One thing is many [511]

Greetings from the shed...

Feb 14, 2025

I’m Christian Payne, autotelic, photographer and writer. In this weekly dispatch I seek out novelty, explore the relations between things, how we share, what we share and consume, plus where we might be going. I hope all is well in your world.

Thanks for joining in.

#TheAction

One of my birthday presents was tickets to see the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain at the Corn Exchange in Cambridge. Me and the family loved it. Both the music and the funny chitchat throughout the set.

Despite this being their 40th anniversary I’d never seen them live and don’t own any of their renditions. I really think you have to be a part of the shared experience to get the most out of what they do, but I wanted to support them a little more so grabbed a CD on the way out.

A CD sits on a player and a USB stick can be seen copying a track.

Their repertoire must be huge, as the disk is filled with things they didn’t play. Apart from one track that they introduced as a study on plagiarism. They explained that they stole it from elsewhere, then cleverly mashed up Life On Mars, My Way, Once In My Life, Born Free and two other tunes that have the same chords. A brilliant mind and string bending mash-up.

I just realised that my Teac CD player will record to USB-Stick so here is their relatively calm cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit.

1×

0:00

-4:47

Go visit their site and see if they are playing near you.

The rest of the week has seen me enjoying the van and making sure the sludge-in-tank issue has been fixed. So far so good.

#ThePictures

I finally got the Ferrania P30 film in to be developed at The Mini Lab and a couple of days later they WeTransfered the files. The negatives will come back in the post. Here are some of the shots.

A series of nine photographs taken with Ferfania P30. There's a sign post shaped like an arrow saying 'this way' in the woods, some flats lit in the evening sun (this is my favourite photo), a barking dog standing on a huge pile of wood, my daughter relaxing with an iPad, my shed, a large tree that no longer exists outside a palace, Buddha sitting peacefully outside my shed, a bramble hanging face height above and out of focus pathway, and a Canal Boat emanating smoke from a wood woodburning stove on a cold day.

Considering this film is famously contrasty and prefers to be used in bright weather, I think they came out ok.

Ferrania P30 was a favourite of Italian cinematographers for its fine grain and massive contrast and I originally thought that this was old stock. Turns out that it’s new stock being made again. The cheapest I can find it online is £16.50 a roll on eBay.

Back in 1987 I made a note in my diary that I was watching a program on ‘Central’ (a TV channel) called ‘This man is dangerous’. The hero of the show is nicknamed Stingray and drives a 1956 Corvette Stingray. I cannot find the TV show listed anywhere and YouTube insisted on showing me Jay Leno driving with Jo Biden in his classic Stingray. 0-60mph in 4.7secs.

I feel the urge to go chat to this guy. What a life.

#TheWords

Take your time over this… on the joys of deep reading with others.

This radio related post talks about some of the other things I’ve been up to this week.

#TheSound

My new/old van has a CD player that I planned to update. But after finding a pouch of CDs in the shed i’m now wondering if I should just enjoy the old car stereo for a while.

Vinyl, tape, CD, mp3, an unseen streaming service. I can easily get lost in music where ever it comes from. But i’m also one to reminisce and be thankful for the objects that have enthralled me through the years. Especially if they might take me back to places and adventures long forgotten.

The disks in the pouch appear to span the turn of the century and have been sitting around waiting for me for over twenty years. Some of them have yellowed a little but the titles I’d penned still look fresh.

They were most likely made for my Mini Cooper 35 that I drove while working as a press photographer for the Northampton Chronicle and Echo. In the pouch were The Beatles, Jim White, Hendrix, Spiritualised, Tori Amos, The Velvet Underground, Massive Attack, Lamb, Orbital, Echoboy, Magnétophone, Air, The Charlatans, Buddy Guy, Turin Breaks, Mogwai, Fatboy Slim, Cracker, Ian Brown, The Chemical Brothers and El Hombre Trajeado.

You already know how much I love physical media. The sensory experience begins the moment you hold the disc and slide it into the dashboard. Tangible and present, there is weight to it. It’s the same disc that had sat unchanged and hidden for decades. With exactly the same tracks burned into it. A copy of an album, ordered as the artist intended.

There’s also something retro-sci-fi about sliding a circular mirror into a machine. To then hear it spin up to speed and have a laser reveal the music. The object holds more story then it’s content, and as I participate in bringing the music to life, it begins to jumpstart long dormant neurons.

Right now i’ll take this in comparison to tapping a screen in order to stream something from somewhere. Who knows or cares where. Streaming can seem shallow and thin. The conjuring of the spirit of music. Sometimes random, often abstract and disconnected. The magic of it — hard to grasp.

Vinyl is of course the grandaddy with all the stories, but while out about and mobile, i’m looking forward to rediscovering these time capsules and the soundtracks of journeys past.

#TheConsumed

On the outside this looks great. And weirdly it hadn’t crossed my mind that chewing gum had plastic in. I always thought it came from a tree.

I bought it to test and with only eight pieces in the box it was bloody expensive. It’s advertised as plant based, sugar free, plastic free and biodegradable. The issue I have is the xylitol. Not that long ago, a dog died in my village after eating some sugar free gum. You only need 0.05 grams of xylitol per pound of body weight to cause poisoning in dogs. So although a single piece of gum might not kill a dog I’d hate to think a hungry dog (and they’re always hungry) might find a pack lying around.

Remember that non alcoholic live ferment I was sampling last week? They now have a website (or at least a holding page). DrinkDffrnt.com. Looks good. I’m still enjoying it and have a bottle left. I’ll be drinking it tonight out of a wine glass. Once the wine has gone :-)

#TheThings

Inside my new second hand VW van I have a diesel heater that runs from the main fuel tank. It’s exactly the same unit (but different brand) that sits in the self contained unit shown in this video.

Here is a more recent video showing continued experiments in regards to types of fuels that can be used (including eco ones) and other modifications.

If you are looking for an air quality sensor then this is a handy chart showing you specs and prices from a source that has tested lots of them.

#TheThanks

Massive thanks to the paying subscribers who continue to support this dispatch and the adventures/experiments that make it. You know who you are. ♥️

If you value these words, ideas and curation, please consider an upgrade to paid…

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Or if you prefer a random hat tip you can do that via PayPal …or Monzo …Either way… Thank you for reading, sharing, liking and supporting a human doing manual work with their brain.

#TheWeb

If you are looking to bin Google Docs for an AI-free encrypted writing app then take a look at Proton docs and CryptPad.
According to the Documentally community map next week I’ll be in the region of Ben W and Qidevrich. Is your name on your locator pin?
Ricochet is a peer to peer messaging service built on Tor’s hidden services.
After years of flakey cycle route mapping in Apple Maps, it looks like things have finally improved.
Some of my other places include Letterboxd for film logging, Discogs for my physical music collection, Strava for documenting exercise, Untappd for new beers I might sample, my audio RSS feed stores recordings, Swarm where I log the occasional place, Vivino for questionable wine reviews, LinkedIn for… not sure what that’s for, YouTube for vlogging, Mastodon for decentralised social, a ham radio newsletter or search ‘Documentally’ on Wire, Birdsite, Bluesky or Zello to stay in touch. Supporting subscribers also get access to a Discord server. 👍🏽
The worlds first piece of furniture made from fossil free steel.
Get lost in a short history of English Waymarks.
If all this quality content isn’t enough for you then this should keep you busy.

#TheEnd

Thanks for reading. I’ll not apologise for the lack of US political news. But I haven’t forgotten my friends and future friends who are out there experiencing it first hand.

I’ve been offline most the week and it’s been wonderful. Next week will be the same as I’ll be spending a few days at Gladstone’s Library. Reading, writing, thinking, being.

Till next time…