Other employment of time in profitless and non-practical ways...

Music

I'm comfortable on guitar, keyboard and flute and love picking up new instruments. I was once kindly described as "hack musician" and can't really argue with that. One of my inspirations is the brilliant English folk singer Roy Harper.

The current collection of instruments:

• Wind: didgeridoo, flutes (silver and bamboo), fife, quena, tin whistle, recorder, piccolo, ocarina.
• String: guitar, violin, mandolin, santur.
• Reed: blues harp, 64 chromonica, concertina (Anglo 30), accordian (48 bass), melodica.

In 2001 I had some fun putting together the CD Recomposition under the pseudonym Digitalus Extractus. This involved sampling bits of music from my CD collection, doing dreadful things to them in CoolEdit Pro and dropping them into Acid Pro to loop and mix into new tunes.

Books

Favourite books include:

• Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
• The Bone People by Keri Hulme
• The Gift of Stones by Jim Crace
• The Sirens of Titan and Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
• Them Bones by Howard Waldrop
• The Evolution Man by Roy Lewis
• The Other Side of the Mountain by Michel Bernanos (this is a seriously weird trip of a book)
• Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
• The Hawkline Monster and A Confederate General in Big Sur by Richard Brautigan
• The Wasp Factory, Player of Games and The Steep Approach to Garbadale by Iain Banks
• Doctor Rat, The Fan Man and Queen of Swords by William Kotzwinkle
• The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
• Not Wanted on the Voyage by Timothy Findley
• The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien (of course!)
• His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman
• Mortal Engines series by Philip Reeve
• The Beach by Alex Garland (much more interesting than the film suggests)
• Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy (brutal story, beautifully told; sheer epic poetry)

The Aubrey/Maturin books by Patrick O'Brian are an absolute treat. Here are some memorable lines:

• 'There are times,' said James quietly, 'when I understand your partiality for your friend. He derives a greater pleasure from a smaller stream of wit than any man I have ever known.' - Master & Commander
  
• 'Jack, you have debauched my sloth.' - HMS Surprise
  
• 'The coffee has a damned odd taste.'
  'This I attribute to the excrement of rats. [...]
  'I thought it had a familiar tang,' said Jack. - Mauritius Command
  
• 'What in God's name does he want with a wife?' cried Jack, staring.
  'Why, sir, I can't rightly say,' said Bonden, blushing and looking quickly away from Sophie, 'I can't rightly say. But he bought one, legal.' - Desolation Island
  
• 'There is the girl that waits on Mrs Wogan.'
  'There is. But you will recall that she was transported for infanticide, repeated infanticide. She is a little eccentric where babies are concerned.' - Desolation Island (while looking for a nurse for a convict's new-born baby)
  
• 'Now, sir,' - addressing the wombat [...] - 'give it up directly d'ye hear me, there?'
  The wombat stared him straight in the eye, drew a length of gold lace from its mouth, and then deliberately sucked it again. [...]
  'Come now, Stephen, this is coming it pretty high: your brute is eating my hat.'
  'So he is, too,' said Dr Maturin. 'But do not be so perturbed, Jack; it will do him no harm, at all. His digestive tract...' - The Fortune of War
  
• 'Pass the word for Jemmy Ducks and Pollard,' said Jack, making a mental note to tell Fielding to move Pollard to other duties; detachment was easy enough where poultry was concerned, but the four-legged stock required a frequent change of keeper. - The Thirteen-Gun Salute
  
• 'He can whip off an arm or a leg quicker than any man in the service; and it is joy to see him carve a saddle of mutton.' - The Hundred Days (two officers discussing Stephen's virtuous parts)

Films

Favourite films include:

• Aliens
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King
• Blade Runner
• Donnie Darko
• Memento (a gem of a film that rewards more than one viewing)
• Dead Man
• The Conversation
• Brazil and 12 Monkeys
• Underground and Black Cat, White Cat
• The Tin Drum
• The Simple Minded Murderer (great film about an idiot who loves his bike - something I can relate to)
• Miller's Crossing
• Blue Velvet
• Pi
• Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
• The Young Poisoner's Handbook
• The Matrix

Favourite TV dramas include:

• Hiemat II (Germany)
• A Very Peculiar Practice (UK)
• Spooks (UK)
• Mother Love (UK)
• Seachange (Australia)

Quotes

Some quotes that have tickled my fancy:

• Farewell friend. I was a thousand times more evil than thou! - Stormbringer by Michael Moorcock.
• The Psychologist is the one who looks at everyone else when an attractive woman enters the room. - Unknown.
• Artist create something while critic only complain. Life of artist is hard, but more satisfying than life of critic. - Unnamed Haiku-Origami Boulder artist.
• And crawling on the planet's face, some insects called the human race. Lost in time, lost in space... and meaning. - Richard O'Brien, The Rocky Horror Show.
• The artist is the coal miner's canary of society. - Paraphrasing Kurt Vonnegut.
• The work is just beginning, as my hair begins thinning. Pleasure is past and all that's dear, as friend and foe alike disappear. - TISM, 40 Years Then Death.
• My name is Ozymandius, King of Kings, Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! - Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias.
• There are two types of people in the world: those who divide the world into two types of people and those who don't. - Unknown.
• There's more where they came from. - Gilbert Shelton, The Adventures of Fat Freddy's Cat.
• In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran through caverns measureless to man down to a sunless sea. - Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan.
• Hex is like a knife fight in a phone booth. - David Boll.
• Before you criticize someone you must first walk a mile in his shoes. That way, once you criticize him, you're a mile away and you have his shoes. - Unknown.
• The Journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. - Lao Tzu.
• I've been to the other side, and let me tell you son, there's fucking nothing there." - Kerry Packer upon being revived after a heart attack (a somewhat less poetic version of "the rest is silence").
• If you assume, you make an ass out of u and me. - British philosopher Benny Hill.
• Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx.
• Marx spots the ex. - Groucho Marx, on noticing his former wife at a restaurant.
• Q: Is Ringo Starr the best drummer in the world?
  A: He's not even the best drummer in the Beatles. - John Lennon.
• When cares attack and life seems black, how sweet it is to pot a yak. - P. G. Wodehouse, Good Gnus.
• Self indulgence is an absolutely necessary part of any kind of creative endeavour. - Roger Waters.
• It seems that for success in science or art a dash of autism is essential. - Hans Asperger.
• Q: What is the question most asked by Arts graduates?
  A: "Would you like fries with that?" - Anon.

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