A Woman's Work

With the imminent arrival of "Mother's Day", and another chance to cast our ballots in a Scottish parliamentary election coming up in a little over a month's time, I thought I could link these events in an extremely tenuous manner with a look at the current political gender balance here in Scotland.

(For those expecting music-related postings on what's ostensibly a music-related blog, and beginning to feel pangs of disgruntlement, don't worry - it's an interesting topic, I promise to be brief for a change, and there's a fun interactive graphical thing to play with further down. Honest, there really is. But don't scroll straight to it, there's some good stuff coming up...possibly)

First of all, the essential numbers - women make up 52% of the population (and almost exactly the same proportion of our 3.99m electorate), but in the last parliament only held 43 of the 129 seats (33.3% - sadly down from 39.5% in 2003). Which isn't likely to improve this time around...

For one thing, there are simply far fewer women than men standing for election - e.g. counting all the Glasgow constituency & regional list candidates from each party, there are 77 men compared with 37 women. Folk may be astonished to learn that such a progressive, forward-thinking party as the BNP has a male-only line-up on offer. I couldn't possibly comment. (Anyone who has the time & willpower to repeat this exercise for the whole of Scotland is very welcome to - the full list of would-be power-hungry egomaniacs can be found here.)

Why so few women candidates? Well, Labour's abandonment of "twinning" constituencies meant that local parties have been free of any gender selection criteria, and whereas back in the 1970s heyday of Winnie Ewing & Margo MacDonald the SNP may have been tagged "a woman's party" (a typically charming insult in ultra-macho Scottish politics, naturally) by Tam Dalyell & co, the current reality is that women make up less than a third of the party membership. (They do, to be fair, at least still have some prominent senior female figures - deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon [pictured], Fiona Hyslop, and Roseanna Cunningham spring immediately to mind. Conversely the departure of Wendy Alexander from politics this year has exposed a significant dearth, arguably of women & ability both, in the Scottish Labour hierarchy).

Of course, factors such as a candidate's rank on the regional list or the "safeness" of their constituency will also affect how many women are elected, but on those criteria it doesn't look promising for greater female representation come May 5th either.

Casting around for the faintest glimmer of a brighter side to all this, we can still say "we're not as bad as Westminster". In 2010 the UK House of Commons hit an all-time record high of... 143 female MPs. Out of 650 seats. Which is a massive 22%. And if we choose to look a little further afield, say, the world's second-largest 'democracy', perhaps? Well, the "land of the free & home of a large number of people who don't believe in scientific evidence" scores a frankly pathetic 16.78%.

In fact, since you've been exceptionally patient so far, here (all praise the mighty Google & their works) is the cool bar-chart toy I mentioned earlier:


(dragging the slider across shows changes over time, clicking on "explore data" lets you select different countries to highlight...ach, it's ridiculously clever.)

Just watch Kyrgyzstan go, eh? Ireland doesn't come out looking so good, mind...

It should always be the case, obviously, that we seek to be governed by the best possible representatives available - irrespective of gender, race, age, sexual preference, superstition of choice or even daft football obsession (for "Auld Firm" fans see "superstition of choice"). But the briefest of glances at the numpties who've filled some of the Holyrood seats thus far does beg the question - could a truly representative Scottish Parliament really be any worse?

Right, that's quite enough politics for now - back to the musical nonsense next time.

p.s. For any Scots considering not exercising their (extremely hard-won) right to vote in May for whatever reason, here's one I wrote earlier that should put you straight. Cheers.


Sources: (NB. Wikimpedimentia was not consulted in the creation of this blog post. If I wanted unreliable 'facts' & unsupportable conclusions I'd take the quick route & rely on my own memory).

http://www.ukpolitical.info/FemaleMPs.htm

http://www.scrol.gov.uk/scrol/browser/profile.jsp

http://www.scottishaffairs.org/backiss/pdfs/sa60/Sa60_Mackay_and_Kenny.pdf

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/research/briefings-07/SB07-21.pdf

http://www.psa.ac.uk/journals/pdf/5/2009/Mitchell.pdf

http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/Worldswomen/WSD_PR3_A4.pdf

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/episodes/ladies-first/map-global-gender-balance/200/

Interstellar Overdrive

As the latest orgy of music technology pornography that is the NAMM* show fades slowly into a distant memory of smug postings/tweets/other annoyances from people who were in attendance to ogle and fondle its diverse splendours, and the next "International Day Of Kitsch Tat And Misery" looms hard on the horizon, perhaps this is the ideal moment to consider what you might proffer the bass player in your life as a token of your everlasting affection.

Well, given the plethora of the noisy little beasties that keep appearing on the market, what better than an overdrive/distortion pedal?

There are, (as an hour spent trawling Google & assorted music shop websites revealed), at least 46 different models to choose from that are designed specifically for bass - and that's a conservative estimate, given that I didn't count the various pre-amps which have a "drive" knob, purely "fuzz" pedals, or any multi-effects units, most of which contain several distortion options (usually stuck in amongst the digital amp simulators - which, it should go without saying, are the first thing you should turn off when using such units).

And if being spoilt for choice wasn't enough, they also come at prices to suit almost every budget - pre-Government spending/welfare cuts in the UK, that is. Once those really kick-in, the only affordable equipment for many people will be whatever they can obtain by employing their skills with a brick and Parkour. You can pay less than £30 for, say, a Behringer BOD400, all the way up to a wallet-jarring £240 for a Zvex "Woolly Mammoth". This might, however, even be topped by the Daring Audio "Laser Cannon" (pictured above), whose $349 US price tag could well translate into a retail price of £250+ once shipping, import duties and the inevitable inexplicable extra mark-up (because it's "not from round here"..?) have been taken into account.

At this point, we could (but in all probability won't) spare a grain of sympathy for guitarists, who, in their never-ending (and almost always pointless) quest for their absolute, ultimate, no-expense-spared-or-thought-applied "tone of utter perfection-ness", could easily hand over £330 for a "Tonebone Radial Plexitube" pedal. Much good that it'll do them, but still...a lot of money.

But (and you might have sensed this was where we were all headed), I really don't think you should buy any of these - assuming anyone out there could actually love a bass player enough to want to shell out hard cash on us in the first place..but that's a different issue.

No, the problem here, as I see it, is that all this huge array of distortion boxes demonstrates is an enormous failure of imagination. Maybe there are so damn many because the basic circuits are relatively simple to design. Or perhaps the companies look at bass players and say to themselves - "I'll bet they're all frustrated guitarists, and guitarists want distortion - so we'll give it to 'em...again and again and again and again...!".

A few more of them on the market and we may even be facing the "Distortion Pedal Event Horizon"**, where so much money is being spent on mediocre distortion pedals (as we search for the aforementioned "tone of utter perfection-ness"), they become the only type of pedal that it's economic to produce...eventually leading to the collapse of civilisation as we know it. Or something like that. Worst case scenario. The asteroid'll probably have wiped us out by then anyway, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Seriously though, please don't purchase one. There are so many far more interesting "boxes o' noise" out there - how about the joyous hours of neighbour-tormenting an Electro-Harmonix POG2 ('polyphonic octave generator' - as demonstrated with fretless bass [and a few other effects] on this track here) could bring? And of course, in all probability they've already got several overdrive pedals kicking around - none of which they're satisfied with.

Best alternative? Give the bass-playing object of your desire a hug, a big smacky kiss, and possibly a small-yet-considerate gift voucher for their favourite music shop...?

Just a thought.


* NAMM = National Association of Music Merchants, in case anyone cared.

** Blatantly copied from the late, great Douglas Adams' idea of the "Shoe Event Horizon" in "The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy".

Lazy

As we tumble into 2011 I realise I've barely managed to update this page more than once a month over the last year - because I, like so many of my fellow human beings, am ridiculously lazy. Always have been, even when my life has seemed full-to-overflowing with diverse activities. Given the opportunity I will prevaricate, procrastinate and waste my time in a manner so profligate I might as well be a domestic cat - although without the concomitant unfathomable attraction said felines apparently hold for vast swathes of the female population. In all honesty, I'm a Russian baritone of under-achievement accompanied by a chorus of poor excuses - "I'm a single parent", "the weather wasn't so great", "I'd have had to spend 10 minutes tidying stuff up & plugging cables in so I never quite got round to recording that symphony".

This is particularly unhelpful behaviour since I'm probably already at (or past) the half-way point in life, and definitely not getting faster, cleverer or indeed, prettier (which isn't good unless you're starting out as a freakish combination of Usain Bolt, Archimedes & Brad Pitt). Which doesn't help my pathetic need to try to create music that people might find slightly interesting. As I decline, and my mini-primates grow up, time (not to mention space) in which to "achieve" anything becomes more and more precious, and prioritising is vital. For instance, I'd love to own a digital SLR camera (if I had the money for one), but couldn't justify devoting the time and attention necessary to learn to use the thing properly.

This collision of personal idleness, increasingly-desperate desire to be taken seriously as a musician (yes, I know, that's the best gag I've done in ages), and relative time poverty means that I've developed a strict daily routine in order to get any practice done.

Once the kids are in bed, the kitchen has regained some semblance of tidiness, and a load of washing is on the go (usually about 8.30pm, if I'm lucky), I pick up an instrument. Then I turn on the TV in search of practice material for the next hour or so. I find films are best - if the music's especially interesting (& varied), then it's play-along time, which is usually easier with a fretless bass, where you can compensate for any painfully 'odd' tuning in the studio orchestra. Otherwise I just click on the subtitles and compose an alternative soundtrack - maybe take a single phrase and try modifying it to suit different moods, play in a set key or time signature, or (if I'm fully brain-dead from child-wrangling) work through assorted scales & arpeggios, right-hand techniques, etc,etc. When the washing machine beeps, that's it, time's up...clean off the strings and back to domestic meniality.

This year I've been doing this while watching a lot of "Wallander", (melancholic Swedish crime drama with plenty of snow - what's not to like? Prefer the Krister Henriksson ones, but Rolf Lassgård's infinitely better than Kenneth Branagh - the BBC-made ones are best avoided), which has the added benefit of forcing me to play without looking at what my left hand's doing - my (very) lazy and sporadic study of Norwegian means I can only understand about 1 word in every 5, so staring at the subtitles is essential.

It may well also have influenced some of the music I recorded & released earlier this month - although much of that probably comes from somewhere a fair bit further north-west (ish) of Ystad. Certainly I must thank Bar Bien (apologies, their website's only in Norwegian) for allowing me to take photographs for some of the artwork. Perhaps I'm quite lazy musically, too, since I usually rely heavily on improvisation around a simple harmonic structure, rather than writing everything out with more care, detail and precision. Maybe that's a reaction against all the years I spent playing classical music, following assiduously some long-dead genius' dots and instructions? Or it could simply be it's a quick way of working that allows me to beg indulgence for unpolished moments by claiming they're "part of the authentic performance experience", or some such self-justifying flannel?

I couldn't possibly comment.

Sport's pretty good for this sort of practice, too - rugby more so than football, since there are more changes in the pace of the game, slow crescendos of intensity, and individual moments of immense physicality within wider patterns of movement that lend themselves perfectly to expressive instantaneous soundtrack creation. Of course, if it's a dull slog of a game, there's always mindless two-handed-tapping (or clichéd "whiteboy funk" thumb-slapping, whichever you prefer) available as a musical version of a "Mexican Wave".

Anyway, although this method doesn't entail concentrating fully on the instrument to the exclusion of all else (as we all know, deep down, we really, really should when practising), it does mean I've been able to catch up on a few great films I'd otherwise never have got around to, such as "Offside", "Looking For Eric", "A Serious Man" and "Gran Torino" (not even spoiled by Jamie Cullum's warbling). Which just about makes up for not being able to play "Donna Lee"...

Which pretty much wraps things up for 2010. Inevitable summary of the year? Well, internationally, many parts of the world still hate other parts of the world, professionally, although I released two collections of noises, I'm flat-lining, and personally, the year went from "crap" to "wonderful" and back to "crap" again. Initial indicators suggest that 2011 is most likely to be very much more of the same - except probably without the "wonderful" part.

Ho hum.

Merry 2011, folks. Hope y'all have a good one, and that eventually we can start bombing each other with food and kindness for a change.

Cheers,
Andy

Batteries Not Included

Sorry about this. I had intended to ignore the "festive season" entirely, and instead inflict an exciting account of my music practice routines on everyone, but my constantly-disappearing internet connection is in full-on "thwart" mode, so...

This is just a quick note to say "Merry Thing", "Happy New Thing", and maybe I'll get the opportunity to delight you all with music-related stuff soon.

Anyway, in the meantime, here's some early C16th seasonal music, Finnish Symphonic Metal style - Marco Hietala singing "Enkeli Taivaan".

All the best, Andy

Three Of A Perfect Pair

Here we have a trio of brand-new, highly-desirable 5-string electric bass guitars with a shared heritage. One of them originally designed by Leo Fender and made in the USA by the company that still bears his name, another a Japanese-built Sadowsky copy of that instrument, and the third manufactured in Indonesia by G & L - a company founded by Mr. Fender in the late 1970s, where he created "the finest instruments I ever built".

The most expensive of the basses in our little collection is three times the price of the cheapest. Which, having given examples of all them a workout in the last year, I can't even begin to understand. Allow me to explain...

Starting at the bottom of the scale, (yes, that was a dire attempt to make a very weak bass-playing-low-notes-reference pun. I apologise profusely. If it happens again, well, I'm sure I'm not that hard to track down, should anyone feel they've suffered sufficiently), we've got the un-snappily titled G & L L2500. £645 gets you an Indonesian instrument equipped with G & L's American-made hardware, and I must admit it sounds absolutely excellent. The enclosed, "saddle lock" bridge, combined with the strings-through-body design mean it'll sustain until the drummer's final 'big rock ending' crash hit is but a dim & distant memory. Plus, with all the passive/active/active with treble boost, series/parallel pick-up switching options, there's enough tonal variation on offer to satisfy almost anyone.

I thoroughly enjoyed playing this bass - it gave off an overall feeling of solidity, was extremely responsive, the neck & fingerboard were excellent - but...on this particular example, there were some serious issues on the middle three strings at the 15th fret. Probably easily fixable with a slight bridge saddle height adjustment, certainly, maybe a little attention to the fret itself, but...it shouldn't have been like that, you know? The action definitely didn't need to be cranked down to a "how low can you go?" level for this to be a great bass. Unfortunately I didn't have time to compare it with others of its breed, but if anyone with greater experience can shed light on their overall quality control standards, then please feel free to get in touch.

Anyway, let's move on now to the Fender American Standard Jazz Bass V.

At this point I feel it's only fair to make a small confession. I don't really like Fender basses (as I've mentioned on this blog before, but then, who in the world ever reads this, huh?). Never have done, most likely never will. So I suppose all I can honestly say is that what we have here is very much a Fender. With 5 strings attached. Again, it feels solid enough, sounds exactly as you'd expect, and if you want a Fender, well, yup, fair enough, you won't go wrong with one of these. A large portion of the £1299 price tag can be accounted for simply by the presence of the word "Fender" on the headstock, of course, but that's personal choice for you...

...speaking of which, you could forget all pretence to rationality, and spend £1999 (no, that's not a mistake - one thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine pounds, folks) on a carefully-wrought clone of the same instrument from Japan. Give it up, ladies and gentlemen, for the Sadowsky Metroline MV5.

Don't get me wrong, in many ways this is a very nice bass. Thanks to the same pick-ups, bridge, etc as their American range, a wider range of tones available than the Fender (although still significantly inferior in this department to the 'whole-price-of-the-Fender-less' G & L). The neck's great, construction is excellent, etc,etc. But for that price it should, surely, be so much more than just another good quality - yet nothing spectacular - instrument? Also worth noting, perhaps, that if you want a lefty or fretless model, then you're going to have to pay full Sadowsky NYC whack.

The Metroline MV5 I tried was fine (I could say "if you're unimaginative and looking for an expensive Fender", but that might be marginally unfair), perfectly decent and 'professional', but...but...

Why, oh why, oh why would anyone willingly, deliberately, "being of sound mind and body" choose to purchase such a thing?

With that sort of budget available, how much better to be deep in conversation with a few local luthiers, to see what they could come up with instead? Something custom-built & crafted to our precise specifications, that would live & breathe under our fingers - and in our current economic situation, I'm sure they'd be extremely glad to see us.

If I had to choose one of these three Leo Fender-related basses to gig with, then quite honestly I'd go with the G & L L2500 - compared with the other two it represents stunning value for money. But then, if I had £645 to spend in the second-hand market, well...a quick glance at Ebay produced an interesting bunch of 5-strings that sold recently for less: Shecter Stiletto, Status Shark 5, Warwick Thumb,Streamer & Corvette, Yamaha BB615 & TRB1005, Musicman Stingray, MTD Grendel, Lakland Skyline, Ibanez SR605 & SR1015, to name but quite a few...

Caveat emptor!

p.s. Thanks to GuitarGuitar in Edinburgh for letting me plonk around on their valuable stock. All prices from their website, and correct as of 20/11/2010.

Time After Time

I trimmed my beard this morning. Not the exactly the pinnacle of human achievement, I grant you. Nothing added to our collective understanding, no great secrets of the cosmos unveiled - quite possibly an activity of such extreme insignificance as to rank alongside knowing how to open a cereal packet without tearing the cardboard top, recalling how hard you laughed when Margaret Thatcher resigned, or being able to name any of the contestants on Strictly-Come-X-Factor-Idol-So You Think You Can Pick Your Nose?...

It was, however, significant to me, because I was starting to resemble the mutant offspring of Brian Blessed & a border collie...
...and finally felt I could allow myself the time to do the job (the electric-clipping bit's fast enough - it's the cleaning-up afterwards that takes so long...the tough little hairs seem to fly off everywhere, then cling determinedly to the damn basin. And then there are all those tricky bloodstains...).

You see, this whole single parent/musician lark seems to be placing more & more pressure on my time management lately. Some days simply to consist of a litany of mundane and menial domestic chores, half-an-hour plonking around (quietly) on something stringed (but only after I've got the kids in bed & dealt with the washing), finished off by cramming in as many of the on-line social & self-promotional obligations that are concomitant with the modern music business model as possible. (But infinitely preferable to scratching a bare existence out of infertile soil, without the comforts of electricity or running water, certainly. This is not intended, I hope, to be an exercise in self-pity).

Which is why the shaving just wasn't happening. Inessential, takes too long, so it can wait. As can, for instance, television. Not to mention the vast heap of literature, films, music, philosophy, politics, sport, blogs, twits, etc that I might have some passing curiosity in, the accumulated cultural detritus of the 'every artefact can be preserved forever' digital age.

Heck, I probably shouldn't even be writing this blog entry - do I really need to be doing this? Does anybody out there really want to be reading it? (Think I know the answer to that one already, cheers).

Seriously, though, I originally wanted to write stuff that might prove worthwhile-yet-amusing, that sometimes involved proper research - magazine-feature style, rather than occasional drips of solipsistic snivelling.

So here's the crux of the matter. For musicians (especially the annoyingly young ones - without families, mortgages, hearing loss, colostomy bags, etc), the temptation to waste whole screeds of time is enormous - after all, rehearsing/recording/gigging/touring often involve a great deal of waiting around, so why shouldn't we spend more of the rest of our time on stuff we want to do, huh? No reason at all...except we never have as much time as we fool ourselves into thinking.

You genuinely want to take your music seriously? (rather than simply use it as an excuse for ingesting recreational chemicals and magnifying your putative sex appeal)

Turn off the TV, (still the world's greatest black hole of time wastage, in spite of the challenge from social networking sites and YouTube), accept that "going down the pub" instead of re-stringing your guitar won't help you achieve your goals, and concentrate your efforts on making the most of the opportunities that come your way. You'll catch up on all those books & films eventually, when that arthritic hip has crimped your gigging style a touch...

Finally, speaking as someone who suffers sporadic bouts of insomnia (and occasionally has it forced upon him), I can't recommend trying to make the day last longer as a solution. Agreed, it's an obvious route to go down in an effort to fit everything in, but sleep deprivation only makes us (more) stupid and fat. Ok, that's maybe a slight simplification of the medical evidence (see below for details), but insufficient sleep does us no favours, even if it's only short-term. And don't get me started on trying to combat the effects with caffeine and/or cigarettes...or anything else...

Oh, and don't become a single parent. Trust me, that doesn't work out so well with the music thing either.

More grumpy-old-man witterings coming soon. Ish. If I have the time.


A few brief slices of sleep research:

"Less effective executive functioning after one night's sleep deprivation"
(Journal of Sleep Research, full article)

"Sleep deprivation doubles risks of obesity in children & adults"
(Warwick Medical School, press release & podcast)

"Can You Catch Up On Sleep?"
(NHS inform, research & article on its misrepresentation in media)

"Neurocognitive Consequences of Sleep Deprivation"
(Semin Neurol, abstract)

Relative effects on performance of sleep deprivation & alcohol
(Occupational & Environmental Medicine, abstract)

Have A Cigar

Afternoon.

Since it's been a whole year since I launched my website on an unsuspecting (and mostly indifferent) world, I thought it only proper to provide anyone who might be interested in my musical endeavours with an 'annual report', to show how the whole thing's been meandering along - oh, and prove once and for all that I am not, in any conceivable way, like U2 (just in case there was any lingering confusion).

I won't be moving my assets to Holland to avoid tax.

I will never insult my fans' intelligence by suggesting the only reason they didn't go out and buy 20 million copies of my last album was because I had "made a work that is a bit challenging for people who have grown up on a diet of pop stars".

I am taller, and have considerably more hair than Bono.

Right, now that's taken care of, here are some extremely exciting statistics:

Site visits: 4,792

Track plays: 666

Downloads: 31

Sales: 22

Gross Revenue (ie pre-Bandcamp & PayPal fees): £110.47

So, not exactly setting the heather alight...or even warming a small patch of it just a little. Still, nae mind, eh? Insane fiscal benefits were never a serious consideration - although I must confess that being able to afford new strings was handy. Additionally, if I was a pop kid on a typical record company deal I might have seen about £10 of that revenue, if I was (very) lucky.

Thanks to everyone who has listened to my noises, immense gratitude to those who downloaded them, and who knows what the next 12 months may bring...?


p.s. As a wee comparison, over the same period 1,413 people visited this blog a total of 1,890 times, generating 2,456 page views. The most 'popular' page being December 2009's "State of Independence" (offering some better alternatives to the 'Simon Cowell vs. RATM' nonsense that was going on). My favourite search engine enquiries that (somehow) led people here: "why the fuss over heroes of Telemark?", "strompebukse fetish" (it's a Scandinavian thing, it would seem), and "braw neeps" (that'll teach me to suggest it as a comedy band name).

May all your turnips, indeed, be fine.

I Belong To Glasgow

Ah, dear old Glasgow – that unique Scottish metropolitan experience, where the average life expectancy is the shortest in the country, you can treat yourself to “authentic Indian tapas” (instead of that fake Indian tapas that's so prevalent everywhere else), and the road signs become increasingly-didactic the closer you get to its concrete-and-despair-clad outskirts: “Please use your seatbelt”, “Be a courteous driver”, “Dinnae pick yer nose or we’ll chib ye”.

[To be fair to the "tapas" - which apparently means "heat" in Sanskrit - folk, they might just be referring to the "essential energies" of the yogic tradition, a sense of deliberate self-discipline & austerity related to a higher purpose in life. Or not.]

Still, today I come to praise Glasgow (for once), rather than bury it - even if that does seem like the most merciful option from time to time. For one thing, the city certainly possesses some fine architecture:

and for another, it's home to the small-but-perfectly-formed "Strung Out Guitars":

tucked away in the railway arches of King's Court, in the south-easternmost corner of Glasgow's central 'Merchant City' area, Strung Out is a delightful haven of independent instrument expertise & fascinating second-hand gear...some of which was pleasantly familiar from my dim & ever-more-distant past hanging around the old Live Music shop in Edinburgh back in the mid-1980s.

A few Sundays ago (yes, I work on a geological time-scale), I happened to be in the vicinity with a couple of hours to use up, so after I'd wandered around taking photographs (occasionally endangering residents by standing on bins & other assorted street furniture to get a better view), and enjoying the sunshine (an incredibly rare commodity in those parts), I headed over to see what they were all about...

...and ended-up being handed a not-yet-on-display 1965 Martin D-18 acoustic to plonk around on - currently could be yours for £2399 (correct as of 20/09/10). Which was far too nice for me, but hey, I wasn't about to start complaining.

Anyway, suffice to say, with its fine assortment of noise-making equipment, and friendly (& extremely knowledgeable) staff - oh, and did I mention they're top-notch specialist instrument repairers, too? - Strung Out is all the reason you need to make the effort and drag yourself over to Glasgow sometime soon...just remember your potential lifespan, and obey the road signs, eh?

One White Duck / 0^{10} = Nothing At All

Afternoon.

After virtually no deliberation whatsoever I have decided that, in honour of the current state of my bank account - and the level of political genius swilling around our delightful Lib-Con government - September shall henceforth be known as "Vacuity Month".

[ vacuity: noun (vacuities) 1 the state or quality of being vacuous. 2 a foolish thought or idea. 3 formal an empty space.
(from the Chambers on-line dictionary) ]

So let me invite you most cordially to celebrate the next 30 days of glorious emptiness by posting superficially-meaningful-yet-utterly vacuous statements, (i.e. precisely the kind of stuff that seems to get the most attention on Twitter, advertisements for mobile phones/cars/the latest gratuitous Apple iCack, and 'motivational' posters*), wherever and whenever seems appropriate.

Vacuity, after all, does have a long and noble history - for instance, in Wu Ch'eng-en's C16th Chinese classic "Monkey", the Monkey King is given the name "Aware-of-Vacuity" when he is accepted as a pupil by the Taoist immortal Patriarch Subodhi (chapter 1, page 18 in my copy).

Here then, without further ado, is my first 'Vacuity Of The Day':

"Inspiration can come at any moment, yet the leaf cannot drift upstream"

cheer up, there are only 29 more to go...


*when it comes to "motivation", I much prefer these.

Kiss Me, Honey, Honey, Kiss Me

Evening. Time to delve into my ancient history again, thanks to a ceilidh-related request from a fiddler friend. You see, many centuries ago, when I was wandering around various bits of the country with the WildGeese Ceilidh Band, playing the bass and waffling instructions (along with bad impressions & odd 'humour') into a microphone in an attempt to prevent any major injuries on the dance floor, there was one particular dance I used to call that seemed to offer all the participants (band included) more...amusement...than any other.

Now my good friend Jon asked if I could pass on the instructions, but I'd completely forgotten a couple of important things - firstly, which dark recess of a cupboard I'd "tidied" the book it originally came from into, and secondly, how I'd modified it (slightly) to allow for the level of both technical ability and alcoholic impairment found in your average ceilidh dancer.

You see, the "average" ceilidh is a very special thing. It will, almost inevitably, be a wedding. In a marquee. That's on a slope. And it shall bring together a wider range of experience, age, lack of willingness to participate (especially the blokes), and quantity of booze required to sufficiently overcome that aforementioned lack (again, blokes), than at any other species of public performance. I have no statistics to prove this, of course, but seeing as how I've done hundreds of wedding ceilidhs, I'm a self-proclaimed internet expert on the matter - so if you don't agree with me, then you're just like Hitler. Or Stalin. Whichever you prefer. Possibly Robert Mugabe if you're feeling a little more creative.

Anyway, at these events the caller has to cope with incredibly reluctant folk who've driven all the way up from East Grinstead, (had several rows over directions, arrived late, and are still angry because one of them got the drinks in damn quickly so they wouldn't have to drive back even though the other thought they'd agreed....), and have no clue what all this "Scotch dancing" nonsense is about, being thrown together with smug eejits from the Royal Scottish Country Prance (sic) Society, who find ceilidh dances so dreadfully simple and beneath them, so why, oh why can't the band just start because everyone will be able to follow what they're doing easily...and why has their request for the "Reel of the Auchterfistin Fish-manglers" (sets of 11 couples, arranged diagonally at the points of a decihedron, with only the spare ones in the middle dancing while the rest look on with artificial, synchronised-swimmer smiles and clap along) not been played yet?

Fortunately another delving session produced the goods - "Back In Step" (the dances) by 'The Occasionals', which if you click on the link, can, I believe, be obtained in exchange for money (hopefully that should prevent any potential unpleasantness surrounding copyright).

So here it is, for anyone wishing to partake - "The Russian Ballet". Better known (to the band), as "The Russian Snogging Dance" (for reasons which shall become obvious).

Music - anything with a heavy 2-big-beats-in't-bar feel that can start slow & speed up. Russian, if you've got it, but there's no point being too bothered about it. They'll be too drunk to care.
Sets of 3 - (1 man & 2 women, 2 women & 1 man, 3 men, 2 wolverines & George Osborne, whatever. A mixture, ideally)

Each set of 3 stands in a line, "odd-one-out" in the middle of the trio, facing anti-clockwise ("widdershins", if you will), and holding hands. Which is nice.

First 4 bars: Starting on the left foot (not that it really matters), march forward for 3 steps, and kick the right foot out in front while shouting "Hoi!" loudly, in as guttural a cod-East European manner as possible. Then march backwards for another 3 steps and kick/"Hoi!" again. We used to start the dance at "Soviet State Funeral" pace, (the ones where the guy's secretly been dead for months, but the corpse had finally become so tatty they couldn't keep propping it up at military parades any longer), which seemed to work pretty well.

Next 8 bars: An intricate little manoeuvre officially known as "Double Arches" - aka "going under the sweaty armpits". (8 bars should allow plenty of time for this, but once the dance speeds up, it can get...interesting). The middle person raises their left arm, thus making an arch (with their left-hand partner's right arm). The right-hand partner now heads over to & through this arch, followed by the middle person - who turns underneath their own left arm - and back to their original position. The key to this is to keep holding hands - although if the middle person uses too tight a grip they can end up in what closely resembles a very painful Jiu Jitsu restraint position. Not nice at all.

Fairly obviously, the middle person now raises their right arm, allowing the left-hand partner to scoot through that arch & back to their place. Hopefully people haven't neglected their personal hygiene on the day.

Last 4 bars: Middle person turns & snogs (at last - here's the gravy) the person on their left, turns and snogs the person on their right, then walks forward to join a different pair of 'outside' partners - calling something like "Kiss! Kiss! Forward, two, three, aaand..." helps to prevent over-lingerers slowing the whole thing down with too much tongue-entangling at this point. All of which means, if you've done your job properly & you've got a fair mixture of trios on the floor to start with...oh yes. The slow dawning of realisation on the part of those who may, perhaps, not be entirely secure in their sexuality is priceless. Oddly enough, this discomfiture is almost always confined to the blokes...

....and there you have it. Not earth-shattering, not ground-breaking, but a simple wee bit o' fun. Repeat until they can't keep up with the band, or something of that order.

Sometimes I miss it. I really do. Ach, well.