All watched over by machines of loving grace...

Playlist
OK Go - Of the Blue Colour of the Sky
Various - Top 60 "Recent" Albums on Shuffleplay
Various - Last 10 Months on Shuffleplay
Various Composers - Cello Music for Oliver

Up at 5 this morning and brought a pile of recently acquired discs up to the computer room to get my various lists up to date...

Of course Meg the Black Cat likes to get in on the act...

Unfortunately, today she got a little too close to the action, jumping onto the computer table and stretching herself out to such an extent that she knocked the pile of around 30 CDs off the table...

I caught what I could but a goodly number of them tumbled onto my brand new Bach Complete Works Box Set, creating rather annoying holes and dents in the box...

Cats can be a pain in the butt sometimes - but I wouldn't be without them...

With all up to date and my top 60 loaded in to the new machine, I watched an excellent documentary on the BBC I-Player...

I'd noted some of the usual less than complimentary critiques of the much misunderstood views of Russian/American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand in a few articles this week, advising they'd been featured in a new series on BBC2...

So, I sought out said film, "Love and Power", part one of the series "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace" - and really enjoyed it...

You can find it here - buried away on the "Factual" page...

Or, it's been posted to Youtube...



...and there's a reasonable synopsis of the episode on Wikipedia...

It wasn't particularly about Ayn Rand - just showed the part her thinking played as regards the individuals who drove the development of the internet, computer systems and financial systems of the USA...

It also showed how deviation from her logical thinking by acolyte Alan Greenspan (believing his critics instead of sticking to his own beliefs) led him to erroneously introduce the conditions which allowed the financial crisis of the late 90's re South East Asia to happen...

Which, in turn, led to the conditions which allowed the financial collapse of 2007/08/09/10/11 (ongoing really), including Gordon Brown's idiot, hubristic "we have defeated Boom and Bust" mantra...

Greenspan was briefly (10 months) married to an artist, Joan Mitchell, who introduced him to Rand (thus changing the entitre history of the world - weird eh?)...

I'm pretty sure the Joan Mitchell in question is not the same as the reasonably famous and rather well thought of Abstract Impressionist painter Joan Mitchell...



But, even if it's not, then, thanks to this happy coincidence of names, I've now discovered another artist whose work very much appeals...



Post this, the now familiar trip to the nearby Grocery Store for two of their lovely croissants...

With Anne off to town re eye tests etc, I rehearsed the current live set, although there's nothing in the diary performance wise...

Stopped half way through due to boredom...

Took a picture of the CDs currently on the shelf in the living room...



All of these acquired since the start of April or thereabouts...

On Anne's return, we watched a DVD she'd bought a while back, Isabelle Huppert in "Gabrielle", a French film based on the story "The Return" by Joseph Conrad...

Not the best really - pretty dark and depressing and represented another 90 minutes we'll never get back...

Spent the next few hours digging through a pile of classical CDs to compile the promised disc of cello music for nephew Oliver, to which he will most likely never listen...



But I am hoping to inspire a spark of artistic insight in the lad, even though, like his uncle at age 10, football is more important to him than music or art...

He is very much into sport and the surrounding statistical irrelevance to which all the inherent nonsensical toil and trouble involved, boils down in the end...

When I was 10, and definitely into football in a big way, my dad had striven for a number of years to instill even just a glimmer of music appreciation in me, using classical pieces such as Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture...

Of course, my love of music didn't really ignite until the summer of 1972 when I decided to find out why the girl singing the most exciting song* I'd ever heard, sounded like a man...

Finished in time for this week's "Dr Who" - not bad but it was 45 minutes waiting for the twist at the end - which does, though, set things up nicely for next week's "mid season finale" as they are calling it...

Ordered and collected a tasty Indian meal which was enjoyed as I, rather hypocritically given my comments above, watched the Champions League Final in which Manchester United were made to look like East Stirling by Barcelona...

A Tivo'd and very clever routine from Stewart Lee followed before I finished off Ollie's cello disc and headed for bed...

Highlight of the Day : All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

*"School's Out" by Alice Cooper