Monopoly

Continuing with "How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered The World" by Francis Wheen and it has remarked on how "The Market" and Money are the new religion. Global companies and money eulogise the "Free Market" and then use their power to become monopolies or cartels to manipulate prices and push the consumer into penury.

Any government that does not facilitate this are attacked to attempt to bring them into line. The UK and USA have certainly been brought into line.

In the book the USA continually attacks countries like France, Finland and Sweden for not being in thrall to big money like the "land of the free".

This book is nearly twenty years old and things have got much worse. Lying and cheating are the norms the further up the money chain you go.

Seven Days In is still getting a good number of reads so I expect it to hit 100K visits this month (it is standing at 41K today) and a million since my first post (It is standing at 980K today) and when that happens I will share it with you.

If you want to buy a book my dark poetry is on the link below.

The music is, appropriately "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)" by the Pet Shop Boys, 

I recently discovered that my American Amazon Author page has a feed from this blog which you can see here. It only shows on the .com site but not others. C'est La Vie.

Mike Singleton - Vocal Stories

I am not sure if you are aware of my writing on Vocal but these are a few of my stories if you would like to sample them:

1. Barter Books - An Amazing Bookshop In A Railway Station In Alnwick
2. The Plagiaristic Poetry Series - Poems Taken From Random-Themed Lines
3. Another Raven - A Take On Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven"
4. The Cleaner - An Autism-Focused Christmas Special
5. An Owl In A Towel - A Beautiful Book by Lesley and Cheryl
6. Three Reasons Why I Love Settle - Scaleber Force, The Hoffman Kiln and Castlebergh Crag
7. The Accidental Book - Helping a Great Vocal Friend Resulted In Me Publishing My First Book
8. Call Me Les - A Great Friend and An Amazing Writer

Contact

I was touched by the comments on Facebook on my first post ban post, although I think a few might just like but not bother reading the blog post. The biggest lesson out of this is not not rely of a Facebook as a single means of contact. Facebook does allow to share an email or phone number. My phone contact list is very big , and my blog gets updated regularly. So if you're worried about me you can email or text me or even phone me (I might not answer but leave a message and I'll get back to you).

This is just talking about me, but also think about how people would contact you if they were worried about you, do you have at least an alternate email of Facebook. My ban included messenger so when people contacted me by Messenger I could see their message but could not answer, luckily one of those friends had an alternate email contact which they also used so I could answer that way.

Last night I watched the film "Buried" 90 minutes of Ryan Reynolds in a coffin with a couple of mobile phones with which he tries to contact various people to try and facilitate his escape. An amazing and intense film. It reminds a little of Tom Hardy in Locke, except this ramps up the claustrophobia whereas Tom Hardy is in a car and not about to run out of power or air. This is the tagline:

"Imagine waking up in the dark and realising that you've been buried alive for reasons unknown to you, with nothing but a lighter, a mobile phone and only 90 minutes of oxygen left. Ryan Reynolds delivers an utterly compelling performance as everyman, Paul Conroy that is filled with fear, frustration, emotion and even a couple of dark laughs along the way."

So this morning we have bright sunshine and the Women's World Cup semi-final between England and the World Champions , the USA to look forward to, so that is tonight sorted for me.

So going with the title of this post we have to go with Edwin Starr's "Contact" don't we?

Apathy In The Uk

Apathy From The Uk

This is nothing major. Although I am English and live in the UK, I would expect my UK visits to be top 3 normally but they are not.

UK Visits are less than half the USA and Germany and only 20% of the French visits. As I have said before the Unknown region has me flummoxed, maybe some rogue robots.

I'm not complaining, this is just an observation, and lets face it the uSA is far more populous than the UK though I don't think France is (though it is much bigger. Germany is slightly bigger (though that may be completely wrong as I am too lazy to check it out at this moment, but I am glad for the visits)

The recent visit explosion (for me) has boosted the site income from about 10p per week to £10 per week which is a significant increase which I wasn't expecting.

The blog is not about making money but acting as a diary and sharing interesting stuff with people.

I wasn't intending to do this post until tonight, and the title came to me and I thought I'll make a start on it. Although it's about people visiting this blog the title could also apply to political engagement and taking an interest in things that actually affect your life, but most people would rather watch a soap and make a cup of tea.

So maybe I should take the song that I stole the title from and Share a little Alberto y Lost Trios Paranoias (a typical Manchester name) with you. I bet you thought I would go with The Sex Pistols didn't you?

Grey Day To Grey Week

The sky is a uniform grey still, and now the rain has turned up. This is not the most inspiring of weeks, although the fact that in the USA the Democrats have retaken the House of Representatives giving Donald Trump a metaphorical bloody nose (I wonder if he bleeds orange) is a definited bright spot although the Republicans still hold the Senate, just. There's info here thought not sure if it will stay.

I watched this weekes episode of The Walking Dead and there was a major event which should have been a shocking surprise but the Fox announcers kept telling us about it in the ad breaks. It loses it's impact if you tell people about it, but I'm not done with the series yet and am still working through Black Sails and Constantine, and maybe I will watch the film at some point but cant see Keanu Reeves providing as much entertainment as Matt Ryan.

Tonight I am going to see Thousand Yard Stare supporting House of Love at The Boilershop, so it's not exactly a quiet week for me, things are happening and keeping me on my feet.

So hopefuly the clouds will disperse so I will share Kate Bush's "Cloudbusting".

Vietnam

Vietnam?

Every so often I get a reasonable amount of views from some places. Recently it's been Russia, Germany, Peru and Brazil an dthe latest one is Vietnam. I haven't a clue why this happens in this way, it may be that the save up the figures for a month or a quarter and send the to google causing a spike in my viewing figures.

I don't think I've been hit by any spy bots, but only Russia may have been in that area,. Maybe if I mention ISIS, Trump's assassination, Boris Johnson drowning Theresa May there may be a little interest but I doubt it.

But it is weird how these countries apart from Russia don't really seem to repeat their visits.

The USA has little interest in this blog although I do hav mant American friends who may or may not read this.



This is just a very short post (though a lot longer that some of my early posts) about this situation.

I think an appropriate sng for this will be New Order's take on Jimmy Cliff's "Vietnam" which appeared on the "Best of War Child"digital only album release.

Have a rather excellent Wednesday everybody.

Time Sharing

When I started first in programming at Littlewoods we were given access that used a "Time Sharing System" which we were told would make it seem as though we were the only person using the system. It was a lie of course but we dealt with it.

In life we often have to work out how to share time between work , chores , stuff that needs doing , time to be alone, do what you want and rest , and spending time in a social environment with friends, family and loved ones. I try to load mine in favour of the last two, but each of these groups can also be subdivided into sub groups.

Today I have to go to work so that's eight hours out of my day , after six hours sleep, ninety minutes of getting up and showered and writing this, then an hour to walk in to work , to try and hit my 11K for today, but I need to get the bus home as I have a delivery from Iceland coming. How mundane is this post? Still these things may be the highlights of some people's lives.

Ideally aim to do what you want and enjoy , and be happy. Life is difficult and confusing at times, but if you do things you want, then life improves wonderfully.

So before I leave , here's #ATuneaDayinMay , what more appropriate that The Buzzcocks "Boredom" from the "Spiral Scratch" EP. This allows me to have a brief rant on the genre of "indie" music. Many "indie" bands are on major labels, so how can they be "indie". It's 1984 doublespeak (which the governments in the UK, USA and Russia seem to use as a matter of course where the words used mean the opposite of their real meaning) . "Spiral Scratch" however was real "indie" , the Buzzcocks first release which they organised end to end. Ironically in this digital age we all have the technology available to record and release stuff from our own bedroom or office.... and that is still on my "To Do" List.

I decided to include the whole of the EP for you so you have eleven minutes of real "indie" music.

Anyway, have a great Monday everybody.

We Have To Stay Positive

We knew it was coming, we knew it was getting in the Whitehouse because the electorate knew him as the face of the Apprentice and that's why they voted. If Simon Cowell stood for Prime Minister in the UK the idiots would come out in their millions to vote for him.

This is called democracy

So what do we do?

We be ourselves.

We try and educate people that their vote matters

We foster respect and tolerance and a love of diversity.

We do what we can to make things better for us and for others.

We make life good.

WE know the dangers of what has happened the USA, but there are a hell of a lot of sensible people in the USA , like there are in the UK and maybe the Trump success is the kick up the arse that good people need to realize you cannot take things for granted.

Anyway we will deal with this and we will make things better by being positive, doing our best for ourselves, our friends and family and those who need our help.

Last Monday I was a little apprehensive about my Liver Biopsy. Today I have a biggish bruise on my right side and all is good. I knew it was going to happen and some brilliant people in the NHS made it perfect for me,

I have sort of neglected this blog but I will choose a song that is positive and the Mitchel and Webb Apprentice sketch which is hilarious. What better than Public Service Broadcastings's "Go" , totally positive and that is what we should be.

Tom Waits at the Halfway Point - #ALifeInNumbers #30

Well this is just past the halfway point of #ALifeinNumbers and this is on of the prebooked slots with one of my favourite artists Tom Waits with "Sixteen Shells from a Thirty-Ought-Six" or "16 Shells from a 30.6" from the wonderfully named "SwordfishTrombones". If ever you think that the USA is down the drain Tom Waits is one of those people who restore your faith in the artistic brilliance that has come out of the States.

I found this great live take from The Tube in 1985 , absolute genius.

The first thing I heard by him was "In The Neighborhood" , still one of my favourite songs, his songs have been covered by lot's of popular artists such as The Eagles ("Ol' 55" which is penned in for number 55) and Rod Stewart ("Downtown Train" and "Tom Traubert's Blues [Waltzing Matilda]") and no doubt lots of other more mainstream artists.

Today is my friend Helen Morgan's birthday. Tomorrow is my friend Helen Morgan's birthday. I have two friends called Helen Morgan , one lives in Africa or New Zealand or somewhere, and one lives in Newcastle, their birthday's are one day apart.

Anyway I'll leave this as a short post, although Preston North End hammered Huddersfield last night so that's two of the top 4 dealt with , only Newcastle United (twice) and Norwich to deal with now and on paper we should be steamrollered. Dwight Gayle cost more than the whole Preston squad but we will see what the situation is in a fortnight.

Have a wonderful Thursday my friends, I am going to see GOAT tonight so going to have my mind blown. See you tomorrow.

Everything's Gonna Be Cool This Chritmas

I hope you have a wonderful day . It's a day for loving ,sharing ,talking ,being kind ,smiling. and spreading goodwill. This is not Christian sentimentality , it's just sensible moral behaviour. We look out for others and they will look out for us,

We do live in a world where money and possessions have become an effectively replacement for moral values for a lot of people, I mean why else would you vote Tory or Republican?  As Woody Allen said money is better than poverty of only for financial reasons , but  there really is enough to go round. When people work together great things happen. Divide and Conquer is a war strategy and when people start fighting among themselves they become much easier to control. Blame the immigrants , blame the poor , blame the sick is the mantra of the right wing as they plunder the nations resources.

Have a Cool Yule

Enough politics , it is a time to enjoy , it is a time to be together, and really it should never stop. This year socialise more , see more friends , talk more , communicate more. We now how the nternet so I can write this, and everyone round the world can read it. You no longer wait for weeks to send a letter to Australia, you can phone your friend in Australia or New Zealand or The USA and it costs very little to do that. You can phone a loved one , a friend, so here is you your New Year's Resolution:

"KEEP IN TOUCH MORE, MUCH MORE"

Now go one have a wonderful day and feel free to ring me if you have my number, enjoy yourself.



I've included two versions of one of my favourite Christmas Songs , it by the Eels - Everything's Gonna Be Cool This Christmas  - Baby Jesus , Born To Rock!!

What Could You Possibly Mean?

My friend Pandora , who hails from the United States of America posted this on Facebook:

'I think it is really  funny when people refer to pants as "trousers".'

... and asked me what phrases brought a smile to my face. This is all about the richness of the English language , the speed and evolution of dialect and word growth and the fact that we all have minds that can interpret almost any word in any way.

For instance the word "wind" can be pronounced "winned" or "wined" and there you have for different words two of which are spelt (or spelled) exactly the same way. This post will probably be full of grammatical, spelling and logic errors so my  apologies far in advance.

Australia is another English speaking country that has it's own take on words and phrases that can be culturally funny implying innuendo or just something completely different. There's some Australian here but most a different words but things like num-num , dunny and jumbuck I think are particularly good.

There's som American / English here but  very often you'll find that that American word usage is closer to the original than British usage . I'm not sure what that says about us. But things like suspenders , braces and chips change their meaning across the ocean.

Pissoir

One thing that always irks me and makes me smile is that in both the USA and Britain is the refusal to use a functional name for a toilet . In Australia they'll use loo or dunny , I think the French have it nailed with pissoire but I remember a teacher being horrified when I said I needed to go to the toilet, and she rebuked me and told me it was a lavatory (ie somewhere where you wash), ok you wash your hands afterwards but it's somewhere
where essentially you have a wee or a poo.


 Even worse is the American euphemism of restroom or bathroom, I went in a restaurant than pointed to the bathrooms and there wasn't a bath to be seen and let's face it you don't go in for a rest do you, and where does John come from?

The thing is there are lots and lots of opportunities for extreme misunderstanding in the rich tapestry that or different cultures provide on the uneven playing field that is the English Language. I included the Judge Dread song because in theory it's perfectly innocent , after all it's just words.

Numbers

Just having a peruse of my blog stats and the average number of hits per page is 93 with highest about 450 , I'm not sure about the lowest , but it's probably about 20. As I've said before I'm sometimes surprised by the people who read and enjoy the blog, as most of it is me blathering on about nothing.

Also most of the visitors seem to come from the USA although that maybe just something to do with routing.

Winter Sun

The weather today has been a lot of very cold fog, I don't know if it was freezing , but I got very cold. This was counteracted by hot chocolates and trying to stay indoors, although I wasn't too successful in staying in.




Anyway it's not a great idea to start writing a post at midnight so maybe I will just stop and choose the Judas Priest song Livin' After Midnight as the song for this post. Thank you and good night.

Today IS Independence Day (In The USA)

The alarm went off, I'm showered , the sun is shining , it's my friend Alison's birthday (on of the birthdays I can remember even though it's over 40 years since I first met her!), and tonight I hope I feel as good as I do now so I can go and see my mate Jim's band The Deputies, which I keep meaning to go and see and then act like an auld git and don't get down there. Live music is brilliant and every band who plays a live set should be congratulated.

Found some footage of them playing the Queen Day last year so you know who I am going to see.  Jim by the way is a huge Queen fan , so much so  he got a credit on the first Queen Video compilation DVD.

Independence Day USA

So I've written nothing about Independence Day, and used Bruce Springsteen's song in my last post, but I supposed that just shows how easily I get distracted, although I though the film of the same name was rubbish.

Hope everyone has a great time , all over the world,  it's a great day , and fantastic precursor to the weekend, and I am looking forward to it.

Still Tired

Well the biopsy has really taken it out of me, along with a lot of blood. I'm still feeling run down, want to just get into bed and sleep for about sixteen hours. Unfortunately there's work needs doing and the next two weekends are going to be rammed as well so it's unlikely I'll get any respite.

I feel I am improving , but not as fast as I would like.

The staff at the Freeman have been brilliant, and I know I can drop by any time I want. Work have been extremely supportive, so I'm not under any unnecessary pressure.

Anyway that's the boring stuff out the way. The weather is still excellent although it's been a bit gray today. I do have a lot of great stuff coming up , just need to rest when I can so I can be 100% when I need to be. I have recieved encouragement from around the world , and that's one of the great things about the internet, a few words from someone can really lift your spirits, and ever you can say and share something nice you should do, because it lifts both of you.

I do like positive stuff, and positive attitudes, that show that people care for each other , and sometimes that can be as little as saying hello.

The River

Anyway tomorrow is the 4th of July, American Independence Day , and that means I have a song for this post from one the many Bruce Springsteen albums I love , The River.

I really didn't know what I was going to put in this post, and thought I might get ten words out, but was also thinking that I hadn't done a post this month. Well now I have, and I'm feeling good , but I will be in bed soon. Hope you have all had a great day and are looking forward to an even better weekend.

Numbers and Neighbours

I've posted over seven hundred times in this blog and had over sixty four thousand page views. It started seven years ago (apparently seven is the worlds favourite number) so that's roughly nine thousand page views per year 750 views per month on average, although last month I had two and a half thousand page views. The highest numbers come from the USA although maybe some are robots followed by the UK and then Australia.

I'm not bragging (the numbers are quite small), and lot's of bloggers have many more subscribers that I do, although I am sometimes surprised by the people who actually visit my blog. Still sometimes it's quite amazing how the numbers stack up, and if I can entertain someone or make them think or improve someones life in some way then it makes it all worthwhile.

I also use it to record things that interest me, so that I can go back on it , just like a diary, and it means that I can back track and find things whereas before I had the blog I would probably have lost the item in question. I do try to encourage others to start and maintain blogs and it's great to see what people are up to and how they interact with others and they often point me in good directions and set me off on interesting trails.

I've included "Whistlestar" from Cat Stevens'  "Numbers" album that I remember being a fairly expensive package when it came out with lots of extras , and not a little fine music. After he converted to Islam he became Yusuf Islam and is still producing excellent music.

So not my normal blog post, but just something I thought of. This adds to my online history and gives you a little more into your insight about me. I hope your day has been good and tomorrow will be even better,  and I'm already thinking about my next post, which I'm counting on you reading and enjoying. Did you see what I did there? Have a great day.

Oh by they way I've not got my World Book Night Books yet, as the deliveries have been delayed. I'm awaiting an email for them but may get one of my neighbours to pick them up for me. It's brilliant that I know and have excellent neighbours from three houses in each direction. I'm not sure many people can say that these days.

This Panic Nation

Now its Swine 'flu' , and the government are going to issue leaflets about how to deal with this pandemic that's going to kill us all. Remember Bird 'flu' ? Didn't think so.

Google Streetview , well that's a burglars and paedophile's gold mine according to your Daily Mail and Talk Radio pundits.

Then there's the credit crunch and the collapse of the economy. Where's the money gone?? Well as it was credit it probably wasnt there in the first place, but most people are in a similar position to what they were in pre credit crunch.

If it's not disease or Google it's terrorists like Al Qaeda , and next week it'll be something else.

Society is a fragile thing built on trust . Usually those who abuse that trust are caught and punished in an appropriate manner.

It's all there to frighten us so the government can pass god knows what laws in "our best interest". The NHS , Police and Army do a good job of looking after us , it's what they're paid for , and despite the odd screw up it generally works.

The government seem to want us to live in a society where we're frightened of our own neighbour like great tracts of the USA. Canada and Switzerland and many other contries have a higher per capita gun ownership than the USA , but they dont hove the same carnage because people trust each other. This Michael Moore cartoon from "Bowling For Columbine" puts it in a nutshell: