Wednesday, April 18, 2018
Tuesday, July 05, 2011
Holiday time coming
For some people it's already started for others it's coming soon.
Summer always reminds me of camping in England with our children. But now the kids are big enough to go away on their own (and they should) so we have decided to go away in september to avoid the crowds.
But, to get in the mood (or to fondly remember) here's an applicable clip by dutch ensemble Happy Camper.
Summer always reminds me of camping in England with our children. But now the kids are big enough to go away on their own (and they should) so we have decided to go away in september to avoid the crowds.
But, to get in the mood (or to fondly remember) here's an applicable clip by dutch ensemble Happy Camper.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Glass porch
I wanted to post an update on our glass porch that we had added to our house three years ago. But looking back through my blogposts it turns out I never wrote about it in the first place. Ho-hum. So, a week after we had our sunscreens fitted the next company arrived on our doorstep.
An expensive week you could say. Sooo, they started with putting up the poles and attaching stuff to the house.
Look how it's totally different from the pergola thingy of the neighbors (which was one of the first things taken down by the new neighbors that moved in last year).
The glass beads are added (notice the workman -aware of the photographer- making fun of his colleague).
The (glass!) windows are put into place. I never knew that stuff was so bendable.
And of course, as soon as the glass was in place the rain started to fall.
So here is Lynn inspecting that day's work.
As the company's sunscreen option was a bit expensive we tried our own solutions. We had a mesh curtain made but the problem is that it's not easy to open and close once you attach it (and you want to when it's not sunny). So, cue three years later...
Rails are added to the beads.
More screws are screwed.
The screens are slided in the rails.
And there you have it! Easy open and close and no need to run when rain starts as it's hanging in a dry place.
We're totally ready for summer.
An expensive week you could say. Sooo, they started with putting up the poles and attaching stuff to the house.
Look how it's totally different from the pergola thingy of the neighbors (which was one of the first things taken down by the new neighbors that moved in last year).
The glass beads are added (notice the workman -aware of the photographer- making fun of his colleague).
The (glass!) windows are put into place. I never knew that stuff was so bendable.
And of course, as soon as the glass was in place the rain started to fall.
So here is Lynn inspecting that day's work.
As the company's sunscreen option was a bit expensive we tried our own solutions. We had a mesh curtain made but the problem is that it's not easy to open and close once you attach it (and you want to when it's not sunny). So, cue three years later...
Rails are added to the beads.
More screws are screwed.
The screens are slided in the rails.
And there you have it! Easy open and close and no need to run when rain starts as it's hanging in a dry place.
We're totally ready for summer.
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
Tuesday Child, heard it years too late
I remember reading a very good review of the album 'Universal Playground' by the band Tuesday Child. But I never got round to investigating it, ignoring the comparisons to the band XTC (a favorite) and good reviews of their second album 'Vital Signs'.
It happens, sometimes you overlook something great. Often I get reminded by someone or an article but not this time. A few months ago I was online shopping for a cd and thought of what I could add to the cart to keep postage costs down, and then the name 'Tuesday Child' popped in my head. It turned out the second album was readily available at the shop (and still is, and cheap too). Of course after hearing this I went after the first album, which I found in a shop on ebay (again, cheap: shipping from the US to Europe was more expensive than the album itself).
The story of Tuesday Child is a very sad one. Everything was 'go' with the release of the first album but then band broke up and from reading the biography you get the feeling all goodwill was gone. After an expensive, shiny 'big studio' & 'mastered in Abbey Road' first album, the second one was more a home studio product (but you don't hear that) which has been on the shelf for a number of years before it got released on a small label (you only have to check the cd sleeves above to see that).
Despite their being so different, both albums are very good. 'Universal Playground' is exploding with great tunes (it even made number 72 in musicpaper OOR's yearlist for 1997). The second album is even better. Whatever the reason for breaking up, the bandleader Maurice 'Mouse' Bom was right. There are short sound clips here.
Eight years have gone by since 'Vital Signs' and sadly it looks like 'Mouse' has resigned to teaching and production jobs.
It happens, sometimes you overlook something great. Often I get reminded by someone or an article but not this time. A few months ago I was online shopping for a cd and thought of what I could add to the cart to keep postage costs down, and then the name 'Tuesday Child' popped in my head. It turned out the second album was readily available at the shop (and still is, and cheap too). Of course after hearing this I went after the first album, which I found in a shop on ebay (again, cheap: shipping from the US to Europe was more expensive than the album itself).
The story of Tuesday Child is a very sad one. Everything was 'go' with the release of the first album but then band broke up and from reading the biography you get the feeling all goodwill was gone. After an expensive, shiny 'big studio' & 'mastered in Abbey Road' first album, the second one was more a home studio product (but you don't hear that) which has been on the shelf for a number of years before it got released on a small label (you only have to check the cd sleeves above to see that).
Despite their being so different, both albums are very good. 'Universal Playground' is exploding with great tunes (it even made number 72 in musicpaper OOR's yearlist for 1997). The second album is even better. Whatever the reason for breaking up, the bandleader Maurice 'Mouse' Bom was right. There are short sound clips here.
Eight years have gone by since 'Vital Signs' and sadly it looks like 'Mouse' has resigned to teaching and production jobs.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Lunch on a roof tile
In October last year we (my wife and me) spent a few days near Canterbury. I was reminded of the lovely lunch we had in the tea room of The Secret Gardens of Sandwich when leafing through my pictures folder a few days ago. I had a ploughman’s lunch then and yes that plate is a roof tile :)
Friday, May 06, 2011
Bedroom upgrade
After using it for almost 25 years we decided that our bed was in need of replacement (we did buy new mattresses halfway, but things started breaking off and it began to creak more and more). So... in december last year we sought out an amazingly expensive bed and heard it would take something like three months to deliver. We wanted to totally 'do' the bedroom as it had been 'done' when we moved into the house nineteen years before. And of course we kept putting off the work because there was always something else to do and besides we still had a month to go. Or so we thought until we got the call at the beginning of februari, a month before the 'planned' date!
Luckily I was able to get some days off work the same week so we could get started right away. Which meant: emptying the room, stripping the wallpaper, painting the ceiling (which first had to be cleaned and fixated - that stuff is evil - so we could use latex paint), wallpapering and finally: laying the laminate.
Amazingly this all worked out neatly in time except for wallpapering the corners and fixing the baseboards, but these were things that could always be done later.
So, a few days later the truck arrived and the workmen started filling up the room.
Luckily the stairs were not an obstacle for getting the bed upstairs (the days before the delivery we of course went looking for and found horror stories of beds that got stuck in the stairway).
I think within half an hour the guys were ready and on their way to the next job. Below the end result. Nice eh? It moves up and down with little motors too.
Luckily I was able to get some days off work the same week so we could get started right away. Which meant: emptying the room, stripping the wallpaper, painting the ceiling (which first had to be cleaned and fixated - that stuff is evil - so we could use latex paint), wallpapering and finally: laying the laminate.
Amazingly this all worked out neatly in time except for wallpapering the corners and fixing the baseboards, but these were things that could always be done later.
So, a few days later the truck arrived and the workmen started filling up the room.
Luckily the stairs were not an obstacle for getting the bed upstairs (the days before the delivery we of course went looking for and found horror stories of beds that got stuck in the stairway).
I think within half an hour the guys were ready and on their way to the next job. Below the end result. Nice eh? It moves up and down with little motors too.
Friday, April 29, 2011
5XOD, what does it mean?
Somehow I rolled into the 'indie cassette scene' of the early 80's where you would record tapes with your own music (or 'sounds' in my case) and swap them with other people. The trick was to get a nice variety of 'correspondents' so you would get a nice variety of tapes back. Among my favorite correspondents were Rob Lawrence (aka Robot) and Mark Phillips (aka MAP) from Cardiff/Bristol, as their tapes had a constant quality (i.e. they often had good tunes unlike some of the 'industrial noise' tapes that I got from other people). After some time they joined forces as 5ive Times Of Dust (aka 5XOD) and made even better tapes.
Eventually, life happened and I lost touch.
And then some twenty (+ change) years later while perusing the interwebs I face that acronym again: 5XOD. It turns out the guys split up at the end of the eighties. But the good thing about split-ups is that you can come back together: they did a few years ago. In fact they picked up where they left off by taking old recordings and 'reworking' and remixing them. I got in touch with Rob who was so kind as to send me their 'come back' cd: Incense in the Middle Fridge of Birth.
The fact that I'm not so up to speed on electronic music is not really important as an obvious influence like YMO (like on the track 'You've got to Love the Nature') is not new either. It also helped that some of the tracks are reworkings of tracks that I already knew. Anyway, tracks like 'Fluffy Bomb' and 'Mass Collider' are instantly recognizable as 5XOD and great in their own right. One of the smart moves is sometimes using an electronic voice as the girl singer Miku which comes as a blessing after some of the more 'industrial' tracks.
On the whole I quite like it. It also made me (while typing up this blogitem) pay a bit more attention to their my|---| site: there is even newer 'Dust Music Product' available: mOVING tHROUGH tWISTED fORMS.
To explain the title of this posting: after all these years I was wondering if 5XOD meant more than just four words and googled out it probably does. Here is a link to an excerpt of 'The Soft Machine' by William S. Burroughs.
Eventually, life happened and I lost touch.
And then some twenty (+ change) years later while perusing the interwebs I face that acronym again: 5XOD. It turns out the guys split up at the end of the eighties. But the good thing about split-ups is that you can come back together: they did a few years ago. In fact they picked up where they left off by taking old recordings and 'reworking' and remixing them. I got in touch with Rob who was so kind as to send me their 'come back' cd: Incense in the Middle Fridge of Birth.
The fact that I'm not so up to speed on electronic music is not really important as an obvious influence like YMO (like on the track 'You've got to Love the Nature') is not new either. It also helped that some of the tracks are reworkings of tracks that I already knew. Anyway, tracks like 'Fluffy Bomb' and 'Mass Collider' are instantly recognizable as 5XOD and great in their own right. One of the smart moves is sometimes using an electronic voice as the girl singer Miku which comes as a blessing after some of the more 'industrial' tracks.
On the whole I quite like it. It also made me (while typing up this blogitem) pay a bit more attention to their my|---| site: there is even newer 'Dust Music Product' available: mOVING tHROUGH tWISTED fORMS.
To explain the title of this posting: after all these years I was wondering if 5XOD meant more than just four words and googled out it probably does. Here is a link to an excerpt of 'The Soft Machine' by William S. Burroughs.
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