2011 — 8 October: Saturday
Gently winding down1 after an evening of simply fabulous music and insider chatter. Nick Mason is currently talking about "Umma Gumma" — you either know what that means, or you don't... After 43 years as a fan of Pink Floyd's music — 33 of them being shared with Christa — what can I say?
G'night.
And resuming...
... on a rather dull morning, though one enlivened by the "Private Eye" profile. Last night I found the notebook in which I first began noting my CD (and, later, my LaserDisc) purchases alongside the minor incoming tide of books. Now that I've brushed all the dust off, follow me back to July 1983:
Peter Gabriel #4 Peter Gabriel £9-99 22.7.1983 Love over Gold Dire Straits £9-99 Bop till you drop Ry Cooder £11-99 Manifesto Roxy Music £9-99 29.7.1983 Firebird Colin Davis £9-99 Making Movies Dire Straits £9-99
At that point — a minor detail — I hadn't yet actually got my first CD player, but I knew one was on its way.2 I can still listen to these six CDs with great pleasure, though (as I noted a while ago) the Roxy Music title had an "improved" track that failed to match the quality of the original vinyl mix.
As lunch gets nearer...
... I'm catching up with yesterday's Kermode and Mayo film review podcast and scanning the more pleasant arrivals from Mr Postie:
The less pleasant items included the latest invoice from dear Mama's care-home. Not cheap :-(
[Pause]
I must say, Joseph Heller's daughter writes well,3 even if she admits — right at the end — that "Catch-22" is the one book by her Dad that she hasn't yet read (for perfectly logical and only partly emotional reasons).
It's uniformly grey out there, and rather cold. Having unearthed that ancient notebook yesterday evening, I've had some 'fun' updating one of my files of videos with the prices I paid, and when, for my original LaserDiscs, most of which were simply replaced by DVD (or, if deemed "worthy enough", by Blu-ray) as these became available. My goodness, LaserDiscs were not cheap! My supposedly limited edition boxed set of the original re-mastered "Star Wars" trilogy, for example, set me back £100 with the obligatory one penny change. Madness!
I realise...
... I'll never be 16 again. But BBC programmes can (and do) reappear. In the wee small hours, there's (yet) another chance to catch the programme I mentioned here. On BBC 6Music at 03:00. (Link.)
There's a reshowing of Michael Frayn's 2002 TV film "Copenhagen" scheduled next Tuesday; this, too, is fascinating.