Music and words

Madeira Botanical Garden, Funchal, November 2022

I've been grappling with decisions about playing music and podcasts and audiobooks. I listen to a lot of these, pretty much all the time, and the ways I've done it have changed with the times. If this doesn't interest you (and why should it?) I suggest you skip this post. It will be very boring.

Once upon a time I just had a HiFi system that played terrestrial radio stations, vinyl records, CDs and cassette tapes, and I borrowed books on tape. There was a radio in the kitchen, and a radio, CD player and cassette player in the car. All lovely and analogue (or what I'll call 'old-fashioned' digital in the case of CDs).

Next came iTunes and the iPod, which moved music onto the computer and made it more portable. I acquired a cassette-shaped gadget that let me play the iPod through the car radio, and a base station with a speaker in the kitchen. I loaded all my music CDs into iTunes, and Audible let me put my audiobooks on there too, so I could listen to music and books in the car, in the kitchen and on headphones. using just the iPod.

Things changed in the living room with the advent of universal WiFi. I fell heavily for Spotify and Google Chromecast, which fed WiFi into the back of the old amp in the living room so I could stream music as well as play the old records and CDs (the cassette player having long since given up the ghost). And the new networked television with sound bar has a Spotify app built in.

Then the amp started to fail - it was 40 years old, so I can't blame it. I replaced it with a super wireless-enabled amp that connects and coordinates new speakers in the kitchen and upstairs as well as the old speakers in the living room. I can still play CDs but the turntable and tuner aren't connected any more. At some point I'd really like to digitise a few special albums that aren't available elsewhere, but I am starting to accept the fact that it may never happen.

Things continue to change. Audible stopped being available for Windows so I couldn't load books onto my iPod any more. Then the ancient iPod started to get a little bit flaky in terms of battery life, and I had to find a new way of playing music and podcasts and books in the house and on the move, and I was forced to consider the phone replacing the iPod.

Audible has a phone app for the books, and then Spotify started to include podcasts and books as well as music within my subscription. So CDs and Spotify supply my music and podcast needs in the home, except for a couple of BBC podcasts that have to go through BBC Sounds. 

I was on an incredibly cheap but very stingy data plan for the phone, so I wasn't able to use Spotify in the car. I found a free podcast player (Player FM) that auto-downloads my unplayed episodes, but as a result of joining the U3A walkers I've been drawn into updating my phone data plan so I can use a phone-based satnav. The next stage might be to ditch Player FM and simplify things to just Spotify and the Audible phone app. I might need a new phone.

It's time to sell the iPod Classic. The end of an era.

Out and about again

Madeira Botanical Garden, Funchal, November 2022

It took me about two and a half days to get through the email and WhatsApp traffic that had piled up while I was away for two weeks on retreat, and I'm still catching up on podcasts. I did three loads of washing and there's more to come, but this did include a whole load that I didn't manage to do before I went. The weekend disappeared very rapidly but at least I managed to retain some of the equanimity that a retreat brings, and if I can keep it going it will stand me in good stead for the rest of January and February, which are a bit busy.

The U3A board games and walking groups are turning out very well. I thought the board games group would meet in a Games café - there are two in Leamington - but it turns out that the group organiser has a house full of board games, which I was invited to view while his wife rolled her eyes at the foolishness of it all. Attendance is low at the moment, but maybe because of Christmas and cold weather and the advanced age of the group members. The walking group has been good too, with circular walks ending at a pub for lunch and interesting people to walk with and get to know. I'm definitely the youngster at both these groups. I'm not planning to join any more for the time being.

I was invited to spend a day in London with one of the people I go for walks with. It was strange spending time with him without the dog - for example, one of us didn't have to wait at the table while the other went to the counter to order tea. We went to an exhibition at the British Museum and then another at the Royal Academy, and both were interesting. The BM exhibition was about Myanmar/Burma, and one of the first things I learned was why there are two names - 'Myanmar' relates to one of the kingdoms that was drawn together to make what the British colonisers called 'Burma'. The RA exhibition was of drawings done by impressionists (Degas to Toulouse-Lautrec), of which my favourite was a simple watercolour of flowerpots by Paul Cézanne.

Then I went to York for the weekend to visit my Buddhist friend who moved from Birmingham, and to deliver a camp bed and curtains for her flat, which also meant I was more comfortable at night. York is a lovely city, and there's plenty of scope for exploring in future. I returned via Manchester and H+B's place, where H had arranged someone to sit with B so we could go out to a lovely local place for soup (me) and croque (him) and ponder on the suffering in the world and our imminent deaths. And some cheerier subjects too.

Excitement lined up for the future includes my next new volunteering opportunity. I have been accepted as Event Control Room Team Member at the international badminton competition in Birmingham in March. Not a lot of effort went into my application - I just wrote that I'd been in the radio room at Warwick Folk Festival twice, which suggests that perhaps they are short of volunteers for the role.

And lastly, more teeth news: the last person I saw thought my treatment might be coming to an end, but she asked the senior orthodontist who thinks there is a bit more that can be done. So they gave me 13 more retainers, so that's about four more months.

What I've been reading

The Hearing Trumpet
by Leonora Carrington

narrated by Siân Phillips

"An apocalyptic fairy tale quest about an occult old ladies' home and the spry nonagenarian who ends up there. After coming into possession of a hearing trumpet, 92-year-old Marian Leatherby discovers her son's plans to send her to a nursing home."

This was a wild ride! The first half is a bit like the Cinderella story but about a 92-year-old woman being mistreated by her younger family. The middle section is about her time in the craziest nursing home you'll ever find, and then it goes completely off the rails when she survives a global apocalypse and another woman marries a wolf. It's books like this that I was hoping for with the Classics list I've been using, but they don't often materialise.

Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life
by Peter Godfrey-Smith

"In captivity, octopuses have been known to identify individual human keepers, raid neighbouring tanks for food, turn off lightbulbs by spouting jets of water, plug drains, and make daring escapes. How is it that a creature with such gifts evolved through an evolutionary lineage so radically distant from our own?"

The most interesting things that I didn't know before are that the lifespan of most octopus species is only one or two years, and about the mechanism for displaying a whole spectrum of skin colours despite octopuses having little or no colour perception. Having said that, the book wasn't quite as good as I was expecting, given that octopuses are really amazing creatures and the author has studied them a lot. It has some colour pictures in the middle! but they aren't all that exciting. Given the title, perhaps I should have expected to read about the rather academic description of the evolution of the nervous system rather than all the wondrous things that octopuses have been seen to do. 

The Intrusion of Jimmy
by P. G. Wodehouse

narrated by B. J. Harrison

"Having fallen in love on a transatlantic liner, Jimmy Pitt befriends a small-time burglar and breaks into a police captain's house as a result of a bet. The cast of characters head to England and the stately Dreever Castle, overflowing with impostors, detectives, crooks, scheming lovers and conniving aunts."

This is a standalone Wodehouse story written before Jeeves and Wooster were conceived, and I would say is actually better in that it relies less on the contrived coincidences and asinine character of that series of stories. I could almost say that it is more plausible, but that would be ridiculous as it is not plausible at all, it just feels like that. I enjoyed it.

Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens
by David Mitchell

narrated by the Author

"England's monarchs, while acting as feared rulers firmly guiding their subjects' destinies, were in reality a bunch of lucky sods who were mostly as silly and weird in real life as they appear today in their portraits. Taking us right back to King Arthur (spoiler: he didn't exist), David tells the founding story of post-Roman England right up to the reign of Elizabeth I (spoiler: she dies)."

Given that David Mitchell is one of my favourite comedians, I would have been very disappointed had I not enjoyed this, with the extra bonus that he narrates it too. And it was free with my Spotify subscriptions, and I could even download it to listen in the car. And it was a right good listen too.

Les Misérables
by Victor Hugo

translated by Isabel F. Hapgood

"Set in the Parisian underworld, Les Misérables follows Jean Valjean, originally an honest peasant, who has been imprisoned for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's starving family. A hardened criminal upon his release, he eventually reforms, becoming a successful industrialist and town mayor. Despite this, he is haunted by an impulsive former crime and is pursued relentlessly by the police inspector Javert."

This is a ridiculous book, not least because it has more than 1300 pages. The story itself probably occupies less than half of these pages, and the rest includes (among other digressions) long sections describing the Battle of Waterloo, the history of a pub, (French) slang, and the Paris sewers - how and when they were built and what form they take, following which Parisian roads. But I kept ploughing through, helped by the fact that I was on retreat for the second half so had lots of unallocated time. I got it from the library, and had to renew it so many times that I ran out of online options and had to physically take it back to the library, return it and borrow it again. If you're interested then read an abridged version (and I can't imagine that I've ever recommended doing that before), or even better, take in the musical which is pretty true to the story and vastly more entertaining.

Hare House
by Sally Hinchliffe

"In the first brisk days of autumn, a woman arrives in Scotland. Moving into a cottage on the remote estate of Hare House, she begins to explore her new home – a patchwork of hills, moorland and forest. But among the tiny roads, dykes and scattered houses, something more sinister lurks: local tales of witchcraft, clay figures and young men sent mad."

I saw this in the library as I was re-borrowing Les Mis, and it's written by someone whose blog I regularly read. I really enjoyed her writing and the well-rounded characters she introduced, but something about the ending weakened it. I found myself musing on how I might have changed the plot entirely to make it hang together better.

Inconceivable Emancipation: Themes from the Vimalakirti-Nirdesa
by Sangharakshita

"Mahayana Buddhism emphasizes the ideal of the Bodhisattva, one who seeks to become Enlightened out of a compassionate desire to help all living beings. In the Vimalakirti-Nirdesa we meet the Bodhisattva Vimalakirti, a worker of wonders, a formidable debator and skilful teacher."

"Next term is going to be a bit challenging," our teacher said. Mahayana Buddhism is a bit flowery, metaphorical, paradoxical, stretching the limits of reality with one hundred thousand million worlds and a parasol big enough to encompass all of them. So I was duly warned, and picked up the textbook with some apprehension, but in fact it reminded me of a popular science book I'd read on the topic of (mathematical) infinity. I didn't quite understand the text, but was fairly certain that just beyond the scope of my imagination there was probably quite a satisfying truth. We start the class that relates to the book next week, so maybe I'll change my mind when that happens.

Impossible Things Before Breakfast
by Rebecca Front

"A collection of true stories about surprising turns of events, bizarre misunderstandings and improbable life lessons. We learn, among other things, how gazing at the stars can help you communicate with teenagers, how a mushroom can undermine an ancient ritual, and why everyone should wear a cape."

This is another book I happened to see at the library while I was looking for something else, and one of the reasons that I picked it up is because for a few weeks, Rebecca was in my class at secondary school, before she had some kind of crisis and switched to a different school. Every time I see or hear her on TV or radio I think, "She was in my class," and reflect on how well she has done, and what a nice person she seems to be, and try not to compare her career trajectory with mine. Not that I could ever have become an actor and writer, and she is rather good at both of these - her book is great, by the way, and by the way, did you know she was in my class at school? Briefly, anyway.

Retreat

Madeira, November 2022

I've been away, but there are people who literally put the phone down on callers when there's a blog post so I feel a responsibility to get started straight away.

I was on a two-week retreat that started before Christmas and ended after the New Year was well under way. This has left me slightly out of step with the populace who have endured all that the holiday period has to offer. I had to be reminded that a 'Happy New Year' wish is appropriate for messages sent within the first week of January, or sometimes even later.

There's very little I can say about the retreat except that it was in Wales and the rain was torrential. Someone even described it as 'biblical'. Apparently there was a storm, but without TV, radio, Internet or any other way of connecting with the outside world we all just endured wind and water battering the roof and windows day after day, and wondered if it would ever stop? The retreat centre stood up to the onslaught admirably and remained warm, so all survived except the one woman who tested positive for Covid on the first morning but luckily departed without infecting anyone else.

The retreat was all about the Triratna Buddhist Order, which those present (including me) have requested to join. It was all rather serious - there was meditation, talks, groups, reading material, prostration practice (don't ask), ritual, and a DVD (on the Order rather than anything more entertaining). There were women from Ireland, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Hungary, Greece, France and Spain as well as the UK. 

I did a couple of long walks during the retreat, partly because I like walks and partly to get away from everyone for a bit. Because of the rain I discovered the particular defects in my old jacket and was soaked down to the underwear on one walk, but luckily my feet and my head stayed warm and dry. For the other walk I was lucky and it only started to rain seriously at the very end.

At the end of the retreat someone asked for a lift to Adhisthana, the retreat centre where I'd volunteered earlier in the year, and it wasn't out of my way so I offered. It was a delightful treat to be welcomed by the people I'd got to know there, and be reminded that it isn't all about deep reflection and personal transformation, it can just be chatting to someone over a chopping board.