thermalsatsuma

Day 12: A song that makes you want to have sex.

Teenage Kicks, famously the favourite song of the late John Peel, is an unashamed homage to those adolescent feelings of overwhelming desire. This cover version transforms the raw energy of the original into a breathy female viewpoint which certainly has the desired effect ...

A song that reminds you of your Mother

When I was small we had an old mono record player with a handful of 7" singles to play on it, and one of them was my mum's copy of this record ...

A song that reminds you of your father.

Not exactly a song, but I remember my dad playing me an album of Peter Sellers sketches including such gems as 'Balham - Gateway to the South' and this rather unusual version of a Beatles song ... enjoy!

Well, actually it more like half past five, but the point stands.

There is no ideal time for the neighbor's burglar alarm to go off when they are away, but early on a Sunday morning of a bank holiday weekend after a late night of mojitos and Beatles Rock Band ranks as quite a poor choice. Fortunately it went off after twenty minutes or so, and I had a quick look through the windows but I couldn't see anything amiss so no further action was required.

Today has mostly been taken up with reading Stewart Lee's excellent memoir of his career in stand-up comedy, playing the usual run of games and generally taking it easy. So, apologies for the lack of excitement folks ...

Hitch 22: Confessions and Contradictions by Christopher Hitchens

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book opens with Hitchens' experience of reading news of his own demise in a catalogue for an exhibition that described him as 'the late Christopher Hitchens', thus encouraging him to set down his memoir whilst he was still alive to do so. This has been further been given an air of almost unbearably poignant irony by his recent diagnosis of cancer of the esophagus, but this is not the place to dwell on that.

He follows a fairly structured route of memories of his mother and father, his schooldays in a series of grim public schools, his encounters with the socialist movement in the sixties and his time as a journalist in the booze addled Fleet Street of the seventies. He discourses on friends and acquaintances from Martin Amis to Salman Rushdie and Edward Said, and describes the things that drew them together as well as honestly setting down their differences. Needless to say, there are many humorous anecdotes to be found as well with an early encounter with a surprisingly saucy Margaret Thatcher provoking a laugh from me.

Through his life his political views have changed somewhat from his early left wing leanings, although he has been absolutely resolute in his opposition to tyranny of all forms, particularly when it takes its authority from theocracy. Thus, he demonstrates how he can support wars in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq without necessarily being in accordance with the western governments who initiated them. One barbed comment that he reports is that an anti-war demonstration in London is a rare occasion that a million people have taken to the streets in support of a brutal fascist regime.

One particularly moving chapter describes his search for his ancestry on his mother's side after a unexpected revelation following her tragically early death. He is not mawkish by any means, but approaches the subject with clear eyed and enlightening honesty.

He reads the audiobook, and his slightly plummy style is occasionally difficult to follow but it is well worth the effort and concentration required.

Unreservedly recommended.

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A minor bit of drama yesterday.

Our house looks down over a wall onto the next street along, affording a view of the goings on down there. There is a block of maisonettes and a couple of council houses and it is generally pretty quiet. Not on this occasion, when I heard shouting and then the unmistakable sound of a police siren. I looked out to see a youngish man in a black t-shirt mouthing off in an incoherent ramble of 'Fooking fookers fookit' or words to that effect.

In short order two police constables were on the scene trying to calm him down making placatory gestures, but he was having none of it, puffing his chest out and squaring up in a classic gorilla-like aggressive stance. We then had a grandstand view of a third copper tackling him from behind and slapping the cuffs on before he knew what was happening.

He continued to struggle for a while before they hauled him up, put on gloves to clean up his bloody nose and then transported him off to the local nick to cool his heels for a while.

All human life is here, or at least in the neighborhood.

Day 7: One band/singer you're ashamed to admit you like.

Hmmm, this does not really compute. I have a rather diverse taste in music, covering just about every genre up to and including ambient Eskimo soundscapes, and I'm not ashamed about any of it. I will happily argue the toss about the musical merits of anything I enjoy until the cows come home.

I suppose the most desperately unhip genre that I enjoy is prog rock, with Genesis being the prime example. I fully see the need that there was for the year zero of punk back in the mid 70s, but prog at its best (and worst) exhibited some superb musicianship and soaring flights of imagination and whimsy. Here's a sample:

Dark and wet outside when I got up this morning and when I opened the door Daisy scooted past me and upstairs carrying a mouse in her mouth. I chased after her and managed to rescue the wee, sleekit, timorous beastie before she could either eat it or let it loose in one of the bedrooms. I let it go outside and distracted the cats with their breakfasts to give it a chance to escape.

Busy day at work, trying to catch up on everything I need to finish up before my week off next week. I could have done without extra stuff being loaded on to the to-do list as well. Hmmm.

Home, and it's chilly and gloomy again. Not a very encouraging portent for the bank holiday weekend.

Up at the proverbial crack of the proverbial dawn, and there was a definite hint of a suggestion of a touch of a nip in the air. Feels like .... autumn. Say it ain't so! Anyhoo, this is a long winded way of saying I was up early, the car was covered with chilly dew and I was driving north on a fine and mostly sunny day.

For once the installation turned out to be problem free and mostly straightforward, apart from testing the timeout on internet logins which involved a fair bit of sitting around waiting for sessions in various states to timeout (well, duh!) with the correct error message and redirect. It worked, so hurrah, and I treated myself to a bacon stottie from a greasy spoon cafe in the local town centre that was a little bit like stepping into a time warp of thirty years or more into the past. Crappy 80s music, tired looking people, unemployment advice on the mugs of tea - yep, it's like the Thatcher years never went away, eh Dave'n'Nick? (oooh, little bit of politics!).

Back home again at a reasonable hour, and for some strange reason I suddenly felt very tired and very cold at the same time, requiring the swift application of a fluffy jumper and the heating being switched on for a bit.

Yep, definitely a touch of Autumn on the way.