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Without giving too much away, I’m of the generation which has always venerated music on vinyl. While it was always much cheaper to buy a cassette and record a friend’s albums, there were some things you just had to have on record. I have a copy of the first Cure album which I, ahem, “borrowed” from a housemate in about 1980. The rhythmic clicking on the opening track, which I must have scratched one evening due to alcohol-impaired hand-eye coordination, is the authentic sound. Without it the same song on my CD version just doesn’t sound right.
And now vinyl is back, but it’s much, much more expensive than in the old days – even more so if you are the sort of music fan who just has to have every single release by your favourite artist. Since Taylor Swift’s latest album comes in four special editions, each with a different “bonus track”, her fans have to shell out a cool £135 if they want the complete set of songs.
Some years ago a friend of mine, who works with his hands, suffered terribly from arthritis in his finger joints, which was making it almost impossible for him to work. A mutual friend suggested he take a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar (the sort with a cloudy “mother”) in a glass of hot water each morning. He said it worked like a charm. Now our medical sleuth has put the medicinal properties of apple cider vinegar to the test and found that, apart from
helping him shift a few excess pounds, the plethora of other claimed health benefits appear to have little basis in science. Still, weight loss is not to be sniffed at, from where I’m sitting.
Some stories you just want to read for the sheer beauty of the way the writer uses words. And so it is with this piece about John Alec Baker, a little-known naturalist and writer whose love for the peregrine falcon prompted him to write a novel about the endangered bird of prey. The book inspired the likes of Sir David Attenborough and Chris Packham – just as this lovely article has inspired me to read Baker’s book.
This week we also paid tribute to Peter Higgs, a modest and self-effacing man, whose discovery of the “God Particle” won him the Nobel Prize and made him one of the most consequential scientists of his time. We also revealed what goes on inside an arms fair from someone who has been attending them undercover for many years. And we learned how the modern US-Mexican drugs trade developed as an unforeseen consequence of the “Mexican miracle”, by which American investment sought to turn its southern neighbour into a bustling modern economy.
Meanwhile our friends and colleagues in the US reacted swiftly to the death of O.J. Simpson, while 30 years on from South Africa’s first proper election, we have this piece about the Kenyan negotiator who arguably saved the vote from
descending into violence. Finally, from Belgium, new research which suggests Roman wine was likely to have been a far better tipple than previously
imagined.
As ever, please try to find time to listen to our podcast, The Conversation Weekly. This week’s episode is the first of a three-part series taking an in-depth look at the 1994 election of Nelson Mandela as South African president.
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