Atmospherics

This week I have taken some photographs of mainly St Jame's Park that have come out far better than I expected. Yes my Canon camera has a 25x optical zoom , which goes up to 100x when using the digital zoom, though that is almost impossible to use without a tripod. This is similar to the Sydney Opera House Effect of the Wallsend Cranes from Fenham Hall Drive which you can see here .

St Jame's Park - Newcastle United

Effectively if the atmospherics are right you can actually get a great picture. But you do need a clear ideally sunny or cloudless day and we haven't had too many of those this year, but it is really satisfying when you get images like the one on the right.

I often remark that if you want to take a picture involving atmospherics you have to get it there and then otherwise whatever you are trying to capture will disappear forever.

That has happened so many times to me and sometimes even the time it takes to get your phone out of your pocket means that you lose the moment.

For the first time in my life I have noticed the "Sphere" part of the word "Atmosphere" , basically "Atmos" is from the Greek for vapour and "Sphere" is the ball shape of our planet. "Atmos" is also a Dolby sound system which until today I was unaware of.

I've had at least two time where I have caught "flying saucers" , one being a cloud , the other the sun reflecting off shaped building rooves. , while they are on my Instagram Feed Instagram doesn't allow you to search your own feed for hashtags.

I will update the links if I find the pictures but will leave you with another excuse for this post , one of my favourite Tom Robinson songs "Atmospherics:Listen To The Radio" which I didn't realise was co written by Peter Gabriel..

Connected Centurion

This is my hundredth post this year and in December 2011 I first did 100 posts in a year. You can get get an idea of how I have progressed / regressed / stayed the same by seeing what I posted here . I'm currently listening to a Stone Roses and influences playlist show presented by Tom Robinson and sent in my suggestion of "Halleluhwah" by Can from "Tago Mago" which "Fools Gold" has more than a similarity to.

Today I walked into town, I've completed my steps for the month, but thought I would walk in anyway as was a nice day. Before mobile devices things like this usually needed a decent amount of planning or assumptions, but now you are permanently connected to people and information almost anywhere that you are, especially in an occupied area.

So I will share "Halleluhwah" by Can so you can hear why I thought that was the Stone Roses although the actual bassline for "Fools Gold" was taken from "Know How" by "Young MC" which also sample "Theme From Shaft" by Isaac Hayes, which you can track down on Youtube or Amazon.

Hope your Sunday is going well

Snow and Wait

It's te last full day in Litton for this year, and we have had snow. At the sametime my Pixel XL is doing a half a gigabyte system update. In 1990 I was working on a DEC mainframe which was running accounts for a biggish company which had 4 Mb of memory, that's enough room for four minutes of basic MP3 music.

Prior to  that my Cambridge Lynx computer had 3K of memory, I'd bought it because it ran CP/M which was an early competitor for MS/DOS but when IBM came calling the CP/M guy was outflying his plane so Bill Gates got the IBM gig and the rest, well you know the rest, I'm writing this on an ASUS laptop running Microsoft Windows 10.

Did you know that Microsoft have a patent on the technology for SD card slots which apparently is why so many phones don't have SD card slots.

Anyway my walking has been hit by the weather, yesterday it was rain and hail and today it may be the snow, so I will have some catching up to do when I get back.

I've had a brilliant breakfast at High Nelly's in Tideswell, and finally found out that a Derbyshire Oatcake was basically an oat pancake, and they are rather excellent too. There's a picture of my breakfast here.

I'm listening to 6Music and today's Album of the Year choice is Tom Robinson's and it's Nadine Shah's "Holday Destination" which I pre ordered about three months in advance. I have written about it before and it's not cheerful but addresses a lot of current serious issues especially on the title track which I will include here.

Have a great Friday everybody, the weekend is upon us.

Sometimes....

I feel the urge to write about something but I've really nothing to write about that is interesting or has caught my imagination.

Last weekend I managed to completely miss the Mouth of Tyne and Corbridge Festivals which I attended last year, that almost shocked me. One of the problems may be that there is just so much going on that it did manage to pass me by.

Next weekend I'm going to see Big Country in Scotland and then just after that Ash play Chase Park in Whickham , not forgetting Summertyne that is going on this weekend.

I've written about all these in previous years mainly on the Spoongig site so will probably update if I get time after those festival.

Oh and tomorrow we have a Pride March in Newcastle. I like diversity and love to acknowledge and be part of it. Sometime people forget what GAY means (acronym for Good As You) , which we should all feel we are.

Also now I'm going off on a language tangent about the word "Homosexual".

"Homo" can mean man as in "Homo Sapiens" , or the same as in say "Homogenous"

I'm doing all the reasoning without referring to anything so my reasoning can probably be blown out of the water.

But "Homosexual" uses the meaning of the same , but I suppose in male / male relationships could be misconstrued as man.

Anyway , although I'm  "straight" all my friends delight me , whatever their orientation , and they are part of a rich and diverse tapestry that I am so lucky to be enmeshed in.

All You Need To Know

So I'm gonna choose Tom Robinson's "Glad To Be Gay" , a great singalong song which me and my mates had great fun with putting on the jukeboxes in severely homophobic pubs in the late seventies. It was fun because we were well able to take care of ourselves . Also reminds of the time me and three mates went to see a Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything"  lecture in Newcastle's Centre For Life . We are not the smallest of frames and we were sat at a table in the what I believe is a gay pub called "Barons" , when a girl came up to us and asked "Are You Gay?" in hushed tones , to which my mate Chris replied "But Of Course We Are!" somewhat louder.

Anyway , It's time for bed and I have managed to ramble on for quite a bit about nothing. Sleep well my friends