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Showing posts from January, 2022

Life, by Keith Richards

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"with James Fox" . Thoroughly engrossing, and eye opening. It's a quick read, despite topping 600 pages; and you sense it could have been much longer and still have stuff left out. For me, it strikes an ideal balance in its content. It covers almost everything you want it to cover, and despite its contradictions and changing moods - actually, because of those things - it feels honest and direct, and presents a pretty complete picture of the man . I'm in an odd position, as someone who despite being in a great demographic to be a Rolling Stones fan - I'm twelve years younger than Richards - I never really paid them much attention, and only once bought a Stones record, for a mate for his 21st. I instinctively preferred their sound to the Beatles' ie. for its explicit blues base. But, well, hard to say, apart from getting into prog early on. However, one was always aware of the Rolling Stones. They were often in the news , in reports which also mentioned the poli

2021: Bring On The Giant Asteroid

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Quite. The apocalyptic wish for a giant asteroid, sure, does reflect emotions I find it hard to let go of about 2021; however, it sort of spins off one of the most hopeful things all year which has just occurred, namely the launch of NASA's fab new space telescope . Some will nitpick forever about projects like this, especially the money, but it offers a prospect of discoveries even more wildly amazing than Hubble, and that can retire happily with all that it achieved for human knowledge. So, despite an inclination to get down about what I 'only' managed this year, let's talk about some worthwhile cultural things which I did or enjoyed, despite some tough stuff which happened. I actually saw two films in the cinema . This isn't enough to pretend to comment on 'the year in film' or anything like that, but it meant a lot to me, having that experience which I enjoy a lot. I saw Dune in one of the new little boutique cinemas, the sort where they bring food to y