Half a percent

Link Wray is dead, alas. (He invented the power chord and was probably the first person to have a single banned from the radio simply for being an atonal guitar thrash. This was in 1958.)

David Bailey:

Jane keeps apologising for her ancient cameras - one of them is 40 years old, exactly half her age - but 67-year-old Bailey tells her firmly that 'oldies are goodies' and anyway: 'It's not the camera that takes the picture.' He says he's got about 10 OM1s at home; he's even got a gold one because Olympus gave it in exchange for one of his (this was presumably when he was doing ads for Olympus). But, he adds, there is something wrong with Jane's OM1: 'The lens is opening up too slowly The spring's jamming slightly. I can hear it. You take it to Olympus and they'll be happy to do it for you. Get it cleaned at the same time.'

The Kodo drummers will be in Edinburgh in February. Who's coming along?

HMHB Thursday. The Dickies Friday. Durutti Column Saturday, but I won't be able to make that one (arse!).

Friday was the Hoose. Saturday was the Saunderses' cocktail party. It was good, but then I went down to the east end to catch up with James' birthday drink. I ran across the meadows and caught a taxi on South Nicholson Street, but they were still all gone by the time I arrived. Ho hum.

Neon was fun. Ed dropped round beforehand, having walked out of hospital. He was in a hell of a state, but he calmed down a bit when he was inside and had been fed (although he hardly touched it . . . I'd been looking forward to finishing it myself. Oh well). I sent him off home to see if he'd locked himself out or not, and told him to come to Neon if he had, so he could come back and crash on the couch. He didn't show, so I assume he got into his own place. I hope so, anyway. Last night wasn't as cold as the couple before, but I don't like to think of him out in it.

Picked up The Organ's album, essentially on darkstones' recommendation. Good stuff. More songs should use the word phosphorescence. It's been criminally underexploited so far.

Edinburgh, one week before the solstice. 11 at night. The sky over Fife is a pale blue a few degrees above the horizon, and a pale pink closer to it. It's really good being so far North.

A busy day at work today, and not just because I've been off for two either. All the Novell clients had to get taken off the PCs because the Novell server's being retired and replaced, so I had to log the Computing Services people in . . . repeatedly. This reminded me that nobody can remember the Administrator password for one of them. I have to remedy this, and also be more of a fascist as concerns the machines generally. They were very impressed by the microscopes, even though I didn't tell them how much they cost. I also got to play with one of the scopes for a bit, which doesn't happen often enough.

I just saw Sin City with gingiber and anonymous_seth. We bumped into Ian McLennan on the way over, saw the film (on the really big screen at the UGC) and came back again, bumping into Ian at the same point on the return journey. The film was mostly very good, although Bruce Willis was excellent. I don't think I've seen him that good since 12 Monkeys. Suffering suits him (and I mean that in a good way). I can see why it got bad reviews as well, though. It's never going to be accused of being a well-rounded film. But there you go - the things I didn't like are the things I don't like about Frank Miller's stuff generally, so I guess it was indeed a very faithful adaptation.

Got home, checked who it was that was that was at school with who . . . OK, I'm impressed.

It was a lovely day today, which made a nice change from yesterday, which was a little chilly (i.e. extremely chilly for June). I got up, got ready for work after my day off ill, and then realised that it would still be a bad idea to venture too far from a toilet. Ho Hum. Mailed my boss, who mailed me back to wish me well and point out that he's got slight pneumonia. I can't even be best at being ill round these parts.

Later, when I was feeling rather more together, I went to Pancho Villa's with gingiber, anonymous_seth and Victoria WINOLJTTBOMK. BWHI. I got to play with L&S's new E-300, and even take a couple of quick snaps with it. Rather nice, and much smaller than the other DSLRs I've handled. Still vastly larger than an OM, though, and while the lens is a superzoom, I'm not sure about getting a camera with nothing faster than a 3.5 . Food, company and surroundings excellent, although the next table had a whole shedload of blokes chatting, and therefore making more noise than I'd usually expect from the place. Very nice Dia del Muerte poster on the wall. I should have taken a picture of that, actually, while I had a camera in my hand.