Don’t tell the house financier.

Sonata No. 21 in C Major, “Waldstein,” Op. 53 is what we got here. The third movement, Allegro con brio. And the brio we got was right about smack dab in the middle of it. Beautiful. And Juliet, please do thank your encyclopaedic friend, since now I can listen to the gorgeous runs up and down over and over again as long as I want. ‘Till the hard disk breaks down, or ’til I forget to save the data to the next media storage system, or what have you.

Best wishes on the timely completion of your Ph and D, sister! Mine’s forever A.B.A.D. (all but ALMOST dissertation, since I bagged right before orals). Can’t say which life paths would have been different had I polished it all off, but I do appreciate the book learnin’ (and sweetie-snaggin’) I managed to get in before I left.

Oh Birmingham Cultural Studies. How ironic that its final nemesis turned out not to be Frankfurt at all, but the University of Birmingham management. I know people who still won’t set foot on campus because of the lingering bitterness over its closure.

I haven’t yet found a way out of academia though I’m working on it but I’m now far enough through my PhD to need to finish the thesis first.

Juliet, welcome! Love TO Birmingham, UK (home I’m sure to many things, not least of all to the Birmingham School of Cultural Studies, aka the Good Guys, if you were to ask any of my grad school chums. Frankfurt School being the Bad Guys. Could also slice it: Optimist/Pessimist? Kinda broad strokes here, which is why no one from the loftier planes of academe is missing me since I snuck out the side door years ago…). But I digress! The bike accessory was courtesy some used toy shop, where I went after the boychild’s first haircut. He needed something to cheer his poor Sampson self up with, and I forget what I got him but this choice item I knew was made for me. A little distracting, though, since as you ride the propeller spins madly and one really has to keep one’s eyes on the road.

Love, from Birmingham, UK.

[Where it is 3C (apparently that's 37F in American money), dark, grey, overcast and where I still can't get my old bike bell off to get my new supercool bike bell on].

Rubbish.

If you could clean it up a bit, perhaps…?

It does sound a bit like Chopin – his music for piano is mesmerizing!

I am writing my gadget freak brother in law RIGHTTHISVERYINSTANT.

Meanwhile I await the slow-moving, but moving-nonetheless gears of the LD reading world.