h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

it was much less boring the second time you posted it though...

trembling finger - pushed it twice - doh

good luck. I didn't tell you about our drumming gig! It was at the County Hall - someone was showing off the medal they got in the Paralympics. I think he was the only one who actually liked the drumming. We kept getting looks from people to suggest that we turn down the volume!! I think our gigs need to be picked a little more discriminately....

I think they are sometimes more for the benefit of the participants. At least ours are. We play in the garden of a hotel (in the warm wether anyway). Some hotel drinkers gave us a little clap in between numbers and then shouted "and now for the next number ..... the same again!"
Drumming last week was ace. Little tight circle of six with lots of drum drum clap together stuff. Harder than usual and great fun.
The best ones are in a pub with lots of beer and dancers. We do a charity do once or twice a year.

fixed (ish)
yeah!
(you never quite know what is going on - may be just saving up some major blow up for when I've got a whole lot more stuff not backed up)

The ideal is out in the blazing hot sun with dancers. Now where could that be I wonder...

well not here anyway because it is grey and wet
plus I had a 30min walk to and from station today due to transport cock up (moan)

Actually I may moan (may I?) but I really don't think I could take the African heat. I expect you are (were?) used to it. Ever been back?

Looking forward to a John Williams African music concert tomorrow night. Have to miss normal drumming but it should be worth it. Plus other half is a keen guitarist so we can't miss JW.

ah - she is? does she know of any great female jazz guitarists?
As far as the blazing african sun goes... well I've never been too hot here. However, it didn't used to get much above 35 over there, unlike the Med which is regularly in the 40s and way too hot for me.

no - just classical. saddest outcome of major HD crash is the huge number of links to classical guitar pages we are going to have to find again.

no - just classical. saddest outcome of major HD crash is the huge number of links to classical guitar pages we are going to have to find again.

damn did it again

Don't get so excited posting..

... just impatient to get onto the next screen

Which is this one!
Great concert. Paul Clarvis on percussion and Richard Harvey on .... lots of amazing things like flutes and bass clarinet (+ ocarina, zithers, mandolins ....). Watching the drummer was a delight! So laid back and spontaneous. Long solo without title that he afterwards named "blind man loose in drum shop". Gave Harvey the djembe (actually not but something like it) in one number and played very interestingly on a beer bottle (sticks not hoots). Anyway they're touring so catch it. "The Magic Box"
ps. great guitar and string bass too. John Etheridge ex Soft Machine etc and Chris Laurence (to whom a friend of mine remembers giving a black eye ... accidentally I hasten to add).

sounds amazing - i'll look out for it

Time I started trying to be intellectual again. I am trying to re-understand Godel Escher Bach by going back to the beginning and rereading stuff I should know by now. It looks amazingly unfamiliar. Did I ever read it in the first place? Maybe it was too long ago. Anyway I also found a nice Godel link which I have put on my links page - references to Zen.

And I just started the Gribbin. I must say it's a darn site easier to read than the Hawking/Penrose.

Having dismissed Penrose's "Emperor's New Mind" because I didn't like his (or Searle's) Chinese room argument I just found myself browsing it back to front (i.e. check out the conclusions and see what chapters they led on from). Anyway he has a very good couple of chapters on the direction of time (with something about cosmology and black holes) and quantum mechanics (which you said you wanted to know about). Really nice explanations of entropy and all that. Recommended. But not for his artificial intelligence ideas which are dodgy (IMHO). On the other hand he is man of great brain so I had better have good arguments why I don't agree with him when the reckoning comes.

Would you feel up to discourse with any quantum physicists. Though I'd welcome the opportunity, I feel it would be a bit one-sided for me...

actually I don't really know any quantum physicists. when I was at uni I did a couple of courses in it but can't remember the maths. got lots of impressive looking books still. Feynman did a good one that is probably the most comprehensible (lectures vol 3). it's the wierdness thats worth trying to understand I suppose, just because its so counter-intuitive, but then most modern physics bears no relation to common sense. one day I'll try and learn it again