Back in the late 1950s when my mother remarried after my father’s death, ‘Dad’, as he was called when he came to live at Toley Avenue, Preston Road, London, taught me how to construct a radio receiver made from a crystal, a crystal set. I have this memory of listening to Quincy Jones on my crystal set and loving the rhythm.
“Music is sacred to me,” Quincy Jones once said. “Melody is God’s voice.”
He certainly had the divine touch.
Jones, who had died at the age of 91, was the right-hand man to both Frank Sinatra and Michael Jackson, and helped to shape the sound of jazz and pop over more than 60 years.
His recordings revolutionised music by crossing genres, promoting unlikely collaborations and shaping modern production techniques.
I have been a follower of Ugly Hedgehog for some years.
Last Sunday ‘Alphadog’ posted this photograph taken on Route 66, the Antares Road, in Kingman, Arizona. It is reproduced here with Richard’s full permission.
My son, Alex, took the following photographs of the Aurora..
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They are fabulous. Especially so because as it happened we had mainly cloud cover here in Southern Oregon.
To close, here is an extract from yesterday’s BBC website:
On Thursday night, the stunning colours of the Northern Lights were visible once again even to the naked eye across much of the US.
Experts say the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, are more visible right now due to the sun being at what astronomers call the “maximum” of its 11-year solar cycle.
What this means is that roughly every 11 years, at the peak of this cycle, the sun’s magnetic poles flip, and the sun transitions from sluggish to active and stormy. On Earth, that’d be like if the North and South Poles swapped places every decade.
“At its quietest, the sun is at solar minimum; during solar maximum, the sun blazes with bright flares and solar eruptions,” according to Nasa, the US space agency.
The current 11-year cycle, the 25th since records began in 1755, started in 2019 and is expected to peak next year.
For most dogs, their friend groups usually consist of a mix of humans and other dogs. But Lili, a 3-year-old dog who lives on a French Polynesian atoll called Fakarava, isn’t like most other dogs. She prefers friends who have gills and fins. In fact, her very best friend is a shark.
Ever since Lili’s mom, Emmanuelle Larchet, adopted Lili, she’s known that her dog has an affinity for all things aquatic. She started swimming in the lagoon near Larchet’s house when she was only a month old.
“She’s really a water dog,” Larchet told The Dodo.
There are around 100 sharks who live in this lagoon near Larchet’s house. So when Lili swims in the water there, she’s surrounded by them. While many dog parents would be terrified to see their dog swimming amongst sharks, Larchet knows that the sharks Lili swims with are nurse sharks, who are actually very docile creatures.
“We call them sea puppies because [they’re] like dogs, actually … They are very nice,” Larchet said.
Larchet likes to joke that when Lili swims around with her shark friends, it’s sea puppies meeting earth puppies.
Over the years Lili has been swimming in the lagoon, there’s one shark in particular she’s grown especially close with. His name is Sharky, and he and Lili visit each other almost every day. Larchet and Lili are able to recognize Sharky because he has a special marking on one of his fins.
Lili and Sharky like to explore their lagoon together. They enjoy splashing around in the warm, clear water.
“He comes to say hello every time she sees him,” Larchet said.
Even though Lili and Larchet are best friends themselves, Larchet is more than happy to share her Lili with Sharky. And even though Larchet watches Lili hang out with her shark friends all the time, it never gets old seeing them spend time together.
“[When] I see her swimming with Sharky, [I’m] so happy,” Larchet said.