Metrophile or Countryphile?

Okay, so I know they’re probably not real words, but it’s still a dilema. Yesterday I embraced trendy city-living, watching the world go by in a Bristol city centre Starbucks. Watching as everybody bought either their tall-skinny-double-shot-vanilla-latte from the Barrista behind me or the Costa Coffee 10 metres across the hall. It was fun. I felt trendy, arty, with my newly-bought music at my feet, my mobile on the table in front of me and my head designing the new-look site you’re looking at right now.

Yet, at the same time, I’m enjoying my nearly-in-the-Cotwolds lifestyle. I’m enjoying my country walks, or listening to Monday evening bell-ringing practice at the church over the road whilst cooking the stuff I bought at the local farm shop.

It’s a complete split. Are the two mutually exclusive? It’s the same as a musician – can you be a serious muso playing Beethoven, and gig at the weekend with a singer/songwriter? Have I blown the countryphile life by having a blog, and desiging websites? A colleague of mine drives a convertible Morris Minor – she’s clearly embracing traditionalism. I’m never going that far, but I certainly don’t ever want to live in a city loft apartment.

Maybe I’m destined to be both, or maybe I’m just a fence-sitter, or normal. Oh God, please don’t say I’m normal…!

New House, New Web Home

I was going to call this post “why you should never try to change hosts with a wordpress blog”, but a)It seemed unecessarily long, and b)It seemed unecessarily negative – This blog’s been quite positive lately. Suffice to say – it takes a lot of wrangling using the html equivalent of a sledge-hammer, it would appear, to change a blog’s address, especially when your old site seems to not want to let you use ftp to download the old blog.

So here it is. It’s been lurking on the Premier Strings Website for some time. Truth be told, it was about the only bit of the site that got used. So I’m bidding a farewell to premierstrings.co.uk and having a house-warming at duryloveridge.org.

It seems fitting, what with the real house-move, change of surroundings etc etc. So here it is… duryloveridge.org

Autumn Leaves

I love the oncoming Autumnal weather, especially now I don’t live in a city. Sure, in a city it was great to run from shop to shop in the rain. Going from heated room, to the cold freshening chill outside, walking down roads basking in the strangely warming orange glow of the streetlights. It feels different living near the countryside though. It’s like I should have a roaring fire behind me, but I don’t. I don’t even have a fireplace. Strangely though, that doesn’t matter. I can look out the French doors/windows at the garden covered in rain water, with each leaf twinkling in the light coming from my warm house. I can look out from the upstairs windows at the fields looking a healthy green, recovered from their summer greyness, and at the local-footballers practicing in mid-week drizzle highlighted by brilliant white floodlights. It’s cozy, and strangely Christmassy.

Suddenly the seasons seem to have more of an impact now I’m out of a city. The reason for this little rant? I had sat down to write about something, but was distracted by two robins jumping from watering can to plant, to bicycle, to tree around my garden. Attracted by the sight of their brilliant red standing on the little grey wall in the garden, it suddenly hit me – the nights are drawing in. But I don’t care. I’m sat in my snug, well-lit house with the perfect soundtrack – Autumn Leaves.

Pictures of Iceland

I’m still working on the Iceland Photos in Photosuite to post here. In the meantime I draw your attention to that Flickr badge to the right which has some of the basic ones on it.

Everybody join the Google-Dance

As seen on Imogen Holst’s Headstone in Aldeburgh:

“The heavenly spheres make music for us all,
all things join in the dance”

And so it is in all walks of life, particularly search engines. I have a string quartet, which has a website, which is almost entirely my own preserve. It’s my territory, I made it, it’s my baby. It’s a labour of love. Actually, it’s more an obsession of hate. It gives me this persona of the American executive with a ‘hire-em and fire-em’ mentality. I like to beat the opposition, and when it comes to running a business which is entirely based on web customers, you have to play the Google game. Most people expect this, and know the rules. I’ve heard that there’s a new group on the scene, and one of our former players is setting up on his own, so I’ve been checking frequently to see when their site is up and running. The only thing is, I feel a little sorry for them (not at all in my Business persona). I’ve heard they’re calling themselves The Friendly Quartet. The problem? I searched for ‘friendly string quartet’, and my site came up fourth! The poor people, it’ll take 6 weeks at least before people looking for them find them before us.

Good luck, but in the meantime, I’m enjoying the Google Dance.

Here comes Winter

It’s started. Today, as I merrily (ahem!) filed my online Self-Assessment form (akin in difficulty to simultaneously reading the flight plans of a round the world 747 trip and a Joseph Conrad novel), I had to have the living room light on. That can only mean one of two things; either I forgot to open the curtains this morning or it’s winter. I fear it’s the latter.

It’s no great problem, I love the cold weather. I love having the light on in the daytime, illuminating my nice cosy shelter from the dark, cold reality of the world outside. It’s like a little den from the outside world. It’s Christmassy (yes the crackers are already in the shops), it’s welcoming. The only downside is the extra layers of clothing needed to go outside in the dropping temperatures, and the fact that school heating doesn’t generally come on until a predetermined date across all schools – generally February the 26th.

So there it is. Cold. Dark. Winter

The Poetry Bus

Why don’t we have cool things in this country. Okay, so we have history, heritage shown in an abundance of stately homes. We have the monarchy, the Tower of London, beefeaters. But why don’t we have anything cool?

I love America at times, and one of those times was when I found out about the Poetry Bus. From my teenage years listening to Mark Radcliffe late at night on Radio One with Simon Armitage et al reading poetry, to the BoatHouse pub in Cambridge with its poetry and open mic nights, I’ve always had an artistic leaning towards the stuff. The only thing is over here we surround ourselves with Keats, without a stark mention of a modern poet reading in estuary English. Why can’t we have a poetry bus?

Link: Poetry Bus Blog 

TopGear

It was a tragic story yesterday about Richard Hammond’s accident during filming for TopGear. It’s amazing the amount of public support he has in recovering, and along with it would appear every motorist in the world I wish him a speedy recovery and best wishes to his family.

The sad fact is though, that many people will be using this as an opportunity to get the programme pulled off-air, and to once again inflict greater control over motorists. Transport 2000 has for many years condemned the show as ‘outdated television designed to give comfort to boy racers’ and called for it to be replaced by a programme promoting sensible driving in sensible vehicles. Other transport lobbies have called the show wreckless for its damage to the environment, for promoting speed, being sexist, being xenophobic. They even placed a speed camera on the track whn Dr Ladyman (transport secretary) came to try his hand on the laptimes board.

The situation appears to be this though – Yes it was being filmed for TopGear, but Richard was attempting to break the land-speed record. It’s not some stunt, it was a genuine record attempt by a serious driver. I spent yesterday evening playing the cello on SS Great Britain, overlooked by a figure of its designer Brunel. It’s marked in history as Britain’s first iron-hulled steam-powered ship resting under Brunel’s Clifton Suspension bridge. illustrating what can be done when you push the boundaries. From Sir Randolph Feinnes and Ernest Shackelton going to the Poles, or Sir Edmund Hillary climbing Everest, it’s a natural thing to want to push limits. Afterall, why do we continue to explore space? Surely this has a natural danger to it, and in the grand schemes of 3 score years and 10 has no real benefit.

There are constant calls on motorists to be curbed. Most speed limits have been lowered over the last 5 years (60 to 50, 50-40) on individual cases, but still people are calling for the motorway limit to be reduced to 60. Yesterday the media ran a story in support of 12 months of compulsory lessons for learners. Motorists are being put forward as the murderers of the planet by using our cars – but give us an alternative green-fuel and we’ll use it. Give us an opportunity to excercise our judgement about appropriate speed and we’ll learn from experience and all become better drivers – don’t wait till a a wing-mirror gets broken and put up a speed camera to trap us. We already pay road tax, fuel tax, VAT on the car itself, VAT on all it’s parts and garage costs, insurance tax, the MOT. All this money goes to the government. It pays for hospitals, schools, safety campaigns, and hopefully research into greener alternatives. We’re keeping the country going now so many have given up smoking! Leave us alone.

Keep lecturing us, but don’t try to take away that British spirit to explore, to push the limits of human possibility, to improve things…

I’ve always been a fan of cars. As a boy I collected matchbox toys. I must have read the highway code at least a dozen times by the time I was 12. I would practice manouvres and ettiquette on my bike. I had posters on my wall, top trumps in my pocket and drove driving games on the television. Yes cars are dangerous, but so are so many things. I’ve always been taken by everything to do with cars. I passed my test 11 weeks after my 17th birthday, and I’ve driven pretty much every day since then. It’s a skill, it’s a hobby, and it’s fun. I had been thinking about diong a track day at nearby Castle Coombe and yesterday has just reaffirmed my desire to do one soon, before the HSE start putting a stop to them.

Iceberg!

I’ve got Boradband back, so it’s time to start sorting the Iceland Photos. Here’s taster of some Icebergs. They break from the glacier in the background (Europe’s largest), then float down to the sea. Lovely. More on Flickr

Britishness

I’ve been fortunate to see a fair-few parts of the world. I’ve seen the Czech repubilc, Slovalkia, Hungary, Poland, travelling the full width of Europe. I’ve now made it to the most Northerly parts of Europe too. I’ve spent time working on the American East coast, and I’ve seen the West coast, with ocassional forays in Canada too. It always strikes me what an amazing, strong and vivid sense of national identity different places have. The pride that people show in their countries. Their sense of belonging to their country. Their sense of their country belonging to them.

This has certainly been the case as we remember the events of September the 11th 2001, but Americans always seem to have national pride. Walk down any street in ‘middle America’ and every other house will have a flag flying outside. It’s against the law to burn the star-spangled banner, unless it’s because it’s accidentally touched the floor, in which case it must never be used again. I can’t help thinking if I started flying the St George flag outside my house tomorrow, I’d be investigated by the BBC, or it’d be nicked, possibly after the BNP drop by to invite me to stand for parliament.

Maybe it’s because every child in America pledges teir allegiance to their country every morning before starting their daily lessons. Maybe it instills a sense of pride in what their country is, what it stands for, and of its people. Maybe that’s the answer in England. Except, if we did that, people would be picketting outside schools saying our children are being brainwashed. More likely, there’d be a fear that we’d churn out a generation of skinheads looking to tackle immigration in a ‘hands-on’ way.

I think Billy Bragg says it well:
“They piss in the public fountains, to show their national pride.
What do they know of England? Only England knows…”

It’s a pity really. For me, Englishness is the stiff upper-lip, quiet and well-spoken traveller. But hang on a minute, that’s a stiff upper-lip fighting wars and gaining Colonial ground. Okay, well, in that case its frosty mornings, with gentle dew overhanging chestnuts trees on a green hill. But, hang on a minute, that’s a very middle-class thing for those growing up in surban sprawl or inner city tower blocks.

Oh I give up…