Five a week

It’s blowing in from the S, blustery and wet. I’m now reading Das Boot- talk about wallowing, deep, deep down in the belly of a whale, the craziness of it all. I never get past the question, why do we (the species) do it? Wasting our lives for maladjusted humans.

Pulchritudinous, what a word, I love the English language. I came across this on Facebook of all places; yes this dinosaur does have access to world wide phenomena, although I was alarmed when informed of its electrical consumption. I collect new words, writing them down and looking them up just as my Dad taught me to, so, so many years ago, in a small red note book he gave me. Five a week with their meanings. I just love it. Trouble is when can I ever use some of these words in my daily life? I don’t, only when I’m writing. When I was at school this lad in my class just looked up words in the dictionary, learnt and used them. His conversation always appeared odd to say the least as it was peppered with his weekly crop. I preferred to allow the words to find me, hidden away in some text somewhere.

I also use Spotify. We dumped our TV two years ago, simply turned it off for a year and then couldn’t work out how to use the remote again, so took it off to the dump, good riddance. Instead we listen to music in the evenings. My brother gave me a wonderful birthday/Christmas present, a subscription to a magazine called Songlines. Just the title interested me as I love the concept of songlines, no maps, just a song in your head, what brilliance and the settlers thought the aboriginals ignorant. I would love to sing my way across the landscape of Britain. This magazine is about world music, I read, search and listen.

From this month’s issue I am listening to and enjoying Iness Mezel, written up as the Berber rocker, Abigail Washburn, singer and banjo player, Joan Sorino from the Dominican Republic and Aurelio Martinez with Afro/Cuban/ Caribbean rhythmic music and finally the great man himself, Woodie Guthrie.