The World of Tomorrow - Today!

 We saw the International Space Station passing overhead last night completely by accident!! We were locking up to go to bed at around 2305 when I decided I wanted to stand on the bridge for a lungful of night air and honeysuckle scent. I stood out there, looked up and noticed it was a clear night so looked at the stars. I noticed a very bright light heading over from just to the right of our shed but thought it was a plane. The Husband then joined me, I said it was a clear night and, pointing to a slightly reddish star was asking him if he thought that was Mars and blathering on about how extraordinary it was that, even though it was so far away, you could still see that it's a very faint orange colour. He looked up and said, "What's that? That's not a plane...." I looked again and noticed that the light wasn't flashing (planes have a light on each wing tip, one red one green, that flash), plus the colour of the light was different. It was just....different. It was incredibly bright, brighter than any plane or star and definitely not a meteorite. We watched it pass over and head towards Godalming where it just faded out. Took about 30 seconds to pass over. The Husband suggested it might have been a satellite or possibly the shuttle heading back from its Hubble mission. I rather hoped it was a UFO.

This morning we got up and found this website - www.heavens-above.com - where if you plug in your longitude and latitude co-ordinates (you can get these off Google Earth) you can get predictions on when various manmade celestial objects will be passing overhead. The Husband did this and found that, at 2307 last night, the International Space Station was due to head over us and just by sheer luck we managed to be there to see it. But, even better, it's due to pass over us again tonight at 2157 & 33 secs and apparently is going to be even brighter than last night's! Fingers crossed for a clear night sky, eh?

Pondering the ISS got me thinking about how we are actually living in the future but don't really realise it. Although eight years late, and not really quite there yet, Stanley Kubrick's vision of people living on a space station in 2001 - which looked impossibly futuristic, yet also completely plausible back in 1968 - is truly with us.

We have lived to see this in our time. That bright point of light that travelled across the heavens last night is currently home to three humans, from Russia, America and Japan. 64 years ago no-one would have believed those three nations would have representatives sitting in a tin can, far above the world, as they'd only just finished bombing the shit out of each other. It was fantastical, impossible, a science-fiction dream. Yet, today, we don't give it another thought.

The Hubble Telescope is currently being fixed - five spacewalks have occurred over the last 11 days by crew from the space shuttle. There are people floating around, only attached to the shuttle by a mechanical arm, solving everyday ordinary engineering problems, IN SPACE!

The Hubble Telescope is an extraordinary thing, it enables us to time travel by looking into the past. It sends us pictures like this:

This is the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, and is the deepest portrait of the visible universe ever achieved by humankind. It reveals the first galaxies to emerge from shortly after the big bang when the first stars reheated the cold, dark universe. This galaxy-studded view represents a "deep" core sample of the universe, cutting across billions of light years. It shows galaxies of various ages, sizes, shapes, and colours. The smallest, reddest galaxies, about 100, may be among the most distant known, existing when the universe was just 800 million years old. The nearest galaxies - the larger, brighter, well-defined spirals and ellipticals - thrived 1 billion years ago, when the cosmos was 13 billion years old. And we're looking at them. Right now. Doesn't that just do your head in? It should, but I'm afraid far too many people are more concerned with the state of Katie and Peter's marriage than looking at the beginning of time.

In 1968, communication devices where you could actually see the person you were talking to were astonishing, unbelievable - now we use them everyday via webcams and mobile phones without giving them a second thought.


And what about digital cameras? - no more need for bulky films, instant pictures! It's the future!

And MP3 players - I got an iPod like everyone else and not just for convenience. I think this was the first gizmo to make me realise I was living in the future. I don't pretend to understand how a small thin metal box can store thousands and thousands of hours of music, but it reminded me of how the music of the Krells was stored in 'Forbidden Planet', it was science-fictiony and, damn, I wanted one.

We take all this stuff for granted. Because it's here, now, and we use it all the time, familiarity has definitely bred contempt. We've forgotten how far we've come in the last 100 years. One day I will ask The Husband's father what has impressed him the most about the last century - he was born in 1914 when there were few cars, little electricity and a handful of planes. He's seen it all - both World Wars, the atomic bomb, space travel. He himself uses the internet.

But I can't help wondering will I - by the time I get to his age - have got my flying car yet?





(Retropolis pictures from here - the future that never was)

The cabs are on eBay

I've decided to put the cabs I made in yesterday's tutorial up for sale on eBay with a starting sum of £2.50 (plus £1 p&p), so if anyone wants to buy them, you can see them here.

How to fuse Dichroic Glass

Okay, pipe down at the back there. Now, in the past, I've turned a blind eye to the deafening wall of silence from you all regarding my jewellery. I can no longer ignore the clamouring chorus of absolutely no-one saying, "But, Mrs Jones, we luuurrrvve your stuff - tell us please how to make cabochons of dichroic glass - PPPPLLLLLEEEEEEAAAAAASSSSSEEEEE???". You've worn me down, truly, so I've decided to acquiesce to your demands and provide a tutorial on how to fuse dichroic glass. With pictures and everything. I realise I'm giving away the 'secrets' (not really, anyone can find out via Google) of my trade and that you'll all rush out and make nicer cabs than me and sell them all for a fortune. But I've not posted for a little while and this'll do.

So, first of all, you'll need a kiln. Hah - that'll stop many of you from stealing my business RIGHT THERE. But for those of you still interested, there are a lot of different kinds of kiln on the market, from great big ones that you can also use for pottery (and which generally cost four figures) down to the so-called 'hobbyist' ones which are much more affordable. You can even get ones that fit in a microwave oven these days and cost under 100 quid. I myself use a Paragon SC2 kiln which was bought for me as a Christmas present a few years ago by The Lovely Husband. It's still pretty expensive but if you shop around you might find a secondhand one on eBay. Please note the small fire extinguisher in the bottom right hand corner. Always good to have one handy, just in case, you know?

Next - glass. I get all my supplies from two places - Warm Glass UK and Creative Glass Guild. In fact you can get everything you need to make glass from these two companies. The important thing to remember about fusing glass is that the two (or more) pieces you want to fuse have to have the same 'Coefficient of Expansion', or COE for short. This is a bit technical but basically is to do with how quickly glass expands when heated. Some glass does it at a different rate to other glass. If you try to fuse two pieces of glass with different COEs then they can suffer thermal shock and shatter. However it's all made very easy by the glass being labelled with a COE number, so you just ensure you use only glass with the same number - simple. I use COE90 glass.

Dichroic Glass - I'll just post the Wikipedia entry here for you: "Multiple ultra-thin layers of different metal oxides (gold, silver, titanium, chromium, aluminium, zirconium, magnesium, silicon) are vaporised by an electron beam in a vacuum chamber. The vapour then condenses on the surface of the glass in the form of a crystal structure. This is sometimes followed by a protective layer of quartz crystal. The finished glass can have as many as 30 to 50 layers of these materials yet the thickness of the total coating is approximately 30 to 35 millionths of an inch (about 760 to 890 nm). The coating that is created is very similar to a gemstone and, by careful control of thickness, different colours are obtained." It was also said to have been invented by NASA for use in the gold-coloured visors of astronauts' helmets, which is a neat selling point when talking to customers. Dichroic glass has the unique property of showing different colours depending on whether the light is reflected or refracted. Think oil on water, bubbles, butterfly and beetle wings. In one light it's gold, turn it slightly and it's green. Or purple. Or pink. You can get sheets of dichroic glass in all one colour, or with a rainbow mixture, or with patterns or textures, on a black background or clear. It is, however, expensive to buy, so I only buy small 10cm x 10cm sheets as a rule.

Tools - You don't really need that many tools. I use a self-sealing cutting board, red plastic running pliers, a metal ruler and an oil-filled glass cutter. I've found through trial and error that the oil-filled cutters are the best. It's also recommended that you get some eye protection - those plastic goggle things will do but I wear glasses anyway so don't bother. You'll also need to do something with the inevitable little flakes and splinters of glass. I actually just sweep them with a paintbrush into an old plastic coleslaw pot after every cutting, otherwise they get stuck into the edges of the palms of your hands, which is NOT GOOD. I also have some grozing pliers which you use for nibbling edges but we won't be needing them for this tutorial. You'll also need some glue which we'll discuss later.

Right - let's get started, shall we?

We're going to make bog-standard, smallish round cabochons from one colour of dichroic glass with a clear layer on top.

1. Onto your cutting mat, put the glass you want to cut. In this instance I'm using a glass that will end up sparkly purple at the end.

2. I've lined the long edge of the glass up with the 3-8 black line on the cutting board - this will help keep everything straight. I've decided to cut the glass two squares deep (according to the cutting board, you can, of course, cut it to whatever size you damn well like). Lay the metal ruler along the line you want to score along.

3. The oil filled glass cutter has a little wheel at the tip - see? Leaning firmly and with even pressure on the metal ruler, run the little wheel on the cutter along the edge of the ruler. The 'rules' say you're meant to cut away from the body but, hey, we don't need no stinkin' rules here, amigos! I naturally find it easier to cut towards me and have never had any problems, but try it both ways to see what suits. These pictures are a little alarming because it seems I have somehow got my mother's hands at the end of my arms (except she has better nails than me), which I don't recall happening...

You need to press hard enough with the cutter so that you hear a noise a little like ripping silk. It's hard to describe but very distinctive. This indicates that the glass has been successfully scored.

You can see where the oil from the cutter has left a little line on the glass.


4. You can, if you like, now turn the glass over and tap along the back of the score line and hope the glass will break, but I prefer to use the plastic running pliers. It's best to get a pair that have a white line marked on one side. This is because you line up the white line with the oil line on the piece of glass and, very gently, squeeze the handles together. The glass will split (hopefully) along the line.

5. You now have a thinner strip of dichroic glass. This now needs to be cut into smaller pieces that you're going to fuse. So you do the same thing again - take the metal ruler and use the oil-filled glass cutter to score along the lines that you're going to use the plastic running pliers to break. Again, these pieces are roughly two squares of the cutting mat in size.

6. You now have a batch of small evenly sized (hopefully) pieces of dichroic glass to form the base layer. You will now need to give each piece a bit of a clean. As you can see from the picture, there is a distinctive thumbprint on the piece just above the one that has the flash flare on it (you might have to click on the picture to make it bigger to see this). This needs to be removed - fingerprints will show up in the finished piece if you don't and you'll be cross, so clean it now and all will be well. I actually just use a piece of kitchen paper. Be careful - the pieces may be small but the edges are still cut glass and therefore sharp.

7. That's the base layer dealt with. You now need to make the top clear layer. Basically, you just repeat everything above but with a sheet of clear glass. I use 1mm thick clear glass but you can also get 2mm and 3mm thicknesses. You can also get tinted clear glass which will alter the colour of the dichroic underneath it, but that's for experimenting with later. For this tutorial we'll just focus on your bog-standard clear glass top layer. You'll need to cut the little glass squares a bit bigger than the base layer. If the base layer thickness is 1mm, then you need to have at least 1mm overhang on the top layer on all sides to ensure proper coverage all round. However you can get interesting effects if you make the top layer a bit smaller as the base layer comes up around the edges of the top instead of the other way round (if you see what I mean, which you probably don't until you have a go yourself). I did take a load of pictures of scoring and cutting the clear glass but, basically, they're the same as the ones above and I'm sure you're all intelligent enough to understand that concept, so I'll just post the one here where I'm breaking the glass.

Let me introduce you here to the fabulousness that is the Las Vegas Tin Tray. I bought this in, well, Vegas actually, back in 1996 when The Husband and I got married and I never really knew what to do with it until I discovered it was the perfect size for transporting my little piles of glued glass down from my workshop to the garage where the kiln is located, and I use it all the time now. If you can see, amongst the gaudiness, I've put the nine little squares of dichroic glass onto the tray.

8. Onto each of the base layer squares, put a drop of glue. I use Glastac but there are other kinds you can use such as Elmer's Fusing Glue which is white and thicker than Glastac but both burn away in the kiln. You can, of course, use nothing at all and just balance the glass but that can be precarious, especially when you have several layers. Glue each layer separately for peace of mind and lack of swearing.









9. Onto this you then pop a square of clear glass. The glue holds the two pieces together making it easier for you to move the finished piles around without them toppling over.





10. Now you leave it all to dry for a bit. You can cut more glass in the meantime or leave it overnight, or do what I did for this blog which is to go and take photographs of honeysuckle clambering over my bridge









and Sylvester













11. You now need to fire these babies. The inside of the Paragon SC2 kiln is not really terribly large. The white walls inside are very thick because that's where the heating element sits. The black dot thing on the back wall is the thermocoupling device (basically the thermometer/ thermostat thing that tells you how hot the inside space is) and you musn't put anything up against it. The little tubular column things are stands that you can get from kiln suppliers. Like the average kitchen cooker, a kiln has temperature variation within the space. In my kiln's case, it's hotter in the middle and nearer the back wall. Also the outside ambient temperature (i.e., if it's winter or summer) can also affect firing - you may have guessed there's a lot you can't actually control when firing glass, which makes it all rather exciting and mysterious.

12. I have some little kiln shelves that are designed to fit into my particular kiln. Whatever you do, DON'T put the glass directly on to the shelf and fire it because it will fuse to the shelf and you won't be able to get it off. There has to be some kind of protection between the shelf and the glass. This is the same as in firing ceramics and, traditionally, something called 'kiln/batt wash' or 'shelf primer' is used (in fact you would still use this if you were using moulds to heat slump glass sheets into to make bowls, etc., but we're not doing that here). But I use Bullseye Thinfire Shelf Paper instead. This is, as the name suggests, paper that you can get pre-cut to fit Paragon shelves or a bigger roll (which is cheaper) that you cut to fit yourself. I put a piece of the kiln paper onto the shelf and then put the piles of glass onto that. Normally I would cover the entire shelf with cabs to be fired but I'm just doing a few for this blog. If you click on the picture you may be able to make out the letter 'S' that I've written onto the paper in pencil. This is because the paper is fractionally smoother on one side than the other, and I want the smoother side against what will become the back of the cab, for a smoother finish (can I stop saying 'smoother' now? It's a weird word to keep looking at...) You can also only use each piece once.

13. Firing - this is the seriously technical bit and where the most experimentation will come in. Basically you have to get the glass to a temperature where it starts to melt and hold it there (known as 'soaking' so that everything heats up to the same temperature), before cooling it down. But you can't heat it up or cool it down too quickly or else Bad Things Happen, like shattering and bubbles. You'll really need to consult the instruction booklet for your particular kiln for this. The beauty of the Paragon SC2 kiln is that, once you've discovered the settings that work for you and produce the effect you want, you can preprogramme 4 different programmes into it so you can use them in future. My full fuse programme is saved as programme 2 (programme 1 on my kiln does what's known as a 'tack fuse' where the glass remains 'lumpy' rather than smooth, and I have programme 3 for firing precious metal clay). I was describing the process recently to a friend and she understood it through the analogy of making toffee - it seems you have to anneal both glass and toffee in order for it to form properly. I understand 'annealing' to mean cooling slowly to relieve internal stresses after forming, i.e., less likely to shatter.

My programme for a full fuse in a Paragon SC2 kiln is this:

rA1 550 (this means the speed at which the temperature rises - 'ramps' per degree centigrade per hour - in this case, a rate of 550 degrees per hour)
oC1 540 (this means I want it to stop when the temp reaches 540 degrees centigrade at the rate of 550 degrees cent. per hour, i.e., it will take just under an hour to get there)
HLd1 0.00 (this means I want it to hold/soak at that temperature for 0 time at all)
rA2 Full (this means that I then want the kiln to ramp up the temperature as fast as it will go...)
oC2 850 (...until it reaches a temperature of 850 degrees centigrade which is when the glass will start to melt)
HLd2 20 (then I want the kiln to hold/soak it at 850 deg C for 20 minutes)
rA3 Full (I then want the kiln to cool down as fast as it can...)
oC3 516 (...to a temperature of 516 deg C...)
HLd3 15 (...and hold it at that temperature for 15 minutes - this is the annealing section)
END (then the kiln switches off)

You can fiddle around and adjust all the ramp speeds, the temperatures and the holding times until you get something you like. This can either be deeply frustrating or excitingly experimental.

The whole firing process for my particular programme 2 takes 2 hours 11 minutes from switching the kiln on to when it automatically switches itself off again. Choosing different temperatures, ramping speeds and holding times will affect the length of the programme, but this one works well for me.

Obviously it takes a while after that for the shelves to cool enough for you to take them out and I would suggest leaving the kiln door shut until the red LED temperature readout gets to about 300-350 degree C and then you can open the door a bit to let the inside cool down quicker.

The 'red' picture above was taken through the window of the kiln while it was doing the second hold at 850 degrees, and you can see the edges are started to soften and round. Interestingly, glass wants to be a quarter of an inch thick and round so you don't need to shape the cabs at all, they automatically make themselves round.

14. Final product - and this is what you end up with. Neat, round cabochons that you can then do what you like with. A good option is to stick them to sterling silver earring flat pads/stud bases with a good clear 2-part epoxy resin to make a pair of stud earrings. You can get a reasonable idea of the colour change from this picture - there's a mix of dark blue, purple and pink in these particular cabochons. A final word, the shelf paper has to be washed off the back of the cabs but pick them off and wash them individually and put the rest of the used kiln shelf paper in the bin. DO NOT INHALE THE DUST as it is very irritating to the lungs and will make you cough like a bastard. Wear a mask if you can be bothered or do what I do and hold your breath while brushing off the shelf. DO NOT WASH DOWN THE SINK OTHER THAN THE LITTLE BITS OFF THE BACK OF THE CABS - it's weird stuff and will clog up the pipes.

Well, that's it, it's taken me all day to write this so don't say I never do anything for you people. I'm happy to answer any questions now, class....

Baa, baa..........

Today has been a very exciting day at Jones Towers. A few months ago, over at PurpleCoo, a place I frequent, I made the acquaintance of the lovely Carolyn who happened to mention in passing that she was setting up a new shop in Midhurst in West Sussex, a really rather smart market town renowned for the polo at Cowdray Park, as well as being close to Goodwood Race Course and the unutterably fabulous Weald and Downland Open Air Museum at nearby Singleton.

The shop was mainly going to focus on all things wool-related - knitting classes/workshops, the selling of wool, sheepskins, rugs, throws, that sort of thing - but she had decided to expand it to also stock examples of items made by local craftspeople. I plucked up the courage to wave my hand from the back of the classroom and suggest that if she was looking for unique handcrafted jewellery, I would be able to provide some, plus I'm pretty local (I live about 3o mins drive from Midhurst). Jewellers, however, are ten-a-penny, common-as-muck, can't-move-for-'em-round-our-way and so I was fully expecting to be told that she'd already got someone in mind, thanks all the same. But no, the gods were smiling on me and Carolyn said she'd like to see some of my work. I also suggested she might be interested in seeing examples of my mother's decoupaged items as they're always tremendously popular at all the craft fairs we do. So a few weeks ago it was decided that Carolyn would pop along to my mum's house in Haslemere and we would get our stuff out (as it were!).

Rather excitingly, Carolyn agreed to take both my jewellery and mum's decoupaged pots and bits and pieces, and that we should bring them along on 6 May (the shop's due to open on 16 May). So that's where we went this morning.

I'm not terribly familiar with Midhurst as it's a place I've only ever driven through on the way to Chichester but I've always thought it terribly pretty and quaint, with its castle ruins and black and white buildings.


The shop is located at 8 West Street and is called 'Black Sheep' (as in "...have you any wool?"). The street is quite picturesque with an old pub opposite and beamed buildings down the end.


The shop is double-fronted with double doors in the middle so I imagine will be very light and airy once the blinds are up (it's obviously all closed to public view at the moment). It's spacious and modern inside with wooden floors, stylish shelving and spot lighting. The shelves on the left as you go in are going to be full of gorgeously coloured and textured balls of wool, and there are some fabby ceramics sitting on the top (you can click on all the pictures to make them bigger).



Rolled up on the floor currently (until they find their 'proper' home) are some salivatingly desirable thick woollen wallhangings/rugs which, unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of but there were two already hanging on the back wall so you can see just how yummy they are. I was particularly taken with the blue and orange one, so took a closeup.



Carolyn also took delivery today of some very nice (I'm running out of superlatives here...) turned wooden items and chunky organic lamp bases made from local reclaimed wood but, sadly, I have no pictures of those either.

I took along a selection of necklaces made from unusual semi-precious stones (such as Dalmatian Jasper, Muscovite, Dendrite Agate, etc.) and pearls, together with dangle and stud earrings and bracelets made from beautiful dichroic glass, and the picture below shows Mum and Carolyn (on the right) unpacking our stock.


And this is the view from the back of the shop looking towards the street:



I have to admire Carolyn's fortitude in opening a shop during the current financial meltdown when so many other shops are closing down but maybe that will be to her advantage somehow. There's no doubt that, from what I've seen so far, the shop will be very classy indeed and selling some seriously desirable stuff, plus she's providing a valuable service in supporting local craftspeople by giving them an outlet; in some cases, mine for instance, this is the first outlet I've had and I'm unreasonably excited by it!

I really do wish her all the very best and not just because my jewellery's in there - I don't know if she's going to have a website that will offer mail order, but even if she does, I recommend you all pop along for a visit, especially if you're in the south coast area, take advantage of Midhurst's (almost unique) free car parking and BUY EVERYTHING SHE HAS!!!

The swifts have returned!

I was pegging out the washing this morning (it's the only domestic chore I like doing) and checking on the vegetable seedlings in the plastic-house, enjoying the feeling of the sun on my back, birds singing away when I suddenly heard a familiar (and much-missed) sound - 'squee squee' - that can mean only one thing: the swifts have returned. Gazing up into the achingly blue sky I spotted them, two dark, thin crescent shapes, weaving around each other. As I watched, another joined them, then another until there were six in all. I like to think they must have arrived overnight, finally completing the 5,500 mile journey from South Africa that they endure every year, and they're gathering together to have a quick gossip before getting on with the important business of finding a mate and somewhere to nest. The sadness is that they're only here for12 weeks to raise their young, and then they're off again and the skies are just that much quieter.

Every year I watch out for the return of the swifts - summer can't begin without them. Last year they arrived on 3 May so they're 2 days earlier this year. They always give the impression of having so much fun - they're the fastest flying birds on the planet and I just adore that 'whoosh' you get when they swoop low overhead, squealing as they go. I would choose a Swift as my daemon.

20 Albums Part II

This is the second part of a rather lengthy posting on a meme I was sent way back in March that went: "Think of 20 albums that had such a profound effect on you that they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and took you over for days, weeks, months, years. These are the albums that you can use to identify time, places, people, emotions. These are the albums that, no matter what they were thought of musically, shaped your world."

The first 10 were dealt with then, now it's time to tackle the next 10. Are you sitting comfortably? Can you really be arsed to wade through this self-indulgent twaddle? Don't have anything better to do? No? Oh well then, we'll begin and may the best man win ....

Gilbert & Sullivan - Pirates of Penzance


My parents valiantly tried to get me to listen to classical music when I was growing up. And they succeeded (there's more about this below). Although not musically trained in any way, they appreciated that I enjoyed music very much and seemed to have an aptitude for it so I had both piano and cello lessons from quite a young age up until about 14 when fags, boys and booze became oh-s0-much-more desirable. I got up to Grade 5 on the piano which is not too shabby. I played in school orchestras and sang in school choirs. One of my mother's best friends was an accomplished amateur operatic society singer who eventually became a producer/director and every year I would be taken along to see her in whatever she was performing in. The very first show I saw her in was 'The King and I' in 1972 and I was 9 years old. If I remember rightly she played Tuptim, the King's first wife. She would also do Gilbert & Sullivan and I just loved the clever word-play and rumpty-tumptiness of the tunes. In fact, now I think about it, this was the very first live theatre I ever saw, so G&S has to go on the list for introducing me to anything at all being performed on a stage. I could've picked The Mikado or HMS Pinafore but I've gone for Pirates as it has a larger selection of hummable tunes. And the Pirate King looks good in tights.

Iggy Pop - Lust for Life


It was the late 70s, I was in love with David Bowie. Obviously I'd heard of Iggy Pop and The Stooges but, at the time, felt they were a little, shall we say, 'raucous' for my delicate teenage ears (I know, I know, and this is from someone who loved 'Never Mind The Bollocks' - hey, I was a teenager, but don't despair, there is hope...) Once again, I think I have to thank Jane Fewell (the older sister of my best friend at the time, Sue) for this one. She probably bought the album because David Bowie was on it, and you could clearly hear him doing backing vocals on tracks like 'Some Weird Sin' (at 1m50secs), so that was good enough for us. You all know stuff off this album - 'The Passenger' has been covered by everyone, and if you've ever seen the film 'Trainspotting' then you'll be well familiar with the title track so there's no excuse for feigning ignorance, people!

Klaxons - Myths of the Near Future
It dawned on me as I was putting this list together - and it hasn't escaped other people who've done their own lists - that most of the albums come from a specific decade. In my case it is the decade that covers 1975 to 1985 ... um, yeah, it is SO a decade... yeah, well, whatever...

Anyway, I got to thinking about more recent albums that I have seriously loved, one of which is the glorious 'The Trials of Van Occupanther' by Midlake. Seriously, who couldn't love lyrics about woodlands, boats and log cabins; telling oblique but moving tales of pioneering, travel and isolation. Midlake have been described as sounding as though someone has given a pair of guitars, synths and a drumkit to a Victorian orchestra and said "Here you go, make a band". Their lush harmonic melodies sound like Grandaddy mixed with a bit of Neil Young, Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, but in a good way. Here you are, check out the spine-tingling 'Head Home' or 'Roscoe'.

[While typing this, The Husband is standing opposite me trying to kick himself up the arse. I've offered to do this for him but he says he wants to practise. So unlike the homelife of our own dear Queen.]

Where was I? Ah yes, The Klaxons. Very hard band to pigeonhole. They were championed in the press as the instigators of something called 'Nu Rave' but this turned out to be completely made up. Released in 2007, the songs on 'Myths of the Near Future' are dense, highly danceable and have very interesting lyrics, often about ancient myths, magick, space/time travel and Aleister Crowley, all of which I was intensely interested in during my teens and twenties. This album made me want to go to gigs again. Just found a clip of them playing 'Gravity's Rainbow' and 'Golden Skans' on Live with Jools Holland - damn, they're cute too!

Oh hellfire, looking for Klaxon videos on Youtube I've just discovered the Interpol stuff. I LOVE INTERPOL. They sound a bit like Joy Division and have a bassplayer who looks like he's straight out of Kraftwerk. This particular track, 'Evil', has kept me awake on many a night - it's a very efficient earworm.

Lou Reed - Transformer

Songs about louche decadent New York bohemian lifestyles were just so exotic to my young ears. 'Walk on the wild side' felt dangerous when you're only 13 or so, and was the first song about a transvestite that I'd ever heard. Of course, the connection was Jane Fewell and David Bowie once more but I hadn't heard the album again for several years until in the early 80s I moved in with The Artist into the shared house in Guildford with Marilyn Girl, the Meditating Biker, the Mong Brothers and the Dominatrix, so this album connects both these periods in my life. It also has some fiendishly catchy tunes - I defy you not to sing along with "Hangin' 'Round".

Mike Oldfield - Ommadawn


Everyone knows "Tubular Bells", one of the most massive albums of the 1970s, selling possibly as many as 17 million copies worldwide and appearing on the soundtrack of 'The Exorcist'. I actually prefer "Ommadawn". Released in 1975 this is one of the most trance-like pieces of music I know. I used to listen to this in my bedroom, alone, in the dark, aged about 12. To me it's the musical equivalent of a person's journey through life. It's hard to describe, it builds and builds to a dramatic crescendo which, to me, sounds like someone passing through the gates of death to the enormity of heavenly brightness beyond. Yes, it's that big and, for an avowed atheist like myself, is an extraordinarily affecting piece of music. It instantly takes me back to my darkened teenage bedroom, grappling with concepts of life and death, to a time before my parents divorced and my life was stable and secure. I'd not heard it for many, many years and recently remembered how much I had loved it once, so I got hold of a copy just before last Christmas. Playing it again was instant time travel for me and I sobbed and sobbed. Plus there's a song about the joys of horse riding - "Hey, and away we go, through the grass, across the snow, big brown beastie, big brown face, I'd rather be with you than flying through space" which is delightful and touching. Buy this album if you don't have it. Seriously.

Nirvana - Nevermind


An album which changed the musical topography for a generation, 1991's 'Nevermind' brought the sound of American disaffected youth into all our living rooms. The track 'Come as you are' has a special resonance for me for reasons I'm not really going to divulge here. Kurt Cobain acknowledged the importance of the Pixies to him in writing this album, and they're mentioned further below. This album, to me, is the sociable flat in central Guildford that The Artist and I lived in which was, more properly, his art studio. Everyone knows about Nirvana, what more can I add?

Carl Orff - Carmina Burana



As mentioned above, my parents successfully introduced me to classical music before pop. The first vinyl albums I had bought for me were Dvorak's New World Symphony (also known as 'that one with the music from the Hovis ad with the little lad pushing his bike up a steep hill and freewheeling back down again'), Holst's Planet Suite, Ravel's Bolero, Saint-Saen's Danse Macabre and some Tchaikovsky. At some point in the early 70s the BBC showed a production of Carmina Burana on tv which we all watched at home, totally spellbound. I don't recall that much about it now except that, at one point, there were loads up people up trees, singing ... as you do. It was mental. And brilliant.

The well-known 'O Fortuna' was used at some point during the 70s in a TV advert for Old Spice aftershave that featured a surfer and some blonde bimbo tossing her hair around (found out later that she was the girlfriend at the time of the world motorcycle champion Barry Sheen - a heart throb of mine and therefore meant I hated her). It also appeared in the original 1976 film of 'The Omen' whence it has been associated with all things evil, which is a bit of a shame really, as it's a song about life being a continually revolving wheel of fortune and nothing satany at all. 'Whence' is a toothsome word that doesn't get used enough.

Anyhoo, in the late 80s, I sang in a scratch performance of this at Guildford Civic Hall - hundreds of voices singing, a small orchestra, it was sublime. I was quite brave - I'd seen posters stuck up about the town asking for amateur singers to come along to perform Carmina Burana in one day from scratch (hence the name) and thought that this was something I'd love to do. So I plucked up the courage to go along, on my own, to sing with a vast room full of strangers. It were grate!

So Carmina Burana again reminds me of my childhood and life with The Artist.

Pixies - Doolittle

This 1989 release was the second album from the Pixies and has the immaculate single, 'Monkey Gone to Heaven'. A massively influential band who never really made it to the mainstream, they sang songs about animals and UFOs, and often in Mexican Spanish. They instigated the quiet-loud-quiet style of song construction that Nirvana took to a larger audience. They were brilliant live, too. I saw them a couple of times in the early 90s with friends Nick and Anna who lived upstairs but one from The Artist and I. This was a pretty happy time for me.

Talking Heads - Fear of MusicThis was the first Talking Heads album that I'd heard, it belonged to The Artist. Brian Eno was the producer (can you spot the David Bowie/Brian Eno thread here?) and it was the first album I'd heard that flirted with mixing World Music into western styles (specifically the song 'I Zimbra'). This was released in 1979 and David Byrne and Brian Eno collaborated in 1981 on 'My Life in the Bush of Ghosts' which was the first time that samples were used on anything, so I was tempted to put that in the list. But I've yet to find a better track than 'Cities' (live footage, the track 'Air' is first which also good but hang on for Cities') off 'Fear of Music' to hoover the house to. Try it - you'll see what I mean!

Portishead - Dummy


'Trip Hop' was a musical style originating in the mid-90s among bands based in the Bristol area. Downbeat electronica music with a laidback ethereal feel, Portishead had an extraordinary sound. Spacey and filmic, this was the first 'new' musical style that I discovered with The Husband. Released in 1994, 'Dummy' for me represents the first year of blissful cohabitation with the (then) new man in my life. We were renting a (to me) huge 2-bedroomed bungalow with vast front and back gardens near Aldershot, within gunshot range of Ash Ranges. It was a time of intense loved-upness and new beginnings. Check out 'Sour Times' off the album

Anyway, if you waded through that lot you deserve a medal. And I'm sick of writing about myself so I'm going to shut up for a bit and continue encouraging The Husband in his self-punting activities.

Ooh, ooh, ask me, ask me....

Ooh, I've just discovered I've been tagged for another of those meme things. I'm a sucker for any sort of quiz really - The Husband and I cemented our burgeoning relationship in the dark days of the early 90s through the medium of pub quizzes and, on the side, I'm quite a girly swot and thoroughly enjoy the grown up equivalent of sticking my hand up in the air and shrieking, "me, me, Miss, I know the answer, ooh, ask me, ask me". I also seem to have one of those brains with an amazing capacity to store 'really useful' pieces of information that make you quite good at Trivial Pursuit (like 'what is the largest country in Africa?') at the expense of pushing out genuinely useful pieces of information like how to work out percentages.

There are a lot of 'oohs' in that paragraph. Not an expression I get to say much in real life these days.

Anyway, I was just wandering around the blogosphere and stumbled into exmoorjane's world to find that she'd tagged me for some questions a couple of days ago. So I'd better get on and answer them then, hadn't I?

What are your current obsessions?
I seem to be currently obsessing over coloured glass, preferably cut glass. It started with a lime green cut glass bud vase that I bought from a charity stall for 50p a year ago. I put it on my kitchen windowsill earlier this year and marvelled at the sunlight shining through it. "More, I need more", I panted. So off to eBay I went. My criteria are that the object musn't be too large, as it has to sit on that particular windowsill AND NO OTHER, and I would prefer it to be a solid colour rather than what is called 'flashed'. This is hard to describe but it's almost like a clear glass object has been dipped in a dye which sits on the outside layer. A design is then cut through to the clear layer underneath so you get a mixture of the clear and coloured. There's lots of Bohemian and Romany glass like this out there. I don't really like it but have been resigned to having to get some in order to get some red glass in there. You just can't easily find solid red cut glass. But, look, isn't it all so pretty?



I have only recently really got into blogs and blogging, and having found some absolutely fabulously funny bloggers (I'm looking at you Jaywalker and Antonia), I now find myself clicking my Google Reader list up to and including several hundred times a day in the hope that something new and entertaining has appeared to distract me from everything else in my life that I should be getting on with.

Which item from your wardrobe do you wear most often?
I don't seem to have a single item that I wear most often, but I do live in Gudrun Sjoden clothes as they're bright, colourful and designed for layering. I also wear Birkenstocks these days - The Artist was smaller than me so heels were avoided and I never got back into them again. But, then again, when you can wear silver holographic comfortable footwear, like this, where's the problem?


Oh and fuschia pinky-purply trainers, forgot about them:



What's for dinner?

Dunno, what d'you fancy? I'd like Peking Duck please if you're offering...

Last thing you bought?

Some beading stuff from eBay. Specifically some African blue opal, Bronzite, blue sponge coral and yellow jasper. I make jewellery using unusual semiprecious stones that you won't find in the average High Street and mix them with pearls. I also make dichroic glass (I'm planning a future post on fusing glass). Why yes, of COURSE there's a website, thanks for asking - www.venerablebead.co.uk.

What are you listening to?

The sound of the birds in the garden and the neighbours slamming car doors in the street. Musically, I tend to either have my iPod on shuffle (so it could be anything from industrial metal-banging by Einsturzende Neubauten to Handel) or Radio 3. I have catholic tastes in music.

If you were a god/goddess who would you be?
Ooh, good question. I've thought about it and I'd quite like to be Odin but he only has one eye, he does have a couple of ravens which is a positive aspect but I don't think that outweighs the whole monocular thing. Anyone who mucks about with the animals is appealing, so that includes Herne the Hunter, Cernunnos, Epona, Diana, Athena amongst others, but I think I'm going to have to go with Bacchus - he'd give the best parties!

Favourite holiday spots?

Las Vegas - big, showy, noisy, glitzy, both 100% fake and 100% genuine at the same time. It makes absolutely no bones about what it wants from you - it's a town that loves you when you have money but doesn't want to know you when you don't and doesn't try to hide that fact. And I love sparkly coloured lights. And the buffets.
Arizona - hot, desert dryness. Red. Canyons - in fact, the biggest of them all, the Grand Canyon. Ancient American tribal sites. Meteor Crater.
Cornwall - St Ives. Cream teas at The Idle Rocks Hotel in St Mawes. Tintagel.

Reading right now?

'Return of the Native' by Thomas Hardy. I asked for a load of Hardy books for Xmas and have started with this one. Victorian prose can be a bit like wading through treacle and Hardy is no exception but once you've got your head around that style of writing, and the fact that it demands a bit more from you than your average Kathy Reichs or Marian Keyes, then the tragedies of the Wessex landscapes draw you in.

4 words to describe yourself.

Colourful. Loyal. Animal-loving. Calm.

Guilty pleasure?

Those freakshow documentaries - 'I survived a 200lb tumour', 'The 34 stone teen', 'Half man half tree' - that sort of thing. I am perpetually curious. Also 'You've Been Framed' with Harry Hill, especially the animal videos.

Who or what makes you laugh until you’re weak?

My husband still makes me laugh after all these years - in a good way!
Father Ted.
Bottom.
Eddie Izzard.
My brother (who I don't see enough of) is hilarious.

If you were to come back as an animal, what would it be?
A swift. Fastest flying creature on the planet, lives for 21 years, always seems to be having a good time. That, or one of my cats who are pampered beyond belief.

Planning to travel to next?
Hopefully Jamaica early next year for a family wedding on the beach. Sand! Sea! Sun! Rum! (not necessarily in that order).

Best thing you ate or drank lately?

Two days ago was my birthday so we went out to The Percy Arms in nearby Chilworth which is part of a very small chain of pubs owned by a couple of South Africans whose USP is that you can choose which size and cut of steak you want, see it cut in front of you, and have it cooked how you want. They truly do the best steaks I have ever eaten this side of the pond. On Thursday I had an 8oz fillet steak cooked medium rare which was so soft you could almost have eaten it with a spoon. Fantastic!

Flower of the moment?

Tricky. I'm rather fond of orchids right now. I love the fact that they give so much, and for so long, for such little attention. Great big blowsy blooms that keep going for months and all they want from me is a tiny drop of water every now and then.

Favourite ever film?

I love so many films, I don't think I can narrow it to just one. My favouriteS though include Godfather II, Goodfellas, The Right Stuff, 2001, The Shining, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Alien series, Predator 1 and 2, No Country for Old Men, Fargo, The Big Lebowski. As you can see, I don't do chick flicks. Although I also love The Sound of Music and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Care to share some wisdom?

Keep calm and carry on.
Don't sweat the small stuff.
When you're going through hell, keep going.

Rules of the meme. Respond and rework. Answer questions on your own blog. Replace one question. Add one question. Tag 8 people.

So, then. I've done all the above except add one question as I think there's enough there already. Now I just have to find 8 people to tag.

Jaywalker at Belgian Waffle (although she's probably too busy with the weepette, tortoises and beautiful Mexican boys)
Katy at Katyboo1's weblog (although she's probably too busy with family dramas)
Pochyemu at It's mostly about me (although she's probably too busy with exams)
Antonia at Whoopee (alhough she's probably too busy with her false moustaches).

Actually, I think just 4 will do for me for now. This post has been way too long.