An Exercise in Irrelevance

It’s been over 10 years since I last saw Bob Brozman; in this time, he’s lost none of his prowess, and learnt a fair few new tunes. I think he’s got more rhythmic as well.

He’s a difficult musician in many ways; he changes rhythm a lot, his sense of humour is continual and a little strange; his musical tastes are getting to define the word eclectic. But, he’s also engaging, entertaining and exciting to watch. It was a superb gig; I would be a fool if I left it 10 years again.

It was a strange gig also; I was faced with a difficult choice: Bob Brozman, a house party or a combined barbeque and eurovision night. In the end, I know that I made the right choice. What was interesting though, is that this is the first gig that I have been to for ages on my own; since I have moved up north to Newcastle, I’ve had the fortune to meet quite a few people with similar music tastes. Actually, I really enjoyed being solitary; that I was exhausted added to it; I almost slept in the interval; I became totally engrossed in the music, and lost a sense of self.

I’d not been to the Buddle arts centre in Wallsend before; but they have some stonking gigs coming up. I shall be there for more I think.

Originally published on my old blog site.

I’ve just found out the terrible news that Bill Bug has died unexpectedly; this has come as a shock to the community. Bill was a phenomenon and the sort of person that you need in science; he was interested in everything, had ideas and opinions about it all, topped with an almost childlike pleasure in it all. He was a good scientist, a motivation and a reminder why most of us got into science in the first place.

His emails and their length were legendary. He was hard-work — you had to fight through the morass of ideas — but well worth it. I only had the pleasure of meeting him once; I was looking forward to meeting him again, something that now will never be.

Originally published on my old blog site.

I decided that the time had finally come for me to encrypt the home space on my hard drive of my laptop in case it gets nicked; I’ve been encrypting high-value information for years, but I thought the time to just do the whole home space had come.

So last night, I set it going. It started off suggesting it would take 12 hours. Okay, no worries, I’d rather not leave the laptop overnight but needs must. By the time I left work it had dropped to 6 hours, all going swimmingly.

Get in this morning, look at the progress bar; 92 days remaining. Oh dear; I mean I know I have a lot of files, but there’s only 10G of stuff there. Next stop, true crypt I guess.

Originally published on my old blog site.

Yesterday was the board of studies. Day before was the board of examiners. Conclusion: today is the first day of summer, an opportunity to apply myself, mostly fulltime, to research.

So, what have I done today. Erm, teaching. Almost all day. Life can be hard at times.

Originally published on my old blog site.

Struck, no doubt, by the facebook phenomena, I noticed today that Friends Reunited has gone free. So I wrote to a couple of old friends whom mailed me 2 or 3 years ago, but who I was too tight-fisted to pay to reply to. The first has replied; turns out he’s now a published author (I mean real books, in bookshops, rather than technical books), writing about murderers, werewolves and general ghost stories. He was always a talented bloke. I’m pleased he’s now been unleashed on the world at large.

Originally published on my old blog site.

Last week, I saw Toumani Diabate at the Royal Northern College of Music. My experience of the Kora is a busker who plays in Manchester at times; he’s pretty good actually. In concert, though it becomes a different instrument. The music is actually fairly repetitive, but the pieces generally play in cycles, flowing rather than jumping following one theme, then moving to another a note at time. As a result, it’s hypnotic rather than exciting and lulls the audience. He only played four numbers (before the encore); I think that like many people, I was surprised to find that this had taken well clear of an hour.

The one negative part of the night was the accompanying blurb; this suggested that the audience should stiffle any sneezes or coughs and not open sweets during the performance to maximise everyones enjoyment. I mean what a load of po-faced nosense; like the SAGE, it’s obvious that the RNCM is a snobbish, uptight venue but this is really taking it too far. Music is to be enjoyed, engaged in, not worshipped with great reverence. When I rule the world, I will find the idiot responsible for this statement, and string them up publicly, in front of an audience, to whom I shall allocated bubble gum, packets of crisp and low velocity, high volumn sneezing powder air rifles.

Rachael Unthank and the Winterset at The Round was the an entirely different experience. A small intimate venue anyway, they were playing on home turf; their mum (the two main singers are sisters) was in the audience. The venue is odd — basically someone’s put a roof on the gap between two buildings. The sound proofing isn’t too great; you could hear music and people walking upstairs, but this makes it more personal and engrossing. The music was wonderful; like much folk, and Toumani Diabete it’s often hypnotic. Their arrangements are remarkable, often highly melodramatic, and very innovative especially when compared to more traditional folk. I think, we were lucky to get tickets; I’m not sure that they will be playing a venue that small in future or will sell out quicker than they did.

Wish she hadn’t done the gag about Hexhamshire though; it was about a misheard lyric; I won’t repeat it. I’ve had the song (Fareweel Regality) running through my head for the last week; now it will be associated with an alternative version instead.

Originally published on my old blog site.