Finn's Parlour

I've been away for a while. Last weekend but one I suffered a stark reminder of how feckless, treacherous and disloyal some members of the human race could be and since I seem to have lost some of my armour against this sort of nonsense (it is called 'recovery' I believe) it affected me more than it usually would have done.

So I went on holiday for a week - up to a lonely little spot in North Yorkshire where I could get away from it all and regain my usual savoir faire and casual equilibrium.

Anyway I'm back now and here is an update of various thoughts in no particular order

( Behold )

I'm still a bit smug about the critically poor reviews of Paint Never Dries, but I'm sure I'll get over it soon. I watched a video of Ramin Karimloo singing "Till I hear you sing once more" from the show and to be honest his performance was not bad - he has a good voice and certainly put a great deal of passion into it. The music itself was slightly annoying though, with lots of jarring key changes and as for the lyrics... bah... it reads like a HOL poetry challenge.

If the show has any success at all it will be due to the energy and talent of the performers, not to the dismal book and flawed concept.

(cross posted from Buzz)

 I mentioned in an earlier post here that I was trying to learn another language.  The original book I was using was good, but didn't inspire me a great deal, consisting mainly of sample dialogues and long lists of verb forms and so on.  Workable but hard-workable.   From time to time in the past I'd heard of the Michel Thomas method of language learning and noticed that my local bookshop had some examples of his product for a variety of different languages.

The hyperbole on the packaging has to be seen to be believed.  It claims to give you an understanding of the language in question, and a working knowledge of structure and grammar within twelve hours of audio lessons with no need for note taking or rote learning.

Pah.  Finn is not easily fooled by such marketing nonsense.  But the Michel Thomas website does have a wide range of free downloads covering the first hour of the course for most of the languages available (www.michelthomas.co.uk/soundclips.htm) and so I tried out the Dutch one.

By the end of that I was convinced enough to give the course a try.

( Read on... )