Tuesday February 28th, 2017
Books in February
- Past reason Hated and Wednesday's Child by Peter
Robinson
[read by James Langton]
Mini-break over - the next two books in the series which I found as audio books to borrow from the library. A story of sexual jealousy (leading to murder), and a child's abduction (leading to murder).
-
Annika Stranded - Series 3
I have to say I love these stories, excellently - I would say narrated
but in truth they are very much a part-acted one man show - by Nicola
Walker. I think any woman can empathise with a very realistic portrayal
of her working life balance and her resulting social life.
- False Signals: A plane crash from 1972 seems to have a bearing on a murder inquiry.
- Forty Words: In Bergen, Annika investigates a strange case involving a submarine.
- Traffic: Annika wakes up after some serious partying to find herself in the boot of a car.
- Vertigo: Annika witnesses someone being pushed from the top of a rock face.
- The
Inspector Alleyn Mysteries:
Jeremy Clyde (isn't he lovely?) stars as Chief Inspector Alleyn in these
BBC Radio dramatisations of two of Ngaio Marsh's much-loved mysteries.
A Man Lay Dead
A Man Lay Dead A game of 'murders' at Sir Hubert Handesley's country house party becomes far too realistic for anyone's liking. First a guest arrives with a dangerously lethal dagger and then, when the gong sounds to announce the start of the game, the victim plays dead in a very convincing manner.
I recently watched the TV adaptation of this story starring Patrick Malahide - and (like many of Agatha Christie's plots), it's all credit to them that they managed the logistics to enact the sequence of events as described!
A Surfeit of Lampreys
Like all good aristocrats, the Lampreys are charming but penniless - so a visit from the wealthy head of their family is greatly anticipated. However, their Uncle Gabriel isn't persuaded to part with his money and a row ensues. When a body is found in the lift leading to the Lampreys' flat, Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn finds a family immersed in hidden secrets and intrigue.
A comment from another listener "Dated, implausible and formulaic".
A comment from me: "... and utterly charming."
Wednesday February 22nd, 2017
The Miser
Once again off to the Richmond Theatre to see Gryff Rhys Jones in the Molière role - lots of fun.
Sunday February 19th, 2017
Unravel 2017
As we had the class on yesterday, I went to Unravel on today, and took Kate and Jill with me. Neither of them had been before so it was quite fun to be a (small) group. I was inspired by the sock designs from Coop Knits, and could not resist more fluff from John Arbon
Saturday February 18th, 2017
Another year another sock blank
This is meant to show everyone happily at work on their blanks - but it has turned out rather like forgetting to take a picture of the celebration dinner until after the food is is all eaten up! Below we have all the blanks drying in the sunshine - just to prove there really was a class.
Friday February 10th, 2017
Dydd Miwsig Cymru: 9Bach at Kings Place
A suitable way to celebrate Welsh Language Music Day - an evening's entertainment entirely in Welsh.... with lots of translations for us non-Welsh speakers though. Learnt a new word, which turns out to be the title of 9Bach's album: Anian.
Sunday February 5th, 2017
It’s all in the preparation….
As I have not touched the dyes since we did the last class - which turns out to be 5 years ago (!) - I dyed two blanks at home, using steaming to fix instead of a microwave. Last time we used pure merino, and so I also wanted to check out the 25% nylon blend. I used the dyes I had already mixed up from back then and astonishingly it all worked fine; some of the solutions had gone a little granular. [Nevertheless, I shall be mixing fresh dye for the class].
I took both blanks and knitted the start of a sample sock for demonstration purposes. What interested me mostly was that I thought I liked the blue blank the best. I thought I was getting tired once I got to do the red one and rather rushed it. However, for the resulting sock, I think the red one is much nicer. I think it is the very bright blue, and the way it interacts with the white that is the mistake in the colour combination.
Wednesday February 1st, 2017
Soane Museum
My sister suggested another 'birthday treat' and we visited Sir John Soane's House - now a museum. He was one of those interesting eccentrics who collected wonderful items - some exceedingly rare - such that after his death his property was retained, restored and expanded to make the museum.
It was most famous to me for housing the Rakes Progress - but it seems you have to be on a guided tour in order to be allowed to see it - and the timing or even existence of the tours seemed to be akin to the description of the eponymous Three Men (not yet in the boat) trying to find the right train out of Waterloo - so we did not... (see it), though the 4 paintings of the Humours of an Election were on display. Several items seemed to be absent from the collection at the time we visited - but then entry is free so one can hardly complain.
We then went for lunch in China Town, which was great, although sadly the restaurant we had planned to visit had disappeared from the area in the 20 years since we last went there (!).
