Last night was the DTI Christmas party � a much bigger crowd than usual including my new patron. I have become the chair temporarily of the auto cluster group in the region � thanks to this patronage. I bumped into Charles who is leading a massive research programme within the cluster and we had quite a long talk about his ideas on lean industrial research. The question is whether his ideas are yet well enough developed to go into a bid development phase � with some regional money. Something to think about over the turkey.

I thought maybe the smaller Leonardo project wasn�t going to get off the ground but in the last week I have got expressions of interest from Austria, Slovenia and Portugal plus some UK academics. This is an order of magnitude smaller than the other thing and I will probably have to lead it myself. The bids have to be in by the end of March and the show should get on the road in September � the European tour.

Inconveniently the timetable for several of those things is overlapping and there is a call from the UK social science research council which is relevant to the education programme which Steve and Francis are concentrating on. We think we have the evidence and we want some kind researchers to probe, collect, assess etc. I have been knocking on the doors of sociology professors up and down the land trying asking if they would like us to provide them with a research domain. Phil in Cardiff has said it looks interesting but he doesn�t have the time, but that�s a start of sorts.

My most outlandish approach was to the one at Warwick and the guy was actually on Channel 4 on Monday night talking about Science and Religion. It was pure coincidence and the programme itself was very good , having a decent crack at the dawk and his chums.

I have been reading about Ms Hynde and the drummer of the Pretenders Martin Chapman I think his name is. They have a thing going between her rhythm guitar, usually a Tele, and the centre of his beat � he is an instant behind and she is an instant ahead. People used to say the same thing about drum and bass in Fleetwood Mac.

I walked into the DTI party with Mike � and I asked him about his Tele B bender. He said he liked it so much that he had bought another one � and a G&L strat. The L is Leo Fender and these were the guitars that he built after Musicman. Apparently their true worth is not recognised in the UK and he got his for under �500. I introduced Mike to Phil, the DTI analyst with the PRS and the Mesa Boogie 40 watt.

There's a new vid - just over a minute and the track has a sequenced bass and two guitars delivered through the Digitech pedal, one with a classic Vox AC30 patch which sounds quite authentic to me. I have decided that as far as visuals are concerned one should just pursue the textures and transitions which absorb the imagination.