Why are the US not taking advantage of the AstraZenica/Oxford COVID vaccine?

It is proving extremely effective in the UK, and is cheap and much easier to distribute and administer than the alternatives.

I am confused by this.

Good news for bad times

In these awful dreadful days, let me shine a bit of light: the best financial reporter in the world, belay that, one of the best writers on ANY subject in the world right now, the wonderful Matt Levine, has returned from paternity leave and is publishing again!

Perhaps the U.S. is listening to the wise Canadians

CNN are reporting that, on January 20th, the US will switch to the First Doses First allocation policy.

May it be so.

If I ever do get around to reading Dorothy Sayers...

... I suspect I ought to read her with Bill Peschel as a guide: The Wimsey Annotations

Actually, maybe this is a good goal for 2021: read some Sayers!

Tirimo's Complete Beethoven Piano Works

Ah, there is no better way to start a New Year than with new music!

Actually, rather old music in this case, though newly-recorded: Complete Piano Works

I can't possibly tell you everything about this boxed set -- there are 16 CDs after all!

Tirimo, on the other hand, is probably known to all, though I am just learning about him. He is a Cypriot who spent much of his youth training in Italy, as I understand it.

The recordings are beautiful.

It will be just fine to give my old Brendel sonatas set a rest for a while, and spend some quality hours with Mr. Tirimo and his beautiful renditions of the most beautiful music ever written (sorry messrs Bach, Mozart, etc., but I'm with Schroeder on this one :) ).

Solutions and Other Problems: a very short review

What seems like an eternity ago, but was actually just 12 years ago, I was utterly enthralled by Allie Brosh's blog-turned-Internet-comic-strip-turned-(eventually)-book, Hyperbole and a Half.

I read it eagerly, re-read it even more eagerly, raved about it to colleagues, friends, family, went back months later to re-read parts even again. And when it became a book, read that, too.

I couldn't wait for her to write more.

Then: nothing.

Years passed, a decade passed, I had completely forgotten about her work when up popped a notice somewhere saying that I could order her new book: Solutions and Other Problems.

So, naturally, I did. And, just at the holidays, it arrived.

Putting aside at least half a dozen other books that were ahead of it on the stack, I flew through Solutions and Other Problems like someone possessed.

So, what can I tell you?

Firstly, this is a heavy book.

I mean literally it is heavy! It is over 500 pages, printed on beautiful heavy glossy paper, to highlight Brosh's continually fascinating artwork, and the book must weigh at least 3 pounds.

But also, and more importantly, this is a heavy book.

A quick survey of some of the topics covered by the stories in Solutions and Other Problems:

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Stalking
• Loneliness
• Self-image
• Divorce
• Death

Uh, yeah, really.

The thing is, I can't really think of anyone else who could pull this off like Brosh does. When I search for words to describe what she's done in her art, I come up with words like: clarity, honesty, truth, vision, insight.

This is probably not the sort of book to read on a dark, gray, rainy day.

Or maybe it is? After all, I did, and I loved it!

Yellowstone (Series): a very short review

I was sufficiently intrigued by Yellowstone to give it a try. It's a big-budget epic about the Modern West, with Kevin Costner leading a star-studded cast. It took a long time to finally watch it, though, because although I put it on my queue in April 2020, Netflix kept reporting "Very Long Wait". Disk One eventually did arrive, though.

Anyway, we made it through most of Episode One and gave up. It's a strange marriage of the lyricism of Longmire, the soap opera grandness of Dallas, and the grittiness of Justified, with NONE of the charms of any of those wonderful shows.

There. Now you know what you need to know.