mintybloggydiarythingy 2.0

Week from Monday 23rd September 2024 - Last week was another fairly empty one, followed by a concentrated burst of activity at the weekend (mental rather than physical)... I had acquired a naughty audience recording of a SOFT MACHINE gig from a couple of weeks ago. They played a 'one-off' at the Pizza Express oop dzat Londin, no doubt as a warm-up for their currently ongoing American tour. It's quite an exciting listen if you can hear past the audio quality ('MY LIFE IN B***LEGS'). It's nice and clear, but Asif's drums are painfully loud in the mix at times. But a bit of tender-loving Audacity can fix that! I've learnt by now to expect a lot of patter and 'dead air' at a Softies gig. A set that appears to last about an hour-and-three-quarters, can usually be trimmed to the length of a single listenable CD, if I have the patience to do so - I can lose all the vociferousness and the 'Chew Ning', cut the DRUM SOLO down to an acceptable leng...

Week from Monday 2nd September 2024 - Into the final week of the VUELTA... and everything changes as WOUT VAN AERT has crashed out, shaking up both the GREEN JERSEY and POLKA-DOT rankings. Once again, fractions of a second separate the GENERAL CLASSIFICATION, so anything could happen... I shall habitually click over to ITV4 for the TOUR OF BRITAIN coverage. That should also be watchable, if only for the presence of 'big names' REMCO EVENEPOEL and JULIAN ALAPHILIPPE (and a decent professional commentary!). LiDL TREK have entered their 'FUTURE RACING' development team for this one, so no 'big names' but still plenty of those distinctive uniforms to cheer on ("Chapeaux!" as they say, to LIAM O'BRIEN and COLE KESSLER). I had my person-to-person chat with the Doc, up at that there WHORE'S SPITTLE, whereby we updated each other on what's bin gwine on. The good news is that the MYELOMA hasn't returned (yet?), so any side-effects I am current...