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Sunday 23rd Dec 2007
Zipping around various homesteads delivering gifts, drinking tea,
chatting, and listening to tunes is an ideal sort of a day, even when
managed on very few hours sleep. Today some things fell into place,
some things fell out of place, and some things stayed the in exactly
the same place.
Whitworth and Baptiste helped to tidy the yard and then
we made Sprout and Mango Curry with cous-cous for dinner. I'll let you
know tomorrow whether or not that was a good idea....
Saturday 22nd Dec 2007
Some days, it's possible, using the power of the blog, to make a day
seem in hindsight that it was far cooler than it actually was - and
some days, conversely, it is impossible to capture the sheer magnitude
of awesomeness of a certain day with just a photo and a few words.
Today was one such day - the day of the Christmas Boony Boon. Siddol
was ace. Playing Jonny Cash music with all those guys was ace. The
crowd was ace. And playing onstage with Transpangaean again, staring
out at a room filled with smiling dancing people was a rare
privilege......
As could have perhaps been predicted, the party at our yard
afterwards went on till about ten this morning, with some star turns
including the Sween's barroom piano stylings, Lee playing drums for
about four hours straight, Wolf and Big Kev doing piano duets together,
and Trev the soundman playing Jacoesque bass.....
The yard is a disgrace, and Rachel and Tom both went home for
Christmas this morning which means that I have to clean it up by
myself.......
Message the yard tidy
Friday 21st Dec 2007
Today I went to my job, to a Transpangaean rehearsal (three new tunes
in two hours), back to my job, to Strawberry fields to catch up with
Laura Scho (female fronted Rage Against the Machine tribute band
anyone?) and then on to Sela bar to witness and engage in social
mayhem. This picture shows the Sela Bar, from Jimmy's point of
view......
Even if you do message me, I won't have time to respond
Thursday 20th Dec 2007
This evening was spent with an old and dear friend in the Fenton, where the lights are too bright, the music comes in waves of distractingly loud dance-music and extended bouts of silence, and the white-ball flies off the pool table so often that it ceases to startle. We ruminated upon the origins of spectacles (since which I have learned that in the 1st Century the Emperor Nero used to watch gladitorial games through an emerald), discussed bicycle safety, and I think my mind finally made it back to England and rejoined my body.....
On the way home I saw a blue Hillman Imp - all of the cars on the roads in my dreams look like this.....
Jessica Alba as Cheetara, Bruce Willis as Panthro, and Sam Riley as Lion-o
Wednesday 19th Dec 2007
Today on my first day back at work after the Minneapaquest, we had
Footprint Christmas lunch at Little Tokyo in the city centre. Amongst
the highlights of our runcible table of treats were, deep fried avocado
slices, onions on sticks, and a bizarre yet potent vegetarian
pseudo-duck in mango sauce... For desert they surved us sorbet in bowls
made out of ice with frozen slices of friut embeded inside - It was a
bit like a game, you had to figure out the most discreet way of
smashing the dish to get to the pieces of kiwi - which were well worth
the effort and the embarassment. It was nice that Szymon seemed alright
after his ordeal last-night, apparently the windscreen of the driver
who he collided with has a Szymon shaped hole in it...
And then tonight, after another awesome meal, this time courtesy of
Rachel, we rehearsed with 3/4 of Transpangaean and a drummer called
Grant - it was an absolute boon in the original and truest sense of the
word... Garside and Sween playing off each other is a journey to
behold.... Hope you can make Saturday night - It should be fairly
safe....
Any free days I could borrow? - I need about 15 more before Christmas
Tuesday 18th Dec 2007
The Jet-lag has me. I stayed awake till about 7am last night and didn't
get out of bed till about 5:30pm today, which was fine because I wasn't
due at work, but there was so much I could have done with today that I
clearly didn't. In fact, missing today may have been a key error.
Still, with ample time this evening to put right my misdemenour I went
out for Seb's birthday, he's 26 and if I was the sort to fixate on such
things I'd point out that it was his first birthday in seven years
where we didn't live together...
We got a call from Szymon shortly after he'd left saying that he'd
been knocked off his bike by a car on the way home and that an
ambulance was involved, but that we shouldn't worry and that he was
home now and everything was fine....
All advice about injured Poles gratefully received
Monday 17th Dec 2007
Pachyderm it ain't, but for what I do at home it's all I really need. I
did some nice recordings with a friend just before I went away with the
band, and today I've finally had a chance to have a go at mixing them.
Tom and I both have fairly high-end Sennhesiser headphones for making
music at home, and on both sets the left hand can is on the blink.....
what are the chances..... So tonight I was mixing with a pair of those
flimsy plastic in-ear jobs that you get for 79p from the market, in
their own special wrap-around wind up case, which you use to store them
the first two times, and then never-after.... Still, nice to be back in
the yard....
All advice about headphone surgery gratefully received
Sunday 16th Dec 2007
Since buying my camera, and starting blogging again, I've taken
hundreds and hundreds of photos - which is ace because I love pictures,
although until now I've never taken many of my own. I've learnt,
through experimentation, about apeture sizes, exposure settings, and
white balance, and how to manipulate them for particular situations to
capture light in a way that tickles me. Today I learnt which settings
on my camera I needed to alter to photograph candle flames, which is
ace, because now you can all see the beautiful mess that this candle
has made of our kitchen table.
If you don't want me to know you've been reading this, then don't follow this link and send me a message....
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