Despair

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This is not a poem.
It’s gasps for air.

Yesterday truly was a dark day.
Where do I begin?
Like a pack of cards everything fell.
My computer loaded up in safe mode.
I liked the word ‘safe’.
Felt like a comforting pair of hands.

The day before
There were two songs I’d heard
That I wanted to buy
on line.
I linked to itunes and pressed ‘buy’
Felt the world was just a light tap
beneath my fingers.

This is not a poem
It’s a cry of despair.

Itunes told me
the songs I wanted
were not available
I would have to upgrade to itunes
7 or something.
Did I want to upgrade?
To get two such songs
Yes of course
Then
Press here.

I pressed.
There were passwords
The nightmare like a suffocating cloth
was unfurling.
The teenager was called.
He knew the words and the numbers
and which digits to press.
Felt we were getting somewhere.
Me his marionette.


Installation almost complete.
The last few stages
Time dripping like sticky wax.
I was captive to the screen.
Which finally told me
My computer was not
up to date.
You need downloads
the teenager said.
Installation failed.

So yesterday
In safe mode
I thought
when it asked me again
about those
‘updates are available for your computer’
the ones I’d shied away from
because it was working fine
thank you
and I didn’t want to upset the balance.
This time I pressed
okay.

It took four hours
I did the ironing
the screen did not change.
I cleaned out the bathroom
Even the toothbrush cup
the screen did not change
The green line did not move.

When it finally finished
And I restarted the computer
And I bravely went to the web
Each page
despite broadband
took five minutes to load.

Still now I was updated
Itunes will now work.
I press for the update.
But the update failed.
The screen froze
Pages I’d finished with
Would not fold up
And go away.

I tried Global Pandora
And discovered the box is shut.
Plugs have been pulled out
Like so many teeth
And I’m left
With a gaping wound.

This is not a poem.
Each line is all
My computer will write
Before freezing
and leaving my fingers
cold.

This morning
It only took
forty-five minutes
For the computer
to load up
and get me here.

This is not a poem

It’s despair.

The Box is Open Again

.
Oh… there was the message Pandora was finally no more.

Agghh!

So I switched to Global Pandora …and discovered the site was down for maintenance.

Aaggghhh!

In desperation like a true music junkie I tried to register on Last FM. It wouldn’t let me log in.

Aaagggghhhh!

It did let me log in.

Ah!

It played horrible music.

Agghh!

It stopped playing horrible music.

Aaggghhh!

I think they were being swamped.

Aaagggghhhh!

Then I tried Global Pandora again.

“the box is open again”

Joy!

Aaaaahhhhhhh

I didn’t realise what an addicted music junkie I’ve become. Every song that plays is more precious than the last.

It’s wonderful.

Thank you whoever you are.

Pandora The Box is Open

...
Oh joy,
The box is open.
With luck Pandora will continue to play.
If you sign in as usual all your old favourite stations load up too.
There is hope.

Try http://globalpandora.com/

Fingers crossed.
It’s playing hope it continues for a long time.

There's also a petition at
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/SaveNetRadioUK/sign

Pandora

.
Break-ups are really difficult.
It seems I’m being abandoned.
It was done in the very modern way… by e-mail.
I was notified just the other day.
I’ve only a few more days left and then I am to be shut out.

Alas and alack.

Like most love affairs it began in the warmth of summer.

It was a chance mention on a Radio 4 programme (I never move the dial) of the name ‘Pandora‘. They were reviewing best web sites.

I tried Pandora, an Internet radio station, and so, so loved it. I even bought speakers so that the tinny sound that my little computer squeaked out could be amplified.

Pandora sits resplendent at the top of my favourites’ list: an internet radio station that really did play music that I liked.

I began to log on every day, even before I put my socks on, thumbing up the tracks that I liked and thumbing down the ones I wasn’t so keen on.

And then I began to buy (and surely that’s what ever musician wants to hear) all the songs that I really enjoyed so that I could hear them again in my car.

My itunes collection of songs suddenly grew from a miserable 20 or so songs to 160, as I discovered even more amazing new music.

I was buying music from musicians from all over the world.

That’s 120 new songs. In just over a year.

Before Pandora I only bought one CD a year, usually by bands I’d supported before. And that was it. You should see our Air collection!


However would I ever have heard the music of:

22 Pistepirkko
A.J. Roach
Alina
Estelle Hardin
Antimatter
ASG
The Be Good Tanyas
The Bittersweets
Cara Luft
Chocolate U.S.A.
Chris and Meredith Thompson
Chris Pureka
The Church
Dirt Road 14
Eric Bachmann
Espers
The Farm
Gaelic Storm
Gene Clark
The Grapes of Wrath
Grateful Dead
Great Lakes Myth Society
The Great Society
The Green Pajamas
The Innocence Mission
Iron and Wine
Jeffrey and Jack ewis
Jess Klein
Joel Rafael Band
Kate Wolf
Kathryn Williams
Kill Cheerleaders
Linda Thompson and Richard Thompson
Lisa Mednick
Listing Ship
Loudest Whisper
The Love Affair
Mark Abis
Mira
Nelly Furtado
The Only Children
Over the Rhine
The Patron Saints
Ray’s Vast Basement
Regina Hexaphone
Seal
Six Organs of Admittance
Slumber Party
Songs of Green Pheasant
Spooky Tooth
Starless and Bible Black
Sufjan Stevens
Tanakh
Tanya Donelly
Tom Mc Rae
Trees
Whip

that now sit in my itunes list if it wasn’t for Pandora? I doubt if many of those names are familiar.

I bought music made by all in the list above, either from itunes, or if not available there, by ordering their CDs.

These artists by allowing their music to be played for free brought a richness into my life. It was like a moving musical gallery. Buying one of the tracks was like buying a print of a great work of art.

Their music had something that spoke directly to me; for example my top played track, ‘Alone’ by Mira, has been played 261 times.

I would not have bought any of the above were it not for Pandora. Some tracks I bough as soon as I heard them for example ‘The Innocence Mission’. Others I heard many times before I suddenly realised how much they appealed to me for example ‘USB’.

I’m certain I can’t be alone in purchasing music that I first heard played for free on Pandora. There must be others who have done the same.

I think it is very short-sighted of whoever is shutting Pandora in the UK down.

How many more artists could I have added to the list if streaming to the UK was allowed to continue? How many new groups would I have discovered and then whose concerts I would then have gone to see?

I often spoke about Pandora, and I know that others who had their own radio station were also buying their very favourite tracks.

Ironically, Pandora by playing music for free was in fact supporting the music industry because people like me were buying!

And we are all so different.

Different people like different music. I doubt if there is a soul alive that would have the same list of purchased favourites that I have. It was wonderfully individualised, tailored marketing.

What fools they are for forcing the closure of Pandora in the UK.

Perhaps the creators of music will also feel sad to have lost a pair of ears.

Losing my radio station is a tragedy for me.

I am heart-broken.

I can only hope; since ‘Hope’ was the last virtue left in the box; that this decision will one day be reversed.

And soon.

Hammy est Mort

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Hammy the hamster died this morning.


He’d spent his last day next to my laptop lying on a warm hot water bottle, or in my hands. He wasn’t interested in eating or drinking instead his energies were taken up by simply breathing.

I placed him on a warm hot water bottle on the table next to my bed just after midnight.

I had fallen asleep when I was woken by the sound of the teenager going to the bathroom.

My room was dark and I was listening to the hamster’s breathing on the table next to me.

My eyes were closed.

There was a sudden flash like orange lightning. I opened my eyes and looked first towards the hamster and then towards the curtains expecting to hear thunder following on afterwards; though it was with surprise as the weather forecast was for flurries of snow and not for thunder and lightning. I nearly got up to ask the teenager if he’d seen the flash too, but I didn’t.

As I lay there I realised that the hamster’s breathing had stopped.

I didn’t get up to check nor did I put the light on. I knew that there was nothing more that I could do.

Earlier, I had gently cleansed his eyes with cotton buds, and cleaned the rest of his body. Having worried about him all day, held him, played music, turned him from time to time, wiped his mouth with a moist cotton bud I knew that there was little more that I could do.

Strangely, I felt very peaceful and not at all upset.

My eyes were closed when there was a second orange flash. Though this one, though as brief as the first, held momentarily the hamster’s face; not the tired expression that I’d been studying with concern all day but a bright-eyed hamster face. It vanished instantly.

I listened for the hamster breathing again.

There was silence.

It was nearly one o’clock in the morning.

I felt at peace and fell asleep.

This morning I knew what I would find.

I’ve washed him and I’m now drying his fur. His beautiful soft ears that were tightly furled have unfurled once more as I washed him in baby shampoo.

And as for those mysterious flashes?

I’ve just quickly searched the internet and found that:

‘Dr. Slawinski asserts a death flash” of electromagnetic radiation that is measurable in all living things.’

There’s also on http://books.google.com/books?id=UplEoBLXZNsC&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=slawinski+death&source=web&ots=z8-59RIQdl&sig=PxPZCF7n2fWpn492rVV9e-mUda0

Another reference that reads:

“Back in the ‘80s, Janusz Slawinski, a Polish physicist who was a faculty member of the Agricultural University at Wojska Polskiego in Poznan, posited that a death flash took place whenever an organism died, including humans. He described this flash as an emission of radiation ten to one thousand times stronger than normal and contained within it was information about the organism that just released it”

I’d never heard of such a phenomenon before; but I feel instinctively that this probably was what I too experienced.

Perhaps it was a phenomenon that is easier to observe when it is dark.

I wonder if the same event has not been observed in humans as there are often lights on or perhaps back in time flickering candles. Too bright a light may mask such an emanation.

Or perhaps people are too nervous about mentioning such an event.

It seems that his colleagues scoffed at Janusz Slawinski’s ideas. I guess here on this island blog visited by so few people I guess I can safely say and hopefully be believed that this is indeed what I did experience at the time Hammy died.

Canterbury Bell

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There is one lone Canterbury Bell flowering in my garden which I guess is pretty unusal for January 1st.
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It was peeping out from under a brick.


Near the nettles.


Near where the brambles are encroaching from the really wild garden next door.


Under the watchful eyes of a robin.


I think that my new year resolution must be to tidy up my own garden.


I've just had fun collaging the photo with itself and creating the image on this page. I just love the colours and the shades of colour in the borders.