2007 — 23 May: Sumer is icumen in, it seems

Even if only until Friday. I would regale you with further CD1 ripping yarns, but it's such a tedious task I can't bring myself to. Besides it's time for some sleep. But wasn't last night's TV programme about Scott Walker fascinating? And Wally Stott (whom I can still remember always being credited at the end of The Goons and Hancock as the orchestral arranger and/or conductor) is now Angela Morley. Amazing.

The learning goes on... department

Today's Guardian obituary of director Robin Midgley informs me of yet another strange aspect of the lord chancellor's2 baleful influence over theatrical productions. I'm fully familiar with the idea that wherever Her Maj goes she is convinced toilets smell of fresh paint, but I had not realised that actors on stage were forbidden to break wind on cue. Hence a trombonist standing by in the wings each night to play at the appropriate moment!

And just today, it seems, North America has woken up to the fact that running a $230,000,000,000 trade deficit with China might not wholly be in their interests, so they are now using the "sanctions" word, and trotting out that Paragon of Diplomacy Henry Kissinger in the background (like a ghost at the banquet, of course) during two days of (almost) top-level talks. How much do you wish to bet that Dr K3 fails to touch down on UK soil on his way back home?

Meanwhile, on reading the "sleeve" notes4 for Storytelling by Belle and Sebastian for the first time since I bought this CD (shame on me) I now belatedly realise that they did indeed do some of the music for the Todd Solondz film. I may be slow, but I get there in the end.

I hate hospitals

But that's exactly where we'll be going tomorrow for She Who Must Be Adored to be repaired. The surgeon said it might only be an overnight stay, so I'm firmly crossing all available digits.

  

Footnotes

1  297 titles, and counting. Though I now have to wait another 90 minutes or so while they once again copy over to the network drive (this time, I very sincerely hope, without Explorer cocking things up by duplicating the number of subdirectories). No wonder the poor old iMac took so long to find everything when I cleared out the old iTunes data files and once again imported all the new, improved files! But, if nothing else, at least I've been able to prove that the Roku network player downstairs is perfectly happy feeding on the VBR MP3s it gets from the NAS via the iMac. Progress, of a sort.
2  It's a good job my readers are more erudite than I am. It was the Lord Chamberlain who had this arcane duty. The Lord Chancellor operates in a somewhat similar way in the High Court (I'm led to believe).
3  Can we say "war crimes?" Every time I see or hear this not-very-pleasant chap, I'm reminded of Dr Strangelove. I wonder why.
4  There is (sometimes) a wealth of information, but they sure do print it vanishingly small these days!