Despite my recent attempts to be sporadic and boring, it would seem that two 1/4 of you are still out there. I've received one request and two impertinent e-mails.
Before dealing with these, on further listening to the delectable CD of music by Stefano Landi recommended in the last entry, it struck me that at least two or three of the pieces would sound almost contemporary to anybody whose taste in the 1960s and '70s included the likes of Fairport Convention ('Liege and Leaf'), Pentangle 'Sweet Child') and Steeleye Span ('The Early Years').
As teenagers going to concerts by "Brit folk-rock bands", few of us imagined how steeped these splendid musicians and singers must have been in traditions at least four centuries old.
That period, just before I started working for the Beeb and writing about music, saw the beginnings of the 'Early Music' revival and fierce arguments about the rights and wrongs of performance styles. Now that such music is part of the "mainstream", one ambitious web site worth knowing, still partly "under construction", but with some fine articles under several headings and a very good set of links for further exploration is the 'Goldberg' portal.
One of the cheeky notes is from Jean-Pierre C., who thinks I've lost all interest in more contemporary music. Far from it, J.-P.. The problem, if such it is, is that the iPod now holds more than 200 songs issued with magazines reviewing releases of the past 12 months or so.
Slowly exploring these is to find a few delights and surprises bubbling up to the top of a cauldron of noxious noises and stale potions.
I'm still creaming off the best and don't currently have an afternoon to share discoveries ranging from 'Absent Friends' (The Divine Comedy', March 2004) to 'Crève Coeur' (Daniel Darc, March 2004) and Bebel Gilberto's latest, released last month with her own name for title.
David S, a veteran Mac user when not at the Factory, has recently opened an account, as I have, at the iTunes Music Store in Europe. And David has found, to his annoyance, that he can't make playable CDs out of music he has duly purchased.
David doesn't want to be an expert in AAC format. Especially the protected kind and how to "crack" it. He doesn't want to read through the morass of information about this problem on the Net. And I don't blame him, because I've read only too much of it.
David -- and others -- might do well, however, to take a look at "AAC is a mystery" in the MacFixit Forums, which covers most of the difficulties (and how to get round them).
At present, that thread ends with a joyous comment from 'Hal Itosis':
"> The problem has been solved though why is not totally clear.
Correct.
It's the 'software equivalent' of
smacking the top of the TV set,
or jiggling a loose toilet handle."
I've yet to buy anything at the ITMS-Europe, because I've already overspent my "culture budget" on DVDs again.
When I do and once I've burned a successful CD, I'll reveal how I did it. In the meantime, once David's done it successfully himself, he could rejoice in the ongoing campaign holding that "iTunes iSbogus" (Downhill Battle).
I've downloaded, but not yet tried, a beta application being developed by Mario Diana, who is need of testers for iTmsBackup (SourceForge). This does something else. It:
"makes it easy to back up your purchases from the iTunes Music Store® to a hard disk or other removable media, saving you the inconvenience of using multiple CD-ROM's for data backups. Backups of all your purchases can be stored in one convenient location."
 Finally, a long, imperious missive was from Somebody who thinks I have been unfair to "whet the appetite with (the tale of meeting the) love of your life and declining to update me since".
Well, Somebody, a promise is a promise. However, I didn't make any promises to you, did I?
But here's a double update for the price of one. Milady is lovelier than ever and still talking to me. The last time she did so, she used a term of endearment which surprised me.
This may have been an accident. But I prefer to hope that it wasn't.
The Wildcat, still prowling her corner but now starting to break the bars of her cage, was extremely indiscreet. When I confessed last month that it had taken me five days to write a billet d'amour, she saw fit to pass on this morsel to a friend of hers.
He thought it was very funny.
Now you know why I have very little more to reveal here.
8:08:56 PM link 
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