Blog Doubt

Currently visitors are unable to leave comments and the archive system isn't working properly. Sorry. i'll sort it out when I can. Blogger Help are aware of the problem. In the meantime, here's some music.

Cloud Burst on Chapel Street

YOU CAN TELL Wimbledon's started. I turned up today looking like a drowned rat. How much do umbrellas cost? And when will I get "Cloud Burst on Shingle Street" by Thomas Dolby out of my mind?

When I was young,
I was in love.
In love with everything.
And now there's only you.




The tune stayed in my head all day long, even now when I'm safe and warm and ready for bed.

Do Not Adjust Your Site

IT'S CRUNCH TIME in Westminster, and everything I’ve been working on is getting handed in at the end of the week. That’s a lot of work, and a lot of last minute changes.

So: Normal Service Will Be Resumed.

I’ve just got no idea when.

ALBUM REVIEW - The Streets - A Grand Don't Come For Free (679)

ANYONE WHO ENJOYED ”Original Pirate Material” will know what to expect with this new release. There are no real changes of direction here, but a lot of improvement. What’s particularly nice about “A Grand Don’t Come For Free”, is that it’s an old fashioned concept album, where each track reveals part of a story.
As usual, Mike Skinner's word play can be hilariously funny while at the same time being delivered in quick fire rhymes so forced they would make Pam Ayres wince.

“Rushing to the cash machine, still a bit mashed and lean
Then of course a mandatory car, drives by and splashes me
Get there the queue's outrageous, ladies taking ages
My rage is blowing gauges, how longs it take to validate your wages?
At last my turn comes, press the 50 squid button - Insufficient funds “

The story – You’ve lost a grand, which means somebody has taken it from your flat. And that can only mean that one of your mates must have pocketed it. Who do you trust? During the course of the Album, Mike finds time to fall in love, get mashed, have a holiday fling and get dumped. “Dry Your Eyes, Mate” is simply heartbreaking.
There is no shortage of urban beat and funky loops to keep your foot tapping, but it’s the detail that makes this work great. The whole story is presented as a series of incidental clues that you can either use to work everything out or ignore. The small snippets of observation about his friends, what he’s thinking, signs that he almost notices but doesn’t pick up on. It’s not easy to write so with such subtlety about the complexities of life while at the same time pretending you haven’t noticed them.
Buy this CD – or at least borrow it. Either way, you really should hear to it. If only for the brilliant twist at the end of the last track.

Visit The Streets' Website

A Guest Appearance from Islington

A child walks into a room and there’s a lego set in a bucket. The first thing he does is up-end the whole lot onto the floor and start putting the bits together. Okay, maybe a few go into his mouth, a few will inevitably end up down the cushions of the sofa, and one or two are also duty bound to find their way into the vacuum cleaner. But at some point you can guarantee that Junior will plop an assortment of shapes on your knee and say – “Look: I’ve made a dog/house/car/mummy/tree.*” (*delete as appropriate)
So it is with man and science. We’ve got very good at playing with our little building blocks. We like what happens when we mix X with Y. We like learning what it is that makes Z tick. We’ve learned that if we put a bit of scorpion DNA into a bit of wheat DNA we can get something out the other end that can fight of predators. We’ve learned that if we smash atoms together hard enough we can get a very big explosion, and we’ve learned something about the mind-bendingly complicated maths that dictate the way the universe works.
But all we’re doing is playing with building blocks. We’re not creating anything. We’re so carried away with our clever little brick piles that we’ve forgotten who it was that put them there in the first place. For all its glorious achievements, mankind has still not created anything other than mutations. You might argue that we “made” dolly the sheep, but we didn’t create it. We just copied the blue print laid down long before our meddling hands saw fit to try and unravel it. The poor creature died anyway, after several miserable years of infirmity. As clever as we are we can’t create as much as a hamster.
We also can’t cure the common cold, or cancer, or a broken heart. We can’t distribute food to the hungry, or make it rain where we need to, or invent a fuel source that doesn’t choke the planet that was given to us.
But still we put our faith into science as if God had been made redundant by our cleverness. To Quote Brian Appleyard in Understanding the Present “When a person stops believing in God, he or she starts believing in anything.” Is it any wonder that so many New Age cults have sprung up? If we’re so clever, why is it that so many people are searching for something to believe n? intelligent, soulful people are lapping up books full of Positive Platitudes and thinking it will change their lives.
We already have a book that will change your life. People have died to preserve its message so that you can read and accept it. They even give it away free. But it’s old. And in this age of “fresh ideas”, “smart thinking” and “power lunches” we haven’t got time for old.
We’ve all joined the Flavour of the Month Club. Is it any wonder? Science has supplanted religion, but look how inconsistent it is. Einstein comes along and turns everything Newton told us upside down. Hawking came along and did that to Newton. To say nothing of Gullick, Darwin, Dawkins and Pinker. Science has become the Cult of Celebrity, where every five years, a new wave of thinking casts aside everything that had once been fact, and gives us a new set of rules to believe in. If we’re lucky enough to buy the book, we can include ourselves in this new Progressive Thinking Elite of the enlightened. Note I said “buy”. How many copies of A Brief History of Time were ever actually read past chapter two?
Science has not made us happier. It has not fulfilled our lives or purified our planet. In a world where even the smartest minds in science cannot agree on the basic building blocks of physics, to whom do we turn for the truth? In a world where the laws of physics seem to be in daily flux, isn’t it actually better to have something that doesn’t change? The message of the Bible may be old and unfashionable, but at least it’s consistant.
Ultimately, I expect this short term fixation with Chaos Theory and DNA splicing will pass. Because at some point, most of us are going to be old, and many of us are going to be alone. And when that time in our life comes, it would be nice to think there was more peace available than a book of equations.
Science may be entertaining, but science doesn’t love us.

Tipping the Scales

NEW SCIENTIST THIS week (Issue 2451) has a lot to say about how much we've underestimated the way the minds of animals work. Apparently it's all down to evolutionery snobbery. ( The long held prejudice which declares that since we're obviously more evolved than they are, they can't possibly think how we think.) Pick of the essays was Culum Brown's essay on the secret thoughts of fish.
"Fish are more intelligent than they appear. In many areas such as memory, their cognitive powers match or exceed those of 'higher' vertibrates, including non-human primates. Best of all, given the central place memory plays in intelligence and social structures, fish can not only recognise individuals but can also keep track of complex social relationships."



What next, I wonder? Civil Servants with initiative?

The Nicest Thing About Working In London

...IS STILL BEING able to live in Hungerford! Here's a snap from my phone I took while I was out cycling at 8 O'clock tonight...


(I might have messed about with it a bit though. Just a little!)

Walking Down Praed Street

IT WAS THE hottest day of the year, and it was showing. Fat men shuffled by like Buddhas with their bellies held over their belts like badges of authority. Girls showed off their legs with skirts short enough to slow down the traffic, while the bleach white sun and the endless barrage of noise beat down on Praed Street. The diesel scented breeze offered little comfort. Horns blared as cars stacked up, snarling and shimmering in the ripples of haze they gave off. An angry queue of mirage makers, waiting to get home.
It was different somehow. The heat can bring out the best in people if you’re in a park, or at the beach. But at five in the afternoon when the streets are packed tight, you started to see a different face. Cars pushed through box junctions to block off pedestrian crossings, so that we swarmed around them, fists clenched, eyes angry, daring them to match our glare. Ready to meter out punishment for the crime of thoughtless and unnecessary delay of an office worker.
That’s when I heard her. At first, I thought it was a political rally. But she sounded angry. Really angry. Vote for me, you bastards! It was a repetitive mantra. Slogans being chanted. Accusations shouted above the roar of transit vans.
People were stopping to stare, and it didn’t take long for me to pick her out. She was of average height, with average dark hair. She was wearing unremarkable clothes with instantly forgettable shoes, and she was standing in the middle of Praed Street yelling and swearing at the top of her voice.
In no time at all she had a little crowd. The traffic backed up and squeezed past slowly. Nobody there wanted to be the first to risk sounding their horns and bringing her wrath crashing down upon them. The T-Shirted casuals drinking cold lager outside the Fountains Abbey pub sat uncomfortably close at hand, trying to ignore her, investigating their shoes or playing with tattered beermats.
She swore and she ranted as the man she was with tried his best to stem the tide of abuse. “What caused all this f- problem was YOU, you f- shit! You could have kept your f- mouth shut! But no – YOU had to f- tell every f- one! YOU had to stick your f- nose into other people’s f- business…”
And so she went on.
I passed by unnoticed, but close. She had the most beautiful golden brown eyes, and she was shaking. The sunlight caught in her hair and sparkled as she took another deep breath and let fly a fresh volley of profanity.
I carried on my way, listening to the rhythmic meter of her abuse which showed no sign of letting up. The sun still shone. Shadows crisp edged on dusty pavement. I passed the lock makers, then the jewellers, the sandwich shop and the news stands. And even when I drew level with Paddington Station almost five minutes later, I could still hear her voice, carried over the sea of impatient bodies on the gasoline flavoured wind.

A Better Still Lemonade Recipe

Ingredients
3 large whole lemons, scrubbed to remove wax
125g/4oz sugar
1.5ltr/2 pint boiling water
3 mint sprigs
4 lemon slices
ice cubes

method
1. Cut up the lemons and put them into a large stoneware jug,
2. Add the mint and sugar and pour over the boiling water,
3. Leave over night, stirring the mixture at bed time,
4. Strain in the morning and decant,
5. Serve with ice when the sun is shining.

Still Lemonade Recipe

Ingredients

½ lemon, juice only
2 tsp icing sugar, sifted
¾ glass water
3 mint leaves
ice cubes, for serving

Method

1. In a jug, whisk together the lemon juice, sugar and water.
2. Stir in the mint leaves.
3. Place some ice cubes in the base of a glass and pour the still lemonade over the top.
4. Serve.