DENTIST, MIRA AND CILLA-BLOODY-BLACK.

Off for my six-monthly session of thinly disguised contempt and ridicule this morning. Or as it is sometimes better known – my dental check-up. I’m convinced that, irrespective of gender, dentists would make ideal wives… there is nothing that they can’t find fault in. Do you floss? How often do you brush? How long do you brush? Why don’t you use an electric brush? Why do you brush up and down? Why don’t you hold the brush at 45 degrees. It’s feckin relentless.

Unfortunately, because I did have a dentist appointment, I was unable to do my “daft o’clock” run today. I shall have to try and make up for it.
My preparation for the marathon in April is not going well. Not going well at all.
Desperately need to get some long runs in.
 
What I DID have time for this morning though was a really good listen to the new offering from Arild Andersen, Tommy Smith and Paolo Vinaccia, “Mira”.
I know we are only four weeks into a new year, but this really could be the record of the year. Real gentle Nordic “folk” type ballads for the most part. I was listening on my Ipod while I walked into Dunbar (in the dark) and the wind howling through the trees actually added to the overall effect. It's mostly, very reminiscent of what I think of as "classic" ECM type jazz.
You know how Nordic TV is often better than ours and Nordic crime fiction is often better than ours? No real definable reason - it just "is". Well this is the same.
One "cover" among the album of originals - perhaps the best cover I have ever heard of Burt Bacharach’s “Alfie”. This is Alfie, as I’ve never heard it before. The trio seems to take the song apart like a tangram puzzle, then rearrange the parts into simplistic but beautiful patterns. Different from the original, yet still constructed from, and recognisable as,  the same components.
This version may finally be enough to place the last nail in the coffin of that awful version, of what should be a wonderful song, by Cilla-Bloody-Black.