Blue Witch

7 weeks

August

69 hours of sunshine. Just 58% of normal.

So the radio said yesterday.

I've no idea where they found those, because it wasn't round here.

They've only just started harvesting the wheat in the field behind us - 5 or 6 weeks later than normal.

Never has there been such an unproductive year in the garden. We've done nothing differerently, so I'm blaming the giants in charge of this huge experiment they call life.

10 plums in total (thanks to the snow at Easter) instead of tens of pounds.
Tomatoes only just becoming ready en masse (and no further flowers coming on for more).
Beans doing now what they normally do in July.
Just 3 small courgettes so far when we've usually had 300 by now.
2 pathetic cucumbers when we're usually making cucumber jam to cope with the quantity.
It will take until the FOTCR™ for the pumpkins and squashes to come to fruition, and the cold will put paid to that.

Chillis are the only thing that have gone absolutely mad.
It's a sign I tell you.
Of what I have no idea, but, it's a sign.

The weekend

Here are some clues as to what we did at the weekend. Assisted by extra enlisted (actually, I think I mean conscripted?) help from an ex-blogger friend who used to like our Buzzy Stripey Familiars, but definitely still likes our kittens, although I did have to hide all the scissors when he was around them.

Other extras included Mi1dred (and 30-odd of her friends), Costco and IKEA, 2 tyres and 9 toilet brushes.

Unfortunately, I am now so tired and achey from having done it that I haven't the energy to tell you about it and need to sleep much more before I shall be recovered.

Which gives you carte blanche to make up your own versions.

11 years it's taken...

Perseverance is the watchword when it comes to Local Authorities.

The Friday Question

Lottery 'games'.

Do you participate?

Thursday Questions

How can our amateur sportspeople suddenly be in third place in the Olympic Medal Table?

We were 10th in 2004 and in 2000 and 36th in 1996.

Is it because we are now seeing true performances because the cheats have been weeded out and/or deterred by the of the level of dope testing (I heard one GB athlete complaining on a radio interview last week that he was doubtful he's be at his best because he'd had to give 5 blood samples in the few days since he arrived in China) or because of the increased spend on sport in this country?

And on a sort-of related subject - did you know that £1 in every £5 of lottery money is now being channelled to the 2012 Olympics? And, oh look, the budget for that event has risen to £9.35bn already - up from £2.4bn less than 2 years ago. I wonder what it will actually cost? As ever, lots of pigs at the top with snouts in troughs.

On a more positive note, there does seem to be a much higher level of support and comradeship between Team GB members this year than there ever has been in the past. Given the age of most of the competitors, I wonder if this is to do with the rise in electronic communication (especially the social networking 'phenomenon') in the last 4 years?

Value Tip

I do not understand how Boots operate.

They already give the most generous loyalty reward of any high street retailer in England (4p per pound spent), and they frequently have triple points days (12p reward per pound spent), and money-off vouchers (either from their in-store machines, or printed at the till), but there are also health clubs and money-off schemes for Over 60s and the sprogged-up.

Why they don't just reduce all their prices, permanently, so they could compete directly, all the time, with the likes of Superdrug, I do not know.

The current promotion is barmy.

For every £5 you spend, between yesterday and 9th September, they are giving two £5 off printed-with-the-transaction vouchers: one for the Boots No.7 skincare range (including cosmetics, skincare, suncare & No.7 for Men and Ruby and Millie cosmetics) and another one for the Boots facial skincare range (including brands such as L'Oreal, Olay and the Sanctuary).

There is no minimum spend for these vouchers, and it is possible to get products (eg of the wet-wipe or eyeliner type) totally free, or posh face creams for a couple of quid (the only time I buy them!).

If you are making several purchases at once, just pay for them in multiples of £5 to get £10 worth of vouchers each time.

Boots are also currently doing 6 x 4" digital prints for 4p each on the 24 hour service (until September 13th), if you print 200 or more, and with each order you get a '5 free prints with your next order' voucher enclosed with your prints.

The day before yesterday I wanted to print 189 prints. They are normally 6p each for quantities over 150. I realised that by printing 11 twice (which I could use for cards or firelighters), I would save £3.34 (189 x 6p = £11.34; 200 x 4p = £8). I didn't expect to be allowed to also use my 5 prints free voucher, but I could, so I saved another 20p. Total saving £3.54.

When I paid, I was given my two £5 off, no minimum spend, vouchers, so off I tootled and bought face wipes and face cream for £3.50, saving £4.99 plus £5. Total saving £13.53 for spending £7.60, instead of the £11.34 I would have actually spent had I not realised the photo deal. Plus, I got loyalty points on my paid-for transactions, at 4p per pound, making another 44p saving.

So, I got 200 digital prints, plus an £8.50 face cream, plus a £4.99 pack of cosmetic wipes for £10.66.

How does that make economic sense? Apart, of course, from the fact that at least a few of you, who wouldn't otherwise have seen the promotion, will go out and do the same as a result of the free advertising I've now given them ;)

Familiars

Cat food wouldn't melt...

I didn't go out with Mi1dred and Mr BW on Sunday. I had work to do so that I could play get all my decluttering and tidying done in the week. So I went and got two new children from a newish local breeder I've found instead. 17 weeks old, these are Her1t@ge 5ky1ines. A hardier cross of Esme and something else that is auto-sexing. They lay the right colour eggs :)

Sadly and for no obvious reason, one of them died yesterday afternoon. I emailed the breeder and she offered me a free replacement; can't say fairer than that. Luckily we always keep new hens in isolation in their own house and run, just in case they arrive with something. This is the frst time in 11 years of hen-keeping that we've had any problems though.

There aren't many burial spaces left in The Coven Orchard. Next time we have An Event here, I think the game de jour might be, dig a hole with a spade and see if you can identify what you turn up: feline, fowl or fish. Can you imagine the look on the Nice Ladies' faces? ;)

Another all-day power cut today. The sixth since April. Oh joy.

I think a spell has gone wrong

I may have to rename him Beelzeebub.

Guest Post from Mi1dred

Hello pets, it has been a while hasn't it?

Well I have been a busy lady, apart from my 75th birthday, when I had a lovely time, I have been out and about all summer, which means that, with just over a year with the BWs, today was the day I reached 1000 (not quite trouble free) miles with them. More than I did in the last 12 years put together. And I have lots of new parts. Gaskets, brushes, cables, you name it, I've had it.

Yesterday I went out with Mr BW to a c1assic car and air 5how. It rained lots to start with, more than on Kitty Braithshaw's Coming Out Ball in '39, and that was the wettest ball since '24, but then I am too young to remember that one of course.

There were lots of planes there, most were younger than me, including a Hurricane and a Lancaster built when I was already 10.

It was a bit wet to start with but soon cleared up but my oh my are my little wheels grubby now, they are going to need a good scrub with bicarb and a lot of elbow grease to get them clean, or my name's not Mi1dred.

There were even ladies walking around on plane wings when there were perfectly good seats, it would never have been allowed in my day. Sister Magdeline of the 12th Order of the Latter Day Virgins who presided over my Finishing School taught us how to behave in public, oh yes indeed, we knew how to keep away from those railings ajoining the boys' school lest we wanted to risk bringing shame onto our families oh yes.

Anyway there were 28 of us there, even some of those Ruby5, we B0x 7s have always considered then at the slightly rough end of the family, if you know what I mean, all power and no breeding.

Anyway you are making me ramble on, where was I, oh yes, we finished the day with our usual parade around the ring, what fun.

Well toodle pip for now my little electronic friends and see you again soon I expect.

Art Class: Extra

Today found me spending the day at my favourite artistic venue down near the coast, with Good Friend BW, attending another course by the same tutor who led this session last autumn. This time the theme was, "Dramatic Paste1 Skies."

Paste1 on paste1 paper, 19" x 15", "Our Sunset"

This one is made from combining two images (that I've posted on here before*) as I hadn't got one image that had both foreground and sky that I liked.

Unusually, I'm actually quite pleased with it, and, doubly unusually, I might just go out and buy a long length of thin light ash wood-frame-stuff so that Mr BW can make me a frame to put it in - with a nice pale creamy mount. This will then be only the second piece of my own artwork that hangs on The Coven Walls. In reality, it's a lot more subtle than this highly reduced low-res image suggests.

* If anyone is bored they can trawl the archives and find them; I might even provide a prize for the first to correctly identify them.

The Friday Question

Half way through the month already.

I had great plans for August, which is usually my quietest month. They involved sorting out the mountain/avalanche of Stuff in the Inner Coven, which got put there 2 years ago when the Coven Attic was turned into the Coven Studio, and has been continually added to since. I didn't manage to sort it last August as planned then, probably for the same reason. Unexpected stuff happened.

Then I intended to sort out my wardrobe, which is a truly magic wardrobe as it puts more creases into clothes than there were before Mr BW ironed them. Because, you see, it is full to bursting. I even bought 3 huge plastic crates for the purpose. These were to store all the things that I couldn't bear to part with. It's impossible when you are a Value Witch, into textiles (so able to see recyclable/reuse possibilities for everything), who appreciates quality (modern garments aren't made how they used to be), to just dump stuff. Mr BW runs a 'One In, One Out' wardrobe policy which I envy but cannot copy - if I buy him anything new at all (he doesn't buy his own clothes as he hates shopping, is colour blind, and has no clue about what styles suit his bodyshape - oh and he thinks he's still a 34" waist) he immediately chooses a similar garment to go to textile recycling - which may in reality be my fabric stash/button store rather than the council-run facility.

But, the way things are going, it's not going to all get done. I've been trying to do an hour here and an hour there, but then something happens and I get distracted.

So, I'm doing a spell for extra time. It does have to be said that I've been attempting this spell for somewhere close to 35 years, so I'm absolutely sure it must finally work sometime soon.

Today's question then: if you had 4 extra hours over this weekend, what would you do with them?

Randomness

I have never ever seen so many wasps. Given that the nasty blighters attack the Buzzy Stripey Familiars and can easily wipe out a colony at this time of year, I have invested in some more wasp traps. From here. Whilst they are the same very effective design as the ones I got from IKEA for 25 pence each in their end-of-summer sale 7 or 8 years ago, they are not as large. And considering that our current wasp supply can fill up 2 of the large ones in fewer than 24 hours (1,000 or more wasps I'd say), I'm glad I bought 10. For those also suffering, the best recipe for baiting the traps is: about a quarter of a pint of lager (the Value stuff from Sainsbury's for 83p for 4 cans is great, ask any tramp - sadly pubs no longer seem willing to allow you to recycle their slops, must be a new EU rule), with 2 heaped tablespoons of sugar (collect sugar sachets from cafés to get your money's worth if you don't drink beverages with extra sugar), topped up with water, and then float a tiny trickle of washing-up liquid over the surface to break the surface tension and make drowning easier.

One of the 4 smoke detectors in The Coven has decided to make its audible "New Battery Please Witchies!" noise today. In the daytime, for probably the first time ever. Smoke detectors, like people, seem to prefer to die at night.

Just like poor Buffy the beautiful Buff Orpington hen who is less than two but deteriorated rapidly from first looking unwell yesterday evening. Back down to 11 now. Oh good, an excuse to get some more :)

I was staggered to hear on R4 this morning that by 2042, fewer than half of Americans will be white. Mind you, I'd hazard a guess that round here by 2042, more than half of inhabitants will be of Eastern European origin. I have never seen so many pregnant women, and a district nurse I know was telling me earlier in the week that in her surgery more than 80% of expectant mothers are Eastern European, and they've had to employ an interpreter to help them cope in the pre- and post-natal clinics. Isn't the EU wonderful?

I wasted an hour and a half this morning. I've been looking around for a new laptop as my current Dell one is nearly out of its 4 year warranty and is well and truly knackered. In that time it has had 3 new sets of 'guts', so warranty is of major importance to me. I divide the cost of any potential new electrical item by the number of years of warranty it comes with, to determine its Value. A reasonable-spec replacement Dell, with 4 years on-site warranty is now about £1000, so, £250 per year. I've not been at all happy with Dell's Support Indians either. So, as I've been very happy with all the Medion items I've bought from Aldi, and the tech support line is OK and in England, I ventured forth to buy one of these in their Thursday Specials this morning. High spec (3 GB of RAM will be great for the brand new version VRS I've just ordered), £449.99, including bag and 3 years warranty = £150 per year. Knowing you have to be early to get electronics when they have them, I arrived at 8.30am, and was second in the queue. By 9am when the store opened there were 30 or 40 people waiting (the majority seemed to be doting grandparents buying them for grandkids off to university as there were several phones ringing and shouts of congratulation at imparted excellent A Level results - a subject too boring to even begin to consider), and, as usual, they only had 10 or 12 laptops. So, lots of people were disappointed. So was I, even though I got one. I opened the box in the car and found that it was every bit as large (although thinner) and heavy as my existing machine, which is nearly 4. So, I took it back in and got a refund. A latecomer got lucky. The problem is, Mr BW has a dinky little work laptop, which is cutely lovely, and I saw an even sweeter little HP one in Costco, although much lower spec'd, and over £600, even in Costco, and with only with a year's warranty. I could afford it... but it's not Value, at £600 for only a year's guaranteed usage, so I shan't get it - at least until the price comes down, or the warranty period goes up. Now to ring the Dell Support Indians to get them (well, not them, luckily they send a local man who knows his stuff) to come out to replace the motherboard, fan, and keyboard, of the existing one, again...

Is the rain ever going to stop?

The kitties discover grass

Some perspective please

Everywhere you go there seem to be people warbling on about the Olympics and China's human rights record.

I think they're being rather short-sighted.

I have a few questions for these people.

In answering them, I would ask them to bear in mind that many people from different countries, cultures, religions, and political regimes, have quite different understandings, beliefs, and expectations.

As such, many things that seem outrageous to us, as occupants of first-world rich countries, are part and parcel. Just as they were in this country various numbers of years ago. Or even now, where people choose to turn a blind eye to what the governmint are causing/allowing to happen.

My questions, then:

What year did we pass legislation putting an end to the slave trade? And what year did it actually stop? Has it actually stopped, in all forms (a clue: people trafficking, exploitation of illegal immigrants)?

What year did we stop pushing small children up chimneys? Or making them work in factories? Or stop them working in 'hidden' jobs (small shops, harvesting, caring for sick parents and disabled siblings)? What year did we provide free education for all children? What year did we actually achieve functional literacy and functional numeracy for all children who have spent the requisite 11 years in the education system?

What year did we ensure that there are effective and user-friendly procedures for dealing with bullying in schools, and in the workplace?

What year did we give women the vote? What year did men and women of all 'classes' get equal voting rights? And equal rights in matters of taxation and benefits?

What year did we give equality to all sexes and all races?

What year did we introduce a minimum wage?

What year did we stop poking our nose into other coutries' business, and declaring illegal and uninformed wars?

What year did we stop turning a blind eye to the unlawful detention of prisoners by the Americans in Guantanamo Bay? Or to the fact that certain States of the same country, allegedly our closest world ally, still use the death penalty? Or block teaching of anything but creationism in schools?

What year did we extend the suspension of the rights under Habeas Corpus for anyone the governmint doesn't like?

What year did we stop holding asylum seekers in huge sub-standard detention centres with nothing to do all day? And make exercise, education and appropriate work opportunities available to all those in prisons?

What year did we stop governmint and large corporations spying on people and sharing and using the information they gather to monitor things, and in ways, to which the public have never agreed (eg CCTV cameras, loyalty schemes)?

Do you get my drift?

It's all very well for us to use our Western standards to judge events in other countries, but, in reality, one just cannot make such comparisons.

Human rights are a continuum.

It's largely a matter of where countries are in their social and fiscal development. Different countries develop at different rates for different reasons.

It's amazing to me how many people presently sounding off about China are totally unaware of what's currently going on within their own country - or what has only changed because of legislation passed within living memory...

Kittens escape

They're 4 weeks old today.

Yesterday they got out of their box on their own for the first time.

Here are some pictures which hopefully meet all the needs expressed in the comments box on Thursday: more cute kitties, the Good Mother, and the cat with (seemingly) no tail.

Shortly after they clambered out, they discovered each other's tails, and then their own tails. I always think it's funny when kittens do that for the first time. I could quite happily watch them playing all day.



And as for what they're called?

Think John Gray.

Fortunately they managed to get back into their box on their own too, and didn't find too many dangerous things lurking on the workshop floor on the way. Yet.

At least there isn't a tray of dirty engine oil under Mi1dred for them to roll in now, as her minor op seems to have successfully cured her incontinence problem. Mi1dred's not looking forward to their tiny pointy velcro claws all over her blue body though.


And who can blame her? They are very, very sharp, as my thighs can demonstrate.

And no, we're not having a picture of that, sorry, it wouldn't be pleasant.

13

We've lived at The Coven for thirteen years today.
Happy CovenDay to us!

That's the longest time I've ever lived anywhere. It doesn't seem that long, but it clearly is. In that time its value has gone up by 3.5 times what we paid. I know that there is no way we could ever afford to buy it today, even if I hadn't had to give up full-time work. What mad times we live in.

The day we moved in was hot and sunny and very very tiring. Today started sunny but turned rainy and we were tired before we began.

Mainly due to the local Highways Department's contractor deciding to resurface the road (well overdue - I first pointed out it needed doing 2 years ago) on Thursday evening by chucking a few lorry loads of chippings onto a thin layer of tar, rolling it once in each direction, then tipping another few lorry loads of chippings onto the surface and then leaving the traffic to roll them in. Which makes lots of noise, largely because there are clearly a lot of company car drivers around who aren't obeying the 20mph signs as they don't give a damn about chipped paint or broken windscreens, and has resulted in me waking up every time a vehicle goes past in the night (I am a very light sleeper), and then Mr BW wakes up too. Several visitors to The Coven have, unasked, confirmed my observation that the chippings left loose on the road are deeper than the gravel in our drive.

Plus, we were unexpectedly forced into manual labour yesterday evening as, early yesterday morning, my bulk palette of h0ney j@r5 arrived without the promised notice, and at a most inconvenient time.

The lorry driver initially refused to do anything but offload them onto the verge outside, right next to the road (despite me having been very specific about my delivery requirements when ordering). But, after I pointed out that 2,232 glass j@rs stacked in 11 layers on a palette, covered only in thick plastic wouldn't last half an hour against the stones being thrown up by passing cars, he eventually deigned to reverse his truck into our drive and deposit them where I'd originally requested.

Well, OK, there was a bit more to the situation than that... let's just say I was double his age and had a far better sense of logic and never take no for an answer. Particularly when I have an audience of waiting-for-me small boy plus mother. I wish I had a video of that little encounter actually as it was a classic demonstration of unabashed assertiveness and stuck-record technique.

In the past we've always purchased j@rs through the local association for stripey buzzy familiars, but we were running out of j@rs faster than they could stop faffing about and actually order some, and I found a good offer from a new company to the market. The price of pound glass j@rs has gone up over 50% in the last couple of years, and j@r plus lid is now nearly 20p, even when buying them in multiple palette loads.

To reduce the price I agreed to take j@rs in bulk, unboxed, but with cardboard boxes supplied flat, so that we could box them up ourselves for storage. It took me 20 minutes to make up and tape the 31 boxes. If I do it again I'll certainly borrow a tape-dispenser/cutter machine from someone as it will reduce the time by two-thirds.


Then came the fun. I found I could move 8 j@rs from palette to half-gross box at a time. I was filling boxes nearly as fast as Mr BW could help me tape them up and carry them away. And, amazingly, I didn't break any! There were 11 jars in total, out of the 2,232, that were unusable - 7 were deformed in manufacure, and only 4 were slightly chipped, which, given that they'd been shipped from Turkey, via Antwerp and Bristol, and then road freighted (by a serial network of local carriers, which is the cheapest and most reliable way to move paletted items) to here, I thought was amazing.

It took us about an hour and a half and we finished as the light went (aren't the evenings drawing in now?).

A total of 3 hours and twenty minutes from sealed palette to sealed boxes, and both of us knackered and aching today, to save £40. Or, looked at another way, some free exercise and an extra 1.79p of profit per j@r sold for us.

I know there are several readers who now have stripey buzzy familiars of their own. All I'll say is, don't ever do the financial calculations, because you will be disappointed. It will never be a commerical venture, or even a semi-commerical one. Look on it as an enjoyable but demanding hobby that enables you to break even if you're lucky (and careful about where you source equipment and consumables) and don't work out your hourly rate, because it will be pennies.

Today, Mr BW has been solving Mi1dred's incontinence problem by changing a gasket and desecrating the overgrown blackcurrant bushes, while I've been mostly making cords with my new toy, and playing with kittens. Of which, in accordance with your requests, more pictures tomorrow :)

The Friday Question

I heard somewhere that the BBC have 3,000 hours of coverage coming up in the next 16 days.

Yes to: athletics, swimming, gymnastics, trampolining
(that seems to be all the sports I've ever enjoyed participating in)

No to: boxing, wrestling, weightlifting, judo, shooting, baseball, football, geegees

Indifferent to: everything else

What will you watch?

Kitten Update

The Small Tabby Familiars are now three and a half weeks old.

They're now very aware of their environment, and looking around inquisitively. Although not quite out of their box, they will be soon. Contrary to expectations, The Dark Tabby Familiar is the most wonderful cat mother we have ever had.

However, even at this early stage, one can easily tell which is the girl and which is the boy:

Briefly

When I was young (many moons ago of course, fortunately) it was considered the height of bad manners to have any part of one's underwear showing.

This applied whether you were male or female.

In the past few years it seems to have become trendy for women to expose bra straps, knickers etc etc.

Of late (and I don't know when exactly it started, or who encouraged this trend, maybe somone can enlighten me?) it seems to be de rigeour for men to show an inch of underpants above their trousers.

Worse, I saw a ten year old boy today who was exposing underpant elastic.

Why?

Am I the only one who finds this distasteful?

Serendipity

Lime green gladioli ends up next to zebra miscanthus.

Seen In Local Small Town

I wonder why there isn't a long queue?

My Family and Other Fuchsias

It's That Time of Year in the Garden, so we've been more than a little busy lately and Mummy Mr BW hadn't been over for a while. We wanted to go to a localish fuchsia show yesterday, so decided to meet her there and then bring her back to The Coven for lunch.

I found a fabulous fuchsia I hadn't seen before that I desperately needed to add to our ever-growing collection. Sadly they didn't have any for sale, but luckily Mr BW spotted one as a prize on a games table so he had enough goes to win it for me. Well, actually, he didn't win after 3 goes, but the lovely old boy running the stall took pity and gave me it anyway.


It's called "Rocket Fire" and I suspect, from the name, that it's probably by the same breeder as another one I acquired at Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, "Satellite," which has bobbly petally bits orbiting the main flower:

Throughout the day star growers from the society do lectures on caring for your fuchsias. Mr BW had disappeared off to look at the tool stand (the clever show organisers even cater for men who get bored of looking at fuchsias more quickly than their female companions), by the time that the next lecture of the day was announced over the tannoy. Knowing that Mummy Mr BW is a chatterbox and knows half the people attending the show, I decided I'd send her off to grab some seats in the lecture room rather than take her with me to retrieve Mr BW, as we'd be late if I had to wait politely while she gossiped en route.

I quickly located Mr BW and steered him back to the lecture room. They had just started. I couldn't see Mummy Mr BW anywhere. In sign language (because unlike most people these days I'm polite and didn't want to disturb other people) I asked Mr BW to go and see if he could find his mother.

He opened the door and she was waiting right outside. He gestured to her to come in quietly. "It's OK," she said, "I'm waiting for my daughter-in-law."

Now, how worried should we be that she didn't recognise her own son?

Mind you, I may have the beginnings of the same affliction as I saw a couple of other fuchsias I fancied at the show that I discovered, when wandering round the garden earlier, that we already have. Yes, we do have lots, as they are my favourite flower, but even so...

The Friday Question

I used to love live music.

Back in the late 70s and early 80s, everyone seemed to love live music. We went along to hear the band, not to talk to those with us while they were playing, and not to talk on our mobile phones, not to send text and/or picture messages on our phones with their brightly lit screens that were distracting to those around us. Well, OK, they hadn't invented mobile phones then, so it would have been hard to do that, but, we went to see a band, because we wanted to see a band. Had we wanted to do something else, we'd have done it instead, not at the same time.

On the rare occasion when a band wasn't to my taste, I simply left early. I'd never have dreamt of spoiling others' enjoyment by talking/shouting to those around me about other things entirely, and I don't recall anyone else doing so either. I stood on a lot of doors at a lot of venues at that time too (I managed a punk band and so was known and often got roped in to take money or check tickets at other gigs), and I'm damn sure that the bouncers would have chucked anyone out who'd been that disrespectful to the band playing, and to their fellow gig-goers.

It doesn't seem to matter where you go these days, be it cinema, theatre, concerts, or gigs, there are always people talking/shouting, eating, drinking, phoning. There seems to be no consideration for others and a complete lack of understanding that not everyone wants to be forced to listen to mindless chatter or crunching. I'm all for multi-tasking, but, there is a time and a place for everything.

I nearly got hit by the drunken overly-loud-everything faux-posh 50-something lard bucket sitting next to me on Monday night when I dared to prod his much younger very tarty companion and put my finger to my lips in a gesture of silence as they were talking audibly and continually during Nanci's quiet songs (given that it was a venue holding only about 80-100, I thought we'd be safe, but there were people talking and laughing all around us throughout). Luckily Mr BW has now perfected the BW Hard Stare and being 6' 3" and having a very short haircut at present (due to him having attached the wrong first blade to the clippers when I cut his hair last weekend, and me not having noticed before making the first stripe) clearly made Faux-Posh think better of it, so he made himself feel better by making snarky comments which I totally ignored, much to his disgust.

I don't understand why people pay a lot of money to go to see artists and then talk about other things all the way through. We've had it at every gig we've been to in recent years, and I'm heartily sick of it.

Just another example of the lack of consideration and respect that sadly characterises our society these days I think. I'm sure I can't be the only one it annoys, but I seem to be the only one who ever asks offenders to be quiet. Why?

Which brings me to the Friday Question, which is sort-of connected, in a, 'If live music's off, what's it to be?' sort of way.

CD or MP3?

Thought for the day

Nothing is easier than being busy, and nothing more difficult than being effective.

- Alec MacKenzie