Nothing to Declare

Lots of places. Including:

Twitter
Work Blog
Experimental blog
Book blog

There’s more - I may need to bump this post when I think of them.

Blogged with Flock

Its been a while. But I’m back. And there will be books. Lots of books.

Incidentally, this made me laugh - you mean, music reviewers don’t always listen to the whole thing? Shurely you can’t be sherioush

My Christmas present this year was a Nikon D40X camera - I’d sold all my film SLR equipment a few years previously, and I was just waiting for prices to drop, and pixels to rise to the point where it made sense. I’m not a photographer, but I do enjoy taking photos - how fortuitous that my good friend and neighbour Paul Atkinson used to run a branch of Jessops, is a seasoned pro, and also has a Nikon.

Paul took me out the other day to capture a few sunsets: the difference between what I would have taken (think:washed out and hazy) and what he showed me how to do, is quite astounding. I have the latter as my screen background now - it might not win any awards, but it’s got my dog in and it works for me.

I was being a bit slow this morning - in more ways than one, as Liz and I headed off on our morning run. So, of course, I was wearing tracksuit bottoms, and at the weekend I had bought a black windproof top with a hood, which I was sporting as we headed out of the village. We were jogging past one of the outposts of the Royal Agricultural College just as a carload of ruddy-faced students drove out. Winding down the window, one of them cried - in a friendly enough way I should add - “I assume you’re running!” I responded with in a suitably nondescript manner and we went our separate ways.

It was only ten minutes later when I realised the alternative - horror of horrors - was that I had actually chosen to be dressed like that. With some relief the rain hit and I managed to muddy myself up enough to justify my purchase. Oh well.

I had a day off today. Well, kind of - it was one of those days where I actually got a lot of things done, largely because I’d told everyone I’d be taking it as a day off: my reason was that I had been invited to test out the new Eurostar terminal at St Pancras.

I’m still not absolutely sure why I agreed to do it in the first place. Was it driven by my interest in all things new, or my curiosity to see a work in progress on the scale of a station? Was it purely the allure of a free ticket, or something more fundamental, a deep down, inexpressible yearning to spend more time with… trains? Whatever it was, I was in good company, as I found out looking at the motley collection of slightly flummoxed “passengers” that had assembled themselves at St Pancras for the day.

The drill was simple. Turn up with pre-issued tickets (sent in the post), and get on a certain train - as if going to Paris. Get off at Ebbsfleet 15 minutes away, forget quickly about Paris and pretend to be going from there. Find oneself at St Pancras again, forget Paris and check through the arrivals lounge (showing passports - I wonder what would happen if someone lost theirs, having never actually left the country). Check back in and get on a train to Paris. Five minutes later, have train stop and reverse back to St Pancras, requiring one to once again forget about Paris.

Apart from the obvious result that, by the end of it, I was quite hankering after the dirty chic of the Gallic capital, it was all a quite enjoyable affair. For myself I took the role of a “business traveller”, and true to form I also managed to simulate the characters of both “late arrival at terminal” and “apologetic queue jumper”. There was free coffee and tea, a pack lunch and - I am sure this won’t remain the case when the doors open - hordes of smiling security staff to help us through the X-ray checks.

One thing that did surprise me was just how much work there still seemed to be required. While the main concourses were largely sorted, there were swathes of cloth across many of the side-alleys, from which the usual sounds of drills and angle grinders could be heard. For the techies there was Wifi access (though the login wasn’t yet working), and a feature I particularly liked was a 50-yard-long counter with electric points at intervals, for laptops. Though of course, the sockets weren’t yet switched on.

What else? I’d love to be able to comment on signage, announcement quality and passenger facilities, like a good reviewer. Unfortunately however, it looked exactly like a train station, or more specifically, like the soon-to-be-closed Eurostar terminal at Waterloo - apart, that is, from the blank wall of red bricks that faces new arrivals (”Welcome to Britain. Here’s a blank wall, to help your first impressions.”). Most importantly, apart from a glitch at the end (when we were delayed as we tried to leave the platform on the final leg) everything functioned quite smoothly.

To conclude, while I’m still not absolutely sure why I went, I will probably look back on the experience with something approaching pleasure, and with my inner train spotter feeling appropriately nurtured. Peep peep!

Six weeks ago I started reading a number of books, possibly a bit ambitiously I kicked all four off at once. This is no more than checking in as I haven’t yet finished them - but I am over half way. So far I have completed:

Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion. Clearly in places a rant and not as well argued as expected in places, but a very enjoyable book and necessary reading for anyone who takes the topic of religion seriously, on either side of the divide.

I felt Mr Dawkins was like the man who finally had had enough of the sniping and negative speak, and in the end felt he had no choice but to say things as he really felt. As such, he made a few cutting remarks of his own - but having got these off his chest, presented the arguments against organised religion pretty well. There were a number of weaknesses - the Buddhists, Hindus and other non-Abrahamic religions got off pretty scot free, and the presentation of religiousness as 2-dimensional, i.e. there was a straight line between atheists and zealots depending on level of belief was, I thought, a bit simplistic.

Perhaps weakest of all was the explanation of the fact that there is no God primarily on the basis of probability. Of course God is highly improbable, but then so is the human race, the latter fact one which Mr Dawkins felt proved itself by the presence of thee and me. The fly in the ointment is perhaps the assumption that we can only judge by what we can measure, when of course at the same time we are woefully inadequate to to such a thing, both from our ill-equipped position at the periphery of some far-flung galaxy and also our fundamental, stupid humanity.

None of which proves there is a God either, but as spake the humanist prophet Douglas Adams, with proof, there is no need for faith. I do wonder about this one - specifically (and I would love Mr Dawkins’ feedback) that perhaps we have a genetic propensity towards such socio-psychological constructs. More specifically still, perhaps it is our drive towards higher planes of thinking that have in some way enabled us to evolve, to the point where we are now. Organised religion may have been the cause of much that is wrong, but what if it is a prime factor in our development as a race?

I don’t know the answer to this, but it is certainly worthy of investigation. Food for thought: would the Buddhists in Burma have taken on the government there, if they had no faith in their own higher powers? Does religion come from community, or community from religion? And indeed, have we really advanced so far in the past 10,000 years that we no longer need such a crutch? As I was walking the dog earlier I was considering the existence of “psychogenes” - perhaps these are as selfish as those concerned with our more physiological aspects (and if these are already well-established and under the scope, clearly I need to read more).

M. Scott Peck - The Road Less Travelled and Beyond. I was really looking forward to this as I got a great deal out of the original The Road Less Travelled, and to be sure there were some moments of clear insight in this book. Indeed, there was a point about a third of the way in where I thought how great it might be if Mr Peck and Mr Dawkins were in conversation together: one, whose science had proven there was no God, and the other, whose experiences in psychology had proven that there was.

Unfortunately, Mr Peck’s book was like a mirror on his own, fragile humanity. To say he had “lost it” towards the end is a bit strong but his arguments were blunted by his own desire to get closer to the higher truth, and to present it from a Christian standpoint (though he did bring in some teachings from other doctrines). It didn’t help either that I was well aware by the time I got half way about his own weaknesses, and while I was happy to reconcile that he could talk about his experiences as a psychotherapist without considering his own shortfalls, I wasn’t prepared to put up with him being too preachy.

In some ways Mr Peck came across like Icarus, having flown too close to the sun, or perhaps one of the architects of Babel, returning from the top but ill-equipped to articulate all he found there. Not long afterwards of course he was to die, all too young, of Parkinson’s disease, proving beyond doubt his thesis of death being the great leveller.

In conclusion, what both books  taught me was that we are all only human, and that there are some things that we can never prove for sure, one way or the other. This is perhaps less about God, and more about us… but still, it may just be the way things are supposed to be.

I’m now tackling Tricks of the Mind by Derren Brown, and it is with no small sense of irony that I find myself drawn more towards this illusionist and iconoclast. You see, here’s the rub - I do happen to believe that we can be convinced of all sorts of things, good or bad, its one of the things that makes us human (and its a reason I could never subscribe to the Wisdom of Crowds).  We also love stories (as described in my other book on the go, The Seven Basic Plots) -  these are things that make us who we are. Equally no doubt, is the fact that we love to constantly revisit these arguments. To paraphrase Douglas Adams, with proof there could be no debate. And where would that leave us.

I was prompted to dig into the story behind the picture on my wall, when David Brain questioned whether it was real or photoshopped. The answer - very real - and the bloke in the lighthouse was lucky to get back inside in time!

Brings a whole new meaning to leaving the door ajar

On Sunday I was fortunate to attend (and shift some books) at the Rush European convention Eucon. It was a great day, most people seemed to agree - luminaries of the Rush story Terry Brown (who keynoted), Howard Ungerleider and Andrew MacNaughtan were all present, and a good time was had by all, capped off by a stonking Rush gig in the evening!

Thanks to Ashley for inviting me, and to everybody else for making me feel so welcome.

I’ve kicked off a new blog relating to my more geeky side, that is, my professional persona at Freeform Dynamics.

It’s called Total Immersion - both a statement of intent and a cry for help

A number of the posts so far are test posts, i.e. I don’t know what the format will end up like, but for now the most important thing is that I get writing.

Fill yer boots!

Now the first thing I should say is that I’m still in “digestive recovery mode” following last week’s most excellent Mumbai adventure. So, I had to leave my seat more often than I would have liked… Equally, I’d bought a ticket at the back of the hall due entirely to lateness of the decision, it was only a few weeks ago I knew where I was going to be. Speaking of lateness, a burst watermain in the Greenford area led to me arriving 20 minutes after the show had started.

So, perhaps unsurprisingly, I was feeling a little detached.

Things seemed to kick off quite slowly, like the band were going through the motions… but about half way through the first set they seemed to come alive, like someone turned on the lights. Or perhaps the lasers. Overall it was a good gig, a fine gig but maybe not a great gig, from my distant standpoint. The sound was reputedly much better than other shows so far on the UK leg of the tour, and the light show was superlative as always - I was left wondering how an arena could possibly be filled without such a thing. We idolise the bands, but where would any of them on these massive stages be without the lighting rigs?

From the gods, the view was of a nearly packed hall having a great time. Hands were waving, voices were singing along, applause was forthcoming particularly it has to be said for some of the old classics, but also such songs as One Little Victory and for Neil’s drum solo. Personal highlights were Natural Science, Between the Wheels and Subdivisions, which will always take me right back to the Laserium Signals show, goodness knows how many years ago.

Preaching to the converted maybe, but then, why not.