2013 — 29 June: Saturday
How can Georgie Fame be 3 days past his 70th birthday?1 And, of course, I now have to seek out Sandie Shaw's fourth album in pursuit of her lovely version of "Words". [Pause] Got it. And that nice Mr Bezos gave me a quid off it, too.
Thanks, Mr Postie
I shall really enjoy listening to this again after far too long...
I was only just over two years old when it was first broadcast on 25 January 1954, so I missed it on that occasion! It's a nice supplement to my Folio Society edition. From the introduction (and textual emendations) to that by Douglas Cleverdon...
... I learned that the lodger in Craig-y-don was being careful by ordering his contraceptives in a plain sealed envelope — a reference missed by the New York audience at a reading (by Dylan Thomas) on 14 May that year :-)
I've just discovered...
... I've not been as careful in keeping up with Richard Russo's more recent output as I could have been. The film that Robert Benton made from his novel "Nobody's Fool" nearly 20 years ago was pure magic. He's now trying ebook publishing. (Link.)
And, having listened...
... yet again to a sampler CD that a chum cut for me (rather a long time ago now) of Bill Frisell's work, I have finally given in and bought two CDs and three MP3 download albums:
- Blues dream
- East West
- Ghost Town
- Unspeakable
- The Willies
The last, of course, reminding me of this similarly-titled piece of SF (aka "Plus X")...
... that I bought in 1968 for the magnificent sum of two shillings. I miss Ace Doubles. They were perfectly adapted for the length of the SF novella form. As for the delicious smell of the pulp paper :-)
Richard Burton stumbles a little at several points, but no matter — he could make the telephone directory sound interesting. 'Twas very nice to hear this venerable piece of radio again.
On that topic, there's an interesting May 2013 PDF file outlining the BBC's plans for what they call a 7-30-7 day model for future access to DRM-protected radio programmes after their original broadcast. I was surprised to learn that the amount of radio "catch up" material becomes available at the rate of 7,600 hours each week.
My Synology NAS...
... is currently soothing me by streaming B-Tribe's lovely 1993 album Fiesta Fatal to the media player. At quite high volume. Soothing? Yes, well, having just watched the second episode of Oliver Stone's "The Untold History of the United States", I have now to confess that (a) I'd never known of the farce that was the 1944 Democratic convention and (b) I was unaware of the backstory of the rise of the mediocrity that was Harry S Truman. (The "S" stood for nothing, I believe, as did the man himself.) I shall be strictly rationing myself, like I find I have to do with "Private Eye".
One can take only so much at a time before returning to the sanctuary that is Jane Austen. Or — new discovery — Georgette Heyer! She was apparently the go-to gal of the latter half of last century when it came to Regency romances. Passion, poison, sex and sodomy2 ... well, maybe not the last three.