Month: December 2010

Hope and Greenwood: Probably the best sweet shop ever

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I was in London today at the Royal Opera House and noticed that there was a Hope and Greenwood’s just around the corner.

Hope and Greenwood’s are probably the best old fashioned sweet shops ever. You can still by things by imperial measure and get bags of sweets made up. I’ve been to their shop near Forest Hill many times on trips to the Horniman Museum (I’ve mentioned the place many times), but I’ve never been to their central London shop.

It isn’t much bigger, but it is just as wondrous. The staff are wonderful and the range of confectionery is superb.

If you ever get a chance to visit one of their shops then you must, absolutely you must.

Listening in January

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I’ve been thinking more about my idea to critically listen to 1 song or track per day in January. I’ve been wondering which artist I should listen to. I really want to restrict it to 1 artist for January as it makes sense to listen consistently over the whole month.

The more I’ve thought about it the more I’ve thought that I could only listen to David Sylvian in Jan. It makes sense, to listen to an artist where I have a significant number of songs, and I do, and even though I thought of lots of different ideas for music and artists I kept coming back to David Sylviam, so that’s what I’m going to stick with.

The next thing to do is to work out how I organise my listening over the month. I’ll be giving that some thought over the next few days.

Ending in the word ‘git’

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I finished listening to Alexei Sayle’s book “Stalin ate my homework”. I have to say I really liked it. It was at times funny, sad, thought provoking and insightful.

It is one of those books you wish there was more of when you get to the end of it. Even so it was a good place to stop. I especially liked that he read it himself. That added a great deal to the listening experience.

I think that some of it will stick in my mind for quite some time to come although my own childhood was nothing like his, but even so, there are things that resonated with me.

It was, it is, a great book.

As you’re asking, yes, I did see the Human League last night

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I wasn’t sure what to expect from this gig, but in the end it was good. I thought they’d only play newer stuff, but we got version of ‘Being Boiled’, and ‘Empire State Human’ too which was great. Nothing from Travelogue though which was a shame.

They played all the tracks you’d expect them too and a few that I didn’t expect like ‘The Lebanon’ and ‘Seconds’ which was great to hear live. It was quite a short gig though at only an hour a quarter.

I’m glad that I went to see them, it was a good show and I thought that they played well.

Getting to the end of the homework

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This is a really contrived title I know, but I wanted to write something about getting close to the end of Alexei Sayle’s ‘Stalin Ate my Homework’.

I am so enjoying this book, which is much more coherent than ‘Great Bus Journeys of the World’, which I read a look time ago.

it is so good to hear him reading about his own life, and it is sad, funny and amazing all at once.