A NEW LEAF

MAX. The rooster. Big,handsome and cowardly. So we have at least one thing in common.

Too many months since my last blog. Not sure why - have not done all that much. True, Murphy the bent pussy cat and Una the triped dog have taken up some time, but that is just an excuse. Still, now as you see - I have an elegant new label which I can fail to live up to.

Meanwhile Reb's blog sails effortlessly along - with its growing flotilla of readers.

What - as Face Book puts it - is On My Mind right now, is our visit to England in two weeks or so. I anxiously scan weather channels each day. Snow and ice and dead sheep and dead frozen dart fans and cold and cancelled trains and planes. As I head into my dotage, I find I have less tolerance of the prospect of our journey. It will not be an adventure. I want the trip there and back to be nice and dull and warm.

Quite brisk here today. I have just had to take an axe to the frozen water bowl for Max and the hen girls - a good inch thick, it was.

And we have a new year, for which I do not hold out a whole lot of hope. That things don't get much worse would be good enough for me.

BOOKS. Last year I read 'the Rest Is Noise' and I urge you to do so - it is a fascinating and gossipy history of music during the 20th Century. I also read 'La Noche de los Tiempos' which is also highly recommended, but I must warn that it is in Spanish and 1000 pages long, so most of you are excused.

This year I intend to re-read Camus and Koestler, who are in the papers recently with anniversaries and biographies, and also Orwell on Cataluyna.
Camus thought life was absurd and Koestler thought it was insane. Both, I think, were right.
Probably time to re-examine George Bernard Shaw as well. He just thought life was ridiculous. He was right as well.

MUSIC. I bought some Berg, Sibelius and Schoenberg - as a result of the Noise book. Schoenberg is interesting, but I don't know if I will warm to him or Berg. Sibelius is enjoyable and I will get more. He does not sound like the world's worst composer to me. Some apparently think him so.

NEWS. Lorca is not buried where he was supposed to be. And it seems he may never now be found. Maybe this is not so bad a thing. It adds a new layer of mystery and irresolution. But the prospect of him possibly being in the Valle de los Caidos is not a happy one.

RACING. Three truly great horses in one year- Sea the Stars, Rachel Alexander and Zenatta. But how the last two, fillies - failed to meet head to head was a huge let down. That would really have been the Race of the Century, no matter what is still to come.