Daily Slow Chat

6 comments

1. Another week, another inspection… different inspectors in a different workplace, and luckily this one was a lot less time consuming than the one last week!

   Anyway that’s done, hopefully no more for a couple of years!

   Weather is cool this morning for here but not bad,no rain yet and about 14° at 7.30am.

   There’s an interesting story in Italy at the moment about a family who came here (mother and father are British and Australian) with 3 young children and lived off grid,up in the mountains…the children have been separated from the parents by Italian authorities,due to various issues (not going to school is one, extremely basic conditions of the place they were living is another).

   It’s turned into some kind of political battle..we have something of the same issues as in the USA,the far right demonise magistrates and judges because they want to uphold laws while these politicians want to be free to govern without following rules.

   Anyway I don’t know what will happen.Hopefully we still have the rule of law here.

2. Yesterday, I jumped into my car right after finishing the day’s work, and ended up at the bird observation tower at exactly sundown. No use for a spotting scope or binoculars, but at least I heard a Eurasian wren, as I was eating my snacks, sipping coffee, and enjoying the dramatic colours on the sky.

   The days are only going to get shorter for almost an entire month from now.

3. According to the cooking subreddits, if you didn’t take out your 100 lb pterodactyl out of the freezer last week, you’re not having dinner on Thursday. Seriously, people calling this week Turkey week is so confusing.

   We were talking about Klaus Mäkelä, the young, hot Finnish conductor… but it seems like there’s more of them? I was listening to the HR yesterday, and the conductor was a guy called Tarmo Peltokoski who is even younger than Mäkelä. I mean it’s great, but I really don’t know how these people get to conduct these major orchestras in their early 20s. I can’t judge if he’s good, they were playing Mozart, and it was fine? In any case, Finland seems like a hub for young hot conductors at the moment. I know Tarmo is also an excellent pianist, while Mäkelä couldn’t get a tutti cellist position in any orchestra he conducts.

   I vastly prefer Susanna Mälkki over any of them, but okay.

   My probably unpopular opinion is that the little broadcasting fee I pay monthly is totally worth it. There are several German broadcaster YouTube channels that put high quality productions of concerts online for free. It means anyone in Brazil, India, Australia you name it have access to this amazing music. In these times when accessibility of classical music is so important, they’re doing a tremendous job.

4. I ran out of windshield wash fluid so I bought more and filled the tank up. What I didn’t realise was the reason I ran out, the hose coming from the wash fluid tank had come off. So when I poured the new fluid in it just flowed straight out the bottom, lmao. And I didn’t realise until I had poured all of it in.

   Luckily I only lost about a litre, and I was able to stick the hose back in and fasten it with a zip tie I found in my trunk. The right side of my engine bay and the asphalt under is really clean now, though.

5. Non tea drinkers are often astonished to learn that you can – and occasionally *should* – re-brew your tea multiple times.
   Probably not with your run-of-the-mill supermarket tea bags, but with higher quality black or green teas the flavour often even *improves* in a second or third steeping.

6. My mate and I bought tickets to the 2026 Savonlinna Opera Festival, we’ll be going to see Nabucco. I can’t wait to hear the Nabucco choir there, every opera I’ve seen in the castle has had a great sounding choir. Maybe something about the castle acoustics or something.

   I’ve never seen Nabucco too, so it’s nice to see it.