I love your piano Aimee, it’s absolutely beautiful. You made an excellent colour choice.

Hi Griffin, glad to see you! I enjoyed your morning posts, especially "Blue Bolero".

Old Rossy is a bit choked up today.
Here is why:
David Campos is a music producer and composer.
He grew up at the feet of sound enginers, in His fathers recording studio.
Allways in the studio as a child, he learnt a thing or two as you may well imagine.
As a grown up he built a few recording studios for himself.
He embraces the "new technology" and has a Home recording studio.
He has produced music for films, for adverts and for bands.
He most certainly knows his craft, and is allways willing to help others realise theirs.

I added him to my subscriptions on youtube, after watching some excellent tutorials on music production that he has done for free.

I sent him a link a little while ago to Rupaks youtube video for him to watch and asked him what he thought.

He was as convinced as I am of the genuiness of Rupak playing the Mendelssohn on his laptop keyboard.

I just got an email off Rupak.

David has offered to sort him out with a midi keyboard...

Kudos, David, Kudos. Serious Kudos of the most highest order.

I am seriously moved, and my faith in Humanity has been restored to a new high.

Good morning everyone. Excellent news Rossy! Good for you! You helped open up a channel of communication.

Recaredo, I'm sorry I just missed your post yesterday. I was at work and was just leaving for home when you posted. Glad you liked "Blue Bolero."

Eglantine, thanks for letting know about Abdullah Ibrahim. I am eager to do more research. I'm intrigued! It's also clear that when I retire in a few years, I'll have plenty to keep me busy!

Aimee, I think I'll go ahead and order the Dett CD since I noticed you had given it a thumbs up! Thanks for the recommendation.

Well, I'm off to piano practice before I go to work. I'll check in later. Have a great day everyone!

Wow! Rossy, what a nice deed you did for someone (so did Campos)!
Mrs. R must be quite impressed!

Good morning all!

Rossy that is awesome news. I'm happy for him:) Can't wait to see what he does with a midi board!

Aimee: Your new piano is just lovely. You shouldn't have any reason to go inside of it. Mine's an old clunker that needs work. Especially when I'm the one breaking it. LOL So does she have a name yet? What does she sound like?

Morning BeccaBb!!! well afternoon here!! ( me and mrs R "morning" really though)
Rupak has actually decided to not accept the gift, he isnt too far away from being able to afford one and is saving up hard!
He feels that to accept the gift would put him under pressure to spend more time than he has at the moment on the keyboard rather than his physics Phd!!

I told him that such a gift would certainly not come with any "strings attached" so to speak, in other words there would be no "expectations" for him to become a profficient player quickly!!!

But he is adamant that one should not ask for help except in an emergency.

which is admirable, but , he didnt ask for anything!! It was offered, and I tried to advise him to accept the gift in the spirit of that which it was offered...

But I have to accept his choice...

I did try reason and sensible argument a lot first though!!

Well, I'm even MORE impressed, especially in this day and age, where most people are more than happy to be given something! He actually is working towards earning it- I'd like to adopt him.

No doubt, he'll succeed in life.

and, you still did a great thing, Rossy, your heart was in the right place!

I know its a poor second choice, but I still need adopting!!

I just realised I havent posted any music for a while!! remiss, and tardy of me..

So , I will make up with a simply stunning piece of vocal beauty,
Miss Grace slick.. and "The garden of man"

Enjoy.....

And my second offering today is Jefferson airplane, from the awesome albumn, "Surrealistic pillow"

Isnt that just the greatest name of any albumn??

Anyways, the track "Today"

Thanks everybody!

Griffin, Dinah does indeed like music. She's not too sure about the new piano, but she usually will come sit on the bench with me when I'm playing the digital. BillyO swears one night she was bobbing her head along with the Melvins one night. She doesn't mind a loud stereo, even when Bill's playing metal CDs. She runs when he plays guitar, however. Sorry I haven't been able to sit down and give you a detailed description of the Dett... it's one of those things I've been playing in the background. I do love it in the background. I am going to stick it in my car today so I can listen better. But it is worth getting.

Becca, no name yet! I'm still getting to know her

Rossy, I don't know who I like better - David or Rupak. I agree with piano joy's comment "here most people are more than happy to be given something." Actually, I find more and more that people expect to be given something(don't get me started on "BP money" here in New Orleans ugh). Universe, I would like to order more Davids and Rupaks. And some more Rossys that mix the two together.

Thanks AimeeO. here in The Rossy household its a little different, if I give mrs R something, she will say "what have you done?" Or "what do you want?"
And seriously the other night, I said "heres the menu, pick what you want from the takeaway, and I will ring them up and get them to deliver, my treat, I will pay"

She spent the next half hour moaning... because she couldnt make her mind up what she wanted..

Cant you get some BP money for the overweight cat? cant you say "It was allright before the oil spill, then it went and gorged on seagulls and got ill" If you smear some old engine oil on it, it would even look the part. If it was my cat, I would give it to the cat lady who lives round the corner.

This is the problem with people that keep cats, when they get older they sometimes turn into cat ladys.

Cat ladys are very similar but not the same as bag ladies.

bag ladies, used to push shopping trolleys full of plastic bags that had their "special secret stuff " in them ( maybe cats) and they live on the streets. Sometimes when bag ladies die of hypothermia and the police look in their bags, they have thousands of pounds in cash that they have been collecting.

I say "used to" here in the UK they made a law that makes all shops charge between 5p and 15p for plastic carrier bags, its a sort of shopping tax like VAT that we pay as well as the "being alive in a public place tax" that they brought in under margaret thatcher ( shame on you merryl streep, you obviously forgot to act like an utter Bi*ch when portraying thatcher, so I hope you get zilch at the oscars)

anyways i digressed, cats are dangerous because they can turn you into a cat lady, or bag lady by accident when your old and lonely.

So, I dont know what the bag ladies will do now, because the bags actually cost money and bag ladies dont spend money usually.

It's always nice to see someone willing to work hard with pride. We will just have to be patient for Rupak to get a midi! I agree completely, way too many expect to be handed things. It's not good at all.

Aimee: are you going to post a sample of the sound of your new piano? I'm so excited for you. Hopefully your cat is not too put out.

Okay I need to go and practice! Have a great day everyone.

Yes, Rossy, you could probably say "It was allright before the oil spill, then it went and gorged on seagulls and got ill," and live in New Orleans, where we did not physically see any oil. You would probably get a $5000 check now, and another $5000 in 6 months. Meanwhile, some poor fisherman on the coast has had his livelihood stripped from him and lost his house and his boat and whatever else he uses for his business and got maybe $40,000 total, which he was forced to take or his family would be living under a dock somewhere. Unfortunately, whatever he fished for's population didn't recover so he's still out of a job. It's all he's done all his life, and can't function. Meanwhile, some bartender in a bar gets a check for $14,000, under the clause of "service industry people lost money due to seafood shortage/image," even though his bar doesn't even serve food. It's disgusting. I'm in the service industry, and didn't apply, but I know a lot of people who did that bought stupid things with it. The ones that justly got turned down act like something was stolen from them. They still have jobs, and didn't even really lose any income. My only consolation is that a lot of people neglected to have taxes taken out and are having sticker shock with their tax bills, especially since they spent every dime on something stupid.

Anyway.

I think cat ladies get a bad rap. That show Animal Hoarders proves that there are dog ladies as well. There was a horse lady around here, actually..

Here's some siouxsie!

Becca, I will try to post one after Mardi Gras is done in a few weeks!

I have a few things to accomplish today as well yet, so I am off too!!!
later dudes and dudettes!!!

Sorry AimeeO we posted at the same time.. I understand what you are saying. But seeing as you cannot do anything about the awfull damage done, and nor can the fishermen, will the fishermen get any less if you get some compo off the governement... I mean surely get what you can off the government, they get what they can off you for most of your life, they tax your wages before you get it, they put a tax on food, they put a tax on fuel they put a tax on beer a tax on ciggies, a tax on a tax a tax on your car.

here in the UK they are meant to spend that money on the roads, the hospitals, social security, the police, and other services..

But they dont, the roads are a mess, nurses are paid nowt, the cops are cutting back, social security is throwing disabled folk off benefits... why?

because they are spending the money on wars instead, wars that do not concern the folk of this country, wars that are causing more danger in the world than there was before....

If you can claw any money off the government, go for it, they had it off you under false pretences anyways?

Forgot to mention, the siouxsie gave me a man bump in my trousers. excellent!!!

Bleughhh! I'm just home. It took 2.5 hours to get back from Handel House (harpsichord concert), as it's snowing here again plus there was a traffic accident and no buses. I've just put some home-made chick pea stew (with chillies) on the stove and catching up with RST posts....

Aimee, that piano looks great. You must be really happy!

Thanks for the Wish You Were Here, Becca.

For a small island, this country has produced so much of the very best music in the last 50 years. Why?

Ah, I failed to mention that my class on Sunday was the first part of a fixing harpsichords 2-day thing. I should now be able to replace strings, replace plectra etc without doing damage or taking my eye out.

So here's a question: what's your favourite cold-weather food?

Hmm I'd have to go for having a nice homemade stew for warming up. (typical stew here would be potatoes, tomatoes, turnip, onion, hunks of beef, maybe some green beans or corn, some pepper, a bay leaf, salt and maybe basil.) I'm not allowed red meat any longer so I'd subsitute that with big chunks of chicken.... and a hot cup of tea!

The harpischord fixing sounds rather neat! Did you enjoy it?

Oh yes, really interesting, hands on, and useful. Great teacher (Andrew Wooderson of Bexley Harpsichord Workshops.) Harpsichords tend to require more TLC than pianos, so pretty good idea to have the know-how. Part 2 next month, when we also tackle tuning.

Here it’s very late, but I wanted to share this before going to bed.


This night I’ve been listening to the dark side of Vivaldi’s music. I say “dark” because his “salmos” are lesser known than other works, but this music is absolutely awesome.

Here we can listen to Sara Mingardo (what a voice!) singing one movement of the Salmo nº 126.

Good night.

If you aren't familiar with Minecraft, these videos probably won't mean much, but I hope you guys enjoy them anyway.

Do you play Minecraft PPP? looks like fun!

Curry and chips, but good chips from a real chippy cooked in lard the way only the best chips are.
SO, usually, get the curry from the indian takaway or chinese, and get the chips somewhere else.

beef stew totally, but dont forget the dumplings, proper dumplings made with suet.

And for snacks, soup and toast, but proper toast with butter and not "spread"
Dunk hot buttered toast in soup .

Curry and chips I've never tried! Sounds very comforting.

I have some Macsweens haggis to go with tatties and neeps, tho!
Here's was Bush thought of haggis when he visited Scotland:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8480795.stm
What a coward!

Here's a nice rendition of the Burns ode to a haggis:



Becca, your stew sounds good. I'm very fond of beef with root veggies. Guinness is also a great addition.

I've just picked up some ginger, to make some carrot and ginger soup.

Rossy, one of my fondest memories if Wales is faggots.

Good morning Eglantine, I love haggis, but the last time I cooked it, well it went wrong.
Thi is what happened.
Simultaneously to boiling the haggis in a seperate pan, i was doing potatoes and some veg and a gravy.
The idea wa to have mashed potatoes with grated cheese on top for ectra cholesterol, as my cholesterol was much to low at the time.

Anyways, being carefull to not over boil the spuds which makes a mess on the cooker that i allways leave for weeks untill it is baked on and very hard to remove, I took my eye off the ball so to speak and just preumed the haggisis ( there were two in the pan) is that HagissI ??
Anyways, I thought they were fine.

They werent, they had popped, exploded, and the insides had totally come out of their stomache lining.


I rescued the situation, by pouring the boiling water through a sieve, but then had a sieve full of something that looked like mince rather than proud and round haggisi's.

Anyways, this went great with the gravy, and spuds and veg and was perfectly edible allthough aesthetically inept.

How do you stop them exploding?

First, place your haggis in generous large square of foil. Wrap the foil up the sides into a top-knot.
Next, place your haggis in a mid-large pan with 2cm/1 inch of water in the bottom. Put on lid, loosely.
Finally, put your pan onto a *really gentle* heat. The idea is to gently heat through over 60 minutes. If water runs low, add a bit more.
Under these conditions, your haggis should not pop.

Only ever eat a Macsween's haggis. They are the best.

Excellent, I never knew!! there was me boiling in at least two litres of water...
Foil, thats the trick.
Thank you, i love haggis's.
And its nearly haggis hunting season.
I love walking out on the moors and settin traps rather than shooting them!