A Music Questions Challenge

by

Having seen this on starbreaker it would be impolite not to respond.

The Questions:

“What are five of your favorite albums?”
The Bothy Band
Escalator over the hill
Grounation
Second Star to the Right (Salute to Walt Disney) – now available in another version: Pink Elephants on Parade.
Trout Mask Replica

“What are five of your favorite songs?”
Songs are not music. If I wanted the intrusion of words I would read a poem.

“Favorite instrument(s)?”
Marimba

“What song or album are you currently listening to?”
Jasmine Wood – Piano Reverb

“Do you listen to the radio? If so, how often?”
Yes. BBC Radio 3. Daily.

“How often do you listen to music?”
Daily.

“How often do you discover music? And how do you discover music?”
Frequently. Subscribe to The Wire. Various blogs such as: A closer listen, The Quietus etc., radio.

“What’s a song or album that you enjoy that you wish had more recognition?”
Song: Let the Great Big World keep Turning:

Album: Bees on horseback.

“What’s your favorite song of all time?”
I do not like/favour songs.

“Has your taste in music evolved over the years?”
Not much. As long as it is an interesting noise and does not try to ‘talk’ to me or tell me a story it will probably taste good.

by

30/1/25 13:40 With my Apple Music subscription coming up for renewal I have the dilemma of contributing to the Trump tax or not. The answer should probably be “No.” despite Cook’s philosophical reasoning.

Apple TV not streaming from media library

by

Although the Apple TV box could find the media library shared from the Mac it refused to play any videos. it had worked earlier in the day. A new file added to the library would appear in the library on the TV but would not play. They were all signed in to the same Apple account and were on the same WiFi network. What to do?

Restarting the Mac did not help.

Unmounting and remounting the external drive where the library lives did not help.

Restarting the Apple TV box did not help.

Signing out of and back into the Apple account did not help.

Restarting the WiFi router solved the problem and all was working again.

🤷‍♂️

And another think

by

An article from the New Statesman today included the passage:

If Rachel Reeves imagined her repeated insistence that Labour's "iron-clad" commitment to sound public finances would spare her the fate of Stafford Cripps, Jim Callaghan and Denis Healey, she had another thing coming.

I stopped reading after “she had another thing coming”. What was coming? A promotion? A cup of coffee? Surely what was meant was that her rumination would require further thought – she had another think coming. The Ngram view (for what that is worth) shows the ‘thing’ form taking off from around 2000 and becoming the more usual form today.

A chart showing the increase in usage of thing over think

It is a curious phrasing. The folksy etymology is often attributed to American usage but one suspects that anyone who thinks that has another think coming.

Housey-housey

by

I am puzzled by the terms ‘social housing’ and ‘affordable housing’ which are increasingly used as shorthand to refer to, I assume, housing which is neither anti-social nor unaffordable. And don’t get me started on the ‘cost of living’ nonsense.

A New Statesman article refers to a survey (pdf) which addressed the stigma attached to living in such housing. Unlike the drug crazed criminals presented in TV dramas it is (surprise!) mostly occupied by regular people doing, or having retired from, a regular job. All positively contributing to ‘the economy’ (whatever that is).

After a lifetime of avoiding the collective criminality that is ‘private property’ I look forward to the day when all housing is declared ‘social housing’ and ‘affordable housing’.