Affirmation

After all those months of reading, recording, mixing, editing, nearly throwing the computer our of the window, weeping, howling with laughter, dreaming of the finished product, and finally pressing the Good-to-go for audiobook production button, we are starting to get excellent feedback. Some from dear friends, and some from unknown listeners; and today, one from someone who really knows his 'sound' stuff. Sir Robin Millar, CBE. The man with the golden ears - as named by Boy George.

I'd asked him a while back if he might have a chance to listen to Londonia - he'd enjoyed a couple of my short stories - and he said he would. He's a very busy man so I put the idea firmly on the mental back burner and got on with house renovation, working on paintings, planning the next audiobook, and life generally, until an email from Sir Millar this afternoon. 

  . . . Adored the whole thing conceptually and stylistically, Kate. I would compare it favourably to Gormenghast . . .

Both Mark and I are utterly rubbish at following up anything to do with statistics, demographics of listeners, possible earnings - ha ha, so the audiobook had somewhat slipped away into the cupboard of 'things we've done'. Mr Millar's comment has nicely shaken up our thoughts on the project, and given us a welcome bit of affirmation that it was, and will be, worth all the hard work.

Londonia the audiobook is available on Audible and other platforms. Link below.

https://kateahardy.com/londonia-audiobook

The Londonia audiobook team. Mark Lockett - sound design. Kate A Hardy - author and narrator.

A I rant

Just a very small one. I opened up Word this morning to write a few lines of my current writing idea and a chirpy suggestion appeared amongst the others that now seem to position themselves at the page header without fail. I don't so much mind the ones that say dull, potentially useful stuff like: write a cringy letter to your bank but 'write a witty post about a sailing trip' made me want to cancel Word immediately - but of course it's too damned useful, especially if you are dealing with publishing agents and the like.

Surely this making us all less curious, less willing to put the real work in, less autonomous, less human.

                                                   How we laughed over our chips. Blog post.

So, on a windy Tuesday last week, dressed in our blue and white sailing outfits, we boarded Alan's boat, only to find that a rat had eaten through a plank and that water was slowly filling the hull. Alan had looked up at the amassing storm clouds, shrugged and said, Well, maybe it's a sign. We could have all died out there. Let's go and get chips. So we did, and chortled about our near death Tuesday excursion.

Written by Sean the Word-bot. Or not. 

painting by a human: Anthony Vandyke Copley Fielding (attributed to, so it could have been AI, but unlikely in 1850)

Inconsequential archeology

 Our new abode is somewhat mysterious in its history. The agent had muttered something about 1960 or 70s, but the electrician discovered wiring he reckoned to be from the 40s, or certainly the 50s. Apparently the building has been added to over the decades - as whatever family lived here had expanded, or the goat shed had been noted as a future extra bedroom, or . . . who knows, certainly the sellers didn't have much idea.

The oddest bit of the house is where I am working to create our bed and breakfast/family and friends logement. The windows and doors appear to be from the 30s, possibly a bit later. Maybe they took them from another building, or maybe there are parts of the house which really are that old. Some of the walls are of the local stone - tuffeau, and some are breeze block, and there's a ton of plaster covering everything in states varying from - wow, this is great plastering! through to - this really ought to come off and we start again. The latter is in the bedroom I am painting/filling/painting. Proper builders like our friend Kevin would shake his head at the dents and grooves I am allowing, but I know when it's all under its final coat and with furniture added it'll look quaint and pretty. No one will see the dinks, and if they do, they won't care as there will be too many other more interesting things to look at. Well, that's my theory.

The oddest of the oddest bit of the house - in said bedroom, is a corner coated in ancient creme gloss paint, interspersed with small squares of fluorescent pink paint, or possibly felt pen. There must have at one time been a small cooker here as there was a chimney flue - now gone, just an inspection chamber left. Also, a series of warped air vents which on further inspection - one was very warped so I took it out - seemed to be just sitting in the wall where no air could pass. Odd. Perhaps the 'builder' had told the house occupants that he had put in special new-fangled air grills which would assure ventilation, and had just tacked them on. We'll never know; there's certainly no 'before and after' photo album from that era.

Small and odd bedroom which will be cute and art-filled

other end featuring the mysterious air grills 

And with its earlier layers of 70s/80s paper/gamelan gong storage area

The most unknown bit of archeology is yet to come. We may or may not re-do the hideous outside tiles which resemble slabs of composite ham, but as I've had an eye-watering quote probably not. Not this year anyway. Unless Londonia suddenly gets a film deal. Which might not be 100% impossible . . .

The tale of an old wardrobe, and a new bedroom

No one wants them - old, dark wood wardrobes. They sit lined up in our local favourite recycling emporium aware perhaps that the chipboard melamine versions seem to come and go with rapidity. I sort of understand it - if you're looking for light and airy/modern, but we never are. Old, oak, carving, history, craftsmanship; something you can gaze at with a cup of tea in bed and wonder who made it and how long it took them. 

Our latest purchase ( I have to stop myself buying all of them) was an extraordinary carved wardrobe which must be a couple of hundred years old, and is probably a Breton marriage wardrobe judging by the info I tracked down. It cost thirty euros . . . less than an Ikea footstool, and was delivered by afore-mentioned emporium taking the grand total to forty-five euros. 

With an idea of transforming it into a sort of 'fitted' cupboard system, our builder friend took it apart (impossible to get it up the stairs), reassembled it and added shelves made from another salvaged wardrobe, also oak but from the 40s. Mark added shelves on the other side, a few baskets bought and we have fitted furniture that might have caused the original carpenter to sigh with incomprehension but has made us very happy to inhabit the room.

when we first saw the house

                                                    New bedroom featuring the wardrobe

Artificial Insidiousness

I am perhaps a semi-luddite. I accept that certain technological breakthroughs have been invaluable - the wheel for example 😉 . . . and of course a thousand other things, but after listening to a John Oliver episode this morning my creeping dread of AI turned into abject disgust. Not because of it per se, more the people exploiting its uses for financial gain - well, what a surprise. It could of course - if everyone behaved like they cared about forging a more fair and caring world community - be impossible-to imagin-ly useful. For ecology, food production, health care, and possibly solving many man-made messes before madame nature boots us all off this overheating sphere. 

                                            An AI engagement-hacking shrimp Jesus/slop/spam 

However Mr Oliver's excellent observations were on the subject of A1 slop. Something even I have been aware of, slithering into my Instagram 'feed' - God how I hate that word within an internet context. I've cut down to about ten minutes a day - there are some wonderful and beautiful things on there: collections of rare film snippets, great gardening/cooking suggestions,  hilarious rubbish, glimpses into the lives of people living in very different places, etc, BUT there is also a growing amount of total crap, still obvious to the human eye as AI content - if you take more than the average three seconds to examine it closer. The really shocking revelation is that there are people out there selling online courses on how to produce this shit in the hope of a post becoming viral, and therefore gaining cash. How have we got to a point so removed from human ingenuity? Youtube for example used to be experimental, mad and glitchy - me and son still sing bits from the heartwarmingly creative and eccentric Fishcake video, sadly taken down some time ago. 

     Just one of AI's super recipe ideas

This morning, Mark showed me a post on Facebook of a plate of greasy, cheese-infested . . . stuff. 

"I keep getting content like this." 

I suggested clicking on the profile photo which revealed an unhealthily perfect-looking asian woman holding book of recipes. 

"It's not real - she's not real."

"Uh?

"Look at her face - and the book's font is all to cock. And - would a skinny Asian woman really be suggesting cooking stuff with four pounds of cheddar in it?"

"Oh . . . yes. I see."

There's been increasingly large amounts of oh . . . yes. Even the fabulous picture of a mass of storks nests I saw on time-evaporation-gram this morning suddenly seemed doomed with possibly fakery, so much that I suddenly felt supremely stupid and taken in. Slop will not get me. I'll 'tune in' to watch a few favorite content producers - see The Functional Melancholic, a few posts back, or historical, philosophical docs, etc, or allow my ten minutes for laughs on I Gram, but that's it. I'll get left behind. So what? I'll be ready with books and a radio when it all implodes (see my own theories in Londonia et al).

Talking of which. After listening to Mr Oliver I went into the garage, brushed the dust off our previous house-owner's RADIO, plugged it in and revisited the joy of instant, live discussion. No blue tooth faffing, no ads about pool robots - even though we don't have a pool - weight loss programs, and online spiritual courses. 

Also, featured below, a book - I know . . . I sound irritatingly oldie but sinking yourself into a phone screen just isn't the same. English Pastoral - I am currently glued to is beautiful, heart rending, inspirational and thoughtful, from an author who has lived through the upending of real agricultural practices and is piecing back the good stuff from the past to make his family farm survive, with our natural world/humanity's survival foremost in mind.  

                                                                https://kateahardy.com/

Living on the route of Vélo Vintage

So, when we bought the new abode back in April, no one mentioned that about 2,000 cyclists dressed in 20s/30s/40s garb would cycle past our house for the weekend of 'Vintage Vélo', one of Saumur's festival which has been running for fourteen years. Next year we'll do a lemonade stand, but Mark has been out  with his accordion entertaining (yes, they did like it!) and encouraging the cyclists to complete the 34 km or so; maybe not an enormous length but in the heat of 38 or so, yes, it's a lot.

                    Mark and our super neighbour, Nico, entertaining the two wheeled passers-by

We went down into town last night - stalls of vintage clothes everywhere, booze flowing and some really great music. Think we might go again later this evening, if we can dig out some appropriate clothing.

 

The sea, the sea

One of my favourite Iris Murdoch tomes, and one of my favourite places - anywhere at the sea really, our nearest being the lower part of the Brittany coast.

Needing to escape the never ending scraping-off-wallpaper-and-putting-paint-back-on current section of my life, I booked a train ticket, made use of my B and B voucher and went for a couple of nights to a cheapy B and B in Le Pouligen - very slightly less ostentatious than its neighbour, La Baule Escoblac, - seaside town. The house was conveniently situated between the wonderful wild coast - where there are no eateries, etc, and the town. I walked a ridiculous amount on both days and my feet told me all about it on the last evening. Swimming was the main objective however, and I indulged as much as possible - the coves and beaches still relatively quiet, and very few people taking the water as it was deemed to be cold . . . not to a hardy Hardy, used to swimming in rivers, ponds and the off the coast of the UK.

Salt still prickly on the skin from the last dip, I reluctantly boarded the train back home knowing I will have to return soon for the next fix.

  La Baule-Escoublac - great architecture spotting-town

Abandoned renovation project on the spectacular wild coast near Le Pouligen - according to a local, it was started years ago, without planning permission . . .

One of the wonderful 'splayed' pines of that coast