It has not been a particularly memorable day today.

I was going to leave it at that as I like to have a slightly enigmatic blogging style just to keep people on their toes.

Perhaps the least memorable part of the day was my trip to the post office. Suddenly a hundred locals all had the same idea and there was a monumental queue - however, I came prepared. I had some 1st and 2nd class stamps on me... and although, I might have saved a few pennies by queueing up for half an hour, I thought better of it and put 8 1sts on a C4 envelope to Spain and 2 1sts on a similar to the UK. My post office does not tell you how much you should put on the letter for each weight, presumably because the price keeps going up so often.

How do I do it? I am a multi-millionaire (yet again!)...

Goodday.

I am Mr.Pam Kologi the director in charge of Auditing and Accounting section of Banque Regionale De Solidarite,Benin in West Africa,and also a special account officer of Mr. Ali Omar Rachid, a Lebanese.He was a Seasoned Contractor with Benin Cement Company in Benin Republic., who unfortunately died in the plane crash of Union Transport Africaines Flight Boeing 727 in Cotonou, Benin Republic on the December 26,2003.

You will read more stories about the crash on visiting this website:
http://www.voanews.com/burmese/archive/2003-12/a-2003-12-26-3-1.cfm
Before his death on the 26th December 2003, Mr.Rachid has a fixed deposit account with the bank and no other person knows about this account or any thing concerning it, the account has no other beneficiary and my investigation proved to me that his supposed next of kin died along with him in the crash. Since then I have made several enquiries to locate any of my clients extended relatives, this has also proved unsuccessful. After these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to contact you.

I contacted you to assist in repatriating the money left behind by my client before they get confiscated or declared unserviceable by the bank.

Consequently, Since I have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives for over 5 weeks now. I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased so that the proceeds of this account valued at
US$9.6 million can be paid to you and then you and me can share the money.65% to me and 35% to you.I have all necessary legal documents that can be used to back up any claim we may make. All I require is your honest co-operation to enable us see this deal through. I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law. All documents of transaction will be destroyed immediately we receive this money leaving no trace to any place.

If this proposal is acceptable to you, kindly email your following information to me:

a.Your full names
b.Private telephone umber
c.Private fax number
d.Private email

Until you write,have a nice day and God bless.

Sincerely,
Mr.Pam Kologi

Today was somewhat grinding. The hot weather and oversleeping did not help. I finally managed to settle down to a bit of work on my music and the composition I mentioned yesterday is now visible (and audible) at Sibelius Music. Link ~

http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/cgi-bin/show_score.pl?scoreid=89662

Apart from this, I messed around with some photographic images which have been quite well received at PhotographyBLOG. Link ~

http://www.photographyblog.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=3025

I also chatted (via YM) to a couple of contacts and had a 'real' phone call with my sister, Nikki, who is a cartoonist. Link ~

http://www.auspacmedia.com.au/viewfeature.php_id_248

Now, somehow, it doesn't feel like Midnight! Why would that be? I feel slightly inspired and might try to write a poem!

I think the most sarcastic remark I ever came up with was in answer to the question: 'Are you looking forward to the holiday?' My response? 'Well, I can't very well look backwards to it.'

Some other gems are now springing to mind... to be continued!

I am looking for suggestions for the title of a piece of music for string orchestra. It is a slow reflective piece which has quite a lot of deep notes and some sad or wistful melodic sections.

Hi Charles,

I will be ‘away from my desk’ Aug 2 to 13.

Speak to you again either before Aug 2 or after Aug 13 other things being =

JS

I look forward to that August occasion.

Chas

It's 28th July today, which reminded me that 28 is a so called 'Perfect Number'. All of the whole numbers which divide into 28 also add up to 28. 14 + 7 + 4 + 2 + 1 = 28.

Personally, I thought these photographs (which I haven't actually seen btw - can someone send me a link please?) were an interesting concept. The sort of thing I would have done if I'd had the idea.

Life is a bit like this.

You have candy and people take it away from you.

Think about it.

Esp. those of you who slave away in unrewarding jobs. Do you ever consider that your boss(es) are taking your candy (i.e. time, effort, energy, life-skills) away from you?

I don't think so. You work hard for year after year trying to get somewhere with your life and being stopped-in-your-tracks, tormented, wound up and ridiculed for all of your original efforts. Everything you try to make of your life is hampered by people with no talent and a lot of ill will. Result? Life is what other people stop you from making it.

Where did that expression come from? In my experience, no news is most definitely bad news! It means the person you are waiting to hear from has most definitely forgotten about your existence upon this planet.

Is routine a good thing?

Cookies - good or bad?

Creeping up to 1,000 of these, but question - do my answers to comments 'count' (as comments)? I think not, so probably about 200-odd should actually be deducted!

1. Try buying something for a penny including P&P.

2. Try buying a square, a triangle and a circle. (This might not be quite as easy as it appears).

...both because of the weather and a haircut which needed to be showered off. I assume this Summer is now considered 'worse' than 1976?

Can anyone tell me the difference between 0, 0.0 and 0.00?

What's the most inappropriate time to use the phrase... "and can I have it house style please!?"

ego surfing while eating ice cream is a good early middle of the night activity...

I was recently asked what I meant when I said that a 'blogging friend' had said such and such...

Staircase wit answered far too late that a blog 'is not totally unlike a Llama'.

I have made a lot of friends in the last 5 years. I was just YMing with someone who'd said they'd lost a lot of real life friends recently. I pointed out that you have to 'move on' with your own life (as much as possible) as the only constant thing seems to be change.

Anyway, now it really is far too late and it's time to turn the previously hot blowing heater to 'fan' for through the night activities such as dozing, snoring and generally losing consciousness.

I wonder if it's any cooler in Reykjavik?

HSBC are closing my credit card account because I complained that an internet company withdrew £30 in a transaction I had not sanctioned.

'Thank you for contacting us...please be advised...we need to close the account...destroy the card'.

All very helpful. I am leaving town in 6 days and do not have a credit card now!

Next step, put 'credit card UK' into a search engine... what comes up? HSBC! ...as well as Egg and Mint. Started filling out the Egg page - comes up with an error message and a phone number.

Very helpful member of staff puts me on hold for 5 minutes at premium rates before I hang up.

Satisfactorily managed to fill out an application for a Mint card - should take a while to process though, hopefully I will be back in business in September - I guess until then it's cash transactions only!

I've just realised why I'm so exhausted... It's 24/7 the whole day!

As I hinted in a recent blog, patience is a very important factor in life. Nearly everything that I've attempted to achieve in my life has taken many years to come to fruition. I've had to cultivate my talent, work hard and not expect to be paid for my troubles!

Finally, it looks like rewards are now just around the corner. This is a very exciting time for me with seemingly good news happening nearly every week via email.

To put it in a nutshell, take the advice of an octogenarian holidaymaker I met the other year - 'hang in there, Jonathan!'

Another interesting email arrived about Midnight last night.

Subject: In theory - Good news on MEDITATION for String Orchestra.

RE: World Premiere of this composition with the small dedicated String Orchestra 'Camerata Cambrensis' on the French/Spanish border.

Hello there,

Had a good meeting with the conductor - does quite like the look of the piece - and will study it more attently - it's not a promise but your Meditation for Strings' is likely to be programmed at Easter time 2007 in a quasi-religous programme (supposing one comes off next year as did this year!) - that's good news in theory as the orchestra do not have that many concerts per year for the reasons that I previously wrote (about stepping on the feet of the regional symph.orchestras) but is a good level chamber orchestra, even by London standards. She (the conductor) even sounded out the possibility of even ANOTHER 4-minute or so piece for strings (in the same or another different mood - would you possibly have anything else??!!!) so as to make you a 'double' inclusion and therefore to sound more 'solid' as about a 10-11 mins FeBland inclusion as a whole. That's her thinking anyway. Also about the prospect of you being paid a 'cheapy' Easy-jet type fare to Bilbao (Spain) or Biarritz (France) ('cos they don't have the cash for more!) to come and see the premiere (you are welcome to stay with me as we have the space ...). But all this will unravel out in due course and I can't say it's 90% or 66% or whatever but at least it's seriously on the table now.

Yours,

David (Johnstone)

Link ~

http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/cgi-bin/show_score.pl?scoreid=19947

...what are my chances of survival?

I received this rather unusual email from Mr B. in response to a question I asked him concerning tipping car cleaners.

helloo.

Um yes you are meant to tip, according to this formula ;

T = e(1-MU/P) + 1.625(mc^2).

Where P is the price of fish and c is the speed of light in Guatemala.

Vary from this formula by more than one penny either way and you will be giving a grave insult to the car washers.

If I were you, (which I'm not) I wouldn't go back there, just to be on the safe side.

Hope this helps.

B.

Where does time go?

Here's an email I sent not so long ago to 'Mostyn'. The first sentence refers to a correspondence chess game.

Zlatomir Boskovic has just pulled the Trompovsky on me.

Hope you are enjoying the so called football.

Jonathan

I have had (am having) a busy day. I have sent about 20 emails to my new webdesigner going through various minor adjustments ('tweaks') that we need to accomplish at the site. I wonder when I will receive a reply - I think they have actually been awake for a few hours in USA by now!

Working on a new image for this blog today. How do these mugs strike people?

Thanks to 'Denny' for asking about this in a previous blog entry.

I couldn't really call this new one-movement work Rhapsody in Blue (for obvious reasons). Jazz Rhapsody would also be a non-runner.

George Antheil wrote the world's first Jazz Symphony in 1925 running for just 8 minutes.

This, I believe to be the World's second Jazz Symphony (2002-2006) and will run for about 14 minutes scored for 90 piece orchestra.

It uses Jazz harmonies, melodies and rhythms, so is certainly 'in the jazz style', but it's scored for traditional classical instruments (although there is a significant part for both soprano saxophone and vibraphone).

I didn't ever really consider the title Jazzy Symphony (or similar) as this is quite a serious work and deserves a serious title.

The full title of the work is actually Jazz Symphony in 33 Grooves and I have a musicologist in South Dakota currently trying to analyse the work as part of his Doctorate in Music.

Link ~

http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/cgi-bin/user_page.pl?url=febland/

(The work won't be visible for a few hours as I have just offered the site the newest version - it has to pass examination before it is republished.)

You just don't realise when I'm toying with you!

...anyway, once the sun went down, I managed to do about four hours of solid work on the composition and have made some decent progress with it.

On another note, I have been trying to promote my wacky eBay ad.

eBay has a facility called 'community'. I decided to mention my advert on one or two of their message boards only to be told that you 'can't advertise your own auctions'... and the two people were going to 'report me'.

Do these people actually have a life, I wonder?

I have been carrying out an in-depth analysis of work-patterns.

I have noticed that people tend to work in very short bursts of energy with massively long tea-breaks in between.

There are several reasons for this.

Firstly, the worker thinks he is conning the employer because he only works for a few minutes per hour. He is therefore getting a better rate of pay!

However... the worker does not realise that he is actually giving good value for money all along! By working in short bursts, he is maximizing his creativity and efficiency and producing a high level of work (even if it is only for 20 to 30 minutes out of the 60 that he is being paid for).

This is my experience and I offer the result of my newly discovered knowledge free and gratis to the blogging community in the spirit of better quality creativity worldwide.

Let's get back to work NOW!

I am trying to do the very final revisions of my Jazz Symphony now - seriously minute detail involved.

Link ~

http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/cgi-bin/show_score.pl?scoreid=48865

It's a bit warm to settle down to this kind of work right now so I am going to wait until it gets dark!

Some of you may find these amusing ~

http://members.tripod.com/jonathanfebland/letters.html

[My favourite film is about to start on BBC2 NOW!]

How much patience is required in life?

We have purchased a coffee bag.

eBay item 330005826246

How can I use my PC as a simple basic pocket calculator?

(Had to be said).