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Agreed. Comparatively unknown compared to The National Gallery, Tate Britain and Tate Modern, but with a collection of prime items by Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh and Rousseau and a roomful of Fauves and one of German Expressionists, absolutely not to be missed! Aside from a few high profile exhibitions, the place is always nearly empty, which makes studying the works much more pleasant (actually the main floor rooms in Tate Britain are usually nearly empty as well, though the exhibitions in the basement are often packed).

I got interested in Sickert when coming across him in several UK collections, particularly the Tate Britain (Ennui is a more conventional painting but still well done - it is now a bit undervalued because of the emphasis on the Camden Town nudes). There is also a decent Sickert in the Cambridge museum but it isn't often reproduced. I sadly wasn't in town for the Courtauld Institute of Art exhibit in 2007. I did manage to get to the Courtauld several times though. What a great museum!

Well, I am a bit hesitant to bring this up, since it is unclear if the shows/podcasts will be available in 2011, but what the heck. About a month ago, I was tipped off to a book called History of the World in 100 Objects through the Guardian website. It is also available on the Amazon.co.uk website, though probably being reprinted at the moment:100 Objects book So far it is not available in the US. After some reflection, I decided that it really was a gorgeous book and put in an order. In the reviews, they mentioned that the BBC 4 series was even better. Curiously, I am an avid listener of BBC Radio 3 but never remembered hearing anything about this project. To sum it up, BBC Radio 4 approached Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, and asked him to choose 100 objects from the museum that summed up human history. Then deliver 100 radio broadcasts on the objects. Pretty daunting, no? Well, most people think MacGregor delivered in spades, though there are a few detractors. In the comments here, they are about 75% supportive and 25% negative: Comments1 Here it is more 50/50: Comments2 My feeling is that the programs are quite well done until the last 5 when he goes seriously off the rails in terms of what is important in the larger scheme of things (and then to have chosen a solar lamp when the runner-up object was a mobile phone??). My second thought is that the emphasis is so heavily on religion/royalty/culture and there was almost nothing on technology, though some of this is due to the nature of the British Museum's collection. If they had somehow combined this with the V & A Collection it might have been more balanced. In general, I thought there were some critical items that really ought to have been included: a plow printing press and/or the Gutenberg Bible something representing train technology something representing the American and probably the French revolutions (they wait all the way until the Russian revolution for an object) the telegraph probably a transistor radio computer automobile culture So a really great series but an incomplete one. I would probably combine it with James Burke's Connection series for a more rounded view of things. (Boy, that was a great series and fortunately all available on Netflix!) Here are the episodes (there is another place to try to download podcasts but I think only valid from the UK): 100 Objects radio. Hopefully they will leave them up at least through 2011. Then you can let me know if I am all wet.

You can get the downloads from eMusic or Amazon and probably iTunes. There are a fair number of new and used copies of the box itself from resellers floating about on Amazon, but no idea how long they will last. You guys convinced me (esp. Chuck) and now there is one fewer...

True, but except for Famous Door, in most cases I'd still have to go elsewhere to get the rest of the live set.

It's been really frustrating for me. I have about $50 in Borders cards that I can't locate (somewhere in my home office ). Not only have I missed out on some 35% off sales, but if I can't get my act together I might lose it completely. Am trying to clean out the office this weekend.

Is there a discography of Disc 4 of #1 band set floating around (aside from the booklet inside the box of course)? I have the Mosaic, so am unlikely to get this for just the live sessions, but I might look at other ways of obtaining the live material. (I didn't see a specific CD release that had the same material, but maybe it is spread over a few CDs.) Thanks! The main thing is the Famous Door broadcast - Pres is just unbelievable there! ... Hope this helps... Just as a note of warning: the info I give above is far from complete... and I'm in no way sure there aren't more recent (than my info, that is) releases where the music could be found more easily. Thanks! Very helpful. I'll see if I can track some of these down. It is a shame that some European outfit hasn't pulled together this material into one place.

Is there a discography of Disc 4 of #1 band set floating around (aside from the booklet inside the box of course)? I have the Mosaic, so am unlikely to get this for just the live sessions, but I might look at other ways of obtaining the live material. (I didn't see a specific CD release that had the same material, but maybe it is spread over a few CDs.) Thanks!

I certainly have a lot of books, DVDs and CDs/LPs, though I wouldn't call myself a collector precisely (1st editions don't interest me nor does music format so long as it is not painful to listen to). I probably do shade into collector territory with music. One of my best best finds yet was the 3 volume set of Burton's translation of 1001 Nights Burton -- for $1 at a library book sale. Actually, the Burton volumes were found over a score of years ago. This year I found The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova (the hard cover version) for $1 at another library sale.

Not too much. I did get the 2-disc reissue of CTI's The California Concert and listened to the first disc so far.

I guess this can go here as well as anywhere. I think Stefan Zweig's name has come up a couple of times. Anyway, there are a few days left to hear a radio adaptation of his chess-based novella The Royal Game: Zweig It shares many characteristics with Nabokov's The Defense. Wasn't super crazy about either, but liked Zweig's a bit better. I have started reading Treasure Island to my son, who now seems old enough not to be completely scared of pirates. It should take a week or two. After this, it will be Kidnapped. Hard to believe, but I've never read either up to now. As far as my own reading, I did start Shamsie's Kartography, which seems promising. Somewhere towards the end of the month, I am going to tackle Mahfouz's The Cairo Trilogy. I'm excited but a little daunted. Also I think it is too bulky to take on the train, which would slow me down considerably!

I wouldn't be thrilled if my wife moved my CDs around, though I wouldn't pitch a fit about it. But if she started rearranging my books there would be hell to pay.

Yeah, those are some sweet finds. I've heard great things about Dances with Bulls. I'll try to check it out later. I got a pretty good deal recently on Coleman Hawkins Meets the Big Sax Section on LP and June Christy Ballads for Night People on CD.

Close to what Paul says. However as the Black Friday sales happen earlier each year & are so irresistible I invariably end up buying something for myself. I don't save it for Christmas but open it right off. Same here. Picked up recently the Fania All Stars box set and the massive Africa music box from Sterns' label. I did feel kind of bad about getting the Sterns box (Africa 50 years of Music) for myself, but the pre-order price was awfully tempting (apparently UK residents had an even better sale price). I have, so far at least, held off from the new Ellington box from Mosaic. Maybe after I file my taxes... One other luxury item was the beautiful book A History of the World in 100 Objects, which is by Director of the British Museum: http://www.amazon.co.uk/History-World-100-Objects/dp/1846144132/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1292761453&sr=1-1. This edition has already gone out of print (in its first printing) but I managed to snag one of the last copies from Amazon at 50% off! It will certainly be reprinted and will probably eventually be published over here, but it really seemed to be an exceptional book, and I didn't want to wait. I also wasn't sure if the US edition would be quite as well made.

Sure, that would be terrific. Let me know. Merci beaucoup! Several Vogue/BMG CDs turned up recently but not 'Tilt'. I still have that album in mind and will grab it for you as soon as it shows up! Much appreciated.

What would we do without the internet to normalize our habits. See, honey, there are at least 10 people out there with more Mosaics than I have... I'm trying to think how many I've bought since 2007, 4 of the big boxes (will get the new Ellington in 2011) and maybe 5 Selects (only one of which I ultimately hung onto). So fairly restrained...

So I was poking around on JazzLoft and saw the Either/Orchestra has a new CD called Mood Music for Time Travelers: Link The music on the video they've done is ok, but not spectacular. (Certainly nowhere near the quality of some of their Ethiopian-inspired jazz for instance.) However, the video itself is a huge turnoff. I guess it makes you somehow cool to mock the 60s with "dancers" who are grossly out of time with the music. This would always have been a pretty marginal purchase for me, and if this is how they are marketing their product, I will definitely pass.

Tati-inspired or not, I hated The Party. But the first two Pink Panther films are ace. RIP.

I am looking to get into Proust in 2012, maybe help distract myself from everything else going to pot. Anyway, for a classic classic I've been reading Erasmus's The Praise of Folly. Not a gut-buster, but it has its moments. I've demoted Nabokov to the benches for the time being and am replacing him with Kamila Shamsie. She doesn't have that many novels, so then I'll read two by Uzma Aslam Khan, and then see how I feel about inserting Nabokov back into the line-up. I have, however, been enjoying Mahfouz and generally Narayan, so they will stay in. It is kind of a nice change: a year of reading almost entirely non-Western fiction.

Just got back from a double-header at CSO: Regina Carter and Esperanza Spalding. Carter was incredible, mostly playing from her new CD Reverse Thread. The instrumentation was odd to say the least -- violin, kora, accordian, bass and drums. I think they went a little long, but the crowd didn't mind. (I should clarify they probably went over their time limit, not that I was bored by the end.) Then they had a very long intermission. Finally, Esperanza Spalding came on and did some weird thing where she sat in a living-room chair, drinking wine, listening to her string section. Eventually, she moved over and picked up the bass and started to sing. I found it pretty weak. I would go so far as to call her the Nora Jones of vocalese. I was going to at least wait until the end of the third number to leave, but it actually started getting worse. The woman next to me left mid number and I decided to follow. I saw that it was already 10 pm (which is roughly when shows at CSO end). I have no idea how long that show was actually going to run, but I'm definitely glad I left when I did. Never again.

I'm still very much on the fence. I am sure I won't read it twice, if I read it at all, so I'll just have to be patient and sign up for a copy from the library in the spring. I really didn't understand all the fuss about Kalooki Nights (a fairly big deal in British Jewish literature from 2007). I just didn't enjoy it at all, but the reviewers just lapped it up (as they did with Jacobson's Booker-winning The Finkler Question). I have a fairly strong suspicion that I would be feeling the same way at the end of The Instructions -- meh. That's a lot of reading for little reward. I felt the same way about The Savage Detectives (no way was my effort fully rewarded) and I'm feeling that way about Nabokov now. I'm clearly moving away from a certain kind of ultra-literary fiction as I age. Still, I generally enjoy Jonathan Lethem and Michael Chabon, who are sort of in the same circle.

How is this? I'm probably going to tackle it next year, but it looks like a book I'd only read once, so I am struggling not to buy it with a 33% off coupon or something. Anyway, I just wrapped up Mahfouz's The Beginning and the End. Towards the end it looks like it is about to become An American Tragedy set in Egypt, but it doesn't (which is good as I actually didn't care for Dreiser's tale too much) and it goes somewhere darker actually. Quite a good book on the whole, but depressing. Just thought I would share a rant on Ted Hughes' The Iron Giant. I've known about it for a long time, though I never read it or watched the animated film. Anyway, it looked age-appropriate for my son, so I checked it out. I hated it. I thought so much was wrong with it, including the absurdity of having a star/ship travel from somewhere in the Orion constellation to Earth in a matter of months, and all kinds of other bogus physics, then the sadomasochism and the slave imagery, then the simpering wish fulfillment at the end where the space dragon sings the music of the stars and the people of earth lose their war-like tendencies. In short, I hated everything about it and was heartily sorry I'd picked it up. I do wonder what the movie is like, however, as I simply can't believe they could have been that faithful to the original.

And Brubeck. Plus Tubby Hayes, John Dankworth etc. More ham than your local branch of Tesco but worth watching. I believe that All Night Long is coming out as part of an Eclipse box set (Basil Dearden’s London Underground).

I'll look into this. Thanks. I have found a workaround, but it will be unbelievably tedious. I went to SafeMode and was able to remove nearly all the Read-only attributes from the Users folder. Then in dos window I am able to go to Users/Owner (even though it doesn't appear in the directory) and then I can copy over to some other unprotected location. (I can do this now even with SafeMode off.) But my dos is rusty, and I am going to want to copy large batches of files or whole folders ideally. Still, the files do appear to be there and uncorrupted for the most part. So I am thankful for that. It could have been much, much worse.

This may well be part of the problem. I was running Windows 7. I don't have anything comparable at the moment. My laptop is XP. It is sufficient to burn all the other non-protected files, and that will keep me busy for a while. What worries me is that even if I get a new computer loaded with Windows 7, it will see this hard drive as a "foreign object" and there will be no native way to tell it that I am the official user. I'm suspecting that I probably will need to go see an expert before all is said and done, though I do hope there is some way to crack it, even if I can't do it myself.