No.85, Saturday, 28th. February 2026

I am not really having many thoughts this morning, or at least any thoughts that I could make sense of in a linear narrative form. I find myself sitting on the sofa facing the hi-fi, which is very unusual for me at this time of day. I am usually on the leather sofa facing the bookcases with a view out of the window to the cul-de-sac beyond. As a consequence I can usually also see the sky, clouds, trees, shrubs and birds, an ever-changing scene that from time to time I momentarily find myself lost in. But that is all behind me – literally. My hi-fi is motionless and unchanging.

If I want to look out of the window I would need to make a special effort to twist around to an uncomfortable position that I could hold for only a second or two. I would get a brief and only partial  glimpse of an ever-changing world, as if my eyes were taking a photograph of a moment; a moment that may not be representative of the view and its events in this parcel of time.

To use an analogy from music, in my present position I am ‘seeing’ a monotonous tone, essentially unchanging in the human eye and brain. In my normal position I have ambient vision; the monotonous tone is still there, but often deep in the mix, with layers of gentle modulation sweeping, at various subtly changing speeds and tones, over the top. It almost feels as if I am inside Brian Eno’s wonderful Ambient 4: On Land. The live version that will never be recorded.