2013, Year Of Unusual Promise
I’ve been writing drama and finding it very satisfying and enjoyable. At the moment, I prefer it to fiction writing and the other writerist pursuits. I like rehearsals, fine tuning text and letting the unfolding drama infuse.
I guess I like people.
Münchenstein
Münchenstein Dorf has a special place in my heart. It’s ideal if you come from Croydon because of its excellent public transport links to the nearby city of Basel, which we south Londoners learn early to appreciate. There are fields and farms here as well as a mix of light industry. A river, the Birs, runs through it.
Apple Eats Your Breakfast
I agree with this article on Apple’s decline. I’ve been using Apple gear since 1994, and genuinely couldn’t have got where I am without Apple’s incredibly enabling technology.
I’m an iPhone user but I’ve kept my 4 and not upgraded to a faster 4S or the newer 5. My 4 is still working fine after two years. Also, I haven’t upgraded to iOS6 on the basis that I don’t want to move to an inferior product in Apple Maps. I’ve invested a lot of time in Google maps and I don’t want to lose my bookmarks, for one thing, and living in a new country and working in foreign cities, I can’t risk going to an airport that doesn’t exist.
I’m still using a Power PC G5 which was in storage for two years. Started it up, works perfectly, just had to replace the logic board battery. It’s stable and fast – it purrs along beautifully running Tiger OS. I’ve not upgraded from Snow Leopard OS on my MacBook Pro, because it would mean changing my workflow (really? no “save as” in Final Cut?) expensively upgrading and possibly losing access to software I’ve used for years.
I decided to stop buying new Apple laptops when they changed the design so as to remove the user-changeable battery. I want to be able to take a spare battery with me when I travel, and not worry about finding a power socket in a strange land. Plus, as with iPads and iPhones, one day these unibody laptops will be so much expensive landfill, and every ecological bone in my body knows that is wrong.
Instead, I’m refurbishing my 2008 MBP. The Oslo Applestore expert couldn’t quite believe I would spend almost as much on a refurb as a new Macbook Air. I pointed to the Superdrive, to two different Firewire ports, and to the beautiful, tough metal keys. I demonstrated the non-reflecting screen. He still didn’t get it – he’s wedded to the cult of new always being better.
I predict that the last Apple product I buy will be a Mac Mini, which is a wonderful high value product – unless Apple changes course, which somehow I don’t see coming.
Green Dreams
When I’m depressed, exhausted or overworked, I rarely remember dreams. In fact, my ability to recall dreams becomes a barometer of stress levels.
A couple of nights ago, in a dream I met my paternal grandfather whom I never knew. He told me he liked me because I was like his son, and asked me for a sweet, green drink.
Having spent 20 minutes of dream time considering various green drink options from green tea with sugar to Chartreuse, I woke up with the perfect solution: lime juice cordial!
Creativity Requires A Certain Ignorance
I’ve been writing for Anne Roquigny about the internet, and I realised at the end of it that I sound like a curmudgeon. This is nothing new. Two years ago I wrote “How Not To Succeed on the Internet” and I stand by my advice.
The best way to go is forward, even when it means going backward. Give up whenever you feel like it. Let your children starve, lose your lover to a randy shop assistant with a rash, max out your credit cards as fast as possible, and flee your country never to return.
Forget the internet, which will soon be gone, with everything in it. Whatever it is you want to say, write it all down on paper. Learn how to make ink, and build yourself a printing press. Seal your books in a lead box, and bury that box in a stone sarcophagus, somewhere far from where you are now, half a mile above sea level, in desert conditions. Grow beans, and chew them thoroughly.
If you do these things, surely you will be handsome, and wealthy, and your children likewise.
But that’s not the point. The point is the sharp bit at the end.
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