Uniform - #AnimalAugust #16

The sky is a uniform grey and it's raining and drizzling a perfect situation for the word "dreich" , not exactly great walking weather or inspirational and certainly not summery.

With the weather being so awful I was wondering if I could hit my 11K steps without actually leaving the house. I know people have done it, but basically the house is about ten steps from side to side, so going from one side to the other and back 550 times would actually do it but I could see that tedium would  hit me very quickly. Of course there is up and down stairs and the rest of the house to use but it's a lot of repetition, which I am not really up for.

Yesterday during a work meeting the sound went off, and I assumed that there was a problem with the person speaking then realised my TV , that provides the sound, and switched it self off which it does after four hours. After several months I found the setting to stop it from switching itself off, but this means I now have to remember to switch it off when I've finished with it.

On my #MusicWhileYouWork Instagram sequence which I started when working from home I am now listening to the Bruce Springsteen "Soundstage" 15CD box , which is still available for around £20 , and while it's a radio broadcast quality , it is still excellent. I'm on CD2 so a long way to go and after this I have a 4CD David Bowie set (The Collaborator) to enjoy.

Still on "Venus on the Halfshell" and though it's dated tongue in cheek , I am still enjoying it, and it is packed full of ideas and observations that are very relevant today.

Over the last week I have binge watched (for me) lots of TV coming to the finale of "Veep" , one and a half series of "Bosch" , which is very good and his apartment and view is worth watching the program for.

"Shortly After Take Off" by BC Camplight has just been played by Chris Hawkins on 6Music, followed by "96 Tears" by ? & The Mysterians which put me in mind of Sam The Sham and The Pharaohs who had a hit with "Wooly Bully" which will do for today's #AnimalAugust .

I'm just wondering whether to have a September sequence based on fruit , but will have to think of a hashtag for that.

Oops, I Did It Again - #AnimalAugust #15

Although my Tivo is 80% full and there are a few series I am watching on streaming services (Netflix and Amazon Prime) I decided to pick up on Bosch (partly because of Hieronymus Bosch) , and am already for episodes into the first of six series featuring Elliot Gould look alike Titus Welliver as Harry Bosch as the main protagonist in another crime solving series which is rather enjoyable.

Also the new series of Lucifer has started and I am still working through The Boys and The Umbrella Academy, so I am not going short of anything anytime soon.

We do live in an amazing age for visual entertainment, I have watched quite a few series in the last few months so I know that half a dozen series is no bar to me watching something, it's a joureny you don't think about because you are just there to enjoy the ride.

So I am writing this quite late (for me) , so it's quite a short post.

For #AnimalAugust I'm going to go with "Cuckoo" by Lissie from the album "Catching A Tiger" which I played and really enjoyed yesterday. I've always loved her singing and material, and I also enjoyed her album of covers, so if you haven't heard her , take a listen , you may like.

Walk A Mile In My Shoes

This morning I mowed my lawn, it's a small lawn. I checked how many steps I'd done and it was over a mile. That surprised me quite a lot that I could walk so far in such a small area. I know people have smaller gardens but sometimes a mile is not very far and other times it seems a long, long way. I am not a very active person but don't mind walking a few steps each day (actually about 11K which is around five miles). It is amazing how some people are aghast at that while I have friends who often cycle ten or fifteen miles a day , 50 to 100 miles a day at weekends plus serious gym time. So no I am anything but a fitness fanatic.

Today I have decided to retire the  www.spoongig,co.uk URL but the blog well remain possibly in a subdomain of this one. I don't get to that many gigs these days and was just using one email so it's not really worth keeping. I am going with the subdomain which I hope will start working soon on www.spoongig.sevendaysin.co.uk 

The weather is rather good for a Sunday so that means I should be able to his my steps target.

I'm two thirds of the way through "Everville" and I would have remembered reading this excellent books , so it's only taken me ten years but I'm on it now , and soon will be deciding what to read next. Though a lot of reminds me of certain parts of "Preacher".

I've completed "Vikings" and "Lucifer" so far , but enjoying "The Umbrella Academy" though there seem to be a lot of ideas lifted for other iconic films and series such as "Preacher" and "Pulp Fiction" and enjoying the mind bending complexity of "Altered Carbon".

Music wise I've gone for "Walk A Mile In My Shoes" by Big Daddy Wilson , although there are numerous more well known renditions available.

Share The Good Things

While life may not be perfect at the moment , we are getting a lot of chances to do things that we didn't think we could do before. It does help when the weather is good and I have not actually used a bus for about three weeks, that's not because I dislike buses , it's just because I don't need to use them.

Today I am going to visit Westerhope for supplies shopping , rather than going into town, It means actually crossing the A1 but there is a foot bridge so I don't have to dodge motorway traffic.

I am listening to a lot of vinyl and digital at the moment, plus 6Music and a hell of a lot of TV , there is so much to watch and so much choice and it does amaze me that people record , watch and rewatch soaps . Having said that is me watching "Vikings" and "Lucifer" and different that someone watching "Eastenders" and "Coronation STreet" in the grand scheme of things.

I always try and dig out some piece of music that is either new and you should hear, or appropriate to the post, or some great song that you have never heard. This one fulfills the latter two criteria , being "Television" by Dave Edmunds.

Cloudbreaking

I think I've run out of date homophones so that's that for this month on that subject. If I tried hard enough I am sure I could have found one for TEN ,  depending on regional pronunciation Tin, Tan , Tun and Ton may have dones. Ton , Tin and Tonne are definite homophones for each other but  Ten is stretching .

Outside it's grey and a fine misty rain is coming down, though I do want to go for a walk. I'm keeping on with the #maywriteabit abd looking out thinking I can see clear sky but there is a huge gray cloud overhead but it is dissipating..

Eventually it turned out to be a nice day but I din't do much walking , so I am back down on my monthly step target , which doesn't bother me too much, although it's possibly a motivational worry.

I watched my first thing on Netflix , the first episode of season four of "Lucifer" so I really am Ok forever with TV to watch , having just completed "Code 404" in two days (6 x 25 minute episodes , so hardly a trial) . "Lucifer" opened with Tom Ellis playing "Creep" by Radiohead on piano , so more of the same but nice ending to the episode with Graham McTavish as a sinister priest.

That Other Song

As I get older I seem to enjoy sleeping more , and I want to be in bed now. I thought as you aged you needed less sleep, maybe that's for people who aren't working any more. I'm always impressed by people who play advanced games (I have a few on my Wii and Quake II is about my limit for FPS) and binge watch TV series (although tonight I did two episodes of "Vikings"), I don't see me staying up all night to complete series three and then zap through the rest. I have managed, at a leisurely pace four series of "Black Sails" , three of "Lucifer" all of "Parks and Recreation" and "30 Rock" and working through "Devs" as well, but Morpheus beckons.

I've been searching for the Lockdown episode of "Parks and Recreation" which is being broadcast tonight but I'm not sure where to get it (It's on NBC which in the UK I don't have access to and I can supposedly get it through HULU and Amazon Prime , but that's a task for tomorrow.

I got another subscriber on my Youtube channel (88 now) but I think why subscribe to me, I'm hardly prolific ofn there.

So because I want to share another song tomorrow, the song that was ousted by "Ooh La La" by Run The Jewels was "House Music All Night Long" a suitable anthem for these days. I know this is an extremely short post but it is time for bed , but enjoy this. The song is "House Music All Night Long" by JARV IS (Jarvis Cocker) and it is remarkably uncatchily catchy . Made me think of a school friends (Jon Ashurst - "Trash") opinion on Steely Dan "The word's greatest most boring band".

April Shower

Yesterday got a phone call from my practice (Thornfield Medical Group) telling one of the drugs I am taking should stop if I get Coronavirus. Shows the excellent service I get from them and why I have been with them for twenty years. I am going to keep on taking it but know if I get hit with the Coronavirus to stop the tablet (Forxiga) .

I didn't think I would hit my monthly walking target and normally I have a few free days at the end of the month , but I need to walk 6K steps today to hit the target , so that's a target hit although May may be a different kettle of fish as it is getting a bit samey and that is something that I don't particularly like when I go on a walk.

The last few days have been decidedly dreich so April is ending with showers.

I'm into the Christopher Brookmyre book "Not The End Of The World" (an appropriate title for our current situation) put was put off because after the large print of "A Shadow on the Wall" by Jonathan Aycliffe this is small and densely printed and I don't like the font so it looked challenging , but there was an interesting prologue and there is a lot happening in it. For some reason his style reminds me of John Niven , well in the same universe as hom.

I've just finished series three of "Lucifer" on Amazon Prime , although the final two episodes (which were after the series finale) were entertaining but a little disjointed, so now it's either Netflix but I have rejoined "Vikings" and have four series of that to work though.

There are two records that have could my ear while working at home, I share the second tomorrow but today the almost wrong doom laden  piano motif driven rap of "Ooh La La" by Run The Jewels, an absolutely excellent record.

360° of Circles

I am tired, well my body is, but my mind won't let me sleep. I'm up to page 360 in "Who Am I" and one of my favourite who songs is "Circles" which appeared on The Who's "Ready Steady Who" EP (On the blue Reaction label if I remember rightly), I once had that I bought for about 30p from Palace Records in Preston and sold for £20 at Probe Records in Liverpool. I didn't plan to do that, but that's the way it happened. Though if you click through on Circles you will see that The Deluxe My Generation CD which cost me about a fiver , is going for over a hundred pounds. I won't be selling mine though.

Glastonbury When It Was Good

The Palace was a record shop cum coffee house near the old Public Hall and I used to spend a lot ofsixth form time in there when I should have been studying, but listening to music, chatting with friends and drinking coffee was much more preferable that study. Then picking up decent second hand stuff like the original Glastonbury Soundtrack , triple album in it's pyramid sleeve, with the odd dud , like a band called Lucifer the album sleeve was black and the music was a fuzzy bass playing six notes that even I could play.







We used to frequent that place in preference to pubs, and to be quite honest, I'm probably the same now, preferring Bohemian places like Bar Loco to you chains and pubs.

Anyway maybe I will go to bed now, so enjoy your night, and have a nice lie in.