I am not a designer. But I do often end up doing design. That's why I was interested in this title. Now the PDF ended up on a machine I control, so I grabbed a copy to see what it was like. I thought it was very straightforward, not too corporate or wanky. So I bought the paper book and am now making my way through that. Very accessible, it covers the general principles of graphic design. The "mini art school" chapter is especially useful for someone like me with very little exposure to the theoretical side of graphic design. They manage to balance that theory with a lighthearted touch and straightforward style that is both accessible and useful for a design n00b like me.

I’ve used Git a fair bit for cloning from github and such, but I normally use Subversion for my day to day version control. Recently lots of people are talking about Git, for example it came up more than once at Barncamp 2011. I thought it might be a good time to have a read about it. Loeliger does a solid job of taking you through the various features with plenty of examples. This is a good solid O'Reilly book and has encouraged me to have more of a play with Git.

Since picking up Q again, I’ve been feeling the Movement of the Free Spirit Vibes. Although Coppe was active during the English Civil war, a century later than the era of Q, I reckon his ranter philosophy embodies something of the subversive spirit of the time. I first came across Coppe in the Leon Rosselson song I fell in love with his anarchic spirit (flicking nutshells at magistrates, denying that sin exists, claiming God as "the mighty Leveler[sic]"). Coppe was a full-on antinomianist. Which meant that he believed that the elect, being saved by grace alone and already perfect could and indeed must sin as much as possible and as visibly as possible to illustrate their holiness.

His Fiery Flying Roll and Second Roll form the bulk of this thin collection from Aporia Press, which I got hold of from Frontline books in Manchester in 1994. I love the writing style of the 17th century; all stranglee spelt &Co. And Coppe's rhetoric and passion shine through nearly four centuries later.