Taking a new breath ....

Back onto my favourite subject ......

Now is a good time to be a Jarrienne ( for those who don't know, that is a Jean Michel Jarre fan, an admirer of the Maestro and his music ). After the all the debates and splits in the fan community over Téo and Téa ( some loved it, some hated it, some just ignored it ), it seems something is in the pipeline that is going to make (almost) everyone happy.

It is 30 ( yes, 30 ) years since Jean Michel released his most famous album - Oxygene. In the middle of the fury and anarchy of the start of Punk, this peaceful, calm portal to another place, another world quietly appeared and transformed those who heard it and allowed it to enter their hearts and minds then and ever since. I think I can safely say that is almost impossible to describe yourself as a fan / follower of Jean Michel and his music without liking this album ... it might not be your favourite, but it is universally liked within the fan community. It is one of two, maybe three albums ( definitely Equinoxe and probably Magnetic Fields ) which define just what Jean Michel's music *is*.

Well, a re-mastered , re-recorded version of this classic is being released on 26th November ... which is brilliant ( the extracts posted on the web, especially on the Maestro's Myspace page are mind-blowingly good ... fresh and vibrant but with the spirit of the old we all love), but there is more to this release to just that. There is also a version including the CD and a DVD of a small performance / concert ( define it as you wish .... ) the Maestro gave in September playing this album completely LIVE on the original analog equipment .... just what many fans had dreamed of for ages ( again, the video extracts I have seen, thanks to the various forums and websites, look amazing ). There is a further version, with the performance in 3D being released too. It seems the Maestro is returning to his roots ..... and that is going to make a lot of people very, VERY happy .... including me.

There is one fly in the ointment @ the moment - it isn't listed @ Amazon or Play.com ( or anywhere else I can see ) quite yet, so I cannot pre-order it , but that is just a small irritation. The news of the release is one piece of news that has made this Jarrienne a very happy bunny at the moment ..... only four weeks left and counting .... I cannot wait !

(edit : it is now avaliable @ both Amazon and Play (02/11) .... but I've already pre-ordered it from Fnac.com ( french site ) ... c'est la vie .... :-) )

The changing of the seasons

The children have all gone back to school, the students back to college and uni ..... the mornings are getting darker day by day ( soon I will be able to reclaim my title as "Queen of Darkness" , but not quite yet .... give it to the end of this month, and my transformation will be complete .... ;-) ) .... yes, Summer is over - not that it ever really began this year - and Autumn is here. Not surprisingly, now that Summer is gone, the weather has taken a turn for the better ... typical. OK, it is not THAT warm anymore, but it has been dry and sunny for the past week or so ... Mother Nature is having one final display of colour, with all the leaves changing and falling from the trees ( or in the case of the Horse Chestnut tree that I pass on my way to work, being knocked from the tree by kids trying to get at the "conkers" ( Horse Chestnuts) themselves ). It has been a real pleasure riding home from work, with the blue sky above and the roads bordered ( in places ) with trees of shimmering gold and blazing fire leaves.... magical.

As well as all those indicators to the end of Summer I have already mentioned, there is another. The Gardening and BBQ related items are being taken off display and packed away @ work .... and their place is being filled with Chocolate tree decorations, tins of biscuits, boxes of mixed nuts and puddings full of dried fruit and alcohol ... Christmas stock ! That is not as unexpected as you might think ... the calendar is slightly different in retail compared to the outside world. Christmas starts ( well, the stock connected to it starts arriving) at the end of August .... mince pies, mincemeat ( the sweet stuff, not beef or pork ! ) Xmas puddings, chocolate etc. That continues until the Christmas / New Year period itself .... when we then start receiving our stock of Easter Eggs! . I'm not joking... every year, without fail, for all the time I have been working in retail ( about 20 years ... ), the first delivery after Xmas ALWAYS contains a quantity of Easter Eggs ...... Then, at Easter, we start getting BBQ's and sun cream .... and so it goes on ... the time period or season inside the shop always about 2-3 months ahead of the time / season outside ( except for my part of the store ... which is in a different time dimension, a different universe to everything else all year around ... but that is another story ... ;-) ) It is enough to make your brain ache .... but you get used to it. C'est la vie .......