Here Comes The Sun

Waiting for the Election Results in the USA is like watching a very slow sunrise , we have had four years of darkness in the USA (and ten in the UK) but it looks like things will start to take a turn for the better in the next week or so. I keep checking the news feeds and nothing seems to have changed with lots of childish "not fair" whinings from the the "we won you lost , suck it up crowd".

Today's early morning fog has burned off and it is now a very bright day.

This week, thanks to working from home , I have worked my way through the first seven Bruce Springsteen albums , his five disc live 75-85 release and more surprisingly the Blue Oyster Cult Columbia boxed set , which is an excellent listen. I think it is one of th ebiggest boxes I have and certainly the largest one I have listened to end to end.

There are lots of high points but the jewel in the crown is the final album "Imaginos"with a Lovecraftian libretto ,  an (unused) intro (to "Astronomy" by Stephen King  which reads thus:

The Soft Doctrines of Imaginos: A Bedtime Story for the Children of the Damned

From a dream world paralleling our Earth in time and space, The Invisible Ones

have sent an agent who will dream the dream of history. With limitless power,

he becomes the greatest actor of the 19th century. Taking on many disguises,

he places himself at pivotal junctures in history, continually altering its

course and testing our ability to respond to the challenge of evil.

His name is Imaginos.

It's worth following the links if this is tempting to you.

So I'm not going to share any version of The Beatles "Here Comes The Sun" but the "Imaginos" version of "Astronomy" , listen and appreciate. I found a "Wild King" mix which grafts the Stephen King intro the "Imaginos" version. Apparently there was some issue with Albert Bouchard around the release of the album , and he has released "Re-Imaginos"  which is on my to buy list, and songs like this have decided me to track more of his solo work.

Waiting For The Great Leap Forward

It was raining today but I thought I would try and catch up on the steps I missed on Tuesday.  I was thinking I might get 7 or 8K in, but ended up completing my 11K for the day. I then thought I might try a few more and this pulled into place advice and wisdom from people who have helped me in the past.

My dad suggested that no matter how far you are going you should identify small targets and hit those. So you may be walking ten miles, but in that walk identify a lamp post or a tree and aim for that , then identify your next lamp post or tree, and so on and so on until you finally hit your target. You break up your task into manageable chunks and eventually you complete it.

My doctor suggested that I should walk for half an hour and work up a sweat to  properly exercise your body. That has happened several times this week, so I think I am doing the right thing.

My son in law Mark told me that once you hit half an our of walking, then your metabolism starts improving and kicking properly, so I now always make sure I do at least forty minutes in a walking session and try to do 10K a day. I'm almost half way through my Million Step Challenge and today I kept going to record my highest daily step total since I started this on the first of May. I'm just over 17K but may nip out and do a couple of thousand more before today is over.

I was thinking of the election and the effort that the Labour Party has put in while the government has just assumed it would be a walk over backed by the right wing press printing desperate front page lies to sway the electorate. There's only one song for this, Billy Bragg's "Waiting For The Great Leap Forward", I found a great live updated version for you all.

The End of May

This is the last post for May, I've just watched the Tory / UKIP roadcrash of an election debate and will leave it to others to comment.

It's funny , after driving 450 miles yesterday and feeling wide awake, today I am actually tired, maybe work does tire me out because I have to think more. Also I have to cram all my start of month stuff into two days, but I should be able to prioritize and get the main stuff done.

My step challenge is back on course and tomorrow I have to go to the Post Office depot to pick something up, so should have a good start as well tomorrow. I'm way past a third of the way there, so the million steps will happen sooner rather than later.

Anyway this is a short one so we will finish with the Blue Oyster Cult's "Then Came The Last Days of May" , because it's the end of May.

A Bad Week

I assume this week finishes today , Saturday. It's been a bad week. The Tories get in , but don't get enough seats to form a government. This means that Proportional Representation rears it's head as that's the price the Lib Dems will want for a coalition. The BNP polled almost 2% of the national vote , under proprtional repesentation that would translate into about 12 Parliamentary seats , would it be worth it?

Oh , and to cap the week off , Leeds got promotion. Remember this is a club that refuses to disclose who owns it and has been through god knows how many administrations. Then again with Ken Bates involved what can you expect. Still maybe watching the video below of "The Damned United" will make things better:



Though next week things start looking up with gigs by Alabama 3 :



And then the most expensive tribute band in the world, The Australian Pink Floyd Show , worthe every penny and they have a giant inflatable Pink Kangaroo!!

Looks Like A Hung Parliament

Which is fine as long as I can pull the trapdoor lever.

The thing is , we're still going to have a government and New Labour is almost indistinguishable from the Tories. Also I wouldnt trust any politician with going for the tea unless I know them or it's Boris Johnson or Tony Benn.

The hung Parliament will resurrect the debate over proportional representation , but , flawed though it is , first past the post does keep out extremists like the BNP . Imagine if we gone two BNP members , the next election that may encourage more people to vote for them. No way Proportional Representation.

It seemes that loads of people have not been allowed to vote . My local Polling station was open for fifteen hours and I was waiting for a local delivery . At 12 it hadn't turned up so I went and voted. I'm just wondering why people went to polling station without much time to spare, but this could mean that resuklts may be challenged , so will there be by-elections there/

Because I've voted I can express my disappointment and the Tories being the largest party and potentially forming the next government. I'll bet 95% of the electorate don't have a clue about their policies and only voted Tory because David Cameron is not as ugly as Gordon Brown!!

If you look at all election results since the sixties that's been the case. So all labour need to do is replace Gordon Brown with , say , Daniel Craig or Sean Connery. If you don't believe me, these are the results since 1970:

• 1970 & 1974 Ted Heath (Tory) beat Harold Wilson (Labour)
• 1974 (Oct) Harold Wilson (Labour) beat Ted Heath (Tory)
  Odd one out , maybe a hangover when the populace thought about who they were voting for
  
• 1979 Margaret Thatcher (Tory) beat Jim Callaghan (Labour)
• 1983 Margaret Thatcher (Tory) beat Michael Foot (Labour)
• 1987 Margaret Thatcher (Tory) beat Neil Kinnock (Labour)
• 1992 John Major (Tory) beat Neil Kinnock (Labour)
• 1997 Tony Blair (Labour) beat John Major (Tory)
• 2001 Tony Blair (Labour) beat William Hague (Tory)
• 2005 Tony Blair (Labour) beat Michael Howard (Tory)
• 2010 David Cameron (Tory) beat Gordon Brown (Labour)

So to win the next election Labour need to replace Gordon Brown with someone more photogenic than David Cameron . Job Done.