Desert tiling discs

My memories of particular times or events tend to be linked to two things: food, and music. Much to John's bemusement, I can recall salivatingly accurate details of what I ate on a particular holiday or cooked for friends - admittedly perhaps not entirely predictable behaviour from one who sometimes can't remember her own name. In the same way, hearing a particular piece of music transports me emotionally back to a time when it was important for whatever reason: for instance, every time I hear Barbra Streisand singing Run Wild, I'm straight back to 1981, the Civil Service College, and my first encounter group, where we played it incessantly for two weeks in the early hours of the morning ...

Over the last few weeks we've all taken to working to music for much of the day. Tentatively at first: Is this all right? Not too much? And then, as we began to discover that we enjoyed much of the same music, in what-the-hell-let's-turn-the-volume-up mode. More and more of our CD collection migrated down to the work space; The Perfectionist brought in his iPod dock (and - oh joy - left it here every night; what he doesn't know- yet! - is that come 7 o'clock I took it down to the huge and so far blissfully unfurnished gite space, kicked off my shoes, turned up the volume again, and danced ...).

Inevitably some bits of music 'stick' more than others: they're the ones that stop me in mid-tile, and it's those - mostly mine, a couple of The P's - that I guess will come to characterise this era of my life in years to come. And so here, with apologies to the BBC*, are my desert tiling discs ....

1. Funkadelic - Maggot Brain. Best guitar solo ever?

2. Gary Moore - Parisienne Walkways. Heart stopping, that moment when he holds the guitar note for ever ...

3. India.Arie - Ready for Love. Soul with soul.

4. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - God is in the House. Listen to the lyrics ...

5. Susheela Raman - Song to the Siren. Simply beautiful.

6. Schiller - Das Glockenspiel Schill Out Mix / System F - Insolation. End of day chillout trance.

7. Archie Shepp, Abdullah Ibrahim (Dollar Brand) - Moniebah. Sensitive, intense, mellow sax and piano.

8. Geoffrey Oryema - Makambo. Close your eyes, play it loud.

and because I just can't leave this one out I'm awarding myself a bonus track:

9. Richard Wagner - Liebestod, Tristan und Isolde. As someone once wrote, listening to Tristan und Isolde without being grabbed by the throat and driven at least to the borders of insanity just ain't possible ...

* Desert Island Discs as been broadcast on the UK's BBC Radio 4 since 1942; guests are invited to choose eight pieces of music they would take with them to a desert island. The apalling pun is mine :-)