A Minesweeperian Perspective

It must be very dull to live life optimally. By which I mean constantly being at your full potential, running down the path of least resistance at full tilt. I don't live like that. I will get stuck in particular ruts for years on end, before eddying back into the gap created in my absence. I live my life like a game of Minesweeper. I pick off one threat at a time. Slowly, cautiously, deliberately, with a lack of knowledge of the wider picture. Then, suddenly, that glorious flash of half the board opening up on a single click. You remember your potential. You realise your goals are achievable. You can win Minesweeper.

So My A-Level In Design Was Totally Worth It

Tonight has been about experimentation and enthusiasm. As mentioned previously, I am interested in trying to create a sort of electro-acoustic miniature drum kit. This evening, I enlisted two of my (apparently otherwise unengaged) housemates and we set to work doing just that. Starting with a wooden box that once held a magnum of posh champagne, we combined tea-towels, tin cans, tin can lids, elastic bands, boxer shorts, microphones, screws, pennies, a peanut-shaped shaker, yoghurt pots, rabbit snare wire and brute force to create a partially successful first attempt at the drum box.

The "kick drum" sounded pretty decent at times. The "snare" was promising but ultimately unsuccessful. Overall, there were enough positive points in this chaotic (and hugely fun) first attempt that I am certainly going to push on with the project on another quiet night soon. The new band is coming.

Syllables

We are often wrong
When we try to write haikus
Go google "mora"

Salt of the Sky

That's my new band name. Now I just need a band. The plan is to have three "pods" (or areas of the stage), each of which can be manned by anyone in the (three-piece) band.

Pod 1 = percussion. Not a full drum kit. Some sort of semi-acoustic mic'd-up homebrew contraption, perhaps augmented by a sampler and some effects.

Pod 2 = bass. A bass guitar with effects. And/or maybe a synth.

Pod 3 = lead. Synth. And maybe mandolin, or possibly bouzouki? And a sampler.

Admittedly, calling these three things "pods" is a bit over-the-top. But perhaps each will grow in complexity. Anyway, I'm mainly happy with the band name. I've never had a band name I'm happy with before. So that's nice.

Autumn Leaves/Arrives

There is something magical about autumn that I cannot quite pin down. Summer is the season during which I feel least connected to nature. Summer, with its lazy holiday heat, is about humans flourishing and (occasionally literally but mainly not) making hay while the sun shines. It feels like we are basking in a victory over nature, rejoicing in the one time of year when our preposterously evolved, hairless, unfit bodies need no protection from the elements.

To some, autumn is the start of the death that concludes with winter's barren trees, only for life to begin again in the spring, but I feel almost the opposite. I sense nature far more strongly when it is at its harshest. Autumn's decay, to me, signals the return of nature, and the last few days have been infused with that evocative, tell-tale smell of this decay.

And I love the stability of attitude that the cold brings. I feel far more comfortable when I am in the autumnal equilibrium of cold air versus warm clothing. The mass acceptance, once the mornings become frosty, that cosiness is now a goal on a par with sustenance (at least until spring) makes me contented to an extent that I'm not sure I fully understand. I appear to be suffering from some bizarrely inverted Seasonal Affective Disorder, so here's to a happy hibernation.

Look Out

During the peak of my Leonard Cohen obsession, I read a lot about him on the internet. I remember reading one review that said something along the lines of "Cohen's songwriting is most effective when he turns the mirror on himself". And I wouldn't disagree. But it's interesting to think about this mirror and whether one has the ability to point it away from oneself. Perhaps mine has been pointing inward for too long, both in terms of songwriting and not.

I confess that I find myself fascinating (which is not the same as expecting other people to do likewise), and indeed I think that to find oneself anything other than fascinating would be a sad situation. After all, regardless of what you think of your own personality, you have the ability to view the planet's most complex organism from the inside, and that is deeply interesting. But the heat of an introspective gaze can stew the soul, reducing it to something strong but tough and with an unpleasant taste.

So today I will begin to cast my eyes skyward, groundward, peopleward. Outward. No more funny songs about my accent, my inadequacies, my neuroses. No more abortive novels in which I play every character. No more uncalled-for, self-pitying comments in conversation. Instead, songs and writing and talking about the world, about animals, science, philosophy, religion, politics, love, music, film, football, poetry, friendship, family, history, food, future, morality, mortality and space.

I feel I am learning to be a proper person right now. I don't know how many phases one is granted in life, but if this isn't a transition, I don't know what is. A transition from dependence and uncertainty, not necessarily into the opposite but into something vivid and real. And I cannot fucking wait.

Urgh

I try not to be confrontational. But today I told somebody to fuck off. I told her very loudly and frustratedly. And then I turned off the radio because I couldn't bear hearing her speak any more.

This person was Baroness Warsi.

She was being interviewed on Five Live about the threat of mass strike action over the government's proposed spending cuts. She said the unions were being irresponsible. The interviewer asked why the coalition are bringing in spending cuts that will hit the poor hardest and leave the rich alone. The Baroness dodged the question and started attacking Labour, accusing them of lowering the debate to the level of tribalism. The interviewer countered that perhaps the Tories were the ones guilty of tribalism in that they seem to be picking on the group of people least able to defend themselves. If you listen to the interview (2 hours 6 minutes in), this seemed to me to be the killer blow.

And at that point, some honesty might have been nice. Perhaps the Baroness could have pointed out that her party's ideology is based on protecting wealth for those who have accumulated it, by whatever means. I would have at least respected that on some level. But no. She instead chose to give the story of her background. Apparently she is from Yorkshire. And her dad worked in a mill. Therefore(?!), "I would never want anyone to lose their job if it could be avoided", she said. And then she resumed her theme of not wanting this debate to develop into an "old-fashioned class war".

This is the point at which I swore and switched off . I know spin has been endemic in politics for years and years now, but this was a particularly brazen specimen. On job losses: if it could be avoided. Well, it can be avoided. By doing the very thing (taxing the rich) that the interviewer mentioned in the question. But by placing a gap between the question and the response, especially a gap in which the Baroness gave an (entirely irrelevant and unasked-for) impression of herself as empathetic with the working class, she gave herself the freedom to ignore the question and just continue her tired and flawed argument.

Perhaps spin bothered me less under Labour. Perhaps I just cared less about politics when the (marginally) less right-wing of the two main parties was in power. But if this is how dirty things have become, then I am quite deeply saddened.