Blue Christmas (Eight Days to Go)

"You'll be doing alright with your Christmas of white"



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Lockdown Diary - Tuesday 17th November 2020

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Where do I begin?  I am working today so that's going to occupy most of the day. I'm working whilst taking measures to try and ease the pain in my hip / back, including having to resort to the Bezos demon to get hold of some Tiger balm on the same day. Work dominates the day, punctured by a minor surprise discovery which requires a bit of re-think of things on my part. In the early evening I found time to listen to Sunday's 'Freak Zone' - nothing earth shattering, just the odd thing of interest I'd not heard. Stuart must be reading my blog as he played the Divide and Dissolve track I posted on Saturday.  (Only kidding. He isn't. He did play the song however.) We watched the third episode of 'The Queen's Gambit', which continues to captivate, both in the chess scenes and the portrayal of life in the 1960s.  Anya Taylor-Joy, who plays the older lead character, Beth Harmon gives a really strong performance and steals the scenes she is in. And that, ...
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Love, Poetry and Revolution - Thursday 15th May 2025

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I'm back again. My head is still not back to the state which I call normality.  I'm still getting headaches daily.  I'm not sure if it's the bang on my head or SSRI withdrawal or a toxic combination of both.  Next week, I may get a chance to be investigated by my GP, if nothing has changed. In the meantime, I am competing for the record of becoming the largest consumer of paracetamol and ibuprofen. It's not ideal, but there have to be positives. Life goes on, as it must and I've a few big topics on my mind, aside from the above.  Planning for the future and deciding what that will look like is one of these topics. Thankfully, this one takes two to plan and Q and I have had several conversations as we discern a plan emerging from the fog of possibilities. Working out the layout of my new library/music room is another consideration.  The sofa-bed has been delivered and looks good. Sofa-r, so good.  Having the sofa in place calls into question where every...
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Lockdown Diary - Wednesday 2nd September 2020

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Very hectic start to the day, got up early to get everything set up for yoga at 7, and did some preparation for breakfast afterwards.  Did yoga but left early at 7:35 in order to get showered, dressed and make breakfast by 8 a.m. - rushing about the house up and down stairs setting porridge cooking whilst cleaning my teeth upstairs in parallel. Somehow I managed to get all this done with three minutes to spare, which I thought was good going. Had to skip press ups and weights - will do those in my lunch break, all being well.  Who says you have to slow down when you get older?   (The course is being presented by someone in Italy, so when we take lunch break, it hasn't reached lunch time in the UK! Mind you, all the other attendees are in India, some five and a half hours ahead, so when we finish around 5pm, it's 10:30 p.m. for them!) Who says you have to slow down when you get older? Just come back from lunch break - did my exercises and organised a couple of things that ...
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The January Long List

So, the next step in my experiment is to identify a list of music to listen to in January 2011.  This really isn’t going to be difficult as a list has been bubbling under since well before Christmas.  At the moment it’s a fairly long list – a long list I need to whittle down to just five (or maybe six – the rules are not that prescriptive) candidates for my album of the month. This post heralds the full list of hopefuls, possibles and downright eternal optimists that are fighting it out to be included in my January short list. I’m sure you’re wondering how I get to hear the albums in the first place:  any way I can!  In practice this means if it’s not on Spotify , the band’s / artist’s My Space page or streamed somewhere ahead of release ( Pitchfork , the guardian music blog or wherever) it’s not that likely to make the shortlist. After all, one of the rules is that the album must be heard in full, more than once, in order to stand a chance of becoming album of ...
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Love, Poetry and Revolution - Thursday 31st July 2025

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A post before July ends! Amazing! July has been incredibly busy socially and has sown seeds for the remainder of my life, hopefully.  I have long harboured an ambition to become a writer.  Writing always comes second to living life, so I don't think I have what it takes. It's not an all-consuming passion.  It's never too late (?) Q and I spent ten days in Italy early in the month.  The original plan was a week's holiday split between Venice and Florence, returning to Bologna (where we started) for an NGO conference that Q had to attend for a week.  Sadly, Q's actual job needed her back at work earlier, so we left Bologna early on Wednesday morning of the second week. I had travelled to Italy intending to ask Q to marry me, to which end I had purchased a temporary ring to seal the deal.  Where and when to propose? I had Venice in mind as I love the city and think it's a romantic place to propose. On the assumption I would propose there, I had a few places in...
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