I have just listened to the mp3 which Mark posted - what an amazing piece of software - especially for people like me who really can't sing. I gave up writing songs about eighteen months ago because I had such a backlog of unsung ones. I can imagine that the software might be developed to sound more "natural" but even in its current state it has a lot of expressive potential, I think.

Yesterday I bought a book on the Mythology of Britain by Geoffery Ashe. He claims to be a devotee of R Graves and to be following the approach which Graves uses in the Greek Myths. I read quite a bit by Ashe some decades ago - he published various books arguing for the historical reality of King Arthur particularly in respect certain locations such as Cadbury. He also has a thing about certain areas of the former Soviet Union such as the Altai Mountains as the source of some widespread ideas such as the priveliged status of the number seven.

In this book he starts by looking at the old myth that the first inhabitants of Britain were giants - with names like Gog and Magog. These two or maybe a single person combining the names feature as stautues in the City of London and as hills outside Cambridge. Albion also comes from a giant name although Albany is an early name for Scotland. He concludes that people needed to explain to themselves how the megaliths got built and giants seemed to be the best agents. There is also a myth that Stonehenge was built by Merlin.

Like many before he is pretty interested in the link between mazes and Troy-Crete. He thinks that there really is a seven looped maze on Glastonbury Tor for example. This sign also occurs on a stone in a sheltered valley in Tintagel - which is the place where the ashes of the organist Graham Bond are scattered (not a fact mentioned by Ashe). Bond came to Cambridge a few weeks after ND played the May Ball and I spent a morning jamming with him - but this is not a contact I dwell on much. I was kind of surprised when I read where his remains ended up that I knew the spot so clearly.

Bond's classic band which brought Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker together with the saxplayer Dick Heckstall Smith has quite a connection with Cambridge - where Heckstall Smith studied in the 1950s. I must read the HS autobiography.

Talking of sheltered valleys - I haven't mentioned that Jake and I went upstream of the Wey from Guildford on Saturday. Maybe I mentioned that I have been reading Camden's account of Surrey which was written in the latter part of the 16th century. (I also have a copy of the Doomsday book for Surrey).

I am starting to see the Wey valley as a set of terraces which have been progressively eroded away. Its easy to see the Thames valley especially in London in these terms and quite a lot of work has been done on this theory. I used to have a flat on Herne Hill which looked across the valley - you could see Hampstead from the living room for example. I had moved there from Clapham Common - which is one of the terrace levels.

Just South of Guilford there is a very flat area which looks a lot like the area of South of the North Yorks Moors which was once the floor of a glacial meltwater lake. South of that the Wey valley is defined by higher land which is a higher plane with steep sides - for example around Charterhouse and also Munstead on the other side and Blackheath a bit further to the East. The telltale sign is that these planes are all approximately the same altitude and all have steep almost cliff-like sides. When the Wey flows East West into Godalming it flows something which looks like a relatively narrow valley eaten of the higher plane.

Another feature of this landscape are narrow valleys eaten out of the plane by springs as they work themselves down to the lower level. One of these valleys is mentioned by Camden and it contains Catteshall Manor - possibly named after wild cats or after a peron named after wild cats.

At the immediate point of entry to the valley are the remnants of some engineering works - which are about to be redeveloped of course. There is a powerful millrace using the Wey but I imagine the smaller stream which runs down the Catteshall valley was also used. Because Godalming is in a valley surrounded by remnants of the higher level ground there are several such valleys and you can still see the remnants of the industry that they brought to use the water power of the streams in them. In fact Godalming was the first town in the UK to have electric street lighting and I am pretty sure this used water power.

Jake and I walked up the Catteshall valley which is very secluded - a bit like a chine. The Manor is halfway up the valley and the stream which cut it has been utilised as a lake. The Manor is built of the local Bargate stome which is not unlike the brownstone you get in New York. The current house is 19C and seems to be part of some kind of educational establishment - which doesnt invite you to go into the grounds. The valley had its own very distinct atmosphere.

Following that we walked along the track which takes one side of the larger Valley the Wey occupies and at one point there was good view North towards Guildford which sits in a gap in the large chalk ridge which forms the North Downs. Certain of the buildings were visible on the skyline framed by the ridge - particulatly the castle and Holy Trinity church. I have been looking for a similar view of the town from the North looking upstream along the Wey but I havent been able to find it yet. From the West there is a good view from the hill behind my house near the Saxon coppiced wood but I ams still working on the view from the East.

Yesterday there was an allday seminar at work. One neighbouring part of the group in which I work was explaining to colleagues how far it had got with the grand revamp of support for business which Mrs Hewitt is insisting on. This group has been working in comparative isolation without (in our view) holding enough consultation with the people who understand the existing regime. Needless to say we politely gave them the benefit of our extensive experience on these issues. These grand consolidations happen about once a decade and the TV advertising I mentioned yesterday was part of the last attempt to do this.

Part of the problem at the moment is that Ministers have at different stages set in motion different support schemes or agencies - the Manufacturing Advisory Service, the Small Business Service and Regional Development Agencies. Then they don't like it when the customers are confused by the proliferation agencies. Needless to say this proliferation has to be the fault of officials. About two years ago I annoyed S Byers rather badly by refusing to set up yet another scheme because in my view we already had enough decent schemes in my own area. Of course now my stance looks like devasting good sense.