Kraftwerk 2

Kapitano's Law: No matter how busy you are, only sixty minutes out of each day will be useful. The rest of the time might be spent in activity, but that is movement, as opposed to achievement.

You might need to spend an hour traveling on a train so you can have a profitable ten minute conversation - the traveling is necessary to the conversation, but in itself is just marking time. Add to this time spent walking to the station, queing for a ticket, and waiting on the station, and it seems like a lot of investment for a small return. You might learn something interesting in a newspaper, but that is ten interesting seconds in 30 minutes of wading through dross.

The hour of usefulness might not be spent rushing around. You could be working out the solution to something that's puzzled you since childhood, or experiencing a brilliant piece of music for the first time.

This, erm, insight occured to me this morning as I was sitting in the jobcentre. I waited in a que for ten minutes, filled out a form, sat waiting for another hour, and was given another form to take away, fill out, and bring back next week.

There was one moment here that might be considered useful. It took five seconds and was an idea related to research I did the night before on musical modes. I don't think filling out a form with identical answers to an identical form filled out six months ago could be construed as useful.
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Nick has written a song for 'Systematic Panic', and sent me a demo. While he's off lending support in a family emergency, I'm struggling to write a backing for him to sing the final version over.

He's used some really wierd chords. And the strange thing is, I used exactly the same kind of chord structure years ago, before I knew you weren't suppose to. Use all the white notes starting on F - why not? Then transpose each note down five semitones, then up four. It's all tonic triads - first Lydian F, then Ionian C and E#. I think.

Most of today's useful minutes were spent, not writing music, but figuring out how to use certain Midi Control Codes so I could write a backing, which I then scrapped.
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Of course, it would be nice if *some* useful minutes were spent on Open University work. Seeing as I'm under pressure to attend a major anti-war demo in London tomorrow, which on the one hand is morally impeccable, and on the other takes up far too much time.

A bit like writing today's blog entry. Except for the moral bit.