Zombie

glad it’s not just me that can’t read notation and hear the music in my mind (unless I know it well). I’ve always envied those who can sit down with a full orchestral score and “hear” it as they read it, even something they’re not familiar with (so they say ). Although I once read somewhere that “Music does not exist until it is performed, whatever our armchair score-readers may say to the contrary” - which kinda makes me feel a tad less badly about my deficiency

ever been troubled because you can’t figure out how the Hobbit economy worked? Well now you can sweep your troubles away because someone has figured it all out for you in this nifty little YouTube

Tardigrades cute little critters - who knew?

interesting word, Germanic origin and Middle English connected with freight which might explain how it came to be used in the sense of load or burden, causing tension / distress etc can be used without with eg “they had a fraught relationship”, “next month looks like being particularly fraught” there are so many different ways in English of saying the same thing, or using the same words to say different things

the party-pooped penguin lay recumbent in its bed

there’s also a tense increasingly termed “historic present” often heard during history docs when a talking head will say something like “Anne Boleyn is being encouraged to make her claim for the Crown but all the while she is being misled by her closest advisers who are unaware that…” etc you’ll also hear it in casual conversation in pubs and so on: Fred: “So I says to him, I don’t want it!” Bert nods. Fred: “And then he shoves it into my hands!” Bert tuts sympathetically.

we sleekit cowerin tim’rous beasties when I see or hear this word I remember Monty Python’s “Word Association” sketch (only ever released on vinyl) which I learned by heart as a teen from an old scratched copy and would happily recite to any unsuspecting victim at the merest sniff of an opportunity https://youtu.be/1K_t6X0Pzlo

very disappointed to learn that the Vikings didn’t wear horned helmets Apparently it would have hindered their pillaging…

smooth Belgian jazz version of the scary Doctor Who theme

plausible - like the penguin’s “army” isn’t

well there’s a reason Agatha Christie’s the best-selling novelist of all time But even Christie plots are often unconvincing, for example the contrived motivation in The Sittaford Mystery, and filled with stock characters. Still, she had a winning formula that has endured and no-one else has matched while DLS heads towards the ranks of the forgotten

there’s a kinda similar and equally bizarre practice in China that continues even now involving young boys’ urine and eggs except ginger hair is not required… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_boy_egg Edit to add guess that’s another factoid

I’ve only read one DLS novel - The Nine Tailors - which my dad recommended and I read years ago. Written in 1934 it’s of its time and the society depicted has to be accepted and enjoyed as such (ours will be equally harshly judged by future generations I’m sure ). The mystery is well constructed and intricate, and you won’t guess the murderer The bleak, flat fenland, mid-winter setting is ominously atmospheric, effectively a character itself. And how many murder mysteries have you read that are based around that ancient, quintessentially English and supposedly harmless activity of bellringing?

In 1941, during WWII, the British govt was busy doing very important work on things like… new ice cream regulations designing a new 3 pin electrical plug and socket (which we still use today, 80 years later!) https://www.legislation.gov.uk/nisro/1941/25/pdfs/nisro_19410025_en.pdf https://electrifyingwomen.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/56/2020/08/Microsoft-Word-Haslett-2-Script.pdf

listening blind I would definitely have said an early Chopin Nocturne that I’d not heard. In fact it reminded me of the opening of Chopin’s Nocturne Op 9 No 2 in E flat major - the first note and chord so similar albeit, of course, in different keys. I especially enjoyed the mid-performance fight with the page turner - I really thought those pages were heading for the floor

Alessandro Marcello - Adagio from Oboe Concerto in D Minor rewritten by JS Bach BWV 974 While on the subject of interpretations of JS Bach, I previously posted an “understated” performance by Paul Barton of the adagio from an oboe concerto by Italian nobleman Alessandro Marcello (1673 - 1757) which Bach had rewritten for keyboard (he liked it so much). Contrast that performance with East End Londoner (and music student) George Harliono’s most beautiful performance in the Romantic tradition Which is only right considering he’s so, er… fit!

JS Bach Prelude No. 1 in C major BWV 924 This definitely was not an understated performance in 2019 at Fuller Lodge, Los Alamos, when young Adrian Koo really went for it and delivered with faultless technique Note that Adrian’s left hand continues to hold down the dominant (G) chord in his left hand for 7 bars in the closing passage for almost 30 seconds, as written. You might think those notes would fade away to nothing but they continue to sing by harmonic resonance until the piece finally resolves on the tonic (C)

I’m trying to get my head around how present / future “PC fiction” could be “comfortable” reading when various characters are “they” / “theirs” and in a group situation “They looked at themself in the mirror” At least we can choose what we read, and so long as existing works aren’t “corrected”

Are eBooks books? UK libraries seem to think so. Like everywhere else they were shut during COVID lockdowns. So, they began offering their books on free electronic loan just like physical books Maybe they were doing this already and I simply missed it Anyway, seems a Twitter storm kicked off coupla weeks ago, hating on the Internet Archive for “stealing”. I’ve actually borrowed some books from here including an old 50s sci-fi (now unobtainable - unless you want to spend £80 or so on eBay for a dog-eared original ) and was happy to read the scanned pages including the original illustrated dust jacket (so important for that 50s sci-fi vibe and which likely wouldn’t have survived even if the local library had a copy) I’m a consumer, not a creator, so I think that’s great. But maybe not everyone’s a fan of the Internet Archive? Or even free libraries? https://popula.com/2022/01/22/what-kind-of-writer-accuses-libraries-of-stealing/

In medieval England, blacksmiths forged swords by heating, hammering and then dunking (tempering) the sword in ginger-haired virgin boys’ urine. Yeah, blondes or brunettes just didn’t work… https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02cxcvx (hope the video plays in your region - explains everything)

Thanks. I wasn’t aware of this Blue Pie Records 1957 recording. I knew he had recorded Deep River early in his career (your 1927 version) and also in an old British movie which is the version I posted above. However, I’ve checked and that movie, The Proud Valley, was in fact made in Britain before WWII (so obviously not 1957) and is clearly very different (with orchestra and Welsh male choir) from your 1957 piano accompaniment version. It’s interesting how his voice had deepened by 1957 - or maybe he preferred to sing in a lower register - but listening to all three I prefer the 1927 version.

Poor Napoleon and the final ignominy… not to die a glorious death in battle as Emperor, but to be killed by wallpaper https://www.openculture.com/2021/02/discover-scheeles-green-the-arsenic-laden-color-that-may-have-contributed-to-napoleons-death.html

blank screen “this video is not available” is this the same?

YouTube algorithms - the gift that keeps on giving Did you know there was an “Anglish” movement? Me neither. Till now