Gilbert's CD arrived - 10 short stories to use his terminology - very exciting music and varied too. From the abstract through world music to some classic acoustic guitar. I started to work on the first piece - one of the abstract ones. I started to kick around a serial riff - organ, string bass and vibraphone - having remembered how to get a CDA file into Cubase (through the Creative Juke Box having first got it to rip CDs to WAVS - you gotta keep on your toes haven't you.) I was well into it when the battery started to run out and I realised that I had left transformer in the office. Anyway that'll keep me focused on tomorrow night's gig. Are all the other transformers in the right place I wonder?

And I have to confess - I succumbed to the Danelectro U2 in Leamington - which was even cheaper than the one in Guildford and this one is in better condition. The bass is so nice on those instruments round and edgey at the same time. I also tried a rather pretty Gibson Nighthawk in midnight blue with gold humbuckers - lighter than a Les Paul. But I have to confess I couldnt really hear the difference between it and my Maya which is handsome in its own quiet way. Well certainly not �500s worth of difference.

The Wellformed Cube goes in and out of focus - sometimes it sounds really dead and lifeless - maybe I like it best as a processed WAV - although there is a final eight bar passage where its thinking of shifting into the submoninant minor which cycles nicely and which I think can be developed. The one that generates more energy is the piece based on the opening of Debussy's first Arabesque. Its a bit progressive but I am enjoying playing the Maya against it.

I managed to finish off a paper on the recruitment and skills gaps in the UK automotive industry - nothing very ambitious but it was on my list.

I caught a bit of the crtitics on Newsnight - the exhibition at the Hayward sounded good - mixing two videos on the same screen - not the two the artist set out to get but the two that he ended up with by chance. Also the slow motion Psycho. Both of these ideas felt very familar - not a critism, an endorsement. I heard some other critics on a new French book of 101 Philosphy Exercises. Made me think of the astonishing ABC simulation on the Real Time Worskshop event - an episode of strange depth. Some of the exercises sounded to me like Lamonte Young's ten compositions of 1961 - repeat a word until it loses all meaning - is that a minimalist algorithm or what? Other critics roughed up Philip Glass's Galileo - I almost felt sympathy.

The drive back from Leamington was quite realxing - weather mostly OK and not too much traffic. I listenedto Nono piecs 68 through 76. A world away now but I liked them a lot. Switching on the radio I caught the tail end of a Schnitke Ground piece and a tango - I suddenly realised how much he owed to Stravinsky. The house in Gfd is still standing but it is very cold - almost too cold to go to bed.