Teasmade

My Dad had a brilliant morning schedule. The alarm went off on the Teasmade across the room. This forced him out of bed because it meant he could have an early morning cup of tea and because he had to turn off the alarm (carrot and stick). Then he went back to bed and drank the tea with a Kitkat. When I was little and my sister was littler we used to go into his room and sit in his bed and eat a stick of Kitkat each and we had some orange squash. It was a brilliant way to start the day.

When I grow up I am going to do something similar.

And don't you dare tell me that I can't have these plans or that I'm already a grown-up because I will always have plans for when I become a grown-up and there is lots of time to become a grown-up and for these things to happen

More about me and the environment

I am fiercely independent. If someone tells me to do something I get defensive; I don't automatically do the opposite, but I certainly have a good look at the options to see whether it would work to do something else. I want to be absolutely sure that I am my own person. And I do it obsessively. When someone says they can predict how I'll react to something or what I'll say, it throws me into a kind of panic and I don't know what to do. I cast about for new ways of being unpredictable. I don't want to be weird, but I certainly do want to decide things myself and I pride myself on having original ideas and new ways of doing things.

It's perhaps because of this that I am a man of short term obsessions. I have had my hatred of umbrellas, my love of cheese, my love of the cardigans, my love of tea, my obsession with cacti, and many more. When someone finds me out, or, worse, is more obsessed than me, it shocks me and I flee in panic!

But slightly contradictorily, I like to take up the same opinions as my Dad. You could probably say that the time when I was gaining all my background of opinions and way of thinking was a time when I listened a lot to my Dad. He was a Quaker, he was slightly anti-establishment, he was an environmentalist and a scientist. Everyone has beliefs and values that are unquestioned, and these are some things that are firmly ingrained in me.

A wonderful thing about university is that there are a lot of people with carefully considered opinions. I don't discuss life, the universe and everything too often, but certainly over a few years you get through most things. So you start to question your ingrained values. That's important to me, because then I get to be that little bit more independent in my thoughts.

I realised only recently that environmentalism was something that I should question too. My Dad died before everyone believed in global warming, so I can't just steal his ideas on that. It brings up lots of problems that he probably thought through but I just accepted.
What kind of world are we trying to save?
Do we want to stop seas from being filled with fertilisers that kill off local fish populations?
Do we mind that a land filled with people, our houses, infrastructure and agriculture is unnatural?
Is the destruction of sea habitat somehow more important or more avoidable than the destruction of habitats on land?
Is biodiversity very very important? It's not so natural either. After all, if you leave land to do its own thing, nettles could cover it and squeeze out anything else. Or bracken in the highlands.
If we will be able to survive the problems of global warming, is that enough?
In terms of importance, if you give a human life a value of 10, what's the value of a frog?
If there is a huge swarm of insects is it more justified to kill them rather than a lone bug?
Can we even define the state of the Earth environmentally?

I'm not planning on abandoning my environmental views, because I think they are important. But it's something to think about, because unquestioned views are dangerous no matter who you are.

Recent musical experiences

I went to see the Alexander Hawkins Ensemble on Sunday, and I can report they are very good. I'm not sure if they are famous in the jazz world, but they seem to be extremely talented and have a lot of fun. They are really versatile, sometimes playing the kind of modern jazz that I don't really "get", sometimes making atmospheric sounds that wouldn't be out of place in an album by the cinematic orchestra, and sometimes playing jazz with funky beats and rhythms. There was one solo guitarist-singer song too, and one moment where the pianist interchanged between big romantic classical chords and making sounds with the strings by reaching inside the piano. The players were playing (mainly) a piano, double bass, cello, electric guitar, drumkit and steel drum. I've never seen a steel drum and a cello together, and several other combinations there aren't too normal either.

It was music that you could allow to direct your thoughts here there and everywhere in the sections where it was it was hard to follow all 6 parts. My thoughts wandered to other music I have heard, to sex, to exams and the future, to my family and the past, and finally to looking for the personality in each player individually...

The first one that struck me was the drummer. He was a Roman. An ancient one. Playing the drums. He was quite solemn about it as if he were performing a ritual. I doubt he knows he's a Roman, but I do.
Then there was the pianist. He knew how to make so many noises on the piano, I can imagine him dropping out of a conversation just to enter into his little reverie in which he thinks of new sounds to make.
The double bassist was from the twenties, with a serious job by day, keeping the books for the family business, who sneaked out at night to a speakeasy to play his double bass while they weren't watching.
The other ones had personalities too, but the ones I invented weren't as good, so I won't bore you. And it was good. And I'll probably be getting either a cinematic orchestra album soon cos I enjoyed the concert a lot.


My second musical experience was the Eurovision Song Contest last night. A bit of a contrast to the aforementioned concert, I admit. As usual it was full of terrible songs, comedy acts, people who take themselves seriously and people who don't. A group of people from the materials department came to our house, and enjoyed lots of pizza and other food while pointing out the little touches that made the songs special, like flashy lights, costumes, women taking off clothes, props, fireworks, dance routines and backing singers. We were dismayed by the lack of cheesy key changes in this year's contest, but the voting patterns did not fail to impress, with drinking required when your chosen "bad" song got points, and when your chosen "good" song didn't get any. We were too well-behaved to get very drunk, but it's always fun! I didn't feel that Terry Wogan was at his best though, he definitely came out with some classic comments about belly-buttons and political voting, but his irony was tinged with sadness that the best song would never win because of the "political" (I doubt it actually has much to do with politics) voting. He was right of course, the Russian song that won was average at best, even by the standards of eurovision. And it seems he may not be back to present the contest next year. I wonder how many viewers will turn off without his wonderful comments on the performers and presenters on stage.

Other recent musical experiences include:
-finding a load of my Dad's old music and discovering he listened to Lenny Kravitz in addition to Chris de Burgh, Trad Jazz and Dire Straits that I already knew about. Urgh!
-listening to an interview with Usher in which he said the song "Love in the club" (about making love... in a club) was connecting with men because everyone thinks it, and then telling the interviewer that he had never made love in a club but had done in various other places e.g. planes. Listening to people discussing a song like that made me chuckle - it really doesn't seem like there's much to add, the lyrics are clear enough
-joining a choir in college. More to follow at some point I imagine on that one

Bonfire Night

I have been in university for several years now and yet this year was the first year I went to the main city firework display on bonfire night. I love bonfire night and it was a bit strange that I had not been before. When I left the house though, I realised that I didn't want to be a student on bonfire night. For me, bonfire night has always been and will always be a family occasion. Bonfires are something that I have come to associate with my Dad. It was a regular occurrence to come home after school to find the house locked and Dad at the bottom of the garden adding freshly trimmed branches to a smouldering fire. Having got over my frustration at being locked out, I would put on some wellies and help put wood on the fire, enjoying the smell of the smoke and the warmth of the fire. My hands and arms stung from scratches off the wood, my eyes stung from the smoke and my toes ached from the cold. Stand too close and you'd get smoke and ash all over you, stand to far away and you'd freeze. I hate the connotations with the dark green coloured area of any local supermarket when I say this, but it was a wonderfully organic experience.

I remember bonfire nights clearly too. One year we had it in our own garden with some kids who my Dad was tutor to at school. The fireworks were cheap and probably a bit damp, so they didn't work too well, but it just made it more exciting when a roman candle actually worked for a while!
A different time we went to a quaker's house, where there was a massive bonfire. We were enjoying some food, chatting, staring at the fire. As I stood there, my side nearest the fire prickled with the heat, while the other was numb with cold.
One time a family who we knew with kids called Kim and Becky hosted a bonfire night celebration. I remember the paths round the garden being lit with candles, bobbing for apples, going inside for a paper plate with some buffet food, and of course the huge bonfire and fireworks.
One year we went to a bonfire at the school where my Dad taught, and tried to make out the faces of the school children who I knew, even though they were up to ten years older than me, in the flickering light.
Probably the earliest bonfire night I remember was the year we went to a house with a boy called Sholto. I don't remember much, but the whole family came and shared the experience of watching the powerful flames in the middle, flowing at a hundred miles an hour round the charred logs, roaring and shining pure heat at us. It was magical.

There were other bonfire nights through the years of course, but every time, bonfire night has been a family occasion for me. It's amazing how you can bond with anyone young or old, just by watching a fire in fascination, as it dances and billows.

Today there were lots of families at the celebrations as well as others. I would prefer to be in a family there than in a student group in their little bubble where everything happens at breakneck speed over a phone or internet connection, or in a bunch of schoolkids dashing round the fairground. No, for me, time stands still next to a bonfire. Part of me longs to be alone, part of me wants to share the moment quietly with someone who I feel completely at ease with, maybe my sister or my uncle. For once I was glad to be in universityland on my own, I wasn't looking through the crowd for people I knew, I was just floating backwards and forwards through time, leaning over the railings towards the bonfire.