Today's Happiness Experiment entry - Cote d'Azur

Picasso's Joie de Vivre (1946) at the Musee Picasso, Antibes

The birds chirping inside Nice airport departure lounge

The glaring sea off le vieil Antibes from the balcony of the Musee Picasso

Creative Accounting #97

Tragic/Comic Drama + Epic / Aristotle = Film + Novel / 20C

Today's Happiness Experiment entry - Hearts and Skins

Watching Skins (series 5)

Having a heart-to-heart with N

Entering 4thought.tv into the Broadcast Digital Awards

Day-before-yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Walking from Embankment via Whitehall and St James's Park to Victoria with D - the daffodils and sculpture (Charles Wheeler) in particular

Being shadowed by Chris W

Chatting to Noam S at a C4 reception

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Jogging in the spring sunshine

Breaking out the hammock chair - sign of spring

Good numbers for My Healthchecker and Embarrassing Bodies

Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

The costumes in The Fifth Element

Lunch at the Rugoletta with my bro

Getting some headspace in the garden (wind, rain and birds)

Starspot #322

10/3/11 Michael Johnson (runner) - Channel 4

10/3/11 Michael Portillo - Sutton Ground

3/11 Paul Young - Brent Cross

Creative Accounting # 421

John Smith = Ray Lamontagne - hat

Paul Brady - Union Chapel 25/2/11

Paul Brady - vocals, guitar, mandolin, bazouki?
Keith Fletcher - keyboards, backing vocals

1 who knows why
2 trusting you
3 same old story*
4 the island
5 the world is what you make it

6 one more
7 homes of donegal

See set list in blue folder

John Smith

1 axe mountain**
2 winter*

Met John after
Saw him once before supporting David Gray at the Roundhouse

With Una

Fragments of The Story

Adam Curtis:
The giant sandpit they're playing in has got a framework.

Television has become tired and rigid, and reached a dead end.

Karl James - story listener:
I try to get to people before their experience becomes a story.

(Our story becomes a pattern)
(Sometimes the story isn't where we expected it to be)
There are different ways of being articulate.

Not everyone's used to being listened to.

Phil Gyford:
1 Set the Tone (annotations not comments)
2 Listen
3 Have an obscure topic
[ ] The Diary of Samuel Pepys pepysdiary.com

Nick Ryan/Paul Bennun:
[ ] Papa Sangre

Relationship between meditation and story

Lucy Kimbell:
[ ] Mydex

Graham Linehan:
Computer games aren't productive, that's like a trance state.

Songwriters' Circle 10/02/11 Bush Hall (BBC4)

Fran Healy of Travis

* Why Does It Always Rain on Me?
* Swing *

Ron Sexsmith

* Secret Heart
* Love Shines

Graham Gouldman of 10CC

* one of his Yardbirds songs
* one of his Hollies songs
* I'm Not In Love *
* The Things We Do For Love
* Busstop

7 songs each plus an Everley Brothers encore together

This is the 4th of these programmes I have seen recorded.

Recent Happiness Experiment entries

1/2/11
Chatting with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall about Fish Fight

Drinking plenty of rum cocktails at the launch of The Art Project powered by Google at Tate Britain and chatting to various arty and geeky folks

Planning a big Fish Fight plan

3/2/11
An Appointment with Mr Yeats with Mike Scott and The Waterboys, second row at the Barbican Hall (with U)

An appointment with the Queen Mother (gym sesh)

Working on Jamie's Dream School, getting closer to TX

Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Reading WB Yeats on the way to Ireland

Watching the start of the Six Nations (Wales v England) at Des's with the Enfants Terribles

Hanging with the De Burcas

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Running in the rain along Rush beach (Co. Dublin) opposite Lambey Island - and through the shallows

Meditating by the sea

Looking at Annie Liebowitz's photographs in a big book we bought Bronagh that now belongs to Orla

Mike Scott and the Waterboys - An appointment with Mr Yeats (Barbican Hall) 3/2/11

1 White Birds *
2 Inisfree
3 Mad as the mist and snow
4 Politics
5 Let the Earth Bear Witness
6 The Faery's last song
The Song of Wandering Aengus
Down by the Salley Gardens
September 1913
+++
7 To the waters and the wild
8 Don't Bang the Drum
9 Whole of the Moon

Mike Scott
Steve Wickham
Kate St John
Sarah Allen (flute) (Flook)
Blaise Margail (trombone)
James Hallawell (keyboards)
Katie Kim (vocals)

with Una

Today's Happiness Experiment entry - meditation

Learning about meditating from Andy at Headspace with U

Taking D to visit his friend Pierre in Brixton

Entering some new space in first meditations

Patti Smith at St Giles-in-the-fields

1 In my Blakian years
2 Dancing barefoot
3 Wing
4 Paths that cross (for Mapplethorpe in his grief)
5 Ghost Dance
6 Helpless
After Nature (Sebald)
7 Wild leaves (for Mapplethorpe in his illness)
8 Pissing in the River
9 Because the night
10 People have the power (encore)

Readings from Just Kids

Jesse Smith (piano)
Michael Campbell (percussion)
red haired fella (harp/violin)

27 Jan 2011

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Going to buy Lego ninja with D

Watching my first post-restructure/Features & Factual Entertainment project go out - Big Fish Fight / Hugh's Fish Fight

Celebrating Captain James Murphy's 100th birthday on 11.1.11 with D

Recent entries for the Happiness Experiment - Love London

Saturday 8/1:

Seeing the Godfathers of Groove at the Jazz Cafe for John Grounds' annual jazz birthday outing

Buying an old copy of Robert Lowell poetry from Black Gull which belonged to Ivo Jarosy of the Academy Cinema, Oxford St

A late night catch up with my old school friends Jon, Paul and Dave and spouses on the way home

Sunday 9/11:

Looking at the Thames barrier in low winter afternoon sunshine with N on a trip to Woolwich via the East End

Wandering around Brick Lane with N

Discovering a track on an LP late at night when its time came - Robert Plant's Fortune Teller on Raising Sand

Today's entry for the Happiness Experiment - Pure gold

Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush accompanied by the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Festival Hall with Dylan Charlie

View from Waterloo Bridge at night

Late afternoon jog with D