Who I listened to in 2013

2013 music, a photo by The original SimonB on Flickr.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned on here before that I don’t get as much time to listen to music as I would like, but the word cloud above is a good representation of what I have managed to get through in the last twelve months. (You can click it to go through to Flickr and then get to the full size version so you can actually read the smaller words). I started back in January to list every time any artist got played so while it doesn’t tell us whether I listened to someone more in summer or winter months, we do get an indication of how many times people cropped up. This is made up of in-car, in-house and in-walkphone listening with no differentiation between when and where (I may have been dedicated/sad enough to make a note of every aural experience, but not enough to further categorize them). And the cloud is a much nicer way of looking at them than just a list of artist names with. NB “Various artist” compilations or whoever popped up by sticking iTunes on shuffle aren’t here – only artists I have chosen to listen to a whole bunch of songs from.

As such, it needs to be pointed out that this is not a result of random choice or fully by the selection of who I want to hear on a given day. I realised a couple of years ago that I tended to stick to the same old stuff and was ignoring a goodly percentage of my music collection. To combat that I introduced a strict three-disc rotation system for in-car listening while still allowing myself free-reign over any other music. So the rotation is 1: Artist I have several albums by but haven’t necessarily listened to for a while (in chronological order for each artist as they come up), 2: Artists I only have one CD by (in alphabetical order) and 3: New discs. Two years in and I am still only up to K for number two, but I have rediscovered some absolute gems. Discs for number three seem to accumulate without me realising it (Santa and the sales have just added a slew more to that pile). So as an example starting today on the drive to work we had 1: Hayseed Dixie (actually started them last week so they got one entry on last year’s list. I have five official albums and two bootlegs – all will get played in order so if I do a similar word cloud next year they will end up quite “large”). This will be followed by 2: King’s X (always a surprise to me that I only have one of theirs on CD and really must get more); 3: Eat Static (a Christmas present replacing a 20year old cassette with the CD version at last) then 1: Hayseed Dixie again, 2: King Swamp and 3: Daevid Allen (another Christmas present) etc. On the rare occasions that I run out of new discs to bung in the rotation I generally double-up on the single cd artists. When I finally reach Z on the artists I only have one disc by I intend to go through again for those with just two on the shelf.

On my phone I listen mainly to Audio Books and podcasts (This American Life, Selected Shorts, Short Cuts, The Infinite Monkey Cage, Jon Ronson On…) but intersperse those with music too. That used to be just random tracks but as I am slowly getting all my CDs ripped I now generally fill up the memory card with four or five books, and then the same numbers of podcasts and albums. Although the album tracks get randomly shuffled between the books and pods they still count as full listens so the artists get added to the list. But as I am only about halfway through the ripping process this adds another level of bias into what I listen to. And there has been no structure at all to the ripping – just what I’ve fancied hearing when out and about or in the study so may as well rip the disc while I have it upstairs…

And then there is just general listening to whatever I fancy from whatever source when I’m home alone and can crank the volume up.

Why do I make my life so complicated?

Pakenham sails

Pakenham sails, a photo by The original SimonB on Flickr.

Things I like in Suffolk 3

We have quite a few windmills left in Suffolk, some still in full working order, others reduced to a stump of a few courses of brick and the rest somewhere in between the two extremes. This one at Pakenham is joined in the village by a working water mill too.

More pics on Flickr (as always - I even have an "All Mills, no Boon" set there) by clicking through.

Proper entries to resume soon, I hope.

The House In The Clouds

The House In The Clouds, a photo by The original SimonB on Flickr.

Things I like in Suffolk 2

Originally built as a Water Tower - the land owner chose this design as he didn't want an ugly edifice on his seaside estate - this is now holiday accommodation and by all accounts comes highly recommended. Thorpeness is a lovely little seaside village anyway, with the Meare to offer calmer waters for boating and one or two delightful little shops, but this place just makes it even more delightful. You can see it from miles around when approaching the village, but it is nicely tucked away in the trees away from the main drag for that added touch of seclusion. Plus there is also a well-restored windmill just across the path which was originally there to pump the water up in the first place.

I'm not sure I'd want to live there all the time, but should several gazillion pounds fall into my lap and enable a Grand Design type dream house, it would definitely have to have a tower or turret of some description. An elevated Library to look out on the world from, enabling flights of fancy or warm seclusion whatever the weather.

Things I Like In Suffolk

Eye Bus Shelter, a photo by The original SimonB on Flickr.

Er hello, yes, I'm still alive and just about kicking, only I've not had much to say of late. So, in an attempt to kickstart me again here's the first in what will hopefully be a series of entries on stuff I like in Suffolk. No rhyme or reason for what I've chosen, although it is likely that a few themes will become obvious when several entries are up.

1: Eye Bus Shelter

Eye is one of the pretty little market towns that we have a smattering of here in the east, featuring a massive church, ruined castle (technically a Victorian folly on a Norman mound, but we'll maybe get to that another time), nice pub, Ley Line and more. It also has the bus shelter pictured here.

Unique in design for Suffolk, it looks a lot better since a recent re-paint and suffers only from being in the wrong place. Buses travel along the road to the right of the white dashes at the edge of the picture, so have to swing across the junction to get to the stop. There are other shelters which time and the whims of bus companies have cut off from the nearest route, but nowhere do they come quite so close as this.