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".

Fadely Grayley

Well today is another totally grey day, there's fog on the Tyne and the sky is just a uniform singularity of non colour. There's moisture in the air and thi sis the sort of day where SAD kicks in and there seems to be nothing to inspire you. You don't want t walk, because that's all you are doing, it's unlikely that you will see anything worth taking a picture or video of, and the weather seems to vreate that uniform winter silence.

CHAT Trust Phoenix

I did submit an image of the CHAT Trust Phoenix to MyTownPhotography  just because of the general positive vibes it creats in everyone, although taking a photo today would not have been good, so I'll include an earlier one to your right.

I've also got my House of Love / Thousand Yard Stare ticket so tomorrow night will be the first time that I have been to a gig at the Boiler Shop in Newcastle.

Yesterday I did manage my first #cookamealinaminute video which you can see here. It's for Jack Monroe's Chickpea and Peach Curry which will appear in her next book I believe.

I'm not sure which song to share with you, I was thinking something by Pearls Before Swine but couldn't find the song I wanted so we will go with "Grey Day" by Madness., which suits the weather.

Black Turns To Grey

Just looking at the sky out side it was black when I rose and now it's fading out to grey. It's Monday and looks like just another week coming up.

I'm surprised at the amount of walking I have done so far this month, but I am sure that that will drop off soon although I still expect to hit my monthly target, though not sure I will hit the 400K (that's about 200 miles) I hit last month.

The problem is on days like this I have nothing much to say, it's just one of those days, although I am sure something good will happen today. The grey weather is not exactly inspiring, I will start to walk but chances are I am going to get the bus most of the way into work.

I may cook the Jack Monroe Peach and Chickpea Curry tonight and may try to record it on an instagram video. I only have a minute to do that so that could be interesting, maybe hashtag it with #cookamealinaminute which is slightly misleading but you get the idea.

So the obvious music accompaniment to this post is "Fade To Grey" by Visage, which I have for sale on my Discogs store.

Have a great day everyone.

When Things Go Wrong

I woke up about 3 AM then went to bed about 4 AM. It that time I managed to screw up access to this blog, put some Thousand Yard Stare onto an SD Card then tried to insert it into my Emopeak headphones, which kept flipping to FM radio and not playing the Music despite saying "Music" (It talks), then I took the card out , reinserted it, and managed to lose it in the headphones. The SD socket had got slightly bend so the card disappeared into the body of the headphones which is an otherwise sealed unit.

Then I was messing with CNAMES on the blog redirect and it started saying there's something wrong with this page, although I was trying to rush things and it did say it could take up to six hours, but I expected the old links to work. Anyway it finally seems to be sorted, and I was just wondering whether this would sort the visitor situation. Time will tell on that.

So my headphones still work, and I will use my Pixel Phone as the music source, the blog is working, but obviously in the middle of the night my mind is not fully functional and things seem more impossible than they actually are.

I'm still debating the Thousand Yard Stare gig., they are the support, but I really do need to see them, so maybe tomorrow I will go and buy a ticket, will try and avoid SeeTickets, and it's and excuse to share the wonderful "Version of Me" with you.

Cut

Where Has The UK Gone?

Normally I have about 250 views on the site from the UK. Now it's down to around thirty so I think that probably Facebook is removing me from people's feeds. There's times when I can't even find my own posts let alone other people's so I haven't a clue what's going on, but seriously I can't be bothered to find out.

I know things change and we need to adapt to change, but I haven't noticed any improvements in Facebook. I use it to play Scrabble and have the odd interaction with friends.

I'd received an invite in November but couldn't find it on my mobile, and it was difficult on the PC so that is a definite failure.

So really it's probably just some kind of blip and there are worse things to bother about.



November has started well on the walking front and on Wednesday Thousand Yard Stare are on at The Boiler Shop in Newcastle. I've not seen a gig there and I have never seen them despite them being one of my favourite bands, so I really need to make the effort to get over there and I'm sure I will. They're supporting House of Love so that's two great bands in one great place.

So I will leave you with "God's P45" one of my slideshows for one of their songs, which has a totally gorgeous chorus, like so many of their songs. Listening to this has nailed it, I'm going on Wednesday.

Halloween Minimalism - The Sound of John Carpenter

My last post was about being post Halloween  and I was considering using John Carpenter's "Halloween" theme as an accompanying video. John Carpenter is unusual in that he makes films and also does the soundtracks. His compositions are minimalist  but stick in your mind often using repetitive notes an motifs that carve themselves into you psyche.

I'm not sure what his first film was but I remember seeing "Assault on Precinct 13" and being maightily impressed with it's unknown cast simple but frightening set up and one of the most unexpectedly shocking scenes I've seen in a film, and... of course ... the soundtrack. It's still stands up today despite it being a remake and resetting of "Fort Apache".

John Carpenter recently played at the Tyne Theatre in Newcastle and it's not many directors could even think about doing that.

He is responsible for some of my favourite films and all are marked my him, often working with Kurt Russell such as in the remake of "The Thing" and in "Scape for New York" and "Escape From LA".

So it's Friday , enjoy your day and weekend.

The Day After Halloween

Last night was Halloween, I stayed in and watched episodes of Constantine and The Walking Dead, got two tubs of sweets from Tesco (two for seven pounds) and had one knock on the door, a pleasant and well made up family (the parents as zombies the children as witches) who were made up when I told them to take two each.

It seems everyone was out apart from me, though I wasn't aware of anything that was on, and no one would ask me to anything because these days I usually politely decline.

But it's a new month, and I am off to York today (that's twice in a week) so although it's the day after I'll leave you with Sonic Youth's "Halloween" just to include the "Bad Moon Rising" flaming pumpkin headed scarecrow cover although I was thinking  of John Carpenter's superb minimalist "Halloween" theme.

Have a good day