Sturdy

We spent the Saturday evening and overnight in South Cambridge for a very convivial belated Burns Night and wedding anniversary. Furtle stuck mainly to the vegetarian haggis, but was tempted to try a tiny smidgen of the real thing. I enjoyed the real thing, I think she is more of a veggie connoisseur in these matters.

Now, traditional haggis is a suitably sturdy meal, but the non-meat version is doubly, perhaps triply so. One decent meal of that must surely provide a month’s roughage.

Last night at home, we had a number of thoughts about what to have for dinner, but in the end laziness took hold and we ordered in a curry and very tasty it was, too.

But curry building up the pressure behind a wall of oats?

There are consequences. Ramifications, even. Oh yes.

New takes on old tunes

Courtesy of a colleague who has far more music available to him than he can possibly listen to on account of the freebies given out on a regular basis by such magazines as Mojo and The Word I seem to have inherited four CDs, two of which are still in their cellophane wrappers.

Each of the CDs contains a recreation of a classic album with each track covered by a different band. I am the beneficiary of three of them because he knows I am a Beatles fan, the other is a recreation of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here on a single CD by various artistes. Steve professes to detest the Floyd (poor lad, he’s so normal in other respects; he doesn’t like the Beatles over much I think, either), so I managed to grab that too.

They may turn out to be rubbish, but it will be good to have a listen to them. At least some of the tracks have to be worth the effort. I already own a couple of Beatles covers that I like better than the originals: I am the Walrus by Spooky Tooth and Dear Prudence by Siouxie and the Banshees, so I have high hopes that there will be some good renditions on these CDs (though I have never quite forgiven The Damned for their version of Help!).

Anyway. In addition to the Floyd covers, I have and album called Revolver Reloaded featuring fifteen acts I’ve never heard of, Abbey Road Now! on which I have heard of Glenn Tilbrook and Noah and the Whale, but no-one else, and Let It Be Revisited featuring twelve acts of whom I have heard of Beth Orton and Judy Collins only.

It will be interesting listening; I know what I think of the original recordings, now to see what other people have made of them…