I can already taste the pie

This is a picture of the pumpkins I am growing in my garden – I don’t really have ‘green fingers’ and as you can see there are still some weeds around the pumpkins, but they grow so fast they’ll soon block out the nasty weeds. This picture was taken a week or so ago and as it is so ridiculously hot (for England) at the moment they are growing like crazy. These plants have been grown from the seeds of the pumpkins I grew last year – what about that for self-sufficiency?! I love pumpkins. I grew loads of plants last year though and ended up giving everyone I knew a pumpkin and still having loads left which are chopped up in cubes in my freezer, waiting for me to be bothered to cook/bake. I love pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin curry and the katsu curry that they do at Wagamama is just delicious; that makes me want to go buy some panko breadcrumbs so I can make katsu curry for my tea. Yummy.

Birmingham on a beautiful summer day

After the Wynton Marsalis concert, the next day we had a wander through Birmingham City Centre, which has some great public art and architecture. All of these photos were taken within a five minute walk through the centre to have breakfast.

This is the edge of the library building (I think) which looked quite striking against the blue sky:


After the library, we saw this statue in the centre of the waterfall in front of the Council House in Victoria Square. I love public art and particularly really big, in-your-face sculpture.

On the edge of Victoria Square was this statue, which looked a bit Egyptian with celtic-style designs on the side:

And after that, was this one, which I think is stunning and is one of the most pleasing things I have seen in a city for a long time:

I have only been to Birmingham once before on a flying visit, and didn’t really explore as the weather was so horrible. I liked the city a lot and thought there was a really good vibe of community unity.

Jazz in Birmingham

On 25 June I went to see Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra at Birmingham Symphony Hall. The whole night was amazing. I am no aficionado of jazz or instrumental music as I have never played an instrument, but this is the second time I have seen Wynton Marsalis and each time now I have just been blown away. On this occasion, I particularly enjoyed the tributes to John Coltrane and Count Basie. One of the stars of the show for me was Walter Blanding Jr. who played saxophone and clarinet, and played one of the most beautiful solos I have ever heard. Watching people who are so at the top of their game is truly inspirational.

After the show, all of the orchestra came out to chat to the audience, and I had the opportunity to meet the aforementioned Walter Blanding Jr., Dan Nimmer (a jaw-droppingly amazing jazz pianist), and trombonist Chris Crenshaw, who sang Count Basie’s I Left My Baby so beautifully it was almost tear-jerking. After a while, Wynton Marsalis came out to greet the audience too, and seeing him chat with the youngsters in the audience was lovely. Whilst he has been in the UK he has spent some time working with young people on workshops and to see him chat away so easily with the little ones was great. There is no doubt about his talent, and I’m sure he knows just how good he is, but one-on-one he certainly is a gentleman.

Happy Anniversary Filmic!

I am currently working on a short segment for Ley Bricknell's first anniversary Filmic show on RadioNowhere. For those of you unfamiliar with Ley's show, she plays film soundtracks, incidental music and cues, interspersed with soundbites and trailers from her favourite films. There is a special place in her heart for John Barry, and she also likes the occasional dodgy cover!

Ley has kindly invited her fellow RN DJs to introduce their favourite piece of film music for her anniversary, and as difficult a task as it is to choose, I have finally decided! I'm not going to say what it is - you'll have to tune in to find out!

Ley's show will be broadcast on RadioNowhere on Thursday 8th July at 9pm UK time. Make sure you go along to http://www.radionowhere.org/ for a listen!

I like to read books

I have just started reading George Orwell's 1984, so yes, I am 60 years behind the rest of the world! I have only read 30 pages so far, but already I am entranced... perhaps the book should have been titled 2010. Someone was talking to be about 1984 the other day, and I thought 'I really must read it' so now I am. There are so many things already that anger me about present-day society that I have found explained, like the term prolefeed to describe 'rubbishy newspapers containing almost nothing except sport, crime and astrology' (I see they had The Sun even then!) and crappy entertainment designed to anaesthetise the masses (so they also had ITV4).

I just finished The Comedians by Graham Greene, which is set in 1950s Haiti and really brings to life a vision of living there at such a volatile time in the country's history - obviously fictionalised, but from the Introduction, it appears that Graham Greene spent a lot of time in Port-au-Prince, and made quite an enemy of 'Papa Doc' Duvalier, who tried to discredit Greene's reputation. The themes include love, commitment, status and goodwill. It's a great book, but if, like me, you aren't fluent in French, you might want to have a French-English dictionary by your side, just so that you can get the best from the text.

I borrowed both of these books from the library (yay to libraries) but will probably buy them both anyway as they are well worth another read. Away to zShops...

Storm clouds are gathering

This is a picture of a storm cloud over my garden a couple of weeks ago.

Happy Birthday to Me!

It was my birthday yesterday and I got lots of presents, including a beautiful Momiji 'Dancing Girl' doll ("I like monkeys and movies") and The Specials' 20th Anniversary DVD, which I will watch and watch and watch until my already slightly broken DVD player finally dies. It is sooooooooo good. I also got presents from my friend's 10 year old daughter, who paid for them out of her own money! And about 50,000 cakes.

I also had a THREE HOUR social policy exam ON MY BIRTHDAY - how rude - but it seemed to go OK, so no more studying until October - yay!