Saturday, November 21, 2009

Loud And Clear

Noi is off jet-setting again. She's gone to Penang, to cook for and attend a wedding, taking one of the local budget airlines to get there. Happily for me, she'll be back early tomorrow - the morning flight being cheaper than the one in the afternoon - bringing with her niece Ayu (who'll be experiencing her first time ever on a plane.) Also happily for me, Noi got cooking to in the later part of the week in order to provide for yours truly. I'm just heating up a sensational oxtail soup having munched a fabulous salmon fishcake earlier in the day.

Noi parting words to me involved, amongst other things, a quip about my being able to play 'my music' extra loud. She knows me well. Although I don't really consider the present volume (I'm playing Yes's Relayer in the other room) particularly loud. Others might, I suppose. Anyway I must say I've been enjoying a fairly disparate variety of disks today, generally accompanying me as I've been working. (Quite unusual for me, actually. I can't listen to music as I mark, for example. But today's work was, for the most part, utterly routine to the point at which real thought was hardly necessary.)

I kicked off with a bit of Bax, Symphony No. 5 and the tone poem The Tale the Pine Trees Knew. I'm thinking of playing this again later, after the Liverpool - City game as a way of signing off for the day. After that came Pink Floyd's Umma Gumma (the studio album) Joni Mitchell's Hejira, Gentle Giant's Octopus, Depeche Mode's Exciter and Yusof Islam's Roadsinger. All of which, including the stuff from Yes now shaking the living room, reminded me of how much I've got that I don't get round to playing anything like enough. Riches indeed, at whatever volume you choose.

3 comments:

Trebuchet said...

Ah, a swinging bachelor eh? And the United-Everton match later?

I've just finished a couple of talks. The first one, on Tuesday, was for the museum docents, on 'Two Hundred Years of S'pore Education History'.

The second, yesterday, was on 'East and West: Problems of Knowledge and Inquiry'. That was for JC KI teachers. Poor things have no idea of how to run that weird A-level course.

Brian Connor said...

Sort of sauntering rather than swinging. And sorry to say the United - Everton game was on too late for me. At least when I get to Manchester this December the footie will be on at the right time.

Read your bit in Findings about the history of education in Singapore. Needless to say, I'd have loved to have attended.

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