Some whimsy. I’ve been doom-scrolllng more than usual this past week. The colossal prick at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has sent the world into yet another spiral of worry and confusion, but today was very pleasant. Because of two very small things that made me beam.
Earlier this week I heard Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘Sundown’. It may have been attached to a social media post by @Niallb, I think. Anyway, I hadn’t heard it since Lightfoot’s death and realised I’d like to learn to play it. A quick look at YouTube and up he popped, strumming away at a live show. Capo at the second fret and copy the chords. Quite easy really. Within a few minutes Gordon and I were duetting if he but knew it.
So, a wonderful song I’ve always liked learnt in moments. A small thing that made me beam today.
To cap it all my daughter came home this afternoon with a custard tart in a bag. All for her Dad. Beam 2.
Any small things you’ve done, or had done to you today, that have helped lighten the load?
Well, I stumbled upon a newly released album of cover versions by the luminous Kathleen Edwards. This song is a version of Jason Isbell’s ‘Traveling Alone’, and I’ve been playing it to death ever since. Fair perked up my day.
That sounds really nice, Boneshaker.
Covers of songs by Jason Isbell, Paul Westerberg, John Prine, R.E.M. and Bruce Springsteen. Ms Edwards shows excellent taste!
What a pity that the album is download/streaming-only.
There’s an LP version available from her website, but no CD sadly. Not sure if she ships to the UK.
Lovely album. Thanks for the tip.
Re-built a massive spreadsheet, reducing in size, easier to update, and changing the mental formulas to something much simpler.
Dull, but satifying
I too had a nice long guitar practice when Mrs. T went out this afternoon (various ragtime pieces since you ask) whilst rewatching The Wire. This scene happened. Smile to full laugh.
I didn’t receive my scheduled phone call from an opthalmology nurse. It got cancelled and rescheduled for Friday afternoon. This was irritating but not entirely unexpected. On the other hand I did have a splendid box set of Christoph von Dohnanyi’s Cleveland Orchestra recordings delivered which improved the day immensely.
I was at Massey Hall in Toronto on Sunday, they have many posters and exhibits from their history on display. One of which featured “Gord” who played there more than 170 times! It was also closed for years for (impressive) renovation just before he passed away.l, so it could have been more!
I took the day off as The Light and I are processing some difficult news. To take our mind off things we took the train to Frinton and walked along the beach to Walton-on-the-Naze where we went to the pier and played air hockey (I won) and lost a pound each trying to win a piece of crap on the tupenny falls. The sunshine and sea air helped. A bit.
I’ve embarked on what I laughingly call a programme to try and stop my fucked lungs (specialist medical term) turning me into a housebound vegetable.
I’ve been doing aqua aerobics, pulling off stunts in the water that would make me pass out on dry land. I’ve just started pulmonary rehab classes.
And today (well yesterday, your today) I took delivery of a new exercise bike. Constructing the damn thing was a major workout in itself – though fortunately it wasn’t nearly as complicated as the exploded diagram suggested.
It’s one of those lean back jobs, so I just sit there idly pedalling away while wtching the birds and the flowers and listening to choons. I’ll be a silver surfer in no time.
Did you need a right angled adapter for that?
Would a wrong angled one work?
You. Out.
Spent a pleasant evening eating and drinking with my wife and daughter. Daughter is home from uni after a climbing holiday in Spain. Food and family, what could be better?
Yes I agree. On Sundays we tend to have everyone there for the evening meal and when it extends into general chatter and/or the playing of a game, I think this is when I am happiest.
My sister has moved from Essex to be near us in Devon, and coincidentally has been undergoing some rather nasty treatment for cancer, so have been helping out quite a bit. Today I put up a tricky light in her living room – shaped like deer antlers….don’t ask – and it all went surprisingly swimmingly well. Chuffed!
A FB link to a newly posted interview with Captain Beefheart led me to this YT channel ScottishTeeVee, and scrolling down I discovered this amazing 14 minute video of the late dearly beloved Viv Stanshall. It’s excellent! Many smiles
From The Late Show Special in 93.
There’s also this.
NoI clicked on a link to a self professed nerd site about minidisc in 2025. I assume my algorithms suggested it as I’ve recently been looking out for a spare minidisc deck as back up to the two I regularly use. The smile arose from the link to an app that it says will replace the long defunct Sonic Stage and allow users to rip and upload CDs to their NetMD players, something I haven’t been able to do for years. Even more enticingly it is supposed to allow for transfer from minidisc to a laptop, something that has not been possible in the past. This should allow me to create mp3s of stuff I have only had on minidisc for years including recordings of me and my musical collaborator’s sessions from back in the early 2000s. He’s wished he had his own copies for years.
Niche!
Like it. Keep us posted.
@Bamber – I’d be interested to visit that site. Care to share a link?
Thanks in advance.
A dull man in South Cambs is interested. I have a lot of discs but my ‘hi-fi’ MD player needs a repair, although I have an unused NetMD player in a drawer somewhere.
I’m another who’d be interested in what transpires.
I have a huge stash of radio shows and live music MDs from 2002-2005 that I’d like to digitise, but I can’t face the thought of playing them through one-by-one and then editing the resulting .wav files.
I haven’t gone into it yet as it was late and I had neither access to a laptop or either of my minidisc decks. I’m at work now. Just Google “Web minidisc Project”, and there are lots of links, one of which is to this YouTube footage. I can’t vouch for the software but if you give it a go, maybe let me know how you get on.
I was the joint facilitator of the first day of a 2-day ‘7 Habits’ course at work. Our first time of doing it, we got really positive feedback, and I’m looking forward to doing the second half today.
Every time I have a birthday i try and mark it by doing something to remember it by . Like when I was 55 I said no more suits and ties for me and 61 try do a good deed to someone at least once a day . So yesterday in the chemist whilst picking up my medication I gave the assistant a bag of doughnuts to share amongst the staff. The smile that greeted me made me happy for the rest of the day .
In Scotland for a week, enough to make me smile, but positively beaming as the sun has been doing the same. Dumfries and Galloway is very scarcely populated, is overlooked and bypassed by most tourists and has stunning scenery, especially in the huge forest park. Swimming daily in the beautiful Clatteringshaws Loch. Terrific!
Aren’t there plans to establish a new National Park in Galloway? I think I read about that somewhere…
There are, but there seems a fair bit of dissent, judging by posters and placards by the side of the road.
A 38-mile cycle ride through glorious spring countryside, the last 12 miles of it along the beach. Followed by a shower, a coffee, a cheeky middle-aged 10-minute lie down, and a smug feeling of being ahead of the day when it’s not even lunchtime.
I went for a 38-mile ride, mostly off the roads, a few days ago while the sun was out. Every single person I met was considerate (and I like to think I was too). We all made way for each other. Dog walkers kept their dogs under control when they spotted me. I steered well clear of their dogs. We all smiled and said “thank you”. By the time I reached home I was feeling positively euphoric.
Walked Mutley, washed our bedding and put it out on the line.
Now listening to Springboard by The Chills. It’s really really good, sounds like the songs were written this week, not some years ago. Then felt a little sad we won’t here anymore from Martin Phillipps.
Prompted by el hombre malo on the Blogger Takeover thread, I have started using the Sketch a Day app this week. I can’t draw for toffee, but I’m hoping I’ll improve – and it’s giving me a focus in the day where I think about nothing else.
Oh, and I picked up a Sarah Vaughan CD yesterday, from a Hospice shop – for 50p.
I say. Without getting all Hallmark Cards and Live, Laugh, Love on your arses, this has proven quite an uplifting thread.
Thanks to all for posting, and I do wish us all many small pleasures to come.
On with the small and the nice!
Today after an overcast start the sun is out, the lilies are blooming and I shall hie myself away to the pool for a swim, alas unlike @retropath2 in an indoor pool and not a loch.
A second small thing, if I may. I topped up the pea shingle in my front garden this morning, made myself a black coffee, sat on my bench in the sun, listened to the birds singing and watched the world go by. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Bought tickets for 4 upcoming cheap gigs at Karamel/Collage Arts in Wood Green. That’s my Thursday evenings sorted for the next month.
Signed up for a free month’s trial of Qobuz, with a view to replacing my Tidal subscription. So far so good.
The sun is shining outside and I’ve just had buttered toast and a coffee.
During lockdown to help with the old mental health we started listening to fitbit meditation / relaxation recordings, one of which was based around giving thanks every day for even the smallest of things. We don’t need them anymore but I still regularly do a daily “thanks recap” and you know what, it really works.
Today my train was on time and the sun came out around noon. That’ll do me 🙏
Tough one. Coldest April day in 30 years (-13.5 deg C) here after 15cm snow yesterday, my daughter doesn’t want to go to school, not enjoying my job very much, stocks tanking.
Hmmm, Masters (a golf tournament) starts tomorrow, the official start of spring!
I’ve stuck a few quid on Cupcake and Straka in the Masters. It’s usually worth watching!
Ah Koepka?
One of these 5 for me:
Scheffler
Morikawa
Matsuyama
DeChambeau
McIlroy
(haven’t checked scores yet)
I doubt there are too many golf fans here, but that may be the best tournament I ever watched. Just incredible
I got into watching Sunday-league football because, as a teenager, Offspring The Younger played for a local club and had to be driven to matches. He’s now very into golf, but can now drive himself to the clubs, so that I can stay at home and play records.
It was epic drama @dai So close to heartbreaking tragedy for McIlroy even down to the final putt. It was gripping TV.
You couldn’t make it up. Felt a little sorry for Rose, runner up in last 2 majors and his career deserves more than 1 of them.
I listened to the first Streets album in the car on the drive in, together with a chapter on audiobook from NK Jemisin’s The Stone Sky. And they seem to be getting on finally with the work on opening Kings Heath station – a train station 5 minutes walk away! It was due to be opened for the 2022 Commonwealth Games, but work seems finally to be getting done ‘at pace’ as they say on the news.
I was on the same job today as I had been a fortnight ago, but the march of spring and the lengthening daylight made it different. Leaving Chester at daybreak, the Gowy marshes were covered in mist, the hedges now full of blossom and, best of all, there was a fat old sun rising above the crumpled landscape, the colour of the tastiest fried egg you’ve ever had. Ten minutes and a couple of stations later, the sun was a bland yellow and simply dazzling me; the moment had passed. But I had the moment.
A couple of things from today. Firstly, lots of people helped complete my wife’s task/questionnaire. This made me smile as I know I don’t contribute a lot on this site, but I was so grateful to see so many people help out. Thanks once again.
The second thing was seeing an old friend who is expanding her stage school. I went for a walk around her new building (it’s huge) and to see the excitement of my friend who has built this up from nothing really made me smile. Inevitably I have volunteered to help paint a room or two to get the new building up to scratch, which is something I am rather looking forward to.
Dropped my son off at his primary school. Double decker bus ride on the way back. Top deck. Front seats. Will pick him up later. Another double decker bus ride.
Wasn’t the 190 or 67 service was it – they seem to go everywhere in Singapore 😉
After years of driving everywhere, these days I find myself using the bus (or MRT) on most trips and only using the car when absolutely necessary.
I’ve never owned a car in Singapore. In fact, it’s been so long since I’ve driven that (a) I think my licence has expired, and (b) I’d be a bit nervous about getting behind the wheel again anyway.
Luckily I like buses, and I like the air-conditioned buses in Singapore. A ride through one of Singapore’s neighbourhoods on a double decker is one of life’s small pleasures. I live in Tampines which has lots of long tree-lined avenues; it’s very beautiful. Plus in Singapore, the weather is either sunny or thunderstorms – perfect double decker bus weather.
I recently changed my Facebook profile picture one of me on the front seat of the top deck of a bus (the 87 from Colchester to Brightlingea via Wivenhoe since you ask) on a sunny day. I’m 58 and it still gives me a little thrill.
Do people, usually old people, still snog, at the back of double deckers, reminding me of a very upsetting trip from Lewes to Brighton, as a nipper. Proper upset me, it did. All that noise, all that slobber.
These days the only buses get on are full of people either singing (late night) or frowning (in the morning), they being the ones from Coldings Common to Cherry Hinton Hall, or from the campsite at Sidmouth down to the seafront. Won’t be doing the first one again, I guess.
‘You and me, sitting on a bus, on the front seat at the top.
Watching the people who don’t look like us, and going way past our stop.
Travelling everywhere, we got no money but what do we care.
You and me, sitting on a bus, on the front seat at the top’.
Together Forever by Rab Noakes.
Yesterday morning I managed to limp to the local supermarket so now I have strawberries and ice cream then in the afternoon my oldest and much loved friend Michael phoned me for one of our weekly very long, very funny and very discursive chats. Assorted ailments, valve amps, Stravinsky and Ramases albums and the carelessness of skip delivery drivers were amongst the topics explored. Today I’m expecting a delivery of yet another humongous box set.
Do you know who the song ‘Sundown’ is about?
It’s about Cathy Smith, who was Lightfoot’s girlfriend at the time. (I think she was a girlfriend of the stars type of person). She was always out on the town with her friends whilst he sat alone at home working, trying to write songs.
Later, when she wasn’t his girlfriend, she got busted and sent to jail for selling the drugs to John Belushi that he overdosed on.
Wasn’t she also with Levon Helm at one point?
Apparently she was ‘with’ him and Rick and Richard, such that when she had a child, it was know as the Band baby, as nobody knew who the father was, Also a drug dealer to Keith Richards and Ron Wood. All this from Wikipedia, so take with a pinch of salt or whatever your prefered white powder might be.
Bloody hell. I knew precisely none of that.
My favourite Lightfoot song to play on guitar is ‘Early Morning Rain ‘. Guitar tuned to drop D, capo on fret 3(same as Gordon) and it’s D,G,A and Em. The difficult part is the strumming pattern as he fairly batters it out. Sadly I don’t own a 12 string any more but it still sounds great on my old 6 string.
Don’t get fooled by the mis-heard lyrics on the net ie ‘where the pavement never grows’. Pish!
1) Love Gord!
2) Paul Weller does a decent version of “Early Morning Rain”
A couple of weeks ago, Belle and I had to put Xena, our 11-year old Springer Spaniel, to sleep because of health issues.
On Tuesday, we got a new Springer Spaniel pup called Django to keep our 3-year old Irish Water Spaniel Brownie company. After a difficult couple of nights, the pair are now snuggling up on the carpet behind me after a bout of fairly good-natured roughhousing.
Sorry about Xena
Indeed…
Thanks, guys..
There comes a moment in every petowner’s life when you just know it’s time to let go.
Poor Brownie took X‘s death very badly but seems to be rallying after accepting and starting to rub along with Django.
My peak to date this week happened at lunchtime. I snagged a Too Good To Go sushi suprise bag from Sushi Gourmet at the big Sainsbury’s. £5 got me 4 big trays of lovely sushi and a salmon rice bowl that would have cost £48 full price. Lunch and tea sorted and happy kids (who love a bit of sushi).
I’m enjoying this thread immensely. I’m pleased I asked the question.
Sat in car enjoying lovely spring evening whilst youngest was at football training. Randomly check emails and one comes in saying watch Dawes soundcheck on substack now. On another evening I would never normally have seen this. I click the link and do. Firstly they’re paying Tom Petty’s Wildflowers, and I spend the next 30 mins very happily nodding my head along. Son finishes, gets in and asks if they’d played crack the case, it came on as next song, stream finished as we pulled into the drive. A perfect unexpected treat.
I put the unsolicited junk mail (from Reform UK) through the shredder.
This machine shreds racists.
I post any of that rubbish back to them in an unstamped envelope.
I had a quick sploosh after a haircut . No more itchity bits!
Too much information dude.
Ah. I see now how that reads. I had a shower to get rid of the remnants of my barnet.
I do this. Can’t bear even a trace a niggling short hairs that may have gone down my collar.
Thank you @beezer
Glad it’s not just me
To complete a hat trick of posts yesterday I received the anticipated phone call from an opthalmology nurse and now I’m waiting for a face to face appointment, sometime around August I was informed. Lord knows how long I’ll have to wait for the actual surgery. Along with the endless wait for a hip replacement it’s all rather depressing. However on the up side I had a delivery of yet another three discs of Mahler symphonies this morning and I have been accepted as a beta tester for Qobuz Connect. I await further instructions from Qobuz and Eversolo.
I was contacted in October last year about the referral from my doctor, which I knew nothing about. It turned out the request was from 11 months before.
I saw the nurse soon after and because of a cancellation two weeks after that appointment I had a nerve block injection, which cured the sciatica for a while and helped my other dodgy leg too.
I’m now booked in for an MRI scan at the end of the month with the prospect of a third operation on my back and spine.
Pob lwc.
And to you too.
Good luck, Pencil. I’m still waiting for my lumbar operation after almost a year. (This is not to criticise the NHS in any way. Thank goodness for it)
Solidarity, brother.
That brief moment an hour ago when it was Irish golfers in first and second in the Masters – McIlroy and Lowry. Hopefully the pair of them are still in the reckoning at the end.
I won £20 on a scratch card.
Also, this amused me so much that I attempted to join in*…
(*not really)