Solly as a Rock!!

I have finally discovered the main difference between club/house and techno.
(“Why did it take you this long?”, I can hear y’all think. “It’s not that hard, musically.)

Duh, I have known the musical difference since 1992 for a while now. Techno has a dominant bass, hiats and industrial sounds, whereas club is more poppy, four to the floor and has breaks and (the shock! the horror!) singalong lyrics.
It’s not the music, that makes the difference. It’s the audience.
The techno crowd is (well) dressed for the occasion, yet not strictly according the latest fashion. As long as it looks nice and it’s comfortable to dance in, it’ll do just fine.
Club/house lovers are very different. I have never seen a more fashionable crowd than last Saturday at the PUMA 4Some free open air MTV after party. Most of the people where ‘looking great’ and ‘being cool’ in their hip outfits. See or to be seen – fashion victims! Only a few danced – a bit, god forbid they would sweat. In fact the only people dancing, cheering and sweating where the ladies who had just ran their 5 km and people I know from techno parties…

I now know the difference between club/house and techno: and it has nothing to do with music!

Tropical temperatures over here, but I won’t complain about it – Cloggies normally complain about all weather types: too cold, too hot, too wet, too dry… – though my arms do stick to my desk…
Anyway, I have walked a bit yesterday (30 km in 30 degC, don’t try that at home) and I think I have coloured slightly- I won’t call it a tan, ’cause some of you will laugh… My dad and MyLove have confirmed the slight change of colour, lil BiL wasn’t convinced, my father in law just smiled. Of course we BBQ’d – tropical + Father’s Day = BBQ – and had some rosé.
Today I will set up camp at the park (she sneers to all you working people)!
Yep, life is good in the Lowlands!

Finally an afternoon without appointments, MyLove is at school, no further distractions… This could be the perfect moment to write catchy application letters to various companies! Go Solly!
(…)
Or not. I am still recovering – still from last weekend, it’s the age -, so I can’t be asked to do more than hang on my sofa, watch Oprah and read the tabloids.
Maybe I’ll do stuff later today.
Or tomorrow…

Mental note: never make appointments the days after a very busy Saturday afternoon/evening, Saturday night/Sunday morning, and Sunday…
Sleep: vertually none, coffe, fast food and beer: too much!
I haven’t had a change to recharge yet and today I’m completely ‘booked’ too. Ah well, no rest for the wicked, aye?

… It’s crappy, I know. And it will be for a couple of days, I realised somewhere between hanging up my six new Venetian blinds – the wintergarden looks ‘tres colonial’ now – , the preparations for the local FREE pop-slash-rock-slash-dance festival – which will take place coming weekend …. Ooh, and do hear some techno? (Who needs sleep anyway…)

Anyway, see you on Monday! Naggered, but full of stories (I hope; I could have died of sleep deprivation…)

Yesterday, I finished “The Shadow of the Wind” by Carlos Ruis Zafon. The book is a page-turner in the tradition of Umberto Eco, Gabriel García Márquez or Isabel Allende. Wonderful, magical, a literary painting. Personally, I think it’s more a thrilling novel than the literary thriller it is said to be on the cover – no Nicci French, thankfully. Again, I was seduced to buy the book after reading its intriguingng synopsis:

Hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is the ‘cemetery of lost books’, a labyrinthine library of obscure and forgotten titles that have long gone out of print. To this library, a man brings his 10-year-old son Daniel one cold morning in 1945. Daniel is allowed to choose one book from the shelves and pulls out ‘The Shadow of the Wind’ by Julian Carax. But as he grows up, several people seem inordinately interested in his find. Then, one night, as he is wandering the old streets once more, Daniel is approached by a figure who reminds him of a character from the Shadow of the Wind, a character who turns out to be the devil. This man is tracking down every last copy of Carax’s work in order to burn them. What begins as a case of literary curiosity turns into a race to find out the truth behind the life and death of Julian Carax and to save those he left behind.

It’s the kind of book you can’t put away; you have to keep on reading. If you by any chance do stop reading – because you fell asleep or your Love wants some attention too – and you leave it for a bit, it will only take one or two sentences to be well inside the story again! It’s romantic, historic, a thriller, a book inside a book… I felt sad when I finished it – not because of the ending, but because I had turned that last page! Read it!

Unfortunately, I am without reading material at the moment – waiting for a translation of Allende’s Zorro and the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince -, so if anyone has any suggestions: tell me in the comment thingy!

*sighs*
Apparently, we do listen to the French…
62% no, 38% yes…

I have voted for the European Constitution today.
(insert gasp of shock here)

I have given it a lot of thought and I came up with a slightly longer pro than con list. I’m not scared to say that I am pro, but *pff* I’ve had a lot of discussions about this subject. Everyone around me – including MyLove, my parents, my friends… – seems to be voting against it – and have tried to convert me into doing the same. No hard feelings, yet I stick to my point: with such a big European Union, we need a clear set of rules. The first polls point to a resounding No, though.

Anyway, I am not going to try to convince anyone to vote yes, but… France voted ‘Non’ and since when did we start listening to France???