little bits of everything

I was tagged  by Simon Robinson to write about an album. I chose the one that is probably alphabetically first in my collection, and fortunately it was Aerial by Kate Bush. So first of all, the provenance. (I think that's a great word. It's a bit like terroir - it's hard to define, but encompasses so many things.) During my teenage and twenties decades the bands I was interested in were mostly all-male: Genesis, Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel, ELO, Queen etc. I don't really know why, maybe it was because I could relate to male singers more. Kate Bush was the exception to this pattern. So in 2005 this album came along, the first in 12 years, and so it was a case the situation where you get interested in an artist and buy a few albums from their back catalogue, and then after a bit they release a new album. (You probably can't imagine, really  can't imagine, how exciting it was when the new ELO album, Time, was released in 1981.) On the Guardian Music Weekly p...

We have too many mugs. We have two mug trees with six mugs on each. Then we have an overflow cupboard of them. I decided to go through them and get rid of any mugs that didn't have any emotional attachment. The trouble was that all of them did. They've been given as birthday or Christmas present, Mother's Day or Father's Day presents. They've been hand painted or given to mark some event. So what can I do? Already, I'm worried that the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Mugs will come round and inspect the conditions which I'm keeping our mugs in, and we'll get in trouble for keeping them in overcrowded conditions. I could give them away to charity, but each one has a story. Any suggestions?

On Sunday afternoons these days I settle down with a tablet rather than a newspaper. I start with my Google reader items and sometimes I find that I've gone quite a long way from the original article. Today I started  here  and I'm still following the paths on Nick Ryan’s site.