Whatever that is?
Week from Monday 1st December 2025 - The gubnint's endeavours to protect CHILDREN against dodgy internet content are all well and good, but they also are having a knock-on effect of being inconvenient to us SIXTY-SEVEN YEAR OLDS! Some of the pages that I've regularly been following and reading for years, suddenly require an extra level of registration before I can get past the "ADULT-ONLY CONTENT" restrictions. This includes the daily blog of my favourite gonzo American political commentator. I've also had to 'prove' that I'm an adult every time I change my BLUESKY password. And don't get me started on those daft bots that autohide any depictions of RENAISSANCE ART, lest anyone should catch a glimpse of the painted boobies!
GREEKS & INDONESIANS... I finally got around to giving the new album by the Javanese pianist DWIKI DHARAWAN the attention it deserves. I'd acquired "ANAGNORISIS" (whatever that means!?) from the Bandcamp concern a while back, but what with one thing or another, it had sat on my hard-drive waiting... Recorded in Athens, with a band of mostly Greek musicians, it's a lot more conventionally "JAZZ" than some of his previous albums, although it still has some 'exotic' styles along the way (nothing that sounds particularly 'Greek' though). I much prefer it over his last album "HARI KETIGA" which, while it certainly HAD ITS MOMENTS (many delightful ones!), it was wrapped up in all kinds of 'prog''CONCEPT ALBUM' nonsense and had 'rawk' vocal tracks that I really didn't care for. There was quite a lot of it, so it lent itself to one of my famous 'SINGLE-DISC LISTENING VERSION' edits. (I'd recommend "RUMAH BATU" as his finest work, being more steeped in traditional Indonesian flavours. Plus it's got ASAF SIRKIS on it!)
On Friday, I hopped on a bus down to GOSPORT, primarily to stock up on posh Waitrose MINCE PIES for my mom, but also to pay another visit to the big CHAZZA where I'd spotted those fancy winter coats on a previous encounter. Sadly, the really sporty thirteen-pound one had been taken, but I got a very practical and fetching garment for TEN POUNDS. Needless to say, I grabbed a three-for-a-pound selection of CDs while I was there: a very nice Naxos of RODRIGO's concertos, an upgrade for ENYA's "The Celts"...
...and a recording of RESPIGHI's "Roman" tone poems that turned out to be not nearly as good as the one I already have, so that's gone straight onto the ever-growing 'reDONATIONS' pile! OXFAM will be getting a treat in the new year!
Week from Monday 8th December 2025 - My SLEEP patterns are an absolute mess at the moment... I fall asleep the minute my head hits the pillow. Fine. Then I wake up needing a pee, thinking I've had a solid night's kip, only to find it's been a COUPLE OF HOURS at the most! It's not even midnight yet! I will then be wide awake and "BRAIN BUSY" for the next few hours, tossing and turning, subsequently losing consciousness at some unknown point in the early hours. When the actual morning arrives, I no longer automatically wake before dawn as is my wont, because 'DAWN' isn't until later anyway! It's often way past EIGHT O'CLOCK before I catch a glimpse of daylight, when I'm tired and stiff and I don't feel at all RESTED at all. As Mr Stanshall's Mrs E once said, "OOH! AH 'AVEN'T GOT THE ENERGY TO FALL ASLEEP!" It's not yet a problem for me to get up BRIGHT AND EARLY when I actually have to, but there's little NEED to do so at the moment. So I don't...
GREEKS & INDONESIANS... I finally got around to giving the new album by the Javanese pianist DWIKI DHARAWAN the attention it deserves. I'd acquired "ANAGNORISIS" (whatever that means!?) from the Bandcamp concern a while back, but what with one thing or another, it had sat on my hard-drive waiting... Recorded in Athens, with a band of mostly Greek musicians, it's a lot more conventionally "JAZZ" than some of his previous albums, although it still has some 'exotic' styles along the way (nothing that sounds particularly 'Greek' though). I much prefer it over his last album "HARI KETIGA" which, while it certainly HAD ITS MOMENTS (many delightful ones!), it was wrapped up in all kinds of 'prog''CONCEPT ALBUM' nonsense and had 'rawk' vocal tracks that I really didn't care for. There was quite a lot of it, so it lent itself to one of my famous 'SINGLE-DISC LISTENING VERSION' edits. (I'd recommend "RUMAH BATU" as his finest work, being more steeped in traditional Indonesian flavours. Plus it's got ASAF SIRKIS on it!)
On Friday, I hopped on a bus down to GOSPORT, primarily to stock up on posh Waitrose MINCE PIES for my mom, but also to pay another visit to the big CHAZZA where I'd spotted those fancy winter coats on a previous encounter. Sadly, the really sporty thirteen-pound one had been taken, but I got a very practical and fetching garment for TEN POUNDS. Needless to say, I grabbed a three-for-a-pound selection of CDs while I was there: a very nice Naxos of RODRIGO's concertos, an upgrade for ENYA's "The Celts"...
...and a recording of RESPIGHI's "Roman" tone poems that turned out to be not nearly as good as the one I already have, so that's gone straight onto the ever-growing 'reDONATIONS' pile! OXFAM will be getting a treat in the new year!
Week from Monday 8th December 2025 - My SLEEP patterns are an absolute mess at the moment... I fall asleep the minute my head hits the pillow. Fine. Then I wake up needing a pee, thinking I've had a solid night's kip, only to find it's been a COUPLE OF HOURS at the most! It's not even midnight yet! I will then be wide awake and "BRAIN BUSY" for the next few hours, tossing and turning, subsequently losing consciousness at some unknown point in the early hours. When the actual morning arrives, I no longer automatically wake before dawn as is my wont, because 'DAWN' isn't until later anyway! It's often way past EIGHT O'CLOCK before I catch a glimpse of daylight, when I'm tired and stiff and I don't feel at all RESTED at all. As Mr Stanshall's Mrs E once said, "OOH! AH 'AVEN'T GOT THE ENERGY TO FALL ASLEEP!" It's not yet a problem for me to get up BRIGHT AND EARLY when I actually have to, but there's little NEED to do so at the moment. So I don't...
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