Cycling

I rediscovered cycling in 2018, you can follow me on strava, if your life is really that empty. In 2021 I cycled more miles than I drove

Classical Music

My interests are pretty eclectic ranging from medieval music up to mid C20th century (Vaughan Williams, Elgar). I am particularly interested in Rennaissance Lute music (Dowland, Bacheler).

Old Movies

Movies from the periods when good writing, narrative cohesion and competent acting were deemed more important than how many explosions you could execute per minute or endless mind-numbing car chases. A few favourites (the correct spelling) include :

The writings of Philip K. Dick (1928 - 1982)

Very much a case of a prophet without honour in his own country. Almost unheard of in the USA until his death, Dick was immensely popular and influential in Europe, but before the film adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was practically a pauper. Dick did not live long enough to really benefit form the vast sums of money derived from mostly terrible film adaptations, the two laudable exceptions being A Scanner Darkly and Screamers (Second Variety). Dick's body of work , while quite certainly uneven, demonstrates that Science Fiction is an excellent vehicle to explore social and philosophical issues. Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away

Best examples of PKD novels are:


HiFi Audio: A means to an end

I am pretty much an objectivist here. If two amplifiers sound very different then: (1) It is a matter of Physics not some fuzzy magical property and (2) at least one of them is faulty. The same goes for two CD players. HiFi is short for High Fidelity, amps should be wire with gain and CD players should have flat frequency responses. Personally, I want to hear music the way it was recorded.