[ 16:28 friday 26 january – springdale road , stoke newington , london ]

the contracts were signed yesterday evening . the owner , mr islam , still gives every impression of being a delightful fellow . but perhaps a range of psychopathic tendencies will be revealed once our deposit is handed over …

inaki and i will be moving in tomorrow afternoon . our doors will be open to guests from nine in the evening .

the address is :

13 taplow house
palissy street
london
e2 7ld

for a map look at http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?P2M?P=e27ld&Z=1

for a satellite image
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?G2M?X=533708&Y=182593&A=Y&Z=1

liverpool street station is about twelve minutes by foot .

bring booze , music and (if you are liable to feel like sitting down) a cushion !

looking forward to catching up with everyone who can make it .

: cH

[ 00:25 thursday 25 january – springdale road , stoke newington , london ]

together with my friend inaki i shook hands on the lease for a flat about five hours ago . it’s in the east end , a couple of blocks back from shoreditch church , at the northern end of brick lane .

not at all what we were expecting to choose . specifically , the building does not appear to have been employed for heavy industrial uses at any point in its history . i should say that it and the surrounding developments were thrown up by speculative developers some time in the early twentieth century , providing housing close to the city for the rapidly expanding professional class . five storeys of solid red edwardian brick .

our flat is on the top floor , up ten flights of echoey stone stairs with an iron railing . the front door opens onto a long corridor . high ceilings , hardly any traffic noise , trees outside , plenty of light . it is a place in which one can breathe and move . for six months it is my home .

the current decoration is somewhat startling . improbable colours on the walls . stomach-churning carpets . furniture straight from the set of a harold pinter play . so inaki and i have agreed to wreak some kind of transformation on the place in return for the owner accepting sub-market rent . hehe ! inaki suggested the idea and i liked it immediately . this will produce an agreeable environment in which to live and work whilst also forcing me into some good old-fashioned practical work to balance all the computery shenanigans .

it is a relief to have the business of house-hunting wrapped up . we started on saturday but by tuesday my temper was already deteriorating.

contracts will be signed this evening . inaki and i plan to take possession on saturday . so i think we might have a party on saturday night (to which you are all invited) .

then i have a lot of work to do .

: cH

[ 03:00 tuesday 10 october – fitzjohn’s terrace , hampstead , london ]

right . think that’s just about everything . i’ll be on a train from liverpool street station in five hours on my way to stansted airport . at the airport i’ll be meeting ann and jamie cotton to collect a digital video camera , a digital stills camera , a minidisc recorder and a few other bits . then off to ghana with klm on the 10:20 via amsterdam . ann is the founder and director of camfed , the development education charity for whom i am doing the project in tamale ( http://www.camfed.org.uk ) .

stansted , grey and cool in the anglian flatlands .

i shall land in accra , the ghanaian capital on the south-facing atlantic coast . there i hope i might be met by someone from rains , a local development organisation , and accompanied to tamale up in the northern region . a town of a couple of hundred thousand , the regional capital . there is electricity , sometimes . also some telephone wires .

on the 25th of October a new centre will open in tamale . i shall be setting up a computer network and giving training , helping a group of local people to document themselves and the opening of the centre , doing my best to support whatever talents i find in the community .

[ info

contact phone number : +233 71 23406
this is the rains office in tamale

for the time being any post could be sent to :

RAINS
PO Box 27er
Tamale
N/R
Ghana

but i really don’t know how reliable it’s likely to be

info ]

these three weeks have been bloody knackering , i’ll tell you !

i travelled non-stop from fabrizio , viola and kiriku’s appartment in milan to the sse’s conference in the oh-so-green countryside near chester , there to talk to students about email and group communication . a few days later i was at a seminar on venture philanthropy hosted by mkinsey’s and co-organised by sse . during the evening i spoke to some very interesting people .

then i managed to spend a weekend with mum and dad in gloucestershire , peaceful and refreshing amongst autumnal farmland . they were just returned from travels in france . i enjoyed riding my bike again , on the muddy roads . practicing bach preludes and fugues on my great-grandmother’s old broadwood . but also i had to unpack everything from italy and repack for africa . mum and dad have been very good about the fact that their home now houses the majority of my clothes , books and so on , but they know it will not be for long .

then to cambridge to catch up with alistair white and steven bartlett at fontal , an information management business in the st john’s innovation centre . on the way back i grabbed a moment to drop in on ray jobling , my tutor when i was an undergraduate and my study guide during the year in the isles of scilly . i wanted to ask his opinion on the possibility of getting access to libraries in cambridge and the appropriate etiquette for pestering people doing research in fields of interest .

then back to london for many discussions with james , craig , seb and others about setting up learning web , a joint venture between sse and circus . we worked through the development plan i wrote on stromboli – and wrote again in palermo and milan . assessed what resources would be needed , how they could be secured , how system development should be staffed , managed , structured .

in the meanwhile i have had to organise the replacement of the equipment i lost (apple powerbook g3 , extra battery , high speed scsi card , internal 250mb zip drive , decent mouse , memory upgrade , flash card adaptor for my snapshots , battery charger for my digital camera) , reinstalled all the software i use , sketched out a design for another powerbook case and faxed it down to ratbags sail loft in the isles of scilly (the case did not arrive in time for my departure so my smaller backpack will have to suffice unless the new one makes it to ghana somehow) .

i’ve had my jabs , purchased my malaria pills , a portable mosquito net , a map of ghana and a guide , a swiss army knife incorporating tools for dealing with computer equipment and other electronics (wire-stripper , range of screwdriver heads , pliers &c) (this was mum and dad’s birthday present to me – thanks !) .

i’ve set up homepages for an electronic debate with the sse millennium award winners in glasgow and salford and done my best to help things along .

i’ve made my first sketches of the circus constitution . after five years of trying to design a new species of decentralised organisation i hope to complete a full draft soon .

and this evening i signed an agreement with james smith of sse saying that i will live in london for the first six months of next year and focus almost exclusively on learning web . this was not at all what i was thinking of doing . i was looking forward to visiting sri lanka with my friend andrew , who was born there . it is a place which i know i shall find fascinating and andrew would be a delightful companion . but when james urged me to agree to spend six months here in london i didn’t put up much of a fight . i knew he was right . it is ironic that a venture concerned entirely with dispersed systems and their employment must be sparked off by a co-located team . i must brace myself for a spell in this climate , after a year spent largely beneath the sun in one part of the world or another . but

some more snapshots from italy , presented in the new navigation structure :

http://www.charlesarmstrong.net/snapshots/2000-08-18
http://www.charlesarmstrong.net/snapshots/2000-08-25

thanks mum and dad , jean and seb , craig and heidi , tom and mark , christian and bridget , for your hospitality .

clare , i hope your foot is ok . sorry we didn’t overlap in italy , we’ll manage it next year for sure .

ash and inaki , it was terrific to see both of you again .

caroline , i tried to get hold of you at the ft . i don’t have the phone number for your new house .

well i’d better book a cab and get a little sleep . i have a feeling this is going to be a long day .

warm wishes to all of you , my friends old and new . it may be some time before i am able to get online again .

: cH

990524.2343 bethune road , london

in the kitchen . psion , mobile and sax case on the wooden table . a pint glass of cranberry juice and pink grapefruit . my bright blue corduroy jacket hanging on the door . washing machine spinning frantically . early beethoven on the radio . white marbled tiles on the floor . bright downlights .

london is filthy and inhuman as ever , but it’s marvellous to see old friends . the ostensible reason for the trip was today’s meeting of my action learning set . students on the sse’s main course meet in groups of five or six at the end of each month to talk over problems and generally share notes on the progress of members’ projects .

at the beginning of the year i was sceptical about the value of this element of the course , but it has proven an illuminating and stimulating forum . i’m copying this despatch to everyone in my action learning set , via our email group ( hallo y’all ) .

the reed on my sax finally reached a terminal point of decrepitation this evening . i’ve been using the same one for a month , having run out of spares , so its demise isn’t altogether unexpected . hearing me play the thing over the last few days has been a hideous and escalating torture for my friends . i ordered a new pack of reeds a couple of weeks ago but the shop handily sent ones for a rather different instrument . the replacements should have arrived today … in the islands . i’ve been playing a lot during my time on gugh . really getting a kick out of it actually .

: cH

990428.2343 paddington station , london

deep metallic chant of a distant pneumatic drill working somewhere in brunel’s glorious vaults . i sit in a carriage furbished , i should say , sometime in mid seventies . honey-hued veneer on the walls , muddy olive and pinky-brown velour on fibreglass-cased seats . circular frosted glass lights pierce the leatherette luggage rack overhead .

this is the sleeper train to penzance . i’ve never travelled it before . i arrived at twenty past eleven hoping there’d be a berth free . the ticket office directed me to the platform and to the train steward . i found her and yes , there was an empty berth . i reserved it ( number three ) . and followed her direction to find the conductor who would be able to upgrade my ticket and tell me where to stick my bicycle .

[ we’re off ]

she pointed down the platform and told me he tended to hang out round the lounge . he was wearing a green blazer and a daffodil . i would recognise him . sure enough i did . a quiet-spoken man in his late fifties , grey hair and a plump grey moustache . from his manner and speech i wonder if he might be scandinavian .

[ we’re passing a eurostar train , its carriage lights extinguished , on its way to the north pole depot in west london . the youth across the aisle from me turns on a tiny television and twists between stations and gasps of hiss . ]

while we were in paddington one of the new heathrow express trains pulled into the platform beside us , shed its population of mainly-young people with their bright synthetic fabrics and neat tight back-packs . through the window the cabin of the new rolling stock looked icily perfect , a transport fit to the conquering , designed , technologised future which seems so to allure us . perfectly curved seats with moulded plastic bodies and deep blue fabric . pierced polished steel linking wall and floor . a gleaming black sheet of glass suspended at one end , but more , a video screen playing perfectly-produced advertisements for a multinational computer company in 16:9 . ten minutes later it slid eerily out again , accelerating almost silently along the platform .

every detail of the seats’ design had been considered , and every aspect of their connection with the envelope . similar attention had been taken with the process of manufacture . every seat was identical , every hole in the skirting maintained perfect alignment and breadth .

i was left searching for the signs of humanity , of those who had honed and constructed this great tool for moving humans and their chattels around . but i could see evidence only of the machines which had played such a great part in her design and fabrication . and i felt a little sad .

: cH

990222.1422 bethnal green , london

i’m sitting here in the bethnal green museum of childhood , just across the square from the school for social entrepreneurs . this is a great building , badly used . three soaring vaults , the side ones vertically interrupted by a mezzanine floor , the central one open to the roof . the space is cluttered with uncoordinted stands and displays . all very municipal . i bet there are some fabulous objects in here too , but i do not have time to explore now . i just came in to have a sandwich and a cup of coffee . certainly the most surreal lunch venue in the vicinity .

: cH

990202.1634 kentish town road , london

here i sit , surrounded by boxes and the detritus of five years . almost every object on which my eye rests conjures powerful associations of the experiences which have filled this time . but today is my last as a resident of this city . i shall be here often in the future , i am sure . but it will be different .

this will be the last thing i write before disconnecting the big old macintosh which has , if you like , been the hearth of the successive places i have made my home . a transit van was delivered to my door earlier , which i had then to drive around the crammed streets hereabouts for the next hour before finding a parking spot . i hope i can find the place again , and that the vehicle is there still . first there are my trusty futon , my coffee tables and a lovely old florentine chair of my aunt’s which i had reupholstered , all to be delivered to my friend christian’s loft-ish apartment in hampstead . i’m trying not to think of all those stairs . but i could not wish a better home for these beloved objects .

then the big one . my friend matt uncomplainingly agreed to help me load everything into the van . i’ll have to take the front door off its hinges to get my desk out . eventually it’ll all be done and i’ll set off for my parents’ house in gloucestershire . i’ll stay there a few days , sorting out all my stuff . i want to take as little as possible to the islands . i’ve been steadily accumulating belongings since my time at cambridge . it’s time to start shedding them now . time to travel light . i expect to travel the final leg , to penzance , st mary’s , st agnes , on sunday or monday .

so how does it feel ? it’s hard to say . these last days and weeks have been numbing . there has been so much for me to do , so many different threads to pursue , so many pitfalls to avoid . and i really hate the stress of moving house . i’m just longing for it to be over , to be there ready to start adapting . or perhaps that adaptation has begun already . perhaps it began last august when i decided , out of the blue , that this was how i intended to spend 1999 . at the time i didn’t know how , but i knew i would make it happen .

i am very aware that this is not going to be easy . so much that i have taken for granted is about to be stripped away . small remote communities can be vicious places , inward-turned and jealous . i shall be more conspicuous there than i have ever been , and that is saying something .

but in my heart i am inflamed with excitement . i know it is time for this new adventure . this will be a formative year for me .

to you first few members of this group , welcome . your presence , whether invisible or visible , will be an important anchor for me . i look forward to writing for you over these days weeks months .

and now i have work to do .

: cH