Who said shortwave is dead?

Big shout to everyone at Cities and Memory for organising the Shortwave transmissions project. Earlier this year they teamed up with The Shortwave Radio Archive and made available some shortwave recordings to remix and for people to tinker with.

One sample was from Radio Afghanistan recorded in 1976 which was the basis for the newest tune from Jazz’min Tutum & Madtone which is now up online on the Cities and Memories Audioboom site here alongside some other very interesting interpretations. Cheers again Cities and Memories!

Sleet is on its way

It was the best of weeks, it was the worst of weeks. The cold is on its way in and we’ve had the booster and the flu jab and been feeling a little rough. Now the heatings gone at Weeds HQ just as sleet is forecast for tomorrow but life could be worse.

The Cosmos is still in bloom which isn’t bad as it’s December next week. How good is that? We’re also actually getting some Brussel Sprouts. Okay the slugs, snails and pigeons have taken a liking to the leaves but there are some mini sprouts there!

Years ago we had something wipe their rear end on one of our Brussel stalks (we think it was foxes) and soiled the actual sprouts and even after an intense hosing down we couldn’t get the thought out of our head so couldn’t bring ourselves to use them at the Christmas dinner so bought a stalk from the supermarket.

We told a good few people about what happened as we were so dissapointed, we even rang into a gardening radio programme who told us, “If you hose them down well and cook them then cover them in butter, they should be great to eat.”

Also a chap at work said to us not long after our mishap “I had sprouts at Christmas and I was telling my visitors around the Christmas table about your home grown sprout misfortunes”. I doubt if that story helped the Christmas dinner go down well!

Also we’ve finally got some flowers on a dwarf blackberry bush we bought a few years ago after moved to a sunnier spot thinking it’ll do better. It’s always the way isn’t it, do wrap up and keep warm this weekend!

And finally we found it

We’ve been hearing this record for many months as a “sign on” tune for Sugar B‘s show on 4tuneFM and aways wanted to know what it was called. And lo and behold we heard it this morning on Vintage Obscure Radio one of our favourite shows at the moment. It’s Willie Lindo with Midnight. Tune in for more suprises here.

And now the end is near (possibly)

We gave the lawn its final cut of the year yesterday. It’s the second week in November and the grass is still growing strong. Hopefully giving the lawn the last run in with the mower so late in the year will make a it a little easier when the flymo comes back out next year.

We’ll still do the old council mowing trick of “two cuts in one” in the spring. We go over the lawn with the mover blades on the highest setting (giving it less of a cut). Then give it a quick rake over (even thought you may have a grass catcher on the mower) and then go over it again with the mower blade one notch lower. It takes longer but saves less effort on the blades. And can you believe the cosmos is also still going…

Ere’ got any vintage obscura mate?

We’ve just discovered a brilliant internet radio station called Vintage Obscura that plays a cross section of tunes across many genres. As it says on their twitter here all tracks are: more than 25 years old and have fewer than 30,000 views on YouTube.

This is a tune that is just playing now Lillian Allen with Unnatural Causes. Wonderful stuff. Do yourself a favour and tune in here.

 

What goes around comes around

Earlier this morning we passed on another container of home made comfrey liquid to spread the love/smell/word. The container this time was a well washed out non-bio Tesco washing liquid bottle.

On the way back from the exchange a massive plastic bag of daffodil bulbs were found sitting outside someone’s front wall with “Take me” on them. Is that what you call gardening karma? May be deemed a little late to put in but who cares!