I was afraid I'd be too crook to make it to Yum Cha with the Hansard's (Unca, Auntie, Luke, Jan, and the boys). It all worked out. I guess the battered chicken feet gave me the strength to pull through :)
It was really fun (even though I felt like death): heaps of waiters bearing all manner of little dumplings in their trolleys, bottomless jamine tea, the place was really humming at 11am - that's Yum Cha! I think the craziest thing was sugar-cake. It can't have been more than sugar and gelatine - wild.
In other news bites:
- The new Radiohead album, In Rainbows, is really good. It's no The Bends or Ok, but there's lots to like about it. Worth however much you choose to pay for it.
- Language exams are bearing down on me. This Friday is Greek. Then two weeks later is Hebrew - that's the frightening one.
- Our good mates, Pete and Pamela, have just welcomed their firstborn, Simon, into the world. (For the interested, most of the people in the most recent post on Simon's site are my classmates - spot the Tasmanians!)
2 comments:
Howdy! Nice to have another blog post from you. I recently got In Rainbows too. A couple of questions:
1) What is the ethics and politics of the 'pay what you will' offer? It seems to have created a social stigma, that only a tightarse would pay one pound. Is that tightarsed? Or just sensible? Should a Christian pay more?
2) Is it 'really good'? It just struck me that there is nothing memorable on the album. Now perhaps there is an in between memorable and forgettable. But it isn't memorable. What did you like about it?
Hey man. I've been meaning to reply for a while but wanted to think about what I said first...
1) I dunno. The stigma's there. The way I see it: when it comes to paying people, for whatever, we should be uncomfortable if we've think we've been unfair. Same with any goods or services. So I reckon it's a conscience thing. If you actually think that 1 pound is a fair thing in light of how much you like their music, audio quality, the fact you haven't heard the album or any reviews of it (and so, are taking a big risk), blah blah, then I reckon fine.
2) I like the mood of the album. I agree it isn't stand-out, wow, sort of stuff. But there's a place for music to just be quiet to, and I reckon this hits it fairly well. It's not the morbid / melancholy that they do well, it's more gentle than that. But they haven't had to go for a more overt, and perhaps more-obviously memorable, sound to get there.
It also seems less pedantic / up-tight than their last few albums. It's more of a quiet, late-evening watching a dark ocean with a beer.
So, the mood.
(Time to think about an answer didn't really make it clearer, huh!)
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