I’m out on the western edge this morning, more or less at the closest point you can get to North America and still be in Europe. It’s blowing a hoolie outside, but I’m going for a walk nonetheless. Yesterday afternoon, when I got here, it looked like this:
No doubt, in an hour or two, the wind and rain will have blown over and the sands will shine again.
I hope you’re also in as beautiful a place.
I’m in a small office in the corner of my garage. If I look out of the window I can see the rendered wall of my house, which is painted cream (it is *not* Magnolia, ok?). In the middle of the view is a 6×6 louvre vent for the kitchen cooker hood. I am very dull.
Although my view is very plain, I have the AW to distract me from getting on with some bloody work.
Still slugabed but planning on arising soon, honest.
I’m currently sat on a train from Westhoughton to Southport facing an empty seat. I have just arrived at Wigan Wallgate. Off to drink beer and talk bollocks. Cheers.
Hey, I could be your driver! But not today. I am still refreshing my route knowledge following my return to work. So my view has been looking out the front of the train on the line to the Airport. It’s very straight, so you just see an avenue of signals and stanchions and overhead wires. It’s not the most interesting of the routes I work.
I am sure I am not the only one reading this who is insanely jealous.
Drinking beer at 08.58 in Wigan? Lightweight!
can’t bate connemara!
i’m in kilkenny, dark, drizzly
trees are lovely though
A very beautiful place. I envy you.
I’m where I spend 99% of my time, sat on my old couch with a duvet over my legs keeping my dodgy hips warm. In front of me is my audio kit currently in a stand-by state. So I can see a few little red and white lights twinkling in a come hither manner and the diffuse light from the window to my right is glinting off a couple of pairs of headphones. I’m just about to make a cup of strawberry and raspberry tea before settling down to a little Pharoah Sanders prior to checking out this week’s releases via Tidal.
As we’re posting photos. Bet you can’t tell what I’m listening to.
Something decidedly cool. And sounding bloody fantastic with those speakers.
Phwoar!
Love the ducks!
Ta. Donna found them in a second-hand shop many years ago. Love a bit of kitsch.
The Hokusai and the ducks made me think of a cool Hilda Ogden, in a good way.
Combine the two, that’s Hokusai and ducks, not Hilda.
The Japanese door curtain is covering up a dirty big crack in the wall. I should paper the wall with a “murial”.
Hmm.
Mid-afternoon listening for a cool cat.
If I was that cool cat, I’d be listening to Dexter Gordon’s “Go” or something similar.
Right here, right now it’s this.
Mid/late afternoon listening for a cool cat?
Right now – this:
Nice. Follow that with Turn Up The Quiet for a perfect twofer.
Yes, indeed – she can do no wrong for me…
Cool cats indeed.
In a log cabin office in the garden in the bit of Hampshire that meets up with Berkshire and Surrey. Sat facing a wall with a monitor attached to it. Laptop below. This is work. To the right, my MacBook. This is very much not work and I go to it regularly for breaks.
The wall has things attached that I like. Two photos of Citroen DS’s, a three canvas abstract bit of art bought from ebay about 20 odd years ago in silver and blue, a wooden robot made by my son, a dog’s arse hook (from Ikea) with headphones hanging and photos of the family.
I like it in here but toward the end of a day, the simple act of popping out to the shop to buy stuff for tea has the allure of a Mediterranean beach.
Kanata, suburb west of Ottawa, work and live here. A fairly beautiful area, but a tad boring. It was cold enough for snow flurries earlier this week, but stupendous weather now, sunny and up to about 18 or 19 degrees C next few days. The tree colours are peaking and are sensational
But I can’t see them because I am in bed, it’s still dark
Kanata … hang on a minute – aren’t Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band playing there next month?
Yes finally, after a year’s delay, the big acts come to me (sometimes)! Last show I saw there was Peter Gabriel about a year ago,
The Ottawa Senators play (ice) hockey at the arena. However they are finally planning to move back downtown to a new arena in a few years which seems will finally go ahead. I would imagine the “Canadian Tire Centre” will then be bulldozed in order to build many new houses.
And view now from my office window
Yesterday I was in the office surrounded by drab office furniture. Today I am in my preferred work environment at home, surrounded by packing boxes with Radio 3 playing. The mist is clearing here now, but as I started work when the sun was rising this was the view from my desk, which beats the office any time.
I’m sitting at the big family table having just eaten a late evening meal after having been in Tauranga all day. On the TV there’s an American show about unexplained mysteries of space. Apparently giant squid might live in the upper levels of our atmosphere. Blimey.
We’re on holiday in Madeira. Just settled down on a sunbed for a relaxing read. In front of me are banana trees.
It’s dark here in Murwillumbah and I’m looking at my computer screen. I could be meta and take a photo of it, but perhaps this might be better, taken a couple of days ago. The mountain to the left was christened Mount Warning by Captain Cook, but the local Bundjalung people call it Wollumbin, which means cloud catcher or place of many turkeys according to who you ask. It’s the volcanic plug from a massive eruption 23 million years ago. The caldera is the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, over 60 miles in diameter. Hell of a bang. The river is the Tweed (no relation).
In a classroom in a college in Manchester watching sixth form students write an assessed essay. I can see a classroom. And some students. Out of the window I can see a couple of tower blocks and a patch of wasteland.
Livin’ the dream…
In my front room, post-breakfast but with coffee, catching up with emails on an old iPad. Room looks artificially brightened by the phone picture – the sky is grey and the rain is bouncing off the pavement, visible through window to my left. Note cat (getting a heat on my lap) and a Pencilsqueezer on the wall – which I look up and see nearly every morning.
Here is our cat, guarding my records
“Will guard records for treats…”
I’m with the family in Lüneburg, a Hanseatic town in northern Germany, which crashed out of its salt monopoly in the 16th century, with the result that no new buildings were built here until the 20th century. Everywhere is resoundingly opulent and flashy – for the 1550s
View from the water tower
Looks like somewhere in southern Italy or Spain.
It’s certainly been sunny enough for that, earlier in the week. Bits of it look like scenes from Myst:
(inside the water tower seen in the first photo, above).
After thirty seven years of living in a flat in islington my wife and I moved to Forty Hill in Enfield,North London a few months ago. This is the view from my desk in my man cave/music room. I’m still surrounded with boxes filled with ‘stuff’ I couldn’t be without but haven’t opened as yet! I haven’t gotten bored with the view and the toing and froings of folk as yet.
Enfield is a lovely bit of the ‘burbs. I was raised a couple of stops up the line, just the other side of the soon-to-be M25. Enfield Chase was my local, and my regular Saturday morning trawl around the record shops. It’s rather lovely, albeit a lot busier than memory serves. Mind you, most places are busier than rural Cambridgeshire.
We were looking to move to Saffron Walden but circumstances lead us to Forty Hill. It’s nice having free transport to get to that London Town while still feeling like we moved out of town. Haven’t seen any independent record shops up this way as yet.
Harum Records shut down after I left. Not because of, I hope. There’s a Subway there now.
Give Fotheringham Rd my regards, lived there for 2 years mid 80s.
Will do.
11th day in a hotel just outside Buffalo, ruing the fact I forgot to put my phone on do not disturb and thusly got 2 calls between 5am and. 6am. No, I did not want to discuss new developments in tax effective car leasing and I will be hunting down whoever gave you my mobile number.
My view is a largish TV and a window overlooking the car park. Ahead of me is half an hour wrangling my stuff back into my case, a 2 hour drive to Toronto, then 7 hours of trying but failing to sleep on an overnight flight. I’m still giggling at BA’s offer to upgrade me to Business Class for a mere £5.1k, one way. Something of a step up from the £290 they wanted on the way out – also declined.
Hopefully I’ll be home in time for West Ham vs Spurs, which I’ll no doubt sleep soundly through.
Actually I’m watching my aunt’s funeral on Zoom. It’s beautiful in its way. She was lovely and had a folk group in the 60s with my uncle who was the first person to put a guitar in my hands. She had a good life so it’s more a celebration than a terribly sad affair though dust is never far away.
Later I’ll go for a walk across the fields in the autumn sun.
Its dark now but I took these earlier today. I live 2 hours from Melbourne and 40 minutes from the southernmost tip of the Australian mainland.
Ah. Kookaburras. That’s midday on my Australian bird clock.
They can start laughing in the middle of the night. Leave roosters in the shade.
Would that be an old gum tree I see?
An old manna gum tree Twang
Currently in Narbonne with friends. The Windy City is very windy today. Last night we dined at the frankly bonkers Les Grands Buffets.
https://www.lesgrandsbuffets.com/en
That looks spectacular. They got me with the phrase ‘the largest cheese collection in the world’. How was it?
Bonkers. The restaurant is situated on an industrial estate in the same building as a cinema and bowling alley. It’s booked up around 6 months in advance. You queue up like you’re at breakfast in one of those awful all-inclusive hotels, pushing people aside to get to the Lobster Tower. The salons are straight from Versailles. The staff are well-drilled but amazingly polite. It’s a military operation. The food is simply amazing, no way is anybody going to eat everything on offer. Apparently the restaurant threatened to move elsewhere in France and somehow Narbonne found x million euros to make them stay. I’d love to report on the world’s largest cheese selection but being unconscious by then I’m afraid I can’t comment.
I’m going to have to find a reason to go.
Could we have a Wordle competition there?
Give me 6 months notice and I’ll set it all up. Fly into Perpignan, Carcassonne, Beziers or Montpellier and I’ll send my driver to pick you up .
Should be here, having a swim
but I’m knackered, so I’m here
I spy a Rega Planar. Is that a 1, 2 or 3?
Actually the VinylPlay variant. Fine for my purposes and for digitising.
A rebadged Planar 1, then. I just bought a bargain Planar 3 for mobile* use but it arrived with the lid in five pieces thanks to DPD’s finest.
(*) as in ‘not in my house’ – the hospital printworks has been renovated and turned into a community not-for-profit asset. My Sunday afternoons in the village cafe will be recommecing next month, but on Saturday afternoons in the Printworks.
I am in Budapest on this sunny autumnal afternoon. Immediately in front of me is my laptop. I am sitting at a table in the kitchen working (except as now when I am taking a quick break).
I have a view out of the kitchen window of plane trees and the roof of the building opposite, with a glimpse of the blue sky behind.
In my living room, listening to a Doobie Brothers best-of: there’s a long train runnin’ and Jesus is just alright, oh yeah. Michael McDonald hasn’t yet appeared to tell me what a fool believes.
Out of the window, at the end of the road I can see a beach and the Bristol Channel. If the fog wasn’t so thick, beyond that I could see the Quantock Hills. Judging from the colour of the sky over the very grey waters of the Channel, we are in for some very wet weather.
My mancave/den/study has three large windows. One looks down the coast, one looks across the bay to the city of Cagliari and one faces straight out to sea.
I won’t be so smug when the globe warms.
That’s fab.
This except I’m on the sofa facing the TV about to open a bottle of Langois Cremant to have with some crisps and hummus. There is a Rega Planar visible. This is the entertainments corner.
We are here: https://www.visitdalarna.se/borlange
But where’s Bowie?
I am sitting at the kitchen table with my laptop in front of me. I am in Dumfries (D&G). Out of the kitchen window, I can see a very large weeping willow tree swaying in a strengthening wind. It’s not long since I had a late lunch (mushroom omelette with some excellent sourdough from Earth’s Crust Bakery in Castle Douglas). In an hour, at 6pm, I will go into town to meet ‘the auld guys’ in the Robert the Bruce bar/restaurant. My Rega Planar lies silent in the ‘wee room’.
Sitting at my rickety desk in my living room. Computer monitor, keyboard etc. in front of my closed black venetian blind.
In the world outside the local brat pack are home from school and running amok as usual. They’ll be off for their tea soon and probably back out for an hour or so after.
The magpies, squirrels and other local wildlife are elsewhere currently, not on the lawn outside or on top of the electricity substation hut and bin store. It’s been a dry, mostly sunny day but a bit nippy.
I’m not long back from Sainsbury’s getting essential provisions and will shortly be doing the accumulated dirty pots and dishes.
I was up early (5am) and did my week’s washing this morning. Also this morning, the handyman for the building management finally turned up and finished making good the paintwork around the hallway door, which had been left half-done for the last 3-4 months.
Later..
.
I was here a couple of hours ago. Mallyan Spout, North Yorkshire Moors. Bloody lovely.
After our regular Friday walk into town to get a few bits of shopping and visit what they now laughingly call the Post Office (one person serving), we had a late lunch of home made pumpkin soup and wholemeal rolls. Had a Face time chat with our daughter and granddaughter (who was far more interested in our cat than us). Now watching the second T20 semi final between West Indies and New Zealand (I didn’t think WI would have any trouble getting the total, but looks a bit unlikely at the moment) whilst listening to some Peter Gabriel. Weather has taken a turn for the worst here in the West Country…time to close the curtains, pour a beer and think about dinner!
Do my eyes deceive me – or is that a SEE Revolver?
That looks like a Roksan Caspian M2 amp…tasty.
This is turning into the hi-fi porn thread.
It is @pencilsqueezer. I had the Caspian CD player and had it playing through an Audiolab 8000 series pre and power amp set up. A few years ago we were in a rented property in the Lake District and they had that CD player coupled to the Caspian amp, and it sounded amazing. When my amp started playing up, I went for the Caspian as a replacement, and it is just a revelation. I have added the Graham’s speakers a couple of years ago, and it is just a brilliantly neutral and thrilling combo.
My kit is resolutely Frankenstein, a component from here, a component from there. The only part of the chain that’s from the same manufacturer is the interconnects, all Chord Company. I may change out my amp next year. I’m considering the Roksan Blak along with a couple of others. I need an amp with a balanced input so I can hook up my Dac which sounds noticeably cleaner when run balanced rather than single ended.
@pencilsqueezer – I think the amp is often the most neglected part of the system – people often seem to concentrate on the source and the speakers, but this made me realise that the amp is the key, and this was a huge leap forward for me. They are just launching the new Caspian 4G, which looks lovely and seems to follow the same principles, but it is pricey. The Caspian M2 will be around for a while I should think, and I picked mine up at well below the RRP a few years ago, so might be worth shopping around. It has balanced XLR inputs for the CD channel, which I use straight out the CD player rather than an outboard DAC. The only thing I would say is that it is a bit quirky in terms of controls, selecting the input etc, and doesn’t have a dedicated turntable input, which the new one apparently does have, but I just use one of the line inputs. The most impressive thing is the sound staging and the ‘presence’ of the music in the room, where it seems to exist outside the speakers. I replaced my old B&W speakers with the Graham’s two years ago, and they are just so neutral sounding and bring out the best in the amp.
That’s interesting. I was unaware that the Caspian had a balanced input stage. It would be a tad more price appropriate for my needs. I agree about amplification. It’s the heart of any system. I’ve tweaked everything else in recent years and my attention is focused upon the amp now. I changed out my headphone amp back in the summer adding a German made fully balanced amp in place of the class D Chinese amp that I was previously using and it’s far more to my taste, adding just a touch of warmth to what are very neutral headphones. The class D made longer listening sessions a little wearying. Too much detail offered up too clinically. The new amp is far more of a relaxed listen. Still highly resolving but more laid back.
I’d say that describes my set up – warm, relaxed and involving. You just want to keep listening to more music. A good friend was so impressed that bought the same speakers, but had a newish Cyrus CD deck, so added a good DAC and went for a Naim amp. I was with him when we auditioned the new kit, and it sounds great, but he still reckons mine is better!
I bought the Wharfdales for the same reason. They are slightly less resolving than my old Dali but far more relaxed and mellifluous for longer sessions and they play more politely with my aging hearing. The most recent acquisition has been an Audiolab 9000cdt which hooked up to my r2r dac has been a revelation. It sounds absolutely stunning. Streaming from Tidal through the same dac is excellent but cd improves on it. It’s just that tad bit more lit up.
@NigelT what sort of holiday rental has hi fi kit of that calibre.
Most say just use the soundbar.
I know! I didn’t actually book it – some friends coming over from the US sorted it out as a get together for a few of us. It was a big barn conversion with a huge living space which had a stone floor, so the sound was extraordinary.. I had coincidentally bought a couple of CDs at Badlands in Cheltenham on the way up – one of which was Leonard Cohen’s You Want It Darker. I put it on and it just blew me away, so it was serendipitous.
Good spot @fitterstoke ! I bought it in 1987 and it has performed valiantly ever since.
I used to have one! In the red “Hammerite” finish!
This was my view this morning after cutting the football pitches near where I live.
I have contemplated using my headphones whilst tractoring but Clarkson put me off, when he said driving around on a tractor can be extremely dangerous and you’re likely to lose an arm.
Ever since then, I’ve heeded his words and just concentrate on the task in hand, without the latest sounds interrupting my train of thought.
At 2.45pm I was sat in front of a person who offered me a new job!
Happy days.
No photo?
Congratulations!
Congrats – hope it goes well.
Today I am sat on a wall waiting for a lift to take me to Hebden Bridge.