Whew!
Last Week
Lots happening at the moment, which I haven't filled you all in on.
Daughter Iz is gone to college - she's learning Japanese on a three-week residential course with a lot of other like-minded teenagers.
Daughter El is gone to France with a few friends to learn French. Her friends are entering their final year in school so they need the French to do well in their exams. El is finished school, so she's going along for the fun of it. I've been told it's very hot in the south of France at the moment - 32 degrees at 10pm.
So Mrs G and I are at home in an empty house. Just the two of us and three guinea pigs. Last night we went to see Chanticleer, the phenomenal American a capella singing group. Although they are all men, they had three sopranos! I'd never seen a male soprano before - like a counter-tenor but much higher. They did a program of religious music with some Orlando di Lasso and Victoria from the really old era, a Tavener number from more recently and finished off with some Negro Spirituals. The acoustic was big and echoey, which suited the old, slow music, but not the Spirituals. Nevertheless, I have never heard such singing in my life. Absolutely perfect, and without a conductor too.
I've just almost completed a mammoth sub-editing job: Kitrapsjani's 7,000 word tribute to Bollywood, Part 1. Most edits take me about 20 minutes. I've been working on this one since the 8th of June - that'll be a month by the time I finish it tomorrow.
I won't be sub-editing anything else for a while, as at the end of the week, I'm off on my first of three holidays this summer. This one is with Mrs G and Iz to Wexford. Then I'll be off with Azara for a weekend in Hull, meeting up with some of my h2g2 friends - GB in particular, but others such as lil and Moonhogg as well. At the beginning of August, the whole family is off to the UK for our Stratford / Cardiff / Dyffryn Ardudwy holiday. Finally at the end of August we'll have another week in Wexford, although Mrs G will only be able to make it for the weekends, as she's run out of annual leave.
I haven't written anything for the Guide recently, as I've been too busy between reading "The Lord of the Rings" again, and sub-editing the Bollywood entry. You never know, now that that's nearing completion, I might embark on something. There are a few topics I'd like to tackle: Newton, Mendelssohn and the First Crusade spring to mind, but I'd have to be in the mood for each of those. The "Red" entry I'd started was stopped in its tracks when a Red Entry appeared on the front page last week, written by a load of other researchers. But my Archimedes entry is still in Peer Review and since nobody has commented on it in weeks, I assume it is ok and it's only a matter of time before it gets picked.
Last week I took delivery of a new toy: a camera for taking pictures of the stars through the telescope. I'm somewhat surprised by it. You connect it into the telescope instead of an eyepiece lens which means that it is a fixed magnification. You can't zoom in or out at all. But you can take 100 or 1,000 photos at a rate of about 15 per second, and combine all the results to make a much more detailed picture, which you can then zoom in on digitally. At least that's the principle. I haven't done it yet, as this is the worst time of the year for seeing the stars, since it doesn't really get dark. Also, I need to connect the camera to a computer for it to work, so I've had to dig out an old laptop which I can carry out to the garden, and the battery on it was dead. I've been charging it up over the last few days, and if the sky clears I might venture out tomorrow and try it out.
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Smashing concrete
3 Weeks Ago
I've just smashed up a huge lump of concrete for my neighbour. It was a cylinder of concrete about 60cm across and about 50cm deep, set into her lawn as the base for a rotary clothes line. Why whoever put it in needed such a big base is anybody's guess. I tried hitting it with a sledgehammer, but it produced very little effect. So I hired one of those gizmos for digging the roads - a big hammer-action spike. I'm told this is known as a "breaker" but that may be a local name.
It took about an hour to smash up the concrete, which was set into the base of an old oil drum. Once the concrete had all been lifted out, I could remove the drum. Now she has a big hole in her lawn.
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- Latest reply: 2 Weeks Ago
Summer 2009
3 Weeks Ago
This has really been the best summer we've had in years, but after the long weeks of dry, hot weather, the trees don't know what's hit them. Some of them are starting to drop their leaves already, and I've seen seeds and pine cones on the ground - it's beginning to feel like late summer already and it's not even midsummer until tomorrow!
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- Latest reply: 2 Weeks Ago
Singing Tonight!
5 Weeks Ago
My small choir, the Gaudete Singers, (who also feature Recumbentman), are doing a concert tonight - Shakespeare songs set to music, Italian madrigals, and a few modern pieces. It's in Airfield House, with a glass of wine afterwards.
It's usually lovely to stand on the terrace of the house in the June evening sunshine and drink wine, but it's teeming rain today, so we'll have to stay indoors.
I've been sick with a bad flu for the last week, so although I will stand up in front of the audience, I don't know how much singing I'll be able to do.
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- Latest reply: 5 Weeks Ago
Birdlife
5 Weeks Ago
Between the long weekend and being off work sick, combined with the best summer weather we've had in a long time, I've spent a lot of time sitting in the garden, taking photos of the birds. The results are at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eoinmcauley/sets/72157619191021937/
Hope the birdwatchers among you like them.
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- Latest reply: 3 Weeks Ago
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