Considering at the age of 5, I ended up under a stationary train (I’ve never seen a train full of paper clips *ahem*) at Birmingham New Street, after faling through the gap, I’m not getting on too badly with our local train network.

Contained in this short art film, is perhaps something magic we’ve lost in car travel and perhaps air travel too. I’ve always seen train journeys as a movie reel, each trip is slightly different, a movie you can watch over and over again and see something new. The sweeping landscapes passing from urban sprawl to open countryside within a matter of tracks on the iPod. Music is an important part of this expereince, you have some tracks that are clearly winners as birds fly next to your windw trying to race your train, or the other classic being overhead lines criss crossing in time with your music. It’s a personal expereince, but one that we can all say; Yup I like that too.

So yeah, I was bored the other night of train delays, it took 2 and a half hours to do a 25 minute car journey (I’m first in line to twonk Richard Beeching bewteen the eyes on this one) so I thought I’d capture this expereince on my local line between Walsall and Birmingham. A route which takes in Bescot Stadium, which is rail road mania, there are so many tracks, you could get Thomas the Tank, friends and Richard Branson all in a drag race! Plus this video also lets you hear what I listen to as a soundtrack to this daily movie that lest we forget, plays in reverse on the way back! Foals – Spanish Saraha; I’m really liking this track, any track by Foals for the percusion and arrangements, that seem to be in time with the movie outside the train window. Also as the year is 2010 and we’ll all soon be thinking about peak oil, (if we aren’t already), train travel is going to be increadibly important to us in this decade. Ani Difranco makes this point in her Self Evident poem.

Here’s to our last drink of fossil fuels
let us vow to get off of this sauce
shoo away the swarms of commuter planes
and find that train ticket we lost
cuz once upon a time the line followed the river
and peeked into all the backyards
and the laundry was waving
the graffiti was teasing us
from brick walls and bridges
we were rolling over ridges
through valleys
under stars
I dream of touring like Duke Ellington
in my own railroad car
I dream of waiting on the tall blonde wooden benches
in a grand station aglow with grace
and then standing out on the platform
and feeling the air on my face

In the summer and while I had a bit of time to myself, I went off exploring and capturing what it’s like on a sunny day in my local park. Walsall Arboretum is famous for its illuminations, however throughout the year there’s a constant charm about the place and it’s ideal for a calming walk around the lake.

The music is Frozen Silence, a track called Memories which is in the Creative Commons for you to download. www.jamendo.com/en/album/3476

Sit back, relax, it’s raining, let the sweet sound of the rain soothe the stresses of the day away. These clips were shot to pass the time while being stuck in the car waiting for a huge rainstorm to blow over (have camera will use it!). Mostly shot through the windscreen I thought it would be fun to see buildings and the urban environment as refracted through rain. Well, what I really thought was, oooooooh that building looks like it’s moving beacuse of the rain, I’m sat in the car I may as well do something here!

The music is in the CC and is “Childhood” courtesy of Frozen Silence, the album is so kindly up as a free to download and will be soothing me to sleep soon enough! Download the album here.

On a recent Birmingham Flickr Meet under Spaghetti Junction I took some video clips of the water shimmer / reflections on the concrete down there. I was mesmerised by the shimmers. This is an edited montage of the clips. Look out for the birds at the end, stunning! Should have done it with a tripod but I didn’t know they would come out this good! The light really catches the water and throws up these contrasting areas of light and dark down there and the traffic overhead sounds like thunder!

Soundtracked by a female string quartet called Amina who play with or are generally connected with Sigur Ros, the track is Fjarskanistan.