Mutterings - Oct 17

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

1. Prove :: Theorem
2. Update :: Security
3. Animal :: Puppet (or even Muppet!)
4. Chocolate :: Cooking
5. Illness :: Serious
6. Upright :: Piano
7. Crucial ::
8. Baked :: Beans
9. Hoops :: Hula
10. Posture :: Seated

Teaser Tuesday - Oct 5

Teaser tuesday's now hosted here.

1. Grab your current read
2. Open to a random page
3. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) • Share the title \& author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! Everyone loves Teaser Tuesday.

...by a former Pope in his place; or John XII who was consecrated at the age of seventeen and during whose reign, according to Gibbon, 'we learn with some surprise that the Lateran Palace was turned into a school for prostitution; and that his rapes of virgins and widows had deterred the female pilgrims from visiting the tomb of St Peter, lest, in the devout act, they should be violated by his successor.' Phew - that's only one sentence from John Julius Norwich The History of Venice - one of the racier, more unpleasant bits of Italian history!

Mutterings - Oct 5

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

1. Trails :: Vapour
2. Permanently :: Exclusion
3. Incident :: Close
4. Concur :: Shake (on it!)
5. Shocked :: Expression
6. Money :: Income
7. Horse :: Mouth
8. Church :: People
9. British :: Identity (whatever that is!)
10. Scandal :: Profumo

Amarok and Clementine - a comparison

Introduction

I'm a long term user of Amarok the KDE media player - for probably 10+ years. There's always a blip when a move to a new version of the KDE software framework happens and at the moment we're in one of those transitions. When I moved to Ubuntu 21.04 I couldn't get the pre-release version to work and so for the last few months I've been trialling Clementine another media player that forked from Amarok a few(?) years back when another transition was happening. I've now got Amarok to run successfully but in view of one of the shortcomings of current Amarok, I'm likely to be running them alternately for a time yet and thought I'd put down my comparison of pros and cons of both. Below, for each, I'm giving the pros (at least for me!). I looked at various other media players, Elisa and Quod Libet but they didn't give me the environment I wanted.

Amarok

Using ppa version from Pedro Gomes version KF5 2.9.71

• Can order by date in collection view with more recent at top - Clementine date ordering only appears to be from oldest /undated with the newest right down at the bottom and those are probably the ones you want to highlight.
• Filters on collection - history of filters available via pulldown and editable using a user friendly form.
• Add ons - e.g. viewing the rest of the album contents automatically while listening to one track.
• Track info in wikipedia - and selectable via various options, artist, composer etc; links are clickable in case you want to browse. Clementine disables links.
• Scripts are available!
• Dynamic lists remain tied to the selection - if you change it the selection changes. In Clementine it appears to be a snapshot of the time you invoked it, and having turned of dynamic section in a tracklist, there's no clear way of turning it back on.
• Tracks are named as such rather than the genre specific term of (wince) "songs" - yes I know that's what certain big music suppliers use!
• Albums can be played in order as part of a dynamic playlist, I think it's possible in Clementine but only very hackily.
• The view of the collection is a lot more structured, click on an album and there's a secondary level showing the artist, in my mainly "classical" collection that's very useful.
• A con - sometimes when starting up Amarok, the volume is set to zero - clearly not just me - see this report

Clementine

Version 1.4 rc2

• Multiple playlists can be visible and edited while another is being played.
• Huge playlists are handled well.
• Retrieval of album covers is far better.
• Playing ogg format works (well it 'works' for amarok but the track isn't marked as played and there's an abrupt transition to the next track just before it finishes - Apr '24 this bug is now fixed).
• Playing CDs works without having to rip them.
• While building a dynamic list you get a preview of what is going to be chosen with your current options, with Amarok you do it in the dark and only when using it do you find you've done something wrong (and what is wrong??!!).
• Showing lyrics seems to work a lot better than Amarok.
• "Right" click on a track and there are a lot more options than in Amarok (eg search for artist) - and there's edit tag directly!
• Auto completion of tags when editing from existing data - good in Clementine, this used to work with Amarok but currently doesn't - I guess this will eventually be rectified.
• The wonderful "complete tags automically" - it usually works even with some of my more obscure listening!
• And a couple of cons- if you have a playlist filter, you can't see the "smart playlist" option!
• Spotify appears to be available - but the plug in is not installable and causes an instant crash!
• You can't create a smart playlist using "file format", this works in Amarok, and for Clementine using file name contains doesn't appear to work at all.

Downsides of both: Importing of last.fm stats unavailable or doesn't work. In both cases I lost all the "last played" and "playcount" data from before my upgrade to Ubuntu 20.10 - which is when I had to migrate to the new Amarok.

Mutterings - Sept 15

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

1. NPR :: Wot?! (googles...)
2. Lampshade :: Lady Lazarus (and very dark!)
3. Beep :: -o-matic (google suggests this is via Fireman Sam but I think it was Nick Park)
4. Fingernail :: Blackboard
5. Simple :: Minds
6. Tight :: Fisted
7. Swoosh :: Missing (the point)
8. Booger :: Eugh!
9. Fox :: Michael (friend and was vicar and BBC producer around here)
10. Kindness :: Stop (giving time)

Teaser Tuesday - Sept 15

Let's do another of these (and maybe make it a regular event!) I think it's now hosted here.

1. Grab your current read
2. Open to a random page
3. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) • Share the title \& author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! Everyone loves Teaser Tuesday.

"You know that this is the time when people lose control," I say. "It's not worth having a big fight over the stuff. Please be careful." Kim is five-foot-two; her husband is a big, burly Irish guy who likes to drink.

Yes I know that's 3 sentences! From Martina Reaves' "I'm still here" about her fight with cancer, hugely inspiring, moving stuff, the above quote is rather away from the thread of the memoir. Here's the Goodread's page Also reflections on many facets of her life, as one reviewer (Mary McNeill) puts it

Her insights on romance, marriage, discrimination, activism, the law, parenting, family, friendship, and more, are imbued with emotional literacy, which made the process of hearing her story a very uplifting gift.

Chethams

Last weekend I returned from a visit to the Chethams piano summer school - a useful few days listening to concerts and participating in lessons and workshops. I got some useful comments on my playing and here is my performance of John Ireland's 'In a May Morning' from his Sarnia - written in the Channel Islands in May 1940 just before he escaped the German invasion. Maybe I will look at more of his piano works?

Mutterings - 28th Aug

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

1. Travel:: Itinerary
2. Unravel :: Ravel
3. Yell :: Frustrate
4. Peaceful :: Landscape
5. Catastrophe :: Afghanistan
6. Position :: Carefully
7. Cat :: Scan
8. Health ::
9. Shark :: Fin
10. Mountain :: Scenery (missing this!)

Mutterings - Aug 22

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

1. Fast :: Lent
2. Ridiculous :: Expression
3. Germs :: Wash (and the story of the last year)
4. Computer :: Technology
5. Business :: School
6. Old :: Wine (maybe glancing at the next line!)
7. Whine :: Cat feeding time!
8. Personal :: Story
9. Whisper :: Gallery (British museum)
10. Slow :: Festina (going back to the first word!)

Mutterings - Aug 10

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

1. Misrepresent :: Malicious
2. Conditioning :: Air
3. Blister :: Pack
4. Dump :: Stig
5. Boing :: Zebedee!
6. Hill :: (to ) Die (on)
7. Consolidate :: Merge
8. Tame :: Lion
9. Power :: Electrical
10. Sneeze :: Allergy

This blog has been quiet, lots of unmentioned news...let's see!

Mutterings - May 16

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

1. Tweet :: Mob
2. Chill :: Breathe (deeply)
3. Toe :: Hold
4. Early :: Riser
5. Plenty :: Drink
6. Repeat :: Mark
7. Blank :: Mind
8. Quarter :: Note
9. Synapse :: Connection
10. Earlobe :: Pierce

Almost ready to record

I have a first go at recording my ARSM diploma programe tomorrow - I've done a few rehearsals already but tomorrow it is on a rather different piano, a Steingraeber piano at Shackleford's a local piano dealer. If it doesn't work tomorrow I have another morning booked, so I can choose the best recording for submission.

Mutterings - Apr 17

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

1. Casino :: Royale
2. Bone :: Dry
3. Painting :: Contemplate
4. Market :: Prices
5. Shocked :: van de Graaf
6. Curbed :: Dog (training)
7. High :: Noon (I must be on a film kick)
8. Quiter :: Patch
9. Playroom :: Aughton (my aunt used to be on the staff at a children's residential nursery there back in the 50s)
10. Feed :: Twitter

Mutterings - Apr 10

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

1. Song :: Funeral a moderately recent first performance of an early work of Stravinsky (who died 50 years ago this week.
2. Glass :: Philip (I've started on Music!)
3. Boat :: Skye (Song!)
4. Junk :: -et
5. Sheet :: (three) to the wind
6. Knit :: Purl
7. Gift :: Horse
8. Truck :: No (with such and such)
9. Small :: Bug (but they never are!)
10. Title :: Noble (titled aristocracy)

Swans

On a walk this week along the canal I passed 2 swans who were clearly far more interested in potential prey in the water rather than the threat from a human, I was little more than 1 metre from them.

Mutterings - Apr 3

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

1. Bingo :: King of the Mornings (Brazilian film about the melt down of a TV personality)
2. Sound :: Depth
3. Correspond :: 1-1
4. Moving :: Emoting
5. Inch :: Shuffle (towards)
6. Clog :: Wooden (I have some for the feet when piano playing)
7. Video :: Nasty
8. Bark :: Bite
9. Cloud :: Memory (going fuzzy)
10. Pig :: Napoleon (Orwell's Animal farm)

Mutterings - March 27

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

1. Frog :: Spawn
2. Milk :: Yogurt
3. Waist :: High
4. Thrift :: Shop
5. Brick :: Yellow (Road)
6. Kneel :: Homage
7. Rotate :: Axes
8. Jumpy :: Lambs
9. Style :: Rococo
10. Bruise :: Ugly

Mutterings - March 21

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

1. Horse :: Saddle
2. Green :: Fauré - one of his settings of Verlaine
3. Stomach :: Strong
4. River :: Wharfe
5. Flirting :: Side-eye
6. Red :: Shift - astronomical and the Alan Garner book
7. Eating :: ones words
8. Thyme :: Basket
9. Eyeglasses :: Monocle
10. Speak :: Silence

Mutterings - March 13

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

1. Keen :: Commander!
2. Charger :: Arab
3. Wearable :: Wristband
4. Owl :: Tawny
5. Head :: Salome (and John the Baptist!)
6. Cow :: Frighten
7. Records :: 78s
8. Countdown :: Final
9. Base :: First
10. Kid :: Deceive

ABRSM Performance Diploma

I see I first posted about my intention to do the ABRSM diploma 10 years ago - it's still not done, but I'm getting to the point of asking for the date! Here's my thoughts from 2011 The programme has changed a bit since then (as have the piano teachers, though I'm now back with the same one as then),and I'm now doing the performance diploma which is slightly easier and intending to submit it remotely - here's the lineup

• Scarlatti Sonatas in C K 308 and 309
• Stravinsky Tango
• Chopin Mazurka in C# minor Op 50 No 3
• Scriabin Preludes Op 11 Nos 10 and 13
• Mompou Cancion e Danza no 6
• Rachmaninov Etude Tableau Op 33 No 3 in C minor

The last 2 items are my own choice, I see 2 items are the same as in 2011, hopefully here I've lived with them a good long time, hoping to submit in April. Here's a recent video of me playing the Stravinsky.

very chunky chords! A couple of rhythmic issues still to be addressed!

Still waters

To go with the post from the end of Jan of Macclesfield in the snow, here are a couple from this week where it feels as if Spring has nearly arrived.

Mutterings - March 6

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

1. Clap :: Carers
2. Vision :: Perfect
3. Prone :: Fall
4. Congratulate :: Certificate
5. Lean :: Hungry
6. Thrill :: Chase
7. Chrome :: Browser
8. Host :: 127.0.0.1
9. Learn :: Look and (magazine from the 60s - or was it the 50s?)
10. Smell :: Rich

Mutterings - 20 Feb

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

1. Row :: Column
2. Happy :: Grumpy
3. Storm :: Welcome (to my life, at present!)
4. Clink :: Restaurant (the local women's prison at Styal runs a restaurant called the Clink, sometime we're hoping to go)
5. Mindful :: Calm
6. Massage :: Flesh
7. Water :: Reflection
8. Bingo :: Shout
9. Stomped :: Snow
10. Farm :: Barn

Mutterings - Feb 17

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

1. Mime :: Siegfried (must be that BBC Radio 3 is doing Wagner's Ring this week - though I have problems with that Opera!
2. Jinx :: High
3. Animal :: Run
4. Woman :: Gender
5. Correspondence :: Matching
6. Eggs :: Pancake (this is what happens when I do this late)
7. Tax :: Code (tries to find mine on gov.uk!)
8. Lima :: Ponte (Portugal rather than South America - we went there in 2019)
9. Squander :: Waste
10. Expert :: Driver

Mutterings - Feb 3

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

1. Recording :: Sound
2. Tumble :: Drier
3. Fixate :: Obsess
4. Border :: First (He's at the border first.. he turns and.. the end of Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale)
5. Humming :: Bird
6. Scratch :: Orchestra (see Cornelius Cardew)
7. Exhausted :: Mine (as in excavation)
8. Gurgle :: Pipes
9. Nostalgia :: Musical
10. Squeak :: Bubble

Mutterings - Jan 28th

This week's (well last week's!) free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Wanting :: Waiting (maybe the old Access card ad - "taking the waiting out of wanting", maybe yearning of separation)
2. System :: 4 (ICL...)
3. Home :: Screen
4. Excessive :: Alcohol
5. Handy :: Andy (I think the cleaner rather than any TV person!)
6. Traditional :: Carols (listened to some earlier)
7. Buying :: Scheme
8. Tone :: Lean (tanned..)
9. Modern :: Technology
10. Needing :: Loving

Over the town

First thing in the morning is good for quiet walks, sometimes you get a sunrise but Monday was cloudy though with lockdown it was good to be out and enjoying the cold quietness.

View of St Paul's - it was the day the church remembers St Paul that day!

Mutterings - Jan 24

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

1. Finale :: Season
2. Old man :: [of] Hoy
3. Sticking :: Plaster
4. Hardship :: Fund
5. Change :: Better
6. Suppose :: Assumption
7. Jacket :: Bomber
8. Volatile :: Cocktail
9. Five :: Fingers
10. Pajamas :: Trousers

Teaser - err Tuesday - Jan 21

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 took a beer out of the fridge or made himself a mug of tea, and while Roxana perched on the sofa to paint her toenails with deft strokes of silver glitter he told her about providing technical support to editors who could spend days honing a manuscript, somehow manage to lose all their work with a couple of keystrokes, and want him to recover it for them.

It sounds highly responsible business.

From a book group book of a few months back - `Constance' - Rosie Thomas - I'm a little uncomfortable with some of the phraseology in that quote, but I was very impressed back when I read this very powerful story of loss and re-connecting - see this review

Teaser Tuesday is hosted here if you wish to go and thank Ambrosia or get other ideas.

In a window

On alleged Bue Monday here's something to encourage, spotted this in a currently closed cafe on a walk

unfortunately, it has now gone, probably Christmas decorations, the words changed periodically. You may also spot me!

Across the car park

An early morning shopping trip produced these lovely winter colours in the snow and the unromantic surroundings of a supermarket car park.

Mutterings - Jan 11

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

1. Crass :: Trump
2. Raging :: Trump (is this a competition ;) )
3. Delivery :: Turpin (highwayman - nearly!)
4. Cash :: Outmoded
5. Streaming :: Music
6. Trip :: at home
7. Business :: Call
8. Tiger :: Jungle book
9. Sneeze :: 7 dwarves - more Disney!
10. Bribery :: Trump (again!)

Mutterings - Jan 6

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

1. Discount :: Dat Count (sorry!)
2. Gluttony :: Christmas
3. Hype :: Social media
4. Imposing :: Edifice
5. Segment :: Chord (I think a geometry connection here rather than musical)
6. Controlling :: Abuse
7. Suspicious :: Glance
8. Prime :: Function (maybe 2ⁿ - 1?)
9. Auction :: Car
10. Epic :: Agile (software terms strike back!)

New Year

Another new year and as an intent let's try to breathe more new life here with some catching up and positive views. An early morning walk today along the local canal, quiet, frosty with the local birdlife giving a reminder that some things still go on. A bit too cloudy for good dawn pictures but then a boat with some heating appeared after rounding a corner under a bridge.