Salford Quays

I took a trip to Imperial War Museum North in the company of two of my housemates today. The museum is excellent, intense, and portrays the stark reality of war without being overly harrowing. This was the best shot I managed to get as I snapped and walked, of some building over the water from the museum itself.

Sun and blue skies have been far more frequent in Manchester this autumn than people give the place credit for. We were going to have a look round the Lowry Gallery but decided to save it for another time.

A Gift From My Mother

She has this on a little card, I made a copy of it in my notebook. If you haven't read it before you may find it interesting, I don't know.

"Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labours and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy."

- Max Ehrmann

A Walk Around the Block

Yesterday, not a great photo, but a lovely view:

Muse at Wembley Stadium 11.09.10

Support: I Am Arrows, White Lies, Biffy Clyro.

I was eating an overpriced burger and drinking overpriced water while I Am Arrows were playing, and so am poorly qualified to comment on the quality of their performance.

White Lies showed a surprisingly high level of confidence for such a (relatively) small band on such a big stage. Almost half of the set was comprised of new material; presumably so that it is vaguely present in people's memories when it starts to show up on the radio.

Biffy Clyro were as tight as a miser's purse-strings, and thanks to autumn nights pulling in it was dark enough for their light show to have some real impact.

Muse were preceded by a mob, complete with placards and banners bearing lyric-slogans (viz. "They will not control us") and some general noise (klaxons, alerts &c.) over the PA. They opened with an exciting five-track combo of Uprising, Supermassive Black Hole, MK Ultra, Map of the Problematique, and an extended pogo-fest of much earlier hit, Bliss.


Sixth on the setlist, Guiding Light is a fairly average track; think Queen, or just "Invincible 2" (sequels rarely being better than the original). Clever deployment of huge ribbons of paper and shreds of ticker tape over the front of the crowd really brought it to life on this occasion though.

To make up for that dip, the band crescendoed into Hysteria and a little bit of AC/DC riffage, then Citizen Erased with a great guitar break in the middle. Nishe (an obscure and quiet b-side featuring slow bass riff and gentle drumming) cooled things off pleasantly, but while we were down there we got United States of Eurasia; a poor parody of the band's former bombastic heights.

The set maintained momentum through a combination of classics and using flashy bits of stage-craft during weaker new material. While frontman (Matt Bellamy) was at the piano they played Ruled By Secrecy and Feeling Good, then he dissappeared for a bit allowing drummer (Dominic Howard) and bassist (Chris Wolstenholme) to lay down MK Jam on a spinning podium that travelled out into the audience. Dom used four electric drums that light up on impact for this. Matt rejoined them on the same podium with his keytar for a rendition of Undisclosed Desires. The miniature stage rose up as it headed out into the audience (again) and one look over the side from the iconic frontman drew screams from thousands of throats.

Resistance, Starlight (one of Bellamy's finest vocal performances), and Unnatural Selection rounded off the main set.

The first encore was a potent pairing of Exogenesis (Part 1) - during which a UFO circled the crowd complete with dangling acrobat; unfortunately not as stylish as the heliospheres used in their first Wembley dates a few years ago, but impressive nonetheless - and the fan favourite hostage-situation-love-story Stockholm Syndrome.

Their final encore was about as epic as you'd have every right to expect, and we saw Matt return to the stage in a suit with a coating of red synchronized LEDs, which complemented the arpeggiated synth intro of Take A Bow. With an unusally small amount of fuzz factory generated white noise the trio launched into Plug in Baby (cue giant balloon eyeballs for the crowd to bounce back and forth before eventually popping in explosions of yet more ticker tape). Over two hours after it started, the spectacle rounded off with Knights of Cydonia, a finale made yet more grand (and Western) by the inclusion of their cover of Ennio Morricone's Man with a Harmonica.

I sat on the underground train back to my apartment, mind and body a complete wreck, and reflected on what a great show it was. I'd had my money's worth by the end of Biffy Clyro's set; Muse was a generous amount of icing on an already ample cake.

Monday Morning in Manchester

It's been a good morning, I would say productive, but really it's been the reverse. I've been throwing things away. Did a very light bit of exercise, then popped over to uni to pick up a piece of work that had been marked - 88% Oh yeah! Got groceries. All very mundane but that's what self-indulgent blogs are for.

This afternoon I'm going to nap (being a student = making your own schedule = naps are common) and revise, possibly in a cafe. An episode of House will almost undoubtedly get watched.

Origins

"Those who assume hypotheses as first principles of their speculations... may indeed form an ingenious romance, but a romance it will still be."
- Roger Cotes, preface to Sir Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica, second edition, 1713.

When it comes to trying to explain how all 'this' came to be, it is far too easy to get caught up in a theory that appeals to your desire for a good story. It was mentioned in my first lecture today that percentages of certain elements in Earth's atmosphere correspond to those present in the comets of the outer solar system, and that this has led to the idea that comet impacts gave us our supply of H2O. This is quite a neat little idea.

It put me in mind of exogenesis (theory that life was transferred to Earth from somewhere else) and panspermia (theory that there are 'seeds' of life throughout the universe and that we came from one of those).

The thing about these three theories is that they put the ultimate answers further away. They're satisfying at first, but ultimately mean that tracing the origin of life will require us to hunt through surrounding space, not just turning over rocks here at home.

This is very similar to the problem with creation myths as an ultimate answer. Arguing creation myths goes a little like this:

"How did all this come to be?" - "God made it." - "Ok. How did God come to be?" Explanation of God would require an even bigger and more complex theory, since it would surely have to be at least as complex as what it created. Arguing exogenesis goes, for all intents and purposes, identically:

"How did all this come to be?" - "Simple lifeforms got to Earth's surface on asteroids, comets, etc. and we evolved from them." - "Ok. How did those lifeforms... form."

The answer is one (enormous) step further away. On the plus side, that step could well be further space exploration, an exciting prospect. And the UK has it's very own space agency now.

Tramps Like Us...

I went for a great run today. Almost every step was pure joy, bounding through the park (clumsily, dropping my iPod...) on a sunny day for it's own sake. I had a playlist full of inspirational songs to keep me going, and it made a nice change running in warm air so that my lungs weren't tightening up from chill and pollution. I didn't time it, I could only estimate how far I went, and there was no rush.

I've been running on the balls of my feet this week, after a year of sporadic jogging; landing heel-first. I decided to make the switch due to some problems I was experiencing with my left foot, and so far it seems to be working ok. It was Christopher McDougall's talk at google that inspired me. Check it out here.

I found this video thanks to the freerunner Sticky - see www.stickyparkour.com - who is just about to start over one thousand miles of running and parkour from John O'Groats to Paris. He's raising money for a motor neurone disease charity, details on his site. It is a truly epic feat of endurance he's undertaking and I hope he makes it. (He will).

Kick-Ass

The Daily Mail had this to say of Kick-Ass -

"It deliberately sells a perniciously sexualised view of children and glorifies violence, especially knife and gun crime, in a way that makes it one of the most deeply cynical, shamelessly irresponsible films ever."

When I read that I knew it was going to be good. A one-star review from the Daily Fail? Condemned by their reviewer as evil? Yes, this is one to watch.

The film had some good lines (very much of the type you can imitate with your mates later for a laugh), fight scenes that were gloriously violent and visceral adrenalin-pumpers, swearing in just the right places, a cheeky bit of sex (not pornographic), drug-dealers, and a soundtrack (featuring The Prodigy, Ennio Morricone, Elvis Presley) so good I'm listening to it now, which I can't say I've ever done before.

The heroine of the film is Hit-Girl, and it is to her that the Daily Mail reviewer is referring with the "perniciously sexualised view of children" comment. She's about 11, is only at one point referred to as attractive - by a boy, not a man - and completely dominates every fight she gets into. I'm trying not to spoil by talking about specifics here, but suffice it to say that by about halfway into the film you're likely to be eagerly anticipating her next appearance in a scrap; it's guaranteed to be a well choreographed bloodbath.

I'm not going to go into any more depth about this film - it's not a deep piece of work, just really good fun. Go, watch, hopefully enjoy.

Blood Red Shoes: Fire Like This

If you're in the mood for something experimental, delicate, refined and with plenty of frills, you miiight want to steer clear of this album as you scan your collection. If on the other hand you've got an excess of energy; a desire to jump and pogo and scream like a child-actor on Nickelodeon then put this on.

Standout track is definately Keeping It Close with a truly infectious riff intro, but the band went with Light It Up for the first single, presumably due to the steady eighth-note drumbeats under a chant-along chorus.

The band haven't made this album difficult for themselves, or broken away from the style of the first album. If you didn't like 2008's Box of Secrets, then there is precious little to convert you to BRS on their sophomore record. If you did, this is a gentle step forward that promises an exciting career from Laura-Mary Carter (guitars, vocals) and Steven Ansell (drums, vocals).

A Selection of Images Intended to Illustrate Some of my Recent Activities

This is one of my favourite clusters of buildings in this city.

What the hell happened to this Mini Cheddar?!! It didn't really taste as good as a regular one either. I absolutely promise that this is the most banal photo of this post.

Green Day light up the stage at the M.E.N. Arena. In a week of four gigs (Green Day, Muse, Mew, and Eddie Izzard) this was the best. I didn't think it would be, they were a favourite band many years ago, but hadn't been so much in the run-up to this gig. I was a long way back as you can plainly see, whereas for Muse and Mew I was much closer to the stage. But these guys absolutely rocked it. Even a mile away I felt a connection, and Billie-Joe is a stellar performer.
I will post a few photos from the Muse gig soon.
Mew were moving, and made use of some pleasant, quirky animations.
Eddie Izzard was amusing, but his show lacked structure, there were plenty of times when he seemed to get lost in chatter without any of his ideas actually coming together. The show had a theme, but it really hadn't been developed enough.

Me with a dog on my lap, halfway between facial expressions. The dog is called Guiness, hopefully you can work out why, and he's so sweet.

My aunty, uncle and I took the aforemention'd dog and his brother, Beamish, out for a walk one weekend, through a fresh layer of snow.

When we returned to their constantly improving house (they are DIY-ing it to the max), we had a lunch of focaccia, parmesan, sausages, tomatoes, mushroom and chilli sauce. Delicious.

Today I went out with a friend who lives here in my halls, we bought a paper and then got ourselves settled in the Whitworth Gallery cafe. We worked our way through cappucinoes, brownies, and a pot of tea. It made me very happy; far too many Sunday afternoons get frittered away alone, which is depressing. Frittering away time with someone is, on the other hand, the best.

Jmalk x.

Storytellers

Last night I watched a DVD of Bruce Springsteen's performance on VH1 Storytellers, and was extremely inspired to do more songwriting. I've only seen two; the Boss and Green Day. I think I vaguely remember seeing Coldplay on there too. I'm definately going to keep an eye out for more DVDs and try youtube.

Round-up Of A Quiet Day

Took it easy today.

Had leftover lasagne (mummy taught me to cook it last night!) for lunch, and spent the afternoon jamming with Max. He taught me the jazz scale, and we messed around with all kinds of riffs.

Played Scrabble this evening and crushed my opposition; a victory hollowed only slightly by the fact that 2 out of my 3 opponents were children.

Yesterday I threw away a couple of bin-bags full of stuff. This sounds like incredibly boring news even by the standard of this mediocre blog entry, but I am an obsessive-compulsive hoarder so it was a big deal for me. Very proud of my efforts...

Jmalk x.

New Year

New Year's Eve is a weird night. Thinking about resolutions means taking a long hard look at your shortcomings and failings. The arbitrary marking of our pale blue dot reaching a certain point on its track once again, means you think about all the experiences of the last year. I find myself wishing there had been more, and that I hadn't missed so many opportunities; that I hadn't spent some of the year in a malaise, doing little besides watching tv or crashed out on my bed.

It's a time of melancholy, the middle of winter, the end of festivities, the holiday, and time to get back to work.

That said, I had a fairly lovely night in the company of friends I've seen far too little since moving away in September. And now that we're past the darkest day there'll be more minutes and eventually hours of light every day until June (marked neatly by Glastonbury Festival). More light, more time, more energy. I look forward to it.