Steve Messer

The Isolation

Weeknotes S07E09

Again, these are personal weeknotes. I know most of you come here for the work tidbits, so sorry about that.

  • Being locked up for 3 days was quite hard, so by Saturday (7th) I really wanted to get out of the house. The problem was that coincided with my body’s excessive mucus production, making it hard to hide the fact I was ill in public. By chance, I happened to find the perfect cover: spicy phở. Everyone sniffs and coughs when eating hot, spicy soup. (Does you good too.)
  • Wandered down alongside the Thames. I love it there and used to walk it a lot when I lived close to St Nicholas church in Deptford. Never often made it past the Cutty Sark pub, though, and I’ve been missing out.
  • The highlight was Richard Wilson’s A Slice of Reality, especially eerie because a radio was playing inside the ship, though I could have sworn that no one was aboard. It reminded me of passages in Doggerland, the book I was reading a few weeks ago.
  • Not fancying reading more of Lean UX on a Sunday, I hunted out a podcast about naval history but couldn’t find anything to suit. So instead I tried to find one about Greenwich’s naval history. There was a 30-minute show on BBC Sounds but nothing else. It mentioned Samuel Pepys though, and I remembered I hadn’t read his diary yet.
  • Anyway, I’m now 330-odd chapters through the audiobook. I’m still quite surprised that his diary is where I ended up after seeking out a podcast about Britain’s adventures on the sea, but low and behold he’s actually on a ship now. So maybe it was the right thing.
  • Mad to think that there wasn’t really a ruling monarch in 1660. Looking forward to hearing how he deals with the plague too, as people have already made comparisons between that and our own epidemic.
  • My new speakers arrived on Friday (6th) and I’ve been enjoying them an awful lot. Much more fidelty, the frequencies are treated properly, and there’s elements to songs I hadn’t picked up on before.
  • Monday evening (9th) served up a treat: Ashley Henry live-scored scenes from space at the Royal Observatory. They called it ‘space jams’. It was a new experience for me and I enjoyed it a lot, though at times the visuals weren’t quantised with the music. Maybe it’d work better if the music were properly arranged rather than improvised.
  • I booked tickets for Livity Sound at Mick’s Garage but it’ll probably get cancelled…which is a shame as Peverelist B2B Pinch is just 😙👌
  • Went to see Moses Boyd at Electric Brixton on Thursday (12th), and I dunno if I’ve ever seen a drummer lead a band like that. Also, I don’t know if it’s fair to call him a jazz musician, feels like it boxes him in too much. Yes, it’s inspired by jazz but he plays with influences from electronic music so much. The lighting was rad too.
  • Fell into an internet hole looking at the history of civil defence in the UK. It’s quite amazing.

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