Getting Better

It has been quite some time since my last Blog, due in part, to a week away in Nelson where we spent a week with my cousin Heather and her family and chilled out as usual. The kids have the space to roam around and Heather and Brain's boys keep them occupied which means that Tracey and I have the time to relax, read books, drink coffee and look at the spectacular scenery. Thanks guys for a great week.

The other reason for the delay in writing has been the fact that I have been struggling a bit on the medication. The neurologist had to change it because when I didn't have caffeine induced work to keep me awake during the day I was doing a great impression of a zombie, but without eating people. That wouldn't have been very popular. I'm now on new medication and seem to be back to normal in terms of my energy and the ability to stay awake beyond 4pm. When the meds were changed I had a couple of weeks on both as I was weaned of the old ones and gradually introduced to the new ones so the latter part of our week in Nelson saw me more tired that ever but since our return I'm back to normal. Let's hope it lasts.

So I have spent the last couple or three weeks continuing to buy CDs in Thrift Stores in Vancouver, something that we have been doing for the past year or so. Due to the advent of iTunes and other digital music sources, people appear to be ditching their CD collections to create space so audiophiles like me, who actually like to have an actual product to pick up, can add to their collection...for next to nothing. There's also a few record stores in Vancouver that have used CD sections where you can buy them a little cheaper than stores like HMV. Tracey and I found another one today on Commercial, in East Vancouver, and I picked up some more: Primal Scream, Money Mark and Super Furry Animals. They had some 7" singles pinned to the wall behind the counter. They had one King Kurt single, "Zulu Beats", (remember that one Donald) for $99.99. I was convinced no one in Canada had heard of King Kurt, let alone be prepared to part $99.99 for 2 songs. When I was paying for the CDs I heard that the Shuggie Otis album had been released on CD so that will give me something to search for. I read about him in the book "1001 Albums to Listen to Before You Die" but never expected to find it anywhere because he released it at the age of 18 and promptly disappeared into obscurity. He influenced the likes of Prince and OutKast so I am keen to find it.

We need to support our local record stores around the world and give me somewhere to visit when we wonder round the shops. I can't wait until we have our own house (when when when?) so that I can get the rest of the collection over and buy a stereo...with a record player. I am delighted to hear that vinyl has had a sort of resurrection in recent years with bands releasing new records on heavy vinyl. It must have an impact on the way they react to the stylus or something...more stable on the turntable. The tone is far warmer that CDs but you can't play them in the car. Talking of cars, Tracy and I saw a brand new Roller today. I'd never seen one before, but it looked awful. It's a huge ugly bulky clunky looking car. Not that I ever linked Rollers much anyway but it struck me as a shame that these classic shapes had been re-engineered into bricks on wheels with shiny bits.

I spotted another bastardisation recently - they've released a book called "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies". It takes the basic text by Jane Austin and adds a new storyline about a plague of zombies roaming around the country eating people and forcing the Bennet family to train their 5 daughters to become ninja zombie killers. I guess it's classic literature for the comic generation but it seems a shame to spoil the original. It prompted me to buy the original and start it. Then I remembered that our friend Yvonne Wallace had emailed a list of 100 books (http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/) last year that the BBC had created after seeking recommendations from the viewers. It had Lord of the Rings at No. 1 and lots of other well-known classics and I was ashamed to see that I had only read 12 of them. So I have committed myself to make my way through as many of them as I can. I've started looking some of the out in the same stores that I buy my CDs and have so far procured War and Peace, Little Women, Moby Dick (not on the list but I thought I'd give it a go), Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Brigette Jones, Dune, David Copperfield, Birdsong, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Anna Karenina and Emma. That should keep me going for a while.

I wonder what the average number of books from the list people have actually read?