2012 — 2 September: Sunday
A shockingly late start this morning1 though, by the look of it, I've not missed any pleasant weather so far. The young people are, if not still slumbering, at least keeping their heads down (or whatever it is that young people do in the morning in these godless times). But I have a fresh, hot, cuppa. Do I look bovvered?
While preparing for...
... yesterday's walk I had half an ear cocked for the choices in "Building a summer CD library" (or whatever they call the Radio 3 Saturday morning feature). One of the items was a very pleasant violin concerto in E by a chap called son-of-Mendel. When I poked into my classical music database I found I actually had only one example of this piece: a cassette I recorded in May 1984 with Dutoit waving his stick in front of the Montreal Symphony and Kyung Wha Chung dragging the hair of a horse across the gut of a cat. I may pursue this a little further as I found Amazon has MP3 downloads on offer in the classical field, as well as the popular modern beat combos I already know about.
Going wild in Hampshire
I'm sure I've mentioned young Mike's keen eye for the birds on occasion? Just look at this fine clutch from our walk.
Not so much guinea fowl, I think, as half-a-crown fowl at this stage. There was also a Red Admiral near the top of one of our exhausting mountains. Or maybe it was just the red mist?
I have no idea what's wrong...
... with me, but I have never felt the faintest inkling of the angst that this poor chap describes. It's probably just as well that I've also never attended a "creative writing" workshop. Not that I wasn't bemused when IBM hired me as an experienced writer in 1981 and promptly sent me to Germany to attend a one-week training course (given by a semi-literate American ex-pat) and apparently designed (I assume) to teach me how to be an "IBM" writer when (ironically) the department that had just gone to the trouble of targetting me2 was trying to shake up the way their manuals were written.
The middle of...
... a drizzly afternoon finds Peter's g/f over on the Island, Peter upstairs reading all about yet another solution to the vexatious issue of (software, I assume) change management, and me indulging a hobby that involves drinking tea, some scanning, some OCRing, and the gradual filling of the fifth CaseLogic folder with CDs. All to a musical accompaniment, of course. And now Jarvis Cocker has just returned to the airwaves. (Does that concept still exist in the era of digital radio?)
Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts...
Never been here before. But then, I suspect a lot of people haven't. This might fuel the fuel price debate, for example.
Literally right at the end of the Kermode and Mayo podcast this week we learn that the DVD of "The Hunger Games" is a '12' certificate and the Blu-ray is a '15'.
I've been trying — and, latterly I have to admit, skimming — a few episodes from Season #1 of "Supernatural". Mike lent it to me, and I also noticed this evening there was an "end of summer(!)" special deal on Amazon of the first six seasons on Blu-ray. Sadly though, it's not for me. There are similar deals on "Buffy" and "Angel" but (even though it's Joss Whedon) I remain stubbornly unconvinced. Back to the musical choices of Guy Garvey, therefore. I've also downloaded a newer recording of that Mendelssohn piece, featuring the same violinist in front of a different orchestra.
The young folk should be back in NW2 by now, and unloading the strimmer and a few bits and pieces. It's 23:22 and time for me to start winding down, methinks.