However, since the upgrade, the sleep of death has returned. I suffered with this when I first bought the tablet with Android 3 Honeycomb on it, but an update fixed it quite quickly. For those not in the know, the sleep of death takes place when the tablet suspends operations and goes into sleep mode… it simply never wakes up and the only recourse is to hold down the power button for about six seconds, until the tablet powers off, then restart it. One could cope if this was a daily event, but it’s not. It seems not everyone with the same tablet is so affected, so perhaps there’s a solution or something unique to my tablet such as a flakey app that I’m running.

This post is in the hope that someone will see it on a web search, who has the solution. Maybe Google, maybe Acer… maybe you.

[edit]

There’re a few more folk popping up and declaring the same issue with their tablets now. It seems Acer are rolling out the update gradually, to blocks of tablets at a time rather than the whole lot at once. It may be there are far more problems out there than Acer currently understand. It may be that Iconia A500 users still on Honeycomb might like to hold off for a while…

[/edit]

[edit2]

After a day of resetting the damn thing I phoned Tech Support at Acer and they’ve called it back in for warranty repairs. On one level that’s great… on the other… HTF am I going to manage without my tablet! It’ll be like missing an arm!!!

[/edit2]

The Subscription Rooms are /is a great venue. The bar sells good local Stroud ale, and the seating is replete with tables so that you could take the beer into the concert – how civilised. Indeed, in many ways it had the same friendly atmosphere as does the annual Cropredy Reunion Festival (to which we’ll be going, later this year).

This year, to celebrate their longevity, Fairport compiled a CD of new recordings of most requested songs and tunes, and they played many or these at the gig. Happily, the lady at the merch desk wasn’t interested in taking my credit card, so I couldn’t buy the CD, or the other two I’d not got in my collection (Babbacombe Lee Live Again, and The Festival Bell – named after the village church bell the band sponsored). Happily even more, Miss had cash, and bought all three!

The gig was great, the beer was great and the venue was great (Miss was great too). I chatted with Peggy after the gig and he said they’ve just driven down from a gig in Perth and Kinross in Scotland prior to appearing in Stroud (some 377 miles according to Google!) and Simon had had a dodgy bottie all the way down! Well it didn’t seem to affect the singing, Simon. At least, I supp0se, he didn’t shit himself on stage like some people… Who’d be a folk-rock star?! LOL

All that chatting meant I was too late getting back to the bar, where I’d intended to nick the gig poster on the wall – someone else got there first! Bugrit! But… heh… they didn’t get the one on the wall half way down the stairs! Grin. The doorman watched and said nothing… I think perhaps if I’d been seventeen he’d have done so, but such a respectable looking old gent? Must be seeing things… old people today…

When your veg plot goodies begin to bolt… lettuce, spinach… kale… it’s usually due to wobbly weather. We’ve had some wobbly weather this year alright! And so it was no surprise when the green and purple curly Kale both went nuts and began to flower. The torrential, constany, unending, drought-busting rain – sent in response to several rain dances performed in the local area and perhaps over-enthusiastically – meant we didn’t do anything in the veg beds until it was well past caring.

In fact, the Kale is still perfectly edible, while the flowers have proved so utterly irresistible to the local bee population we’ll probably let it go as a matter of course in future! I went out this morning and counted (at least) nine distinctly different bee families dancing in and out of the ragged yellow flowers, from big black and red bumble bees through various red, yellow and orange honeybees and solitaries.

As the fields turn golden yellow with Rape, and the Hawthorn flowers to signal Beltane is with us, the insect population is also finally waking up!

In other garden news, we lost the second White Sussex last week. Given that both died at about the same age and no other birds appear unhappy it seems it was end of life rather than disease. More happily, I planted out an Oak that I’ve grown from acorn, into the chicken run where the fertility of the soil should give it a boost! I have a dozen or so Oak and Chestnut

seedlings currently fending off hungry jackdaws, and hopefully they’ll become new saplings in unexpected places in the next few years.

We haven’t had sufficient rain; the weather’s been so fine.

The south of England’s all in drought -

We’re short of water, there’s no doubt.

But bear in mind if you go out… It isn’t average all the time!

Currently Reading

Do I read this before I watch the Blueray Discs sat downstairs? I know I ought to…

I’ve started the book, in Kindle version as the paperback I had was poorly printed, apparently on blotting paper. I don’t actually have a Kindle, so I’m reading it on my Google Android Acer Iconia A500 tablet, currently halfway through an Ice Cream Sandwich OS update. I’m absolutely loving it, and that’s making it much harder to not put the TV version on straight away… waiting is.

If you think about it, the screenplay is not easy to transpose to the stage. The film starts with a flight over (allegedly) Scottish islands, there are scenes in caves, on hilltops and on water, there are naked virgins leaping over bonfires. Not to mention a considerable conflagration! Hmm, I was looking forward to this production for so many reasons… But from the start I had the idea that these folk knew what they were about; the tickets were made of thin plywood suggestive of empty Summerisle apple crates, and the back was pyrographed with The Wicker Man and an image of the man itself. Surely people so artful weren’t going to be thwarted by impossible scenarios.

A week before the production we found ourselves in Stroud, shopping in the excellent Saturday market (real shops, real stalls, fairly traded and home-made goods and really friendly people, go see). The players were there, despite the weather, aged between about seven and seventy, selling out of the last few tickets and each time someone bought a ticket there was a cheer that went up from the players stall and all across the market!

And so came the night of the play (it ran over three nights, Thursday 3rd, Friday 4th and Saturday 5th May. We went on Star Wars night. If you’re going tonight, don’t read me! - spoilers, sweetie!). It was staged in the Lansdown Hall, an old community building in Stroud. We were, um, lucky enough to find free parking close by – mainly due to Miss suddenly shouting ‘turn left now!’, sending me through a No Entry signed road and into an empty car park, the entrance of which still eludes me…

Once we were in – getting there early enough (thanks to the close parking!) to have a good choice of seats, and choosing the middle of the second row – we settled down with beer in hand. The stage was overhung with three large projection screens and a small orchestra of half a dozen musicians sat to the right. The lights dimmed, and the screens lit up – they were used to show the video of an island hopping float-plane coming in to land at Summerisle. The harbour master came to the edge of the stage and called to Sgt Howie over the heads of the audience, the voice of the latter coming from behind us.

With minimal stage props – a bar, some pulldown beds, some school desks – the screens allowed scenes to work well which would otherwise be impractical for the stage. When Lord Summerisle brings the young virgin Ash to the Green Man pub and calls up to Willow at her bedroom window, she appears on screen looking down to the stage. When Sgt Howie drags the no-longer-missing Rowan through the caves up to his warm reception, the screens take his journey up as he leaves the stage, climbing through dark caves** until he emerges on top of the cliffs. Lord Summerisle’s off-stage speech in the graveyard is played out against two entwined snails, slimy and slippery as they dance the story of enacted lust.

I was wondering how the players would manage the naked scenes, and they managed them beautifully. Erotically, yes, but in no way pornographically. The naked young girls jumping the bonfire were on the overhead screens, dressed in flesh coloured body-stockings and shot in soft focus. Willow and Sgt Howie, on the other hand, left nothing to the imagination. The dancing, wall-beating, singing pub bedroom scene was wonderfully done by Sian Elias as Willow, and I think Chas Burns nearly got me in the eye as he was forcibly stripped and dressed into his sacrificial robes! It was only after the play was done I realised the younger members of the company had, briefly, quietly, been taken off-stage during the nude scenes – cleverly done. I’m afraid I can’t show you any pictures; the play started with a request not to shoot the production to ‘save the dignity of the actors’. You’ll have to use that imagination thing…

And so the play took the increasingly mystified and disgusted Christian policeman deeper into the story of life on a Pagan island, breaking after an hour for an intermission, until we got to the finale… the sacrifice of the willing fool king-for-a-day… the middle screen fell away to reveal the wicker man in all his glory… Sgt Howie was bundled up the ladder into the heart of the offering and, screaming out to his god, the pyre was lit. Theatre smoke billowed up and the now screenless projector flamed licking red flames across the whole stage as the whole company of nearly three dozen danced and sang out, ‘sumer is i-comin in‘. Of course, the film and now the play finishes rather abruptly as this point – no happy ending for those on a Christian path – and this allowed the company to turn and take their bows amidst applause and a standing ovation.

It’s worth noting something in particular, if you’ve watched the movie. You have watched the movie… haven’t you. The key players in this stage production were so close, in look, mannerisms and dress, to the film actors it was uncanny. Sgt Howie was identical to the character played by Edward Woodwarddwoodward. The landlord, Alder MacGregor plaed by Marcus Boyd looked, spoke and acted just like the original Lindsay Kemp, dressed in the same Punch costume. Joe Reeve as the Schoolmaster, singing about birds and feathers and eggs and beds while the children danced around a maypole, might have actually been Walter Carr. I simply cannot find a single thing to criticise in this whole production – it was simply … divine.

For those who were too far away or too late to attend… so sorry, I don’t think it is planned to reprise this production. It’s been tried before (Wikipedia needs updating!) and now it’s actually been done at last… there may be another, one day. But I’ve got two wooden tickets and a full colour programme, and it might be sad but I think they’re going to get framed.

*Marmite. You either love it or hate it. I fall into the latter camp. My daughter would probably bathe in the stuff, slurping it’s salty awfulness down with gusto.

** corrected from my original review which mistakenly said the original film sequence was used. See comments.

While the various news media are having a fun-fest on how hard a thrashing the ConDem government got, and how wonderful the return of Labour… while the various politicians of all shades and colours fettle their positions to gain the best impression from those same media hacks… something is wrong in the state of democracy.

The turn out overall is something around 32% of the entitled electorate. In one constituency where a Facebook friend lives the turnout was under 19%! At a time such as this, when most are struggling in the face of Tory benificence toward the monied minority, it’s pretty clear that the majority have totally disengaged from the political process. Trouble is… what is left with which they can express their feelings?

I fear a mass of folk, who in the past would have shook their pitchforks and carried their lit torches up the narrow causeway to the castle of the local fuedal lordship, now have access to more modern means of proactive disagreement.

If our lords and masters fail to see how wrong this can go, well, it will make for something new for the media to report, eh?

Was given this as a review copy, and a review will eventually appear.

With weather such as we’ve had recently it’s hard to feel the burst of life that even now is pushing through into the landscape. Summer feels so far away (I think it was mostly in February and March) but even as the rain falls and the dry, dry land struggles to swallow the glut and gush of water, Beltane is here. Festival of fecundity, fire and fellowship. The Sun is now gaining in strength every day, calling to the trees to throw out leaves and blossom.

In times long gone, the cattle that was saved for breeding over the hard winters would be let out of the pens and holds to wander freely in the fields and hills, to feast on the new grass. Before they went they would be driven through fires of thick smoke, killing off the pests and parasites that had accumulated in their coats. From this perhaps we get the Bel fires that give the festival its name, and thoughts of purification that curry strangely with those of feasting and frollicking in the woods… something seen to be relatively impure these days.

Whether it was ever true that folk went off at Beltane, into the woods to take part in the earthier forms of fertility magic… well it’s still pretty damp out there, even in a normal year (what is that, any more?)… and we don’t seem to have any historic data to suggest more than average childbirth in February… but hey, let’s not let facts get in the way of a good, um, story. After all, what is that Maypole all about eh? Nudge, nudge.

It’s worth remembering too that it’s International Labour Day. Up the workers! Or, as our local incompetent incumbents might say, Right Up the workers! There’s a few more May Day customs here.

Ooh, the Wicker Man image reminds me I have tickets to see the first ever stage production of this wonderful, daft and magical film later this very week! More on that later, but when even the tickets are made out of the wood of empty Summerisle apple crates you know you’re in for a treat!

So, with a bit of luck as this post gets automatically uploaded at about six in the morning, I’ll be catching my breath on top of May Hill in Gloucestershire, having watched sunrise (if clouds, rain and divers alarums allow) prior to going off to work. Morris men dance up the Sun from the top of the hill on May Day morning – mad buggers. I may need coffee later.

[later edit: ah, no. Whether it was the gods being kind to poor tired old bish, or perhaps my subconscious listening to the howling wind and rain... whatever it was I slept right through the four thirty alarm call. I don't feel bad about it, in fact looking out of the window I feel great! lol)]

Blessings of fertility (as appropriate, and don’t blame me!), creativity (ah, that fertile imagination put to work), and a liberal does of happiness to you all. And just because it’s such an earworm, and made for just this time of year… a little YouTube. (NSFW!). Be good folks, or a little naughty.

(J.R.R.Tolkein. – Fellowship of the Ring, one of the good bits Jackson forgot).

Ancient woodland is, well, pretty old. In England there’s even a definition for it… it is woodland that has existed intact since about 1600ce or earlier. That’s about the time we started planting forests – basically because we were starting to notice we’d cut so many down. Anything older that four hundred years or so is deemed to be naturally established. Because it’s so old, there are aspects of the woodland that are not only precious but irreplaceable if damaged (or at least irreplaceable for about 400 years). They can’t be transplanted, moved or mitigated. Any person who says otherwise is an idiot. When it’s a Minister saying so it’s deeply sad. When it’s the Minister making the decisions it’s desperately worrying.

Have some links

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-17867138
Transport Secretary Justine Greening suggested “transplanting woodland to an adjacent site”, in a letter to Chesham and Amersham MP Cheryl Gillan. Ms Greening said that as an important part of the UK’s natural heritage, ancient woodlands “need to be protected wherever possible”. She said the Environmental Impact Assessment process would identify the scope of the rail link’s effect on the environment, but transplanting the woods would be an “appropriate” mitigation solution…

http://www.woodlandtrust.presscentre.com/News-Releases/This-is-no-green-Government-says-Woodland-Trust-over-decision-to-destroy-ancient-woodland-for-HS2-9d9.aspx
“Any government agreeing to the destruction of ancient woodland is wholly mistaken when referring to itself as the ‘greenest government ever’. Regardless of any mitigation strategy put forward by Government on HS2, no compensation can exist for this loss.”

Ancient forest is not just a bunch of trees, however fine they might look. It is the environment itself, from the top of the highest crown to the depths of the earth beneath the roots. The fungii and mycelium stretch for hundreds of yards beyond the treeline, carrying nutrients and changing the very soil on which the woodland stands. Indeed, from some perspectives the mycelium is the woodland, and the trees only the surface effect, in the same way the fruiting mushroom belies the fungal parent beneath. Between the leaves and the soil a vast number of creatures and flora exist as they do nowhere else, from bugs and bees to bluebells… this does not establish overnight, Ms Greening, nor can it be moved. It develops, over time… lots of time.

Although I can’t, for the life of me, think of one good reason to build HS2, I can think of lots not to. One of the more persuasive reasons has to be the carving into and ultimate destruction of ancient woodland.

The years haven’t been kind to Ian’s voice. The last few times I’ve seen him it’s been clear he struggles to hit the higher frequencies and nowadays he makes a considerable bit of effort to do so – noticeably stabbing the air as he attacks the note. That is, however, part of the Jethro Tull feel nowadays and no-one really minds. Further, because Ian plays flute and guitar and sings all at the same time in various parts of the TAAB album, it obviously wasn’t possible to replicate on stage. He could have mimed, or used loops and digital inserts, but marvellously he chose to adopt a second vocalist. Ryan O’Donnell not only sounded pretty close to an early Ian Anderson, he took to standing on one leg holding his broom (part of the story, folks, and you had to be there) aloft like another flute! An amazingly successful solution to both problems. Later, to cope with the requirement for a violin and no violinist, a faked-up Skype session with Anna Pheobe was projected onto the back screen, where she joined in; complete with new-born babe (was that why she wasn’t there perhaps?)

It ought to be acknowledged at this point that this isn’t a Jethro Tull gig – it’s Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, and his band. They’re listed on the JTull web site as his touring band. They sounded great, as any YouTube naughtiness will show. The first ‘non-stop’ 45 minute rendition of TAAB1 was interspaced by a surreal but serious comment on prostate cancer by Ian; pulling up a couple of volunteers from the audience for an impromptu (happily staged) rectal examination! The average age and gender of the audience, much less the age of some of the band members, makes this an entirely opportune thing to do, and I could hear a lot of squirming from the audience. Me? My doctor knows me better than most. Didn’t send flowers after though… no chocolates… you’d think it meant nothing!

The second half – TAAB2 – took up the theme of the first… what happened to Gerald Bostock. If you are asking, who? then you need to go google. This was the era of ‘prog rock’, of massive story arcs in rock music, of half hour long tracks, of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, of Rick Wakeman… and so, forty years after his poetry win and subsequent disqualification, what was Gerald doing now? Perhaps a banker, a soldier, a shop keeper… and the songs in the new album reflect these scenarios. One nice part of the evening was the use of the Hammond Organ that rendered so much of the original album, and this took up the major keyboard themes in the second album, linking them together well.

A hugely enjoyable evening, when perhaps I was wondering if this would be a mind-cringingly bad idea. And one final thought on priracy… I wonder, if I hadn’t taken that stolen music home on that cruddy cassette tape, if I would have ‘got into’ Jethro Tull? Over the years I have spent a good deal of cash on their merch, including every album at least once – LP, Tape, CD and now MP3. I’ve seen them dozens of times since the seventies at major and small venues. I have indeed even bought the t-shirt… without Jethro Tull too, I might not have got into Fairport Convention, and missed out on a whole folk-rock genre… small pebbles start mighty avalanches… Passing music around may eventually be what saves music. Oh, and I ‘pirated’ the image above off the interweb (sorry Ian).

Just because. Not the first read, and surely not the last. Although, it has to be said, there’re so many PTerry books on the shelf now that I may never find time to read them all again, as often as they deserve… yes, all hardback, first editions and (rarity or rarities) not signed at all!

Taken from http://barefootanthropology.com/2012/04/16/140/

More Beatitude than Platitude? An Open Letter to Cristina Odone

Loved the way the chooks ran for treats amidst the daffodils this morning. Not the greatest photo but fun all the way...

Sunshine through Daffodil. How spring is that?

A springtime hoverfly, in response to Lee Gordon's most excellent photograph...

Magnolia, about to flower in our back garden.

A Greenfinch sat on top of the Leylandii on a grey morning.

Being a long time fan, I’ve got all the Discworld novels in hardback first editions (and not one of them signed, what a rarity!). I got this book as a welcome birthday present, and I’m looking forward to reading a bit more of the background to Sir PTerry…

… and having read it. I rather enjoyed it. In many ways it was as about Craig Cabell as it was PTerry in that it turned out to be a series of reviews of the books. It really, really made me want to sit down and read them all over again – which I’ll do at some stage, but the list has got so long now it’s a bit of a Forth Bridge thing (although I understand they’ve finished painting the bridge!). I have all of the main tomes in hardback first edition (except, I think, the first one) and some of the ancillary volumes like the Science of books.

Towards the end there was a very interesting monologue on the Altzeimers thing, and a huuuuge page stacker of an index, reading list and bibliography – which I found a bit tiresome. But a good read, and thanks for the pressie, Chezzie.

Daffodils and Celandine lined the verges and the dappled Sun as he shone through the budding branches threw high contrast shadows onto the grey tarmac of the road.

And if you could tear your eyes away from the golden displays, the beech was bursting into life… looking briefly more like a flower and still wet with the juices of birthing… new leaf, new life.

Spring is here; enjoy.

Oh, and we sold our first plot reservation!

The brown areas are deliberate! The lower one has been cleared of grass and is about to be seeded with a specially blended mix of wild flowers and grasses, which by summer will begin to turn the central section of the ground into a meadow. Insects of all sorts are likely to find this a wonderful space, band with them come the birds and small mammals. The upper brown area is about to be rotovated and planted with lavenders and roses, and this is where cremated ashes can freely be scattered. The actual interments will begin down to the right (looking down the site) of the meadow area and work up the site, moving into the meadow once the right hand side is filled. Cremated remains may be interred, if desired, along the edges of the ground on the sunny or the shady side.

At the bottom of the burial ground along with the inevitable (but tidy) compost corner, we have insect logs as well as slow worm hides and hedgehog boxes. Although we’ve not encountered any of these friendly creatures during the construction of the burial ground they are native to the area (I have both of them living under my garden shed) and we hope to attract them onto the site. The well head in the photo is capped off now, but will become a focal point as you enter the site. If you didn’t know you’d miss the fact that the grassed area to the left in the photo is parking for hearses and family cars – it’s made of geogrids with grass growing through to hide the solid surface and would otherwise have had to be ugly tarmac.

I’ve always had it in mind I would have a tree on me when I journey on… I may still, but if I end up here I’ll be very happy.

More information at http://www.charfieldburialground.org.uk

SURVIVAL OF THE WETTEST :
TREES NEED WATER

Tree loss is a problem for all of us; with so many benefits to offer people in a changing climate, it is an irony that those changes may result in increased tree mortality rates. Around five and a half million urban shade trees were killed by a record drought in Texas, USA last year: ten per cent of the entire urban forest. In addition, half a billion rural, park and forest trees are also reported to have died and a lot more trees will have been stressed beyond repair by the lack of water and will ultimately also succumb. The Unumbers may be smaller, but the consequence of drought here could be just as devastating.

Trees need watering – by rain or by people – about three times a month from April to the end of September. The Tree Council has issued a stark reminder that by the time we can see the effects of water shortage on our tree population, it will probably be too late to save most. Its Tree Care Campaign, launched on 21st March, challenges members of the public who have a tree on their land, or close by in adjacent public space, to make a real difference to tree survival this year.

All anyone has to do is save some of their waste water and take it to the tree. Around the amount it takes to do the washing up, carried out to the tree in a watering can or recycled container with a handle, will do the job. Poured slowly so that the water can permeate through the surface or else into a watering tube that has been buried beside the tree at the time of planting, this could make all the difference to the life chances for the trees in streets and gardens.

“Many of The Tree Council’s volunteer Tree Wardens co-ordinate street rotas so that everyone can play their part, but that’s not essential. If you value the contribution that trees make to providing food and shelter to wildlife, cleaning the air and shading the streets then you don’t need to join a watering scheme; just go out and do it” observed Tree Council Director-General Pauline Buchanan Black. “Simple actions like this will maintain the level of moisture in the ground that is necessary for trees to stay alive. Anyone can “adopt” the tree outside their front gate and, since it is almost impossible to over-water a tree, this year, give it as much water as you can.”

Defra parliamentary under-secretary Lord Taylor of Holbeach added “Using waste water is the right way to water trees during drought. We especially need Big Tree Plant trees to survive the dry spring and summer months and this is a positive step in helping to limit the effects of drought. We all need to take measures to use less water, and I urge you to take The Tree Council’s advice on tree care during the coming months.”