More Meanderings and a Mug.

When I was walking around Uttoxeter this morning I was struck by how ugly everybody was. And then I caught sight of my reflection in a shop window. Whoever it was looking back at me, he was ugly too.

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According to Blogger stats I’ve been getting an insane number of visits over the past few months – nearly 20,000 this month alone. Needless to say, I don’t believe it. I’m quite sure it’s either something to do with bots or a glitch in the system. But it was interesting to see the lists of supposedly accessed posts that came with it. There were hundreds of them every day, and I spent many an idle half hour reading them again.

It made me a little sad because as well as reading the posts I also read the comments that came along with them. Back in the day there were twenty or thirty people who used to comment regularly. Many of the comments turned into conversations, and the people who left them became my social circle. I would even say that some of them became friends. They occupied my firmament during my descent into the underworld of reclusiveness. And now they’re long gone. They’re mostly what I was referring to when I wrote in a recent post: ‘…finding the night sky utterly devoid of stars.’ If any of them are still perusing my scribbles silently, I should like to thank them and wish them all a splendid 2024.

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I discovered today that one of my favourite pop songs from around twenty-odd years ago was actually a cover of a Russian pop song. I subsequently thought of the pantheon of major league classical composers which includes so many Russians, and the power of Russian folk music, and the multi-instrumental skills of a Russian lady called Alina Gingertail (on YouTube), and another Russian lady called Elena Koptova who transcribes Gaelic folk and other melodies for the cello (also on YouTube), and came to the tentative conclusion that music must be a strong component of the Russian soul. All these decades of life and it’s never occurred to me before.

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I felt weak and ill for most of today, but at least I bought a new mug (another one.) It’s matt black and bulbous. 

Happy New Year