8.15 am. I had only to delete emails of a non-academic nature (the stuff of spam and shopping inducements) to clear my inbox. This is a rare morning indeed. 8.30 am. Off to work we go … ‘hi ho!’ I picked up my ailing laptop from the School and walked it to the Information Services repair shop at the Hugh Owen Library:

There was time for refreshments at the IBERS café before joining the Research Supervisors Training class, which I was helping to run. Cledwyn S07: a rather business-like, anaemic, and, as such, uncomfortable teaching environment — better suited to training salespersons than academics. Nevertheless, the table of participants over which I presided engaged the problems we set ourselves, with honesty and candour:

The blossoms have opened. But they looks tired already:

12.15 pm. A hyperdrive lunch before returning to the School for the first of my several MA consultations of the afternoon. It’s so encouraging to see the next generation of teachers grow before one’s eyes. We don’t choose to teach. Teaching chooses us. It’s a vocation in the true sense of that word — a calling. 2.00 pm. MA student no. 2:

Our past prepares us for our future. Perhaps this is too self-evident to mention. But when one witnesses the principle as an active agent in the life of an individual, the truth of it is potent and irresistible. 3.00 pm. MA student no. 3. One of the hardest aspects about undertaking the MA Art History dissertation is delimiting the size of the project. 4.30 pm. BA Art History no. 1. One of the hardest aspects about undertaking the BA Art History dissertation is determining the question. Often, it is to be found buried beneath the subject. Dust off the surface information, and its shape is revealed.

I’m drawn to the sides of paintings: the accidental, the incidental, the apparent loss of control; the scuff, dribble, drip and blot; the unrepented errors; the residues of earlier states and layers of the picture (a history in and of the making); the artist’s mucky fingerprints. The sides are a painting’s nakedness; its vulnerability; its flawed honesty:

6.20 pm. Practise session 1: chordal work. 7.15 pm. Diary update, then back to processing the sound recordings that I’d made yesterday. The aim is to create several contrasting re-equalisations of the source, variously emphasising the low frequency, high frequency, and rhythmic pattern of the sound. Afterwards, the source is slowed by 800%. In so doing, the 6-minutes recording is extended to roughly 40 minutes in length. The process takes one and a half hours to complete. While I wait, I press on with my campaign of shameless self promotion. I need to associate myself with a number of significant experimental music agencies. The slowed down source sounds quite extraordinary.

9.45 pm. Practise session 2.