Christopher Todd

It’s almost ten years since the “looks like a renaissance painting” photo from New Year’s Eve 2015 in Manchester. www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-t...

Any image search for “accidental renaissance” is a feast.

At the moment it’s George Feyer, on Echoes Of Paris.

The standard Autumn Leaves / Feuilles Mortes is following me like never before, in one way and another. Someone I overheard in a pub was talking about transcribing it at jazz school in Berkeley.

Feeling brainy and erudite because today I used an actual dictionary to look a word up.

When the whiteboard in the community hall has the previous group’s instructions (in this case fencing; in another case Portuguese conversation) but it still works for
morris dancing.

Stuck for a Halloween costume? I recommend the eye from this 1.7-second shot in Gone To Earth (1950).

A smoke on a ha-ha, in Mrs Dalloway (1997). Underrated location.

Dealing with solicitors is a handy source of big paperclips.

I’ve spent far too long thinking that someone I follow must have limitless holidays or some important job… and realised eventually that they’re cabin crew.

Made In England: The Films Of Powell & Pressburger - on iplayer. No extra talking heads, just spending time with Martin Scorsese, going through fascinating films in order. Plenty of tightly wound actresses, dishy 40s leading men and two charmingly amiable and positive filmmakers.

This Ben Webster album was released in 1966 in Germany as “Blue Light”, in France as “Autumn Leaves” and in the UK as “Days Of Wine And Roses” - all titles from the track list.
The Dutch, in 1971, went for “Atmosphere For Lovers And Thieves”.

One of my grandfather’s mixtapes from the 70s or 80s of older records and radio programmes - mostly light music. Is there anything more exciting than “Ending with Ski Sunday signature tune”?

Dancing at the world conker championships, today in Northamptonshire. Misty morris action.

Have I just found a piece of shot in… an onion?

Peak personal history find in one of my old folders: an A5 lined and punched sheet on which, in 1997, I practiced some Tolkien Elvish in italic felt-tip and fountain pen but also (not in Elvish) wrote the credits of the second Skunk Anansie album.

Picking a hop and sniffing it is one of my new favourite things. This one is a little peppery.

It’s true of many trailers but the one for Wicked 2 really is “here is the film but out of order”.

Two albums ago, late 2022.

The Plasterer’s,
The Leopard,
The Artichoke,
The Stanley,
The Brewery Tap.

It’s not a bunch of wild new dances, it’s my evening pub tour in Norwich.

I found my collection of pipe stem pieces from various gardens and allotments. No doubt there are people on the internet doing wildly creative things with clay pipes and finding much better ones but I’ll be happier if I don’t see. These are mine.

Surprise change of plans: instead of dancing in Stowmarket, I’m dancing in Peterborough. Off across the misty fens, wondering which matches the other passengers are going to.

A walk round the Roman walls at Caistor St Edmund and down to the Tas.

I’m really Norfolk now. I just found this about my person. I’m in London.

Graphic for a town crier competition, in The Folk Almanack for 1967.

One of Cecil Sharp’s own bookplates, in his 1914 book of English Folk-Chanteys.

I felt the urge to tap my recipe book so it wouldn’t time out and go black.

You’ve been deleted? Apols.

That bonus disc has a bonus track.

Comfort me in my sickness, Mubi intro.

I might get into patterned glass. These names are the four zones of the crystal maze that is my mind.