Insomnia

Stuffy nose is back, Out comes the olbas oil again. Unable to sleep much.  Thinking things too much.   The mind is keeping me in a state of turmoil. Perhaps i should not have ranted. It is so negative.  I feel i want to take every thing back from that post. A guilt trip  I sometimes blurt without thinking of the consequences.  That is one of my failings.

Negativity, like bitterness, is not good for the karma.  It can spread like a cancer. Positivism is difficult to achieve  when what is happening in the world fills you with despair. Then there are the interpersonal entanglements which once affected by negative vibes also  sours life. I am rambling on a bit but i am all over the place emotionally and not feeling in a good place. Like the good Doctor says "Am i a good man?"

In other news, Georgina's mother is dying and of course she is feeling sad about. They believe she might not see the weekend. She is well over ninety. I only heard yesterday when GC phoned me. Tends to put everything else into perspective.

I told her to give me a call if there is any developments and that , although never met her mum,   feel her pain. Oh and talking of pain, that shoulder problem has gone now.  Power to the gel.

Still on this computing course but nearing the end now. Had a week or so of frustration but once something sticks in your mind , after a period of incomprehension, it seems so much easier. Then you laugh and say of course it is obvious, silly me. I should be finishing around mid September.

Perhaps then i can concentrate on trying to write some fan fiction in my spare time. Obvious points of departure would be Who, Star Trek, Firefly (which was so rudely dumped by Fox) and maybe even Farscape.

The nights are drawing in and it is feeling a little bit colder in th evenings.I think i must be more of a summer person than a winter person. On the bus to Ashford the other day i hear a lady talk about her animals and some of her rabbits are already malting. She thinks they are getting ready for their winter coats which suggests, so she says, that we could have a harsh winter, The very thought of it chills me to the bone,


I haven't finished off all these four reports but they will get done later They do not take too long unlike some i had in the past. I have nothing planned now so will do the hoovering tomorrow , including the kuchen, and then the evening .. well perhaps that is another reason for the insomnia. As a Whovian you fellow Who fans know what i mean.

Very Soon Now!

Okay a bit late for posting this trailer but hey it is soon upon us.

This is for those who have not seen the trailer.

Mondo Morricone

Ennio Morricone "Mondo Morricone" (Colosseum)




This is an excellent compilation of some of the less known scores by him,and is one of the best CDs ever issued. The tracks on this compilation are culled from several different soundtrack albums from the late 60s and early 70s. The mood varies from heavenly wordless vocals washed with warm strings and atmospheric electric harpsichord, through to light bossa nova and upbeat organ beat music. Somehow, Morricone also made time for the most gratuitously groovy garage hits of the decade, mashing chromatic scales off of wah-wahing keyboards amidst fleets of neon drumrolls.

There is a second volume which is equally good and which I am after getting - "More Mondo Morricone". You'll probably never buy a better CD than either, so try and track them down (I think they are getting harder and harder to find). Luckily I found this one in a charity shop one day for a quid.

A Morricone Day Yay!

As promised, a couple of groovy numbers from the Mondo Morricone CD - La Moda

and the other track is La Bambola

Enjoy. And if you should ask, i am feeling better, all sorted out.  Bro stepped in and will pay him back Thursday, Roll on the good Doctor tonight.

Matt and Karen's New Venture in Bristol

Most of the hoovering done. Upstairs and downstairs, just bathroom to do. Having some time out as it has turned sunny despite some black clouds earlier. The cat was asleep at the time. Curled up into a ball.

Now it is official. Mat and Karen no longer run the Evening Star pub in Brighton. They have taken over a new venture in Bristol called The Colston Yard in Colston Street

Link to the website here -

http://www.colstonyard.butcombe.com/







Looks a good place to drink too.

Book 78 - Bill Bryson "Made In America"

Bill Bryson "Made In America" (Black Swan)







Another one of those books i started last year and steadily been reading the chapters on intermittent occasions. It is a book,therefore, you can dip into, from any chapter, and enjoy.

Hence, it isn't that often that you can say, "I enjoy history, linguistics, and trivia," and have all your interests addressed and satisfied in the same book. Billy Bryson manages this in Made in America, which is, true to its subtitle, an informal history of the English language in the United States.

Bryson's engaging style and unfailing humour shine in this book. He breaks down his research into different categories rather than just starting at America's earliest point in history and jumping around from there. Thus, each chapter is fairly well self-contained, and it's easy to look up a fact or idea just from the chapter categories rather than trying to remember where in America's history something occurred.

I say "fairly well" self-contained because there are a few problems with this system, most notably in the inconsistency Bryson has in bringing up facts that he already mentioned in previous chapters. He does his best to make sure that the earlier chapter gets the detailed explanation, and the problem doesn't lie so much in no explanation at all but rather in getting the explanation repeated.

Still, as this doesn't happen incredibly often, it's easy to overlook so that the rest of the book can be enjoyed without problem.

With great style and wit, Bryson accomplishes what so many teachers cannot - he makes history, and language, intensely interesting. This is one book that comes with a high recommendation from me. It's not for everyone, but anyone with an interest in history or linguistics will find something to appreciate. In this book, you'll learn things that you weren't even aware that you didn't know.

Poem Of The Week

Thomas Hardy was a poet as well as being a novelist.


The Pity of It
BY THOMAS HARDY
April 1915

I walked in loamy Wessex lanes, afar
From rail-track and from highway, and I heard
In field and farmstead many an ancient word
Of local lineage like 'Thu bist,' 'Er war,'

'Ich woll', 'Er sholl', and by-talk similar,
Nigh as they speak who in this month's moon gird
At England's very loins, thereunto spurred
By gangs whose glory threats and slaughters are.

Then seemed a Heart crying: 'Whosoever they be
At root and bottom of this, who flung this flame
Between kin folk kin tongued even as are we,

'Sinister, ugly, lurid, be their fame;
May their familiars grow to shun their name,
And their brood perish everlastingly.'



Source: Thomas Hardy: The Complete Poems (Palgrave, 2001)

Here We Go Again

In the words of Madame Vastra , the game is afoot. I won't give away any spoilers but as far as i am concerned it was a terrific start to the new series.



I am going to watch it again, maybe tomorrow. It was a well produced starter  leading towards the first new Dalek story  next week. Capaldi will be brilliant, a mixture of number one and number nine Doctors. More serious, more adult.

So guys and gals what did you think?
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