Author: PT

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Beware the Pump-Cairn

Halloween is great fun and we enjoy the trick or treat kids that come around for their pack of Haribos. This year we had spiders on wires that are triggered by the doorbell. They press the doorbell, the spiders drop and then start climbing back up their strings. We answer the door when the screaming stops.

Gizmo tries to join in – this amounts to looking glum in pictures – see the Pump-Cairn below and hurling himself at the front door to provide percussion to accompany the screaming – good dog.

This may turn into one of a series, Cairn on the Cob, Cairngorm-less etc.

Although my daughter had friends round to watch a movie, my son was away at a friends – not sure how much trick or treating occurred, I suspect more like 8 hours of unadulterated mind-numbing CoD4 online. In between teenies and screaming we watched Drag Me To Hell. Billed as “The scariest film of the decade”, it wasn’t.

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Music That shaped me #1

It’s Saturday night and I thought I would be idle and share some videos of significant songs from my dim and distant past – enjoy or ……

  • Metal Guru by T.Rex:

  • Hejira – Joni Mitchell

  • We Three – Patti Smith

  • Talking Heads Stop Making Sense

  • Live Aid 1985 – I pick Sade!

    Yup there will be more…………..

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    Sounds of comfort?

    It's a strange thing, I just looked up the dictionary definition of litany and it wasn't quite what I had expected. Dictionary.com defines it as follows:

    "1. a ceremonial or liturgical form of prayer consisting of a series of invocations or supplications with responses that are the same for a number in succession.

    2. the Litany, the supplication in this form in the Book of Common Prayer.

    3. a recitation or recital that resembles a litany.

    4.a prolonged or tedious account: We heard the whole litany of their complaints."

    Although I always knew it was religious I had always thought that to a monk, a litany was a a prayer that was recited to give comfort during dark nights. In my own head I therefore associate a litany not with tedium but with relief, with comfort – a set of sounds or a flow of words that give stability or assurance.

    Bizarrely, as a music lover it is flows of words that do it for me rather than music, which can go in and out of fashion. So to me (laugh if you wish) there are two flows of words, the Radio show The Archers and the Shipping Forecast, again on the radio, but early in the morning. Forget the story in The Archers, as that changes little, but the flow of the words and the way the show plays out is a constant, a background, a known noise, a-a-a litany. And for the Shipping Forecast, read in an old fashioned voice:

    "Tyne Dogger Fisher German Bight Humber Thames Dover southwest 4 or 5, but northwest 3 or 4 at first except Tyne and Dogger. Slight or moderate. Showers. Moderate or good."

    This is the beauty of radio, it can have extremely long lived programmes that change little and do not age. If you want more international backgrounds, try anything by Garrison Keiller, read by the author or go to the radio channel in iTunes and dig out Mystery Play Radio.

    What does it for you?

    Just thinking…

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    A confession: for some reason I like the ukulele

    Was it a banjo or a ukulele that George Formby played? Wiki says it was a banjo-ukulele which is no help at all. It was definitely a banjo that the kid played in Deliverance. Anyhow I have a confession to make – I really like ukulele music – specifically cover versions.

    I can click my heels together and say it is all Dorothy’s fault. Have you heard the version of Somewhere over the rainbow by Israel Kamamawiwo’Ole? If not listen to this:

    Or go for more modern songs like the covers from the wonderful Zita and Les Ukulele Girls whose version of Gangsta’s Paradise is so beautiful.

    Clip from Gangsta’s Paradise

    So take a look on You Tube – it’s not all about crusty 1940’s guys leaning on lampposts. Go Ukulele!

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    Quiet desperation, Moose and Indian

    “Moose” and “Indian” were the last words of David Henry Thoreau (or
    Henry David Thoreau as he preferred to be known), the American
    philosopher and individual anarchist who died in 1862. He sported a
    neck beard which to me says he was also a contrarian.

    More importantly he came our with a famous quotation that a friend of mine, Byron Ko mentioned to me several years ago:

    “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”

    If the first part of the quotation is the
    headline maker, but the second part is more interesting. Am I quietly
    desperate? Well only when I look at the amount of paper in my in-tray
    (my weekend task). Do I have a song within me? Er, well I, er, maybe,
    er.

    I guess what strikes a chord is when I look at tweets, and blogs and
    conversations it strikes me that (really Phil, it only took you several
    hundred years to figure this out?) men don’t talk very much, and women
    do, that is why man tweets and blogs seem to be much less interesting –
    just a thought.

    Maybe a blog is a song?

    Disclaimer: I know very little about Mr Thoreau – if I missed the
    bit where he was also a part-time chain saw murderer and
    devil-worshiper, please don’t beat me up, it will make me quiet and desperate.

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    Dan Brown – a minor rant

    I'm sure Dan Brown is a very nice man (actually I have no idea if he is but I would hope so), but I have probably just read the last book I will read by him – The Lost Symbol. I think the technical description of my opinion of the book is that it is complete pants.

    I'm not sniffy about Dan Brown as many of the critics are, and up until now have enjoyed his books. But this one has a thinner than thin plot, padded out even more than usual with (I suspect) heavily researched material designed to impress the slow of thinking. The conversations were appalling – imagine saying hello to Robert Langdon:

    "Hello"

    "Hello, now let me see, Hello is a word that originally was invented by devil worshipers for a new pudding they invented in Abyssinia in 1283, it was red, invoked hell and contained jello, hence hell-o. They began to take the pudding to food parties at each other's houses and greeted their brethren with Hell-o again?

    "???How are you today?"

    "Today in 1194 in what later became Washington DC…."

    and so on.

    'Facts' embellish good stories, but there needs to be a good story.

    Rant out

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    Remarkable People

    I Have been fortunate enough to spend part of this last week at a gathering of remarkable people, kindly hosted in St. Tropez (video of view below).

    It is rare in this world to have the opportunity to meet a group of peers and to learn vast amounts in such a short time. The group largely comprised CEOs of upcoming companies, together with a smattering of other interesting parties. This week reconfirmed my belief that small actions and concerted effort can not only make companies grow in a smart, tenacious and non-compromising fashion, but also with a view of the wider picture in mind. We all have such a social responsibility that growth must be accompanied by contribution to those less fortunate.

    Lauren shared a quotation with us:

    “There are those who enter the world in such poverty that they are deprived of both the means and the motivation to improve their lot. Unless they can be touched with the spark which ignites the spirit of individual enterprise and determination, they will only sink into apathy, degradation and despair. It is for us, who are more fortunate, to provide that spark.”

    Feeling rather humble and drawn to action…

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    That time of year again

    Well it is, for me at least, a time of great energy. I think I never got over the excitement in September of was going back to school, meeting new people and just getting going again after the summer.

    Today is a slightly sunny, slightly cool day in Wales and the trees are beginning to shed their leaves – the good news will be more acorn and conkers to collect and plant. I'm off shortly to work on some ground we are recovering around the edges of our local park – removing old privet roots and ivy to create extra grass, planted with small raised borders for herbs. Hopefully these will be left to grow rather than be kicked to death or stolen, and the community will have some herbs to smell and pick a little of as they walk through the park next year.

    It's not all joy – I have a nice bump on my face where a Hawthorn stump we were removing yesterday fought back and whacked me in the jaw. Tree 1, me 0 !

    Just loading the ipod with the Stephen Fry Podgram for company until Ruth comes out to join in. It's mattock time.