Buccal Up

As well as serving as a reminder that these spectacular collapses of Antarctic ice are telling us that Global Warming is real and species-threatening, a more personal and current metaphor for the phenomenon is that of my dental status. On Friday, while snacking on some roasted almonds, a seemingly gigantic piece of rear molar slid gracefully away from the rest of the tooth (the meso-lingual surface of tooth #19, to be precise). An emergency trip to the dentist today confirmed that a crown will be needed so in a couple of days I will be subjected to two hours of fun-filled numbness while the old stump is re-shaped and a temporary crown fitted. Apparently they have a large movie library for patient distraction purposes. I enquired whether they had Marathon Man (they didn't) -I wonder if they have Pulp Fiction or perhaps The Thomas Crown Affair...?

Gone Home: Alvin Lee

The last few months haven't been kind to musicians in the rock, jazz and pop arenas. If it wasn't bad enough with Jon Lord (Deep Purple), Lee Dorman (Iron Butterfly; -ok, ok but I loved "In a Gadda da Vida"), Dave Brubeck, Kevin Ayres (Soft Machine) all playing their last codas, Alvin Lee has now checked out. A terrible shock and a shame as I was hoping to catch him at one of his European gigs in the not too distant future. He was surely one of the first guitar shredders and arguably the most exciting guitarist at Woodstock. I'm sure he came close to melting his Gibson 335 on occasions. Here he is, appropriately enough, going home...RIP, Mr Lee.