My first artistic endeavour

I run a pretty disorganised tape label called Tye Die Tapes with a friend and we were sadly lacking in artwork for one of our most recent releases. I decided that it was my duty to provide a fairly ad-hoc solution to the problem. The result can be seen above. I felt that the process is worth documenting, if only so that I remember what I did. I began by scanning a page from a book that I have mentioned on here called Motor Driving Made Easy, it's a guide to driving from the early 1950s and has some comedy moments. I picked this particular page because it had variation and a decent sized body of text that contained some interesting sentences. I then printed the scan I had made and began to doodle on it, scrapped that one and repeated the process until I was happy with it. I then decided on a logo, a decision that was guided mainly by my inability to draw properly and inevitably I ended up with something approximating punk. I then picked the most appropriate place for the logo (which is always the top, by the way) and scribbled it on. I then scanned the title page of the book to give me some of the off-white background that could be used on the side and the spine and I decided that, by way off apology for what may or may not be reckless abuse of copyright, I placed the title of Motor Driving Made Easy on the rear of the tape. The first draft (also the one that I sent to the band) had the logo on the spine in Garamond 12pt but it didn't really fit with the front cover so I copied one of my doodles of the logo onto the spine. The inside is simply the tracklist in similar writing to the Sealings logo with more of the off-white title page as a background. The finished article can be seen above. The tape will be released by the end of June on Tye Die Tapes and is my favourite TDT release so far, I'm not bored of it after listening to the tape 40 times while dubbing it.

Has the ConDem Coalition Claimed its First Senior Political Scalp?

As David Laws, MP for Yeovil and (currently) Chief Secretary to the Treasury, has been revealed to have claimed for over £40,000 in rent to his partner, Westminster is given an unwelcome reminder of the taint of the expenses scandal. Laws played a key role in the negotiations that preceded the formation of the coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats following the indecisive General Election result. Throughout the election, the Lib Dems scrambled frantically for the moral high ground by maintaining that "no Liberal Democrat MP "flipped" their home" (Clegg, 2010), though the relevance of this is jeopardized by the widespread nature of other erroneous and potentially illegal expense claims.

Laws' position as a Lib Dem MP is significant not only because of his party's position on the expenses scandal but also due to his personal and very public efforts to appear whiter than white. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury, during his time on the Lib Dem front bench, publicly revealed his expense claims and stated; "I will continue to be as prudent as I can with my own personal expenses" (Laws, 2010). Laws also condemned proposals for an increase in the pension paid to MPs in 2002 (Laws, 2002). Though David Laws never specifically spoke out against the practice of breaching the House of Commons expense regulations (that he claimed to hold fast to) in order to keep one's sexual orientation hidden from the public, it stands to reason that his previous moral position makes the revelations of his claims even less comfortable for him. While Laws' claim that he has the right to keep his private life just that (The Telegraph, 2010), it is unlikely that the general public agrees that he should be assisted in that by £40,000 of taxpayers money.

Laws' role as the 'cuts man' of the coalition government looks increasingly untenable. David Cameron is left with a number of key decisions to make; firstly he must decide whether or not Laws should continue in his role and, if he chooses to oust Laws from the government, he must then decide whether to have the 'face of the cuts' wearing a yellow or a blue rosette. A Conservative MP as Chief Secretary to the Treasury might appease some Tory MPs who fear they've surrendered too much power to the Lib Dems in forming a coalition though the role as the government's 'cuts man' is unlikely to further the career of aspiring Conservative MPs. A Lib Dem replacement would likely anger the Conservative backbenches however it would provide the advantage of being able to share responsibility for the upcoming and inevitable public spending cuts with the Liberal Democrats.

A simple, though undoubtedly unpopular solution, would be to retain the current Chief Secretary to the Treasury and allow the already shattered remains of his political career to soak up the loathing of the general public. Whatever transpires, the following list of expense repayments from earlier this year found on the Yeovil Lib Dems homepage is in dire need of updating:

David Laws MP (Yeovil): ZERO.

David Heath MP (Somerton and Frome): ZERO

Jeremy Browne MP (Taunton): ZERO

Iain Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater): £350.00

David Heathcote-Amory (Wells): £29,691.93

Oliver Letwin MP (West Dorset): £3,883.70

Robert Walter MP (North Dorset): £1,228.32

Jim Knight MP (South Dorset): £3,451.67

Adam Zejma

Clegg (2010). Nick Clegg Speech to Liberal Democrat Spring Conference. http://www.nickclegg.org.uk/news_detail.aspx?title=Nick_Clegg_speech_to_Liberal_Democrat_Spring_Conference&pPK=8fafa999-9dc8-4b19-909e-654b15afbba2

Laws (2002). Laws condemns MP's pension hike. http://www.yeovil-libdems.org.uk/news/press/322.htm

Laws (2010). Laws is again first MP to release new expenses figures. http://www.yeovil-libdems.org.uk/news/press/1305.htm

The Telegraph (2010). David Laws apology: his statement in full. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/7782226/David-Laws-apology-his-statement-in-full.html

A Comfortable Driver is a Safe Driver

I was given a book called "Motor Driving Made Easy" today and I thought I'd share some of the most charming illustrations. It was first published in 1919 by Iliffe and the edition I have is the ninth edition; published in 1946. The seventh and eighth editions came with a "wartime supplement" which would be nice to see. Here are some photographs:

Top albums of 2009

Shamefully I feel the need to produce a top of 2009 list on New Year's Day. It's seemed like a good year for music and it's spawned plenty of albums that I'll listen to again and again. In no particular order:

Converge - Axe to Fall

mewithoutYou - it's all crazy, it's all false, it's all a dream, it's Alright!

Dinosaur Jr. - Farm

Sunn O))) - Monoliths and Dimensions

Regina Spektor - Far 

Khanate - Clean Hands Go Foul

Archives - Decline

Isis - Wavering Radiant

Pelican - Ephemeral

Tortoise - Beacons of Ancestorship

The Humble Hoax - When Groves Were Temples

Happy New Year. Adam.

DIYstompboxes.com NPN Booster

I've been quiet on the blogging front and that isn't a reflection on whether or not I've seen any good films, read any good books, listened to any good albums, played any good guitars (quite the contrary) but rather a reflection on my level of enthusiasm towards blogging. Anyway, a new post is overdue and I've recently built the diystompboxes.com NPN Boost pedal in an effort to show how easy it is to get started with pedal building to the pedal-obsessed folks at afterthepostrock.com. Here are a few photos I have taken along the way along with my parts lists, the diystompboxes.com schematic and the layout I used.

The original schematic from diystompboxes.com

My, ever so slightly edited schematic with the 10k resistor from the 9v to the collector changed to a 5k resistor to better accommodate a change in the transistor from a 2n3904 to a 2n2222a.

Caps:
.1uF
10uF electrolytic
22uF electrolytic
47uF electrolytic

Resistors
2x100K
5K
10K
47K
5K Linear Potentiometer

Transistor:
2n2222a

and the obvious...

DPDT switch
Battery snap
Mono Jack
Stereo Jack

Parts list, add a 100k lin pot and a 10nF cap for the tone control.


My first rough and scruffy build straight from the edited schematic.

I then made a layout for a more compact, neater layout with the potentiometer mounted onto the board and decided to add a simple les paul style tone control to allow a bit of attenuation of the highs.

The layout I made up using a great, free tool from Storm Software. There are some breaks in the board that aren't visible on the layout these beneath C1, C3 and R3.


The version with the panel mounted potentiometer.


The finished pedal with neater wiring and tone knob. For the tone knob I used a 10nF cap but it's worth playing around with different values to see what you like. It doesn't make a huge difference to the sound but it's noticeable, easy and useful.

This was a fun build and the end result sounds GREAT. I'm using it to drive my little Vox combo into overdrive at home and it's been worth the effort. You can find everything you need to build the original here