in the garden, in the company of a pair of collared doves
On Friday I returned to the School of Scottish Studies Archive and had a fascinating couple of hours listening to old recordings of accompanied fiddlers. One temptation in these circumstances is just to sit and enjoy some great performances rather than analysing the great and the less great. So I rationed myself to two sets of tunes by Tom Anderson and the astonishing Peerie Willie Johnson. But elsewhere I found some wonderfully crooked piano playing, which reminded me very much of recording Pigeon on the Gate in Montreal a couple of years ago, except that here it was the accompaniment that was crooked rather than the tune.

On the way home I looked into the exhibition of comics at the National Library, to be surprised (I think) to find that most of the titles in the 21st century graphic novel section are already on my bookshelves at home. After the train journey west, I finally picked up my bike wheel with its new rim from Carl at BikeLove: it's good to have my big bike running again after a few weeks on the Dahon. I saw another Dahon Ciao on the road today, but as I was in a car I couldn't stop and compare notes with the rider - serves me right for driving. I was returning from the computer shop after having to buy a new monitor after mine gave up the ghost suddenly at about 11pm last night. I'd hoped someone would repair it, but no-one could see the point. It's very frustrating having to take it to the recycling centre instead, when it's probably only a couple of tiny components that have blown.

That was the end of a day of technical irritation - my copy of Cubase LE has refused to work for a few days, so yesterday I spent an hour and a half uninstalling and reinstalling lots of Steinberg software until it all worked like a dream once more. Six hours later it had had enough of being co-operative and went back to stubborn refusal, just before the monitor blew in sympathy. A background irritation but a large one, as it means I can't record any music. I suppose that if I wanted full technical support I should cough up several hundred quid for the full version of Cubase, but I like the principle of home-made things being low budget. The principle's fine, but the practice can be problematic. One of the mic amps in my E-mu 0404 interface seems to have given up too. 

So this morning I cut the grass while listening to Stephen Fry's podgrams and now I hope I'm finally going to get back to doing some work. I'll start outside with pen and paper. Technology can wait.