20,000+

Hi

A bit of selfcongratulation: blogger says that I have now had over 20,000 pageviews, and to celebrate here are the stats

Anyway, thank you all for persevering this long!

All time - and we can see a big spike which was probably Marina Hardy

This month - Marina is still there, but some more recent ones are getting hit too!

This week, and surprisingly the most recent posts are up there

Grape Nuts

I was eating breakfast this morning and thought, why not blog on grape nuts? The obvious answer to myself was why? But then I answered if you are going to have a solipsistic blog why not use it. So this short paen to the breakfast cereal.

Many years ago, the early sixties, when we lived in England (land of my birth) it was a holiday ritual to get up ealy on the days we were going down to Cornwall and have a bowl of grapenuts before we set off. I don't know how this started or how hard it was to get them in England at the time - presumably hard as it was a treat.

We moved to Australia and the ritual was abandoned and Grape Nuts became a wonderful memory.

Then Carol and I went on the trip described in Fossils and Drones and there were Grape Nuts, available in the supermarket. I bought some and got her hooked.

For the next couple of decades the cereal was like hide and seek - Daimaru opened in Melbourne and stocked it as did David Jones food hall, then they didn't. Some were found at the tastes from home store - which specialised in UK foods but had Grape Nuts - suggesting that they were special for English people.

Some friends I made at a conference sent us a box.

And then Mum found USA Foods - a site for expats which stocks all sorts of goddies - but for us it importantly has Grape Nuts.

We still see it as a little luxury - but one we can indulge more often, and usually as a part of a bigger bowl of cereals. And they stock catering size packs which makes it especially exciting.

But what is it about Grape Nuts? Which have nothing to do with grapes or nuts?

There are two main things, I think. One is the texture and the maintenance of that texture. Grape Nuts are crunchy and they stay that way even after some time in milk. And then there is the flavour - malty in the main with no sense of sweetness. They are just great.

And for me there is the taste of nostalgia for holidays in England, a trip to America and theexcitement of the chase for finding them in Australia.

I don't know why they haven't become big in Australia - part would have been the high prie stores charged for small packets. Through USA Foods they are quite competitive - cheaper than many high end mueslis in fact.

Anyway - to all the Grape Nuts fans out there I say enjoy!

Paul Kelly A-Z and more apps

OK - a short geeky iPhone post while the music matures - there's a few reviews on the boil - promise.

Some years ago &etc readers were alerted to the fact that Paul Kelly, Australian singer/songwriter, was giving away an alphabet of live songs monthly (ie the first month's songs all had titles beginning with A, then B etc) from a stripped-down concert series. Not a fan, but I collected them to get to know the music - slightly older than him, his music has been around the airwaves (jj to jjj) and on Countdown etc. Well now the set has been released as a box of CDs The A to Z recordings (somewhat different to the downloads, there are variations between the 2 sets, and the management company tell me that songs are different versions or remastered). Also there is a book How To Make Gravy - for each song a short piece, which might be about the song, could be a memoir or just about music, or all of the above. And there is also an App: you get the text of the book, which is as expected, but also the program can survey your iTunes library and select versions of the song you are reading about and you can play them at the same time (there are also some chapters available as readings by Kelly, and you get the first six songs free). A nice integration of the formats. The music is great, the writing is engrossing and the flexibility is nice (the iPhone is a hell of a lot easier to carry round than the book!) As I said, I wasn't a Kelly fan, but the downloads have brought me to the book & I'll be adding some full group albums to my collection too as he is a fabulous wordsmith as well as being a great Aussie singer/musician.

Other Apps I use regularly

Music

The three from Brian Eno's Opal group: Bloom, Air and Trope - great as either ambient background or 'instruments' to play with, and they have a pleasant generative vision as well. Each has a different sound palette.

FutureAcoustic: I am not sure about the noise-cancelling impact of these, but FutureSound and SoundCurtain are more nice ambient aleatoric pieces. The first uses soundworks created by various artists (including Scanner) to create soundworlds, the second is more related to natural ambient sounds. (Scanner's Whisper is available as a free 'single')

Noises

I don't make music but sometimes amuse myself by making noises or playing musical instruments

Balls and Soundrop- two programs that use gravity to knock balls against walls to make sounds, Balls is more complex

Bebot - a touch pad synth that takes up to four fingers and has some great presets - theremin, powerPWM, looper, the eponymous Bebot (sounds like a robot) and more and programable

Ellatron - there are cut down versions of this but go for the full one. Has mellotron samples so you can do King Crimson and more

Beatwave - one of many versions of the sweeping-across-a-field-of-dots synths, this one has four layers plus a randomiser so can become another aleatoric ambient maker

Words

MyFry - Stephen Fry's latest memoir, bought for the iPhone mainly because of the cool interface (plus I wanted to read it anyway)

Instapaper - fantastic for getting those interesting on-line articles which you don't have time to read onto a format where yo can read them at your leisure. Have a website with suggested articles, and also try longform.org for more (you don't need the app to use the sites to find articles of course)

McSweeney's - a diversion. Everyday you get a selection of short pieces of humourous writing, but also some more serious columns (this is free). And then each week a longer piece such as an interview, short story, novel extract, longer piece. These can have related images (such as the article on Kristina in Copenhagen) or be songs, short films or spoken text. You could say aleatoric downloads.

I won't bore you with my few games or news apps (though I suggest getting the Guardian before they go subscription)

miscellaneous news

final post on the itunes/bruckner issue. the collection finally became active and able to be bought at $90 plus (from the advertised $17). To complete the album it was also that price. I emailed them again, they explained that DG had revised the pricing and that was it - but they sent me another 5 free track credits, so I ain't too unhappy (not sure i actually wanted the bruckner, but have been interested in hearing some and $17 was worth it!)

and today i had a brain scan. during the procedure the only music they had was some andreas botticeli (or however it is spelt) which was ok - but what was great was the industrial remix: great 4/5 5/5 thumps, a period of repetitve sirenlike wails, whirring and so forth. made the time pass very quickly - and wish i could have recorded it somehow!

In the olden days

Found this, via iTunes, from the All Music Guide to the Incredible String Band's U album

Incidentally, sides one and four are combined on one disc, sides two and three on the other [on the vinyl release]. It seems unlikely that many listeners would have taken the time to play them in sequence (assuming they even noticed), but the problem was rectified with the CD release.

This threw me back to many of my vinyl double and triple albums and the days of auto phonoograms. The reviewer has got it wrong - sides 1and 4 were on one disk for a purpose (and with ELP's WBMFTTSTNELAGELP, it was 1/6,2/5,3/4.)
Because you put TWO (or more) disks at a time on the player so that the first to drop down was side 1, when that finished the next disk dropped down playing side 2. When that had stopped playing you took both albums off the changer and then turned over the pair so that 3 then 4 dropped down - this is an attempt at a graphic explanation

The view on the left shows the disks as you put them  on the spindle - the bottom disk drops and its upper surface is read (1) then the next drops and its upper surface (2) is played. Lift thme off and invert the disk stack and you get the right image - and play 3 then four (* mark played side)

2*         4*
3           1

1*          3*
4           2

With an additional disk in between for sets like Welcome back etc or other triple live albums. I for one, and many others, made sure they were played in the right order, autochanger or not!