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Can you hear us pumping on your stereo ?
And part three of the "This morning, on the way to work..." series:
William, my elderly car, has recently developed a Really Serious Fault. OK, so there's the mysterious and terrifying clunking noise whenever I brake while in reverse. There's the schizophrenic central locking. There's the increasingly strange behaviour of the stalk which controls the lights and indicators. There's the mystifying and irregular problem with the electrics.
But none of these are serious. The real issue here is that in the last couple of weeks, the stereo has stopped working. I don't mind the clunking and the inability to indicate right sometimes, but really, one has to draw the line somewhere. I do have a new (well, second hand) stereo waiting to be fitted - but there's no point doing that till the aforementioned problems with the electrics have been investigated.
However, this morning, I suddenly had a fit of inspiration, tested it and confirmed: only the tape deck is broken. The radio still works. Hurrah!
Now, as far as I can tell, car radios (radii?) come in two flavours. There's the ones that other people operate, which switch smoothly from channel to channel, picking up the station clearly. Then there's the ones I operate, which always play half a local station no one's heard of, and half white noise. Which will scan along FM from 90 to 110 without ever finding Radio One - or indeed anything else identifiable - or arbitrarily refuse to play anything but Medium Wave.
Some kind soul in the past seems to have tuned my car radio to Classic FM - and it was playing merrily, with beautifully clear reception. I know better than to dick around with something that ain't broke, so we had Classic FM this morning.
Half way to work, I realised that I'd been able to identify, or at least say something moderately intelligent about, every piece I'd heard. Which left me feeling pleasingly educated. Of course, there is the theory that says that Classic FM is repulsively populist, and that any muppet who can tell Taverner from Tavener can identify each track best out of three. But enough of that.
Not that I was actually always correct, of course. I heard the variations on Simple Gifts, which I cheerfully attributed to Vaughan Williams instead of Aaron Copland (kind of "right guy, wrong country", there.) And I went "ooh, ooh, ooh, I know this" all the way through Saint-Saëns' The Swan without ever coming to any very serious conclusion. I appear to know nothing about Elgar. Was pleased with myself to be able to dredge the name Albeniz out of my head at the appropriate juncture, though.
And I really, really do need new speakers - something that was obvious when I dismantled them the other day, and lots of crumbly ick fell out of where the membrane ought to have been. The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves turned up full belt just about finished the poor things off.
I think I could quite get to like this classical music on the way to work idea, though.
Update: I said a while ago I was going to stop putting cut-tags in which didn't indicate what was behind them. I haven't stopped, have I ? This one hides a bit of a witter about classical music on the radio.
William, my elderly car, has recently developed a Really Serious Fault. OK, so there's the mysterious and terrifying clunking noise whenever I brake while in reverse. There's the schizophrenic central locking. There's the increasingly strange behaviour of the stalk which controls the lights and indicators. There's the mystifying and irregular problem with the electrics.
But none of these are serious. The real issue here is that in the last couple of weeks, the stereo has stopped working. I don't mind the clunking and the inability to indicate right sometimes, but really, one has to draw the line somewhere. I do have a new (well, second hand) stereo waiting to be fitted - but there's no point doing that till the aforementioned problems with the electrics have been investigated.
However, this morning, I suddenly had a fit of inspiration, tested it and confirmed: only the tape deck is broken. The radio still works. Hurrah!
Now, as far as I can tell, car radios (radii?) come in two flavours. There's the ones that other people operate, which switch smoothly from channel to channel, picking up the station clearly. Then there's the ones I operate, which always play half a local station no one's heard of, and half white noise. Which will scan along FM from 90 to 110 without ever finding Radio One - or indeed anything else identifiable - or arbitrarily refuse to play anything but Medium Wave.
Some kind soul in the past seems to have tuned my car radio to Classic FM - and it was playing merrily, with beautifully clear reception. I know better than to dick around with something that ain't broke, so we had Classic FM this morning.
Half way to work, I realised that I'd been able to identify, or at least say something moderately intelligent about, every piece I'd heard. Which left me feeling pleasingly educated. Of course, there is the theory that says that Classic FM is repulsively populist, and that any muppet who can tell Taverner from Tavener can identify each track best out of three. But enough of that.
Not that I was actually always correct, of course. I heard the variations on Simple Gifts, which I cheerfully attributed to Vaughan Williams instead of Aaron Copland (kind of "right guy, wrong country", there.) And I went "ooh, ooh, ooh, I know this" all the way through Saint-Saëns' The Swan without ever coming to any very serious conclusion. I appear to know nothing about Elgar. Was pleased with myself to be able to dredge the name Albeniz out of my head at the appropriate juncture, though.
And I really, really do need new speakers - something that was obvious when I dismantled them the other day, and lots of crumbly ick fell out of where the membrane ought to have been. The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves turned up full belt just about finished the poor things off.
I think I could quite get to like this classical music on the way to work idea, though.
Update: I said a while ago I was going to stop putting cut-tags in which didn't indicate what was behind them. I haven't stopped, have I ? This one hides a bit of a witter about classical music on the radio.
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I also find it a lot better than Radio 3, because Radio 3 seem to less understand the concept of background noise, and put on music that goes VERY VERY LOUD and then very very quiet so that you have to turn it right up to hear it over the prat in the next lane who thinks revving his engine will make his dick grow and then SUDDENLY VERY LOUD AND THIS TIME IT'S LOUDER BECAUSE OF COURSE THE VOLUME IS LOUD AND AAAAA TURN IT DOWN and then it finishes and they have somebody muttering under their breath about it.
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That's a pretty fair criticism. I may start listening to Classic FM instead.
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It's not just classical music which is affected by this. I recently read an editorial rant on the website of one of the sterophile magazines complaining of the recording levels of modern popular CDs. In particular, they are mostly mixed to be very loud pretty much continuously. This of course means that the bits that are supposed to be even louder get clipped and distorted as the peaks exceed the CD maximum. They were complaining that this means that many of the rereleases of 70s and 80s classic rock are actually much worse than the original recordings.
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I'm intrigued, now. Do you know whether this is clipped and distorted in the ears of a rampant get-me-my-gold-phono-plugs-and-green-pen stereophile, or in such a way that's actually discernible to normal people ?
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A related article is compares average decibel levels.
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Oh no! Another good point. Now I don't know who I am or where I live!!!
Ahem. I'm calmer now. Radio 3 at home and Classic FM in the car may be the solution here.
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I've never heard of him.
Admittedly, you don't inspire me to want to. What era are we talking here ?
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William
Re: William
Depends how you look at these things: he's old, knackered, and extremely idiosyncratic. On the other hand, a fourteen year old car, for which I paid £100 a few years ago, and he's doing pretty well.
<touches wood> He's only once broken down so chronically that I wouldn't have been able to get home - and that was 200 yards from my house after a sixty mile journey. Other than that, he's been damn reliable. Just a bit clunky :)
Don't listen to anything
Re: William
Re: William
Much I might like to have a car that always started the first time of asking and didn't scare passengers, there's also a lot to be said for having a car that you don't need to care about much. If someone bumps me in a car park and drives off - I'll knock out the dent with a plank and a lump hammer, same as I did the last one. If someone breaks in - I'll patch it back together, and the locks probably still won't work properly. Hell, if someone steals it - I've had a good £100-quidsworth, and it won't be the end of the world.
Much easier than all this worrying :)
(Oh, and Pegueot + H-reg => galvanised body => very little rust. Hurrah!)
Re: William
<boom-tish>
Re: William
Lots of cars nominally have names.
Re: William
OTOH, I don't blame you for forgetting :)
Re: William
On the other hand, my point stands: you don't refer to your car by name, so it doesn't really count.
Re: William
As my mother pointed out to me in an email, this is something of a lie.
Or a typo, at least. 309, it should have said.