Category: Project 365 2026

24/02/26: The Road To Nowhere.

23/02/26: Much against my wishes; the tiny camera which is providing all images for this project sneaks into the bathroom for a selfie.

22/02/26: Guitar Geekery. (and no small amount of personal pride.) The guitar on the left belongs to a great personal friend of mine. Context follows…

I began learning to play musical instruments, initially the guitar; at a rather young age. Subsequently, amongst other things I have been a musician or audio engineer on-and-off for over fifty years. (Occasionally for a living) In 1995, after something of a musical hiatus I was being asked to guest-with or join bands again, as the drummer. At this point in time I had not owned a drum kit – my principal instrument of twenty years – for quite a while. But I did still have a rather special guitar with which I had fallen pretty solidly out of love. Now: I believe anyone who has performed music to a reasonable level will understand how torturous it is to even contemplate parting with instruments. I wanted to play but was essentially penniless after a marital separation. So, after a lot of hand-wringing I traded my 1977-ish Gibson Les Paul Custom (in ebony) for a new drum kit, and threw myself back into the chaos of being in bands all over again.

[Aside: At the time it was a valid exchange because it got me into action again. The guitar was most likely worth c. £1200 and the Yamaha drum gear and accessories I chose cost roughly £1000, but at least the drums were brand new and good enough for real work, both live and recording.]

Spin forward a little and I responded to an advert I came across for a rock band seeking a drummer in the area of West London where I was living – Harrow/Uxbridge/Ruislip. I auditioned and landed the gig. The guitarist and I seemed to click rather well and went for beers and a chat. He was a smart, almost painfully shy man – and a monster of a guitarist. It turned-out that I had dimly heard of a previous band he’d been in, but more impossibly he knew of a band I’d been a part of in the distant past. Astonishing.

The rock band played a few gigs but ultimately did not work out, just as the majority of fledgling bands never work out. The guitarist and I remained close, however, and went on to perform together in many diverse musical situations over the next thirty years; all of which were of properly high quality. His shyness improved hugely as time went on, such that when a genuinely excellent and rare opportunity came his way he did not flinch, and he has gone from strength to strength ever since. He performs here in the U.K. essentially full-time these days, tours abroad, and is often asked for comment in the music press on guitar matters.

Recently he was approached, somewhat out of the blue; by Gibson Guitars. They wondered if he might be prepared to loan a guitar to be a part of their small but significant “50 Years of Punk” exhibition. This took place at the Gibson Garage, London – for true guitar nerds such as myself it’s worth pointing-out that the only other Gibson Garage is in Nashville, Tennessee; where the guitars are now made. Originally the factory was in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where manufacturing began in 1894.

In other words, for a player of electric guitars to be associated with the London premises of the iconic Gibson guitar brand would be Something. Of. A. Big. Deal. My friend’s guitar is one I know well – a Gibson Les Paul Deluxe. Here it sits alongside instruments from seminal musicians such as Mick Jones of ‘The Clash’, and Captain Sensible of ‘The Damned’. (nb: the good Captain’s Gibson SG is the guitar on the right.)

We are still excellent friends, hopefully will perform together again in the future, and in fact spent an evening last week talking about guitars and watching noisy bands at a historic old music venue in London; the Hope & Anchor. I had not been there for a gig in several years, having played there myself several times roughly a century ago. It feels like that long, anyway. The old place was still brilliant.

The guitarist friend I describe is Leigh Heggarty. His main gig is providing the Marshall-powered meat for the brilliant and still important English punk-rock band: Ruts DC. (who first formed in 1977.) Gibson Guitars have recognised his work, and he’s not so shy anymore. That’s the personal pride bit, and all of this – his story – is absolutely brilliant both for me and all of Leigh’s other musical mates who have always known he deserved success.

21/02/26: Unusually for me, I was organised enough to book a haircut this morning. This is Diamond Jack, whom I have visited in the past. He is a likeable, interesting guy, and we enjoyed a good conversation about stoicism and the simple concept of celebrating the everyday. This is a philosophy with which I agree. Jack is a New York Giants fan, and his shirt honours the Giants’ all-time rushing and receiving record holder – Tiki Barber – in an obvious yet cool way. It happens to be Jack’s birthday today, and he agreed to a shot for this blog. Thanks man, enjoy your birthday.

[Aside: a long time ago I was Jets fan while living in New York, on account of my admiration of ‘Broadway’ Joe Namath when I was very young.]

20/02/26: Inexplicably, I found myself in a pub this evening. I spotted this neon sign in a dark corner behind the bar, and I love it. I’m still frustrated with how this little camera calculates exposure sometimes: I tried all the AE metering options but none were ideal – either the neon was completely blown-out or else it was ok but everything around it was too dark. Playing with shadow settings yielded this final image; I’m ok with it under the circumstances because I just love the luminaire.

19/02/26: I’ve been feeling somewhat deflated recently, for various reasons. Not least of which being the utterly miserable overcast which has not let up for about seven weeks now. At least it was dry this evening, so I nipped out locally to try and find some illuminated signage. I got a few images of the well-lit petrol station which are technically better than the one here. However, I like this because it has some movement, light on shiny cars; and a shadowy figure in the distance.

18/02/26: 7:20am approximately; +4 degrees C. A quiet moment for a brief planning session before starting the morning’s activities, and an opportunity for some coffee.

17/02/26: Someone used my work vehicle during my break today. (legitimately) When I climbed-in for my afternoon shift I only spotted the odometer – total mileage – and not the trip meter. A pleasing round number. Before taking the picture I should have driven a short distance: I could have ended-up with 100/10000. Which would have been much more cool.

16/02/26: One of my favourite ornamental frogs, plus a small amount of the record collection. (And illuminated bar sign.) Indoors, available light, after sunset. It is a good thing this tiny camera has a degree of image stabilisation, as the unavoidable automation can be really annoying. For example: it will shoot wide-open (f/2.8) at a certain choice of ISO, but if I choose auto-ISO in the hope it might stop down a tad, it usually exposes at… the same aperture. And shutter speeds can end-up absurdly slow as a result. Very different values if shooting in colour; the decisions the camera takes regarding aperture and shutter speed are more sensible. A bit, anyway. As previously mentioned I’m using Program mode with an option called ‘Colour Swap’ to take b&w images, avoiding having to convert colour pictures to b&w post-exposure. I just like making life difficult, I think.

15/02/26: Today it did not merely rain; several times what occurred could only be called cloudburst. I had intended to go a few miles away to an old church I’ve known for all my life. However the bus I would have taken to get there was majorly disrupted, so I took a train to somewhere else. This image was the first I took today, before I even arrived at the location I’d settled upon. The station is rarely as quiet and uncrowded as this – I guess the rotten weather and being Sunday helped. I’ve always gravitated towards perspective lines so this was a no-brainer.