At the weekend Eirene and I along with a collective of 10+ other people convened in Birmingham to join several thousand other people in The Q Club for the last ever Atomic Jam there. Back in the mid 90′s, Eirene and I went to one of the first Atomic Jam’s there – so last October when my friend said he was buying tickets – who was in?, I stuck my hand up. So very glad I did. An incredible night with some world class DJs in the main hall of a big old Methodist church. The night also featured two other rooms (+DJs), several bars, loads of corridors and cubby holes, stairways, landings, loads (and loads) of smashing people… and Techno.

‘Techno’ today as a genre remains very close in essence to its Detroit roots from the mid 80s, but arguably its roots go back way further that this. There’s something primeval about it; Techno is about utilising TECHNOlogy to make noises and structure them as patterns in rhythm. The first sound we heard was our mothers heart beat and it’s this that gives us our first taste of patterned rhythm. Pattered rhythm music has been part of humanity since the beginning – the worlds first musical instrument was almost definitely a percussion instrument (something that you hit, shake or rub  that makes a noise) and almost definitely, a rhythm was formed. Rhythm is something we innately understand and put into practice – for example – every time we walk.

We’ve been making music with similarities to Techno for a long time.  For instance –  here from India – the Mridangam Drum and from The Cook Islands the Log Drum. Both of these forms were formed totally without influence of each other thousands of years ago,  and along with Techno have a definable commonalities. They trigger a similar emotive response in a lot of cases and even though the pieces above are faster and with more complex time signature than most 4/4 Techno – they are predominantly a concentrate of patterns in rhythm. Some of the technology has moved on a great deal – the boxes that make the noises – from hollow logs to complex electronics as well as the things that peripheral with the noises – from sticks to Serato, but the feel and structure  has stuck with its roots; Patterned rhythmic music made by people who like to make noses for people to dance all night to – to me Techno has kept the bloodline of these origins of primitive party music, more than anything else.

The taxonomy of music gets more and more complex as time goes on – along with it, contention, as it fragments and re invents itself.  An easy split in definition is this:  music that was made on a computer and music that wasn’t. The skills of composing are often very similar – but the noise making objects differ. Old instruments – eg piano = pressing keys to make noises. New instruments – eg : computer = pressing keys to make noises.  Most computer music falls into what a broad brush describes as ‘dance music’. Techno, along with House music are the Godfathers of dance music. There’s no real definition on this – but to me, House music tends to be a bit lighter than Techno and House emulates and often incorporates more real instruments and vocals, and is more about the groove – Techno is more about the percussive rhythms and synthetic TECHNOlogically sourced noises.

In the early 90s I first fell in love with Techno at a venue called The Orbit in Morley, Leeds. Luckily for me, this legendary club – one of the finest Techno clubs in the world at the time – was just a short hop from home. Some of the DJs I’d seen there are still on the circuit – including Dave Clarke who I was lucky enough to see again at Atomic Jam at the weekend.

I like all sorts of music – but the weekend reminded me how much I ♥ Techno. Appreciating it properly is hard work takes a lot out of you – but it’s well worth it.

Last week myself and several hundred web heads converged on Nottingham for New Adventures in Web Design 2012. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect – some very good things had been said about its inaugural year (2011) and this year looked to be a very well put together gig. The brainchild of a fella called Colly – ’twas a real labor of love by the look and feel of things.

The workshop…

I signed up for a workshop on the Wednesday – the day before the conference ‘proper’. This workshop – one of three on the day –  entitled “Paper is your friend” was run by a charasmatic duo who call themselves “The Standardistas“. In a room right at the back of Nottingham’s Albert Hall, (with it’s  massive organ) this pair of authors and  Ulster Uni lecturers kicked off the days activity.

I think I already knew that paper was my freind but the arty, paper friendly side of my brain guilt-tripped the ‘efficient’ computer hungry side of my brain into giving it a go. They put thought into action - with web design in mind. The first part kindled a theme about the diversification of an idea and how to get it down on paper – principally through mind-maps. We learned that these work “because your mind wants to fill in the blanks”  - good point – turns out, that’s true. Trying to use pictures instead of ‘just’ words was a new twist for me. Diversification of ideas was the justification of purpose. Don’t just go for the obvious, solution or to put it another way “don’t just go for the path of least resistance” – these were watchword for this part of the day.

They showed us some other fantastic paper based tools – like Brian Eno’s ‘Oblique Strategy Cards’ [click here for an online version]. A very interesting concept. An idea wildcard system – you think of your idea then challenge it with these Oblique Card – works really well at the ‘pitch’ end of a concept – how to play Devils Advocate all by yourself. Mental Notes was another card based thought jogger that they introduced. Not quite the simplistic brilliance – but potentially useful, in the right settings – more of an after dinner muse that a hard n fast ‘tool’ perhaps. They also told us about the value of mixing up existing teams – don’t always work with the ‘go to’ people – mix it up if you can. The Mind Map Book was ref’d a couple of times during this session – it looks pretty comprehensive.

The second part of the workshop was about the aesthetics. Look and Feel. Colour and emotive response to design (in a way).  - the Visual Grammar  as they referenced it as. Moodboarding is something I’ve used from time to time. I find it a handy way of expressing an idea, or, to help me arrive at an idea and convey it.  The Standardistas were pushing the idea of not neccacarily just screen shotting a load of stuff of the internet but using the real world and (more importantly) real bits of actual paper to create a moodboard. They also suggested that we screenshot stuff from real life – using photography. Go to a library. Take photos of stuff. Go to an Oxfam and buy a bunch of old books and hack them up and stick them down to a board. Some of the latter ideas I found a bit limiting / limited though – if you’re going down that route – bring out the paints. If an oxfam had a limitless supply of stuff – then cool, but I saw this particular excercise a bit limited by the designer of the times mood / brief / etc. It was a bit ‘pot luck’ that we got an Envelope of Awesome (their pre filled cut up mags and books of stuff) that had some good stuff in it. Problem was it was all the same as the other groups. Anyhoo – not a biggy, I got the gist.  The big take away for me was the way they implored us to diversify an idea – to expand an idea to several ideas – build on them for a while then hone in. Think outside of the (Mac / Dell / IBM ) box.

The conference…

Kicking this off  was the web legend Dan Mall who structured his bit around “what do you do”. A good question. As for him, he designed startwars.com (that piqued our interest). A fascinating and funny guy who oozed creativity. Down to earth even though he’s done some world class stuff. He told us to build a fake CMS and that humans > algorithms. He told us that his biggest challenge of recent times was the notion of all things “Releted” (products / concepts / content). He also told us about the back (rub) story on a project called mostawesomestthingever.com . He illistrated a point by showing us this;

His point was – Encourage the adjacent possible. Creativity is just connecting things. Enjoy yourself. Spare no expense.

Following Dan, was a young British designer, who’s on the up –  Naomi Atkinson. She has some interesting ideas – quite a lot of it to do with yourself – as a brand. Think about how you promote yourself, where you get talked about, how you are seen by others and that you should evolve your brand language. The cited example was Sean Combes into Puff Daddy, P.Diddy, Diddy and for one week only ‘Swag’. Clever.

Next up - Travis Schmeisser – a UX guy who’s big n bold slide style kicked off with a thought – “we used to build forts” (as in dens). We’re all creative. We grew into this job because it suits our creative ‘type’. The stand out bits for me were “Appreciation for the experimentation is the wild west of the internet”. He told us to become an artist again and that we should inovate, create and dedicate. We should (and this was quite a reoccurring theme from a few of the speakers) Keep making stuff.  It’s not a waste of time just because its not client work – it’s training.

Robbie Manson had me (and judging by the #naconf tweets that were flying around) awestruck – something quite bard like in his performance. He structured his opening around a reference to Kubric’s 2001 – the atmospherics, the emotivity, the timings and the feel of it all. He Talked about time to tool and, like The Standardists, stressed the importance of paper in your process – he favoured a concept called ’6up’ which is simple, easy to adopt and effective (I’ve used it this week). He suggested that we “Step away from the computer at every possible opportunity”. As I type these words, I think – how would I do that? But I guess I could always dictate and transcribe. I can see his point although his idealism isn’t always practical – sometimes, the computer is the paper. The keyboard is the pen.

After Robbie, we got Trent Walton. A Texan font maestro and Responsive Web Design (RWD) aficionado, who referenced his family in a heart warming and relevant way – how his dad (a proper engine head, car enthusiast, a grease monkey (his words)) used to spend months making a car – then race it – then take it to bits again. Every nut and bolt, every turn of the spanner – has it’s place and often earned it through trial and error.  This whole speech reminded me of Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance  – how you’ve got the classical v the romantic types – those who understand the machine intimately and those who (just) know what it does and how to use it. He was saying we should think about our craft in the same way – break everything (so we understand it and can refine and improve it I guess).

Cameron Koczon was up next.  Big bags of charisma type of guy. A guy behind a highly regarded project called Brooklyn Beta.  He talked about start-ups, and how we should all make something we love. Effect change, elicit emotion. Induce Action. Easier said than done – but sound advice.

The wild card of the day – who’s thang really polorised the crowd (#naconf live) was Denise Jacobs. Web interlectreratii high council. Her piece was entitled “Your brain on creativity” was unlike any of the other talks. If the content of her fairy tale style delivery wasn’t so subconsciously compelling, I’d have thought she was utterly patronising. However – her left brain / right brain “be balanced” advice cut through and won a few hearts – in hindsight – mine included. She talked about helping your brain achieve Alpha state to increase creativity – through the application of Low Fi time (again – a ‘get away from the computer’ chime). I particularly liked the ‘Don’t force creativity, let it come to you’ quote from Erik Ford – from To Sketch Or Not To Sketch.

The headline act came from a slight man in a tie called Frank Chimero. He started out with story about a tiny pony he saw in an Apple store. He talked about “The Search” which smacked of “sometimes the journey is the destination” sentiment. He was revalationary in the respect that he told me that design is the bit that sits between art and commerce. He stated that designer are choreographers. Design is the bit between A to B. Spaces are important. The bit between the past and the future. Brilliant. Clarity.  So now I get it. Thanks Frank. Thranks.

Frank also came out with my two favorite soundbytes from the whole thing; Firstly “The world is not yet done… lucky is” and a gem of a George Kubler Quote – “The moment just passed is extinguished forever, save the things that were made during it”. Which summarises the big take home for me – the observance of a common theme form so many great minds – keep making stuff.

The social aspect…

One of the surprise bi-products of having that many internet heads in the same space was the extremely heightened propensity of appropriate use of social media – or to put it another way, a shed load of geeks tweeting about the same thing at the same time in the same place. On twitter – the ‘official’ #naconf hash tag was on fire – update after update of people commenting, sharing and generally discussing the world of New Adventures 2012. Sat right at the back during the conf, as was my want, I could see a sea of iPhones scrolling through twitter – especially during the contentious bits. Like a telepathic / silent conversation amongst hundreds – and it wasn’t that people were missing a beat – the tweeting enhance the whole thing.

I’ve never been in that kind of environment before – often I’m tweeting and foursquaring and g+ing and it feels like I’m talking to myself. These few days were fascinating. People were tweeting – I’m here, having a beer, talking shop and within minutes, a the bar was full of internetz. I’ve never been to things were so many people had ‘checked in’ before. It really did feel a very ‘collective conciseness’ (dare I say borg like).   Internet  community – this was a thing to behold. It wasn’t just a conference, but a convergence. So many conversations with like minded people. A success for (I hope and presume) the organisers and contributors, a success for me and my fellow attendees. If you’re reading this and contemplating 2013… do it! hope to see you there!

A weekend of contrasts – Eirene and I had been out to a Festival warm up party on the Friday evening (the festy in question is DragonGate 2012 – no doubt more on that to follow). Much fun was had at this till the wee hours on Saturday – when I remembered I had a forgetful friend staying at our house so ended up collecting the dog and going back into club-land to collect him. We called our mutual friend in California on the way home at about 5am our time +20 dec C there, -3 here. Winter has finally arrived.

Saturday – recovery day with a jaunt out to the paintball centre near Flaxby to collect Felix who was at a birthday party there. I took the opportunity, and the dog to walk the grounds (increasingly useful excuse tool for a nosey blogger like me to have) . A superb place – half of it is a huge quad bike track and the other half is a paintball, erm.. arena? zone? location?.. a paintball place. Completely wrapped in fine netting which I discovered the dog could not see in the slightest as she bounced off it at full pelt. As I got closer to the action – deep in the woods – I actually felt like I was a special ops scout. I spotted all the paintballers doing battle and they didn’t spot me. I was ready with the dramatic arms in the air whilst shouting “CIVILIAN – DON’T SHOOT, friendly, friendly..” or similar. Alas the potential war machines of tomorrow don’t notice some bloke with his dog 20 yards away only disguised by wall of black netting. I blame the video games. Kids don’t play army in the woods any more (apart from highly structured, albeit brilliant pseudo excercises like this). Mind you – army of the future doesn’t need the traditional organic skills of yesteryear. Probably. What do I care anyway? War sucks.

Sunday was lovely. After I’d parked a slow cooker of beef stew on low, we headed out to a bit of the OS 1:25000 that looked interesting. Near the Lido in Knaresborough (pictured above) – some paths by the river, some fields, some crags. We only saw two other people for the whole 2 miles or so round trip we ambled – yet we were at times really close to populated areas. I love winter for that.I’m glad winter has arrived properly.

Slawek, Rome, November 2011

Ben, The Sahara Desert,  October 2011

Fin, Angus, Iain and Joel in Iceland, August 11 (click for biggy)

A few more photos from our walk can be viewed by clicking this.

Some people write scripts to post comments on blog posts – that have a link in them – with the hope that people will publish the comment (I ‘police’ all my comments after a bout of childish, silly abuse a few years ago). Often these comments are oddly written – I can’t figure out if it’s absolute genius or utter drivel. I guess the premise is that the comments have to ‘fit in’ with an article to get approved by the owner – but in reality, they are often written by robots and have no real context to the article.

This one is poetry. It’s art. It’s drivel.  It means nothing. It means anything. It means everything. See what you think;

Some of the info on this write-up are perfect but had everyone wondering, did they will really result in? A little something I’ve got obtained say is your publishing expertise are certainly good and will clearly visit for virtually any fresh text you get, you may possibly have got a new admirer. I saved their site for private reference.

Another resolution is to give up smoking in 8 years from now. My strategy for this is quite simple. 3 years ago, I gave up smoking for all of January. Two years ago, I gave up for two months, last year, three months and this year, I’ve set myself the target of 4 months giving uppedness. Next year, my intention is to do 5 months – etc. etc. In around 8 years, I should have given up entirely.

I also want to keep on bloggin’. DragonDrop is 10 years old this year. Time and location based reportage, comment and interaction with the fine burghers of the internet. I’ve blogged at least once a month (up to several times an hour) over this 10 year period. I’ve bolted on a few other things since then – twitter, social networking, foursquare, etc. but the essence of what I’m doing is still the same. The difference is that (thanks to social networking, facebook, et al) the rest of the world has joined me in my quest to fill the internet.

Exactly 4 years ago I took a very similar photo…

It’s amazing how much and how little changes with the passing of time. Sophie has grown up so much yet she’s still got this adorable little quiet smile that make me melt a little bit. Christmas was lovely. Lovely food and drink, company and gifts, smiles and laughter. We had Eirene’s dad over (hello!) – it’s always lovely having him around (I’d better say that, as I know he’s a regular reader!) and we ate and walked and visited and talked and snoozed and opened and then far too quickly waved goodbye.

Santa was really good to us. I got a new jumper, a scarf and a Sargent Pepper Mill and a book called ‘Mess’ that look quite fun – an interactive book. Eirene got a watch and a 3G kindle, as well as a ticket to an event in Birmingham in Jan. Felix got a remote control helecopter – a G Bladez which.is.SUPERB. Jaygo got a claymation type rostrum studio with clay, software, backdrop and everything.  Sophie also got a watch and everyone got new pajamas.

..Amongst a whole bunch of other top stuff. Textbook lovely Christmas. We’re in that weird inbetweeny week and I’m working. Steady away though, steady away.

Here’s a link to a set of snaps from our Christmas.

Twas the night before Christmas, well the day at least. I’ve had the busiest period at work I’ve had in a long time – huge deadline – nailed. It’s held off the ‘Christmas feeling’ for me, but today – it’s upon us.

We’ve got Eirene’s dad over for Christmas (lovely). Went for a bit of a stroll with him down to the (surprisingly un-busy) sorting office this morning, wi’ dog.

Popped out for a few drinks last night with some old friends to The Muckles (a pub) and have so far had a lovely morning. I’m currently mid production of a pan of Chestnut and Bacon soup and looking forward to seeing RichP, who’s popping over for a hello in a bit.

Later this arvo, we’re off to the Christingle service at St. Peters, then I’ve got a whole bunch of wrapping to do. I may do some rapping as well. My old chum SimonB is bezzing over tonight, and we may imbibe an ale or two to keep us amused.

Eirene took me on a surprise weekend away last weekend, and a very nice weekend it was.  It’s been a while since we spent the weekend, sans kids. We did take the smallest of our brood with us though – Elsie (pic’d above) – our 12 week old Springador – who got her first official walk and was suprisingly excellent off the lead – I think we’ve blueprinted on her sufficiently for her to stick close.

What was billed as a surprise mystery location, but “close by”,  turned out to be The Chevin Country Park Hotel & Spa.  Our room was in fact a lodge type building with a grass roof type affair. Isolated and cosy yet close enough to the bar and restaurant (2 minutes walk)  for it to be hotel like in what it had to offer. As we dined on the 6 course taster menu on Friday evening, who should walk in but Chall & M, celebrating M’s 30th. A surprise for her also, we ended up having a few drinks and natters in the bar whilst a happy kilted wedding party got merry around us.

Saturday – After a beautiful walk along The Chevin, to see the view from Suprise View, with a very well behaved Elsie we headed back for snacks, naps and splats by the pool / sauna / steam room combo. Another 6 course taster menu that evening (reassuringly different from the Friday evenings), we headed back to watch Tommy Cooper’s Christmas Special on the tellybox. Just like that. Not like this, like that.

The final surprise was the discovery of an outdoor hot pool on the Sunday morning, where spent a blissful half hour in the rain,  pretending I was a Japanese Snow Monkey.

With myself, over the past near 7 years, I’ve personally added 6399 images into it’s space. Over 2 new photos a day average.  Most of these I’ve meticulously tagged – especially when it comes to things close to my heart – like Felix, Jaygo and Sophie. My more used tag is Harrogate and I’ve only got 720 or so untagged items.

People seem to curate their space with a bit more TLC than some of the other social networks. People seems to take more of a pride in their output within flickr. I’ts a great place to browse, to explore, to kill time, to find out about stuff.

Here are the last 36 photos of other peoples photos that I have chose to click ‘favorite’ on. No agenda, no real reason – usually there’s something about them (aesthetically, subjectively or objectively) I like or may find useful in some way. Vive la flickr.

1. Shopping. #harrogate #reflection #puddle #mall, 2. The Nose…., 3. _MG_66202, 4. enjoy it, 5. ” Choose your future. Choose life . . . But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life: I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons.”, 6. So many rules…, 7. Natural History Roof, 8. Godson, 9. Congestion, 10. Good, 11. polished stones from the beach, 12. Centenial Red Kite, 13. Angel of the North, 14. Whitby, 15. King Lear – Abbey Shakespeare 2011, 16. DSCF1535, 17. King Lear – Abbey Shakespeare 2011, 18. King Lear – Abbey Shakespeare 2011, 19. Atari 1040stE, 20. Mr Strong, 21. IMG_9991, 22. Two toons, 23. Work hard and be nice to people, 24. 1307049722600, 25. Moo n River, 26. Untitled, 27. By Mr Chat, 28. 1307043874089, 29. 1, 30. Angels, Cherubs, Nymphs and Ninnies, 31. P1010091, 32. Shocking, absolutely shocking, 33. little man, 34. untitled, 35. 0185.19 Lollipop Man, Glasgow, 36. “So… Been to the races before?”

To go with my draft peroni, I opted for an Involtini Di Firenze, which I bravely ordered, trying to pronounce it as accurately as possible  in Italian (again, whilst trying not to look rude or like there was something wrong with me). Beautiful dish.  Eirene had the Calzone – I’ve had this before – one of the most satisfying meals on the planet. Ed, my ace Father in Law had spag bol – very enjoyable, by all accounts. we only had around 66.66% of our children with us as Felix was/is on a sleep over in Ripon. Jay and Sophie enjoyed their pizzas and ice cream and being treat like princes and princesses.

Had some lovely chats and watched restaurant filling up – families, couples, celebrations, work outings, couples, business visitors; all sorts. I’ts one of those restaurants people do make an effort for but it still feels casual and relaxed. A happy place, good food top service and even though it’s quite a large pad, it doesn’t feel like a ‘big restaurant’ if that makes sense. Anyhoo - recommended.

Alan Bennett - playwright, screenwriter, actor and author

Completely out of the blue on Friday afternoon, I got a call from an old friend who was involved with an event in Leeds that needed a photographer as the arranged chap had dropped out. I jumped at the chance, then jumped at a shower, then jumped at a smart black shirt and headed for Leeds.

Amid the Après-work city center who’s attention had been diverted to Children in Need, I found La Grillade,  a vaulted cellar French restaurant celebrating it’s 30th Anniversary. The format for the night was that of a charity night in aid of Yorkshire Cancer Care, in the company of, regular patron, Alan Bennett. The MC – Editor of The Business Desk - David Parkin, set the pace and invited everyone to think of questions to ask Alan, after he’d finished his tea. This teased out a few fascinating insights into Bennett’s creative process – basing his characters on specifics and how he’s actually not (by his own admission) very good at ‘making things up’, and how he really liked the Talking Head format where he got to focus on the detail of a single character at greatly zoomed in level.

Having been lucky enough to see a Talking Heads show at Harrogate Theatre in 2006, and having probably read watched and absorbed more of his material than I’d realised,  It dawned on me that I was in the company of a living Yorkshire legend.  I then went on to muse an idea that he is to Leeds / Yorkshire what L.S. Lowry is to Manchester. Like Lowry, he’s an acute observer of people and society. Like Lowry, he comes across as quite humble and down to earth with no airs and graces. Like Lowry, he is known by the masses but hasn’t sold out. Unlike Lowry, he’s illustrated 20th Century middle class where as Lowry was all about the 20th Century working class. Different mediums, but both portray a real character of people – brilliantly.

Back to the Yorkshire Legend notion – I’d say Bennett is up there with Hockney, Moore, Saville (of the Jimmy) , Boycott (of the Geoffrey). If  the measure of a legend is his legacy, Bennett has already got a fine body of work behind him. And from the twinkle in his eye on Friday night, I’d say there could be a bit more lead in his pencil yet.

As well as taking a bunch of photos of the evening (click here to view them)»

I shot a short video of him reading a piece called “Stopped, the key lost”:

The hardships and sufferings that men like my Grandad Watson went through to ensure that we have what we have today were extreme. Boiled down – they gave us peace, freedom and comfort. Three things that we take so much for granted, but for which millions before us have given their lives.

A time to remember. A time to think. A time to take stock and reflect that the primary objective of humanity should be the continuum of these three watchword – peace, freedom and comfort. And spaceships. Maybe an answer to the meaning of life other than  ’42′ would be good as well.