Der Abschied (the Farewell)

Gustav Mahler - 1860 - May 18th 1911

Er stieg vom Pferd und reichte ihm den Trunk
Des Abschieds dar. Er fragte ihn, wohin
Er führe und auch warum es müßte sein.
Er sprach, seine Stimme war umflort: Du, mein Freund,
Mir war auf dieser Welt das Glück nicht hold!
Wohin ich geh? Ich geh, ich wandre in die Berge.
Ich suche Ruhe für mein einsam Herz.

The orchestration of the opening for flute, double basses and tamtam always sends a shiver down my spine. You'll find an English translation of the above - taken from the centre of this movement - here.

One of the mightiest energies, one of the most inconsiderate despotic natures, one of the most powerful spiritual potencies in our public life has departed with him. A will of unbending strength, of immovable resistance, a temperament of demonic power has destroyed the unprepossessingly weak shell.

from the Frankfurter Zeitung Obituary. Gavin Plumley has been recalling the last week of Mahler's life on his weblog.

Teaser Tuesday - 17 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!

'This is the border of Elfland,' said the Queen. 'This is a shadowland where the shadowless travel.' The rocks, and the grass were grey, and a little river that ran beside the track was grey, and the thickets they passed were grey, rat-grey, shadow-grey, and there was the sound of rushing and roaring, like breakers on the beach.

Another teaser, like last week, from A S Byatt's The Children's Book

Mutterings - 15 May

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

1. Code :: Enigma
2. Brothers :: Band of
3. Immigration :: Inward
4. Heavy :: Load
5. Bracket :: Curly
6. Murder :: Death
7. Neighbor :: Friend
8. Collar :: Clerical
9. Onslaught :: Coming
10. Eyebrows :: Hair

Summer walks

Towards Macc, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

Maybe I should record that the All Saints' Summer walks have begun. On Thursday we had a walk around the Ryles Arms near Sutton. I'm arranging next weeks walk in Wildboarclough and the route has yet to be planned!

Teaser Tuesday - 10 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!

Youlgreave re-enacted Bottom's enchanted sleep, lying on the rising mound that led to the shrubbery, whilst Dorothy, Phyllis and Florian hovered as Peaseblossom, Moth and Mustardseed. Toby was not in fancy dress apart from the papier-maché and horse-hair mask he was inside.

from A S Byatt's The Children's Book novel about creativity and its effects - this is Adam Mars-Jones review - the book is based in the England of the early years of 20th century and fairly teems with detail - I'm currently struggling to hold all the information together!

The past is not my jurisdiction

Last week there was another foreign film showing at the Macclesfield College, aka Learning Zone, El Secreto de Sus Ojos - the Secret in their eyes. Prefaced with tapas - prepared by the students - a film a glass of wine and a film for £6.50 - even in our straitened circumstances we can manage that! This is the trailer - there are English subtitles but you may need to turn them on (button at lower right).

This was the winner of this year's foreign film Oscar - here's Philip French's review from the Guardian:

The movie .. proceeds with immense narrative skill to cut between past, present, fictionalised memories, plausible conjecture and unverifiable accounts as it puts together a complex jigsaw linking private lives and troubled social currents over a period of a quarter of a century.

. Two interlocking stories of Argentina in the 1970's and now, carrying quite a punch on the themes of love and punishment. However, here's a review from someone who found it rather cliched. In the past 12 montths we've seen Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon, Jacques Audiard's A Prophet and now Campanella's Secreto de Sus Ojos from the foreign film Oscar shortlist all shown in Macclesfield.

Mutterings - 8 May

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

1. Trumpet :: Voluntary
2. Love ::Actually
3. Routine :: Procedure (IT rather than medical!)
4. Infringe :: Liberties
5. Misgivings :: Emotional
6. Establish :: Found
7. Stupefy :: Bedazzle
8. Constipate :: Over eat
9. Conjure :: Magick
10. Miscellaneous :: Nondescript

Ubuntu - natty narwhal

Around a week ago the latest release of Ubuntu - Natty Narwhal was released, the upgrade of Beth's desktop went pretty smoothly and so I decided to upgrade this laptop. Laptops are often a little more problematic and I had lots of extra stuff installed so I knew it wasn't going to go as smoothly!
But here I am now running the new release with the new Unity desktop:

This is a work in progress I've found a number of issues and as I resolve them I'll put the solutions (which worked for me!) here:

• Initially I had problems with being unable to start the upgrade with an error message about held packages - I'd been running beta versions of some applications so I needed to remove the ppa's for dontzap and kubuntu-ppa/beta before it would start. The upgrade then ran smoothly - probably around 4 hours - though I was out for some of that time so it was sitting there waiting for me to reply when I returned!
  
• On reboot I spotted the first issue - the boot menu appears to think I'm running a Xen(virtual) kernel which is selected as the default boot - if I run this the kernel soon panics! Looks similar to this bug report but that claims to have been fixed well before release. (Later: I've reported this as bug 779029)
  
• When I tried the proper non-Xen kernel it booted fine, I use the kubuntu version of the distribution but first tried logging in using the new Unity desktop. Unfortunately I was then told that the hardware was unsuitable for running Unity and it would run the Gnome interface. Puzzling as this is a fairly good spec laptop. On checking I found that the machine claims that the closed-source nvidia drivers were installed but not in use! I tried uninstalling the drivers and reinstalling which didn't help. Just by chance I looked at the package manager for the unity desktop - I was looking for a diagnostic tool and found that unity wasn't installed! I don't know if it was quietly uninstalled when it thought the hardware wasn't good enough or if it is an upgrade issue. I installed some unity packages and as you see from the screenshot Unity runs fine. I started my Linux experience with WindowMaker and so the dock looked pretty familiar to me! I recommend the help menu to navigate around the new experience there looks to lots of good information on setting up things to your choice - a sample. You'll see from my screenshot that the background repeats - I'm using twin view with the screen split across two monitors and unity can't (or I've not found out how) to persuade it to stretch the background - but then gnome had the same issue before the upgrade. (Later: the system still claims the nvidia driver is installed but not in use - however it clearly is in use!)
  
• fluxbox - my usual minimalist interface was having problems before the upgrade - I assume with the nvidia driver and this is still an issue - I get shadows on the screen and windows occasionally need a forced refresh.
  
• kde/plasma did look very nice before the upgrade but at the moment whenever I run it from login the system locks up and I have to reboot - this is before I can interact with the GUI - I've looked through the system logs and as yet have not spotted the problem. When I find a resolution - I'll update this post. Some websearching reveals this bug I don't get as far as interacting with a terminal but I have graphics effects enabled and various terms start automatically when I login - maybe some hand editing of the config files is called for?

There's some fairly hard-core geekery in the above - thanks for sticking with the description to the end!

Later - Aug 2011 two comments on the above:

• I've now solved the kde/plasma locking the system up problem, see this blog update.
• I've also discovered which of the unity background image options allows you to stretch the background across two monitors - and hugin makes the production of panoramas easy - with another blog update!

Teaser Tuesday - 3 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!

Diana poured out the sherry and gave a glass to Lisa who was still standing in the doorway unknotting her scarf.
'Any dramas?' Diana often asked them this question when they came home in the evening.

Another teaser from Iris Murdoch's Bruno's Dream.

Reflections in granite

Reflections in granite, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

Some friends who are leaving the area and down-sizing have kindly given us a patio table and chairs. We spent yesterday afternoon transporting them across town, 5 trips by car and one on foot. Here's the table top with a reflection of next-door's laburnum currently in full bloom. I'm hoping the weather doesn't stay too bright - it's hard to blog from the patio with all the reflections!

Mutterings - 1 May

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

1. Secondary :: engines
2. Surreal :: Image (Fish)
3. History :: Lesson
4. Wild :: Bunch (about Harry)
5. Bandages :: Wrappings
6. Farm :: Ville (the curse of facebook - not that I play the game!)
7. Lab :: Technician
8. Misuse :: Apostrophe
9. Word games :: This (i.e. Unconscious Mutterings)
10. Nurse :: with Wound

Birkdale Palace

I spent the first 10 years of my life in Birkdale on the Lancashire coast and on the way between our house and the sea was the Palace Hotel - pictured above. This postcard is undated but it looks pretty similar to the one in my memory - if you go to the wikipedia link above you'll see that it was originally a 20 acre site which after the original owners got into financial difficulties (here's a link to the liquidation report of 1882) then reduced to 5 - and a railway station built alongside! As you can see from the photo it was a huge building probably a white elephant from its inception. It - the hotel - was eventually demolished in 1969 amidst stories of from the demolishers of mysterious rows, screams and clattering of stilettos across the marble foyer. The noises were explained away as the deserted hotel being a rendez-vous for local courting couples but the fin-de-siecle atmosphere lent credibility to the stories. At one stage it was used as a film set and actors such as Boris Karloff and Norman Wisdom stayed and filmed there (now there's a wonderful combination!). You'll see various other legends on the wikipedia page including that the hotel was built the wrong way around - the front should have faced the sea and the architect is supposed to have committed suicide by jumping from the hotel! Wikipedia suggests that the Fisherman's rest was created after the Palace was demolished - but I don't think that is true.
I have copies of a couple of articles by Peter Elsen which have formed part of the source for this from the Southport Visiter of 2004. The Visiter's webpages have a historical section but it is presently broken so I can't see if the original articles are on line... but here is a copy and paste of most of the articles - without the pictures which accompanied it.
The Fisherman's Rest a pub - is the only surviving fragment of the Palace Hotel no doubt inhabited by the less rich - and associated with the Mexico Disaster of 1886 in which the Southport lifeboat overturned and 14 of the crew died - as well as 13 deaths from the St Anne's lifeboat. The Fisherman's Rest was used as a temporary morgue for the bodies of the Southport men.
I remember both buildings well - mainly as a way point on the way to Birkdale sands as I don't think I ever went in either building. At least one of my relations was lost in the lifeboat disaster - I'm afraid I can't remember who as a lot of the names in the story are familiar!

Teaser Tuesday - 25 April

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!

The nose was immense, a shapeless heap of fleshy protuberances. Hair unlike human hair sprouted upon it and upon his cheeks together with fungus-like stains and excrescences.

No, not as threatened in a comment I just made on last week's teaser, fantasy but a very real observance, Iris Murdoch contemplates ageing in Bruno's Dream. This is a re-read - I've read most of her works but not returned to them for quite a few years. I've decided to sample a few - unfortunately with this one I can remember the ending...
How many of Murdoch's books feature ex-nuns? - must be a few or are they just the ones I remember!!

Easter morning

DSCF8392, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

No pictures of eggs this morning - though they were there as they were last year. These cats though were next door to the egg ring and as one was fascinated in me and the other couldn't care less, I thought I'd take a picture.

IT and folk-dancing

As Arnold Bax (or was it Thomas Beecham) so nearly said, you should try everything once apart from IT and folk-dancing and here is a chance to combine the two:
Merge sorting as demonstrated in a folk dance. I recommend a watch of their other sort algorithms too! Apologies to those who have already seen these videos on my facebook/twitter feeds but in the remote possibility that there is anyone who doesn't read either of those I thought you should be educated here!

Mutterings - 24 April

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

1. Squid :: Ink
2. Wife :: Partner
3. Promising :: Application
4. Tingle :: Factor
5. Off balance :: Out of kilter
6. Nice :: Rue des Anglais
7. Honor :: Blackman (Roll)
8. Emphatic :: Stress
9. Siren :: Temptress
10. Plated :: Metal (Restaurant)

A shadow on the screen

I thought at first this was the graphics card going - if you look in the top left hand corner of the screen shot you'll see a rectangular shadow on the screen, but it doesn't appear all the time and its appearance tends to coincide with my starting a particular application (amarok - which I use to play music). It - the shadow - doesn't vanish when I close amarok and doesn't appear every time. Though, if it were hardware, I doubt if I could get a screenshot of the problem! I wonder if it is trying to talk to kwin (the kde window manager) which I'm not running? This screenshot with a huge clear space for admiring the background is me running ubuntu using fluxbox as a window manager. This problem has only occurred in the past week or so and I've not much longer been using the closed source nvidia driver, maybe that's the issue?

Delvig, Delvig!

Now here's something Good Friday-ish, from Dmitri Shostakovich's bleakest Symphony - No 14 - it really is a song cycle on a series of poems around the theme of death, comes this setting of a poem by Küchelbecker.

Küchelbecker was a Russian poet who saw exile under one corrupt Russian regime, Shostakovich experienced constant harrassment from another corrupt - now Soviet regime. I'm sure there was some empathetic feeling in these words:

O Delvig, Delvig! What is the reward
for lofty deeds and poetry?
For talent what comfort is there
among villains and fools?

A cynical, old composer, but he, in the end draws something of a consolation in this setting.

Simon's cat

An early Easter present has appeared in the (fairly flat) shape of a new Simon's cat video:

Teaser Tuesday - 19 April

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!

Coming to a clump of larches, she cried, 'Look! What did I tell you? The sun!' The golden hair of the larches shone out against a milky blue sky.

This is Bruce Chatwin's On the Black Hill which I've returned to after diverting onto more pressing reading. my last teaser from the book was here. No tumultuous events just a gentle tale of rural inhabitants.

Mutterings - 17 April

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

1. Director :: Film
2. Operation :: Painful
3. 30 minutes :: Theatre
4. Bald :: Patch
5. Calls :: Over
6. Distant :: Remote
7. Lightweight :: Insubstantial
8. Difficult :: Case
9. Half dozen :: Eggs
10. Boss :: Manager

Letting down holy socks

Here's an unseasonal thought:

..you have to accept the uncomfortable gifts that Advent offers: not gold, frankincense and myrrh, but waiting, despair, judgement. The saintly road is not so much about striving to pull up holy socks as letting them slide down. Not that you sag in holiness, be we are asked to adopt a discipline of surrender. ... The Church is for the most part in the fast lane, being driven harder than it can faithfully go. It is hyperactive with false hope.

from David Wood's 'Dark Prayer', letters written to the Community of the Three Hours

Teaser Tuesday - 12 April

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!

My turn to choose our book group's monthly book has come around again and rather than make a guess, possibly getting something no-one (including me!) likes I've gone for safety and a re-read - though I think it is a far from unchallenging book. Here's the teaser:

At one end of the promenade the notes of the brassband bounce like audible midges. At the far end, from the Kursaal's thé dansant salon, comes the subdued whine of a string quartet. Young women, slightly tipsy, and therefore, Bella assumes, probably American, come out of Damilano's wearing beach pyjamas and hats shaped like cones.

I thought I'd better include an extra sentence with something happening in it rather than just mood setting (but what similes!). 1930's Italy, the stillness before the storm - you just know unpleasant things and casual cruelties are about to be recalled. I last read it, shortly after publication back in October 2009.

Ian at 60

A few days late - Janis Ian is 60 this month, here she is on the Old Grey Whistle Test (of blessed memory)

at seveneen - recalling teenage cruelties, indulgent maybe but beautifully crafted.

Mutterings - 10 April

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

1. Analytical :: Chemistry (many years ago, my dad used to get this magazine
2. Production :: Line
3. Softball :: American
4. Uniform :: Constant
5. Intangible :: Smoke
6. Grill :: Barbeque
7. Second base :: Throw
8. Citizen :: Smith (I don't think I've ever seen the series, I was really getting there via Winston Smith)
9. Celery :: Salt
10. Opera :: Seria

More thoughts on the diploma

A few months back (well June 2010), I blogged about my proposed programme for my attempt at the ABRSM piano diploma. I've thought a bit more and decided the Ravel Sonatine was a bit ambitious - well at least to do it in the next 12 months, so it has been dropped and the Debussy Sarabande from 'Pour le Piano' added instead, I briefly had some Fauré in with it as a Gallic pair of pieces but, at the moment, I've decided there's too much danger of hitting the time limit! So here's today's view of the programme:

• Scarlatti Sonatas in C K308 and K309
• Debussy Sarabande (Pour le Piano)
• Messiaen Vingt Regards No 2 - Regard de l'étoile
• Mompou Musica Callada XIII
• Brahms Op 116 No 2 A minor
• Chopin Mazurka C# minor Op 50 No 3
• Beethoven Bagatelle b minor Op 126

Here's Christopher Taylor playing the Messiaen Regard de l'étoile
and here is Richter with two versions of the Beethoven Bagatelle:
Ferocious playing - especially in the earlier performance, I don't think I'll quite manage that energy!
You'll see, if you compare with the previous blog post that I've swapped around the Brahms and Chopin as, I think, the bare octaves at the end of the Chopin will anticipate nicely the start of the Beethoven!
Just a matter of getting the notes under the fingers!

Teaser Tuesday - 5 April

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!

Last 100 pages now of last week's book, intentionally choosing a different style!

Do wonder if my brother liked boys as well as girls too, or if my vice is mine alone. Wonder if he died celibate. Think of those troopers, lying together, cowering, alive; cold, dead.

had to include that extra sentence! Or I could have chosen:

Meronym looked back anxin' diresome. Weren't no sign of our chasers yet so she swung down to the ground an' peered at the pain.

The switches in styles between sections makes a difficult read - David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas - let's see if it is rewarding!

Music and Silence

In his Musica Callada, the Catalan composer Federico Mompou prefaces book 2 with the following comment:

It is difficult to translate and express the true sense of "Musica Callada" in a language other than Spanish. St John of the Cross the great mystic poet writes/sings in one of his most beautiful poems: "La Musica Callada, la Soledad Sonora"seeking to express a music which at the same time is the voice of silence. Music keeeps its own "Callada" voice, i.e. "that which is silent" whilst in its solitude making music.

(my translation from the French)
Here's no 26 from the set of 28 pieces:

reboot? - this is linux!

Just had a scary few minutes, this morning I was unable to logon the home mailserver (running mandriva 2010.1) across the local network - the process connected, opened up a terminal window and just hung, never getting to a prompt! Sunday lunch over, I tried opening up a term when sitting at the machine with the problems and there too, no xterm! Fortunately I was already logged in and had root (admin) access. Looking back in the logs I saw a crash in ssh (which I use to get onto the mailserver from other machines) - in ssh-block-Allow. I could understand ssh problems causing a problem with remote access - but why was local access a problem? Even a Control - C failed to interrupt whatever was running - and I could check that nothing was hogging the CPU.
I looked through any recent updates to the machine and saw nothing likely, googling only gave me my tweet for help(!) so I hurriedly connected the backup drive, did a machine backup - I was glad I already had root access and then tried a reboot. This failed to work - wouldn't shutdown with a message:

could not log bootup - already in use

so a magic key shutdown (using the sysRq key) was resorted to.
A few deep breaths later and the system rebooted and I logged in - then I realised the consequence of the ssh crash - one of the system scripts which run when you open up a terminal checks whether the machine is running ssh and, if so, asks you to unlock the key - for passwordless logins - if ssh is confused - as it evidently was - maybe that script was hanging there.
So I guess killing and restarting sshd would have avoided the reboot as to why ssh was broken that's another issue!
At least the server had been up for a month so it wasn't too unstable!

Mutterings - 3 March

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

1. Limited :: company
2. Zombie :: flesh-eating
3. Energy :: drink
4. Proof :: 20% (alcohol!)
5. Hassle :: annoyance
6. Peep :: peer
7. Jogger :: Mick (not quite a deliberate mis-read)
8. Hunt :: Jeremy (a cabinet minister, m'lud)
9. Career :: plans (ho!)
10. Plants :: bedding

(but I believe it's April!)

Teaser Tuesday - 29 March

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'm afraid I was away last week so missed out on this post, but here is one for this week!

The engine makes a lazy, leonine roar - the VW reverses too fast. Joe Napier thumps into the back, yells, and Luisa glimpses him hopping like a slapstick actor.

This is David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas - I was tempted to include several teasers from various parts of the book but maybe that fact is too much of a spoiler, or is it? I don't know yet but it is a compelling read so far! Here's a good summary of what it's about.

Robert Tear

The death has been announced of the tenor Robert Tear

Thomas Morley - I saw my lady weep. Also much associated - for me - with the music of Michael Tippett.

Been away

DSCF8390, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

I've been away and here is a photo towards sunset in Sussex. Hopefully things will gradually reconnect and there'll be some significant content here!

Mutterings - 27 March

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

1. Recommendation :: restaurant
2. Toilet paper :: loo roll
3. Scissors :: stone
4. Blaze :: Hill (visible from the house we lived in, in my teenage years)
5. Frame :: Window
6. Process :: complete
7. Flight :: plan
8. Irish :: eyes
9. Glasses :: sun
10. Campaign :: medals

A different pace?

A film taken from a streetcar in San Francisco though an area destroyed by the 1906 earthquake. Stephen Hough says this film from from 4 days before the earthquake though the youtube poster claims it is 1905 - there's various other dates floating around in the comments on Hough's blog.
A different attitude to traffic but with those folk diving across the road in front of things I'm not sure that it's much slower!

Mutterings - 20 March

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

1. Jacob :: Ladder (biscuits?)
2. Green :: Schubert (Die schöne Müllerin -

   I'll clothe myself in green, in green weeping willow, my love's so fond of green. I'll seek out a cypress grove, a heath full of green rosemary, my love's so fond of green.

   )
3. Cupcake :: another
4. Acts :: Romans
5. Thunderous :: Presence
6. President :: Obama
7. Anxiety :: attack
8. Matter :: dark
9. Diner :: Dejeuner
10. Absence :: fonder

An Education

The final film of Silk Screen's 2010-2011 season was Nick Hornby's adaption of Lynn Barber's book 'An Education', here's the trailer:

some wonderful scenes and details, funny and yet there's the emotional punch hiding in the background of a 16 year old being seduced (in many ways) by an older man. Carey Mulligan is wonderful as the youngster, but Molina is excellent as the father also seduced by Peter Sarsgaard's winning ways. I intend to read the book and here's the Guardian review and here's another which is worth the read:

An Education plays out rather like a diary read. When you write of exciting moments in your life, you don’t need to elaborate on certain things, like best friends’ names or schoolwork, and this film doesn’t bother to either.

The showing was followed by the society's AGM - the most highly rated - by the audiences - film of the season was In the Valley of Elah, which, alas, we didn't see with the events of last year. Before it I was educated in the ways of projecting the films - so future reviews here maybe less impartial!
Back on 'An Education' both of us bridled at the letter from Oxford University - obviously the college system was thought to be too complicated for viewers - I also spotted a cup design in one of the scenes of which I still have a piece (I bought mine in the 70's).

Teaser Tuesday - 15 March

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!

After the Second Lesson she risked a sidelong glance and saw his red hands on the red buckram binding of his prayerbook.
She blushed in confusion and slipped on her gloves.

Romance amonst a farming community of Wales in Bruce Chatwin's On the Black Hill. Harsh austere but with lovely flashes of humour - I think I'm going to enjoy this! I've only read his Utz before.

Mutterings - 13 March

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

1. Judge :: Jeffreys (Dredd)
2. Safe :: and sound
3. Boulevard :: Raspail (harking back to where I stayed in Paris on an exchange trip in '68)
4. 27 :: 28 (or 3 cubed)
5. Next :: clothes shop
6. Ma’am :: Butler
7. Desktop :: application
8. Club :: Hellfire - there's also the Marine Commando Club - frequented by Julian and Sandy (Kenneth Williams and Hugh Paddick)
9. Violet :: Scream and scream and scream (Violet Elizabeth Bott - I had to look up the name)
10. Enamel :: tooth

Avoir des enfants...

Last night there was a French Film evening at Macclesfield College and after a buffet cooked by the catering students (you take a risk! - but every time I've been it has been marvellously cooked and served) they showed Rémi Bezançon's Le Premier Jour du Reste de ta Vie (I don't think I need a translation of the title). A funny and moving film about the inter-generational gap, growing up and the way patterns replicate themselves down the generations. It was a great hit in France - mainly by word of mouth - not a lot happens in the film but it is the little telling details. Maybe there's over-much focus on the family - surely there'd have been partners at, for example, the scattering of the ashes scene? Death looms large - particularly for dogs(!) but it has a tender and affirming message. A couple of reviews are here and here's a a blogger's take on it. Clément Courouve, who introduced it, said that he saw new details and themes each time he's watched it and I shall probably be re-watching...

Tigers and Tables

Yesterday afternoon found me in Manchester, initially for a concert at the RNCM as part of their Judith Weir festival 'Tigers Under the Table' three works:

• Judith Weir Piano Trio Two
• Tom Harrold New work (world première)
  
• Judith Weir Airs from Another Planet

I should have made notes but, for me, the Piano Trio Two was the most appealing - a meditative work for the traditional ensemble; the new work was a wind quintet (flute/oboe/horn/clarinet/basoon with doublings for piccolo and saxophone) and the final work used a variation on that wind ensemble. It was enjoyable lunchtime.
In the evening a complete change of culture for the Manchester blog meet at Common on Edge St, a very crowded and noisy affair - but good to meet lots of folk I saw at the last meeting, now new twitter feeds to follow and lots of un-tigered tables to have free drinks and cup-cakes around. Picture here - drinks kindly provided by I love to Love - there I must have been bribed sufficiently.

Teaser Tuesday - 8 March

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!

Well it was yesterday, this is a bit late!

She was sitting at the end of her bed, dressed and ready, suitcase standing by her feet. She had on a navy-blue duffel coat he had not seen before so that he supposed some friend of hers had called by her lodgings to bring her things she needed.

Patrick Gale's 'Notes from an exhibition' - our latest book group's monthly read. I received it on Monday so the above tease is from early in the book.

Mutterings - 6 March

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

1. Ugly :: Sister
2. Shed :: Garden (Two-Sheds)
3. Contrary :: Mary
4. Yellow :: Belly
5. New Jersey :: US
6. Point :: Counterpoint
7. Actually :: Love
8. Endeavor :: Brave
9. Blondie :: Singer
10. Speck :: Ham (sudden swerve into German!)

Sublime silliness

After a discussion on Poulenc's Gloria in the midst of last night's piano lesson (Uttoxeter Choral Society and Sandbach Voices are performing it next week), I spent this morning with Poulenc's Les Mamelles de Tirésias

Written in the midst of the occupation of France in the 1940's Poulenc sets words of Guillaume Apollaire. This YouTube clip is from the first act. It gets madder - here's the wikipedia summary of part of act two:

The curtain rises to cries of "Papa!" The husband's project has been a spectacular success, and he has given birth to 40,049 children in a single day. A visiting Parisian journalist asks how he can afford to feed the brood, but the husband explains that the children have all been very successful in careers in the arts, and have made him a rich man with their earnings. After chasing the journalist off, the husband decides to raise a journalist of his own, but is not completely pleased with the results.

..and ends with a call for the audience to go and produce children:

Ecoutez, ô Français, les leçons de la guerre
Et faites des enfants, vous qui n'en faisiez guère
Cher public: faites des enfants!

I was introduced to this piece in the 1970's - at Cambridge - where a theatre group performed this with Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale. I went to see it twice - in part because it was so enjoyable partly because on the first visit I ended up sitting behind a tourist couple who thought they were here to see the Cambridge Footlights and were somewhat surprised at what they were served up with! They were rather restless so I got a far better chance the next night with various of the performers appearing from among the audience. On the Footlights connection - could Monty Python have appeared without some of these surreal pieces of French humour - I'm also thinking of Zazie. There appear to be quite a few film clips from various performances of this work on youTube.
Probably not suitable watching for International Women's day later this week!

Samson & Delilah

Last night's film said very little but it said an awful lot. What happens when the language you have belongs to the community which cages and keeps you in check. A film of the aboriginal community in Australia. The images and sounds will live with you. A review here

Amaryllis

Amaryllis
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

Once, when I wandered in the woods alone,
An old man tottered up to me and said,
“Come, friend, and see the grave that I have made
For Amaryllis.” There was in the tone
Of his complaint such quaver and such moan
That I took pity on him and obeyed,
And long stood looking where his hands had laid
An ancient woman, shrunk to skin and bone.

Far out beyond the forest I could hear
The calling of loud progress, and the bold
Incessant scream of commerce ringing clear;
But though the trumpets of the world were glad,
It made me lonely and it made me sad
To think that Amaryllis had grown old.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

I see the Amaryllis is out earlier this year than last.
Ther's a certain similarity between the poem for last year and this - but I suppose the 'flowers of the field..'

Teaser Tuesday - 1 March

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!

This is the teaser from very early on in the book with much water yet to run under the bridge:

In a televised version of one of Nancy's books, these child hunts were given a more sinister connotation with the children running terrified through woods while their father, on horseback, thundered after them with a pack of hounds baying. In fact the children loved it - they thought the hound was - 'so clever'.

Mary S Lovell's 'The Mitford Girls' - our bookgroup's book of the month - actually last month's book I need to get a move on and finish it before next week's discussion on it! Here's the Observer review by Lynn Barber which I linked to on the groups facebook page.

Oh what a shriek! What a hoot! What a tease! They're back! Those mahvellous, multi-faceted Mitford girls - Diana the fascist, Decca the Communist, Unity the Nazi and Debo the duchess, Nancy the novelist and whatshername who kept chickens and had a blue Aga to match her eyes.

gives you a glimpse of the style...
I've now finished my re-read of Arditti's Easter (which I teased last week) I'd forgotten how good it was though you do need to know a fair bit about the Church of England to fully appreciate his analysis (in fiction) of its foibles!

What shall I do in March?

see more Lolcats and funny pictures
now that February is nearly over...

The cat of Christmas' past

There's a new Simon's cat out (but you've probably alredy seen it!)

You too can be the 303rd viewer of this film....! (you won't understand this unless you go to the youtube page - and won't then if youtube fix the problem!)

Mutterings 27 February

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

1. Leaning :: Tower of Pisa
2. Projects :: Overhangs
3. 404 :: Page not found
4. Page :: Boy
5. Twiiter :: typo! I see the plain text has the correct spelling, so:- Identi.ca
6. Renaissance :: Man
7. Webinar :: Seminar
8. Community :: Values
9. Illustrate :: Page
10. Clean slate :: Chalk

Smashing a violin

Having put a link to this elsewhere, I though I ought to put it here too:

(you might be too righteous to read it where I posted!)
This is the climax of Maxwell Davies' Eight Songs for a Mad King, a piece about George III's madness and death - the youtube page claims that this is the comedic climax but I think it's far too dark. I saw this piece with the Fires of London back in the 70's where the instrumentalists were all in huge bird cages and the singer reaches in through the bars and grabs the instrument. It is difficult for me to listen to Handels 'Comfort Ye' without it summoning up Maxwell-Davies' swung version - but that's not in the bit above so you're safe!
You probably don't want to invite this singer to this years Royal wedding!
I do love the comedic touch with the 'cello at the end of the extract though...!

Teaser Tuesday -22 February

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'm still reading Michael Arditti's Easter, so here's anoter teaser from his novel about the Church of England:

'Tradition or not, it's a bit bloody much to expect me to ponce down the nave with that bunch of flowers as if I were Rudolph Valentino'
'I think you mean Nureyev.'
'Same thing. They were both wooftahs.'

Extending the teaser slightly...and if I say that the first speaker is Philip I'll let you guess who the other one is!

Mutterings - 20 February

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

1. Maroon :: Purple
2. Save :: his people Israel (1662 deeply embedded there)
3. Smithereens :: Smash
4. Conversation :: Chat
5. Visual :: effect/Studio (arrgh Microsoft)
6. Experience :: Life
7. Steady :: as she goes...
8. Wives :: Merry ... of Windsor
9. Glass :: of sherry (thanks!)
10. String :: theory

The White Ribbon

Last night's film at the Silk Screen was Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon as the linked review puts it:

..a ghost story without a ghost, a whodunnit without a denouement, a historical parable without a lesson..

A tale of Germany just before the First World War where everyone (almost) knew their place, a peaceful rural cummunity where the unsettling and nightmarish is only just below the surface. 143 minutes - but it gripped and carried you along with the narration of one looking back from a perspective of one looking back across even more nightmarish events. It will unsettle you - but do see it! I was reminded of last seasons El Orfanato (the Orphanage) another film placing innocence and threat of the young alongside each other.
Here's the trailer to the White Ribbon:

Maybe you'll feel frustrated at the end of the film but the images and story will live with you!

Attention Manchester (and area) bloggers!

There will be another Manchester bloggers meeting on Tuesday March 8th 6:30 to 8:30 at Common on Edge Street. Even if you're slightly out of the area - as I am! - you'll be made very welcome. I've only been to one previous meeting but it was well worth the trip into town to put some faces to names (and pseudonyms!). Full details are on Manchizzle - I've no idea, yet, whether I'll be there but it's tentatively in the diary!

Teaser Tuesday - 15 February

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!

Having just finished Manzoni's The Betrothed, I can't resist a far from random quote from the last few pages, not really a spoiler I think:

That's not the sort of Latin I'm afraid of. That's an honest, holy sort of Latin like you get at Mass; and besides, you clerical gentlemen have to read what's written in the book in those cases. No, no; I was talking about that blackguardly out-of-church Latin which creeps up behind a man in the middle of a conversation.

Three sentences too!

Jeunes filles au jardin

Stephen Hough playing Federico Mompou's Jeunes filles au jardin:
I'm currently learning this piece, I see that Jordi Masó repeats the 'big tune' (a wonderful marking of 'chantez avec la fraîcheur de l'herbe humide) as does Hough - but in my edition (Salabert) there's no repeat mark - is this repeat common practice or is my edition faulty? To add confusion Masó plays the repeat 2 bars before the final 'Calme', Hough one bar before that tempo change - it could be a memory slip by Hough in view of the live performance. Does anyone have another edition of this work with real repeat marks? If so where are the markings? - it seems a pity to let that tune go without the repeat!
[Later]Thanks to a tweet from Stephen Hough - the composer plays the repeat in his own recording - there is only the Salabert edition of the work.

Mutterings - 13 February

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

1. Excitedly :: Agog
2. Rolls :: Sandwiches
3. Owls :: Wise
4. Cover :: ones feet (an interesting Biblical euphemism)
5. Jubilee :: Line (London Underground)
6. Heartthrob :: Fan
7. Pizza :: Marinara
8. Constipation :: too much of the above?
9. Weightless :: 2001 (the film )
10. Truck :: Have no ... with

fluxbox and ubuntu screen size issues?

kdeapp-menus
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

I use fluxbox and on both my ubuntu installations it appears that there is a problem with that window manager - when I try to maximize a window it expands to cover just the lower half of the screen. In addition some applications (those using Qt) popup menus in unexpected places! If you look at the screen shot of amarok - I've just clicked on Settings but the menu appears half way down the window - at the place where maximise thinks is the top of the physical screen. If I 'maximize' the application - or move the window down to that point - then the popup menu appears at the correct point. Is anyone else using fluxbox with ubuntu - are you also seeing this issue?
I also use fluxbox with the mandriva Linux distribution and there maximise etc works correctly, so either they#ve applied a fix to fluxbox or something at a lower level is not signalling screen size correctly.

Teaser Tuesday - 8 February

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!

Yes, I'm still working my way through Alessandro Manzoni's The Betrothed, only 200 pages to go!

And while in certain parts those who were totally abandoned and reduced to extremity were raised up from the ground, brought back to life and given food and lodging for a time, there were a hundred other places where their brothers fell, languished and died without any help or comfort.
All day long a confused murmur of imploring voices could be heard in the streets.

The Thirty Years war and then, the plague, hits Milan!

Samantha oups ! - Samantha au salon de coiffure

Here's an opportunity to keep your French up to scratch.

Not had one of these (a «Samantha», not a coiffure!!) for over a year and I've just found their facebook page. Just slightly camp but beautifully judged!

Snowdrops

Snowdrops
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

The flowers have started to appear after the winter. As I've just listened to Ivor Gurney's wonderful setting of these lines of Edward Thomas, this picture seemed appropriate.

Snow

In the gloom of whiteness,
In the great silence of snow,
A child was sighing
And bitterly saying, 'Oh,
They have killed a white bird up there on her nest,
The down is fluttering from her breast!'
And still it fell through the dusky brightness
On the child crying for the bird of the snow.

Mutterings 6 February

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

1. Trash :: Taking out
2. Abs :: Absolute - Abs is a c++ function returning the absolute value of a number - there isn't this informative!
3. Dating :: Speed
4. Hooked :: caught
5. Face :: moon
6. Algebra :: symbols
7. Reading :: age
8. Horrendous :: situation
9. Looks :: Losing ones (am I starting to worry - a bit late!)
10. Python :: Idle - that's a reference to the python computer language where tools are based on the Monty Python programme (IDLE is the/a python IDE - editor test environment) as well as being a reference to Eric Idle.

Cloud detail

Cloud detail
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

The spectacular dawn view from outside our house a few days ago. There's a higher foot bridge just a short distance away but there the view gets obstructed by the local council car-park! If you go to the photo's flick page - you'll see next to it in the photostream some pictures taken from the bridge.

Teaser Tuesday - 1 February

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!

Following our recent trip to see Jesica Hausner's Lourdes, I see that the latest Michael Arditti novel - Jubilate is also about Lourdes - this second link describes an Arditti visit to Lourdes a few years ago, and from the first link I nick this quote from the book about the place:

Love. The place may be crass and exploitative, but the pilgrims who come here do so in good faith. Like everywhere else, that’s been invested with a sense of the sacred. It has an aura. It’s that aura that inspires people to keep coming. But it’s also us, or rather they, who’ve given it that aura: their hopes, their faith and above all, their love. It’s not something that’s beamed down from above.

Here's the Guardian review which alerted me to the publication.
But enough about the book I'm not reading, the Arditti review made me want to go and re-read his earlier book about sex, death, lies and the Church of England 'Easter' - written in 2000 - which seems aeons ago now:

The world has changed so much so fast that the modesty of her life no longer seems a virtue but a sign of its insignificance. As she gazes at the battlefield banners and the war heroes plaques, all she can think is how little her life has been and how little difference it has made.

(she's sitting in St George's chapel Westminster Abbey). That's a splendid random quotation but I'll hope to see how well the book stands the test of what's happened over the last 10 years. This is what Stephen Bates wrote about it all those years ago. And I'll keep an eye out in the local library for Jubilate!

Mutterings - 30 January

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

1. Agency :: Delay, Money, Grrrrr (eventually - I hope - it can be blogged)
2. Ministrations :: Comforting (the death notice cliche)
3. Charlie :: Brooker (Guardian columnist), .. Brown
4. Bricks :: in the Wall (Pink Floyd)
5. Contingencies :: Possibilities
6. Dad :: Memories
7. Zoned :: Parking
8. Direct :: Line (Insurance company - the power of advertising!)
9. Team :: Spirit
10. Cave :: Man/Painting

Der Frühling will kommen

This is no doubt deeply contrary, but here is Elly Ameling singing Schubert's "Der Hirt auf dem Felsen" (the Shepherd on the Rock)

Contrary, because on hearing of Margaret Price's death today I was looking around for her performance I was looking for a performance of this work. I've not heard it for many years, I used to have a tape of a performance by Price (I'm pretty sure) of this work as part of a 1970's concert from London consisting of Schubert and Webern (both minaturists) and ending with this gloriously sad work. Make sure you listen to part 2 - a vocal and clarinet cadenza. The words and English translation are on the youTube page.
I don't like the switches in scale of the score for when Ameling is singing, two bars at a time is far too little!

Teaser Tuesday - 25 January

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 bring this up here because there is sometimes a misunderstanding about why we enjoy certain styles of music, a belief that we relish above all the character of the sentiment, the emotional aura of the music. Yet, around 1810, when Beethoven was still very controversial, many were horrified by their first contact with his music and Goethe's friend and Mendelssohn's teacher, Georg Zelter, even described the taste for it as something like sexual perversion.

Charles Rosen trying to get to the bottom of our response to music in his Music and Sentiment - the link is to Simon Callow's review in the Guardian which is worth reading on its own account!

Eighteenth-century composers, for example, played with the relationship between dissonance and consonance, dissonance creating a tension which is then released, to gratifying effect, by a consonance. Audiences knew and expected this pattern; they weren't taught it; they simply imbibed it with the rest of the culture.

Rosen is not an easy read but it is usually worthwhile, I was introduced to his book the Classical Style (thanks Paul!) while at college, and his works are always worth the effort.
I see that the preface to this volume says:

I am deeply indebted to Robert Marshall, emeritus professor of Brandeis University

so unfortunately, I guess that's not me! I was very tempted to pick a teaser from page 36 where he quotes Robert Marshall (a Handel scholar I think, unless there's another in the field!) 'Robert Marshall has suggested to me...' but unfortunately those two sentences make around 15 lines!
The book was a Christmas present and I'm, at last, getting around to it!

One of these suggestions...

Whilst researching the Blue Danube performances from the previous post, I spotted that one of the YouTube suggestions appears to be rather different from the others!

Click the image for a larger version. I hope you're grateful that I haven't linked to it.

Arabesques

.. on "An der schönen blaune Donau" Here's a closeup version of the impossibilities of this fun transcription of J Strauss' Blue Danube played by Sim Keng Boon.

There are versions of this played by Lhevinne, Bolet and Wild on youtube but they don't have the video! There's also an even more close up version here played in a sitting room on an upright! That one comes in two parts but you get a very good idea of the difficulties it's a slow performance though and make it look easy - the one above is 9 minutes as against 16 - well it is just slightly difficult, make sure you stay for all of the above video!
Was this the piano transcription that Tom (of Tom and Jerry) played after 4 lessons? There doesn't appear to be a Yuja Wang performance of this around - she'd probably eat it for breakfast!

Mutterings - 23 January

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

1. Girlfriend :: musical (the 60's or something - later ah I was really thinking of Sandy Wilson's The Boyfriend)
2. Crushed :: ice
3. Source :: of the Nile
4. Corner :: Shop
5. Gossip :: Canker
6. Encounter :: Brief
7. Make an offer :: he couldn't refuse
8. Stylish :: girlfriend
9. Profit :: and loss
10. Waste :: recycle

Chancing your luck

This evening at the SilkScreen was Jessica Hausner's film Lourdes, starting off with a documentary feel it tells the tale of a group visit to the pilgrimage centre. Gradually you are drawn in - I felt very disengaged until well into the film but Sylvie Testud's performance as a woman with MS is mesmeric. Questions are raised as to the nature of miracle what if the miracle doesn't last and of healing in all ways. Hausner stands back and lets you see what's going on - the Guardian review refers to the miracle thus:

It is a moment of astonishment that punctures the rational fabric of the film – there is no clearly comparable sense here, but certainly a batsqueak of anxiety that the miraculous might be real, and that it is therefore just as alarming, unsettling and threatening – and perhaps, also, just as absurd and banal – as everything else in the real world.

That review also suggests irritation with the final scene - I found myself more absorbed by the tension at that moment.
Here's the trailer:

yes it's the Spanish version of the trailer, I can't find a French one or the English at the moment...if I do I'll replace it! This mini-documentary also looks worth a watch.

The Romantic Imagination

When I read those lines I quoted in my last post I was immediately reminded of this song from Mahler's Der Tambourg'sell - a drummer boy is being led to the gallows for desertion (cue lots of military style music) and bids farewell to, not only his comrades and officers, but the mountains. Here it is sung by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the film isn't good but listen to the music and the final eerie darkness.

...Gute Nacht, ihr Marmelstein’,
Ihr Berg’ und Hügelein!
Gute nacht, ihr Offizier’,
Korporal’ und Musketier’!
Gute Nacht, ihr Offizier’,
Korporal’ und Grenadier’!

Ich schrei mit heller Stimm’,
Gute Nacht! Gute Nacht!
Von euch ich Urlaub nimm.

You'll find the translation in the subtitles and also here.

Teaser Tuesday - 18 January

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!

Farewell, you mountains which rise straight out of the water and up to the sky; you jagged, uneven peaks, which we who have grown up with you know so well, and carry impressed in our minds, like the faces of our own family. Farewell you streams, the murmur of whose voices we can tell apart like the voices of our oldest friends. White houses spread glimmering across the slope, like flocks of grazing sheep, farewell!

Cheating slightly with 3 sentences but that last one is so beautiful! Another extract from Manzoni's The Betrothed(I Promessi Sposi) - the sad end of an otherwise very funny chapter! It's a powerful illustration of the change in the Romantic attitude to nature and mountains - earlier writers would have had a fit of the vapours at a mere mention of jagged peaks! The heroine flees from her home into the unknown city to escape a fate worse than death at the hands of the novel's deep-dyed villain.

Mutterings - 16 January

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

1. Bootie :: Snudge (I see it's actually Bootsie and Snudge the unreliability of memory!
2. User :: Guide
3. Child :: Process (firmly stuck in an IT groove here)
4. Scribe :: Pharisee (I was tempted to go with Scribus to keep the IT connection)
5. Manager :: General
6. Upsetting :: Distressing
7. Puddles :: wonderful - 'when all the world was puddle wonderful ee cummings
8. Hopeful :: Faith
9. Procrastination :: errr do I need to finish this?
10. Statistics :: Bar charts

This blog has gone a bit quiet - too much real life, I'm hoping to get things back on track in the next few days.

Mutterings - 9 January

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

1. Speech :: Figure of
2. Meredith :: Orr (daughter of a friend)
3. Consensus :: Wide
4. Attack :: drone
5. Sue :: for libel
6. Voted :: (Civic) Duty
7. Epic :: Fail
8. Checking in :: Version Control
9. Dishwasher :: New! (ours arrived this week)
10. Underneath :: the Arches

View from the Bridge

Hibel Rd at Sunset - ii
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

Very close to our house there's a pedestrian bridge over a local small piece of dual carriageway. When I was walking over it this evening I noticed the clouds and dashed home for a camera and took this - and another picture also on flickr. I should have stayed for longer to see the light fade and the moon appear - which is now fairly close to the sun in the sky. Still I rather like this - maybe I should trim it to remove the car lights?

Teaser Tuesday - 4 January

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 knew he was on the verge of saying something lawyerish he might regret, so he stood up and breathed in deeply. 'Shall we talk about books instead?' he said.' Can I have a look at your collection? I caught a glimpse when we were coming in.'

Another piece from our book club book - Sebastian Faulks A week in December - I am mostly enjoying this though the quantity of financial detail that Faulks feels obliged to load the text with is a bit of a drag. Here's John Crace's hatchet job on the book from his Digested Read article:

John Veals gawped at Olya on the Naked Russian Babes website before planning his run on the Allied Bank and cleaning up on commodities at the same time. He wasn't at all sure anyone was that interested in the minutiae of the banking system, but Seb had told him he had done loads of research and he was buggered if he was going to waste it.

First Teaser of the year and I'm spending the New Year finishing up the books of last year, but I'll soon be onto the new!

Mutterings - 2 January

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

1. Carwash :: Hose
2. Intuition :: Female(!)
3. Desperate :: Measures (or Dan)
4. Tears :: for Fears. Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle and its lake of tears also lurks in the background
5. Purple :: Haze (or Deep!)
6. Storage :: Facilities
7. Duct :: Tape (or Dr Who where heating ducts are always very popular)
8. System :: SYS$SYSTEM (there's a bit of VAX/VMS for you!) - also path - list of directories for the system account determining places the computer looks for executable programs - I was trying to make this clear but I expect the explanation only complicates things?
9. Cabinet :: Maker
10. Manager :: System (that's me!)

Shutlingsloe New Year's Day 2011

The view from the top
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

It didn't look a good day for a walk up Shutlingsloe (or indeed anywhere up in the hills at 11am but the rain ceased and the clouds cleared and we had a swift walk up to the top - a traditional walk for All Saints Macclesfield for today. Back for welcome soup and rolls at Carol's!
The complete set of photos can be found here on flickr.
There seemed to be more ice and snow lower down than up on the summit maybe there were more sheltered spots.