My Name Is Asher Lev.

Tidied up the most recent wiring underneath the baseboard using self-adhesive cable clips. I've used these clips before and they're great but are not very adhesive. So I applied the lesson that I learnt last time and added a few drops of superglue to the self-adhesive pad.

Underneath the baseboard.

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Currently listening to:

The ultimate, hot Acid Disco DJ mix! The sound of early in the morning warehouse parties in 21st century Metropolis with too much strobe stutter and neon lights.

Mixed by ATARI:CLUB resident DJ & club founder Cornel Lazar, Sixty-Five Minutes In London: Deep Space Jam On Alien Terrain was recorded live at London's ATARI:CLUB during one of the legendary and rather hazy nights in April 2005.

Acid Disco in an unashamed, brash and anarchic mix that combines Wonky Techno, Minimal, Robofunk and Italo infused Electro House. 

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Needless to say, I copied these notes from the CD itself, but "Sixty-Five Minutes in London" is a fantastic compilation which I have been very much in the mood for today.

Every track an absolute killer. (See Miscellany below.)

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Last night's dinner:

Mixed veg in cheese sauce

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Currently reading:

Still switching between these two perfectly complementary books.

It's taken me a long time to read my way through Chaim Potok's novel (three-quarters the way through). But that's not because it is anything other than brilliantly written; it's because I don't want to miss a word, a phrase or a sentence. I've been living this book and the dilemma it depicts between the sacred and the profane.

Lionel Blue actually covers the same ground but from the point of view of someone who watches "Strictly Come Dancing". Or, am I thinking of Lionel Blair?

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Miscellany:

"Every track an absolute killer!" How dare I use such hip language!

A friend (of similar vintage to myself) and I were subjected to a barrage of such hip language in a pub a few weeks ago.

Two young lads were trying to persuade us to sample a particular malt whisky and did so with phrases like:

"Honestly guys, this whisky will melt you."

"It'll kill you. You'll never drink anything else EVER again - and I mean EVER!"

"This whisky will have you trembling."

"Guys, I'm telling you, you'll pee your pants."

At which point my friend interrupted and said:

"Look, mate, when you get to our age, you don't need whisky to pee your pants."

Infrastructure progresses......................

Installed the final Tortoise points motor - everything works. But still have to tidy up the wiring which is dangling under the board, and tack down the extension section of single track - neither are big jobs but I've run out of time today.

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Currently listening to:

Daniel Barenboim playing Beethoven's piano sonata No 4.

This was a tremendous bargain compilation that I purchased about 10 years ago.

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Last night's dinner:

Cod and hake pieces with roasted peppers

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Currently reading:

Switching between:

Both of these books continually deal with the (for me, all important)  issue of how people strive for religious truth. But they do so using very different styles: Chaim Potok's novel is unrelenting in its sobriety and reverence; Blue's autobiography is written in a cynical and flippant style.

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Miscellany:

Cycled to my regular barber (of the last 6 months) who is, it transpires, Algerian.

On the way saw a gigantic mural on the gable-end of a Partick tenement, presumably advertising the Commonwealth Games to be held in Glasgow in 2014.

Under the red arrow.

Slogging away at the infrastructure

Spent much of the day a) completing the wooden support for the layout's new extension and b) completing the wiring for the Tortoise motor which will change the final set of points that was installed yesterday.

Only another two tasks left on this front: a) positioning the Tortoise motor precisely under the set of points - a dead fiddly operation and b) completing the laying of the single track up to the wall.

Any wiring connections were covered in short lengths of rubber tubing "heatshrink" which tightens around the joint when heat is applied thus insulating them.

The final set of points in position

Just a sample of the wiring under the baseboard for this one set of points.

The Tortoise points motor - not yet installed.

The wooden extension completed.

Will put down final length of single track tomorrow.

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Currently listening to:

I love Orbital - especially their so-called "Blue Album".

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Last night's dinner:

Supermarket Chicken Curry and boiled rice.

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Currently Reading:

When asked why I feel such a strong attraction towards France, I never come up with a convincing answer - it's too "subtle".

But Lionel Blue gives a similar kind of answer that I would give to that question if I was as articulate as he is. This is an extract from his autobiography as to why he loves Holland.

As I say, "similar".

Lionel Blue

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Miscellany:

Attended Mass at St Peter's, Partick, this morning. The Parish Priest had gathered the children down the front of the packed church and told the story of Zacchaeus the tax collector. At the end he asked the children if they had any questions:

"Yes, what time does the cafe open?" piped up one child.

Pugin designed St Peter's.

Extending the layout.

Decided to make a small but significant extension to the track.

For the last 20 months the layout has finished abruptly at the end of the platforms. This has made it difficult to run the trains for more than 100 cm and impossible to check that the sets of points (the turnouts) at the ends of the platforms work properly.

So, as a temporary measure, I've added a length of plywood on which will be a single set of points funnelling all 6 tracks into 1. This will also allow the trains to move from one platform to any other platform.

This re-acquaints me with the misery of soldering and working out how to wire up a set of electro-frog points.

As I say, this is a temporary extension; eventually there will be a proper two-track extension with 4 sets of points allowing proper interchange between all parts of the layout.

But the thought of wiring up 4 sets of points and their associated motors is beyond me at the moment.

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Currently listening to:

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Last night's dinner:

Fray Bentos chicken and mushroom pie plus broccoli; my local Spar didn't have the steak and kidney version.

Fray Bentos is the capital of the Río Negro Department of western Uruguay, a port on the Uruguay River. Now, that I didn't know!

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Still reading:

I include a scan of p 45 of this book:

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Miscellany:

I'm going to stuff the insides of my bongos with cloth to keep the noise down. I really do not like the idea of my neighbours hearing me practise. Doubtless this will be good news for them, but it's self-consciousness which is motivating me.

Electro-luminescent wire for HO scale

I've ordered some electro-luminescent wire which I will bend into the shapes of letters to make more quasi-neon lights for my Parisian night scene: eg the "Harry's Bar" sign below.

The wire is 1.3mm thick,comes in 10cm lengths and is pretty inexpensive. But, because the coated copper wire is highly sensitive it's not possible to wire them up to standard power packs. You have to purchase a specialised little power pack called, for some reason, a "driver" which operates off a single AAA battery. They cost £6 each - one for each length of wire.

Electro luminescent wire

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Currently listening to:

The Oldham Tinkers

But later tonight, off to see Madlib at the SWG3 in Glasgow.

Madlib

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Last night's dinner:

Squid, scallops and mushrooms and pepper in tomato sauce.

I bought the pepper and mushrooms from an organic outlet in Glasgow's West End. The mushrooms were certainly grubby enough to look as if they were organic.

Which reminded me of a funny sketch in BBC's comedy programme, "The Fast Show" in which a chap is at the supermarket checkout with his free range eggs and the girl at the till says to him:

"Free range? You know they're just ordinary eggs with shit smeared on them."

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Currently reading:

Because of his sexuality, Lionel Blue had a miserable adolescence. But however terrible he felt he remembered  his relatives who had died in the gas chambers in Germany and Poland and that thought always brought him back from the brink of suicide.

He then says, "The same strategy helped me years later in hospital. However ill I was, there was always one patient in the ward worse off than me."

This line of reasoning reminded me of a very funny folk song that I heard performed in Kirkintilloch Folk Club in the late 1960s.

The singer, a Glaswegian, referring to this line of reasoning, dedicated his next song to that very person ie the person who actually was the worst-off person in the world. What, he asked, did you say to him to stop him feeling sorry for himself????

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Miscellany:

Cycled around the Tinto area of Lanarkshire today.

Tinto

Said hello to some local members of the world of animals.

First a horse:

 Then a badger:

Then my dinner: