… with my previous efforts just recently, I have emulated my namesake the mathematician and done three fifth of five eights of … errr … nothing.
So after finally managing to have an early (that is – before midnight) night last night, I went off with the fairies to what seemed to be a Virtual Reality word somewhere. Clearly the events of the past few days have been getting to me. And the highlight (if you can call it that) of this world was being arrested by the police and being on the end of some customary police interrogation that made me unable to walk for the next three days. I’ll have to stop reading this book about Canada in the 1930s, won’t I?
We had the usual performance this morning and then I was sidetracked as I ended up speaking to someone in the USA for 90 minutes or so on the internet. It was about work so I don’t begrudge the time of course, especially if there might be some folding stuff in the offing, but it always happens at the wrong time, doesn’t it?
I was sufficiently distracted after that that I had a change of practice and had a practice on the bass guitar. Something that I usually do late in the afternoon but today it was here and now. And for some reason or another not only did the bass line to Led Zeppelin’s “Communications Breakdown” come back into my head after an absence of 40-odd years, I found myself playing the bass line to Hawkwind’s “Damnation Alley” and that goes back even farther in time.
And not only that, I seem to have regained the flexibility in my left little finger and I can now hold down the string with that. And that’s progress.
But I’ve now worked out why five-string bass guitars have come into fashion. I’m sure that I played the bass line to several tracks in the past – “Born To Be Wild” and “Locomotive Breath” spring immediately to mind – in the same key as I do now, but I find that I run out of notes at the bottom end. It’s maybe because my hearing has changed as I’ve become older and I’m playing it an octave lower than I did in the 70s. And if that’s true, it probably explains why all the bassists of my age and older are now using five-string basses, so they have an extra range of notes.
After lunch I did my best to fight off the temptation to close my eyes for a short while, but I wasn’t successful. But I dragged myself out after 10 minutes and went for a walk. It was nice weather outside and quite a few people were about, but there was nothing exciting going on.
Tea was, as promised, the falafel and vegetables with a vegan cheese sauce. And it was rather … errr … disappointing. In my haste I forgot to test the vegetables before I put them on the plate and to my dismay I found that they weren’t cooked enough. But you can’t recook them after you have smothered them in cheese sauce so I had to make the best of it.
It was another beautiful evening out there with the lights of Jersey glowing in the distance again. Visibility has been impressive at night this last couple of days.
So an early night again tonight – it’s my walk to the shops tomorrow.
