Iain Cameron's Diary
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2002-05-21 - 7:10 p.m.

Boy this dinner jacket business is wierd - I am glad this happens pretty infrequently in my life. Not a comfortable way to enjoy an evening.

Mark - I suppose I still dont feel comfortable about the relationship between Cubasis Windows ME and Creative Live. One of the evidences of this is the way I cant access a virtual Roland SoundCanvas synth from Cubasis the way I can on my earlier system. But even on that I could never find all the drumkits allegedly stored away on the AWE32 - although I can find them on my external SWG (especially now I have grasped the SG interface) and on the Sound Canvas on the old machine. Things just seem to float into and out of reach as the technology "progresses". In a way it doesnt matter as there always seems to be buckets moire functionality than you know what to do with - so there is always something interesting to explore .

Sheeeeshhhh. The big event was in an enormous room in Mayfair. I was the guest of a French car manufacturer - I was actually a stand-in for Sarah who was in Japan. When the grand reorganisation befell I had to think of a name to explain my presence. I came up with something like Director of Strategic Transition which I thought was sufficiently ambiguous to justify a whole load of pranks. Anyway by a process of Chinese Whispers this had been explained to my hosts as "Special Adviser" which in the current climate has loads of cachet. This was how my host introduced me to his other guests who included journos from two quality newspapers plus Chris who is Graham's boss.

Needless to say the only way someone who is basically a post-minimalist sound and improv artist copes with such a scenario is to fuel it on in this case a notatallbad White Burgundy. After about four hours of this I found myself sitting on a train in Victoria Station approaching midnight listening to the announcer talking about delays as midnight approached. This didnt look at all viable and so I found myself somewhere quiet where I could be more horizontal for about an hour.

A kind of normality reappeared and I started to sway round the backstreets of Victoria looking for a hotel which I finally cracked about twenty minutes later. A very cheap night at �30. When I have finished this I will change out of my penguin and find an intraveinious source of a caffiene - something I need so badly I can't even spell it.

The dinner started with a speech from T Blair in which (amongst other things) he covered the 2% NI hike which has made the business community utterly livid. He was better on "there is no real alternative" than "trust me you will get value for money". There was also a lot about human capital which was useful to me.

The guy from The Guardian I was next to was a keen Europhile and had studied French and German at university. He quite liked my now quite well practiced patter on why the Germans waste their R&D. There was a lot of interest generally in The Academy and I was able to (I think) give quite a decent account while still keeping some powder dry. I also tipped Chris off about an important strategic meeting in a couple of weeks which he should be able to elbow his way into. He promised to ring Tracy first thing to get his name on the list. In fact I will e-mail that right now.

You won't believe this but I seem to have mislaid my glasses.

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