Is this a 5 minute argument, or the full half hour?..

iTunes challenge update..

..OK, the results are in. First of all, let’s dispense with the items that I already own (but strangely would happily buy again) – Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck – and also the items that I will not under any circumstances ever own – Sex Pistols and, um, the new Jessica Simpson single.

Moving on, Weekend Players and Seek - both pleasant enough pieces to be sure, but on the basis of the 30 second iTunes preview which is my only point of reference neither did quite enough to part me from my 16 shillings..

I ended up purchasing three items, one of my own choosing which I found along the way – ‘Invitation’ by the Kenny Clarke and Francy Boland Sextet - and two others. Bryan’s choice, ‘Circle’ by Swan Dive, I found very enjoyable, but, to my great chagrin, my ultimate winner was ‘The Ocean’ by Richard Hawley, as recommended by Lady Miss Invisible. Despite what I can’t help but perceive as a certain insincerity, a certain actorly quality in his vocal performance, I can’t deny that it’s a very accomplished and affecting piece of work. That’ll teach me..

Thanks to everybody who participated.

borges..

“..in the Romance languages we do not say “It is cold” — we say “It makes cold”: “Il fait froid,” “Fa freddo,” “Hace frío,” and so on. Yet I don’t think anybody should translate “Il fait froid” by “It makes cold… Matthew Arnold pointed out that if a text be translated literally, then false emphases are created. I do not know whether he came across Captain Burton’s translation of the Arabian Nights; perhaps he did so too late. For Burton translates Quitab alif laila wa laila as Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, instead of Book of the Thousand and One Nights. This translation is a literal one. It is true word for word to the Arabic. Yet it is false in the sense that the words “book of the thousand nights and a night” are a common form in Arabic, while in English we have a slight shock of surprise. And this, of course, has not been intended by the original.

… Then we have “the song of songs,” I read in Fray Luis de Leòn that the Hebrews had no superlatives, so they could not say “the highest song” or “the best song.” They said “the song of songs,” even as they might have said “the king of kings” for the “the emperor” or “the highest king”; or “the moon of moons” for the “highest moon”; or “the night of nights” for the most hallowed of nights. If we compare the English rendering “song of songs” to the German by Luther, we see that Luther, who had no care for beauty, who merely wanted Germans to understand the text, translated it as “das hohe Lied”. So we find that these two literal translations make for beauty…”

My favourite bit of Eddie..

..It’s all here – Chadderton Baths, sheep hairdressers, French language labs, ancient Romans, James Mason as Mr. Dog/Caesar, mourners, Hannibal, Hasdrubal, Havaball, and, of course, Havabanana..

The return of Elis Regina..

.. yes, she’s back! Wonderful singer, I just wish sometimes she’d look a little more like she was enjoying herself..

Oh, I don’t know..

..it just made me laugh..

Thousand Hand Bodhisattva..

Now this is a show I’d pay good money to see in the flesh..

There’s never a wrong moment for a Winston repost..

Churchill to Ibn Saud, on hearing that the king’s religion forbade smoking and alcohol…

“…I must point out that my rule of life prescribes, as an absolutely sacred rite, the smoking of cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after, and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them…”

60 seconds to what?..

Indio gets what’s coming to him, courtesy of that nice old Colonel Mortimer..

Flicker..

Ennio Morricone – 78 today. I’ll be paying tribute via youtube (or googletube, or whatever)  throughout the day. Here’s the fabulous ‘kiss montage’ at the end of Cinema Paradiso’..

    “Once…a king gave a feast for the loveliest princesses in the realm.  Now, a soldier who was standing guard saw the king’s daughter go by. She was the most beautiful of all and he fell instantly in love.
    But what is a simple soldier next to the daughter of a king? At last he succeeded in meeting her, and he told her he could no longer live without her.
    The princess was so taken by the depth of his feeling that she said to the soldier, “If you can wait for 100 days and 100 nights under my balcony, at the end of it I shall be yours.”
    With that the soldier went and waited one day…
    two days…
    then ten…
    then twenty.
    Each evening the princess looked out, and he never moved!  In rain, in wind, in snow, he was always there!  Birds shat on his head, bees stung him- but he didn’t budge.
    At the end of ninety nights he had become all dry, all white.  Tears streamed from his eyes.  He couldn’t hold them back.  He didn’t even have the strength to sleep.  And all that time, the princess watched him.
    At long last, it was the 99th night…
        and the soldier stood up, took his chair and left.”

    ”What happened at the end?”

    ”That is the end.  And don’t ask what it means.  I don’t know.”

You wanna drink?.. I’m having one..

Un compleanno molto buon, maestro…

Once upon a time..

Ahh..

..make believe it’s nothing..

Gotta love The Sun..

Man demands that book about book-burning be banned — during Banned Books Week

Meredith says: “Last week, a 15-year-old girl at Caney Creek High School (near Houston) complained to her father [Alton Verm] about “bad language” in Ray Bradbury’s classic SF novel Fahrenheit 451. Dad complained to the district and pushed for the book — which tells the story of a man in a futuristic, totalitarian society whose job is to burn unapproved literature — to be removed from the curriculum. As the icing on the cake, his request came during the last week of September, which just happens to be the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week.”

Best line in the article:

“It’s just all kinds of filth,” said Alton Verm, adding that he had not read Fahrenheit 451.

(via boing boing)

Bedazzled..

More Pete’n'Dud, this time in an exquisite double-header exploring the vagaries of attraction..

(..what a great bridge, by the way..)

Prescient stuff. As long ago as 1967, they’d already dealt with celebrity, adoration and indifference, and in the process rendered redundant the subsequent careers of Robbie Williams and the Pet Shop Boys. Gentlemen, I salute you..

What I did this summer

..I’m well aware that around these parts I’m considered something of a lazyass sumbitch, so it gives me great pleasure to announce that I have been gainfully employed recently, composing the soundtrack for this..

The Outsiders – Tuesday, 9pm – ITV1

..it’s been garnering the kind of “absurd escapist nonsense” preview comments that our old album releases used to receive, which I find oddly gratifying.  The Observer described it as “a ludicrous mash-up of The Avengers, a Bond movie and the Bourne Identity, but with a soundtrack of such monumental beauty that this reviewer was reduced to tears..” Oh alright, they forgot the last bit, but, anyway – if you’ve nothing better to do tomorrow night..