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October 07, 2007
eBay Mountaineering
I didn't list anything on eBay to finish on postal strike days, but by next weekend it should largely be over, and so another big pile of household junk is made somebody else's bargain treasure. Apparently I specialise in MP3 accessories and film camera accessories, which this week is fair enough. There's also a bit of bric-a-brac and video game paraphernalia. Nevertheless, despite my industry, the total amount on the 'needs to be eBayed' pile went up very significantly this weekend, as we sorted through one column of boxes in the room that is almost entirely full of clutter. We don't really look like people with a serious hoarding problem *except* in bedroom 4.
For some reason, people don't stop buying books from you on Amazon just because there's a postal strike on. Amazon itself is using every other courier in the UK to get parcels through, but that's sort of not an option for li'l ol' me. So I'm writing careful notes to people designed to get them to say 'oh, no problem, the book turning up sometime randomly next week is just what I wanted' so they don't give me rubbish feedback.
I went, for the first time, to the English Tunes Session at the Horseshoe, a pub I know because we held Plokta.con Pi there. When we were there, the real ale was on; lack of beer this lunchtime meant that the intervals between sets were largely taken up with people discussing moving the session in grim tones. The actual music was splendid though. Once again people mistook me for a proper melodeon player because my box has velcro straps on it as for microphones; of course, I bought it from someone who plays in a band. I'm itching to go again, but not only is it a monthly session, the number of weekends when I have four free hours over a Sunday lunchtime is not that many.
Posted by Alison Scott at 11:39 PM | Comments (0)
October 05, 2007
Catching Up
We are overwhelmed with school admissions. People who haven't done this have an eye-glazed-over moment when I mention it; people who have are all sympathy.
I'm very taken with Music Arcades, where David has put his music collection on Shuffle by Album and is writing about it one day at a time. I don't know how many albums I have; there are currently 20,820 tracks. The next album up on Shuffle is "Sing a Song For You" by Anne Briggs; her albums are perennial seller despite her turning her back on singing and recording after only a few years in the limelight. And for all the glories of the current folk revival, I don't think there's a singer of traditional material to touch her.
Posted by Alison Scott at 02:23 PM | Comments (1)