Day 784

Aka Monday 25^th March 2019

Today I walked 4.63km (2.88miles) which took 1 hour 4 minutes and 4 seconds, which burnt 530 calories and took 6,609 steps…while listening to ‘Everywhere At The End Of Time: Stage 1’ by ‘The Caretaker’…

…I first heard the ‘The Caretaker’ on a couple of compilations released by ‘V/VM’ (‘The Caretaker’ was one of his aliases) and dug their sound, which is basically old dancehall (not in the Jamaican sense) and ballroom 78’s which, in tribute to ‘The Shining’ (in which Jack Nicholson plays a caretaker) and the ballroom scene, are then altered and processed to add metallic/computer-like glitches and echo and to retain their dustiness, so that they sound like they haven’t been dusted or cleaned since the ‘20’s and ‘30’s and are being played through a faulty hi-fi. The latest ‘The Caretaker’ albums have used this approach to look at and convey the effects of mental disorder and ill-health, such as Alzheimer’s.

On ‘Everywhere At The End Of Time: Stage 1’ ‘The Caretaker’ takes a restrained approach is to the tracks, with minimal glitchyness, but plenty of dust and echo, which makes sense as this is only Stage 1. My description might make it sound like the album would be hard or annoying to listen too, but the reverse is true. The album has a hypnotic, almost trance like effect, allowing to contemplate on the passing of time and the dying of memories and the mind. 8/10.  

…when I got home, I completed and submitted application for a policy adviser post and I did the G2 Crossword:

…which got the week off to an okay start as I got an Illuminati score for Monday’s crossword (aka I had to cheat on five of the 23 clues). Would have gone a tad better if I hadn’t been so quick on the draw, like for ‘not so difficult’ I assumed the answer was ‘easiest’ and didn’t bother to check if it fitted the squares (it did not, one letter too long!), but at least I learnt that ‘epigram’ means ‘witty saying’ and that ‘Sedge’ is a  ‘grass-like plant growing in wet places’.