The world is broken. It is broken in so many ways. There are inexcusable wars; there is unconscionable famine. Schoolchildren have to go on strike to tell the politicians that they are not doing enough to combat climate change. Gunmen kill our brothers and sisters just because they follow a different religion. And even the…Read more Everything Is Broken
Track
Mexicola
Spring has arrived in Crotchety Village. The snowdrops have come and gone, the daffodils are blooming, catkins are on the trees ... and when I got up this morning it was snowing. Yes, Spring is a season of contrasts in the UK. After last month's record high temperatures Winter has returned with a vengeance, foisting…Read more Mexicola
Fractured and Dazed
We apologise for the late running of the 3/3/19 Track of the Week service. This was due to a collision between an elderly pedestrian and a cyclist in central London at about 8:30 pm on Friday night. The pedestrian was 89 year old Crotchety Man senior, who had to spend a few days in hospital…Read more Fractured and Dazed
Chalk and Coal
Here in the UK when we want to emphasise that two things are very different we might say, "They are like chalk and cheese". It's a snappy phrase but are chalk and cheese really so different? Wouldn't "chalk and coal" turn up the contrast in our mental imagery more effectively? Perhaps that's what they say…Read more Chalk and Coal
Afronaut
... there will be no opera, no Viennese waltzes, no country music, no hip-hop and nothing ponderously slow. - Crotchety Man Home Page Two of the blogs I follow have recently suggested that hip hop is a genre that can not be dismissed by any music fan who claims to have an open mind. One of those blogs…Read more Afronaut
Sometimes You Just Drive
Time is relative. We don't need Einstein to tell us that. Sometimes time drags; sometimes it flies by. For Michael Chapman, although his face and guitar picking fingers have aged, his music remains as fresh today as it did 50 and more years ago. The English folk singer-songwriter released another album a few days ago…Read more Sometimes You Just Drive
Time of the Season
Time takes its toll on all mechanical things. Sooner or later the cog wheels become clogged with a sticky gunge, the hands on the clock face slow to a crawl and the pendulum shudders to a halt. And what applies to the steady tick-tock of a grandfather clock also applies to the fast spinning disks…Read more Time of the Season
Dawn Lit Metropolis
Jazz is in the air in this part of Crotchety Land, it seems. Several online music contacts have wandered off along that mysterious twisting path recently. Who knows what they will find? Crotchety Man set off in a different direction; he doesn't like crowds. But the road kept turning back on itself, back towards the dangerous…Read more Dawn Lit Metropolis
Narrow Margins
In 1637 Pierre de Fermat, a French lawyer and mathematician, scribbled a short note in the margin of his copy of Arithmetica, a 3rd century AD treatise by the Greek mathematician, Diophantus. He wrote that he had found a marvellous proof of the following statement: an + bn = cn has no solution for any…Read more Narrow Margins
Listening Wind
The wind can be noisy at times. A strong wind will whip the sea into a seething, hissing foam; it will lash the sails of the yachts in the harbour and slap the rigging lines against the mast. Gales will send trashcans clattering down the street and make the trees moan and creak. Hurricanes will…Read more Listening Wind
Crotchety Man 