I try to proof read,
Yet my mind cannot focus,
Bored of my thesis.
A new band that I like
March 25, 2010I discovered Starless and Bible Black yesterday. Yes, they share a name with a King Crimson album. Which is why I initially had a listen. But there a whole of Fairport Convention/Pentangle influences kicking around. Great stuff. I’ll have to keep an eye out for any gigs in Scotland 
From the band’s website:
2009 sees the release of their second long-player, “Shape Of The Shape” – an album which brings together the sounds of Topanga Canyon country rock, Manchester guitar jangle and outer-space psychedelic drones. Gone are the dulcimers and banjos of the first album, replaced instead by a harder wall of Telecaster and Moog and sitting in the centre of this bold, widescreen sound resides the pure and husky voice of their chanteuse, Helene Gautier.
Recorded at Bryn Derwen in the wilds of the Snowdonian mountains and during all-night sessions in the relative tranquility of their local village hall, “Shape Of The Shape” is an album of contrasting styles, themes and approaches that coheres beautifully into a seamless whole. From sweltering swamp rock to gothic bluesy chanson via unplugged rustic balladry, a jazz-folk tinged instrumental and a sprawling nine-minute psych-choral drone opus the album traverses many different takes on the genre but never loses sight of the importance of a classic tune.
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What is bass for? (blog from Trey Gunn)
March 8, 2010A fantastic blog from Trey Gunn with a great selection of youtube clips… Still not sure about Wooten though… I think that clip just highlights why I don’t like his playing very much. The Bootsy clip is great though. 1! 1! 1! 1!
From PDEs to Trig
March 1, 2010Hmmm. You know, maths is a lot harder than it used to be. Or maybe I’m just not as bright. Probably the later
where 
Time to refresh my memory of trig identities.
(Disclaimer: this post mainly exists as wordpress was the most convenient latex editor and I wanted to make a note of my equation so I don’t forget, and if you know me, you’ll know that my hand writing is pretty bad at times. So is my grammer).
In other, more exciting news, I have a gig this week.
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A Good Weekend
February 9, 2010I have had a pretty good weekend.
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I never did take that course in PDEs
February 3, 2010 
I’m stuck. I was planning on being all clever and working out a neat optical ambiguity (maybe not the right way to describe it, but I can’t be bothered going into details).
But my M.Maths (hons) degree has let me down and I’m stuck with a PDE. A non-linear one at that. Anybody know if there’s an easy way to solve it? You know, at times like this, having the likes of Charles Cuthbertson, Derek Harland and Hugh Griffis around would be useful.
Anybody know the solution to:
????
My current line of attack (listening to Prince’s many side-projects via last.fm and thinking that it’s about time to have lunch) is not getting me very far.
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Things are looking up for 2010…
January 30, 2010Nearly a month into 2010 and the year’s looking pretty good so far. The PhD is nearly all done and I’ve started an RA job. Which is great, although I’m not going to get my first paycheck for a little while. But that’s what credit cards are for right? I’m going to splash out on a squash raquet this afternoon… must start getting more exercise while I wait for the weather to improve. I think I might also buy some new kitchen scales for cake baking tomorrow… am giving a seminar Monday morning and if I bring cake, the hope is that people will be too busy eating to ask questions
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Christmas Eve – still working on my thesis
December 24, 2009Well,
it’s gone 3pm on Christmas Eve and I’m still working on my thesis. Ho hum. Nearly finished now though. But, I think I’m about to run out of steam and will leave a few ends bits for next week.
Happy Christmas.
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Early December
December 5, 2009Hello avid followers. Hmmm. I wonder if anybody still reads this blog! Who knows.
Anyway, a certain amount of good news:
The thesis is nearly finished. And I have my RA job almost sorted out for next year. The ‘cello playing is going from strength to strength, although I miss playing bass now. Oh well. Will be playing live on my cello, for the first time in nearly a decade this weekend! Somewhat nervous, as I know I’ll be hitting some horrible out of tune notes. But, hey, mistakes are milestones along the path of progress.
I’m also slowly building up some enthusiasm for playing the warr guitar some more. I’ve been listening to some old tracks I recorded, and am thinking I’d like to do some more in the near year.
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