ggreig

As postprandial conversations are wont to do, yesterday’s discussion in the pub leapt in little more than a single bound from some quite general topic to the more specific one of Minna Reverelli, the Yodelling Prima Donna.

This was my fault. My Dad had an old 78 rpm record that took my fancy, and I have it beside me as I type. It’s in an old cardboard sleeve that announces it was originally sold by Paterson, Sons & Marr Wood, Ltd (Pianoforte Makers to Their Majesties The King and Queen), of 183 Union Street, Aberdeen (with additional branches in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Paisley, Greenock, Perth and Oban).

The record itself is a Parlophone recording, D.P. 167, and apparently you can pick up your own second-hand copy – so the Internet informs me – for the princely sum of €2.

Mine is actually third-hand, as the sleeve features a hand-written inscription, “Tommy from Meg 1971”. That’s my Dad, and my great-aunt, his mother’s sister.

The track that drew me is The Cuckoo In The Wood, a song in Viennese dialect with yodelled impressions of a cuckoo. What is there not to like? Winking smile

I had a quick search for it online, and struck lucky. You can hear it on YouTube (unfortunately, embedding this particular video is disabled, so click here, or on the picture).

This morning I also found a small number of additional tracks in MP3 format, and some rather sad information. Minna Reverelli was Jewish and disappeared in Vienna in 1941. Please read what little more there is and enjoy her music so that her memory can live on.

Ever since Windows 7 came out, I’ve fancied putting together a Windows theme, and a couple of recent blog articles finally prodded me into action.

The obvious choice was the more exotic locations that I’ve got photos of, so I set out to create a California theme and went back and reviewed all my photos looking for scenes that could be turned into a package of decent wallpapers. After a bit of selection, cropping and culling, I came up with 24 that I put together.

It took the best part of three evenings to work through everything, but I was quite happy with the result. I don’t feel the need to do another one straight away, but it would be nice to have one that’s closer to home, so look out for a possible Scotland or even St. Andrews theme in the future.

Download in whichever format’s more useful to you: