I love Liam Gallagher

"I heard that fucking Radiohead record and I just go, ‘What?!’ I like to think that what we do, we do fucking well. Them writing a song about a fucking tree? Give me a fucking break! A thousand year old tree? Go fuck yourself! You’d have thought he’d have written a song about a modern tree or one that was planted last week. You know what I mean?”

Roy

An evening in

A rare thing currently, and I have learnt three things:

1. I am a hopeless and unashamed Radiohead nut. And there are millions others out there, some of whom assemble pages full of amusing 'head philosophy. And despite having the whole catalogue to choose from, I increasingly tend to go back to half-known tracks off How Am I Driving and Pablo Honey (namely Thinking About You). What a sentimental fool.
2. The Metropolitan Police seem unable to grasp that the nature of the web makes denying that you charged at protesters on horseback, pointless. And not knowing that your subordinates did, inexcusable.
3. And finally, without Bad Science keeping a keen eye out for statistical pitfalls, I may have missed the survey that found that on average, as people get older, they get older. Priceless.

Royhead.

Oh to have co-workers to kill.

Which might seem like a harsh title for a post were it not in response to this:

Flying Lotus - Kill Your Co-Workers from Warp Records on Vimeo.

Alternatively: "What happens when one of my fave animators makes a video for one of my fave musicians? A CGI bloodbath in this case."

I was gently chastised yesterday by Brother Neel (as only brothers can) for writing that he described as 'terse': In my mind I have simply been reducing the mass of information we are increasingly expected to deal with, but I concur that this may have been at the cost of quality entertainment here at the Slog. Thankfully Dr. Dawg (that's right, DOCTOR) is reliably verbose (when he's not writing theses).

So, some further nuggets:
1. Kill Your Co-workers to me is another installment of wonderfully confident video game tinged upstep from Flying Lotus, whose faultlessly well appointed album Cosmogramma has been on repeat in the studio before and will be again.
2. I have complained to the unresponsive ears of the Facebook feed before about 6music's inability to count the members of Flying Lotus (one).
3. I am unreliably informed that Mr. Lotus is the great-nephew of the late Alice Coltrane and John Coltrane.
4. Beeple first came to my attention for drumming reasons with this CG folly.
5. I suspect Mr. B. Eeple may have come across Kritchard's robotic kreations before, and if not, should do.

To return to the title, a large part of the reason I have stopped blogging in general so much is that I have been in search of co-workers, indeed work of any kind, but co-workers in particular would be nice. I have come across some in Dundee, in Brian and Hamish, and indeed at the Studios, but would still on the whole prefer to be one of a full-time design team and to have a more steady, sensible working routine. This is such that I can a) preserve my sanity, b) actually make a living rather than scrape a survival, and c) have more time for making things and not talking about making things (or at least talk about it in the sense of analysis rather than marketing). The whole reason I'm in this untenable position is due to the addiction that is semi-professional musicianship of course. But I think a happy life/work/music (NB. music = life NOR work) balance is still possible with the support of the right others.

owzat?

this has been a post by ROY and took MORE THAN AN HOUR. geez.

What the real big society means for the economy, charities and copyright

Two excellent mini docs just posted to the Guardian videostream from Heydon Prowse and William Pine:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2010/may/11/ethical-living-diy-big-society

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2010/may/12/ethical-living-real-big-society-two



These make essential viewing in my opinion, if only to come some some way to understanding where I'm coming from: ie. spending my time and earnings on the sometimes seemingly pointless area of open design. Its the empowerment stupid.

Roy

A Euler massage

UPDATE - it turns out that the diagram I previously posted is a Euler diagram, rather than a Venn diagram. Apologies for my ignorance. Here's another handy one to make up for it:


from hand of Roy:

Wyn [of Reith days, from whence NYK first sprang] sent me this extremely useful diagram, having fallen foul of my pedantry:



It's amazing how a good diagram can ease one's understanding. I thought I was pretty up to speed on the whole issue of British borders, but this brought added clarity to the whole thing - it'll will make good recommended reading the next time I have to explain to any newbies how I can be British and English, whilst also coming from Scotland.

It doesn't however help explain why I sometimes have to edit that description depending on the company I'm in. Or how I'm at once one half Scottish, one half Indian and one whole English, yet am just one Briton! I need my own Euler diagram.

Things to say about Hauntology

when you don't really know anything about it:

Hauntology: its so passé.

or

As far as I can tell, hauntology is just a new word for old-skool!

Obsession Mk II

Following Gilly's wanton criticism of my personal ramblings, I am updating my three quality bottom line of obsession to exhilaration, elegance and community. I couldn't find an appropriate word beginning with e.

In this current trend for wielding the philosophical knife, I am tagging posts such as these, ersatz-philosophy.

Obsession

There are three qualities that motivate me in any activity: exhilaration, elegance, and sharing.

When cycling, I like to cycle fast, feeling the exhilaration of the wind in my face. I ride a fixie, the simplest, most elegant form of bike. I bought it from a social enterprise in Maryhill, sharing the assembly with those who can benefit most from the experience. I love the closeness of the messenger/fixie community in Glasgow, and how the best way to do anything with bikes here is to talk to someone else about it.

When doing design work, I am obsessed with elegance, and seek out the exhilaration one feels when having created anything. I strive for a more sharing community in industrial design, hence Zero-waste.

As for music, this is where all three are inextricably bound up. Playing for excitement, for beauty and for the act of interaction with players and audience, altogether, makes perfect sense to me.

I could go on, applying this thinking to why I do and don't like flying kites, why I like travelling, why I like staying in one place, why I'm unsure about moving flats.

The bottom line is that I'm not hyperactive - I'm obsessive, and will pursue any activity to satisfy these obsessions.