Bless Brass, Blast technology and the media

I slept like the dead last night as a storm swirled around Fiona's house. I remember getting into bed and thinking "this is nice" and then waking up about eight hours later. Perfect! Fiona cooked me breakfast - like mother like daughter - and I was on the little coastal train to Worthing by 10.

PK and I made very good progress in the morning and found all sorts of really interesting sounds to use in the Brass recording. There was soup and ciabatta for lunch, which PK's adorable wife, Olivia had left out before heading off to Paris for a few days.

The afternoon was less successful, largely because the computer melted down. Why are we all so blinkin' reliant on technology?! I genuinely spend most of my life in a perpetual state of being just one computer crash away from nervous breakdown. When I finally lose my mind, it will almost certainly have been triggered by faulty technology. Nathan thinks that computer issues are only sorted by calmness and logic, but the ONE thing computers cannot be described as is logical. Personally I think all computers need to be punished because their refusal to play ball turns humans into snivelling lunatics. Treat computers with disdain and they'll eventually behave. Or they'll get reconditioned and sent to Africa where they'll get Ebola.

We ended the day one song short of where we might have been had the crash not happened. This will pile a little pressure on us for tomorrow, but hopefully not send us spinning into the ether!

I went back to Fiona's, reading a copy of the Standard on the way home which was buzzing with the news of the suicide of a property tycoon, who was apparently so wealthy he had a special car for taking his dogs to the vets! His ex-wife, who, predictably took him to the cleaners when they divorced, apparently wrote publicly and in detail about the lavish lifestyle they enjoyed together. Meanwhile, he went to jail for attempting to "diddle" her out of half his wealth. The whole thing sounds utterly grotesque. Almost as grotesque as his death. He ended his days, Mrs Dalloway-style, impaled on iron railings. A messy public life. A messy public death. And not exactly a bundle of fun for passers by and emergency services who had to deal with the carnage. If I were his wife, I'd be thinking about offering a little cash gift from his fortune as compensation for those people who were innocently dragged into the sorry story.

The other story I read, with a face of abject boredom, was the one about the Indian businessman who has just been found not guilty of contracting thugs to kill his wife on their honeymoon in South Africa. As with all sex crimes, the views of an eminent female judge, who threw the case out of court, are considered irrelevant by the media. Even the BBC's coverage of the man's release was clearly designed to question the verdict. The family of the dead woman were interviewed, and asked leading questions like "do you think justice has been done for your dead sister?" That question is, of course, irrelevant. The man has been found innocent by a court of law. It is not the media's job to disagree. It is certainly inappropriate for the BBC to subtly qualify the word "innocent," or to give a platform for grieving relatives to discuss the confused sexuality of said man as a possible motive for his guilt. I despair. I genuinely do.