Castle Gate

All kinds of weather today with alternating heavy rain and bright sunshine before it settled into a kind of blustery greyness. I enjoyed it all on pleasant trip down into town to not pick up my new glasses again - they were originally ready for collection a fortnight ago but the machine that heats them up for refitting to your face crazed one of the lenses, then today they were apparently back from the lab but after a good half hours searching they had to conclude that the person who earlier told me she had them "in her hand" might actually just have been holding the case and that, in fact, the whole business is now reaching farcical proportions...!

As regards the music, I have found time to listen to the new album from Withered Hand a few times. I can't help but think a few folk might miss some of the rough edges that have been milled off his earlier stuff but by and large the songs are good enough to benefit. The first half in particular is very good with a couple of potential hits (both massively catchy but only one of which is about a cult Amerindie band) followed up by a trio of songs about 'Mr. Hand' taking his insecurities stateside to alternately comic and moving effect and culminating in a very subtle lament to the Sunshine State. World fame - or at least a storming set at Indietracks - beckons...