2015 — 22 January: Thursday

Apparently Ward Swingle (the founder of the "Swingle singers" — I must dig out my 1994 CD of "Bach hits back") used to motivate his children — his first in-house choral society, I assume — musically by saying things like "Now, here's an 'A'. If you don't remember it, you can't go to the movies on Saturday."

Amazing what you can learn1 before 07:00 on some days.

Yesterday evening's entertainment...

... when not hooking up the neglected PMC centre speaker to the little system upstairs, was (as predicted) a re-watching of the excellent 2001 film "Ghost World" by Terry Zwigoff. I was delighted to see it contained another of those "blink and you'd miss it" moments to add to the one I found when re-watching "2010" recently. To understand this new one, remember that Zwigoff made the extraordinary documentary "Crumb" and has known Robert Crumb since 1970 (when they discovered their shared [some might say semi-obsessive] interest in old blues music pressed on vintage 78s):

Cheap Suit Serenaders

Thora Birch (the actress playing "Enid") is asking "Seymour" (off camera, played by Steve Buscemi) his opinion of the Robert Crumb record she's picked out from his garage sale...
"Oh, no, that one's no good!"

It may, or may not, help to know that Crumb's album cover art...

Cheap Suit Serenaders cover art

... shows Zwigoff on the left (playing the cello) while the artist is on the right, flanking Robert Armstrong on guitar and Allan Dodge on mandolin.

Supplies of...

... Noam Chomsky gnomes are being cooked as I type. Whatever next?

How could...

... anyone wonder why I'm unimpressed...

Grauniad popular stories

... by the Grauniad these days? I'm not exactly overwhelmed by their recent web facelift, either. And it used to be such a nice newspaper, neatly pandering to all my left-of-centre prejudices.

Off to my foodie shop I trot.

Having read...

... all the gorp here, and found it distressingly free of precise details of the Windows 10 desktop (as opposed to Windows 10 on everything else from a Windows Phone up to and including an 84" 4K touchscreen All-In-One) I thought I'd better sign up for emailed details of what exactly constitutes a qualified Windows device. I almost chortled when the next thing they wanted to know was what version of Windows I currently have. Windows 8.1 Update 1 isn't actually on their little list:

Windows 10 email

I clearly haven't logged on to my Microsoft Account often enough for them to feel they know me. Still, I quite like the sound of the new pricing model.

TTFN: my lunch date awaits.

Unless something...

... gangs aft agley I'm currently predicting Mr Postie's doorstep offering will constitute some part of the evening entertainment. This will be my third Scarlett Johansson film on, as it were, the trot:

Lucy BD

I've also confirmed (parcel #2 of 2) that the second "gift copy" (from a different supplier) of my new edition of that Roy Lewis book has / suffers from exactly the same colour mis-alignment on its front cover as the first. No matter.

And, while over with Len after lunch, I somehow managed to sneak in an order for "Grosse Point Blank" on Blu-ray from Amazon in the US for rather less than the £19-99 being asked for it on the Amazon UK page. I also discovered the existence, in Sweden, of a long-desired Blu-ray of Robert Benton's "Feast of Love" though it's currently showing as out-of-stock. Dagnabbit.

  

Footnote

1  He's just died. The snippet came from BBC Radio 3's "Breakfast" presenter, leafing through the week's newspapers.