Working with your hands is great (if you can do it)

I read a great book recently about the world of work and why office life is not the luxurious evolution of years of toil we believe it to be, but is in fact a drab, unstructured place full of vague management speak, unsure ground and a complete lack of answers.

Many would not need a book to tell them this, but in Matthew Crawford’s The Case for Working with Your Hands: or Why Office Work is Bad for Us and Fixing Things Feels Good he makes the case with allusion to philosophy while comparing it to his own experiences as an electrician, motorbike mechanic and other similar trades, and makes a compelling case that much of work in an office is bad for the soul when compared with the single-minded work of a fixer, builder, craftsman, who is set a task with a single, clear goal: to make it work, and can only be right or wrong.

So, when I bought myself a small, linen clothes bin, that required some self-assembly, I was ready to enjoy the task at hand, to screw a few screws, assemble some wood, pat myself on the back for a job well done. After all, it was only four pieces of wood and some screws: easy but satisfying.

Some 25 minutes later, frustrated, enraged and cursing the self-assembly Gods of Argos, I heard myself say out loud, “Couldn’t this thing just come pre-built!”. I recalled the book and its mantra of building, creating, self-fulfilment through doing, not thinking (as so much of modern work has become: “How do we measure the customer satisfaction of our latest loan insurance policy”? – I have no idea).

So I persevered and, of course, my brain taxed itself enough to actually get the stupid thing built and now I have a place for my dirty clothes – what a fun bank holiday. 

My Dad can build and fix most things, from cars to showers to cookers, while I am utterly bereft of such abilities, (despite many attempts at teaching). Where does this difference come from? Innately or self-taught, or both? Probably both, but then living in the late 20^th century, with its flat-packed, self-assembly fittings and pop-up tent camping gear, it’s not surprising I, and so many people my age, are clueless when confronted by anything requiring true craftsmanship or a working knowledge of woodwork, electricity, construction.

Furthermore, as Crawford notes in his book, nowadays designers and firms don’t want people tampering with their stuff. A friends’ Dyson vacuum broke the other day, but there was no way to take it apart as the screw sockets in use were bespoke, not suitable for an of the array of screwdrivers in his Man Box. Even our fleeting attempts at wanting to fix something, or try to understand it, proved impossible, instead being forced to get A Man to fix it.

Anyway, whether you love your office cubicle or feel it’s a prison by another name, I recommend the book, even if some of the philosophy went over my head at times. Not a philosophy, not a builder, not both as Crawford. What a failure!

A single piano run and Dire Straits coolness

Are Dire Straits cool? I can never decide what the general world census is on this, so many people’s opinions to take into account. There’s some sort of pervading sense that they’re not, due to headbands, some clunky lyrics, something vague ennui about them that I’ve never quite got.

Is discussing the coolness of Dire Straits relevant in 2012? Probably not. Anyway, I only mention it as lately I’ve been listening to Tunnelof Love quite a lot, mainly due to the lovely guitar solo outro which builds for about two minutes before being topped by a fantastic piano run in the final few seconds of the song, which my brother revealed to me is played by one Roy Bittan, the pianist of from the E Street Band, who regular readers will know I have already professed my appreciation of in a previous blog.

What is it about those fleeting moments in music where everything just swells together into a sheer moment of, well, what, elation? Joy? Genius? I don’t know, it doesn’t happen very often, but there are some songs – all within the ear of the listener on a personal, subjective basis – where you just feel enlivened, invigorated, perhaps even moved. 

It’s below, I think it’s worth the listen.

Green is not a creative colour

 A late night Vimeo session led me and my housemates to stumble across this piece of weird brilliance. For me it's the crow and his direct statements that makes it, as well as the line "Green is not a creative colour".

How do people generate such ideas? The images, words, music, characters, the desire to put it together: it's all the mystery of creation and the huge disparity of brains that exist in the world that mean some can create the videos like the one below, and some can become judges, and others brain surgeons and others carpenters.

Some excellent ahhhhh song endings

Some songs have lovely, long languid outros in which the vocal's echo on for an age, in this sort of Ahhhhhhhhhhhh way, and I really like good songs that do this, so here our a few of my favourites...why not?

Simon and Garfunkel - The Only Living Boy in New York: possibly the best example, with the whole song fairly "ahhhhh" throughout, and then really driving it through until the end. Good old Garfunkel and Simon. Starts at 2:50 odd.



Sufjan Stevens - Chicago: I find Sufjan a bit tiresome, so twee and whimsical, but you can't deny (well, you can if you want) the lovely ahhhhhhness of the ending to this song, complete with twinkly piano notes. Starts at five minutes dead.



The Flight of the Conchords - Ladies of the World: Comedy song, yes, but musically excellent and a nice ahhhh moment which comes back into the song unexpectedly, catching you off guard and giving you a nice, bonus ahhhhhhh. Ah, that's nice. Starts around three minutes.



Any suggestions? Know I'm missing some but these were the ones that I could recall with relative ease...

Tumblr and Bruce Springsteen

The trouble with all these new media platforms is that I have no idea whether I should post stuff to here or there (Tumblr) or go somewhere else entirely - Pinterest I guess.

Anyway, I do like the quick share functionality of Tumblr, so I've started using it, which you can see here, and recently included a post about Bruce Springsteen and Racing in the Street, which you can read over there, but I'll add the video here, because it's worth sharing widely.

The endless advertising dystopia of Waterloo Station

I know complaining about advertising is dull, and unoriginal, but I feel I’ve reached a threshold, a limit, a breaking point, with it all. It’s all the fault of Waterloo Station.

Every day I wind my way in to the station and on arrival head down into the underground walkway that links the train platforms to the underground’s maze, and along this concourse I am visually assaulted by an almighty slew of adverts that line the passageway for its entirety.

I’ve walked down this section probably 250, 300 times in the last two years or so and, suddenly, I’ve become absolutely sick of it. I actively try to stare directly ahead, or keep my eyes cast down, so as to avoid the gaudy, idiotic text and images bearing down on me. I feel a personal sense of desire not to succumb to the incessant dross, as we all march our way to work, no doubt many of us all caught up in the creation, display and measurement of advertising.

It’s not just the adverts existence on its own that frustrates me, as adverts are everywhere, but what’s being advertised too: it all reeks of the lowest common denominator, of treating us with contempt.

There are always several books being touted with tag lines like, “A dead child, a missing mother, a killer’s revenge – read the stunning new thriller from Steve Smith”, often proclaiming this chap “The new Stieg Larsson”.  And it makes me think, why on earth would anyone want to read that, it sounds horrendous, I’d rather read nothing.

Then there’s always a bunch of adverts for the DVDs of Jimmy Carr and Russell Howard and Lee Evans and all that and again, almost for no reason, I just want to tear them down: can we not go five minutes without endless plugs for more merchandise from tired old comedians who spend every spare moment on panel shows rehashing mean or lame gags? Does it have to be everywhere?

Then there are cookery books, the worst of which is The Hairy Bikers Pie recipe book from Christmas, with the unbelievably pathetic line of “A pie is not just for Christmas but for life”, which every time I mistakenly see I think; Who came up with that, who approved that, who got paid for that, what does it even mean?”

But this is the odd thing, when I have negotiated this Versailles of adverts, and reached the underground, where the adverts continue to come thick and fast, I just don’t feel so frustrated. I still role my eyes at the lame puns, the clear attempt at trying to make you believe you need something in your life that you don’t, but I just don’t feel the same animosity, the personal affront that the Waterloo adverts draw out of me.

Can they not just give us fifty metres of architecture, of nothing, of walls? When are we going to stop and decide we don’t have to plaster every empty space with posters for crap? We can just let a wall be a wall?

Complaining about adverts is, as I have said, a pointless thing to do, like trying to catch the wind in a sieve, but there we go.

A key decision when shopping for a piano

Not what I bought, but maybe one day...

Having survived the first few weeks back of the New Year after a relaxing, enjoyable and pleasingly economical Christmas it seemed appropriate to head into London and reward myself for working for three weeks in a row by making a purchase on the trusty credit card.

The object of my desire was a keyboard – a piano keyboard, not a computer keyboard – in order to help continue with my efforts at home over Christmas at trying to learn the infernal instrument some eight years after I gave up lessons while living at home.

My brother being a bit of a whiz on the old Joanna meant I had free tuition for several days and many aspects of the instrument that had always confused me before – what’s different about the black keys (answer: nothing), how do you make minor chords (answer: invert the 4/3 finger pattern for major chords to 3/4 (simple right?)) – I thought I should give the thing another shot.

So I wandered into Denmark Street – the music shop district of London – and this left me facing a bewildering array of choices at all manner of price points and styles. Some with light up keys, some with terrible tinny soundings keys, some with stands, some without, and prices from £50 to £300 for “beginner” models.

In the end I went for…nothing, as I was so overcome with choice I didn’t know what to do and thought I should check with my hermano (that’s Spanish for brother, I don’t know why I know that I studied French for four years) to see what he thought.

His answer: have my old keyboard. Ah, well, that’s an idea that should have crossed my mind when I was at home, but didn’t. Still, never look a gift-horse in the mouth, especially one that can play the piano – imagine that, a piano-playing horse.

So, now I am the proud owner of a second-hand keyboard and can happily tinkle away learning tunes such as Mary Had a Little Lamb and other nursery rhyme classics. What?

Still, at least my credit card survived a hit: well it did until I ended up splashing out on a new blazer instead for about the same price. It was in the sales, though, so was a bargain really…

Grammar schools and crying

I watched a fascinating little documentary on BBC4 last night about the grammar school setup that existed in the UK after the war and the benefits, and limitations, it offered to those who went and those that didn't.

While it was great hearing tales of inspiration from both those that passed the dreaded 11+ and those that didn't what was most interesting was seeing those that had gone to grammar school recalling with such fondness - and indeed tears on some occasions - the teachers that had inspired and encouraged them throughout those formative years.

In some ways it was a telling example that it's not always where you go or what you know but who's there and who you know that dictates where you end up.

I had a great history teacher at secondary school which inspired me to go on to study the subject at university, whereas my geography teacher...well, let's just say when I heard on the grapevine that he was, eventually, sacked I wasn't that surprised and only wished it had come sooner so I wasn't stuck with him for four years of boredom.

But then what would your school days be without a few crushing regrets?

Weekend Waterloo trains

Most days the train from Wimbledon (which I like to pronounce Whim-bley-don) to Waterloo is nothing but a commute.

An early-morning jamboree of tish-tish headphones, pushing-people and Metro readers, all weekday morning indicators, while the evening is much the same, although you may see the odd loosened tie.

However, take the train on the weekend, and rolling up to Waterloo takes on a completly different air: it's relaxed, almost like you're going on holiday such is the change in atmosphere from the weekday. Where normally the train is taking you to offices, computer screens and sandwiches eaten Al Desko, the weekend train holds the promise of the theatre, friends, galleries and other fun.

It's almost enough to make you forget the prices went up again and twice in the first four days back the trains were affected by various delays.

Singing out for Christmas

So, that was Christmas 2011. It always goes so fast, after such a long build-up. Still, it was a nice one this year, with mild weather, plenty of cocktails and nice dog walks with the family. My brother and I spent some time noodling around on the guitars and piano too, and even got around to bashing out a Christmas song, after discussing whether or not it was that hard to actually write one. You can take a listen to our efforts in the embedded video below. Enjoy, and roll on the New Year!

A short review of all the books I read in 2011

Another year, another collection of books read. I must be getting slower as I read fewer than in 2010 which was in turn fewer than 2009. Or perhaps I'm reading longer books.

Anyway, a short few lines on each one, with links to previous and longer reviews I wrote during the year where relevant.


1. Do Not Pass Go – Tim Moore

An enjoyable and mostly entertaining jaunt around London looking at the history of the creation of the Monopoly board and an insight into how each major square has evolved since that time.

2. Why England Lose - Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski

An engrossing read on that perennial question of why the England football team are no good, and it was refreshing to see that we're not just useless in our inability to "get stuck in" but also due to our utter lack of technical capabilities.

3. Nocturns – Kazuo Ishiguro

An underwhelming series of short stories from an author I normally enjoy. Each one seemed too flippant and throw-away to capture the interest and all lacked a plot strong enough to remain in the memory.

4. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet – David Mitchell

A fantastic novel, set in isolated Japan during the 1700s when its sole contact with the outside world was an artificial island used by the Dutch as a trading outpost. Probably the best Mitchell of the lot.

5. Notes from a Big Country – Bill Bryson

A slightly tiresome serious of columns collated into a book that sees Bryson riffing on the craziness of the US of A.

6. The Hours – Micheal Cunningham

Seen the film so read the book: very clever and engaging.

7. In Europe – Geert Mak

Some 900-pages of Europe's history told by a journalist travelling around the continent at the turn of the millenium. A long-slog but great insights and anecdotes throughout.

8. Chemistry for Beginners – Anthony Strong

A clever idea of a novel told through science papers (and diary extracts), that started strongly but the plot was slightly woolly and was about 100 pages too long to really sustain the interest.

9. Why We Run – Robin Harvie

A nice, philosophical take on the notion of running, by a chap who regularly runs 40-miles each weekend. That's a lot. It felt strained at times, though, as if the quotations from the great philosophers that he uses were found beforehand and then each chapter moulded to fit around them.

10. The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim – Jonathan Coe

Coe always tells a good tale and this one was no different but it just wasn't quite strong enough in any direction, either the characters, the plot or the attempts to show the madness of the world modern (See: What a Carve Up!), as his others, but nonetheless it was enjoyable.

11. The Picture of Dorian Gray  - Oscar Wilde

On purchasing a Kindle I went on a free-classic-book buying spree, with this the first work I downloaded. As witty as you'd expect and surprisingly gothic too.

12. Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe

Man trapped on island and the subsequent adventure he has. Good fun.

13. Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson

I just kept hearing the voices of the muppets in all the relevant characters having seen the Muppet's version so often during my childhood but the original work still contains plenty of excitement.

14. The Jungle Book – Ruyard Kipling

A collection of stories, rather than a single tale, which contains some elements that went on to form the bulk of the famous film, but is different in many ways. For instance, Sher Khan is killed by a stampede of wildebeest organised by Mowgli - inspiration for The Lion King?

15. Inverting the Pryamid – Jonathan Wilson

A detailed look at the evolution of football tactics of which I still find amazing that the first formations were 2-3-5. Madness.

16. Reading like a Writer – Francine Prose

Reminded me of being back at university but it was interesting to look at some of the reasons why the best writers are just that.

17. The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen

Finally got around to some Franzen. Engrossing and moving in places but the story of Chip going to Lithuania just didn't work for me at all.

18. Trouble on the Heath – Terry Jones

A load of rubbish. Read in a day, found it lying around, waste of time.

19. To the River – Oliver Laing

Another semi-philosophical book akin to Why We Run in essence, using the writer's affinity with Virginia Woolf and the river Ouse to contemplate her relationship with rivers, the writings it inspired, its role in history and beyond. Quite beguiling in places.

20. I’m Feeling Lucky – Douglas Edwards

Man joins small internet start up called Google, the rest is history. A bit dry in places as Edwards worked in the marketing area but nonetheless still a great insight into the madness of a company that grows from nothing to world's biggest in a few years.

21. The Good Man Jesus and the Scroundrel Christ – Philip Pullman

Pullman proves he's quite a good writer once again, with a clever take on how Christ became the cult figure he is today by stealing the thunder of his more humble brother Jesus.

22. The Atlantic – Simon Winchester

A nice read on some of the history of the Atlantic, the people around it and it's role in human history. Some chapters were a touch week but most offered some interesting insights and anecdotes on the cold, wide ocean separating half the world.

23. Freedom – Jonathan Franzen

After one Franzen, another. This one was, for me, not quite as good as The Corrections but an interesting, clever, damaged novel with a motley collection of characters going about screwing up their lives in unique and odd ways.

24. Player One – Douglas Coupland

A nice antidote to Franzen's endless words, with this short, fast-paced thriller taking an interesting idea that the world reaches its peak oil production and subsequent mayhem ensues. The idea only five people would be an airport cocktail lounge in a major US airport seemed a tad odd but there we go.

25. The Valley of Fear – Arthur Conan Doyle

A classic bit of Holmes, with Doyle using his two stories in one trick. First he sets up and the solves  the mystery while the second half gives the back story of how the amazing turn of events came about in a sleepy English resort. A lack of Holmes in the second half is a let down but the story was interesting enough.

26. How to be Good – Nick Hornby

Another quick easy read, which took a cleverish idea and ran with it as far as it could before becoming too ridiculous. I liked the character of Katie and thought the ideas of charity and the lack of relationships with neighbours in the streets in which live for years on end were well played out, but it's hardly a Great Novel.

27. A Film by Spencer Ludwig – David Flusfeder

Not sure what I really thought about this one: on one level a simple, fun road-story about a father and son: the father dying, the son a sort of successful film director but also a bit of a failure at life. But, while it flowed nicely, I couldn't shake the feeling the author was trying a tad too hard all the time. I appreciate that's a bit woolly but that's the only way I can describe it.

28. The Sisters’ Brothers – Patrick DeWitt

One of my favourite books of the year: a beguiling, lyrical and engrossing story of two murderous brothers heading to San Fran in 1851, the height of the gold rush, to commit, well, a murder. The historical setting let DeWitt paint some great scenes (one brother discovering toothpaste for the first time, shooting a bear that was killing his horse, meeting a mad prospector by a river), while the story is suitably engaging and strange to keep you hooked throughout. Recommended.

29. The Sense of an Ending – Julian Barnes

The Booker Prize winner and a very clever novel. Short but concise and at times reading more like Barnes musing on life than a novel, but the plot is nevertheless well structured and keeps you guessing until the end and beyond.

30. The Steve Jobs biography – Walter Issacsson

Read for work but I enjoyed this on a personal level too as there's no doubting the impact Jobs made on the world, whether you liked him or not. Jobs comes across as a huge tyrant but one who knew what he was trying to achieve and more often than not he succeeded, with almost those on the end of his tongue-lashings also revealing that their time working with him was some of their best working days.

31. Perfect Rigour – Masha Gessen

A study of a reclusive mathematician who proved the Poincare Conjecture was not a book I thought I would enjoy but Gessen tells the story as a writer first, rather than as a great maths genius (as she is too). This helps make the tale of a genius from Russian surviving the random machinations of Soviet Russia to become a great mathematician working in the US, going on to solve one of the world's most complex maths problems then reject the $1m prize a fascinating read.

32. And God Created Cricket - Simon Hughes

A slightly tiresome read, as Hughes adds a lame joke to the end of every other paragraph charting the history of cricket from Ye Olden Days to The Present Day. There's some nice colour and interesting anecdotes throughout, but the Ho-Ho sarcastic tone is too wearisome to be enjoyable.

33. Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond

Probably one of the first academic (or semi-academic) works I've read since university, this is an interesting and thought-provoking work examining the reasons why Europe and to a lesser extend Asia became the world super powers (of the last 500 years), rather than the Africas, Americas and Australia.

Diamond's argument is, roughly, that a combination of temperature, the abundance of animals and plants fit for domestication and the availability of certain materials, and a resistance, or lack there of, to disease spread by these animals, helped these areas of the world develop at a faster, more technologically advanced rate, than those without, which lead to an unfair balance when they first came into contact.

Cyril Hartley Moore

History is a fascinating subject. I should know I studied it for three years at university so it makes me something of an expert in the field. One of the most interesting areas, on an individual basis at least, is that of the family tree and the lives of unknown relatives. Certainly the success of shows like Who Do You Think You Are? is a clear indication that people discovering the stories of their family prove highly popular.

As such it was with great interest I received an email from a current family member with information on some research he'd done into my great grandfather's brother Cyril Hartley Moore. Through some clever emailing and tracking of information to Canada he'd been able to reveal a bit more light on his life, and the fact it was actually cut short in 1901 in the Boer War when he refused to surrender to overwhelming opponents:

"The Boers succeeded in cutting off the retreat of a small party of ten men he commanded. Three times the enemy called on him to surrender, but on Lieutenant Moore refusing to do so, he was shot through the heart," reads the report of his death.

Refusing to surrender three times despite clearly being beaten and ending up shot through the heart certainly sounds like the behaviour of someone in my family.

Overall, while I'm not going to cry about it (unlike the folks that go on the BBC show who the producers must surrounded with onions to produce the money shot), it's a fascinating and bizarrely profound insight into the life of someone who, while dimly related to me, is nevertheless part of my family's lineage and make-up.

Wimbledon skies

I moved to Wimbledon at the start of October from Putney. It's a very nice area (although no The Thames running through it, shame) and it has some ridiclously massive houses which all have four cars in their gated-off driveways: one 4x4, one sports car, on estate and one "runaround", which is mostly a very new Mini.

I quite enjoy wandering around the streets, just to nosy around the area and discover any shortcuts and while doing so snapping some pictures.

This leads me to the chance to post this picture up that I took which I was quite pleased with for capturing the multitude of colour Autumn always presents.

Booker books and the Kindle

I decided to join the modern world recently and read two of the Booker Prize shortlisted books I picked up during an enjoyable sojourn in Cornwall.

The Sisters Brothers: This didn't win, but it was very good. Set in the Gold Rush era of the US and charting the journey of two murderous brothers, one with a conscious, the other without, it was a lyrical tale of odd characters and beguiling set pieces that was both engrossing and readable. Sometimes it felt like you were reading a movie script such as the short but elegant descriptions and brief dialogue and I wouldn't be surprised if it was turned into a film if the book achieves enough commercial success.

The Sense of an Ending: The winner and you can see why: dense, cleverly structured and very well-written, it's a sad reflection on memory and the damage people do to one another without ever knowing how or why. At times it read a touch like a man just thinking about life rather than a story, but the plot is sufficiently engrossing (and actually pretty dark) to keep you hooked throughout.

Both of these books, it should be noted, were also beautifully produced, with lush page textures, aesthetically pleasing fonts and great cover designs, a testament to the beauty of books over Kindle and their ilk (one of which I own and enjoy using). It made me think that books and e-book readers are not rivals at all but complementary systems of reading and it's merely a matter of preference to which device you choose for which book.

For example, before these two books I read the Steve Jobs biography, which in hardback is a huge, weighty brick of a thing, but I downloaded it to my Kindle and it was a joy to devour as it was so easy to carry around and read on the tube as I rattled around London. But the real books described above were improved some 10-25% (if you can quantify such things) but having the physical, well-designed thing in my possession to touch and hold.

One of my favourite books of all time, the non-fiction Leviathan by Philip Hoare was a similar such book, my love of which was undoubtedly enhanced hugely but the sheer beauty and craft of its physical design. Reading it on a Kindle would have been a hollow experience.