Day: May 12, 2020

Latest News

Yay, we now have a roadmap!
Boris starting to turn on the tap
Let’s all go back to work
No excuses to shirk
But the virus, it don’t give a crap.

Still four thousand new cases per day
virus just isn’t going away
Though the prospect ain’t sunny
We must start making money
And just hope we can keep it at bay.

To explain this a bit, I must use some prose, because I’m not sure I can do it in rhyme.

As of tomorrow, the UK Prime Minister wants many sectors here to return to work, provided a safe distance can be maintained. This is all fair enough, but what if a safe distance cannot be maintained? In this case, the Prime Minister has suggested that the employee should take matters up with the employer. So, what if the employee is not satisfied, but the employer won’t budge?

The obvious thing (to me) is that the employee just does not go back into work. Their life might be at stake, after all.

I am afraid that I think the government’s next step will be to say “now that everybody is back at work, there is no longer a need to provide financial support”. And so anybody who stays away from work will have the option of going back to work, or starving.

The consensus appears to be that the UK’s new rules, announced by Boris on Sunday, just do not make sense. Most of yesterday was spent “clarifying” them, and everything I have seen so far Tuesday just seems to be highlighting the holes.

Tick Tock Tuesday (12 May 2020) = Rachmaninov

I thought I’d create a new challenge. It is a challenge primarily for me, because I’m new to this platform, and because you don’t really know me yet, nor I you. As my name suggests, I am recovering from a stroke, and I like to push myself in all kinds of little ways… including getting to know the Wonderful World of WordPress. Although this is something I will be doing, I invite you, if this idea takes your fancy, to play along with me and share with me some of your own selections.

My plan is: each Tuesday, until I run dry, I shall post some piece of art with which I have some connection – which has helped to mould me, which makes me tick. Okay, a piece of art is a bit vague – it might be a piece of music, a movie, a book, a painting, or ???? – so my phrasiology is deliberate. It might be anything – I will play this post by ear, so I’m not sure what I’ll think of each week. And, I’ll keep posting on the theme weekly until I run out of ideas.

My rules? Well, I’m not big on rules! My choice will be something with which I feel a connection. That’ll be the important thing, just having some kind of fleeting affection for something probably won’t be enough, unless I’m using my choice as an example of something bigger.

It will be one choice per week – I’m aware that long posts can be quite onerous to read, and I’m in no hurry to complete this so if I have two ideas, I’ll probably hold the second until the next week.

In that same vein, I’ve created this block as a Reusable Block, which I intend repeating for every post on this theme. The block ends with a full-width separator, so if you want to skip ahead each week it doesn’t really matter.

I probably won’t post any lyrics, or any kind of analysis – if you like my choice, the information will be out there for you. But I will try to briefly explain why I feel a connection to my choice, just to try and enhance readers’ understanding of what makes me tick.

I will tag my posts TTT and I will go looking for other posts with that tag. If you’d like to join in, please do the same, or comment, or pingback to this post, and feel free to reproduce my graphic. Lastly, I look forward to reading about what makes you tick.

Can I stretch out one more week of classical music? I just wanted to present a piece which had nothing to do with my schooling, something which I picked up entirely voluntarily since that time.

I can’t imagine where I first heard this piece, as I’ve never really sought out new classical music in the same way that I’ve sought out pop music, although the piece is so well-knows, it was likely something on TV which used it. But it has stayed with me, as good music does. The particular thing about classical is that I close my eyes and just float away…

My choice today is a gentle piano piece be 20th century composer Sergei Rachmaninov. It is one of those pieces which just allows you to shut the world out and enjoy some solitude. There is a certain irony that this tranquil piece was written in 1934, when the rest of the world was undergoing such an upheaval.

The piece Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini was written by Rachmaninov as a homage to one of his influencers, and I present today the eighteenth of these variations, Andante Cantabile. You’ll recognise it immediately when you hear it, it is only 3 minutes.