Went to see Gogol Bordello last weekend in Leeds. They were fantastic, had a great time bouncing in the middle of a fun crowd. Aching a bit today. Now, I wonder if they do weddings...

This is realy interesting.
View here. Found on BoingBoing

Just been to see an exhibition of William Blake at the Whitworth Art Gallery. Like many I am an admirer of Blake but I've never had an opportunity to see the prints except online or in books. It was an intense experience. The energy and power of viewing the illustrations has left me shaken so I'm not really sure what to think about it all and I need some time to think. I am hoping to be able to go back before the exhibition ends but unfortunately that is in a couple of weeks time.

I don't really believe in piracy. That's why I use Ubuntu Linux instead of Windows - I know that all the applications I need are available to me for free. Recently I've been downloading a lot of free music - and it's really good stuff. The biggest help in finding it is this blog:
http://freealbums.blogsome.com/
It covers everything from the latest Nine Inch Nails release, through jazz and all the way out to classical. Definitely worth a look.

Ant sent me this link.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=pHqqggwXbyE
That's about what happened...

just had a very strange day. on the way to work i kind of went to cross the road, didn't take time to look properly and was knocked down by a taxi coming around the corner. i'm ok, just battered and grazed but no bones and didn't get hit on the head. in fact i'll probably be back at work tomorrow. spent about 3 hours in a&e to just get everything checked out and walked out with a dressing taped to my arm and cocodamol in my bloodstream before spending most of the afternoon asleep with babylon 5 playing as I've run out of anything decent to watch and definitely couldn't face anything complicated.

on the plus side found out the other week that i am going to be an uncle.

The iPod is not a particularly pretty device but it does just work, doing everything I need with a minimum of fuss. I got some new sennheiser in-ear headphones last week and they are superb. I am now listening to things at half the volume, while sat on a noisy bus or train, and still hearing things more clearly than before. It has led to a bit of a boost in my podcast listening so here's some of the ones I've been enjoying recently:

Astronomy Cast: Interesting look at space and astronomy stuff I find it incredibly relaxing to listen to while I just soak up interesting facts.

Audio Dharma: Talks by Gil Frondsal and other Buddhist teachers. It's a nice complement to Zencast.

Boing Boing TV: Sometimes downright crap and the adverts are annoying but some of the best/most fun animation I've seen can be found here.

Songlines: Podcast for the folk and world music magazine. I first heard Rodrigo y Gabriela here and am still grateful.

Finally, a special shout out to Starship Sofa. Well worth digging through their back catalogue for a weekly, in-depth look at many famous SF writers by a couple of fans from the north of England. It's a lot funnier and a lot more entertaining that that sounds. Tony is doing it by himself at the moment but it's still going strong and is now publishing regular, free to download stories with a small pile from Michael Moorcock and plenty of other big names too. I cannot recommend Michael Moorcock's London Bone highly enough - it's the best audio presentation I've ever heard with the voice perfectly matching the story, the acting is superb and it just blew me away.

2007 comes to an end. Looking at this blog it has been a slow year for things interesting enough to write and also a difficult year to find the time to write. When I started this it was not meant to be much more than a journal for me to record what I'm doing or interested in at any particular time but recently there's been little to add. I am going to keep it going, occasionally, but I'm also going to start doing something new, something that I am going to try and keep up.
A while ago, following on from reading about Wreck This Journal, I set up a notebook with an ever-growing list of creative challenges for me to do. Some were more successful than others but the principle worked - it got me thinking again, it got me writing and drawing again and it was fun. The journal is still with me - there are a lot of pages left to fill. But it's also the starting point for a new set of challenges for the year where I hope to be able to post something new every week on to a new blog. I do not know what that will be - whether a picture, a photo or a story, or something else. I do not doubt that a lot of it will be rubbish, but it is the doing that is the point.
So, I guess I'll see what happens.
If you want to see whether I manage it then point your favourite browser or news reader to:
http://gr-sf.blogspot.com/
Hope to see you there....
Happy 2008!