990904.0143 watermill , st mary’s

36 of my slides from the camel rock festival
http://www.charlesarmstrong.net/camelrock

and some redesigned pages for the workshop
http://www.scillonia.org.uk

tomorrow i pack up my bags and cross to the mainland for a week of fun with the school in london . more than ever i wish i could stay . i’m enjoying just about everything i’m doing here . but i go with a light heart , knowing that i shall benefit from a spell of study and city life . i shall also be able to share my birthday with my family in cornwall for the first time in many years .

but i won’t be here for the council economic development committee on tuesday , to which i’ve been invited . the next one won’t be for six weeks .

the duchy of cornwall land steward , who’s responsible for managing all duchy estate in the islands ( they own more or less everything except the freeholds around hugh town ) , put a shot across my bows a couple of weeks ago . he is objecting to the workshop being set up in mr ward’s old stable , judging it a violation of the land use clauses in the farm’s lease .

i’ve been discussing my ideas with the duchy since last september and had a meeting with mr pontin , the land steward , back in may . he’s a charming and sharp-witted fellow . several people have described coming away from meetings with him feeling happy that much has been achieved , without ever discussing what they intended to when they went into the meeting .

i wrote back to him expressing my hope that he would tolerate the situation and pointing out that it’s going to be difficult to apply conventional notions of land use to digital trades . what of the work i do on my psion at the beach , in the pub , on a boat ?

all things being equal i’ll be back on agnes for the winter , contravening someone else’s lease no doubt .

good news arrived last week . nik shultz , an interactive designer from san francisco , will be coming to work on agnes over the winter . nik’s at http://www.l-dopa.com . he’s in the final stages of organising an exhibition of cool posters from the seventies . we might even end up sharing a house , if nik can put up with the aesthetics of my workbench habitat .

i should get some kip .

: cH