2013 — 9 October: Wednesday
"Le Boulevardier" — now there's a jaunty tune I haven't heard in a very long time.1 It's certainly a contrast with the gorgeous 1985 CD of Schubert that Roger lent me yesterday — the String Quintet in C (D956) with the Lindsay string quartet supplemented by Douglas Cummings — let alone Versa est in luctum, for six voices written in 1602 by Alonso Lobo. A piece of polyphony from the Tallis Scholars worthy of Lassus, to be sure.
That, a fresh cuppa, and a brand new vivid red rose on my favourite bush. What could be better on a cool, bright autumnal morning?
I see...
... our latest Chief Spook has come out in favour of spying in a speech six months after starting work. Now there's a surprise.
But then, in the immortal words of Mandy Rice-Davies a mere half a century ago, "he would say that, wouldn't he?" There's nothing quite like the Great British Establishment, at work or at play. Ought we to worry, do you suppose, at the idea of a Military Intelligence thinktank? Talk about oxymoron.
I was delighted? appalled? tickled? to learn that US Marines, by the way, have an official professional reading list. It's unclassified. Indeed, I wouldn't dare attempt to classify it :-)
I wonder if "Fifty Shades of Grey" will ever appear on it.
What goes around...
... tends to return. I mentioned Allen Jones a while back in the context of Amazon's rare ability to point me in the direction of something I might actually enjoy. He's just been re-re-discovered. After all, there's (still) money in them there paintings. (Link.)
Just back...
... from a quick "look see" trip over to the (new) West Vale Crematorium to make quite sure I can find my way there on Friday. It's new enough for the post code not to be in my little dominatrix's database so I just left her showing a map of where I was driving — having sneaked a precautionary peek at Google Maps before setting off. Gotta be worth another cuppa, right? And a lateish lemonses calorie or two?
If anyone retains...
... a scintilla of doubt that the audio industry is greedy, let them contemplate the price of the two CDs here (£20-76) compared to the price of the five Blu-ray set (£15-50):
Not that Norma Winstone's sublime voice isn't worth it. Perish the thought.
I thought it...
... might be fun to give the two halves of my brain separate workouts. So I picked up these in Waterstone's #1:
And these in Waterstone's #2:
I think that will do for the time being. The time being 17:01, give or take.