Crotchety Man has been hearing a lot of slowish soft-to-ambient music recently and was looking for something with a bit more bite to spice up his listening hours. But the airwave gods were not paying attention. Although the cuisine was excellent and the menu was varied, each dish they served up had clearly been prepared…Read more Wally
2000s
Magnificent Desolation
50 years ago yesterday man first landed on the moon. It was about 9:20 pm by the clock in the Crotchety Family's apartment when Mission Control confirmed that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had landed safely on the lunar surface. We had already been watching live TV pictures for two or three hours and it…Read more Magnificent Desolation
Mathematics
In 1972 the American meteorologist Edward Lorenz was to give a talk at the 139th meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. As Lorenz had failed to provide a title for his talk, one of the organisers of the meeting concocted this attention grabbing headline: Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings…Read more Mathematics
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
Whole Thing
Back in 1991 Peter Gabriel had a problem. His studios had issued a string of block bookings to successful bands like New Order, leaving no time for lesser-known artists on his Real World Records label who only wanted a day or two of studio time. His solution was to set aside one week for those…Read more Whole Thing
Through the Windowpane
Sometimes it's good to wind back the tape and listen to an old favourite. Guillemots' first album, Through the Windowpane, has been mentioned, briefly, in these pages already in both Track of the Week and Band of the Year posts, but until now it hasn't featured as an Album of the Month. So let's press the…Read more Through the Windowpane
A Lady of a Certain Age
We are in classic Track of the Week territory today. A Lady of a Certain Age is a song by The Divine Comedy, a band that wouldn't normally qualify for inclusion in these pages. But this track manages to avoid the flimsy fluff of the Comedy's pure pop songs and gives us what The Guardian's…Read more A Lady of a Certain Age
