Today is my birthday – I’m thirty nine years of age and struggling to embrace my first day on the road to forty. Yes I’m feeling sorry for myself (see earlier entries) and yes I know I shouldn’t be, but still . . .

Thankfully I feel a little less alien in the world thanks to the wonderful Charlie Brooker, who began his column today with the following paragraph (a paragraph which (were I a better writer) I could have written about myself).

“I am phenomenally stupid. Stupid in every conceivable way except one: I’m dimly aware that I’m stupid. This means I spend much of my time assuming the rest of the world knows better, that everyone else effortlessly comprehends things I struggle to understand. Things like long division, or which mobile phone tariff to go for. In many ways, this is a comforting thought, as it means there’s a limitless pool of people more intelligent than myself I can call on for advice.”

* “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” Albert Einstein

A combination of a lack of sunshine and Holly’s poor health means that I’m packing all this in for a while – blogging, tweeting, facebooking etc. Being positive when I’m feeling so down down down is difficult, so I’m off for a bit and will maybe see you soon.

For many years I worked for Her Majesty’s Civil Service. Somewhat by choice but to be honest mostly out of an almost chronic lack of ambition and to be really really honest because Texas Homecare turned me down.

Anyway life in the Civil Service was interminably dull (even for someone with said lack of ambition) and as such my mind would wander,  (‘wander’ is underplaying what happened to an almost heroic degree). Most days I would will the wood yard next door to implode into a raging inferno (a raging inferno please note where no one was hurt and those involved in the business of quenching said fire went about their duties safely – albeit quite slowly), however despite the effort of my will I failed to insitgate even a flicker of a flame *.

So it was great to see the wonderful (I can prove that by using an etch-a-sketch) Russell Davies talking about games and playfulness (not that sort of playfulness, behave) at (appropriately enough) Playful, and now reprised on his blog :

“It’s that experience of driving in the back of the family car, scrunching you eyes up at night to turn the streetlights into laser weapons and shooting other cars. Or watching the passing shadows on the road beside you, imagining shapes and rhythms.“

Which is just lovely isn’t ? He continues the thought by going onto say :

“Just like when I walk through the crowds on Oxford Street a tiny part of me is pretending I’m an assassin slipping steely-eyed through the crowds in order to shake the agents on my tail. And I bet it’s not just me. I’m not saying I’m massively deluded, just that, very often, some bit of us is always trying to play those games, to make mundane things more exciting.“

and illustrates his point with this clip from one of my favourite films, Billy Liar.

And that’s just great isn’t it, “making mundane things more exciting” – shouldn’t we all be doing that ?

Which is all a rambling route to get to a place to introduce noticings, a relatively new example of a ‘barely game’ ((c) Russell Davies) where the point is the game is to notice the world around you or to put it another way to help “make mundane things more exciting“.

*It was shortly after I left and moved into my new job that a fire did break out in said wood yard – not an inferno but a decent sized blaze. It was this day that I knew there was no God.

Attempting to apply the brake.

Well yesterday was the fifth anniversary of the death of John Peel.

If you’ve visited here before you may have caught my ramble about John in respect of my work with the wonderful Magoo and in particular my efforts to get their second single played on the radio :

“I tried to instigate this radio-play by hand delivering copies all over London town and remarkably bumped into John Peel outside BBC Radio 1, who commended me on my Bill Shankly t –shirt (boy was I trying hard) and promised to listen to the record that very evening – whether he did or not remains unclear however he played the all the tracks from the record over the next few weeks and remained a fan / friend of the band up until his death in 2004 – in fact Magoo were one of the very last bands who recorded a session for him).”

And you may have seen some thoughts I posted in response to reading ‘The Olivetti Chronicles – Three Decades Of Life And Music’ – a collection of John Peel’s various writings :

In one piece for the Observer from 1986 entitled ‘Aural Vandalism’ he writes about attending a Sonic Youth / The Jesus and Mary Chain gig at the Hammersmith Palaisin London (I know it will make me sound like the old man I’m rapidly becoming but hey they don’t make gigs like that anymore do they ?). He talks of the Sonic Youth’s obvious desire to disturb and confront and of The Jesus and Mary Chain’s chaotic and often short lived live outings – “If twenty minutes is the time it takes The Jesus and Mary Chain to achieve whatever effect it is they wish, it would be fatuous to play longer.”

However (and admittedly I might be on my own here) it’s the pay-off lines that really makes you fall back in love with him.

“As I left the Palais I overheard one twerp braying to his companions. ‘What a waste of money,’ he cried, and for moment I wished I were a fighting man.”

John Peel was a hell of a man and round our way he’s very very much missed.

]]> http://digyourfins.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/john-peel-was-a-hell-of-man/feed/ 0 danielweiresq http://digyourfins.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/at-last-september/ http://digyourfins.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/at-last-september/#comments Tue, 01 Sep 2009 06:31:05 +0000 danielweiresq http://digyourfins.wordpress.com/?p=721 ]]>

A Sunday afternoon spent in the quintessentially English pursuit of discussing the weather.

We travelled to Tattershall Castle in the heart of Lincolnshire to attend a Cloud Appreciation Society event, where Ian Loxley (the Photo Gallery Editor for the Society) was to take ‘us on an informal tour of the afternoon sky’.

Rather perversely (given the (incorrect) suggestions that the summer has so far been blighted by cloud and rain) the forecast for the afternoon was for clear blue skies – however the gods capitulated a little and a small amount of cumulus was offered up to view.

Ian’s talk (which was accompanied by the sound of roosting bats) covered all the various cloud types and featured many of his great photographs – including as previously alluded to the legendary ‘Cumulopiggussextoleggus’ – and then continued outside on the Castle’s lawn in a somewhat thwarted attempt to spot some clouds.

Ian’s a man who plainly loves the wonderful world of clouds and as such if you get the chance to wander along to see him talk about his passion then your time will be well spent.

Also if you get the chance Tattershall Castle is well worth the visit – over one million bricks put to very good use – and if you can cope with heights better than me then the view from the roof is wildly impressive, especially given the nature of the surrounding flatlands.

Finally, and perhaps as an attempt to apologise by someone for the less than spectacular cloud coverage, as we slowly wandered back to the car a Spitfire suddenly appeared in the skies above us, disappearing from sight almost as quickly as it appeared and leaving us a little puzzled (although finding this on the map later explained things).

Finally, finally some Cloud Appreciation links for you – all of which are wholeheartedly recommended :

Fabulous news ! I managed to secure a couple of tickets for Interesting 2009 earlier today – when the first batch of one hundred went on sale today.

Interesting 2008 was one of the highlights of last year so I wouldn’t have missed the chance to get to this year’s event for the world. There were so many great speakers at Conway Hall that it’s difficult to pick out which were the best although Jim Le Fevre and his zoetrope turntable was amazing – The Guardian are still hosting some film of his talk here – go have a look and then plan how you’re going to make it along to Interesting 2009.

A day in the garden.