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Portmanteau corner

transcribble
noun

portmanteau of transcribe and scribble

Colloq. To jot down one set of notes from another.

"He spent his evening busy transcribbling his notes into another book."

Embargo, what embargo?

That the 1911 census records have been released online early (they shouldn't be viewable till 100 years after) is a double-edged blade. It's great for genealogists and geeks in general, such as myself, as it means you can look up even closer links. For example, I have great grandparents on the 1901 census, but miraculously, my late, paternal grandma is on the 1911 census, having been born in 1909 (which is remarkable, really).

The bad side to it being released early is that the next one, the 1921 census, probably won't be early, and is thus probably 12 years away. I was heartbroken, too, to discover (from the Guardian) that the 1931 census was destroyed in a fire, and that there was no census taken in 1941, due to the War.

So, twelve or so years til the next census release, and then none for a further thirty years.

Best make the most of this one then really.

A few bits I wanted to pass on

Hullo - I don't have any grand sweeping statements to make this drizzley Sunday afternoon (though a report on taking a trip to the Arndale Centre on a weekend could probably fill volumes), but I have picked up on a couple of things online in the last week or so that I felt the need to inflict upon you.

First of all, fans of electronic, ambient, beats-esque music (I'm new to the genre, I am not yet armed with the knowledge to correctly categorise it) will probably want to head over to the website of Danish label Vuf Empire. They are very generously giving away five compilations of the stuff and the vast majority of it is really great. Perfect for just sticking on in the background while you're working, only to stop every couple of tracks because you're distracted by the awesomeness and feel an urge to investigate the artist, or 'love' the track via last.fm.
Next up is another great use of Flickr by an institution to exhibit photos which would normally appear to be hidden from public view. Click the image above (a 'photochrom' of the Thames Embankment in London, 1890-1900) to see the Library of Congress' Photochrom Travel Views photo set. As well as a healthy set of images on Flickr, on the left is a link to a far wider collection - some 6,500 images - available on the LoC's website to search through (which is where I found the above image).

The photochrom process is a bit of a mystery to me, despite LoC's best attempts to explain it to me, but I don't mind. Sometimes it's just best to ignore the technology at work and simply sit back and enjoy the results. In simple terms, they are 'colour' photos of Europe and the Middle East taken between 1890-1900 which is all you need to know.


Finally, a rather beautiful panorama of Mars has emerged. Very little technical information is given, but as with the photochroms, this is another image you can simply take in without needing to know too much. What I will say (and what made it even more interesting to me) is that the resolution of the image is absolutely huge. The website offers different image sizes to view, and the 1/8th version is bigger than most computer displays. The full resolution (JPEG) image is 22mb.

Again, in simple terms, looking at one of the larger versions full size just allows you to pan around the surface and see detail on rocks and dust in the foreground, or to gaze off into the distant Martian horizon. Love it.

My new camera

Let it be known that today is the day that I sat down and listened to In Utero and "got it". Yes, I know I'm 15 years too late but it's taken my recent obsession with early 90s grunge/lo-fi/fuzzy guitar rock to re-visit this little gem. Oh, and I'll come out and admit that hearing the last three tracks played almost too loud in Fopp this afternoon sealed the deal. You know when you are listening to music and you are aware that it is just tip-toeing along the threshold of being too loud? It was like that throughout the store and it sounded fucking beautiful. Incidentally, there's a piece in the Grauniad today about rock music being too loud that I have yet to read. It mentioned tinnitus, My Bloody Valentine and Sunn0)) so I'm sure it'll be interesting.

I spent this afternoon in Manchester just... soaking a bit of it up again. I love it here. It was cold and grey, but I still had a lovely afternoon (though rain might've been a different story). I went to buy a film from a shop just down the road and, like someone buying cigarettes for the first time, didn't have a clue what to ask for "oh, um, just some colour film...just standard stuff, whatever". He promptly picked out some 200 ASA colour film, 24 exposures, and popped it on the desk. I then asked how much his developing service is, picked it up and started to leave. I looked down at what I was holding and realised I actually had to pay for it. I'd love to make some big statement about digital photography making me forget that films cost money, but in reality it just wasn't long since I'd woken up and I was in a bit of a daze. Idiot.

I loaded the film haphazardly in the park (yes I know it should be in the dark, but whatever), fumbling my way around the camera's innards like an inexperienced lover before, finally, it all slotted into place and... well, and it wound on to the first frame. Nothing too saucy there.


Thankfully the Zenit's controls are remarkably simple. Having very little knowledge of apertures and a little more of shutter speeds was made a lot easier by finding that the camera's light meter was still in good working order as far as I could tell. What that actually means is that I just need to turn a dial to line up the light-meter, which enables me to work out either the shutter speed or the aperture of the lens. It wasn't a perfect day for this, being overcast, but it was bright enough for me to feel my away around my knowledge of shutter speeds to compensate for the aperture (which I am, as a result, learning more about). Once that's set up, all that needs to be done is the film to be cocked, the lens focused (my favourite part, as it is so fundamental in photography - lining up a shot and turning the lens to bring your subject into focus) and then you simply hit the shutter release (releasing as well that impossibly delicious "ker-flunk" sound) and hope for the best.

I then walked from the park into town via a few things I like to photograph - the central library, the Palace hotel, Piccadilly Gardens, etc - before I had used up the 24 exposures (more like 15 in the end, due to the aforementioned fumbling in the park) and I dropped it into Boots to be done in an hour. Two hours, actually, so I did some browsing, picked up a map of Manchester and the surrounding area, grabbed a Guardian and headed for a bit to eat at "The Bank", a rather lovely little pub underneath an intriguing-looking library - something to investigate at a later date.

Lovely way to spend an afternoon that, nursing a pint, a sausage barm and a paper. I can see why alcoholism is so popular.

After the allotted time, it was back to Boots to collect my prints and jump on the bus home. Sat on the back row of the bus, I nervously pealed back the envelope's tape and glimpsed inside where, to my sheer joy, were a wad of photos all bright and crisp and colourful. Hurrah! The camera works! And it's not just the camera that works, but there's only about two out of the fifteen that are over-exposed, meaning that I managed to set up all the shots properly using just the light-meter. That made me really happy. That, and the focus, which is sharp enough in the right places, but also allows this wonderful depth-of-field that I love where your subject is in focus but the distant background is indistinct.

YAY.

Some of the photos (these are photos of the prints, so they're not 100% clear):




There's a few more here. And for comparison's sake, my digital camera versus the Zenit:

Lost in Migration

I love finding stuff I’d forgotten I had.

I bought this batch of Lost In Translation film strips from ebay years ago. They’ve just been stuffed in an envelope all this time. I wonder what I can do with them? There’s about 10, each about 10cm long, all featuring either Murray or Johansson.

Could I make a magic lantern lamp out of one/several of the frames? That’d be cool…

A MiniDisc voyage into the past

Cor! The last few hours I've been having a session going through my MiniDisc collection. It's not a huge one, but the music contained on the discs is so evocative of what I loved aged 16 or 17. I got the MD Walkman for my 16th birthday (2001). In the middle there you can see "Paul's First MD - Internationalist" - containing Powderfinger's album (which I actually still love today).

Beyond that, there is a whole load of pop-punk and nu-metal. It doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to think that I had blonde spikey hair at this time, especially when you realise the music I was listening to was all Silverchair, Green Day, The Offspring, Blink-182 etc.

Along with all this delightful teenage angst, you'll also find a lovingly-prepared set of MDs - seen above with labels and pink ink - made by Sara and containing all manner of New Zealand music. I have her to thank, for the most part, for my obsession with a lot of that stuff. Without her effort and energy, I might never have come across The Clean, The Verlaines, and a hundred others. It's a strange thought really. Thanks Sara.

Keeping on the NZ theme - why not! - I also found something I'd forgotten about: a brief audio journal of the 2002 trip. As with a thousand other projects I have started, it is unfinished; it only actually contains about 8 minutes of speech, almost entirely on the flights over, with two entries recorded in Papatoetoe, Auckland. But just like I seem hideously unable to complete things I start, I also still have the mindset that any small portion of something is better than nothing at all. Those 8 minutes of me incessantly updating the non-existent listener of our flight-time and approximate position are priceless simply due to their uniqueness.

In so many ways, this little collection is so important to me as a time capsule of my life between the ages of 15 and about 17. The music is evocative as music so often is. The device itself immediately transports me to particular places I've used it, people I've used it with, and things I've used it for. I remember, almost instantaneously, all its idiosyncrasies. The discs themselves have a tangible quality all their own - the handwritten sticky labels, the different colours, cases and designs, and the shabby state some of the older ones are in ('Paul's First MD' has a crack in it and the disc door is loose, but it still plays perfectly).

I didn't have an MP3 player or CD walkman until many years later. For me, this little box of tricks came at a time when MP3 players weren't really affordable, and when my music collection on CD and on my computer was just aching to be made portable and enjoyed in as many places as possible - or perhaps in the case of the green MD containing Marilyn Manson's Holy Wood and Rage Against the Machine's self-titled, to block out a world which wasn't dark or angry enough for this 16 year old. Sigh.

Digital files have some of these features, just in different ways. It is possible, at least to some extent, to trace the origins of files (especially where they have been sent to you) and histories and transfers are locked into the files. But I'm getting something out of this MiniDisc reminisce that I don't think I'd be as able to with MP3s. Besides anything else, this is a physical package that fits neatly into a small bag.

Special mention should also be made to my sole surviving pre-recorded MD. Silverchair's Frogstomp. I vaguely recall buying it at Virgin or HMV on Piccadilly Circus in a vastly-reduced section, not knowing much about them, but wanting a pre-recorded MD to play with. I remember having a Manic Street Preachers MD but seem to recall losing it or returning it for a refund... Either way, I got a jolt of nostalgia and decided to investigate the pre-recorded MD market present day.

It's not pretty. Very quickly you start to see that what MiniDisc had in technological innovation, it sorely lacked in ubiquity or mass-market appeal. The paltry selection of titles available (at least today) reek of a handful of major labels attempting to make their releases available on as many formats as possible so as to best make money off them. I also vaguely recall that MDs suffered that early-adopter tradition of being off-puttingly expensive, but never making it to the mainstream. The titles available now are either unloved, million-selling pop albums (see Barbara Streissand, Destiny's Child and George Michael - available for a couple of quid), or are still relatively cool and have ironically become collector's items due to their scarcity (see Blur, Radiohead, Kula Shaker and more, £5-30 a pop).

I decided to treat myself to Generation Terrorists by the Manics, in an attempt to redress the balance. Only a couple of quid - good thing too, as shortly afterwards I realised I already own it on CD. Still, the exotic form factor will make it worth having.

Coming home for this holiday has taught me one thing for certain - as bad as it can be to hoard and keep far too much stuff, it is actually worth it for the wonderful odd things like this little collection and the stories they can tell.