David Bowie; greatest hits; BBC

David Bowie has died and many people are now writing nice things about him. On this occasion, I actually concur: I thought him rather talented indeed, at least musically. On his other contributions, such as fashion, I can't really judge. He managed to write and perform some really good songs, he managed to actually be different, and he kept trying new things. It's rare that somebody both has the courage to experiment and manages to often get it right.

Bowie's variety and talent present me a challenge. I am hardly an expert on his work. My typical plan is to wait a few years, then buy a greatest hits album. However, would the progression across his career be sampled well by such a compilation? Is there perhaps a concept album that captures him well at some point and hangs together nicely? (For instance, I'm glad I bought ELO's Time.) I've no idea but it's something to research at some point.

Incidentally, even from the living, I am keeping an eye out for greatest hits albums from groups like Muse but, with that example, it'll probably be trivially satisfying if it includes songs like Hysteria, New Born, Plug In Baby, Uprising, Starlight, etc.: it's not as if there are significant phases to consider, at least as of yet.

BBC Radio 6 Music played a bunch of Bowie's music this morning. It is possible that I ought to have paid more attention at that point, but I was at work. It is a great station, though: it often plays music I rather like, that I don't usually find on commercial radio. The BBC Trust keep toying with the idea of closing it down, and I think it would be misguided of them to do so: it can't be that expensive, I'd rather they make the sets look less slick in their fancy dramas instead, that'd not be much of a shame.

Sugar and salt

In Britain many brands of non-diet soda contain artificial sweeteners and there is currently talk of taxing sugary drinks. The tax is a good idea and I would be happy about it if I didn't expect them to further substitute with other sweeteners. mst3kmoxie prefers to avoid artificial sweeteners because she is suspicious of their safety and, like her, I often find that non-sugar sweeteners don't quite taste right, even Stevia, which is disappointing. I am happy to have sugary drinks only infrequently but I'd rather that a few of them could just be less sweet instead of more artificially sweetened.

The same goes for salt, really. Not only do I not have much of a sweet tooth but I also rarely add salt when I am cooking. Much convenience food, especially soup, tastes too salty for me. At least there aren't strange non-salt substitutes, as far as I know. My weakness is more for foods like mature cheese.