Posted some news items on www.kwase-kwaza.org - for example a good collection of �memories for 2002� put together by the South African Independent newspaper which show how hard edged the political debate is around the country�s policy (or lack of it) on the treatment of HIV � the Health Minister has the nick-names Dr Do-Little and Dr No. Also an article by Kofi Annan for the New York Times � well worth a read.

I was thinking about how my production-path has moved away from Minidisc. I have been listening to a couple of Dream pieces from September 2002 on the big 4 track Tascam MD machine � taking the opportunity to play with the global mix using the enhancer and the Behringer chorus. The issue is whether leaving the digital purity of mixing and mastering inside a single PC is outbalanced by the more intuitive feel of pulling sliders and rotating controls. Maybe some of the colour in this path is also a plus � although that is a bit of an act of faith.

I decided to pull a MD at random from the archive � the one that came out the box starts with a Reich phasing piece around a riff � but with a degree of harmonic progression as well as phasing progression � it also contains my first drone composite some of which eventually ended up on Horn under Water on Plundafonix.

One of the things that appeals to me about the MD rig is its links with the pathways Teo Macero used when producing the classic Miles tracks � when I was looking at Anti-form in one of my art catalogues the interview with him fell out that I had printed off a year ago. Its just astonishing that no one else has dug deeper on this subject. Teo has tried to explain to CBS-SONY that when the reissue the anniversary versions of the great 1st and 2nd 5tet recordings they should not just go back to the master tapes digitise them and treat them conventionally � or at least not without explaining to the world what they have done and how it compares with the original production path. I need hardly add that the fact that TM did this stuff under the mentorship of E Varese adds a little to its historical importance.

Have just listened to one of my anti-form cutups of a Schoenberg Little Piano Piece (part of the set lamont Young likes).

We all went off in the car to see Rob Wendy Laurence and Lucy Fisher who live a bit further along the A10 from Mark (I think) in a town called Melbourne. Rob is a chemist and he works for Johnson Matthey in Royston � he got his degree at Surrey University here in Guildford. Laurence is about James� age and Lucy a few months younger than Vita. Parts of their house are made from wattle and daub.

I met Rob about 25 years ago when he shared a flat with Clair Wilson and Mary Toon - an old school friend of Sarah (who we went to see yesterday). The flat was in The Chase - across the other side of Clapham Common from mine which was above the tube station near where the South Circular goes across � just up the road from where Peter Chatterton lives now. At that time Peter Giles lived in the centre of Clapham Common and I met him a few times.

Rob Claire Mary and Sarah used to come down to the White Hart in Drury Lane to hear the Steve Pheasant bebop band - which included Geoffery on bass and Nick Brown on piano. The drummer was a graphic designer called Keith Morton and sometimes Charlie Alexander would play guitar, sometimes it was Bob Brearly who studied with Peter Ind � the bassplayer who also taught John MacCartney from the Gavin Band Band

Laurence plays bass in the punk ska band Fellthru who have a track on Plundafonix. He is thinking about studying bass at the Guildford Academy of Contemporary Music. For this he needs to do a tape of scales and a groove and so I took the Vamp for him to use as a front end for the recording. To get the groove section we jammed some stuff � I was using a Casio synth with a built in drum machine � and just recorded the bass part.

Rob has Mazda MX5 � from the first year of production. The car has been imported from Japan. He let me have a go and pretty good fun it is too � I hadn�t driven it before.

Laurence is quite into decks and mixing and he played me some contemporary drum and bass � very interesting music � fast passages drop into quite abstract drone sections. We also listened to a Byrds greatest hits compilation which I thought was just extraordinary � and the latest Bowie record which seems to take itself pretty seriously.

Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves including Jake who had a fair amount of duck.

Rob and I shared a bottle of Conniston Bluebird. The plan is that he and his old friend from student days � Paul who has just broken his leg after being rammed by a snowboarder on the piste � will come over to Leamington in the MX5. Paul is even more into low fast cars and has a TVR. In normal times Rob and Paul do a lot of walking � they have not long completed the Thames Path.