Vim Fuego

Bah!  I'm really lacking vim today.  No matter.  On with it.

I've taken a leaf out of the Pollyanna set this week and have started actively avoiding the news.  The news is supposed to be an objective overview of events, but if you weigh up the balance of positive and negative stories in a bulletin, you'll see that its primary objective is to scare the beejesus out of you.  The reason for this of course is that journalists are just co-opted entertainers.  They're there to inform, yes, but if (as I imagine the shameless self-justification rationale begins) no-one buys our product, then we can't educate them, can we?  So - paper the house with outlandish speculation, some showbiz news dressed up as fact and some sexual deviancy.  That's catnip for most commuters.  They're trapped in tube trains or on buses for an hour or so, and this stuff acts as a quick one off the wrist for the unimaginative part of the brain - the part Chris Morris memorably christened "Shatner's bassoon".

Instead of news I've been listening to Radio 3 of an evening.  It's perfect for me as I don't really care for classical music, so it just sits there in the background - an undemanding, yet comforting presence.  It's like when a cat rubs the side of his head against your shins.  It's pleasing and very restful, and you can get on with the washing up whilst the mogster does his worst.

Obviously, I do have some appreciation of the composers' skill in classical music, but as it's not something I'm likely ever to play, I can't let it slide in one ear and out the other without analysing it too much.  I am a musician (a rock musician, for want of a better term), and whenever I hear a piece I love, I tend to demand to know how to play it.  By the time I've worked it out and mastered the fingering, it's transcendent power is lost forever, which is sad.

Tonight I shall spent listening to Sibelius whist sanding the skirting.