My Favourite Poem

... (IN GERMAN!!)

Wanderers Nachtlied II (Wanderer's Night Song II) by JW Goethe Germany's "national poet" who has been deified more perhaps than any other poet who ever lived. He wrote it on the evening of September 6, 1780. "A moment preserved in history" (you could say...)...

Here goes:

Über allen Gipfeln
Ist Ruh,
In allen Wipfeln
Spürest du
Kaum einen Hauch;
Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde.
Warte nur, balde
Ruhest du auch.

An internet-found translation:

Above, all the summits
are still.
In all the tree-tops
you will
feel but the dew.
The birds in the forest ceased talking.
Wait: after walking
you shall rest, too.

I'd translate it (prosically) thus:

Over all the peaks
is peace.
Over all the treetops
you feel
barely a breath.
The birds silent in the forest;
just wait
... soon
you
are calm too ...

Isn't that excellent?

Prior to my Central European escapade, I'm reading all the German I can ...

Frictional Friday: Or - Why I'm Not Throwing My Record Collection Out

THE FRICTION IS ALL in my head. I have to make things plain for Monday when Evilstein the landlord has vowed to send in henchmen to rip out my window and replace with double glazing. Which is fine. But why wait till the cusp of December to do it?

Mother Hubbard gave me some records - maybe 80 or 100 discs - from her housemate to sell a couple of months ago. She said I could keep the money. Which was very generous of her, I thought. They are mostly ex-library copies of classical music so they're all plasticked up and covered in stickers, barcodes, stamps and lengths of tape. So I doubt I would get much more than 50p each for them if I did try and sell them...

They're stuff like "Emmanuel Chabrier: Piano Music (complete). Rena Kyriakou, Piano," - Camden Libraries. And "Ghena Dimitrova - Puccini Arias" - including O Mio Babbio Caro - Holborn Library.

I do not want to sell them as I've always wanted a classical music collection. And vinyl (especially from an old analogue master) can actually sound warmer, better than CD. I don't see why I should chuck these just because I've no turntable at present and Evilstein will think they're "clutter".

Even my Tubular Bells (it's all vinyl), I was told might only make £3 on Ebay. Though the person telling had a vested interest in keeping my expectations low as he deals in music...

No I want to keep this collection. One thing I always wanted to do on getting clean (if I ever manage it) would be to learn aout classical music. Like most people I know loads of tunes from television adverts and films but hardly know what any are actually called. Or who they're by!

I think Katherine Jenkins, who's only in her early 20s, has a fantastically rich, mature voice. Partly this is bc she's a mezzo and so has a mellower, deeper range anyhow. It's a shame for her that most of the best repertoire was written for the more prized (yet so very often simply shriller) soprano voice. Miss Jenkins says she actually smashed glass once by hitting a top A, a story she repeats on the Ready Steady Cook Ave Maria clip that's still in my sidebar.

Maybe some modern composer will be inspired by Miss Jenkins's unique talent and write some new arias specially for her. Surely the era of modern "serious" music having to consist of discordant orchestras' tortured wailings - like hearing tuning up on a bad LSD trip - has now passed. And finally we can have great tunes back again. Like in the eras of Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms... So what if we live in an age of nuclear threats, terrorism and climactic destruction? Doesn't mean the music has to be ugly too!

Well no big news of anything today. I'm getting ready to see my Mum tomorrow.

No more roboscandal. I thought Itchy had escaped again last night. But it was just me nightmaring...

I'm off now to do some of my memoirs. I have to wrok out where this book is going (not that I don't obviously know my own lifestory. I have to plan it out a little now. All I was doing thus far was simply scribbling off the top of my head!)

Have a cheery weekend everyone!

PS Isn't that Sushibar Clip classic~?!?

Today's Vid:
Katherine Jenkins: I Vow to Thee My Country

The Brittlest Hobo

DOES ANYONE OUT THERE know anyone; or better still are any of you numbered among the tribe of (mainly American, as far as I know as it's so easy to hop long distances) professional freight-train hoppers. Dedicated to a life on the rails, they jump aboard one of those mile-long trains as they crawl past and ride from state to state free of charge, dodging the rail authroities and hobnobbing with other hoes from the bo community at passes and junctions when they rest. Seriously, I am fascinated by that life. I've lived near a spot where goods trains used to trundle at a crawl, and have often been tempted to ... take a wee ride and see where I end up ..!

I have a nasty suspicion I'd have found myself cowering in Willesden Junction goods yard, pretending to be a shadow as engines decoupled and angry shunter-driver telephoned the transport police between drags on a fag and nibbles on his wife's home-made cheese sandwich.

Or, knowing my luck, the driver would put his foot down, taking a sharp right at Willesden Junction (is there actually a junction at Willesden? I'm prattling from the top of my head here ...) whizzing me 95 mph Northbound to the auto-tipping sludge reprocessing facilities at Sellafield nuclear dumping site 300 miles NE in Cucumbria.

British railways, I might add, are highly terrorist-resistent with nightly body-heat-seeking helecopter patrols. Trespassing on the line is taken so seriously that in Victorian times it was punishable by a free cruise to Australia. (But then again, so was stealing a bread roll ...) Anyway: if I did hitch a ride I'd be risking big trouble from the tranny police. Who, apart from regulating our railways, spend the other half of their time busting gentlemen with saggy false eyelashes and Judy Garland fright wigs :: Wah-wah-waaaaah!!

So roll up, roll up! All your train-hopping tales here, please!!

(Or failing that, just tell me of the time you got caught riding without a ticket. (If you like. (Well, whatever.)))

Click for Freight Train Riders of America

Note the five other links provide fascinating info also. Which I only discovered, incidentally, after composing this post ....