Sandwich Routes, Willow Place, SW1 23rd June 2011.

Friends, Romans, Countrymen… bore me to tears. Kevin Macdonald continues his creative output with this tale of a Roman soldier and his slave journeying north of Hadrian's Wall to retrieve the standard of his father's lost legion. Macdonald's experience as a documentary maker is evident, he is excellent at exploiting a location to create atmosphere and to frame an establishing shot to lead us into moments of a story. Unfortunately this film is l … Read More

via TheFilmLounge

For as long as I have been a sentient being, music has stood as one my most primary passions: listening to it, thinking about it, writing it, recording it, reviewing it, and just generally reveling in it holistically in a whole-body fashion, as good music makes me vibrate psychically and physiologically to the very core of my being. Music moves me, and it moves me good. [caption id="attachment_9082" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Napalm D … Read More

via INDIE ALBANY

This was my first experience making fried rice with brown basmati rice. Since I've always used white in the past (I still have about a hundred pounds of the stuff left in my cupboard), I'm not extremely familiar with the brown version, but from what I've seen, I feel it tends to be stickier and mushier than the white. Since I like my grains to be well separated when making fried rice, I decided I would try cooking it like I would pasta, in a larg … Read More

via Food Obsessed

Daniel’s 2nd show is out now, have a listen!

London writer and comedian Daniel Ruiz Tizon, creator of cult comedy podcast Please Don't Hug Me and a man unlikely to ever go bald, makes his solo debut with a show that takes a no holds barred look at his life. This week Daniel talks about sliding down through a chute into his counsellor’s office; scents; smutty bookshops; the possibility of grey body hair when older; things you don't want to hear from a woman, and things that make him feel par … Read More

via When The Blue Has Gone

“Though to my feathers in the wet,
I have stood here from break of day.
I have not found a thing to eat,
For only rubbish comes my way.
Am I to live on lebeen-lone?’
Muttered the old crane of Gort.
“For all my pains on lebeen-lone?’

King Guaire walked amid his court
The palace-yard and river-side
And there to three old beggars said,
“You that have wandered far and wide
Can ravel out what’s in my head.
Do men who least desire get most,
Or get the most who most desire?’
A beggar said, “They get the most
Whom man or devil cannot tire,
And what could make their muscles taut
Unless desire had made them so?’
But Guaire laughed with secret thought,
“If that be true as it seems true,
One of you three is a rich man,
For he shall have a thousand pounds
Who is first asleep, if but he can
Sleep before the third noon sounds.”
And thereon, merry as a bird
With his old thoughts, King Guaire went
From river-side and palace-yard
And left them to their argument.
“And if I win,’ one beggar said,
‘Though I am old I shall persuade
A pretty girl to share my bed’;
The second: “I shall learn a trade’;
The third: “I’ll hurry’ to the course
Among the other gentlemen,
And lay it all upon a horse’;
The second: “I have thought again:
A farmer has more dignity.’
One to another sighed and cried:
The exorbitant dreams of beggary.
That idleness had borne to pride,
Sang through their teeth from noon to noon;
And when the sccond twilight brought
The frenzy of the beggars’ moon
None closed his blood-shot eyes but sought
To keep his fellows from their sleep;
All shouted till their anger grew
And they were whirling in a heap.

They mauled and bit the whole night through;
They mauled and bit till the day shone;
They mauled and bit through all that day
And till another night had gone,
Or if they made a moment’s stay
They sat upon their heels to rail,,
And when old Guaire came and stood
Before the three to end this tale,
They were commingling lice and blood
“Time’s up,’ he cried, and all the three
With blood-shot eyes upon him stared.
“Time’s up,’ he eried, and all the three
Fell down upon the dust and snored.

`Maybe I shall be lucky yet,
Now they are silent,’ said the crane.
`Though to my feathers in the wet
I’ve stood as I were made of stone
And seen the rubbish run about,
It’s certain there are trout somewhere
And maybe I shall take a trout
but I do not seem to care.’

I had been reading a book yesterday called ‘Tanks for the Memories: Floatation Tank Talks’ (Lilly, John C. & E.J. Gold). It made me want to go back in for another go less than two weeks after my last session. Last night I did my first ever two hour session. All I can say is that it was interesting.

The end of the session was the strangest. There was a point when I thought I was awake with my eyes open in the dark, but it was only at the end of the session that I realised that hadn’t been the case at all because I actually opened my eyes. Almost like a dream within a dream. 

The perplexing feeling of being weightless, my muscles twitching every now and then and finally moving and being aware of my body in the water.

At many points I felt as though I was outside of myself. At one point as I drifted under I actually caught myself talking. I have no idea what about, but it took a second to realise I was talking to myself. I also imagined I was sitting with myself in a room holding a deep conversation. I wish I could remember what it was about.

I would be interested to know what the experiences have been of others where longer sessions have been attempted. I don’t think I would be brave enough to attempt longer than 2hrs without doing this level a few more times. The sensations and feelings you have are nothing like a simple 1hr session. It is very different. I believe if I had spent any longer in the tank I would have started to panic or possibly hallucinate even more.

The Guardian had an online Q&A session this afternoon to discuss the nuclear crisis in japan with a panel including:

• Professor Gerry Thomas, Imperial College London
• Professor Paddy Regan, University of Surrey‘s Department of Physics
• Professor Keith Ross, University of Salford 
• Vaughan Cole, Consultant Engineer

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/mar/14/nuclearpower-natural-disasters?commentpage=8#start-of-comments

You can also follow their live blog here:

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/mar/14/japan-tsunami-nuclear-alert-live

Not only is matter around you star-stuff, but you are too. There isn’t a single cell in your body which is not made of matter formed in the heart , then death of a distant and now extinct star. – The Last hours of Ancient Sunlight

The way I described myself last year was “Nicky 2.0″. This phase of evolution has been happening for a long time. It takes time and I am still going through my adjustment.

The biggest change is happening in my unconscious reality where I believe the changes are like waves, but I see it as causing tiny ripples across my conscious reality. As those changes come through, effectively reprogramming how I think, I recognise subtle welcome changes in my personality and ultimately in me.