I have been working in an office upstairs - normally I work in the open space downstairs at the plant. I spent most of the morning on the small engines project. There�s a company in Sweden - now part of the Electroloux group which is one of the oldest companies in the world and is a big user of small engines. It started in 1689 as a weapons plant. That�s the time when a lot of the early engineering institutions kicked off - in Prague there�s an engineering school which started in the same way. I watch some trashy detective TV on BBC1 in the evening which was about bad arms manufacturers being wicked in the house of lords.

We had a business planning meeting where the need for new sources of income was stressed - but then I found out that there�s an easy way to fund two of my new projects. A few ideas emerged about where else we might look.

Must get a haircut - it�s the family celebration of James� 21st birthday and there are bound to be photographs.

I have been thinking about watersheds - the extension of the Pennine watershed south - there�s an obvious point on the M6 about half way between the M1 and the M5 where you cross it - you can tell from the view west as you go down into the valley of the river blythe. You can follow that watershed down to the grand union canal above Warwick - then it curves back to Kenilworth and a deep valley that used to be the outflow for the lake which surrounded Kenilworth castle. Its also possible to follow the same watershed as it loops round the other way - and makes its way north again - then down the valley on the opposite side to the church at Tanworth - that is a very odd looping shape. A set of folds.

Hi Henry W - welcome to the frakblog universe.

I need to do more work on Appel�s vision - here is very well regarded - able to say who is the US�s best jazz historian in the pages of NYRB. Not saying he is right - its just that if you express such an opinion in those pages it means you are taken seriously.

On lyrics and their meaning - Laurence has suggested a paradigm case:

�Inside the museum infinity does up on trial

Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while

Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues you can tell by the way she smiles�

How do these lines provide their meaning - since they are obviously not meaningless? How much else do you have to know before you can get some meaning out of them?