touching

Slight hiccup today when it emerged that a photo of an MP (the Secretary of State) was slightly 'retouched' because he hadn't actually been present when the picture was taken. Some other MPs turned up on time, but the final picture seems to have accidentally merged them with the separate picture of the missing person. A terrible mix-up, even the hospital trust where the photo was taken and the MP's press office appeared confused.

In this new era of spin free politics, exemplified by the recent original speeches from Gordon Brown we must guard against accidentally being misled by this kind of thing.

In another news item, Gordon has just published a new book about everyday heroes, which he claims to have written himself after talking to the people featured. I see its being serialised in the Daily Mail at the moment. Interesting that several of the people featured in the extensive chapters had only (allegedly) had brief 3-4 minute phone calls with the man until they met him at the book launch. We should be under no illusion about the power of his words.

generally speaking

I was expecting an announcement about a general election for the UK today. By my reckoning, if there was to be an election before the end of the year, it would need to be in October at the latest. I don't know quite how many weeks notice one has to give, but I'm guessing 4 weeks or a calendar month. Elections are usually on a Thursday, so that limits the number of dates left.

I can't imagine we'd have an election too close to Christmas; that rules out December. November starts to see grotty weather and coldness, so that could put off voters visiting their polling stations. The week of Guy Fawkes Night would be a strange time to vote for a new Parliament (after all, Guy Fawkes was the fellah that tried to blow up Parliament), so my bet would have been for the last Thursday in October. Thats the 25th October. Or at a pinch the 1st of November.

But as we are past the calendar month point and we have a weekend in front of us, I'd have thought now would have been the time to announce it. The Conservative conference probably throws a spanner in the works. If it was announced this weekend then the half of the Conservative MPs that make the trip to Blackpool could have a field day chatting about it. That means it could be as late as next Thursday before an announcement, with a view to also running a spoiler on the Conservative conference output.

Its interesting, because the latest the UK has had an election in any year since 1945 was 25 October in 1951. Never November, December or January and the earliest date in February is 23rd. So if it isn't by 25th October/1st November, then I wonder if we will wait until next February/March? Strictly, of course, we don't need to have an election until 2009, but I can't see Gordon waiting that long. Presumably some of the monetary gremlins will start to go munching if its left too long.

The chart below shows my 'look back into history' view of the last 50 or so years of votes. Nearest (biggest) are the most recent ones...


And here it is as a table:

So will UK get an election? I suppose its still anybody's guess?

Thursday Thirteen (V46)

1) Today, I awoke to start the day in darkness
2) Today, I left the house to start work in darkness
3) Early today, When I looked into the sky, I could see a bright moon as well as some space hardware.
4) The brightest item appeared to be what I guess was the space station.
5) Today, when I arrived at the airport, it was still dark.
6) Today, I watched the sun rising like a big red ball from the window of the plane parked on the tarmac.
7) Today, when I arrived at my destination, there was a big rather menacing looking black car which swooped in to pick me up. Several people looked around becuase it was one of those funny sunglasses and dark clothing moments.
8) My driver was on the cellphone for the whole journey, speaking Dutch and trying to sell a camper van for €11,000.
9 Today, at lunchtime, I completely randomly bumped into a friend who I havn't seen for a while and we had a brief chat

10) Today, in the late afternoon, I requested a car back to the airport and on the way the driver diverted to pickup the same friend I'd met at lunchtme, who was working in a nearby office block
11) We chatted together in the airport lounge before going our separate ways on different planes
12) Today, I arrived back over London just as it was getting dark.
13) Today, it was dark when I got home; the moon was shining again but I couldn't see the space station.
Tag: Thursday Thirteen, free link friday

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View from my hotel, Zaventem, Belgium

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Thanks mar

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a nice matter

My thanks to bob-kat for the flattering nomination for the 'nice matters' award.

Correctly, bob-kat and mar surmised that the standard form of the award might not look comfortable on rashbre central, so the art department had a very quick go at a makeover. The original main components are a white low heeled shoe, some pink ribbon and a lot of pink flowers.

This, perhaps slightly edgier, variation uses a red soled, black high-heeled louboutin, some red ribbon and some co-ordinated black-fronted red-backed nail varnish instead of flowers. I think it does the trick. Anyway, the real award picture is here if you want to compare.

I'll do nominations when my brain is working again. And a big thank you to bob-kat.

reserved reversal

Yesterday, after playing with bicycles, I was working in London and then tucked away in a hotel for the evening.

Earlier in the day I'd listened to some of the new KT Tunstall album in my car and was slightly taken aback. The album starts with a track that could easily have been on a Sheryl Crow recording and uses some similar production values too. Nothing against Sheryl, but the point with KT Tunstall was that she sounded like, well, KT Tunstall. The next track continued with a shimmered studio production and for me this hides some of the 'gaps between the sounds' that make the earlier Tunstall albums interesting. The 'eye to the telescope' sold several million, so I guess the record company know what they are doing, but I also suppose that's part of the point. Its not good if all artists get produced in a way that tends to make them bland or derivative.

I'll be in a minority on this, I'm sure, and other people have already said how 'drastic' and 'fantastic' the new album is. But then a strange thing happened...

...In my hotel, I discovered a way to listen to the album that somehow changes my initial impression.

Earlier, I'd copied the CD into iTunes and then dropped it into my iPod.

The hotel had a little plug on the clock radio (as they do nowadays) so that I could play my iPod and I casually selected 'recently added'.

The result was to listen to the same album, but with all of the tracks played in the reverse sequence (ahem on a lo-fi radio system). And you know something? It somehow sounds better! Old vinyls were often put together with care for the sequencing, but I'm not so sure nowadays. Certainly the reverse sequence sets a different initial tone and guides the listener towards some of the more heavily produced material. So when I get a few spare moments, I shall re-cut the album, in reverse track order, back to CD for my car and listen again.

So concluding, what with my PJ Harvey post a couple of days ago, I thought the PJ image from Slane 2003 and the KT 2007 album cover could do with some comparison.

freewheel

I have a special road bike for Central London if I think I may need to park it somewhere. It's green with a slightly peeling finish and has quite a lot of rust showing. There's no fancy speedos or telemetry. The lights are big duracell blocks that unclip with a key. It has a plastic bag over the saddle and both a boingy spiral cable lock and a Kryptonite D-Lock. The saddle is a QR, but I hide the flip switch inside the plastic bag.

The reason is the expected life of an unattended bicycle in Central London is very short. This is a great shame, because London is trying to improve the cycle ways and to encourage cyclists on a series of alternateive and lightly used routes. I think its a great idea and this Sunday's Freewheel Day in Central London attracted tens of thousands of cyclists to zip around some of the best bits of central London which were liberated from other traffic for the day. Parliament, the Mall, Whitehall, Buck House were all included.

It may not be a practical solution yet, but if safe parking security and alternative routes can be provided then it becomes an attractive and interesting way to get around the mainly short distances of the central area.

Thanks, London and Hovis for facilitating this freewheel. Hmm, with Flora sponsoring the London Marathon and Hovis the Freewheel bicycle event, London sure knows which way its bread is buttered (!)

artist

We've all wanted to go to somewhere like the sunny river scene in this picture.

Rosanna's display at the Chiddingfold gallery in Surrey on Saturday captured vibrant scenes with punchy colour conveying a happy mood across a variety of subjects. Working initially in pastels and then developing towards some pure oil painting, the style and detailing are important items on Rosanna's mind right now. There's thought and preparation in scenes like the one above, moving from pencil sketches, through rough painted attempts in an artist notebook, experimentation with paint blending styles and the final crafted delivery.

Whether examining the impressionism of the Japanese Bridge in Monet's garden at Giverney, or musing over delicate fibres for an ink and textile collage, Rosanna is determined to make a style of her own.

Now you've looked at a couple of works from this upcoming artist pop to the gallery on flickr

enchanted braid

"Earth, water, fire and air.
Mix together in the garden fair.
Put in a basket, tie with string.
If you answer this riddle you'll never begin."

I've been listening to the album of a friend with a performance name of i-sense and the album called "The enchanted braid". It contains a riddle like the shape of the elements in a alchemical picture.

Evocative of the mystic middle east, there's four tracks in a sort of song cycle, with commentary and atmospheric sounds of arabic flutes, deep bass drums, synthetic drones and arpeggiated sweeping synthesizers. The subject matter deals with transcendance on several levels, including the ritual of a Pharoh's second death as a path to enlightenment, and the simpler pleasures of love.

i-sense has created a clever album and I'm sure there's more embedded in the tracks than I've found - probably requiring sub-conscious examination. The "sense" of "I" referred to in the artist title is probably a clue to volitionally liberating consciousness from self-restrictions, and I shall enjoy puzzling the hidden meanings.

So whether its about Isis (the spirit) and Osiris (the soul) or a kingdom usurped by Typhon, the elements won't be far from this composition and their intersection at the i of the i-sense.

khalil (sandstorm mix)

white chalk

I've referenced PJ Harvey here before, including that song with Thom York about New York.

I guess PJ's trademark sound has been jagged guitars and a raw vocal style, although listen to her interviews and a different voice appears like a Yin to the Yang.

The latest album officially emerges on Monday, so this is something of a preview, conveying a stripped down sound with piano, harp and some banjo and even a cellphone replacing the heavily bass-amped guitars of the previous recordings.

Interestingly, the vocals sound closer to the interview voice in this album, higher registers and somehow more vulnerable, but a listen to the words soon dismisses this with dark, steely lyrics and some soundscapes that create a chill and atmospheric listening experience. In the past Polly has said that the albums and the lyrics were not about her; it will be interesting to hear the commentary for this one.

So to get an idea of what this is about, here's a few tune extracts in pre-release. Click to accompany your blog browsing and if you like what you hear, then here's an echoey live extract during a recent performance in Denmark.

...or if humbucking telecasters are more your thing then PJ Harvey and Bjork singing "Satisfaction" may be an amusing interlude.

latte

A few minutes sitting in a coffee bar before a meeting today. I was a little early and picked a place at random in Fleet Street to sit and catch up on a few emails.

Turns out one of the people I was meeting was in another coffee bar around the corner.

Fleet Street is the area where the major newspapers used to operate before they all modernised and moved out of the centre. There's still a good legacy of wine bars and pubs in the area and you can spot some suitably business-like people emerging from "The Old Bell Tavern" across the road from where I was sitting.

Nowadays there's still good business from the legal profession, investment banks and accountants in the area and along the road are the Law Court Chambers, often featured on the television news. A short walk in the other direction is the equally famous Old Bailey, site of many famous trials.

The main traffic of buses, taxis, white vans and bicycles is indicative of the area in the centre of the Congestion Charge zone and later this will increase and the streets fill with city folk on their way home. But me, I now have to meet my colleague and then head into a nearby building.