New Road
On first hearing Black Country, New Road: I didn't like them at all. Their early material grated on my ears, and I never even gave their much-praised second album a listen. Despite myself, I caught a track or two off Live From Bush Hall that YouTube served up to me some time after its release, and I was obliged to concede I liked what I heard. Evidently a re-evaluation was in order. By the time Forever Howlong came out earlier this year I was all aboard, and bought a CD copy. Annoyingly, Live From Bush Hall isn't readily available as a silver disc (unless one gets the costly Japanese release) so I resorted to obtaining it on vinyl a few weeks ago, since which time it has returned to the turntable multiple times.
With a handful of exceptions, I never much cared for original ‘70s prog-rock, so don’t know why it should be that I greatly enjoy some 21st-Century music — such as Black Country, New Road — that is indisputably proggy.
I've been shaving with straight razors for nearly five years now, but have yet to attempt any razor honing. Some of the razors I bought came shave-ready; the others I sent off to be honed. Since then I've been maintaining their edges with periodic recourse to abrasive 'strop pastes'. The time has come now, I feel, to at least try honing on a whetstone, and, to that end, I'm hoping to get a Shapton Ceramic #12000 stone. I'm by no stretch of the imagination a handy person, so there's no guarantee it'll go well.
In the meantime, as of Saturday, I've come into possession of a honing stone that used to belong to my maternal grandfather. It's a drab green-grey slab embedded in a hefty block of dark wood (Fig. 6), that smells very much like it has spent the last half a century in a garage. I'll try my luck with the Shapton first before putting a sharp edge anywhere near this thing, but I should like to put it to use eventually.
The cheese of the week has been Perl Lâs, which I suspect must be the best-known blue cheese made in Wales: a renown, I would say, that is well-merited. Other mild blues I've taken a shine to lately have been Cashel Blue from Ireland and, from France, Bleu d'Affinois.