Here’s a wonderful tune found while looking for music for a forthcoming shortwave mix and again it is from the ever-wonderful Mississippi Records here. From the lovely cover of the LP with a beaming Alick Nkhata behind a radio mike in a room full of records, this tune Kalindawalo Ni Mfumu has a sort of a rock n roll feel, lovely harmonies with even a brass band (it sure sounds like it) and lovely tinkering of the ivories thrown in towards the end. This tune will not fail to make you smile!
Last weekend we returned from a week away visiting some great East Sussex locations such as Camber Sands, Eastbourne and Brighton. Weather weren’t too bad (a bit of rain in the morning but usually sunny in the afternoon) but it has seemed to have changed when we got back home. Everything in the garden is now winding down, the tomatoes have their last fruit on them, the cosmos are still going (more on those later) and the giant sunflower (from seed bought off ebay) is doing great, following the sun as usual (more on that here).
We brought in the houseplants that were having a holiday outside, a chilli in a pot which will hopefully survive the winter and be back outside in the garden as they are technically perennials and even a couple of the pelargoniums taken from cuttings from the ones at the local train station. Why not? It’s nice to have a bit of the outside indoors.
Our north London correspondent Debby H has suggested we should get a page together of how people’s cosmos did this year and have a bit of a gallery going on and we think it’s a great idea. If the slugs got at your seedlings earlier on, don’t worry we will repeat it next year but any pictures of your cosmos to one deck pete (at) gee mail dot com please.
Also a massive shout and thanks to Jon Harris from the excellent multi-genre music show called Coughing Pigeon on Brum Radio here. On the 1st August show they played Madtone Safety Council V BiggaBush‘s Lock your bike at 01.15. The show continues in the usual unusual way with all sorts of great stuff from the dubby to this wonderful tune from Christie Laume called Rouge Rouge, wonderful stuff indeed.
As it says on the website “You should approach every Coughing Pigeon show with a degree of both certainty and curiosity about what you will hear. Household names feature alongside the relatively unknown in a quest to create a unique listening experience” and they are right!
A big shout to Rich R who is on his holidays at the moment in Crete and found this rather nice flower called a sea daffodil (AKA white sand lily, amaryllis, lily of Knossos, beach saffron or beach crocus). It’s supposed to have a “pleasing, exotic and very subtle lily scent”. More about the plant here.
He also took some great pics of the sunset and the eclipse the other night (above and below). It looks like a magical place and “the beach we look out on is the actual one where Zorba the Greek (Anthony Quinn) did his dance”. Wow great stuff Rich, enjoy the rest of your holiday!
Heard on this week’s Rhythm Doctor’s Waiting Room (here), here’s a wonderful bit of classical ambience. It’s by Steven Legget & Laura Reid and it’s called Low and it’s excellent stuff and one to wind down to after the bins have been put out and you’re sitting pondering “Was it recycling and general refuse or was it just recycling tonight?”
Here’s a good refuse tip, don’t feel left out after a bank holiday. Bin collection is usually a day later so put your feet up and wait another 24 hours before dragging those bins down the drive/path knowing that you “know the (wheely bin) score”. Remember every part of the world over has a bin night. What night is yours? Do send us your pictures of your dustbins!
Cheers to Debby H for sending us some pictures of her garden in north London now that the summer is sadly coming to an end (how quick has this year been?) The first (above) is of the Zephyranthes Robusta (AKA Rain Lily). As she told us “These bulbs have flowered so many times this summer. We thought that we had seen the last for the year, but amazingly it has performed again!”, great to hear!
There’s also the Ornithogalum “The flowers have now grown. Unfortunately, one of them broke off, possibly due to the wind, but we still have 8 flowers.” Even though the picture is a little out of focus it gives us a good idea how they have done this year.
“Our sedum has flowered and is looking very pretty” above.
Debby also has a self-seeded ragwort (we think) which if it is, has a nice flower but has its problems as it is poisonous to horses and other livestock and causes minor skin irritations so it’s better to leave those gardening gloves on if you ever are wanting to pull one up.
Cheers for the update Debby, the garden is looking great!
We’ve got some time off work for a week now and typically there’s a good bit of rain on the way. It’s good for the garden (as it’s parched), the pond (water levels are low) but not for us (lounging around in the sun doing nothing is fun, can’t lounge around in the rain!)
The garden is going to go wild with all this rain and of course mixed with a bit of sun that may come out from behind the clouds this week. Above is a reminder of what plants in the sunshine look like just in case you have forgotten. This is the salvia we got from B&Q a few weeks ago and it’s loving where it is.
Early yesterday morning we decided to clear the “wild” part of the garden (below) as yes it is wild but it just looked a bit of a mess. We cleared out all the weeds and now it’s a little bit bare but we can imagine that won’t last long. We’re expecting some rain later this week so that mixed with some sunny periods will be the right conditions for a mad growth spurt.
Whilst having a cup of tea admiring our good work, we were visited by a fox quickly passing through, two birds including the Robin (top pic) and then a neighbour’s cat came in either for the birds or the bit of catmint we are growing near the pond. We remember years at Shannon’s someone telling us it will bring all the locals cats in. Perhaps they were right?
Get much wildlife in your garden? Do let us know.
We’ve just found this tonight, a dub piece by the great Scientist & Alicia Previn called Scientist Spacewalk. Super strings dub on the answer rhythm. More on the collab here.
And it’s nothing to do with the strings on 1970’s UK reggae releases…
Early this morning we popped down B&Q in Bell Green for some liquid fertiliser as we’re not producing enough comfrey leaves to make the liquid feed we’re used to putting on our garden (Above: crow waiting for bus home like us at 8.30 am).
Something we should look into is the NPK content that comes on the side of the bottle denoting how much Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), and K for Potassium (or Potash) is in the liquid. As we’ve always used home-made comfrey liquid and mixed in compost on the beds, that’s something we’ve got to research about more.
Back home we spent a good hour or so feeding the back garden including the giant sunflower which is reaching skywards. We’ve 3 sunflowers, this 8ft monster and another 2 that are about 5 foot. It must be all about where they’re placed and how much sun they get. We love the sunflowers as the tops do follow the sun about during the day.
And this week we were told about this video, 10 vegetables/fruit that we don’t bother with anymore. We’re talking skirret, alexanders, good King Henry, medlar, chickweed, scorzonera, welsh onions, lovage, tansy (“The punk rock herb…” “…that demands respect and attention” as the bloke describes it, we love that!) and turnip greens. We wonder as food fashions come and go, will any of these “old time something come back again” as the song goes?
And two tunes about flying winged things:
The first a nice dub number from Derajah meets The 18th Parallel called Dub Crow.
The next is an a excellent tune released by the wonderful Sublime Frequencies out of Seattle, Washington, it’s by Chhoun Vanna and called To Tea Yum Chlong (Birds Are Singing But My Lover Won’t Return). At 2.45, it just ain’t long enough.
“The birds are chirping, to and fro
My love, have you forgotten me?
As water can’t cut through the sand
I can’t cut you from my memories
The bridge (between you and I) has broken
The pathway is gone, and the water is so very deep
How am I to find you on the other side, so far away?”
Thanks to fleurmach.com for the lyrics.
We can’t get enough of this tune since first hearing this. It’s released on the great Serafin Audio Imprint and as they say on the tin (labelled Bandcamp), “We are a fine little Imprint from Germany supporting slow and beautiful music all around the world” and they don’t half! This one is from Laaar and it’s called A familiar feeling and by the way, all of the EP it’s from is worth listening to!
And if you like tunes that sample shortwave radio like we do, here’s one by Hali Palombo called Contestia using a vocal sample off the Shannon Volmet, more about what a Volmet is here.
Weeds up to me knees 