MaW’s Blog

Ignore the title, it’s from a song by Abbie Lathe which I rather like, being from her first solo album. The album’s entitled ‘Avebury’, the song in question is titled ‘Judy’ but it’s not the only good song on the album. Far from it, in fact - virtually every track is a simple yet emotionally powerful song about something or other.

I sound vague there because the songs aren’t all about the same thing, and I’m not about to go through them all figuring out a list of subjects for you. If you want to know that badly, buy the album. That’s Abbie Lathe - Avebury, produced by Park Records. It ranges from ‘Nothing Rhymed’ which is bordering on (good) pop, to ‘Curlew’ which really puts me in mind of a foggy morning a curlew calling out to the hills, to ‘Two Island Swans’ which is pretty much a tear-jerker.

In the same delightful package from Amazon as ‘Avebury’ came ‘An Echo of Hooves’ by June Tabor. Unlike Lathe, Tabor has a long history of solo albums behind her, although they’ve both collaborated with Maddy Prior in the past. Tabor’s style is more reminiscent of Prior’s, but with less wailing. ‘An Echo of Hooves’ is primarily concerned with songs from the Scottish border, and is definitely to be recommended.

Also in the same delightful package were some Sony earphones which stick right in your ear and seal like earplugs, delivering better sound that I had thought possible with such teeny tiny drivers, but best of all they shut out a lot of outside noise, which makes working in an open plan office much more pleasant when you don’t have to hear the intimate details of the conversations people are having on the other side of the office. Unfortunately it means people have taken to waving and poking and shaking my chair to get my attention, but since they’re used to doing that to Andrew (who recommended the earphones to me), this shouldn’t really be too much of a problem.

Went back to Tai Chi tonight after a week’s hiatus enforced upon us by half term. It was good, but very tiring.

On call three times this week, should pay for a few things although I don’t know how much of it’s going out as tax yet, should find out soon when the payslips come.

Need to get a good book on the STL.

Also need to find if I can obtain some kind of comprehensible guide to category theory, the real details behind the lambda calculus and some kind of real explanation of Haskell’s type system. Most especially what the ‘newtype’ keyword does and why I need it as well as ‘type’ and ‘data’.