Joe's Jottings

Category: Personal Stuff

  • Jeff Healey – Like a Hurricane

    Canadian guitarist Jeff Healey died this week, losing a battle against cancer.  I have to say that he’s a musician that I’ve heard occasionally and really enjoyed.  He was younger than me when he died – something that always brings me up short.

    Tonight on the Bob Harris show (http://www.bobharris.org/pages/playlist.asp?progcode=s08032008 Jeff’s version of Neil Young’s ‘Like a Hurricane’ – quite a brilliant version of a classic song.  Thanks Jeff!

    I have a definite weakness for this particular Neil Young song. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Like_a_Hurricane_(Neil_Young_song)  It goes back to my student days when I was introduced to Neil Young by a housemate, who referred to the heavy electric version on ‘Live Rust’ as ‘Like a Steamroller’ – a phrase that I remember and occasionally use to this day, almost 30 years later.

    Like a Hurricane is definitely one of my favourite love songs – I think I’ve found a new favourite version tonight!

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourview/2008/03/memories_of_jeff_healey_1.html

  • The Bus Book – w/c 25th February – The Master and Margarita

    This week’s book was a very old favourite of mine – Mikhail Bulgakhov’s ‘The Master and Margarita’.  If you haven’t read it – all I can say is get a copy.  It’s a lovely, funny, sad, enchanting book which details the visit of the Devil and his entourage to Moscow, a novelist known only as ‘The Master’ who is incarcerated in a lunatic asylum after writing a novel about Pontius Pilate, and Margarita, the woman who loves him.

    (more…)

  • It takes a lot to sleep through an earthquake….

    But I managed it.

    As it would be churlish not to mention the most powerful earthquake to hit England in 25 years, I feel honour-bound to post a comment, but my involvement in this national event is hardly glorious.  I was awoken by my wife who claimed the bed had moved, and could I check under it.

    (more…)

  • The Bus Book – w/c 18th February – The Threepenny Novel

    This week’s book was ‘The Threepenny Novel’ by Bertholt Brecht.

    I have to admit that I didn’t even realise we’d got it in the house until I was browsing the shelves and I came across it.  I knew it was based on his ‘The Threepenny Opera’, which in turn was based on John Gay’s ‘The Beggar’s Opera’ , and I knew it featured the character Macheath.  And that was it.

    So…what did I think? 

    (more…)

  • Old and Wise – Alan Parsons Project

    The Alan Parsons Project is one of those bands / musical collaborations / call it what you will that I keep promising to listen to and never get around to it.  Having just heard the song ‘Old and Wise’ on the radio, I really think I should get my bum in to gear.

    Here are the lyrics – wonderful…

    (more…)

  • The Bus Book – w/c 11th February – Graham Greene Short Stories

    This week’s ‘bus book’ has been a collection of Graham Greene’s short stories.

    For anyone who’s not encountered the concept of a ‘Bus Book’ I refer you here…

    I like Graham Greene. I particularly like his short stories and his novel ‘The Human Factor’, which I’ve always regarded as one of the two or three best espionage novels of the 20th Century. I like him so much that one of my own short stories is called ‘The man who liked Greene’.

    (more…)

  • What is a Bus Book?

    I use public transport a great deal, and some years ago I started carrying a book with me wherever I went when I could expect a delay or a longish trip.  This book became known around the house as my ‘bus book’.

    (more…)

Personal StuffTechnologyThe MediaPoliticsPersonal Development