In summary: leaving Waterstones on 16th March. Chosen to leave to pursue other interests; might take on new projects, might take time out…
— Alex Ingram (@nuttyxander) February 10, 2012

… sad to be leaving, but too many ideas in this head knocking around I’ve yet to have a go at properly. Ten (mostly) excellent years.
— Alex Ingram (@nuttyxander) February 10, 2012

Of course, I then promptly got hired by Apple and spent a year doing maternity cover. So all those plans went on hold, but with that over I’m back into the pile of ideas and trying to strike on with a few things. I’ve already blogged about one of those, my attempt to write up the family history into something more biographical (and perhaps even fact checked for accuracy). There are some other little plans, so I have F Yeah! Dead Imprints! back up and running as I delve through my bookshelves.

Anyway, I’ll be on here from time to time craving your indulgence for whatever’s taken my fancy. For those of you in the book trade, I will be floating around the London Book Fair (as I was advised to a year ago!) and you can of course nag me if you want to catch up there.

The post Funny Little Plans appeared first on nuttyxander.com.

The notes I took that first attempt were short, and filled with questions. Did Granny Good go to Bletchley in ’41 or ’42? How did she get there? Where did Grandfather Good serve in the war? How did he meet some of the more famous people mum remembers from her childhood? There were no answers to hand. I decided that it was probably about time someone try to write more of the history down and test it against the remaining evidence, and grudgingly I realised that someone was me. A good part of this also needed to involve scanning and archiving what remains into a digital form, not least so that I can study it when I’m not at my parents.

So in the middle of March I sat down at my parents and started to look through everything. The good thing is that both my mum and her ancestors kept a lot. The bad thing is that with one thing and another we’ve never gone through them. The rough initial inventory was one old suitcase stuffed full of correspondence, two boxes full of slides, and another couple of boxes of photographs. Setting up to start archiving and reviewing all of this I realised I was missing the scanner power supply. Off we went rifling under beds and in drawers and before we knew it we found some old notebooks and a large wallet. I open the wallet and look through, in seconds I’m holding a letter complete with this passage:

Yes – typical – in about half an hour of effort for the first time I have a clear letter that lets us know when and how my granny made it to Bletchley. And it’s been sat in a drawer of a room I’ve slept in several times for many years. Irritating and yet rewarding to have finally found it, though there was plenty more. No diary to clear everything up, but plenty of scattered fragments to help fill in the details. Having known less about him, my grandfather’s surviving wartime documents were even more interesting. There were sections of his naval history, and plenty of notes on radar, but it was his photos of Bermuda and his radar work that fascinated me.

So very quickly, I had all of my war questions answered. I knew where they were and when, and I now know what threads to follow up to see if I can get more detail. All told I wound up with a few hundred photos, and a few hundred pages of correspondence to review, more than enough to keep me busy before I even try to look into official archives. Now to draft up the first version of a biographical history.

The post Delving into the Past appeared first on nuttyxander.com.

The main item being focussed upon in the Evening Standard is the proposed ‘Crossrail for the bike’, a fifteen mile route from Hillingdon to Barking designed to be continuous and largely segregated. In particular people are focussing on the proposed change of use of a lane on the Westway from cars to cycles, it appears my blog was ahead of the curve on this!

Just imagine it, take all the money you’d spend on something like Crossrail (£12bn+?) and for maybe £1bn we could have a suspended cycleway running east to west

My Kinda Westway, February 2008

It might be tight in London, but that shouldn’t mean we can’t find the space for a single dedicated East-West route for bikes. And if we really can’t, why not take the vision of Crossrail into another mode and make something elevated or tunnelled if we must. Cyclists aren’t going to go away.

Lucky Seven, February 2012

This was idle talk five years ago, it was hopeful talk one year ago – it’s a heavily promoted part of a plan today. However, we are not talking about an entirely elevated route such as that mooted as the Skycycle or that I first mentioned. Instead this would reuse an existing part of the Westway which has seen a reduction in motorised traffic and hence space is available for reuse.

The front cover of the vision, a city of brightly coloured cars ands proper bike lanes. Utopia?

However, the primary mock-up being used to promote the route is that of a reworked Embankment just down from the Houses of Parliament at Westminster. It is a decent vision, but nothing is yet being said about how junctions will be handled other than better. It must be understood that the eccentric nature of this route is due to the reality of who controls which roads in London. The only way to build a continuous route under Mayoral control is to heavily use TfL network roads.

The TfL Road Network – TfL roads are highlighted in red, borough boundaries in black

The proposed ‘crossrail’ cycle route map

There are other proposals contained in this document. There are large scale changes to the cycle superhighways programme. The standard of these is to be improved to ‘closer to international best practice’. It is likely that superhighways will themselves be either semi-segregated or fully segregated from traffic. The superhighway network is to be complete by 2016, perhaps looking something like this map.

The London Cycle Superhighway Map, last sighted in 2012 rarely published by TfL at the moment…

The intent is for superhighways to be faster routes, with the implicit idea that they are for faster more confident cyclists, especially commuters. Ordinary cyclists are to be expected to start on the Quietways – routes along backstreets using filtered permeability, two way cycling on one-way streets and consistent signage to deliver what the original London Cycle Network (LCN) and LCN+ failed to. There are good commitments as part of that on p14 and p15

Barriers and ‘Cyclists Dismount’ signs will be removed as far as possible

The Thames bridges are some of the few main roads that are completely unavoidable for cyclists. We will improve provision for cyclists across them, including segregration on some bridges.

An important difference in approach for the Quietways is that these will not focus as much on segregation but rather permeability and a clear straightforward way through London’s many villages. Here is the only commitment to remove gyratories. These are set to start in 2014 with announcements of routes as boroughs agree to them.

There is a concept of mini-Hollands, which is jargon by now impenetrable to all but the hardiest of cycle campaigners. In essence this is the improvement of local town centres in London to make them places that embrace the bike. This is where understanding David Hembrow’s blogs on places like Assen is likely to be most instructive as to what is possible.

There is a strong commitment to making the newly developed routes connected and easily understood. This is about mapping and naming. Routes could be named after bus routes, tube routes and well known roads. This is to be applauded, we shouldn’t need a cabbie’s knowledge to know how to navigate our cities. I know I find it a complete chore and I’ve lived here for almost nine years now. Navigable cycle routes are non-trivial and this will be very hard to get right. The Legible London strategy and elements of the superhighway signage point the way.

For me a telling comment is this (p28/29)

We will do our best to improve some new schemes, such as the Olympic Park, that were given planning consent under previous regimes with insufficient provision for cycling.

That’ll be the olympic park that was originally planned as a Velopark and heavily funded by British Cycling. This is a reminder of how little has ever been delivered, and how poor any cycling ‘legacy’ is in London to date.

A great example of it going wrong – cylists directed first to dismount then into a narrow space with pedestrians at Holland Park Roundabout, February 2013

An interesting commitment just after is that (p29):

We will monitor roadworks and building schemes to avoid unnecessary disruption to cycle routes. Following the standard set by the Crossrail works at Farringdon, we will try to ensure that even when a road is closed to motor traffic, passage is still provided for bikes.

When it comes to safety there are two key areas of focus. One is junctions, where in fact this proposes a complete rethink of the junction review. The issue with junctions is that 75% of cyclists deaths happen here. A strategy for cycling in London which merely speeds more cyclists between the junctions without changing them will lead to an increase in deaths, and arguably already has. The proposal here is to spend rather more, but to focus on fewer junctions bringing them to a higher standard. I think this portion of the vision is insufficiently detailed to take a proper view on, at best I can say the intentions are good but I’ll need to see some reworked junctions to judge.

The second area of focus for safety is lorries and other heavy vehicles. It is sad that Boris twice had election campaigns which loudly commented on the danger of Bendy Buses (which never killed a single cyclist) and yet ignored the construction vehicles and HGVs which cause the majority of London cycle casualties. TfL has over time, along with London councils been particularly strong in this area. Crossrail has taken good safety measures, but several other construction projects have not. The idea here, supported by a current LCC campaign is to use the purchasing power of local government to improve standards. This is slightly odd, really this is something for EU and UK standards to deal with. However, it is welcome and right for local government to take responsibility and many councils of many hues are already doing well at this. TfL is proposed to help push this by making cycling funding dependent on councils signing up to stronger safety standards for lorries. Enforcement by funding rather than governance, but could that mean boroughs who don’t support cycle safety actually get even worse? It’s a strange tactic.

An interesting commitment here is the funding of eight full time Metropolitan police officers (bottom of p20) to investigate HGV collisions with cyclists. This is an approach aimed at enforcement and hopefully will ensure that the guidelines on lorries are much more than mere commitments.

It is vital that this does not become another report where a lack of money or willpower to implement the details destroys the overall vision. And in that, there is much detail that Gilligan, TfL and the local councils of London (all 32 of them!) and others must provide.
Boris’s foreword states on p6:

I do not control the vast majority of London’s roads, so many of the improvements I seek will take time. They will depend on the co-operation of others, such as the boroughs, Royal Parks, Network Rail and central government. I do not promise perfection

Undoubtedly some of the responsibility here lies with us all as citizens. We must pressurise, suggest, cajole and criticise. It is not enough to just read blogs like this and nod, none of this is a given until it is delivered, maintained and a part of London for good. I think the Royal Parks in particular have a long way to travel in accommodating cycling.

It is interesting having reviewed the proposals that this is very much an exercise in politics as the art of the possible. To my view it is a good example of why devolved power in London should be different. Perhaps we’d have seen this earlier if the Assembly had power rather than merely the Mayor. And perhaps splitting responsibility between 32 boroughs and the City of London doesn’t help with consistency. Democracy is always hard though, and it will always be somewhat ungainly. It may well not be popular. There is a lot more in the full document, and it’s well worth a read.

Some say that a number of strong voices in the London Cycling blogging community have made a difference, and I agree. My involvement in London campaigning started due to the vigil in December 2011. I was blogging about cycling, but I wasn’t doing anything. I still feel like I don’t quite do enough, but I do enjoy being part of my local cycling campaign.

So how can you help make this happen, or have it changed more to your liking? Get involved in your local cycling campaign, in London or wherever. Take notice of your local council’s consultations. I’d encourage you to help improve the conditions for cycling as part of making our cities more liveable for everyone; this is not something that’s just for cyclists to do.
In the words ascribed to Boris on p5 he says:

I want cycling to be normal, a part of everyday life. I want it to be something you feel comfortable doing in your ordinary clothes, something you hardly think about.

and the report’s final key outcome is summed up as:

Cycling will transform more of our city into a place dominated by people, not motor traffic.

The very point of this is to improve the fabric of the communities in which we live so that we can all live happier and healthier lives. You may only end up riding into work on a nice day, or taking the kids down to the shops but remember the choices you don’t take because of the fears you already have and confront them. We can all live in utopia, and maybe (partially segregated) cycle tracks will abound there. This report doesn’t do everything – it is a vision, not an implementation plan – but I think it has just cut a few years off the time it will take to make London that utopian dream.

If you want to read some other people’s views I’d heartily recommend these blogs:

• Cyclists in the City: Game-change for cycling: Boris Johnson announces a ‘Crossrail for bikes’
• iBikeLondon: Next stop: mass cycling. Here comes London’s Olympic legacy for cyclists!
• John Dales: THE MAYOR’S VISION FOR CYCLING IN LONDON
• London Cycle Campaign: Mayor’s new Vision for Cycling is “Ground-breaking”
• GB Cycling Embassy: The Mayor’s Vision for Cycling in London
  

The post A step change, hopefully without a dismount appeared first on nuttyxander.com.

Frankie Rose – Know Me [Spotify] [iTunes] [YouTube]

Watch this video on YouTube.

I’m not sure you can “waste your time in fiction or rhyme”, but at first I thought this was the lead track off a magnificent debut. Later in the year I realised this was in fact a difficult (or indeed, much improved it seems) second album. “Know me, don’t know me” is my singalong chorus of the year.

Benjamin Schoos – Je ne vois que vous (feat. Laetitia Sadier) [Spotify] [iTunes] [YouTube]

Watch this video on YouTube.

Featuring the singer from Stereolab the fabulously named Benjamin Schoos has a very summery vibe backing lyrics which basically boil down to “I see you”, bloody everywhere. Though it’s prettier in french, obviously.

Internet Forever – Happy New Year [Spotify] [iTunes] [YouTube]

Watch this video on YouTube.

In a just and indie-pop fuelled world this would be the song of the new year. As it is we get a nasty mix of U2, some duff pop hits and Pulp if we’re lucky. I endorse any song which sings the praises of drinking tea and staying in bed. Though I do get odd looks when I mutter “I’ll follow you wherever you go” as I walk around town. Natch.

Belbury Poly – The Geography [Spotify] [iTunes] [YouTube]

Watch this video on YouTube.

Yes, I’m still hooked on the Ghost Box label. Belbury Poly got a new album out this year, and it was quite soft and pastoral. This I particularly love because the singing sounds almost like some kind of tender Bollywood hit, but against the tender synths it generates a wonderful sense of spring rising. In far less imaginative hands this would sound so much less than the sum of its parts.

The Dø – Slippery Slope [Spotify] [YouTube]

Watch this video on YouTube.

Driven from the drums up with some glorious rolling rhythm, this is a lovely sequence of chanting. I must admit I missed this in late 2010 when released. “goldfish in a bowl, both my hands covered in blood, and I cannot stop this haemorrhage”, you’ll either love it or hate it.

Major Lazer – Get Free [Spotify] [iTunes] [YouTube]

Watch this video on YouTube.

Major Lazer is of course Diplo, who was the great MIA collaborator way back. Perfect I’m at the end of my tether music.

Moulettes – Are You Going Away To Sea? [Spotify] [iTunes]

Not a song from their latest album, but rather popped out as a b-side this is a more stripped back Moulettes letting Hannah Miller’s voice carry most of the song with a lovely leisurely arrangement of bassoon and violin follow on. The humble tale of a woman who’d rather be a pirate than be left to rot by her moneyed (and no doubt landed and land lubbing) baronet. The air of desire for a different life is palpable, and I am a total sucker for a lyric like “He’s in love with his money and I never did trust a clean-shaven man.”, gives me hope. If you follow a link to listen to one track on this page, make it THIS one because there’s nothing I can embed (and it’s ACE!).

The Futureheads – The Beginning of the Twist (Acoustic) [Spotify] [iTunes] [YouTube]

Watch this video on YouTube.

It’s a cover, I know. But ALL the best bands cover their own songs in manners like this. It’s my rotten luck that even the bloody Futureheads are now playing the Cello to mock my decision to give it up, but y’know I don’t mind when they make one of their own songs this open and involving. They are also unashamedly having FUN in the new arrangement and how they perform it, which makes it all the better.

Andrew Paul Regan – Spy Numbers [Spotify] [iTunes]

Pagan Wanderer Lu rather remixed his name in 2012 to become the rather more hard to follow Andrew Paul Regan. Along the way he decided to make an album of stories, which took a while to absolutely chime with me but is I think really very successful. A tale of spying and not being able to go back to where you’ve left, this is a fantastically vivid soundscape and idea which just works so well.

Pye Corner Audio – Electronic Rhythm Number Eighteen (retransferred by The Advisory Circle) [Spotify]

I’d been having a rough-ish day, I needed out of the office and I had got ready to dash the streets of Soho to get to the cinema to meet some friends. Somehow I wound up on this track. I was just starting to ‘get’ Pye Corner Audio but it wasn’t quite sticking with me. Seven minutes later, I was hooked. In fact I hung on a corner to listen to the end of the track. Like much of the Ghost Box label (though this was self released) the parts are very simple, almost elegant, but there’s just something about the way this teases and builds and fades that makes the perfect blend of something that both chills and stirs in equal measure.

The Chemical Brothers – Theme For Velodrome – Radio Edit [Spotify] [YouTube]

Watch this video on YouTube.

Like many things to do with The Olympics this shouldn’t have worked. At first it felt bloody cheesy. But actually, this is easily one of my favourite Chemical Brothers tracks and the atmosphere was actually lifted by it when I finally got inside the Velodrome. And hey, it wasn’t that bloody Muse song. *shudder*

Boney M. – Daddy Cool [Spotify] [iTunes] [YouTube]

Watch this video on YouTube.

I spent most of the year watching Top of The Pops 1977, and one day I hope to be as good a dancer as Bobby Farrell. Look at those moves! But in all seriousness, you overlook Boney M’s music at your peril.

Albums next… there’s twelve of those as well!

The post Twelve great tracks of Twenty-Twelve appeared first on nuttyxander.com.

Soundhog – The Delian Mix

I’ve loved Soundhog for years. One of the most notable members of the UK bootleg scene,  if there was such a thing, his remixes and longer mixes were great (dig around his site if you’ve never heard of him). For this mix he was marking Delia Derbyshire’s 75th birthday. I’d been contemplating attempting a mix of radiophonic workshop material myself, but my half arsed efforts are nowhere near the majesty of his creation. Combining short pieces, interviews, her best known and most interesting works along with those of her collaborators this is more like a wonderful hour of audio celebrating her than just a humble mix. Anyone who claims to love old Dr Who even a little, or who likes any form of electronica should give this a listen.

Soundhog – The Delian Mix : Radiophonics and Electrosoniks by Soundhog on Mixcloud

Radio Belbury – 10

“with my hardback book in hand, and my sandwiches of ham” is obviously the lyric that jumped out at me from Trevor Billmuss’ Sunday Afternoon In Belgrave Square. Radio Belbury is an excellent companion of the Ghost Box/Beard Stroking/Old sort of radiophionic/library music/fake nostalgia/real nostalgia of sorts that I’ve fallen into loving as a form of early middle age. Taking in artists such as Trever Billmuss and his forgotten 70s songs and then blending against modern works such as Benjamin Schoos as he nicks Latetia from Stereolab this was a mix I could pick and play on repeat forever. In truth though some of this was from getting so keen on the new Pye Corner Audio track in here which presaged his new LP Sleep Games. Even if you don’t buy into the whole Ghost Box label, I’d say Radio Belbury is always a decent hour of obscure and entertaining music.

Programme 10: “Happy Returns” by Radio Belbury on Mixcloud

Project Moonbase – Facial Hair Special

SHOCK! as Alex likes some songs about beards. I’ve been listening to Project Moonbase for over a year now. Fronted by two nerds from Edinburgh who are almost certainly friends of friends of friends if not friends of friends, this is a show dedicated to music, nerdery and themes. With a decidedly retro outlook to the future they turn in this case to consider Movember and the musical celebration of hairy faces. As ever, they picked out a range of songs relevant in lyrics, name or outlook and in turn made a delightful hour of radio. Impressively they’ve now racked up 108 shows of similar quality (I mean this in a good way) and the whole archive is worth a listen, not least to hear more unnecessary news than you may ever need. To me this is everything Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone should be but isn’t (i.e. highly listenable, random and welcome). I think my favourite thing is that they firmly embrace internet culture, so a song like Sophie Madeleine’s Beard Song a minor YouTube hit, just slips in nicely.

PMB103: Facial Hair by Project Moonbase on Mixcloud

Anyway, that’s three mixes I’ve loved from folk I follow. Who am I missing?

The post Three great mixes of 2012 appeared first on nuttyxander.com.

Last week The Times launched a cycle safety campaign. Their Save Our Cyclists campaign has garnered plenty of support from cyclists including myself. I signed up and gave them a small summary of my experiences of cycling in London. They were nice enough to ask for more and ran the following paragraph as the experiences of one Alex Ingram of Hammersmith aged 30 who commutes daily to Kew Bridge:

In the seven years that I’ve been cycling in London I’ve been run over twice. My first accident was in 2007, at a T-junction. A young mother drove out of a side road and knocked me flying into the air. I was lucky — I was only bruised. My last accident was in July, when I was run over from behind by a pair on a stolen moped at a busy gyratory in Hammersmith. I’d been scraped across the road on my right-hand side. I was rather lucky.

Lucky, you might wonder? What’s lucky about being run over twice? Well, despite suffering pretty nasty road rash (which took months to heal and has left some scars) in July and awful bruising (which only healed after a few months) a few years back I’ve not broken anything worse than a front fork, some cranks and a pair of glasses. It could have been so much worse. The page my story was printed on shared its space with those of my fellow cyclists and that of James Cracknell. They had proper accidents, the changes they experienced were not just in the mind.

For sure, having been run over – both times – I did not emerge the same person. The first time I found that I changed my riding habits completely. I had been becoming an ever more confident road cyclist, delighted by my shiny new racer and was developing a love of speed. I cannot see how it was my fault to be hit by a driver who put their foot to the floor and accelerated out of a side road into my bike. Yet at the same time my head decided I was too vulnerable and I shied away from enjoying the sport I have always loved. So my immediate reaction to that accident was to cycle less. I regret that.

However, I have always balanced my love of the road with an understanding of the complexity of risk and danger. James Cracknell says “If you are cycling without a helmet, you are being selfish to your family and friends”, he’s wrong. What you are doing is taking a view of the dangers and risks. Now, yes, if you’re going to cycle across America on major roads shared with trucks driving at speed a helmet is effectively mandatory. Arguably so too would be a support vehicle. However, when I ride a Boris Bike (no, Ken Bike, dammit!) and dart a few miles in the middle of a city I simply should not need a helmet. I ride with a helmet on my own bike because it’s more convenient to me to have one, I ride without on a Boris bike for precisely the same reasons.

What was my reaction to my second accident, as an experienced victim of London’s roads? Well, I took things more seriously. I made sure I got checked over, I took some days to let the impact and the most important effects of shock, disorientation and fear to subside along with the auto-immune response, though I think I felt a bit off for a good few weeks thereafter. What I didn’t do was let it affect my cycling. I felt defiant to have been run over again. Road rash was the most challenging thing. Being disfigured on your face, even temporarily has weird psychological effects. No healing is fast enough. I found myself ringing up NHS Direct in a panic one evening. Had someone offered me a leaflet to reassure me and tell me how to heal my wounds I’m sure I’d have felt better. I can see why an accident can make so many change their attitude to something they love.

Weirdly I also wound up learning to drive not much later, and in the process found myself really improving my skills on the road. My instructor was also sensible enough to help me take the skills I learnt as a cyclist into my driving.

Kaya Burgess should be commended for being open and responsive as a journalist in explaining his aims for The Times campaign. His opening piece on Mary Bowers’ accident and its aftermath is a heavily moving piece that explains eloquently why so much of the campaign is necessary. The problem we cyclists face is that we are the victims of chance events which are only predictable and understandable on long timescales. In the timespace of a humble ordinary commute we are only a few glances, one missing signal or a piece of crap road design away from danger.

You could get feart and argue cyclists shouldn’t place ourselves in danger. But to me, cities, roads, these lands are for people. Danger for cyclists means danger for pedestrians equally. And that means we should ensure that when we need to restrain the freedom and simplicity of the motorised brigade to let a vibrant set of users make their city come alive you bite the bullet. Maybe you do build weird cyclist only bridges. Maybe you reallocate road space. It might be tight in London, but that shouldn’t mean we can’t find the space for a single dedicated East-West route for bikes. And if we really can’t, why not take the vision of Crossrail into another mode and make something elevated or tunnelled if we must. Cyclists aren’t going to go away. My favourite cities that I’ve visited lately such as Bilbao delight in understanding that you actually do need to spend money on infrastructure and planning. I don’t want to live in the decaying ruins of a city, I want to live somewhere that changes.

I’m not convinced that The Times campaign has a monopoly of wisdom. Quite the opposite, in fact. It has based itself neatly around the aims that many – especially in London – have had for some time. Elements of what it proposes such as a cycling budget of £100m a year are eminently sensible. However, I do think it could be a lot more ambitious.

It’s a step – for sure – to move up from a laissez faire attitude that cyclist safety is a matter only for cyclists into believing in interventions. However, it’s a further step to match the efforts of our neighbours. We must finally learn from our European neighbours that standardised junction design makes sense and that road space must sometimes be reserved for cycling alone. We should be willing to make it a lot harder for cars to be in our cities. And we must, we must not rest, not for one second until anyone, even a small child feels safe cycling in our communities. We don’t have to tolerate even a single cyclist death in London, if it Paris doesn’t. Cities are for people. The cars are merely for a few who can afford them. We must all be able to get around, and safely.

The post Lucky Seven appeared first on nuttyxander.com.

So, when did I first join twitter? And why? Well it’s almost four and a half years ago now, or 13,639 tweets ago. My friend Ian (@maniacyak) had recently joined and had been mentioning it for some time. I was massively sceptical as to why I would use twitter when the only use I could see for it was updating my FaceBook status. I couldn’t see the use in yet another social network. Here’s my first tweet:

plotting how to use 240 litres of compost

— Alex Ingram (@nuttyxander) June 13, 2007

Boring, isn’t it? It drew comments on FaceBook and no response whatsoever on twitter. I duly followed @maniacyak back for snaring me in and then a few of my other friends joined over the coming months, but I hit a problem. I had nothing interesting to say I wouldn’t rather blog or place on FaceBook, and not enough interesting people to say it to or to read things from. I’d log on to twitter.com every so often read the few tweets that had appeared since I last logged on and then leave.

I didn’t tweet properly until part-way through the following year, 2008, when I finally realised that a few more people were joining. There were two things that held me back from tweeting much at that time, the lack of an audience and the lack of a client. Now, sure twitter had a mobile website of sorts, but I had a paltry Nokia N80 then a reasonable Nokia N95 8GB. It was only by the spring of 2009 that a twitter client of any quality appeared on the Nokia platform in the guise of Gravity.

Maybe I am laying on the “you young kids, I had it hard in my day stuff here” heavy but I do find it interesting that the first two years I used twitter I had to use it without an app. Indeed, at one point I was sat away from an internet connection wanting to tweet but being unable and did this:

This and some of the things I used to post on this blog make me realise now that on reflection I always had plenty of things that would have been well expressed on twitter but just didn’t have the network or the apps to do it with. Witness, for example my comprehensive blog response to 9/11 or the phlog I updated when I first moved to London which frankly would have been a lot better on twitter.

It’s striking to me just how complete twitter is now, and how obvious it seems in retrospect. The whole system achieves a lot and I do puzzle at those who haven’t found some use for it, not necessarily that they might use it just as I do, especially as that changes from month to month. Much as FaceBook hit a point where suddenly it seemed like it was rare to find someone without an account rather than with, twitter has in the past year started to feel like it was a complete network.

There’s a flip side to this. Many of us who’ve been on twitter a while have felt safe in it as some kind of tech-savvy web-savvy haven which goes up against the mainstream. Well, bad news, for a while now it’s just been another tool everyone uses. Folk like Rupert Murdoch will join in their masses throughout this year, but there’s nothing wrong in that. Likewise, I fear twitter has of late uncorked my thinking, writing, expressive internet muse and I’ll be blogging a bit more regular again. Might be something wrong in that. There was an argument in here somewhere…

Twitter’s great isn’t it?

The post Actually, I’m the old fart on twitter appeared first on nuttyxander.com.

So, to kick off here are the six albums from 2011 that I really enjoyed in 2011. There are lots of surprising omissions from this list, as a lot of artists that I really like and even saw live such as St Vincent, Amon Tobin and Devotchka had new albums this year. But, much as I enjoyed a few tracks from each of their albums I didn’t actually get into them as albums. It really was in many ways a year of rather disappointing albums. However, these six are really damn good. None of them are début albums, though some marked new directions whilst others put a level of polish on that made for supremely easy repeat listens. There is an order to this list and I’ll go in reverse order.

6 – AM & Shawn Lee – Celestial Forces [spotify]

Watch this video on YouTube.

I’ve been listening to a fair chunk of multi-instrumentalist and sometime Ping Pong Orchestra man Shawn Lee for a while and have liked the odd track but never quite fell fully into any album (other than the Bully game soundtrack). This transatlantic collaboration with AM produced a surprisingly great record with a genuinely warm down-tempo retro sound and some pretty melancholy lyrics. I could happily rest in many a park over the summer with this coursing through my ears.

5 – Pete and the Pirates – One Thousand Pictures [spotify]

Watch this video on YouTube.

I came to Pete and the Pirates due to becoming obsessed with Tap Tap, lead vocalist Thomas Sanders’ side project last year. Somehow, I never quite took to Pete and the Pirates the same way but with their third album I think they’ve captured some of that magic into their main sound, perhaps because they’ve dropped the guitar sound a bit further back in their mix to focus on Sanders’ rather appealing vocals whose higher notes just reek beautifully of the angst of young men. What grounds this album nicely is the way it picks up from ordinary lives and paints them into exciting little moments of melodrama. And there’s a lot of singable choruses. This is the kind of We All Drink And Try To Have Fun music Hard-Fi wish they were. And yeah, maybe it’s a bit more mainstream than normal for me.

4 – The Advisory Circle – As The Crow Flies [spotify]

Watch this video on YouTube.

The Advisory Circle is one of a number of particpants in the Ghost Box record label and is actually a moniker for one Jon Brooks aka King of Woolworths whose earlier works I’ve mentioned here before. There is a theme of Public Information Films, 70s discomfort (perhaps even 70s disco) and intricate electronica with odd perhaps found, perhaps not spoken word sections. I think As The Crow Flies is a simply perfect album, one of those rare items I can point to that got influenced massively by Boards of Canada but is also a little weirder, a little stranger and entirely itself.

3 – Andy Meecham – Monophonic Volume 1 [spotify]

Andy Meecham – Oberheim Sem (Taken From Monophonic Vol.1 on Nang Records) by Exploding Art Promotions

Now Mr Meecham is another man known in many guises, one half of Bizarre Inc and hence also half of Chicken Lips I first came to and worshipped him seven years ago for the first Emperor Machine album. He’s now releasing under his own name (!) and setting himself the stiff target of making tracks using a single synthesiser, rather than the massively indulgent synthrepair.com reliant range of synths he was using on the similarly retro Emperor Machine project. This is absolutely glorious progressive synth stuff, with the same intriguing Radiophonic hues throughout that made me love Emperor Machine so much and yet refreshingly new in direction and tone. I can’t wait for volume two.

2 – Metronomy – The English Riviera [spotify]

Watch this video on YouTube.

Alright, I admit it, I got snared in by The Look as a single. But then I wound up buying the album a few weeks later and was utterly bewitched. This is a fascinating album in many ways. It represents a different, certainly more broadly appealing sound than their earlier work, though it had me diving back for their earlier far more electronic and angular work. In a year when England didn’t really have a summer this let me have one every single time I played it.

1 – Misty’s Big Adventure – The Family Amusement Centre [not on spotify but their earlier stuff is]

Watch this video on YouTube.

I’ve been raving about Misty’s on here for about five years now. A few albums and a world of grumpy fun later they wound up having to finance the release of their latest album themselves in a fan funded campaign on pledgemusic. Quite why that should have happened escapes me, as this is easily their finest album and it’s probably no exaggeration to say I’ve listened to something from this most days since I got it.

Why is this? Am I just a crazed fan then? No, The Family Amusement Centre is the perfect balance. Yes, Misty’s are not creating perfect happy accessible pop songs. Yes, they do purposely make pretty odd songs. Yes, Gareth’s voice is not quite that of an angel. But, thing is, Misty’s are a band packed full of musical talent and knowledge who’ve just kept going and are always a blast live. Just Another Day and Cheer Me Up leapt out from the album to soundtrack my summer. They’re not entirely happy songs, but they are optimistic despite talking of life in it’s complexity.

DISCLAIMER: Yes, I am a massive Misty’s Big Adventure fan. Yes, I paid something like £60 to get a special box set from the band when they were seeking support to get this put out. But no, I did the same for They Might Be Giants and their new album was, frankly, crap, so it’s not just my emotional and monetary investment combined. Yes, they’re a bit odd. Watch my playlist of their fantastic live gig in London in November.

FURTHER DISCLAIMER: I’m sure Misty’s next album will be even better, save your money for that.

Want a Biscuit? You can’t have one!

The post Six Great Albums of 2011 appeared first on nuttyxander.com.

As a family those next few hours, few days seemed impossible. There’s no map, no plan. You stare at the clock and time just stands still. You lie down but you don’t rest. You think but you don’t understand. The kettle is on more than it is off. At first I was just stuck in shock, I was numb. I wasn’t truly sad, I wasn’t truly happy; I was just worried about how those around me were coping.

Those classic stages of bereavement (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance) are there, but they’re not some simple progression or even a cycle, they just fire up as and when they see fit, and not one-by-one. And you all as a family go through them at different rates at different times. I think it’s important to understand just how lonely the bereaved feel in such a situation, together or alone. Indeed even feeling alone when they are together. You know that what’s happened is unusual and that as much as it shocks you it shocks those you tell more. You want to talk but you don’t know what to say, as much as if not more than those who want to help. Maybe you saw some of the struggle, but even you never quite feared it would come to this. The normal pain and empathy of bereavement is suddenly shrouded in so many questions. How? Why? What led to this? But there are no answers. There will be no trial, no retribution.

The days passed, we made it to the end of the first week. Suddenly we realised we’d been away from the world and that real life was carrying on without us. Work got me back a few days later. But still the funeral had no date and there were countless things to arrange. Time was measured not in days of the month but in days since. I persisted in this state for a further couple of weeks before the funeral hit, which was a day of endless and raw emotion.

But then, as everyone else got back into their lives and I mine, then, then was when the full scale of what happened hit me.

Getting up was intolerable, thinking a trial, joy was sucked from everything and I just wanted to hide in the dark. I was truly depressed. I think that was hard to avoid – perhaps impossible – I hadn’t wanted to wall off my emotions because I wanted to mourn but those emotions were too much. After a manly struggle I shouldn’t even have attempted I bounced around a few counselling services and my GP over the course of a couple of months before googling, finding MIND then ending up with a call early the next morning and counselling once a week for a year from the following week. From then on, I knew I could keep going; I had a rhythm and structure to work through.

So where am I now? I am not today the man I was before all this happened. I never will be. I’m not sure I even want to be. And the last few months, having had that year of counselling have been some of the best of my life. Yes, some days it all comes rushing back. Today was one of those days. Even just trying to write this stirs up many powerful emotions.

I could say so much more – I’ve deleted as much again from this blog as I’ve posted – but it would probably explain less.

So my thoughts are with Gary Speed’s family and those like us. Suicide sadly isn’t as rare as you might think. I know many people touched by it just like me and I knew many of them before it touched me. Of course we don’t like to talk about it, and it doesn’t define us, but to hide it away and to never talk of it would be even worse. Those who talked of it, who I met, or read of in books made it easier for me to cope. I hope in writing this I can do a little of the same.

And if you ever think you need help, feel no shame. No-one will think ill of you for trying to be well. Ask for help, talk to someone, take the time.

Rest in peace, Rosey.

Love, your nephew.

Alex

The post What sympathy for Gary Speed’s family means to me appeared first on nuttyxander.com.

Just as I started to get myself together in the ambulance I started tweeting about what happened, and I’ve just consolidated all of those tweets into a nice little timeline on Storify.

Sat here in bed at the other end of the day I feel very positive despite all that’s happened. Strangers and friends alike were kind, the emergency services looked after me well, without any rush, and work were pretty understanding. Haven’t gone back to see what state the bike’s in yet, but apparently it wasn’t too bad, most of the damage basically happened to me as I flew over the handlebars having been undertaken by a moped which landed on me with it’s two occupants.

If I do have a bit of anger, it’s this. I know I was run over by someone breaking the law, who the police are trying to track down. But I also know that there are people driving today with well over 12 points on their license, and there is a lot of talk of smoothing the traffic flow in London. What smooths the traffic flow when a mindless accident like this in a major junction blocks off two lanes and doubtless caused tailbacks for quite some distance? We can’t get away from sharing the roads with each other, if you really worry about congestion, lobby for safer streets for everyone, a few more people on a few more bikes having a lot fewer accidents and I think we all get to win.

I can’t wait to head out for a ride again myself.

The post Weird Morning appeared first on nuttyxander.com.