Purple Noodle Space

Hello world

2008-11-14T22:54:00.000Z

peepo

Citrus Soaking Sunshine

2006-02-07T10:19:00.000Z

The Stone Roses - a prime candidate for the best album ever? I haven't listened to it for years, but bought the cd on impulse to replace my knackered cassette and popped it onto the white one. If the government knew about its euphoria inducing effects, it would surely be classified.

Hey ho - indie kids may grow up, but they never die.

Nigel Noodle

2005-10-17T15:15:00.000Z

A couple of weekends back I bought Nigel Slater's new book, The Kitchen Diaries: A Year in the Kitchen. This was the day preceding the evening in Liverpool where John Cale said something like, "I was looking at some beautiful Zen statues in Afghanistan and then some men appeared with Howitzers and destroyed them and then I wrote this.", standing behind the keyboard, looking uncomfortably like a 1970s darts player (great shirt), launched into Magritte. Non sequitur? Nigel has provided a counterpoint to a finely interwoven woven reading of Alice in Wonderland and Naked Lunch (the recently re-edited version). It's a wonderful book, earthbound, accessible and enriching (nourishing?). It also makes perfect sense throughout. Yesterday afternoon saw the warm, yellow sky descend into misty greyrain, and I finished reading Naked Lunch against a background tapestry of music (Process) and aroma (baking plum cake). A fine afternoon indeed.

Things that you do when you're bored...

2005-09-02T16:43:00.000Z

...cruise john-cale.com to see if he's found a competent programmer yet.

Or perhaps it's a literary tease - just random blocks of text pasted into Flash, coincidentally containing the words "website", "electronic" and "download".

"The addict is immune to boredom. He can look at his shoe for hours or simply stay in bed."
William Burroughs

Moment Musicaux

2005-08-11T18:30:00.000Z

Stephen Kovacevich

Some music you listen to so much that it etches itself into your memory. This gentleman has provided me with some of the best imprints.

I have a tape of the Radio 3 broadcast of a Bath Festival concert I was at in 1992(ish). He played Schubert's Moments Musicaux, the Tempest Sonata and Op110. The sound is all wobbly from over use but I have a near perfect version which runs in my head when I need it. Occaisionally - like just now - it kicks in unprompted and makes a happy surprise in a day of frantic computery nonsense.

Bored

2005-07-28T17:49:00.000Z

Boredom: the condition of being bored; ennui.
Ennui: listlessness and dissatisfaction resulting from lack of interest; boredom.

This looks circular, or at least elliptical around two foci.

Listlessness: lacking energy or disinclined to exert effort; lethargic.
Lethargy: a state of sluggishness, inactivity, and apathy.
Apathy: lack of emotion or feeling; impassiveness.
Impassivity: apathy demonstrated by an absence of emotional reactions; phlegm.
Phlegm: thick, sticky, stringy mucus secreted by the mucous membrane of the respiratory tract.

Uh-oh, wandering off topic like the sticky, mucal trail of a snail. A little sluggishness perhaps?

Phlegm: calm self-possession; equanimity.
Equanimity: the quality of being calm and even-tempered; composure.
Composure: a calm or tranquil state of mind; self-possession.
Self-possession: full command of one's faculties, feelings, and behavior.

Today it's good to be bored.

Scant consolation...

2005-07-27T15:15:00.000Z

BBC News has reported:

Peel added to UK pop Hall of Fame

Late DJ John Peel will be made an honorary member of the UK Music Hall of Fame, in a Channel 4 season that will also study his musical passions.

The BBC Radio 1 DJ will join musicians including Bob Dylan as new entries to the Hall of Fame, which honours outstanding contribution to music.

A live induction ceremony will follow John Peel's Record Box, looking at the singles that meant most to him.

The autumn season coincides with the first anniversary of Peel's death.

Identity Cards

2005-06-27T17:27:00.000Z

The Identity Project

an assessment of the UK Identity
Cards Bill and its implications

LSE The Department of Information Systems

Summary of Conclusions

The Report concludes that the establishment of a secure national identity system has the potential to create significant, though limited, benefits for society. However, the proposals currently being considered by Parliament are neither safe nor appropriate. There was an overwhelming view expressed by stakeholders involved in this Report that the proposals are too complex, technically unsafe, overly prescriptive and lack a foundation of public trust and confidence. The current proposals miss key opportunities to establish a secure, trusted and cost-effective identity system and the Report therefore considers alternative models for an identity card scheme that may achieve the goals of the legislation more effectively. The concept of a national identity system is supportable, but the current proposals are not feasible.

Many of the public interest objectives of the Bill would be more effectively achieved by other means. For example, preventing identity theft may be better addressed by giving individuals greater control over the disclosure of their own personal information, while prevention of terrorism may be more effectively managed through strengthened border patrols and increased presence at borders, or allocating adequate resources for conventional police intelligence work.

The technology envisioned for this scheme is, to a large extent, untested and unreliable. No scheme on this scale has been undertaken anywhere in the world. Smaller and less ambitious systems have encountered substantial technological and operational problems that are likely to be amplified in a large-scale, national system. The use of biometrics gives rise to particular concern because this technology has never been used at such a scale.

We estimate the likely cost of the ten-year rollout of the proposed identity cards scheme will be between £10.6 billion and £19.2 billion, with a median of £14.5 billion. This figure does not include public or private sector integration costs, nor does it take into account possible cost overruns.

Any system that supports critical security functions must be robust and resilient to
malicious attacks. Because of its size and complexity, the identity system would require security measures at a scale that will result in substantially higher implementation and operational costs than has been estimated. The proposed use of the system for a variety of purposes, and access to it from a large number of private and public sector organisations will require unprecedented attention to security.

All identity systems carry consequential dangers as well as potential benefits.
Depending on the model used, identity systems may create a range of new and
unforeseen problems. These include the failure of systems, unforeseen financial costs, increased security threats and unacceptable imposition on citizens. The success of a national identity system depends on a sensitive, cautious and cooperative approach involving all key stakeholder groups including an independent and rolling risk assessment and a regular review of management practices. We are not confident that these conditions have been satisfied in the development of the Identity Cards Bill. The risk of failure in the current proposals is therefore magnified to the point where the scheme should be regarded as a potential danger to the public interest and to the legal rights of individuals.

More information, comment and analysis can be found at Privacy International

Aspen in Aspic

2005-06-03T16:10:00.000Z

Aspen magazine - boxed up on the net, complete with multimedia content. Worth a rummage.

UltraMagneticCommuter Man

2005-06-03T15:50:00.000Z

I stumbled across UMC's blog a few weeks ago and have found myself drawn back every few days (as if by magnet?) to sip from his witty and malicious cup. This afternoon I followed his link to iTunesRegistry, being a user of the white one, and fairly freaked myself out. What sort of exhibitionist will expose the complete contents of his pod to the scrutiny of any passing traffic on the interweb?

On a blog related note - will somebody tell Mr. Byrne that however much he would prefer it to be known as a *web journal* it looks like a blog, it smells like a blog and what the heck's wrong with a blog anyway... but he reads like such a decent bloke, so I don't think it'll be me. Seems a little pretentious [moi?] to link to it, but you can find it at davidbyrne.com.

Here comes the summer!

2005-04-29T11:27:00.000Z

It's warm and sunny, the Meltdown festival line-up is oozing out, the steam from the Watercress Line train is billowing among the freshly leaved trees on the hilside beyond the terracotta roof tiles, I've side-stepped my ActiveX-Java morass thanks to the Jacob Project... [big breath] and I'm enjoying a lightness of being, which far from being unbearable, is like the eddies and swirls of the breeze against the Cornish cliffs. See these in Tate StIves, when you've done surfin'.
Aspiring Forms	Seabird Forms
John Wells

Noodle Heaven

2005-04-25T12:11:00.000Z

D.I.Y.

PG's mates seem to have this JNI business wrapped up and stuck fast with their NoodleGlue.

Wish I had some...

Lost the plot?

2005-04-25T11:08:00.000Z

Alton's new(ish) library

Sense and sensitivity
Alton's new library has enough traditional touches to make Jane Austen feel at home.
-Jonathan Glancey, The Guardian, Monday April 25 2005

Well, however homely in the building, it fails as a library in one rather crucial aspect. It contains remarkably few books. Perhaps they would interfere with the light, airy, modern-take-on-a-tithe-barn atmosphere embodied so successfully in this lovely new building.

Is judging a library by the building like judging a book by its cover?

nincompoop

2005-04-22T10:03:00.000Z

doh!

Woke up this morning with a moment of enlightenment - a clear view of my own incompetence.

Of course activex's are com components, and therefore I need to create an automation container to do the job.

Well, can that be so difficult? Am I scared of the IUnknown? Oh yes, just a bit, but I'm always happiest at the bottom of a steep learning curve. That feeling of anticipation: I know this is going to be hard, but today I'll conquer the world. Much better than the feeling at the end of the day: good grief - what on earth was I thinking!

I walked into work today brandishing that book. That book which sat for an age next to my bed, whose contents failed absolutely to pass into my head by some osmosis-like process. I didn't really want to read it. I was afraid I might grow a beard like the authors, and frankly there are so many better things to read with one's time. It would be like preferring Bret Easton Ellis over Will Self.

sorry guys

Enough procrastination. Time to start the ascent.

Milo Minderbinder

2005-04-21T12:33:00.000Z

How in heaven's name do I write a JNI interface dll which instantiates a windowed activex, in a way which doesn't show any windows, dialogs or other GUIs but does handle the messages generated by the control?

I've done the JNI bit including the callbacks into the jvm in the message handlers, but I can't find a way of creating the activex object which exposes the message handlers without creating it in something like a CDialog. This would be fine, except for the missing parent window (can't get hWnds from jvm pointers) which I need to create the (modeless) dialog. The dll is derived from CWinApp.

I feel like I've stuffed my cheeks with crab apples and am paying good money to be beaten about the head with a shoe.

It begs the question: why am I doing this?

Land of my partner

2005-03-21T15:16:00.000Z

Hen Gymru fynyddig, paradwys y bardd,
Pob dyffryn, pob clogwyn, i'm golwg sydd hardd;
Trwy deimlad gwladgarol, mor swynol yw si
Ei nentydd, afonydd, i mi.

We high-tailed it down to Cardiff on Saturday - like Sal and Dean heading West down the M4. No tickets of course, but the call of the fatherland proved too strong. Parked the car in Roath - outside the old house and hoofed it down to the Arms Park.

It's a funny thing patriotism - I'm English and rather uncomfortable with it. He's Welsh and proud and quiet and laughing and lives in self-imposed exile. I wore his spare red shirt and reckoned I'd probably get away with it if I kept my mouth shut. No love lost between the Red and the White. Needn't have worried, I was met only with generosity and good humour.

He remembers his namesake JPR and the glory days of the '70s - I don't. This doesn't matter either.

What matters is the frisson in the crowd as the streets flowed red, when the stadium and pubs emptied, and the stunned silence of the celebration.

It'll take a while to sink in.

Serial killer

2005-03-01T17:18:00.000Z

Well, here's a funny thing. My current dish of noodles amounts to a printer driver. Well, I can't get any status messages from the d___ thing, athough I try, and I try. Trying threw up some weird ghosts in the COM port though. Like all good programmers, I tried abuse as my first line of attack. "Work you sod" was good and printed fine but no status message. "Oh ho", says I, "I'll use schmooze". Tried: "Please work". Plaintive, but it printed. Alas, still no status. I tried a few other things but got no further forward. Aha, lightning struck, inspiration, "I'll nail this with the mighty sword of culture". Pick the lock with Larkin? "The decades of a different life, that opened past your inch close eyes". Nope. Tried some Cale: "I saw the way you looked at her Charlie Brown, good grief". Broke the printer. Thought I'd erased the flash. It took about half an hour of frantically reading tfm to resurrect the little grey box. Close escape (ESC@ or \x1B40 if you enjoy hex).

Oooh... this is peachy

2005-01-06T14:31:00.000Z

Small but beautifully formed Vlog.

Rolla, Rolla!

2005-01-06T14:03:00.000Z

Three cheers for the guys from Rolla and their PrettyUI dll.

Postscript

2005-01-06T13:58:00.000Z

Seamus Heaney

And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightening of flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully-grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you'll park or capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open

2004-10-27T13:18:00.000Z

Snow, Frost and Footprints

2004-10-19T21:36:00.000Z

Here in the land of nod, the last restng place of sweet Fanny Adams, the leaves are yellowing, and the weather is misty and damp, and I've been getting ahead of myself again.
A Patch of Old Snow There's a patch of old snow in a corner That I should have guessed Was a blow-away paper the rain Had brought to rest. It is speckled with grime as if Small print overspread it, The news of a day I've forgotten-- If I ever read it. Robert Frost	Footsteps in the snow at McDougal Alley, 1962 Andre Kertesz

The Rock of Travolta

2004-09-29T18:50:00.000Z

Luke Warm Skywater... just a classic (not ambient) noodle.

Plaudits to Truck Records for an enlightened ethos.

Scissor Sister

2004-09-28T23:02:00.000Z

The highlight of Tate Britain's exhibition, Art and the 60s: This was Tomorrow, was not, as I anticipated, the two Hockney paintings, Typhoo Tea and Man Taking Shower in Beverly Hills, but a Yoko Ono video entitled Cut Piece, in the room dedicated to the Destruction in Art Symposium (DIAS).

Man Taking Shower in Beverly Hills - David Hockney

Typhoo Tea - David Hockney

DIAS was organised by Gustav Metzger and held in London in 1966. It grew from a zeitgeist of disaffection among post-war artists and served as a forum for exploration of the destructive elements of human nature and more broadly of nature itself.

Ono's contribution, a performance piece, was both powerful and disturbing. She sat alone on a stage wearing a simple, dark coloured woolen outfit and expressionless face, while individuals rose from the audience and cut chunks from her clothes.

I have no first hand experience of the art scene (or anything) in 1966 and so found it difficult to gauge how weird this event would seem to the audience. I can't imagine that Ono would have conceived and performed anything too mundane, but the serious, almost sombre expressions of the participants and spectators, didn't hint at any strangeness or anticipation. In fact they appeared to me like the devout receiving communion. Unquestioning believers.

So there we have it a deadpan audience. Ono herself remained largely the same looking straight ahead, only occasionally glancing in the direction of a minder in the wings or nervously at one of the zombies wielding the scissors.

Scissor technology has moved on a lot in thirty eight years. Today we have refined, ergonomically designed instruments of all shapes and sizes. I'm sure that in the sixties, they must have had various sizes too. However, the pair used in the performance looked like their most appropriate use would be for cutting carpet. Was shagpile around then?

The first participant was a young woman. She gingerly snipped a small piece of cuff from Yoko's left sleeve with the unwieldy scissors.

RELIEF - no blood but it must've been close.

A few more like the first, very polite about it all.

BOREDOM - I think jokingly that I might have gone for a more risqué bit.

A young bloke, without pause, pulled the material away from her left breast and made a nipple sized hole with one cut.

HORROR - I just thought that, I must be a bit sick.

Several more people, some emboldened to take bigger chunks. I wondered how Yoko was feeling. Her expressionlessness was starting to look a little forced and I wouldn't have swapped places with her.

I started to notice the people around me. They would stand, watch and move on. Two students stayed for longer. An older couple with mild Scouse accents made some Lennon comments but didn't really look. Not much registering on these people's faces either.

AMUSEMENT - the nipple cutter is back! He's enjoying himself.

At this point I started to feel quite uncomfortable. I began to wonder whether people were looking at me. Was I taking an unhealthy interest in Yoko losing her clothes? Were people staring at me?

More men and women dissecting and hacking. Ono is wearing a slip. This is sliced and we are down to her bra. These too have undergone much redesign! The straps are severed, the last act of the nipple man, and Ono swiftly covers herself.

The film ends and loops back to the start.

Cut Piece - Yoko Ono

Elsewhere is the West Midlands

2004-09-27T14:55:00.000Z

Griffiths Drive - David Rayson

Christmas Eve - George Shaw

David Rayson and George Shaw both orignate from the West Midlands, a very large and unremittingly grim conurbation. Their paintings suffuse those streets and suburbs with a sense of place which isn't felt whilst there. These are places for forgetting and dreaming.

"When I grow up, I want to be Kevin Keegan."
"Well, I'm gonna be the Six Million Dollar Man."

Philip Larkin, too, hailed from the West Midlands. Rayson may have been referring to Larkin's poem, The Importance of Elsewhere, in the title of the 2003 show, Somewhere Else is Here. Shaw cites him directly, 'Nothing, like something, happens anywhere.'

Philip Larkin - The Importance Of Elsewhere

Lonely in Ireland, since it was not home,
Strangeness made sense. The salt rebuff of speech,
Insisting so on difference, made me welcome:
Once that was recognised, we were in touch

Their draughty streets, end-on to hills, the faint
Archaic smell of dockland, like a stable,
The herring-hawker's cry, dwindling, went
To prove me separate, not unworkable.

Living in England has no such excuse:
These are my customs and establishments
It would be much more serious to refuse.
Here no elsewhere underwrites my existence.

Who dat?

2004-09-23T16:34:00.000Z

Watch out

2004-09-21T16:26:00.000Z

here comes the winebar man.

I collided with a little bit of history the other day. Like Siddartha sitting on the banks of the river, seeing his past, present and future independently of time, I found my tape of Winebars and Werewolves by Jegsy Dodd and the Sons of Harry Cross and became 18 again. Jason, Clem, Reece(y), beer and Birkenhead. We danced for a while and then reverted to adulthood (well almost).

And the point of all this?

Christopher Robin asked Pooh and friends to carry on playing in the wood.

Blog Watch

2004-09-21T15:57:00.000Z

I keep a close watch...

Imagery in Kind

2004-09-17T16:33:00.000Z

Andy's Chest - Lou Reed	Aedh wishes for the Cloths of Heaven - W B Yeats
And curtains laced with diamonds dear for you And all the roman noblemen for you And kingdom’s christian soldiers dear for you And melting ice cap mountain tops for you And knights in flamming silver robes for you And bats that with a kiss turn prince for you	HAD I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

2004-09-16T10:49:00.000Z

Early Sunday Morning

P.N.S. Initialisation

2004-09-15T16:45:00.000Z

Welcome to my purple noodle space.

Been noodling about Edward Hopper recently. Loved the retrospective at Tate Britain but was disturbed by the way the houses floated in the tall, yellow grass. Also been noodling on the similarity of colour and backdrop between Early Sunday Morning and some of Philip Guston's early works.

I dream in brick reds and blue skies.