Doooo dah di dooooo dah

Certain musical motifs crop up again and again in music. A rather nice one (5 notes long, repeated - see if you can spot it, or just take it on trust) crops up in at least three examples of “synth” music: Tangerine Dream’s ‘Cloudburst Flight’ (from Force Majeure‘); ‘Atmosphere Part 1′ by Adelbert von Deyen (from Atmospheres); and Richard Pinhas’s ‘A Piece for Duncan’ (from Rhizosphere). Pinhas appears to have got it down on magnetic tape first (recorded 1976, released on vinyl 1977) and indeed that track hammers the riff home most insistently, but a more interesting question than “who got there first?” is “why did they all decide this pattern suited synthesiser music so well?”. Or, indeed, “are there any mince pies left?”. Yes, that is perhaps the more important question.

Update, 29th February 2008: see this follow-up post that puts Tangerine Dream back in the lead…

MPs accused of breaking their own demonstration law

Mark Thomas attempts to put Gordon Brown in prison for it. 

Any law about demonstrations that doesn’t define the word “demonstration” does indeed seem to have been hastily drafted.

Are we bothered?

“CCTV is in operation throughout Birmingham City”, warns the poster, threatening “Big Bother” for troublemakers.

At first the poster seems baffling. It seems to be comparing the use of CCTV cameras in public places to the totalitarian state warned of by George Orwell in his novel 1984, in which, you will recall, “Big Brother is watching you”.

But the key is, you might not recall that at all. Or at least, the designers of this poster campaign might not recall that, or maybe they consider it unlikely that vandals have read much Orwell. No, the assumption is that an association will be made with the television series Big Brother, which, of course (of course?) took the name of 1984’s venerated Leader, along with his desire to monitor all.

Now, the efficacy of surveillance cameras as a means of fighting crime is questioned by many sources, but you can look into that yourself by typing “cctv crime” into your favourite search engine. If you can be bothered. But for the moment, let’s just note that in Britain the public can apparently be safely assumed to be ignorant of such archaic phrases as “a Big Brother society” and therefore largely oblivious of the civil liberty issues that might be involved. After all, such issues require some thought, and watching Big Brother is less bother.

Moor strange sounds

A wander over the North side of the Web - recklessly undertaken without the guidance of Cousin Silas, whose experience of the Fortean fells might well have alerted us to the danger - led us to the obscure village of Clinkskell and the strange activities of the Blank Workshop. These include an album by Moon Wiring Club, which should provide intriguing listening judging by the video for ‘Living Furniture’.

We will investigate further, treading carefully.