andamu

At the time we had not seen the film yet, and in general I head in the opposite direction to the crowds. I did grab a few pictures from the pier though, and my main impression was of how small the ship seemed.
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In high school I devoured naval fiction; my preference was for Royal Navy yarns set in World War II, but I read anything all the way back to the Hornblowers and Bolithos, but for some reason, I never came across Patrick O'Brien before.
I'm not entirely sure that I would want to read this genre now.
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I thoroughly enjoyed most of the music in the movie, including the cook's sour complaint along the lines of "There they go again, scraping away, and never a tune that you could dance even if you were drunk as a lord." (If you recall the exact line, I would be happy to replace it.)

The classical music theme will serve as a segue to my lost topic; it started with a reference to the fact that as a student way back when I worked as a sales assistant in the Classical section of a CD store.

Contemporary music of most flavors place a lot of emphasis on original music and new recordings, frowning somewhat on cover songs. (Obviously a generalization, but true enough for this purpose.) This means a big growth in the body of music out there.

In classical music, new compositions are slow to gain recognition and acceptance, and the majority of new recordings are of established compositions, performed and re-interpreted by every artist; frequently multiple recordings of the same piece of music by the same artist will exist.

Knowing your way around in a classical music store is therefore not only a question of knowing the composers and their works, but also of knowing the artists and the relative merits of each of their interpretations of each of the works of each of the composers.

These days, speaking to a classical music afficionado, my preferences for artists performing say Beethoven's piano concerti would date me as effectively as glancing at my ever-multiplying grey hair.

My love for the music is as strong as ever, but my easy access to every new recording and the opportunity to listen to them, as well as to "The Gramophone" was lost, and so I remain stuck more than a decade ago.