Kiev, Ukraine

Here are the five things I thought were worth sharing this week: 

1. Last week I visited Kiev (Ukraine) for the first time. It's a beautiful city, the people are wonderful and it's a place that you can explore and walk around for hours — my favourite type of city! It beat my expectations in every way. I can't wait to go back.
    
2. "Existence, he says, is fundamentally playful. It's less like a journey, and more like a piece of music or a dance. And the point of dancing isn't to arrive at a particular spot on the floor; the point of dancing is simply to dance." — A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning by Kevin Simler.
    
3. I've been learning German with the help of Duolingo for several years now and they've just released a new app called Tinycards which is designed to help you "memorise anything quickly". Using flashcards to aid memorisation is a learning hack that I've come across a lot and I'm sure this app will be useful to my fellow Learners out there!
    
4. If you want to be a better writer, read this. Fast and to the point — The Day You Became A Better Writer by Scott Adams.
    
5. I recently finished reading Maximum Willpower by Jane McGonigal. It's an enlightening book on self-control and limitations of willpower. I wish I'd got round to reading it sooner!

That's all for this week. If you liked this, check out my previous Five Things posts or sign up to receive future posts straight to your inbox. Enjoy!

A couple of behind the scenes videos from Instagram of the gig at Wonder Fields with CoCo And The Butterfields!

Trying to get the attention of the useless monitor guy on Sunday. #drummerproblems #cocoandthebutterfields

A video posted by Ross Farley (@rossfaarley) on Jul 13, 2016 at 8:02am PDT

Love this groove... Shame about the drumsticks smacking on the #gopro! #drummingproblems #cocoandthebutterfields

A video posted by Ross Farley (@rossfaarley) on Jul 13, 2016 at 8:08am PDT

A running joke.

Here are the five things I thought were worth sharing this week: 

1. An interesting read on the benefits of silence — This Is Your Brain on Silence
    
2. Fantastic podcast by Invisibilia on how our frame of reference shapes how we perceive the world — "Alix Spiegel and Hanna Rosin interview a woman who gets a glimpse of what she's been missing all her life – and then loses it."
    
3. Are you a procrastinator? If yes, go check out Wait But Why's great series on procrastination. Do it now... Future You will thank Present You for it! Here's the first post.
    
4. This album by Rival Consoles was one of my favourite releases of 2015. I hadn't listened to it ages until yesterday!
    
5. One of my favourite musicians Ólafur Arnalds is doing this awesome project — "Over seven weeks, he's travelling to seven different locations in his native Iceland to record and release a series of new compositions. At every location he's collaborating with a local artist or group to create and perform a new song which is then released each Monday."

That's all for this week. If you liked this, check out my previous Five Things posts or sign up to receive future posts straight to your inbox. Enjoy!

Yesterday I arrived back home after playing my first couple of shows with CoCo and the Butterfields at Moonbeams Festival in Yorkshire and Wonder Fields near Exeter.

It was a fun weekend, playing and hanging out with some great musicians. The photos above are from the gigs and my epic journey from Ipswich to Yorkshire, Yorkshire to Exeter and then back from Exeter to Ipswich via London... I don't think I've ever been to so many train stations in such a short amount of time!

I'll be playing at Moonbeams Festival on Saturday and Wonder Fields on Sunday with Coco and the Butterfields this weekend. Really looking forward to it.

For gig info and music check out their website!

About to hit the road

Here are the five things I thought were worth sharing this week: 

1. What is music? — A cool video and interview with Jad Abumrad (host of the brilliant Radiolab podcast) on sound and music.
    
2. NASA just succeeded at the hardest thing they've ever done — Getting the Juno spacecraft into orbit around Jupiter. National Geographic shared this animation showing the manoeuvre used to achieve this feat. I love all things Space, so thought this was rather cool!
    
3. Ever looked out into the night sky and thought "Where is everybody?". If your answer is "yes", check out this article on the Fermi Paradox by (my new favourite website) Wait But Why. The Fermi Paradox tries to explain "the apparent contradiction between the lack of evidence and high probability estimates for the existence of extraterrestrial civilisations" (thanks Wikipedia). It's nerdy and a pretty long read, but for the curious amongst you, well worth the time.
    
4. Anki (a robotics & AI company) just announced Cozmo. It's smart (and emotional) toy robot and I really want one! I'm fairly minimalist so not one for just buying random junk, but Cozmo looks pretty awesome.
    
5. This is mainly going to be of interest to drummers, but even if you aren't one it's still an interesting read and has some good pictures too — History Of The Drum Set.

That's all for this week. If you liked this, check out my previous Five Things posts or sign up to receive future posts straight to your inbox. Enjoy!