The second truss / Sweeney Todd
3 June 2025 06:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeThe towel-tomatoes have now reached the mystic state of Setting the Second Truss, which means I switch from feeding them with ordinary liquid fertiliser (although I haven't been doing so of late, because they had brand new compost a couple of weeks ago) to specialised tomato feed. I also gave the same dose to the single Roma tomato, although that has only set a single truss level as yet.
(In fact, on a renewed reading of the instructions on the tomato food bottle, I observe that I have actually been doing it wrong for the last few years: the instructions about 'after the setting of the second truss' only state that you should feed at a more frequent interval after that point, not that you should delay feeding until then! You are actually supposed to start to apply the feed after the *first* fruit has set...)
An unexpected connection: while I was listening in a desultory way to a recent TV interview with Venjiamin Smekhov ('Soviet Athos') a name familiar in another context suddenly caught my attention. Smekhov was being asked about his involvement with a rock musical recorded by the group Korol' i Shut, whose (unrelated) "Three Musketeers" song I translated :-)
It turns out he was cast as the voice of The Narrator in their musical "TODD": https://annza944.wixsite.com/korol-i-shut/todd
So Smekhov's interaction with the group was limited (by his own account) to spending recording time alone in the studio booth speaking the poetry he was given, although as a writer himself he spoke of appreciating the lyrics. But it is his voice that opens the album, along with the tones of Big Ben.
"You were never in London, Sirrr? It's a wonderful city, Sirrr..."
(In fact, on a renewed reading of the instructions on the tomato food bottle, I observe that I have actually been doing it wrong for the last few years: the instructions about 'after the setting of the second truss' only state that you should feed at a more frequent interval after that point, not that you should delay feeding until then! You are actually supposed to start to apply the feed after the *first* fruit has set...)
An unexpected connection: while I was listening in a desultory way to a recent TV interview with Venjiamin Smekhov ('Soviet Athos') a name familiar in another context suddenly caught my attention. Smekhov was being asked about his involvement with a rock musical recorded by the group Korol' i Shut, whose (unrelated) "Three Musketeers" song I translated :-)
It turns out he was cast as the voice of The Narrator in their musical "TODD": https://annza944.wixsite.com/korol-i-shut/todd
So Smekhov's interaction with the group was limited (by his own account) to spending recording time alone in the studio booth speaking the poetry he was given, although as a writer himself he spoke of appreciating the lyrics. But it is his voice that opens the album, along with the tones of Big Ben.
"You were never in London, Sirrr? It's a wonderful city, Sirrr..."