flutter

"Be Lucky", someone said to me just before I departed for Ascot to watch a few horse races. "Buy the Sun newspaper", someone else said. So suitably prepared with a quarter page torn from the paper (plenty of Shock Horror stories to read sometime else) and the luckiness that had been instructed upon me, I thought I simply couldn't lose.

And then, on the way to the race course there was The Sign. A full aerial display by the Red Arrows, right in the sky in front of me.

At one point, one of the pilots flew his plane along the path of the M3 towards me.

So by the time I reached Ascot, I thought I couldn't possibly lose and plumped a whole £10 on a horse in the first race.

Thats when something went wrong.

It lost.

It wasn't supposed to.

I thought about leaving right then, but we still had more courses of lunch to eat. Okay, one more try, I thought, and then I'll stop or else I'll become addicted to gambling and go into a hopeless downward penniless spiral ending barefooted and desperate on the street outside the racetrack selling lucky horseshoes.

Second race. I won. Twenty-four pounds payout. I was now a whole £4 ahead.

OK. One more go. Ten quid again. To win (that was the only gambling phrase I knew).

Race Three. I won again. This time the tenner returned £55. I was now £49 ahead and still drinking the complementary lemonade. One more time...£10...Lost.

That was enough. I was still thirty-nine quid ahead and still possessed the willpower to walk away.

And a smile.

day at races and night at piano

Today has a sort of ultimate compression to it. An early work start before a trip to the races at Ascot, to include some kind of fancy lunch and presumably some betting. I must get a copy of The Sun newspaper so that I know the odds. I seem to recollect that the jockeys who arrive by helicopter usually win their races.

Then on to a musical evening with Elton John and perhaps his red piano. The venue is fairly close to Ascot, which is a fortunate co-incidence because the two events were planned in a most uncoordinated way.

When I eventually get back home I will need to start packing for the weekend's flight to Canada.

big moth near Farnborough

Earlier I was putting some minor groceries into the back of the car when I spotted this making a large amount of noise. I've since seen some other small planes and a few helicopters and I believe its because everyone is practicing for Farnborough Air Show.

That would also explain this afternoon's little procession of biplanes and (Tri?)planes and a seriously aggressive looking jet fighter that I saw flying around in circles.

shock british summer rain!

How much sadness can there be in the London sky? The last three days delivered thunder and those kind of downpours that sting the skin.

I've walked along roads transformed into miniature rivers. Yesterday, from the car to indoors, I morphed from dry into drenched.

Right now the heartbroken sky is crying again.


Update: Still raining...

not exactly heaven 17, but in the same wheels

No time for breakfast shows, watching tv and analysing the weather.
Little time to plan the day, except one big thing before Friday.
Work all day and work all night - to make time for play.
Should I stay cool and not get excited wondering?
No chance.
Vocation before vacation?
Defining a new future just before the old story is up.

toy computer

I'll be heading to Calgary in a few days before starting a general wander around the Western half of Canada. Space will be somewhat at a premium and I've decided that as this is a fun trip, I'll jettison the PC. My MacBook Pro is a 17 in system and I've decided on this occasion to leave it behind. So what computer to carry for minor tasks that is also back-pack friendly?

There was nothing for it but to pay a visit to Toys R Us.

They currently stock a teensy thing called the Eee PC which costs around the same as two tanks of fuel for my car and runs a choice of Linux or Windows XP. I think my local store was trying to sell them off before the next model arrives.

Its got 1024x600 screen res, Wifi b/g, a 1.3Mp video camera, VGA out, 100Mb ethernet and a flash disk. There's a slot on the side to add a further flash disk. I found one and clicked it in and it worked straight away. Then I plugged in a 160GB USB powered hard drive which also worked straight away.

Its about the same size as a small hardback or large paperback book, has a moderate battery life and is surprisingly fast for a 1.2MHz 1Gb memory machine. Its available in Black, White and -er- Pink. The white does it for me. I really want it for word processing, email, backup of photos and maybe a bit of browser/blogging. It will be interesting to see how it fares.

Its no secret that I'm something of a Mac enthusiast, and I think there's a lesson here somewhere on packaging for small portable form factors. I have this set up (out of the box) to run Windows XP + MS Works and the Sun StarOffice - not exactly radical programs, but they get the job done. I've left Microsoft Moviemaker on it too, but I'm not holding my breath.

My mad comparison is with the Macbook Air. The Air is much bigger, sleeker, generally classier but would cost at least 6-7 times as much. I would be saddened if I dropped one. I realize I could use the Macbook to edit HD video as well, but then I'd want to use a big Macbook in any case. So at the 'horse for courses' level this tiny, plasticky looking machine will have to be my new best computer friend for a while.

spa

Scheduling chill-out time seems a little perverse, so this weekend's jaunt to the spa, with co-ordinated timetables could have been a mistake.

Suffice to say that everyone returned suitably mellow and the main talk was of recovering from the relaxations of the candles, multiple saunas and aboriginal massage.

A good sign as we prepare ourselves for next week's hectic activities and the countdown before some time in Canada.

The Heron Sessions Pt 1

A couple of glasses of Courage and a few minutes stagger back from the 'Billet then we'd plugged in the amps and gee-tars.

Unfortunately, the first time we somehow blew the fuses and had to resort to some fixin' up before we could get started.

Then a combination of three chord blooz and some twiddly lead and we had ourselves a jam session. No drums, but enough electronics in boxes to support a NASA program. If the bourbon ain't too strong we may even get a track or two out of it. About time for some new publishing on Bubble and Squeek Records.

Alabama 3

I could have written about how I went to bed at five pm yesterday and slept until seven am. Instead I'll write about the Alabama 3.

There's not three and they're not from Alabama, but they ripped a great unplugged set in the Avalon on Saturday. They describe themselves as a pop, punk rock, blues and country techno situationist crypto-Marxist-Leninist electro band.

I describe them as having great Mojo, so that if they do come from Brixton, it sure feels like the world, or another world with American hats.

Degenerate corrupters of morals they may be but there's politics and thought in the acid stomp of their chemical country songs. Its just a party, with really good musicians and really good songs in subversive genre.

They rocked the house down - and that was just the acoustic set.

let the caged bird sing

the hand of the inevitable

4th July? - Here's the ancient video of The Nice performing Sondheim's 'America'.

scape

I admit that my blogging has been rather tacit throughout this week.

I've been travelling and burning midnight oil on work matters and that hasn't left me much spare brainwidth. When I'm in a hotel and have to coax the connections to work in the first place and then get a blast of work emails and a few 'urgent' things to do, it somehow consumes the available time.

I have deliberately never set up my work PC for blogging so it always takes longer to add a post if I also want to include a picture.

So I finished the work at 23:57 and had to decide whether to write a post or surrender for the evening. I suspect I've got festival-lag which is like jet-lag but brought on by spending too much time awake in fields. So I surrendered to the night, leaving the sodium wonders of another man made cityscape outside my tent room.

OTA : Wordless Wednesday

camping at Glastonbury