Christmas update

My previous post was on Monday, 18 December. The morning after this, I began to feel unwell and soon developed a painful headache, an elevated temperature and a very sore throat that made it very difficult to swallow. I swiftly took to my bed. After a few days of these symptoms, along with heavy sweating, things finally began to ease slowly during Friday. A throat swab that was done on Thursday morning revealed yesterday that I had Strep throat; as opposed to my previous illness with an almost constantly runny nose, there was no cough and no phlegm this time around. Anyway, now I am diagnosed, I have started taking antibiotics, and the gross symptoms have disappeared. There is still a very small discomfort when swallowing, I still feel weak and unfocused and I have yet to regain my appetite. On the other hand, I've lost 2kg in body weight and if I continue eating the same way as I am now (i.e. barely eating), then I should lose some more weight.

As I've been unfocused for the past few days, there isn't much else to report. When I was feeling a bit better, I watched some YouTube videos, and one would have had me on the floor laughing, had I sufficient energy for this. This was a review (if it can be called that) of some of the goods available on the TEMU website; I had previously seen two other videos doing the same thing; these were normal reviews and fairly interesting.

Some of the goods shown in the amusing review were obviously rubbish, but some were worth a further look. I admit to being very favourably inclined towards the radio link for guitars, as opposed to a regular guitar lead; the price - a mere £7, or maybe a bit more - being less than the amount that I paid for a good lead a few weeks ago. But when I went to the Temu site to order, I discovered that the price was about 78-80 NIS, meaning that there is a ridiculous foreign currency exchange value, or more likely, the 'free delivery' has suddenly become much more expensive because of the Huthis and their terrorist activities against ships in the Persian Gulf area heading for the Suez Canal. So for now, I am dropping any ideas of purchasing items from the Internet. Incidentally, I saw that the same item can theoretically be ordered from Amazon for 'only' $16 (that would cost 64 NIS and might arrive in a few weeks). I wonder how much the same item would cost from an Israeli supplier, who presumably had already purchased the item.

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Today I resumed my habit of checking obituaries over at the Guardian and was saddened to read the obituary of Bob Johnson, who was the guitarist in Steeleye Span Mark 3. Bob had already joined the group by the time of the Lacock festival, meaning that I had the pleasure of meeting him at the time. As I wrote several years ago, [a]t some stage Jonathan and I approached the group and informed them that we had appointed ourselves as their official groupies (lackeys would be a better term) for the duration of the festival. I don't recall now what this function consisted of besides buying them the occasional drink. We were too cool to take mutual photographs or even ask for autographs, so all that is left is my failing memory. By this time, Bob Johnson and Rick Kemp had replaced Martin Carthy and Ashley Hutchings, and Johnson certainly brought a more fun approach to the group's music.

I have to admit that I haven't listened to the records of this version of SS for many years; I know that I have a 3 cd set that contains their five albums, but I'm not sure exactly where it is. I shall have to look for it, rip the discs then renew my acquaintance with them.

I see that by a cruel coincidence, I wrote about the death of Tim Hart, fellow Steeleye Span member, on this day fourteen years ago.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
220	25/12/2009	Tim Hart, RIP	Obituary, Steeleye Span, 1972, Music festivals, Folktronix
788	25/12/2014	Interfacing with Priority from an external program	Programming, ERP
1101	25/12/2017	Sheet music	Yoni Rechter
1368	25/12/2020	Covid-19 vaccine (2)	Covid-19