Februarying

Tomorrow is the last day of the month, and I have completed my steps with and it's now just doing a bit extra. The weather is obviously a lot milder even though it's only February. The guy at the back has actually mowed his lawn, though I am putting that off until at least the second day in March.

I look back at some of my old posts and they will be shorter than the first paragraph here. As I keep saying , I like to write a couple of hundred words and I am sure that at school we did 100 word essays, though maybe it was 500 words or a thousand words because one hundred words is about what I have keyed in here so far. How could you write an essay with that little fabric, although as school you could get very creative with very little if it meant more time to play or do what you actually wanted to.

When I am writing technical documents I am a great fan of white space because it draws people in to actually read what you have written. If you present people with dense blocks of text their mind will generally shut off and rail against the amount of words to read. Talking of reading I just downloaded the W. Somerset Maugham Collection from Amazon for a mere 99p. It has a few of his books including "The Magician" (inspired by Aleister Crowley) , "The Moon and Sixpence" (Gauguin), "Of Human Bondage" and more.

So what should we play, what about "Mondo Bondage" by The Tubes......

Aqualung

Still on a Jethro Tull kick and decided to spin "Aqualung" on yesterday's walk to work. Aqualung is a fine album and full of great songs about Ian Anderson's attitudes to religion and God and obviously he's not too impressed.

The album is great and then gets blown apart by the standout song "Locomotive Breath", which starts out with a piece of more than acceptable lounge piano  before drifting into a little more upbeat driving piano before stopping and hitting you fair and square with that monster three chord riff, as potent as anything you will ever hear. It is so good that it just put's the rest of the album in the shade.

The thing is "Wond'ring Aloud", "Wind Up" and the sinister title track (I'm sure the red tops would have an obnoxious field day if the knew about the second line of that song). It is a great album though, but in my opinion only betterd by "Thick as a Brick" and "Passion Play", but does bear lots of repeated listening.

It seems that Google are ditching Google+ and this combined with Facebook's suppressions means that each post in this blog barely hits double figures for visits and reads, but as I have said this is for me and if others find it interesting then that is good.

We're in a 28 day February which means and increase in the number of steps I have to take to hit my monthly 340K steps, but I did it last year and this year shouldn't be a problem either.

It is Friday which is good, and I will share you the Fargo into that uses "Locomotive Breath" to stunning effect., but get yourself a copy of the album if you don't already have it.

August Like February

Well it is for me. Today I start with a trip to the Freeman to give a lot of blood, probably have an ECG to make sure I am fit for a Liver Biopsy at the same place tomorrow.  This means at least two days of rest, and a week of no strenuous stuff, which probably will affect the number of steps that I do. This means I'll probably have about 27/28 days to get my steps in (like February) instead of August's 31.

Really I should do a load today but I have to go to work, although I could walk for a couple of hours after work assuming no Biblical deluges

The NHS are brilliant at looking after you and making sure they get it right. I do find it amusing the number of people who complain about it but refuse to actually fit in with their recommendations. There are good and bad bits but the NHS is good for you.

For the first time in a long time the heating came on this morning so I don't know whether the temperatures are dropping slightly.

So we shall she if I can hit my August target, although I think I've been signed up for a couple of longish walks later in the month so really that shouldn't be a problem.

So basically I'll leave you with "The Walk" by The Cure as I run off and make my way to the Freeman, and I suppose The Cure are an appropriate band for this post.

White February

It's the last day of February and we have had snow. More than usual but hardly enough to bring Newcastle to a halt, though the roads seemed not too filled with motor vehicles. I managed to catch buses and still found time to instagram from Leazes Park as you can see here.

The snow is quite deep , but it is still easy to walk on the footpaths.

One of the strange effects is that the light reflecting on the snow makes it look very light outdoors when all it is is streetlights an dthe moonlight reflecting back up. Snow can be beautiful and amazing at times.

Tomorrow we start into March and I can see that I won't get that much walking done til next week, while in parts the snow is fine to walk on the cold does get to you.

One album I was going to write about and now finally have a chance is Steve Hillage's first solo album "Fish Rising" , whic consists of the dreamy delay guitar heavy "Solar Music Suite" which opens the album before we are hot by the water bubble "Fish" and the ambient guitar of "Meditation of The Snake". Side two hits use with the heavier riff driven "Salmon Song" before more echo delay psychedelia in "Aftaglid". A gorgeously uplifting album and the CD includes "Pentagrammaspin" which I think was a free single given away at gigs and a power trio backing track of "Aftaglid" to satisfy the psychedelic guitar lover in you. Ive just realised that there are three great guitarists (at least) named Steve H , namely Hillage , Hackett and Howe.


AnywayI'll leave you with a live take on "The Salmon Song" from 1977, enjoy.

February

I've vaguely wondered why February is so short. We have seven 31 day month , four 30 day months and February which has 28 days (29 in Leap Years). Surely we could have five 31 day months and seven 30 day months (February hitting 21 in a Leap Year). I was thinking maybe it's a sort of apology because people tend to be paid earlier in December and then Janauray seems an awfully long month although you don't get the small benefit of the four week February until March. Basically The Romans were to blame (what did they ever do for us?) and originally Februay was the last month of the year, but with various calendrical reorganizations January became the first month of the year (which is odd because the God Janus had a face at the front and back of his head so he could look backwards and forwards so you would expect that to be the first or last month of the year). Anyway here's some links about February:

Wiki
Why it is short

I recently found some John Niven books I was unaware of "Coma", "Old School:Roman" and "Enfant Terrible". "Old School:Roman" dropped through my letter box and I unwrapped it and looked inside and thought my eyes were not reading properly then realised it was a German edition. I checked the orlder (which had been desptched from Germany and the language is listed as German. C'est La Vie I thought, I'll find the English copy but every copy I found was German. John Niven is Scottish. I checked "Coma" - German. "Enfant Terrible" - French.  It turns out these are retitled versions of existing novels, "Coma" is "The Amateurs", "Old School:Roman" is "The Sunshine Cruise Company", "Enfant Terrible" is "Straight White Male". While "Enfant Terrible" is French it has found it;s way into the English language, but why have the German translations got English titles apart from to maybe catch people out.  Luckily I have German friends so it can find a good home but if I were German if I saw an English title I wouldn;t expect it to be a German language book.

Anyway the last of the bands that have covered "Happy" by The Rolling Stones and I'm going for Spirit's "Animal Zoo" from "The Twelve Dreams of Dr Sardonicus" and classic album from Spirit in their first incarnation.

Enjoy the first day of February 2018, the last time it will ever happen my friends.

A Short Month

We're almost at the end of February and between February and March for most people is the shortest time between paydays. While I need to be aware of when I get paid these days I'm lucky enough not to be wondering  how I'm going to get through to the next one, though obviously I always did.

Wouldn't it be a great idea if each month we had a short week, a four day week that would give people something else to look forward to. Imagine if the week you got paid was also a four day week. It's just a thought. The thing is if you create a great working environment with things like that, the productivity will improve because people are concentrating more on their work while they are there. Very simplistic I know, but I also know what it's like to be on the journey to work and really not want to walk through the door.

Anyway we're at the end of February now, and although I had a very restful weekend I could still do with another two hours in bed. Still it's time to go to work and get this week underway. For some reason Spandau Ballet's "Musclebound" came to mind, love the relentless chorus and the totally over the top video that I've never actually seen before.

Have a brilliant Monday my friends.

Did You See?

January 2017 has just left us. In this connected world I don't have to tell you what's been happening, bad things have happened but hopefully this is a kick up the arse that we needed and the world will do something about it. I'm not being specific because I don't need to be.

The thing is we need to do good and be good make that the norm. Make life better by doing something to actually make it better. Yes this sounds nebulous, and I do find it difficult when misogynists,racists and bullies are tolerated , encouraged and rewarded but they are also setting themselves up as targets. They can be shut out. Don't excuse their behaviour.

Anyway February is here and in this post I haven't really mentioned anything, good things are that I am listening to Come On Over by Royal Blood on 6Music, I am dressed and ready for work and probably seeing a good friend at lunchtime.

There are lots of events and fun things coming up, which I intend to get involved wit, you do the same and start a brilliant February.