a mystical chant

I'm not sure why but as i sat down this evening to write my blog entry the term 'a mystical chant' floated in from somewhere. What immediately comes to mind in the buddhist society http://www.thebuddhistsociety.org/ very close to victoria station in London.
I have visited there many times and of recent unfortunately got out of the habit of going there on a thursday evening to meditate. Something i miss and must return to.
It is here i learnt the little i know about buddhism and its history and philosophies. The society teaches Theravadan, Zen and Tibetan Buddhism.
If you are curious about buddhism, then i would encourage you to visit the society at 58 ecclestion square behind victoria station.
I have spent many happy hours at the society, which is a quiet oasis in a very busy city. I haven't forgotten you Irene and hope to see you again soon.

speaking up for radio

As i get older i'm more and more pleased that i grew up in the era of the radio. I'm sure it helped with concentration and provided loads of opportunities to use your imagination and create wonderful pictures in your mind as stories unfolded.
I'm really pleased that spoken radio seems to be making a bit of a comeback, although music radio is insufficiently broad in its offerings. Far too much of it is the same old music. There are far too few opportunities to listen to different music, giving people the chance to find 'new music'. Radio 3's late junction http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/is a rare example of such an opportunity and radio 6 is not too bad.
But on balance it is still 'spoken radio' that i enjoy most. If only there was more choice. I;m not clear whether channel 4's venture into radio will include spoken radio or not.

irrepressible

http://irrepressible.info/ is the website for one of our team's major campaigns on internet repression (with the observer http://observer.guardian.co.uk/) and the complicity of hardware, software and internet search engines companies like google, yahoo and microsoft in state censorship and repression on the internet.
Have a look at the website , join the campaign and take action!
Further stuff is coming, including further work on internet repression in china as part of the beijing olympics campaign.
I have learnet so much from being involved in the campaign, websites worth visiting include http://www.amnesty.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=10112 , http://www.boingboing.net/ (which sometimes has some comment on internet freedom), http://www.opennetinitiative.org/ , http://tor.eff.org/ plus loads of others. Open Net Initiative has created a useful interactive map showing Internet censorship by country. Definitely worth a look. It's been really interesting working with a company called soda http://soda.co.uk/ in developing the website, take a look at their website.

Sarah briefly coming back to the uk

Partly because of my dad's illness and also because she is still waiting for her work permit in the US, Sarah is flying back to the uk tonight to see friends and family for three weeks. Fortunately Matt can pick her up at heathrow tomorrow, he hasn't seen her for over two years!
She and Mike are yet to tell their friends that they married in brisbane, so i'm not sure when she comes over whether she will tell them or not.
My mum and dad will be pleased to see them as i suspect dad thought he wouldn't see her again.
This sunday will see a large family gathering at our house, where Sarah will catch up with family and whilst she's here she will at least catch up with friends in the south, even if she doesn't travel north.
I'm sure it will feel a little strange for her, because for the last two plus years she and Mike have really only had each other, whether it was travelling in south america for six months or new zealand for three months, semi-following the british lions or then in australia and now california. They had the most fabulous time but they also dealt with quite dangerous and difficult circumstances.
I'm looking ofrward to welcming her home, if only for three weeks!

my dad

Dad has been in hospital for some eight weeks now, ill enough from all accounts to be unlikely to recover and he may have weeks rather than month left to live.
Both his wish and mum's is that he spend whatever time he has left at home, newly bought bed awaits him, but the biggest obstacle is geeting the hospital to agree that he's stable enough to leave!
The daily trip to the hospital is definitely telling on mum's health and it seems to me on humanitarian grounds alone that he should come out as soon as possible, but that is proving more difficult than anticipated.
The latest is that he might come home on thursday but that seems to be subject to various caveats. I hope that when thursday comes he will go home for his final weeks/months.

spring is on its way

Beautiful bright blue skies today, around 60F. Matt arrived back from snowboarding in les arcs early this morning, without injury! Spent most of the rest of the daylight hours in the garden, amongst other things planting the potatoes i'd been chitting for the past few weeks, jersey, maris bard and charlotte. Apart from watering occasionally and earthing up over the top of them there is not much more to do.
Ali says she has seen the blue tits coming out of the bird box we put up in the winter so fingers crossed, they will nest there this spring/summer. Something has been burrowing into the compost again, i don't know what. The compost has produced some excellent stuff this year, much of which has been put on the garden over the winter. Partly cos of the warmth the lawn also had its first cut!
I hope we are luckier this year with the other vegetable seeds we plant, the plot in the garden is not in the best of places and i'm negotiating with Ali, not very successfully at the moment, for part of one of her prized beds!
Roll on the clocks going forward, apparently they did in california last night, Sarah phoned and for a couple of weeks they are only seven hours behind us.

the seagull

Went to see the seagull this evening at the royal court theatre http://www.royalcourttheatre.com/. It was excellent, i especially enjoyed the second half of the play. Kristin Scott Thomas and MacKenzie Crook were particularly good but the whole cast were fine. As far as i'm aware this is the first time i've seen the play, although being aware of it for years.
The way it was played gave it a melodramatic quality, with Kristin Scott Thomas simply haming it up to get whatever she wants from her lover, son and others. She could have almost winked at the audience whilst doing so.
MacKenzie Crook, previously probably best known for the office, had that thin, bleak pale look more often portrayed by young women. Although he was supposed to have been in love, finally killing himself when the object of his affection returns and then leaves again, telling him she is still passionately in love with the man who has misused her love and returned to Kristin Scott Thomas, i wasn't convinced of that love. He gave the impression of a tortured man who was in love with his writing but not with her.
Nevertheless i enjoyed it and will look out for other Chekhov plays.

what do you know?

Back at work today to a small mountain of e mails which by the time i left were down to a negligble number.
I was pondering today on a discussion i've had with several people over the years as to whether it's possible to have a discussion, not necessarily the best informed, on almost any topic i.e. if anyone comes up with a topic i suggest that it's possible for many of us to have a discussion with someone who's well-informed on the issue.
I think you can take their leads and go off in different directions and inevitably if you both have very varied backgrounds and experience, each may well add a new angle of thinking which will make the other review and possibly revise their thinking.
Try it with friends, taking it in turn to suggest topics, ideally ones that the person suggesting them knows something about. It makes for an interesting evening.
Too often we say we know nothing about a topic when you may well find that you know more than you think!

immediate post california impressions

Home after a reasonable flight. My first post-trip impressions are - freeways, car dependency, unbelieveable bright light, blue skies and mountains, a land of extremes, superficial, home of advertising and marketing, very fat and slim people, quality in entertainment only comes in small nuggets, very cheap fattening food, quantity rather than quality.
It is easy to see that the UK is at an earlier stage of a similar line of development and i'm not sure that we are going to be able to divert from what appears to be an inevitable mimicing of the US in so many aspects of UK society.
I'm sure Sarah and Mike will enjoy their time in california but based on first impressions it wouldn't be a medium/long term home for me.
Work tomorrow - be interested to see what's been happening!

san diego and home

Had a great weekend in san diego with sarah and mike, although san diego was abit of a disappointment, i think primarily because it had been built up as being better than it turned out to be.
Enjoyable time on saturday in balboa park, in particular the photographic museum. Hotel in little italy proved a hit, as did the restaurants in that area of the city. Got about ok on trolley bus (tram) and other buses. Spent much of saturday walking around the city and on sunday drove out to coronado on the way back to LA to see the old hotel where part of 'some like it hot' was filmed. Then drove up the coast to laguna beach where we had late lunch/early evening supper as the sun was setting!
Back to the uk today with a late pm flight which will get me into London by lunchtime tomorrow.
It's been a really enjoyable trip to california and i look to my next trip! Hopefully sarah and mike will come back to the uk for 2/3 weeks in the summer.

car dependent in california

Since being here the dependency of california on the car has been drummed home. Sarah has hired a car whilst we are here, Mike takes the 'truck' to work with him.
Yesterday we tried going for a walk in chino hills state park but it was closed, not sure why!! So instead we took the car back to their apartment and went for a walk from there. It was very strange to walk on pavements up into the hills around their home. Almost no one else walking on the streets despite it being a beautiful day. However there are some bonuses from walking these included seeing a humming bird, varoius other birds including one or two birds of prey and loads of rabbits and gopher type of creature.
Today we are off to beaches to the south of LA and then tonight to San Diego for the weekend. Weather is set fine 75+ which should be good!
Having been stuck in a few traffic jams but almost no public transport alternative i can understand the probelm they have here re greenhouse gases!

joshua tree national park

Had a fabulous timeyesterday at joshua national park besides the mojave desert. The weather was bright blue skies but once you got out of the car to go walking in the park you realised there was a sharp cold wind! Hard to discern in the car with the sun warming you up.
The park is truly desert like with pale coffee coloured rocks which are smooth with cracks from the extreme heat, 110 plus in the height of summer. Very little vegetation - joshua trees, yuccas and other scrub. Apparently they have had exceptionally low rainfall this year so far, like many parts of the world as climate change bites.
We managed to see some wildlife a few birds - a scrub jay and a bunting like bird plus a white antelope squirrel and a slightly larger chipmunk like creature. We had several circular walks around the park and took some photos. The park's website is here http://www.nps.gov/jotr/index.htm
On the way back to Sarah and Mike's apartment there was the most beautiful red sunset and the weather is set to be good fornext four days or so,including our tripdown to san diego over the weekend before returning to the uk.