ok, this is sneaking in under the disguise of a 9th update although i've just finished it in the early uk hours of the 12th after a stunning sunday of calm and pure unadulterated natural beauty.  i wandered aimlessly around the point, then strapped skiis to my feet and skinned a few kms up the glacier and back.  i then proceeded to reach athletic levels of over-eating when i encountered a beef wellington in the dining room.  but finally, i finished off a piece of music that i have made from recordings made on the final day before the james clark ross left with the remnants of last years winterers.  i asked a few friends to say a bit about themselves and make some noises for me to make into a piece of audio, and they ranged from percussive noises and gutteral utterances to snippets of song and impressions of characters on the base.  this probably won't mean as much to anyone else but me but i thought it might be interesting to listen to as a concept thingymajig, if thats not too pretentious... 

 the people featured are drew cook, tris thorne, dickie hall, riet van de velde, andy webb, and me, and all sounds are processed from the recordings, except the kick drum rhythm. 

warning:  there is no coherence or sense in this recording!

 the mp3 download is here:

rothera leavers, end of season 2007/08

(right click and save as...)

10th may, saturday update:  i have been messing around with this tune since last week and finally finished it...  it's sort of laid back electronica which not be to some tastes but have a listen anyway! as always right click and save...

slow blizzard.mp3

a cover of a simple song by laura veirs, a brilliant songwriter and beautiful singer who's band does this song infinitely better than me:

black eyed susan.mp3

also i would recommend checking out the brilliant blog of dean evans (comms manager at halley), because some of his recent star and aurora photos are truly superb:  

http://teeks.org

lacking inspiration for inspiring words... so, pictures, talk!