Journal

Having a good time hanging out with Mr Crolla. We started out at the Blue Note in-store at Loud and Clear. I treated him to a branded cap which he tells me will come in handy for golf, and introduced him to Wayne Shorter via a copy of Speak No Evil. Here’s hoping that’s the beginning of a nice journey for him!

We continued through Finnieston and the Hidden Lane, then on to Great Western Road. We’ve just been to W2 at Ruthven Lane and are gonna head back southside soon for some food at Bell Jar, a couple of local beers then to spin some records – just like old times.

Yesterday was the celebration of the life of Ewan (Ginny). It was a beautiful service held at The Hurlet crematorium then at No 10 Hotel.

His was really a unique life and it was wonderful to hear from Sally and others about his family life, his time at university (we were at Strathclyde Uni at the same time), good times with friends, his love of music, his inspiring career, the way he handled his medical condition and more. I’ve also never heard music I love such as Carl Craig’s A Wonderful Life and Underground Resistance’s Journey of the dragons played in the context of a funeral and I found that aspect (and how Marty had thoughfully chosen those pieces) very moving.

It really was a mixture of sad and happy. I hope Ruth was happy with how everything went – I think she was. A fitting send-off to a great person.

Today was a nice break from the old routine. Rather than working at a computer, I and some teammates went to Edinburgh’s Western General Hospital to do some gardening.

My employer supports the charity FACE (Fighting Against Cancer Edinburgh), part of NHS Lothian Charity.

FACE provides the ‘little things’ which can make a real difference for patients undergoing treatment for cancer. These things help make the time spent in hospital as comfortable as possible; the environment and experience as positive as it can be.

Our job today was to tidy the area surrounding the FACE garden. The garden serves as a quiet outdoor space where patients, visitors and staff can find solace away from the hospital wards.

Supervised by the conservation charity TCV, we tooled up and set about weeding the garden and paved areas. It was a sunny day, we chatted while we worked to colleagues we hadn’t met, and by the end you could see we had made a significant dent.

I hope we made a useful contribution and I certainly enjoyed doing it and would do so again. Thanks to my employer for the opportunity.

A nice (if brief) catch-up with Gav as we take in David Barbarossa in conversation with Richard King about his new book Travels Over Feeling on the life of enigmatic New York musician Arthur Russell.

I love me some Dinosaur L and Loose Joints, but I can’t claim to be as much of an Arthur aficionado as most of tonight’s crowd. However I’ve learned a lot and am now off to listen to World of Echo.

The last week was challenging at work. A minor restructure is underway and with it the possibility of redundancies. My job isn’t at risk; it affects team and group managers rather than me directly. But it will impact upon people I know, like and respect. It may also lead to teams merging or disbanding altogether so there’s an air of unease.

To unwind after that week, Friday night consisted of watching Scotland play Finland at Hampden. A 2–2 draw to send Steve Clarke’s men off to the Euros.

On Saturday morning I headed to Cathkin Braes for a walk with Rudy. What a view you get up there! You can see pretty much the entire city, and even beyond as far as Ben Lomond.

Later that day I visited Davie at his mum’s place in Troon. He’s over visiting from the U.S. following George’s death. I spent a little time chatting with Marguerite. Her garden is really beautiful.

Davie and I went to River Garden Cafe, Auchincruive for a lovely lunch and walk. We chatted about family and life in general. From there we had a drive around some of his old haunts in Ayr including a stop at Renaldo’s for ice cream before a walk on Ayr Beach.

While I was in Ayrshire I got the bad news that Linda, a dear friend of Clair’s family, had passed away. It must have been a real shock for poor Mel.

On Saturday evening Clair and I had a lovely dinner at Maison by Glaschu.

On Sunday we dropped Rudy at “his gran’s” (he’s a dog but anyway, it’s his gran!) then we headed for Bridge of Allan for Alexander’s first communion with the charismatic Father Louis at the controls. Mick and Laura had us back at theirs afterwards and it was nice to chat to a few of the other guests.

A busy one, but a good’un.

On Friday night Clair and I went for pizza at new joint in town, Frank’s Pizza. It turns out that friend of the family Peter works there and he showed us to a table at just the right time before it became really busy. I went for the sausage and peppers pizza, we shared a portion of Frank’s fries and Peter hooked us up with a new honey dip flavour to try too. Everything was really tasty!

On Saturday morning I made the hour-long drive to Biggar and enjoyed a walk with Rudy on Tinto Hill. It’s a medium-level climb and the weather was decent. Although there were lots of other dogs they mostly gave us space.

Later, Clair and I went to No. 10 down the road to meet Mark, followed by Sophie and Anya. I had an interesting chat with Sophie where it turns out that some of the coaching techniques I’ve been learning at work (active listening, asking questions rather than offering solutions) are things she does all the time in her job as an educational psychologist.

We continued on to the Stag and Thistle where we were joined by Tom, Lou and wee James, up from London. They’re still having bother finding a flat here but hopefully not for much longer. Craig F and Alan M soon joined. I couldn’t chat to them for long before leaving but it was nice to see them.

I’m not the most confident public speaker these days. So I had mixed emotions when my neighbour asked me to talk about my career at Pollokshields Primary School where he teaches.

However, I liked the theme of helping the kids to expand their horizons. And I’m keen to be involved in the local community, so this was a good opportunity.

I also had my fears dispelled somewhat when I heard that although there’d be lots of kids they were all around 11 years old. I’m working on my presenting and workshop facilitation skills at the moment so again, a good opportunity with – hopefully - a captive and gentle crowd!

I’m pleased to say it went well and generally gave me a warm glow. On reflection I think I prepared well, my nerves were manageable, and I communicated clearly. The kids were lovely and asked lots of questions! What characteristics do you need to be a good software engineer? Did my parents support my career choices? And so on.

They also gave me a lovely certificate and a large Dairy Milk bar (something that’s always welcome in our house).

Having a lovely Sunday morning stroll with Clair and Rudy through Crawick Multiverse, a land art installation. Here’s a bit about this interesting place:

Nestled within the rolling hills of Upper Nithsdale in Dumfries and Galloway, this major land restoration project has transformed a former open cast coal mine into a spectacular artland and public amenity.

A renowned cultural theorist, land artist, architectural historian and co-founder of the Maggie’s Cancer Care Centres, Charles Jencks was commissioned by the Duke of Buccleuch in 2015 to design an inspiring landscape on the former open-cast coal mine near Sanquhar in Dumfries and Galloway.

We made our way through the Amphitheatre and between “landforms” with names such as Andromeda, Supercluster of Galaxies and Omphalos. And we stopped to enjoye a lovely wee picnic atop The Milky Way. Most definitely something different, and Rudy seemed to enjoy his first spacewalk too.

I loved this insight into Adam Silver’s thought process. And it came at a timely moment since at work I’m currently trying to promote evidence-based, considered choices regarding user interface patterns.

My summary of Adam’s key points is:

• he found a UI pattern (let’s call it pattern x) in his project and flagged that while it’s not always bad it risks numerous usability problems. He lists these problems.
• he advises that pattern x is beneficial only in very specific situation y
• and that otherwise, pattern x is unnecessary and a more basic solution would not only require less work but provide a better user experience
• given this context, he asks others working on the project the following:
  • can they explain why pattern x was used?
  • did research (really) indicate a need? (this implicitly also asks if evidence or research was considered at all)
  • what else was tried beforehand? (this also subtly checks for awareness of the risks of pattern x and whether other options were even considered)
  • even if the use case was appropriate, given the downsides of pattern x were you comfortable the benefits outweigh those?

Adam also mentions how on this occasion, in the end, he had to grudgingly stick with pattern x because even though there were possible alternatives, his team didn’t have time to research or implement them. A familiar dose of real life, there. It’s worth being clear, though, that their implementation of pattern x (an accordion) is at least accessible, since as far as I can tell it uses their modern accordion design system component. If that were not the case, I imagine it’d be even less viable to leave it in place.

I was recently sorting through some old stuff when I found a tatty old poster I used to love and that brought back good memories. It shows the gated basement vault of the original Tresor nightclub at Potsdamer Platz, Berlin. Smoke is billowing out of the room dramatically and it includes the text The Extremist. I bought or otherwise acquired this poster on a night in 2005 when me and friends Davie and Tom visited the famous club during a trip to Berlin.

That was a great trip. While Davie wasn’t in the best of health at the time, we still got up to a variety of high jinks, including a memorable drinking session with techno legend Dan Curtin who was releasing music on Tom’s label at the time. (I think that was my introduction to strong Belgian beer, and I remember being mightily impressed when Dan cycled off at the end.) I also remember we stayed in Prenzlauer Berg, at Transit Loft if I recall rightly.

Anyway while reminiscing I embarked on a little bit of internet spelunking. It turns out that there is some interesting video and audio footage from the time we were at Tresor.

I remember that the DJs/acts playing in the Globus upstairs area of the club that night included Blake Baxter and Abe Duque. And guess what, here’s a cool video Abe Duque made that very night. It shows him walking through Berlin, arriving at the club (you see that striking Tresor logo projected on the building) then entering. There’s also some cool footage of the vibe in Globus.

One of my strongest memories of the night was hearing Vainqueur’s Lyot while we were downstairs in the basement. The track is a Basic Channel classic and, while on the harder end of their output, it feels to me like it was tailor-made for environs such as the one we were in. What a moment! So imagine my delight when I found a live recording of that set by DJs Julien & Gonzague with Lyot at 46 minutes. So good to be able to relive the moment!

Lastly, here are some excellent articles (with photos) I found on my internet travels which are worth a look.

• Tresor by BLDGBLOG
• Tresor: A History of Berlin’s Iconic Music Venues on the Love from Berlin blog