graham’s blog

Music and me

When I was a kid my parents often played music around the house. My mother played piano and we often sat around and listened. My dad bought a record player and we listened to Petula Clark, Marlene Dietrich, Françoise Hardy and lots of classical music.

I played recorder and sang at school assembly. I also had the chance to have piano lessons but my piano teacher persuaded me to take up singing rather than piano so I sang a lot in music lessons and in school and local productions.

My musical education was therefore essentially classic although at school we studied The Beatles Sergeant Peppers and other mainstream pop music.

It wasn’t until I left home to work in Edinburgh that I broadened my musical tastes a lot under the influence of the aftermath of the summer of ‘68 and the hippy culture. My friends and girlfriends were also instrumental to me discovering much of what I still listen to today. It felt as if I had changed from Beethoven to the Grateful Dead in the space of a few weeks and I’m happy changing from Barefoot Jerry, Jefferson Airplane and Jethro Tull to Mozart, Richard Strauss or Bach from one pice to the next. It just depends on my mood.

This is the first post in a series devoted to my musical interests.

Tags: archiving, classical, Music, pop

Practice what you preach

I came to Switzerland in 1978 and was surprised to learn enough French to get by with in the course of 4 months. Ever since that era I have perfected my French and consider myself bilingual. I often calculate, think and dream in French but of course make many errors most of which are more visible in written form. Then there is my accent, but I’m trying to keep on topic here

Many people ask me how I managed and I always tell them that the only barrier to learning is in holding back and failing to try, because the person you are trying to communicate with wants to understand you and the errors you inevitably make aren’t as important as the message you are trying to convey. You always have to “Go for it!” and leave your inhibitions behind.

How come I don’t practice what I preach then? I’ve been mulling over this for a few days.

I have quite a few visitors and family members that are more comfortable in French and each attempt I have made to write in French and in English has “lost steam” after a few days or weeks due to lack a perceived lack of interest.

A good webfriend reminded my lately that it wasn’t because there was an absence of comments that people aren’t reading what I am writing. This must of course be true when I write in French too.

I’m going to try again and to hell with my faults in French (which incidentally is a lot harder to write than to speak, in my opinion).

I won’t even try to do too much spell checking and grammar sifting. I will only have one rule. Black writing for English and blue writing for French. (Once I work out a comfortable way of accomplishing that)

If I’m successful at it, I’ll consider adding a plugin and doing it as professionally (well almost as) Stephanie does on her perfectly bilingual blog.

Tags: language, messages

Shiny objects

Since I was a kid I’ve always been on the lookout for shiny new objects.

When I was a kid it was new Matchbox Cars, or a new Lego Box or some Meccano.

When I was a teenager it had a lot to do with Music, new singles or LP’s. I was thirsty for music and spents hours listening to it.

I continued and indeed still continue with my passion for music of most kinds in my life today.

In addition, however, with the advent of the Internet I am still on the lookout for shinies and it becomes almost unhealthy at times.

I collect sites as I collected music but unlike my music a lot of these sites lose their shine rapidly or are replaced by even shinier ones.

Life was simpler before the Internet. For a fiftysomething geek, if the genre really exists, it can become an ongoing struggle.

I don’t dare expose the number of apps I had when I was using Windows XP and know I am using my iMac (I love my iMac) my applications folder is overflowing with stuff I pick up and in reality use only from time to time.

I can’t afford (or justify using) Photoshop and I try to be ethical so I have Photoshop Elements and Pixelmator and the Gimp and strive to use them properly. I mention these apps because inevitably I tried out Photoshop Express earlier as well.

In every category it’s more or less the same combat.

It would be nice to be able to simulate an application environment by hiding or concealing applications on the fly. That way I could dip into the Lucky Bag (a childhood memory) and draw out a new toy only when I really needed it. I should be able to have categiries of applications such as -Often Used- or -Not yet mastered-. Perhaps in the Apps folder they could be sorted into categories (Graphics, Words, Games, Music etc etc).

Maybe this is possible or partly possible. I haven’t tried working with them yet.

I’ll let you know how I get on. Is this a problem for you?

Tags: apps, shinies

Army Manouvers

Although it has become a little easier these past few years, army training is still more or less obligatory for men in Switzerland. Our son has been doing his “Service Militaire” since October and tomorrow is Family Day. The day starts at 9.00am on the other side of Switzerland over 300kms from Geneva.

So tomorrow morning we will be up at 3.30am in order to pick up our Son-in-law and make the 4 hour journey to Frauenfeld the other side of Winterthur.

That’s why we have to get a few hours sleep. Goodnight!

I found these videos on YouTube.

Tags: army, Swiss

I just couldn’t wait

I’ve quite a few friends who have bought Nokia N95 8Gb mobile phones these past few weeks. This in addition to a good friend who visited last weekend from the States and had two iPhones led me to make an impulse purchase the day before yesterday.

This is the result. I was putting it through it’s paces yesterday and it’s really cool. The internal GPS works a lot better than I thought and the downloaded maps of Europe resulted in zero data being transmitted

How is your phone shaping up?

Tags: mobile, phones