2013 — 6 October: Sunday
First non-routine task on this cool but sunny morning?1 See what's happened to yesterday afternoon's BBC "Jazz Line-Up" programme that was even after midnight steadfastly avoiding taking its 'proper' place in the get_iPlayer list of available index feeds. Although, having listened to it, I had by then found myself succumbing to a trio of related Michael Garrick CDs, there were still a couple of tracks (Don Rendell with Ian Carr) that have so far eluded me for 40 years or more. And that won't do, will it?
Got it!
Good job I'm not one of those sad completeists. Besides, it's virtual pension day. And I deserve a treat. In my opinion. Bite me.
I find myself...
... curiously unperturbed by this "news" story. What a pity the figure isn't 100% rather than "More than half". Source and snippet:
More than half of England's schools are failing pupils on religious education, says the education watchdog Ofsted...
In particular it says the recent introduction of the English Baccalaureate measure for pupils who achieve grade C or above in English, mathematics, science, a language and either history
or geography, ignores RE and has further marginalised the subject.
About bloody time too.
Yep. Definitely autumn. I've just filled in my annual "Register of Electors", making this the sixth time mine has been the only name on the damned thing. <Sigh>
Time for a late lunch, methinks. [Pause] And I can have (new) music while I munch, too. Or do I mean "mange tout"?
The errant Auto-Rip version of last Thursday's purchase — that Beck album "Odelay" — was slipped nonchalantly into "my" Amazon Cloud Player at some point yesterday (after rather more than the 15 minutes delay they initially mentioned!) — when I'd given up looking for it, of course, and had resigned myself to doing my own ripping when the physical CD eventually shows up. So I've just downloaded it. About flippin' time. And am pleased to note that I recognise, and enjoy, most of the tracks.
My first...
... exposure to Harry Shearer on NPR in a bit too long. His "apologies of the week" feature gets ever longer. [Pause] And how can it possibly be 40 years since "The Wicker Man"? Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone is celebrating. Then Jesca Hoop is sitting in for Guy Garvey. Caloo calay. That will do nicely for the audio side of things this evening.
Stumbling...
... as I just did, this evening, over the word "Gytrash" — which, given my childhood in northern England, I suspect I should have known (but didn't) — the best my annoying memory could offer up was "The widening Gyre" — which (as eny fule kno) is the title of one of the many forgettable / forgotten thrillers churned out by Robert B Parker (and to which I was briefly addicted in the mid-1980s). I also knew it was a line from a poem, since the paperback edition I owned back then quoted the damn' thing. But could I recall the poet? Of course not. Wikipedia to the rescue, in both cases.
I was tickled to see quite how pervasive Yeats' poem has become in popular culture, though I was as bemused as ever at the sheer profundity of my own ignorance. Things fall apart, indeed!