monday 4 – went to paul weller concert with peter
warm-up band was pictures, quite heavy at times and the drummer really seemed to be enjoying it
weller went on for nearly 3 hours, was after 11 when we left
the seven ages of weller, he seems to have so many different styles, funk, soul, pnly the early stuff he seems now to avoid like the plague – the only deference was when they sat in a circle of guitars and did a few songs, including “monday”

impressed with some of the stuff off the new album, one or two of the songs were real stand-outs

wednesday 6 –
the go between, by l. p. hartley
The word engineer is derived from the Latin words ingeniare (“to contrive, devise”) and ingenium (“cleverness”).

thursday 7 – flight to uk, pick up car and get to clitheroe, get a loaf of bread which I end up toasting for the meals i’ll be having

for the time i was here, it must have rained 80% of the time

friday 8, uk – go up town in clitheroe to do a few jobs, see imogen, go to bank and swales for lunch, but cheese and onion pie with peas is not the best choice

drive over to see margaret and james briefly, pick up guitar and drive to see mum where they are having a 40s sing a long and mum is really smiling and enjoying it, we especially enjoyed the song about hanging out your washing on the siegfried line, if the siegfried line’s still there

watch a bit of telly, play a few songs for her on the guitar, edelweiss, which she didnt sing to but anyway, take me home country roads and american pie

accompany her thru for tea and stay a bit longer then drive home, listening to the bbc proms

saturday 9, uk – set off at 7.30 to get breakfast at the tescos off junction 26 and also to get a few things to take back, porridge, crumpets, teabags

sunday 10 – playing guitar for 3 songs, doesn’t go particularly well as getting used to the congregation, glad i did the last song which was a bit better from a timing perspective

monday 11 – likely working from home as is usual for this day

tuesday 12 – both girls up and out early for first day back at school, hurray, back to the normal routine!
go out to gbr to full office

wednesday 13 – go for run and smile going past sabs on her way to school, ipod on, walking early to school, since working she has been better at getting up!
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/13/hurricane-irma-capitalism-growth-economics-environment-financial-crisis

thursday 14 – brian benjamin’s favourite film was “funny face”
go to the MVHS course in schwabing on dealing with feelings run by silke steininger

sunday 17 –

Event:Schuster Tegernseelauf HM 2017
Net time:2:00:15
Overall Place:1989
Place in age group:297 (M50)
Minutes per km:5:41
Metres per minute:175.5
Kilometres per hour:10.5

Mike & the Mechanics concert:
as we arrive, just catch a few songs from ben mckelvey, who is pretty good, explaining he on the verge of giving it up when he got a call from mike and mechanics to support them

set list
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/mike-the-mechanics/2017/muffathalle-munich-germany-3be224c4.html

Are You Ready – mike plays on the silver strat
Another Cup of Coffee – plays acoustic
Get Up – plays bass
Silent Running
The Best Is Yet to Come
Land of Confusion (Genesis cover)
“acoustic set – drummer moves to a cajong, keyboardist moves to bass
High Life – both guitarists just pick bass and high strings half way thru
Wonder
Let Me Fly
A Beggar on a Beach of Gold
Cuddly Toy (Roachford cover)
I Can’t Dance (Genesis cover)
Over My Shoulder – both guitarists on acoustics
All I Need Is a Miracle
Encore:
The Living Years – super start, taking a new set of words before leading in, mike plays simple intro more or less thoughout, dynamics are pretty minimal except for verse 3
Word of Mouth (incl. “Superstition” snippet) – goes on ages binds in outros of each band member:
Luke Juby – keyboardist (full-scale yamaha)
Anthony Drennan – (lead) guitarist and bassist
Andrew Roachford – keyboardist (little red nord) and vocalist
Tim (the power) Howar – vocalist and general mood-maker
Mike Rutherford
new drummer

nice looking at my side to see katie glowing with enjoyment
packed with 50 somethings and over, great concert, overall it seemed more upbeat than when i last saw them with Pete in 2013, rutherford actually engaged and enjoying some audience repartee

tuesday 19 – wies’n visit with colleagues from gbr
stayed pretty sane and sober enough

wednesday 20 – working at home

thursday 21 – again at home doing more testing work
go to the MVHS course in schwabing on dealing with difficult people run by silke steininger

friday 22 – working late to finish some testing off

eve at the wies’n, in the end they got a table crammed in at the schottenhammel, after searching ages, then giving up, then getting texted by kira and hannah who had managed to wangle their way on, then when the rest of the table cleared, giving them the all clear to pounce

saturday 23 – at the guitar course with alexander harnisch at the gasteig and again a lot of theory excursions putting folk off – one guy threatened to leave after an hour but stuck with it under duress

come back and eve is doing some homework, but seems a little worse for wear from the wies’n

sunday 24 – again at the gasteig for the course, few more tips but no real songs to practice so was not as good as last time and i won’t go again, but it was nice to meet up with juri, the chilean guitarist – there were 7 students on the first day, but only 4 on the second – one couldn’t make it and the other two men dropped out ‘cos it was really too much theory i reckon – they would have been better with that course from richter more focused on rythms

monday 25 – go for decent run, first one since tegernsee

call john during the day
after tea we sit around talking about bedtime nursery rhymes and stories, girls sing a few and then we call john to sing happy birthday

tuesday 26 – helping jose to select also an outlook version, eg.
https://www.mysoftware.de/microsoft-office-home-and-business-2016-fuer-mac-mac-os

wednesday 27 – out at the digital innovation day with guan, was good fun, then collecting a few quotes from reading and notes:

some nice words as Wolfgang leaves,
“überzeugt, dass wir alle an Veränderungen wachsen. Es kommt weniger darauf an, wann und woher Veränderungen kommen. Es kommt viel mehr darauf an, dass wir aktiv und bewusst damit umgehen um diese in positiver Weise beeinflussen. Was dann daraus wird ist nicht vorhersehbar, sondern das großes Geheimnis des Lebens.”

then quoting Lee Iacocca:
“An irgendeinem Punkt muss man den Sprung ins Ungewisse wagen. 
Erstens, weil selbst die richtige Entscheidung falsch ist, wenn Sie zu spät erfolgt. 
Zweitens, weil es in den meisten Fällen so etwas wie eine Gewissheit gar nicht gibt”

and some words from a colleague:
“den Mut gefunden, dich neu zu erfinden, neue Wege für dich zu gehen.
nicht ohne Gleitschirm auf die Reise gehen”
Joachim Adolphi

quote from article by Neal Lawson of progressive alliance, writing in the guardian
“the error of most people is that they make one brave move and then don’t make another” Nietzsche

at tea time katie is out so we sit around talking, was nice, checklists v to-do-lists, mindfulness / aware breathing v meditation

thursday 28 – go to the MVHS course in schwabing on decision-making run by silke steininger

friday 29 – katie and i set off early, well 6am, just about catching the girls to say goodbye, then head out for the airport and flight to gatwick

take thameslink train to blackfiars passing through herne hill, which was interesting and from there to the southwark travelodge, checking in early so we could get going for sight seeing

we walk past the tate modern and on past the globe theatre, don’t know how we’d missed it before
we sit and have a coffee and carrot cake in the starbucks round the corner, then as the rain sets in, katie gets a plastic poncho to get her by with an apt quotation from the merry wives of windsor “let it rain potatoes, let it thunder like greensleeves”
sitting and watching the rain and enjoying the view and folks rushing by was very calming

we go over the millenium bridge past st pauls and along fleet street, wandering into the temple gardens and just catching the church before it closes for an exhibition on the magna carta, some interesting facts around how temple was the king’s london residence and it was here that barons confronted him with demands to sign up to the charter; there were many drafts and even a change of king so a william magnaforce(?) acted as custodian

temple played a fundamental place in the establishment of a parliamentary democracy and rule of common law, reference:

we wander on along the embankment and duck into the coal hole for a swift pint

then further down to embankment station and up through into st james’ park along past buckingham palace, each of us trying to remember the names of the queen’s guards which we saw on a plaque:
grenadier – single buttons, white emblem in bearskin
coldstream – twin buttons in a row, red emblem
scots – three buttons, no emblem
irish – four buttons, blue emblem
welsh – five buttons, white/green emblem

we take a detour trying to find st james palace, but just circling back into green park and past clarence house

katie is worried about eve’s (well lizzie’s) party being held at our place this evening, a plate (which turned out to be a bowl) had been broken already

wander up the mall and we look in at the bookshop as we drop into the ICA:
the end of ownership, MIT press – but the basic premise is just that everything moves to end physical ownership, through subscription services
do i belong? lermann ** katie wanted this
the production of money, ann pettiford – looked good but check
the dark web, jamie bartlett – there might be better ones

we go back via trafalgar square and take a bus back to waterloo, where we embark on trying to find somewhere to eat and the usual hassles to get a place, the white hart on cornwall road was very noisy and we got perched on the end of a reserved table, but nonetheless decided to move on, probably a bad decision!

we ended up at the union jack diagonally opposite the travelodge (well the nelson is directly opposite, but they seemed to only have burgers), said union jack was ok for katie’s meal of fish and chips, but the scampi was re-constituted, quite from what i don’t know ‘cos it didn’t seem to taste much of scampi

saturday 30 – get up early and go out to john’s to sort out a few things at his flat, admin stuff and generally check on anything important, including taking away the application form to help him with it

we meet katie at the crypt under st-martin-in-the-fields for breakfast, a luke warm affair by the time you’d paid and sat down, still was ok

we take a humungous journey which was delayed an hour and a half from blackfriars to haywards heath, then called dave who kindly agreed to pick us up and take us to the hotel; it would have been a half hour’s walk at least

party at ashenground community centre, which was quite a way from the birch hotel, but fortunately dave picked us up from the hotel when we were ready and took us down to the house to meet up with others, to make up the “team”

we get to the venue and unpack everything into the hall and kitchen, setting it all up within the hour – it’s amazing how quickly a large team can transform a place so quickly and then like a plague of locusts, clear it all up again – there was loads of drink and food left at the end, less so drinks, but many we supposed had eaten beforehand

got stuck at times in the kitchen serving drinks which was nice and out of the way

had a good chat with uncle kenneth who due to his stroke was a little tongue-tied at the start, but had noticably improved by the end of the evening, admire his determination to get back to his former state