The changing man...smokin tabs

The changing man, Mr. Paul Weller, was live at Cannock Chase I guess I can say last night because it was yesterday as we creep into the early hours of Saturday the 27th of June.

I watched the gig from a position not too far from the sound desk - the sound was by the way excellent if you do get a chance to see how much better the forestry commission are at organising gigs than they are at saving the environment. We stood waiting after a reasonable set from the support band while text after text came through of sick Michael Jackson jokes - some of which actually made me laugh but that's a different story.

After Weller played 'the changing man', everything seemed effortless and magnificent from then on. There was shout, that's entertainment, eton rifles, wild wood and several others.

I assumed that there was some form of environmental drive that'd be pushed upon the hardcore Weller following that was willing to find the middle of nowhere in order to see their hero. I don't think I missed it - the only reason I could see that Mr. Weller wanted to play gigs outdoors was that he wanted to be able to smoke during his work. Funny how old fashioned this looked only a few years after the smoking ban has kicked in. No environmental message, just a good gig. And the shots are online at Paul Weller - Cannock Chase.

ZappaJazz and Courtney Pine.

Both ZappaJazz and Courtney Pine shots are online - nearly a month since I took them...the urgency has gone from my photography at present.

Despite having a few ideas of what to take photographs of while I was working on Lower Essex Street, while I was working on the reception of a probation office, I didn't get anything done. I guess the feeling of originality has been lost from much of what I approach and I want to explore concepts behind photography more than anything else at present. Maybe the reading will inspire me to get out and photograph more and try to create something that really expresses what is possible to do through the art form. Perhaps, one day...

Grand Pianoramax - Live at the Hare & Hounds....

Well, I saw the band, I did the photos and then didn't do anything about them until quite late in the day. I like the band, Grand Pianoramax, quite a lot - it was a pretty good gig but was there something lacking just a little bit somewhere for me - though I'm used to seeing five piece bands all the time these days with only Bee Bop to draw from. I don't think the balance in the band is quite right at the moment as I say - would Lizzie Parkes type backing occassionally help? Or another rhythm musicuan? It crossed my mind that Jack Bruce or some form of heavy-weight may be good to drop into the band - but who am I to say?

Good sounds, solid use of the subsonic bass which was interesting for a 'Birmingham Jazz' gig - more bands should do this - would be nice to see fat chops use this to it's full extent - or other bands that are looking to revitalise music from the 1930's....

It's been a week or two of methodone and other types of problems for me - fortunately it's not been me taking the methodone but the people who've been using the services of the National Probation Service where I've been working. I've quite liked working there it's been relatively interesting as jobs go - I'll not really want to get back in there straightaway though... let's hope the weekend last a long time rather than flies by...

Chemical depression - is it really impossible that depression affecting the West is caused by drugs the authorities deny the existence of?

Statistically, it's about ten times more likely that someone in their twenties will suffer from depression than their 1950's counterpart. Some of the 'facts' about depression and the increases in morbidity rates that have taken place in the last fifty years of a number of categories of mental illness are what can only be classed as alarming.

I am not convinced that there are the bio-psycho-social causes of contemporary depression as many would lead the population to believe. There are not always very high correlations between alcohol intake, drug use, and onset of mental illness - though these may be reasonably high. in my own case, after a short period of what was the most excessive anxiety - totally off the scale that is really possible to imagine - which lasted for forty-eight hours during the second weekend of the year 2000 I have gradually recovered. While a course of anti-depressants has helped significantly it has sparked some thought on the matter of what I had been the real cause of the depression I went through. The anti-depressants supposedly work as selective serotonin re uptake inhibitors - SSRIs. The theory underlying their effectiveness supposedly being that there needs to be a level of the neuro-transmitter serotonin around neurons, brain cells, and above a certain point of serotonin washing around the neurons, the less likely that it is you will experience depressive type symptoms. If the serotonin is soaked up by the neurotransmitters and not then released back into the fluids surrounding them, it is likely that an individual would suffer from depression. What tends to get classed as a relatively solid reason for the onset of depression in twenty-somethings is use of street drugs, for instance use of Ecstasy (MDMA), which may make neurotransmitters fire solidly for a few hours and then have caused significant imbalance neurologically as a result of over firing, over release of certain chemicals leading to a very abnormal chemical depression. What I think is interesting about this is that I didn't take Ecstasy, and I hadn't smoked cannabis for about eight years when I headed into the period of depression when this all took place. What I did experience were memory blanks and then periods of what appeared to be recall of what had taken place during the druggings. I have stated to a few public agencies that dreams may have some significance, if only because they may reflect where an individual was drugged and possibly influenced without their knowledge. I doubt this will be taken seriously for some time. I assume there could be substances already known which would act as selective serotonin reuptake facilitators which could cause the most extreme levels of anxiety and depression

I suppose the usual question that would be asked when someone like myself alleges that there are druggings being carried out on most of the population if not all is 'why haven't I seen what takes place?' or 'why aren't there more reportings of these types of druggings?'. The only answer I can offer in all this is that any one who had been drugged with chemicals of this nature would appear so ill that it would be automatically assumed that they have an organically generated mental illness. If they were to state that they have been drugged most conscientious staff in any public service would draw upon the training they've received and then class them as paranoid, unable to understand the condition they are in and dismiss what they are stating. That paired with the facts that there is no real public lobbying on this matter - of what drugs may be used in the facilitation of mental illness - that there is almost total uncertainty of exactly what drugs should be hunted for - will also cloud the issue.

What I think may also be a major factor in shaping what mental health the public experience - and who gets categorised as being mentally ill - is that there can be some enhancement to one's well-being when classing someone else as being paranoid or mentally ill, it might be the only reminder that some people get that their health is generally okay! This may be a Western phenomenon - I don't know how cross cultural this is - or even if this is largely dysfunctional way of maintaining health - to achieve it through reference to someone more ill, or more obviously ill than yourself. What may be interesting is the impact that there could be on the individual who does consider there being any truth in what appear to be paranoid allegations - if they entertain any degree of support for the individual it is deemed to be unprofessional, and may even elevate anxiety or feelings of discomfort. It does even make me wonder if schizophrenia is a disease of regime control - does someone who objects to druggings and refuses to believe the 'you've just got a bit confused' line of arguing if they allege that they've been drugged, get progressively worse in terms of their illnesses and degenerate into having anger attacks and becoming a stereotypical schizo. I assume this did happen to quite a few people - this interpretation of a schizophrenic does rely upon a notion that they may be aiming at carrying out a level of 'public service' and are degraded for doing so - not something that I think I'll get much in the way of academic support over... Rates of schizophrenia have dropped over recent years and rates of depression have increased - I've been in the gap between the two and I've challenged the diagnosis because of anger towards the state, thoughts of conspiracy etc. all of which have only been medicalised - none taken seriously - as if there is any form of pattern of drugging sweeping across the west....

In the context of whether or not this is only taking place in my imagination or not, I assume that there is some pattern Europe wide at least, as there tends to be greater life expectancy in countries which have higher rates of mental illness - perhaps I'm drawing upon stereotypes here I can't say - I understand there are high rates of suicide and mental illness in Scandinavian countries and there is also very high life expectancy compared to other European nations - have many of them been in a position similar to myself where I've been what at least seems like being drugged in order to experience a period of life so painful that I then have little to no inclination to drink above the recommended daily limits that the department of health inform me of. Surely, western nations would not allow a means of destroying an individuals state of mind in order to get their general self care up to an acceptable standard? I say surely not, but this may actually be a better explanation that the psycho-social stress issues that are put forward by Professor Richard Wilkinson in his book unhealthy societies, as to why the working classes, most notably those on low incomes are most likely to die younger than those in higher salaried positions. Is someone on a higher salary someone who has managed to get themselves sorted out and those who don't left to suffer the degradation of continued alcohol use to control the SSRF? Somehow I doubt it, but there may be some substance to what I state.

Does blowing someone's brains out with a high dose of an 'SSRF' do anything to increase life expectancy in the west - surely not....Maybe the Scandinavians are better at drugging their population that the British government is...?

Ever felt mildly embarrassed when you met someone but weren't sure why...?

It happened to me a few weeks ago. I met someone in a job centre whom I saw going red quite easily...I don't know if I should state this but I think it wasn't our first meeting. I seemed to have some recovered memory as I quite frequently do of an incident which occurred on the canal towpath that I must have been cycling along on my way to work one morning when I worked at Teleperformance.

There are reasons why the real causes of mental illness are kept out of the public gaze - it's highly illegal nationally and must also break international human rights laws for governments to allow to happen what does. One of the mechanisms seems to be how the human mind is considered to have malfunctioned if an individual has some recollection of a benefits advisor taking a shit on a canal towpath, the advisor realising that they've done this in a public place and then this being classed as a reason for why they were going quite so red. It is embedded within popular culture that this type of explanation can only be connected to the malfunctioning human mind owing to a high degree of overwork, poor work-life balance, poor inter-personal relationships or some other explanation which is largely bio-psycho-social in nature: that we're prone to mental illness when we don't take adequate care of ourselves and someone merely needs to adopt a different approach to life in order to recover from a bout of mental illness, take a course of medication or have extended time out.

These types of 'sensible' bio-psycho-social models do appeal and may make a large degree of sense in a great many instances, however, in my experience there does seem to be a great deal bubbling under - and there are distinct problems associated with dismissing someone as a conspiracy theorist who doubts the credibility of these models. I continue to try and influence the authorities to believe that this is a distinct possibility, however, the means that are used to shape the society we live in and to extend life, whilst being illegal, are probably the most effective manner of increasing life expectancy - we assume there to be very genuine reasons why life expectancy has increased - McKeown's work being a prime example of this. This is a correlational approach which examines the increases in life expectancy with industrialisation and concludes that increases in life expectancy have occurred largely through environmental improvements and legislation to reduce the frequency of accidental death. There is no doubt that correlational studies are generally only going to indicate a little about causes and in no way be conclusive - there could be a great deal more that needs to be uncovered regarding the reasons behind these changes.

I think about the one blushing fellow I met and the impact that his facilitated negative emotional state may have had upon how comfortable I felt in that situation and I don't think that there could be much in the way of reason for it - there was something that had taken place and perhaps one day I'll find out who did what and why?

Goodbye to Leslie John Willis.....

Dear All,
Friday was the funeral of an uncle of mine and later in the day I went along to the Rush Hour Blues in the foyer of Symphony Hall. Uncle Les was a very charismatic type of person to me and my brothers - in some ways he seemed much larger than life. My parents had interests, but they didn't seem quite so colourful or expressive as the things that Les seemed to get up to. He had quite a noticable sense of humour and watching him crack jokes at his wifes' expense (my dads' sister) did seem to be a bit of a family event, some form of pressure-valve for all of us.

I was thinking about Les when I was taking the shots of the band playing away. He took some nice shots of me and my brothers when we were kids that are in a different class to those that my mother took with her kodak. There was an element of wanting to have a blast, photographically at least, for Les. In what I class as quite difficult circumstances to photograph the bands, with no extra light on them, it can be quite a difficult space to photograph and do a subject justice. I have dedicated the slide show that's on my flickr page to Les and I hope some of the other relatives get a chance to check this type of thing out.

Les has made some impact upon me as a photographer, and while I don't think I'll become a popular mainstream photographer, nor necessarily progress that far technically, I do get quite a lot out of the experience and I do feel pleased with what I can do. For that alone, I'm kind of grateful to Les. I did mention to his son, a shot that Les had inspired me to take of the summer palace in Beijing, Chinas' capital. Similar to the historic forbidden city, it is a major landmark and of cultural importance as an indicator of past dynasties. I was there on quite a dreary day unfortunately, perhaps unlikely to bring the best of the scene but still worth being there. I tried to use the willows to continue the curve of the building, something that Les has discussed with me as a child when we looked through some of his most prized photographs - how important the shapes of figures and objects sometimes in the background are to the composition of a shot. I guess there was an element of that in the way I was taking shots of the boys on Friday afternoon - difficult circumstances: far from ideal, activity and events that I couldn't control and a scene in front of us all (the band) that looked generally the same to everyone present but somehow would look different - in a million different ways to a million different people. Though this may seem a little sermon-like, as I sit writing about it on a Sunday morning, there is an element of what life's been like in the Woodward family about it - circumstance doesn't tend to go our way and there's a need to try and make awkward circumstances work in our direction - as I tried to do with the reflective background of the mirror-like plate glass in the shot above that's in the slideshow of the ben markland quintet. Somehow, despite confronting circumstance, things just don't seem to work but there's some pleasure in trying. Friday was to me, a goodbye to Les first and foremost - I wonder if there's much influence in the shots.....

Steve Yenga & Crossroad Collision

More duff photographs from the Symphony Hall Foyer Commuter Jazz event which was held on Friday 6th January. Steve Yenga & Crossroad Collision did a couple of good sets which went down really well. I was surprised so many frozen pensioners who seem only to live for jazz on a Friday made so much noise....maybe they weren't put off by the snow because they all come out of a freezer on a Friday morning only to be put back in on a Friday night.

The week of nothing much.....

It's been a week now since I paid up the funds for the tribunal through tribunal action. I don't feel particularly confident at present, they didn't seem to know what they were doing.

Watched a bit of Folk America on BBC4 this week - it was good to see Graham Nash and David Crosby - teach your childrenteach your children is a bit of a classic.

Nothing much has happened this week. Can I do a thing about this lack of inspiration....

Rush hour blues and more....

There are a few more shots on flickr of Simon Harris & The Bright Size Gypsies at Rush Hour Blues tonight. It was not a bad show and the sound quality was also pretty good on the whole, guitar solos sounding particularly good. The shots are weak if I say so myself but I like one or two.

From a couple of weeks ago, shots of the Barry Green Trio from the 23rd January 2009 are also online. I didn't make a good job of either set really as a photographic opportunity. New shots, that is slightly different perspective and images of the bands playing, seem to appear despite photographing the same place week in week out so it doesn't get boring as such though I do feel that I'm lacking a little in the way of inspiration at present. It's a slightly challenging but interesting venue as a photographer.

It's been an interesting couple of weeks since I've blogged. I feel I've neared the point of full recovery - I have some feelings of confidence which I haven't had for over ten years now so it does feel very much as if I'm nearly back to normal after an extraordinary amount of time. I've got a tribunal to get through and hopefully get some form of result from and I guess that I can only hope things improve.

Last night at Commuter Jazz....

Chris Aldridge and Beebe were pretty good last night, it was great to see Levi with Brian again. I'll finally get around to buying a CD from them one day.

The drought is over...

It doesn't seem like that long since I logged in and started writing about what had been happening. It is really feels like only a few days since I last wrote about what I was doing but it’s about a month. I've been pleased on the whole with the last few weeks of my life - I haven't achieved anything special but I have at least stopped drinking and this has left me in a position where I can stop smoking, as the major problem was always having a few drinks and then smoking again when I didn't intend to.

Controlled alcohol intake has been rather new for me to say the least, I've had about 30 dry days of the last 35. This hasn't led to what I class as meaningful changes in my life but I have stopped doing something that was really just boring me shitless. Drinking wasn't really bringing me any pleasure - or at least hadn't for the last few years. I was doing it to reduce anxiety and to regain some feelings of normality. I wasn't doing it to completely feel normal, I have had some experience of drinkers who do that - there was one occasion when I was out drinking in Manchester when I was a student there when I noticed that I had started to feel 'normal' after about three or four pints, so I can relate to people who have to drink in order to feel this way. This only happened on one or two occasions over twelve years ago now.

Being on the verge of becoming teetotal does almost appeal to me in a way that I didn't think it would. I did waste a lot of time in the state of being so hungover that I couldn't function, but as someone who didn't relax in a normal fashion and largely couldn't put down the list of things to do that always grew at a faster rate than jobs were being ticked off: I did find myself being stressed by what I didn't have to do but was putting myself under pressure to complete, so hangovers provided at least some means of stopping myself, forcing a rest from the chores I had. They could be very painful affairs, leaving me in a state when I would want to sleep through the haze in order to avoid the pain that I had caused myself. What I've found interesting is that I tend to have a headache when I get up on a Saturday morning irrespective of whether I've drunk or not and I have had half days over the last few weeks while I haven't been drinking that I've had general feelings of being unwell, headaches and a lack of being alert enough to do what I want to do with myself. I had previously related this to alcohol consumption as there was a very strong correlation between having been out for a drink on an evening and then feeling very hungover the next day. One would assume perhaps very safely that there were no grounds to question this any further but I have felt drowsy, had headaches, been unable to concentrate and not been in the best of spirits on a few days while I've been free of alcohol when I would ordinarily have attributed these problems to alcohol consumption. It appears that alcohol is not the cause if this is continuing. Or may be my body is just tuned to alcohol consumption in a big way that I just have hangovers automatically.

One of the major feats I've achieved is to scan in many of the pictures I've ammassed while I've been dabbling in photography since my teens. I've mananged to get most of them online on my flickr site and there are some gems in amongst the dross that are worth checking out. For instance, there are shots of the round the world trip (1996-7) [the first 325 shots have some good landscapes amongst them - don't forget to use the full screen option click the box in the bottom right corner with the arrows pointing away from the centre of the box]. There's also a few nice shots of Aveiro where I attended a PhD workshop in 1998, and things like Masshouse Memories which just aren't good enough as photographs in some respects but still worth seeing. There are some great shots of the trip I took to France with Ian W in the France and Plymouth collection that have some great scenery in amongst the daft shots of Ian and me. Likewise, see the shots of Skye are okay for the period they were taken.

It feels like a great many of the shots are too good in terms of the quality that I achieved with an Olympus XA2 that I had for the bulk of the period that these photographs cover. I don't know if I was just lucky or I've been given someone else's photographs for the majority of the time I've been getting stuff developed. Maybe I've just had very good quality results from the places that I've had my photos developed - I used to pay more to get my film developed and printed by Jessops and generally speaking they do produce better results. The shots of Tiger Leaping Gorge in amongst the round the world photographs of Cambodia, Vietnam and China are the most breathtaking in terms of scenery and I am very pleased with what is in amongst some of the weaker stuff.

There is also the photo-essay that I worked on, which I assume made me look a little like the main character from Memento, the Guy Pearce film. Every time I have stated to a clinician that I have had no short term memory and I've been unable to function as a result I assume I've looked like someone mimicking Memento's lead. I think I've made the point before that there could be attempts to get some 'cultural products' into mainstream culture, including film characters and storylines, in order to use this as a mechanism of classing someone with mental health problems of mimicking fictional characters in order to get more attention when reporting symptoms should they relate their life to a fictional character's experience. I don't know how well founded this is as a principle however there could be problems for mental health practitioners who are subject to looking for confirmation of the theories they have rather than explore the alternatives. I assume it's more likely that the experience of being mentally ill can sometimes be so strange that there's a greater tendency to draw from the arts when explaining what type of experience an individual has had because there doesn't seem to be anything that similar reported in the media or that the sufferer would have heard of elsewhere.

As a result of how the individual with mental health issues is dealt with in contemporary society the experience I've had is that there is a tendency to engage in a certain amount of prejudice and disregard an individual with mental health issues as drawing from the arts when certain artistic or cultural products may be put in place to serve a purpose of rejecting the experience of some individuals - that they appear to be drawing from the arts rather than the arts have been manipulated in order to assist with disregarding some individuals so society can continue to be managed in the way that it has been for the last few centuries. Anyway the photo-essay Stormy Weather is online - which I think was shot before I saw any of Memento - there are other films that leave me with just a hint of this conspiracy - there's Dracula, Men in Black, Dr Jekyl & Mr Hyde, Manchurian Candidate, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and a few others that figure alongside Memento. I don't think I've really drawn from a single one, I've only recognised something similar in my experience and related it to what I had seen on the screen as it was the closest portrayal of the experience I'd had by far.

Whether certain cultural products are dropped into society because of their capacity to provide support to people with mental health problems or because there is a tendency for the storylines or characters to provide a means to later dismiss the individual because they have drawn from the arts when explaining their life experience, remains open to question - perhaps there could be clearer guidance on this matter from bodies that can guide the arts in future.

After the weekend.....

It wasn't much to achieve this weekend but I managed to get my sleeping patterns back in place. I don't know what the research into sleeping patterns involved at the University of Plymouth, but it does strike me as being a good area to research. I don't have major problems with the amount I sleep, what tends to happen is that I don't have a great deal of control over which eight hours in the day they are. Then I get up and have a look at things like Neil Young - Heart of Gold which strike me as being reasonable way to spend time but who am I to say. Still it lacks a bit of the bite that Like a Huricane has and possibly even the band I missed on Friday, The Portico Quartet.

The big gigs of the year

I don't know what I was expecting when I booked my ticket for Herbie Hancock at Symphony Hall a few months ago. It was a show that I think probably fell into the ranks of indescipherable progressive jazz that is only of note because of how lacking in melody it can be. I had quite long spells in the gig when I couldn't fathom out what I was meant to be listening to and then almost suddenly, as if mist were clearing, glimpses where the melody, rhythm and harmonies came together in quite an amazing scene. It did remind me of why a lot of working class whites like black performers - they've seen them escape from the same type of living conditions and circumstances that they've endured and been largely unable to break free from, perhaps seeing a black performer represents that individual who has managed to break free from social class and other restrictions that reduce freedom, quality of life and a sense of being more than a just another individual. They've made the class jump in a manner that Michael Parkinson would quite frequently aim to highlight about a great many of the guests that he's had on his chat show.

With many similarities and differences in mind, I also saw Paul Carrack at the Town Hall earlier last week. I had an objective if you can call it that, of seeing a couple of big names during the course of the year and the three or four biggies have been Herbie Hancock, Paul Carrack and The Beach Boys who I saw at the NIA. I did also see Stan Tracey and his sextet which was as good an experience at a gig as I've had this year. I have spent a lot of time this year in an eighties revival mode. Not having had MTV I've not seen the pop videos that I've seen as a child for years and so many are on youtube such as the ACE version of How long has this been going on? which stands up relatively well and is a staple of most daytime radio stations. Paul Carrack, although he was introduced by Trevor Francis seem to do a type of show that I've seen done maybe just a little bit too often. I wondered who I'd pair him with to stretch him just a little bit - perhaps Bjork or maybe the Portico Quartet with the inspired sound - stretch yourself just a little more please Mr. Carrack.....

Carole Westwood and Archie Cotterell Trio

Carole Westwood and Archie Cotterell Trio played Rush Hour Blues on Friday. I caught most of the first set which was quite nice - shame her kids got embarassed. I thought they were okay. I went along to the Hall Green Ward Committee meeting held in Hall Green School afterwards which was worth having attended if only to see the how things were handled - I'd only been to Kings Norton Ward meetings before which were held in much the same way unsurprisingly. Not that interesting, really...

Against Conspiracy.

It strikes me that in a city the size of Birmingham there are probably a few hundred people who have been the subject of action of the authorities, whether UK based authorities or those overseas, for the purposes of state control, social management or however we prefer the notion of illegal government activity to be termed which is supposedly carried out in the name of national security. I don't find it unimaginable that there is action carried out, not necessarily by the police or employees of the public sector, in order to incapacitate individuals, frame them or otherwise cause inconvenience to the individuals who live in the UK. While I may think this, I imagine that to most people this will appear to be rather insignificant conspiracy that is relatively poorly conceived. I imagine that

there is reason to consider how statistically likely it is that during your life either you, someone you know of or a member of your family may be subject to illegal action that the police are under no obligation to investigate, that is to say, the statistical basis of conspiracy theory. There are possibilities of a great many people being subject to government action, say in a city the size of Birmingham, perhaps there is a possibility of several hundred if not several thousand people having been subject to state action that will not be investigated by the Police that may only be illuminated by cases brought in front of the European Court of Human Rights.

May be one day I'll get some form of resolution on the matters that I've put before the police and hopefully there'll be no need to go as far as the European Court. I do wonder whether the term 'conspiracy theory' should be thought of in terms of unprofessional conduct. If anything a conspiracy theory is one which is not supported by the authorities, as a result, for an individual to have discussed an explanation, explanation being a term for a description that links together action or incident with causal relations, a conspiracy theory should perhaps only professionally in the light of political correctness be considered as a 'non-government supported explanation of events'. Perhaps this could reduce unprofessional attitudes towards some clients and open up more legitimate discussion on the issues that are linked to behaviour change and managing client groups. Perhaps, paranoia does have some links to those who are convinced of 'non-government supported explanations of events' and there could be greater clarification of this issue area to improve the rights of offenders, improve the mental health of offenders and thus as a result reduce the risk of re-offending.

The notion of a non-government supported explanation of events may be interesting to examine - perhaps what could be used on a regular basis may be explanations that are assessed by Primary Care Trusts as legitimate throught their Public Relations Departments - are these to provide the version of reality that we're to find is the healthy balanced truth...?

Coming down from Gigbeth....

Friday, I saw the The Tomorrow Band as part of Gigbeth which appeared to be a relatively successful undertaking. I like Chris a lot as a saxophonist but the band although intentionally bare in some respects could do with a couple of other members - either Levi or Rob on keys and one of the many trumpet players on the local scene - it's only my opinion though. The band which came on before them, the
Zappa Band did a good set. There was also another band that I don't know too much about, though I have to say the same for them - good set, as was the other one I saw earlier.

1st November 2008 - The first day of my life...

In some respects this is just another saturday - I don't feel very much at ease with the notion of continuing with this blog and not tying it into the themes that it is meant to linked with more strongly. I should be doing what I do to very strong effect and I don't know if I'll get round to doing it but who knows maybe I will actually get round to applying myself one day....

There are some shots on flickr of the band that played rush hour blues last night, the Brigette Beraha Quartet. Some are reasonable but as the nights draw in there's less and less light - this makes shooting without a tripod rather tricky...I think the shots reflect this....the shot above is one of the better ones.

Getting into probation speak....

I didn't realise when I was sat in the lectures that were part of the MSc in Public health and health promotion at the University of Manchester why there was constant reference to 'interventions' rather projects schemes or programmes. These would be regarded as more suitable terms for health promotion activity within say the context of regeneration funded initiatives which is one of the major frames that health promotion is understood within at present. It was only when I started reading through the glossary in a home office document, the Supervision of Community Orders, that I realised that the term, intervention, was one that was used in probation. It is perhaps something that an 'offending' community may be sensitive about - why draw this term to use when there may be nothing in terms of substantial links between an offending individual, and an offending community that perhaps doesn't participate in life in the same way as other communities have learnt to do.

It may be something that I haven't been sensitive enough about in the past as I seem to recall having drawn in inappropriate language from alien professions in other circumstances myself. It's justifiable to challenge this and discussing this type of issue is very much about monitoring professional boundaries. When I did it, it was something of a mistake in a psychology seminar to once mention an issue that a fine art student had stated to me - that youth culture to an extent swings in terms of optimism and pessimism in the seventies from folk hippie and glam rock optimism to the pessimistic punk and then back to the early part of the decade, the 1980s being flowing lavish pretentious new wave followed by a solid indie guitar scene leading to the rebirth of negativity in the form of punk-rooted grunge. What may have been interesting about this may have been the overall action of the music scene as a whole to mimic the mood swings of a manic depressive having extensive lows and rather ridiculous highs - I don't know if this is perhaps the worst case of music journalism which already has very severe low points or not - perhaps there is some intention within EMI to do this to the music scene in order to create a beast that youth-music-culture is. Whether this has been notably repeated since I can't say - perhaps the recent indie guitar band revival is part of a much larger project than we're currently led to believe - am I just confusing the da'vinci code with NME, or should I cut down the amount of cannabis I'm smoking before it becomes a class B drug again.

Ho hum, I just wish I could think of something sensible to write about... why not just think about the levellers turning up in the early 1990s as part of the ridiculously optimistic and detached way of thinking of the crustie.... who can say.

Night of open mike....

Well, I wanted to get to more gigs this year and in some respects it wasn't bad to see a band who were just starting off on the live scene - I don't doubt everyone there wanted to offer just a little advice but on an open mike night it's about people getting up infront of a crowd in order to have an experience which is going to lead to them improving.

I took over a hundred shots of the band at Tom's Tower of Song and they're on flickr through the link. The shots aren't great and as a venue, it was quite difficult to get decent shots - if I take any there I'll have to get the artists to pose rather than just grab the shots from the back as anonymously as I can - this means that a lot of 'the reality of the situation' is generally lost but it's more important that the photographs actually show what they're meant to be showing. I hope the band have got a future together and they perform more frequently... It's a small intimate venue and a good place for budding artists to get their acts together - why don't more teenagers do this type of thing?

Ten minute wonder...

Have you ever, like I did yesterday, seen a woman and thought that you were looking at the most beautiful woman in the world? I can't really say that I was entirely wrong about the waitress who I asked if I could take shots of - she did look entirely wonderful in every respect. The shameful thing about it was that I didn't really think that she was actually that attractive until I'd done just a little work on the shots when I got back to the hostel. She was really quite special and I don't think she'll have a long modelling career but sometimes it's nice to be proved entirely wrong - hope she does.

The location of the restaurant did leave me feeling just a little like I'd been there before or at least seen pictures of it in some place or other. There was something very Salmah-Begum-like about the other waitress - who was really very similar in the manner she moved in. There was the most remote facial similarity as well and I wonder if Ms Begum actually has some form of Italian links in terms of her family heritage. There was something I couldn't place as being Muslim about several of the women who worked at Teleperformance and I don't know if I'd be correct in saying that most of them, if not us, had some form of Italian link or other. It does leave me wondering, after seeing someone who looked like my Grandmother in Il Chianti whether or not I had any significant family link with Italy. There was someone who bore a strong resemblance to her in terms of facial expression in Guatemala, a place a genuinely doubt that I have any family connection to - a simple cultural accident may have taken place. Will I find out the linkages between her olive coloured skin and the European heritage that she may have had....

Anyway, I can't really think about anything else at the moment - it does seem quite nice in principle at least to have some important links with Italy, even if they're of family who may not have been here for a century. Carl Chinn did make a point in one of his Sunday shows on WM that there have been quite extensive Italian communities in Birmingham arriving from Southern Italy - I didn't really give consideration to the possibility that my relatives may have been amongst them. I've noticed a little Italian influence over several people I've known as well and didn't know that they were drawing from Italian styles when they dressed slightly different to the majority in the UK. This was something that I wasn't aware of at the time though I'm sure that the style-awakening that many British people go through when making what generally gets called the class transition, from working to middle class, often includes attempting to be as stylish as an Italian counterpart would be rather than to try as stylish as a very fashion conscious fellow Brit would be.

I have not really had the sense of occasion in my life to really have a substantial awareness of what to wear when and why - this should be one of the main factors in determining what to wear and why and if you lack awareness of the generally and specific conventions in society then there is not much chance that what you'll choose to wear will be entirely suitable. When I photographed the events at Coventry's War memorial for the Earlsdon Echo the only thing that really influenced the way I dressed was the hounding that Thatcher gave Michael Foot over the green duffel coat he wore on Remembrance Sunday in the mid 1980's. Not the most important of events fashion-wise, it was only really done for political mileage, or at least that's what it seemed to achieve. I was slightly embarrassed about the fact that I hadn't got a tie on but that is something that I should perhaps have taken into consideration. Even if you don't wear a tie for work, Remembrance Sunday is perhaps one event in the UK that it's appreciated that men do wear a tie.

I think about it in some respects - one of the mistakes I made in job interviews was to be rather untidy and in no way approach the role of leadership which is one of the key underlying values for project leadership in Health Promotion or Public Health through my clothing. This isn't suitable - Britain isn't a nation of clothes snobs to a ridiculous point but being very smartly dressed on a formal occasion is taken as an indicator that the participant, be they the interviewee, is obeying the same conventions for the same reasons as the other participants, the interviewers - that we've made progress through years of conflict in Britain and this is partly reflected by adherence to dress codes - it's a sign of respect for the interviewer which indicates an understanding of what they've achieved to get into the position that they are in.

Still I have a little time to spend in Florence and perhaps will see another waitress or woman who is as delightfully attractive as the one above who served me lunch yesterday. Then coach to Pisa tonight without having seen the leaning tower or Michaelangeo's David. It's difficult to say what other major attractions I should have seen - but I've largely missed them all. It hasn't made the least difference - Firenze has been a sight to marvel at.

I do wonder if the 24 hours I lost in Dahab in 1990 was spent partly in Florence - I seem to have recalled events which involved a few people from the UK and I do wonder if they were brought to Firenze - was there reference to it at the border crossing as I left Egypt to go back into Israel after the trip to Israel. I don't know what happened during the 24 hours but I guess I find out one day. Who else may have been in Firenze - and do they know I was taken from Dahab without a stamp in my passport. Perhaps there was the usual messing around and I remained there - I can't say. It's been funny seeing the glass ceiling/floor inside Haworth YHA and the long driveway up to Florence YHA both of which I've had dreams about. I think I had the dreams about two years ago, it seems like a rather strong memory. Was I doped to then have dreams about such places? It's not worth raising the issues really.

The end is in sight.

I'm currently lounging around in a hostel that I've had a little de ja vu in, this non-paranormal experience does make me feel very much as if I should be here. I did only want to spend two days here but that could easily change to four if not longer. It will be nice to get out tomorrow on the bike that I've hired - the walk to Barberino along the Poggibonsi road was really quite nice and it didn't seem to matter that I've had dreams about the location some time before. The multicoloured pathway to Barberino has featured in a dream or two but that's going back several years now. It was nice to have walked to Poggibonsi, but I feel very much worn out as a result of the experience. Everyone in the shops has been helpful to a large extent and this has resulted in the overall experience being what I can class as rejuvinating. I do feel generally happier here than I have done for several years now and while there is no doubt a veneer for the tourists and life here probably has a very unpleasant side I guess that I'm going to be content to enjoy time here rather than get depressed by the politics of the tourist dominated life.

There hasn't been the call from the agency inviting me back to the UK leaving me knowing that I'll have work there upon my return, however, I've had just a little in the way of communication. I can of course check emails through the wireless system in the hostel with my usually reliable laptop. It feels genuinely like a holiday here and the lack of responsibility that I feel towards the space here, knowing full well that it's virtually all the responsibility of others to maintain the nation leaves me feeling very relaxed. Not having great reason to return does leave me feeling a little bereft of meaning in the UK but I guess that it's frequently been like that for me.

In the meantime, I've got a few decent shots of theTuscan Hillsides in amongst the duff shots that I've included. They're still worth taking a look at.

So, didn't get the RBS job. Don't know why yet - I'll hopefully get feedback tomorrow. I did have forms of alarm bells going off in my head when I was leaving the interview and whether or not it was the people from RBS that I met in the pub at the back of the UGC on Broad St when I saw walk the line with a mate I can't say at this point. Why there were signs up on the walls of the toilets in the pub with the letters 'RBS' on them most wouldn't bother to hazard a guess. I imagine that they were some form of mnemonic and I'm meant to look like I've got some form of super-power memory when someone is just fucking me about, only a little but they're fucking me about.

Why oh why does this shite go on...photo of the guitarist from Tom Hill and Outsville. Kind of like Garry Corbett's work that was exhibited at Central Library, but I can't remember exactly what he did - got a link Garry?

After the interview

Again, I've no real idea how I did in the interview that I had this afternoon for Royal Bank of Scotland. I think it would be a nice place to work for a few months, stretching into years and I assume that they would be roughly as they presented themselves to be. Nothing is guaranteed but this would be a good first job to get after the return from Central America where I had a relatively good trip.

I was thinking about Cathy in San Fransisco some months ago and I have started an email to her. It's a long time since I saw her in Antigua, Guatemala and had several weird experiences during the period I was there. I don't want to look mad, but after the experience of de ja vu in the hostel in Haworth it did make me wonder about all manner of report of 'psychic phenomenon', how easy it is to dismiss these as insanity and whether there could be facilitation of these types of experience. It's quite interesting to think what proportion of the US population may have been maltreated, then enter a state where they experience what seems to be like a psychic vision and for whatever reason presume that they've had a religious experience or that they have psychic powers. It would be unconstitutional or at least illegal, I assume to allow this to happen to sections of the US population but I could be wrong - who cares about the sections of the US population that have been driven mad? (actually I do but I don't get the impression that the US authorities do) I can't really start an email to her after not seeing her for six months and then tell her about the freaky coincidences taking place in my life.... may be she'd be interested....!?! Why did this happen to me in Guatemala and not other places in Central America and was she one of the people that I had pictures of on my camera without any idea who she was back in 1996 only then at a later point to feel comfortable when I met her - because we'd had a prior meeting and no recall of it.

Perhaps, she'd even be interested in the shot of Stan Tracey shown above - who can say...

Back from Haworth

Inspired now to almost complete reading a Bronte novel after seeing the family home and the village the girls grew up in. I shouldn't forget Branwell, the son who drank himself to death more or less - sad family tale in many respects. The two eldest daughters didn't make it into their teens and all of the one's who did were dead before they were fifty. The father of the family Patrick Brunty, who wisely changed his name to Bronte, outlived his six children which I think is a pretty sad state of affairs. They may have achieved but I'd rather live longer and achieve nothing with my life - which I think is the deal that God has offered me. I liked the walk up to wuthering heights a great deal - for scenery I generally don't think anywhere compares to Dartmoor on the whole, but Haworth does.

I had a little de ja vu in the YHA as well. The places that I have had dreams of before going there, for instance, Antigua in Guatemala, Xela in Guatemala now include Haworth YHA. I assume what has taken place is that someone has shown me footage of the interior of the building and this has taken place during one of the memory blanks that I've had. I assume again use of a memory inhibitor, or something that could strongly influence state dependent memory was used. I don't think for a second that dreams are a reflection of the subconscious - I think they're created by the manipulation of the individual using measures such as these - ho, hum, I do tend to go on about such things. To me there's adequate information in this paragraph for someone to totally shift the thinking that has led to Freud's or other psychodynamic theoreticians work but I've got to try to get a job in a call centre in the next few days.

Maylight

Here are the shots of Maylight from tonight.... like the band on the whole - why did they only play 15 minutes though....?

On a completely unrelated matter, I was looking at some tsunami comments I'd made on an old blog. It's interesting that they were viewed and not really commented upon. While I was working on the Three Estates New Deal for Communities project I tried to get a conspiracy theory group off the ground. This didn't happen, I guess to many people getting lots of 'paranoid' people together and letting them conspire together is not a good idea. What I thought could be achieved is using a group to explore norms and values within the area concerning what was generally considered normal to state - what was possible to talk about without feeling as if you're committing a faux pas. There are social rules about what is reasonable to state

What it may also have provided is a means to tackle the social stigma about those who don't have great faith in the establishment in Britain. Too often someone may come across as depressing or naive if they don't indicate any degree of confidence in the authorities - it's perhaps the complexity of the idea behind that kind of statement and broader awareness that's going to separate someone from being a 'nutter' who doesn't believe anything the government say from someone who expresses their opinions in a slightly more conservative manner and can come across as intelligent.

Conspiracy theory may also contribute to well being in some respects not undermine it: it shouldn't cause paranoia to get worse. Conspiracy theorising may perhaps even contribute to well being if done following certain guidelines -
It could contribute to understanding of political activity and then assist with awareness of how much control an individual has over social or economic problems;
It could result in plans of action which may assist with dealing with problems locally and doing something constructive;
It could contribute to setting norms within a group which may then influence norms in the locality which then contribute to social stability;
It could help reduce paranoid classification of individuals and self doubt over lack of faith in the authorities;
It may also reduce depression and negative self-images if a number of residents if they realise that they have relatively normal views that many people hold.

There are social rules about when and how to discuss conspiracy theories, which I assume are theories which are largely not recognised by the authorities as having sufficient credibility to be taken seriously, as opposed to what is considered credible, usually by the political establishment. A conspiracy theory is only an account of events which is not accepted by the political establishment who may have their reasons for ensuring that some theory is not investigated. Exploring this through a community group may have offered some opportunity to set group norms and thus reduce paranoia and depression which may be quite difficult to tackle outside of a social group and provide a means to ensure that residents can still participate in surveys, a number of communities of interest and place, use of local resources, influence over local resources and possibly even some decision making. If there were residents on the 3 estates who have more regard for conspiracy theories than what the government state then it may be reasonable to ask how they should be engaged in community groups. What is on the blog I wrote about the tsunami a couple of years ago is still there, it hasn't been removed by anyone so it's not impossible to speculate and survive.