Seb Palmer

After years of raging against Toryism, I’ve finally relented. If you can’t beat ‘em? Join ‘em. Around here – well, across the blighted UK – they seemingly can’t be beat. So, it’s time to bring back Aulde Albion. Let’s set sail for a better more medieval England.

In this spirit, I’ve booked tickets to see this great man. Interviewed – well, given a platform by – our heroic MP, Steve Barclay. Can’t wait!

Ok, so I’ve changed horses midstream, politically. But other traditions and habits – we are talking conservatism – persist. So, today’s T-shirt du jour is that great warrior of Truth, Donald Trump.

Whilst I’m at it, I’m rejoining the fleecy flock of Our Father, who Art in Devon. And, as attractive as The Church of England is, I’m going straight to the High Altar, of The One True Church, Catholicism. I mean, for starters, they have the best venues:

And relax… why did I fight it all so long?

Good ol’ R. Crumb. Telling it like it is.

I can’t exactly recall now how or when I first came across Ramon Montagner. But I believe it was during the Covid lockdown, when I was working my way through Stick Control for the second time.

It was around then that I first saw his awesome command of the open/closed push/pull single-handed (single stick) techniques. He also does that sweeping lateral thing I saw Tutty Moreno doing, with Joyce, many moons ago.

But what’s really blowing my gourd to smithereens is discovering his ensemble playing. As one would expect, the music is a vehicle for his playing, and that includes his more jaw-dropping stuff. But what I really dig the most, is that it’s also terrifically soulful groovy music.

It’s stuff I would choose to listen to. Not just for the chops. But for the harmonies, melodies, the other soloists, and the group interplay. I really hope they bring this musical magic to the UK!

In just one word? Magnificent.

Oh, and he’s so much my kind of guy; drumming in front of a wall of books! Rather like me in my little studio! Only with a little more technique…

A beautiful portrait of Frank Zappa, by the wonderful Robert Crumb. One great artist pays homage to another. Lovely!

In the pictures above and below, you can see how grim this bath trim had gotten. Especially right in the corner.

We inherited this ‘solution’ to sealing the area ‘twixt bath and walls/tiles from the previous owner/occupant.

It had been ok for a few years. But it stared to come away from the walls, and discolour. I took it off, cleaned it all up, repainted the wood, and reinstalled it all.

I used a sealant that was supposedly bathroom friendly, waterproof, and anti-fungal. Yet in practice it deteriorated far more quickly after my ‘maintenance’ than prior. That sucks!

So I’m going a different route (to be said American style, like ‘grout’!) this time. I’ll be using some white adhesive backed tape. I just hope it goes on easily, and doesn’t get all ‘orrid n manky!

LATER ON…

Aaaargh!!! Sometimes I hate this DIY shit. Esp’ when trying to make silk purses from sow’s ears, and with very limited skills.

For starters the walls and the bath are not in parallel alignment. This is particularly bad along the short or ‘top’ side of the bath. This doomed this job – at least in terms of neatness and simplicity – from the outset. Although I didn’t quite realise until this late stage.

This was the most annoying part. But actually the product I used has issues. In order to do the job properly, I ought to have used painters’ masking tape to mark out an alignment edge, all around the bath. Then, at least on the long edge, I might’ve used just one layer of this tape, and maybe stood a small chance of getting it in position reasonably accurately.

I tried to remove half the backing (length-wise – along the fold line), and position just one half in situ. But, whilst that had seemed like. Good idea, it didn’t work at all. In fact it made things worse.

And the tape? Once the backing is removed, it’s both so incredibly sticky, and also very stretchy, that proper alignment utterly eluded me.

Really the best thing would be to gut the bathroom entirely. Start from scratch, and get everything ship-shape, from the ground up. But this whole house is one bodge on top of another.

My only comfort, after this disappointing result, is that, shite as it is, it still looks a lot better than it did afore.

I have to confess to being something of a Trunkophile. Johnny Trunk seems to be on my wavelength. I’ve bought quite a few groovy items of apparel from him, and a fair bit of music, as well.

And his interests range much wider. For example he wrote the introduction to the beautiful Small Films book, by Four Corners. Which, interestingly enough, in terms of synchronicity, Tim Oliver, who visited today, gifted me some years back (thanks, Tim!).

The title Audio Erotica is perfect. The only reason I knock off half a star is that I’ve been spoiled rather, recently, by numerous books about music that I’ve acquired being both beautiful and big. This is more medium to small in size.

Organised as an A-Z, from Acoustic Research to Zenith, some companies – Bang & Olufson, Sony, for example – get several pages, whilst others get only single entries.

I rather like B&O’s rendering of the ol’ £ symbol (below). There’s a delicious irony, or just aptness, in that their gear is also known for being very expensive.

There’s a lot of design stuff in here that I don’t feel is worth sharing. Inc. lots of dated but delicious use of ‘dolly birds’ to flog audio gear. I’m not really showing any of that, as it’s more cheesy than compelling, to me.

Chickens, on the other hand? I love this BASF promo’, with the cockerel! Very old fashioned looking. It could be something from the 1940s!

‘I hear you’re mad about Brubeck…’ Never heard of Bogen before. But if it’s good enough for Dave?

The future? It ain’t what it used to be. I didn’t realise Braun did hi-fi. Some pretty sci-fi hi-fi, at that. And they’ve produced some fab promo’ stuff as well.

There are, dotted throughout, little gems, such as the above. And the spread below is straight out of an Austin Powers wet-dream bachelor party pad.

There are lots of familiar names. Pioneer, Sony, etc. And lots of obscure stuff, as well. And from all over: many Japanese, American, German, even quite English brands.

I love reel-to-reel machines. My dad had one (or two?). I recall a TEAC reel-to-reel. It was a four track recorder. Or was it Tascam? I wonder what became of it? Wish I had it!

The above is another of those occasional design nuggets I so love. Some, such as the above, of these remind me of Saul Bass’ work, in their bold simplicity.

One of the biggest hitters in this market, Sony smash numerous design aesthetic home runs. Strong stuff!

All told, this is just what the title suggests. I don’t know the exact time frame as yet. Just that it’s retro gear. So far – this came earlier today – I’m mostly just perusing the imagery. I have been reading snippets of the text. And it’s fascinating. But I’ve yet to have a full read through.

An excellent little book. Thank you senor Trunk and the folk at Fuel.

Hannah, the girls, and Tim came over today. They brought with them a home-made Simnal cake, which was delicious.

We had tea n’ cake, snacks n’ drinks, some Easter chocs, etc. Even a bit of non-alcoholic beer and Nozecco!

A walk along the river to the park, in the Spring sunshine was lovely. Then back home for more drinks, nibbles, and socialising. Very pleasant!

Our buddy Pat arrived in town, before we’d got back to the house (Hannah & co had arrived later than initially planned). So we met him at the park. And all walked home together.

Around 7.30 Hannah and co left. We had a lovely time with them. Family and friends. So important!

I was looking at some of the Guardian’s ‘Book of the Month’ articles yesterday, and stumbled on a number of titles I’d like to read, such as these:

On the Wikipedia page about him, he’s quoted thus: ‘there is no free will, or at least that there is much less free will than generally assumed when it really matters.’

I’ve yet to read his book. I think I will read it. But in the meantime, I’d like to put down my reaction to just a few of the basic ideas that strike me, as a reaction to purely learning of the books existence and central theses.

But first… I like a number of things about Sapolsky, including this statement: ‘… around age thirteen or so. In my adolescent years one of the defining actions in my life was breaking away from all religious belief whatsoever.’

That chimes so well with my own experience. Brought up in a very Christian (of sorts) household, I’d say that between 11-13 years of age, possibly earlier, I started to transition from occasionally wondering if all this religious stuff was just nonsense – as soon as I could think I had started to suspect as much – to seriously questioning it for myself, and finally abandoning it altogether.

Having read a couple of reviews of Determined, my immediate reaction is that the old bugbear of semantics, or definitions, might (as it so often is) be a crucial matter.

On one immediate and, I would think, blindingly obvious (to the point of redundancy), level… of course everything is determined what immediately precedes it. But there’s a grey area between the possibilities every moment creates, and actually realised eventualities, as brought about by human agency.

I can well imagine, from both intuitive perspectives, and also my limited reading in the area of cognitive science, that our consciousness is both much more limited and yet way more powerful than popularly understood.

I’m anticipating that Sapolsky and the specialist research he might cite will look at what’s going on in the brain when we believe we’re making conscious decisions. And that’s an area whereof I do not know, and therefore shall not speak!

Having said that. On the everyday lived level of human experience, I would argue that there has to be free will. It’s perhaps a bit like the way physics might tell us, if we burrow sufficiently deeply, that solids are not in fact solid, after all. On some very deeply investigated level, that may be the truth. But if you drive into a brick wall…

So it becomes, possibly – I really ought to read the book! – a question (or whole field of questions/inquiry) of what we mean by or understand as ‘free will’.

I could waffle endlessly about what I mean, in common everyday terms, about my idea of what free will is. I might choose to look at recent issues in my life, like the choice of whether or not to drink alcohol. And, as far as the term free will has any ordinary meaning to me, I’d say I’m exercising some in this respect.

Are the factors that lead me to stop determining, or merely influencing?

Another angle I might come at it from would be that ol’ chestnut about the wide range of differing responses to the same events that different folk evince. Now of course you can unpick it all – and I suspect that’s exactly what Sapolsky does – and say trauma survivor A handles it better because… whereas B succumbs because their history… etc.

But it can also surely be argued that one can learn and cultivate an ability to choose how to react to things differently. You find your natural reaction to X is causing difficulties, so you adapt. Potentially choosing to change how you react (or adopting some other strategy).

Well… I find I’m compellingly intrigued by all this, and that rather than speculate too much about it all, I’ll try and get around to reading Sapolsky’s book, and see what exactly he’s saying.

I got this book on an unexpected whim, in circumstances I relate elsewhere. At the time I was watching the Apple TV/Playtone (Hanks/Spielberg/Goetzman) Masters of The Air miniseries, which is about much the same subject.

Although this book is titled Big Week, most of the book – the first two thirds, at least – is about the American and British bombing war against Germany. Only the final third or so is actually about the titular Big Week drive.

This larger context was the Allied effort – a mirror image, really, of the initial German attempts to destroy the RAF, prior to the mooted Operation Sealion – to annihilate the Luftwaffe, as a precursor and precondition (total air supremacy) to Overlord, the Allied opening of a second/Western land war front.

I can hardly call this a spoiler alert, as we all already know the outcome! But of course whereas Hitler/Goring and Germany failed to destroy the RAF, and in turn abandoned plans to invade/subjugate Britain, the Western Allies – Britain with her Commonwealth resources (Canada, Australia, India, etc), and the mighty US of A – succeed in their goal of grinding the Luftwaffe down.

It’s interesting to read that it wasn’t just Germany – lead by a man losing touch with reality – that struggled with unwieldy command and control or conflicting goals. For Germany the switch from destroying the RAF to ‘reprisal’ raids on cities was a mistake that would cost them the war. For the Allies, they could ride out these issues, with manpower and materiel to spare.

This is a very different read to Paul Overy’s The Bombing War. I read the latter some years ago. It’s a huge brick sized door-stop of a tome. Holland’s style is more ‘popular history’; still very well researched, but more focussed on the action, and individual stories. Whereas Overy’s work is a drier more academic look at the subject.

Holland’s book is, as a result, both gripping and enjoyable to read. I was in the middle of reading another book (on the battle of Trafalgar) when I started this, and it took over completely.

We live in East Anglia, in The Fens. So many of the air bases mentioned in the book are local names/places. And, rather poignantly, we are very familiar also with The American Cemetery, at Madingley, which is mentioned here. Memorials to those killed in war are always more affecting when you’ve read of the individuals’ lives.

I won’t synopsise the contents in great detail here. Other reviewers elsewhere have already done that. I’ll just say that I really enjoyed it. Holland covers both the Allied (British and American) and German perspectives, using a great deal of firsthand accounts, making for a very vivid narrative.

He also addresses the strategic as well as the tactical day to day stuff; both sides were to some degree hamstrung by issues arising from the guarding of jealous fiefdoms, and conflicting command and control aims.

The biggest thing ultimately was that Hitler, and Goring, Luftwaffe chief and fawning acolyte of The Führer, lost touch with reality. They bit off more than they could chew. There’s an inevitability to it all. Germany simply didn’t have the resources, either manufacturing, logistical, or manpower wise, to take on Russia, England (and her Empire/Commonwealth) and the US.

One of my favourite aspects of this excellent book is not ‘The Big Week’ part, with which it ends, but how it starts; the story of how America geared up for and met the challenges of producing men and materiel with which to defeat Nazi Germany.

The development and production of the B-17 Flying Fortress and P-51 Mustang are key elements in this story. As also is the training American pilots got. The Allied philosophy – in stark contrast to the way Germany and Russia waged WWII – of metal not men, using technology to conserve lives, was (as well as being morally superior) a winning one.

If I was being hyper-critical, I might say that this book is occasionally a bit repetitive, or sometimes get’s a bit Commando Comic in its efforts to convey the action. But the truth is, I’ve loved reading it. Here, on my own blog, I can and do give a four and half star rating. But elsewhere, e.g. goodreads.com, I give it five.

An excellent book. Highly recommended.