Speed and Goundhogs

I used to be able to write a blog post in ten minutes. These days it often takes me an hour or more. The irony being that less and less people seem to be reading, that isn't a problem as I mainly write for myself and to instil a sort of discipline to get something down, which I may wish to remember. I've been doing this for ten years or so and some of my early posts were extremely short.

I like to think that I can write at least 250 words, but I don't think you will get this today as I need to get off to work fairly rapidly , and as it looks sunny I want to walk at least part of the way, but I need to get in , do a few things then zip off to a podiatry appointment (due to a cancellation, they rang me and said they knew I preferred early appointments so did I want to come in this morning? That was Friday, I love the NHS).

I also noticed last night it seemed to get dark earlier, and we are past the Summer Solstice so the daylight hours are getting less.

Anyway it's Monday , it's time for work, and Nemone on  6Music mentioned Groundhog Day so why not go with "Cherry Red" by The Groundhogs, a sound which I always think inspired Franz Ferdinand.

Have a good one friends.

Numbers and Men In Skirts

As a kid I used to wonder why we had to learn our "times tables". Learning things parrot fashion , is not useful, especially when you are talking mathematics. Fast forwrd to "some time later"  and I find I don't have to look up , work out , or use a calculator to work out this simple multiplications, I just know them. And applying thouse concepts I'm pretty quick on working out the product of any pair of two digit numbers, but up to twelve I just know them, so actually learning the "times tables" benefitted me.

I am learning quite a lot about mathematics and number from my latest book feast, "How Not to Be Wrong: The Hidden Maths of Everyday Life" by Jordan Ellenberg which is just going through the differences between large and small sampling operations which has thown a lot of interesting concepts.

Tomorrow is the last day of the month so this week has been a rest from walking though I have still hit more that 7K each day so I am not being average, and from Tuesday I will attempt to do 340K steps in August and repeat that each month.

The last two days I have felt incredibly drained, and really not up to actually walking , and today I had the added extras of changing the bedding, mowing the lawn , and refilling the bird feeders. Added to that I think my phone is going through one of it's phases of not recording steps (a couple of normally 1K walks clocked at 200 steps), but I still hit 9K today and am 70K over the million for the last quarter.

Yesterday I was totally drained but I got myself over to The Doll at The Black Bull to catch Woment In Revolt (they are the ones in skirts) and you can see the video evidence here from a great night, but I was done by ten o'clock. I came home went to post the video online and managed to screw my computer by plugging in a USB cable. It then took an hour to do a restore, but all is good now and all seems to be working well. I've just had a look at the demographics of my audience for youtube and only 20% are female, I am not sure why that should be, but you could say  "C'est La Vie" as Chuck Berry once said , and we got the Pulp Fiction Twist scene featuring John Travolta and Uma Thurman for you to enjoy.

So the weekend is over and Monday is upon us, I hope to feel a lot more energised tomorrow, so I am going to get some sleep. 

Calculus,Nice Biscuits and Sky Saws on This Day on Earth

Shaun Keavney has just mentioned Nice biscuits and taking two buttered digestive biscuits with a sklice of cheese in between and dipping it into your cup of tea. That's definitely not MY cup of tea. My new book has now hit calculus , that was where maths became too complicated for me, but we shall see if I get any further with calculus. Also wasn't Professor Calculus a character in Tin Tin, which confused me because I got it wixed up with Rin Tin Tin which I thingk was a dog.

Anyway this week I am having a rest from walking. Apparently the average number of steps most people do is about 5K a day , so at 8K and 7K over the last two days I am still above average and my steps effectively lift the average, but not as much as the proper , walkers , runners and athletes.

Anyway this is just a very short post as I am quite tired and just wondering what song should we , and I have decided, for absolutely no reason at all to go with Brian Eno's "Sky Saw" featuring Bob Fripps sky saw guitar from "Another Green World". I loved this the first time I heard it and it still sounds brilliant and strange today with it's vicious noise guitar over an almost lounge jazz / ambient backing. Also unusual in the the main / lead instrument plays the same note all the way through.

This  idea was repeated on the song "This" from the album "Another Day On Earth" where the main rhythm is provided by the word "This" repeated 35 times. That's included at the end of the post.

Sleep well my friends.

Am I Right?

I've probably written about this before, but what the hell , I'll write about it again. It's only a very short point and short story but because I am writing it I can use as many words as I want, and I thing generally my posts are definitely a bit longer these days than they used to be. I like to think that I hit 250 - 500 words with each one but sometimes it will be less and sometiimes more.

I'm very tired so I think this will be lucky to hit 200 words but whatever. I 've just finished "Electric Eden" by Rob Young discovering quite a lot about music that I didn't know along the way, and now I have picked up "How Not to Be Wrong: The Hidden Maths of Everyday Life" by Jordan Ellenberg whichis very interesting and got me reminsicing.

Many years ago I had a pschometric test and was told that the test showed I had a problem. The problem, apparently was that:

I WANTED TO BE RIGHT

not that I thought I was right, I WANTED to be right. The guy said this could be dealt with. I said wait a minute , doesn't every person want to be right? Is't that a positive trait in someone? I would certainly see it as positive , striving to be right all the time.I have always been willing to acceot that I'm wrong when shown the reason for me being wrong and then sown how to make it right, but I will not stand for someone telling me I'm wrong on their say so. Many times I clashed with people in that situation and one or two said to me in private "You may be right, but I am in charge". This could explain a lot, so people don't like you being right.

Anyway it's time for bed, I need to be up at five, so what's a perfect song , maybe "Right" by David Bowie? Goodnight my friends.

One Down .. Millions To Go

Well I did the Million Step Challenge, though you have to take my word for it that I did it, because I did it solo, and as most of the time I was listening to music that's probably a good thing. Going forward I had set my target of 340K a month so I will always be on a rolling three month million. The thing is as it's still a week til August starts I thought maybe I could have a "day off" yesterday , so what did I do , walked into work, walked around town and walked most of the way back.

I don't usually walk back home because part of it is up hill and I am basically a very lazy person and it's a lot easier to get a bus that walk up the hill, but I did get a bus for the last half mile. I checked Google Fit on leaving the bus, because last time it recorded 25 steps from the bus stop to home. It read 10888 steps , 1 hour 54 minutes walking. I counted 140 steps, got in the house and checked again. 10886 Steps , 1 hour 52 minutes walking. I put the phone down checked it twenty minutes later, and the readings were the same. So either I have discovered time travel or Google Fit is a bit rubbish at times. This has happened several times during my Million Step Challenge so I have probably overshot it by some way.

The thing is, this is really helping control my diabetes , so really this has never got to stop. It's like diets, there is no short term solution it has to be a life style change. That sounds far too deep doesn't it, but I like where it has taken me.

It is a grey day, and after this I will maybe catch the bus , or walk to work. Yesterday one of the songs that came on the player was the excellent "Krafty" by New Order, so that's what you get today. Have a great Tuesday everybody.

One Million

This weekend I thought that I might complete my Million Step Challenge a week early, I had 35K steps to do that's about 15 miles over two days. Yesterday I hit over 17K, so today was just about redoing the steps, although I don't like doing the same thing over, but by mid day I had done 7K so thought I would just finish it tomorrow. Then I thought maybe I could walk a bit further this afternoon, and it started raining. So I picked up an umbrella , and although the rain was coming down there was little wind so I generally kept dry.

 I thought I'd include Doctor Evil's "One Million Dollar" ranson demand as I still find it funny and the numbers are related.

While walking I did listen to stuff I had loaded on the phone and still love After The Fire an eighties Christian Rock band who didn't include religion in their songs that was followed by Age of Chance then back to some XTC and Tom Waits.

Although I have another week to complete the millions steps the fact that I could possibly do it today was a major temptation, and of course I gave in. The million steps translates to between 400 and 500 miles but I won't include the Procaimers song but I'll set my sights lower with Big Country's "Fields of Fire (400 Miles)".

If you want to find out about the official 1 Million Step Challenge , check here

An End Is In Sight

It seems a very long time since I woke up and thought "Bloody hell, It's Twelve O' Clock (Noon)". I am not sure why this is , but it probably stems from when I started back doing 10K steps a day. Weekends are usually days when you can do more, although more steps take more time. I am now 35K steps away from hitting the target of my Million Step Challenge. I was wondering how I would continue exercising after the target had been hit, and was worried I would maybe fall back into becoming more sedentary and therefore lose the benefits that I have gained from doing the walking. We all need goals, if we don't have them then we vegetate and ossify. So I have simply decided to aim for 34K steps a month which should ensure that in any three month meriod I should walk a million steps.

Life is affected by continual change and the need to deal with those changes , which is why so many people railed against Jodie Whittaker as the new Doctor Who. This is the thirteenth regeneration of the Doctor, and every one has caused people to complain that the new Doctor is not The Old Doctor (here's a list and as long ago as 1989 Dawn French , Joanna Lumley and Frances De La Tour were in the running) , though the worst complaints are sexist and misogynistic. The term Doctor is not gender specific, and in the last series Peter Capaldi was guarding a rogue female timelord , they swapped bodies and several times talked about their past and whether they were male or female. Further back there ws the River Song / Amy Pond thread , so you can't say that you were'nt prepared for this by plot developments.

Continuing through "Electric Eden" (40 pages to go so another ending nearing) I also came across more things I was unaware of. Until Kate Bush hit Number One with "Wuthering Heights" in 1978 no woman had topped the singles chart in the UK with a self penned song, so thirty years that took. Then, talking about the video to one of the songs from my favourite album of hers "Hounds of Love" , it was conceived in connivance with Terry Gilliam (my favourite director, incidentally Kate performed the theme song to my favourite Gilliam film "Brazil" which I've included at the end of this post) and featured Donald Sutherland who had been angling to work with Kate, that was "Cloudbusting" often mis spelt as "Cloudbursting". The story behind the song is absorbing to and can be read here.

This is the thing, reading can tell you new things and remingd you of things you have forgotten.

I know it's grey but today I am looking forward to seeing my friend Julie with Fiona and possibly doing an unfeasible amount of steps, or maybe I will just get the bus.

Have a great Saturday my friends.