Monday, May 21, 2012


Time to start the Strong heel, I think – 70 rounds done, 7 ½”.

I have exchanged emails with Sophie, who commented here – the snood knitter who is also Grandson Joe’s girlfriend’s mother. She’s just started her own blog. There seems to be only one girl in the family, making it easy to find the lovely Becca in the group picture.

I spoke to Rachel yesterday, a confirmed non-knitter. She says everybody’s wearing snoods, boys and girls alike.

And that’s all there is to say about knitting, this morning. So on to

Life

Archie phoned from Athens yesterday to invite me to a drinks party for New Boys’ parents at his Edinburgh school (Merchiston) in late August. I accepted with alacrity.

Today’s jobs are to pursue the people who are going to knock down the dining room ceiling, to find out when they are going to do it; and to arrange for the car’s annual obligatory fitness test. Also my driving license needs to be renewed. I got into trouble with the insurance last week by leaving things like that in a Guilt Pile instead of attending to them.

The forecast is for slightly warmer weather – at last. So choosing a date for our next trip to Strathardle also belongs on the to-do list.

Annie and Shandy, those are perfect suggestions for Kristie’s Radio 4 listening. I might add, now that you’ve set the ball rolling, anything with Libby Purves or Sue McGregor or Neil McGregor.

Desert Island Disks” is a brilliant programme. Each week the invited guest chooses ten records to take along to a desert island, and is then allowed to choose one book (besides Shakespeare and the Bible – or other religious text, at choice) and one luxury. The interviewer is gentle and utterly non-confrontational, and by the end you know all about the interviewee.

I tried it myself yesterday. The list is so relentlessly low-brow that I am embarrassed to tell you. But by the time I had got done explaining each of the choices, you would know my life story:

Beethoven’s choral symphony
If I can’t have all of Gilbert & Sullivan, I’d go for Bunthorne’s song “If you’re anxious for to shine…” from Patience
“The Spaniard Who Blighted My Life”
“Brush Up Your Shakespeare”, from Kiss Me, Kate
Handel’s “Messiah”
“Take Me Back to Constantinople
 “Get Me to the Church on Time” from My Fair Lady
“Lily the Pink”
That Bob Dylan one with the refrain “But I was so much older then; I’m younger than that now”.
“Flower of Scotland

The book would be Middlemarch or Mansfield Park or Il Gattopardo: very hard to choose. And the luxury, of course, an endless supply of yarn and needles.

8 comments:

  1. Yes to Beethoven's 9th and Handel's Messiah! Nothing low brow about those. (Would need some Bach though - probably "Wachet auf..." I am fond of Lily the Pink but would have to go with "A whiter shade of pale" and Highland Cathedral...)
    Ah yes, an endless supply of yarn and needles - or would I want an endless notebook and everlasting pen? Oh so difficult!

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  2. Anonymous12:35 PM

    I enjoyed Hugh Pennington's choices and anecdotes most of all the Desert Island Disc programs I've heard.

    And episodes of "I'm sorry, I haven't a clue" with Humphrey Lyttelton. It is amazing what he got away with on Radio 4!

    LMcC

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  3. Anonymous12:35 PM

    I enjoyed Hugh Pennington's choices and anecdotes most of all the Desert Island Disc programs I've heard.

    And episodes of "I'm sorry, I haven't a clue" with Humphrey Lyttelton. It is amazing what he got away with on Radio 4!

    LMcC

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  4. the yarn/needles I'd understand - but I would hope for a lovely desert island with long beaches, waterfalls and lots of birds - no music needed at all (which might mean that I'd be allowed to take some fibres and a spindle, too?:) let's just hope there's food and water aplenty:)

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  5. =Tamar9:02 PM

    Only one book? They're crazy.
    Unless the disks could include audio disks, then I'd get books on disk instead of music.

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  6. You know those moments when you connect with someone because of the choices they make. Middlemarch or Mansfield Park ... perhaps the least loved Austen, and certainly the one with the least popular heroine, at the top of your Austen list just as it is mine :D

    Apparently as a child I danced in the aisle at a pantomime to Lily the Pink, and got a round of applause. I have no recollection of this whatsoever!

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  7. Thanks for adding some suggestions to look for on the BBC Radio 4 podcasts. I have already downloaded some thanks to Annie and Shandy's great suggestions and will now search out the ones you have suggested.

    I am embarrassed to say I have not read either of the Austen books you would consider taking to the desert island. This in spite of the fact that I am a huge Pride and Prejudice fan.They are going to be bumped up to the top of my "to read" list.

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  8. Hum, Mansfield Park? I'd rather have Persuasion.

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