The Great and Secret Show

I haven't written much about "The Great and Secret Show" by Clive Barker but am thoroughly enjoying it, although I've read it before , thirty pages from the end I am still not sure of the final outcome. The Great and Secret Show is on the isle of Ephemeris in the dream sea Quiddity which is between the Cosm and Metacosm home of the Iad (the main baddies in this story).

This is the good thing about my memory , I know enough to know it's a great book, but every time I read it , it's like a new adventure, although a vaguely familiar ride. I will probably finish this , this weekend and I have so many other places to revisit

Tonight we have had a thunderstorm shaking the street and houses , a little rain but it seems to have passed.

So I know this is incredibly short , but the heat is just stifling my creative writing faculties, so I will sign off.

This week I have been listening to a lot of reggae but given that Armageddon like nature of "The Great And Secret Show" maybe I will go with "The Four Horsemen" by Aphrodite's Child (featuring Vangelis and Demis Roussos featuring the end of the world scenarios by local North East artist John Martin.

666

I've just passed page 666 in "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" and was expecting something apocalyptic or at least interesting , but barring Moses crossing the Red Sea there wasn't too much out of the ordinary barring a reanimated Nazi army rising from the bottom of a lake near a rock festival close to Ingolstadt which is fairly normal for that book.

I can only think of two other books that I've read have a page 666 that's "Imajica" and "Lord of The Rings"  and maybe of of Michael Moorcock's Corum collections. I suppose The Bible and Quran also have one.

666 is defined as "The Number of The Beast" and features in many biblical and occult writings and films. as well as being an upside down 999. Aleister Crowley modelled himself as The Great Beast and many metal bands such as Led Zeppelin and Iron Maiden , and jazz artists such as Graham Bond tapped into his legacy.

I remember visiting a youth club as a teenager and we brought records and one guy brought the "banned" "666" by Aphrodite's Child (featuring Vangelis and Demis Roussos" and I was well impressed with a lot of the album and have a copy in by collection. "Babylon" and "The Four Horsemen" are well worth tracking down. Click on the name for Youtube links. But we'll go with the more obvious Iron Maiden rampage on this Saturday morning.

An Interlude With Bobzilla

Today while have a wander round the Tyne Bridge and High Level Bridge with Scott we dropped into Arch 16 and we were well impressed by the latest avian based artwork on display. You can see it here on my Instagram feed , I also had to use the loo and was very impressed with the repurposed vinyl single display on the wall (see here).

We had a cafe latte and the guy serving us told us this was all his work and he goes under the name Bobzilla, and apart from being a talented artist (you can see more by visiting his "I Am Bobzilla" site) , he makes a great cup of coffee and is remarkably engaging to talk too. Among other things he is also a DJ and had some excellent sounds playing while we were these. It was so pleasant we had another coffee before departing back across the High Level Bridge to Newcastle.

So you get art , cake , coffee , tea , good sounds and good vibes, a thoroughly excellent half an hour, worth visiting for a coll and chilled atmosphere in which to eat cake and drink coffee.

So it's the day before April Fool's day but it has been a most excellent final day of March , chatting with Bobzilla and enjoying his art and sounds, so continuing with the art theme I've included my slideshow of the Armageddon themes paintings of the North East's greatest artist John Martin. I've just found that the book of his work I have is going for up to £200 on Amazon, like my Handy Wah! compilation on the last post but one.

Anyway hope you have a wonderful week.

Meli Fluence

It's wonderful how one unrelated thing can lead to another giving causality to discovering things that you didn't know were there and generally enhancing your quality of life. On Staurday I visited Kazbat's Den where someone told me about Stay Free Records which I hadn't heard of, and when I got there I saw signs for Meli Cafe on the third floor, which I hadn't heard of, but is where Whistler's Cafe used to be.

I had a quick nip in and spoke with the manager who was very welcoming and told me what they were up to with lots of vegetarian and vegan options, as well as great views over Northumberland Street, This is an excellent selling point of the place which has a lovely light and airy feel to the place and is worth visiting for the views alone.

On Sunday I returned and this time tried a cafe latte and some lemon / coconut came which was lovely, and I manged to scam the best seat in the place after a couple cvacated it. The guy said people always try and gram that seat. My instagram images of my visit can be viewed here and their cups don't have handles but still look cool.

Look Mum No Handles

So definitley get yourself down there to enjoy this wonderful place, It's above the antique centre in the Alley opposite Haymarket Metro next to boots and near Sergeant Pepper's.

In other news I finished "Fermat's Last Theorem" by Simon Singh and while I had been reading it ten or twenty pages at a time, at the end I couldn't put the the thing down so that last fifty pages done in one sitting. This is a book about a mathematical theorem that is actually exciting, not the theorem , the book.

Next up is Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" which should keep me occupied for a while thanks to my friend Lyndsey and that has started very well, although I have seen the TV series so I have some idea of what might be coming.

I was trying to think of some Greek Music and basically was stumped , I suppose I could have gone for Aphrodite's Child, Vangelis, Yanni, Demis Rousos or Nana Miskouri but decided on the fictional Greek island of Navarone immortalised by The Skatalites.

Greeks and Pizza - #ALifeInNumbers #28

I must be feeling a bit better. I've updated Song of The Salesman and though about buying a VR headset which you can pick up for a few pounds these days , but I resisted for the time being.I also checked out Al Buco  in Old Eldon Square for lunch and had a pizza and drink for a fiver, great atmosphere and great value.

Anyway for number 28 we go to Vangelis and "28th Parallel" from "1492 Conquest of Paradise" , like most of his stuff you will be sure you have heard it even if you haven't . He's already appeared in this sequence as a member of Aphrodite's Child at Number Four.

Well it's time for tea so enjoy your Tuesday night my friends.

The Six Teens - #ALifeInNumbers #6

I'm still trusting to my head and memory to supply me with songs for this chain, and while the numbers so far have given me a choice but the number 6 has only really thrown up one song, The Sweet's Six Teens. There are lot's of songs that mention the number Six Six Six such as Iron Maiden's Number of the Beast or Suppers Ready by Genesis, and Aphrodite's Child had an album called 666. No doubt lots of bands will have an album called six and as a kid all my friends smoked Number Six cigarettes. I bought a packet of Number Tens tried one, got half way through and gave my mate the packet, so I was lucky enough to never get into smoking, which unbelievably when I moved up to Newcastle led to some serious criticism from acquaintances.

The Six Teens is a perfect example of Glam Metal Pop with a killer chorus as great metal guitar. It's quite amazing still , the number of people who don't rate the Sweet when they produced amazing songs like this, Ballroom Blitz , Blockbuster and their finest single Action. Sweet FA is six minutes that if you play the instrumental parts to people, they'll say it's Deep Purple, and then will either listen more or go off in a huff.

Anyway give this a listen and if you don't know The Sweet get a "Best Of" and give them a real listen, especially if you are a die hard Heavy Metal fan.

Anyway have a brilliant Wednesday my friends.

A Greek Apocalypse - The Four Horsemen - #ALifeInNumbers #4

The Number of The Beast

I thought I would do this before bed, but I had this in mind for number four. The slideshow is one I put together featuring the work of the North East's greatest artist John Martin. His works are often huge featuring apocalyptic images and I thought a perfect soundtrack would be the relentless "Four Horsemen" from the album "666" by Aphrodite's Child a Greek band which featured Vangelis and Demis Roussos.






The song has a relatively peaceful , but threatening intro before launching into five minutes of relentless attack. Some of their music was almost embarrassingly trite (check out "Break") , but "Four Horseman" cuts the mustard all the way. It's one of those songs that you would buy an album for. The rest of the album has some good bits , some awful bits but really should be in your collection.

I know this is a sort of early installment but I do have another 55 songs to actually choose and write about, and I know it's going to get harder with every step forward. At the moment I am just let my brain and memory throw out the suggestions and I will let you know when I have to start looking.

I will of course be looking and noting potential future songs as I go along, so hopefully I wont hit a proverbial brick wall, but you never know. Then I will probably find a way to bulldoze straight through it.

Anyway that is number four and now it's time for bed for me.

Goodnight my brilliant friends.

Perfect Weather

Deluge at Night and Hot Sun during the day , yeah I know that's too many capitalised letters. A t the moment life is going very fast and lots is happening and fitting things together is an absolute challenge but a good one to have. It's always good to have plenty to do.

My bookpile is growing faster than I can read , my play pile is growing faster than I can listen , my songs to put together are growing and I still haven't recorded my first one and I want to do versions of of a few songs just to prove that I can actually play them.

Today is another challenge , in a good way . Keeping positive and believing that things will go the way I want. I discovered a problem with my surgey's on line app and they were thankful for my input and are now rectifying things. At work I've been told I'm delivering stuff they have been waiting 12 months for.

Sodom and Gomorrah

I'm spreading knowledge and yesterday I saw an amazing light boxed version of John Martin's Sodom and Gomorrah and The Laing . Spoke with a lovely couple in their seventies who first of all thought I was an expert on the great man because I told them about him , although they knew of his importance and origins. They were also impressed with my phone too.

Loving life at the moment and I know it will get much better.

Heard from great friends around the world about their love of books that they share with me , which also gave me a huge lift.

The music is the Four Horsemen by Aphrodite's Child which featured Demis Roussos and Vangelis.

Anyway you all have a great day