Northwest Passage

I've become fascinated by Canada's arctic recently, for some unknown reason -- and in particular the tragic tale of the Franklin expedition.  I'm reading Brian Payton's "The Ice Passage" atm, which is probably the best non-fiction book i've read this year -- it's not exactly about Franklin, but is instead about the voyage of the HMS Investigator -- which set sail four years after HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, Franklin's ships, to both search for traces of the lost ships and find the passage.

Extraordinarilygripping.

www.brianpayton.com

It's Been A Great Week (For New Music)

Yes, i have bought three superb CDs in less than a week, and these are they.  (Them?) 


The music industry may be dying, but music is alive and well.  Or, to quote Buffy Ste. Marie, "god is alive, magic is afoot."

Make No Bones

Yet another John Kirkpatrick CD arrived in the mail, "Make No Bones." 

In a previous posting, i wrote about his CD "Dance Of The Demon Daffodils" and how much i enjoyed it.  This is even better.  "D Of The DD" is entirely solo accordeon music,  but "MNB" has vocals (and he's a very good singer) and accompanying musicians.

Highly recommended to anyone who loves English folk music.

Spriggsblog Goes To The Movies

Quote of the day:  Winston Churchill -- If you are going through hell, keep going.

Nothing much to write about atm -- i am not going through hell these days, in fact i've just been relaxing and watching some DVDs.

These, for example (and this was just this week).

A Walk In The Park (I Took One)

Quotation of the day:  Woody Allen -- Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.

Whew, it's hot.  Yesterday was the hottest August 31st on record -- it reached 33° C., and today it was 29° at 10:00 a.m..  I thought it might be a tad cooler in the park and so went for a stroll.  Well, it wasn't, but i took some pictures. Oh, look, there's one just above me there.  That shows the mighty Avon River as it approaches the Waterloo Street Bridge and way off in the background is Stratford's tallest building.  No, really.

Anyone interested can see the rest of the set at http://www.flickr.com/photos/34806425@N02/sets/72157624732135167/

Isn't it one of the wonders of digital photography, though?  In the olden times, you took your pictures and then took a roll of film to the drug store to be processed.  A week later, you'd get it back and discover that none of them had come out as well as you had hoped.  Nowadays, you discover immediately, that none of them had turned out as well as you hoped.  Instant ingratification!