Iain Cameron's Diary
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2002-08-15 - 12:45 a.m.

Back to work. But the luggage turned up and I listened to Bryter Later on the train in a quite successful attempt to make the journey bearable. In fact I thought that maybe the article I needed to write was about Calypso Forms in the first five songs on BL. Maybe more of this another day � Bach wrote lots of Calypsos.

In the office the big news was that Gavin Gribbon has located a copy of the Middle Earth poster which featured Tintagel and Fairport Convention in (I think) September 1967 � in Ashley Hutchings autobiography . Maybe I mentioned that John Cole has a newspaper article about the White Unicorn / FC gig at Wimbledon 18 months later. What an awful old collector I am turning into.

There was an e-mail from Steff who was Paul Bell�s girlfriend throughout this period saying she enjoyed all the historical stuff on www.kwase-kwaza and from Chris Wallis suggesting a return match in the first week of September after which he has a gig in Somalia. The post included a letter saying that the Cabinet Office didn�t object to my new job and also a newspaper cutting on J Cage�s approach to print-making.

I sent my secretary a belated e-postcard comprising a pic of Jake plus one of my watercolours. Jake went down well as ever. I found a good article on value �added in the US Automotive Supply Chain and sent a copy to Graham as I think it confirms some of his favourite ideas. Also a few news items for the website including quite an important one about a change of stance in Mpulunga Province on anti-AIDS drugs for pregnant women.

Neither London nor my office were at their best apart from that. I tried to listen to Takemitsu and then Maxwell Davies on the way home but T was too subtle and I continued to miss the point on MD. Didn�t quite get round to the Bartok binge I am threatening. But I did listen to my January 2001 CD � one I made for a trip to Japan as a consolidation exercise. Its got a version of the extract from the 3rd movement of Webern�s Piano Variations � also an arrangement of Ravel�s famous pavanne which I still rather like.

The case having arrived I was able to give James the trophies � Penguin Special by Mary MaCarthy on Vietnam, 3 campaign maps from the Franco Prussian War of 1870 and a little Ian Allen style book about Soviet Forces circa 1981. The last item was the big hit. Maybe this stuff momentarily diverted James attention from the arrival of the A level results tomorrow. We decided that the FPW maps were done in the late 19C in Britain at a time when there weren�t any more interesting wars to write about. James explained to me the causes of the FPW and we nearly got entrenched in a long debate on the question of whether Bismark was an unprincipled leader.

I scanned in another water colour � Maybe digital mixing will become as important in art as it is in music in creating the finished product. The colour wheel is just incredible. Unpacking my suitcase even I was surprised by the balance between clothes and books, paints, instruments etc.

I put into Cubasis an idea which had emerged on the Scillies in the postFifths area using a Roland Soundcanvas � I like the extra patches in GS. This gradually took a lot more structure than I was bargaining for. I thought I was going run it at 50 bpm but currently it is going at 200bpm. Its even grown a Coda. There are some Neffertitti elements to it � but there is a definite influence from Lamont Young�s String Trio or possibly the slow one of Schoenberg�s 5 Orchestral Pieces. Does Area 51 apply? I am not sure yet.

James has got the A level results he was after - thats a relief especially for him. I could stand back and be a bit more probablistic. He must deserve something - but what?

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