Seaside Man

(All the pictures get larger if you click on them; it can be hard to see details on the smaller ones)

One of the great pleasures of a truly large festival like Glastonbury is that you can just wander round and see new things everywhere you go: people, art, sculptures, cabaret, juggling, campaigning, clowning and all manner of general roving silliness. This applies just as much at night-time as during the day-time. There is music of every type everywhere. These two men in dresses seemed very happy:

You can just see in the background some graffiti that says "Mudwig is a Twazz". This was in many places on site and I have no idea what it means.

This is a fairly new area called the park:

It really felt like a park too, with families sat around picnicking and light music playing. On Saturday, we sat in more or less the same spot and heard the music from the film The Wicker Man played. It rained heavily for a while on Friday afternoon, making the area round our tents look like this:

This is the aftermath of the rain at the Jazz World stage:

Fairly early on we went in a tent playing some rather loud techno, and it looked like this:

All the music tents in addition to the larger stages are great places to go to to get out of either sun or rain, and each one has a different atmosphere, ambience and music.

Because the site is so large, it can take a long time to get from one stage to another, especially after a major artist has just finished, so if possible it makes sense to try and see pairs of things. So, on Friday afternoon we went to see Lamb followed by Steel Pulse in the Jazz World field. Both were excellent. Lamb were excellent as always with, as you might expect, a beautiful version of their best-known song Gorecki. Steel Pulse have an unusually proficient lead guitarist for a reggae band and they were immensely funky and entertaining.

The news of Michael Jackson's death swept the festival like wildfire on Friday evening. Lots of people were talking about it, and this makeshift shrine very quickly appeared as did endless sick jokes and lots of DJs mixing his songs in with other things all weekend:

After the sojourn in the Jazz World field, it was straight over to the Pyramid (main) stage for The Specials and Neil Young. We missed the start of The Specials, but they were great. Full of energy, and everyone in the crowd seemed to know all the words. They did particularly good versions of Too Much Too Young and Ghost Town. This is the sun setting behind them as they played:

And finally on Friday night, Neil Young. I’d been waiting for 30 years to see him and I was in no way at all let down. He was amazing, stupendous, brilliant. He came on with a totally raw and powerful version of My My Hey Hey, played a good selection of songs from throughout his career and ended with a barnstorming version of “Rocking in the Free World” that you could hear people singing round the site for the next few hours. His usual current encore of the Beatles song “A Day In The Life” was far better than I was expecting and put the Beatles insipid original quite to shame. He was on for a solid 2 hours.

You can just make him out in that picture (if you squint!), and the moon is just visible to the left of the stage too. My feet were absolutely killing me by this point and I was having to keep jiggling my weight from foot to foot as if I was desperate for a wee!

I’ll make a post about Saturday tomorrow.

Cheers, Tom.

When I looked through my Glastonbury pictures, I was hoping to find one single image that best represented the festival. I couldn't find just one, so I'll make 2 or 3 posts that give different snapshots of what you can see as you wander around the 2 square Mile site. This is the first such snapshot:

This is the inside of the Hare Krishna tent. I'll cover lots more such snapshots tomorrow.

Cheers, Tom.

Kodachrome film is being "retired" because of "declining demand". It's the end of an era, and digital is now unstoppable, at least for colour. Now that modern printers can do blacks properly, the end is probably in sight for B&W too. This is Kodachrome by Paul Simon:

 

This is a slideshow made by Kodak to show some of the things done with their film. I strongly recommend you have a look through the images as they are amazing:

http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=15398&pq-locale=en_US&_requestid=8135

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I'm off to Glastonbury in a few minutes so I won't be around in blogland for a while. Have fun everyone. I'll provide a full report and some photos on my return.

Cheers, Tom.

P.S. Thanks to Charlotte for suggesting the title and Paul Simon

I was at this one as well - Primal Scream:

It's basically a Rolling Stones song, but they are just excellent live!

The crowd went mental!

(For Stu)

This was the last song of their astonishing set...

Beth Ditto of The Gossip is an absolutely inspiring singer and frontwoman and has absolute LUNGS OF STEEL!!

This one from the Dance Tent:

1998

You can see how muddy it was in this clip...

All the subtle flavours of my life
are become bitter seeds
and poisoned leaves
without you
You represent what's true
I drain the colour from the sky
And turn blue
without you
These arms lack a purpose
Flapping like a humming-bird
I'm nervous 'cause
I'm the left eye
you're the right
Would it not be madness to fight
We come one
In you the song which rights my wrongs
In you the fullness of living
The power to begin again
From right now, in you
We come one
I'm not afraid
never never scared
Worries washed
pressed air
I am the left eye
you're the right
Would it not be madness to fight
We come one

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Another great Glastonbury performance by Faithless, and another one that I was at. This is an edited version - the song went on for about 15 minutes and I have never seen a crowd so into it, 100,000 people all going bonkers at the same time. At about the 4 1/2 minute point where it comes back, the crowd just turned into a roaring, seething mass of humanity all focussed on Maxi Jazz who, like Jarvis Cocker is one of the great lyricists and front-men of our time.

Virgin had a poll of the top 10 Glastonbury performances ever, and this one by Pulp came in at Number 6. Common People by Pulp:

Jarvis Cocker is a devastatingly good lyricist - one of the best of this age - and he is an excellent front man.

--------

She came from Greece she had a thirst for knowledge,
she studied sculpture at Saint Martin's College,
that's where I,
caught her eye.
She told me that her Dad was loaded,
I said "In that case I'll have a rum and coca-cola."
She said "Fine."
and in thirty seconds time she said,

"I want to live like common people,
I want to do whatever common people do,
I want to sleep with common people,
I want to sleep with common people,
like you."

Well what else could I do -
I said "I'll see what I can do."
I took her to a supermarket,
I don't know why but I had to start it somewhere,
so it started there.
I said pretend you've got no money,
she just laughed and said,
"Oh you're so funny."
I said "yeah?
Well I can't see anyone else smiling in here.
Are you sure you want to live like common people,
you want to see whatever common people see,
you want to sleep with common people,
you want to sleep with common people,
like me."
But she didn't understand,
she just smiled and held my hand.
Rent a flat above a shop,
cut your hair and get a job.
Smoke some fags and play some pool,
pretend you never went to school.
But still you'll never get it right,
cos when you're laid in bed at night,
watching roaches climb the wall,
if you call your Dad he could stop it all.

You'll never live like common people,
you'll never do what common people do,
you'll never fail like common people,
you'll never watch your life slide out of view,
and dance and drink and screw,
because there's nothing else to do.

Sing along with the common people,
sing along and it might just get you through,
laugh along with the common people,
laugh along even though they're laughing at you,
and the stupid things that you do.
Because you think that poor is cool.

(click the picture to enlarge it)

I've mentioned this before, but Borth Bog is a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

Cors Fochno (in the Welsh) is the only UNESCO biosphere reserve in Wales. It is a lowland raised peat bog (or mire) and is home to rare species of mosses, plants and birds. There are even three types of carnivorous plants. There are otters, Welsh Mountain Ponies, Peregrine Falcons, Red Kites, Marsh Harriers, ducks, geese, and many other types of bird. It’s no surprise that there is an RSPB observation hut - currently closed because birds are nesting in it!

In 2004, an archaeological dig was carried out to uncover an ancient timber track that had been covered for at least 1000 years. The results of the dig are on display in Aberystwyth museum.

It's also absolutely lovely. All the different coloured grasses and reeds glow in the late afternoon sun and there are enough different intriguing bird cries to thrill a Twitcher. Nice place to walk the dogs too, as long as they stay on the track.

Cheers, Tom.

Thirsty yet?

I've been checking to see what the weather looks like for Glastonbury this weekend and the reports are conflicting. One prediction says it'll be dry apart from a bit of rain overnight on Saturday, another predicts heavy rain for most of Friday afternoon and night. That latter option is a bad one as it means that the place will turn into a quagmire. We'll see...

But either way I'll need wellies and coats as well as shorts and hat. And also either way, the music will be excellent. I'm looking forward very much to both Neil Young and The Prodigy as well as to lots of lesser known artistes and some general weirdness too. It's gonna be good!

Cheers, Tom.

Just stick a pea inside each bee cosy and it keeps each one snug and warm.

Isn't nature wonderful!

Tom.

The term "genius" is thrown around far too easily these days for my liking. This is it's first definition at dictionary.com:

"an exceptional natural capacity of intellect, especially as shown in creative and original work in science, art, music, etc"

The words "creative" and "original" are key there, I think. As far as music is concerned, I would say that there have been less than 100 true musical geniuses, and possibly even fewer than that. I would certainly put Brian Eno amongst them.

Eno has been very influential on music in a wide variety of genres in roles including writing, playing, producing, composing, singing, directing, and inventing. Ambient music probably would not have become so prominent without Eno (and he coined the term), and his thinking on "The use of the recording studio as a compositional tool" was groundbreaking.

Below is a track from his great album "Before and After Science". I was going to pick "Spider and I" because of the picture above, but I changed my mind and below you will find "Julie With". I played this song endlessly when I first got the album. I find it utterly calming and I would describe it as profoundly simple.

I Am On An Open Sea
Just Drifting As the Hours Go Slowly By
Julie With Her Open Blouse
Is Gazing Up Into the Empty Sky.

Now It Seems to Be So Strange Here
Now It's So Blue
The Still Sea Is Darker Than Before...

No Wind Disturbs Our Coloured Sail
The Radio Is Silent, So Are We
Julie's Head Is On Her Arm
Her Fingers Brush the Surface of the Sea.

Now I Wonder If We'll Be Seen Here
Or If Time Has Left Us All Alone
The Still Sea Is Darker Than Before..

Cheers, Tom.

I asked our very own brokendownangel Tracey to suggest a song for me to have a go at, and she suggested...Broken Down Angel by Nazareth. This is a classic pop/rock song from 1973 that was produced by Roger Glover of Deep Purple. I remember it well, and fondly, from when it was originally a hit (it got to number 9 in the UK singles chart). Here it is:

I skipped both the instrumental break towards the end and the repeat of the intro after the 1st chorus, and I bring it to a stop rather than fade it out. It is also slower and in a completely different style!

Cheers, Tom.

...I've got Sunshine in a Bag.

Good morning!

Tom.

A strong candidate for best performance of all time here, from Howling Wolf on the legendary 1964 Blues tour of England.

Cheers, Tom.

Let's hope for a good one!

Cheers, Tom.

I want a holiday with a scene
Of green, green and green

A summer of green trees
A landscape of green grass
A view full of green vegetables

The colour green
Is a beauty that must be seen!
From a moving vehicles screen

And while we hold onto those machines
That deprives us of the colour green
Remember they provide us vaccines
As well as help the air to be clean

So for green, green and green
I will travel continents across and in-between
And also to any place that I have never been
I will make it routine
Just to see green, green and green

-- Sylvia Chidi, 2006

This song by The Cocteau Twins from the album Treasure was one I couldn't stop playing. As a result, my vinyl copy of it got worse and worse in quality. Eventually, enough was enough and I just thought "this is silly - I need a non-destructive playback medium" (Yes, that was exactly how I thought).

This song contains both raw power and great beauty. Liz Fraser really has the voice of an angel, and when it's combined with melodies to die for, crashing guitar and powerful rhythms, then I couldn't want for more. This song still makes me shiver 25 years on.

I still don't have the faintest idea what she is singing about and I still don't care.

I should probably mention that I bought my CD player in 1986 and that was quite unusual at the time - none of my friends had one. I remember I had £300 to spend and I spent £200 on the player and the remaining £100 bought me just 9 CDs.

Tom.

I was overdue to record a blues song, so here it is. I start off quietly and get more raucous as it goes along. It's a bit rough and ready but improved by Shep by the side of me wondering what was going on, especially when I do the strangled cat impression!

Cheers, Tom.

The sun comes up but it is still quite dark. Mist hangs in the valley. A foal nuzzles it's mummy while a young horse runs round for the sheer joy of living. The cattle's feet sound heavy on the ground and their breath steams as they eat their grassy breakfast. The dew dampens your shoes and a crow caws in the distance. The grass smells green and fresh for it is late spring.

Behind a dark cloud, the sun lights up the sky.

Cheers, Tom.

A staple plot-line in detective/crime films used to be someone getting photographed doing something naughty and then bribed. They’d get sent an 8” * 10” photograph and be promised the negative in exchange for a large sum of money. The fact that the baddies might have used several cameras and/or several rolls of film never seemed to come up, but that’s not what I want to talk about.

Now that digital photography exists and is so ubiquitous, this entire plot idea is history. You can take a picture now with a camera-phone and within a couple of seconds have it uploaded onto a webpage where anyone in the world can see it. Anyone can then download it and modify it and then re-upload it. Within a short while, you can have your mate’s face on a donkey.

So imagine, for example, a politician digitally photographed snogging someone who isn’t their spouse. S/he could just deny it and say that the photograph has been photoshopped. The burden of proof now rests with the people taking the photograph (innocent until proven guilty and all that), whereas in the past the photograph itself actually was the proof. Passport photographs used to have to be B&W and done on film too.

A (digital) photograph now proves nothing. When I was at college this year, I overheard one of the students saying to another “Do you have a youtube clip to prove that”? It was tongue in cheek, but there is a basic truth in there that video is now required for evidence rather than a photograph.

But digital video is now no more reliable than a digital photograph. With time and effort you could change every pixel to show things that simply weren’t there and didn’t happen. So what comes next, what will replace video? Are we headed for a future where the only reliable evidence is that lots of people said you did it? How reliable is that?

Tom.

This song was written by Tom Waits especially for Johnny Cash. I do this slightly slower than the original and it was coming out a bit long, so I skipped the 3rd verse.

On this occasion I wanted a bit of reverb, so that was a Rode NT1 microphone plugged into a Joe Meek VC3 pre-amp and then through a Zoom 1204 multi-effects box before going to the amp.

Cheers, Tom.

Probably.

Here is the so-called problem: the ancient Mayan civilization had a calendar which is translated as "the long count", which uses a cycle of approximately 5126 years. It started on what would be August 11th 3114 BC and ends on 21st December 2012.

There is a long explanation of matters relating to this here:

http://www.universetoday.com/2008/05/19/no-doomsday-in-2012/

In a nutshell, it's nonsense. Not only does no-one know why the long cycle started when it did, there is no evidence for anything bad happening when the calendar changes on 22nd December 2012 anyway. That isn't even the end of the Mayan long cycle, it just marks the start of the 13th section of it (of 20). The real long cycle end is in about 8000AD.

So why all the fuss? The dates for doomsdays keep advancing. There was one in 1900, another in 1987, 2000 of course, and now 2012. There have been lots of others. After the 2012 one has come and gone without incident, someone will come up with another one, probably between 2020 and 2030 and as with the others, the purpose will be selling books and newspapers and making money.

This particular scam was the work of one man: Jose Arguelles and yes, he used it to sell a book. He took lots of LSD in the 1960s which inspired him to paint psychedelic paintings. He later said "as fantastic as painting was, it was a limited medium in terms of audience". In other words, he could get richer by predicting the end of the world 26 years after the "Harmonic Convergence" of 1987.

I think Arguelles is a charlatan, a snake-oil salesman. Serious Mayan scholars say he is talking nonsense:

'Sandra Noble, executive director of the Mesoamerican research organization FAMSI notes that "For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle". However, she considers the portrayal of December 2012 as a doomsday or cosmic-shift event to be "a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in"'

So there it is. The world might end in 2012, but if it does it ain't gonna be anything to do with the Mayan Calendar. I'd be betting on WW3 if anything is going to do it. If you really need to worry about something, why not make it something likely?

Cheers, Tom.

(all 3 pics get bigger if you click on them)

These were taken with my new lens. The top one is a weird flower that i found growing straight out of the pavement. I cropped it down to just the centre and that's what I got.

The one below of Shep was taken in fairly low light. If I got it right, your eyes should go straight to his eyes when you look at the picture:

And here is another one of Helen from the sequence I took last night:

I am still surprised at how accurate these of Helen have come out.

Cheers, Tom.

My new lens is good for portraits. I think the above picture shows this. The detail is good, and the skin tone looks natural. Because of the short depth of field, she stands out nicely against the background too.

I'm pleased.

Cheers, Tom.

It's a prime 35mm Nikon f1.8 lens for anyone interested in such things. No zoom at all, fixed focal length. It is a very good performer when there is less light available and is rather good at blurring the background because it has a very narrow Depth of Field when used wide open. Like this:

You have to be very accurate with the focus, or you end up with the bit you want in focus blurred. It's gorgeous with colour and shows detail in faces with almost painful accuracy, so I will be using it for portraits as well as when less light is available, at concerts or in art galleries for example.

Very pleased :-)

Tom.

Every time I see blue flowers, I think of this song by Dr Octagon (Kool Keith). The music is fabulous and the lyrics amazing, and within is one of my favourite lines of all time (my title). Hip Hop seemed to lose it's way for a while, so it's good to remember how good it can get. This and "Twice the First Time" by Saul Williams are just killer tracks to play to those who say "rap is for morons", as someone did here recently.

The title Blue Flowers came from Philip K Dick's novel "A Scanner Darkly". A blue flower "stands for desire, love, and the metaphysical striving for the infinite and unreachable".

Not many "morons" can make music like that with lyrics like these:

Dr. Octagon paramedic fetus of the East
with priests I'm from the Church of the Operating Room
with the strike support scalpels since the holocaust
I do indeed in greed explore meet the patients
Back to brooms with the nurse with the voodoo curse
Holding up office lights standing at huge heights
Back and forth left wing swing to North
East and South with blood pouring down your mouth
I come prepared with the white suit and stethascope
Listen to your heartbeat, delete beep beep BEEP
Your insurance is high, but my price is cheap
Look at the land... Blue Flowers!
Drawing by the purple pond, in the purple pastures Blue Flowers!
Drawing by the purple pond, yellow ink that flows Blue Flowers!
Drawing by the pond, look, it's raining yellow
Would you care to listen to me more? Thank you
Holding bags on down right from the hospital
It's a patient that's worth to keep the germs off the turf
Cybernetic microscopes and metal antidote
Two telescopes that magnify the size of a roach
Three computers to cup of coffee planted with my hand and
astroplanets detached turn on rear foggers
Cut the light on the kid, and turn the bright on
Supersonic waves combine and burn as brainwaves
I see the mascot of Evil he's not Kneivel
Shakespeare's gone don't even think about it
Yes, as I'm going to the park, I see... Blue Flowers!
It's raining green, by the pond Blue Flowers!
It's totally raining green, pouring Blue Flowers!
I smell the bees and the birds Blue Flowers!
Different aspects of life, blue flowers

Cheers, Tom.

Later than last year, but it's done now. It wasn't that cold once you got in either!

Ain't no stoppin' me now - I'm on the Move!

Cheers, Tom.

I was looking through some old files and I came across the 1st song I ever wrote, so I just recorded it. As you might expect, it's pretty simple and direct.

Cheers, Tom.

A strawberry is not a fruit, because the tasty flesh bit doesn't come from the ovary wall. It is a "false fruit", or pseudocarp. Those small black things on the outside are the actual biological "fruit" and each one contains a seed.

A tomato is a fruit, because "true fruits are developed from the ovary in the base of the flower, and contain the seeds of the plant". Tomatoes are cooked as vegetables rather than as fruits so are traditionally (but wrongly) referred to in cookery books as vegetables.

A bean pod is a fruit, and so are lots of types of nuts.

Rhubarb? In America rhubarb is legally a fruit because of a 1947 court verdict but biologically it is a herb.

A sultana is a raisin, but a raisin is not necessarily a sultana. A currant is also a raisin and may be a sultana. You could do a Venn diagram of this, but I will resist the temptation for the moment. They all come from dried grapes, which are fruits. But does that include seedless grapes?

Cheers, Tom.

We could hear them crashing particularly loudly this morning on the way back from the party, and the surfers have been out in force too. I've pondered before about what makes the waves big:

No wind at all today but big waves anyway.

Tom.

So, Helen and I were dirty rotten stop-outs last night. There was a wedding party at a farm a couple of miles away (no-one we know) with bands, good DJs and everything. We didn't leave until it was light and on the way back we came across these three beauties above. I think they were hoping we'd got treats. They got a stroke and a handful of grass each, but no treats.

Cheers, Tom.

When waiting for the train yesterday, I maet a woman with a baby barn owl in a box. She was feeding it chopped liver and later it would be getting the insides of a mouse. Yum yum! Curious looking thing. Apparently it will start to grow feathers n a week or so.

Very busy day yesterday - I'll post a few pictures later.

Cheers, Tom.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7205086.stm

"Scientists believe they could be a step closer to solving the mystery of how the first birds took to the air ... birds move their wings at the same narrow angle, whether they run, fly or glide ... early birds may have begun to fly by simply learning to flutter their wings at the right angle ... Birds don't just use their wings when they fly or just their legs to run on the flat; in fact, they recruit both wings and legs for them to scale steep inclines, whether it be a boulder, a tree or a cliff"

Another fascinating step in understanding evolution.

Tom.

What a peculiar language English is. "Brooding" is what those clouds are, but that is also the word for a bird sitting on eggs and for someone recalling painful memories. The word doesn't apply at all today as the sky is bluer than a very very blue thing.

Cheers, Tom.

One of the best gigs of my life was seeing Massive Attack, in about 2000, in Manchester. This song, Angel, sung live by Horace Andy and the band will never leave me:

Tom.

There was a story in our local newspaper today - "The Cambrian Times" - about a woman in a wheelchair who has a blind pet sheep (born with no eyeballs) that wears a nappy so that it's "mess" doesn't offend anyone. Seriously, I'm not making this up.

What I want to know is how horse owners are exempt from this concern. Dog owners have to "pick up" their doggie's mess and even sheep keepers it seems have to do it. Dogs aren't even allowed on the beach from May until September because of the risk but horses walk up and down the beach and the High Street pooing all year round, but have you ever heard of a "horse poo bag"?

The rich folk who run this country it seems are exempt from having to deal with animal poo. Socialism will never be real until I see a rich person picking up horse poo from Borth beach or Borth High Street. It seems it's still one rule for the rich and one for the poor.

GRRR.

Tom.

There are some songs that, at some point, every man with an acoustic guitar has to have a go at and one of them is Bob Marley's Redemption Song.

My policy for all the videos I've posted recently has been a short practice session and then film it in one take. This is because I think the result ends up a little more spontaneous and that is preferable, even if there are a few mistakes (as there are here). Also, if I was playing live in front of a group of people I wouldn't get the chance for multiple takes so I don't see why I should here either.

So, here it is:

Cheers, Tom.

It makes me think of James Bond for some reason.

Cheers, Tom.

The song says:

"The other man's grass is always greener
the sun shines brighter on the other side
Some are lucky some are not
But I'm so thankful for what I've got"

I really like the house in the picture above though. This is the song:

Life is never what it seems
We're always searching in our dreams
To find that little castle in the air
When worry starts to cloud the mind,
It's hard to leave it all behind
And just pretend you haven't got a care

There's someone else in your imagination
You wish that you were standing in their shoes
You'd change your life without much hesitation
But would you if you really had to choose?

So, don't look around
Get your feet on the ground
It's much better by far
To be just who you are

The other man's grass is always greener
The sun shines brighter on the other side
The other man's grass is always greener
Some are lucky, some are not
But just be thankful for what you've got

Many times, it seems to me
There's someone else I'd rather be
Living in a world of make-believe
To stay in bed 'til nearly three
With nothing there to worry me
Would seem to be the life I might achieve

But deep inside, I know I'm really lucky
With happiness I've never known before
And just as long as you are there beside me
I know that I could ask for nothing more

Then living can start
With the love in your heart
So, with you all the time,
All the treasures I've longed for are mine

The other man's grass is always greener
The sun shines brighter on the other side
The other man's grass is always greener
Some are lucky, some are not
But I'm so thankful for what I've got

(Petula Clark, 1967)

---

Cheers, Tom.

One of the classic problems in photography is what to do when there are very bright areas and dark areas in the same scene (high contrast). If you use a shorter exposure so that the bright things are about right, you probably won’t see any detail in the dark bits. If you expose for longer so that you can see what is going on in the dark bits, then the brighter bits might end up overexposed (or “burned out”).

With traditional film photography, the “rule” was to expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights. i.e. you would take the shot with a longer exposure, so that it was possible to see “detail in the shadows”, and then develop and print in such a way that the bright bits weren’t too bright. This can also be done with digital photographs using a digital darkroom.

Personally, I am not a fan of excessive digital post-processing as I think it all too often produces results that look garish and tacky, and every change that gets made reduces the quality of the image. If it is straightened, cropped, the contrast increased and the colour heightened, that’s 4 reductions in quality and if the image is printed quite large, the chance of the changes being noticeable is high.

The result will mostly be better if the correct image can be captured “in camera”, straight, the right size and correctly exposed. The scene above has the high contrast problem, and to solve it I simply waited for the sun to get lower. If I had taken the same shot 5 minutes earlier, the sun would have been brighter and to get it correctly exposed the runner would have been just a silhouette - as it is now, you can see some detail in him. If I’d waited another 5 minutes, the sun would have gone. I’d have been happier with more detail of the runner visible, but this was the best I could do without post-processing.

The only post-processing required for the above picture was a small crop because I don’t own a long enough lens - I was on full zoom and the runner was still too small. This limits the size to which this picture could be blown up. I should be getting a longer lens soon, hopefully.

Cheers, Tom.

This morning, BrokenDownAngel pointed out that a sky picture was missing from my walk, so here it is:

Cheers, Tom.

This season of Springtime is a lovely one. All living things are growing as quickly as they can, revelling in the perfect combination of sun and rain to produce greenery and flowers in every direction. This is the lane I was thinking of:

It's just a couple of miles away, off the side of a little country B road. Just over the fence is this church:

When you get your head down to doggy height, it looks very different, like this:

Down the leafy lane I spotted these...Foxgloves are they?

Go in a bit closer and you get this:

Go right in close and you get this:

Cheers, Tom.

That's what Welsh cows say :-)

They looked so happy, running round the field having a great time in the sunshine. They trotted over to have a look at me and just stood there, staring.

Cheers, Tom.

P.S. Click the picture and it gets bigger.

Mr Rabbit has the habit
Of running round and round

He likes the run and he likes the fun
And his paws are fast on the ground

When the big old dog jumps over the log
She lands in Rabbit’s pen

He’s not a mole but he has a hole
And it’s the safest little den

He runs and hides all safe inside
As snug as snug could be

And from without there’s a very loud shout
And doggy will have no tea

His nose peeps out and he hops out
There’s no more doggy pest

Alone again in his own pen
He sits down for a rest

( SOMB )

The turnout in the EU elections in the UK was 34.2% - 15.1 million votes cast, 29 million votes wasted. If those 29 million non-voters had got off their bums and done something, they could have made a MASSIVE difference. (and postal votes were available, so not being able to get to the polling station was no excuse). The Sat On My Bum Party are by far the largest one. If they could be co-ordinated, their power and influence would be greater than all the other parties combined

So who are the Sat On My Bum Party members? Many of them fit into one of these categories:

Lazy
Don't Care
Disconnected
Silently protesting

The Lazy's and Don't Care's will probably stay that way. The disconnected could be reconnected, but what I'd most like to know is what sort of protest sitting on your bum is? That's the sort of protest that gives power to the BNP. If you really want to protest, get off your bum and go protest. Hoping that people will interpret you sat on your bum watching the telly as some sort of protest just makes you look like a Lazy, even if you aren't.

Tom.

I need to get back to some B&W film photography over the summer. This isn't film, but it's a good start:

I took that at the fishing competition over the weekend.

Cheers, Tom.

(click the pic to bigify)

I just spoke with a fisherman and he said "it rained relentlessly yesterday and I only caught 2 fish". He seemed happy though.

Cheers, Tom.

We bought a Ukulele recently. Whilst looking at songs for it on youtube, I found this cover by Danielle Ate The Sandwich:

A lonely mother gazing out of her window
Staring at her son that she just cant touch
If at any time he's in a jam
She’ll be by his side
But he doesn't realize he hurts her so much
But all the praying just ain't helping
At all cause he cant seem to keep
His self out of trouble
So he goes out and he makes his money
The best way he knows how
Another body laying cold in the gutter
Listen to me

Chorus
Don't go chasing waterfalls
Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that
You're used to
I know that you're gonna have it your way
Or nothing at all
But I think you re moving too fast

Little precious has a natural obsession
For temptation but he just cant see
She gives him loving that his body cant handle
But all he can say is baby is good to me
One day he goes and takes a glimpse
In the mirror
But he doesn't recognize his own face
His health is fading and he doesn't know why
3 letters took him to his final resting place
Yall don't hear me

Chorus

I seen a rainbow yesterday
But too many storms have come and gone
Leaving a trace of not one God given ray
You say because my life is ten shades of grey
I prey all ten fade away
Seldom praise him for the sunny days

And like his promise is true
Only my faith can undo
The many chances I blew
To bring my life to anew
Clear blue and unconditional skies
Have dried the tears from my eyes
No more lonely cries

My only bleeding hope
Is for the folk who cant cope
Wit such an enduring pain
That it keeps em in the pouring rain
Who's to blame
For tooting cane in your own vein
What a shame
You shoot and aim for someone else's brain
You claim the insane
And name this day and time
For falling prey to crime
I say the system got you victim to your own mind
Dreams are hopeless aspirations
In hopes of coming true
Believe in yourself
The rest is up to me and you

I read something recently which reckoned that both reading and writing of blogs is diminishing and one reason for it is Twitter. Blogs are now "old hat" and anyone who is anyone is Twittering instead. Personally I'd rather stay away from Twitter. I looked into it and decided there was nothing useful in it for me, like Facebook and Myspace. All 3 seem to be primarily Time Vampires full of blathering nonsense.

There are fewer users in the blogosphere now and lots of BCUK users seem to be in the process of jumping ship, if they haven't already done so. This process is inevitable and is to be expected. As more technology becomes available, time spent on each one will necessarily diminish. Over time, followers of each Next Big Thing will become fewer and they will leave more quickly. Over even more time, each new thing will get fewer and fewer followers. Facebook is already "old hat" and Twitter will follow.

The replacement for Twitter will probably be Google Wave, announced last week, which is an "in-browser" bit of software described like this:

"[Google wave] is a hybrid of email, web chat, IM, and project management software. It features the ability to replay conversations because it records the entire sequence of communication, character by character. Because of this, discussions are also live in Google Wave: you will see your friends type character-by-character.

Google Wave also supports the ability to drag attachments from your desktop into Google Wave. It loads that file and sends it immediately to anyone in the conversation. It’s also embeddable, so you can embed Google Wave conversations on any blog"

So, it's everything that Twitter isn't and I quite like the sound of it.

Talking of blathering nonsense, television has been the biggest Time Vampire of all. It has also been one of the biggest victims of technology creep, recently suffering the fate that befell cinema in the 1940s and 1950s as viewers desert to games and the internet.

The long term result of all this will be even greater social isolation. The phone companies will suffer too, and that's no bad thing.

Cheers, Tom.

I'm not normally up early enough to see the sun come up in the summer, but it does happen occasionally as the above picture shows. The colours are quite subtly different from the same sun the following evening:

Cheers, Tom.

"An irreconcilable situation - two men with guns drawn who don't really want to shoot, but who don't want to be the first to put the gun down

Cheers, Tom.

Curiously, that is the only way I have ever voted. I've never voted for any of the major parties for the simple reason that I have never agreed with enough of their policies. That's a big problem with our system. Each party produces a manifesto with, say, 100 things they want to do if they get to be the government.

I like 60 things party A say they'll do
I like 50 things party B say they'll do
I like 40 things party C say they'll do
I like 30 things party D say they'll do

Party A have no chance whatsoever of becoming the government, and party B little chance, so if you vote for either of these you have wasted your vote; so why bother voting? I don't like party C because of their recent record, and I don't like party D because of their history. The issues I care most strongly about are dealt with by parties A and C, but B and D have policies for important stuff too.

So what do you do?

I went with party A (Green) as the best compromise, so basically I have wasted my vote. At least they have principles rather than being lead by focus groups.

Turnout last time was 38% and I expect it to be even lower this time. You can choose a crook on the left or a crook on the right, but either way you're choosing a crook. The whole setup in this country is an undemocratic sham. People say it's important to vote because people died so that we can have this vote and because other people in the world don't have the choice but frankly that argument is nonsense. We are here and now and the system is broken; even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day.

Lots of people don't even know what they're voting for anyway: "I think I'll vote for that Tony Blair as he has a nice face" or "I think I'll try the liberals for a change".

I'm not depressed in case anyone is wondering. The system has been broken for a long time and I'm used to it. I've known that MPs are mostly dishonest, power seeking bureaucrats for over 25 years and that the real power is elsewhere. This day of an election (albeit a European one) just seems like the right time to mention this stuff again.

Tom.

Someone on this blog site wrote a while ago that animals aren't cruel like humans are, that they never kill for no reason like humans do. Strictly speaking that is probably true: since animals lack human emotions they cannot be cruel, but that also means they lack compassion and they certainly lack regret; they don't care. This is why crows will peck the eyes out of a dying lamb before it has died and it's why Molly our cat killed the baby of this Bluetit yesterday:

She did it for the practice. She is well fed and didn't eat the baby bird, she just killed it and then sat by the side of it looking pleased with herself and having a wash as the parent flew all round twittering and looking concerned. She doesn't care at all about the distraught parent, and nor should she. Nature is a hard and cruel mother.

Cheers, Tom.

Very minor spoilers only - I don't give anything significant away

Charlie Kaufman strikes gold again. The writer of the brilliant films Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind now has a 4th brilliant film to his credit, not bad going out of only 6 written. He directed this one too.

The marvellous Philip Seymour Hoffman stars as a theatre director. Like all of us, he’s playing himself - “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts...”. He sees others acting, they see him, and the performances get modified. He is directing a play, but it’s not a play, it’s real life, which is a play. etc. The result is a surreal and metaphysical journey through his life and his play and the boundaries of reality blur and fall away just as our daily acts break down as we age, both physically and mentally. It manages the difficult trick of being both funny and sad at the same time.

Like some of the most powerful works of cinematic art, this film deals with what it means to be a living human. It's on a grand scale but it's also intimate and personal. It's about everyone and it's about each of us, our effort, our loneliness, our disappointment. I wrote a review of the great Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky's masterpiece "Mirror" some time ago, in which I said this:

“Tarkovsky said “This is a film about you”. He made a film about everyone by making a film about himself and his own memories. It is deeply personal and simultaneously about each and every one of us”

I could have written those same thoughts about Synecdoche New York, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that Kaufman was influenced by Tarkovsky, and also David Lynch, because of their use of memory and the importance of dreams.

This is great cinema and has a great deal of depth. Kaufman said the film is best watched "in a dream-like state" and that is, I think, the key to it. The story appears to jump and there are many little details in it, but it all hangs together perfectly if you've been paying attention. It's certainly a film that could withstand repeat viewings and I'm certain you'd see more in it with every viewing. I will certainly be buying the dvd.

I think Kaufman is one of the best screenwriters there has ever been and this film is brilliantly written. Like his other films, this one is also about the human mind and what it means to be alive and individual in a society.

This film is not for everyone. If you like a simple story where characters have goals to accomplish and succeed against the odds, you won’t find that here. If you like a film presented to you on a plate for easy consumption, you won’t find that here. If you want something light and joyous, you won’t find that here. It has been called a “mess”. But if you want to see a work of cinematic art, be made to reflect on life and living, be given a host of memorable images and be made to laugh, then perhaps this film is for you. It’s provocative, fascinating and the acting is first-rate. The music contributes well to the atmosphere without being loud and intrusive like it all too often is in American films these days.

Genius, 9.5/10.

Cheers, Tom.

(click on the picture to enlarge it)

Cheers, Tom.

At the end of a traditional Western film the white-hatted hero, who would have sorted out the black-hatted bad guys, rode off into the sunset. The sunset was a symbol of a changing way of life, the sun coming down at the end of the day of lawlessness and civilization would come with the new sun. It's an enduring image. The railway was used as a symbol of approaching civilization too.

Riding off into the sunset is also one adventure ending and another beginning. It's a most romantic image and it's no accident that the cowboy is riding West, to pastures new.

But what happens when you are already on the West Coast, and there is nowhere West to ride to?

Cheers, Tom.

No doubt about it, those two are happy. But how about this pair:

Or this pair:

This lot look like they will be happy in a minute when the food hamper is opened:

Which one makes you happiest: playing, relaxing, sport or food?

Cheers, Tom.

You wouldn't get me putting my nose there, even though it was dead:

It's a Spider Crab, and this isn't the largest I've seen. This is it in all it's dead glory:

And here is a close up on it's chewing tackle, which looks seriously scary on large if you click on the picture:

I wonder if that's where they got the idea for Predator from?

Cheers, Tom.

Holding a free music festival in a ruined castle in the centre of Aberystwyth sounds like a mad idea, but it works. It really is inside the ruins of a castle:

This is the view across the bay:

By a magic fluke, the event coincided with by far the hottest day of the year. You simply couldn't have asked for better conditions but unfortunately I had to leave for the early bath at about 7:30PM after arriving for the start at 1PM as I had mild sunstroke. This lot had the difficult honours of being the opening band:

They were called Violetones and describe their music as "Led Zeppelin 2". That's very specific, but surprisingly accurate. They sound rather like 1969 Led Zeppelin, and with a bit more practice they could become successful. This is some of the crowd:

Next up were Convoi Exceptionnel who describe themselves as doing "hiphop/folk/electro":

I couldn't hear any folk in there. Not much hip hop either to be honest, but they looked good, sounded OK and were very enthusiastic so that's all to their credit. I thought they were considerably better than the band who followed them, "Who Saw Who":

Very underwhelming. I got the impression they couldn't decide if they wanted to be punks or rockers and as a result they didn't manage either.  Next up were Syspender and I confess to being a little biased here as I know Jono the harmonica player:

Syspender looked glamorous and co-ordinated, with a uniting colour of blue across the whole band and flanked by twin spangly blonde-haired women guitarists in blue. They were the first band people actually got up and danced to as well, so well done them. They describe their music as “original pop & Reggae with irresistable bass and funky rhythms topped with rich harmonies”. That is a better description than I could come up with!

My Favourite Runner Up have the energy and enthusiasm to make it, if they can manage to fight their way through the difficult “battle of the bands” route they have chosen. They appeared to have a few genuine fans in the crowd, the first band to do so. This is them:

You could describe them as “power pop” I think. I thought they sounded quite a lot like Blink 182. Before I go on, I’ll just note that festivals are a good place to make friends:

The next lot must have been a late addition as there was no information about them. They are called “Mute Hate” and this is them:

They were loud and shouty, which is good in my book. Black Cesar are unusual in that they are a rock band which features an overdriven pedal steel guitar. The only other proper rock band I can think of who use a pedal steel are Wishbone Ash, and there’s wasn’t exactly overdriven like this one was: this was a full on heavy metal sound, and Black Cesar are a heavy rock band. This is them:

They were good, I liked them. They’ve chosen a difficult genre, but they play well, seem dedicated and look the part. They might make a success of it if they play gigs solidly for the next 4 or 5 years.

Finally, we have Race Horses. Their list of influences is staggering and, honestly, made up. Their sound is on the harder edge of pop music and they are competent but unexciting. This is them:

Their lead singer/bassist certainly looks the part:

To my eternal shame, I completely missed Nik Turner and Cerys Matthews as I got mild sunstroke and had to go home. What a wimp.

Cheers, Tom.

He's called Jeremy, lives in America, goes by the youtube name of AtroxCustomz and this is him playing the drums along to my song:

Fantastic!

Tom.