Sunday 5 November 2017

Awake


It's 30 minutes past midnight and I'm sort of wide awake, Part of me wants to sleep and part of me wants to do things. It's not really practical leaving the house or getting the guitar set up, and I don't really want to watch TV (having caught up a bit on American Horror Story and The Walking Dead) so I thought well maybe I will just put something don in the blog.

The wek in Orton I had plans to record stuff and possibly write stuff but ended up doing what I was supposed to do , relax, rest , see my dad, catch up on some TV (the excellent "Deadwood" , well series one) and do a bit of walking and enjoy the countryside around Orton. The cottage is quiet and relaxing and still doesn't habe Wifi although most local pub such as The George , The King's Head and The Black Swan do , but I still managed to trash my data, but that's part of what you do when you are away.

Anyway I am back now and have written a few words, and hopefully it will have moved my mind a bit closer to being able to sleep. I hope to be going to the Tyneside Cinema later today to see  "The Death of Stalin" which should be great fun.

I leave you with a cracking version of "In The Midnight Hour" by Wilson Pickett with Bruce Springsteen, but I'm not sure you can buy this version, but thanks to Youtube you can listen to it.

Sleep well my friends , and I hope my my mind will rest for a few hours now.


Wednesday 1 November 2017

Sixteen Miles an Hour


Yesterday we took a trip to Ambleside from Orton. Checking on Google Maps the distance is sixteen miles, but the actual distance is further but due to hills and lakes in between the route is a little more circuitous than the direct sixteen miles and takes closer to an hour to navigate.

It’s not a difficult journey but the sixteen miles does stick in your mind as you drive down the M6 waiting for the turn off to hit the south end of Lake Windermere. While in Ambleside we tried the vegetarian Italian Restaurant, Zeffirelli’s and Fellini’s also home to a cinema.

We spoke with a couple and the man said he’d been eating there for twenty years and it had taken him five years to realise that the restaurant was vegetarian.

Today is the first of November and another start for my step challenge. Quite surprisingly I’ve managed to hit 11K today so that’s a good start although I should have hit 11.5K but a 500 step deficit is hardly insurmountable.

Anyway the data on my Google Pixel seems to me draining and a rapid rate. I’m not too sure why although the tethering has used 2 Gb so it’s probably Windows that decided to do an update, so I may have to buy a data add on, but at least EE have created a few more sensible add ons so it won’t cost a huge amount if I need to buy some extra.

Anyway it’s time for bed, so I will leave you with “Let’s Eat” by Nick Lowe. Sleep well.

Monday 30 October 2017

Walk This Way




I’ve been walking on a daily basis since March when Fiona got me on the 5000-15000 steps in two weeks challenge. Since then I have been walking an average of 11K steps a day, which has resulted in a little weight loss and a vastly decreased insulin requirement.  Last time I was in Orton I decided I wanted to find The Gamelands Stone Circle, and despite missing it I finally found it.  

At the time I only walked if I wanted to go somewhere. Now I feel that the most important thing is to actually walk a distance whether or not I have a target. So on a daily basis I usually walk to work or into town or a pub, and although there are times when I am tempted to get the bus because I am feeling too tired, I usually force myself to walk a bit further.

On this holiday each day I have been a few thousand short but then thought I could just nip out for a walk round the village and hit my target. While in October I have had days when I have not hit my step target, I have made up the steps in subsequent days and I need to do 14K steps over the next two days to make 340K for October and keep up my rolling three month million step total.

This holiday has had a couple of setbacks , firstly running out of needles for my insulin, spending two hours  trying to get  someone to give me some and everyone having a reason to deny me them, before remembering I could buy them, so I could have saved myself two hours there but all worked out ok.

Then we  had a slow puncture on the hire car, but Enterprise sorted me out with that so all was good again.

The song is obvious “Walk This Way” by Big Red and the Grinners. I don’t know if it’s available commercial but enjoy anyway. Have a great Monday everybody.

Thursday 26 October 2017

Pixelgouster


I just got a new phone, a Google Pixel. Getting a new phone is a bit like jumping off a metaphorical cliff, there's no going back but it's easy to do. I got it as my daughter Kirsty has one and loves it and as Android is Google then you don't get the make or networks rubbish that they install and you can't get rid of...and it looks wonderful out of the box.... but then you start hitting annoyances.

First it uses the bigger USB "C" cable so all the cables I have suddenly become redundant for me , though I need them to charge my bluetooth headphones. Next it doesn't take and expansion card, so I'm stuck with the 32 Gb storage, though my first computer had 3K of memory and my first hard disk had 10 Mb capacity so it's still a lot.

Today the Pacer software, that I use to track my steps, stopped dead. I installed Google Fit which is working fine but Pacer is dead. You have to wonder if Google have something that inhibits rival software, Pacer was fine on the Sony.

Photos are stored in the Cloud , so that will use your data allowance if you aren't on Wifi.

This may sound like I dislike my new phone, I reckon by next week I will be completely won over. It charges quickly, does all the stuff you need to do and I installed music playing software called Vinylage Music Player as Play Music seems to only want a subscription service. Vinylage Music Player makes your digital songs sound like they are on vinyl and I though for a first play I would have David Bowie's "Gouster", ironic because it was never released that I know of and certainly not on vinyl.

It appeared as part of a Bowie box set "Who Can I Be Now" but is still not available standalone. The word "Gouster" appears in "John, I'm Only Dancing (Again)" the album's opener and to Bowie it meant attitude, it's source is from the Latin gustō. Compare Spanish gustar and Italian gustare. Tony Visconti said:

"Gouster was a word unfamiliar to me, but David knew it as a type of dress code worn by African-American teens in the Sixties in Chicago," Visconti explains in the excerpt. "But in the context of the album its meaning was attitude, an attitude of pride and hipness."

"Gouster" was an alternate "Young Americans" and is an excellent soul album. Listening to it, I don't know if it's the software or the phone, but the sound is gorgeous and rich (even with the built in vinyl scratch sounds). I leave your with "Somebody Up There Likes Me" from "Young Americans" and "Gouster", now to chose my music for tomorrow's walk into work.

Tuesday 24 October 2017

Happy Trails ....


Still on the Dylan Jones "David Bowie: A Life" and it seems a lot of the articles are about the (insert your superlative here) sex they had with Bowie, although this is like the red top sensationalism, there is zero expansion. If something is fantastic or amazing you say why it is so. I write about things that catch my eye or imagination , but I don't write "I had a fantastic walk to work" or "I saw an amazing band last night" and leave it at that. The only slight expansion is the Angie Bowie / John Bindon / Pricess Margaret situation where obviously something was afoot in the members club.

One amusing interlude is when Bowie invited Glenn Hughes (then with Deep Purple) up to his room. Basically Bowie kissed Glenn but that was definitely not Glenn's taste.

Then we had the really interesting encounter with Amanda Lear. Bowie had seen her on the cover of Roxy Music's "For Your Pleasure" clad in leather and was disappointed with her look when she arrived. But they chatted ad she became aware of holes in his eductation and introduced him to Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" and William Burroughs' "Naked Lunch" . Now that is interesting, as the look of "Metropolis" influenced Bowie possibly directing him towards his Berlin period.

Amanda, Bryan and a Cat


Quicksilver
Yesterday I listened to "Happy Trails" by Quicksilver Messenger Service. When I first saw the cover I couldn't make out whether the guy was riding toward you or away from you. It was years before I finally got the album and realised he was riding toward the artist.

The album basically consists of three extended workouts and two short songs including the throwaway coda of the title track.

Side one is an extended workout of Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love" which starts out well but loses it's way losing the threat of the original in some saccharin west coast vocalising.






I walk 47 miles of barbed wire
I use a cobra snake for a necktie
I got a brand new house on the roadside
Made from rattlesnake hide

I got a brand new chimney made on top
Made out of a human skull
Now come on take a walk with me Arlene
And tell me who do you love?

Tombstone hand
And a graveyard mine
Just 22
And I don't mind dying

It's still worth a listen, but is rescued by the introduction of "Mona" another Bo Diddley song which lasts for seven minutes and this one does not let up.  "Calvary" is a psychedelic spaghetti western theme and these three pieces make the album essential listening.

Anyway it's time to get out on the road, so enjoy your Tuesday everybody.





Monday 23 October 2017

Darkness


It's twenty to seven and looking out the the window it is black, it is Monday and I really need to walk to work not having done much walking over the weekend. I have had the Beastie Boys ("Stake Your Rump") and The Stooges ("1969") spun by John Hillcock on 6Music so all is not doom and gloom. I am hoping it won't be as cold and windy as last night.

I was reading about how Lewis Hamilton, despite being the most successful Formula One driver ever is not universally loved.I find this similar to the Andy Murray situation in tennis. Murray is the most successful UK tennis player since Virginia Wade, but when he won Wimbledon the press missed her out of UK successes (she's a woman) and Murray is Scottish so still not as acceptable as Tim Henman. Same with Hamilton, and could I suggest it's partly media racism. Both of them also do things that the UK press hate... they do their job and succeed, which the press find very difficult to denigrate, so when they run out of insults they ignore them.

Personally I find both sports tedious (F1 is going round in circles sounding like a mosquito, and tennis is stop start and goes on for too long like cricket and American Football), but love Murray and Hamilton for their attitude to their sport and the way the treat the gutter press.


The Brexit and Trump victories have also validated open racism and misogyny, which the red top media perpetrates and its subscribers lap up the hate and spread it often defending the rags becuase of the crosswords or sports coverage.

I today found out about Princess Margaret's allegend liaison's with gangster John Bindon, there is a documentary listed here but I suggest you google to find out more as all the links were to gutter press websites.

So what song for this morning, it has to be "Darkness" by Van Der Graaf Generator, as at ten past seven it's still black outside. Try and have a great Monday, it will get lighter .... I hope .




Sunday 22 October 2017

Light On - Light Off - Light On - Light Off


I have a couple of solar security lights at the back, a lot simpler that wired one and easily fixable to the wall (you can get 'em from Amazon here) They do what they're supposed to , but when it gets windy (supposedly with #StormBrian) and movement from bushes and trees can set them off , over and over and over , and the poeple that get it are my neighbours at the back. Havin said that , I get theirs too so I suppose we balance each other out. We don't use the back rooms for socialising musch so it's not a huge hassle , but there isn't much you can do about the weather and the lights are functioning as they are supposed to.

The wind is getting up and it's actually cold, and I can imagine this stopping me from hitting my daily steps target, though the reality is is that I will see it as just another challenge, which I will succeed at.

This weekend I have been feeling run down, probably due to my 'flu' jab, and tomorrow it's back to work so I am sure that I really need to get some sleep, that is the way to help your physical frame to recuperate it's powers, so I will choose a piece for you.

It's quite funny how people often see pieces of music quite differently, Richard Osman of "Pointless" stated that teh ELO's "Mr Blue Sky" was the greatest "British" song ever (and we're not talking nationalism here we're talking identity), personally I think it's awful, contrived and formulaic from an ELO past their sell-by date. Maybe something by The Kinks or Beatles might fit that bill, and the ELO have a lot of better songs in their catalogue.

So I will leave you with a Beatles cover of "The Inner Light" ("B" side of "Lady Madonna") by The Grip Weeds. Enjoy it and sleep well my friends.