How is personal networking connected to the idea of bartering and bartering communities?

Went to a good workshop this morning on the subject of personal networking. During this session I began to visualise and reflect on the the possibility of a (loose?) community made up of networks in which fair exchange is a core concept. The notion that you could live a freer, happier life, by getting rid of tight, profit-driven financial transactions and instead working towadrs exchanges of time, skills and information with like-minded people...A version of "you scratch my back" etc...But there should be nothing pernicious or acquisitive about signing up to such a way of life. I guess there is loads out there on bartering, and I know that bartering communities exist...But when one begins to fuse bartering in to the world of corporate life and networking you could perhaps come up with productive and happier new ways of living at work, and working through life.

How can it be March 1st already?

SuperSize Me

Fantastic documentary, saw it tonight...Hilarious and gobsmacking (literally!) in equal measure. Morgan's consumption of his first Supersize is not a scene one would want to watch over a TV Dinner, or a movie-house hot dog.

SuperSize Me official site

Also was good to be watching at a time I am giving due consideration to, and taking considerable action, on my own eating/nutritional habits.

Faure's Violin Sonatas

Enjoyed Radio 3's CD review yesterday which had a focus on Faure's Violin Sonatas, by Stephen Johnson. Excellent, and informative. The extracts were a revelation to me, as I'd never heard these works before. What beauty! Here were Stephen Johnson's conclusions:

BUILDING A LIBRARY RECOMMENDATION: FAURE Violin Sonatas Reviewer: Stephen Johnson First Choice: Krysia Osostowicz (violin), Susan Tomes (piano) (recorded 1987)HELIOS CDH55030 (CD, budget)Also Recommended: Dong-Suk Kang (violin), Pascal Devoyon (piano) (recorded 1995; c/w Berceuse, Op.16; Romance in B Flat Major, Op.28; Andante in B Flat Major, Op.75)NAXOS 8.550906 (CD, budget)

Nice to have Fi Glover back

Nice to have Fi back this morning on Broadcasting House on Radio 4, after her week off last week! And it was her birthday too. A highlight was the surprise birthday message from Micheal Howard, the Conservative Party Leader, of which she knew nothing. It was played on her for her, and she had to "follow that" - a great moment.

Buy Hammerklavier at Tesco

(- Always Giving You Extra - )

Came across this advertising link after a search on Google for "Hammerklavier" (re. Beethoven's piano sonata Op. 106 (was trying to find out the meaning of the word "Hammerklavier").
Try for yourself, you may get the same ad!
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ned=us&q=hammerklavier+&btnmeta%3Dsearch%3Dsearch=Search+the+Web

By the way, as I suspected, the name "Hammerklavier" means no more than "Pianoforte"...It's simply a reference to the intended instrument, the piano. And the designation was given to all five late sonatas, as in "for the Hammerklavier", "for the pianoforte", but the label has only stuck with Opus 106.

Errr...Perhaps appropriately? In the sense that Op. 106 seems so much (for me at least) to be "about" the sound of the piano: that wonderful persuasive percussiveness which is forever drawing you in - a gruff, abrasive seduction in to a soundworld from which there is no escape, and for which there is no real resolution. An endless stretching out of possibilities. This, for me, at least is Beethoven's greatest symphony for Hammers, wood and string.

Further programme note information at the Excellent Radio 3 site accompanying their online cycle of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas by Artur Pizzaro