Summa: diary (January 10-16, 2026)

‘This is the day’.

January 10 (Saturday).

8.15 am: This is the day when the stone-steps leading up to my front door turned to glass. This is the day when, all at once, thousands of starlings ascended from beneath the pier, following their night’s sleep. This is the day when the sea mist hung low, still, and long above South Beach. This is the day when a man exclaimed: ‘It’s so cold!’ — not to complain but, rather, to affirm he was alive. This is the day when I concluded that my experience of landscape is most intense when I’m solitary. This the day when Platform 1 at Aberystwyth station turned to gold.

January 11 (Sunday). This is the day when I wanted to do just one honest thing. This is the day when I stood alone, and confessed secrets at the water’s edge. This is the day when I picked up a pebble from one part of the beach and deposited it on another (in the spirit of Richard Long).

This is the day when I came across a ‘poem’ scrawled hurriedly — like automatic handwriting by some troubled spirit — on a shop wall. But the message was deliberate, winsome, and evocative — like William Carlos Williams’s poem ‘This is Just to Say’ (1938).

This is the day when I knew assuredly that there was no way back to the old path. I’ve been stumbling along the new, recently, looking for the via media.

January 12 (Monday). 7.30 am: Studyology. I rejigged the Excel database of the victims’ details in order to rectify the anomalies in their alphabetical order on the official listing. On completion, a release date was assigned to each of the 144 compositions, beginning on May 30. 1.30 pm: I set about writing the text for the album and the daily releases.

4.00 pm: Dictaphonics. I walked with a digital voice recorder to capture salient sounds associated with my ambulations through town and along the Promenade. The device was switched on and off either in the midst, or in anticipation, of a distinctive acoustic event. The noise of motor vehicles was ubiquitous. On playback, some of the captures were unidentifiable: abstractions, detached from the image of those things, places, or incidents to which they’re habitually anchored. The montage represents a fabric of natural, mechanical, and electronic sound recordings that, unlike photographs, cannot convey either the time of day, or the quality of ambient light, or where they originated.

January 13 (Tuesday). 7.00 am: A communion. 8.00 am: Writing. 9.30 am: The monthly snippery.

10.15 am: Studiology. On with: ‘Jill Parfitt’, ‘Jacqueline Powell’, ‘Julie Pryce’, ‘Christine Prosser’ and ‘Howard Prosser’ (both sound and image). The 144 Variations album is a feat of repetition in which the same process is applied to different objects (the names of the victims) to produce musical outcomes that not only have a pronounced stylistic and melodic kindredness but also unique characteristics. There are times when that process feels slow and tiresome. Then, it’s important to keep the children or adults, for whom the compositions are made, in focus. The process doesn’t require much inspiration — just a great deal of application and resolution, as well as a little desperation — to bring about the desired end. Daily life can be monotonous too. You just have to turn up and do it. That’s one of the benefits of self-discipline. It doesn’t depend on your feelings or inclination but, rather, on the compact you made with yourself and the task at hand.

While manufacturing a new batch of digital-conversion-failure photographs, I listened to performances by several noise artists/musicians, whose work I’ve followed over the years. The best are compelling, innovative, imaginative, and worthy of repeated listening. Inevitably there are ‘journeyman’ too, whose work hasn’t evolved, and is cliche-ridden, tedious, and unlikely to break any boundaries in the immediate future. Nevertheless, their endeavours serve to illuminate what makes the best the best.

January 14 (Wednesday). 6.30 am. Morningtide. Translucent clouds slowly materialised, like emissions of ectoplasm. The declaration:

7.00 am: A communion. 8.00 am: Correspondence with friends. 8.30 am: Studyiology, and further work on the text for 144 Variations. 9.00 am: I took a jaunt up Penglais Hill for a blood test at my GP surgery. In my experience, if I get there early, then, the nurse sees me early. 9.30 am: Studiology. I’m determined to complete all 144 compositions and their ‘illustrations’ by the close of this week. (‘Ha!’) Then, both the Aberfan albums will be in a parallel state of near completion. On with: ‘Susan Probert’, ‘Thomas Probert’, and ‘Patricia Probert’. The latter two children were a brother and sister who’d lived on Aberfan Crescent, Aberfan.

In my mind’s-eye, I visualised these siblings, along with the other children who’d died in the disaster, saying goodbye to parents as they left home to go to school for the last time. None had the faintest inkling about what would befall them in the next hour. And I recalled leaving my father’s house — situated opposite my former infants school — at the bottom of a terrace in Abertillery — climbing the steep incline to the main road, and waving fondly before he and I went out of one another’s sight. I never saw him alive again; he died unexpectedly, a month later.

12.00 pm: I broke-off from composition, and returned to writing the accompanying text. Varying activities alleviates tedium. 1.30 pm: I continued writing for the remainder of the afternoon.

January 14 (Thursday). 5.30 am: Studyology. I wanted to complete the text for the 144 Variations album before the working day proper began. On reflection, nearly one year later:

8.00 am: On with the compositions’ ‘illustrations’. Some hiccups in the processing put me back several hours. I returned to writing in the study until 4.00 pm. Afterwards, I returned to the studio to sort out several anomalies in the latter section of the inventory of victims. I’ll need to play catch-up during the evening session if I’m to keep to my proposed schedule. ‘There’ll be no ambulation for you today, my lad!’, the inner-tutor scolded.

8.30 pm: The 144 ‘illustrations’ were completed.

January 15 (Friday). 8.30 am: Studiology. First, ‘Layton Reakes’, ‘Andrew Rees’, ‘Majorie Rees’, and ‘William Rees’. I yearn for a project with an immediate yield — something that takes as long to do as it does to hear. Spontaneity. Then, ‘Lorraine Richards’, ‘Sylvia Richards’, Graham Russell’, and ‘Sidney Russell’. Twenty more to go. I was in striking distance of my goal. But the afternoon’s responsibilities would preclude me from meeting my self-imposed deadline. Then, ‘Martine Short’, ‘Annette Smith’, ‘Annette Sullivan’ and ‘Anthony Sullivan’.

Then, ‘Roger Summers’, ‘Victoria Symonds’, and Tyfil Taylor’.

1.45 pm: I made a (these days) rare visit to the School of Art, along the route that I used to take twice most days when I was employed there. Elizabeth Lloyd (who was one of my PhD Fine Art tutees, when I was her Second Supervisor) introduced me to her doctoral show: Cosmic Horizons: A Journey to Mars. We talked for nearly an hour. Was this a tutorial or a discussion? I don’t think I ever observed the distinction at this level of teaching.

I was cast into a multiplex of references to high art and popular culture, playfully and skillfully interwoven: The Independent Group, the aesthetic of the original Star Trek series (1966-69), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Blade Runner (1982), sounds that I associate with The Forbidden Planet (1956), and more more besides.

See also: Intersections (archive);  Diary (September 15, 2018 – June 30, 2021); Diary (July 16, 2014 – September 4, 2018); John Harvey (main site); John Harvey: Sound; Studium; Academia; Facebook: The Noises of Art; Bluesky; Instagram; @Threads; YouTube; Archive of Visual Practice