listening to Ned Kelly

Saturday before last I finally went to Hammersmith library and borrowed the 13 CDs of the True History of the Kelly gang by Peter Carey. I play the CDs on the computer with the speakers on and can follow the voice easily, reading the book open in front of me. It's a nice feeling to be able to do that so easily. I wonder how I would have done with the hearing aid but I didn't try so can't really compare. Still I suspect it would have been difficult, or more likely I would not have been able to do it. My friend Graham pointed out that it was narrated in an Australian accent, and that he could not reconcile an Australian accent with a piece of literature!!! My Dad asked was that Peter Carey narrating, and actually it's some guy called Gianfranco Negroponte, sounds very Aussie to me. Well ok, my aunt used to live in Leichhardt which is one of the the Italian districts in Sydney. And we have a famous Australian called David Campese. And people in Sydney are very fussy about their coffee. So it's pretty Australian really.

I didn't find a picture of what this John Francis Blackbridge, or Jean-Francois Pont Noir looks like. But it seems more real listening to the book as opposed to reading it. When there's the voice of a different character, the voice changes, when there is urgency there is urgency in the voice. The narrator reads at a certain pace, you pause with it. All that makes it more real.

A while back I was on the tube, the train stopped before Earl's Court. By chance I was looking at the electronic screen and as I read the display scrolling past, I heard exactly what I was reading ('this train will stop here for a few moments' - although we were between stations and it didn't say why!). Then I realised that I could pick up the announcement before the doors shut ('the doors are closing', or something, then wheeee... clong! as they shut). I didn't notice it today though, or think of listening, so it must be that I was paying attention on that day. Watching telly is a listening excercise too, as I read the subtitles and listen at the same time so I can put the two together. There are a lot of fricatives coming through: 'ch', 'ph', that sort of thing, so it sounds a bit like loud whispering at times and I really wouldn't be able to make any of it out without the subtitles.

Because the hospital had run out of the dark coloured processors to match my hair at the time of the theft, I'm temporarily wearing a processor that has black (for dark hair), white (for white hair) and gold (for blond hair) parts. My friend Kate joked: oh, did they pimp yo aid? But it's still hidden under my hair and I'm not bothered.