ages ago whilst at woodward bros i did my first real piece, a walnut and cedar drinks cabinet after reading krenov's the fine art of cabinetmaking

the doors are contiguous

for the new workshop we are about to make some stands he suggests. whatever happened to the old sets i wonder

and today at the age of nearly 54 i finally ground something properly for the first time after adapting a jig he explains in the same book and i am about to learn honing. good grief

this after going on about how i wanted to teach the goobs sharpening

"To do good work year after year you need sharp tools, the sense of being at ease, and the feeling that things are going well."

fantastic craftsman and a great teacher

the architecture of anarchy ... the work of christopher alexander and the nature of order

bismillah inshallah - in the name of the creation i begin

i've been meaning to catch up with richard dawkins' the god delusion for a while. i now need no further convincing of the non existense of god so i can stop reading round the topic. we have however just purchased a copy of the gospel of the flying spaghetti monster which noé will blog about in a little while

the politics and culture of decline is the third of anthony daniel's (writing as theodore dalrymple) books that i've read. i don't agree with everything he asserts but he writes so well its a pleasure watching him demolish sloppy liberal thinking and he is right about a great deal

i was surprised by how much of this i knew having absorbed it through the hegemony of american culture and by how little i know of british history in comparison

we cried through the whole of the second half of this film

it is based on a real story which makes it all the more sad and we recommend it

and so does belle

"two tangos each"

got the deWalt working and made some doors

looking forward to the weekend with the kids

tout va bien

my second wife / life partner / sathi renée martin got in touch. she googled me and found the blog. amazing is not the word and neither is awesome. i am concurrently writing an email to her to apologise for the radio silence since she got in touch

noé moved in and moved out. we were not really living together and i was not enjoying the alarm at seven every morning even though i am usually awake by then anyway

i got the flu and was out of action for a month or more which scared me a little

the three correlates of happiness continue to be health, not poverty and lifelong learning

i have come across some fantastic books and just decided to buy the new edition of the joy of sex for the kids

the plan is to blog the stuff i am learning with karo

picked up a pattern language for the first time in ages. feels good in your hand

am getting closer to making a pilgrimage to arundel

making a fridge that doesn't use electricity based on the pot in pot design of mohammed bah abba

i would like to check its performance daily for a year

still thinking of the design for a circular mat soaked in water to act as a lid

pics as soon as possible

and then picked up the copy of r h tawney's religion and the rise of capitalism that i got from jo

"Ther is a certaine man that shortly after my fyrst sermon, beynge asked if he had bene at the sermon that day, answered, yea. i praye. said he, how liked you hym? Mary, said he, even as i lyked him always - a sedicious fellow."

Latimer, Seven Sermons before King Edward VI

i plan to read the conclusion first

discovered edwyn collins on loose ends and downloaded "low expectations" and have been playing the versions alternately all day

played it while i was gardening. i was very touched by the changes in his voice. he wrote the song before he had the stroke. i was crying

spoke with fiona on the roadside and she said she was married

went on to do some stuff at karo's

very very trippy

went to the library at three, ate a sandwich at the beach and had two cherry beers and on to the the yew tree

the addition of alchohol made it feel almost like tripping

came home and watered the garden and then biked to the railway in the dark along the parallel country route

no one was at the pub and i didn't have my phone and i biked back. night riding with good lights is wonderful

i have not been this social for at least a year

sunday morning and i am planning to do some carpentry