20 October 2026
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Half Improvised

Most of the time in the concert band setting, the string bass part is just a duplicate of the tuba part but written an octave above where it sounds. However, every now and then one or other of the instruments carries on while the other one gets a rest. Tonight the Charnwood Concert Band was rehearsing an arrangement of Miss Saigon and the conductor spotted one such example, where I was enjoying a few bars of rest and, if we presently had a regular tuba player, they would be adding some movement underneath flowing chords from other instruments.

Phil didn’t have a tuba part available so I took a photo of his score and quickly jotted down what I could onto my part. Unfortunately my photo only covered the first half of what was needed so I had to busk the rest by ear! Keeping my ear-based skills up proved valuable and I was able to carry on for the next few bars in a way that fitted.

It turns out I do have a scan of the tuba part from when it came out a while ago with the Charnwood Symphonic Wind Orchestra so my homework will be to write in all the proper notes more neatly but, having recently been able to observe how well my sight reading has come on through working with those bands, it was pleasing to also affirm that I’ve got some other playing approaches at my disposal and at a level which also fits in those contexts.

19 October 2026
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With Occasional Frustrations

Web development is the kind of work that is often very satisfying as you type in your code and create something that is both beautiful and functional. Sometimes you think you’ve finished and then find a number of small improvements which are best worked in straightaway (also satisfying) and sometimes you make mistakes where you can quickly see what has gone wrong. Those aren’t as satisfying but at least you can see what needs to be done to get back on track.

The most frustrating kind of problems are the ones where you know things aren’t working right but it isn’t obvious why. I made an update on a live server on Friday night which didn’t go quite as planned. It didn’t bring the whole thing crashing down but I started seeing a message on the login screen that should only have turned up on a development system. I did some more work on Saturday morning and, although I did make some useful observations about other things to improve, I didn’t feel any closer to a solution. Truth be told, I had taken a worthwhile step forward and the note to self I wrote on Saturday gave me a way in this morning that wasn’t starting from scratch. However, it took the best part of two hours of further work to realise what the problem was and to get it fixed (a step I’d figured out to fix a problem on a similar system earlier in the week turned out to be responsible for the unhelpful signals I was getting back when applied on this other one).

I’m now back on the last few bits of tidying up, which will include improving the documentation for both systems. I can at least say that I’ve learned a fair bit through the process although it isn’t quite what I wanted to spend that time on. Still, learning is satisfying, so I think I’m back on track.

18 October 2026
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Supporting the Washing Up

We’re still between dishwashers (ie. we haven’t replaced the one that broke a couple of months ago). I think we probably will get a replacement but, meanwhile, it has been back to washing up by hand. One of the limitations is draining space. We’ve got an extension board but it doesn’t sit high enough to let the water run back into the sink rather than on to the worktop. However, that probably shouldn’t be a problem for someone with a 3D printer…

This evening I’ve printed off a couple of supports that sit under the back of the board and lift it several centimetres higher. In turn that should give enough of an angle for the water to drain as we want. I’m looking forward to testing it after breakfast tomorrow and finding out if I’ve probably solved the problem or need to chalk this edition up as a prototype.

17 October 2026
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Games on the Table

I was right that a chop saw was the tool for reducing the length of the legs on what is now our front room coffee table (see “Chopped Down to Size“). I took them round to my friend and he did in less than ten minutes what felt like it took me the best part of a couple of hours, with a better finish as well.

This evening, we put the table to good use by getting out some of our board games. The ones we played were Kodama (building trees by laying down cards with pictures of branches) and Patchwork (filling in a board with tiles representing patches, trying to cover as much of it as possible despite all their odd shapes). It was nice to have a large playing surface in the room with the comfy chairs!

Patchwork is particularly good for us, as it is designed for two players although Kodama, where you play fairly independently, also flows well. Many excellent games really need 3 or more players otherwise you just end up with the two players slugging it out rather than having to keep alert to threats coming from more than one direction.

16 October 2026
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Back to The Good Place

Looking back on my blog, I see that it was in 2018 that I was watching The Good Place. It is a comedy series that manages to weave in some high-brow philosophy. The germ of the idea is that people who have died wake up in paradise but the protagonist is painfully aware that she doesn’t deserve to be there. It was enough to convince me to sign up for (a free trial month of) Netflix to watch it but I was delighted to see that it recently turned up on U.co.uk, a free channel in the UK.

I can’t remember quite how far I got with it and I have a suspicion that it “jumped the shark” at some point but I’ve enjoyed going back over series 1. Theologically, it already has deficits. I’ve recently been studying Paul’s letter to the Ephesians which makes it very clear that our eternal destiny is not based on the merits of our actions but on whether or not we have chosen / been chosen to die to self and live in Christ Jesus. There is a certain ambiguity there but not one we can get a proper perspective on so we have to rely on more fundamental questions like do we believe Jesus lived, died and rose again… or can we prove that he didn’t despite evidence like the growth of the Christian church despite intense persecution in its early years.

It looks like I presently have all four series available to me so I imagine that, fairly soon, I’ll be finding out how far I got before and where it ended up.

15 October 2026
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More Autumn Seeds

The lettuce and spinach seeds I started earlier this month have begun to sprout although the germination rate is relatively low so far and none of the seedlings are big enough to do much with just yet. I’ve moved the pots with seedlings to an uncovered propagator on the kitchen table and that frees up a few slots in the smaller, covered one.

That’s good because I’ve got more I want to get going. Today I started another batch of komatsuna (a leafy green in the brassica family) and some winter purslane (Claytonia perfoliata, also known as miner’s lettuce). Both of these should produce salad leaves, possibly during the winter and certainly as we come into next spring.

I grew komatsuna earlier this year and found it did well in the polytunnel (12 harvests, typically a handful or two at a time) but was a waste of time at the allotment (both batches suffered with some sort of flea beetle leaf damage and I didn’t harvest anything). Starting it off in mid-autumn is experimental but I’ve got a decent amount of seed so I’ll see what happens and probably get another polytunnel batch going next spring. I’ve not grown the winter purslane before but it has a reputation for being pretty cold-tolerant. I’m expecting something along the lines of lamb’s lettuce, which has done well before, even outside.

14 October 2026
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Need to File

When I take photos, I post them to my Flickr account and file them away in an organised fashion… most of the time. There is a directory on my computer that contains subdirectories that got from the camera to the computer and didn’t make it any further and some of those are from almost a decade ago. I did manage to deal with another one last night, which included this slow-shutter / motion shot of the outside wood burner at our holiday cottage in the Wye valley in 2018:

I thought I still had another two days worth of photos from that holiday to work through but I realised I had already uploaded them and not done the local refiling to finish the process. I wonder how many others are closer to completion than I think.

I will be trying to dig in more frequently. For one thing, I often find my old photos by searching on Flickr. That is one of the main reasons for maintaining my Flickr account (although it also makes dropping on the blog very straightforward). For example, I might look for “fire” pictures I have taken and I would have missed these until last night.

13 October 2026
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Everything May Be Fake

I probably should revise that headline: everything online may be fake. Online misinformation goes back a long way. In the early days, that was more likely to be a consequence of misunderstanding but, certainly since the Internet became widely used (>70% of the global population using it daily was the figure I found by searching; that may itself be wrong but it is likely to be more than half of people in countries with a developed communications infrastructure as frequent users), there are plenty of people spreading deliberate misinformation. The rapid growth of AI tools has only increased that; now machines are on the job too.

A couple of times recently, I’ve spotted reports that Rowan Atkinson (Blackadder, Mr Bean, etc) had died. It caught my eye for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I recall hearing him mentioned elsewhere recently and, secondly, I haven’t seen the widespread ripple of stories across online media that I’d expect for the passing of such a major figure in the UK entertainment world.

I did a quick search in my coffee break this morning. Sources that I’d tend to trust, like IMDB and Wikipedia (both actively edited and fact-checked by many people), didn’t mention it and one of the results mentioned a current hoax video linked to a malware payload. Be very careful in following up such rumours – this isn’t the only time that traps have been baited with what is expected to draw in unsuspecting prey.

As far as I can tell, Mr Atkinson is alive and well but, in the Internet Age, curiosity is killing more than cats!

12 October 2026
by wpAdmin
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Chopped Down to Size

Today we had a new (second-hand) dining room table delivered. This one will more comfortably sit four people in its regular form and extends with a hidden centre leaf to sit more (or to let me put my germinating seedlings on the window end). What then to do with the previous table? It is a solid oak one we’ve had for 15 years or more but it wasn’t a great piece of woodworking or design. It has a simple hinged, sliding top so it can extend but the design means the table surface is almost an inch higher in compact mode.

Our solution is to try it as a coffee table in the front room. However, it was far too tall so this afternoon’s DIY task was to reduce the height of the legs. That was made more complex by it being quite a while since I last did a woodwork project. In particular, I couldn’t find my circular saw cutting jig so it took me ages to secure the legs to the workbench (helped by a ratchet strap… but I had to remind myself how to set it up) and longer still to get an edge in place to guide the cut.

Overall, I think it could probably do with another inch or two taken off the height but I think I might consult a friend of mine who has a “chop saw” before I attempt that. If the blade on that can handle a 3″ cut, that is probably the best way to quickly get clean and repeatable cuts to length. If not, I might just go with a hand saw – a bit more work on the cutting but it won’t take so long on the setup as it also takes a lot more time to go serious wrong!

11 October 2026
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Sight Reading Challenges

Tonight’s CSWO rehearsal mainly focused on investigating the dusty corners of the pad and trying out pieces that were candidates for being culled from the regular collection. That meant quite a sight reading challenge. Some of them were decent parts to play from (including one we did try in the time I was in the band which I’d produced my own part for) but others were more challenging.

Probably the worst was a part probably handwritten in the era before computer-based layout became common for Bb tuba (as in a tuba reading a Bb part). Not only was it tightly spaced but I had to both transpose up an octave (tuba reading to string bass reading) and down a tone (Bb part to concert pitch). We’re keeping that one so, when it comes up for a gig, that goes on the “write it up” pile. There were also some that probably haven’t been played much because they introduce passages with more challenging time signatures – one that spiced things up with the occasional 7/8 bar among the 4/4 sections and another that was mainly in 11/8 except when it went into 13/8. Both of those are staying as well, so my time signature reading repertoire is likely to increase.

A fair number of pieces were set aside so, for those carrying around paper-based pads, it will ease their backs a bit! As a bonus, a couple of the pieces might be suitable for the Training Band. I’m going to scan them in and, at some point, we’ll give them a go. For example, there was a medley of Shania Twain songs that sounded like the corners had been rounded off. For the Symphonic Wind Orchestra, we should be able to cope with arrangements that sound like the originals but, with the Training Band, that might make them more approachable and give us a presentable result.

The final challenge of the night was a piece called Spider Legs. Here the challenge was tempo – very fast and with lots of syncopated semiquavers. We tried it about a year ago and I have a recollection that it “kicked my butt”. I certainly put some time into practising it and then it didn’t come out again. Last night that paid off though. There are still some sections I need to do more work on but, in the main, it was exhilarating rather than exhausting.

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