Impossible kittens...

Playlist

Nine Horses – Money For All EP 

Dave Holland Quintet – Not For Nothing 

Four Tet - Remixes 

Kenny Dorham – Round About Midnight at the Café Bohemia 

Mingo Lewis – Flight Never Ending 

Monteverdi – Selva Morale e Spirituale 

Porcupine Tree – Fear of a Blank Planet 

Tangerine Dream – Live at Sheffield City Hall 29/10/74 Rameau - Les Indes Gallantes 

David Reilly – Anthology 1977-2007 

Jean-Michel Jarre – Live at the Great Pyramids 31/12/99 

David Bowie – The Forgotten Songs of David Robert Jones 

Various – The Clubbers’ Guide to Trance 1999 Various – Ibiza Chillout Session 

Various – Visions of Ibiza 

Owada - Nothing 

Up early as ever and copied the three box sets borrowed from the library three weeks ago – once again I have not listened to them... 

 Breakfasted at home following a quick trip to the local shop for bread and chocolate croissants... 

 Drove uptown – listening to Rameau – returned the CDs to the library – parked the car – walked to the Assembly Rooms for the Record Fair where I met with Alan Brodie (who once again spent a fortune on old records including a Commodores album, a Kraftwerk picture disc and David Bowie’s "Stage" on yellow vinyl)...

 

For my own sins I ended up buying 16 CDs for just £1 each... 

 “What did you buy Mr Quartet?” I hear you cry... 

Well, from one wee man I bought:- A pirate copy of the two Doors albums recorded post Jim Morrison’s death (“Other Voices” and “Full Circle”)... 

A two disc set of Jean-Michel Jarre’s concert at the Great Pyramids on 31st December 1999 ... 

A two disc set of Italian proggers PFM’s concert in Modena in December 1972... 

An audience recording of David Bowie’s concert in Japan on 20 April 1973... 

A disc of David Bowie demos and rarities from the period 1966-1970... 

A disc of Blondie remixes... A live recording of the George Benson Quartet, also from April 1973... 

A bootleg of Cockney Rebel’s Dusseldorf concert on 30 November 1974... 

And from another wee man, I bought:- The Orb – Cydonia... Owada – Nothing – a very weird album featuring a Turner Prize winner (Martin Creed)... 

Various – Ministry of Sound’s Clubbers’ Guide to Trance from 1999 (2CD)... 

Various – Ministry of Sound’s Ibiza Chillout Session from 2001 (2CD)... 

Various – Another 2001 Ibiza Chillout Session (Visions of Ibiza compiled by Chicane) (2CD)... 

Various – The Very Best Euphoric Chillout Mixes Breakdown (2CD)*... 

Various – The Lovers’ Guide to Reggae (3CD)... 

Various – Ministry of Sound’s 21st Century Disco from 2002 (2CD)... 

*(I discovered on returning home that I already have this album - on pulling it out of the collection and looking at the cover, I had exactly the same feeling I used to get when I was a boy and bought a packet of bubblegum with footballer or Batman cards, only to find one of the three cards in the pack was one I already had) 

Dr Prog turned up around midday and bought a couple of items too...

 

Brodski had to go but we parted with an agreement for our little trio of prog rock fans to meet up in the week to view his Peter Gabriel DVD of a concert in Germany in September 1978 – filmed a week after he and I saw the man at Knebworth with Frank Zappa and The Tubes – what a concert that was – but not before I had been duped by my cohorts into believing the DVD featured Mr Gabriel doing a Fripp’ed up version of a song from Genesis’ 1st album... 

 Here is the face of a gullible fool...

 

Dr Prog and I had a nice lunch at a nearby Italian place before I walked down to The Cask & Barrell in Broughton Street to meet up with Anne and a couple of the footballers, Nigel and Mick, to watch Scotland v Lithuania. I’d also e-mailed Jim Park to let him know where we’d be... 

However, when I arrived to meet with Anne, the place was packed to the gunnels and there was no sign of Mick, Nigel or Jim... 

We decided to go home and listen to the game on the radio... 

During our long walk across town back to the car, we came across this wee cat sleeping on a doorstep...

 

Just before halftime, we got a call from Jim thanking us for inviting him somewhere and then not being there when he turned up... 

After much grovelling on your correspondent’s part, we managed to secure an invite round to Jim’s place to view the second half on his Sky receiving TV... 

We met Jim’s lovely wee cat Ted and enjoyed a glorious win for Scotland (3-1) despite the cheating of Hearts’ Mikolinious for a penalty... 

Although I know full well from his blog that Jim is currently abstaining from Cigarettes and Alcohol, I took some beers round. Short term memory loss is becoming a problem... 

After admiring Jim’s garden, on which he assured us he’d been working hard all afternoon (I couldn’t see where though), we drove home to prepare for our visit to impossible Songs tonight... 

I burned a copy of the 1CD Anthology, “A Selection” to give to John & Ali (the Impossibles in question) as they have little knowledge of my music pre-2003 and I (no doubt rather vainly) thought this might be of interest... 

We were on a mission to meet their new kittens, Smudge the Kind of Black Kitten and Clint the Gingery Kitten and were delighted to find on arrival that the house was full of other guests, Ali’s son Paul and John’s twins Joshua and Olivia – later we were joined by John’s daughter Erin and her fiancé (husband by next week), Guy... 

Here are the kittens with (top left clockwise) Olivia, John, Anne and Paul...

 

Ali’s cooking was superb – marvellous, creamy haddock accompanied by fine new potatoes, couscous and salad and followed by sweet plum crumble, made with plums from the Impossible Garden... 

We talked into the night covering such topics as the McCann’s and their search for their missing daughter (Paul is studying psychology and suggests they are innocent as they have no history of being elaborate liars), the state of the economy, UK, US and World, interest rates, inflation, house prices, the stupidity of banks etc etc, how the world really works and finding out I have the brain of a 79 year old (and he wants it back).... 

Of course much of the evening was spent discussing the disappearance of John and Ali’s handsome wee cat, Syrus who we all hope will turn up safe and sound as soon as possible...

 

Rather worryingly, there seems to be a number of missing felines in the area, coupled with an over-zealous catgut-strung-banjo-playing, cat-fur-boot-wearing local gamekeeper... 

At 2 we headed off into the night... 

Another busy an enjoyable day... 

Highlight of the Day : An evening of Impossibility