Monday, September 3, 2012

The Ragpicker Dreams

Day three of trying to stick to my new Year's Resolution of writing in the Blog every day. It's already getting harder. However, Danielle reminded me that you don't have to write a lot, so let us stick with it.

Today I started with an interesting piece of news, had my breakfast, went to the Dentist. Unfortunately, my dentist has gone on Maternity leave, so there was a locum standing in. At first I thought he might have been Polish, but when I considered his name a little later I decided he might be from Latvia or Lithuania, just because of the oddness of his name. (Only odd to me I must add). Never mind, he is certainly very capable of looking after me and my teeth for the next six months, though I think that I will wait to have any serious treatment till my own Dentist returns. Not that I don't trust the new bloke, but I prefer the dentist I know to the one I don't.

I've put a fresh quilt cover and sheets on the bed, re-potted a couple of plants that were beginning to gasp for water, and that's about it. Oh, of course Jasper and I had our constitutional walk, but nothing exceptional I'm afraid. I promised that I would try to write in the blog every day, I didn't promise that I would be interesting.

However, let's just go back to that interesting piece of news. I usually look at Amazon in the morning. I love reading books and the Kindle has opened up a new world of reading pleasure for me, so I check out the 99p book of the day each morning. Today, as usual, it didn't really interest me. But while I was on Amazon I saw that Mark Knopfler had released a new album in the last couple of days. I started listening to Mark Knopfler a number of years ago now. We had gone round to some friend's house for Dinner, We'll call them Anne and Dave, mainly because that is what their names were. (Unfortunately we have drifted out of touch.) During the course of the evening they put on some quiet background music and I found I was hooked by one track. I was already a devotee of Clannad by then and one of my all time favourite tracks is "Harry's Game" from the Television Series that I never watched. But the gentle lilting refrain of that song stays with me. The song I found I was listening to that night at Anne & Dave's was very similar. It was Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits. (Anne also played some Tracy Chapman that evening and I found I was hooked on her as well.)

The next day I went out to buy Brothers in Arms. It was back in the days when buying an Album meant buying a vinyl record. I have to admit that a lot of the songs on that album were not my cup of tea, but it was worth shelling out for the whole LP just to get the one track. Brothers in Arms is, and remains, at the very top of the pieces of music that I can listen to again, and again.

I think that Brothers in Arms was the last Album that Dire Straits put out, but I started at that point buying every Album that Mark Knopfler has published. Again, I don't always enjoy every song on each of his albums, but there is always something that holds my attention. There was Golden Heart and, especially, Sailing to Philadelphia both of which have places in my all time personal top 20 of songs that I love.

 

So I shall certainly be buying this new album, which is called "Privateering". It may not be for a week or two, and I just might leave it on my WishList for Christmas, but I will get it, and I will enjoy every minute I listen to it.

Faites des beaux reves!

 

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