Changes

It's time there were changes.

I'm kind of embarassed about the different types of people drawing attention to my blog - not that I am not delighted with that, of course! But the blog has been too wide ranging. Fairly detailed music and book reviews on the one hand, traveller's trales on the other hand, and comments on political and social situations on the foot. So if you are a Globalvoices reader looking at a comment on the social situation in Georgia, and the next time you look you find a scathing or positive review of a concert, you may wonder 'what's she on about' or 'what's she on'. Similarly the music links from Jessica or the Overgrown Path might be surprised to find comments about running on slippery surfaces, or teargas in the streets of Tbilisi. I suspect that the Globalvoices community may be less interested in the details of a conductor's trouser problem, and while the musicians may be (and should be) interested in what goes on in the world around them, they may well lack time (like we all do...).

Sooooooo, this blog has slightly changed its name to what it should have been in the first place (will that upset the links?), and will concentrate on the arts, music, events, and books, whereas Good Buy, Lenin! will look at life out East, and sometimes West, depending on where I find myself at the time. I'm kind of tempted to set up a third blog of purely personal stuff (extracting the running etc), but first I need to recover in a darkened room from setting up Lenin's blog. The title? Think of it - out East (in most countries, though not all) you can buy everything now, all kinds of food, all types of cars, guns, the police, the judiciary, the election. 'Out East' refers to post Soviet countries, mostly. 'Good Boy, Lenin!' might have been one about a dog.....whereas 'Das Sozialistische Ausland', a DDR title, is a bit hard on my non-German speakers.

Inevitably there will be overlaps, but I'll deal with those when I come to them.

In the meantime, a very Happy New Year to everyone, especially those who are performing tonight! I wish I were among you....