My vinyl copy of Grace Under Pressure has the same label stuck to both sides.

I don't even recall a liner with lyrics in my copy of Permanent Waves. I'll go and have a look in a minute.

Wordle 1,048 3/6*

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40 seconds.

I haven't seen one of his "wrong" cycling posts so far and I do follow him on Twitter. Will keep an eye out for one of those.

I'm in a small room, possibly my old bedroom in Hartlepool. The bloke from the Classic Rock Review channel on YouTube is there, sitting next to Mark Knopfler. Both of them have acoustic guitars.

Classic Rock Review bloke hands me his guitar. Oh no. I've got to play in front of Mark Knopfler. But wait .. I pick a couple of notes and it's obvious the guitar is in a weird folky tuning. I have an excuse. Phew.

I mention to Knopfler that I enjoyed an interview he did a few weeks ago, in which he mentioned that he used to window-shop guitars at JG Windows in Newcastle (this happened in real life, it was the Patrick Kielty show on 5 Live). I tell him that I bought a guitar myself there in 1983, a second-hand Les Paul (that happened in real life as well).

Mark hands me his guitar, it's a Takamine. OK I'll play a few bars of Blackbird (McCartney's tune from the white album). That'll be easy enough. But my fingers won't obey my brain! I make a total dog's breakfast of it. In front of Mark Knopfler.

Nice day here as well yesterday, apart from the wind. Raining again now.

Quote from: Fishy on April 30, 2024, 10:00:40 PMMoved my local music streaming stuff from a windows 11 box running subsonic to a Debian vm running subsonic.. much smaller footprint and working well.. thank god for  AI cos I'm shit at Linux stuff..

I need to find some domestic Linux projects to do to keep my hand in once I leave my job at the end of June. I've been typing ls, du, df, mv, tar etc for a living since January 1990.

Wordle 1,047 4/6*

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4 mins.

Wordle 1,046 3/6*

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Nine seconds, lucky second word.

I booked today off work on Friday, after seeing a favourable weather forecast. In fact the forecast changed over the weekend with a likelihood of showers in the afternoon, but I intended to go south where I'd most likely avoid them.

The idea was to do either a fondo or a 100 miler, depending on the time I got up. And I got up at about 0715, so 100 miles it was! I thought I'd go down to Northampton and back. I set off at about 0805.

I had a change of plan after 36 miles and took a left to Naseby. I've been to Northampton a couple of times in recent months so I thought I'd give it a miss and do something different.



I'd been to Naseby before but this time I kept going, through places called Haselbech and Maidwell. About half a mile after Maidwell I found myself at the top of a long steep descent that I didn't fancy coming back up, so I turned back. I'd only done 43 miles so I'd have to improvise a bit on the way back. I did. I took a turn to a place called Cold Ashby and just followed my nose. Really, really nice cycling territory over the next ten miles or so through places called Stanford on Avon and Swinford. I rejoined the usual route at North Kilworth (after a bit of reassurance from Google Maps), but still needed to make up some distance. I went exploring again, through Ashby Parva and Frolesworth - basically a detour around Broughton Astley.

I was still a couple of miles short though (having distance landmarks memorised is handy for gauging this) so after Kirkby Mallory, I kept on to Cadeby, then Bosworth then back the usual way from there, or one of them. Made up the last bit of distance by coming back a long way through the village.

Terrific day out on the bike. Had two very pleasant stops at the village shop at Gilmorton. Nice weather, no showers. Very mild. And I listened to another few hours of the Reacher novel.

Back on 100.42 miles and that's a pleasing 479 done this month. Would have got the total over 400 even if I hadn't taken the day off, which is nice to know.

1850 done this year and 45,011 since January 2015.

https://www.strava.com/activities/11292403905

Wordle 1,045 3/6*

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15 seconds.

3:4

Another three weeks have passed somehow. Must get into the habit of doing these at least once a week.

Anyway another absolutely brilliant one, just inspired from start to finish. Hilarious. One of the best 30 minutes of telly ever. The sketches thematically segue into each other cleverly. There's a nice running joke. There's an extended animation which is gobsmackingly inventive and utterly hilarious. I laughed out loud several times. There just isn't a weak moment.

I remembered the scene with Cleese as a merchant banker and Jones as a charity worker, but didn't remember that it morphs into a genius sketch involving pantomime horses in the same office.

Richard Baker, the newsreader whom older readers may remember has a cameo in one sketch (as himself) and keeps a completely straight face. Legend.

 

Heard this on Huey Morgan's R6 show, downloaded the album from Bandcamp. Right up my street. The album is a concept album (albeit instrumental) about legal difficulties.

Wordle 1,044 3/6*

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About seven minutes .. spent a long time on the third word.

Finally got round to watching Living on Amazon Prime. Set in 1953, it's a touching tale of an elderly bureaucrat at County Hall who learns that he doesn't have long to live and sets out to make the most of his remaining time.

It's a heartwarming, touching story but the 1950s mood, enhanced by a beautiful orchestral soundtrack and some stunning photography, is immaculate. It's like time travel. The sets, the decor, the hairstyles and clothes, and importantly the language and manner of the characters. Nighy's performance is note-perfect; gently understated and fragile.

I especially loved the County Hall scenes - the portrayal of the stultefying bureaucracy of the time (surely exaggerated) gently leans into the surreal; it reminded me of Terry Gilliam's Brazil.

Must admit I'm a sucker for period pieces set in the recent past. I can't abide Wuthering Heights, Far from the Madding Crowd, Pride and Prejudice and all that nonsense but give me something set in the '40s or '50s and I'm in.

I heard a BBC commentator say that the Chelsea women's team were "down to ten men" against Barcelona earlier. There'll be a stern internal email about that on Monday, I imagine.