2024 Roundup

As my blog manager program now allows the possibility of exporting histograms¹, let's start with one that shows the number of blogs written per year. In all the histograms, the lowest value is on the left and the highest on the right. 

Strangely enough, the year with the most blogs is this year, with 182 entries - one every two days. Apart from July, the number per month has been fairly constant. 

 As for topics -

 Or putting this data in tabular form

Position	Tag	Count	Previous position	All time position
1	Programming	24	11	1
2	Personal	17	2	4
3	Delphi	15	19	6
4	Blog manager program	14	15	37
5	Holiday	14	-	3
6	Italy	13	-	9
7	Obituary	11	10	8
8	Israel	10	1	7
9	Pedal board	9	-	89
10	Computer	8	-	18
11	Guitars	8	7	26
12	Health	8	3	5

So I did much programming this year (or, at least I wrote about it, which is not the same thing), I went on holiday to Italy, I bought a pedal board and populated it, and I was healthy.

But what was the year really like? Over the past few weeks, we've been watching a television series called 'The Lazarus project', in which a top secret government agency has the ability to reset time (to 1 July) should thermonuclear war begin. I wish I had the same power, although returning the clock to 1 July 2024 would bring Assad back to power in Syria, along with restoring Nasralla and Sinwar to life. It wouldn't bring any hostages back and it wouldn't improve anything else within Israel. Restoring the clock to 1 July 2023 would at least prevent the worst moments in Israeli history, but it would prevent the birth of my third grand-daughter. Only restoring the clock to 1 July 2022 would improve the internal state of Israel. In other words, you win some and you lose some, and let's get on with what there is.

So what were the good points of 2024? Very few. The two elder grand-daughters are now of an age (8, 6) that one can have a conversation with them and enjoy their company. The youngest is almost one year old and is on the cusp of standing unaided.

Discovering the music (if not her knee jerk politics) of Jasmine Myra² was a continual pleasure throughout the year. The Unthanks in Winter³ was a late contender in the music stakes.

This was the year of Temu⁴: most of the goods that we bought were very good as well as cheap, some were OK, and there was the occasional failure.

Otherwise, 2024 was not a good year. From a personal viewpoint, the trip to Italy was disappointing, primarily due to rain. We had two excellent half days, some reasonable days and some washouts. The cruise to Greece had too much time on board and not enough time on land. Eleven years of doctoral study came to naught, and that was because a technical reason - "not meeting the contribution threshold" - and not because of the quality of the work. 

My brother in law was discovered to have pancreatic cancer, one of the worst types. At the moment, he's receiving a new weekly treatment; the situation does not seem to be getting worse but neither does it seem to improve.

Israel. Over the past nine days, we've had six air raid warnings due to ballistic missiles being launched by the Houthis in Yemen. Apparently part of the missile that was intercepted last night fell only a few kilometres away from where I live.

It's bucketing down with rain at the moment, which generally is a good thing, as we don't get enough rain. But it's depressing.

Internal links
[1] 1875
[2] 1724
[3] 1877
[4] 1712

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
999	31/12/2016	Farewell 2016 - a summary of the year from my idiosyncratic viewpoint	DBA, Health, Personal, Obituary, Song writing, Theanine
1102	31/12/2017	End of an era	TV series
1192	31/12/2018	Love is all you need (film)	Films, Sorrento, Italy
1569	31/12/2022	Gaslit, Watergate ... and more ranting about Israel's new government	TV series, Israel
1700	31/12/2023	1700 blogs	Meta-blogging

Karla's choice, reading #2

In preparation for my second read of "Karla's choice" ¹, I reread "A legacy of spies" ². I'm not sure whether I've read this book (Legacy) since reading it initially several years ago and blogging about it. I feel like I'm writing a master's dissertation on errors in the le Carré canon as I have noticed three continuity errors that escaped me previously. As we know, JlC wasn't writing a franchise and probably had forgotten some of the back story. I suspect that I am influenced by the Reddit channel that discusses the Cormoran Strike novels; most of the posters write as if the characters were real people, and any odd behaviour is immediately noted.

1. In chapter 1, a description is given of Jim Prideaux: "I was being debriefed, not by Jack any more but by a rugged fellow called Jim, of Czech extraction and around my age" [emphasis mine]. As JP went up to Oxford before the Second World War, he would have been at least 18 years old in 1939. Peter Guillam was about 8 in the same year. Hardly the same age. I suspect that the Jack mentioned was in fact Jack Brotherhood (if that is his name) who appears in "A perfect spy". TTSS gives the impression that Jim grew up in France, not Czechoslovakia, but that's a minor error.

2. In chapter 11, a description of Connie Sachs is given: "Connie Sachs, in her early twenties [emphasis mine] already the unchallenged wunderkind of research into Soviet and Satellite intelligence agencies, had recently flounced out of Joint Steering in a huff, straight into George’s waiting arms." In "Karla's choice", Connie is described as being two years older than Smiley, and a similar age is implied in TTSS.

3. In chapter 13, some background of Jim Prideaux is given: "As a boy, he had run messages and cut German throats for Czech Resistance. Cambridge [emphasis mine] may have educated him, but it never tamed him.". TTSS states that Prideaux went to Oxford which is where he met Haydon, not to Cambridge, and he was "up" in 1938, so he wouldn't have been "a boy" in WW2.

Following is an explanation of the end of "Karla's choice" from the Le Carré Reddit forum: The great secret that Roka/Banati and Iren learnt, from their one-time friend Bogdan, is that Karla is Bogdan's surrogate son, having once worked with him on a train during the Russo-Japan war of 1905. As such, Bogdan is one of the few people alive aware of Karla's true identity. When Banati set out to find Bogdan in the hopes of learning Karla's identity in order to get to Karla and demand that he release his son Leo from custody, Karla arranges for Banati to be eliminated (and when that fails, eventually does the deed himself), and in the end, eliminates his father-figure Bogdan himself. Thus, Smiley, who'd been hoping to learn Karla's identity from Bogdan and use it as leverage, hits a dead end. That's really what the 'Karla's Choice' of the title is - Karla is so committed to his goals, and to the Soviet state, that he chooses to eliminate every trace of his past, including Bogdan, to keep his identity and history secret while he consolidates his power in Moscow Centre.

---

It's been six weeks since I first read "Karla's choice", so I've been able to forget my initial problems with the book and read it as new. I initially thought that including many names known to us - Mundt, Haydon, Esterhase, Collins and Prideaux, amongst others - was simply name dropping. As it happens, all have a part to play in the book, so including their names is actually foreshadowing. I found the book to be better this time around and enjoyed the typical JlC slow burn of the middle section. 

Whilst reading the book, I had the title in mind, and its significance only became clear right at the end. All the time I was wondering when Karla was going to appear and when he was going to make his choice. Whilst I understand titling the book so from a marketing point of view, it's a bit misleading - or misdirecting - from the story's point of view.

Is it a book to which I will return in the future? There are several JlC novels that I have read repeatedly, especially TTSS, The little drummer girl, A perfect spy, and The night manager. There are many novels, especially from the 1990s, that I have read once and probably not even twice: Single and Single, Absolute friends, A delicate truth, The mission song, Our kind of traitor - the names don't roll off my tongue; instead I'm reading those names from a directory listing. I suspect that this novel will sit more in the second camp than in the first.

There was one metaphor that fully captured my attention: Mundt felt possible worlds opening and closing in front of him like teeth (chapter 9). That's a comparison to conjure with.

Internal links
[1] 1857
[2] 1069

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
223	28/12/2009	A new Word automation technique	Programming, Delphi, Office automation
224	28/12/2009	What is the connection between King Crimson and Organisational Behaviour?	Organisation behaviour, King Crimson, MBA
997	28/12/2016	Biscotti again	Cooking
1191	28/12/2018	Amos Oz (1939-2018)	Israel, Obituary, RIP
1454	28/12/2021	Memory upgrade	Computer
1697	28/12/2023	My army service, part two and a half	Israel, Personal

More about 'pager night' and John Le Carré

At the end of September occurred what I am calling 'Pager night' - hundreds (if not thousands) of pagers exploded in the hands (pun intended) of Hizbolla operatives in Lebanon. As I wrote¹ at the time, If John Le Carré were still alive, I have no doubt that he would be having a field day with what has been happening between Israel and Lebanon over the past two weeks.

During the past few days, two ex-operatives of the Mossad were interviewed by American reporter Sally Stahl about this operation. One of them said the following “We create a pretend world. We are a global production company: We write the screenplay, we're the directors, we're the producers, we're the main actors. And the world is our stage."

Does the following sound similar? (from "The little drummer girl", chapter 6).

“Charlie, we are surely not claiming that this is usual drama,” Kurtz replied equably, and once more left the initiative with her.

“A part what in, anyway?” she said, still fighting the grin.

“Call it theatre.”

She remembered Joseph and the fun fading from his face, and his clipped reference to the theatre of the real. “So it’s a play then,” she said. “Why don’t you say so?”

“In a sense it is a play,” Kurtz agreed.

“Who writes it?”

“We handle the plot, Joseph does the dialogue. With a lot of help from you.”

 

It seems that the Mossad are familiar with the JlC cannon.

Internal links
[1] 1831

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
319	23/12/2010	Size matters	Programming, Delphi, MDI, Sizegrip, Resizing
526	23/12/2012	Doppelganger	Personal
1366	23/12/2020	Covid-19 vaccine	Covid-19

Another BCC excised

Following my appointment with the dermatologist¹ in September, today I had the BCC on my back excised. The doctor/surgeon was not the doctor that I remembered; my first dermatologist was American and this one was Russian.

Following my bad experience² at the dentist a fortnight ago, I mentioned what happened in the consultation prior to the excision. The doctor was skeptical but agreed to use a minimum of local anaesthetic, Lidocaine. When the time came, she poked me in five or six locations around the BCC but used only one ampoule of Lidocaine. As usual, the excision was very simple, and even the discomfort from the stitching was minor.

I feel slightly worn out, a few hours after the excision, but that could also be due to the fact that we had band practice last night and I slept only about six and a half hours. It'll be an early night for me tonight. Most importantly, I haven't reached the depth of weakness that I felt after the dental appointment.

Internal links
[1] 1814
[2] 1869

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
153	22/12/2008	Firebird flies	Programming, SQL, Firebird
787	22/12/2014	Writing a paper on spreadsheet research	DBA, Excel
1099	22/12/2017	Celebrating the Winter Solstice with Yoni Rechter	Personal, Yoni Rechter
1452	22/12/2021	Janis Ian	Janis Ian

More CPAP

Today's the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. From tomorrow the days will start getting longer which is just as well.

We were woken at about 3 am by sirens being sounded by neighbouring settlements (but not ours*). A ballistic missile had been fired by the Houthis and landed somewhere in south Tel Aviv. Quite why the sirens were sounding in our area is a mystery as that landing site is nowhere near us. Maybe there was the fear that debris from the missile could land in a wide area. As our bedroom is also the security room, we didn't have to get up and run for cover elsewhere.

Saturday morning is the time when I extract the data card from my CPAP machine and look at the data from the past week. Since receiving a new mask¹ at the beginning of November, the average number of apneic events has dropped dramatically: over the past week, six days had no apneic events, and the seventh day had only one event (per hour). Not only that, the 'deep sleep' count for every night last week didn't drop below 46 minutes (apart from last night, when it was 'only' 25 minutes: maybe being woken suddenly in the middle of the night affected this). On Thursday night, I remember having many dreams, and the deep sleep value for that night was 82 minutes, so maybe there is some correlation between deep sleep and dreams.

* I have since been informed that the sirens did sound on the kibbutz

Internal links
[1] 1853

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
318	21/12/2010	The gumption trap	Computer, Psychology, Problem solving
437	21/12/2011	The sense of an ending	Literature

Saving album art to mp3 files with VLC

I use the VLC player to listen to the multitude of mp3 (along with flac and wav) files that I have on my computer. I've often noticed that an image appears in the player that seems to be connected to the file that is currently playing. Sometimes it is the correct picture, sometimes the picture belongs to some other track by the same artist, sometimes there is no connection between the picture and the song and sometimes there is no image.

This irks me sufficiently that I had to learn how to attach the correct file to the file. It transpires that the instructions that I read were 90% correct, or rather, they were correct as far as they went but they missed the final step.

In order to add a picture to the file that is being played, one goes to the Tools option on the menu bar, then chooses Media Information from the menu that appears. A dialog is displayed with four tabs, but one only needs the first tab, 'General'. At the bottom right of this dialog appears the file's image (probably the default picture). Right clicking on this will bring up a 'choose file' dialog from which one can choose the image. But this image is not saved and there seems to be no way of saving the data!

I discovered today that one has to enter some new data in one of the fields on the left (I chose 'encoded by') - once there is a new value then a 'save metadata' button appears. Pressing this will of course save the image to the file.

Strangely, the 'encoded by' value seems not to be saved, even though it appears in the picture to the left. If I reopen this dialog, the picture will be displayed but the 'encoded by' value will not. 

As the screen shots show, I am listening to The Unthanks' newest disc, "In winter". This is actually a double cd, made up of wintry and Christmassy songs. At the moment, "Gower Wassail" is playing - this bears almost no resemblance to the version by Steeleye Span from way back in 1971 (and which I used to sing). There is a version of 'Come all ye faithful' played in 68 time, making it both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. I remember being an 11 year old chorister and belting this out at school. The final verse had a counter-melody sung by the sopranos (of which I was one) that I didn't know at first but quickly learnt. The Unthanks don't sing this harmony line. I should point out that I quite enjoyed singing carols but I never sang the word 'Christ', as this means 'messiah', and as my religious friends would inform me, the Messiah has yet to come.

Obtaining this album was quite difficult; being on their mailing list, I was informed over a month ago of its impending release. When I tried to order it from their site, although there was an option to have it sent to Israel, their carrier lacked the capability to send it. After a few emails back and forward (including one signed by Rachel - could this be Rachel Unthank?), they finally got their act together, allowing me to order the disc (the postage costs more than the disc). Unfortunately, it is currently out of stock, so I don't know when I'll get my physical copy. But they give links that enabled me (and all other purchasers) to download mp3 files, so I can listen to the album and won't have to bother about ripping the discs when they eventually come.

I note that I haven't written about the Unthanks for the past 13 years, but I do listen on and off to their music and thoroughly enjoy their early albums. That said, some of their material, such as the Molly Drake album, doesn't particularly enthuse me.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
661	19/12/2013	Some anomalies in "Lord Valentine's Castle"	Robert Silverberg
993	19/12/2016	The best of our spies	Literature, MI5

Jasmine Myra in Zurich

Another concert performance of Jasmine Myra has popped up, although this is not available in its entirety (at least, not at the moment) on YouTube. I followed the link to a Swiss site that allowed me to watch only 10 minutes of the concert that lasts 100 minutes in total. By the help of Google Translate, I was able to figure out that I needed to buy a one-time subscription for CHF 6.90 in order to watch the entire stream (whilst recording it by means of a program called SoundTap).

The concert was held on 25 October 2024 in Zurich; Jasmine states at the beginning that this is the second night of their European tour and that the previous night they had played in Warsaw. This is not the same tour as when they appeared in Portugal¹ on 14 July 2024, and indeed the band is different. This time around, all the familiar faces appear: Jasmine Myra  (alto saxophone, of course), Arran Kent (bass clarinet and flute), Ben Haskins (guitar), Jasper Green (grand piano), Alice Roberts (harp), Sam Quintana (bass) and George Hall (drums). For a change, Jasper plays a real piano instead of his regular Nord 3 keyboard.

The tunes are, of course, familiar, but also give the band a chance to stretch out; as an example, we get a double bass solo around the 28 minute mark. The sound is much better than that of the Portugal concert which presumably was recorded by someone of a mobile phone. The introductions are also longer (e.g. "Words left unspoken" (WLU)). I wonder how the band feel about some of these revealing and intimate explanations.

The keen ear will pick up what appear to be string-like sounds in the background of WLU; these can only originate from Ben Haskins, who doesn't always play as a traditional guitarist but as a creator of ambient sounds. I would love to know what pedals he uses in order to achieve those sounds. These are more audible in the sparser pieces such as WLU.

Around the 54 minute mark, Jasmine introduces a new piece that does not as yet have a name. She mentions being influenced by Kenny Wheeler. This is so new that one can see Jasper Green reading his part from manuscript paper; I single him out solely because he is more visible. This piece is different in style from most of Jasmine's pieces, not being mood music or with a relatively simple melody line. This one moves around through various keys, always maintaining interest. Although the drummer is playing, it's mainly brushes on snare and is barely audible.

Oh dear: at 79 minutes, Jasmine talks about "the genocide in Palestine" and raising money "for those who need our help". This raises the awkward question of whether one's appreciation of an artist's talent should take into account the artist's personal behaviour and beliefs. I've edited out this minute of speech from my recording; it's bad enough that I had to hear it once but I don't want to hear it every time I play the recording.

I thought that they weren't going to play my favourite tune, "Knowingness", but it is played as the encore. This time it really catches fire at around the 98 minute mark.

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Another interesting video of Jasmine appeared on YouTube: this time, it's a scaled down version of the band playing and being recorded direct to vinyl! Along with Jasmine are Arran Kent, Jasper Green and an unidentified drummer. The photo shows how tall Jasper Green is: normally he's sitting down so I've never noticed before. Having only four instruments playing means that the sound is thinner, but also allows the individual parts to be more clearly heard. Jasper is playing both his parts and some of the bass and harp parts. It's an interesting 'alternative mix' of "Rising".

Internal links
[1] 1845

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
152	18/12/2008	Bits and pieces	Weather
436	18/12/2011	Watching the weight / 3	Diet
660	18/12/2013	DCI Banks mistakes	DCI Banks, Peter Robinson
992	18/12/2016	Robbie Robertson - Testimony	The Band
1448	18/12/2021	A fruitful day, part one: "Building the life" (new song)	Song writing, Janis Ian
1449	18/12/2021	A fruitful day, part two: a conversation with my doctoral supervisor	DBA
1450	18/12/2021	A fruitful day, part three: continuing work on PrioXRef	Programming, Personal
1451	18/12/2021	Further thoughts on running Excel from a background thread	Programming, Delphi, Office automation, Threads
1694	18/12/2023	Nutrition exams	Nutrition

Saving a form's image as jpg file

Yesterday, when writing about a new feature in the Blog Manager program, I wrote¹ "I thought that it would be helpful if I could save the graph as an image". I found some old tech tips that helped me write the code; some of this was very low level with reference to device contexts and similar.

Still reading "Smarter than you think"², where Clive ponders AI and Jeopardy, I got the idea of asking AI program co-pilot to write a program in Delphi to save a form's image as jpg. Well, it did, and the procedure is remarkably similar to what I pieced together, although without all the low level device contexts.

procedure TForm1.SaveFormAsJPG(const FileName: string);
var
  Bitmap: TBitmap;
  JpegImage: TJpegImage;
  
begin
  Bitmap:= TBitmap.Create;
  JpegImage:= TJpegImage.Create;
  try
    // Capture the form's image
    Bitmap.Width:= Self.ClientWidth;
    Bitmap.Height:= Self.ClientHeight;
    Self.PaintTo (Bitmap.Canvas.Handle, 0, 0);

    // Convert the bitmap to JPG
    JpegImage.Assign(Bitmap);

    // Save the JPG to a file
    JpegImage.SaveToFile(FileName);
  finally
    Bitmap.Free;
    JpegImage.Free;
  end;
end;

I don't want the entire form to be saved, only the graph, so it may be that the critical PaintTo procedure will not be available for a TChart that is apparently based on TPanel. I'll have to check this*. As far as I can see, the PaintTo procedure hides all the device context code.

* Indeed, CoPilot's code works, even when 'self' is replaced by 'chart1'. Well done!

Internal links
[1] 1874
[2] 1873

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
21	17/12/2005	The Brief and The Book	TV series, Van der Graaf Generator
786	17/12/2014	Seasonal greetings	Jewish holidays
1567	17/12/2022	Doctoral thesis extension granted	DBA

Latest additions to the blog manager program

As we're almost at the end of another (not particularly good) year, my thoughts have been turning to an end-of-the-year blog. Apart from remembering this year, I thought that it would be nice if I could show how my blogging habits have changed over the years (I've been at this for over 19 years).

A few months ago, I wrote a 'blogs by month' query, so I copied this to a 'blogs by year' and in doing so simplified a few matters. When I had the graph displayed, I thought that it would be helpful if I could save the graph as an image. The graph has a built-in method for printing, but this isn't what I want.

I combined two snippets of code - one for creating the bitmap of the chart, and one for converting the bitmap to jpg - and now I have the ability to save any graph displayed as a jpg. The filename will be the caption of the form, e.g. Blogs per month between 01/01/2024 and 31/12/2024.jpg, but the forward slashes in the dates create a problem. I used the stringreplace function in Delphi to convert them to dashes.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
151	16/12/2008	Firebird/2	Firebird
785	16/12/2014	A feral system under my nose	ERP, DBA, Excel

Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is changing our minds for the better

I am currently reading this book, written by Clive Thompson (who also wrote 'Coders' that I wrote about a month ago¹). I've only got as far as the second chapter and already I have something to write about. The topic is memory and how computers act as auxiliary memories; Thompson is writing about people who document everything (automatically, using cameras and similar devices) but notes that the problem is not finding something in that memory but rather remembering that there is something to find.

I started thinking about how this blog serves as my auxiliary memory and immediately hit the problem: I was sure that I'd written about a previous book by Clive Thompson, but I was equally sure that I hadn't created a tag for his name. Fortunately I was able to locate the blog entry under the tag 'non-fiction books, and now I have added a tag for Clive so that I will be able to find his books more easily.

I want to quote the following: Wegener thought it would be fun to do the same thing with check-ins—show people what they’d been doing on a day in their past. In one hectic weekend of programming, he created a service playfully called FoursquareAnd7YearsAgo. Each day, the service logged into your Foursquare account, found your check-ins from one year back (as well as any “shout” status statements you made), and e-mailed a summary to you. Users quickly found the daily e-mail would stimulate powerful, unexpected bouts of reminiscence.  

I'm already doing this in my blog manager program: the feature is called 'This day in history', a title that is very presumptuous. A better title would be 'This day in my blog history' or the very mundane 'Previous blog entries for this day'. I quickly found the blog entry² where I announced this function, but sadly I didn't write why I was adding this. But that quoted paragraph does give the reason: I like to see what I was doing one, two or even fourteen years ago on this date.

I wonder what other gems await me in this book.

Internal links
[1] 1850
[2] 1543

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
114	15/12/2007	Uncle no longer	Uncle
115	15/12/2007	Sleep, part three	Apnea, Migraine
435	15/12/2011	Front end program for converting HTML to PDF	Programming, Delphi, ERP

The family that plays together stays together

Eighteen and a half years ago, I bought¹ for my son a Yamaha PSR-E 303 electric keyboard. I hate to admit it but for many years this keyboard has been idle and stored out of sight. For a while, it was resident in our 'music room' where I used to play it now and then, but after my father's death, it was replaced by my father's antique bureau and the keyboard was banished.

Granddaughter #1 started piano lessons about a month ago; she doesn't have any means of practicing in her home, and when she comes to us, she normally doesn't touch the piano, despite my encouragement (maybe I overwhelm her as I can easily play the simple tunes that she has been taught. We promised her that we would give her the electric keyboard so that she can play at home.

It was granddaughter #2's sixth birthday² last week and granddaughter #1 wanted to play some tunes for her birthday. So yesterday evening, which is when we celebrated the birthday, we took the keyboard along with us and transferred ownership. Three generations of Newmen have now played on it!

 

Internal links
[1] 59
[2] 1189

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
150	14/12/2008	Firebird	Programming, Delphi, Firebird
784	14/12/2014	Television detectives	TV series
1280	14/12/2019	Sour grapes (Song festival 2019)	Kibbutz
1365	14/12/2020	John Le Carre (1931-2020)	Obituary, John Le Carre
1566	14/12/2022	Another case study for the DBA - that can validate my model	DBA

Corinne Allal, RIP

Israeli composer, singer and guitarist Corinne Allal died today from pancreatic cancer, aged 69.

She first crossed my radar in 1976 when she sang backup vocals in Arik Einstein's "Atur Mizchech". At the time she would have been a fresh veteran of some Army entertainment troupe which no doubt is where the connection would have been made.

She had a few successful records in the late 1980s-1990s but in my world she was more known as a composer, including the song "I don't have any other country", whose relevance has only grown in the past few years.

She announced a few years ago that she had breast cancer but overcame it. Last year she announced that she was suffering from pancreatic cancer; she appeared to have beaten it a few months ago, which is when she had a television interview and resumed her concert appearances, although she was forced to play sitting.

The radio is mainly playing her songs today.

Apart from her musical contributions to our lives, her illness is very important to my family, as my brother in law was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer seven months ago.

She is/was only 16 months older than me.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
219	12/12/2009	Displaying tabs on the right of a TTabControl	Delphi, Right-to-left
1364	12/12/2020	How could I have known? (new song)	Song writing, Home recording
1447	12/12/2021	Darwin and Covid-19	Covid-19
1564	12/12/2022	Caffeine	Sleep, Non-fiction books

A mistake in a MIDI sequence has a positive outcome

I've been working on a new song for the past ten days. Although the tune and chords have been settled, the arrangement is about 70% finished at the moment. Each verse lasts 24 bars that can be subdivided into two loops of eight bars followed by two loops of four bars. The first five bars of the eight bar loop are in D myxolidian (D C Bm Am G) but then the tonality changes, possibly to D minor (F E A). I suspect that the four bar loop can be seen as in D minor, although this tonic chord does not appear in the sequence (Bb F Gm A). 

The bridge is definitely in D minor and is influenced by a recent video by David Bennett Piano, where he discusses songs containing three bar loops. I spent some time playing various such sequences on the guitar (the verse sequence was composed 'in my head') until I decided on Dm7, CMaj7 and Gm add 9.  Sometimes this last chord is replaced by BbMaj7 - they only differ by one note, G being replaced by F. This sequence is repeated seven times at the moment.

I imported the MIDI sequence into Reason yesterday where a huge surprise awaited me. When I played the sequence with a rough mix, every note was sustaining almost infinitely; this has never happened before. Changing the instruments around and reimporting didn't make any difference. Eventually I realised what had been causing this sustain: a MIDI controller message. As it happens, I had wanted to improve the sustain in the sound created by the MIDI sequencer (expecting that this would have no effect in Reason as R generally ignores MIDI messages) so I had added a controller #64 message (sustain pedal) at the beginning of every track. Once I removed these messages, I began to obtain the sound that I was expecting.

Normally I deal with sustain in Reason, but it's good to know that I can achieve this by adding a controller #64 message with a moderate value such as 10.

The song itself is fairly normal and restrained: a decent beginning for any new album that might appear in the future.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
434	11/12/2011	50 words for snow - Kate Bush	Kate Bush
991	11/12/2016	Repairing the Kindle	Kindle
1098	11/12/2017	More on Delphi 7/Hebrew/Win 10	Programming, Delphi, Unicode
1446	11/12/2021	Mike Nesmith, RIP	Obituary
1563	11/12/2022	Could it be that it's over? A rant about current Israeli politics.	Israel, 1984, Yehonatan Geffen

A simple replacement filling for a tooth

I am recording all of the below for history's sake in case something similar occurs in the future.

Yesterday I was called into the dental clinic to undergo a replacement filling in the left-most tooth of my upper jaw. The appointment was supposed to be for next week but it seems that the clinic had room to fill so they called me with 45 minutes notice. I was just about to eat lunch, so I ate very quickly before walking down to the clinic.

Through the dentist's point of view, the treatment was simple and successful. From my POV, it was anything but. During the drilling phase, when the old filling was removed, I started having difficulty in breathing - it was as if I could only breath half of the capacity that I wanted. During this stage we had to stop for a few minutes to enable me to restore my breathing. The dentist said that the anesthetic would affect my left nostril as well as the jaw so this might explain my feeling.

Later on, during the stage in which the filling is inserted into the cavity, my arms and stomach felt as if they were on fire, or at least very hot. This was uncomfortable but bearable. 

When the treatment finished, I discovered that I was extremely weak and could hardly get out of the dental chair. It seems as if the dentist didn't have any clients after me, so I was allowed to lie there for a while. Eventually I got up, only to get as far as the reception area which is where I sank into a chair. The dentist came to talk to me: no doubt passing the time for her, but also allowing her to monitor my progress. 

I told her that this reminded me of the time 40 years ago when I had a wisdom tooth removed and had to return to the dental clinic (in a town, not on my kibbutz) to have the cavity washed with hydrogen peroxide. Presumably as a result of this treatment, I suffered from low blood pressure for a few years.

Eventually my daughter came to pick me up and take me home in her car. Once at home, I laid down for about half an hour before I felt that I had any strength to do anything. I measured my blood pressure, which was at its regular levels. Eventually I went to bed just before 6 pm.

This morning I feel almost normal.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
113	09/12/2007	Uncle	Uncle
218	09/12/2009	After the accounting exam	MBA
525	09/12/2012	Guitar stand	Guitars
659	09/12/2013	Gymnopedie Number 3?	Woody Allen, Satie
907	09/12/2015	Margin call and redundancy	Films, Business novel
989	09/12/2016	Greg Lake, RIP	Obituary, King Crimson
1097	09/12/2017	Delphi 7/Hebrew programs running on Windows 10	Programming, Delphi, Unicode
1562	09/12/2022	Yitzchak Klepter, 1950-2022	Israel, Obituary
1693	09/12/2023	Days of Chanuka	Kibbutz, Home movies

Armand Gamache - a new (to me) detective series

During the last week, I've been reading novels in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series, written by Louise Penny. As opposed to the detective novels that I normally read (set in Britain), this series is set in a village ('Three Pines') in the Quebecois hinterland of Canada, and so the landscape is normally one of snow and very low temperatures.

I've only read one complete novel (the first, "Still life") but I've nearly finished the second ("A fatal grace"). I haven't been too impressed with the technical side of the investigations - whilst there are fingerprints, there are no DNA analyses that seem to make modern investigations so much easier. Instead the eponymous detective listens to crime scenes, and there seems to be a great deal of philosophy bandied about. The resolutions seem to be somewhat evidence-free and I wonder how court cases would be built from these investigations.

There is also a sense of humour present, of the sort that speaks to me. For example, in chapter 17 of "A fatal grace", the following exchange appears: ‘Let every man shovel out his own snow, and the whole city will be passable,’ said Gamache. Seeing Beauvoir’s puzzled expression he added, ‘Emerson.’ ‘Lake and Palmer?’ ‘Ralph and Waldo.’ ... Emerson, Ralph and Waldo? What was that? thought Beauvoir. Some obscure hippy group from the ’60s probably. The lyrics didn’t even make sense. While Beauvoir hummed ‘Lucky Man,’ Gamache downloaded his messages....

I actually know who R.W. Emerson was, as the famous "Nightfall" story by Isaac Asimov begins with a quote from Emerson. "A fatal grace" also has some quotes from Leonard Cohen, son of Montreal.

In a later book that I read partially (I decided that it would be better to read them in order), there is a great deal of reference to monkeys. One character briefly mentions being a daydream believer, someone else mentions Davy Jones, and further on, Peter Tork is referenced. I wonder whether the modern audience understands these jokes. Authoress Penny is a few years younger than me, so at least we have the same vintage.

If I'm mentioning that 'it would be better to read the books in order', then I have to mention the Kobo. This managed at one stage to display the series metadata of the books (e.g. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, book 2), but I've not been able to restore this display. The metadata definitely appears in Calibre. 

After playing around a little, I've figured out how to get this text displayed: first of all, I have to have Calibre open when the Kobo is connected to the computer, so that Calibre can 'see' the Kobo. This will cause a new 'Devices' option to appear, allowing Calibre to synchronise with the Kobo. There's an option "update metadata" (or something similar) - clicking on this causes the Kobo to add books to collections and to display the series metadata. This means that I might have to keep books for longer in the Calibre library.

This metadata continues to appear, even if I change the 'sort' setting, but then the books won't be displayed in 'series' order. At the moment, sorting by series seems to be best; I can see which books I have read (or not) by the finished/86% read/unread indicator.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
111	01/12/2007	Sleep	Apnea, Anaemia
654	01/12/2013	Critical week	DBA
779	01/12/2014	My army service - part one	Israel, Personal
1361	01/12/2020	E-hour minus 4	DBA
1362	01/12/2020	Viva result	DBA
1444	01/12/2021	My body is like a barometer	Weather
1558	01/12/2022	Christine McVie, RIP	Obituary, Fleetwood Mac
1691	01/12/2023	Restringing the Stagg - again	Guitars