Instant Journal Entries

I have a very easy Journal on the Palm and I keep putting in ridiculous entries about things I want to write about. I used to do this in a notebook years ago but I didn;t have a Blog to spout them all into so they just got left. Now I am faced with stupid memory joggers and I can't remember what half of them actually mean. Anyway, today's entries are as follows :-

1. Star Wars Cantina Band.

Do you remember the 1920s style music played by the group of bug-like Aliens in the Cantina at Mos Eisley? I was listening to it yesterday and as more time passes, the less Alien it sounds. I began to think about how different music would have to be to be real Alien music. The Cantina Band played not just Earth Music but Western (dare I say American) 12 note music without anything to suggest extra-terrestriality. There are plenty of weird and wonderful styles which would have fitted the bill better. However, I then got to thinking about the infinity of planets in the galaxy. If they were populated to the same extent that the planets in Star Wars are, then sooner or later something approaching our Western scale would be found. Actually, mayber there is something mathematically 'right' about the sound of music. How do you tell the difference between Music and just Sound? As far as I am concerned a lot of things can be Music. In the first Ocean of Sound CD there were recordings of Howler Monkeys and the Horns and Whistles of Vancouver. All the tracks were sequed into one another so that the connections between the different sounds were made clear. I think I talked about the sound of the Bandolier loading machines on our shopfloor here once. They made a very rhythmic clicking sound as they dragged components of the single-type reels and loaded them onto the main composite reels. I could have listened to them for hours. There was another machine which was used to oirentate tiny metal bushes on a line so that they were all the same way up. It had a huge bowl with a ledge spiralling up from the centre to a gap in the wall where the bushes would pass out in the correct way. The bowl did not rotate as I first thought but vibrated and so shook the bushes up the ledge. At a certain point, the ledge narrowed and any bushes on it at this point which were not the correct side-up, would fall off because they had a ridge that didn't match with the shelf. It was fascinating. I sound like a train spotter. And this is no way related to the Star Wars Cantina band.

2. Ursula Venables - Shetland Book

My father had a friend called Pat Venables who along with his wife, Ursula, wrote a book "Birds and Mammals of Shetland" which seems to be a definitive guide. Ursula also wrote a memoir of the Island life itself. They seem to have been very at home there. Anyway, I will have to dig out my Dad's copy of the memoir (And finish it). Ursula is still alive I think but Pat must have dies some ten years ago. He was a very knowledgeable chap but didn't suffer us kids gladly. He was always telling us to "pipe down" though not unkindly. From a few quick searches my vague idea that they were actually profressional biologists is born out. I think they went to Bangor University because that is where we always met them. I have just found another book written by Ursula - Tempestuous Eden. I think it is about shetland again but I will have to let you know. Lunchtime is over again. Bye.