Sunday Night Music Club - an experiment.....

In an exciting development, I've worked out how to set up automated blog-posts. So even though I'm writing this post on Sunday morning, you won't get to read it until later on tonight, which is when it would make more sense to read it but is also when I'm much more likely to forget to publish it.

Isn't technology marvellous?

(Oh yes, the song. It's a cover version. It's great, and I say that as someone who loved the orginal.)

Exciting technological developments (maybe)

Come back at about 7pm tonight, is all I'm saying.

The Poetry of Wine

Lots of half-written but not quite finished blog posts kicking around my drafts folder at the moment.  This is (was) one of them.

I bought some wine this last week. I'm on a self-imposed wine buying hiatus at the moment, after an unfortunate episode involving a wine fair and my credit card and some very drunken maths, the details of which are too painful to recount.  But after trying this particular wine  last week  a few weekends ago, I had to make an exception.  It's lovely.  All smoky and earthy and full of depth; the kind of wine which wraps itself around you like a warm cardigan and makes everything right with the world.  I spent ages yesterday some indeterminate number of days after I bought the stuff (I'm really starting to wish I hadn't started this business with the temporal corrections now) trying to work out what it reminded me of, and then I realised.

It tastes like a Robert Frost poem.

I adore Robert Frost.  One of the first of his poems I ever read was this:

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening


Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

It is still one of my favourites.  There are others.

Sunday Night Music Club

I was spoiled for choice tonight.  So spoiled for choice, I very nearly picked something else.  But like the jackdaws, that something else will just have to wait.

This band are, in my opinion, criminally underrated.  Yes, they are "modern".  Yes, they are slightly mass-produced and yes, they are (or at least they were when they recorded this) barely post-adolescent, testosterone fuelled, pimply faced boys; making them - let's face it - just about the most undesirable creatures on the planet. *  But you know what?  They sing a darn good pop-song.  I'm not afraid to admit it - I love them.  Even though I'm probably not supposed to, what with being old enough to be their mother and all.

If jangly guitars, catchy vocals and sunny, innocent lyrics are your thing, then you will love this.  If not, then more fool you.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present for your enjoyment: McFly.



If you ever wanted to woo me with music (I know you've been wondering), this song would probably do it.  They also do an excellent cover version, as per here (Town Called Malice) and here (Queen's "Don't stop Me Now")  and here (beatles)
* Unless of course you're a barely post-adolescent, testosterone loving pimply faced (or otherwise) girl. 

Wildlife corner - part two (contains sad news)

This wasn't going to be what part two was about, but then a chance sighting of a story about race-horse breeding reminded me I hadn't dropped by the Alpaca Station website for a while, so I did, and discovered some bad news.  The jackdaws (who were supposed to be part two) will just have to wait.

Regular readers might remember Ivano, that pillar of the alpaca community:

Very sadly, he passed away over the winter.  There's a nice tribute to him here.  I'm genuinely quite moved by this. 

 

Wildlife corner - part one

A few days ago, over a long, boozy Sunday lunch I found myself (as you do) debating the existence of purple squirrels.  As it turns out, they do exist.  Well at least one does.  I mean, did.  There's a good chance his fur has fallen out by now according to the wildlife experts.

You can read all about Pete the used-to-be-purple squirrel here ; he was first spotted outside a school and various theories have been proposed about how he turned purple.  I've been swayed by the suggestion that he'd been chewing on some abandoned printer cartridges, but one of my lunch companions was convinced that "too much beetroot" was to blame.  I guess we'll never know.

Sunday Night Music Club