Saturn, the bringer of age

In another mini-tradition (as you will have gathered, I like my routines and rituals) it's Saturday night, Jan is out shopping and the boy is (supposedly) on his way back from town where he has been doing whatever it is that teenagers find to do on a chilly afternoon. Thus I have the house to myself for an hour or so, I have a gingerbread latte, three cats (two within mithering distance and one on the radiator shelf) and a dog snoozing on his big cushion and I've picked out an album to listen to on the music system.

Tonight's choice is the Isao Tomita's electronic rendition of Holst's Planets Suite which I have loved ever since hearing it back in the late 70s not long after it was released. It was somewhat controversial at the time to say the least, with the musical purists throwing their hands up in horror at the radical interpretation, but I think it still holds up well today. The analog synthesizers that Tomita uses have a great deal of warmth and character and he uses lots of effects in the mix. I picked up a vinyl recording in the 80s which I still have up in the loft, I think. If you want to hear a sample, it's all on youtube but it's definitely worth getting a proper recording.

It was an early-ish start today with a trip to Leeds for an OU tutorial - definitely worth going with lots of useful pointers for the first TMA. I also had question answered that had been puzzling me - I thought I was doing something wrong with the bit of code that I am working on for my project, but apparently it's a quirk of the OU Workspace window in the IDE that was doing something weird. Entering the lines to test the class one at a time rather than trying to execute them all at the same time fixes the problem apparently.

After the tutorial and a bite to eat in Subway we returned via Ikea to exchange a table top (it's a long story). I was feeling a bit stressed with navigating the complicated road layout round that junction, and the prospect of Ikea car park on a Saturday afternoon is enough to give the stoutest yeoman conniptions, but fortunately we only needed to go to the (comparatively quiet) returns department and there was no problem with swapping it for the one we needed. So hurrah.

Back home for a much needed snooze, and that's us about up to date. Oh, and I've just been out to give the rough beast slouching up the hill a lift from the bus stop.

Time for Saturday night Rock Band!