A day to actually do some work

Travelling up to LSE three days in a row has had the effect of largely stopping me doing any actual work! On the coach to London, I have tended to continue reading the Lakatos / Feyerabend correspondence which I started last week. True, every so often there is something said that is relevant and which I should look at in more detail - but in the main, this is pretty easy reading. Attempts to read harder stuff have been affected by the difficulties in underlining or highlighting points while we are moving.

For and Against Method - the Lakatos / Feyerabend Correspondence - my current coach reading material

So the first task today was to knock out a 20 page presentation for my seminar to the dissertation group. Following that, it was time to tackle the main Lakatos paper - Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes. And while doing so, I managed to find the two volumes I have of the collected works of Lakatos - hidden on the bookcase in the corner of my study in front of which are a large number of cardboard boxes. On Amazon, these two volumes are over £20 each. So I do intend to be very ready for Tuesday's history of science seminar where we will be discussing this paper

And while on Amazon, I was really excited to find that Thomas Heath's Aristarchus of Samos is available in a paperback edition for £8.90. What a bargain. I sold two more books today - one on Chaos Theory and one on Hedge Funds - for £40. I would have been more than happy to have swapped the two books for a copy of Heath. Everytime I sell a book for £20+, I think about buying one or other of the two books on Kepler that I would most like.

A somewhat garish cover - but a real find. Can't wait to get it

Finally, one more highlight for the day - the "special edition" of Fripp and Eno's No Pussyfooting is now out. This includes versions of Heavenly Music Corporation played backwards and at half speed - there are not many recordings where that could be sensibly done. At the moment, it is the half speed version that has my attention.

I remember how impressed I was by this cover when I bought it on Vinyl back in about 1980

And I was even more impressed by the cover to their follow up, Evening Star (shown below) and which contains the quite extraordinary track An Index of Metals - one of my all time favourite pieces