The Oneiric Ocelot upgrade

The latest version of ubuntu was released last week and over the weekend I decided to try upgrading - this desktop was running the ealier version which had already been installed a few weeks, so I thought it would be pretty smooth as I hadn't had too much excuse for tweaking this machine! I think things are now running ok so let me highlight the issues I had:

• The upgrade of samba crashed - it gave a few error messages but didn't stop the overall upgrade - and I've reported bug 875172
• On completion of the upgrade I rebooted all went smoothly but I found that there was no sound - I deleted my .pulse directory adn logged in again and sound was now fixed.
• I use vm from within emacs for my email but occasionally use kmail in the case of graphic/link heavy emails - on Sunday I read a review of email clients in Linux Format magazine which gave kmail a resounding last place so I was thinking about migrating..but to that point I hadn't yet run kmail in the upgraded ubuntu. I tried running kmail and was confronted with a migration dialog - the new kmail uses a different email backend for storing data. Alas the migration failed... so I then started web searching! The problem was that akonadi was failing to start so I couldn't even view kmail with no unmigrated emails! To start akonadi I tried a manual

  akonadictl start

  but that still failed, I did a lot of searching, thought about moving to thunderbird - but there's no easy migration of data there.. and eventually I spotted this bug report which gave this recipe:

  sudo aa-complain mysqld
  sudo aa-complain mysqld-akonadi
  sudo /etc/init.d/apparmor reload
  akonadictl start

  I've not messed around with apparmor before so I wasn't clear as to what it did but I went on trust and the last command started akonadi ok. I started kmail and it ran! but with no data, I shut it down and tried the advertised command

  kmail-migrator --interactive

  But that complains the migration has already been done! You need to read the instructions here:

  If you have already attempted to run the migrator and it failed, you can re-run it manually by first deleting your
  ~/.kde/share/config/kmail-migratorrc file and your
  ~/.kde/share/config/kmail2rc file.
  Then you will need to run the migrator manually by hitting Alt-F2, and entering the following:
  kmail-migrator --interactive
  The program will run, and all your accounts and mails will be moved over to the Akonadi system.

  And following that kmail now runs ok. I hope the collection of the above instructions in one place helps anyone else struggling with the same problem - I don't know whether it's a general problem or just due to the previous configuration of the machine. For comparison,here are my experiences with the upgrade of the previous ubuntu release. One machine upgraded, 2 more to go!

Mutterings - 16 October

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

1. Neglected :: Pet
2. Sirens :: Seductive
3. Coordinate :: Graph
4. Mellow :: Tim (actually his surname was Mellows)
5. Oscar :: Dear
6. Facebook :: Friend
7. Whoop :: Triumph
8. Affluent :: Society
9. Battle :: Abbey (by the site of the Battle of Hastings)
10. Kisses :: Love and

Terragen again

I've not put a terragen render up in ages, and have nearly forgotten how to use it, I need a few tutorials - these might be a suitable start. This image is fairly basic but I hope to improve it...

If you click on the 'terragen' label at the foot of the post you'll see that this is windows software running very nicely under linux.

Teaser Tuesday - 18th October

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!

Despite the weather the wild daffodil buds are showing their first pale glimmer of colour. Their country name is the Lenten Lily, because they bloom in the liturgical season of Lent.

Spring approaches - at least in Katherine Swift's The Morville Hours! Another, like last week from our book group 'book of the month'.

Mutterings - 9 October

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

1. Fever pitch :: Excitment
2. Unwarranted :: Intrusion
3. Breaking :: News (Glass)
4. Stars :: in their Eyes
5. Thursday :: Man Who was (novel of GK Chesterton)
6. Tips :: PG (that's 2 for the power of advertising!)
7. Recommend :: Offer
8. Season :: Cold
9. Increased :: Exposure
10. Depressed :: Ill

Growing old (dis)-gracefully

On Wednesday was the second film of this season't Silkscreen - Chega de Saudade (Ballroom) of Lais Bodanzky, an affectionate study of growing old set in a São Paulo down-at-heel ballroom

I couldn't find a trailer with subtitles but this isn't the official trailer and has very little spoken dialogue! No punches pulled in its depiction of ageing and growth. Great fun! I was in charge of projection for the first time - so an apprehensive occasion - but all seems to have gone off smoothly!

Trouble!

Just in case someone isn't following me in other social media, here's the latest Simon's cat:

The Window

Say he is any man
anywhere set before the shop window
of life, full of comestibles
and jewels; to put out his hand
is to come against
glass; to break it is
to injure himself.

                     Shall he turn
poet and acquire them
in the imagination, gospeller
and extol himself for his abstention
from them?

                     What is he is not
called? I would put the manufacturers
there. Let them see the eyes
staring in, be splashed with the blood
of the shop-breakers; let them live
on the poet's diet, on the pocket-money
of the priest.

                     I see the blinds
going down in Europe, over the
whole world: the rich with everything to
sell, the poor with nothing to buy it with.

R S Thomas (Experimenting With An Amen 1986)
I'm reading this book - I'd missed out seeing this volume before and I was struck by Thomas' view of an acquisitive society. Particularly after this summer - in the UK - of riots and looting. Shall we offer pretence, a substitute for that which cannot be afforded?

Teaser Tuesday - 4 October

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 mother used to take me on retreats to Dominican abbeys, and while she was at her prayers, I - a child of eight or nine - would roam about the grounds or help the lay brother in charge of the gardens as he weeded the paths or dug the vegetable patch.
Among the books I brought with me to Morville was my mother's Dominican prayer book, containing a modern text of the Hours.

Katherine Swift's The Morville Hours - here is the Guardian review - it is our book group book of the month - only got it last night - but it looks rather good the story of a house and gardens told through the medium of the book of Hours.

Barbara Smith

Today was the funeral service for Barabara Smith - a much loved member of All Saints Church. She gave so much of herself to so many of us - the picture shows her with her husband John who died around 6 years ago.

Mutterings - 2 October

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

1. Quivering :: Wreck
2. Eclectic :: Mind
3. Superimpose :: Images
4. The best :: Deserve
5. Aches :: Pains
6. Vinyl :: Disc
7. Hot and cold :: in all rooms
8. Girls :: Showers (I'm afraid it followed from the previous!)
9. Wall :: Separation
10. Baby :: Oil

Teaser Tuesday - 27 Sept

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!

That was the way it was with shepherds on the telephone, though little by little, as they became more adept with it, and picked up a few of the necessary social skills, things got better, untill we finally got to a point where we could even exchange rudimentary pieces of information over the phone.
Mistakes however remianed inevitable.

I've, at last, got around to reading Chris Stewart's followup to Driving over Lemons - `A Parrot in the Pepper Tree' (that's a link to the Guardian review), I don't think I got on terribly well with his first book - which is why I didn't read the second - as Beth already had a copy of each - but after last autumn's walking in the Alpujarras I was encouraged to give this one a go - and it is certainly enjoyable. I must dig out my copy of the Genesis first lp - Chris Stewart was very briefly their drummer...

Not bad - the strings are definitely of their time but I can do without the chorus!

A slice of history

A slice of history, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

A photo of some of the remaining items on my mother's shelves - some of the chemical containers came from my Dad - from when British Schering closed its site in Hazel Grove - googling on Oblivon gave that interesting set of memories. (Note that all the pharmaceutical containers are long empty!)

Mutterings - 25 September

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

1. Clay :: Feet (of)
2. Eggs :: Bacon
3. Dress :: for dinner
4. Games :: Computer
5. Drummers :: Fifes
6. Proud :: Nation
7. Hoisted :: Petard
8. Feuding :: Tribes
9. Itching :: to
10. Remain :: Grave (remains...)

Branches..and birds

Last night was the first evening of the Silk Screen's new season which opened with Xavier Beauvois' Of Gods and Men (Des Hommes et des Dieux - Of Men and Gods - the director isn't happy at the transposition!).
An intense, slow moving film, it tells the true story of a small Cistercian (I think that's right rather than Trappist which some reviews have) monastery in Algeria and the monks struggle of faith and commitment to their community and to the local community in the face of a corrupt government and on the other hand of local Islamic extremists who see them as Western interlopers. The film gets inside the interior life of the monastery showing the liturgical life of faith as well as the interior struggle of the monks - being offered an easy exit by the government - but there is their long history of being there for their Muslim neighbours.I'd guess that being familiar with both faiths helps in understanding the film's journey. There's many very moving moments both in dialogue and in silence, a scene herding sheep comes to my mind, as well as the set-piece towards the end of the monks listening to Swan Lake and drinking wine together - I was reminded of Jean Renoir's film Au Revoir les Enfants - and it's use of Schubert - another example of a religious community under attack. This review is worth a read:

These Christians mean different things to people near them. To Algerian neighbors in their small town, they’re a source of free medicine and advice, not to mention homemade jam (looked like honey to me! (ed)) sold at a local market. To a government official who’s supposed to protect them, they’re a headache.
To the local army captain, who knows they succour anyone in need, they’re an aid to terrorism. And to the fundamentalist jihadists, these monks become many things: a willing or unwilling source of supplies, a mysterious force to be respected, a bargaining tool in times of war.

The above is a clip of the first contact between the monks and the jihadists - you'll find a link to the trailer for the film on the Silk Screen site (link at top of this posting - but not any more!) - I thought that trailer gave meaning to my title but it only includes fragments of the exchange so here's the full (but very short!) clip!
Here's a link to the Guardian review.

Teaser Tuesday - 20 September

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!

Not everyone is comfortable talking about the saints or the next world, but most people love the classic statement of life's meaning by St Augustine, which really says the same thing but more powerfully:

The thought of you stirs us so deeply that we cannot be content unless we praise you, because you have made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you.

A re-read, for me, of Margaret Hebblethwaite's Finding God in All Things (no relevant internet review that I could find - which is a pity as I found it pretty helpful last time I read it!

Mutterings - 18 September

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

1. Earrings :: gold (nose-Rings)
2. Tomorrow :: ..is another day (Monday)
3. Soft :: soap
4. Idiots :: fools
5. Portraits :: Landscapes
6. Handicap :: Disability
7. Collar :: Clerical
8. Blouse :: Silk
9. Wool :: Jumper
10. Statistic :: Bar Chart

Tea after the Quiet day

Tea after the Quiet day, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

After last night's dinner, I didn't stay up much longer and an early start of 6am I drove up to Great Hucklow and the Nightingale Centre for a parish quiet day led by Robert Atwell (the bishop of Stockport). lovely setting and very helpful looking back on life in the light of prayer. Around 50 of us were there from across the Macc Team Ministry.
I might have nodded briefly but I was kept pretty well awake!

A reunion

Trinity Hall the new(ish) library, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

..I've had a rather busy 24 hours - Friday was a trip to Cambridge for a 40th anniversary dinner. It was good to meet folk none of whom I've seen since 1975(!) so a lot of picking up threads and news of those who weren't there and a gentle dinner in the Graham Storey room - the remodelled JCR which back in the early 70's was a real gloomy dive! As you'll see from the pictures on flickr it is rather nicer now!
The photo is of the new college library jutting out impressively over the Cam. I was very impressed by the quality of the College gardens maybe I never saw them in September but I think it has been recently improved - these are the general gardens, unfortunately I didn't get into the fellows garden!

Teaser Tuesday - 14 Sept

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!

It was not Verimovo's first fire by any means, and, we would later learn it started like all the others: with a drunkard and a cigarette. We could see black smoke lifting in waves above the summit where the old mines stood, and then, an hour or so later, a bright snake of flame coming down the hill, throwing itself down and down on a path of dry grass and pinecones, following the wind along the mountain.

Even later to this Tuesday Teaser than last week!
From our Book Group book of the month - Téa Obreht's the Tiger's Wife. I finished this last night and am still very confused as to what it was about - I'll have to decide whether to dip back into bits of it, read reviews or have another go before the meeting next month!
Here's an extract from the Guardian review

The Tiger's Wife is a frisky tiger cub chasing its tail – it covers a lot of ground, growls a lot, and never quite gets there, but we have fun along the way. What the novel lacks in emotional depth, it makes up for in personality and sheer wackiness.

Mutterings - 11 September

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

1. Submission :: PhD
2. Lucy :: C S Lewis
3. Feather :: on the Breath of God
4. Magnetic :: Pole
5. Bowling :: Columbine
6. Stress :: Position
7. Sweetly :: Sleep
8. Creamy :: Pudding
9. Awaken :: Sleep
10. Beaten :: Defeated

Performing and Exposure

There's an article on Ian Bostridge - the tenor - in today's Guardian. It's all worth reading but the last lines struck me:

It's[Britten's Death in Venice] essentially about the loss of dignity of the artist. Aschenbach wants to be a grand person in grand clothes with a grand reputation, but that has cut off the sources of his creativity. What we have to do is essentially and necessarily undignified and exposing. As a performer you are mining bits of yourself in a way that is endlessly potentially humiliating. It's enormously satisfying. But you do tread a fine line."

Art and performing has to possess you (and maybe that an appropriate word in view of Bostridge's PhD), it can't be arm's length.

Civil Partnerships and Marriage

... the consequences of not allowing same-sex partnerships to have legal status with real force can really damage children... (h/t Geoff Coupe)

For a Friday evening

Here's a little something to enjoy after a busy week (assuming you had one)

A loving ripoff of Lehrer and (at one remove) of Gilbert & Sullivan. Probably a little difficult to sing after this evening's glass of red so I won't attempt it!

Teaser Tuesday - 6 September

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!

Signor Murino must surely be an optimist, as well as a non-Venetian, to have covered a floor in this part of the city with parquet, for the zone lay low, and the first serious acqua alta was sure to flow in here, destroying the wood and sweeping out both glue and varnish when the tide changed.
'Buon giorno?' he called again, taking a few steps towards the doorway and leaving a trail of raindrops on the floor behind him.

Another teaser, like last week, from Donna Leon's Acqua Alta - rather a lot on the venetian weather...posting a bit late I'm afraid!

Mutterings - 4 September

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

1. Cavern :: Peak
2. Pharmacy :: Pills (and coloured glass globes that pharmacists used to have in their windows - that link says early 1900's but I remember them, as a child, in the 1950's and there was a chemist not to far from here which had a window display like that in the 1970's!)
3. Local :: Services
4. Group :: Think and Abelian - from mathematical group theory - will give you some background, including these (aged) jokes:
   • Q: What's purple and commutes? A: An Abelian grape.
   • Q: What is lavender and commutes? A: An Abelian semigrape.
5. Brunette :: Blonde
6. Chain link :: List - we're back in IT with linked lists)
7. Priority :: Queue - still stuck on the connection before with another bit of IT and queuing theory!
8. Intensify :: Pressure
9. Foster :: Carer
10. Secluded :: Meadow

Bulwer-Lytton 2011

The results of the 2011 Bulwer-Lytton prize - a prize for the worst opening sentence in a (usually imaginary novel - for 2011 are up ( well they were up in July) and I can't resist the prize winner:

Cheryl’s mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories.

(Sue Fondrie) I also rather liked this one:

The grisly scene before him was like nothing Detective Smith had ever seen before, but there were millions and millions of things he had never seen before, and he couldn't help but wonder which of them it was.

(Sean Griffin) - from the Miscellaneous Dishonourable Mentions.

Media & Message

This autumn St Michael's is running three mid-week talks on the media - worth attending especially in the light of the events of the hacking scandal. Tuesdays at 7:30pm (at St Michael's Macclesfield - in the town centre):

• 4th October - Revd Clair Jaquiss - radio producer of religious programmes - A Priest in Broadcasting - Life at the coalface
• 11th October - Andreas Whittam Smith (founding editor of the Independent) - Why the Press behaves as it does
• 18th October - Keith Ravenscroft - worked in advertising and communication - Are we killing the words of life?

When I find more information on the web, I shall link to it! - The St Michael's website now has a link to the pdf of the handout - and the order of speakers in my piece has now been corrected.

Teaser Tuesday - 30 August

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!

'Guido', she repeated, keeping her voice, her tone level, as if speaking to the dangerous or the mad. 'I told you last week. We've got woodworm in the table in the kitchen.

Acqua Alta by Donna Leon. A bit of detective fiction - it's the first of her Commissario Brunetti which I've read and I'm currently enjoying it!
If you've read my previous teasers on Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger and you've read the book - the Guardian's podcast of Waters talking about her book is strongly recommended - but do make sure you've read the book!

Mutterings - 28 August

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

1. Bells :: Alarms
2. Germs :: Microbes
3. Athlete :: Track
4. Voice :: Sound
5. Diamonds :: ..are a girl's best friend
6. Hoarse :: Cough
7. Tempest :: Hurricane (and Shakespeare)
8. Hurricane :: ah! .. Spitfire (I'm having difficulty remembering the name of the hurricane currently troubling the US!)
9. Bumps :: in the night
10. Jazz :: All That

30 day song challenge

I found this meme here and have been working my way though it over the past month via my facebook statuses. If you're not a friend on facebook I'm afraid you'll have missed them together with an embedded youtube I included of each day's piece- if you want me to gradually repost them here (that'll bring up the posting count!) clamour for it in the comments(!) or send me an email. Added standard gripe about the term song when it doesn't cover music generally!

• Day 01 – Your favourite song - Surabaya Johnny by Kurt Weill
• Day 02 – Your least favourite song - Wagner Overture to Rienzi
• Day 03 – A song that makes you happy - Schubert Seligkeit (Schwartzkopf)
• Day 04 – A song that makes you sad - Slow movement of the Poulenc Clarinet Sonata
• Day 05 – A song that reminds you of someone - The Country Dance from Maxwell-Davies 8 Songs for a Mad King
• Day 06 – A song that reminds of you of somewhere - The Bladon Races
• Day 07 – A song that reminds you of a certain event - Beethoven Piano Sonata Op 109 last movement (Brendel)
• Day 08 – A song that you know all the words to - Tom Lehrer The Vatican Rag
• Day 09 – A song that you can dance to - Strip the Willow
• Day 10 – A song that makes you fall asleep - Schubert Impromptu in F minor D935 No 1
• Day 11 – A song from your favourite band - Schubert slow movement from Bb sonata D960
• Day 12 – A song from a band you hate - Andrew Lloyd Webber and a video placing his songs alongside their..err.. inspirations
• Day 13 – A song that is a guilty pleasure - Lefébure-Wély Sortie in Eb (and the Pet Shop Boys and Noel Coward's Sail Away)
• Day 14 – A song that no one would expect you to love - Emperor Waltz (arr Schönberg)
• Day 15 – A song that describes you - let's embed this one
  slightly confused/tangled with a great sense of fun
• Day 16 – A song that you used to love but now hate - Franz Liszt - Les Preludes
• Day 17 – A song that you hear often on the radio - oops I missed this one out, let me think..(later: I went for the Tom Robinson version of Jacques Brel's Les Bourgeois - Yuppie Scum the Brel is close to the top of my last.fm track list - I thought there was Brel elsewhere in the list but it looks as if I was wrong!
• Day 18 – A song that you wish you heard on the radio - Bernstein Chichester Psalms - I didn't know this until nearly into my 40's!
• Day 19 – A song from your favourite album - Francis Poulenc 'C'
• Day 20 – A song that you listen to when you’re angry - Hugo Wolf Abschied - Wolf mocking his critics with a small accident when heading downstairs!
• Day 21 – A song that you listen to when you’re happy - Richter playing Schubert Sonata in A D664
• Day 22 – A song that you listen to when you’re sad - Mahler Das Abschied (fom Das Lied von der Erde) - two Farewells (Abschied) in this list!
• Day 23 – A song that you want to play at your wedding - Carillon Sortie by Henri Mulet
• Day 24 – A song that you want to play at your funeral - All my hope on God is founded (Bridges/Howells)
• Day 25 – A song that makes you laugh - Franz Reizenstein - Concerto Popolare
• Day 26 – A song that you can play on an instrument - Love Walked in - George Gershwin, Percy Grainger
• Day 27 – A song that you wish you could play - the final trio from Strauss Der Rosenkavalier - there's no stipulation that it has to be possible!
• Day 28 – A song that makes you feel guilty - As Tears go by - sung by the older Marianne Faithfull (probably regret is better than guilty here)
• Day 29 – A song from your childhood - Chopin Waltz in A minor (Geza Anda) - I wrote:

  -well teenage years - no gramophone at home and I remember hearing this on an exchange trip to Paris (April 68..!) looking over the left bank boulevards as night fell - and music started to mean a lot more.

• Day 30 – Your favourite song at this time last year - Gilels playing Bach/Siloti - I blogged this in August last year

The SPCK case

OCICBW has just alerted me to the fact that the Brewers who asset stripped SPCK have just lost the unfair dismissal case that the staff of the Durham SPCK were taking against them, It seems the brewers were too cowardly to send anyone to the proceedings. Here's an extract from the Northern Echo's coverage of the case:

An employment tribunal held in Newcastle yesterday found the six, with 90 years’ service between them, were unfairly dismissed by American brothers Phil and Mark Brewer when they suddenly, and unexpectedly, closed the shop, in January last year.

Joan Cummins, one of the six, said: “I’m so delighted. It was never about the money.

We’ve got our justice.

And here's Phil Groom's coverage. A sad story but at least now some justice is being done against those asset-strippers.

Mutterings - 21 August

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

1. Running :: Race
2. Hot :: Some like it..
3. Neighbor :: When I needed a neighbour were you there..
4. Reported :: Crime scene
5. Horrific :: Murder
6. Supplies :: Shop
7. Grammar :: Latin
8. Back to :: the Future
9. Righteous :: Brother
10. Next door :: Neighbour

It's getting a bit bare here, I need to breathe a bit of extra life here..!

Teaser Tuesday - 16 August

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 poet Rainer Maria Rilke says, "love..onsists in this, that two solitudes protect and border and salute each other." That is the kind of love my friend Bill offered.

From Parker Palmer's Let Your Life Speak - I'm re-reading this (having, at last, found my copy) and I thought I might have 'teased' it before - but apparently not - I have though quoted it on a few occasions here - lots of words to mull on and treasure.

Mutterings - 14 August

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

1. Eating :: Disorder
2. Cowboys :: and Indians
3. Nightmare :: Waking
4. Impress :: Seal (started with something which indents paper couldn't get the word and then to indenting wax)
5. Year :: 2011
6. Kiss :: Affection
7. Corn :: Plaster
8. Humping :: Sex
9. Mirror :: Image
10. Brains :: Knowledge

Teaser Tuesday - 9 August

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!

And she reached and opened up a pocket in the dashboard and started feeling about inside, among the papers and spanners and empty cigarette packets.
I said, `Please don't do that.'

Like last week, another teaser from Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger, the tension is ratcheting up - well maybe not in the teaser! I decided to stop reading last night (for that evening anyway) - reading this on the last train home late at night - with a solitary walk across town looming!

Mutterings - 7 August

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

1. Injury :: Personal
2. Incentive :: Reward
3. Suitable :: Partner
4. Cheating :: Partner
5. Remembering :: Loss (of a person)
6. Nasty :: Nick (the tabloids appelation for an early Big Brother contender)
7. Games :: Mind
8. Wife :: Partner
9. Challenged :: Emotionally
10. Barbaric :: Treatment

I appear to have 'Partner' on the brain, but having thought of one word it's easy to se that 'yes that fits with that one too'!

Ubuntu - natty narwhal and plasma

Back in this post, I wrote:

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.

I've eventually got around to researching this, hand editing the startup file ~/.kde/share/config/ksmserverrc and gradually removing startup applications - that previous blog entry led me to suspect some of the terms I was launching - I removed those and it still locked, eventually I removed emacs and I could get in, if I ran emacs with no startup file (-Q) it locked up, having also spotted a

NVRM: Xid (0000:07:00): 13, 0001 00000000 00005097 000015e0 00000000 00000100

message in the logs just before the crash, I googled the NVRM: Xid bit and found this bug, which gives the solution to update the nvidia drivers, rather than the ones mentioned there, I went for not being quite so bleeding edge and installed the ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates ppa, restarted the system and I'm now happily running in the kde/plasma desktop environment!

in bloom

in bloom, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

The garden is currently in bloom - not my work!

Teaser Tuesday - 2 August

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 floor above was dimly lit, the floor above that even dimmer, so the staircase ascended into shadows; the glass dome in the roof held the last of the evening twilight, and seemed suspended in the twilight, a great translucent disc. The silence was perfect.

And so the spookiness intensifies - early on in Sarah Waters The Little Stranger - very reminiscent of Henry James Turn of the Screw and I was also reminded of being taken - at the age of around 8 - to play the piano for an old lady - I've no idea who she was - and it was my piano teacher rather than my parents - living in a huge old house, or so it seemed to me, with servants. As a reward, I was given a set of bridge (the card game) score cards - nearly 10 years later I began to find them useful!
I enjoyed Waters' Night Watch so I'm looking forward to see how this develops.

Mutterings - 31 July

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

1. Nag :: bother (the plain text version of the words has 'nap' for which my association is 'cat'
2. Smug :: Bug (..rug)
3. Barry :: Daniels (a friend long, long ago)
4. Righteous :: Anger
5. Hairstylist :: Scissors
6. Vibrate :: Bell
7. Deal :: Dover (Cinque ports..)
8. Communicate :: Impart
9. Telling :: Important
10. Andrew :: Regan (a friend less long ago)

Teaser Tuesday - 26 July

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 was overpowered, the train brought to a standstill, and they took him to the police station raving mad - thence to an asylum. Always considered rather queer in the army, the Mahler business had broken down his brain.

.. not a thriller but a work of musicology! From Norman Lebrecht's Mahler Remembered - an assembly of reminiscences of Gustav Mahler by his contemporaries - that one comes from Ethyl Smyth. I really ought to quote some of the previous sentence otherwise the teaser would be too much! - Weber (the grandson of the composer and the overpoweree)'s wife was having an affair with Mahler and on a train trip to Dresden, Weber draws a revolver and takes 'William Tell-like shots at the head rests between the seats', it doesn't suggest that Mahler was on the train...

Bacon and Cheese Whirls

I had some nice things said about the bacon & cheese whirls I served at this morning's after service breakfast, here's a rough recipe:

Scone Dough

• 250g plain flour
• 250g Grated cheese
• 30g Margarine
• Pinch dry mustard
• 10g Baking powder
• 200ml semi-skimmed milk

Filling

• 175g streaky bacon, minced
• 50g grated cheese

Make dough - mix marg & flour add cheese, then the milk and knead.
Roll out, fairly thinly, into rectangle
Spread with filling, roll up across the shorter side and cut into swiss roll-like slices - use a sharp knife for cutting, a palette knife won't get through the bacon bits!
Arranged on a greased tray, bake 20-30 minutes in a hot oven.

Mutterings - 24 July

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

1. Stewart :: Tartan
2. Leafy :: Glade
3. Ridiculous :: Idea
4. Constipated :: Bloated
5. Bullied :: School
6. Permanent :: Way
7. Surgery :: Dental
8. Mosquito :: Bite
9. Meat :: Casserole
10. Stupefy :: Amaze

walking party

walking party, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

Here we are towards the end of the last of the Summer walks (with the days getting shorter we stop before the evenings get too dark). Maurice took this so that I could be in the picture - just! There Shutlingsloe in the background.

Teaser Tuesday - 19 July

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!

There's something strange about the way she's walking, a manner that I can't quite put my finger on or explain in words. She's running her hand along the side of the hedge as she walks, childlike knocking off some of last year's crumpled brown leaves that seem to cling tightly to beech right through into spring.

This is, I expect, my last teaser from our book group book of the month - Poppy Adams The Behaviour of Moths - here's last week's entry, it is keeping its fascination....

Engelberg panorama

Engelberg panorama, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

Back in 2009, I posted here some attempts at stitching together a couple of panoramas from photos I took on our Luzern walking holiday (one here, griping slightly that the gimp plugin I was using didn't seem to be enabling me to line things up sensibly. Having now tried hugin (available for Linux/Windows and Macs) this makes things much simpler. Here's an Engelberg panorama and if you go to my flickr pages (click on the photo) you'll see 2 other panoramas - one of Fluëli-Ranft the other from last year in the Alpujarras.

Mutterings - 17 July

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

1. Puzzled :: Amazed
2. Ordered :: Sequential
3. Unusual :: Pattern
4. Speculation :: Uninformed
5. Tutorial:: College
6. Dangerous :: Moonlight
7. Second :: Life
8. Evidence :: Court
9. Course :: Of (and Golf)
10. Reason :: Logic

through the bracken

through the bracken, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

Last night was a walk in the Peover Hall area, very gentle but lots of ancient buildings, old trees and greenhouses stuffed with chrysanthemums - a drink at the Olde Parkgate pub - well supplied with chips!

Identity and Worship

Church congregations are often predominately feminine which can give problems to men wishing to attend. This however only entrenches the issue - Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill calling for the exposing of effeminate worship leaders.... some back peddling but no apology!

Teaser Tuesday - 12 July

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!

They have no emotions, no sentiment, no interests and no mind?' the rector continued, with practised eloquence and feigned disbelief, his voice rising in volume and tone for crescendoing drama.
'I do', Clive said, as though it were a vow.

Another piece from our book group book of the month - Poppy Adams The Behaviour of Moths - the 'they' are insects...

Mutterings - 10 July

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

1. Ceremony :: of Carols (by Benjamin Britten - there's also John Ireland's Scarlet Ceremonies - altogether darker!)
2. Thread :: of life
3. Need :: Wants
4. Sarcasm :: Scriabin (I've wandered into the titles of piano works here!)
5. Domain :: Power
6. Take :: Five
7. Cast :: away (as in the single word - though there's also Ecclesiastes 'A time to cast away stones')
8. Zone :: Berlin (when it was divided into zones)
9. Lose control :: Brake
10. Gambling :: Den

Teaser Tuesday - 5 July

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 don't reply, not because I don't agree - I don't even have a telephone - but because it seems a good place to end the conversation. And, believe me, I desperately want it to end.

Our book group (BATS) book of the month - The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams. Only started it last night - here's a review from the Independent - yep, thought so, another unreliable narrator! - Stevie Davies (the reviewer) writes:

This is the book's real fascination, watching the author play her mischievous game of bluff with the reader. Purple passages concerning moth pathology are laid as bait to lead us up the garden path, a stomach-turning sauce for the plot extravagance. The novel is a divertimento on a mothy and insubstantial theme.

Mutterings - 3 July

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

1. Google :: -plex (actually googolplex
2. Cooking :: Home (lunch)
3. Pillow :: Book (no doubt from The Pillow Book (枕草子 Makura no Sōshi) or it may just be reading in bed
4. Star Trek :: Frontier
5. Wake :: Funeral (busy arranging one for a relative at the moment)
6. Chili :: Pepper
7. Premise :: supposition
8. Share :: distribute
9. Celebrity :: fame
10. Stream :: of consciousness (like this!)

Purple patches

Purple patches, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

A kohl rabi was acquired from Macclesfield market this week, I took it out into the garden ...talking to vegetables? - and was struck by the variety of purples which happened to be around.

Sunset over Astbury

Another sunset!, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

I managed to get to the walk this week - yet another fine evening with lovely views of the sun through the clouds. We did a circular route from thee village hall to Astbury Mere round the mere and then back - I don't think I'd ever seen the mere before.

Teaser Tuesday - 28 June

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!

There was rain later in the day, but we made our objective, and it was well worth the long's day travel. The plain on which we were walking ended suddenly.

as does the teaser! This is from Sebastian Faulks' Human Traces - I've nested back to complete this book I see I was reading and teasing from it last summer! I'm regretting the long break I really was enjoying it and the gap has made some of the plot lines a little less clear in my mind - the teaser is from an exploration of the African plains in the early 1900's. That's a very odd apostrophe in the teaser, I assume it is displaced from the next word I've left it as it is for the sake of pedantry!

Mutterings - 26 June

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

1. Familiar :: Places (old, familiar.. not sure that I even know the song)
2. Park :: West
3. Bank balance :: dodgy
4. Ducks :: in a row
5. Relationship :: close
6. Ruminate :: cows
7. Humanity :: mass of
8. Baking soda :: scones
9. Angela :: Eagle - she was on the Any Questions I went to in Macclesfield a week ago
10. Bastards :: Them (unnamed)

Busy Lizzy

Busy Lizzy, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

On Sunday I got to steward the green room in St Michael's for the street performers. it was the Barnaby festival this year celebrating its 750th anniversary, unfortunately I didn't see what they went and did but this little old lady left tweets and clouds of scent in her wake! Here she is enjoying herself at the RHS Show.

Teaser Tuesday - 21 June

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 soul is, in any case, in shadow in this life because it is 'covered' by the body. The overall sense of this richly allusive passage seems to be that, since knowledge in this life is necessarily of shadows and images only, God's grace has set in the world of shadows the shadow of his own truth, so that human beings may know him, even if only indirectly, in this 'mirror and enigma' which is Christ.

Rowan Williams musing on Origen in The Wound of Knowledge there, that (quoting Williams) ought to annoy the good folk heading over here from OCICBW - this was the book I was going to use anyway - I didn't change it! This is a re-re-read (or maybe a re-re-re-read) it was initially recommended to me by Denise on the Scargill community who had spent time as a novice with the Sisters of the Love of God and presumably she got the original talks. Everyone quotes this summary, so I shall be no different:

The goal of a Christian life, according to Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is not enlightenment but wholeness

maybe the Anglican Church could use a little wholeness rather than speeding off in the vain pursuit of certainties!

Mutterings - 19 June

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

1. Diligence :: Due
2. Volume :: Sphere
3. Hospital :: Ward
4. Binge :: Drinking
5. Loyalty :: Card
6. Pediatrics :: Medicine
7. Authorize :: Allow
8. Cage :: John
9. Studious :: Learned
10. Transfer :: Flight

Water butt kitty

Water butt kitty, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

Sid likes to keep above any possible floods - advisable considering the downpour we had at lunch time.

White Nancy

White Nancy, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

..but black against the sunset!
Last night we did a short circular walk in the Rainow area - the disused factory we usually walk through is being demolished and flats being created so part of the walk was avoided. After a drink in the Robin Hood we were heading home when I suddenly noticed this view, so I stopped and took a couple of photos.

Looks like our fridge!

Simon's cat demonstrates his retrieval technique.

Teaser Tuesday - 14 June

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!

Why do you draw these things? And he pointts at drawing after drawing, careful, shaded, exact, attentive to the details of nodes and stipules.

Clare being interrogated by D H Lawrence in Helen Dunmore's Zennor in Darkness - our current book group read - another Cornish tale - we had Patrick Gale's Notes from an Exhibition back in March, though, in this case, the book is set in first world war Cornwall where the locals view the two interlopers (the Lawrences) with suspicion!

Long Time Travelling

I picked up Cath and Phil Tyler's Farewell My Friends off a free cd in The Wire (that makes it sound like an infectious disease) and its quirkyness appealed, here they are playing in the Sotto Voce Festival in London last year.

There's a performance of Farewell my Friends available, but there's far too much echo in that acoustic for me! I like to be able to hear some of the words....

but after a listen I couldn't resist embedding this one too.
Their website is here and here's a audio only version of the track

Find more artists like cath and phil tyler at Myspace Music

'Earthiness and grit' from Fiona Talkington has it about right..only around 40 viewers so far on the first of the youtubes!

Mutterings - 12 June

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

1. Adventure :: Story
2. Truth :: or dare (Significant?)
3. Expose :: Flesh
4. Applause :: Rapturous
5. Hostility :: concealed
6. Sauce :: HP (eugh!)
7. Constipation :: Food
8. Explore :: Caves
9. Senator :: Politician
10. Children :: Joy

Macclesfield's Hope Centre

Ribbon snipped, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

Over the past few week's I've been doing some volunteer work at the ex-Wesley Owen bookshop in Macclesfield in preparation for its reopening as a cafe/bookshop resource centre for the town's churches. On Wednesday we had the official opening by the Mayor. There'll eventually be some coverage on the official website (which I need to do) - the site needs a revamp - or is that an init-vamp to make it a little more friendly and maintainable!

Gun Hill

Gun Hill, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

Yesterday was the evening for the Gun Hill walk. Again a lovely sunny evening with views over Leek and as far as the Wrekin. This was a photo from the same walk last year. Other photos from yesterday evening are also, as usual on flickr.

Teaser Tuesday - 7 June

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 television may be going, but we don't have to watch it. In this way distractions cases to be so distracting. If we let them be, we can see that they appear in something deeper: the vastness of our own awareness. This vastness is God's cloak, what the author calls the cloud of unknowing, "the dark cloud where God was" (Ex 20:21)

.. taking a few extra sentences, this is from Martin Laird's Into the Silent Land a book on contemplative prayer which our study group is currently reading, I've found it pretty helpful. Here's a review of the book.

Argerich is 70!

Yesterday marked the Argentinian pianist Martha Argerich's 70th birthday. Here she is at a rather younger age with Chailly playing part of the Rachmaninov 3rd concerto.
This is the slow movement (technically though the speed that the pianist has to go through notes makes it far from a rest for the soloist!). Then watch (at around 7:10) the speed and ferocity with which she attacks the last movement. Alas she has tended to stay away from the virtuosic parts of the repertory for many years - except for a small number of exceptions.
You'll find the other parts of the concerto in the associated items on youtube though getting them in hte right order is tricky - start here!

Mutterings - 5 June

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

1. Circles :: Stone
2. Born :: Free
3. Teddy :: Bears (picnic)
4. Comfortable :: Numb (Pink Floyd
)
5. Chaste :: Young
6. Burned :: Stake
7. Blouse :: Silk
8. Threats :: Emailed
9. Cuddly :: Bear
10. Condemned :: Cell

Bridge..and its reflection

Bridge..and its reflection, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

This weeks walk began and ended at the Robin Hood in Buglawton. The light was bright so that the reflection of this bridge in the canal was nearly as clear as the original. We walked along the canal and then looped back along side roads back to the pub. As usual, I've added the evening photos to the end of this flickr set.

Teaser Tuesday - 31 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!

The ma'alim whose class Haweya and I now had to attend on Saturdays used to shriek out the taboos and restrictions, the rules to obey, spitting sometimes with the excitement of it: "You will go to Hell! And YOU will go to Hell! And You, and YOU--UNLESS!..."
Hell in the Quran has seven gates

Another extract from Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel
Gosh, 22 postings, so far, this month - that's the most since June last year

Splashes of blue

Splashes of blue, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

I really was just intending to take the picture of the delphiniums - and the rest of the spread of blue flowers - but Hecate (the cat) spotted a gap in the composition of the picture and helpfully filled it!

Desert Island Discs

The BBC is offering you the opportunity to submit your choice of Desert Island Discs. I used to have an informal list and thought it would be easy but I've acquired lots of musical baggage over the years and it's really hard to cut it down to just eight. Alas, Jacques Brel didn't make the final 8...though ask me next month and I guess the list would be different (also there's no [R] Strauss, no Chopin, no Beethoven, no Britten, nothing post 1965 in the following...)

• Franz Schmidt Symphony No 4
• Rambling Sid Rumpo (aka Kenneth Williams) Ballad of the Loombogles (or almost any of them!)
• Franz Schubert Piano Sonata in Bb (D 960)
• Kurt Weill - Surabaya Johnny (Leyna)
• Francis Poulenc Tel Jour Telle Nuit
• Gabriel Fauré Nocturne No 6 in Db
• Sergei Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No 3
• Gustav Mahler Das Lied von der Erde

Thanks to Entartete Musik for pointing me to listing these choices! Lots of longing and nostalgia in the above though that's almost inevitable.
... oh and as a single choice I guess it would have to be the Schubert.

Snow Light

Chase Twichell's Snow Light

I stop, winded, the air sifting down.
Here is the peculiar light I hoped for.
The branches of the pines are lobed with snow,
each shape intact, and brightened from within.

I walked among these flickering trunks in fall,
the grass grown stiff and noisy underfoot,
and found a mystery, a tree, a flowering quince,
all pale and fragrant, out of season.

It gave off this light.
What is holy is earth's unearthliness.
Love, could we describe it,
would break apart, lucency and force.

A starling rasps from his white precinct.
Far back in the woods, the snow is falling again,
perhaps into your life. The wind returns
to chisel its drifts and ribbing.

Forgive the rounded burdens of the branches.
They do not suffer, suffused in this light.
They are not sorrows,
though that is the meaning we give them.

A little unseasonal but thoughtful and moving, from her collection Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been quoted on Carol Peter's poetry blog which is well worth a visit. (I've quoted Twichell's poetry before on this blog go and read some!)

Mutterings - 29 May

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

1. Decoder :: Cryptographer, Turing
2. Cake :: Fruit
3. Sense :: Non-
4. Geek :: Coder
5. Cousin :: Second
6. Goggles :: Flying
7. Social media :: Twitter
8. Butterfly :: Asleep (the philospher, Zhuangzi who dreams he's a butterfly)
9. Search :: Binary
10. Manicure :: Nails

Jenny!

I seem to have blogged a youtube of Pirate Jenny before, but this should make your hair stand on end!

Anne Kerry Ford making some men very, very scared - make sure you stay for the black freighter!

Beneath the Edge

Beneath the Edge, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

We got to the Alderley Edge walk this year a little earlier than planned - the leader for Thursday had double booked himself, so instead we walked from the Wiizard around the Edge, crossed the road nearly by the village and returned through the woods on that side. The Wizard serves wonderful chips and has a good wine list! More photos towards the end of this flickr set.

The Sun began to Rain

Sue blogged last weekend about the Rapture and the 70's film A Thief in the Night which used Larry Norman's song `I wish we'd all been ready', this has reminded me of this Norman number

The Sun began to Rain, fun wordplay in a little number knocked out (apparently) in a few minutes, that's Dudley Moore on the piano...

Steamy Ballads

I'd previously only known Loewe as a composer with a predilection for writing pieces which start in a major key and end in the minor. However I've just noticed that a cd has been released of Loewe Ballads with a somewhat racy cover. You'll need good eyesight to see the details in the above screenshot from amazon or you can just click on the link. I was interested that the two often bought together cds had somewhat similar cover art the one with the religious music having a young lady with rather more clothing! The left hand picture seems to be crying out for a caption competition?
Meanwhile to drag your minds out of the gutter and onto higher matters, many years ago I participated in a thread in rec.music.classical on the subject of pieces written in the period 1700 to 1900 which start in a major key and end in the minor - there are surpisingly few of them, if memory serves me correctly they are:

• Mendelsshohn's italian Symphony
• Schubert's Eb Impromptu (from the first set)
• Brahms Eb rhapsody Op 119
• Strauss Don Juan
• A work I can't remember by Johann David Heinichen
• A work by WF(?) Bach
• Two songs by Schubert (one from the middle of the Schone Mullerin cycle the other from the middle of Winterreise)
• Schubert Moment Musical No 6
• Rachmaninov Suite No 2 for 2 pianos
• and lots of Loewe ballads

Google groups has an archive of rec.music.classical but either it is incomplete or the search facility is currently broken (not for the first time!) - the discussion I'm looking for was in 1991 or 1992.
Not at all the list of works which you'd think of which start with optimism and end in darkness any other works you can name which fit this category I'd welcome though I see that wikipedia has a list but with no mention of Loewe (or of Bach or Heinichen) - and I've lost the list I made after going through the collected ballads in Manchester University Library!

Teaser Tuesday - 24 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 did know that sex was bad. Sometimes in the evenings, when I tramped with Ma through the neighborhood searching for Mahad, listeniong to her never ending complaints about the foul odor of sukumawiki, we came across people making out in alleyways.

(sukumawiki - clearly the smells of cooking). A no-nonense teaser and a no-nonsense book - Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel my life growing up in a tradition Muslim environment in Somalia and all that happened afterwards - our book group book of the month.

Mutterings - 22 May

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

1. International :: Internationale
2. Witnesses :: Jehovahs
3. Rising :: Moon
4. Two years ago :: 'Redundancy' (grrr)
5. Sausage :: Meat
6. Physically :: Sick
7. Approached :: Glided (airport approach I think)
8. Mole :: Hole
9. Collar :: Clerical
10. Encased :: Entombed