My bad, I forgot to post my last consultation with Dr P. In my defence, the difference between the previous set of results and those obtained last time was small. I was also feeling fine (which continues). Thus there wasn’t much to be either excited or depressed about. That could be said about the appointment we had with Dr P on Wednesday 13th June. The headline: the PSA is actually heading south, down to 475 from 491. The degree of decline is obviously modest, but anything in that direction is welcome. Following this consult, I had my chemo infusion, which went well as usual.

The main novelty of the last few weeks was my belated entry into the world of music downloads. I was initially lured by a $2 download, from a site called Classic Select World, of the complete Beethoven symphonies. This cycle dates from the 1980s, and is played by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Wyn Morris. I had only come across this conductor’s work in a little-known but exquisite piece by Mahler called “Blumine”. This had originally been intended by Mahler to be included in his Symphony no. 1, “Titan”. (NOT “The Titan”, as ABC Classic insists on announcing it.) Anyway, the composer decided to drop the piece from the final edition of the symphony, leaving it known mostly by Mahler tragics.

Wyn Morris’ Beethoven cycle is a total bargain at this nominal price, as long as you can divorce yourself from the CD format. OK, these are only MP3 files, but for $2, but to me, they sound pretty darn good! Downloading and unzipping the files was easy, but how to get them playing on the stereo was less obvious. Anyway, I figured out a way to copy them from the download folder in my Chromebook onto a thumb drive. (Most amplifiers have a USB drive suitable for this purpose.) Classic Select World has some other bargain boxes at this derisory price, a few of which I have also purchased and been playing back. If anyone wishes to test the waters for nix, they has a free weekly download — just have a click around their site. (Given the sums involved, it will come as no surprise to hear that Classic Select World has not paid me for this endorsement.)