November 9, 1989


The fall of the Berlin Wall – did it simply collapse or was it pushed?! I recall I was in Atlanta, Georgia, recovering after a tequila hangover from my birthday party a couple of days before. As I was in the US of course the nice thing was the news hardly registered, just a faint glimmer of information as me and my friend Mike Edgson got ready for a motorcycle trip of a lifetime. Yes, after selling Xmas trees and buying our bikes, we only got as far as Mexico. Though I kind of made it to South America (well Brazil, Argentia, and Paraguay) in a round-about-way.

Gilles Peterson podcast on Brazilian music


Was lucky enough to pick up Jungle Drums magazine and spotted it was the last day of the Pele exhibition at Getty Images, coinciding with a new book about his life. Great exhibition, and I was wearing my ‘negroblue‘ T-shirt from Pil, which suited to a ‘t’.

Also spotted in the magazine British DJ Gilles Peterson’s six-part podcast series on Brazillian music. Each podcast is 30 minutes long and devoted to a different theme, with interviews and live sessions. Covered are Baile Funk, Roots & Samba, Bossa Nova, The Rodrigues Family, Hip Hop and Electronica.

While these are available free from Brahma (with a different one is released every two weeks from June 13th, so sorry about my delay..) but to save you the time and trouble here’s the first one on Baile Funk (mp3 – 28mb).

This is the Bossa Nova podcast from DJ Gilles Peterson from the series. It’s an mp3 around 30mb so it takes a while to download but the interviews are good – so let’s do the ‘bossa nova’.

The Yes Men have landed (on me)


Just watched the satirical film ‘The Yes Men’ which was a hoot! In the spirit of prankstership I donated $5 and asked my parents to buy me one of the Yes Men fabulous dress shirts for my birthday:

Does network size matter?


I happened to catch CSI Miami on TV last night when one of the characters in a class on 1990 reunion boosted that he wasn’t intimidated by the school star quarterback as his ‘network was bigger’. So does size matter with networks? Is it the person with the largest RSS aggregation, the longest blogroll the winner? The common assumption appears to be a resounding yes, though looking at it through complexity eyes maybe there’s another way of looking at connection. One which puts the emphasis on the potential to connect rather than the accumulation of nodes on a network. Less is more with networks? Well, I guess in simple elite terms the rich have always know that. But that’s not what I mean. I mean the ability to focus on the potential for networking, rather than the size of the network whether large or small.

Samba Boys vs Black Star Boys


Well, Ghana vs Brazil at 4pm. Just read the Independent which says the pressure’s now on Ronaldinho! Hey, Ronaldo is off the hook!

Playroom art


Pic of a portition of my scribblings from my old playroom wall:

Barakat: ‘This is man-made pyramid’


Latest from the Bosnian pyramid team:

The two Egyptian scientists working at the Bosnian pyramids – geologist Barakat and archeologist Lamia El Hadidi – have made some of their findings public prior to completing their work at the site. They conclude that there are ancient man-made structures in the Visocica Hill region.

When he first arrived in Bosnia, geologist Barakat said that Visocica Hill was probably ‘some kind of primitive pyramid’. After more than a month working at the site, his opinion remains unchanged.  

Barakat said, “For me, as a scientist and geologist, there’s still no doubt that this is man-made. I think that humans cut, polished, reshaped and formed stone blocks {that form the pyramid), bringing them here and adding them to the existing hill in order to give the shape of a pyramid to the hill.”

Archaeologist El Hadidi added that a large archaeological site has been found on the so-called Pyramid of the Moon, near to the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun. She said they were unable, at this stage, to date the site, saying that further research is needed. However, she confirmed earlier conclusions that this site also represents a pyramid. “It is really impossible that nature creates shapes like this. Maybe one, but not three or four sides of the hill as we have here. There is still a lot of work to be done here, if we want to unveil all the secrets of this valley.”  

Scepticism about the existence of the pyramids remains within parts of the scientific community. This may be partly because the site in Bosnia does not represent our traditional image of pyramids – as in Egypt – but a different kind of structure where stones have been placed around an existing hill to form the shape of a pyramid.

A complex of manmade tunnels has also been found at the site. It has been suggested that the tunnels may connect the three pyramids. In one of the tunnels, a large polished monolith has been found with unknown carved inscriptions including arrows and a shape similar to our letter ‘E’.

Caroline Celico’s school is closed from noon


Loved the fact that when I emailed Caroline Celico’s old school, St. Paul’s School in Sao Paulo, to check my facts for this blog, I had the following email message returned:

“Due the Brazil / Japan football game tomorrow 22/06 the school will be closed as from noon.” That never happened at my school when England was playing in the World Cup!

PS: I also have the complete set of pics from the wedding taken by getty images for your viewing pleasure.

The abridged history of Barking


I went on a cycle round round historic Barking on Wednesday to discover that Elizabeth Fry the prison reformer is burried next to the Sikh Temple (the Quakers sold it to the Sikh’s in 1971); and came across the pilgramage holy rood stone in the surviving curfew tower from Barking Abbey (recently renovated by a team from Danbury in Essex); or the many sites where Barking was bombed such as Blake’s Corner where Boots now stands. Indeed there was a veteran cyclist, who’d lived in Barking in the war, and had survived a V1 bomb (‘Doodlebug’) just 250 yards from him. Records show that 37 V1s and 21 V2s hit the borough.

All I had to offer as anedecotal input was, in mentioning there used to be a R White’s lemonade factory in the centre, that I once met the son of the guy who performed the famous R White’s TV commercial (note for the technically minded: Ross MacManus – father of Elvis Costello – who sang the “Secret Lemonade Drinker” song – & it was television presenter Bob Holness that composed the tune). But then again I’ve also met by chance the daughter of the guy who did the English dubbed voice for the character of Monkey in the cult TV series of that name. Funny the things who come across without trying too hard.