Rather than the flute � the guitar has been the focus of practice today � much less good for the lungs I fear. I worked on quite a few pieces � Night & Day, Cocaine Blues, Poor Boy, So What, Time of No Reply, A foggy Day and some of the solos off Plundafonix and Serious Music. I must think that I am going to do a guitar recital � heaven knows where. I am playing the Crafter into the Vamp on simple valve sound with a mild rotary effect. That�s going into 6 band graphic slightly lifted at the top and then out into the Yamaha rig that I use to monitor. Its interesting the way it spans electric and acoustic effects. I think that�s something to do with state of the battery in the Crafter.

I found a set of shelves in the garden � abandoned. Well I assume they are abandoned � why else would you leave wooden shelves out where the weather can get them. Anyway I dragged them into my cave and have put them into the hall and moved some of the piles of books onto them in slightly better order. This means that the piles in the main room are now � 1. Pelican books about art 2. Thames and Hudon books about art 3. Books that either are or are about the classics of philosophy. 4. Books about modern composers that I am working on at the moment.

I have also at last got the FX rack out of the boot of my car - I thought the vibrations can�t have been doing it any good. It is now standing on the table � not connected to anything at all � that will have to be a job for a fortnight�s time so � I am not going to be here much for the next ten days.

Apparently Jake has visited the North Sea and barked at it a lot.

I read the little introduction to continental philosophy in the pub yesterday after work � the chapter about scientism � how the agenda of philosophy should be between sceientism and obscurantism. I thought it was bang on � the thesis I didn�t finish about Aldous Huxely was in this area although oddly I did manage to get a published a very slim thing called Aspects of Scientism. It would be great to merge these two together one day.

Gilbert mailed about Slightly All the Time and I mailed back about the long piece I am working on at the moment. I did some more research last night and concluded that a) there is no question that it is valid to include Ann Arbor and Detroit as a single cultural entity in the 60s that was absolutely boiling � white panthers, avant music and performace, electronics and so many bands you can�t believe it. Meanwhile in that mix you have a bundle of jazz musicians doing sessions for Tamla Motown , John Lee Hooker and Alice Coltrane�s legacy smouldering away nicely. There are some historians of the scene who claim that this domain got to punk about ten years before the UK � and they may be right too. In the 70s it begins to change � I think the riots at the end of the 60s may have cooled things rather.

Mumma at the start of the 60s wants a radical artistic community that is rooted in the support of local institutions and he seems to get that in spades. I think the bit I need to fill in now is the strands that might bind in the emergence of the Techno geniuses at Belville High School in the early 80s with the earlier ferment. Part of Detroit�s understanding of itself is that it produces little knots of genius that change the world eg Ford and Chrysler and Derek May and Kevin Saunderson.

I mailed Robin with a few random thoughts on the cultural setting of the Troubadours � having been really blasted by her Blue Flame � and some stuff I have been looking at on the emergence of �trust� as a cultural phenomenon.

When I was on the hill with Jake I read about Hobbes � and then I came back and wrote some initial reactions � which the PC managed to chew up. Dearodear. But at least Gilbert�s CD has arrived.

Robins stuff about once or twice times writing of CDs is very surprising.