Lost some hearing in left ear (congestion) & am now on a nose-inhaler thing although last time had ear drops - different doctor different misdiagnosis.

Listening to Sibelius Symphonies 1 & 2 (yet again) and have given a few lessons today.

Things are winding down for a couple of weeks now which means I'll have more time to complete my Jazz Symphony for 'The Masterprize'.

Going to a birthday party tonight at a Jazz Club in Luton. One thing I've noticed is that the people whose birthdays I attend keep getting older and older. This is a worrying trend.

I get phoned up approx. two to three times per day by people trying to sell me unwanted or unneccessary goods & services. After trying many different telephonic techniques to dissuade them, I find that simply replacing the receiver as early into the conversation as possible usually does the trick. If they have the gall to phone back, I let the call go onto the answerphone.

My question is this. Is cold-calling actually a job? I assume these people have absolutely no qualifications otherwise they'd be doing something with their lives. Just a thought.

'Let us be merry.' Here he took a captain's biscuit. [Dickens - novel: Martin Chuzzlewit character: Mr.Pecksniff]. From whence can one obtain these Captain's biscuits?

This is meant to be part of a diet plan (I think they must have mistaken me for a small furry animal rather than a human being when they drew this page up). This info was given to me by a 'real' dietician the other day:

Bread & Cereals

Each of the following is one portion.

Select 6-7 portions of the following each day:

Either:

1 slice bread from a large medium cut loaf
2 small thin cut slices of bread
1 small roll or 1/2 large pitta bread
4 tbsp boiled rice or pasta
2 egg-sized potatoes mashed, boiled or baked in jacket
5 tbsp unsweetened breakfast cereal
1 oz porridge oats
1 weetabix or shredded wheat
3 crispbread 2 plain biscuits or cream crackers
1 plain digestive biscuit

6 to 7 portions, hmm let me think... how about 17 portions... for breakfast!

The front of the pamphlet is a bit ambitious.

Follow this plan and you might lose 1/2lb a week.

soupçon. n. 'suspicion'; faint flavour or trace; hint.

Up until October, 2000 (i.e. for 40 years just about) I thought that the P in this word was silent!

I am at a high class London society party and someone pronounces the word souPçon with a heavy P ...and I 'correct' them!

Oh dear... that's one tough way to find out that the P is pronounced heavily in this word after all!

6 years later, I am watching the brilliant movie 'Sideways' (the wine one - not to be confused with 'Closer' similar title but different film) where lo and behold, what happens? Actor, Paul Giamatti (playing the character Miles) pronounces this word with a SILENT P !!!!!!

...how soon after Midnight I could get 100 pageviews; but I have a life (at least, I think do).

And in other news, I am having various new websites designed for me. Now don't go thinking this is all done in the vain attempt to boost my Google hits because that's just not true!

Anyway, watch out for jazzsymphony.com (my complete musical works) doctorfish.tv (all about my new novel) and feblandmuseum.com (photos of hundreds of items located here at the FeBland Museum [alias, my house in Edgware] as well as 'new ideas' such as some of my Conceptual work over at eBay which we are hoping to enter into this year's Turner Prize ~ dream on...)

Pensions 'black hole'? For how long did we not see that one coming? Personally, I blame the Whigs.

Don't tell me anyone actually took my last post seriously!

...and now on to the main subject of this post: Waiting Rooms.

Has anyone actually calculated how much of our lives we spend in Waiting Rooms? Further thought - if you are a Janitor in a Waiting Room would this affect the calculation?

A certain former leader of this so-called country said 'there is no such thing as society'. Do we have a society here at blog.co.uk or an 'anti-society'? Are not most of us ranting about injustices going on and trying to get our point over? Are we just part of the chattering classes or something more? My point is: Most people on this site seem to be unfulfilled and 'striving' to get somewhere in life. Is this a Universal syndrome or something unique to this website? I suppose if anyone out there was actually happy and/or successful they wouldn't feel the need to blog! Feel free to disagree with me but it will probably only go to show what a thoroughly miserable individual you are!

...and a big clue isn't as follows: My friend's Computer is called Algernon.

I read somewhere that this question is irrelevant! Irrelevant? ?!?!?!? No. This question is highly relevant. You should ask yourself if life is worth living regularly once a week. For example, I asked myself this morning if life was worth living and couldn't think of an answer. Maybe I'm confusing it with that other highly irrelevant question: What is the meaning of life?

My shower goes from 1 to 10 in heat. 6.0 is cold(ish) 6.1 is perfect 6.2 is 'scorchio'. So you have to adjust within under a millimetre to get the right temp. How annoying is that?

They say having a shower uses less water than a bath. How many minutes of showering is this, exactly? I am sure a 5-minute shower would be OK but how about a 12-minute one? Does anyone have the figures on this?

Loved the comment above so much when I read it in a list of things you'd like to say to office co-workers. Then again, I've never actually worked in an office.

Thoughts on Offices:

My Mother once turned the TV on and it was the first ever series of 'The Office'. She watched it for about 90 seconds, thought it was a documentary and switched the Channel over. Cry your heart out Ricky Gervais.

Question: Do people in offices just sit around all day drinking coffee?

Here are the five words that changed my life:

Please snail me a freebie!

Simply send this sentence to the company of your choice and free stuff will start flooding through your door in next to no time!

For Euro-Freebies, try:

Escargot uno regalo à moi bitte!

Also... could someone please explain what this F U (underlined) K D (crossed out) means when you write your blog, as someone (and I point no fingers) has obviously not realised that it looks (a bit) like a rude word.

I found this New Age BS health thing somewhere on the Internet and it made me laugh. I mean, AS IF anyone lives like this. Basically if you score less than 40 then you’ve got a life.

The following are the reasons people stay healthy:

Score yourself out of 10 on each question.

1. You eat well. your diet consists of adequate amounts of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, co-enzymes, co-factors. You consume, fresh organic vegetables, fruits, dairy, honey, high fiber foods, high quality meat, raw nuts and seeds, olive oil, and canola oil. You don't consume things made out of white sugar, white flour, hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, processed foods and fast foods.

2. You drink 8 to 10 cups of pure water daily. You stay away from all ‘pops’ and sugary drinks. You drink hot water in small amounts throughout the day.

3. You get plenty of sleep. You believe in ‘early to bed and early to rise’. You live without an alarm clock.

4. You are less stressed than other people. You listen to Classical Music. You read wholesome books. You are very affectionate. You like to hug. You commit reckless acts of kindness even if not reciprocated. You never tire of being kind even to complete strangers. You never hold grudges. You forgive easily. You are here on Earth to serve, to help and consciously or unconsciously, to do good deeds. You believe in not harming anything or any one.

5. You fast occasionally. It may be for religious, health or mental health reasons but you enjoy fasting. It may be a food/drink fast, a food fast, a media fast or an Internet ‘holiday’.

6. You don’t smoke or do drugs. You either abstain from alcohol or drink only socially and in moderation.

7. You exercise. You walk, do yoga or tai chi. Your body is flexible and so is your mind.

8. You do Pranayama, Alexander technique or Pilates.

9. You use aromatherapy. You like nice fragrances.

10. You have pets. You love your pets and you like to play with them.

11. You like to garden. You like to spend time communing with nature. You watch birds and often go to the park. You have indoor plants.

Up until very recently I had a chap called Robert staying here who liked to hang his socks up to dry individually - an ideal photo-opportunity I thought...

Inspired by CJ592 (pro)'s story about his song about the Pythagoras theorem I decided to have a shot at this sub(ject) myself.

p- p- p- pi;
p- p- p- pi;
Now... who (I said who?) put the pi, the p- p- pi,
in Pytha...go-ras?

Hi!
h- h- h- hy;
Hy-po-te-nuse, HEY!
What's the news with this hypotenuse?

(etc.)

Another of Mr B's excellent snappy shots showing me messing around at Sainsbury's.

I've not been 100% this week but managed to get on with life anyway. Lots of ideas floating around. Have to complete my Jazz Symphony for 'The Masterprize' (International Composition Competition) - that's perhaps the top priority. Doing the final rehearsals for my CD with Pianist Louis Alvanis - he is meant to be recording 3rd week of April. The CD will be called 'Piano Colours' and will be released on the 'Meridian' label, quite a well-known Classical Music company. I have also been in touch with 'Cellist David Johnstone who now resides in Spain and hopes to perform some of my compositions there at some point soon. He may come to London to rehearse or I might fly over to Navarra for a week or so (that's a nice thought!) Finally, my Wind Quintet is being premiered in Lucerne, Switzerland in June by an ensemble organised by Clarinettist Walter Achermann. Once these various musical projects are out of the way I'll be able to settle back down to my novel again! I was talking about this to a new friend recently. The hero is called Doctor Fish who is the worst Psychologist in the World. However, he is brilliantly talented at almost every other field of human endeavour. Needless to say this is a comedic novel and I am having great fun with it. I hope to get the website going soon which will be at doctorfish.tv an expensive domain which I purchased some months ago.

Heard the most immaculate performance of Sibelius Symphony No.4 last night at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. What an amazing composition. I've heard the work 20 times before and yet it sounded so fresh and unpredictable almost as if the music was being improvised in front of us. Sibelius invented his own special technique for Symphonic composing using a phenomenal imagination and mastery of orchestration to bequeath us a remarkable set of 7 Symphonies. This 4th Symphony is perhaps the darkest and most serious of his oeuvre and was (apparently) for some years disregarded by professionals although it now stands head and shoulders above the rest of his work and is performed almost as frequently as the very popular (and much more lightweight) 5th Symphony. I'd never heard it played live before and certainly didn't expect it to be superior to my extremely distinguished recording. This is a work I would certainly hope to conduct myself one day!

Watching Dogville for the second time as I write this. Very interesting piece of work. I've had a really nice day today. Yesterday was massively stressful (I won't go into details) and there are still certain areas of dissonance around, but it's been a good Friday (no pun intended).

I gave a few lessons (mainly Piano, also some theory, A-level etc.) and my mother & husband #2 showed up at around 18.00 to help do a few things around the house before we all went over to some old friends for a meal.

It was a real pleasure to spend time with a 'happy family'!!! Our hosts were the daughter of a lifelong friend of my mother's and her husband, son and daughter. I hadn't met the rest of the family before and we had a most enjoyable time.

At one point, I accompanied the 11 y.o. son (who played the trumpet) on a really badly out-of-tune upright piano. We couldn't really tune up the trumpet with the piano, so I had to transpose the little piece we played (a voluntary by Purcell) from F major into F sharp major - not the easiest thing in the world to do at sight!

It's gone midnight now, so I guess I'll be heading North shortly.

Is it just me or is it everyone who gets ignored TO THE MAXIMUM.

I am waiting to hear from something like 5 (maybe more) people/organisations/companies/workers etc. etc. Why is it so hard for people to simply lift the phone up and tell you that they are alive?

'Looking backwards' ...and another thing; Do people look forwards or backwards?

I seem to spend much of my time daydreaming about a 'glorious' past that didn't really exist. Friends have disappeared/lost touch/stopped being interested [on the plus side I have a fantastic circle of new friends thanks to playing bridge for my county]. Was this past so wonderful and 'halcyon-like'? Or is it just my memory playing tricks? I think the key is to form new patterns and look ahead. There is no point being stuck with 'ideal memories', it achieves nothing. Far better to take today with both hands and try to achieve something new, innovative (and maybe even exciting).

I don't suppose too many people are interested in reading about correspondence chess, but that is the activity I am currently indulging in! I suppose a few thousand people worldwide play correspondence chess via email. You are given much longer to think about each move and can test out obscure positions that you wouldn't normally play OTB (over the board) as they contain far too much risk.

Apart from this mild diversion I've gradually been making progress with my Jazz Symphony. It's all but complete, just needing finishing touches (such as string special effects - using mutes, playing 'near the bridge' and harp harmonics, a wonderful way of getting a bell like quality from a harpist). Once this composition is finished, I hope to enter it for 'The Masterprize' an International composition competition.

I've been stuck inside most of the day (waiting for piano pupils etc.) but have managed to kick a bit of botty internet-wise and have re-joined 'Moonpig' a great facility to send greetings cards without getting out of your computer chair & have organised an air pump (for car tyres) to be door-delivered - it seems to be so difficult to find somewhere reliable to put air in your tyres these days!

24 hours and no workmen have called, it must have been a quiet day! Only three cold-callers today - who are these telephone people working for ridiculous little companies I've never heard of? In other news, I am still trying to get a replacement monitor - this has already dragged on for about 3 weeks or so. Today I made about another 5 phone calls in connection with this monitor and also received one call from a company called Phoenix who told me that although Specvision had either stopped operating from this country, gone bankrupt or ceased trading (no surprise there then) I was still actually covered by EC who have been ignoring me to the nth degree. Hopefully my father will give them hell again tomorrow.

Everything I try to achieve meets with obstacles. I always seem to be reliant on a 3rd party and that 3rd party invariably f**ks things up. Is this a unique experience?

Example.

I bought a monitor from a local company (for legal purposes referred to only as 'EC'). 6 months later this monitor developed an intermittent problem. Things had already broken down between myself and EC and I had stopped being a regular customer of theirs some 3 to 4 months ago. I got my father to go into the EC shop and complain about the monitor. 'They were as sweet as pie - no problems whatsoever - just phone this number...' I phone the number (a company called 'Repairtech') they identify the monitor as a Specvision - this was not at all easy to do as there was no name on the monitor or the accompanying literature - the only problem is, they no longer 'cover' Specvision monitors and give me the direct number for Specvision saying 'if there's any problem with this telephone number, go back to EC and they will sort you out'. Needless perhaps to say, the phone number was dead.

My father goes back into EC. They give him the 'correct' number for Specvision and a further number for a company called Scan who also might be able to help me out if I have no luck with Specvision. Surprise, surprise, the new 'correct' number for Specvision is also dead. Scan tell me that it is 100% up to EC to contact them and that as a private customer they will not be dealing with me directly. My father goes back to EC... again!

This is as far as we have got. Unfortunately, my father will be away for the next three weeks so who knows what will happen next? ...and on another note, Aaaaaaaaargh!

This week has to be the record. I've just been hoovering floorboards (is this normal behaviour?) a carpet is being laid tomorrow. Within a 7 day period I am expecting (or have already 'entertained') the following workmen:

Handyman (replacing bad floorboards)
Carpenter (fixing sash window)
Computer tech guy (sorting out hardware/software problems - various)
Carpet people
Plumber (downstairs shower unit)
Electrician (various)
Bed delivery people

I think I need a holiday.

Yesterday was crazy! Main achievement was relocating 10 tons of junk in the greenhouse into my hatchback and driving up the road to the Allum Lane Recycling place. Today is concerned with floorboard laying (courtesy of Mr B.) & final rehearsals for my CD 'Piano Colours'. My Concert Pianist colleague Louis Alvanis should be arriving here soon and hopefully we will be able to run through most of the repertoire for the disc.

Today has been totally fulfilling (and it's not often you can say that of a day). I have just finished the day off by posting a couple of photos at PhotographyBLOG a great free site for aspiring photographers.

Earlier in the evening a beautiful young lady who I've been pursuing for a while has accepted my invitation to an exciting Classical Concert - not sure how much more I'll be writing about that subject, one has to keep certain things private you know!

The England football match was breathtaking - what an amazing finish!

Managed a late night shopping spree at Sainsbury's and actually found some bargains for once.

Have been teaching (Piano) earlier on and had to help an A-level student with the harmonisation of some Bach Chorales - not too easy!

In the afternoon, I had a tech guy here & I now have two computers up and running - I will try to 'find a home' for the slightly less good one.

Hope I get a decent night's sleep as I have Mr.B here to decorate Robert's old room tomorrow.