The Big Louisey - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

The aquamarine water of Lake Louise, Alberta - road trip with Matt and Mark of Marble Media

24 lengths at the end of a long day - plus a quick dip in the outside pool of Banff Springs with mountain views

A bit of Last of the Mohicans with Daniel Day Lewis and Madeleine Stowe - memories of the premiere at the Parkway in Camden Town

Watermusic - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

An early morning swimming pool all to myself - outdoor, bath warm, with views through gently rustling trees to the Rockies, still snowy high up and along the gulleys and crevices. [Banff, Alberta]

The music of the River Bow by the rapids and beside the meadow

Close-up views of a Prairie Dog, friendly and bold as brass - while reading and lunching on a terrace above the river

Constance - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Wandering along Queen St W on the look-out for street art and hot shots

Reading Ross MacDonald's The Blue Hammer on Mike's balcony on Constance

Tallking to U after a few days (and the enfants terribles) - home is where the heart is, not where my hat is

Cycle of life - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Cycling around Toronto with Mike Stewart - 21 years since we first met in Chambery

Touching Lake Ontario (shortly after making up a mnemonic for the Great Lakes - HOMES)

Coffee and raspberry croissant and chat on a bench opposite the park on Queen St W

World of Wonder - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

The sound of a (Canadian) flag flapping in the wind - Queen's Park, Toronto

PBS radio - including the BBC World Service (including a programme about the classical musicians who worked on Sgt Pepper)

Stuff around the Royal Ontario Museum (with wing by Daniel Liebskind opened two days ago) - a stuffed cheetah; an art deco floor light; a small, very well presented collection of Judaica; the new Stairs of Wonder with a display of stained small creature skeletons in jars; a young model being made up to be photographed in a new, as yet empty, Liebeskind space

Westwards Ho! - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

The sight of the West Coast of Ireland (near Shannon) from 39,000 feet - en route to Toronto

The view of Newfoundland (? could have been Nova Scotia) from the air - rocks and mountains veined with radiating ice

Seeing my good old friend Mike Stewart from Chambery days for the first time in several years

Reflections on mobility

Reflections on mobility written on a blackberry at 40,000 feet...

Mobility - Immobility
Voluntary - Involuntary

MV Nomad
IV Settler
MI Refugee
II Captive

Home as a person/people not a place
Home as where the heart is
Home as wherever you lay your hat

Track of the Day

The Zombies - Time of the Season

an iPod discovery thanks to the Holmes collection

Runner up: Neil Young - Old Man (as I head over to Tir na Og (land of the Young - Canada)

Child's Eye View

D on Freerunning/Parcour (27.5.07 watching Jump Britain - Channel 4/Carbon Media):
"They're pretty much like monkeys"

N on Seeing (4.07):
"Without the Eye I would feel so excluded from the world, not being able to see its beuty."

Hope

Cambridge - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

A long slow chat with Nick Baylis in the dappled shade of the trees in Granchester Meadows - hatching a creative plan



Tea and chat about very interesting lifestuff with Chris Carling



The Backs in Cambridge in bright sunshine - bookish tranquility

A river runs through it - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Having a meeting at the Design Museum overlooking the river - talking about the South Bank and Bankside Cultural Quarter and how it manifests itself in cyberspace



Chatting to Pat Kane (The Play Ethic and Hue & Cry) about punk, play and other things beginning with P



Chatting to George Auckland of the BBC class of '69 - which inspired my using the example of Joe Boyd's psychedelic UFO Club as an example of why radical creative scenes don't need official support to blossom (although cheap premises help)

Mr Blue Sky - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Walking across St James's Park and through St James's in the bright sunshine



Reading a Lew Archer detective book (The Blue Hammer) set in the hippy-dippy early 70s



Playing on the Big Art Mob

Desert Island Discs Revisited

D and I had a go at our Desert Island Discs in the car in Campbell Park, Milton Keynes back in August (06).

Here is what I came up with:

1* Miles Davis - Flamenco Sketches
2 John Coltrane - A Love Supreme part 1
3 Marvin Gaye - Mercy Mercy Me
4 Satie - Gymnopedie
5 Bruce Springsteen - Into the Fire
6 Siouxsie + the Banshees - Icon
7 Sinead O'Connor - On Raglan Road
8 Frank Sinatra - One for my Baby

revised from:

1* Miles Davis - Flamenco Sketches
2 John Coltrane - A Love Supreme part 1
3 Marvin Gaye - Mercy Mercy Me (?)
4 Curtis Mayfield - Move On Up
5 The Clash - White Man in Hammersmith Palais
6 Bill Evans - Love theme from Spartacus
7 Bjork - Hyperballad
8 The Doors - The End

And here's young D's first stab at it (then age 6):
1 Madness - Embarrassment
2 Bruce Spingsteen - Atlantic City
3 The Cranberries - Ode to my Family
4 Cornershop - Brimful of asha
5 Max Romeo - I Chase the Devil
6 Trumpton - Windy Miller song
7 The Jam - Batman theme
8 AC/DC - It's a long way to the top

Meanwhile N (age 11) had written his out long hand in a notebook, taking several months to pin his choice down:
1 U2 - Vertigo
2 Unite Tribe - Life and Death
3 Oxmo Puccino and the Jazzbastards - Perdre et Gagner
4 The Cure - Love cats
5 * Michael Franti & Spearhead - Sometimes
6 MC Solaar - Solaar Pleure
7 The Raconteurs - Steady as she goes
8 Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit

[to be finished]

Track of the Day

Star Spangled Banner performed by Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock

Playing around - today's Happiness Experiment entry

watching D enjoying himself alone on the swing

watching Jimi Hendrix hump his guitar - as visceral and force-of-natural as it comes

hanging out around Covent Garden with N& D - a classic haircut afternoon

Teen spirit - today's Happiness Experiment entry

An unbelievable performance by Patti Smith at the Roundhouse with the shades of Jimi and Jim



An evening out with my old pal Roddy, chilled chat



The words of Teen Spirit

Track of the Day

White Rabbit performed live by Patti Smith at the Roundhouse with a dreamy tale from the British Museum, all springboarding from the Jefferson Airplane song

Patti Smith at the Roundhouse

Jesus died/Gloria
Are you experienced? ***
Set me free
Frederick
Southern cross
White Rabbit (British Museum intro) ***
Helpless
Soul Kitchen
Because the Night **
River
White dress? Girl? Another dimension
Smells like Teen Spirit ****
Everybody wants to rule the world
Rock'n'roll nigger

Brando note

Brando as activist: He fought for an independent Jewish state in the 1940s, and was at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (at which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech). In the 1970s he switched his focus to the rights and treatment of Native Americans, and wanted to object to the actions of the United States Army with regards to the massacre of 300 unarmed Dakota Sioux in 1890.

Suzy queue - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Campari & soda with my old friend and fellow company director Sue overlooking Borough Market - the sensible way of doing an AGM



Listening and chatting to Susan Greenfield, chief exec of the Royal Institution, about science, society and the impact of technology



Snapping public art around Blackfriars, in particular the Lever Bros building, for Big Art Mob

Track of the day

Entre les lignes: Clouee au sol by Keny Arkana (feistyfemale rapper from Marseille)

Les ailes brulees, clouee au sol
La tete vers le Ciel, vers la splendeur de l'eternel ailleurs

(Nah you don't get that darn in Sarf Lunden do ya?)

Track of the day - the dull flame of desire

the dull flame of desire by bjork from her new record volta

I love your eyes, my dear
Their spendid, sparkling fire

Strange days are here - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Today:
Listening to a new record for the first time - in this case Bjork's Volta

Chatting to strangers - a French teacher escorting ten teens on the train to Luton. On Thursday evening, a hippy woman on the terrace of the Barbican tracking down buyers of Syd Barratt's furniture.

Reading Joe Boyd's White Bicycles on blues, jazz and picasso

Yesterday:
Saturday morning love and marriage

Sauturday afternoon snooze

Saturday night movie - Running with Knives

Frank on Fear

Frank Sinatra:
Fear is the enemy of logic. There is no more debilitating, crushing, self-defeating, sickening thing in the world - to an individual or to a nation.

Living well - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Van singing Baby Please Don't Go at the Roundhouse - shared with U



A helter-skelter chat with John Thackara with his delightful 'Dutch' accent - about everything from growing veg to public art to Alzheimers.



A lively chat with U and Neil Burgess in Marine Ices, Chalk Farm about life, love and the universe, and shrooms and music and living well in the present.

Van at the Roundhouse

Back on Top
Days Like This
Cleaning Windows
Moondance
Playhouse
Real real gone
Bright side of the street
Baby please don't go ***
Precious time
Jack (all work...)
Jackie Wilson Said
Domino
Gloria

Wonder if Jim sang Gloria here at the Roundhouse with The Doors? Wonder if Patti Smith will sing it here next week? That will be the conclusion of a wonderful musicfestweek...

Joe Strummer's Campfires

Julien Temple on The Future is Unwritten:

"The flickering flame and the mystery of the face half-obscured give you a lot more drama visually. It's also a great place to interview someone because they lose their self-consciousness when looking in the flames.

There's also something about the circle around the fire. I wanted people to get the idea that Joe's life did close a circle at the end. ... he made it clear that he thought [these campfires] were the most important thing he'd ever done, more even than the music. He brought together people from madly different backgrounds: duchesses and priests and car-thieves and soldiers. ... He'd just say let's have a fire! And he'd have one every other week. They'd go on for five days in his yard."

This relates to an earlier blog entry inspired by Joe

Echoes of Dylan - today's Happiness Experiment entry

Listening to live music in the first floor room at the King and Queen pub in Foley Street, London W1 where Dylan played when he first visited London in 1962 (at a folk gig organised by Martin Carthy)

Stroking Tommy Boy (whilst reading Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas) on the garden bench in the sun

Wandering around Fitrovia with the enfants terribles during Maud's farewell party

Soap opera - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Soap-stone carving with D - went up to Tiranti's in Warren Street to get the stone and riffers - memories of moustachioed Laurence Broderick and his otters



Stracciatelli - at Church Lane italiano - with a little sprinkling of Neil Diamond



Scraping lightrods (listening to Radio 4)

Image courtesy of Laurence Broderick - www.laurencebroderick.co.uk

Sweet Thames - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Walking over Tower Bridge (sunlit views of the Thames) to Shad Thames area

A hole in a stocking

Lunch with 'the pink girl' - Debra Giles, catching up on the Redbus crew

Play's the Thing - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

The view down from a propellor-driven plane travelling south from Scatland - an off-shore wind farm, yellow patches of rapeseed, meandering rivers, amphibious coastal land revealed at low tide.

Meeting two of the three designers behind EbOY - an inspiring example from Berlin of play made work, work as play

Reading short plays for The Radio Play's the Thing

Glasgow Walker - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Evening sunshine flowing down the hills of Glasgow - echoes of San Francisco

Outdoor office in the grassy square at the summit of West George Street

Positive feedback on Big Art Mob

Mob rule - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Going live with the Big Art Mob - listening to the announcement after the first TV airing (Watch this Space)

Sunset walk through the streets of Glasgow - from the Glasgow Choose Life office to the hotel

Reading Hunter Thompson while high in the sky

Three - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Driving into the sunset through the weird industrial landscape of Dagenham - windmills, pylons and factories



Walking along the river at Southease with N + D - swans, church towers, yellow fields



First listen to Patti Smith's Twelve - especially Smells Like Teen Spirit

Track of the Day

All along the Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix

Memories of last week's YouTube sesh with D - an introduction to Pete Townsend, Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page

Track of the Day

Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit as covered by Patti Smith on her new record Twelve - bass and banjo stylee

A mulatto
An albino
A mosquito
My libido

Bjork on Music

"Music for me is like fact. Totally like algebra. ... In a weird way it's about maths and physics."

Swimming in April - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

The Volks Railway from Blackrock with N&D - D's delighted smiles - that great expanse of stones sea sky - a loving txt from U

On the beach at Saltdean - first sea swim of the year (f..f...bracing) - starting Joseph O'Connor's new novel Redemption Falls - watching the boyz playing

Breakfast at The Mock Turtle - with a very affectionate D - buck rarebit and a taste of sasparilla

Brighton rocks - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Night-driving to late-nite music courtesy of Orbital's Back to Mine selection - some Lee Perry and introducing the kidz to the theme from Robinson Crusoe (that dubbed French black&white version they used to have on morning tv)

Setting off for Brighton with N+D - a weekend's R&R - anticipating beach and milkshakes and all the usual stuff

Watching D walking out with his tartan guitar case

big art - today's Happiness Experiment entry

watching music and dance with the Enfants Terribles - including Jesus Christ Superstar and Buddy Rich

chatting to Mick the painter in the garden at lunchtime

polishing the Big Art Project site - something to be proud of, especially once Big Art Mob launches next week

Bass line - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Flamenco Sketches by Miles Davis on the way home - calming bass line



Posting my first picture to Big Art Mob



Wearing trusty old Converses

Track of the Day - A Blue Supreme

So What by Miles Davis (from Kind of Blue)

Picture courtesy: www.fractalus.com

My Little Empire - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Reading about the Raj and the British Empire in sample copy for Empire's Children

Wearing my Nigel Hall shirt (light blues short sleeved, oval buttons)

Reading Time Out for the first time in years - including a very interesting bit about the Dublin Castle in Camden, one of four nationally-linked pubs designed to separate the railway workers from the four corners of the UK/Ireland from one another and prevent fighting and consequent absenteeism

A River Runs Through It - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

The sound of a river running - the River Ver at Brickett Wood, Herts.

Sunny Sunday afternoon walks en famille

Jon Snow's infectious enthusiasm at the BAFTA TV Craft Awards

Track of the Day - Hurt

Hurt performed by Johnny Cash (written by Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor)

A great opening...


I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real

Steady as she goes - yesterday's Happiness Experiment

dinner at Annie & Seth's - good food, good company

drawing Ralph Steadman style - in my new sketch book from Cork

reading in the garden in the afternoon sun - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (punctuated with Ralph's drawings)

Track of the Day (yesterday)

Just Like Heaven - The Cure (from Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me)

as covered by (dare i say it) Katie Melua as a gentle love song which throws the original into a new light


"Show me how you do that trick
The one that makes me scream" she said
"The one that makes me laugh" she said
And threw her arms around my neck
"Show me how you do it
And I promise you, I promise that
I'll run away with you
I'll run away with you"

Going live - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Human Footprint going live



Playing on Facebook - touching base with Orla (even had a chat about the sudden uptake with Paul Birch of Bebo who i bumped into at the swimming pool)



Kicking off the Big Art Mob closed beta

With these hands - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Listening to the gospel power of My City of Ruins by Bruce Springsteen, a Music Moment - powered my morning exercise (including a record 125 on the bike)



A pair of black hot pants (in Francis Street, SW1)



Reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter Thompson and enjoying Ralph Steadman's perfectly in tune illustrations - inspired to try my hand at that style of drawing

Track of the day - Come on rise up!

My City of Ruins - Bruce Springsteen (from The Rising)




Now with these hands
I pray Lord
With these hands
For the strength Lord
With these hands
For the faith Lord
With these hands
I pray Lord
With these hands
For the strength Lord
With these hands
For the faith Lord
With these hands

Come on rise up!
Come on rise up!

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Watching The Real Casino Royale recorded from BBC4



Reading an early draft of a radio play about fascist filly Unity Mitford



A 'lively' meeting with Ishmahil Blagrove from Rice'n'Peas

Solid Air

Wending my merry way home from the Albert Hall and a very special performance by John Martyn - the whole of the Solid Air album, plus a few other beautiful songs.



He opened with Cooltide, a tune I really love and which is welded for me to sunset on the Nile - i took it with me on a leisurely cruise up the nile to Aswan with my mum, mr first experience of Africa.



The highlight of Solid Air was the outstanding Don't Want to Know. The man is not only a master of lyrics of great simplicity and substance, but he also has a vocal and instrumental styling which is entirely unique.



And as for the song Solid Air, it's difficult to listen to without thinking of Nick Drake and what a contrast - Nick frozen in eternal youth and John battling on bravely through the wear and tear of aging. And then you think of those Romantic curls on the cover of London Conversation. What a long and winding road...

Kiss the Sun - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Watching John Martyn perform the Solid Air album at the Albert Hall with Neil Burgess

Reading plays for The Radio Play's the Thing

Going through the designs for Empire's Children with Davie McGirr and the Illumina crew

Track of the day - Only want to know about love

Don't want to know - John Martyn (from Solid Air)


And I don't want to know about evil
Only want to know about love
I don't want to know one thing about evil
Only want to know about love.

I'm waiting for the planes to tumble
Waiting for the towns to fall
I'm waiting for the cities to crumble
Waiting till I see you crawl.

Track of the day

Stolen Moments - Oliver Nelson (from The Blues and the Abstract Truth)

Gems - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Doing a Gem art workshop with D and N at the Gilbert Collection in Somerset House

Hanging out in the Fountain courtyard at Somerset House, reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

A back massage at Bernard's

A Numbers Game - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Testing Human Footprint interactive - life in numbers



Finishing a good novel - Restless by William Boyd - partly by the Home Office building whose coloured glass features come into their own in bright sunshine



Watching Jazz Dispute on Germ

Irish eyes - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Walking up Slieve Foy as far as the ridge (with U N & D), then over into Glen Mor - the smooth grass-covered path just above Slate Rock

The last of the evening sun down in Greenore, silhouetting the little lighthouse - teaching the boys to skim stones

Watching a documentary in gaellic with U about the internment camp in Wales (F...) where Michael Collins and the supporters of the Easter Rising were locked up throughout 1916, unwittingly in a university of revolution - history and historical documentaries

Child's Play - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Watching D making a fire - then reading (Wiliam Boyd's Restless) by it

Visiting Anna's sweet shop in Carlingford, Co. Louth with N and D - a vestige of the old Cairlinn

Playing soldiers with D in Dan's garden - he was an American while I was the German baddie who likes 'chess music'

Fair City - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

The cloistered courtyard of the Irish Museum of Modern Art in bright sunshine - with U looking at the Miro and Calder sculptures, as well as Georgia O'Keeffe Nature and Abstraction exhibition

Drawing on the beach at Malahide in my new notebook (hand-bound in Cork)

Wandering around Dublin with N and D all morning, including an Easter visit to the GPO retelling the story of the uprising (as we retold the Exodus the other night)

Rush Head - today's Happiness Experiment entry

On the beach at Rush with Sean, Orla, Meabh, N, D and U - Lambey Island hazy off shore

Chatting to my nieces and nephews - Meabh just into the top Dublin art school, Orla just landed a scholarship in Washington and Sean's band United Tribe just launched their new LP on the splendidly named Rastafenian Records (it's reggae based out of Dublin)

Going through Meabh's portfolio

The Old Country - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Setting foot back on the Emerald Isle after more than a year - seeing my niece Orla



Starting a new book - William Boyd's new novel Restless



Playing drawing games with N on the plane - he created a terminator of Man Utd supporters

Small World - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Bumping into my bro and kids at the Arena sculpture outside the National Theatre by chance - then into Anne Hooper and Phillip Hodson outside the Festival Hall also by chance - that occasional feeling that London's not so big



On the same theme, watching a street performer in the piazza at Covent Garden with D who was enraptured - a fellow Moblogger it turned out was watching the same comedy knife-throwing



Chatting with my down-the-street neighbour Tim (as he polished his black Porsche, the latest in a long line of fine cars he seems to trade as a business - his own black Maserati is the most beautiful in my eyes, for that little bit of subtlety and restraint)

Photo:
John Maine : "Arena" 1983-88 (Portland stone) - which I watched the artist build
courtesy of Pomphorhynchus

Star Spot #366

Ian Wright

Jon Ronson

Rory Bremner

Alan Yentob

(All around Horseferry Road - 3/07)

- yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Buying a signed first edition from Hatchards in Piccadilly - Justin Cartwright's new novel

The allotments in the new BST evening from the new railings

Safiya's joy at getting the job

Spring has sprung - recent Happiness Experiment entries

240307
N getting his brown belt for karate - the best in his glass, "very good speed, stance and technique" according to his sensei

Watching Walk on Water in bed in the afternoon, an Israeli thriller recommended by Mici

Daytime sleep

250307
Having Ja and family round for impromptu post-park supper

Reading about 1940 and watching Enigma

Watching Andrew Davies' fun adaptation of Northanger Abbey - the book that resulted in me going to gothic Girton

260307
Lunchtime constitutional with Jonathan Holmes around backstreets of Victoria enjoying the architectural details under a bright spring sun

Breaking the News being nominated for a TV Craft BAFTA - congratulations to Davie McGirr and the creative and technical teams at Illumina Digital

Reading Indian in the Cupboard with D and N - enjoying the anticipation of getting to the climax

Milton's keen - Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Late afternoon snooze

Writing my 121 blog on the London-Galilee axis

Danny's annual review - with Ma

Human Footprint - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

200307

Doing an experiment to demonstrate static electricity with D using a balloon and scraps of paper: "It's very odd. I've never seen anything like it!"



Writing for Human Footprint Interactive - a bit of creative writing is good for the soul



Reading Silverfin with N in our bed

Ace of Love - Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Reading by the balcony with the enfants terribles playing in the room - Kalooki Nights by Howard Jacobson

Playing Kalooki with Rita and her great-grandchildren - naturally the youngest son wins - flows into Mother's Day family gathering at Cyprus Avenue

Jane Austen night in with U - Mansfield Park, memories of German trains with JRT

N calls hearts "love" as in '3 of Love'

Buddhist

A Buddhist goes up to a hot dog vendor:
"Make me one with everything"

Body Memory

N (age 10) was talking about remembering kata moves in karate: "Your body has a memory itself." He's worked out for himself a distinction between "brain" memory and body memory.

18.3.07
"That's what the future's like - everything's white" - N watching a sci-fi movie.

Bright on time - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Working from the beach in Brighton - between the piers - thanks to the ol' Craicberry

Friday fish lunch at the Regency - with soon-to-be colleague Matt Locke

Working at the 24 Hour Museum on their revamped online incarnation

The buzz - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Hooking up with Alfie Dennen and getting the buzz about Big Art Mob

Watching more Skins

Working on stuff for Channel 4 Radio

Spring has sprung - Recent Happiness Experiment entries

100307

Unpacking my books in the new room with the balcony open



A haircut Saturday with N - including the usual picnic on the steps of the masonic temple at the end of long acre, playing Guess the (Passerby's) Name



Playing the Top Three game with N in the tube



110307

Ghaly's goal for Spurs against Chelsea in the FA Cup - football at the Bridge with Stu



130307

Chat with James Bradburne, Steve Moore and Janey Walker in posh caff in Green Park - above all, the spring sunshine (first no coat day of the year)



Listening to Doug Miller's Desert Island Discs - especially Starless and Bible Black by Stan Tracey Quartet (what a title - Dylan Thomas's?)



Meeting Rebecca Wilson from the Saatchi site/Your Gallery (10 million hits a day!) - Dylan playing in the empty caff (Tupelo Honey, Camden Town - the old Van-Bob axis)

Big Fat Zero Honey

"God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through."
Paul Valery

Under the skin - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Watching Skins - Chris' story

Elevenses with Tana Wollen, moving on to a new phase

Lunch with Fiona Kilkelly, chat ranging from her new job at Skillset - Interactive Media to the pleasures of Galway and the West coast of Ireland

Not crap - Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Brainstorming with Stuart Cosgrove and Tana Wollen - came up with Everything's Crap



Chewing the fat with researchers at Researcher Development Programme drinks



Bathtime with D the urchin

today's Happiness Experiment entry

chatting with Will Gompertz, Head of Tate Media, at the old Tate Gallery about art and tv - always impressed by the holes in the outside walls from near-miss bombs from the Second World War (a characteristic shared with the Exhibition Road bit of the V&A)

getting my shit together for Human Footprint Interactive

a bit of blog reading including Cybersoc (about yesterday's Social Media Consensus meeting) and What I Learned on Holiday by James Crabtree

King of Libraries - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Late afternoon wander with Doug Miller to Percy Circus



Chat with Doug and Oli Barrett at British Library



First meeting of Social Media Consensus starting in first carbon-neutral restaurant in London, Acorn House

The Mighty Pen - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

270207
The First Light film awards at the Odeon West End with Sean Bean, Sanjiv Baskhar, Cassie and Sid from Skins, Imelda Stauton; presented by Alex Zane - chatting to the shaggy one after the show

Uploading... Innovation at Nesta - sesh with Mark Ea, author of Herd, self-proclaimed Herdmeister

Dinner with Shaun Woodward, Minister for Creative Industries - wandering around the weird world of politics, rather them than me

280207
Dinner out with U at the Lavendar Lady

N getting a good school report - sense of a love of learning emerging

Writing with an ink pen - N just progressed onto The Pen today

recent Happiness Experiment entries

250207
Walking down to Cucksmere Haven beach, East Sussex

Another jog along the beach path east of Brighton marina

FilmFour Oscar night party at the Electric Cinema, Portobello Road - champagne, apple and cinnamon cocktails

260207
School photo of N & D

Fresh mint tea

Reading about Spurs victory over Bolton - especially Robbie Keane's goals

Beside the seaside - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Jogging along the coastal path east of Brighton marina - the morning sea

Farley's rusks milkshake from Shakeaway, Brighton

A quiet night in at Mariners

Brighton rock - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Walking along the coastal path to the East of Brighton Marina at sundown (with a God sky)

Playing rummy en famille

Listening to Robert Elms on Radio London - including What's All the Fuss (this week, about Joe Meek)

Live action - Thursday's Happiness Experiment entry

Doing a touch+go live web demo of Breaking the News at a Skillset/LDA event at The Guardian Newsroom - the very building in Farringdon Raod where i started my career as a runner in AKA's studio

Giving N a book about codes to encourage him away from screens during his half-term and hearing about his decoding activities from today - D got a beautifully put-together activity book around Tintin and Snowy (published by Egmont who also publish Herge's albums)

Immersing myself in the Battle of the Bulge through Scott Turow's Ordinary Hero from the London Undergrouind, warmer and marginally safer

Passion

"Life is nothing without enthusiasms"

Richard Pankhurst, husband of Emmeline, father of Christabel, Sylvia and Adela (c1835-98)

Glasgow Walker - Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry.

200207
Reading Scott Turow's Ordinary Hero - Band of Brothers meets Saving Private Ryan, a good ol WW2 yarn like the 60s movies we grew up with

Visiting Glasgow's Kelvingrove art gallery/museum - a refreshingly original approach to showing a diverse collection coherently

Chatting to Stuart Cosgrove in the Choose Life office about all things Channel 4

Ballplay - Sunday's Happiness Experiment entry

180207
Getting muddy playing rugby with N and D at Kenwood

Chatting with my ex-partners Marc and Rochelle Trup in Winnington Road

Listening to Spurs putting away four in the FA Cup including two by Robbie, Captain of Ireland and all-round good egg

The Empire Strikes Back - Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Working out the editorial for Empire's Children Interactive



Chatting with Chris Bisson (Kash from Shameless) about his family history as discovered in Empire's Children



Reading Niall Ferguson on Empire

Notes from an eccentric art gallery

200207 Kelvingrove art gallery, Glasgow

William Strang - portrait of lady in red hat (vita sackville-west) 1918
Red (hat) + green (blouse) - Passion (picasso)
Very distinctive face

John Lavery - RB Cunninghame Graham 1893
John Buchan - moorland browns

Jacob Epstein - RB Cunninghame Graham 1923 bronze
Windswept hair
Another distinctive visage

Percy Wyndham Lewis - Froanna (the artist's wife) 1937
A different kind of brown palette - red/browen lifted with blue (incl her eyes)
Warmth and intimacy of an interior with only a sliver of daylight yet something cool about her
A superficial modernism

DG Rosetti - Regina Cordium (Alice Wilding) 1866
Use of gold - cf Klimt
Unusual, not conventionally beautiful face (big chin, wide apart eyes)
Mediaeval vibe, courtly romance
Symbolism - flowers, emblems

John Byrne - Self-portrait in Stetson 1989
Kinky Friedman
Cf Stanley Spencer

Constable - Hampstead Heath c1830
St Paul's alone on the distant skyline
North London as open countryside
2/3 sky

Optician's sign - part of John Quinton Pringle display
God's eyes in The Great Gatsby
90 Saltmarket, Glasgow (c1896)
Cf Seurat; Delaunay

Ben Nicholson - Still life 1946-50
Finishing off Picasso's Cubism
Classicism of De Chirico

Edward Baird - Unidentified Aircraft (over montrose) 1942
45% sky - cf Constable
Very original composition - another way of showing its about (off-stage) sky
Townscape cf Schiele
Upturned faces have a certain graceful calm in spite of fear - religious

Lowry - VE day 1945
The right artist for celebration
Memory: VE day 50th anniversary with U in Belfast
Restrained pallette cf Bridget Riley's egyptian paintings
Fades to white in bg

Ossip Zadkine - The Music Group 1926 bronze
Bought from the Exhibition of Jewish Artists 1943 - what and where was that?
Cf Picasso - Demoiselles d'Avignon - mask-like faces: Man Ray - portrait of woman with mask

Craigie Aitchison - Wayney Dead 2 1986
Cf Klee - universal simplicity
Honesty/loyalty of animal's mourning
Flower symbolism cf Rossetti - this is a universal flower of no particular kind

Thinking about Empire

Some notes on Empire:

Flows of: commodities, capital, labour/population

Spread of: law & order, governance, forms of land tenure, banking

British Empire challenged in Jamaica in 1831 and 1865 - what's the story?

Winter Sun and Irish Moon - Yesterday's happiness experiment

Showing off London - taking my sister-in-law Elizabeth (from Dublin) on a walk from Charles Dickens' house on Doughty Street to Waterloo Bridge via the Inns of Court

A rare visit to the theatre (with Elizabeth, Bronagh, Joan and U) to see Frank McGuinness' new play 'There Came a Gypsy Riding' at the Almeida, Islington - featuring a cracking performance from Eileen Atkins.

Taking D to his guitar lesson - sneaking a look through the window at how comfortable he is with the instrument, then a sunny interlude in Avenue House park with my book (a WW2 yarn from Scott Turow)

Dream #3326

Good last bit of dream just before i woke this morning:

i am running down the hill at Hale Lane [Mill Hill, London NW7 where i grew up] when i notice i've no running shoes on, just white short socks, but i'm enjoying the flow and ease of it too much so don't care - just delight in the speed of the running...

How you listen to music

"I can never hear lyrics. I've got a real dyslexia with lyrics."
Paul Abbott, scriptwriter of Channel 4's 'Shameless' on Desert Island Discs

It was interesting to hear this throw-away remark (I missed it when I listened to the first broadcast last weekend), interesting because I have a similar relationship to song lyrics. Strange for a lover of Dylan and similar but I really struggle to engage with lyrics in a whole or analytical way. They're more like part of an audio collage to me. Glints of light, a diamond spinning in the dark.

A good rounded choice from Mr Shameless punctuating a raw, honest, insightful and illuminating interview:

1.Good Vibrations
Performer The Beach Boys
Composer B Wilson-M Love

2.Ode to Billie Joe
Performer Bobbie Gentry
Composer Gentry

3.Sweet Soul Music
Performer Arthur Conley
Composer Conley/Cooke/Redong

4.Imagine
Performer John Lennon
Composer John Lennon

5.Children of the Revolution
Performer T Rex
Composer Marc Bolan

6.Town Called Malice
Performer The Jam
Composer Paul Weller

7.Video Lullaby
His son Tom Abbott with his band Kid4077

8.The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
Performer Roberta Flack
Composer Ewan MacColl

Record: Town Called Malice
Book: Complete works of Arthur Miller
Luxury: Writing pad and pencils

Particularly like his One Record - it's an explosive song, brilliantly exploited in 'Billy Elliott' - a kicking the wall song. Yes, really kicking. He zooms in on it as an expression of creative anger, constructive shouting, exactly as his writing is.

Reflections on the Fundamentals of Life

These notes stem from Jonathan Raban's 'Coasting' and Julian Temple's forthcoming 'The Future is Unwritten' about Joe Strummer.

'Coasting' first made me reflect on what are the essentials of life as Raban sailed around the coast of Britain in a pretty basic vessel, focusing the mind on those essentials.

There's a theme of campfires in the Strummer film I saw last night - communal fire as the hub of happiness and music.

AIR

WATER
FOOD

SLEEP

Dark
Light

LIGHT
WARMTH

Fire

Shelter
Clothing

Waste
Hygiene

SEX - Reproduction
Company
Community

LOVE - as child
LOVE - as parent

Milk Love
Honey Love (love of life) [Erich Fromm]

Individual
Family
Kind

Learning/Education

Survival
Growth
Control?

Environment

Work
ART
Creativity
Self-expression

Justice



[This is a work in progress ]

Fun & Games - Recent Happiness Experiment entries

8.2.07
Giving a keynote speech without nerves and with a fair fluency - in the case at the Digital Futures conference

Having a chat with Chris Bisson - Kash from the wonderful Shameless

An early morning wander across a freezing Manchester

10.2.07
Getting The Name's Bondi, my old iMac, up&running again in our new room

Reading Ted Hughes' The Iron Giant with D

Putting up my Abram Games print (in the top hall)

Rules of the Movies 2

When people drop their shopping, the bag always contains round fruit [by U]

People always have french bread in their shopping (in those brown paper shopping bags)

People always move the steering wheel around, even when they're driving down a straight road [courtesy, much though it pains me to say, of Sky Movies]


Evil butlers have no tongues [by N e.g. Stormbreaker, Goldfinger]

Superheroes with high strength are fat [by N e.g. Fantastic Four, The Incredibles]

Dustin Hoffman will always run given half a chance (e.g. The Graduate, Marathon Man, Kramer vs Kramer)

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Lunchtime walk and talk with James E



Literary chat with Russell B on the way home



Citizen journalism from the site of A Bomb in Victoria Street

Food for thought - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Reading blog print-outs on the tube home about webby things

Chatting with Frank Boyd about creativity and connections

Two poached eggs on black bread

Bookpeace - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Hooking up with Nigel at Girton for an alumni dinner - the peacefulness of the courts, corridors and especially the wonderful library

The bookish vibe of Cambridge

The full moon over the wall of Sidney Sussex - straight out of Atkinson Grimshaw (see yesterday)