h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Reading all the entries about Vinyls I realise how much older I am that all of you because in my day,

My hero was Frankie boy - none other thatn Farnk Sinatra.

The fact that he had some dubious friends did not actually worry me, but I would have preferred him not ho have had them. !!

But "Oh"! that voice. I still feel

"Thrills run up and down my spine,
"Aladdin's lamp is mine
"And you are here beside me.....!

Oh dear! how pathetic can I get. !!

Mind you I also loved the Qunitet of the Hot Club of France whose marvellous rhythm never fails to make me want to waltz right out of my wheelchair.
I heard Stephen Grapelli playing both in South Africa and also in Paris.

Unfortunately never heard the full Quntet playing with that marvellous left handed guitarist whose name escapes me at the moment. Oh dear, there are a lot of excapees coming on. !!!

I must admit that I have great difficulty even trying to listen to modern "jazz" now. If in fact it is jazz......... !!



CME AR80 nearly 93

17/III/2010 6.21 GMT

Hello there Christiane!

Now why would it be pathetic to like Frank Sinatra? You like what you like!

I wish I knew the music of the 40's and earlier better! I'm currently working on expanding my music collection ... but being a child of the '80's, that's where most of my taste resides ... but I'm also trying to keep up with good music of the present ... and also have quite a bit of classical music as well.

My mom has some nice records here ... I wish she got more, in her day, since I like what she likes most of the time.

So anyways enjoy your music!

All the best,

Willem

Very dear Willem,

Thank you for your super letter. I was so pleased to receuve it. You have no idea how much I am missubg Keith. specially as when one is old, there are not many special people who can be bothered to see one. It is an errrand of mercy to most people, and that makes it even lonelier. !! I do not want to go into ah old age home so it really is my fault I suppose.

Anyway, a thousand thanks for your kindess.

Very much affection

Christiane
AR80 nearly 82

17/III/2010 10 15 GMT

Was it Django Reinhardt on guitar?

Reinhardt was right-handed, with a damaged left hand. I saw them at Richmond Theatre

Christiane, I loved Stephan Grappelli but didn't know about this, I only knew him as a soloist, and with the other violinist whose name escapes me My parents would be 110 and 107 if still alive and my musical memories go way back. My parents had entirely different tastes in music so I got the lot

Click on this and enjoy and there are lots more:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTU9oBw99oM

Websailor

Christiane, this should bring back memories for you. Oh, dear, I have just been told to turn the sound down

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsHyO7KyhME&feature=related

Websailor

There's a restaurant near here that always seems to be playing Frank Sinatra in the bathroom.

Yehudi Menuhin was the name that escaped me. I remember them duetting and it was brilliant.

Websailor

I love Yehudi Menuhin's work.

You will like this then paulh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46AGXFJWakg


Christiane, thanks for reminding us of such lovely music. Now I really must get on with other things

Websailor

Dear Gnoman,

Of course it was Django Rheinhardt on guitar. I also cannot remember what he had wrong with one of his hands - I think some fingers missing. But my goodness - what absolutely sublime rhythym.

Thank you for being my alte(?)-memoire.!! No accents I am afraid I do not have them on my keyborad. !! Hope your Paris trip is everything that you wish it to be. I remember that marvellous Sacre Coeur. Which all Parisians dislike intensely, but which I, in(with?) my lack of artistic knowledge absolutely love. My Papa had booked us in to the Scribe Hotel on, I think, the Boulevard des Italiens.(?) My goodness I think that I remember now; Papa and Granpere had suites and my two younger brothers and myself had rooms right at the top of the hotel which were, I believe, the cheap rooms probably for the domestics of the ~"filthy rich". !!

You know I think I most certainly did hear Frankie that afternoon. I took my two young brothers and we went down to a music hall quite near the Scribe, and I am sure that I heard him. It would have been in about 1953/54 I think. My goodness. No wonder I have such vivid memories of him.

Enjoy yourselves all of you. "Les jeunes filles" are going to have a wonderful time I am sure. Do pop into the opera as well if you can. And also Montmartre. I have a marvellous painting in oils which I bought from an artist in the Place de Tertre(?). It is an oblong canvas, full of colour and life, and at the top of the painting is the dome of the Sacre Coeur. Total kitsch I suppose but I love it. And do try and go on a boat excursion on the Seine. As far as I remember(?) you can get to Notre Dame that way as well. and go to that marvellous science museum. I cannot remember where it is. !!

Oh dear, I must get back to "Tranquillizing" my "sheep". It really is a very good memory exercise.

Have a great time my frined.

Christiane
AR80 nearly 82

18/III/2010 6.55 GMT(Incidentally when do I change this GMT?)

I'm sure we all have favorite paintings that nobody else likes. The paintings in my sister's house make me scratch my head, but she likes them fine.

Then there are the paintings that pretty much everybody likes. I had a great aunt whose husband painted a large wall painting of a dog--some sort of pointer--in a swamp, pointing at some sort of prey. It's gorgeous. We've had it restored, and it has a place of honor on the wall in my parents' living room.

Hello Christiane,

I remember watching repeats of the 'rat pack' films in his younger day and Frank Sinitra looked so skinny as though he needed a good feed but he made up in later years.

I still like listening to him singing and he has a way of singing which is quite unique. My favourites from the rat pack were: Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin.

I don't know if you ever watched Star Trek Deep Space Nine but there is a holosuite (holoprojection) called Vic Fontaine which sings in a similar style to the Rat pack singers.

I find modern songs nowadays very insipid, dull and monotonous and some quite silly.

I have heard modern jazz and it's not a patch on Jazz/Swing.

Katrine

I've often heard people make the point that Frank Sinatra did not have an exceptional voice. I think that they miss the point about what singing is. Sinatra had style. His diction was impeccable, yet it never sounded labored or exaggerated. His phrasing was elegant. He made singing seem so easy that people who don't know what real singing is were lulled into thinking that Sinatra wasn't working hard enough at it to be doing it well. Quite the opposite, actually! It takes a lot of work to make singing seem that easy and natural. Sinatra even took cues from wind instrument players, who developed techniques for continuous intake of breath through the nose so that they never seemed to be taking a breath. This is pretty revolutionary for the average singer to attempt. Sinatra was truly pretty advanced as a singer. I really enjoy his aesthetic.

Very dear Katrine and Paulh,

I am so pleased that you both share my pleasure and enthusiasim for Frank Sinatra.You have made a wonderful analysis of his voice Paul. It does seem so effortless and yet it probably needed an enormous amount of work and concentration to make it appear so. I found a whole lot opf Frank Sinatra fan clubs yesterday thanks to some leads that websailor gave me. I wastrying to join some so that I could get the video and recordings which seem to still be produced. Without much success I must admot.

Goodness me, he did have a raw deal. A guy from the wrong side of the tracks, who made it to the top, married very beautiful women, was a success in spite of his humble and difficult childhood conditions. In those days this was not applauded or priased. What a duifference wI think. - and hope.

I had the hugest catastrophe yesterday. I lost all of my email addresses, so can no longer contact friends of many years. !! I have a dear young person who is helping me, and between the two of us she is trying to construct or recapture the old "contact" list. anyway, as ususl I am trying to be philosophical but I felt quite ill with anguish yesterday.

Today I have to go to the optician. It is a question of the second appointmnet and putting drops in my eyes waiting for twenty minutes and then examining them. Apparently my pupils are so small that he cannot see intp the interior of my eyes.No wonder I am having difficulty seeing out....! |I believe he thinks it is because of my diabetes which unfortunately was not daignosed for ages. Ah well. Ones lives and learns. thank goodness I have kind people around me.

With a great deal of affection

Christiane.
AlsoRan80

19/III/2010 6.40 GMT

Christiane, I don't if this book is available in your area, but if it is, you might want to read it: "Growing Up Again: Life, Loves, and Oh Yeah, Diabetes by Mary Tyler Moore." Mary Tyler Moore talks a lot about the effect of diabetes on her eyes. She's had operations. She has very little peripheral vision left, which has made for some awkward moments at parties and on the street. But she copes, and is going forward with her life.

I'm sorry that your diabetes was not discovered earlier. I had a great aunt whose diabetes wasn't caught until a lot of damage had been done. As a precaution, I insist on having low-glycemic snacks between every meal, and they all have a bit of protein in them, to keep my blood sugar from going too high or low. As far as I can tell, this is working very well.

The rule of thumb is that if you are borderline diabetic (between 100 and 130 whatevers), within ten years you'll advance to full-fledged diabetes. It's wise not to let yourself get to that stage, and there really are some things that can be done. probably the biggest challenge in these days when food is all around us is to retrain your mind so that you don't eat as if the world is about to end at every meal. You'll be able to get more food. It's not as if you're going to starve. A nice, delicious snack with nuts and fruits in it can be yours in two or three hours. Instead of a few huge meals, you can eat small amounts six or seven times every day, and you will feel good and maybe lose some extra weight. Which reminds me that I need to go eat a few carrot brownies now.

Sinatra was my husband's favorite singer. He was fortunate enough to see him in concert several times over the years. We had Sinatra albums playing in the house a lot. I even played a particular favorite of his at his funeral. It's hard to find someone with a better style, way of interpreting a song or however you put it. you know what I mean, I hope.

Diabetes is the modern scourge it seems. I hope you can keep it under control. As delicious as starchy foods and desserts are, we need to be very careful about them.

You can still enjoy them in modest amounts. The rule of thumb is no more than 100 grams of carbohydrates of any kind at a single meal. For some people, this needs to be even less than 100.

Hello Christiane and everyone else! Websailor, I just would like to say, I really enjoyed those 'oldie' YouTube music videos!

All the best to everybody,

Willem