Calton Hill, Edinburgh, April 30th.

The Big Red Door was an interesting one .. the entire crowd looked like this. No exaggeration. Some cracking music though. The Banana Sessions were a super start to the night, especially their Prodigy medley. Then just about the most ridiculous band I’ve ever seen playing catchy reggae that didn’t make much sense. A singer wearing zebra-print tights, a Newcastle United t-shirt, a sailor’s hat and a superb beard. A bassist in trousers and cape. A guitarist in boxer shorts and a t-shirt three or four sizes too small. Another guitarist who looked like he’d wandered in after a few cans on the Meadows, playing an unmiced box with strings that surely nobody could hear. It was great fun and I’ve got no idea who they were. The Horndogs finished up, they play exactly what I wish I’d got myself into when I came to Edinburgh.

Was well up for Departure Lounge -- this video of the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble had me pretty excited

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ospt8g4i-9k

The Souljazz Orchestra were cracking, some really exciting afrobeat with tenor and alto saxophonists that looked just like the two men in the Jam lizards sketch and a wonderful baritone. Highly recommend them. The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble were a bit more PARTY and YEAH! and PARTY than the tunes I hoped they’d play, but I was more frustrated by all the people trying to shove past when there was nowhere to go. Rather ruined it.

Pretty mad that of the nine members of HBE, eight are brothers, they have four mothers between them and another fifteen brothers.

I’m writing this as Gordon Brown apologises for being rude and honest.

‘I’ve just been talking to Gillian, etc. etc. GHASTLY SMILE GHASTLY SMILE.’

I really hope we don’t have to put up with another four years of Brown’s fakery.

The Conjugate Gradient Method is the most prominent iterative method for solving sparse systems of linear equations. Unfortunately, many textbook treatments of the topic are written with neither illustrations nor intuition, and their victims can be found to this day babbling senselessly in the corners of dusty libraries. For this reason, a deep, geometric understanding of the method has been reserved for the elite brilliant few who have painstakingly decoded the mumblings of their forebears. Nevertheless, the Conjugate Gradient Method is a composite of simple, elegant ideas that almost anyone can understand. Of course, a reader as intelligent as yourself will learn them almost effortlessly.

Its keywords are conjugate gradient method, preconditioning, convergence analysis and agonizing pain, and it has a chapter called ‘Eigen do it if I try‘ which (brilliant and awful title aside) is the first intuitive explanation of eigenvectors I’ve read, hurrah.

As for Ronaldo, this was one of those wearisome afternoons when he played with the soul of a pickpocket, trying to get opponents sent off, eyeballing the officials, exaggerating injuries – in short, the whole everyone-is-against-me routine. At one point he spent so long portraying himself as the victim, repeatedly pulling up his shorts to show Dowd a scrape on his thigh, the referee demonstrated how little he cared by doing exactly the same with his own leg. Dowd might as well have made a W for Whatever with his fingers.

And I’m slightly cheered that though I only got 50% for my first machine learning assignment the class average was only 52%. Fifty is something of a psychological barrier .. anything less would feel a lot worse.

I wanted you to give it a whirl, in his memory.

Esbjörn Svensson Trio – Believe, Beleft, Below

Thousands of people take photos every day. What if one of them seems odd?

Do you think that person is committing a crime? They probably are, most people are terrorists. Do you think ‘what a loony’? Do you sigh at the strange habits of foreigners? Do you think, a lá train spotting, that some people have very odd habits indeed? Do you report potential terrorist activity to the police and risk ruining the life of a person on a false accusation that you would have to repeat in court? What if the person looked like this? Or this? How about this one?

From the press release:

Terrorists use chemicals. Do you know someone buying large or unusual quantities of chemicals for no obvious reason?

When I next meet a terrorist purchasing unusual quantities of chemicals I will ask, ‘Why?’ and they will reply, ‘there is no obvious reason,’ and I shall say, ‘Oh, well I guess I had better report you then,’ and the country will be safer.

Thank heavens for this publicity.

I made my Last.fm charts program available for anybody to use and it’s had a positive response, hurrah, though people are far too reluctant to give feedback. It’s good to know there’s others out there who like to investigate every inch of their music history :-)

The girl I lived next to in first year (all of two and a half years ago) decided it was time I knew that whistling along to Joni Mitchell at three in the morning probably isn’t the most social of characteristics I have, so I was like ‘why the hell didn’t you ever kick my door down and tell me to stop?’ From which the only answer I could glean was that she is far too pleasant and accommodating a person to have thought like that.

Oh and most importantly of all, searching for “flamboyant american penis” on Google now returns links here.

And finally, in the news from the Middle East today:

An Iranian court has ordered a man to give his wife the 124,000 roses that he promised in her dowry, after she filed a complaint to claim it, reports say.

The woman said she was claiming the dowry because her “very stingy husband” would not even pay for a cup of coffee, according to the E’temad newspaper.

The court has seized the man’s flat until he produces all of the roses.

As you do, as you do.

Tape Loop, keeps on turning round, forever.

Hey, I reappeared, with everything intact.

Life went by, I spent a silly amount of time in Appleton Tower’s labs, and my musical life became electronica oriented – Amon Tobin, Venetian Snares, Pitch Black. I discovered the Amen Break and its extraordinary implications for the music we know. Electronica and piano. Brad Mehldau, Keith Jarrett, Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans could have my soul any day.

I was told by a child that ‘I’d like to go to Jamaica because I really want to kill some zombies’, and suddenly I’d rather like to visit this Jamaica that only exists in the world he inhabits.

Mogwai Fear Satan became my example definition of the sheer incredible nature of life. I’m surprised there’s not some kind of prose written along to it; starting from small groundings we get higher and higher and higher and higher until eventually we peak in minutes of glorious noise and from there it’s gentle fade out to the eventuality of death.

Didn’t I stop writing here because I was going to use LastFM’s journals?

Oh, and I discovered that googling ‘flamboyant american penis‘ returns zero results. :-(

New flat is coming along, I need lots of posters to fill the walls – I only have five at the moment and three are the same :\ We have hot water, so we can shower, and sharp knives, so I don’t have to use a junior hacksaw to chop chicken breasts into small pieces. And internet, so I can post this, scrobble and restart downloading from eMusic. Though it’s still a flat, not a home.

And finally: In the news today.

“Very unfortunately Mrs Coles was locked into our public toilets overnight which was extremely unfortunate.
“We’re very sorry that this happened.”

But just a bunch of flowers in apology?