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I bet that you look good on the danse floor
I'm currently a little obsessed with finding the perfect version of Saint-Saens's Danse Macabre. Well, without actually buying some sort of album. I want to see what's out there on the interweb. So far I have a version with only violin and piano (which is oddly staccato) and one by a cello trio (which doesn't have enough variety of noise). There's a version on YouTube, which you'd think I'd link to, with a description of what's going on with every instrument and why. It's great, full orchestra and all that, but it's - I say again - on YouTube.
Danse Macabre, of course, feels a bit hackneyed to us these days. Years of abuse (and the kiddy self-parody of the Fossil Movement of Saint-Saens's own Carnival of the Animals) makes it seem somewhat plinky-plonky and cutesy. But I've been listening, again and again, and I'm slowly working my brain away from the cliché. I think it's great.
However.
There are two nice versions of Dance Macabre on Anderson & Roe's CD "Reimaginings", which I'd recommend giving a listen if you can find such on tintertubifiationalities.
If you can't, shout, and I'm sure I can find webspace somewhere.
Are you still in Walthamstow?
Today, a link
This is so effing cool. I've wanted to see this for, I think I'm not exaggerating, about two decades. Near that, anyway. Ordinarily I'd just link to the YouTube pages, but the story linked to here is quite interesting anyway so...
http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2008/10/31/lost-horrors-ending-found-on-youtube/
A curious phenomenon
I was sitting on the bus today and the woman next to me was reading, well, porn. I mean, not a copy of Razzle or anything, but it was - I think - the Belle Du Jour book. So I'm sitting there listening to my mp3 player and every so often my gaze is caught by descriptions of spanking and blowjobs. On the bus!
What's going on here? When did it become acceptable to read this stuff in public? I'm pretty sure that if I sat there browsing Playboy... well, I might get away with that, actually, because it's all articles and only about three naked women a month. Plus Playboy has a bit of respectability to it, it's sort of just a slightly more naked Esquire or GQ. But if I was unfolding the centrefold on the bus? No that would not fly, my friend. But a woman reading a book full of graphic descriptions of anal sex and fisting? Sure, go ahead!
Excelling
Excel is really hard! Did you know that? I know that, because I am currently looking at a worksheet and going "But there MUST be a way to do that!".
Often there is. There really is. I Google the sort of thing I want to do and helpful people in the Internets tell me what to do. But right now I think I'm asking for the moon on a stick (wait, is moon capitalised? I suppose if we're talking about our moon... it's name is kind of The Moon. Like the Sun. Sorry). i can't even Google it because I don't know exactly what I want to do! It's sort of like a pivot chart... only not. Oh, wait, maybe I have some stuff about that in...
Not much of a post this, is it? Christ. I'll have something good to say soon. I told my neighbour not to call Down's Syndrome kids "Mongols" this morning. But that's not really a story. Oh, yeah, unlike my kickin' Excel tale.
Gloomy
The clocks go back soon. I keep waking up to darkness, soon I shall be leaving work to the same. Once again we, as a nation, plunge into the darkness. It'd be depressing if we didn't have warm coats, scarves and real fires. We must be cheerful, above all, when the nights are cold and dark. And so we bring on Hallowe'en and Bonfire night and Christmas and all the jolly festivals which really make us feel good about standng around in dimly-lit areas watching our breath condense out of our bodies.
I am in a corner re Hallowe'en. I can't not do a window display involving pumpkins this year, no matter how much I won't want to bother come Friday afternoon on the 31st. I'll want to sit down on the sofa and play videogames, not carve squash into amusing shapes and hand out individually-wrapped sweets hastily bought from Woolworth's. But I will do it, because it's fun, the sort of fun we as adults can have on nights which are no longer intended to amuse us as once they were.
Reclaim the night, indeed.
Oh, lor'
I got back from lunch about 10 minutes ago. There were five of us, and it took them forever to get our order out, about which they were very apologetic, and gave us bread and oil. Then another bottle of wine. Well, I mean, we could hardly refuse. So now I'm finding it a little hard to concentrate on work. And staying awake. Still, Friday afternoon.
A great start.
So I called Vodafone in a desperate attempt to stop them activating my account - and consequently de-activating my T-Mobile account - until I get my phone (it's a Samsung Omnia, just like I wanted. Vodafone had it for less than anyone else ever... even the woman at T-Mobile confessed that there was no way they could offer it that cheap and that she couldn't believe they were doing it).
No chance. "We can't actually cancel that. You'll have to pick up the phone from the Royal Mail. They're usually good at having it at the sorting office." Yes, but I'm at work. "After work." (that wasn't a suggestion, by the way. It was just a statement of how things will be) The sorting office closes at HALF PAST ONE! I AM AT WORK! There followed the audible equivalent of a shrug. I want to reach into the phone and smack the surly scouse fuck on the end of the line. So I'm going to be without any kind of service at all for two days. "You need to pick the phone up from the sorting office." AS IF I AM ABLE! I'm screaming this in my head as I don't like shouting at call centre people because I have been there. But, with hindsight, I kind of wish I did scream at him. He sounded like he deserved it.
So that's it. I can't collect the phone tomorrow morning because the buses are on strike and I can't walk up to the sorting office and get to work at any reasonable time. Well. Hmm. If I get out of bed at half-six, maybe... But jeeeesus! This is VODAFONE'S FAULT! They didn't ask me what delivery address I wanted, sent it to the billing address... now this. They'd better be solid freakin' gold for the rest of my contract.
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