The Days of Vinyl and Roses

Just back from a short red hot trip to the Southwest US where it really was very very very very hot ! We had a black hire car in the desert, thank you Mr Avis..... Palm Springs remains ultra-kitsch, but be informed the Blue Guitar club now seems to have gone, otherwise all seems 'very liberace' in the nicest possible way :-) Had a fab suite in Phoenix, huge and with 16 chairs of various descriptions no less - this is a personal record for Doug. Hotel rooms, of course, are graded according to number of TVs, fridges, loos, bathrooms, chairs ! Doug caught a baseball at the Diamondbacks game, so keeps it ! Susan would have kept the bruise if it had gone through his hands :-) Plus they let Doug win in Las Vegas - hoorah - and we saw this sign on the back of a cab there. San Diego panda watching rounded off another fine trip.

Just recently Doug has rediscovered vinyl, like as in LP records - but this time classical LPs from the late 50's and early 60's. These not only can be suberb recordings of fine performances, they need loadsa equipment to play and realise their true potential (!) We trolled around looking for cartridges, stylii etc etc and eventually bought a fine cartridge from Fred Longworth in Normal Heights, San Diego - he runs a vintage repair store there. Thanks Fred, it sounds fine !

Here's the cover of a fine old vinyl 10" Decca LP from 1958 of some Strauss lieder, 4 last songs, sung by Lisa Della Casa. If you haven't heard this, you're missing out, it's just beautiful - at risk of seeming liberace-soppy :-)

ttfn