2014 — 26 May: Monday
We evidently got lucky1 for our little burst of fresh air'n'exercise. Today looks very much greyer as the morning blur resolves with the help of the morning infusion of hot tea.
Much as I enjoy...
... the music that gets played on BBC 6Music (for the most part) I have to admit that I enjoy less the uncritical opinions of some of the programme hosts, who tend to acclaim each new release as "brilliant" or a "masterpiece". I prefer to let the stuff settle down for a few months, years, or even decades, before I can go along with quite that level of neophiliac enthusiasm.
Still, that won't stop me from snaffling my regular set of Sunday stuff that I tend to enjoy before moving on to examine more closely the small burst of more commercial MP3 downloading I did last night — when I wasn't watching further delightful episodes of Season #1 of "Weeds", of course.
Then there's the whole issue of the next batch of fresh fruit to be stewed and turned into delicious breakfast cereal topping. Preferably in time for today's breakfast.
The rising tide...
... of anti-EU feeling is apparently not confined to the lunatic Right here in the UK. Still, if voting changed anything they'd make it illegal. My current feeling remains: a plague on all your Parties. I'm tired of hearing all the extravagant promises batted back and forth and contemplating recycled policies that are generally doomed before they leave the launch pad. "Include me out."
I have read...
... precisely two books by Alain de Botton. Neither of them gets a name check in the second paragraph of Sam Knight's interesting "FT" piece here. I did, however, smile at the parting Twitter shot:
The best cure for one's bad tendencies is to see them fully developed in someone else.
Would that today's transient crop of crowing politicians was as insightful.
The phrase "vainglorious coxcomb"...
... rattled through the neuronal gaps, so I asked Mrs Google what (if anything) she had to say for herself. She turned up a scan of the London Magazine: Or, Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer, Volume 5 containing within it an extract from Fog's Journal, No. 408, 28 August... of, erm, a while ago. I have modernised some of the spelling, but left the sentiment unchanged:
Of the Esteem due to learned Men
Since I have visited the Academies at Paris, my Esteem for learned Men is encreas'd. The Learned are accus'd of Pride and Haughtiness, but this is not the Character of such as have acquired a just Reputation... Those who speak thus of the really learned confound them with certain little Authors, who think themselves as perfect as the World thinks them ignorant.
People pay Respect every Day to a noble, vain-glorious Coxcomb, to a Son of a noble, vain-glorious Coxcomb, to the Grandson of a noble, vain-glorious Coxcomb: but what signifies it to me, that a Man has had a Forefather Captain of a Troop of Horse in the Time of William the Conqueror? What! Shall I be obliged to honour a Fool, because one of his Grandfathers was knock'd on the Head by a Saracen in the Holy Wars, or, because he has made a Voyage beyond Sea; and look with Indifference on a Man useful to the World...?
That's telling 'em!
As lunchtime rapidly slips...
... into the "long overdue" category (as is distressingly quite normal hereabouts) I've just assembled the last of my three self-indulgent Bank Holiday weekend musings here. [Pause] Right; where's that stray stale crust and rind of cheese? I'm starving.
Yesterday's batch of MP3...
... downloads were "Mingus at Carnegie Hall" in (I think) 1975, Carl Orff's "Die Kluge" with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (from the vicinity of 1956), a nice varied selection of music put together by Jenji Kohan and her husband from the original series of "Weeds", Holger Czukay's "On the way to the peak of Normal", and another of the DG concerts: the world premiere of "City Noir" by John Adams, with Gustavo Dudamel waving his little stick in front of the Los Angeles Philharmonic (live from the Walt Disney Concert Hall in October 2009). Not a bad little haul for £12-87 total, I feel.