are straying down?
New...
Liking 'new' things is a relatively recent evolution within humans. Consider for a moment that we went over 10,000 years between inventing the method of making fire and inventing the match. That's hundreds of generations of people content to rub rocks together without demanding any significant progress.
Let Me Shorten That For You (LMSTFY)
Unfortunately, I’ve had little time for the pleasures of literary noodling and digging up tuneful relics over the last few weeks, as I’ve been gadding about Europe eating waffles, drinking brown beer and taking part in less amusing activities such as work. Now I’m back in the red dot to a number of dead pot plants, a fused light fitting, a broken television and a heaped tablespoon full of brain numbing jetlag. So what better way to slip back into routine than to stroke the proverbial wizard’s beard of musical enlightenment and sift through the matted hairs with my gnarled travellers’ fingers for nuggets of sonic nourishment left from previous bouts of comfort eating.
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Planets
We don’t get a very exciting celestial display at night here in Singapore. Light pollution aside, we should really be in the 'goldilocks zone' for astronomers. At just 1.3 degrees north of the equator, there must be majestic representation from both the northern and southern hemispheres somewhere up there. When Stanford Raffles arrived on the edge of this steamy, swamp island 200 years ago he probably had a pretty spectacular view of the heavens, albeit through gin soaked eyes (allegedly). Today, surprisingly the brightest objects in the sky are the planets (and planes - less surprisingly). Recently I’ve been able to see Mars, Venus and Jupiter all tricking about on the horizon looking like little blinky bobbins rather than the massive alien spheres of rock and gas of which my science informs me they are.
Calm
I have a hard time doing nothing. Really good, honest nothing or as comedian Micky Flanagan so eloquently refers to it ‘proper f*&k all’. I think it is becoming a lost art. A time of consciousness when the brain just lapses into a low current mode. Dulled senses, nothing processed, zero output. I really did have a good try at this today. Pottering is about as close as I can get. Half heartedly bumbling through some nonsensical tasks in an inefficient manner. My brain is clearly running slower when I’m pottering, but its stuttering, like there’s bad fuel in the engine. It still wants to keep going.