My name is Zhou Yuanten, but call me Eddie. I am a doctoral student at Xinjiang University –in the far, far west, but at Brunel to study this year. My English is good. I lived in Boston, Massachusetts for undergraduate years. I majored in piano at the New England C and then discovered I wanted to compose rather than play. So I go to MIT and soon I discover the English do it so differently, so I apply to Brunel. And at Brunel they then say of this place ‘you have to go.’ So here I am.

So surprising to be greeted in Chinese! And not just Nin Hao, we have a conversation! His accent is Northern Mandarin. He is writing a novel, he explains, about poets Zuo-Fen and Zuo-Si. We have 15 minutes conversation every day and I help him with his characters. Strange, to most of the class he is nobody, but to foreign students here we know him through his website and his software. I have even played his colours piece, The Goethe Triangle.

It is joy to be respected by a teacher and his sessions are like no other I’ve had here, and here I mean the UK. Oh, so laid-back, so lazy so many teachers. People lack energy here. They are dreamers and only think of themselves. He is full of energy and talks often about this Imogen of whom I never hear. Her father a great composer and she copied his music from when she was a girl – such beautiful calligraphy. Her father loved India and learned Sanskrit. He should have learned Mandarin; at least that is a living language. ‘Imo’, he says, ‘is my heroine, my mentor, the musician I most revere.’ He showed us her library and what was her studio in one of the old buildings here. He gives me this little book about her ten years in this place. A strange looking lady; there’s a photograph of her conducting Bach in the Great Hall. She looks like she is dancing.

This morning some are not here, but there are little notes on the desk with apologies perhaps. He leaves them untouched and we make chords again, and scales and arpeggios and Slonimsky’s famous melodic patterns. We write and write. He sings, we sing too. There is a horn and a cello with us today. They play and make jokes. They show us harmonics and tunings and bend our ears in new directions we do not expect. Those who complain about this course not being ‘advanced’ will eat their words; only I think some of those are not here.

As Chinese we hear sound in a different way I think. In our language tone is so important. To each word there are four tones that make meaning quite different. Chinese uses only about 400 syllables, compared to 4000 in English. So there are lots of syllables, like ****, that have multiple meanings. I tell him the story of the Lion-eating Poet, which he does not know!! I am writing this out for him, all 92 characters. Just one word **** but with four meanings – lion, ten, to make, to be. The Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den is the story of a poet (****) named **** who loves to eat lions (**** ****) goes to market (****) to buy ten (****) of them, takes them home to eat (****) and discovers they are made (****) of stone (****).

So I have no trouble hearing what others struggle to hear. We make pieces that are all about tone, and on a single note. Mark, the cellist, plays the opening of Lutoslawski’s Concerto – forty-two repetitions of a tenor ‘D’ a second apart. I had never heard this – a cadenza at the beginning of a concerto. Now we write a duo, on just one note. We write; they play. We are like many Mozarts trying to write only what we have already heard, making only one copy. I use the four tones and must teach the players the signs. I demonstrate and he says of the 1st tone – ‘Going to the Dentist, the 2nd – Climbing a ladder, the 3rd – ‘The Rollercoaster’, the 4th –‘Stepping on a pin’. We all do it!

And there are all these microtones. We listen to a moment of Ravel’s Bolero and pieces by Thomas Ades and Julian Anderson, then in detail (and with the score) to part of Duet for piano and orchestra by George Benjamin. This is spectral music. He is daring to introduce this – very difficult subject - this idea that a sound could be mimicked (? Is that the word – to impersonate?) by analysing it for the frequencies that make it up, and then getting instruments with similar acoustic properties to play the frequencies as pitches. So the need for microtones – goodbye equal temperament! Great in theory, difficult in practice.

This afternoon we are to study spectral composing using our computers. Until now we use our computers or smart phones to listen to extracts. He has this page of web links on his website for each session. Instead of listening through hi-fi we listen through our headphones. Better of course by far, no birds sounds or instruments playing next door. We can hear it again anytime. So there is software to download, Fourier analysis I suppose, he tries hard not to use any science or maths because there are some here who object, but they are fools. Even Bach knew of acoustics – designing the organs he played.

We finish this morning studying harmonic rhythm and this word tonality nobody seems quite able to describe. To him even the chromatic scale is tonality, and he shows in a duet for horn and cello how our ears take in tonality change. This is not about keys, but about groupings of pitches – anywhere – so a tonality can be spread across several octaves. So often, he says, composers are not aware of the tonalities they create, they don’t hear harmonic rhythm. They’re missing an opportunity! Sound can be coloured by awareness of what makes up a tonality. So understanding spectral music must help towards this. It is very liberating all this. If we take sound as a starting point rather than a system we can go anywhere.

Yesterday he asked me about a book he is reading. Did I know it? A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo. Of course I know this very funny book. He said he liked to think of music in the same way the character of the Chinese girl Z thinks about love.

“Love,” this English word: like other English words it has a tense. “Loved”, or “will love”, or “have loved.” All these specific tenses mean Love is time-limited thing. Not infinite. It only exists in particular period of time. In Chinese, Love is ài in pinyin. It has no tense. No past and future. Love in Chinese means a being, a situation, a circumstance. Love is existence, holding past and future.

And so it is with music. Music is a being, a situation, a circumstance. It holds past and future. It is wondrous, just like love.

i was about to start writing this up when i thought:
another whiskey Quincy? **** storm,
spilled the remains of the one i barely touched
before having to pour myself a:
puritan Scot in Cheltenham.

now, i heard people say any town in Essex
is a ****-hole...
                            fair enough...
but there are darker recesses of England you
must get to know before making that
assumption...
                  sure, London, proper London,
zones 1 - 4, E17 (post code, outer reaches,
Walthamstow, used to have a dog racing
track - played there once,
like a typical Paris catwalk, those hounds)
can skive off Greater London
                    like New York can laugh off
New Jersey, it's pretty much like that...
the only thing is: Londoners don't know what
exists outside this area: the buffer zone.
this is the buffer zone...
                 you experience England outside of
this very sensitive area of integration,
take for example a 3 hour coach trip to
a little town of Cheltenham in Gloustershire
not far from Oxford (a hub of learning)
and Bristol (Massive Attack, and that
bridge by Brunel - funny, engineers are above
architects, in that engineers build things
that *work, architects are like science-fiction
novelists rather than scientists -
do you know how many problems workers
experience, because an engineer
"forgot to mention" something essential in the plans?
at least an engineer gives you a read table,
all architects work for Ikea -
          ah, here's pieces a - z,
put it together yourself) - anyway...
              spilled my Quincy whiskey, now i'm a puritan
of scotch - unlike that damning quote from
1950s Hollywood: whiskey with a drop of water...
   ok ok... a little **** of ice floating about...
when will the nagging stop? no one says jack
about putting water into authentic absinthe...
      why? cos it goes cloudy green when you do!
(too much digression, news paragraph).

   i was leaving London on Friday,
murky the way i like it... Albert Bridge never seemed
so out of cinematographic urgency -
               but the west end with its grand buildings
appealed to me to start imagining
                    Oscar Wylde ghosts leaving these places
for promenades in top cats and tiaras for the ladies...
                     west London... the best way to see it
is in transit... preferably rather urgently...
                    and in a coach with other people not paying
attention...
                       the Thames receded into the estuary (
as it does), those housed in boats experienced a wake-up
call with a 10° ***** into the mud -
                                past the Chelsea pensioners' abode,
past many monuments to be exact...
   and then onto the open M4... past Windsor Castle
and the streak of aeroplanes about an aerial mile
apart landing at Heathrow -
                                  3 hours later, there i was,
in Cheltenham - chitty chitty bang bang,
apparently dubbed the hub of all English literary
endeavours - well, if you're going to host
a literature festival, wouldn't you claim to host
it with at least one patriotic son of the word?
did i see any statue of a famous poet or writer in
that little rugby stockpile of excess triceps?
nope.
           well, at first i thought it was cute...
                                a little Portobello, albeit
without the St. Petersburg paintwork on the houses,
houses as grey as the skies...
                                           got lost looking for
the b & b hotel i was supposed to be staying at for
the night, went into a gas station, asked,
i was apparently only adjacent lost -
                           old school, map printer and no
g.p.s. on foot -
                                  i once read a map and navigated
a car from an obscure Essex city,
to an even more obscure city in eastern Poland,
past the dreaded Penta Germania consisting of:
Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Essen, Wuppertal and
obviously Dortmund -
                                           i call it the whirlpool
of navigation...
                            anyway, so i found the abode,
what a nice little place it was, shied away from
all the traffic - a lovely garden,
a room fit for a journeying writer,
          actually, everything a writer could hope for
to lock himself away and write,
            tunic scenic - everything to ease the literary
constipation - the surroundings, the whole decor,
i even took a picture thinking: shame if no
Balzac were to not emerge from these rooms...
                           i sure didn't,
i dropped all the things, took a shower,
went into town to do the g.p.s. topographic of
the city so i wouldn't need a map in the future -
bought a bottle of whyte & mackay with a huh?!
apparently this brand isn't popular...
               went back to the room and found myself
drinking in front of the dreaded sight...
well... it was a room fit for a writer...
               but it had a double bed in it...
and a mirror at the desk...
                                    i downed one puritan glass
and looked in the mirror: i don't need your company.
looked away and found to my amazement the
truth of modern writing: the industrialisation
of writing... it emerged in the 20th century when everyone
did it by himself, with a typewriter -
        the industrialisation of writing on an individual
scale can be quiet debilitating when trying to
rekindle the quill... i didn't write anything, i doodled,
and those were bad doodles, it wasn't writing,
it was doodling... i drank a quarter of the bottle
and went out...
        went into the first bar, ordered a Guinness and
and sat down by a table with a
(later disclosed) Gloustershire University student,
a Canadian, jacking-off a script for some
B-short-movie in a public place: to catch the oozing
exfoliation of inspiration from crowded places -
if ever that worked, it might have ever worked
in a graveyard...
                             we were joined by his friend,
some peasant, we got chatting, boy, it was such a thrill
to exchange names... the Canadian's name
i did remember: Darcy...
                          he had that look about him that made
it worthwhile to remember his name,
ah, when names fit the image...
                         chubby, pig-blondish, hairy...
i'm guessing a native of Quebec...
                               but i could be wrong.
so a few hey hey, yeah yeahs later i asked if they
knew something about this gig on the festival slot
that was starting tomorrow, 5 p.m. and for free...
sure sure... got to eye the guide... so i asked:
so, maybe we could meet up at this place at this time
and go from there....
                                  Titanic looked more graceful
sinking than the reply...
                                                 i had to really check myself,
this isn't London psyche chess, this is:
we are small people from a small town,
we think a charming stranger is a serial-killer...
                    the Yorkshire ripper case scenario,
not last... first.
                              i might have been ******* a lemon
by then and pretending to be drunk squirming
a Buddha look - i pretended the polite noting down
the details: suddenly i didn't think like attending
this ****** venture that would start at 5 p.m., end
at 12 a.m. and according to my travel diary:
having to wait 2 hours to catch the 2 a.m. home.
so i went to the first instalment of the "literature"
festival... lemn sissay and salena godden -
and i have to admit, it was a corker - a true
a champagne cork popped and hit the crystal
chandelier and i laughed... and that's how i lost my
virginity to "spoken word",
                                         i wasn't listening to poets,
but i was thoroughly entertained, i swear that
at the end of her performance Salena pointed into
the dark (great tactic, how can they be nervous
if they can't see anyone? they stand on a pulpit of pure
light and see black ahead, where the nerves?)
and said: esp. to my friend over there...
                i might have involuntarily back-laughed /
snorted like a pig trying to catch enough lung volume
for a ha ha...
                          got chatting to this lovely middle-aged
couple: told them: i'm being ***** with gags.
                prior, i was watching the queue build up
into the room, with a god-awful grin on my face...
i couldn't take it off...
                         perhaps because i was looking at
the demographic and thinking: where are my peers?!
i spotted about three people in a close age proximity -
the rest were farts and soon-to-be-farts...
                             now Sissay freaked me out...
in a good way... i met the two after the show,
i brought two copies of my own printed work to give to
them... i had to ask their publicist if i was allowed
to touch the Aegean marbles... luckily i did,
but then i asked the stupid question to Sissay:
so who were you trying to imitate when your eyes
were bulging out nearly gauged out like a Pink Floyd
song video of: teacher! let these children go!
               i should have associated something African
freakish in mask, a strengthening - the sort
of look that New Zealander rugby players put on
to frighten people off when dancing the haka -
he really did talk like that...
                                       the little devil voice didn't help
either... but i only asked that "stupid" question
while mumbling something about how hard it was
getting published and how anyone aged nearing 40
forgot the free press of the internet emerging and
how he asked for a q & a after the performance...
and... hand on my heart:
                                   got asked one question...
          and answered... only one question...
                                        a complete and utter ******* meltdown...
   not: oh yeah, so who's your major influence...
                      a Samuel Beckett moment from not i.
later i standing outside and smoking, a grand English
dame of the west approached me,
chitty chatty kiss the hand later i got to say the most
famous line known to the current Englishman:
unfortunately... from Essex.
             honest. anyone asks you in Essex the question
they always ask: so where you're originally from?
                         anywhere else in England
they just ask you: whe

Home of the navy, big and strong,

Think that's it? You are most wrong,

Home of Dickens, and Isambard Brunel,

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stayed a while as well,

Singers like Same Difference born so very close to home,

Gunwharf Quays, Action Stations and even a PlayZone,

An Aquarium, lots of shops, amusement parks and more,

Theatres, museums, the Isle of White; it's fun from shore to shore,

Portsmouth is a brilliant place, to live and work and play,

People who live or visit here shouldn't ever move away!

Man is evil ,
he stole from the tree ,
he ate from the orchard ,
the apple ,
the plum ,
the pear ripe ,
yet no fruit did it bear .

How he builds to his own Glory ,
Majesty power  .
How resplendent his works on the sea's ,
Andrews designs his workshops in the ghost of Brunel ,
' even God himself could not sink ,      
    this ship '

How proud am I that New Yorks lights may shine bright tonight .'


Faster and faster she sailed burning coal fires roared ,
pitch black smoke they roared ,
like an uncontrollable beast foaming at it's mouth ,
Child and mother and Father did not awake ,
or like cattle with rats left to their fate .

Nothing was spared for the great and the good ,
Oysters ,
French ice cream ,
Cream of Barley ,
Hors Doeuvie ,
Roast Duck and apple sauce .
lumps of ice on deck enter this cold spring dawn that could only bring death .

The wealthy sailed in boats that heard Angels cry ,
dolls and chairs ,
Kitchen pots and plates ,
mothers held their babies as salt waters swell .

Only the moon that night could ever give away it's secrets to it's starry hosts .
Children were tossed into sacks ,
then into nets pulled up into the Carpathias  ***** ,
Women wandered like lost souls looking for the're men as dawn broke so did the reality of their never ending night .


New Yorks lights shone bright that night ,
not for Titanics waters did they part ,
Pier fifty four greeted the survivors to such surprise .
The thousands that gathered with grief and questions in their eyes .
How many dead ? the death toll rise,
to this never ending night until the violin played and fell forever silent to the sea ,
nearer my God ,
yes nearer my God to thee .

All that remained the crashing of each wave ,
the Atlantic Ocean swollowed whole ,

Swollowed whole .

talking optics with a cat:
**** me,
you inquire for a destination
point, and there's the cat:
darting-eyed not actually
"knowing"
                   where, but the fact
is: he's searching for a cuddling
place to sleep...
        hey! bed!
                        ******
scuttles away...
                       cats, dogs, children...
it's hardly a biology,
the nurture / nature argument...
petted a ******* monkey
and made a zoo?
      past media:
what the **** is fame?
                  there's a social
darwinism?
           what, the, jew who was broke
and was borrowing from others
has the current narrative?
      APPLAUSE!
            about talking optic with a cat,
first:
(a) placed an ice cube into her
vicinity,
   (b) poured a puddle of water
next to it,
(c) put the ice cube into the puddle
   (d) can a predator
make the comparison
to distrupt it's honing impetus
           on the basis of an aqua imperative?

      hard to allow petting and a study
of biology...
     there's are two strand of
darwinism: one of a biology
as freedom in the "abstract" form...
    but then there's the zoo...
      at want point does
biology and all studies
entwined, become zoology?

having studied chemistry i actually
romantise the proto-chemists:
i.e. alchemists...
         but i still rather bake a doughnut...
or rather: own a doughnut shop,
where i apply deep frying methods...
because the world "knew":
just around a corner,
   a picasso would become
a jack-in-a-box prop...

yes, but the aztecs are least
spectacular when compared
   to the egyptians...
one built a massive guillotine,
the other?
     known as death:
    a massive pile of rocks
rigid to fasten Δ
    (at any point, is there
a congestion narrative?)
mind you,
     the asians share the african trait
of a flattened:

                 nasal structure...
            whatever the melenin
argument...
                    return to the bronze age
tanning...
              and beaches
counter to looking at birch trees...
      why do i have a
protruding
        upper lateral catrilage,
that doesn't compensate the similarity
of asians and africans?

once compared to a rat,
  you start sniffing out "problems" like
a rat...

   don't know about Prometheus,
but the basis of myth to bypass
            history...
because what is time?
          upon this axis:
                                h
                         ­       i
                                s
                      ­          t o d a y
                                o
                             ­   r
                            m y t h o l o g y

scientia temporum...
                i just explained:
inanimate things congest the "bias"
for the basis of tomorrow...

because what is the modern myth
of revampt Prometheus?
        i.e. who stole
              Zeus' lightning bolt?
who brought down
               fire in the modern form
(revised) of electricity?

             the greeks are silents...
for all their worth,
    it's like watching a civilised
people acting as

then Bristol Pop says:
isambard kingdom brunel,
while i'm the one who wrote
an essay on
michael faraday
                 in primary school;

given this example...
   what, the, ****, is, pop?!

i mean pop: translated into trivia!
trivia shows!
             i haven't heard any
word on the matter of
the modern prometheus that was
                              michael faraday...

it's almost funny how
the people with the *******
surnames, have no nicknames,
but a holocaust signature.

i can almost sense
       an impeding desire
    to avert this modern cleptomania,
people are becoming more and
more "claustrophobic"...
           because history has
approached a zenith of hoarding...

and believe me when i say
that i've walked among many
      graveyards,
        and it would be great to achieve
a date-of-birth
         and a date-of-death
imprinted into stone,
     that wasn't a coroner's scribble
on papyrus.

/   /
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Close the Tunnel  /   /
        Brunel.         /   /
        Brits in!      /   /
                          /   /
                        /   /
                      /   /