The Blessed Return of Misery - Lets Hope it gets Funny

Last night was a guilty pleasure - a night of musical extravagance amid a sea of austerity. And that austerity - like an algal bloom - has spread, even unto Large Mansions. As a writer, I sigh a sigh of relief - the misery has returned, I can write again! Of misery, more later.  But starting in order, the music of last night warrrants some description because the final howl of feedback that sounded like a transitional fossil's dying last utterance and which ended the show was a particularly apt noise to signal this new era. Cutting back further, last night was an extravagance because I havent paid more than about five English pounds to see a musical performance for about ten years. In fact the last time I paid more than this was about 2001 when I went to see Billy Bragg in a club in Halifax, NS. Which may or may not be ironic because I dont really like Billy Bragg's music very much (although based on some personal experience, the man is very personable and nice) and because during the 1980's  I used to see him about five times per year for nothing as we had 'music biz' pals in common. Which brings us back to now -  I approached last night in somewhat of a similar frame of mind,  because last night's act was a double bill combining the talents of Mick Chapman, legendary guitarist and songwriter and Thurston Moore, legendary guitarist and songwriter. I wasnt really sure if I liked Mike Chapman's music or not. I knew I liked Thurston Moore's stuff but I was paying ten pounds for a gig where I might not like at least half of it.

Travel me if you will to the inaccurately named Triangle pub on Halifax Nova, Scotia, sometime in 2000. I have heard, quite by accident, an artist guitar playeron the radio who is playing this particular pub. I call my friend Grasshopper, a fellow guitarist. "You have to come and see this guy" I say "He's incredible. He does, like, this roots fnger picking stuff and he's probably one of the best at this I have ever beard if the track I've just heard is anything to go by". Grasshopper agrees and we ghost off the the Triangle (not the Sidhe Na Gael - but that's another story) , grab a seat near the front and sit down expectantly,  eagerly, like two dogs left outside a shop. Shortly, the guitarist comes on and he definitely looks the part - wind swept hair, girlish fingers, perhaps a glint of madness in the eye, ethnic-y waistcoat, granddad shirt. He picks his guitar up like someone who is not embarrased to be on stage - YOU will be impressed. And we are, as sounds begin glissading from his guitar, notes falling over notes, circular themes living and dying, quickly, slowly, loud and soft. He is quite frankly brilliant, one of the best finger picking guitarists I have ever heard and this is in an area of the world that has produced more than its fair share of great folk musicians, and said as someone who has seen a reasonable amount of music. Then, after about six songs, a lady sitting near the stage gets up, possibly to go to the bar. She stumbles as she gets up and gently bumps into the small stage, ruffling the microphone stand. The guitarist stops mid-flow, glares at her and delivers a string of invective, calling her a drunk, and an idiot and tells her to "F*** Off". The effect is immediate. Grasshopper and I look at eachother, finish our drinks and leave.

The reason this is relevant is because while the immediate effect was our departure, the longer term effect is that I now have no idea what the name of this idiot guitarist is. His behaviour was such that I didnt seek out his music after the gig, didnt scour "What's On" lists so I could see him again. I just forgot his name as quickly as possible. Being a good musician, a liked musician, someone who interprets our emotions through the transference of frequencies requires, for me,  more than technical ability. You dont have to be a nice guy or smiley - you can be a bit of an asshole or angry or challenging  - but one thing you cannot be is petty, and irrelevantly so. All of which provides a contrast with last night's entertainment. I walk in half way through Mike Chapman's first song but dont even reach the bar. In the fifteen foot between entering the room and the bar, the guitarist does something so astonishing, so beautiful,  that I stop, thoughts of drink forgotten. His song ends, I shake my head to clear it, and I set out for the bar again, but then he starts plaing again and I am transfixed for the second time. It takes me four songs to get to the bar and by the time I get there I need whisky. This man is brilliant. And also very, very funny. And nice. And relevant. I had done my due diligence and checked out You tube etc. but his is the type of music that just does not work unless experienced live, similarly to  classical music. But experienced live, it is something powerful, lyrical, effortlessly complicated and unsophisticated. I'[m not a reviewer, but Thurston Moore follows, and although hardly a technician in the same vein as  Mr Chapman, is still a virtuoso. He is also very funny and warm, telling stories of second hand clothes shopping, meeting Inspiral Carpets on the motorway and wondering where they got their name from and riffing on Jarvis Cocker's initials (JC). 

As I mentioned at the start, austerity has bitten, and bitten hard at Large Mansions. Once again, by dint of planning and executing a bold career move, I have succeeded in turning a relatively successful financial enterprise - the good ship Red Haired Boffin - into a black hole of costs and expenses. In my defence, I have not overspent, gone wild on a new bike seat, bought expensive clothes or showered all my friend (singular deliberate) in Hull with expensive presents. Rather, supporting work (carpentry, project management) has dried up completely now and costs continue. I have also spectacularly failed to obtain even a 'sou' in grant or other financial support for my research despite applying to everyone I can think of. This is perhaps the most puzzling thing, because the people who cannot fund my research  have often described the work as "important' and "interesting". The net result is that after a financial summit meeting last weekend, we have taken urgent and important action to reverse our deficit. I was thinking a lot about this prior to going last night, even considering trading in my ticket but I'm glad I didnt. At the end of last night's gig, Moore and Chapman joined together for ten minutes or so of spontaneously improvised feedback. Nothing original but both musicians are very good at this, so the noise they produced was - as I mentioned right at the start - primal, angry, familiar: the type of sound that would accompany a new evolutionary leap. Or would signal the start of austerity.

NOTE : the above reference to the feedback contains an allusion to the idea that evolution is
a) a progress of some type
b) occurs in fits and starts

I would like to point out that this is purely a literary (or unliterary) device. And as for punctuated equilibrium, dont even get me started.

New Years Holiday Part: Wisdom and Thought Leadership

a THOUGHT-place

 As irregular readers will know (and given the irregularity of these issues, how could any reader be otherwise?), having solved the problem of the origins of Cvilization in the tripartite tome "Civilization:Why?, Evolution: When ? and Apocalypse: How?",  the attention of those at Large Mansions, whence the aforementioned issue was solved, turned to the problem of thinking. As with the problems of civilization, the questions surrounding thinking might be taken to be obvious and therefore all completely solved. For example, we know from psychologists, that we only use about 0.01% of the human brain, while we know from parapsychologists that the rest of our brain capacity is taken up with communicating with aliens and the dead, levitating, pschokinesis and telepathy (see Bashar - a cult figure in these parts). And we also know, from CSI,  that if we recieve a massive blow to the head with sufficient force to kill, then processes of thinking will stop. Now this does raise problematic questions such as "Well how do we communicate with the dead if the dead dont think?" but usually you can answer questions like this by talking vaguely about energy or rather energies.
But its not the obvious questions that concern us here at Large Mansions. Its the questions between questions that grab our attention. The type of questions, in other words, that the best minds on the planet struggle with. And when I say great minds, I obviously mean the finest minds know to all humanity, epitomised, concentrated, distilled and

lots of thoughts

co-agulated into one location - the world of business. Prior to
this, my own paltry effort, there have been previous blogs,
thought pieces (that's what I was  thought leaders call articles), and articles about thinking. I'm aware that what I offer here is second best to this canonical literature but I appeal to you to remember, that  gathered round the table at Large Mansions this New Year were not brilliant thinkers like what there is in business. As a group of workers we had probably none of the skills that equip us to think and this should be borne in mind.
I was explaining this very fact to the widely known European philosopher, Will by way of signposting him towards what we wished to do (the previous sentence is classic thought leader sentence construction btw). "Thought leadership" I told him,  "Asks the questions that science doesnt". Then I said " These questions are real questions that help in the real world (of business)". Will, although appearing to be near sleep, was roused by the promise of more alcohol, proferred by his sister, RHB the red haired psychology boffin,  who was also inadequately equipped to deal with questions surrounding thinking,  and asked what these questions might be. As I did for Will, and later had to repeat for Sue, ( who similarly to Will and RHB has no experience of daily life at all and is completely out of touch with the 'sharp end' of life in the UK as she works in the Ivory Tower of  a well known Children's Charity who specialize in social and  educational disadvantage) I will briefly list the brlliant questions thought leaders focus on:

1. How many thoughts shoud the average person have per day? (NB: thought leaders might have more).
2. What's the difference between "brain-thinking" and "mind-thinking"? (NB: thought leaders think more holistically than anyone else)
3. Just what is the right brain doing while the left brain is doing all the work?  (NB: thought leaders think both creatively with the right brain and completely objectively and like a computer with their left brain. This means when it comes to things like evading tax, laying people off, getting round child labour laws by exporting jobs to China and India etc they can come up with brilliantly practical solutions that are also very creative)
4. Can you ever run out of thoughts? (NB: this is only useful if you can run out of thoughts. Then they would become marketable as a limited resource)
5.  ???????????????????????????????????????????????? = Ask questions !
6. Is there a special type of person who is a thought leader? (N.B. Actually research suggests there is....)
7. How can that special type of person who is cut out to be a thought leader, best use their abilities? There's a number of ways of asking/understanding this question, but perhaps the simplest way of re-phrasing it is to ask "How can I use this latest example of applied social Darwinism to exploit people more completely?". You can see why its such a valuable  paradigum.


Now,  infesting Large Mansions at New Year was a group of individuals who , as I have intimated, were possibly  ill-placed to attempt to engage with thought leadership. This group consisted of a rag-tag collection of motley individuals, who's only  notably accomplishment can be described, collectively, as financial failure. Without exception, faced with two choices - one financially very wise and the  other fiscally stupid - every individual on this table chose stupidly. And they have done so repeatedly over the course of their existence, choosing things like intellectual or emotional satisfaction, or on the basis of ethical or moral preferences. On the surface, these indivduals are completely unsuited to thought leadership. However, on the contrary - and just as the preceding few sentences can be read as a casual, anecdotal refutation of 'rationality '  in economic 'theory' - the opposite is true if you read negatively (and, I admit, post modernistically). These people are the ones who need thought leadership because they are the ones (like all the rest of you) who are directly responsible for our debt.

All of which is a pre-amble to a short list and introduction to the thoughts which were written on small scraps of paper by yrs trly during the holiday as they spilled out of wine glass and beer bottle as discussions progressed.I then stuck these bits of paper to the fire, hoping that I would not have to ignite said fire during this wintery season as it would have inevitably resulted in the loss of brilliance. The fireplace thus became our "thought-place" I present here only the best, most brilliant contributions. In most cases I give no context. This is either because the thought is so brilliant it needs no context (known as a 'non-thought' by thought leaders) or so vapid that no-one can remeber what it is about. However, I will indicate who said what:

"Chilli con fusion"  -Will
"Arrogance, ignorance, denial, lies" - RHB (of course!)
"The opposite of what you said" - Ethan
"Restrospective Causation" Yrs truly
"Unparodyable" - Yrs, truly, Sal and Will although Will cant actually say it. This word actually made SAL fall of her chair.
"Thought nexus" Sue
"cliche trotter" Sue (or Sal) directed at either Will or myself)
"..and what-his-name again? Oh yeah, Martin"  Sal and Nel talking about Martin who is sitting directly opposite them.
"dogs are not pack animals" Will .                          !!!
"Dolphins are not dogs, they are sheep" unattributed but probably Will
"thought sick, I am" Sue
"Of course, I have been in bed all day, idiot, so of course no wise thing has been said, idiot" Sal saying "Good Morning".

Of course, there are faults in the above account. We did other things besides discuss deep things. We played "toothless vegetables" in which you have to say the name of a vegetable without smiling or displaying one's gums. We also played Charades and skittles with a stocking on your head (its a long story). We also discussed the conspet of unparodyable at some length, which I may come back to.

As with previous years, when everyone had gone, and when Nel went back to work, Tosh, Calli and I wandered round the house, doing a very small tidy - up (our friends were impeccable as usual so no need to tidy really), all  occasionally miaowing and inspecting everything. The old house watched as we padded through now empty rooms, and eventually it gave a bit of a sigh. Tosh, Calli and myself sat down and told it our friends would be back, sometime, and we'd still be here, so its should'nt be sad.

"Besides" said Calli, "It will be Spring next week lots of sunshine. We can open all the doors, the days will get longer and warmer and you'll feel better. Everyone gets depressed in winter. Maybe you should take a holiday, get some winter sun" she said perkily.

"I'm a house" said the house " I will never fit in a plane. Besides, I cant speak. Neither can you come to mention it, because you're a cat." 

Calli's face adopted a mien that (I knew) means the house was in serious trouble, especially if this developed further. If  Cat vs house, it's cat as Last Man Standing every time.

"Dont argue guys" I said, wanting to avoid a fight after we had all had such a good time " Lets just agree to try and get along this year ok?" . Calli shrugged, the house sighed and I finally reluctantly removed all the pieces of paper form the fireplace.

Diaspora : New Years Holday Pt 1

07.12.2012: Outward bound: Hull to Glossop , two souls, by car,  (RHB & MAzzer)
19.12.2012: Outward bound: Hull to London, two souls, by rail. Return delayed by railway failures. Currently in dispute with rail companies (all of them). Mazzer and RHB.
22.12.2012: Inward bound: Bristol to Mansfield, two souls by train. W and Sal.
25.12.2012: Inward bound: Shrewsbury to Weston Rhyn, two souls by car. 'Than and Suzi.
27.12.2012: Inward bound: Two souls to Doncaster: W and Sal. 
28.12.2012: Outward bound: Hull to Doncaster, two souls by car. Journey continues with additional two souls added at Doncaster. Then Doncaster to Glossop.
28.12.2012: Inward bound : Glossop to Hull via Sheffield; Four souls
29.12.2012: Inward bound: Shrewsbury to Hull : Two souls
31.12.2012 : Inward bound Barcelona, Spain. A brand new Soul (see Celine and Chris)
02.01.2013: Outward bound: All souls disperse, leaving Hull, as usual, bereft.

Of course that log of journeys given above is inaccurate, to the best of my knowledge. It is also incomplete in that within the Brownian motion described above, there were constantly other journeys taking place - a trip to Bridlington for a walk, a visit to the bathroom, moving en masse from one room to another to watch a movie, a madcap party at a friends. And more journeys were planned even as people sat motionless, poisoned by alcohol and blood sick for the movement to stop "Oh, We must come and visit you", "What about a family holiday?" "That Marxist conference in April sound brilliant".

AT this annual seasonal gathering, human nature was widely discussed : encouragingly  human nature is being increasingly discussed in society as a whole  as far as I can tell.  My own conclusion  about human nature is  that while I can see, to an extent, that the idea that there  is a 'human nature' is an attractive and 'intuitive' concept if you dont bother actually thinking for more than five minutes about it, ultimately, it is,  like 'souls', a deeply stupid idea. However, that refers to current 'notions' about on human nature  -  that rationalistic pondering of each situation presented to us is somehow innate (while at the same time trying to argue that we are 'different' intrinsically from animals). If the original idiots that dared even coin the phrase 'human nature' (it should be banned) had thought for even one second - or had access to recent  mitocondrial DNA research - they might have attempted to describe universalities among humans slightly differently. That is to say, the closest thing there is to human nature, when actual human activity is considered and the extraordinary energy we have historically expended in moving  -  might be the desire to travel. Even if its only Glossop to Hull. 

Noblesse Oblige

It is, of course, very easy to get very, very , very angry at Politics. Indeed, just yesterday, I became incandescent with fury upon reading the news that Prince Charles letters to Government MInisters were not to be released (under Freedom of Information Legislation) but were to be kept from public view to protect the Prince's future ability to do his job as King. For those not familiar with the story, HRH Prince Charles has,  for many years, been writing -unsolicited one presumes- to various Government ministers, expressing his opinion on varius matters. Under the non-constitution that the UK has, HRH's role is supposed that of a neutral figure head, "above" politics, an icon of Britishness showing us all what we should aspire to and wherein the values of the country  are vested (Elizabeth is still head of the Protestant Church), if of course, it is possible to 'vest' values, although I would argue that it is possible to divest oneself of values and therefore the opposite should be admissable. Because of this neutral position, the Crown - by a sort of agreement/convention/unwritten rule - is not supposed to meddle in politics. Its actually a very British arrangement: it looks a bit muddled, antiquated, quaint, somewhat charming and represents 'something' about "old values", something thats "good old fashioned....." . The '.......'  you fill in yourself. Under this apparently shambolic, cute and good old fashioned traditional set of arrangements,  clever monarchs such as Prince Charles's mum have spent their time making what she calls "The Firm" (her family and the monarchy) much, much richer, and it has 'worked' for over a thousand years (Elizabeth can trace her ancestry back to Alfred the Great).

Fortunately, since this news broke, the second US Presidential debate has occurred and this diverted my anger. Many people say that there is not - in real terms - much between the candidates, and in effect-on -ordinary , there possibly is not much difference in how American lives would be immediately affected whoever wins. But my instinct is that if I were to offer Romney and Obama an imagined future in which their heirs and descendants formed a dynasty that lasted for a thousand years as rulers, my guess is that one would readily welcome that dynastic vision as a good thing, upholding of  the natural order - there are some people who are 'born' leaders and some families where that trait is passed on genetically. This would be the Mormon perspective. The other, I would guess, while wanting to establish his family materially and socially, no doubt, is probably not quite as messianic. It is admittedly an obscure reason for voting, but if I were allowed to vote in the American election, I would vote Obama on the grounds that if I could vote for him, it is unlikely,as a result of that vote,  that in a Thousand Years  a Princess Michelle will be interfering with road building

All's well that's Kettlewell

As readers will recall, once a year or thereabouts, I plan, design and execute an audacious cycling expedition, usually through one or more of the rural counties of England and usually in the company of the other half of Cheek to Cheek, a chap who will be referred to here only as Skarra. Previous expeditions have taken in the England Coast to Coast along Hadrian's Wall, the chief features of which were total  wheel and brake failure nearly resulting in death caused by a pre-ride servicing in Hull which far from improving the functionality of my bike, instead turned it into a death trap. This same year, we were also refused access to the train on our pre-booked train tickets ("pre-booking bike reservations is not a guarantee of taking your bike on the train that you are reserved on"), experienced two wierd hikers who hated eachother and yet were bound to another five days in eachother's company  and argued incessanty about determinism. This was "The Ride of Hope 1: Bringing Hope to Ancient Archeological sites and nearby locales".

The second ride, having seen what we saw, and having experienced what we had the previous year, we returned North for our second ride to the Scottish/English borderlands of Northumberland where we narrowly avoided being shelled after riding onto a military practice range, witnessed the worst Blues band in the history of music and argued incessantly about evolutionary psychology and historical determinism. We also suffered near catastrophic and fatal bike failure because I not only returned to Bob's Bikes for my pre-ride service but also persuaded Skarra to take his bike there as well, we and invented the new sport of Extreme-Mountain-Biking-with-Full-Panniers-on-Road-Bikes. This was "The Ride of Hope 2: Toward a Paradigm of Hope  - with Panniers".

This year, as I announced earlier, a ride was planned. Various locales were scouted via Google Earth, especially Scotland and we decided on a theme for our ride quite early in the process, enabling us to come up with branding for this year's ride ( in the hope of attracting corporate sponsors ) quite early in the process. Thus "The Ride of Hope : A New Hope (but not like what's in Star Wars Episode IV for legal reasons)"
was born. Unfortunately, various events throughout the summer scuppered our plans. The first of these was the various conferences that both Skarra and I had to attend. The second of these was my need to complete my Masters/PhD dissertation/ literature review upgrade (I'm still not sure exactly how to call what I have done but I have produced a long document that only I understand,  which I think is one of the principle requirements of a PhD) and the third of these was money which has become increasingly problematic for self as the recession (AKA Intensifying Global Economic Meltdown) has deepened, widened, internationalised and intensified across Europe [NOTE: Just because a lot of us, and the media have gotten used to it does not mean that the current economic disaster has gone away - far from it]. In the long run, by the time I was ready to Ride, it had become impossible for Skarra, and it had also become October. I proposed that I do this years Ride of Hope anyway, but with the jealousy and rivalry that has blighted the career of Cheek to Cheek so far, and thus delayed the release of our seminal debut album "To Cheek", he threatened to sue if I used the formula "The Ride of Hope:....." or anything like it.

In short, I could ride but not with hope.I even had a route. But devastatingly I did not have a title for this years ride. Fortunately,  I also had a new riding partner, my younger,  and taller,  brother and in him I found salvation. This is because he is now operating as a kind of consultant. Thus, unlike self and Skarra, he is acquainted with the world of corporate affairs,  marketing and the brilliant concepts of thought leadership which is principally concerned with making up catch-phrases and saying absolutely nothing. Accordingly "Aspire: The Ride" was born, whose ambitious plan was to ride the Yorkshire Dales Cycle Route (145 miles) in three days with full panniers.

As I sat at the head of Langsthropdale Chase last week, the horizontal rain pin-pricking my eyes driven by 50mph gales of wind,  my fingers past blue and rapidly turning black and gasping for oxygen, I have to admit to a Moment of Doubt about the wisdom of riding these hills in Fall. Fortunately (for the Moment) it was not alone, as it had been preceded by The Hours of Doubt while we climbed up the valley of Bishopdale and before that The Morning of Doubt which started when I got up that morning and saw the bucketing rain, and read the weather forecasts at the local Youth Hostel in Hawes. The Morning of Doubt had been proceeded by the Day of Doubt as the previous day had been exactly the same. One result of this is that a substantial proportion of the time, what we saw as we were riding was something like this.
[At this point I should briefly diverge form the narrative to note that regular readers will be aware that the usual photojournalistic report consisting of original photographs by yrs trly are missing. This is because our ride coincided with another week of torrential rain across the UK and my trusty camera was thoroughly wettened (making it unusable)  the first time I attempted to take a photograph.]

Thus I cannot, with any veracity, claim to have really seen the Yorkshire Dales on this ride, or at least most of them, and cannot verify the claims for beauty made on behalf of them. Wensleydale, Wharfdale, Langsdale and Coverdale may all be extremely beautiful but my memories of them, this year at least are "up",  "wet" and  as I will explain, "oh dear".

The "oh dear" arises because one (perhaps the joy) of climbing up valleys is, of course, that you get to go back down them. This year, I eagerly looked forward to these descents not least because I stopped using Bob to perform my pre-ride bike service. Instead, I found a mobile, qualified bike technician  - John - who comes to your house and services the bike very cheaply at your residence. This enabled me to have some assurance that spokes were not being loosened when they should have been tightened, that rusty old chains were not being applied in place of the new one you had just purchased,  and that rims were not being hammered to 'make them fit'. It may have been  slightly irritating  for John to service the bikes in my house, as I watched every turn of a wrench and very tightening of a bolt as he worked, questioning each decision he made, but previous experience had made me cautious and when he was eventually finished I was very satisfied with, and confident in,  the bike's rejuvenated performance. I remember thinking " I will not die on the descent".

However, due to conditions on the ride, I had to modify this to " I will not die because of an incompetent servicing of my bike" and often descents were more tiring and dangerous that the ascents. They also took longer. Usually, when descending the on road speed you reach is immense. On one of the good, rainless days, we clocked our downhill at thirty five  mph. This may not sound fast but on a bike on narrow roads it is a recipe for sheer exhiliration, especially with panniers: the bike gains not only downward momentum,  but also performs very differently going into corners and want to throw you to the outer side of any corner you approach. Stopping is difficult. The skill is more similar to mountain bike riding in that while every instinct screams "Brake" , that is very often the last thing you should (or possibly would) do: instead you have to trust the momentum and concentrate on staying reasonably upright. However, in the conditions of this year's ride, the rain and the wind change the equation completely. After several attempts at recklessly plunging downhill which ended up against walls and on one occasion in a field, we found that we could'nt descend at more than a snail's pace. The roads were too wet and slippery and at a certain speed the sheer volume of water on the road made the bike start aquaplaning, giving you no steering at all. Thus, after exhausting, freezing - cold then overheating, zero-visibilty  two hour ascents, we had to creep downhill with our brakes locked, getting colder (because we were not pedalling) and with worse visibility (because we were both sitting up, desperately trying to see the road ahead).

At the end of each day, we would arrive in a Youth Hostel, get called "mad" by the hostel warden when we told him or her where we had been, then have a hot shower. And there were some days of good weather. We also saw Malham Cove, an incredible feature whose grandeur and size is at odds with my perception of the UK as a smallish (albeit attractive in places) landscape. My younger brother has promised to send me photos form the good days, which I will post as soon as I receive them from him.