2013 — 22 September: Sunday
Wikipedia has grown into a fantastically useful resource. Case in point: sleep having fled unusually early this morning, I was listening to a "pop" duet on the Chris Hawkins show and felt sure I recognised Nick Cave's voice and a pretty horrifying set of lyrics about a weird courtship and murder with a refrain of They call me the 'wild rose'. But the 'Hawk' deigns to provide a playlist. No worries. Plugging Wikipedia "They call me the wild rose" into Mrs Google as my best guess at a search string promptly reveals more1 than I could need to know. (Proof.)
Other ways...
... of skinning the same audio pussycat exist. For example, just casting my eye over the track listing of last Friday's "Best of" compilation CD still sitting unplayed on my desk would have brought me up to speed just as quickly without even switching on my PC, and providing the NSA yet further proof of my instability... but where's the fun in that?
And, leisurely supping my morning cuppa, I now discover that — if I'd only had the wit to examine the archive of files I rescued on the failing NAS that Gill and Chris supplied last year — I'd have found that very track on the "Murder Ballads" album. I've been slowly working my way through this treasure trove of material. Although our musical tastes do not completely align, they certainly overlap. It's therefore been proving an appallingly-effective way of getting me to spend my pension when I find items I like, and Nick Cave has definitely been one such...
There's a reason...
... I have some disdain for the supposed benefits of psychiatry — and it's not just that I'm nuts:
Kendall quotes a psychiatrist who says it often begins with an insecure upbringing: "Children who have little control over the key events and people in their lives begin to focus on something they can control." Avoiding self-reflection, these "obsessive innovators" make poor parents and partners. But their avoidance is also at the root of their success... (Even the most serious of disorders are similarly culture-dependent: schizophrenics hear voices, but whether that makes them patients or shamans is a matter of historical context.) The happiest among Kendall's obsessives are those with self-awareness: they chose to embrace their obsessions, accepting the downsides.
Now if you'll excuse me, a little voice in my head reminds me that it's time for me to go and count my fried egg collection. Again :-)
It's amazing...
... how much "more" can get "done" simply by starting the day three hours earlier than usual. [Yawn.] But now it's starting to feel like time for lunch, and the bathroom, at least, is now slightly more than "boy clean". In my opinion, at least. It remains to be seen how Junior's other half will rate it. They plan to take me out for a birthday meal so I shall find out in three weeks or so.
Well, I have to say the afternoon weather has been uniformly dull and grey. Dreary, in fact, and I don't mean that in a good way. Is it time for High Tea? [Pause] Or my (planned) evening curry?
Something else...
... to get my teeth into, delivered yesterday:
Sixteen Blu-rays at £2-29 each, and a mere 3,752 autumnal2 minutes of entertainment! Wonder if it will exorcise the ghost of "Twiglet"?