Gamble

I just knew it. Knew that it would be brilliant. A night at the Phoenix to see the fabulous Hannah perform in Gamble, her latest show co-created with Rosa Postlethwaite 

Then written and performed by Hannah Walker with integrated BSL signing by interpretor Faye Alvi.

It was immersive from the moment we were inside the cabaret-seated Auditorium. The signature lighting and sound was from Craig Spence.

Gamble is a glittering, glamorous peek into the spectacular world of online gambling. A bittersweet multimedia show about addiction and its effect on families, friends and communities.

There’s a girl who used to think gambling was all about big wins at the village monthly bingo. A decade later, the gambling industry is all about online and is BIGGER than ever!

Without realising it, it’s made it way into the girl’s home, her relationship, her joint account.

Based on a true, personal story and inspired by accounts of industry experts, health professionals, people in recovery, and their loved ones, Gamble is a spangling whirlwind of flashing lights, big wins.

But also of terrible warnings.

Hannah's versatility changes the mood of the piece as she hairpins her way through fun times and then plunges into the depths of a partner's desolate shared and declining bank account.

The evening was BSL-signed and Faye provided a fully integrated BSL performance whilst signing, This was no ordinary addition, featuring talented choreography for her actions. 

And Hannah's co-conspirator Rosa Postlethwaite was brought on stage to enthusiastically complete certain scenes including acting as a counterpoint to Hannah's attitudes.

Whilst mainly lighthearted in tone, it was dealing with the terrors from an industry determined to increase addiction to gambling. To lead people to the higher yield more profitable products, to  seek out those without the power to resist.

There was a post-show Zoom-linked discussion with Dr Matt Gaskell, a gambling addiction specialist from the north-east. I think the entire audience stayed. Matt illustrated the problems of a seriously funded lobby intent of keeping gambling classified as sport and entertainment, instead of seeing it as the pernicious health danger which it represents. Oh, and a self-policing system for warnings, which is useless.  "When the fun stops, stop". Check out the Commons research paper.

I hate it now that every football shirt sports an advertisement for gambling,  that television post-watershed is filled with adverts for on-line gambling and now we hear the the United States is about to allow state specific on-line gambling. Interestingly, Matt explained that Belgium has banned all gambling advertising. 

The Rt Hon Lucy Frazer KC MP was appointed Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on 7 February 2023. She was also Solicitor General. I think it is time to write to her about this sad state of affairs, with even the ConservativeHome website carrying despicable articles in favour of online gambling.

Hannah will be performing Gamble in Summerhall at the Edinburgh Fringe, in August.

PsyOps

I guess this next US Movie about an American Civil War is a form of PsyOps, like that Conservative attack video that portrayed London incorrectly and melodramatically. The London lies were put together by the Conservative central party and features an American-accented voiceover declaring the city the “crime capital of the world”. 

 ]

Dune 2

It's a 'show don't tell' movie. West End cinema, reclining seats, front row, centre. Massive canvas. Huge sounds. Awe inspiring. Still vibrating.  Somehow I felt it left a gap though. Probably says more about me. I'd have a few notes, but it would seem churlish.

Flying Hero Sandwich

 I once had many vinyl albums and singles. The debate about keeping them ran something like:

• the cover art is better (maybe on a few)
• they sound warmer than digital (not any more, with lossless I can hear the tape saturation)
• the AAD conversions are not always good (I agree with this one)
• they are something to look at whilst the record is playing (or maybe read about the band online?)
• the artefacts provide a licence - proof of ownership (true, I guess)

Well, I let many albums go years ago, and I can't say I've missed them. I once stayed in a hotel in Hollywood and they provided 5 vinyl albums (well curated) and I think that was just as much fun. I reckon I need to budget say 30cm of shelf space for 'Sparks Joy' albums. 

The other day, based upon a conversation, I was trying to find a particular single. I couldn't and it consequently meant I accelerated my garage cleaning project. Many 45 rpm singles made it to the black bin bags, for subsequent disposal.

What I discovered was that like a primitive form of WhatsApp, many of the 45s had interesting sleeves, where they had been passed around and they were now covered in arty handwriting and typing from a bygone age. I think I'll (eventually) upload some of it to my flickr account.

Design faults of the NEFF built-in refrigerator

 

I suppose I expect that a company that specialises in White Goods will be quite good at making, say,  a refrigerator. It is the ultimate white good. A white box, with a door that you can put things in.

<Neeep>

Except the designers haven't fully understood the brief. We bought it a couple of years ago because the previous unit's heat exchanger had failed and was going to cost £absurd to repair. This new unit was the one that fitted the same hole and could do the same job of keeping things cold.

<Aruga>

Except it had been designed by playful clowns. Here are some of its more obvious faults.

• It takes up the same space as the prior model yet has a lower capacity
• There are unsufficient shelf spacers so it is not possible to configure it optimally.
• The door shelves don't go right the way down.
• It is not possible to store a typical UK 2 litre milk in the door
• It is not possible to stand a wine bottle in the door
• It is not possible stand a wine bottle in the shelving area.
• If we use the space on the shelves to the edge then it is not possible to close to fridge door.

The makers of this £1000 fridge should be ashamed of themselves.

<pfffttt>

Strawberry Fields - Nothing is real

It's strange how some documents are spoon-fed to the press. 

That royal photo for example. Even the humblest smartphones can do editing now. Drag and drop. Not as sophisticated as a Canon 5D MkIV with a 50mm f1.2 lens and subsequent Photoshop editing.

Yet no-one seems to have checked the basic EXIF data, which accompanies most original photos. Like the type sent to the Press. EXIF includes the date of capture, the shutter speed, the make of camera, the ISO and how many times it's been edited, and with which software. If it was taken, say, last November, it would be obvious in the original EXIF. and if it had been edited multiple times with Photoshop then that would also be obvious.

I guess the foliage is another real-world clue. Is it appropriate to the time of year?

But I suppose the version in circulation now has had all the EXIF stripped away.?

Living is easy with eyes closed
Misunderstanding all you see
It's getting hard to be someone, but it all works out
It doesn't matter much to me

Let me take you down
'Cause I'm going to strawberry fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry fields forever

Or occasionally such a photo could be a distraction away from another story? 

PART 4 : Creating a novel plan (fast)

This time, the story outlined fully, with page counts.

Title: Schrödinger's Gig

Central Character:

• Elias Thorne – A music journalist in his late 50s diagnosed with a brain tumor (the "bullet in brain"). He uses experimental drugs to manage the pain and hallucinations, blurring the lines between reality and delusion. 

Story Outline:

Part 1: The Cat Creeps In (30 page count total)

• Elias, facing his own mortality, seeks solace in reliving past musical experiences through a combination of drugs and music.
• "Cat Crept In" by Mud triggers a vivid hallucination of a 1970s Mud concert.
• The experience is exhilarating yet unsettling. He questions if it's real (Schrödinger's Cat metaphor).
• He encounters a recurring ghost narrator, a hot young woman musician  (cool cat?) named Lily, who seems to guide him through these hallucinations.

Part 2: Time Unravels (60)

• Elias becomes addicted to the time-traveling concerts triggered by specific songs.
• "Time" by David Bowie sends him to a Bowie concert in the 80s, highlighting the deteriorating effects of his condition ("sniper in the brain").
• "Drugs Don't Work" by Verve reinforces the internal struggle between seeking escape and facing reality.
• Each jump is disorienting, with no control over the destination. This fuels the "madness is creeping over me" feeling.
• During these jumps, Elias develops a connection with Lily, who seems strangely familiar.

Part 3: Mirrors and Mayhem (100)

• "American Idiot" by Green Day reflects Elias's internal turmoil and sense of being trapped.
• "Will Follow You into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie hints at a deeper connection between Elias and Lily.
• "Teardrop" by Massive Attack emphasizes the "mirror concepts" as Elias confronts his reflection and mortality.
• He learns from ghost Lily that she was a young fan who died at a concert Elias reviewed years ago (Girlfriend in a Coma reference).
• He realizes the "coma" may be his own, with the drugs acting as a dream trap.

Part 4: The Divine Friend and the Choice (140)

• "I Don't Wanna Be You Anymore" by Billie Eilish confronts Elias with the self-destructive nature of his escape.
• He discovers a deeper connection with Lily – she embodies his lost passion for music and life. (Divine friend)
• "Jesus Wept" by Sia introduces the concept of a higher power or "divine construct" influencing Elias's fate. (Determinism vs. Non-determinism)
• Elias faces a choice: remain reliving the past or use remaining jumps to find a way back.

Part 5: Climax and Resolution (180)

• There are multiple possible endings depending on the desired message:
• Sacrifice for Love: Elias uses his final jump to bring Lily back to his present, altering the timeline but finding solace in love.
• Acceptance: He realizes the past cannot be recaptured and chooses to stay in his present, cherishing the memories and facing his mortality with newfound appreciation for life.
• Open Ending: Lost in the music, Elias disappears completely, trapped in a specific concert forever, blurring the lines between reality and hallucination.

End (Page 200)

Themes:

• Mortality and the search for meaning in the face of death.
• The power of music and nostalgia as escape mechanisms.
• The nature of reality and the blurring lines between hallucination and dream.
• Love and the importance of human connection.
• Free will vs. determinism – does Elias control his fate?

PART 3 : Creating a novel plan (fast)

Now I needed someone to  review the concept of the novel, so I asked my AI (Luka) to do it...

Strengths:

• Intriguing Premise: The combination of terminal illness, drug-induced time travel through music, and a ghost narrator creates a unique and compelling concept.
• Thematic Depth: The story explores complex themes like mortality, the power of art, the nature of reality, and the longing for connection.
• Multiple Endings: Offering different endings allows for reader choice and emotional impact.
• Clear Structure: Dividing the story into parts with descriptive titles provides a good sense of pacing.

Areas for Development:

• Character Development: While the outline mentions Elias's age and illness, fleshing out his personality, motivations, and relationship with music before his illness would deepen the story's emotional connection.
• Ghost Narrator: Lily's backstory and her connection to Elias are revealed late in the story. Introducing hints about her identity earlier could build intrigue.
• Pacing: Consider balancing the length of each part. Part 4 seems significantly longer, potentially bogging down the narrative before the climax.

Additional Thoughts:

• Song Choices: The chosen songs effectively complement the themes and Elias's emotional state.
• "Schrödinger's Cat" Metaphor: Explore this metaphor more deeply. Can Elias's experiences be concretely proven as real or not real?
• Internal Conflict: Focus on Elias's internal struggle between escaping reality and facing his mortality for greater emotional depth.

Overall:

"Schrödinger's Gig" has a strong foundation. Refining the character development, pacing, and exploration of the central themes can elevate this story to be truly captivating.

Here are some suggestions to consider:

• Part 1: During the first concert jump, plant seeds of doubt about reality. Elias could notice inconsistencies, glitches, or fragmented memories. This strengthens the "Schrödinger's Cat" question.
• Part 2: Show the toll of the jumps on Elias physically and emotionally. Include scenes reflecting his deteriorating health and internal conflict about the addictive nature of the escapes.
• Part 3: Gradually reveal Lily's backstory through subtle hints during jumps. This could build anticipation and deepen the reveal about her connection to Elias.
• Part 4: Consider shortening this section by streamlining the exploration of "divine friend" and determinism. These elements are interesting but could be subtly weaved into the story without a dedicated section.

I hope this feedback helps you develop "Schrödinger's Gig" into a gripping and thought-provoking novel!

PART 2 : Creating a novel plan (fast)

 ... So I took the theme from yesterday's lyrics and bullet points and knitted them together.

Title: Schrödinger's Gig

Central Character:

• Elias Thorne – A music journalist in his late 50s diagnosed with a brain tumor (the "bullet in brain"). He uses experimental drugs to manage the pain and hallucinations, blurring the lines between reality and delusion. 

Story Outline:

Part 1: The Cat Creeps In (30 page count total)

• Elias, facing his own mortality, seeks solace in reliving past musical experiences through a combination of drugs and music.
• "Cat Crept In" by Mud triggers a vivid hallucination of a 1970s Mud concert.
• The experience is exhilarating yet unsettling. He questions if it's real (Schrödinger's Cat metaphor).
• He encounters a recurring ghost narrator, a hot young woman (cool cat?) named Lily, who seems to guide him through these hallucinations.

Part 2: Time Unravels (60)

• Elias becomes addicted to the time-traveling concerts triggered by specific songs.
• "Time" by David Bowie sends him to a Bowie concert in the 80s, highlighting the deteriorating effects of his condition ("sniper in the brain").
• "Drugs Don't Work" by Verve reinforces the internal struggle between seeking escape and facing reality.
• Each jump is disorienting, with no control over the destination. This fuels the "madness is creeping over me" feeling.
• During these jumps, Elias develops a connection with Lily, who seems strangely familiar.

Part 3: Mirrors and Mayhem (100)

• "American Idiot" by Green Day reflects Elias's internal turmoil and sense of being trapped.
• "Will Follow You into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie hints at a deeper connection between Elias and Lily.
• "Teardrop" by Massive Attack emphasizes the "mirror concepts" as Elias confronts his reflection and mortality.
• He learns from ghost Lily that she was a young fan who died at a concert Elias reviewed years ago (Girlfriend in a Coma reference).
• He realizes the "coma" may be his own, with the drugs acting as a dream trap.

Part 4: The Divine Friend and the Choice (140)

• "I Don't Wanna Be You Anymore" by Billie Eilish confronts Elias with the self-destructive nature of his escape.
• He discovers a deeper connection with Lily – she embodies his lost passion for music and life. (Divine friend)
• "Jesus Wept" by Sia introduces the concept of a higher power or "divine construct" influencing Elias's fate. (Determinism vs. Non-determinism)
• Elias faces a choice: remain reliving the past or use remaining jumps to find a way back.

Part 5: Climax and Resolution (180)

• There are multiple possible endings depending on the desired message:
• Sacrifice for Love: Elias uses his final jump to bring Lily back to his present, altering the timeline but finding solace in love.
• Acceptance: He realizes the past cannot be recaptured and chooses to stay in his present, cherishing the memories and facing his mortality with newfound appreciation for life.
• Open Ending: Lost in the music, Elias disappears completely, trapped in a specific concert forever, blurring the lines between reality and hallucination.

End (200)

Themes:

• Mortality and the search for meaning in the face of death.
• The power of music and nostalgia as escape mechanisms.
• The nature of reality and the blurring lines between hallucination and dream.
• Love and the importance of human connection.
• Free will vs. determinism – does Elias control his fate?

PART 1 : Creating a novel plan (fast)

I had some fun with some writing yesterday. A friend of mine is planning out a book and gave me a couple of themes. Generally is about time travel to old music gigs. 

I thought I'd give it a spin with my brainstorming technique for plot line. I'm more a 'pantser' than a planner (ie write by the seat of my pants etc).

Anyway, I thought of a few titles that could be relevant to the theme, as well as trying to add in something to drive the listless protagonist.

It was such fun I thought I'd write it down...

Here are a few whimsical and eclectic songs I used to stimulate thought. 

Cat crept in – Mud

Schrödinger’s Cat. Obviously. Within you and without you. Paradox. Constellation with Noomi Rapace not realising the quantumness of everything after an ISS impact with a corpse. 

 

Time – Bowie

An obvious choice, although I had to think of these. I didn't want to use Mr. Google and the 'sniper in the brain came' to me and I thought, 'Perfect. Slow bullet wound affecting brain' but then I remembered the TV show Life on Mars and others.

 

Drugs don’t work – Verve/Richard Ashcroft

Could be drugged and hallucinating? Entirely possible if a big fan. Add that the drugs don’t really work and you have a split.

 

American idiot - Green Day – Gogol

Reminds me of the amazing Diary of a Madman by Gogol, which takes Poprishchin and follows him on a path to madness. First person. The entries haphazardly mix a past tense recounting of events of the day with present time registering of thoughts and associations relating to them. It begins with a standard date-based diary format, but at a certain point even the dates take on an irrational form, as if the writer's sense of conventional time has dissolved.

 

I will follow you into the dark. Death cab for cutie

At the borders of life and death. Seen and done it all. Except these last few things.

 

Teardrop. Massive attack

Mirrors are a powerful tool. Faithful mirrors especially so.

 

Girlfriend in a coma. Morrisey  and Marr/ Smiths/ Coupland 

Young, gifted and Black re-imagined by gloom rockers. More significantly, Douglas Coupland writes a modern fairy tale of Karen who predicts her lapse into a coma and stays in it for 17 years, awakening in time for the End of the World. Brilliant use of Jared as a ghost narrator. Style is grounded in realism.

 

Bad dream hotline - FOE

Use of a Dream trap. Go figure.

idontwanttobeyouanymore – Billy Eilish 

She took a long cold look at me (Syd). Generate the mood. Gravity of it can’t escape the fate.  

Jesus wept - Sia. (God shaped hole) 

Playing with divinity. Use of a God construct? “Life is a cigarette / Cinder, ash and fire / Some smoke it in a hurry / Others savour it". And ‘I smoke my friends down to the filter.’ 2.5 billion heartbeats= average lifespan. ('God shaped hole' is in Smashing Pumpkins lyrics also)

21st century schizoid man. King Crimson. 

Being manipulated Terry Gillam’s Brazil-style and powerless to escape the chosen route. Nondeterminism: the doctrine that there are factors other than the state and immutable laws of the universe involved in the unfolding of events, such as free will.

My song choices generated ideas incorporating:

• ·      Schrödinger’s Cat
• ·      Bullet in Brain
• ·      Drugs and Hallucinations
• ·      The madness is creeping over me
• ·      Borderline of death
• ·      Mirror concepts
• ·      Coma
• ·      Ghost narrator
• ·      Dream trap
• ·      Mood Gravity & Love
• ·      Divine friends
• ·      Determinism and non-determinisim

 so read tomorrow for what I did next...

Proxy pub metrics

I knew it would happen. Petrolheads adapt the electric car agenda. Now it's about fastest acceleration from 0-60 mph, with the new Xaomi claiming faster acceleration, beating Porsche and Tesla. Of course it's the model that no-one will buy - their so called Max model. The normal model is seconds slower than the other two cars. 

It's what I call 'finding a proxy pub metric'. Yet anyone who has driven my type of electric model knows that the acceleration is already insane, to the extent I always have it set in the still swift 'Chill' mode.

Not sure about the deliberate 'supermarket trolley damage' styling?

Paper, everywhere

Some processes take me back in time. I was just completing a legal document and exactly that occurred. I needed to create a 20 page document - two versions - for which I needed signatures on several pages. And witnesses. The signatures were spread out through the document, instead of all being on a signature page.  There was also a certificator. Then I needed a photocopy of the signed form. 

If this was being done by a legal firm, I guess they would charge me several hundred for the tedium of copying and checking everything.

When I used to work abroad, I can remember some countries with their arcane paperwork. I thought we had improved, but it looks as if the legal profession is slow to catch up.

a constellation of quantum paradox

 I might be in a minority, but I'm quite enjoying Constellation, a sci-fi psycho-drama box set. It's set in space and there is an opportunity for things to floatily slow down and then suddenly speed up. Like the way The Killing did at the end of its Episodes.

The main protagonist is Naomi Rapace, and we get some good Scandi Noir thrown into the mix. It is as if the writers tipped out their packet of parts to see which ones they could use.

I've noticed Kubrick and Silence of the Lambs moments as well as proper Scandi crashing through the softly falling now. I usually watch Alien in the dark, for maximum immersion and I found this one to be similarly so, to the extent that a couple of times I needlessly looked away whilst the tension was mounting.

In some ways I was doing a 'Copenhagen';  by not observing the states which became consequently  quantumly ambiguous. And I suppose the (later observed) dead cosmonaut could be a parallel for the a finally observed Schrödinger cat. 

In quantum physics there is a concept called entanglement. An entangled system is defined as an inseparable whole. In entanglement, one constituent cannot be fully described without considering the other(s). The superposition of states of local constituents is entangled if it cannot be written as a single product term.

I'm wondering how deftly the script for this can avoid entanglement as it waltzes through this science, with Breaking Bad's Mike Ehrmentraut (Jonathan Banks) playing the seasoned seventy year old astronaut 'Bud' who has been to the moon and knows about science things. For me, he doesn't quite pull it off and treats the 'canister thingy' as a McGuffin.  "But we must get it back".

Still, outside of these observations, I'm finding it better to watch than a few other things queued up on my various players.

 

Zone of Interest

I steeled myself to go to see the Jonathan Glazer production of 'Zone of Interest' which portrays the life of KL Camp Kommandant Rudolf Höss and his family in their apparently idyllic house set against the walls of Auschwitz. Martin Amis wrote a similar story and Glazer decided to tell it with the actual people instead of the anonymity of the fictional version. 

There's the bucolic and well-tended garden with trimmed grass, pretty flowers and a swimming pool slowly revealing that beyond the wall is the industrialised mass murder of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Höss is senior commander of the entire operation and even gets promoted back to Berlin to oversee a whole set of these camps. The family declines to follow, preferring their luxurious lifestyle outside of the Auschwitz camp.

The language is matter of fact as the family behaves typically with their assorted children, pet dog, numerous servants and workmen. They are largely insulated from the Konzentrationslager as their nearest neighbour, growing vines up the camp walls. The terrifying soundscape tells the story of what is within these walls. Although the movie is in German language, the stark sounds already tell too much.  Pistolshot, echoing rifle shots, screams, and the interminable grinding, smoke, cries and metallic groans from the heavy machinery of industrial slaughter. Black smoke rising and ash coating the flowers causing the visiting mother to quietly depart overnight. Mercifully Glazer doesn't show us inside the active camp.

We see Höss rising to power, first a promotion to Berlin, then to take proud control of the mass extermination of Hungarian prisoners - another excited promotion relayed by phone from Berlin to his wife still at the house in Auschwitz.

In his Nuremburg Trial affidavit made on 5 April 1946, Höss stated:

'I commanded Auschwitz until 1 December 1943, and estimate that at least 2,500,000 victims were executed and exterminated there by gassing and burning, and at least another half million succumbed to starvation and disease, making a total of about 3,000,000 dead. This figure represents about 70% or 80% of all persons sent to Auschwitz as prisoners, the remainder having been selected and used for slave labor in the concentration camp industries. Included among the executed and burnt were approximately 20,000 Russian prisoners of war (previously screened out of Prisoner of War cages by the Gestapo) who were delivered at Auschwitz in Wehrmacht transports operated by regular Wehrmacht officers and men. The remainder of the total number of victims included about 100,000 German Jews, and great numbers of citizens (mostly Jewish) from The Netherlands, France, Belgium, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Greece, or other countries. We executed about 400,000 Hungarian Jews alone at Auschwitz in the summer of 1944.

Not included in the movie...

Nazi evacuation and evidence destruction took place leaving approximately 7,000 prisoners in the camp. On January 27, 1945. Red Army soldiers entered Oświęcimand and soldiers of the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front appeared on the grounds of the Monowitz sub-camp, on the eastern side of the city. They liberated the Auschwitz Main Camp and Birkenau at about 3 p.m.

...And yes, sadly the wall can be a metaphor for now.