I got my census form through the post yesterday. 32 pages, of which about four concern me. So I won't have any trouble filling that in on 27 March. Except for a few things.
Question H14 asks 'In total, how many cars are owned, or available for use, by members of this household?' I had to think a bit, because I'd forgotten that this is meant to be a snapshot (except when it isn't), and started to try and calculate how many rental cars there are in the country.
The ones about qualifications are pretty confusing. I've never heard of half the things, so I suppose I'm safe in assuming I haven't got them. But the the first box asks for 1 - 4 O levels. Yep, I can tick that. Then box 3 says '5+ O levels'. So that's another tick. That makes somewhere between 6 and 9. Or should I only tick one or the other? It doesn't say that. Luckily I've got a couple of weeks to clear that up - I don't want to mislead the government.
The last one, for now, is about visitors. Normally, everyone is welcome to come and visit me, even for an overnighter. But, if you possibly can, please try and avoid the night of 27 March, unless you want to spend the evening filling in forms.
And, at what time am I meant to fill the form in, exactly? What if the gas central heating breaks down during the day: I'd be lying if I'd already ticked box 2 in H11. And what if someone turns up at one minute to midnight, begging a bed for the night?
Sorry, I'm getting silly. This often happens at this hour, especially today.
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
Monday, 7 March 2011
Arboreal haircuts
'Poll' is an old noun (Dutch in origin I believe) meaning 'the top of the head'. It then became a verb meaning 'to cut one's hair'. Next, a new noun, 'pollard', came along to signify 'a person whose hair had been cut'; this came to be mostly applied to trees rather than people; and finally, 'pollard' has turned back into another verb, which acquired its present day meaning. Funny stuff, language.
Anyway, the trees in my avenue, which are beeches, rather than elms as those of you who know my address might imagine, are being pollarded. It's a noisy and seemingly brutal process: a hard-hatted team, using massive chainsaws, hydraulic platforms and a frankly terrifying giant shredder, are transforming each tree from this:
Anyway, the trees in my avenue, which are beeches, rather than elms as those of you who know my address might imagine, are being pollarded. It's a noisy and seemingly brutal process: a hard-hatted team, using massive chainsaws, hydraulic platforms and a frankly terrifying giant shredder, are transforming each tree from this:
To this:
This is the third time I've seen this done in the twenty-plus years I've lived here. The first time, the Avenue was up in arms - 'they're murdering our trees' - but within a few months new shoots were appearing, and by the autumn the trees were leafy and ready to get on with what they like to do in the autumn. Within three years they were back to their lovely leafy vibrant selves. I don't suppose they enjoyed their haircuts much at the time, though.
There's a metaphor for life in there.
Friday, 4 March 2011
Bank Holidays
Anybody know what these are any more? Back in the day when I was a lad, the whole country pretty well shut down except for really essential services. Now, the only activity that stops (and that not entirely) seems to be banking. (OK, to be fair, the poor little darlings need their rest.) So it's a nonsense, up there with Double Summer Time and its bastard spawn, about which I've ranted enough in the past.
On the news tonight, I heard that some lunatic is proposing that the so-called May Day holiday should be moved, either to St George's Day (23 April) or Trafalgar Day (somewhere late in October). Now this raises too many issues to discuss in full, so suffice to say that, if these pseudo-holidays mean anything at all, the October date is a no-brain shoo-in. But there seems to be a swell of support for St George. This is on the grounds that May Day is kind of socialist, whereas St George (a Turk who probably never existed and certainly didn't slay any dragons) and Trafalgar (the penultimate occasion on which we thoroughly trashed the French) are kind of patriotic.
But the best part is the putative justification for this rot, which is nothing to do with a holiday for us, but that apparently it will boost tourism (one of the very few remaining industries we're prepared to own up to without a shifty sideways glance), especially from China.
How, exactly? St George's Day doesn't even get to the starting traps - it never opens the springtime bank holiday season (check it out - the latest possible Easter Sunday is 25 April); and October is not exactly high season. But, I ask, why should it make any difference to those Chinese holidaymakers when they're mulling over possible dates for their photo-gathering trip halfway round the globe? You can imagine the conversation over there in Beijing: 'No, best settle for October, the banks'll be shut and everything will cost twice as much.'
It's enough to make a coelacanth's blood boil.
On the news tonight, I heard that some lunatic is proposing that the so-called May Day holiday should be moved, either to St George's Day (23 April) or Trafalgar Day (somewhere late in October). Now this raises too many issues to discuss in full, so suffice to say that, if these pseudo-holidays mean anything at all, the October date is a no-brain shoo-in. But there seems to be a swell of support for St George. This is on the grounds that May Day is kind of socialist, whereas St George (a Turk who probably never existed and certainly didn't slay any dragons) and Trafalgar (the penultimate occasion on which we thoroughly trashed the French) are kind of patriotic.
But the best part is the putative justification for this rot, which is nothing to do with a holiday for us, but that apparently it will boost tourism (one of the very few remaining industries we're prepared to own up to without a shifty sideways glance), especially from China.
How, exactly? St George's Day doesn't even get to the starting traps - it never opens the springtime bank holiday season (check it out - the latest possible Easter Sunday is 25 April); and October is not exactly high season. But, I ask, why should it make any difference to those Chinese holidaymakers when they're mulling over possible dates for their photo-gathering trip halfway round the globe? You can imagine the conversation over there in Beijing: 'No, best settle for October, the banks'll be shut and everything will cost twice as much.'
It's enough to make a coelacanth's blood boil.
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
The Wires Are Alive
Earlier today I had occasion to correct a minor error concerning the provenance of the song 'My Favourite Things' . I have in the past extolled the magnum opus that constitutes the collected works of Rodgers and Hammerstein, but an exception has to be made for 'The Sound Of Music', one of the most excruciatingly maudlin squanderings of an otherwise challenging storyline in the history of the American musical. But this isn't about that. It's about narrow escapes.
I've had a few of these. I forced my way onto the delayed 8.31 to Paddington, rather than wait for the following 8.42, which crashed into the misrouted commuter train at Royal Oak. I chose the outside lane on the A303 seconds before the shunt in the middle lane that caused a fatality and a three hour tailback. But I'm thinking of what happened, two and a half years ago, in the caravan in Pembrokeshire.
It was a filthy Sunday afternoon. Pembrokeshire rain can be the wettest in the country. I was depressed and tired. Television was the only option. So I switched it on. It was 'The Sound Of Music'. Oh well, I thought. I settled down to watch, trying to be positive. Sometime shortly after the cute kids first traipsed on like infant stormtroopers, I heard a funny crackling noise. Funny noises happen all the time at White Park Farm, so I ignored it. But then I realised that not only was the noise coming from the TV, so was a nasty smell, and a flume of evil-looking black smoke. I knew what that meant.
I got the box unplugged and carted outside pretty fast, I can tell you. I think I poured a bucket of water over it. But here's the narrow escape. If I'd wandered over to the toilet block for a wee, as I'd been thinking of doing, that caravan would have been incinerated by the time I returned.
The worst part was that the song they were singing, at the cringe-making concert party, when all this began, was 'The Lonely Goatherd'. Imagine the rest of my day.
I've had a few of these. I forced my way onto the delayed 8.31 to Paddington, rather than wait for the following 8.42, which crashed into the misrouted commuter train at Royal Oak. I chose the outside lane on the A303 seconds before the shunt in the middle lane that caused a fatality and a three hour tailback. But I'm thinking of what happened, two and a half years ago, in the caravan in Pembrokeshire.
It was a filthy Sunday afternoon. Pembrokeshire rain can be the wettest in the country. I was depressed and tired. Television was the only option. So I switched it on. It was 'The Sound Of Music'. Oh well, I thought. I settled down to watch, trying to be positive. Sometime shortly after the cute kids first traipsed on like infant stormtroopers, I heard a funny crackling noise. Funny noises happen all the time at White Park Farm, so I ignored it. But then I realised that not only was the noise coming from the TV, so was a nasty smell, and a flume of evil-looking black smoke. I knew what that meant.
I got the box unplugged and carted outside pretty fast, I can tell you. I think I poured a bucket of water over it. But here's the narrow escape. If I'd wandered over to the toilet block for a wee, as I'd been thinking of doing, that caravan would have been incinerated by the time I returned.
The worst part was that the song they were singing, at the cringe-making concert party, when all this began, was 'The Lonely Goatherd'. Imagine the rest of my day.
Word games
Since we're in this neck of the words, here's a new one that's just occurred to me. Those letter jumbles that you have to enter for Blogger word verification - awards for the best definitions. A bit like The Meaning of Liff.
The only drawback that occurs to me is that I don't use word verification, so can't contribute any challenges. OK, forget it.
The only drawback that occurs to me is that I don't use word verification, so can't contribute any challenges. OK, forget it.
Tuesday, 1 March 2011
Word Wars
I have been in a few verbal skirmishes in recent days. So be warned: I've found a wonderful new resource called onelook.com. This collates the content of 1,060 English dictionaries, giving about 19 million definitions. You can do partial searches, wild cards, reverse searches, the lot.
After a very quick skim, I can report that 'kapati' and 'patrashil' do not exist as entries in any of those dictionaries. 'Jargogle' crops up three times. (I'd assumed it was a Lallans word, but it isn't.)
All comers now welcome. The gloves are off.
After a very quick skim, I can report that 'kapati' and 'patrashil' do not exist as entries in any of those dictionaries. 'Jargogle' crops up three times. (I'd assumed it was a Lallans word, but it isn't.)
All comers now welcome. The gloves are off.
Monday, 28 February 2011
I know I said I wouldn't, but ...
... I'm in a sentimental mood, and this fell out of a browse through the '87 tapes.
Until You've Lost It
And, it's probably the best vocal performance I'll ever do.
Until You've Lost It
And, it's probably the best vocal performance I'll ever do.
Sunday, 27 February 2011
Something's in the air
You can't hallucinate on champagne, can you?
The phone call came fairly late on Friday evening. It was Caro. To judge by the background noise, Saturday night's birthday party had already started.
"Do you know the words to 'When I'm Sixty-Four'?" she asked.
"Well, I know three of them," I said.
"Can you look them up, please?" Caro can be quite authoritarian when she chooses. "Oh, and bring your guitar. We'll pick you up about five. Some people want to drink while they watch the rugby."
Now, I don't really like having to sing for my supper, though I usually end up quite enjoying it. But how can you say no to one of your dearest and oldest (well, sixty-four year old) friends? So I got onto Google. Rapidly establishing that the Beatles' people are avidly protective of their possessions - none of their lyrics are on any of the common legal websites - I dug out one of my several copies of 'Pepper', and typed the words into the computer. Made half-a-dozen photocopies. Then I picked up the guitar and made sure I could bluff my way through the chords. The whole thing didn't take more than ninety minutes; I got to bed well before 1 a.m.
Saturday evening. The drinks are being quaffed, the food has been eaten. It's party time, which means, eventually, the sing-song. Swallowing my reluctance (and my champagne), I lead the company though 'Sixty-Four' (twice) and several other songs, before announcing that my arms are now falling off and that's it, folks.
So it's time for the highspot of the evening, in honour of Cyrus, whose birthday (6) it also is. We traipse out into the garden for what might be called sky lanterns, I'm not sure. These are big paper wire-framed balloons which, when you light a kind of burner underneath them, float off glowing into the sky, to oohs and aahs, on a mission (someone suggested) to disrupt the air traffic control systems at Heathrow ... But the kids loved them.
Back home about three hours later, I wandered out into the garden to look at the stars before bed. As I was gazing up, looking for Orion, I saw what at first seemed to be a low-flying glider, without lights. When it drew nearer, I could see that it was two of those sky lanterns. Their fires had gone out, but they had somehow got together, still airborne, circling the night sky above Reading like ageing dancers in the dark. I like to think they're still up there somewhere.
The phone call came fairly late on Friday evening. It was Caro. To judge by the background noise, Saturday night's birthday party had already started.
"Do you know the words to 'When I'm Sixty-Four'?" she asked.
"Well, I know three of them," I said.
"Can you look them up, please?" Caro can be quite authoritarian when she chooses. "Oh, and bring your guitar. We'll pick you up about five. Some people want to drink while they watch the rugby."
Now, I don't really like having to sing for my supper, though I usually end up quite enjoying it. But how can you say no to one of your dearest and oldest (well, sixty-four year old) friends? So I got onto Google. Rapidly establishing that the Beatles' people are avidly protective of their possessions - none of their lyrics are on any of the common legal websites - I dug out one of my several copies of 'Pepper', and typed the words into the computer. Made half-a-dozen photocopies. Then I picked up the guitar and made sure I could bluff my way through the chords. The whole thing didn't take more than ninety minutes; I got to bed well before 1 a.m.
Saturday evening. The drinks are being quaffed, the food has been eaten. It's party time, which means, eventually, the sing-song. Swallowing my reluctance (and my champagne), I lead the company though 'Sixty-Four' (twice) and several other songs, before announcing that my arms are now falling off and that's it, folks.
So it's time for the highspot of the evening, in honour of Cyrus, whose birthday (6) it also is. We traipse out into the garden for what might be called sky lanterns, I'm not sure. These are big paper wire-framed balloons which, when you light a kind of burner underneath them, float off glowing into the sky, to oohs and aahs, on a mission (someone suggested) to disrupt the air traffic control systems at Heathrow ... But the kids loved them.
Back home about three hours later, I wandered out into the garden to look at the stars before bed. As I was gazing up, looking for Orion, I saw what at first seemed to be a low-flying glider, without lights. When it drew nearer, I could see that it was two of those sky lanterns. Their fires had gone out, but they had somehow got together, still airborne, circling the night sky above Reading like ageing dancers in the dark. I like to think they're still up there somewhere.
Moon Tune - The Last Frontier
Well, that was a lengthy, convoluted journey in order to get back to where I already was.
After an hour's faffing about trying to get rid of the patches of distortion that were irritating me, I concluded that it was actually in part these that gave it that 'big band' quality that Rosie discerned in her earlier kind comment. So I've put it back on ACIDPlanet in its original form.
Moon Tune
Funny about the 'big band' sound. Most of the time all you're hearing is one guitar, bass and drums. And there's no brass apart from some horns in the intro, and the 'trombone' solo on the Yamaha synth. Your ears can deceive you.
After an hour's faffing about trying to get rid of the patches of distortion that were irritating me, I concluded that it was actually in part these that gave it that 'big band' quality that Rosie discerned in her earlier kind comment. So I've put it back on ACIDPlanet in its original form.
Moon Tune
Funny about the 'big band' sound. Most of the time all you're hearing is one guitar, bass and drums. And there's no brass apart from some horns in the intro, and the 'trombone' solo on the Yamaha synth. Your ears can deceive you.
Saturday, 26 February 2011
Moon Tune - an update
I just listened to this on ACIDPlanet, and decided it's just not good enough. It needs a remix, which I'll do tomorrow. I've deleted it in the meantime.
If you've already listened to it, please forget what you heard! I'll let you know when the improved version is available.
If you've already listened to it, please forget what you heard! I'll let you know when the improved version is available.
Friday, 25 February 2011
Moon Tune
Here's the last (for now) of the 'old/new/ songs.
Moon Tune
It's been a struggle, for all sorts of reasons, and I'm not 100% happy with the sound (although a good overnight marinading in swamps of reverb does help), but I do like the song. Hope you do too.
No more for now, because though I can hardly see the living room floor for cables and kit, I'm pretty sure it needs some TLC from the Dyson.
Moon Tune
It's been a struggle, for all sorts of reasons, and I'm not 100% happy with the sound (although a good overnight marinading in swamps of reverb does help), but I do like the song. Hope you do too.
No more for now, because though I can hardly see the living room floor for cables and kit, I'm pretty sure it needs some TLC from the Dyson.
Thursday, 24 February 2011
Technical Hitch in Blogger
I think microwave transmissions have peaked, probably due to unforeseen activity in the Middle East, or solar flares, or something, and the tipping point has been reached, provoking a global wave of temporary insanity.
I offer as evidence that yesterday evening I suddenly felt compelled, for reasons I can't remember, never mind explain, to update my Blogger template. Why? It was perfectly OK. Anyway, I did it, using their wonderful new 'template designer'. I had a look. I wasn't sure if I liked it, so I thought I'd find some kind of undo function.
This morning I started this process. It took most of the day, but finally I managed to get back to where I'd started, except that Sitemeter had disappeared. Fair enough, reinstall it. So I followed the instructions, meticulously. They involve pasting HTML code into the appropriate place then saving the template.
I've already bored you into submission, so suffice to say that eventually I discovered that Blogger have just introduced a new feature (old IT-speak for F-up) that, as I type, makes it impossible to save HTML. They are silent on the subject, though hundreds of people have posted complaints..
I can't think of any reason at all why they'd do that, change a basic function that worked perfectly. Or why they seem incapable of backing out the change. Temporary mass insanity seems like the only answer. Other examples spring to mind.
I offer as evidence that yesterday evening I suddenly felt compelled, for reasons I can't remember, never mind explain, to update my Blogger template. Why? It was perfectly OK. Anyway, I did it, using their wonderful new 'template designer'. I had a look. I wasn't sure if I liked it, so I thought I'd find some kind of undo function.
This morning I started this process. It took most of the day, but finally I managed to get back to where I'd started, except that Sitemeter had disappeared. Fair enough, reinstall it. So I followed the instructions, meticulously. They involve pasting HTML code into the appropriate place then saving the template.
I've already bored you into submission, so suffice to say that eventually I discovered that Blogger have just introduced a new feature (old IT-speak for F-up) that, as I type, makes it impossible to save HTML. They are silent on the subject, though hundreds of people have posted complaints..
I can't think of any reason at all why they'd do that, change a basic function that worked perfectly. Or why they seem incapable of backing out the change. Temporary mass insanity seems like the only answer. Other examples spring to mind.
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Disappointed Bride Genya Ravan AKA Patsy Cole AKA Goldie 1965
Ignore all the ill-informed comments on YouTube (except mine!) - this is Dave Anthony's Moods backing Goldie in early 1966. Possibly the nearest thing to how the band sounded live at the time.
Tuesday, 22 February 2011
Moon Tune Abandoned
In my head, I had the Count Basie Orchestra. After seventy-two hours of this song obsessing me, waking up in the night with the sound of what I hear in my head, fifteen hours of slaving over red-hot guitars, keyboards, recording machines, drum machines, I have accepted that I just can't do it. My performance skills and my technology aren't up to it. I could put out a partially completed job, but I wouldn't be proud of it. So, sorry, this one ain't gonna happen. Yet.
Just to tantalise you, here are the lyrics:
Here we are, the stars are bright
Soon be time to say goodnight, but
Just a minute, look up there -
Something's in the air ...
Stars are out, the moon is rising
They'll be singing to us soon
There's some love on the horizon -
Could this be it?
Serenading you by moonlight
To a sentimental tune
Are we ready for a goodnight kiss?
Not yet -
We still have things to do with the moon
Just to tantalise you, here are the lyrics:
Here we are, the stars are bright
Soon be time to say goodnight, but
Just a minute, look up there -
Something's in the air ...
Stars are out, the moon is rising
They'll be singing to us soon
There's some love on the horizon -
Could this be it?
Serenading you by moonlight
To a sentimental tune
Are we ready for a goodnight kiss?
Not yet -
We still have things to do with the moon
Monday, 21 February 2011
King Pleasure Moody's Mood For Love
Sheer perfection. You have to hum 'I'm in the Mood for Love' along with it to really get it. I sang this in public a few times in 1965!
Sunday, 20 February 2011
Synchronicity: a true story
Several years ago, we were invited next door to meet Claire's new classroom assistant, Jonny. Claire is a music teacher and I was just getting back into making music, so there was some common ground.
The conversation got round to people's backgrounds, and Jonny mentioned that he was from Pembrokeshire. That's interesting, I said, we've just got back from there, know it well, what part?
"Well, I'm from a little village in the south, called Amroth," said Jonny.
"Really? Just along from Wisemans Bridge? That's where the caravan is. And I used to go there on family holidays as a child, fifty years ago. We stayed in a house called Maida Vale, just up the hill from Wisemans. The family was called Richards. I used to play with their middle son, David."
Jonny stared at me.
"He's my uncle," he said.
The conversation got round to people's backgrounds, and Jonny mentioned that he was from Pembrokeshire. That's interesting, I said, we've just got back from there, know it well, what part?
"Well, I'm from a little village in the south, called Amroth," said Jonny.
"Really? Just along from Wisemans Bridge? That's where the caravan is. And I used to go there on family holidays as a child, fifty years ago. We stayed in a house called Maida Vale, just up the hill from Wisemans. The family was called Richards. I used to play with their middle son, David."
Jonny stared at me.
"He's my uncle," he said.
The Illusionist
Great news, this film is at last out on DVD. Amazon have been alerted, I expect my copy within a small number of days, and private showings will take place here weekly, or on demand, at least until April (alongside or alternating with Local Hero, The Princess Bride and Rio Bravo).
I bang on to everyone I can trap into being a captive audience about this wonderful movie, which I saw in a little art cinema in Manchester about six months ago. It's based on a script bequeathed by Jacques Tati and left neglected, or suppressed, for the decades since his death in 1982, until director Sylvian Chomet managed to get the go-ahead to make it. It's a hand-drawn animation, virtually without dialogue, created by a team of more than forty artists, telling the story of a washed-up conjuror (obviously Tati himself) who migrates to London, then Scotland, with his rabbit, in search of redemption, or just work. I won't issue a spoiler - just to say it's about love, questioning it, and accepting that it may be time to relinquish it.
That all makes it sound a bit sombre. Visually, its beautiful pastels and darkening settings may reinforce this impression. But trust me, it's hilarious - as a Tati heretic, I'd say it's funnier than anything the man himself ever did.
I bang on to everyone I can trap into being a captive audience about this wonderful movie, which I saw in a little art cinema in Manchester about six months ago. It's based on a script bequeathed by Jacques Tati and left neglected, or suppressed, for the decades since his death in 1982, until director Sylvian Chomet managed to get the go-ahead to make it. It's a hand-drawn animation, virtually without dialogue, created by a team of more than forty artists, telling the story of a washed-up conjuror (obviously Tati himself) who migrates to London, then Scotland, with his rabbit, in search of redemption, or just work. I won't issue a spoiler - just to say it's about love, questioning it, and accepting that it may be time to relinquish it.
That all makes it sound a bit sombre. Visually, its beautiful pastels and darkening settings may reinforce this impression. But trust me, it's hilarious - as a Tati heretic, I'd say it's funnier than anything the man himself ever did.
Thursday, 17 February 2011
New old song #2
Road Song
I was going to post two songs, but can't decide which one to do next. 'Food', or 'Things to do with the Moon'? No clues as to what they'll sound like. Votes please.
I was going to post two songs, but can't decide which one to do next. 'Food', or 'Things to do with the Moon'? No clues as to what they'll sound like. Votes please.
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
Larry the Cat
Larry has been recruited to the staff of 10 Downing Street after sightings of a large rat. Presumably it was on its way to number 11.
Apricot Enemy Action
My food is either trying (misguidedly - but food isn't that bright, is it?) to liven up my life, or has it in for me. On Sunday, it was the yogurt. Half an hour ago, as I was attempting to extract two eggs from the fridge to be scrambled for my lunch, half a tin of apricots decided to jump out and land (upside down of course) on the floor. This is annoying. I'd been vaguely thinking of using those apricots to soup up the second half of the curry this evening. And I now have to wash the freaking floor (or at least that bit of it) again.
Do you think the Big Society does minders?
Do you think the Big Society does minders?
Sunday, 13 February 2011
Exciting Curry
Here's how to make a really eventful lamb rogan josh:
1. Ensure you are wearing clean trousers.
2. Follow the recipe on page 52 of Madhur Jaffrey's ' Indian Cookery (or your recipe of choice, as long as it involves yogurt).
3. Leaving the pot on the top of the stove to come to a simmer, tidy up the kitchen.
4. In doing so, drop the yogurt pot on the floor, in such a manner as to ensure that the bottom 15cm (6") of your left trouser leg is thoroughly drenched in yogurt.
5. Utter expletive of choice. (I find a well-spiced one is best.)
6. Run upstairs and remove trousers. Rinse yogurt from trouser leg. Stand there wondering whether to put trousers in washing basket or on radiator. Decide on radiator followed by washing basket.
7. Remember that you have left pot on stove, and dash downstairs just in time to watch it boil over.
8. Wash kitchen floor and top of stove.
9. Realise you are not wearing any trousers.
10. (this step not yet achieved at the time of writing) Sit down and drink as much gin as you can manage.
Enjoy!
1. Ensure you are wearing clean trousers.
2. Follow the recipe on page 52 of Madhur Jaffrey's ' Indian Cookery (or your recipe of choice, as long as it involves yogurt).
3. Leaving the pot on the top of the stove to come to a simmer, tidy up the kitchen.
4. In doing so, drop the yogurt pot on the floor, in such a manner as to ensure that the bottom 15cm (6") of your left trouser leg is thoroughly drenched in yogurt.
5. Utter expletive of choice. (I find a well-spiced one is best.)
6. Run upstairs and remove trousers. Rinse yogurt from trouser leg. Stand there wondering whether to put trousers in washing basket or on radiator. Decide on radiator followed by washing basket.
7. Remember that you have left pot on stove, and dash downstairs just in time to watch it boil over.
8. Wash kitchen floor and top of stove.
9. Realise you are not wearing any trousers.
10. (this step not yet achieved at the time of writing) Sit down and drink as much gin as you can manage.
Enjoy!
Thursday, 10 February 2011
A snippet of Reading
He drives down the Oxford Road most mornings at about nine, as I'm on my way to Willis and Short for the paper. He is big, shaven head and stubble, bouncer's shoulders, arm hanging out of the open car window, festooned with tattoos. He looks like Desperate Dan on speed, without the hat. His stereo's always up to eleven, usually playing deep roots reggae, hissy hip-hop or Grinderman grunge. Once, though, he'd chosen 'Touch Me In The Morning'. Summer mornings, he stands outside his shop up the Oxford, in his white bodybuilder's vest, wishing passers-by a very good morning, with eye contact. His vehicle of choice is a little blue Ford Ka.
I admire this man very much, because he has created a work, if not of art then at least of performance, out of mundanity. I tend to do the opposite. I was going to try and draw a caricature, but then luckily remembered that I can't draw.
I admire this man very much, because he has created a work, if not of art then at least of performance, out of mundanity. I tend to do the opposite. I was going to try and draw a caricature, but then luckily remembered that I can't draw.
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
I hate pianos
I've just listened to most of an otherwise wonderful album, 'Alegria' by Wayne Shorter, spoilt by the presence of pianos. The horns and the bass create the chords and the counterpoint, and the drums whizz around behind the rhythm - and then the unneeded piano barges in, clunkingly, thrusting the harmony and the rhythm, which I already had, into my face. And then, when it's time to solo, they waste whole minutes cramming in as many notes as they can, just to prove they can (because it's so much easier to plonk around on a piano than it is on a guitar or a trombone), while you go off and do the washing-up or something. It would have been so much better without it. Listen to the Gerry Mulligan Quartet, or Chet Baker.
Of course, I'm not a total pianophobe. They're fine - nay, great - in their place. These are my top five pianists: Errol Garner (who needs a drummer?); Dave Brubeck (who needs a brass section?); Count Basie (never play two notes where one will do); Oscar Peterson (because he's the only person who could actually bend a note on the thing); and Jerry Lee Lewis (because otherwise we wouldn't have had rock'n'roll).
And imagine, joyfully, a world without Jools Holland.
Of course, I'm not a total pianophobe. They're fine - nay, great - in their place. These are my top five pianists: Errol Garner (who needs a drummer?); Dave Brubeck (who needs a brass section?); Count Basie (never play two notes where one will do); Oscar Peterson (because he's the only person who could actually bend a note on the thing); and Jerry Lee Lewis (because otherwise we wouldn't have had rock'n'roll).
And imagine, joyfully, a world without Jools Holland.
Sunday, 6 February 2011
My Autobiography
I know, it looks like a solecism, but it isn't: in this case, it could legitimately be someone else's if I'd left out the word 'My'. (A cricketer or some other sportsman published a book with that title a few years ago - that is definitely a solecism. And I bet that's the first time the word 'solecism' has been used three times in the first paragraph of a blog post, without any of us knowing quite what it means.)
Anyway, the point is, I've completed, or abandoned, the first draft of what, in a New Year's Resolution, I jokingly called that. It isn't, of course: if anything, it's a memoir of my early life, filtered through the element of music, and focussed on the band I eventually belonged to, Dave Anthony's Moods.
I'd like to publish this somehow, not for commercial gain or anything, just so that anyone who wants to can have a look. But I don't know how to do that. Anybody know how? It's 150 pages long, so the blog isn't really an option.
In the meantime, here are the first two paragraphs:
I first became aware of my musical talent quite late on. At school, I tended to be timid (my first name, which I hated) so other boys who weren’t so timid or shy took the lead. Although I had heard, loved, and even listened to music since my ears opened (my father singing me to sleep with ‘A Long Way to Tipperary’ and ‘Pack Up Your Troubles’ and ‘My Grandfather’s Clock’; I think those songs will be my last memory traces to erase themselves), the idea that boys like us could actually do it ourselves never occurred to me, until we heard Lonnie Donegan, Johnnie Duncan and the Blue Grass Boys, the Vipers, Nancy Whiskey. Mike Caddy, Tony Barney and Pete Jennions were those leading, unshy boys who naturally formed skiffle groups. I was given the washboard, and begged my mother for thimbles (the washboard itself acquired from a long gone ironmongers in Southbourne Grove). But that’s getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back.
Let’s imagine Bournemouth in the post-war years, before the end of rationing. We lived in Southbourne. From the cliffs, the vista was defined by Hengistbury Head, then the distant Isle of Wight (the Polar Bear) to the left, Old Harry Rocks with the lights of Swanage beyond, on a clear night, twenty miles to the right, and in between, the vast expanse of blue or grey or silver sea, and the endless horizon. The cliffs, the beach with its alarmingly seasonal changes of sand levels, the tarmac prom, the barnacle-crusted seaweed-tangled breakwaters, the green paint-flaking beach-hut, the icy finger-whitening water – this was where I felt best. Once the barbed wire had been cleared from the beach (placed there just in case Hitler decided that Bournemouth was going to be one of his Normandy beaches; both piers were blown up for similar reasons: we weren’t going to let him dock his pleasure-boats here either, were we?), the family beach-hut was quickly salvaged, painted and reinstated by my energetic father, who had doubtless learned this principle of continual recovery, repair and restitution from his years in the Merchant Navy between the wars. I can’t be precise about the dates of ‘Tipperary’ and ‘Pack Up Your Troubles’. My father was away for most of the war, in Malvern and other places, on important scientific business which the family believed to have been to do with the development of radar, though he never talked about it, having presumably signed the Official Secrets Act. Come to think of it, he never talked about anything much until his very late years, preferring to retreat to his workshop, where he mended things, did obscure works of electronics, and crafted exquisite pieces of woodwork and furniture. But on home visits, he sang me to sleep with these songs, I think, before I could walk properly. There were others – ‘Waltzing Matilda’, ‘My Darling Clementine’, even Leadbelly’s ‘Good Night Irene’ – these melodies and lyrical stories plunged into my psyche at a very early age. I remember his pride in me when he came back on a visit and I had mastered the use of a wheelbarrow (I was four); at six, I helped him shift the sand from the road to the back garden when he single-handedly built the new garage at the side of 37 (which still stands). But after he came home for good, he never sang to me again.
Anyway, the point is, I've completed, or abandoned, the first draft of what, in a New Year's Resolution, I jokingly called that. It isn't, of course: if anything, it's a memoir of my early life, filtered through the element of music, and focussed on the band I eventually belonged to, Dave Anthony's Moods.
I'd like to publish this somehow, not for commercial gain or anything, just so that anyone who wants to can have a look. But I don't know how to do that. Anybody know how? It's 150 pages long, so the blog isn't really an option.
In the meantime, here are the first two paragraphs:
I first became aware of my musical talent quite late on. At school, I tended to be timid (my first name, which I hated) so other boys who weren’t so timid or shy took the lead. Although I had heard, loved, and even listened to music since my ears opened (my father singing me to sleep with ‘A Long Way to Tipperary’ and ‘Pack Up Your Troubles’ and ‘My Grandfather’s Clock’; I think those songs will be my last memory traces to erase themselves), the idea that boys like us could actually do it ourselves never occurred to me, until we heard Lonnie Donegan, Johnnie Duncan and the Blue Grass Boys, the Vipers, Nancy Whiskey. Mike Caddy, Tony Barney and Pete Jennions were those leading, unshy boys who naturally formed skiffle groups. I was given the washboard, and begged my mother for thimbles (the washboard itself acquired from a long gone ironmongers in Southbourne Grove). But that’s getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back.
Let’s imagine Bournemouth in the post-war years, before the end of rationing. We lived in Southbourne. From the cliffs, the vista was defined by Hengistbury Head, then the distant Isle of Wight (the Polar Bear) to the left, Old Harry Rocks with the lights of Swanage beyond, on a clear night, twenty miles to the right, and in between, the vast expanse of blue or grey or silver sea, and the endless horizon. The cliffs, the beach with its alarmingly seasonal changes of sand levels, the tarmac prom, the barnacle-crusted seaweed-tangled breakwaters, the green paint-flaking beach-hut, the icy finger-whitening water – this was where I felt best. Once the barbed wire had been cleared from the beach (placed there just in case Hitler decided that Bournemouth was going to be one of his Normandy beaches; both piers were blown up for similar reasons: we weren’t going to let him dock his pleasure-boats here either, were we?), the family beach-hut was quickly salvaged, painted and reinstated by my energetic father, who had doubtless learned this principle of continual recovery, repair and restitution from his years in the Merchant Navy between the wars. I can’t be precise about the dates of ‘Tipperary’ and ‘Pack Up Your Troubles’. My father was away for most of the war, in Malvern and other places, on important scientific business which the family believed to have been to do with the development of radar, though he never talked about it, having presumably signed the Official Secrets Act. Come to think of it, he never talked about anything much until his very late years, preferring to retreat to his workshop, where he mended things, did obscure works of electronics, and crafted exquisite pieces of woodwork and furniture. But on home visits, he sang me to sleep with these songs, I think, before I could walk properly. There were others – ‘Waltzing Matilda’, ‘My Darling Clementine’, even Leadbelly’s ‘Good Night Irene’ – these melodies and lyrical stories plunged into my psyche at a very early age. I remember his pride in me when he came back on a visit and I had mastered the use of a wheelbarrow (I was four); at six, I helped him shift the sand from the road to the back garden when he single-handedly built the new garage at the side of 37 (which still stands). But after he came home for good, he never sang to me again.
Saturday, 5 February 2011
A bit of joke philosophy for you
I've been told to write nonsense, so here's some.
Solipsism is the belief that everything exists only in your imagination. The phrase 'extreme subjective idealism' has been used. Now, if I subscribe to this view, it follows that you're not actually there reading this (which may well be true judging by the number of visits I get to this blog). But you'll be thinking the same thing about me.
It's an interesting idea, but it doesn't really hold up. Why would I go to all that trouble?
So, here's the joke. A conference of solipsists is presented with the following agenda item: 'Discuss.'
Solipsism is the belief that everything exists only in your imagination. The phrase 'extreme subjective idealism' has been used. Now, if I subscribe to this view, it follows that you're not actually there reading this (which may well be true judging by the number of visits I get to this blog). But you'll be thinking the same thing about me.
It's an interesting idea, but it doesn't really hold up. Why would I go to all that trouble?
So, here's the joke. A conference of solipsists is presented with the following agenda item: 'Discuss.'
Friday, 4 February 2011
New old song #1
"Carry Me Away"
Turn the volume up! The crappy MP3 format which acidplanet now imposes isn't a patch on the wma.
I'm not especially proud of this, but it had to be done.
Turn the volume up! The crappy MP3 format which acidplanet now imposes isn't a patch on the wma.
I'm not especially proud of this, but it had to be done.
Thursday, 3 February 2011
Sweet dreams ...
Last night, I crawled up to bed about 11.30. I only make my bed when I need it, and I was about to do so when I saw this ogre leering up at me from the pillow.
It's OK. I gave him a good punching and he let me sleep like a baby.
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
Visibility Cloak
It says here that scientists at the University of Birmingham have invented a sort of prism, made out of something called calcite, which when placed in front of a small object, such as a paperclip, renders it invisible. Calcite is itself transparent (and visible) but has the property of somehow bending light so that whatever is behind it, under very restrictive controlled conditions, can't be seen in the human visible light spectrum.
I foresee a few difficulties. For a start, if what's behind the calcite prism can't be seen, how do they know it's transparent? More importantly, even if the technology can be developed to encompass much larger objects than paperclips, the fact that the calcite itself is visible is a bit of a giveaway, isn't it? I mean, if you see a big lump of what presumably looks like glass walking around, once you know about this stuff you're going to think 'mm, that's a person', aren't you? And if a spy plane sees a big sheet of glass in the desert, with apparently nothing behind it, it's a strong clue. Probably a uranium enrichment plant.
No, I can't see this one catching on. I'll continue to disguise my uranium enrichment plant as a disused compost bin - which is itself disguised as a toasted Dalek.
I foresee a few difficulties. For a start, if what's behind the calcite prism can't be seen, how do they know it's transparent? More importantly, even if the technology can be developed to encompass much larger objects than paperclips, the fact that the calcite itself is visible is a bit of a giveaway, isn't it? I mean, if you see a big lump of what presumably looks like glass walking around, once you know about this stuff you're going to think 'mm, that's a person', aren't you? And if a spy plane sees a big sheet of glass in the desert, with apparently nothing behind it, it's a strong clue. Probably a uranium enrichment plant.
No, I can't see this one catching on. I'll continue to disguise my uranium enrichment plant as a disused compost bin - which is itself disguised as a toasted Dalek.
Tuesday, 1 February 2011
Sunday, 30 January 2011
Darling buds of January
Look!
You can't actually see them, because they're invisible to the naked lens, but trust me, those are definitely buds on the apple tree. I hope they don't regret it - the early cold spell may have fooled them into thinking it's really the start of spring. When I say 'thinking', of course, trees don't actually think.
There's a new white van in the Close.
Well, not new in any real sense. It's been there since before Christmas, and is falling apart with rust and flat tyres. The police say they can't do anything about it till someone moves it, which obviously isn't going to happen. So we'll have to wait for the tax to expire at the end of March. It's not even as interesting as the previous mystery van, which at least had bursts of activity to liven things up. This one just sits there and decays.
I'm trying to finish the first 'new old song', 'Carry Me Away'. I can hardly sit down for guitars, amps, drum machines, cryptic scribbles in notebooks.
It will get finished, though, quite soon.
I know, I'm rambling. That's because I'M BORED! Being bored consists of wanting to do something but not having you want to do.
You can't actually see them, because they're invisible to the naked lens, but trust me, those are definitely buds on the apple tree. I hope they don't regret it - the early cold spell may have fooled them into thinking it's really the start of spring. When I say 'thinking', of course, trees don't actually think.
There's a new white van in the Close.
Well, not new in any real sense. It's been there since before Christmas, and is falling apart with rust and flat tyres. The police say they can't do anything about it till someone moves it, which obviously isn't going to happen. So we'll have to wait for the tax to expire at the end of March. It's not even as interesting as the previous mystery van, which at least had bursts of activity to liven things up. This one just sits there and decays.
I'm trying to finish the first 'new old song', 'Carry Me Away'. I can hardly sit down for guitars, amps, drum machines, cryptic scribbles in notebooks.
It will get finished, though, quite soon.
I know, I'm rambling. That's because I'M BORED! Being bored consists of wanting to do something but not having you want to do.
Thursday, 27 January 2011
First car
I don't know why, but I fell to thinking about this on my way to the bottle bank this morning. It was a Morris Minor, 850cc side valve model, did 0-60 in about four minutes. Semaphor indicators, nice red leather upholstery, the back seat as comfortable as the front (don't ask). Strictly speaking, it was my mother's, not mine: on my earnings of £10/10/- a week, after meeting my needs - beer, cigarettes, records - I couldn't be expected to finance transport as well, could I? (Though I did have to put petrol in.)
I reached the bottle bank, and as I started to offload another hundred quid's worth of green glass, what should pull in behind me but, yes, you guessed it. It wasn't a dead ringer - red rather than beige, the souped-up 1000cc OHV version - but I wasn't complaining. I congratulated the owner, who was, he told me, eighty-five. This was his fourth or fifth Minor, he thought; he bought them cheap, had them restored and kept them for a few years, then sold them at a modest profit. 'Wonderful machine,' I suggested, not quite meaning it. 'Yes,' he said. 'It's my life, really.'
For some reason, I felt old and young at the same time.
For some reason, I felt old and young at the same time.
Sunday, 23 January 2011
Word collection ('most useless' category)
My trusty friend Chambers just offered me the following:
'Haplography: the inadvertent writing once of what should have been written twice.'
Eh?
OK, I suppose I could have written 'ofered' and writen'. Or how about 'betrot'? But has this haplography word ever actualy ben used? Especialy now we have spelcheck?
Language is veryvery strange, init?
'Haplography: the inadvertent writing once of what should have been written twice.'
Eh?
OK, I suppose I could have written 'ofered' and writen'. Or how about 'betrot'? But has this haplography word ever actualy ben used? Especialy now we have spelcheck?
Language is very
Friday, 21 January 2011
Wednesday, 19 January 2011
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
It must be true, I read it in my diary
I'd intended to waste the afternoon, but the new diary kept flapping its pages at me. So I took on the annual task of transcribing the birthdays of relatives and friends from 2010 to 2011. Thankfully, this time none of them had to be converted from red to black (this happens when someone has died during the year).
It's not a very exciting task, to be honest, so it's easy to get distracted. The diaries I use (yes, they still take the form of hardback paper-based books, rather than any of this new-fangled technology) contain a little homily, squib or trivial pursuit for each day of the year. Last year, it was 'trivia Q&A', the As being printed upside down below the Qs, just to make it hard for you. Here are a couple, plucked at random from the mists of time: 'how many dominoes in a standard set?' and 'which temperature has the same value in centigrade and Fahrenheit?' No, I'm not going to tell you.
This year, it seems to be 'little-known facts'. I think I'd put 'facts' in 'quotes', because the entry for Thursday 27 January asserts that 'you are slightly taller in the morning than in the evening due to gravity'. Hmm.
I know that a few scientifically-orientated people occasionally read this blog, so I'm tempted to hand this one over to them. But I can't help speculating. Assuming that the diary is assuming that I spend the night lying down and the day standing up (dubious territory, this), how do they know what whatever measuring instrument was used to conduct the experiment has been up to during the night, or day? Eh? Naturally, Collins diaries don't cite sources or peer review data, and I can't be arsed to google it. But I do remember somebody drunkenly asserting something similar at a dinner party some months ago, and me patiently explaining that the effects of Special Relativity only apply at near-light velocities, and by definition can't be measured, at least according to quantum mechanics ...
Anybody want another diary date?
It's not a very exciting task, to be honest, so it's easy to get distracted. The diaries I use (yes, they still take the form of hardback paper-based books, rather than any of this new-fangled technology) contain a little homily, squib or trivial pursuit for each day of the year. Last year, it was 'trivia Q&A', the As being printed upside down below the Qs, just to make it hard for you. Here are a couple, plucked at random from the mists of time: 'how many dominoes in a standard set?' and 'which temperature has the same value in centigrade and Fahrenheit?' No, I'm not going to tell you.
This year, it seems to be 'little-known facts'. I think I'd put 'facts' in 'quotes', because the entry for Thursday 27 January asserts that 'you are slightly taller in the morning than in the evening due to gravity'. Hmm.
I know that a few scientifically-orientated people occasionally read this blog, so I'm tempted to hand this one over to them. But I can't help speculating. Assuming that the diary is assuming that I spend the night lying down and the day standing up (dubious territory, this), how do they know what whatever measuring instrument was used to conduct the experiment has been up to during the night, or day? Eh? Naturally, Collins diaries don't cite sources or peer review data, and I can't be arsed to google it. But I do remember somebody drunkenly asserting something similar at a dinner party some months ago, and me patiently explaining that the effects of Special Relativity only apply at near-light velocities, and by definition can't be measured, at least according to quantum mechanics ...
Anybody want another diary date?
Good news
Yesterday, 17th January, was officially the most depressing day of the year, measured by suicide attempts, marital disputes or, presumably, Dave Cameron's new happiness index about which I wrote a few weeks ago. Isn't that great news? From now on, it can only get better.
To prove it, the sun has just come out, for the first time in a fortnight.
To prove it, the sun has just come out, for the first time in a fortnight.
Thursday, 13 January 2011
Stuff
I'd started to read a novel by Anne Tyler which begins with a man, about my age, who has decided to downsize and so gets rid of a lot of his possessions (she makes it sound rather easy), when the doorbell rang. It was an antiques dealer from Brighton, enquiring whether I had anything for sale. I don't normally respond to that kind of approach (must get one of those 'don't buy, don't sell' stickers), but I remembered this guy from a few years ago. I explained that I really couldn't help him, and he accepted this and was about to leave, but glanced through the door and said 'I know you're not selling, but can I just have a peek at that George III oak breakfast table?' That's the one in the hall which carries the phone, the router and the junk mail. 'Hmm, needs restoring, but ... three grand?'
Half an hour later, after some fascinating insights into some of my furniture and other items not for sale (and some startling valuations), he left his card and departed empty-handed. A charming person, and completely genuine. But it got me thinking: sooner or later, one way or another, I'm going to leave this house. Whichever way, it'll be a downsize. And someone, hopefully me but potentially whatever poor sod I appoint to clear up after me, is going to have to sort this lot out. Never mind what I can see, just wandering from room to room, there's the workshop, the study, the garage, the loft ... just the loft alone contains enough antique hi-fi to start up a science museum ... I ought to make a start.
Later on, I needed to check on the spelling of some Italian words (shop names, as it happens) for my so-called autobiography. I knew I had a little Italian dictionary somewhere, and eventually found it, in a box full of old travel brochures which would certainly have gone without a thought into that skip of the discarded past. I know that everyone's past eventually gets discarded, but ...
This afternoon, the doorbell rang again. It was a lady who lives down the road but would quite like to move up to the posh end, to be nearer her daughter who's five doors up from me. So, she said, I thought I'd be cheeky and ask everyone whether they were thinking about moving - especially, she said, this lovely house. I was tempted to say make me an offer, contents included. But I didn't.
Roll on the spring, when I can get down to the caravan, where everything is here and now and it's all good stuff.
Half an hour later, after some fascinating insights into some of my furniture and other items not for sale (and some startling valuations), he left his card and departed empty-handed. A charming person, and completely genuine. But it got me thinking: sooner or later, one way or another, I'm going to leave this house. Whichever way, it'll be a downsize. And someone, hopefully me but potentially whatever poor sod I appoint to clear up after me, is going to have to sort this lot out. Never mind what I can see, just wandering from room to room, there's the workshop, the study, the garage, the loft ... just the loft alone contains enough antique hi-fi to start up a science museum ... I ought to make a start.
Later on, I needed to check on the spelling of some Italian words (shop names, as it happens) for my so-called autobiography. I knew I had a little Italian dictionary somewhere, and eventually found it, in a box full of old travel brochures which would certainly have gone without a thought into that skip of the discarded past. I know that everyone's past eventually gets discarded, but ...
This afternoon, the doorbell rang again. It was a lady who lives down the road but would quite like to move up to the posh end, to be nearer her daughter who's five doors up from me. So, she said, I thought I'd be cheeky and ask everyone whether they were thinking about moving - especially, she said, this lovely house. I was tempted to say make me an offer, contents included. But I didn't.
Roll on the spring, when I can get down to the caravan, where everything is here and now and it's all good stuff.
Tuesday, 11 January 2011
Undercooked shark steak
I haven't had a good rant for ages, and I feel the need for one, so it may as well be about banks. And government. And everything in between.
Bob Diamond, the newly appointed boss of Barclays, was hauled over the coals of a Commons select committee this morning, to be grilled on the hot topic of 'bankers' bonuses'. Of course, the coals were lukewarm, and he didn't even get lightly char-broiled. His people had, as one's people do, thoroughly prepared him for the inevitable questions from the viciously aggressive prawns of the committee, so he was able to say, with an apparently straight face, that there has been a period of 'remorse and apology' from the banks (WHAT??) but now we need to achieve closure and move on, and blah blah; and that he can't say whether or not he'll be renouncing his bonus this year because he hasn't yet been told how much it is (is that relevant?) and anyway he'll have to ask the wife (I'm not making any of this up); and, most barefacedly blatantly, that the invaluable contribution of the investment banking industry to the UK economy mustn't be overlooked and must be rewarded.
He was filmed afterwards leaving the committee venue, smiling coyly, as well he might.
Why hasn't anyone (except me, but I don't count) suggested that these bonuses be in some way tied to what the beneficiaries claim to have done to earn them? By that, I don't just mean how much so-called money they appear to have made, but how they did it. Make the recipient justify it. Reward good core activities like responsible lending, payment services - all the things we used to rely on banks to do - but don't, don't reward the kind of bubble-blowing that got us into this mess in the first place and seems poised to do it again.
But then, I'm just a shrimp amongst a sea full of raw prawns. We don't stand a chance against the sharks, especially when we don't know how to cook them.
Bob Diamond, the newly appointed boss of Barclays, was hauled over the coals of a Commons select committee this morning, to be grilled on the hot topic of 'bankers' bonuses'. Of course, the coals were lukewarm, and he didn't even get lightly char-broiled. His people had, as one's people do, thoroughly prepared him for the inevitable questions from the viciously aggressive prawns of the committee, so he was able to say, with an apparently straight face, that there has been a period of 'remorse and apology' from the banks (WHAT??) but now we need to achieve closure and move on, and blah blah; and that he can't say whether or not he'll be renouncing his bonus this year because he hasn't yet been told how much it is (is that relevant?) and anyway he'll have to ask the wife (I'm not making any of this up); and, most barefacedly blatantly, that the invaluable contribution of the investment banking industry to the UK economy mustn't be overlooked and must be rewarded.
He was filmed afterwards leaving the committee venue, smiling coyly, as well he might.
Why hasn't anyone (except me, but I don't count) suggested that these bonuses be in some way tied to what the beneficiaries claim to have done to earn them? By that, I don't just mean how much so-called money they appear to have made, but how they did it. Make the recipient justify it. Reward good core activities like responsible lending, payment services - all the things we used to rely on banks to do - but don't, don't reward the kind of bubble-blowing that got us into this mess in the first place and seems poised to do it again.
But then, I'm just a shrimp amongst a sea full of raw prawns. We don't stand a chance against the sharks, especially when we don't know how to cook them.
Saturday, 8 January 2011
More Music
New Year Resolution #5. So, the easy bit first: music I've already made and recorded. In this case, just two more songs from the 87 tapes - no more of those will be published, because they're not good enough. These two, though, I think are.
Hopelessly Lost
The next phases will be:
Hopelessly Lost
Local GirlsThe next phases will be:
- More recent recordings, from 2003 or thereabouts (maybe - they were made for a musical which I've abandoned for now, and I'm not sure they stand up on their own. I'll check them out.)
- Songs written in the past but not yet recorded. (This requires an element of drudgery, but I think there are a few worth preserving, maybe 3 or 4 out of about 200)
- Songs not yet written. This will require creativity, collaboration, hard work, and above all fun.
Friday, 7 January 2011
Hex
Rosie suggested a hex might be one way of fixing her inconsiderate neighbours, so I immediately dived for Chambers dictionary, as I do whenever a word catches my eye. There are apparently three different meanings, and putting them together I deduce that we're talking about a hexadecimal bringing of misfortune, by a witch, using uranium hexafluoride. Is that about right?
The preceding word in the dictionary, by the way, is 'hewgh', which means 'imitating the whistling of an arrow', at least according to Shakespeare. The subsequent one is 'hey'. Why am I so enthralled by this stuff?
The preceding word in the dictionary, by the way, is 'hewgh', which means 'imitating the whistling of an arrow', at least according to Shakespeare. The subsequent one is 'hey'. Why am I so enthralled by this stuff?
Wednesday, 5 January 2011
White van
The original white van is back after twelve months' absence. It'll be there until March now. Oh dear, this is an omen of some kind. Tomorrow the bicycle will appear, chained to the lamppost opposite, and I'll know I'm stuck in some kind of Groundhog Year as well as the usual Day.
Sunday, 2 January 2011
Christmas Card Audit 2010
Snow/Snowmen/Snowflakes: 12
Christmas trees/Baubles: 9
Santas/Reindeer: 8
Animals/Birds: 7
(of which Robins: 2)
Nativities/Wise Men/Angels: 5
Comical: 4
Twelve Days: 2
Special categories:
Homemade (not including photos): 4
Cards with glued-on glitter: 9
ecards/email: 4
Wonderfully weird: 4 (try harder next year please)
And finally, the Awards:
Best Nativity: Madonna Of The Village, by Marc Chagall
Best Santa: Santa is sitting on the Moon, holding a fishing line with a star on the end. I think it's meant to mean "When You Fish Upon A Star", but I may be wrong.
BEST CARD: as is often the case, goes to my dear friend Moll, for this (enlarge to appreciate):
Copyright Mollie Hall. Reproduced by permission.
Christmas trees/Baubles: 9
Santas/Reindeer: 8
Animals/Birds: 7
(of which Robins: 2)
Nativities/Wise Men/Angels: 5
Comical: 4
Twelve Days: 2
Special categories:
Homemade (not including photos): 4
Cards with glued-on glitter: 9
ecards/email: 4
Wonderfully weird: 4 (try harder next year please)
And finally, the Awards:
Best Nativity: Madonna Of The Village, by Marc Chagall
Best Santa: Santa is sitting on the Moon, holding a fishing line with a star on the end. I think it's meant to mean "When You Fish Upon A Star", but I may be wrong.
BEST CARD: as is often the case, goes to my dear friend Moll, for this (enlarge to appreciate):
Friday, 31 December 2010
New Year Resolutions
I wonder how many blog posts are being composed at this moment, across the universe, with this title. I'd bet on millions. And of course the corny question, how many of those resolutions will be kept? The whole notion is nutty, of course. It's just another date, insignificant in every real sense. Just a convenient way of keeping track and agreeing appointments. The so-called New Year occurs all over the place - see here - and the one we celebrate, January the first in the Gregorian calendar, is completely arbitrary. If anything, here in the northern hemisphere it should be the Winter solstice, when the days start to light up. If it was down to me, I'd go for the Spring equinox, time of renewal and rebirth.
Anyway, time's running out, so I need to make my resolutions. I've whittled my shortlist of about eighteen down to five. The baseline rule being that these shouldn't be things you kick into tomorrow and then fail at by the Chinese New Year, but resolutions - things you resolve - to be achieved by this time next year. Here they are.
Live less in the past and the future.
Break a few useless habits, like sleeping when not tired.
Stop saying 'Actually' and 'Of course' so much.
Finish and publish (somehow) my (partial) autobiography.
Make more music.
Check me out. Toots Hibbert has just come on. Have to go. Happy New Resolutions.
Anyway, time's running out, so I need to make my resolutions. I've whittled my shortlist of about eighteen down to five. The baseline rule being that these shouldn't be things you kick into tomorrow and then fail at by the Chinese New Year, but resolutions - things you resolve - to be achieved by this time next year. Here they are.
Live less in the past and the future.
Break a few useless habits, like sleeping when not tired.
Stop saying 'Actually' and 'Of course' so much.
Finish and publish (somehow) my (partial) autobiography.
Make more music.
Check me out. Toots Hibbert has just come on. Have to go. Happy New Resolutions.
Penultimate Post
No no, not penultimate ever, just of this year; or should it be of this decade? Eleven years ago there was a debate, as if it mattered, over whether a decade commenced with the year numbered zero or the one numbered one. If I ask you to count up to ten, I'll bet you'll start at 1, not 0. So it's arguable that the noughties are about to end, rather than having done so twelve months ago. Do I care?
No, but it's got me through to 8.43. Only another 197 minutes to go, minus the three it took me to do that calculation and type this sentence. Time-filling project going well so far. Next?
The phone rang at about 2.30 this afternoon. I should explain that I've recently become the co-co-ordinator of the local Neighbourhood Watch, a role which seems to consist of forwarding messages from the police about local crime, organising six-monthly meetings and the odd social gathering (next one 16th January, mulled wine to be project-managed), and being unaccountably popular for doing all that. Anyway, the phone call was from A down the road, who'd noticed that a suitcase had been dumped in the Close, next to a white van which had been parked there for a couple of weeks and had a flat tyre, and should the police be notified? I gently pointed out that they might be a bit busy today, but I would monitor the suitcase.
How're we doing? 9.07. Not bad. Just checked - the suitcase hasn't moved. Yet.
3.30, the phone rings again. It's C from next door. She's having lunch in town with a friend, but has just spoken to her frail 91 year old dad, H, who lives with her, and it seems he has a bit of a problem. I find the keys and dash round. H has fallen out of his chair, trying to get up to retrieve his stick, which he's left in the next room, and is crouched down facing the chair, unable to move. I try to haul him up, but he's too heavy. "Keep still, keep calm," I tell him. He grins up at me. "Yes, that sounds like a good idea," he says. He's not in pain, just distressed: as much by his own stupidity as anything, I think. The amazing paramedic arrives within ten minutes of the 999 call, during which time H has managed, with my help, to get himself back up into a seated position. Paramedic embarks on an exhaustive series of questions, examinations, tests. C has got back home by now. H seems to be fine; I decline the inevitable cup of tea (I think I need a drink) and head back next door. [At this point, I'd like to pay tribute, not for the first time, to our fantastic emergency services, and pray that this skinflint government doesn't manage to completely fuck them up.]
Unusual day so far, no? (And I haven't mentioned the morning, also unusual but private.)
Wow, 9.27, doesn't time fly? And I know my watch is 5 seconds fast, so there's a saving.
Well, actually, that's about it, except for my dinner, which was, for the occasion, haggis, tatties'n'neeps, washed down with my patent onion gravy and a dusty bottle of Cote Rotie I found lurking at the bottom of the wine rack. (Bottle not yet drained, I hasten to add, it's only 9.33 for goodness sake.) The haggis was interesting. Stop yawning please. I couldn't get a whole one (sold out, just as well, I'd never have finished it) so settled for two microwaveable vacuum-packed slices - genuine Macsween - which were delectable. As you know, I'm a connoisseur (there's another 45 seconds gone looking up the correct spelling of that word) of comical food labelling, so I'll share this one: "Be careful removing pack from the microwave, as it will be hot."
9.54. So little time, so much to do. I still have another blog, about resolutions, to write, and Jules Holland starts at eleven, with Kylie, Wanda Jackson, Toots of the Maytals, Captain Beefheart (only joking about the last) ... Later.
No, but it's got me through to 8.43. Only another 197 minutes to go, minus the three it took me to do that calculation and type this sentence. Time-filling project going well so far. Next?
The phone rang at about 2.30 this afternoon. I should explain that I've recently become the co-co-ordinator of the local Neighbourhood Watch, a role which seems to consist of forwarding messages from the police about local crime, organising six-monthly meetings and the odd social gathering (next one 16th January, mulled wine to be project-managed), and being unaccountably popular for doing all that. Anyway, the phone call was from A down the road, who'd noticed that a suitcase had been dumped in the Close, next to a white van which had been parked there for a couple of weeks and had a flat tyre, and should the police be notified? I gently pointed out that they might be a bit busy today, but I would monitor the suitcase.
How're we doing? 9.07. Not bad. Just checked - the suitcase hasn't moved. Yet.
3.30, the phone rings again. It's C from next door. She's having lunch in town with a friend, but has just spoken to her frail 91 year old dad, H, who lives with her, and it seems he has a bit of a problem. I find the keys and dash round. H has fallen out of his chair, trying to get up to retrieve his stick, which he's left in the next room, and is crouched down facing the chair, unable to move. I try to haul him up, but he's too heavy. "Keep still, keep calm," I tell him. He grins up at me. "Yes, that sounds like a good idea," he says. He's not in pain, just distressed: as much by his own stupidity as anything, I think. The amazing paramedic arrives within ten minutes of the 999 call, during which time H has managed, with my help, to get himself back up into a seated position. Paramedic embarks on an exhaustive series of questions, examinations, tests. C has got back home by now. H seems to be fine; I decline the inevitable cup of tea (I think I need a drink) and head back next door. [At this point, I'd like to pay tribute, not for the first time, to our fantastic emergency services, and pray that this skinflint government doesn't manage to completely fuck them up.]
Unusual day so far, no? (And I haven't mentioned the morning, also unusual but private.)
Wow, 9.27, doesn't time fly? And I know my watch is 5 seconds fast, so there's a saving.
Well, actually, that's about it, except for my dinner, which was, for the occasion, haggis, tatties'n'neeps, washed down with my patent onion gravy and a dusty bottle of Cote Rotie I found lurking at the bottom of the wine rack. (Bottle not yet drained, I hasten to add, it's only 9.33 for goodness sake.) The haggis was interesting. Stop yawning please. I couldn't get a whole one (sold out, just as well, I'd never have finished it) so settled for two microwaveable vacuum-packed slices - genuine Macsween - which were delectable. As you know, I'm a connoisseur (there's another 45 seconds gone looking up the correct spelling of that word) of comical food labelling, so I'll share this one: "Be careful removing pack from the microwave, as it will be hot."
9.54. So little time, so much to do. I still have another blog, about resolutions, to write, and Jules Holland starts at eleven, with Kylie, Wanda Jackson, Toots of the Maytals, Captain Beefheart (only joking about the last) ... Later.
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
Monday, 27 December 2010
Scrabbling around
Rosie recently accused me of being a talking crossword. I have no idea what that means, but I think she must be right, because my brain (or whatever it is) immediately came up with 'Angry chat puzzle? (7, 9)' - which of course means absolutely nothing either as a clue or a solution. But I can't stop playing with the words and their letters. I realised just the other day that my surname is actually Elgar.
I've just wasted an hour trying to find an anagram for Happy New Year, or variants thereof, but I can't. So, in clear:
I've just wasted an hour trying to find an anagram for Happy New Year, or variants thereof, but I can't. So, in clear:
HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!
Wednesday, 22 December 2010
Cookathon
I'm not normally one to brag in public (in private, to myself, that's another thing), but this is special. So let it be known that today I prepared the following:
A batch of celeriac and leek soup, to be frozen for Boxing Day;
A chicken and lentil curry (murghi aur masoor dal), also for Boxing Day;
A cauldron of minestrone containing seven vegetables (eight if you count the bay leaf);
A batch of ragu al bolognese;
A wholemeal loaf.
Oh, and a gin and tonic.
Look on my works and despair!
Only trouble is, I'm not really hungry now. Think I'll just make an omelette.
A batch of celeriac and leek soup, to be frozen for Boxing Day;
A chicken and lentil curry (murghi aur masoor dal), also for Boxing Day;
A cauldron of minestrone containing seven vegetables (eight if you count the bay leaf);
A batch of ragu al bolognese;
A wholemeal loaf.
Oh, and a gin and tonic.
Look on my works and despair!
Only trouble is, I'm not really hungry now. Think I'll just make an omelette.
Margaret's Pies
A few minutes ago, as I was sitting here contemplating a pre-prandial dry oloroso, I heard what sounded like a high-pitched road drill out in the back garden. Has some child received an early present, I wondered? and do they do junior pneumatic drills now? It wouldn't surprise me.
I went out to investigate. It was a gang of magpies having a conference, or a war, hard to tell which as I don't speak magpie fluently, in my leafless copper beech. There must be some tasty carrion somewhere nearby. The local red kite flew over, glanced down and wisely decided to keep going. The other birds were keeping their heads down.
Just for fun, I clapped my hands. The magpies must have experienced gunfire or something in the past, because they all scooted off to the next-door-but-one's leylandiia. I counted them out: there were seven. So somewhere out there, there's a secret that can never be told.
I went out to investigate. It was a gang of magpies having a conference, or a war, hard to tell which as I don't speak magpie fluently, in my leafless copper beech. There must be some tasty carrion somewhere nearby. The local red kite flew over, glanced down and wisely decided to keep going. The other birds were keeping their heads down.
Just for fun, I clapped my hands. The magpies must have experienced gunfire or something in the past, because they all scooted off to the next-door-but-one's leylandiia. I counted them out: there were seven. So somewhere out there, there's a secret that can never be told.
Saturday, 18 December 2010
Deep and crisp and uneven
I know some people claim to like the stuff, to find it arousing or stimulating or pretty or whatever, but probably they haven't spent the day watching it pile up at an inch an hour while they wonder where the wellies are and when would be a good time to trudge out and haul some coal in, and how many sausages there are in the freezer and whether the corner shop will have any potatoes left that haven't gone mouldy by the time the pavements have become passable, possibly next Wednesday, whilst also wondering whether the folks flying over from Jersey have made it, and if so where they are now; and whether you're glad or not the party's been cancelled, glad because it was always going to be a bit of a trial, not glad because of so much wasted effort and disappointment ... and how to replan the next seven days, on the assumption, from a position of practical pessimism, that motorised transport can't be counted on, in order to deliver the expectations - yours, but more importantly others - that wrapped and labelled gifts (leaving aside the ones that were meant to be handed to the Jersey folks before they set off, tomorrow morning, to Sri Lanka, from a snowbound Heathrow), soup, rolls and curry for Boxing Day (none of which have been made yet) and onesself (clean and black-tied) will turn up, on time, for champagne and canapes on Christmas Day in the morning.
Let it snow? Bah, humbug.
Let it snow? Bah, humbug.
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
Lucky horseshoe
Here's how to get an adrenalin kick.
I came back from my usual Monday overnighter at Datchet, parked up, walked round to the front, opened the door, defused the burglar alarm, closed the door, dumped the bag on the stairs, opened it and pulled out slippers and newspaper; so far, so routine. Then I remembered I needed to nip up to Waitrose for a few things. Shoes still on, luckily. Out through back door, down the garden to the car, up the Oxford Road, whizz round Waitrose, back home, job done. You're bored enough, so let's skip over the rest of Tuesday and jump to Wednesday morning, today.
Today is the day when the Christmas Shopping Death-Eater is going to be vanquished, or at least severely disabled. So I'm all geared up, sluiced and breakfasted, list in pocket and ready to roll by nine o'clock. But, the shops and car parks of Reading Town mostly aren't open yet, so there's time to nip down the shop for the paper, as usual.
I'm paranoid about leaving the house without my keys, ever since I did it once. So I check my pocket. They're not there. I check everywhere I could have left them around the house. Not there.
It's funny how the most irrelevant thoughts flash through your mind at such moments. What I felt, first, was sadness. I've had that little silver horseshoe on my key-ring since I was eighteen. I must have stupidly left the keys in the front door when I got home on Tuesday morning; they're stolen; and now I've lost my oldest possession. I felt sad.
That didn't last long, of course. Rational logical practical Tim took over pretty quick. My house is now in danger of intrusion. OK, sort it out. Check details of Chubb front door lock. Bolt front door from inside. Exit via back door (key luckily not on lost ring). Up to Homebase (car key also luckily not on lost ring). Buy replacement lock. Back home. Install new lock ... Forget about Christmas shopping surge for today, probably.
So that's what I do. Except that I don't get past step three. Because as I walk across the lawn towards the car, something glints up at me from the grass ...
That's when the adrenalin kicked in.
I came back from my usual Monday overnighter at Datchet, parked up, walked round to the front, opened the door, defused the burglar alarm, closed the door, dumped the bag on the stairs, opened it and pulled out slippers and newspaper; so far, so routine. Then I remembered I needed to nip up to Waitrose for a few things. Shoes still on, luckily. Out through back door, down the garden to the car, up the Oxford Road, whizz round Waitrose, back home, job done. You're bored enough, so let's skip over the rest of Tuesday and jump to Wednesday morning, today.
Today is the day when the Christmas Shopping Death-Eater is going to be vanquished, or at least severely disabled. So I'm all geared up, sluiced and breakfasted, list in pocket and ready to roll by nine o'clock. But, the shops and car parks of Reading Town mostly aren't open yet, so there's time to nip down the shop for the paper, as usual.
I'm paranoid about leaving the house without my keys, ever since I did it once. So I check my pocket. They're not there. I check everywhere I could have left them around the house. Not there.
It's funny how the most irrelevant thoughts flash through your mind at such moments. What I felt, first, was sadness. I've had that little silver horseshoe on my key-ring since I was eighteen. I must have stupidly left the keys in the front door when I got home on Tuesday morning; they're stolen; and now I've lost my oldest possession. I felt sad.
That didn't last long, of course. Rational logical practical Tim took over pretty quick. My house is now in danger of intrusion. OK, sort it out. Check details of Chubb front door lock. Bolt front door from inside. Exit via back door (key luckily not on lost ring). Up to Homebase (car key also luckily not on lost ring). Buy replacement lock. Back home. Install new lock ... Forget about Christmas shopping surge for today, probably.
So that's what I do. Except that I don't get past step three. Because as I walk across the lawn towards the car, something glints up at me from the grass ...
That's when the adrenalin kicked in.
Sunday, 12 December 2010
Scottish Play
Unexpected evening. After engulfing my spag bol, the plan was to settle down to Antiques Roadshow and then Inspector George Gently, a gentle Sunday night of mindless telly. Instead, I somehow found myself watching, on the great BBC4 channel, this riveting political drama/supernatural thriller/demented-late-Pam's-dream-sequence-episode of Dallas. Two hours later, I glanced back at the original text of Macbeth, hoping (after having seen this thing, now, four times), to work out what the flip was going on.
I still haven't a clue. But I can report the following: they're all mad. But they each become madder and saner in turn, swirling around and missing each other's madness and sanity in one of those dances where nobody actually touches, until they all, accidentally or deliberately (nobody's sure which), get killed or emotionally maimed - including, especially, the guy who comes out on top.
Fun evening. Everybody who believes they know anything and can do something about it should have watched.
I still haven't a clue. But I can report the following: they're all mad. But they each become madder and saner in turn, swirling around and missing each other's madness and sanity in one of those dances where nobody actually touches, until they all, accidentally or deliberately (nobody's sure which), get killed or emotionally maimed - including, especially, the guy who comes out on top.
Fun evening. Everybody who believes they know anything and can do something about it should have watched.
Wednesday, 8 December 2010
Anonymous comment
I get these from time to time. They never appear under the actual post, just in email notifications. Usually, I ignore and delete, assuming them to be some weird kind of spam. But this one caught my eye.
"I be enduring be familiar with a few of the articles on your website in the present circumstances, and I unqualifiedly like your tastefulness of blogging. I added it to my favorites net age muster and last will and testament be checking assist soon. Will report register in view my position as highly and leave to me be familiar with what you think. Thanks."
What do you think? A computerised translation from a dying language? A lost work by Ezra Pound? A coded message from a drunken ambassador? Whatever, it has a certain surrealistic poetry, so if you're out there, Anonymous, thanks too - I'm not taking the piss, just being entertained. Giggling, actually.
"I be enduring be familiar with a few of the articles on your website in the present circumstances, and I unqualifiedly like your tastefulness of blogging. I added it to my favorites net age muster and last will and testament be checking assist soon. Will report register in view my position as highly and leave to me be familiar with what you think. Thanks."
What do you think? A computerised translation from a dying language? A lost work by Ezra Pound? A coded message from a drunken ambassador? Whatever, it has a certain surrealistic poetry, so if you're out there, Anonymous, thanks too - I'm not taking the piss, just being entertained. Giggling, actually.
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
Safe Christmas.
Finally, in this unprecedented flurry of news-derived blogposts:
Today's Guardian has a two-page feature, under 'Health', full of sound, sensible, stodgy advice on how to avoid injury, stress, accidents, divorce etc. over the festive period. The following caught my eye:
'Don't leave food that's cooking unattended in the kitchen, and don't cook when you're drunk...'
How does that work, then?
Today's Guardian has a two-page feature, under 'Health', full of sound, sensible, stodgy advice on how to avoid injury, stress, accidents, divorce etc. over the festive period. The following caught my eye:
'Don't leave food that's cooking unattended in the kitchen, and don't cook when you're drunk...'
How does that work, then?
Shark attacks
Well, now we know why they call it the Red Sea. Interestingly, the word I've seen used over and again by shark experts in reference to these incidents is 'unprecedented'. Personally I'd have thought that five in three days set pretty much of a precedent, but let that pass. The best bit was on the TV news the other day, where a British woman said it wasn't going to stop her going in the water. 'You can't let it spoil your holiday, can you?' she said.
Naughtie Auntie!
Just in case you didn't know, on the Today programme on Monday morning, just before the 8 o'clock news, Jim Naughtie accidentally (we assume) replaced the first letter of culture secretary Jeremy Hunt's surname with a C. Sadly, I wasn't up in time to hear it, but Jim was apparently torn between spluttering apology and choked-off hilarity, blaming it afterwards on 'Dr Spooner'. It wasn't, of course, a Spoonerism (or Snooperism as by friend Bill used to call it), which is something of the order of 'riding around in roaring pain on a well-boiled icicle'; he would have had to have said 'Heremy Junt', which wouldn't have been funny.
But it gave the Guardian the opportunity, which they gleefully took in today's edition, to print the word in question, unasterisked, twelve (12) times by my count, surely a record. I must nip out and buy the Mail and Express to see how they got on.
But it gave the Guardian the opportunity, which they gleefully took in today's edition, to print the word in question, unasterisked, twelve (12) times by my count, surely a record. I must nip out and buy the Mail and Express to see how they got on.
Friday, 3 December 2010
Another one from 87
Upstairs this afternoon, ironing shirts, I looked out of the window at the remnants of the snow, and remembered this. It - the song - says all there is to know about where I was at when I wrote it in 1985, as my marriage was disintegrating into painful shards. I sat there in my house in Harrow, staring out of the dark window, and wrote it down, more or less in real time, as it happened.
By two years later, when I came to record it on my little Fostex 4 track and my Roland drum machine, all that angry emotion had been flushed away, and I could have some fun. It's the most enjoyable recording I've ever done (until very recently).
Drifting into Danger
By two years later, when I came to record it on my little Fostex 4 track and my Roland drum machine, all that angry emotion had been flushed away, and I could have some fun. It's the most enjoyable recording I've ever done (until very recently).
Drifting into Danger
Wednesday, 1 December 2010
"A Grand and Bold Thing", by Ann Finkbeiner
As all three of my regular readers will know, I developed an interest in astronomy at the age of six (when the Solar System had only just been invented), and have been keeping a weather eye on the night sky ever since, even though I had no real idea of what was actually going on up there - until now.
One of my favourite blogs is The Last Word on Nothing, to which Ann regularly contributes. A while ago, she despondently lamented that her book was "dopey" and no-one was reading it. So, nice person that I am, I bought a copy off Amazon. It arrived next day, flapping its covers impatiently at me. That evening I popped out for a quick peek at good old Orion, then switched off the rubbish football and settled down for a read.
This is the story of the Sloan Project, which was conceived back in the eighties by an inspired astronomer called Jim Gunn. His idea was that, given the rate of expansion of technological capability - almost faster than that of the universe itself - it should soon be possible, using telescopes and cameras and computers and all sorts of other whizz-kit, not to mention human beings and their brains and muscles, to make an observation-based map of that universe. And even if it turned out not to be possible, that wasn't going to stop him. So he just went ahead and did it.
That's a bit of an oversimplification of the plot of this enthralling book. The story is convoluted to say the least. From Jim's simple concept, the route to the eventual staggering outcome takes in a huge cast of characters, initiatives and setbacks, the constantly shifting background of the science of cosmology itself; not to mention the esoteric spheres of project management and financial control (without which, of course, the universe wouldn't actually exist). In less than 200 pages, the book leads you gently through all this, even the science - although the bit of my brain reserved for storing and expanding acronyms did start to smoulder a few times. But the inspirational final chapter made me feel, even just for a moment, that I actually understood what all that stuff out there might really be, how it got there, and why some driven people will do almost anything to nail it down.
Oh, I forgot to mention, it's also really funny.
One of my favourite blogs is The Last Word on Nothing, to which Ann regularly contributes. A while ago, she despondently lamented that her book was "dopey" and no-one was reading it. So, nice person that I am, I bought a copy off Amazon. It arrived next day, flapping its covers impatiently at me. That evening I popped out for a quick peek at good old Orion, then switched off the rubbish football and settled down for a read.
This is the story of the Sloan Project, which was conceived back in the eighties by an inspired astronomer called Jim Gunn. His idea was that, given the rate of expansion of technological capability - almost faster than that of the universe itself - it should soon be possible, using telescopes and cameras and computers and all sorts of other whizz-kit, not to mention human beings and their brains and muscles, to make an observation-based map of that universe. And even if it turned out not to be possible, that wasn't going to stop him. So he just went ahead and did it.
That's a bit of an oversimplification of the plot of this enthralling book. The story is convoluted to say the least. From Jim's simple concept, the route to the eventual staggering outcome takes in a huge cast of characters, initiatives and setbacks, the constantly shifting background of the science of cosmology itself; not to mention the esoteric spheres of project management and financial control (without which, of course, the universe wouldn't actually exist). In less than 200 pages, the book leads you gently through all this, even the science - although the bit of my brain reserved for storing and expanding acronyms did start to smoulder a few times. But the inspirational final chapter made me feel, even just for a moment, that I actually understood what all that stuff out there might really be, how it got there, and why some driven people will do almost anything to nail it down.
Oh, I forgot to mention, it's also really funny.
Monday, 29 November 2010
Another laugh (Prudes look away now...)
This one gets extra points, because I stumbled across it whilst looking for something completely different. It's a newspaper clipping from maybe ten years ago, and I pass it on without comment. (click to enlarge, if you're up for it)
Reasons to be happy (part II)
After last week's post on measuring happiness, I've come up with a potential yardstick. Out-loud laughter. So here are a few things that made me LOL recently:
There's another one, which I'll put up later (if I can be bothered).
- I followed a security van down the Oxford Road this morning. On the back of the van was a sticker, apparently meant seriously: "POLICE: FOLLOW THIS VAN"
- The instructions on my Ginster's Cornish Pasty say: "Preheat oven to 180C. Place on a baking tray."
- On the A322 near Bagshot, there's a road sign, pointing left, which reads: "A329 BRACKNELL. A329M READING (M4). All Other Attractions."
- In the Guardian the other day, a diary item referred to someone who's apparently writing an "unauthorised autobiography" of Boris Johnson.
- Duchy Originals Dry Cured Back Rashers: "Free range pork loins massaged by hand with sea salt and sugar, cured slowly and then marinated in duchy old ruby ale and smoked over cherry wood chips ..." Don't know why that's funny, but it is. It's bacon, FFS, Charlie.
There's another one, which I'll put up later (if I can be bothered).
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
Only 156 rejoicing days to go
Or 3,700-odd rejoicing hours, or ... no, can't do the minutes, because although they've announced the day, they haven't yet set the time, and I don't want to commit lese-majeste. It'll probably be about three o'clock. The BBC's rapidly expanding squad of Royal reporters, this evening, hadn't got round to speculating on that. Or perhaps the Mail has already snazzled the exclusive.
Question is, can we sustain frabjous joy that long? Back in 1947 or 1981, it didn't arise. Expectations were calibrated differently. But now, the paradox seems to be that it all has to happen much faster, whilst lasting much longer. (That's why Big Brother and I'm a Celebrity had to be invented.) There's plenty of material, of course: which coach she'll turn up in; the dress; the honeymoon; what exactly will be promised at the altar, given certain precedents ... Actually, all this must have been worked out in advance. As Pa said, they've been practising long enough: spoken, I feel, from personal experience...
By the way, has anybody else noticed when Easter is next year? Or the May bank holiday? Look it up. Clue: the country gets a fortnight off work. I'll be in Wales, I think. William is going to be their prince sometime, after all.
Question is, can we sustain frabjous joy that long? Back in 1947 or 1981, it didn't arise. Expectations were calibrated differently. But now, the paradox seems to be that it all has to happen much faster, whilst lasting much longer. (That's why Big Brother and I'm a Celebrity had to be invented.) There's plenty of material, of course: which coach she'll turn up in; the dress; the honeymoon; what exactly will be promised at the altar, given certain precedents ... Actually, all this must have been worked out in advance. As Pa said, they've been practising long enough: spoken, I feel, from personal experience...
By the way, has anybody else noticed when Easter is next year? Or the May bank holiday? Look it up. Clue: the country gets a fortnight off work. I'll be in Wales, I think. William is going to be their prince sometime, after all.
Sunday, 21 November 2010
How happy are you?
Start thinking about it now. The Government is going to want to know sometime soon, according to this report. To be more precise, the Office for National Statistics is to be tasked with including a Happiness Index in its periodic analyses of the nation's wellbeing. Details have yet to be worked out, but obviously there'll have to be some common baseline for the data gathering, and this can only start from the simple question: what makes you happy? Once they've compiled this universal happy-hit list, then they can get round to identifying the units of measurement (happicons?) and answering other awkward questions about frequency-of-happiness-arising-from, duration-of-said-happiness, conflict-between-simultaneous-happiness-sources - not to mention counterbalancing sources of the opposite to happiness, which is called unhappiness ... In short, all the usual kinds of things good statisticians take into account before they publish their findings. So it'll take them a while.
But hey, we have to start somewhere. So here's my random list of a few things that, more often than not, seem to make me happy. The right weather. Accidentally stumbling across something I'd completely forgotten I'd been looking for. The right music. Corny tearjerker moments in movies. Empty country roads. Smiles from strangers. Accidentally stumbling across something I definitely wasn't looking for. A problem solved by an insight. Oh, and of course, flashes of love, however brief.
Go, Office for National Statistics, start counting! We need your numbers, quickly. Otherwise, how are we to know how we really feel?
But hey, we have to start somewhere. So here's my random list of a few things that, more often than not, seem to make me happy. The right weather. Accidentally stumbling across something I'd completely forgotten I'd been looking for. The right music. Corny tearjerker moments in movies. Empty country roads. Smiles from strangers. Accidentally stumbling across something I definitely wasn't looking for. A problem solved by an insight. Oh, and of course, flashes of love, however brief.
Go, Office for National Statistics, start counting! We need your numbers, quickly. Otherwise, how are we to know how we really feel?
Tuesday, 16 November 2010
Treachery of words
Some words seem to have the power to pick you up on their strong wings and carry you off to beautiful realms. But beware - ride them too far and they'll capriciously let go, abruptly dumping you into a place you'd rather not be.
On a crossword-driven voyage through the dictionary, I stumbled across 'Rosa-solis: a cordial, originally flavoured with sundew juice, afterwards with various spices [Latin, rose of the sun]'
Lovely, eh? Sounds delicious. So I looked up sundew.
'Sundew: an insectivorous bog-plant.'
Oh well.
On a crossword-driven voyage through the dictionary, I stumbled across 'Rosa-solis: a cordial, originally flavoured with sundew juice, afterwards with various spices [Latin, rose of the sun]'
Lovely, eh? Sounds delicious. So I looked up sundew.
'Sundew: an insectivorous bog-plant.'
Oh well.
Friday, 12 November 2010
'Is this the real world...?'
Google Maps labelled the island of Calero, just off the Mosquito Coast, as being part of Nicaragua, whereas it's actually claimed by Costa Rica, the dispute having trundled on for about two hundred years. On this evidence, Nicaragua gently invaded Calero, and is citing Google Maps as its authority - its sole authority - for doing so.
There was another case recently where someone was allegedly caught on camera stealing a caravan, by Google Street View. (They couldn't identify the thief, because his numberplate had been pixillated.)
In a few years, will we be hearing, as a defence in court: 'Well, happens all the time on Grand Theft Auto, so it must be all right'?
I could've got away with all sorts of stuff, couldn't I? 'Weren't me, guv, it was Scaramouche done it.'
There was another case recently where someone was allegedly caught on camera stealing a caravan, by Google Street View. (They couldn't identify the thief, because his numberplate had been pixillated.)
In a few years, will we be hearing, as a defence in court: 'Well, happens all the time on Grand Theft Auto, so it must be all right'?
I could've got away with all sorts of stuff, couldn't I? 'Weren't me, guv, it was Scaramouche done it.'
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Old Song
Listening to me and Rosie's current masterwork, Captain MacKenzie, for the picazillionth time, I couldn't help wondering how it stacked up over the years. The Captain and his recent companions were recorded on a 16 track Yamaha hard disc recorder, with a host of built-in effects and more bells and whistles than I know what to do with. Sounds pretty damn good to me, despite all that!
In 1987 (that's right, twenty-three whole years ago), between marriages, I acquired a (for the money) state of the art recording set-up - a four track Fostex cassette tape recorder, a drum machine and a cheap Yamaha keyboard. Oh, and an Alesis reverb box (very important!). Here's a sample of what I managed to come up with.
Looking For Love
OK, it has its flaws, but I'm still quite proud of it. You had to be ingenious in them days, what with only the four tracks to play with, as any Beatle will tell you.
In 1987 (that's right, twenty-three whole years ago), between marriages, I acquired a (for the money) state of the art recording set-up - a four track Fostex cassette tape recorder, a drum machine and a cheap Yamaha keyboard. Oh, and an Alesis reverb box (very important!). Here's a sample of what I managed to come up with.
Looking For Love
OK, it has its flaws, but I'm still quite proud of it. You had to be ingenious in them days, what with only the four tracks to play with, as any Beatle will tell you.
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
New Song
Captain MacKenzie is the latest collaboration from Rosie and me. She describes it as 'a goosebump tale' - certainly that's what I got when I read her words, and have tried to convey that in the music. Hope you like it, and it doesn't scare you too much ...
Sunday, 7 November 2010
Old school recorder
For years I'd believed that my most precious musical instrument was my battered, much-repainted and rewired 1964 Fender Telecaster. I suppose it still is - certainly in monetary terms, probably as an emotional trigger too, that guitar and I have been together to song-loads of places over the stretching years since I bought it from Eddie Moore's music in Boscombe in 1965.
But a challenger for my affections has snuck in from nowhere. It comes in a brown canvas tube, with LARGE MA IV inked on the outside. This means Southbourne Prep School, about 1949. I hadn't really tried to play it since 1967, when we sat in a doorway somewhere in Calabria, jamming out of our skulls, and frightened some children (an event eerily mirrored in Bowie's song 'The Bewley Brothers', which he might have been writing at roughly the same time, a thousand miles away).
Anyway, I needed a kind of flutey sound for Captain MacKenzie to come home to, or from. Nothing on the keyboard would do the job. Last weekend I remembered the recorder, and found it sitting abandoned on a shelf in the garage. I took it out of its case and cleaned it. Took the mouthpiece off and scratched the string winding to ensure a tight fit, placed my fingers over the holes, left thumb underneath to control the octave, remembered the embouchure and the breathing, all just as I'd learnt when I was eight. Then I played the tune straight from my head into the microphone.
So that old recorder, somehow containing, unused for decades, all that old memory, deserves to be cherished too.
The poor old Tele never got a look-in on this song. Next time.
But a challenger for my affections has snuck in from nowhere. It comes in a brown canvas tube, with LARGE MA IV inked on the outside. This means Southbourne Prep School, about 1949. I hadn't really tried to play it since 1967, when we sat in a doorway somewhere in Calabria, jamming out of our skulls, and frightened some children (an event eerily mirrored in Bowie's song 'The Bewley Brothers', which he might have been writing at roughly the same time, a thousand miles away).
Anyway, I needed a kind of flutey sound for Captain MacKenzie to come home to, or from. Nothing on the keyboard would do the job. Last weekend I remembered the recorder, and found it sitting abandoned on a shelf in the garage. I took it out of its case and cleaned it. Took the mouthpiece off and scratched the string winding to ensure a tight fit, placed my fingers over the holes, left thumb underneath to control the octave, remembered the embouchure and the breathing, all just as I'd learnt when I was eight. Then I played the tune straight from my head into the microphone.
So that old recorder, somehow containing, unused for decades, all that old memory, deserves to be cherished too.
The poor old Tele never got a look-in on this song. Next time.
Wednesday, 3 November 2010
Just a matter of time
Here's a pretty conundrum.
The clock is the single most significant invention of all time, agreed? In particular, the version which is round, has two hands and a calibrated dial (we'll leave sundial, water clocks, digital, atomic etc out of it for now, if that's OK by you). Without it, we wouldn't have had accurate navigation, wage-based employment or Gucci. But that's not important now.
What suddenly interested me, at four-fifteen this morning, was the perfection of a time-measurement device which divides the day into two sets of twelve, then each of these into sixty, then allows a calibration of the dial that accomodates not only this fairly complicated set-up, but also presents it in at-a-glance chunks of minutes (five or ten at a time) and hours (twelve - OK, twenty-four would be more logical, but much harder to read: the designers obviously thought of that).
Except they didn't. Hours and minutes were invented by the Babylonians, and refined by subsequent civilisations (the hours were originally dependent on the times of sunrise and sunset, which made them variable in length, a defect which took quite a while to spot and correct) so the inventors of the dial clock were in effect stuck with an inherited set of rules for measuring time - which turned out to be exactly perfect. (Try thinking up a better set, but not if you want to sleep.)
How often does a problem offer such a 'fit for purpose' solution? Did those Babylonians think "oh yeah, also this'll work really well when they get round to inventing the clock face"? Or was it just serendipity? Or was it some kind of intelligent design? You have to wonder.
The clock is the single most significant invention of all time, agreed? In particular, the version which is round, has two hands and a calibrated dial (we'll leave sundial, water clocks, digital, atomic etc out of it for now, if that's OK by you). Without it, we wouldn't have had accurate navigation, wage-based employment or Gucci. But that's not important now.
What suddenly interested me, at four-fifteen this morning, was the perfection of a time-measurement device which divides the day into two sets of twelve, then each of these into sixty, then allows a calibration of the dial that accomodates not only this fairly complicated set-up, but also presents it in at-a-glance chunks of minutes (five or ten at a time) and hours (twelve - OK, twenty-four would be more logical, but much harder to read: the designers obviously thought of that).
Except they didn't. Hours and minutes were invented by the Babylonians, and refined by subsequent civilisations (the hours were originally dependent on the times of sunrise and sunset, which made them variable in length, a defect which took quite a while to spot and correct) so the inventors of the dial clock were in effect stuck with an inherited set of rules for measuring time - which turned out to be exactly perfect. (Try thinking up a better set, but not if you want to sleep.)
How often does a problem offer such a 'fit for purpose' solution? Did those Babylonians think "oh yeah, also this'll work really well when they get round to inventing the clock face"? Or was it just serendipity? Or was it some kind of intelligent design? You have to wonder.
Sunday, 24 October 2010
Fair enough?
George Osborne informed me on Friday, via my radio, that the cuts are in fact going to be fair, because (I quote, though not verbatim) 'richer people will pay a higher percentage of their income than poorer people'.
OK, let's do a worked example. All the following numbers are, of course, entirely made up (you don't expect me to do proper research, do you? For goodness sake!), but the principles hold. So, take two people, P and R. P earns £10,000 per annum, R earns £100,000. Now assume that the cuts affect P to the tune of two per cent, and R by three per cent. This is what George is calling fair.
So, my calculator informs me that P will take a hit of just £200, while R will be stung for £3,000. What could be fairer than that?
Quite a lot, actually. The problem is that this balance sheet doesn't balance. To make it do so, we need to consider the impact on each of these people. So let's introduce the idea that there's a minimum subsistence level - a breadline, if you like - that applies equally to everyone (the basket of commodities used to calculate the Consumer Price Index, for example), and purely for convenience let's set this at £10,000. To be completely fair, let's give R some credit for achievement and add in an extra bit: three per cent for example. So P's breadline is £10,000 and R's is £13,000.
You can see where I'm going, can't you? When you deduct George's cuts, P is left with £9,800, and R with £97,000, of net income. P is now living £200 below the breadline, while R has £84,000 of discretionary income above the breadline, as opposed to the previous £87,000. Hardship if not penury for P. Slight inconvenience for R.
Fair enough?
OK, let's do a worked example. All the following numbers are, of course, entirely made up (you don't expect me to do proper research, do you? For goodness sake!), but the principles hold. So, take two people, P and R. P earns £10,000 per annum, R earns £100,000. Now assume that the cuts affect P to the tune of two per cent, and R by three per cent. This is what George is calling fair.
So, my calculator informs me that P will take a hit of just £200, while R will be stung for £3,000. What could be fairer than that?
Quite a lot, actually. The problem is that this balance sheet doesn't balance. To make it do so, we need to consider the impact on each of these people. So let's introduce the idea that there's a minimum subsistence level - a breadline, if you like - that applies equally to everyone (the basket of commodities used to calculate the Consumer Price Index, for example), and purely for convenience let's set this at £10,000. To be completely fair, let's give R some credit for achievement and add in an extra bit: three per cent for example. So P's breadline is £10,000 and R's is £13,000.
You can see where I'm going, can't you? When you deduct George's cuts, P is left with £9,800, and R with £97,000, of net income. P is now living £200 below the breadline, while R has £84,000 of discretionary income above the breadline, as opposed to the previous £87,000. Hardship if not penury for P. Slight inconvenience for R.
Fair enough?
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
Brazilian butterflies in the supermarket
Chaos theory, one manifestation of which is sometimes called the law of unforeseen consequences, demonstrates mathematically something we all know in our hearts, that great oaks grow from carelessly dropped acorns, sometimes undermining your foundations and causing insurance claims which prove to be the last straw that breaks the back of the global financial camel, etc etc.
Something of this sort must have happened at head office when it was decided that my nearest branch of that top-of-the-market supermarket shall, henceforth, sell 'large appliances'. This, I was told, means hoovers, fridges and such, rather than obesity trusses. The shop had already been extended about four years ago (with the principal result, as far as I could tell, of reducing the number of checkouts from twenty to twelve), so that wasn't an option. Cutting down the stock range was obviously not on either, though I'd personally have settled for a halving of the selection of toilet paper, kitchen roll and washing powder. So everything else had to be squeezed up to make room for range cookers or whatever. (Imagine the conversation: 'Darling, have we got everything?' 'I think so, darling, but - don't we need one of these?')
The methodology employed (I always thought that word should refer to 'the study of methods', rather than its common usage, which is a posh way of saying 'method', but in this case I let it stand, as very little actual study seems to have been involved) was not, as it first appeared when I entered the place today, to draw a large map of the store and throw a load of little icons, representing the products, at it to see where they landed. No, they took a more structured approach, just as a butterfly does when it decides it's time for a wingflap. If we move the greeting cards up there next to the tonic water, and put one of the two sorts of celery over there by the mangoes, and, and ... Then, miraculously, a whole empty aisle appears - see? - ready to be filled with freezers and jumbo-sized toasters.
The unforeseen consequence, for me, was that I wasted twenty minutes searching for breadsticks, which turned out to have been moved seven aisles to the south from crisps and snacks, where they'd always been perfectly happy, to reside alongside canned soup and croutons, and I was late for my lunch. I didn't even have time to drop a new tumble dryer into the trolley.
Something of this sort must have happened at head office when it was decided that my nearest branch of that top-of-the-market supermarket shall, henceforth, sell 'large appliances'. This, I was told, means hoovers, fridges and such, rather than obesity trusses. The shop had already been extended about four years ago (with the principal result, as far as I could tell, of reducing the number of checkouts from twenty to twelve), so that wasn't an option. Cutting down the stock range was obviously not on either, though I'd personally have settled for a halving of the selection of toilet paper, kitchen roll and washing powder. So everything else had to be squeezed up to make room for range cookers or whatever. (Imagine the conversation: 'Darling, have we got everything?' 'I think so, darling, but - don't we need one of these?')
The methodology employed (I always thought that word should refer to 'the study of methods', rather than its common usage, which is a posh way of saying 'method', but in this case I let it stand, as very little actual study seems to have been involved) was not, as it first appeared when I entered the place today, to draw a large map of the store and throw a load of little icons, representing the products, at it to see where they landed. No, they took a more structured approach, just as a butterfly does when it decides it's time for a wingflap. If we move the greeting cards up there next to the tonic water, and put one of the two sorts of celery over there by the mangoes, and, and ... Then, miraculously, a whole empty aisle appears - see? - ready to be filled with freezers and jumbo-sized toasters.
The unforeseen consequence, for me, was that I wasted twenty minutes searching for breadsticks, which turned out to have been moved seven aisles to the south from crisps and snacks, where they'd always been perfectly happy, to reside alongside canned soup and croutons, and I was late for my lunch. I didn't even have time to drop a new tumble dryer into the trolley.
Sunday, 17 October 2010
The Caravan Is Closed
I get anxious about all sorts of things, future things, that grow in my mind like little weed seeds over days or weeks - then I get disproportionately euphoric when a simple squirt of the paraquat of real life comes along and solves them, just like that. Does that make me bipolar or manic/depressive or one of those labels, or maybe just normal? I don't know. Do I care?
Closing down the shiny new caravan for the winter was one of these. Once you grow up, you no longer want to break your shiny new toys, especially as you paid for them yourself. Drainage was the main issue. The old van required me to perform contortions that could easily have become another new Olympic sport (blind unscrewing of drain taps with head below ground level, something like that), and then, when I opened up in the Spring, pipes would have burst anyway. The drain taps on the new one are much more accessible, but carry with them a totally useless set of instructions, which are worth quoting in full: "Remove binding strips. Remove insulation surrounding drain taps. Drain system. Replace insulation in reverse order."
Joseph turned up to collect his rent and electricity bill. "How does this work, then, Joseph?" I asked him. "Well, ignore all that. I usually just take the taps off and leave them inside the van," he told me, and showed me how.
So now, that's all done. The caravan has been drained, cleaned and cocooned until Easter. Midnight, Saturday night, I looked up, at the last time I'll see the Milky Way until April. Still, there are comets coming, apparently. Something to look forward to.
Closing down the shiny new caravan for the winter was one of these. Once you grow up, you no longer want to break your shiny new toys, especially as you paid for them yourself. Drainage was the main issue. The old van required me to perform contortions that could easily have become another new Olympic sport (blind unscrewing of drain taps with head below ground level, something like that), and then, when I opened up in the Spring, pipes would have burst anyway. The drain taps on the new one are much more accessible, but carry with them a totally useless set of instructions, which are worth quoting in full: "Remove binding strips. Remove insulation surrounding drain taps. Drain system. Replace insulation in reverse order."
Joseph turned up to collect his rent and electricity bill. "How does this work, then, Joseph?" I asked him. "Well, ignore all that. I usually just take the taps off and leave them inside the van," he told me, and showed me how.
So now, that's all done. The caravan has been drained, cleaned and cocooned until Easter. Midnight, Saturday night, I looked up, at the last time I'll see the Milky Way until April. Still, there are comets coming, apparently. Something to look forward to.
Thursday, 7 October 2010
Bored with Blogging
I've been doing this for a while now, never prolifically but always because I felt I had something amusing, or provocative, or at least whimsical to say. But now, I feel the opposite way. Actually, that's wrong - 'opposite' suggests only two dimensions, whereas my problem is that I'm getting crowded out by an increasing, potentially infinite, volume of stuff I might write about. Today's options, just frinstance, have been: final salary pension schemes; Roman warrior's face helmet and the implications of its sale on contemporary moral relativism; George Osborne's possibly botoxed smirk; oddball guitar tunings; and ladybirds (pestilence of). And those are just the ones I can remember. (Actually, add in 'neighbourhood watch' and 'wireless video connection' and ...)
You get my point. How the f am I supposed to choose from that lot? I'm off to Devon tomorrow, then Kent, then Wales, before I start to settle in to the autumn pre-Christmas hibernation. So you all have a ten day break from the pressure I know my posts invariably place you under. Please feel free to inundate me with topics on which you're avid to see my literary gems. Basically, I just like pissing about with the words.
You get my point. How the f am I supposed to choose from that lot? I'm off to Devon tomorrow, then Kent, then Wales, before I start to settle in to the autumn pre-Christmas hibernation. So you all have a ten day break from the pressure I know my posts invariably place you under. Please feel free to inundate me with topics on which you're avid to see my literary gems. Basically, I just like pissing about with the words.
Tuesday, 5 October 2010
Rodgers and Hammerstein
I had a long conversation today with a schoolfriend who I hadn't seen for, literally, fifty years. It was a bit weird to begin with, as you can imagine ("so, what have you been up to ...?") But we ended up agreeing that the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals were probably the greatest body of artistic work of the twentieth century. Discuss.
The question of which of them was the very best was left unresolved, but, just as a clue, I stuck on my DVD of "Carousel" this evening, and my many layers of tears of emotion and delight are still welling up.
What's your vote?
The question of which of them was the very best was left unresolved, but, just as a clue, I stuck on my DVD of "Carousel" this evening, and my many layers of tears of emotion and delight are still welling up.
What's your vote?
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