Live365

Continue to be amazed and delighted by the internet radio fare on offer at Live365.com. I am so impressed by quality of the audio...Having broadband certainly helps...I'm getting audio streamed at "DSL" rate, which turns it pretty well instantly in to CD quality.
Amazing. Currently tuned into:
WJYC - Jazz Y Clave

This is a high voltage Latin Jazz station.

If you want to avoid pop-ups and audio commercials, you can subscribe for around $4.99 a month. I haven't yet seen the need to subscribe (as I find the free service good enough in itself), though may get round to it sometime.

I think this is portal is truly worth a try!

Sad News to come home to...Nina Simone

Sad News...The news came out today that Nina Simone died yesterday in Southern France, aged 70.
Was listening to Radio 3 on Saturday, and picked up some of Matthew Parris, the political diarist, outlining his "Private Passions". He chose a wonderful Nina Simone song, a really celebratory song about freedom...After it ended, he said, "And where is Nina Simone?"...I think just gently registering that she's been kind of "quiet" for a while...Nonetheless, one of those jarring coincidences.
I recall in particular Nina Simone's heart-rendering rendition of "Baltimore"...First heard it in 1984, when in the midst of a very bad and crazy time. It was a song that helped me through that period, and to which I constantly returned.

Sad news to come home to, after a wonderful afternoon walking across Hampstead Heath with a good friend, in the delicious summery weather of the Bank Holiday.
This was capped with a browse around Waterstones books shop (where, for no apparent reason, I ended up buying a book on Javascript) and a sumptuous Chinese meal on Hampstead High Street, called "Opera"...

If I had to spend the rest of this year eating supper in "Opera", and listening to "Baltimore" performed by Nina Simoned during the day beforehand...Well, I'd have no complaints!

Vision from my bedroom window

Easter Sunday morning at 5.00 am...Had been up very late playing around on the computer, and speaking to a close friend in the USA on the phone...And was finally heading for bed.
Saw through my small, rectangular bedroom window the moon from afar. It was a beautiful site, shimmering in the distance, and about to fade away and make room for daybreak. The birdsong was so active, so tranquil. It was crisp, and cold outside, the breeze drifting through the window.