Author: mdk

Shawshank

“you got to get with living, or get with dying.”

From a purely logistical analysis at the start of pursuing either of those positions, if you are hoping to cause as minimal impact on the lives of those around you, your actions would be the same?

If you aim to live you pursue a course to help yourself but also those around you, to end in a position of care, and to rectify wrongs.

If you aim to die you seek to minimise any harm to those around you and obliviate any issues that may cause harm.

At the start of that endeavour your actions will look exactly the same.

I guess that’s why that line works so well at that point in the film and resonates so we’ll.

…a king of infinite space…

I am certainly no king this morning as I had a very disturbing dream last night. I dreamt that I was visiting a family, I think they were friends, and their mother warned me that one of their children was special (indicating some disability) but also evil.

For context I didn’t recognise the friend, or their family, and I think I was much younger. Though I seemed to be my height.

The ‘special’ child in question was a girl, maybe eleven to thirteen, who had short dark brown hair and incredibly large round, brown, eyes. (There are likely overtones of watching Wednesday here.) She had a frown on her face and just looked unhappy. She spoke fine and we all talked about school and lessons, the only unusual thing about the girl was that her answers to questions were often abstract and she laughed at the wrong points. This didn’t seem evil, just slightly neurodivergent.

Scene change, hate it when dreams do that. Now I am in the kitchen talking to the friend and his parents. We hear screaming. At this point I discover that the friend is from a large family as there are about ten other siblings in the room we run into. The girl is there. She is wearing jeans and a lime green top and there is a spreading pool of blood on her top and on the floor from the gash where she has cut her own throat. She has a bloodied carving knife in her right hand and she is looking right at me and laughing silently.

This was disturbing enough but the dream then got worse. Another scene change and we are all dressed in black. I am sitting at the kitchen table. It is raining outside and I am looking at the rain through the window. I think it may be after the funeral. I can hear people talking but not to me. I blink and then I see the girl outside the window. Neck torn open. Eyes black and staring at me. The blood on her neck and clothes had turned black. She is grinning and laughing and she points the hand, still holding the knife, at me.

I turn to tell people she is there and they have all turned into her. Her face is on all of them and they are all laughing. As they laugh black blood runs from their mouths and is spat from their lips.

That is when I woke and I didn’t go back to sleep. It was just after four in the morning. The dream was clearly disturbing, but I don’t know what I am most upset about. The fact that someone killed themselves. The horrific style of the haunting. Or the fact that my brain was so clichéd and stereotyped it made the neurodivergent child into some horror protagonist.
I mean ffs brain, that trope surely is something you would normally rail against, it appearing in your dreams is so sad. Could you not have been more creative and less discriminatory? The horror was bad enough without the depressing social fears and historical bigotry.

Maybe they were haunting me because I assumed a role for them? Or maybeI was the only one not possessed because I didn’t give them that role and it wasn’t a horror but a plea from beyond the grave. That makes me out to be a much nicer person.
This was also part of the reason I couldn’t return to sleep…

Way of Whatever

This is a short post about the new Avatar film, Way of Water, but a few considerations:

  • I haven’t seen the movie!
  • I like James Cameron films, generally.
  • I saw the first film and thought it was okay.

I am unlikely to watch this movie in the cinema. I know, I know it is important to support movies and the industry; I know the best way to see it is immersive experience (preferably IMAX). But, I just can’t bring myself to watch it.

I saw the first Avatar at an IMAX cinema. I thought it was a breathtaking achievement in both 3D filmograpy and directorial ability. I also thought it was about 2hrs too long as there was zero real story. So, the idea of returning to a cinema in an experience for two people that is going to cost, with travel, at least 50 pounds (GBP) films me with zero enthusiasm.

This is also because I pay for a Disney subscription so will just wait and watch it there. i know I will be seeing it in less than perfect circumstances. But I will also be investing almost zero extra cash, and a shorter percentage of my time, on something that may push cinematic boundaries in cgi and 3D direction and offer precious little else.

I feel it is the type of movie that we will all be subjected to when the computers do all the writing/directing and everything else…

Written in 365 Parts: 199: The Place Where I died

“…Every tear from every eye, Becomes a babe in eternity;
This is caught by females bright, And return’d to its own delight.        
The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar, Are waves that beat on heaven’s shore.
The babe that weeps the rod beneath Writes revenge in realms of death. …”

Marsh felt a buzzing in his head as bright red light burned onto his eyes. A blink was a mistake. A flash of lightning to the retinas. The red light was the blood-stained image of bright white light shining on his eyelids. His eyes had been closed and he had woken with them still shut. 

He screwed his eyes tight now as the white flash burned and gave a searing pain down his optic nerve. His head began to pound with an intense beat but he could feel no other pain from his body. Just the throbbing in his skull. It was a moment’s pause before he realised he couldn’t feel the rest of his body at all. 

The realisation revealed that even the burning light had caused no real pain on his eyes or to his mind. Just a sensation of brightness that seemed to burn. He created the throbbing as a reaction. A memory of how such pain must feel. 

He could sense no feeling in his fingers, his toes, his arms or legs. He felt nothing. He felt as if he were floating, but with no sense of gravity or pressure of any type upon his body. He licked his lips, a light sensation, but not as much as he would have wanted. Again it felt more like a memory than a sensory input. Something he was imagining and not sensing. He could smell nothing, not even himself. He felt as if his ears still worked but there was only silence for them to hear.

Slowly he opened his eyes a crack against the glare. He saw the shadow of his own hand come up to shield his eyes, as he had wanted, but he couldn’t feel the limb. The glare was becoming more manageable. He was in a white space. He was standing, which was unusual as he could not sense up or down. He could not feel his legs touching anything. As far as his mind was concerned he was near weightless and yet his eyes said something else. The disorientation made him nauseous, he bent as if to vomit but there was no spasming of muscles in his stomach. Just the expectation that there should be.

He tried to turn and found that this was easy, but there was no sensation of doing so, just the motion. As he did he stepped back in surprise as he saw that another was standing there. Another Marsh. Staring at him, or himself. “What the…” he heard himself speak, but he only barely heard it with his ears. It was delayed slightly. His mouth was out of sync with his hearing. This was even more strange. He had to be drugged or drunk.

“The outcry of the hunted hare, A fibre of the brain does tear. Hello,” said his doppleganger. 

“What is happening?” Marsh spoke harshly. He was totally confused and the rhyme was oddly familiar. He knew it, but couldn’t place the memory. Or maybe he couldn’t understand why he knew it. “where am I?”

“You are where I put you, little ant, little, fly, little gnat. The gnat that sings his summer’s song. I think I should be the one asking the questions.” The doppelganger was dressed in a red pressure suit. It had attachment points for seals, it was a moment before Marsh recognised it. A flight suit. It was a jumpsuit worn under a pressure suit. They were very common. Well they had been very common when the original Marsh had been alive hundreds of years before.

This red of the suit was a deep crimson with white flashes and insignia. The logo on the side was vaguely familiar to Marsh but he couldn’t quite place where it was from. It was obviously one of the large organisations that ran commercial space ships. The quasi government sized giants of a long time ago.

“Who are you?” asked Marsh.

“As I said. I should be asking the questions. The questioner, who sits so sly, Shall never know how to reply. The important first question is who are you?” said the doppleganger. The voice was the same as Marsh’s but a little different in tone, there was a quality to it that Marsh didn’t recognise in his own speech. It was as if this other Marsh snapped the words as they came out of his mouth.

“I am Marsh. Or at least the closest approximation of him.” said Marsh.

“Ah, now that makes sense, a man made for joy and woe,” said the doppelganger with no trace of irony. “You looked correct, and the examination I performed seemed to say you were correct. Normally I never get to talk to one of my selves. By the time they reach here they have already been assimilated. I have conversed with a few, but it is so difficult. They cannot cope with this place. When brought in here they normally have a seizure. When mind and body are twain they are the fruit of two seasons and one lies rotten as the other is twisted. But you are able to control yourself, you have not been wrenched into a screaming apoplexy. You seem barely perturbed. That’s different to all those others. I find it hard to understand. But, he who doubt what he sees, will ne’er believe.  I wonder why you survive? What makes you different?”

“You haven’t said who you are?” said Marsh. “I get it now, I know where we are. It’s fairly obvious and I am an idiot for not seeing it straight away. This is a construct program, and a fairly basic one, not that I am a good judge but this one feels artificial. My senses don’t work properly. But what are you? A clone program? Or are you someone who is throwing a skin of me onto your true form?”

The doppelganger laughed. “That’s funny. I am not wearing any skin. It is you who are wearing my skin. You who are the clone. God appears, and God is light. I am Marsh. I am the original Marsh! This is my domain. My realm. My world. The land where I reside. The place where I died.”

Written in 365 Parts: 198: Inner Airlock

Marsh laughed slightly and instantly regretted the action. It was a release of tension and the sudden jolt of the door release mechanism. The airlock beyond the outer doors was large, easily four metres wide and six metres deep. It seemed incongruous considering the size of the corridor, but it was practical. The airlock might serve as docking airlock at some future point so would have to be large enough to stow equipment and allow the passage of bulky goods. There were recesses in the walls and hatches for that purpose.

Marsh and Drick moved forward. Drick indicated to Marsh to place his helmet back on which he did as swiftly as he could before they pulled the release lever to close the outer doors. Once again there was a clunk of a mechanism unlocking and then the doors slowly closed shut. It was clear from this side that the doors were operated by massive hydraulic arms. The structural fittings were clear on the inside of the hatchway where they attached to the door and slid smoothly into the wall.. 

There was the slightest of clangs and a hiss as a pressure seal activated. To one side a small flashing light suddenly stopped its amber blinking and turned a solid green. Marsh moved over to the panel so that he could start the activation sequence that would cycle the airlock and open the inner doorway. 

The panel was fairly simple. A small readout, a series of small safety lights and a few buttons. The airlock would function as a decontamination chamber if needed, but while still part of the larger vessel those functions were blank. Marsh reached out to tap the cycle airlock button which would check the pressure on both sides of the lock and equalise. His hand never reached the switch.

There was no warning as suddenly the floor below them and the ceiling above became opposingly charged surfaces. Immediately a current of electrical energy surged through both of them as the two poles discharged via the shortest possible route. Marsh felt his body arc backwards wrenching his spine and sending his arms flailing outwards. He couldn’t see Drick through the blood haze that suddenly blurred his vision. 

The charge lasted for a microsecond, but the two bodies sprawled on the ground lay twitching for several seconds until their convulsing limbs finally rested. There was a slight pause and then a clunk  as the inner airlock door slid slowly open.

Written in 365 Parts: 197: Scanner Interface

Drick took a few moments to study the panel that was set next to the airlock. It was a simple keypad for an alpha-numeric code, linked to personal identity by a scanner for biological recognition. The scanner was above the pad. It looked like a simple light emitter. Drick had seen many like it, they used a mixture of body shape and visual characteristics, scanning via visible and infrared spectrum, to check blood flow and other body functions. Clever versions of the scanner could also detect small changes in electromagnetic frequencies that measured an individual on that spectrum. All lifeforms have a distinct electrical makeup and that was harder to mask or emulate. The scanner on this door would be trivial to fool.

Bypassing the keypad was easy. The virus that was already in the low-level security subnet could be targeted to deactivate the lock. The scanner was a different matter. It was a simple device but its pattern recognition and matching functions were complex enough to need higher levels of processing capabilities. That meant an active security system would be controlling it, which would need access to secure records. That would involve the central system and the ship’s higher artificial intelligence systems. Circumnavigating the system would not be so easy. The program that Drick had implanted in the system was sophisticated but it would need time to infiltrate across all the levels of the vessel’s security. 

Drick briefly contemplated attaching a direct line to the scanners system interface. There would be an access hatch, under the main emitter. If they were to patch directly into the system they could upload an override to loop the scanner into getting a positive identification. This would also enable Drick to check on the status of the stealth program and corruption virus that were already in the system. The disadvantage would be the time it would take to carefully take apart the scanner without triggering a warning or a maintenance report. A fault would lock the door as fast as a failed scan.

Drick bit a lip and came to a decision. They turned and tapped Marsh gently on the arm, he seemed transfixed by the wall displays and jerked slightly at the touch. Then touching helmets with Marsh, Drick activated the comms. “We need to get through the door but I don’t have the time or luxury to defeat the scanner.”

“Then what do you suggest?” Marsh replied. “We could blast the doors maybe?”

“We could but that would do more damage to this side of the ship than to that section. These things are intended to survive breakup and possible orbital reentry. We don’t have that much explosive. Also I don’t want to casually kill anyone who might be on the other side of the airlock or announce our presence so violently.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

“I think I can bypass the keypad with ease. That would just activate a scan. For which we will need an original member of the crew or passengers who had access to the bridge.” Drick looked into Marsh’s eyes through the twin visors. Drick noticed how gaunt their features looked, his and theirs. There was also a slight hollow look to Drick’s own eyes as they reflected, semi-transparent, in the smooth curve of the visor. There was a look of puzzlement on Marsh’s face. Then realisation.

“You mean me?”

“Yes.” Drick smiled slightly. “They did a very good job of making you a copy of the original Marsh. I am betting that it is good enough to override the security systems on this ship, maybe even good enough to fool every ship’s system. In fact I think that is likely to be one of their main objectives in making you.” Drick studied the puzzled expression. “I’ll tell you later,” they said. “You will need to take your helmet and gloves off. There is no other choice, the armour on these suits is good enough to block the scan.”

Drick busied themselves with the panel as Marsh undid the helmet seals and removed the gloves from the suit he wore. It was the work of a few minutes to pry the front from the panel and insert a small robotic lockpick. Drick watched as it carefully attached itself to several of the panel’s components, cautiously examining before it merged its own fine contacts with several different sections of the electronics board. A few seconds after it had linked up the panel flashed green as the robotic lockpick overrode the system and gave the correct electrical response for a successful password.

Marsh stood in front of the panel. Drick could see that his heart rate and blood pressure were elevated. He was breathing slightly faster, but not excessively so. Natural nervousness. It wasn’t outside of a low cardio workout and nothing that would upset the scanner. 

The only indication that Marsh was being scanned was a thin blue-green line that quickly went up his body horizontally and then across him vertically. There was a long pause and then the light went out on the scanner.

Marsh and Drick both jumped slightly when there was a loud bang. It was a lock release from the large airlock. Then smoothly, now almost soundlessly, the doors opened with just the faintest hiss of air.

Written in 365 Parts: 196: The Passage

They reached the main corridor that, according to the schematics, contained the entrance portal to the bridge. They had moved swiftly, but cautiously, but they had not seen any other signs of life or movement. Marsh had a growing sense of unease and knew that it was shared by Drick. There was a tenseness to their movements, a quick darting look to the eyes. 

As they had ascended the stairs, or ramps, from one floor to another, passed each doorway, entered each new corridor, Drick had taken extensive forward readings. Each time the movement and heat sensors had shown nothing. There was a little movement from automated systems such as air control. They thought they detected a small device that may have been a maintenance robot. But nothing else. It was eerily empty.

Drick carried an assortment of small devices and nano drones that kept up a watch or pattern of surveillance around them. The drones were undetectable to all but the most sophisticated system. They primary purpose was the passive sensors that relayed if electromagnetic sensors were detected. This would help prevent Drick and Marsh walking into a sensor’s field of view.

The other instruments picked up laser, sonar, pressure, air-movement, thermal and broad spectrum electromagnetics. There was a small drone that followed the other nano-machines which mapped terrain, it could scan for classic physical detection and alterations such as two way mirrors or spy holes.

This assortment of checks made the progress painfully slow whenever they approached a new corridor or intersection. They moved swiftly along otherwise. The constant waiting then rushing to the next safe point was making Marsh’s insides knot with tension. However, he said nothing and watched as fervently as Drick did the readouts and displays. Scanning for any discrepancy.

They had arranged a series of commands that could be given via helmet touch or slight hand signals. These even included some simple question and answer responses. Drick’s movements had repeatedly indicated caution. There seemed little need as the ship was empty, maybe it was devoid of life. But, what was the other ship, the supply shuttle, doing then? Was it bringing personnel, or taking them away? Did it have anyone living on board?

The corridors slowly changed from plain, utilitarian, functional design to a more pleasing series of curves. Doorways were inset in the forward section and had soft rounded sections. There was subtle lighting under the floor and from hidden recesses overhead. The emitted  light was a mixture of muted pastels to offset the harsh standard light cells that still lined the wall sections.

The corridor that led to the bridge itself had large semi-holographic panels as wall and ceiling plates. It was a living painting, or environment that could obviously be programmed to display an infinite variety of images.

As they entered this passage the ceiling resembled a sky and the walls showed a nature scene with a fine level of detail that was so real only the scale and lack of other sensory data said it was an image. They were suddenly immersed in an almost three hundred and sixty degree video view. 

Marsh studied the scene. Impressed by the fidelity of the image, as he drew closer subtle sounds and smells were replicated. But the imagery also contained oddities that were too unusual to be haphazard. Elements that did not fit the tone of the idyllic scene. They were oddities. They had to be placed by a computer algorithm, of this there was little doubt, but for what purpose?

In the countryside scene he could see a cottage, stark white against the rolling greenery. A patchwork of fields spread behind it and a small, well tended garden to one side. There was a scene outside the front door, which was blue with rusted hinges. There was a table and two stools, on the table a robin with a bright red breast was trapped in a gilded cage, it fluttered about in quick darting movements. Looking through the cage bars Marsh could see the only dark clouds in the sky reflected on the floor.

There were more birds nearby. A small dove-house, filled with doves and pigeons, was resting under a giant sycamore tree. The white and grey plumed birds flew in and out, or perched on its roof and rails. The weight of them seemed to make the flimsy wood and wire structure shudder as they took off and landed.

At the gate, in a wall that was mostly tumbled rocks, was a dog. It looked like a mongrel, brown and gangly with its starved ribs showing clearly. Near to this dog was a road and in the distance a cart with a horse. A figure could be seen with a raised stick beating the horse roughly. Blood sprayed, but not from the horse, with each strike blood came from the person. There were other birds in a nearby forest where dawn was slowly breaking.

Marsh was mesmerised by the scene, it was familiar in some way, as if he had read something similar in a book, or maybe seen this in a film somewhere. A memory of his mother’s face flicked into his mind. That was the strangest sensation as he knew it wasn’t his mother. It was the real Marsh’s mother. His mother birthed a clone.

Drick seemed to pay no heed to the strange images being projected onto the walls and ceiling. They moved quickly down this corridor towards the doorway at the end. They passed two other doors that were closed. Drick checked them for signs of movement or use. Then they placed a device on the door to warn them if it opened and moved on to the bridge doors.

The entrance to the bridge was a large airlock set into a main bulkhead. This vessel was a series of large compartments. Each one could be separated from the rest of the ship. Isolation to restrict damage from one section affecting another. Compartmentalisation for purpose and ease of construction. Autonomy, allowing sections to be dismantled one at a time without destroying the function of the whole. A testament to purpose, a deep regard to safety.

This section could be separated from the rest of the ship. Sealed or discarded in the event of a cataclysm. It also helped with the eventual ship’s function as a space port during colonisation. Any section could be used as a command section while the others were disassembled for reassembly on the surface or utilised as orbiting platforms. 

This design, while impressive, did present them with the problem of needing to bypass a security airlock that was structurally sound before gaining access to the bridge beyond.

Okay, I love Vinyl, This is a Rant

I use streaming services, but I love vinyl. I often find that people can accept that I am a quirky person, or sometimes they think it is because I am old and don’t get technology (hint: this is so high on the list of bollocks I cannot begin to defend it without steam erupting from my ears of pissing myself laughing). But I love vinyl and to a smaller part tapes. But I also get a bit of stick from people of my age, and younger, even occasionally older. For some reason.

My biggest gripe. the music lover. The one who you know loves music. the one who also at every opportunity tries to put down vinyl, or marvel at it being still in existence. They often do the same at books. Partly I feel it is just because maybe they are a little sad at what they gave up. Partly I feel they are that ex-smoker (like me) hypocritically calling out smokers. I don’t know. I am probably wrong in what I feel.

But. I love vinyl. And for me this is part of the reason why…

You can enjoy all the benefits of the modern world. And I do. I have two Plex servers (Home and a community shared one); you can have a music streaming service from a broadcast official (Apple, Spotify, Pandora, YT Music, whatever), and I do. Hell I also subscribe to lots of visual media streaming services as well as having the latest smart devices, electronic book subscriptions, electronic drama (audio) subscriptions, and gushing over technology because I do love it…most of the time. You can love how you have been introduced to so much more, so many more, bands and music via the ‘like this’ element of streaming music.

Good Omens album
Vinyl Spoken Word Album given as a Birthday Gift

But then you go and think this is better. A natural evolution. Not just different. And also a little bit (maybe a lot) less. You go and mock, or dismiss how it used to be. You act like there is something wrong with a choice to have the latest music on vinyl, or even an audio play or book on vinyl. Why would anyone want that? Why not just have it as a preference in whatever app you prefer.

Also, sometimes, you confuse modern electronic systems of superiority. In regards to quality, or choice, or usage. You confuse ease with progress.

So I answer thusly:

Are you are a mindless soporific drone? You allow an algorithm to spoon-feed you another portion of heterogonous statistical variance. Albums that were once, and in some cases still are, masterful creations intended to serve as an exhibition, a narrative, are now served up as compressed meat slices that fit within a certain variable of the last pulled out of context soliloquy. You might allow that service to play you a new album once or twice so that you can select which elements to push from your constantly over-stimulated recollection. Why have an attention span when your playlist is linked to a database with a better appreciation. How many of you know the track listing of the last song you heard, or even the album? You probably remember the list…

And those playlists, constantly mixed into your user-centric identity piecemeal so that the continuing colour of your existence blends further towards uniformity. Why have a guilty pleasure when you can have a secret list of them. No one will ever know as there are no physical remains to advertise your guilt. You don’t ever have to select them yourself. You don’t ever have to do anything but mumble a phrase or swipe a switch.

You are in control. Holder of the many variant mood lists. Screw the producers, composers, artists and engineers. No longer do you need suffer to listen to a composition, of any particular lyrical lust, in the manner the author intended. A sum composed by the tail-end of probability will reduce it to an agreed understanding that you have happily submitted to creating.

No one touches your world.

Because there is no tactility. No interaction with the physical. Music delivered electronically straight into your micro-interfaces eliminating any possibility of the randomness that is living. No longer can a mote of dust be seen in God’s eye. We have digitally scrubbed it aside. The texture of surfaces lost as we further sterilise the experience by the inserting of hypo-allergenic delivery systems into our orifices, further removing any possibility of acoustic variability. How better to have the soulless sum collected than in the hardware delivery system. The only logical next step is to feed it directly onto the surfaces of the synapses finally eliminating any physical system that allows you to determine what is actually real.

Biological systems are slowly eroded. Visual appreciation of artwork, the feel of card and paper. The textures of vinyl ridges and a slight pull of static. The gentle manipulation of machinery and the almost sensual caress of cleaning are lost. Forgotten. These emotions, these senses, are cheerfully abandoned to the alter of convenience.

Soon, even your ears will be defunct, artefacts of a forgotten biological age. They hear only in analogue and mono. It takes the functions of a determined sub-conscious to construct a stereo experience rich in reality. This is a blocking point and one that our mad dash towards technological totalitarianism will overcome and eradicate. Mathematical delivery of mathematical composition directly into a biological system trained to appreciate the arrangement of a sequence. That is what pure digital appreciation can only be. That is our endpoint.

We must feed, consume, absorb more and more to sate our lust without ever realising that we are doing so by surrendering the full experience. We have pasteurised the delivery of music. Streaming services are the UHT, the Huel, the removal of the stress of effort. It is a cost in space to own the physical. It is a cost in time to interact. It is a cost of effort. it is a cost of money. It is a cost of relationship. We have reduced the overhead to the appreciation of the art. Now there is only a drive towards greater efficiency and the calculation of profit.

And what of that money? As we gladly throw either our privacy, or our wealth, to a streaming service that cares nothing for our spirit. Content delivery systems designed on the premise that ease of availability and amount of choice are the only variables to quality. Digital systems that are being perfected in an arms race of choice not audience appreciation. So that we are lured to a competitor by the breadth of their offer for we no longer need worry about the quality of our life or the joy of possession. As for the services themselves we will sacrifice our morals to an organisation that might platform hate, or delete preferences based on the whim of politics or popularism. They will censor, manipulate, eradicate, collate, stereotype and homogenise without ever needing to inform us of a choice. Paul McCartney will tell you that on the original album cover he had a cigarette in his hand and they all had no shoes on but the digital future eradicates the truth and the Madame Tussauds models replicate a lie.

You own nothing. You leave nothing. You have started to hold nothing as you cheerfully abandon your senses. You own a stream of electrons that stick in one pattern or another until at the end of your existence they are allowed to decay or are purposefully removed. Deleting your existence in the press of a button as you chose to set your existence in the same manner. Gleefully, and with a whimsical sense of pride, you reduce your life to a series of preferences in a password protected electronic mausoleum. You are already dead, you just haven’t stopped interacting with the software.

But, it is a lot easier to carry a smart device in your pocket, as opposed to 40 million+ songs, a record player, amplifier, speaker system and a few miles of cable.

In View of Y Mynydd Du

A couple of weeks a go a piece of serendipity occurred. I was in South Wales for the first time in 15 months. I guess for some people that wouldn’t be unusual, but we have family in the valley and in years when we were not all locked to our homes we would visit every couple of months. So this was the first time we had managed to get to see family since New Year 2019.

This wasn’t the sernedipity.

I have a good friend from university, Malcolm. He has a Caterham Lotus 7 which if you don’t know what that is, it is a car, A cute little two seater sports style car. It doesn’t have any fancy things like windows, or a roof, or space. In fact you are sitting two people in a space not much bigger than a bath tub. On a frame that weighs about 400 kilos with a 1.8 litre engine. That sounds like a small engine, the brake horse power is only in the low one hundreds, but the power to weight ratio, that’s the fun part. You are also sat about fifteen centimetres from the ground, with the rear axle behind you.

Malcolm has always promised me a little jaunt, a jolly, a buzz, in the Lotus 7. I have always wanted to because it is like a roller coaster without rails. i.e. bloody good fun, and more than a little terrifying on the first trip.

So the serendipity. I was in wales, with my family and I tweeted such. Malcolm contacted me and said that he was fifteen miles away doing his first road trip since the lockdown ended. He then asked if he could whisk me away from family. I have 3 kids, I was with relatives. So we determined a 5a.m. start and a quick jaunt up to the Black Mountain (Y Mynydd Du) could be done. The jolly was on.

What entailed was a thrilling morning. It was cold. It was windy. It was exhilarating. And it was even funny when the road chippings bounced off your forehead. Thankfully I was pre-warned so I was wrapped up warm. Malcolm, bless, had the foresight to bring spare goggles and ear muffs for me, which was a god send sparing most of my face from debris and my ears from being pummelled into my skull (did I mention that it was loud and that the exhaust was 110 centimetres from my head?)

I took some, very shaky, footage with a mobile phone. I took enough to edit into a small film (I added some car sounds taken on a different trip with a microphone that wasn’t in the slipstream. I also added some tunes to help with the experience. It’s short, I recommend you watch it to see the scenery and the smile on my face masking the partial terror I also felt.

I have been promised another jaunt in the not too distant future. I cannot bloody wait. Thanks once again to Malcolm, you casn check out his website and YouTube channel: Malcolm Anderson, Seven Drives, https://se7endrives.wixsite.com/seven… – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLyMVPqGXnNasgXYVeZYhkQ. Additional music on my video is by https://soundcloud.com/beardmont.

Black Mountain Buzz (press play to start)