Listening again and again to the Beatles Love. I thought it would be good but not that good. As others have said it makes songs you’ve grown up with and examined to death sound fresh and vibrant. The ‘mashing’ of bits of one song into another is done with care and, in most cases, restraint. (The only one I don’t agree with is the outro to Strawberry Fields which is a bit like ‘let’s throw lots of samples in – ooh here’s a good one!’) That’s small criticism compared with the overwhelming success of the project. I was choked at Eleanor Rigby, thrilled by Within You Without You and amazed at While My Guitar Gently Weeps. But even the relatively untouched songs come to new life, especially in the accompanying surround sound DVD-audio. The power of I Want to Hold Your Hand and Come Together is astonishing.
Drove into Edinburgh with Madame and came away with new coats and a shirt. This is my annual buying clothes session. I usually have to be cajoled to part with money for tailorware but always enjoy it in the end. In fact it’s getting easier and I’m really pleased with the swish suit I bought before Christmas and the lovely black wool coat I bought today.
Also used some Waterstones gift vouchers to get the new book by my favourite religious writer Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation: The World in the Time of Buddha, Socrates, Confucius and Jeremiah, about the so-called Axial Age when city civilisation had come into its own and the pillars of the belief systems that have sustained (and plagued) us for the last 5000 years came into being. But this is in the queue for reading behind Sham and the Derren Brown book.