Settle For This

This is my 300th post this year but it is really just going to be a list of reasons why I like Settle. I have been once before maybe fifteen years back, so maybe my priorities have changed and maybe Settle has changed. Like Totnes it has no chains, no Greggs, no Fatface, no McDonald's, no Starbucks.

It has a Barclays and HSBC and Skipton Building Society so you can get money. There are also cash points at the Co Op garage and Booths Supermarket.

It has loads of coffee shops and cafes and three excellent pubs, The Royal Oak, The Golden Lion and The Talbot Arms.

It's in the middle of the Leeds to Carlisle railway line and Skipton is quite close by rail, also there's a regular bus between Skipton and Lancaster that runs through Settle.

The people are all really friendly and talk with you.

Mike Harding lives here and he talks with everybody.

There's great countryside views from Castlebergh Crag and along the River Ribble.

I have still not visited all the places in Settle and next time I come I may not use a car, just come by train, it's that easy.

So what piece of music should I share with you today, given that the only musical connection I've mentioned is Mike Harding., though I prefer his long poems like "Napoleon's Retreat From Wigan" and the like, but he does have an extensive catalogue.

But I'd missed the Victoria Hall where they show films and concerts and next week The Albion Christmas Band are playing next Friday but I won't be here, but I will share their take on "Sans Day Carol" with you.

Eillo

I don't know why that word came to me but it did. If you do a Google search this is what it brings back. It's among other things an eating  place in Perth, Western Australia. I'm writing this as my Facebook ban is still on which I have detailed here ,I've just noticed as I published this that Eillo is Ollie backwards.

I'm surprised how long this heatwave has been going on, although weather is a complicated thing so I shouldn't be surprised that I've been surprised. It's still warm as I write this although there is a lot of cloud. I'm also suffering from hayfever / cold symptoms which is uncomfortable.

Today I was checking my eamail and read Barclays as Batcave. I don't know if this is just something that happens as you get older or it's something that everyone does. Maybe it's my recent binge watch of Gotham to watch series three and get up to date on series four. I won't say anything on it in case a fan reads and is still not up to date.

I am feeling incredibly drained, I don't if it's the weather, but have my annual Diabetic Review on Monday so maybe they will have something to say. I could do with a couple of days of total rest I think, but is not going to happen any time soon, though at the beginning of August I have another Liver Biopsy so that will mean a few days of total rest.

Anyway one songs sums up the way Facebook censors have treated me and many others and that's 10CC's "How Dare You" the title track of their eponymous 1976 album, which appeared as an instrumental "B" Side of either "Art For Art's Sake" or "I'm Mandy Fly Me" and was great for annoying straights when I put it on the jukebox.

So I hope to share this with you tomorrow whn they let me back on Facebook.

So Much For May Songs

Games For May - 1967

I was going to post a tune a day in May but I thing two songs in four days has scuppered that idea, although I will maintain the May theme if I can, and today's will be "See Emily Play" by Pink Floyd which features the line "Games For May" the titles of summer events Pink Floyd were involved in around 1967.

This week has been a little fraught to say the least, starting the Million Step Challenge then my Samsung Note becoming unreliable, replacing it with a Huawei P8 that wouldn't run the Barclays banking app (this has been the situation since January with no resolution in sight. Huawei blamed Barclays, Barclays pretend nothing is wrong much like Apple. EE gave me a refund on condition I bought another phone. I pointed out it wasn't actually fit for purpose and they replied "we just sell the phones"


Anyway I ended up with a Sony Xperia XA which was much cheaper and isn't too bad, apart from slow start up. I'm also worried it is not recording my steps properly . What I was sure was 4K steps recorded on the Samsung (home to Denton Burn) was recorded as less than 2K steps. Tomorrow I will walk to the Post Office Depot to pick something up and that should be about 2.2K . If it's less I will know I have a problem.

Anyway if I post another May Song tonight I could be back up to speed tonight, though I am feeling very tired.

So that;s what's happened this week so far, I'm sure it's not finished yet.

A Very Good Start To April .... Record Store Day Is This Month

Hot Chilli

I was going to do a post on Whitby when I got back from a good weekend on Monday but due to my extreme laziness. Whitby is brilliant , I love the place and I managed to restock my Howling Goth Chilli Sauce , visit lots of place , but got the slightly bad news the the Folk Devils shop is closing in a fortnight although they are continuing online which is very good. While I was in there they were playing some Ty Segall who I've heard great reports of , but not got round to buying , so I've now rectified that with a few other additions to the playpile.

That Building

Then yesterday and my Metro to Sunderland was redirected to South Shields requiring me to go there and take a bus to Sunderland. This meant going into places that I 'd not been for years and I noticed a Barclays Bank , which was handy as I needed to drop some stuff off so that was handy . I also noticed and incredible looking red brick building on Fawcett Street. At street level there's a CEX and some furniture shop, but above street level it is very impressive.


 When I went yesterday to the bank and to photograph the build I then noticed a new record shop opposite , Pop Recs.

Outside Pop Recs

Inside Pop Recs

I went in and it's very roomy and an excellent layout with a lot of vinyl , and a few CDs , settees a stage area and a jukebox, reminding of the new Rough Trade store in New York, which hosts live music.





It's run by Frankie and The Heartsrings , and I was chatting with the guy behind the counter who was telling about how they set it up when HMV shut down, and the fact that they'd had The Cribs and The Vaccines playing for free recently. The good thing about the place its that it has the space inside to support a live band. He also told me that the Red Building across the street was owned by Nadine Shah's family and that she was a frequent visitor to the shop. Nadine is a local girl and has produced two stunning albums so that was just an amazing coincidence.

Unfortunately I was in a rush so only had a short visit and didn't buy anything this time, but seriously this one shop is a reason to actually go to Sunderland. The people are friendly and you can also get coffee and a lot more there, another positive is that they obviously care about people and music , you'll know why when you visit.

With National Record Shop Day coming around in a couple of weeks (18th April)  this will be the place to be in Sunderland , you really should go.

So really it's been a great start to the month and the sun is shining , I hope your month goes as well as mine is going to do.

Sort Of Normal

After finally getting up today after a good night's sleep today has been a sort of normal day. It's nine o'clock and I don't feel ready to drop. I've had a relaxing day visiting Helmsley, and my holiday has started in an excellent holiday type of way.

The weather is what you would expect in December, but I've certainly seen much worse and have plans to visit Helmsley Castle (part of English Heritage which is free with my Barclays Bank Account) and Castle Howard during the week.

The Last Glimpse Of Summer

Though being away from Newcastle has extracted me from the situation of choosing between four excellent gigs tonight so I can relax, listen to good music , drink , and just feel good. Though this is a remarkably short post it has taken me a remarkably long time to write, for something with so few words in it.

Maybe I am getting tired and maybe I should go to bed. Well my weekend has got off to a great start, I hope yours is the same and I hope all my friends who are enjoying gigs and socialising tonight have an absolutely brilliant time. I have to include a picture of Rebecca Cothers beautiful latest work one here because it is a lovely evocation of the last of summer.

I chose David Bowie's take on Jacques Brel's Amsterdam because my daughter Juliet is doing a presentation on the place this week. And that's another coincidence I've had reason to mention both of my daughters in consecutive blog posts , and that is another reason to put a smile on my face.

Slide Comes Before A Fall

..and my how I fell , wandering into the bathroom barefoot and 18 stone of me hit the Amtico floor with a fair jolt . Somehow the floor and Kitchen ceiling were undamaged , while I survived with a sore back and bruising. Think that the Tom Petty song title is fairly appropriate for the situation.

After that have had fun with passwords and mobile phone and broadband technology with Orange and Virgin , eventually succeeding despite the best endeavours of the website "designers" to make their site unusable. I've worked with a few programmers and one of them cauled Paul who I worked for at the National Bus Company gave me these three rules for a program , though they can be applied to anything you do:

1. It must work and do what it is supposed to do
2. It must be legible and easily understood and documented
3. It must be efficient

It seems very few designers / programmers take those maxims into account these days. Many of the people on the end of the phone are fine but they do have to work with systems that make their job very difficult , although you get some places that actually blame the incompetence of the user , with "You must have done something wrong" or "Try later" , as though some magic is going to suddenly make things work. If it doesnt work now , it wont work tomorrow unless it gets fixed. I'm thinking Tesco , Barclays and Nationwide for this particular bad attitude.

Anyway it's the end of the Bank Holiday , work starts again tomorrow , and it's almost time for bed .

Olympian Thoughts

Barclays Cash Machine

I wasn't really bothered about these Olympics . I've seen financial chancers make fortunes from buying up decaying housing where the Olympic Park now stands , and local businesses threatened by local governmnet jobsworths , when the laws were meant to prevent big businesses from profiting when they havent supported the Olympics.

Although this is ridiculous , opposite is the Barclays Cash Machine boarded up and bin bagged at St James' Park Newcastle. All that does in incovenience customers and show the Olympic Committee to be apparent arses !!

The media has been willing the whole thing to fail and despite my misgivings it has gone off well. But it's a telling fact that so called "private enterprise" , G4S , have had to be bailed out by the military (effectively a nationalised industry). Sometimes private enterprise works well and sometimes it doesnt , governments need to realise this.

I wonder how many people these days realise where the nomenclature of the Olympics comes from . Have they ever heard of Mount Olympus , Zeus and the like? Though I applaud the Olympian spirit and the work many athletes and competitors put in to realise their dreams , very little has piqued my interest however .......

... I had zero interest in the opening ceremony , until I saw it. Danny Boyle has come up with a show to match the Olympic Spirit including Shakespeare , Mr Bean , and the forging of the (Olympian) rings (Is there one to bind them all) . This was something that everyone should see , sports fan or not , though some of the imagery did set me in mind of Peter Jackson's visualisation of Tolkein's exloration of language and folk lore. Theres some highlights on the BBC site here

The full opening ceromony is here

And here's some music that has greaced the games so far ...