It's Easter Sunday and I 'have just started rereading "The Keep" by F Paul Wilson, which I have happily dived into and one of the characters in it is called Oster which I believe is modern Dutch for Easter and I am sure my friend Bas will confirm it or correct me.
There is a lot about the origins of Easter here essentially in English-speaking countries, and in Germany, Easter takes its name from a pagan goddess from Anglo-Saxon England who was described in a book by the eighth-century English monk Bede.
Ostara (1901) by Johannes Gehrts. .Spring feasts were held to honour the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre/Ostara
"Eostre was a goddess of spring or renewal and that's why her feast is attached to the vernal equinox," according to University of Sydney Professor Carole Cusack
In Germany the festival is called Ostern, and the goddess is called Ostara.
I always find it odd that the Christian celebration of something so important to them ia avery moveable feast , while stuff like Christmas is actually fixed.
So I wasn't really going to write anything today but I think Mott The Hoople's "Roll Away The Stone" is sort of appropriate, don't you.
No, I'm not bored (
je m'ennuie is French for I'm Bored in case you were wondering what I am on about) but I think others might be in this COVID-19 Lockdown. On my Discogs store I sell a CD maybe once every two weeks but this week it's more than one a day. I think people are getting bored and browsing Discogs and buying CDs , a sort of online retail therapy. It's good that people actually buy music as opposed to getting a Spotify subscription, alth I suppose buying from me doesn't really benefit the artist, but it is helping people get through the Lockdown.
In my last post I said how good "Crocodiles" by Melt Yourself Down was , and they had a great conversation with me on twitter although Melt Yourself Down is a great name for a song and reminds me of "Melt The Guns" by XTC , but Crocodiles is a great name for a band. Anyway I am gonna be pursuing their music much wither but the sax riff on "Crocodiles" is something else, it could almost be classic Van Der Graaf Generator (unusually for a rock band they had no bass and no guitar in their early incarnations but still managed some of the most impressive music you will hear).
So I'm going to share "I'm Bored" by The Bonzo Dog Band , because I am sure that is hitting a lot of people at the moment, but a litle good music can definitely dispel the ennui and we drift into lockdown Easter, and on Amazon I've just seen a Cheese Easter Egg!!
Apparently it's St George's Day , so a day for Little Englanders to moan about not having a Bank Holiday to celebrate their most English of Saints, for "celebrate" read go to the pub and get drunk on John Smith's or Bombardier, but actually today is the first day back after the Easter Bank Holiday.
Also today I heard a really annoying term "slashies" , this usually refers to self employed people who embrace multiple "careers" / "businesses" . Now I have no problem with people doing multiple jobs because that's what they want to do, but most people in this situation are forced into this because the only jobs are zero hours or short hours contracts that do not pay enough to basically live, so taxi driver / pizza delivery guy / toilet attendant / bouncer would be an example of a "slashie" today. Says a lot about how our economy is run.
Now to the business end of the blog, the #AprilSongs and today we have "Gentle Tuesday"the opening song from "Sonic Flower Groove" by Primal Scream for the penultimate Tuesday song. The guitar sound is almost Byrds like and is a welcome addition to this sequence.
So time to take drugs and take a walk to work and listening to some decent music on the way to work.
Well I am writing this at sixteen minutes past midnight so it's actually Monday and this will be my penultimate Monday post in the #AprilSongs sequence.
Again I'm not going for the obvious one so I have chosen "Come Monday" by Jimmy Buffet which is not his best or most subversive but is pleasant and has a great introduction from the man himself on the video I am sharing with you. So enjoy , but check out his other stuff such as my favourite "Volcano" or "Margaritaville"
I am vaguely thinking of theming May's posts on Food, so songs about Food, but then again goven how many posts I've done this month , I may put that off for a month or two.
I know this is a very short post as it is now nearly half past midnight and I need to share this on non Facebook social media to get the Robots checking in on me.
You can't search for music about and Easter day without bringing back nothing but hymns and worship songs, which I mentioned in my Good Friday post. This time I have gone for a Nick Drake instrumental, "Sunday" the closing piece from "Bryter Later" for the #AprilSongs sequence. The opening flute made me think of the spooky sixties "Wicker Man" folk but actually this turns into a lovely listenable piece.
This is the day after I have started a seven day ban on Facebook, for sharing a picture FROM facebook , which is still there and you can see here which is basically mens bum cheeks decorated as Easter Eggs. The thing is it's a link to a site and the linking site posts the pictures. This has happened to me before when I posted an IMDB link to the Peter Greenaway film "Drowning By Numbers" . The film itself features nudity but the DVD cover picture, if you really zoom in has the suggestion of a female nipple underwater. Follow the link and see for yourself.
The problem is this is just a Kafkaesque situation and if you are a member of club then you abide by the rules but when those rules are applied arbitrarily without warning then that becomes annoying . I see a lot of shall we say more explicit pictures than those I have been banned for, and of course racism and right wing hate and political lies are fine, freedom of speech and all that. So for a week I can't like, share or use messenger, without any dialogue or explanation from Facebook.
So anyway, it's another lovely day, enjoy your Easter Eggs and Easter Sunday.
A couple of days ago I started reading "The Catcher In The Rye" by JD Salinger and while I know virtually everybody else has read it, and it gets four and a half stars on Amazon, the only thing I like about it so far is the cover. Published in 1945 therefore of it's time the writing is vaguely film-noir and the protagonist is just annoying. A friend of mine told me not to bother, which made me slightly more determined to read it and now I'm half way through it. I had the impression it was about a kid skipping school, but it's an older student being expelled (again) and ping ponging between being an annoyance and pretending to be an adult.
Today there ice on cars and rooves and there's fog as well so the walk into work may be a little chilly.
It's the day before the Easter weekend so I now have a four day weekend, I could definitely do that permanently.
Anyway for some reason the video for John Fogerty's "The Old Man Down The Road" from "Centrefield" came into my head because of the incredibly long guitar lead that runs through. It's an unusual way of linking a lot of disparate scenes of American.
So enjoy your Thursday and make sure you have all your Easter Eggs.
Tomorrow the shops will be full of cheap Easter Eggs, Easter is over for another year now, and Jesus still didn't come back did he? I have enjoyed the four day weekend, but tomorrow begins the clean up at work for the new financial year that actually started on April Fools Day.
I've only just made that correlation that the new financial year starts on April Fools Day .. so the Government can takes for another ride, tell us we need to to tighten our belts as CEOs and Politicians give themselves huge pay rises because they deserve it. And we still stand for it... but as Nick Hanauer says, it's only a matter of time before the privileged leeches go down in flames and pitchforks.
I've managed to find all my "missing" books, hidden in a bag under the stairs. This house is a bit bigger than I thought, it is amazing what things can be hidden under the stairs , in cupboards and elsewhere.
I'm currently listening to "Silent Passage" by Bob Carpenter , which I bought because of the beautiful woodcut cover drawing and the album is living up to the cover.
Yesterday I listened to "Paradise Ballroom" by The Graeme Edge Band a beautifully packaged excruciating seventies album which is in the pile going to the charity shop, so you can't judge an album by it's cover.
But as it's Easter I'll go with Marillion's "Easter" , and wonderful song from the Steve Hogarth incarnation. Hope your Easter has been a good one.
Today is grey and rainy. This is the sort of day when a five mile walk is not exactly inviting, but it was fine again, although I didn't exactly surpass my target by much , a mere 300 steps at the moment, but that may increase by the time midnight comes around.
Today I found a series of books by F. Paul Wilson , the whole of the "Adversary Cycle" series which were in a bag under the stairs , but missing "The Touch" which I seem to remember I borrowed from a friend of mine to read, but I'm not so sure if I bought it. Then I thought I'd look for it and I seem to have mislaid quite a few of my Clive Barker novels, including my favourite ever book, "Imajica", plus the excellent L.Ron Hubbard biography "Bare Faced Messiah". I have read these books, and can probably buy new copies if I really want them, but it's strange how finding one thing can spur you into looking for something else.
This is one of the problems with our magpie attitude to stuff, we always want to have although we do not need. My music collection is huge though nowhere near as big as some, and my book collection is also quite extensive.
As I write this I'm listening to some alternate recordings of early Pink Floyd songs, "Matilda Mother" has completely different lyrics but is still good, and "Jugband Blues" is still a prime late sixties music hall psychedelia hybrid. That's a small part of my 5 thousand CD or half a terabyte of MP3 music collection (100K songs , though probably a lot of duplicates).
Anyway this Easter Sunday I have had an Easter Egg, done 10K steps, and found the books above. The weather is rubbish, but you can't have everything, although it would be nice to have. So it's time to see if I can track down those books and if I can't find them , reorder them online.
I've include two excellent videos of "Matilda Mother" from "The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn" and the alternate version so you can hear what I've been listening to.
So I need now to see if those books are still around, and make my tea (a couple of bacon sandwiches methinks). So enjoy your Easter Sunday my friends, and if you're lucky like me you'll be able to have a lie in tomorrow too.
A departed friend of mine once said we now die because something wears out, once we get that sorted we become immortal, that was decades ago. I've just started reading "The Age of Bowie" by Tony Morley after finishing "Tom Waits on Tom Waits". When I first opened the Tome Waits book , the writing was so tiny that I had difficulty reading it. I actually found a solution which was ....
.....to remove my glasses and hold the book a bit closer, then everything became crystal clear. When I opened the Bowie book the print was bigger so is easily readable using glasses or contact lenses, the books have similar numbers of pages but the Bowie book is larger format.
That got me thinking that without contact lenses and glasses my life would be far more difficult. I wouldn't be able to drive, watch TV properly or spot things from a distance. We now take these things for granted but visual aids have only really proliferated properly since the late nineteenth century.
When I was a child, people died because they died, there was the odd time there was a reason but , mostly they jsut died, the equivalent of "natural causes". Now there is always a reason. The thing is, we are still all mortal, but now have a lot more support in prolonging and enjoying life, although unfortunately the younger generations have a shorter life expectancy that older generations mainly due to junk food and sedentary lifestyles.
Today's media promotes that you child is under threat from any number of predators, when in fact that has always been the case. I taught my children to look out for themselves because I would not always be there to protect them , and also they needed their own independence. In all the time we once lost Juliet for three hours (pre mobile phone days) . it turned out she was with friends in a house across the road. We just emphasised to let us know if she was going to do that again. Another time Kirsty phone me at midnight:
"Dad can you come and get me"
"Where are you?"
"I don't know"
It turned out she had fallen asleep on the last Metro and missed her stop. Luckily she was at Manors station, not the best place to be but it was within walking distance for me (no car) and two nice guys had stayed with her til I came for her.
The thing is if you look after yourself , and keep in touch with friends and family , life can be very positive. You should always do things that you want to do , and don't procrastinate. Anyway I could go on and on, but I kept putting off writing this because I thought it would be too depressing, and I prefer positive things.
Despite all the bad things the media piles on us, we are living in great times. We have so many opportunities to enjoy life, experience things, and do things , alone and together and if you do all those things you will live long and prosper (to nick a line for Star Trek's Mr Spock I think , but am willing to be corrected).
I think in this post to have seen a little of how my mind wanders. I was going to include many more examples but I think I've have generally got some points across, and am now returning to the book that sparked this off "The Age Of Bowie" and Tony Morley keeps mentioning "Supermen" by Bowie from "The Man Who Sold The World" , although I first heard it when I bought the Glastonbury soundtrack from Palace Records and Coffee Shop next to the old Public Hall in Preston (where I saw my first live gig Uriah Heep on the "Demons and Wizards" tour) and spent many an afternoon there when I should have been in lessons. Wildflower on Westgate Road has very similar atmosphere but these students just go corporate brands. I wanted to "educate" one I heard walking through Newcastle yesterdat who proclaimed loudly:
"Newcastle has so much choice.... Jamie's Italian, TFI Fridays, Frankie and Bennies, Costa, Starbucks ...."
What an idiot. I desisted though.
Anyway my mind wandered again and I will leave you with "Supermen" by Bowie , because that is want we can all be (I am using it as a generic term).
Well there goes the Easter break and it was rather good. Mine started early on Thursday with my youngest daughter's amazing wedding which was just a totally brilliant day , lots of smiling faces , happiness and me renewing long lost friendships.
Over the weekend I picked up a copy of Classic Rock magazine because it had some Iron Maiden Beermats and a "Top 100 Rock Albums of The 70s".
There is a hell of a lot I don't rate such as Aerosmith , I still don't get them , a sort of watered down ersatz Rolling Stones , "Walk This Way" was good and "Living On The Edge" but that's about it , sort of a bit better than Grand Funk Railroad who , thank God , we don't hear much.
Powerage by AC/DC was their number one seventies rock album , which I can't disagree with . AC/DC amaze me because every album is virtually the same , every song is virtually the same (have they ever done a ballad? ) but they manage to sound brilliant. I see parallels with Status Quo , who then tried to change their sound (Beach Boys collaboration what a car crash that was) , then recently they went back to basics and started to sound good again.
I'm writing this post partially with a prod from Paul Campbell who wanted to be on Seven Days In (as opposed to Seven Day Sin). I've actually mentioned him once before and so this is the second time his name has appeared in these pages, but you can find that and this and all future posts here. Paul also has his own blog Scriptuality where you can find out about his adventures in scriptwriting and find out when his name is going to be appearing on screen. Paul and Lesley also chivvied everyone for this get together in St Andrews , so he can get people to do things that is actually good for them, ie and meeting up with old friends and people you haven''t met , forgetting real life for a bit and actually enjoying yourself. I don't expect any events from this weekend to appear in Eastenders and there were lots of people talking , enjoying themselves, with lots of smiles and sunshine.
The South Street Kids ....25 Years On
St Andrews is a University town as well has being awash with Americans as there's some golf game coming up. One of the odd things about St Andrews , or something I noticed is the number of places we visited for food which required and Marco Polo scale trek from the street to the venue. Forgans and The Vineleaf were two such examples , however they were worth the walk , and Forgans finished the njght with a Ceilidh which is basically a formalised mosh pit which ended up with several people falling over , although alcohol may have had something to do with that.
Tonight Matthew I Will Be Val Doonican
While everyone else stayed in luxury caravans we had to make to with the MacDonald Rusacks Hotel which got me £30 back on TopCashBack and was very pleasant but did have a an Arnold Palmer montage painting in reception which looked suspiciously like Val Doonican.
But I would definitely stay there again as had great service , nice staff , good breakfast and a good nights sleep
It was a great weekend and great to meet and talk people and it's always good to take yourself out of your normal routine and do something to connect with people who matter to you , because then you feel much better in yourself.
Oh I have to mention the numerous children who came along to this one and although there was a probable ten to fifteen year age spread they were all totally excellent in behavior and engagement.
So it's now Easter Monday and the music I'm gonna put for this is Big Country's One Great Thing , for obvious reasons and because me and Scott were talking a lot about them amongst other things. No go and get them Easter Eggs.
Yesterday I started painting the decking, I'd cleaned it off with a combination jetwash and decking treatment, and was looking at my fence I painted ten years back and which still looks in fine fettle and thought maybe I'll use fence stain / paint rather than decking stain / paint. Decking stuff is about five times as expensive. My reasoning is that if using the fence stuff doesn't work and can redo with the proper stuff. So I got some stuff from Wilkinsons.....
Decking Right
.... £7.50 for five litres or ten pound for two tubs. So got two tubs. I was putting off doing it yesterday as I only had a two inch brush , but it turns out that I ended up doing the lot and using up the five litres of stuff. There's a few patched that need touching up which I can do today but it looks like it's all done for Easter Monday. I was a bit worried as Wilkinson's Country Brown looked more like Dayglo Orange, but remember that these things sink in, and looks to have taken very well.
The Monolith Reappears
So today will be a little touching up but mostly enjoying myself and relaxing, and hopefully the sun will return.
A bit of cutting back, means we can see our monolith water feature once more.
I hope you all have a fantastic day, I know that I intend to. Enjoy your Eggs
Well Good Friday is here, the weather is wonderful, and there is a lot of things on and to do. I was intending to to clean and stain my decking this weekend but there are a hundred and one distractions.
The BBC are staging the Great North Passion at Bents Park in South Shields, I was unaware of it til I caught a preview on TV last night then some friends posted on Facebook, but it is being broadcast on TV and you can see the details here.
Tomorrow, hopefully I pick up my books (The Humans by Matt Haig) for World Book Night and it's also National Record Shop Day and I've been tasked with obtaining a copy of Peaches by The Stranglers which has a limited run of 1,000 in the original picture sleeve. Incidentally I downloaded a copy of the A-Z of Humans which is very entertaining, and very worth getting for you Kindle or other eReader. It's only about 50p and very entertaining.
Well that's it for this morning, I'm off out to see what I can see or do. Have a brilliant Easter everybody, enjoy yourself and make the most of everything.
Well Easter is almost here again, although Easter Eggs have been in the shops since just after Christmas. I just wanted to do an Easter post so I could add the Marillion song to my post which, I think I've done before, but the tags don't always work correctly.
Easter is probably stolen from a previous pagan festival, but it's an excuse to play the song. The weather looks beautiful but it's icy this morning and I need to get off to work now.
and today for the first time in over ten years I ordered a new alarm clock. I suppose Easter weekend is an ideal time to put the clocks forward as it allows those of us who don't work in retail to easily absorb the lost hour of sleep.
One good thing about being in this digital and electronic age is you only have to adjust mechanical items such as clocks and non networked items. Phones and computers now do themselves spo to speak.
So tomorrow is time for Easter Eggs , Church Celebrations if you are so inclined . I shall just be mostly resting.
I was originally going to use Coldplay and The Buenavista Social Club's Clocks , but then remembered Marillion's Easter and thought that would be more appropriate.
