What a great piece of music Mussorgsky’s The Great Gate of Kiev is. Just borrowed the Pictures from an Exhibition CD from the library and er… listening to it.  I see Kandinsky did a cool painting based on Hartmann’s original design too. This is my second blog in October, when I have only been  managing one a month so far. Just squeezed it in before November – an extra hour today with the clocks going back, that’s what it will be then. Reading William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, Sanctuary and Light in August at the moment, as I have been “volunteered” by our tutor John Toft to do a presentation of about two hours, related in some way to these works; fortunately it is scheduled for after Christmas, so lots of time to figure out a piece of work that might begin to approach a standard worthy of the great man from Oxford, Mississippi and our 1930s USA study group ( at Bradwell Lodge Community Centre, Newcastle-Under-Lyme, every other Thursday).  Seems funny making the journey there from home, the first time last Thursday, as most of the route is the one I took for 21 years from 1981 until I retired from the College ( which was demolished this year and is now the site of a huge Sainsbury’s). I think that apostrophe is in the right place – please note I did not put one in 1930s USA earlier. That would have been a ‘Crewe Comma’ of course and has indeed got itself on the sheet distributed to us at the start of our sessions. Never mind, it’s the thought that counts and what a great idea this course is, totally put together and the location organised by members of the group. When I ‘did’ the previous course, under the auspices of Keele University, we looked for a while at American architecture and art and in 18 days time I’m off to Chicago with Beth for a six day break – me from Retirement, Beth from Work. Very excited about that – well, as excited as you can get at 65, and then a bit more. Of course, the recent appearance of bombs on cargo planes, in parcels from Yemen to Chicago synagogues adds an extra frisson to the trip.