Refugees

This song was my way into Van der Graaf Generator, the second song on what might have been their debut album but in fact was technically their second, 'The least we can do is wave to each other'. The tune and chord sequence might be simple but it was a song that struck right through the heart. Below appear most of the words to the song, written by Peter Hammill.

North was somewhere years ago and cold:
Ice locked the people's hearts and made them old.
South was birth to pleasant lands, but dry...
I walked the waters' depths and played my mind.
         
East was dawn, coming alive in the golden sun:
the winds came gently, several heads became one
in the summertime, though august people sneered;
we were at peace, and we cheered.
         
We walked along, sometimes hand in hand,
between the thin lines marking sea and sand;
smiling very peacefully,
we began to notice that we could be free,
and we moved together to the West.
         
West is where all days will someday end,
where the colours turn from grey to gold,
and you can be with the friends.
And light flakes the golden clouds above;
West is Mike and Susie,
West is where I love.
         
There we shall spend our final days of our lives,
tell the same old stories... yeah well, at least we tried.
So into the West, smiles on our faces, we'll go;
oh, yes, and our apologies to those
who'll never really know the way.

I'm not quoting the final verse of the song that actually provides the literal meaning of the song: it was about the end of a flat share between Peter, Mike (Maclean) and Susie (Penhaligon). Rather a come down after the idealistic earlier verses.

Three lines resonated within me for a very long time: West is where all days will someday end, where the colours turn from grey to gold, and you can be with the friends. Those lines were intertwined with my friends from Habonim; I truly thought that our days would someday end together, when I would be with the friends. Oh romantic and delusional me.

Why am I writing this now, some 55 years after hearing the song for the first time? Well, Peter Hammill was invited to appear at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the 'Prog Prom'; this concert took place on 18 July 2026. A few days ago, I discovered that a clip of 'Refugees' had been posted to YouTube; as I wrote on the PH mailing list: The music is excellent and makes me wonder how much (or little) an orchestra adds to the original version. But the vocal?? IMHO, not very good. It wouldn't have hurt to have lowered the key a little so PH wouldn't have had to strain for the high notes. YMMV but I won't be downloading this.

I admit that I very often don't like Hammill's vocals on the many live recordings that I have, but this time the vocal was a real travesty. The only thing that it moved me to do was turn it off. Sorry.

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
15	30/09/2005	Getting a musical education (2)	The Band
104	30/09/2007	More folktronik	MIDI, Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention, Folktronix, The mythical man-month
888	30/09/2015	Recommended statistics book	DBA, Statistics
1076	30/09/2017	Relaxing foliage	Ambient music, Home movies
1831	30/09/2024	If John Le Carre were still alive	Israel, John Le Carre
2007	30/09/2025	The 2025 swimming season finishes - this time for real	Swimming, Police procedurals, Michael Dylan

Rechargeable Finger Counter, IPX8 Waterproof Lap Counter

A few weeks ago, I started looking for a device that could store the number of lengths that I swim. By the time I get past 30 lengths, I start getting confused between the number that I am counting and hypothetical future lengths (do I want to swim another two or even four?). So a simple lap counter that has to be waterproof was what I wanted. Smart watches are no good because they measure distance via GPS whereas I am going back and forward over the same distance.

After some perseverance, I found what I was looking for: a rechargeable finger counter, IPX8 waterproof lap counter. I decided not to order from Temu as their deliveries have become erratic and problematic: this is not the fault of Temu, but rather the delivery company who has neglected to send me details of deliveries and so the shops to where the goods have been delivered won't pass the deliveries on. I ordered from Fruugo; this was more expensive than Temu but arrived faster. For some inexplicable reason, the device was delivered to a location about 15 km from where I live; why not somewhere closer?

I picked up the device yesterday (as it happened, I was in the location) and charged it overnight. This morning I fiddled with it a little in order to figure out how to use it - there are no instructions presumably because it is so simple to use, although there is a difference between playing with it and using it underwater. I attached the device to the little finger of my left hand and after every two lengths I would hopefully press the big button.

I wanted to compare the number of lengths that I counted (40! - that's forty, not the factorial of forty) but the device shows nothing on its display. I am charging it again but it looks like it's dead. So much for being waterproof. I am not giving much hope to the future of this device.

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
13	24/09/2005	Fortysomething	TV series, Nick Hornby
54	24/09/2006	New song uploaded	MIDI, Obituary, King Crimson, RIP, Soundclick
103	24/09/2007	Soundclick pages	MIDI, Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention, Soundclick, Folktronix
285	24/09/2010	Karlovy Vary	Holiday, John Le Carre, Karlovy Vary
512	24/09/2012	Being a tourist in Israel: Tel Aviv	Israel, Holiday
761	24/09/2014	Happy New Year!	Jewish holidays
1173	24/09/2018	The festival of booths	Jewish holidays, Guitars
1258	24/09/2019	Grand-daughter pictures	Grandfather
1337	24/09/2020	Return to lockdown - keeping myself occupied with new programming projects	Programming, Priority tips, Covid-19
1529	24/09/2022	New Year greetings	Programming, Jewish holidays

Another day of not doing very much

I try to go for a walk after breakfast; as in previous days, I walked up to the food supermarket. A bit further on is the office for the ferry line with which we are travelling back to Piraeus - this is not the same line with which we came and I need to have our tickets printed. The office had yet to open so that was one thing that didn't happen. I wanted to buy a large bottle of water but the supermarket appeared to sell only bundles of four or six bottles and I don't know how well they would have taken it had I opened one of those bundles. I started walking back in the direction of our flat, looking for the shop that had linen shirts in its display. I found the shop but they didn't have a shirt in the correct size. So, 0/3 so far. I walked back to the ferry office that was now open, but the reference numbers that I had written down weren't correct, so I was scoring 0/4. 

Walking back towards our flat, I found a second shop that amongst other items sold linen shirts, and this time I was able to find two large enough for me. One is with short sleeves and one with long sleeves; they're not exactly the colours that I had wanted but I'm prepared to compromise. Very close to our flat I found a shop that sold me a single large bottle of water for only 1€. Back in the flat, I looked at the some of the emails that I had received from the ferry company and this time I found 'better numbers'. I then had a quick cold shower and then we were out of the flat, waiting for the local bus.

I am disappointed to say that the bus ride didn't show us very much of Poros old town; before we knew it, we were back at the first stop near the ferry office which is where we got off. The numbers that I had written down the second time for the ferry were correct so this time I received our printed tickets. After some more purchases in the shops, we started walking 'home' but had a break in the gelateria. Whilst the ice cream is very tasty, it ternds to cause satiety and a lack of will to eat lunch. So when we did get back to the flat, we had another rest before going out at 2:30 pm for a late and light lunch. 

After this, more resting. It may seem that we are not doing very much with our time, which is quite true, but on the other hand, we are simply having a rest. It's also true that these days I don't do that much at home either but then I don't rest with sea views and yachts in the background. Apart from the one day when it was cool, most days are quite hot and walking around in that heat saps the strength.

Tomorrow morning will be devoted to packing up and cleaning, before we catch our ferry back to Piraeus at 4:30 pm (our flight leaves at midnight). Obviously there will be several hours in which we will have little to do so this means more hours of lying around and reading. There will not be a blog tomorrow and in fact I doubt that there will be any blogging in the next few days as Sunday evening and Monday are Yom Kippur. On Tuesday morning we'll pick up the dog who had been having fun in the kennels (we hope).

Something that I have neglected to mention about Poros old city: the houses here are not the typical Greek white and blue houses that one tends to imagine (such as in Santorini). Here the houses are more Italianate, that probably is due to the time when Venice ruled this area.

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
10	9/18/2005	Little criminals	Randy Newman
407	9/18/2011	Continuing the diet	Diet, Acupuncture
757	9/18/2014	Walking with the GPS	Health, Mobile phone
1073	9/18/2017	Literature review - I don't believe this!	ERP, DBA
1169	9/18/2018	Vinyl log #29 - 17 September	Vinyl log, City Boy
1425	9/18/2021	Popup menus: a misconception	Programming, Delphi
1665	9/18/2023	Trident Studios inconsistency (why was 'Ride a white swan' recorded on 8 track?)	Multi-track

Hydra

This morning didn't start off well: there was no internet access, and after 10 am there was no running water in the flat. Fortunately we had tickets for the hovercraft to the island of Hydra, so we weren't too inconvenienced by the lack of water -- although we fervently hoped that the problem would be fixed by the time we came back.

Hydra is a 25 minute trip from Poros, almost due south. I have to admit that I didn't know much about Hydra, apart from the facts that Leonard Cohen was a well known resisdent of the island in the mid 1960s, and that motor vehicles (save those of the fire brigade as well as rubbish collectors) of all types are not allowed on the island -- although we saw two vehicles that should not have been there.

There are many ferries going to the island: in the first hour that we were there, I saw ferries from three different companies arrive along with one small cruise ship (this might have been a day trip from Athens as it wasn't one of those huge ships with cabins). As such, every hour or so there is a new group of people that arrive and overwhelm the small island.

Our first port of call was the Hydra museum, that was small but interesting. Most of the exhibits were concerned with the Greek war of independence period (1820-3) but there were also some artifacts from the second world war. This reminded me slightly of the war museum in Malta¹. One large room was dedicated to the artist Kostas Grammatopoulos with many paintings, wood cuts and lithographs, where generally these were of a faux naif style (but very well done). One wasn't allowed to take photographs within the museum otherwise I would have taken many photos of his works.

Once we finished with the museum, we carried on in the same direction where I ascended a peak lined with cannons - from this position one could see and control a large area of sea. My wife had been going on about 'the sun'; where is the sun, she kept on asking me. I said that it was directly above us as it was noon. No, she said, there is a sculpture of the sun. We carried on walking below the defensive position and eventually came to 'the sun'.

This sculpture is made of two sets of arms; the first is fixed and the second is constantly turning. Fittingly shaped as a giant golden sun, the 9.1 metre wide ‘Apollo Wind Spinner’ that bears the face of the Greek God is just one of artist Jeff Kloon’s newest pieces on display in an exhibition on the Saronic Isle proudly presented by the DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art. This was worth the trek in the hot sun.

After the sun, it was back to near where the ferry landed for a very big pizza, even when shared between two. Then we split up, as my wife had had enough walking. I went down into the town by the promenade: like Poros, there were many shops selling tat or dresses. Naturally there were also many bars and restaurants although the range of food was more limited than in Poros. I found  a small monastery tucked away in an alley off this main strip that was very quiet and relaxing.

Eventually we joined up, sat by the ferry landing and swapped pictures. The ferry came, we travelled back to Poros stopping below our flat, then we walked into the flat. One of us turned on a tap ... and water flowed! So I had a cold shower then my wife had one; a cup of tea later we laid down for a rest, and here am I at 9 pm typing this.

A good day, but tiring because of the heat and the walking (almost 10,000 steps). We are undecided about tomorrow - I would like to buy a linen shirt and maybe we will take the local minibus for its trip around the island, the local 'hop on hop off' bus.

Internal links
[1] 290

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
199	17/09/2009	The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo	Literature, Steig Larsson
977	17/09/2016	Obligatory monthly grandfather picture	Grandfather
1072	17/09/2017	Interface for importing XML files into Priority	Priority tips
1168	17/09/2018	Maartin Allcock, 1957-2018	Obituary, Fairport Convention
1664	17/09/2023	The GI tract and the new guitar	Guitars, Musical group, Nutrition
1822	17/09/2024	Is this the government that we deserve?	Israel
2002	17/09/2025	Robert Redford RIP	Films, Obituary

Nothing much happening

Because the evening had been relatively cool, we decided to sleep with the windows open. As Julia Roberts said in 'Pretty Woman', "big mistake. BIG MISTAKE". There was a tremendous amount of noise coming from the restaurant/taverna where we had eaten (just below our flat) and that noise went on for hours. Not only the noise was making it hard to sleep: at about 2:30 am, my left nostril became blocked, making it hard to breathe with the CPAP mask. At home, I keep a inhaler by my bedside, but of course on holiday I had nothing. After thinking about it a little and remembering how either the ENT doctor or a nurse said that salt water would do just as well as the inhaler, I decided to get up, make a cup of tea and inhale the steam coming  from the tea. To my surprise and pleasure, after a few minutes my nose cleared and I could go back to bed.

My wife also suffered from the noise so she stayed in bed until quite late. As a result, we didn't get moving until about 10 am. Although we are on holiday and not really bound to any timetable, we had intended to drive around the island in the local minibus that follows a circular route. The bus has strange hours (for us): 8-11 am, 1-2 pm and 7-12 pm, and so we didn't feel that today would be suitable. So we spent more hours walking the shops. By the time we stopped for lunch, it was already close to 2pm and by the time we had finished it was nearly 3 pm. In order to make something of the day, I suggested that we take a taxi to the monastery; when a taxi finally pulled up, the driver told us that the monastery closes for lunch between 1 and 5 pm, so that was out.

So we spent our afternoon dozing in the flat and making up for the lost sleep. Eventually we had a light supper in our flat and then I went out for an evening power walk. I discovered that past the supermarket there is a coloured fountain, similar but smaller than the one outside Bari train station¹. Waiting in the supermarket queue, I heard someone speaking Hebrew - this is the fourth group of Israelis that I have come across in the past few days, so obviously Poros is known in Israel. Unlink my wife, I don't believe in engaging unknown people in conversation, even if we are speaking the same language.

In the night I woke up again with a blocked nose. This time I didn't bother making tea: I boiled water, poured a cup and inhaled the steam. Again this worked perfectly after a minute or two - so when we are back at home, I'll use this trick the next time my nose gets blocked.

Internal links
[1] 1509

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
975	16/09/2016	Intermediate submission accepted, part two: the feedback	DBA
976	16/09/2016	Sleep apnea (again)	CPAP, Apnea, Gadgets
2001	16/09/2025	Biopsy results	Health, Motorbikes, BCC

A change in the weather

As opposed to yesterday when it was very hot, today was reasonably cool - around 24ºC. There was a little rain during the night although I didn't hear it, a little more in the afternoon when we resting and then again in the evening when we set out for a pre-prandial walk and dinner. One side of the main road is where boats are tied up and there were some puddles there; the other side has shops and outside restaurants, but it is possible to walk past the shops and through the restaurants so very little rain actually fell upon us.

I woke up a few times during the night, and on one of my visits to the toilet, I took the picture that appears on the left: this is the sea that separates Paros from the Peloponnese town of Galatas. It looks better at night than it does during the day. Probably one day we'll take the snall ferry over to the other side to see what lies there but I doubt that there's anything particularly interesting.

I awoke fairly earlier, and in lieu of my normal breakfast, I started off with half a bottle of strawberry flavoured kefir, Kefir is made by fermenting the lactose in goat milk, yielding a sour, carbonated, slightly alcoholic beverage, although the consistency is similar to the drinkable yoghourt.Over the past few weeks I've started buying s similar product from a Israeli dairy that supplies to the kibbutz once every fortnight; the kefir was 'sharper' than the Israeli product. The kefir has 48 calories per 100 ml whereas the Israeli version has something like 100 calories/100 ml, if not more. Maybe I'll try and find kefir in Israel.

I couldn't figure out how to get the electric cooker to work so we had toasted cheese sandwiches for a lighter breakfast that we would have preferred. I discovered later on that the fuse was turned off in the main fusebox so from tomorrow we can have omelettes for breakfast. After leaving our flat, I took my wife slowly up the sea side of the road until we reached the supermarket. Here we bought more supplies, including two bottles of blackcurrant flavoured kefir that I look forward to drinking over the next few days. We walked back on the shop side of the road, checking out the produce so that we could see what would be better to purchase. Unfortunately my wife wasn't too consistent with this attitude and bought something that turned out to be inferior (and also more expensive) than something that we saw in the evening.

By the time we got back to the area near our flat, it was already 13:30, so we treated ourselves to brunch in the cafe directly under our flat, adding the protein that we missed in the morning. My wife had scrambled eggs with salad on french toast whereas I had scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on toast. Very nice.

After a rest, we went out again, turning left at the bottom of our steps instead of right, and so we saw a new set of restaurants. I didn't see many shops, but when we turned back, partially because of the rain, we discoved an alley way consisting only of shops. Some of these we better than the shops that we had seen in the morning.

Eventually we arrived back at our steps and sar down in the restaurant on the right of our steps. I had seen previously that they had various fish stored on ice in their window so I knew that we could have grilled sea bass close to our flat instead of having to walk to a recommended fish restaurant that was near the supermarket. We had to wait some time for the fish to be cooked, but probably because of the coldish wind blowing, it wasn't particularly hot. But it was good.

[I notice that there's a bug in the label algorithm of Blogger: I have chosen the label 'Poros' but instead the label 'coupling' appears. Weird.]

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
9	15/09/2005	Migraine	Migraine
406	15/09/2011	Planning the SQL	Delphi, SQL, Firebird
511	15/09/2012	My father's 90th birthday	Personal, Father
1663	15/09/2023	Cropping videos	Home movies, Musical group
1821	15/09/2024	A gentleman in Moscow	Personal, Literature

13,000 steps

Shortly after my announcement blog, the taxi came to take us to the airport. I had aleady performed a check-in that gave us boarding cards, but I (and many others) also had to use the automatic check-in machine to print luggage tags. What we didn't know was that the machine would only allow one to check in at a maximum of three hours before the flight, and we got there too early. So we had to hang around for 20 minutes before the machine would print the tags. What was the advantage in this? The queue to hand over our suitcase was much smaller and hence much faster. But once we had handed over the suitcase, we were like everyone else.

The flight with El Al was fine - this was probably a jumbo as there were ten seats per row and there were many rows. The flight took just over two hours, and we were served with a hot cheese and omelette sandwich - very tasty. Once we touched down at Athens airport we had to walk a fair amount before we came to passport control. The staff were prepared to recognise our British passports as EU passports, so we didn't have to wait at all in order to have our passports checked. The luggage didn't take long to come out, and very shortly after we had passed through the minimal customs and we were out of the airport.

In a similar manner to Malpensa airport (Milan), we had to walk a certain amount in order to get to the metro station. There was a train waiting for us to take us to Piraeus port, and like the train from Malpensa, it was at first packed. But many people got out at Syntagma Square and Monastiraki (about 100 metres from where we stayed in Athens¹ last time) so then we could get seats. The train delivered us to Piraeus port.

I looked at our tickets (also printed after a web check-in the previous day) and saw that our ferry would leave from wharf E9. This turned out to be quite a long way from where the train station was, probably the furthest wharf of all. We wanted to leave time to be sure that we would arrive at the ferry stop on time, so I booked seats on the 13:00 ferry; we were there at about 11:30 and had to wait for an hour. Eventually our ferry came, we embarked, found our seats and had a comfortable ride for an hour and 10 minutes.So far so good.

We had booked our stay in a large flat (more of that later) that apparently was near if not on the seaside promenade, but it wasn't clear how exactly we would get to the flat. We knew that it was very close to where the ferry drops its passengers. While we were on the train to Piraeus I saw that we had a message from our landlady saying that she couldn't meet us but would leave the key in the ferry office. Where was the ferry office? I walked a certain distance one way on the promenade and a certain distance the other way and couldn't find the office (shades of when we arrived in Andros). Then I noticed that behind where my wife was waiting in the shade was the office I was looking for! At first they didn't know what I was talking about but then they saw the key and gave it to me. How do we get to the flat? Go pass the cafe on the left then take the steps. ... these steps are very steep and very hard to walk up with the suitcases.

Eventually I got everything to the top ... but where is the flat? I could hear voices coming from the first door by the steps so obviously it wasn't there. I idly tried to put the key in the lock of the second door - and it fit! So I knew that this was the correct place.

After recovering from all the walking and lifting, I went out in search of a supermarket. I had an idea of where it was, but it turned to be wrong. Someone gave me instructions: go down to the promenade and walk 500 metres to the right. So I did this and found the supermarket - except that it seemed to sell only toiletries and cleaning materials.With a heavy heart, I started walking back to our flat, but decided to stop at an ice cream parlour where they sold (amongst other flavours) a gorgeous after eight mint  chocolate ice cream! So of course I stopped and had a portion; whilst I was eating it, I asked the server about the supermarket. He said that the supermarket was split into two: I had gone into one half, but a bit further on was the other half that sold only food. So I bought milk, eggs, bread and a few other items - enough for tonight and tomorrow. I don't want to visit there every day (it is about 1,000 steps from the flat) but obviously another visit is called for.

It is now 18:30 and I am worn out; my feet hurt and my face is hot from all the sun. Tomorrow is another day.

Internal links
[1] 1223

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
281	14/09/2010	A twilight health stage	Health
405	14/09/2011	Firebird DB management	Programming, Delphi, Firebird
510	14/09/2012	Happy New Year!	Jewish holidays
974	14/09/2016	Intermediate submission accepted!	DBA
1662	14/09/2023	A long, long day	Jewish holidays, Health, Guitars, Musical group
1820	14/09/2024	Remixing 'Tribe'	Home recording
2000	14/09/2025	2,000 blogs	Meta-blogging

Holiday!

I'm writing this at 2 am, not because I can't sleep but because I am up early in order to travel to the airport, in order to fly to Greece. We're going on a short holiday to the Greek island of Poros that I imagine that few non-Greeks have heard of.  This was all booked at short notice due to various reasons that I won't go into.

More later.

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
281	14/09/2010	A twilight health stage	Health
405	14/09/2011	Firebird DB management	Programming, Delphi, Firebird
510	14/09/2012	Happy New Year!	Jewish holidays
974	14/09/2016	Intermediate submission accepted!	DBA
1662	14/09/2023	A long, long day	Jewish holidays, Health, Guitars, Musical group
1820	14/09/2024	Remixing 'Tribe'	Home recording
2000	14/09/2025	2,000 blogs	Meta-blogging

New Year's greeting

This year, amongst the various pictures and videos that I have received for the Jewish New Year (starting tonight), I have noticed a new trend: an AI 'enhanced' picture of a family. This can be done easily via the Gemini application on my phone. I created the picture on the left as an 'impressionistic saxophonist', but I'm well aware that my current level of playing wouldn't allow me to ply my trade in a park. 

I have to say that this picture bares almost no resemblance to the original picture! My face is recognisable but I can assure any reader that I certainly wasn't smiling in the original; I was too busy concentrating. Apart from anything else, I was sitting, not standing.

Here's a more conventional greeting.

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
6	11/09/2005	Song uploads	Soundclick
7	11/09/2005	Comments	Meta-blogging
198	11/09/2009	Sandy Denny in "Ma'ariv"	Sandy Denny
404	11/09/2011	Fictional MI5	TV series, John Le Carre, MI5, Stella Rimington
755	11/09/2014	Last of the Luddites	Mobile phone
1167	11/09/2018	New Year holiday	DBA, Personal, Swimming
1257	11/09/2019	Mobile phone problem ... solved	Mobile phone
1421	11/09/2021	Chicken and rice together in one pot (2)	Cooking
1422	11/09/2021	Smart watch (2)	Mobile phone, Walking, Swimming
1527	11/09/2022	The ink black heart (2)	Cormoran Strike
1818	11/09/2024	Guitar setup	Guitars
1998	11/09/2025	Rapallo log 8 - A day off	Holiday, Italy, Rapallo

Another long day

Yesterday was exceedingly similar to another long, long day.¹. On the day before yesterday (i.e. Tuesday), the acoustic line-up (more on this later) had a rehearsal that lasted until 10:30 pm. As a result, I didn't get much sleep that night. Yesterday morning I was up at 5:30 am to take the dog for a walk, then I went to the swimming pool for what is now a short swim - only 28 lengths. After coming home, showering and breakfasting, it was into the car for a doctor's appointment for my wife. I had hoped that there would have been a break after lunch for a short lie down, but one of my clients requested my presence at 14:00 and the work with him lasted until 16:00. 

Then it was time to walk to the local arts centre for my second saxophone lesson. During the week between lessons, I had watched some YouTube videos concerning the first steps: how to put the ligature and reed together with the mouthpiece, and how to blow. Despite these videos that helped somewhat, I was barely able to get a note out of the neck, let alone with the neck connected to the saxophone. The picture shows the neck without the mouthpiece but one gets the idea.

At the beginning of the lesson, I asked my teacher to show me exactly how to put all the parts together and I filmed him doing this. I tried blowing again after he had put the saxophone together, but once again couldn't get a note out. So he replaced the reed with a thinner one (2 mm) and also replaced the ligature. Then I put all the pieces together, despite my three left hands, and finally managed to get some sounds out of the saxophone. These were much better than the previous week's sound that had shades of David Jackson's avant garde playing for VdGG.

Then it was time to do some exercises. My teacher put some sheet music on a stand and I started playing - or at least I tried to start playing. It took a while to get going but eventually I played several of the exercises. There are two main problems: I don't have enough breath necessary for playing some of them, and I have difficulty with the low C (this requires using the down octave key). But generally the playing went well, and the teacher said that I was doing very well for someone who was having only his second lesson. Of course, he didn't have to explain to me how to read music. The top jaw has to bite quite hard but the bottom lip has to be fairly relaxed: pressing too hard will close the reed and so no sound will emerge. The mouthpiece also has to be at a specific point within the mouth otherwise notes are liable to be out of tune. I am sure that this will become much easier as I continue.

There are a few major differences between playing the guitar or piano as opposed to playing the saxophone. On my instruments, one plays a scale from the lowest note to the highest note, whereas on the saxophone, the scales are mainly played in a descending manner. One idiosyncratic point to note is that the top note C (it's actually Eb as the alto saxophone is a transposing instrument, but we won't go into that) is played by pressing the second key in the left hand whereas the B is played by pressing the top left hand key, and A is played by pressing both those keys. The other major difference is that playing a note on the guitar or piano is not particularly dependent on which note is played, whereas the lower notes on the saxophone are considered harder to play than the higher notes.

By 17:15, the lesson had finished and I was all blown out. Then it was time to go home, pick up the 12 string guitar then walk down to the dining hall where the New Year ceremony would be held. It has occurred to me that this is the third time that I have played at this ceremony in the past four years (I don't remember what happened last year) and that every time I have played a different guitar: the Washburn, the Stagg and now the 12 string. I doubt that anyone else would have paid attention. This year we were what I call 'the acoustic line up of the House Band', and played three songs.

When the ceremony finished, it was back home to take the dog for her evening walk, by which time I was totally wiped out. I went to bed early and slept for a long time. My phone tells me that yesterday I walked 11,476 steps which is more than enough.

My saxophone teacher sent me a link to a shop where I could buy thinner saxophone reeds, so I ordered last week. The parcel came today - a shame that it wasn't yesterday. Today was a much easier day, mainly consulting work. 

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The first lesson

Today I had my first lesson learning how to play the saxophone. As far as I can see at the moment, there are two separate actions that have to be learnt: how to produce a tone in a constant manner, and how to finger the correct notes. The second action doesn't bother me too much: I've already picked up a certain amount of skill. But it's the actual mechanics of producing a constant tone that have me stymied. 

It may just be that the reed in the mouthpiece is too thick (2.5 mm) and that a thinner reed will be easier. But the actual form that my mouth has to take - the embouchure - seems unnatural at the moment. My upper teeth have to grip the mouthpiece but my lower lip - not the teeth - should be on the reed. Also, it seems that I shouldn't take the mouthpiece too far into my mouth. The high notes were more difficult than the lower notes, which according to my teacher, is unusual.

No doubt this will all become easier in the future. 

I asked (tongue in cheek) which sound is worse: someone learning to play the violin or someone learning to play the saxophone. He answered that the violin sounds worse but that the saxophone is louder! So it's six of one and six of the other.

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1987	02/09/2025	No luck with guitar strings	Guitars

Ajovy

Following a third appointment with my neurologist a few weeks ago, I was prescribed Ajovy which certainly is the most recent treatment for migraines and should be the most effective and with the fewest side effects. It will be difficult to tell how effective it will be during the coming month as I don't normally suffer from migraines over the summer; it's the autumn, winter and spring that are the seasons for migraines, especially with rapid changes in the weather.

I went last week to fill the prescription, but was told that there was no prescription even though the medication had been authorised by the 'regional head office', and anyway it would have to be ordered, as the pharmacy doesn't keep a stock of these syringes. During the past week I checked with my GP that she had issued the required prescription, so today I had the chance to go to the pharmacy again and collect the medication. I had fully intended to go to the kibbutz clinic so that they could show me how to use the medication; in the accompanying leaflet to the syringe, it was written that the user should be shown how to use the syringe by a doctor or nurse.

Except that when I arrived at the clinic, the nurses didn't know initially what to do. Apparently there are several members who use Wegovy, the weight loss medication that also comes in a syringe, but there one syringe is for four separate injections, whereas with Ajovy, one injects the entire contents of the syringe and the effect lasts for a month. In fact, it's possible even to inject at the same time three syringes in order to cover a three month period.

The actual mechanism of the injection is very simple: after cleaning the area (near to the belly button) and removing the needle guard from the syringe, one simply presses the syringe to the target area and holds it for 30 seconds. Initially a click is heard, which means that the needle has exited the syringe and then a few seconds later, a second click is heard, signifying that the contents of the syringe have been injected. One is told to hold the syringe in place for another 10 seconds and then one wipes the injection area with gauze. The spent syringe is sent to the clinic for disposal along with all the other 'sharps', even though the needle has retracted (this probably happens during the extra 10 seconds). 

Did I feel anything? As I was concentrating on the injection, I felt a little prick and then a mild feeling of liquid entering the body, but this was negligible. Next time I probably won't feel anything. The injection site has not turned red - in fact, I'm not too sure exactly where I injected. So good: no side effects. Below appears the syringe on top of its box; I appreciate that it might be difficult to see what is what. Here's a clue: the blue cap that appears in the lower left hand side of the picture is the needle guard, and the syringe goes from there to the right hand side of the picture.

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