mintybloggydiarythingy 2.0

Week from Monday 13th November 2023 - Radio Three's lunchtime "COMPOSER(s) OF THE WEEK" slot should be a goody this week - As it's LONDON JAZZ FESTIVAL time, they've taken a sideways step from the norm to explore the music of JOHN and ALICE COLTRANE... Musically, there's not much that I haven't heard before, but the attendant discussion prompted a lot of fresh interest (i.e. I think I might have one of my CRAZES coming on!) Although I've still no intention to ditch TWITTER just yet, one of my Welsh chums has sent me an 'INVITE CODE' for that newfangled BLUESKY, so I'm going to give it a go. I trust it has more going for it over MASTODON, which is still a bit 'tumbleweed central' as far as reading matter is concerned. It works, but there's just NOTHING THERE. So I've shut down the MASTODON (I can't ever see myself needing both Mastodon AND Bluesky), and I've started exploring THE POSSIBILITIES of Bluesky (which, on...

What's on the Jukebox? - A playlist of top stuff that's currently setting the toes a-tappin', the fingers a-snappin' and the ears a-wormin' and generally shakin' my grooved thang to thrillin' effect. (Click on the wee lozenges to link to related YouTube clips, if you're curious.) Markus Reuter "Stream For Consciousness" (a.o.) ◊ Miles Davis "Big Fun" ◊ Abdullah Ibrahim "Ekaya" ◊ Grateful Dead "Shakedown Street" ◊ Ravi Shankar "In Concert 1962" ◊ Ross Daly "Echo of Time ◊

Week from Monday 30th October 2023 - An Upside To The Lockdown... I've had the time and opportunity to catch up with some BIG, some might say 'classic' MOVIES during the weekdays:- "The Omen", "The Shining", "Blade Runner 2049" (not as stunning as the original), "Midsommar" (disturbing, but short on suspense: I didn't really care for it)... a couple of 'em I'd intended to save for watching on HALLOWEEN. But I've already been ticking them off the list anyway. Because I can. BANDCAMP FRIDAY is still a thing, I see... I'm unable to purchase anything at the moment, but I've come to treat the BFs as a sort of 'listening party'. Not surprisingly, MARKUS REUTER has yet another couple of collaborative projects on the books:- "Mumblecore Failure" with Jean-Philippe Rossi and "Sea Of Hopeless Angels" with Stefano Castagna, along with some further chapters from his own "Stream For Consci...

Week from Monday 23rd October 2023 - I had the usual momentary confusion trying to remember in which direction the CLOCKS need adjusting ("Spring Forward, Fall Back" and all that)... Most mornings, I awake to hear a friendly ROBIN, who sits on top of the tree outside my window (in exactly the same spot every day, a bow-shaped, bent-back branch that forms a perfect customised perch), quietly warbling a few of his favourite ditties. He'll keep this up for ages, until the people up the road let their yappy dogs out into the yard and the peace is shattered. I've recently started following this feller on the Twitterage. He seems to know his onions... showing an in-depth knowledge of scientific matters with just the right amount of indignation aimed at the 'authorities' who'd prefer that you don't know about any of it. @1goodtern - It's so hard to articulate this, and I keep failing. But the people downplaying the repercussions of Covid seem to be...

Week from Monday 16th October 2023 - As with certain governments one could mention, nearly every single 'idea' that ENLO SKUM has loudly announced on Xitter over the past few months has failed to come to actuality, at least not from where I'm sitting... And so, like those governments, there's no point in listening anymore. (This week, he's given a convoluted and hard to swallow reason why charging users a dollar a month might be beneficial to stamping out the bots. They're going to trial the idea in New Zealand and the Philippines. Apparently.) One new 'feature' I HAVE noticed is that my list of "FOLLOWERS" is becoming populated by alphanumerically-named 'BOTS that come and go according to how you interact with them. Which luckily I don't. I don't see any of them on my own ("For You") TIMELINE, they appear to be just sitting there waiting to pounce. I guess it's a ploy to ambush all those "FOLLOW BACK FRIDAY...

Week from Monday 2nd October 2023 - On Thursday, I got 'invited' to the pharmacist to get double-jabbed: one for the FLU in my right arm, plus a dose of what we may technically refer to as the 'PFIZER COMIRNATY ORIGINAL/OMICRON BA.4-5 for SARS-CoV-2' in the other. I decided "WHAT THE HECK!?!" and went for it. The side effects are much less pronounced this time around, but I did SLEEP away most of forty-eight hours... Week from Monday 9th October 2023 - I'm catching up with most of last week's telly, and several days'worth of Twitter. There's much to amuse, educate and inform as well as, I would admit, much to scroll past entirely... but I see there's a fresh wave of "THAT'S IT, I'VE HAD IT!" postings from people making the decision to jump ship, leaving me to wonder how others find it SO unusable, while I'm still comfy (Probably because I'm diligently self-immunised against Enlo's latest whims?) Of cours...

What's on the Jukebox? - A playlist of top stuff that's currently setting the toes a-tappin', the fingers a-snappin' and the ears a-wormin' and generally shakin' my grooved thang to thrillin' effect. (Click on the wee lozenges to link to related YouTube clips, if you're curious.) Markus Reuter "Stream For Consciousness" ◊ Gustav Mahler "Symphony No.9" ◊ Tangerine Dream "Alpha Centauri" ◊ Gil Evans "Pacific Standard Time" ◊ Art of Noise "Who's Afraid of the Art of Noise?" a.o. ◊ Genesis "Genesis" (1983) ◊