One of the locations that the BBC used when they made a kids TV version of C S Lewis Voyage of the Dawntreader was the Scilly Isles - especially the ininhabited isles. Thats some context. There is a terminal to hire here - in the tourist information - which is in a small early 19 century Methodist chapel.

The South West is a cradle of creativity in British culture. The person who was GP in the Scillies in the 1930s and 40s is quite a famous abstract artist. The area on the mainland west of the line from St Ives to Penzance - West Penwith has its own atmosphere which attracts artists and writers. Newlyn was an artistic community from the last third of the nineteenth century - a mix of social realism and Celtic romanticism.

I have brought with me one of my old notebooks - at various times I store material in a notebook. I was thinking that I might go through it looking at things which I wanted to develop. The first items are about a poem which I set - one by Ted Hughes about Cleopatra. When I was here in the Scillies two or three years ago we saw a production of Anthony and Cleopatra in the vicarage garden - a proffessional company which travels around. I concluded that A&C were terribly rock-n-roll like fading stars.

Of couse you have to mess around with the poem a bit. The first verse (mine) is:

The bright morroirI braved

The Devil in it loved me like my soul, my soul

Now I seek myself in a serpent

My smile is fatal

This is TH putting himself into the mind of a powerfully beautiful woman who is running out of road. 2nd verse:

Nile moving in me

Thighs splaying in the brooding squally sea

Brain retreats into Abyssina

Where lost armies founder

The music is influenced by some "process" ideas - rhythmic motifs on different time cycles - say two sevens and a two, three fives and a one.

Somehow this falls out into two distinct sections one in a fast triple time syncopation - the other much squarer on the beat. Each verse is half and half.

Paul mentioned that Cathy might be up to do some more songs and this is one that's on the list. Maybe I can write some more challenge into it. The working title is "Bipole".

The Short Intro to Theology is gloriously schematic. There are Five models in understanding 20C theo. One is the fundamentalist one where you assume the truth of the Bible and interpret everything else through that. Five is where you assume the truth of some other system eg natural sciences, anthropology and interpret religion through that. Two is a slightly more liberal take on one and ditto four for five. Three is much more pomo. the author is able to place the famous names like Barth Bultman Tillich on this scale. In type two, existentialism has been a popular two and in type three a concentration on symbolism and metaphor have loomed large. I seem to be in type three as far as I can judge.

I have brought the piccolo with me. I want to concentrate on efficient rhythmic articulation.