U2: We were once the greatest show on earth

I tend not to enjoy long interviews with rock stars and the famous. My instinct is to expect them to be dull and obvious, self indulgent. Though in that last one respect, I wonder who am I to criticise. I do enjoy interviews and articles concerning artists I'm not familiar with; I've found some great music that way.

On the other hand, I'll read anything on a slow Friday, and despite myself, I found I actually enjoyed the Alexis Petridis interview with U2 in the Guardian this morning.

www.theguardian.com/.../...and-their-undimmed-faith-in-humanity

U2 was one of the bands I grew up with. I remember the conversation at school being you can either like U2 or you can like the Stranglers. I loved both.

But over the years, the band and I drew apart. I rarely listen to them these days, and don't like much of what they've created over the last twenty years or more.

But this interview left me with a wry smile on my face, and the feeling that perhaps, after all, I'll go back for another look sometime.


The photo at the top has no significance to the link. It was taken on an August day in 2003 at Polpeor Cove on the Lizard, on a family camping trip to Cornwall. The old lifeboat station, abandoned in 1961 when the RNLI moved operations on the Lizard to the more accessible Kilcobben Cove, is apparently the most southerly building on mainland Britain.

The end of the slip is visible on the right of the photo. The station was eventually abandoned because it was both dangerous to launch (three crew members lost their lives in 1866 when the lifeboat was washed onto the rocks and broken up during an exercise) and difficult to recover.

Lines had to be rowed out and wrapped around a natural rock pillar out in the sea to swing the boat around so its stern faced the land, then a mechanical winch located at the back of the station was then used to haul the vessel slowly backward out of the water.

I was pretty much ignorant of this back in 2003. I was still flying gliders, my eye more on the sky than it was on the sea, and hadn't yet found my way back to boats. But I remember being intrigued by the almost derelict building. It was a good holiday.

In all the years since, I've so far only sailed past there once, heading west.

Petrella: becoming variable 3 or less later

Heading down to the boat tomorrow with Dad. Nikki is coming with us, so the decision is already taken not to sail. Looking at the forecast, we're not missing much excitement out there anyway.

There are things I need to check regardless that give a purpose to the trip other than a simple escape; to run the engine up, make sure the aft starboard cabin window isn't leaking (I think it is, but the guy I asked to look at having another go at resealing it for me said it wasn't) and makes sure there's no fresh water on the galley worksurface. On our last trip down a few weeks ago, it was inexplicably puddling and we couldn't work out why. 

The dehumidifier is the main culprit. It should drain to the galley sink, but if for some reason the pipe wasn't led there last time we tidied up to leave, or it got knocked out of place since, that would explain it.

On which note, the lid to the main water tank under the port pilot berth needs resealing, but that's a job I'm going to save for winter, if only to give myself something to do. It's not urgent, as long as we don't overfill the tank. Petrella is scheduled to come out of the water for four weeks from mid January for some much needed TLC. I might do it then.

As we're not sailing, and Nikki's not yet up to much walking (though she is healing rapidly) I'll likely take Lottie down to the boat with us, to give me an excuse for a walk. 

2019

For all these fragile, broken, transient things
Hanging by the thread of our chancing dreams
Life is desperate poetry
Learning to dance on our puppet strings

The Old Red Flag was never my hymn
I just wanted to be on a side that was kind
An idea I could follow with my heart
Not just with my pocket or with my mind

Just because you wouldn't vote with me
Doesn't make you right this time
Anxious days and troubled times
Don't always corral compliant minds

Making promises that we couldn't keep
Led to such a glorious defeat
Glory, glory, hallelujah
Now our Boris will sock it to ya

Jamie says the good guys won
I beg to differ, though hope I'm wrong
And now the 31st of January's not so far away
I guess we'll see

So they stacked them high
To sell us out cheap
And in austerity the years ground by
As the shine rubbed off the glory of defeat

alhamdulillah

Just when I think I've lost faith in American politics, they go and do something like this

www.theguardian.com/.../abdul-el-sayed-mike-rogers-michigan-senate

The leading photo actually has little to nothing to do with the link. It's a photo of the antique "Rules of Working" that hung on the wall of our old offices in Chalford, an echo back to when the building was actually a working mill in the 1800's.

But it does remind me that, however bleak, the general trend of humanity is actually to improve.

amber light

Leaves fall like paper tears
A regret of summer gone
Rust flecks the air, twisted by breeze
A season of turning, long nights to come

Low light slants through the naked trees
Amber light soft with the ghost of warmth
Muddy paws now cross the kitchen floor
And walks are brisk to keep out the chill

SCSC: Sunday racing; autumn

Weather has definitely taken a turn for the autumnal. Leaves are now more a carpet in the street than a cloak on the branches of the trees. But they're still fresh fallen enough to retain a certain amber crispness that lends itself well to the autumn light.

Driving home from the gig at the Railway Tavernon Saturday night was through thick fog. Fireworks are already going off in anticipation of November 5th.

There's definitely a chill in the wind. Sunday was the first day since spring I wore a wetsuit on the lake. Three races in the GP14, two in the morning with Amanda, one in the afternoon with Alex. 

The start of the first race was a bit of a disgrace; I was about thirty seconds late to the line and at the wrong end. But our sailing then made up for it, and we climbed back through the fleet in the light conditions to take a 3rd out of the 13 boats racing.

Start of the second race was excellent. Crossed the line at speed at the favoured pin end just as the gun went. Boat was pointing beautifully, forcing the windward boats to tack off early and clear our wind. The only boat ahead of us got caught in an awkward shift and essentially parked on the windward mark, so we were first around.

The rest of the fleet followed close behind, now spoiling our air on the deep run to the leeward mark. Where it all went wrong. Talking spinnakers, we've got the hoist nailed, the drop is sweet and even the gybes are getting there. Gybe and drop clearly needs practice though. 

We didn't hit anybody, by the time we'd untangled ourselves, most of the fleet had ridden over us, and our spinnaker sheets had dropped over the bow.

In our favour, things still go wrong, but we've got a lot quicker at recognising the problems and fixing them. We got quickly back into the race, and clawed our way back to a respectable mid-fleet finish with a 5th.

Alex swapped in for Amanda for the third race, a forty-five minute afternoon pursuit, and first of the new series. Despite a bit of a rush getting back on the water, Alex and I timed a good start, quickly caught and overhauled the one slower boat that was ahead of us, then stayed easily clear of the rest of the fleet for the remaining duration, finishing with a 1st.

never enough

Into the Madlands
within the Sea of Rust
Brittle dreams of Madison
A glass of wine in her hands
Awaiting the green flash of the sun
The glass of wine was never enough
For lips that could not taste
And a heart that could not love

after C. Robert Cargill’s Sea of Rust.
From trying to understand why Brittle so completely got under my skin.

deep

all the lessons that you learn
all the fingers that you burn
heaven knows how easy it goes
when you're on your own
all the wishes that you've burnt
you'd think by now I would have learnt
it's not what you reap when you're in it so deep
it's what you have sown

and I say there has got to be a way
down out of these clouds
you say there's got to be a way
you can save me from falling
again and again but you know
the lesson's too deep for me now

all the things I left unsaid
the little things I should have left
heaven knows it's not how it should go
when you bare your soul
and the secrets that they told
all the promises they sold
I was told
that I should have known
but that just isn't so

and you say there's got to come a day
when the sun will shine
you say there's got to be a way
to hold my head with pride
again and it's easy you know
but the lesson's too deep for me now

too late to reach for comfort now
too cold to try and hope somehow
that you will know why I left it alone
you will understand
some things are better left unsaid
some dogs are better left in bed
you'd think she would hear
all my unspoken fears
you'd think she would come around

and I say I'm going to find a way
out of this town
you say you're going to find a way
I can save you from falling
again and again but this time
the lesson's too deep for you now.

conversations with the machine

I've spent a fair bit of time chatting with various AIs this last couple of months. There's a lot of backlash in various arenas, mainly, but not exclusively, creative, about "AI slop" and whilst a lot of the critique is undoubtedly fair, there is something of a pitchforks and torches feel to a lot of it. It's hard to have a normal conversation about the pros and cons without somebody getting incandescently shouty.

I've been using it a fair bit over recent months at work; not, I should stress, to do my work, but to to assist, review and help with analysis. My gut instinct is that it's a tool, like any other in some respects, but I'm also quite conscious that in others it most definitely is not.

But it is an available tool, and a valuable one, and I'm also aware that if we don't make use of it and become familiar in the use of it, others will. Some of those others will be our competition.

Away from work, I'm particularly curious about the impact of using something like AI on artistic integrity. Again, it's a subject that it seems you can't really have a sensible conversation about without risk of irrational escalation.

Which isn't to say that such fears are not without justification. I don't consider the concerns irrational, only the way some parties may choose to express them, typically in a way that so often scales exponentially into a personal attack. In my view, that just shuts down reasonable debate. It certainly makes me reluctant to want to enter any debate with them.

Anyway. On a lighter note a little extract from one of my more recent conversations with the machine:

October is

a month for soup, of more gigs, of clocks falling back and long dog walks in the dark. There are still bats and the moon remains huge and beautiful, hung low in the sky. It's not yet cold, but it is beginning to get wet.

My youngest son turns 28, my eldest son turns 32 and my youngest grandson 1. It's a month of remembrance. Mum would've turned 78. And it's 25 years since we lost my cousin David in a bike accident.

We finally sold the Albacore to, I hope, a good home. Amanda and I are getting on well racing the GP14, with a young friend of ours called Alex occasionally standing in for her as crew when she's not around. I've had so much fun racing the GP14 that I haven't actually sailed the Laser at all this year. Although Alex has raced the boat a fair bit in my place. 

Petrella has, sadly, continued to languish in her berth. I try to get down to Plymouth every couple of weeks to check on her, but even that has slipped with the competing commitments on my time. We're hoping to get back down to her for the first weekend of November. If the weather's kind, we may even sail.

Nik finally had the delayed operation for her hip a couple of weeks ago. It went smoothly, and she's recovering well. We have a holiday cottage booked in Fowey for a week in mid-November. It'll be five weeks after her operation, and the week before she's due to return to work from her convalescence. 

Just Nik, our dog Lottie and me. I'm really looking forward to it.

September was

a month of gigs, a wedding, nights drawing in. Dog walks and bats and a gibbous moons hung low in the early evening sky. Plenty of time on the lake, but little time on the sea.

It turned out I wasn't allergic to seafood. Clearly allergic to something, but nothing in any of the standard tests pinned it down, so we move on and hope we never find out what it was.

Nikki was scheduled for an operation to replace her hip, but because of an inconsequential scratch on the top of her foot, after a long day waiting, the surgeon postponed half an hour before they were to take her down to theatre.

Dad's mobility is on the up after the replacement of his knee. He's even been spotted dancing at a few gigs. Which has never happened before. I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere.

of prawns and pyrotechnics, boats and butterflies

Nikki and I both had last week booked off, the original plan being to head down to the boat with Dad and escape westwards into Cornwall. An appointment with her surgeon scheduled for last Monday curtailed the originally intended early escape, so in the end we didn't get to the boat until mid-afternoon Tuesday.

I made the best of it though, with a gig early Saturday evening, racing with Amanda around the cans at South Cerney Sunday morning and then taking Nikki out to lunch after her appointment with the surgeon on Monday.

So, finally to Plymouth, Tuesday afternoon. Petrella's bimini, an integral part of her cockpit tent, had blown some stitching on some of its seams and zips, so first job was to take the tent down and deliver it to Octagon Marine for repairs. I took the opportunity to ask them to replace the Perspex windows on the back and sides of the tent at the same time, as the original Perspex was so salt and UV scarred by age as to be even barely opaque any more.

I've also ordered some covers for the wheel and instruments, winches and chart-plotter. My thinking is two-fold. At the moment, we keep the cockpit tent up permanently when we're not aboard so as to protect the winches and instruments, but that means it takes the brunt of the elements. If it's not up all the time, then the tent, its zips and the clarity of the windows should last a lot longer.

And it takes about an hour to set the tent up, and about the same to take it down. Perhaps I'm exaggerating a little, but it's a significant effort. So a significant deterrent to taking the boat out for just a few of hours of day-sailing. Perhaps if I reduce the time it takes to prepare and pack away respectively, I'll get more use out of the boat, as getting away for any extended period of time, whether a couple of days or a couple of weeks, has over the last couple of years proven itself to be very difficult.

On which note, when we sat down to supper in the Marina restaurant last Tuesday evening we had a close re-evaluation of our plans for the week. The pain and discomfort in Nikki's hip has escalated dramatically over the last few months. With my help and a stepladder, she could just about board Petrella from the pontoon in the marina, but when I pressed her, she finally admitted she was a little anxious about sailing. So we took the decision to scrap our sailing plans and stay in Plymouth for the week.

It wasn't a terrible hardship. 

We ate out in the Barbican Wednesday evening, enjoyed an extended fireworks display over the Sound later that night and then another Thursday evening, as it was the annual Plymouth Fireworks Competition. 

Friday morning, the government set out a "Critical Warning" to anybody with a mobile phone to warn about the risk of wildfires and discourage us from setting of fireworks or lighting BBQ's or other such silly, potentially incendiary activities. Not sure of the detail, as couldn't really read the small print without my glasses. But the high-pitched, squealing alarm was amplified out of every phone in the packed marina, so gave more than a few of us a bit of a jump.

Annoyingly, I had a bit of a reaction to a prawn salad I had for lunch on Wednesday, which suggests I might've developed a seafood allergy of some kind. I've eaten a lot of prawns in my time, so I guess this could be their revenge. Over the counter antihistamines sorted it out within twenty-four hours, so it had little impact other than to perhaps influence how often we ate out and what I ate over the rest of the week.

Other than that, we spent most days aboard lazing on cushions in Petrella's cockpit beneath the shade of the now re-stitched binini, relaxing and enjoying the warmth of a glorious summer. There's a hesitancy in penning that particular description of the weather; the temperature stretched up into the mid 30's at times and I realise the scary potential significance of the multiple heatwaves we've had this year. I also see the parched, yellowed tinderbox landscape the country has become. But I am a creature of the heat, so can't help but selfishly revel in it whilst I can. 

It was a lovely five days of no plans, no commitments, no expectations, stresses or pressures to worry us. Most of my time was spent reading, with the occasional break to play a bit of guitar. Nikki and I distracted ourselves with a trip to a butterfly sanctuary on Saturday afternoon, the three of us ate again in the Marina restaurant Saturday evening - as I was unable to enjoy any seafood the three of us elected to instead enjoy their fillet steak - and then we packed up the boat Sunday morning and came home via Yate, where stopped to visit our youngest grandchild Freddie and his mum and dad.

He's ten months old now, and thriving. How time flies. 

Blood tests tomorrow to try and get to the bottom of whatever that allergic reaction was that I had.

Racing again at South Cerney Wednesday evening, then gigs Saturday and Sunday. Not sure what my plans are for the week after, but the weekend after next I'm hoping to get back down to the boat with Dad, and this time perhaps manage to cast off and actually head off somewhere for a day or two.