One more step along the world I go

One more step along the world I go:

I really like the words to most popular hymns, but actually, this one leaves me cold - lyrically and melodically.

Nevertheless, it sums up my attitude to building the HO scale card model.

Glued together 2 sections of the roof - clearly, the angle of the chimney stack is wrong and will have to be re-done.

The end result.

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Currently listening to:

This CD really has stood the test of time.

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Last night's dinner:

Tried this cheapo Cassis from Lidl to concoct my Kir Cassis - very, very thin.

Smoked haddock, broccoli and mushrooms in cheese sauce.

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Still reading:

Just started 1993!!!

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Drumming practice update:

Found this really funny clip of a marching band in a Woody Allen film on youTube. Actually, I found the left hand technique of the street drummers - about 3 mins 55 seconds into the clip - really enlightening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LQj0ufQRdY

Samba class tonight - actually looking forward to it.

HO scale card models continued

Glued the attic/garret windows and chimney stacks into position.

Well, it had to be done OR every little bit helps.

What it should end up like.

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Currently listening to:

Glasgow University's student radio station.

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Last night's dinner:

Lamb chops and fried potatoes with mint.

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Still Reading:

Michael Palin's diaries on Kindle.

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Drumming practice update:

Concentrating on the right hand technique and trying to kill that habit I had of manipulating the stick through wrist movements.

Instead, one should hold the stick very loosely between thumb and first two fingers (as if one was holding a kitchen knife) and, keeping the forearm and wrist in line, move the forearm/wrist up and down so that the stick swings up on the up-swing, purely as a result of the momentum of the entire forearm/wrist moving upwards.

Spent an hour practising this.

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Miscellany:

Cycled to People's Palace at Glasgow Green for a roll and sausage.

The hand-drier in the toilets is utterly feeble - is there any excuse for that in these days of Dyson Blades etc.

Desisted this invitation under a bridge.

Nelson's Column, Glasgow Green

 There's a fine model of People's Palace and its surrounds within, not sure what scale it is.

On the way back, these people whizzed by:

The French Tricolore - as HO scale scenery

Not fully satisfied with the Lego superstructure behind the ceramic theatre - it presents too blank a facade. So, I thought I'd try filling the two vertical white spaces with a hanging tricolore of some kind - it is the National Theatre ........ after all.

The two blank spaces to be filled.

Coloured a strip of paper with pens.

Looks much better - but one tricolore is back to front!!!

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Currently listening to:

Teresa Berganza

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Last night's dinner:

Cheap half bottle of Champagne from Lidl's to make Kir Royale

Too much like Creamola Foam - will stick to the plebeian version next time.

Beef Stroganof with a cheap cut of beef.

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Currently reading:

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Drumming practice update:

I honestly think I'm getting somewhere with my Caixa technique.

More agonising over the scenery.

No doubt a classic problem in many if not all walks of life; a surfeit of riches to choose from.

Managers of football teams are supposed to be overjoyed when they have more good players for the positions they have to fill; "That's a good problem to be faced with!" But actually, they must be as exercised as I am having to fit all these HO scale buildings into the limited area of available baseboard.

In particular, I have had reservations about relegating the beautifully detailed card models that I have of Parisian buildings to the area in front of the station facade. I did this to allow the Lego buildings and the ceramic theatre facade (and I'm hell bent on placing the theatre somewhere since I went to the trouble of buying the damn thing!) to occupy the space next to the ceramic church. And I placed them there because I felt that their glossy finish better matched the glossy finish of the ceramic church than did the matt finish of the card buildings.

The reservations I have regarding the card buildings in their current position is that you can't see them to their best advantage. However, I have abutted the new (and currently unfinished) card building to the long town square complex AND re-located the three trees and I think the problem may be solved.

The church plus theatre and Lego stuff.

The card buildings whose location I'm agonising over

Amended arrangement.

Maybe now the trees are suffering!

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Currently listening to:

Recorded in 1973

Terry Reid

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Last night's dinner:

Stupendous supermarket chicken curry.

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Currently Reading:

The phrase, "Works hard, plays hard", comes to mind when I read these diaries. I was also quite impressed with the career choice facing one of his children on leaving University - maybe film school, maybe writing, maybe... Quite right too, but also quite different from most children I have known whose choices would have been such things as  accountancy, nursing, teaching, call centre, management, graphic design etc.

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Drumming practice update:

Found this morning's Saturday morning Samba class very challenging. On the Surdo for 50% of the time and I can't retain the very simple stick pattern in my short term memory. It's only a loop of 2-beats and then 1-beat, but it's retaining from one minute to the next a sound-picture of the groove and emphases that I find almost impossible. Took a film of the tutor playing the pattern so that I can practise at home. Hope that does the trick.

Some people love the Surdo!!

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Miscellany:

Completed the first assessment of my online Logic course. You get two attempts. I got 80% on the first go, which is 20 out of 25. I simply could not see where I had gone wrong. Tried again and got 100% - different set of questions, of course.

Obviously, at a very elementary level!

Pulling out one's finger.

Have been a bit slack towards the railway recently. So today I devoted 45 minutes to the HO scale card model building I've been half-heartedly working on over the last several days.

Also, I photocopied, several times, the card with the pavement pattern on it. It would be good to use the copies to make other sections of pavement elsewhere on the layout.

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Currently listening to:

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Last night's dinner:

Boiled egg salad - difficult to shell the eggs for some reason.

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Currently reading:

Palin's style is so readable - like liquid

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Drumming practice update:

2 lessons today:

This morning from my regular drum tutor and this afternoon from my specialist Samba drum tutor.


Thoroughly enjoyed both sessions and both said, without prompting that I was definitely improving - well, they would, wouldn't they. But I think they meant it.

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Miscellany:

Last night's performance by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra of a Scriabin Piano Concerto and Shostakovich's 10th Symphony was great.

Glasgow's City Halls are said to have excellent acoustics. There wasn't an empty seat anywhere.

From my phone.