....Of A Broke Down Engine

This is an updated version of a post originally published in January 2009. I haven't altered the text, only added some recently found recordings.

Blind Willie McTell sang,
"Feel like a broke-down engine, ain't got no drivin' wheel,
Feel like a broke-down engine, ain't got no drivin' wheel.
You all been down and lonesome, you know just how a poor man feels."

I don't know how many have been down and lonesome, but I'm pretty sure everyone's had the winter blues. There's sleet, fog, rain and ovaltine....perfect ingredients for perfect winter days, but somehow or the other the ennui and the gosh-awful lethargy take complete control and the cocooning starts again. A week and a half of indifferent academic mash-ups has brought forth the second long-weekend in a span of four days. Usually, a flurry of study, movie watching, downloading or a hastily hiccupped blog-post mark each one of these increasingly rarer moments of freedom.

As this time it was the Ashura holiday, naturally no extravagances can be planned, which greatly limits my options. So I've been forced to restrict myself to downloading things for later and trying (unsuccessfully) to study. On any normal day, being home alone would mean a binge of colossal proportions, but this time, despite my folks (and the domestic help) being away, there being no loadshedding ( ???) for the past 36 hours and perfect weather, I'm wrapped up in my cocoon and sipping away at ovaltine....

To get to the point of this post, here's a bunch of absolute gems I found at Youtube. The proverb "It never rains, it pours" could also apply here. After listening to it once or twice on radio (Cloud 89 on CityFM89 to be exact) I was madly in search of this.....


And when I finally found it, there was a whole treasure trove to go along with it.
There's this...

And this ....

And finally, this piece of utter brilliance ...

I'd rather not label these - if anyone's curious enough, they can be sure of a treat...

This is where the original post ended. Here are the two missing pieces of the puzzle. Once again, no labels on any of the videos.

Missing piece number five ...

The final and most wonderful missing piece ...