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July 30, 2007
Alison's Autumn Exercise Programme
You know what you need is healthy aerobic exercise. Ideally you should be looking at three times a week. Swimming? Running? Don't those get boring after a while?
What you need is to listen to music standing up. Dance too. You know it makes sense. It possibly isn't the cheapest form of exercise around, so you may want to mix it up with some other activities.
At any rate, here's my early autumn exercise schedule. Readers in and around London are encouraged to come along; others should seek out suitable locations for healthy exercise near them. Luckily, I have festivals to sustain me until then. Anyway, here's the list:
- LAU at Bush Hall, Tuesday 4 September. We saw them on Cambridge Stage 2 yesterday and they rocked.
- Oysterband at the Spitz, Saturday 15 September. I cannot remember looking forward to a gig as much as this. The Spitz is tiny. Wear light clothing.
- Bellowhead at the Shepherd's Bush Empire, Wednesday 26 September.
- The Demon Barbers at Walthamstow Folk Club, Friday 12 October. Electric gigs are a new departure for the club, and I encouraged this. The fabulous Demon Barbers in the Plough! Come! Tell your friends!
- Faustus with Fee Lock calling at Knees Up Cecil Sharp, Friday 19 October. Oh, yes, ceilidhs too, did I mention those? Even better excercise than regular gigs.
- The Richard Thompson Band at the Roundhouse, Saturday 20 October. The Roundhouse is a brilliant space with great sound. Hard floors; wear forgiving shoes.
- Moor Music with Gordon Potts Calling at Knees Up Cecil Sharp Friday 16 November. This is a cut-down version of the fabulous Dartmoor Pixies Band, and they're actually playing at the folk club two days later but I think we're going to miss them because of...
- Blowzabella at Bush Hall Sunday 18 November.
Do comment if you're coming to one of these, or if I've missed something obvious in the list.
Posted by Alison Scott at 05:57 PM | Comments (1)
July 26, 2007
Chore Wars
Unsurprisingly, the Kittywompus household is totally up for Chore Wars. We've defined multiple common tasks, with bonus points for particularly nasty ones, discounts for particularly pleasant ones, and plenty of easy kid-friendly tasks, and we're starting to adventure in the morning. I wonder if the kids will be up for it? After all, we already get Jonathan to help tidy by telling him that we're tackling Bedroom Level 2. Or whatever.
Posted by Alison Scott at 12:44 AM | Comments (0)
July 24, 2007
You Learn Something New Every Day
This feels like a new category for the blog. I certainly learn something new every day, and some of those things are even bloggable. One of the non-bloggable ones is that I was told this morning that the Met Office had added new areas to the Shipping Forecast for the first time for years -- Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire.
When I was young I had a jigsaw made of the countries of Europe, and a map of the UK with the counties, towns and major rivers on little bits of sticky plastic which you fixed in place. But the countries of Europe and the counties of Britain have changed a good deal since then. The US states, on the other hand, are a gratifyingly stable form of learning; no changes to the lower 48 for well more than my lifetime. Nevertheless, I've learnt more about the shapes and positions of states today than in the whole of the rest of my life, thanks to Statetris, a flash game where the states drop from the top of the board and you have to rotate them and get them in the right place. My top time on 'hard' is 3:23; not bad for a foreigner. Now, if we could just get someone to teach US children where France is on the map, we might be getting somewhere.
Separately, I learn from Green Chair Press that the rhyme I know as 'The Queen of Hearts' was published in 1782 and has four verses, one from each suit.
If this were LiveJournal, I could do a version of the Good/Bad poll, so you could choose for each YLSNED item whether it's new learning, or old hat. Feel free to comment instead.
Posted by Alison Scott at 11:48 AM | Comments (1)