Saturday, December 24, 2005

In the court of the Christmas King....

Christmas Eve..

But, somehow, yesterday felt more like Christmas Eve...

This morning, Meg the Black Cat's ex-mum, Julia, arrives with Pandy the Fluffy Cat. Pandy's staying at Crispycat Towers for the Festive Season as Julia's off to Italy and Holland for a couple of hard earned holidays...

Meg the Black Cat does not much like this encroachment on to her territory but Pandy needs a roof over her head and so the girls will just need to get along. This time last year they were both Julia's cats but were both living with us while Julia's house underwent some repairs. I think Meg's forgotten this though...

Pandy's first act upon entering the house is to eat all the food in Meg's bowl...

I love cats!

Today the post brings King Crimson's "The 21st Century Guide to King Crimson Vol 2" - an excellent 4CD box highlighting the music of this wonderful band from the periods 1981-84 and 1994-2003 (I already have Vol 1, 1969-1974). With the exception of a few minutes, I have all this music here already on other discs. Am I mad? Well, yes - mad for King Crimson!!



At Christmas 1976 whilst out Christmas Shopping, I came a cross a brand new copy of the then recent "A Young Person's Guide to King Crimson", the first 2LP compilation of the band covering 1969-1974, complete with massive booklet containing hundreds of reviews, photos, Fripp diary entries and a list of every gig the band ever played...



Prior to this I only had an old 2nd hand copy of their first, ground-breaking LP "In The Court of the Crimson King" and the 7" single of "Epitaph/21st Century Schizoid Man" having been brought to the band via Fripp & Eno's "No Pussyfooting"...

I bought the double LP, wrapped it, put a tag on it saying "To David From Santa" and acted surprised when I opened it up on Christmas morning. One of my best presents ever...

In the afternoon we drove to Morningside to visit Mr Alan Brodie's ex, Julie who now has a lovely new young handsome, ex-chef boyfriend. We drank mulled wine and ate shortbread. Julie is Mrs Christmas and her flat is festooned with decorations, cards and general Christmas-ness...

Back home Anne watched the special Christmas Strictly Come Dancing while I had a sleep upstairs to try and make up for all the lack of same recently, due to "the leg"...

Then, we had a lovely tea and settled down to watch "It's A Wonderful Life"...

We taped this off the TV around three years ago and have never watched it (although, like most everyone these days, we have seen the film before)....

It must surely be the best Christmas film ever and, of course, the eyes moistened at quite a few points....

However, due to the vagaries of video timers, we watched for nearly two hours only to find the last few minutes were not on the tape. Saved us a big bill for tissues though...



Merry Christmas Bedford Falls!!!

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