A point of danger and opportunity [211]
Greetings from a treehouse...
Hello friends.
I’m back. Probably because the human urge to communicate is innate and irrepressible. It’s good to know you’re there.
I also thought you’d like a change of scene. This is the first time I’ve sent the email from here. There are only so many places I can go right now.
The shed is a bit of a tip and I feel a spring clean coming on. But when I take in the undulating tech-debris strewn around, I have no idea where to start. Ebay is an option. If I could be bothered.
What i’ll probably do is keep all the stuff I need and like to look at. Then stick the rest into boxes that will go into the attic that is rapidly looking like the final scene in Raiders of the lost ark.
But i’ve been busy doing other things.
Over the weekend my street held a ‘lockdown bingo’. The bingo caller’s PA echoed across the green. “Keep your hands clean Corvid-19”.
Each household was a good 15-20m from one another and miraculously my whole family won something. One at a time we would approach the lone table loaded with donated gifts not unlike the kind of thing you’d find on a tombola. The booze had gone so we claimed a tomato plant, bubble bath, a fancy easter egg and a kids satchel.
Meanwhile elsewhere people are dying. It can sometimes feel like a long way away.
STAY AT HOME… I have been. But I did pop out on a covert mission to procure a coax plug for my antenna. It had been left for me on a wall in Peterborough. With radio supplies from Italy drying up this was impossible to find online. I tied the journey into other essential travel but felt this was the most essential of all. Especially the following day when I spent a good 10 hours in the sun assembling, disassembling and rearranging the antennas in my garden. This would have probably only taken four hours if I wasn’t alone. I doubt it would have felt as satisfying though. Fitting the plug was the last act and now my radio station is better than ever. I’m hoping i’ll not need to tweak things for a little while.
For the rest of the week I…
Delivered supplies to vulnerable people.
Cooked my favourite foods.
Immersed myself in cassette tapes i’d never heard.
Animated the village with googly eyes.
Delivered an online workshop for the AMA.
Had a friend send me photos from my teenage years that i’d never seen.
Made my first radio contact with Finland, 1098 miles away.
Drank whisky with friends on video chat.
It’s weird seeing photos of myself from way back that i’d never seen before. I can roughly age it as I have a cut across my nose and a black band on my arm. I got the cut from teaching a mashup of Muay Thai and a French fighting art called Savate. I attended a club in Rugby Town and the black band was me showing off I had a ‘black sash’ qualifying to fight in the ring.
My instructor was originally trained in Savate which resulted in a weird long reach, high kicking style of kickboxing. If you can stomach the blood and needless violence here is a fight between one guy trained in Savate and another in Muay Thai.
The fight in the video was under kickboxing rules. Normally there would be more elbows and knees from the Muay Thai fighter and ultimately that’s what made me bleed the most.
Years later after training in Thailand I realised I was happy to know it for self defence but would avoid fighting for sport. I bled too easily. Especially at the hands of fighters taught form the moment they could walk.
I also tried Boxing, Taekwondo, Karate, Judo, Aikido, Kung Fu and To-shin Do. But only managed weeks with these compared to years of Muay Thai.
No idea if I could still fight in a ring. I still have all the gear. Even the ceremonial mongkol you wear on your head. But I only fight a punchbag now. That and my fears.
As well as listening to tapes this week I got hold of some new/old vinyl.
Click the pic or link to listen.
Thank You! To those of you that support this email. It really helps while work is thin on the ground.
If you are not a paying subscriber I’d love you to consider it. It costs less than one beer a month for all the emails and content, plus access to the archives and chat group.
If we were allowed to the pub I’d defiantly buy you at least a beer a month. There’s more info here and the button below…
Here is something else for your ears… It was full of surprises. Also some moments are NSFW.
And if you can, go for a walk in nature and listen to this podcast. If you can’t get outside, just close your eyes. It’s worth it.
One last sound worth hearing is the sound of Prince playing Radiohead’s creep.
Opening a book is such a simple act that will always reward you.
I know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. But the more I read the more realise i’ll never know.
Radio is such a vast topic I don’t think i’ll ever get a get a grip on more than a slither. I like that. My glass will always be half full and I now know why Socrates said “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”
Things have dropped through the door sporadically this week. Including postage I paid £4.80 for this precision torx screwdriver set.
I ordered it from Wish and since it’s arrival I think I’ve used it every day. It’s opened radio’s, laptops, a drone and even a phone.
There’s still a few tools on it I have no idea what they do.
Here is some stuff I found interesting on the web…
Jim Bachor has been filling potholes in the roads of Chicago with his mosaic artwork.
Over ten years ago now, physicists proposed a Schrödinger's virus experiment. All they needed to do was wait for this one. Some don’t know if they have it or not. And if you don’t have it you have to act like you do in order to protect against getting it.
Not sure how I might feel about being treated by a robot dogs with a human face. This is not the future I signed up for.
Meanwhile in the art world, an art collective cut up a Damien Hirst print and are selling the bits. I like their style.
The difficulty with counting Coronavirus death rates.
Brilliant.
If you are going out for a drive and leaving your phone at home for fear of being tracked. There is no escape. Don’t forget the prevalence of ANPR cameras. And you probably don’t want to hear this but the data they collect can end up anywhere. Especially in Sheffield.
Can you kill coronavirus with UV light?
I must thank @Sizemore for sending me this link but forget raving… i’d wear this suit as my day-to-day apparel.
Thanks for reading.
Looking at my diary I can see that next week I need to put the bin out. That’s all that’s in there.
It’s also May the 4th. A good friend in America has a birthday on that day and I’ve just realised I should have posted a card a month ago.
I hope you are doing ok. Take care of yourself and those around you. These are dark times. But without the dark we’d never see the stars.
Stay in touch.
Over…
