If the main division in modern politics is between liberal and authoritarian then I am a liberal and if David Davis was standing against Labour in my constituency on the issue of 42-days I don’t see how I could vote Labour. That makes me very sad.
Author Archive for Jon
Would you believe that an adjustable spanner is called, in French, a Clé Anglaise? English Key. What are they getting at?
I know I’m only posting videos on here these days. I’m too busy writing music to do anything else. Sorry. Who am I kidding? I know nobody cares. Anyway, look at MRirian (and she’ll look at you), or you could look at her strange, compelling ears.
I don’t love her like I want to marry her, although I suspect it would be great being married to her, well at least really interesting and stimulating, but I do love Miranda July more than anyone else in the world who I don’t really know. Not only is this film about how buttons are made really perfect, but also she’s got a great thing on her site about good reasons to vote which applies just as much here as it does in the US. (If you’re intimidated by the way her site asks for a password use mine - “nobody”.)
Counting every sneeze! Pete Fletcher thinks he can do it. He’s up to 562 already. I hope he doesn’t have hay fever. sneezecount.joyfeed.com
So, today the BBC launched BBC World News, the new name for their global channel BBC World. They’ve changed the on-screen branding and everything. There’s one thing that won’t be changing though - the website remains www.bbcworld.com for now as they put it. Why would that be. Surely they snapped up the bbcworldnews.com domain as soon as they thought of the title. Didn’t they? Oh dear.
Everyone I know hates Twitter but this video proves that it’s not evil. I know he’s got an annoying voice but the point is a good one.
Twitter in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.
By the way, if you are convinced by this advert, or if you already think Twitter is cool, I’m called ditdotdat on there. Surprise, surprise.
The BBC Model B was the first computer I wrote music on. In fact I wrote my own sequencer and made my own midi interface. Now the Science Museum have made an exhibition about it. I don’t know why this makes me feel so sad.
Recently I’ve been getting a bit disillusioned with spending loads of time trying to compose complicated tracks that I’m often tired of before they’re even finished. A couple of days ago I remembered something I once read about a writing course where the participants were encouraged to keep a journal and write in it every day. I thought I’d do the same thing with music.
I had a look and the tuneaday domains were mostly free or not being used, so I went ahead, snapped them up and made a site. It’s at tuneaday.org and the tracks are also available as a podcast at the iTunes store.
I’m hoping that having to come up with something new every day will push me towards being less concerned with fiddling and tweaking and will make me more spontaneous. The tunes might be recorded in my studio or just with my phone or on whatever I have to hand when I think of something.
I’m not going to use any old ideas, everything will be posted on the day that it’s recorded. If anyone is interested in collaborating with me on something, that would be interesting, but it’s all got to be new material, not a reworking of something you came up with ages ago.
I have no idea how long I’m going to be able to keep it up, it’s an intimidating prospect, but I’m aiming for some significant period like a hundred tracks, or a year, or something like that. If it gets too painful I’ll just make up a new target. We’ll see how it goes.
I was feeling pretty low yesterday. Stuck in the newsroom on my own on a Saturday night, thinking about things. When I finally got out of there I couldn’t decide whether to throw myself down the stairwell or jump into the river. But when I stepped out into the car-park to get my bike everything changed. It was absolutely pouring with rain. Really tipping it down and I didn’t even have a coat. Usually I would have hummed and hawed, trying to decide whether to leave my bike at work and get the train home. But last night I was very happy to embrace the void, I leapt into it.
The rain was hard and it hurt my face. I couldn’t see much because my glasses were immediately covered in water. The roads were running like rivers, the cars couldn’t see me and my brakes didn’t work. As I cycled onto Waterloo bridge the rain got harder and someone pulled over right in front of me, I was inches away from hitting her. The view from the bridge was indistinct and fantastic. Immediately my depression disappeared and I felt exhilarated and full of manic energy.
All the way home I was riding as fast as I could, swerving and swearing to avoid the nearly blind drivers and the deepest puddles. The music was loud and good and I felt like I couldn’t possibly survive.
I started thinking about how there’s no point worrying about the past or about what might have been. Now is where I have to live and there’s no choice in that. The rain can only make you unhappy if you don’t embrace it. I was already so wet I couldn’t get any wetter. I didn’t feel cold or tired, I felt wonderful and alive. By the time I got home the depressing day at work seemed like it belonged to somebody else’s life. If only it would rain every day.
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