I'm Simone, a gen X with a straight to the point attitude. Based in the UK, I play bass and design sound under the moniker Minutes to Midnight.
I watched two impressive videos over the past few days. I believe they effectively sum up a great deal of what have been impacting the UK and beyond, over the last decade or so. Firstly, Patrick Boyle provides a clear explanation of the effects of Brexit since 2016, as well as the underlying significance of both the original attempt, and the recent flirting with the idea of “rejoining” the EU.…
I just came back from an extended stay in Italy. My dad was in hospital, but while I initially underestimated the problem, this time it turned serious. As his health was quickly deteriorating, I got on the first flight and rushed to see him. For the last four decades, I have been convinced he would go with a heart attack, because that is our weakness: it runs in the family line. Fate had it…
A few weeks ago I wrote about RSS , talking about Terry Godier’s posts and arguing about the need for a different experience with reading feeds. My initial thought was that his new RSS client, Current , was incapable of doing what Fraidycat does — show the original website instead of a sanitised read mode that strips out any creativity. I was wrong. I purchased Current last week, and it’s been a…
As a quintessential Cold War child, still fixated on it, I periodically revisit films and documentaries about its most prickly moments. For years, I’ve observed, and occasionally joined, debates surrounding the two key films that managed to capture the 1980s collective paranoia: nuclear annihilation. The first, in 1983, was the American The Day After . A year later, the British Threads emerged.…
While going through my feeds the other day, I came across an article about a Cambridge-based music band I previously collaborated with, Ember Rev. Their third album, From The Country to the City to the Sea , which I mixed in 2019 , has recently undergone a rework. The band’s leader is quite experienced in these matters and, in fairness, he approached me first a few months ago. I declined for…
Noticing how less meaningful I’ve been finding my RSS reading habit, I went on the lookout for possible reasons. First , I really dislike the idea of reducing a sizeable part of my internet usage to a standardised homogenous experience. Imagine going to a bookshop and see all the books printed with the same style, size, type of paper, colours, typeface. Doesn’t make much sense, does it? Well, why…
It’ll be a while until I can be able to find any meaningful words to describe my 2025 Christmas. I’ve been living away from my hometown since 1996, which is when I started deluding myself with a certainty: the idea that distance would help my innate inability to accept things that end, people who die, and everything around it. I lost my beloved mother on the 25th, a thousand kilometres away from…
My latest post generated an unusual amount of email exchanges. The back-and-forth was fantastic, rich, and inspiring, pushing me to contemplate more ways in which noise affects me these days. One letter, in particular, picked my curiosity. Written by Noa , its overture was: I’m a fairly long term reader of your blog. I wanted to reach out because your recent post “noise” really resonated with me.…
December has quietly arrived. It often rains, at times windy. I put almost everything on hold, and the resulting calm is something to cherish. November was silent, for the most part, with a lot of working from home due to health issues. Rewatching old TV shows at night, reading blog post and long articles, mostly the latter. Very little news, I’d say a couple of pills here and there, nothing more.…
A hazy feeling has caught on me lately. Almost as if a season has changed, within myself. Only coincidentally in parallel with Autumn replacing Summer, it left me troubled and a bit on edge. Can’t be exactly sure, but it feels like it goes beyond a recent loss in the family, or the flu that’s been bothering me for a week now. Over the last month or so, I haven’t been able to interact much online,…
Twenty-one years ago, while I was asleep, I received a phone call. My older cousin had passed away, two days after I last saw him in hospital. I knew it would have been our last goodbye when I left the ward, so I ignored anyone around me and cried in the streets of Milan. After the phone call, I stayed with his father, accompanying him at every stage while trying to help as much as I could during…
After resuming my bullet journal a couple weeks ago, I started planning my next creative music endeavours. This time, back to writing and producing my own messages. What’s taking shape, out of my scribbled notes on paper, are two distinct concept albums. Probably shorter than the previous one. I’m sensing 6-song works for now. I have names for the collaborators I want to work with, a rough…
After taking the plunge, Mavericks keeps on giving. I created a brand new Set-up page featuring a probably incomplete list of everything I’m using. I’ll be adding more info along the way, and probably more pictures. Experience Notes Mavericks’ Aqua GUI, with its elegant and refined animations, gives a feeling that everything is running exceptionally well together. Almost as if it was a…
This song by Antiquity was released in December 2024, but I had forgotten to post it on my website. A Fools Paradise by Antiquity Notes Gerald quotes: Dictators are allergic to reform, and they are cunning survivors. They will do whatever it takes to preserve their power and wealth, no matter how much blood ends up on their hands. They are master deceivers and talented manipulators who cannot be…
This song by Antiquity was released in January 2025, but I had forgotten to post it on my website. Rain From The Clouds by Antiquity Notes Gerald says: “If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then, we are up for grabs for the next charlatan (political or religious) who comes rambling along.” It…
I co-produced, mixed and mastered Rythur’s debut album. He’s a friend from the US, currently living in Colorado. Alien Pop, by Rythur I met Rythur online on the fediverse some time ago, where we quickly bonded. His awesomely quirky (to me) approach to songwriting has always been a source of keen curiosity. When I heard the demos a defined thought formed: “this could become a great work with the…
I found myself at the bitter end of a long process of detaching from modern computing. Apple in particular. As a pure experiment, I installed and ran Mac OS X 10.9.5 (nicknamed ‘Mavericks’) on an old MacBook Air. I liked it a lot. Way more than I had initially anticipated. Fixated with wanting to prove the folly of craving the latest shiny thing, I thought a good attempt would be to record and…
Silvia and I have decided to kickstart the process that will ultimately lead us to share a dual citizenship. We came back to the UK two years ago, after failing to find common ground with our home country, and settled in our former house once again. Not coincidentally, we managed to find a way to pivot away from our old jobs. None of the above was an easy feat, according to Westerner standards. It…
A year and three months later, a follow-up on leaving the web industry . I was supposed to have distanced myself from that by now, to speak about it lightly. Not true. Disclaimer : most of the content for this article comes from a few posts of mine published between 2013 and 2014 on the blog of my then co-directed web design/dev London-based firm. Sometimes things don’t change. Applying to jobs…
Six months ago, I offered to produce, mix, and master a friend’s debut album. One out of several good reasons to do so was selfish: use their project to complete a process of re-igniting my music production workflow, and rekindle with all the intrinsic mechanisms that are needed for a quality delivery. A process that I had successfully started with Zavajer at the end of last year . The idea was to…