Music

I'm getting on with the Cohen book now. I'm working on the chapter about musical references in the lyrics. Around a quarter of the lyrics have some reference to music, song or dance and I'm describing them all and arranging them in groups. The word count is slowly building.

Still loving the new kitchen - its brilliant to have new appliances. The old ones were definitely showing their age.
We've had a couple of nights out recently - High Kings at the Lowry for St Patrick's night and La Traviata at a local cinema (ENO broadcast) - excellent and so cheap and convenient.

Two Operas, 'and' and 'the'

We don't get out much, so the opera twice in a week was a  treat. Both were at the Lowry in Salford and both were performed by Opera North. The first was Puccini's 'Girl from the Golden West', a bit unusual in that there were no grand arias and it was more like a sung play. The second was Verdi's 'Macbeth', which has the benefit of being based on a gripping story. Quite a bit of the Shakespearean dialogue was in there and its amazing how much I remember from studying it at school about 50 years ago. We really enjoyed both but wonder if the Opera North chorus always wear muted colours with lots of caps and headscarves.  Excellent voices in both performances.

I was very tired at lunchtime after two late (for us) nights but I had a productive afternoon, improving my keyword analysis chapter. And and the again. Its amazing what you can deduce from such basic words.

Gritty Northern Drama

Rutherford and Son at the Lowry is an excellent production. Barrie Rutter in the star part dominates the stage in his usual way. He must have been born with charisma and the performance gene but the way his character was lit probably helped. But the young woman playing Mary was his equal by the end and the final scene with the two of them was chilling. Listed as one on the 100 best plays of the twentieth century. See it if you can.

Another afternoon with the assignment not progressed.

Shopped and dropped

I met a friend at Boundary Mill and we shopped all day - I can't remember the last time I did that and it was such good fun!! Its between seasons and that meant the bargains were exceptional - I got three black evening tops, two of them Alexon, for less than £20.

Its a Boundary Mill direct mail that I'm analysing for my next assignment on multi-modal discourse. I believe in gathering data from my own real life. TSH has taken a picture of the current plush Boundary Mill to show how different it is from the home-spun image and the chimney with smoke which is on their logo.

The previous afternoon, we saw Mother Courage and her Children at Lowry, Salford. We all really enjoyed it.

Last night I was totally exhausted.