8.30 am. I popped into the department to turn on the sound and visual devices,  then returned to my study at home for a spot of stock taking. There’s a routine to this: updating my CV, ensuring that it has caught up with the ‘John Harvey’ website, determining how past and present projects can be consolidated and extended and, finally, wincing at the evidence of conspicuous failure and  ‘underachievement’ that litters my career. (This is my Salieri moment: the recognition that one’s best barely rises above mediocrity.) The review and the remorse spur me on, nonetheless. The substantive matter is not whether you are the best, but whether you are your best. We cannot be responsible for what we cannot be. Our duty, it seems to me, is to return the capital (the gifts) that we’ve been given, with interest.

Plans (and ‘plans within plans’) are put in motion; ‘The spice must flow’ (Frank Herbert, Dune (1965)). Two mugs of tea, and it’s not even 11.00 am:

11.00 am. I feel the pull of the studio. It must be resisted … for now. Discipline is the contrary force: the developed ability to remain focussed upon immediate priorities and the task at hand, even when every inclination of one’s mind and body is to capitulate. 12.30 pm. Having completed admin for the SIP project, I began some design trials for The Floating Bible website, which will allow folk to listen to and purchase the whole suite of sound works on-line. (On which subject: one of the audients at my exhibition wrote in the visitors book advice to the effect: ‘I think your CD is stuck’.)

1.40 pm. After lunch, I continued with the website’s design to the stage where I was able to upload and play the first verse:

3.30 pm. I made a decision to enhance the mix of each track in order to maximize the volume on the website software. The optimum volume is -1dB. One decibel more, and peak clipping is audible.  My mind is gradually orientating towards The Aural Bible II: The Bible in Translation CD, which will feature sample tracks from the suite. I look forward to the post production period. 5.00 pm. Into the studio to connect the MacBook to the effects-handboards in readiness for my sound trails over the weekend. The audio/digital interface doesn’t work with the smaller MacBook. I’ve had this problem before.

8.10 pm. Each unit of each handboard must be tested independently and in relation to the unit before and after it: