Ahhhhh....

Sixteen days of working every day: it's the evening of the sixteenth day, I've paid the paper bill and it's time to put my feet up at last. There is home-made vegetable soup (Offsprog One taught me to roast the vegetables first so it doesn't taste like a compost heap) and no need to do any housework as I rarely have visitors. I am unearthing long-lost CDs and may actually set up the turntable and have a bit of a living room vinyl disco-fest tomorrow afternoon.
Boom-chack, boom-chack, boom-chack, boom-chack.
While commuting this week I've read Sadie Plant's Zeros and Ones and Helen Shapiro's autobiography, Walking Back to Happiness. Plant's book is interesting for the writing on Amy Lovelace who was an important link in the development of computing, but not for the writing about Luce Iragary (I just don't get her at all: is there something wrong with me?). Helen Shapiro's book is interesting as an example of resilience and small insights (they sped up one of the backing tracks to make her sing higher, and she was pals with the Beatles just before they got famous), but not for the phrase 'bits and bobs' which turns up too regularly. Oddly, something about her face reminds me of Donna Summer!
I've got a book about the Beatles to read next week. I have always felt that enough other people read about and listen to the Beatles so I didn't need to bother, but I suppose I probably should as I am teaching songwriting this term.
You see they were my growing-up group. I had a little grey plastic guitar badge with a photo of George in the middle. He was my fave because of the dimples, although I betrayed him later for John Lennon, whose eyes had it. My first single was I Wanna Hold Your Hand which I still have in it's red and white Shephards of Gateshead cardboard cover. 'She loves you, yay, yay, yay', chanted out uncool primary school teacher in between walloping us and grabbing us by the shoulders and shaking our teeth out of our heads.