Rappelle-toi

.. Barbara

Oh Barbara
Il pleut sans cesse sur Brest
Comme il pleuvait avant
Mais ce n'est plus pareil et tout est abime
C'est une pluie de deuil terrible et desolee

Jacques Prevért and Joseph Kosma.. and suitable listening for a potentially wet Bank Holiday!

Mutterings - 30 May

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Fresh air :: sea side
2. Bodyguard :: Heavy
3. Wedding :: service
4. Remind :: me (please!)
5. Wicked :: evil
6. Crawling :: crab
7. Gasoline :: Fuel
8. Anyone :: for tennis
9. Dancing :: Queen
10. Wall :: Fire (firewall)

Bluebell wood

Bluebell wood
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

Summer walk 3 was in the Gawsworth area ending up at the Harrington arms - with this lovely view through the woods. The Flickr set has been updated.

Teaser Tuesday -25 May

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

He had hardly gone ten steps in the street, before a passing omnibus stopped close by him, and a man got down, and came up to him, touching his hat as he did so. It was the police-inspector.

Probably the last quote from Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South, rather a few transportation coincidences at this point in the novel!

Mutterings - 23 May

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Cream :: Teas
2. Be with you :: Peace (we had this 2 weeks ago, I'm glad to see I have a consistent answer!)
3. Pancakes :: Lemon
4. Believe :: Creed
5. 45 :: younger than me!
6. Eat :: Enjoy
7. Background :: check
8. Pane :: glass
9. Aim :: high
10. Collapse :: of stout party

Where's my lawyer?!

H/t to Lesley

Scarlatti

Here's something summery (well it feels Summer here!) - Mie Miki playing he Scarlatti Sonata K427 on the accordion.

Summer Walk 2

Showing their plumage
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

I led the walk last night, we took the circular walk from the Crag Wildboarclough via Owlers Bridge - you can buy the book containing this walk from the Crag, the walk took us just 90 minutes. A few more pictures are on flickr. This picture was from the previous day when I checked the walk out - the fowl weren't visible last night though maybe I was busier leading!

Yvonne Loriod

The death of Yvonne Loriod was announced on Tuesday(here's a link to Roger Nichols' obituary - the widow of Olivier Messiaen and a wonderful pianist, here she is playing a movement from Messiaen's Catalogue d'Oiseaux a huge work - difficult - yes just a bit! - this is Le Traquet rieur - the Black Wheatear.

Mois de Mai. Belle matinée ensoleillée. Le Cap Béar, au-dessus de Port-Vendres (Roussillon). Falaise rocheuse, garrigues, mer bleu saphir et bleu Nattier, argentée de soleil. Joie de la mer bleue. Chant du Traquet rieur.

Teaser Tuesday -18 May

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Margaret's whole soul rose up against him while he reasoned in this way - as if commerce were everything and humanity nothing. She could hardly thank him for the individual kindness, which had brought him that very evening to to offer her - for the delicacy which made him understand that he must offer her privately - every convenience for illness that his own wealth or his mother's foresight had caused them to accumulate in their household, and which, as he learnt from Dr Donaldson, Mrs Hale might possibly require.

Another chunk, as last week, from Gaskell's North and South - our book group book of the month. I'm enjoying this more than I thought!

Mutterings - 16 May

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Labor :: Government
2. Sweater :: Knitted
3. Five minutes :: grace
4. Treatment :: a suitable case for..
5. Eyebrows :: plucked
6. Awake :: Now!
7. Salmon :: fish (kettle)
8. Red :: Penny - just bookmarked this blog
9. Hospital :: local
10. Midwife :: support

Stranded and Indolent?

This extract from my latest incoming spam (which just escaped the filter) seems too good not to quote:

Please, let me know if this email is valid. My valid Email is: debt.settlementboard@*******.th
FUND FINAL PAYMENT BOARD/PAYMENT SETTLEMENT VALUE AMOUNT: $850,000.00USD:
We Apologize for the delay of your payment and all the Inconveniences and hiccups that we might have caused you. However, we were having some minor problem with our payment systems, which is Inexplicable, and have held us stranded and Indolent, not having the Prerequisite to devote our 100% endowment in accrediting foreign payments.

Wish I could be left stranded and indolent in some scenic clime!

Litany

I was playing at the Alderley Edge Music Festival today - didn't win anything but the person who won the 20/21 century class gave a rapt performance of the first movement of this work which was previously unfamiliar to me:

Toru Takemitsu's Litany - written in memory of Michael Vyner. The video shows the score making it easier to follow.

Life and services in the Knutsford deanery

From today's Church Times:

The Rev Ian Blay, Rector of St Wilfred's Mobberley halted a couple's wedding service when his wife Suzanne ran into the church carry their dog, Izzy, who was unconscious after choking on a piece of cheese. After dislodging the obstruction, Mr Blay gave Izzy mouth to mouth resuscitation, and the bride-to-be father's gave the dog chest compressions. The dog revivied and ran out. The couple were married the following week.

under the title 'You may now kiss the dog'... I bet this is one thing they don't train you in at theological college! I bet Reform are writing letters in protest at inappropriate wedding services.
I see it's all over some bits of the national press but I'd missed it.
[Fixed subject after checking with the household deanery synod rep!!]

Coalition!

Dan and Dan form a coalition:

listen right to the end....

Looking over Rudyard

Looking over Rudyard
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

Yesterday was the first of the All Saints' summer walks and we had a walk around Rudyard.
Photo album for the season is here. We were meant to end up at the Royal Oak Rushden Spenser - but it was closed - it has recently been refurbished however there was a To Let sign outside so we went on to the Queen's Arms in Bosley and listened in on some of their Thursday evening quiz night.

Teaser Tuesday -11 May

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Mrs Thornton was not a woman much given to reasoning; her quick judgment and firm resolution served her in good stead of any long arguments and discussions with herself; she felt instinctively that nothing could strengthen Fanny to endure hardships patiently, or face difficulties bravely; and though she winced as she made this acknowledgement to herself about her daughter, it only gave her a sort of pitying tenderness of manner towards her; much of the same description of demeanour with which mothers are wont to treat their weak and sickly children. A stranger, a careless observer, might have considered that Mrs Thornton's manner to her children betokened far more love to Fanny than to John.

Wheeeew - that first sentence! This is from our BATS (book group) of the month Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South.
I'm afraid I've given up on Dwyer Hickey's 'the gambler' (see last week's teaser) at least for the moment - clearing the decks to read this in a month.

Crawling out from the woodwork..

From Liberal Conspiracy

They [Tory Cameron critics] cannot see that Cameron had to run the party like that so as to distract attention away from the unreconstructed Thatcherite, homophobic, xenophobic, intensely Euro-sceptic, callous, Christian-fundamentalist loon contingents that make up huge chunks of the Tory grass-roots and Parliamentary party.

and will it all come unstitched even more rapidly if Cameron does work with the LibDems than it appears to be doing?

Mutterings - 9 May

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Rock n Roll :: Man
2. Be with you :: Peace
3. Richard :: Little
4. Hair :: Age of Aquarius
5. Police :: Boys in Blue (frantically changes the subject)
6. Experience :: Bitter
7. Father figure :: support
8. Nice :: Rue des Anglais
9. Switch :: case (programming construct)
10. Appearance :: deceptive

Pierrot angry with the Moon

Pierrot fâché avec la lune -

A wonderfully jazzy performance of the middle movement of the Debussy 'cello sonata by Rostropovich.
At one stage 'Pierrot fâché avec la lune' was Debussy's title for this work.

May morning

May morning
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

Loved the sky this morning - was out early looking for photographic opportunities as part of the Macclesfield Barnaby competition - though I need to get my skates on!

Teaser Tuesday - 4 May

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

I've not been doing a lot of reading recently but still have Christine Dwyer Hicker's 'the gambler', which I teased a bit from a few weeks ago, incomplete. I'm going to need to start reading from the beginning...(looking back it was 2 months ago! So here's another extract:

And another curtain; but this one you couldn't see. This one was invisible, hanging down between them all, to divide the Protestant cousins from the Catholic ones, peeping slyly at each other through the gaps.

And speaking of dogs

(see the comments two posts down) Here's Christopher Logue's I shall Vote Labour written (as you can probably tell from some of the references) in the 1960's

I shall vote Labour because
God votes Labour.
I shall vote Labour to protect
the sacred institution of The Family.
I shall vote Labour because
I am a dog.
I shall vote Labour because
upper-class hoorays annoy me in expensive restaurants.
I shall vote Labour because
I am on a diet.
I shall vote Labour because if I don't
somebody else will:
AND
I shall vote Labour because if one person
does it
everybody will be wanting to do it.
I shall vote Labour because if I do not vote Labour
my balls will drop off.
I shall vote Labour because
there are too few cars on the road.
I shall vote Labour because I am
a hopeless drug addict.
I shall vote Labour because
I failed to be a dollar millionaire aged three.
I shall vote Labour because Labour will build
more maximum security prisons.
I shall vote Labour because I want to shop
in an all-weather precinct stretching from Yeovil to Glasgow.
I shall vote Labour because
the Queen's stamp collection is the best
in the world.
I shall vote Labour because
deep in my heart
I am a Conservative.

At least it would stop them sleeping on our bed

... snuffle, wheeze!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Logic?

I suppose expecting logic on election leaflets which drop though the door might be expecting a bit much, but I boggled rather at this extract from one which dropped through our front door today.

This is from the local independent candidate hoping to overturn a large conservative majority (though the sitting MP has retired). The leaflet appears to be saying that, if this seat is lost to the Tories (in which case it must be a marginal!), it would make no difference to David Cameron's changes of becoming Prime Minister - hmmmm. I think DC would have one seat less in that case.
Here you are, a posting on this blog, propping up the Conservatives!

Mutterings - 2 May

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Creepy :: Scary
2. Links :: Golf (and then Cuff)
3. Sane :: In-
4. Bun :: Hair
5. Visual :: Studio (arrgh!)
6. Remote :: Far off (control)
7. Freaking :: out
8. Curly :: Wurly
9. Saga :: En (Sibelius work)
10. Different :: Trains (the musical connection took over, this is a Steve Reich work)