Himself

Apple’s Classical Music App 🤬

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I think I actually blushed on opening Apple’s Classical Music app. It is an iPhone app but the App Store assured me it works on my iPad. I have lots of iPhone apps on my iPad. They all work fine.

Who would not think it a good idea to have the text mingling with the Play and Browse buttons?

And is Ludwig van Beethoven really On This Album?

And did Frank Zappa write Bolero?

And is the third section not iii or III rather than Iii? At least they managed to get Elaine Radigue right…

….oh cancel that! Why is there no simple way to report such errors like there is on Apple Maps?

Let’s hope version 2 is not too far away and it makes some improvements… but I am not holding my breath.

The Dark Side of 50

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Apparently The Dark Side of the Moon first appeared fifty years ago. I did have a copy but had not been much interested in what they were doing since 1969s Ummagumma. As The Dark Side of the Moon was hugely successful around the world I was always amused by the local branch of W H Smith which sold it from a section in their record department labeled “Underground”.

But more than enough will have been written about that elsewhere let us explore the quieter backwaters with the less trodden paths where we can find delights such as a wonderful a cappella version: listen on Apple Music – Spotify – YouTube.

And then the reggae version Dub Side of the Moon: Apple Music – Spotify – YouTube or the remixed dubber version.

Closely followed by a string quartet version: Apple Music – Spotify – YouTube.

Word guessing

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The annual subscription to the i news app is mostly due to their excellent puzzle section. There are interesting variations on Sudoku puzzles and some groan inducing crossword clues:

cryptic crossword clue

But the recent addition of a Wordle style GuessWord has fascinated more for the flaws than the puzzle. Apparently today’s five letter word has two Es, two Os, two Ts and two Ls. 🤔

word puzzle grid

It works as expected on the web site:

Site GuessWord

My email to the editor will also complain about the name, although similar to many such puzzles, one is not guessing random words but deducing the correct word from the clues provided.