Good dreamers

Naked Law

On an entirely different subject, we (i.e my colleagues and I) launched Naked Law this week (sadly, no trumpets blared, no thunder clapped).   I'm really rather excited about the whole thing.  There are all sorts of techie blogs out there (of course); there are quite a few "blawgs"; but, as far as I can tell, there aren't really any UK-based blogs about techie law.

Lots of law firms now use websites to keep people informed about the latest legal developments in their fields (my old employers have the award-winning Out-law, which is I think excellent), but these miss out on a few of the advantages of blogging: comments and trackback (i.e. the whole blogging community thang); the comparative informality of content, that means that each person's style/interests should shine through; the informative, engaging convention of hyperlinking from the text of a post; the speed and ease of updating etc.  As always with these things, the proof will be in the practice - we need to keep the content good and very regularly updated.  But if we get it right, it could be a really useful addition to what's available.

One bittern, not so shy

I suppose I should start by explaining that I'm likely to be an irregular sort of a poster - I'll probably post several times in some days, and then not for a week or two. On this occasion, there's a reason for this: I've been off work for two weeks, and doing some of the things that matter most to me (playing music, and walking the beaches and heathland paths of Suffolk in search of birds, though I wasn't altogether successful in either of these endeavours, managing to record approximately three minutes of slightly hit-and-miss music, and managing to be in Suffolk at the times and places the birds chose to avoid).

ANYWAY. As the spoiler title of this post will have given away, I did manage to see a bittern for the first time (hooray), and the Images of Dusk New Album Project has finally got off the ground after nearly four years.
As you'll see from the link, seeing a bittern is quite a special thing (though experienced birdwatchers will have seen them on many occasions), and I got a particularly juicy view. Sat (appropriately and tellingly) in the newish Bittern Hide at the RSPB's Minsmere reserve, I was busy complaining that bitterns never come out to play when I'm around when one rose up from the reeds about thirty metres in front of me, flapped slowly around, then off in a roundabout route from us towards the reeds on the other side of the pool. It was in the air in front of us for a good 30 seconds (they're normally spotted dashing between cover in the chick-raising season, or heard 'booming' - listen to the sounds on here - so this was quite something).

I'd like to think that the obvious comparison with my musical endeavours (in terms of rarity, not beauty) will prove to be less than appropriate over the coming weeks as I put down the basic parts for the five or so songs I've got kicking about for Images of Dusk's forthcoming release, The Autumn Album.

And should I then presume? And how should I begin?

Drip. Plip. Plop. Plash. Plwash.

That's the sound of the droplets of bloggish thought that have been trickling out of the water tank (of imagination) in the (metaphorical) loft upstairs over the past few months, encouraged by reading the posts of my pals (see left). And I suppose that this is the plwash, in the wording of that particularly ugly analogy.

Beginnings are fraught with anxiety and risk (you don't want to know how long it took me to decide on the bland url for this blog). And every moment of self-expression is a new beginning - from 'I love you' to playing the first chord of a new song to ... well, 'drip' (not wanting to make a (melo?)drama out of a trivial incident ... hold on, I suppose that's exactly what I want to do - as Julian says: 'our tiny personal dimensions provide us with our biggest emotions').

It's Prufrock's dilemma (hence the name of this post). But, as Joni Mitchell sang in the unfortunately-entitled Willy:

You're bound to lose/ If you let the blues get you scared to feel.

So this is my attempt to beat the inertia, dare to disturb the universe, admit to feeling something - my presuming that I've got something to say. And it's a step away from being 'too afraid to be free' (in the words of The Sun Brothers' Unto Thine Own Self Be True). I'm meeting T.S. Eliot's hyacinth girl and managing to speak; in the 'darkened underpass' I'm asking the question that Morrissey couldn't.

OK - that's probably overstating the value of this post. I can't say what they would have said. But I'm at least saying this, which is a start.

This is the way that I've begun, then. I feel I should also quickly explain why I chose the (current) name for this blog, and the URL. The URL: 'images' is short for Images of Dusk, and we record music under that name. I've called this 'good dreamers' because I thought I should choose someone else's words (that's how I always start - if T.S. Eliot can do it ...), because I wanted to choose something sincere to hang over the blog and remind me to say what I think, because I liked the idea that good dreamers might 'pass this way some day' and maybe add a few comments. I've also always liked the aspiration in the phrase (what is a good dreamer?); and the reminder that it's all very well 'hiding behind bottles' with these hidden, internal, smug beliefs in the beauty or acuteness of our own dreams, but until we express them somehow, they're thin, untested and almost unreal. And I wanted this blog to be a place to express the thoughts I have - to challenge myself to ask whether I am a good dreamer or just indolently carrying around a few half-baked ideas.

It's ended up being more of a plwash than I'd intended - hopefully I'll be a little more concise and coherent with my subsequent posts. But this was always about getting over that first hurdle more than saying anything very profound.