Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Shopping, listening, dancing, cooking but not directly killing...

Playlist
The Bad Plus - Inevitable Western
Suzanne Vega - Tales From The Realm Of The Queen Of Pentacles
Bidiniband - The Motherland
Max Richter - Retrospective (1) The Blue Notebooks
Max Richter - Retrospective (2) Songs From Before
Max Richter - Retrospective (3) 24 Postcards in Full Colour
Various - Milano Jukebox 2014
Various - 1,001 Songs You Must Hear Vol 1
John Surman - Adventure Playground
UK Reunion - Live in Tokyo

Up early and to Tesco pre 7am for some shopping for my mum, flowers for Anne and a few things for us provisions-wise...

Back home, with Anne still sleeping, some work this morning on a possible revamp of my end of year list...

Listening-wise this morning, enjoying some those titles listed...

Breakfast at home to the sound of Max Richter's Retrospective, perusing too books on 20th Century art and on minimalism in al its forms...

Having decided against going Blu Ray the replacement Alice Cooper DVD arrived...

Looking forward to that...

Out on some errands and then drove over to Loanhead, enjoying a light lunch at Poddington's before picking my mum up for her Xmas treat - a trip to the ballet...

The staff at the Festival Theatre were superb - here we are awaiting entry into the auditorium, perusing the old posters on the walls - the majority of the names meant nothing to to us but were recognised and reminisced about by my mum...



An excellent view, in what became a packed house, for Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker", a popular Xmas show with the kids - many a budding young ballerina in sparkly outfit was in the sold out audience...


Superb dancing throughout - the storyline of course is extremely slight - young girl attends parents' Xmas Party, receives nutcracker in the shape of a soldier as a present (as opposed to the latest X-Box), sneaks back to the main room after everyone has gone, finds her present, falls a sleep and dreams about dancing fairies, mice, princesses and toys...

And there was an impressive magician...

Much enjoyed by mum - her first ballet in over twenty years she reckoned...

On the drive back to Loanhead, doing 40 on a dual carriageway, I noted a pheasant crossing the central reservation, presumably having already negotiated the other carriageway...

It stepped out onto the road in front of us and a swerving manoeuvre was undertaken, much to the shock of my passengers...

I thought I might just have avoided it...

In the rear view mirror, I could see the hapless bird, twirling on the road in front of the speeding oncoming traffic and I figured, even if I hadn't made significant contact, it must surely now be a goner...

But no, just as the next car was about to make contact, it flew up into the air and over to the nearby fields...

Result..

Of course, very lucky that no-one happened to be overtaking me on the inside - and indeed that I didn't lose control of the car - or that, these days, unlike a few years ago, I do not speed...

Mum safely delivered home, we visited Tesco again, having decided I would cook tonight...

Ingredients were purchased for one of my signature dishes, Leek and Pancetta Risotto...


...and your resident chef set to work, using his very own new pan no less, to the sound of John Surman's far out jazz....








Yum...


The evening was spent watching TV - including the final two episodes of "Some Girls", the very funny "Madagascer 3", "University Challenge", "Charlie Brooker's 2014 Wipe" and a compilation of clips from old Dave Allen shows, which, while of their time, had their moments...

Lights out with UK...

Highlight of the Day : Not killing a hapless bird - although it was a shame for the pig that provided the pancetta...

3 comments:

Disco Stu said...

Mmm.. next time hit the bird square on. They are artificially bred for game anyway and can cause accidents by over conciousness. What would you prefer, saving the life of another pheasant or the garage bill for someone slamming into the back of your car, maybe injuring passengers and yourself. Anyway, Happy New Year when it comes.
PS Charlie Brooker was shit last night.

Cloudland Blue Quartet said...

Hi Stu - My natural instinct was not to kill the bird - I didn't contemplate the other possible outcomes in the heat of the moment - luckily it turned out fine - and , if anyone had run into the back of me, as always in such situations, it would have been their fault as they would have been deemed to have been driving too close to me - only a fool breaks the two second rule...

As for Brooker - I enjoyed it although the piece in the middle re no way to put together effective opposition to the powers that be smacked of conspiracy theory...

Have a great New Year and hopefully, hopefully, the Creek boys can do something in 2015 FFS!!! LOL xx

Cloudland Blue Quartet said...

Mind you, Adam Curtis' previous work has been much admired by Mr CBQ and Curtis has a new 2.5 hour film out on iPlayer in January, which I look fwd to watching..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis