Monday 31 March 2014

I Don't Know What I Want But I Want It Now

The title is a quote from Sir Henry Rawlinson the creation of the wonderful Vivian Stanshall, and is particularly relevant to the sense of blind entitlement certain people seem to have for no other reason than they just expect to be given everything on a plate.

The TED Talk above by Paul Piff goes some way to explaining why , the more people get, the more they feel entitled to. Manchester United fans this weekend got a a plane to fly over Old Trafford demanding that David Moyes be relieved of his duties. This is because the team are not steam rollering everything in front of them, like they did under Alex Ferguson, forgetting that pre Ferguson the team had a long time in the trophy wilderness. Real fines appreciate there is a rebuilding job, but there are those who expect success to be presented to them on a plate.

Some of My Collection
It's similar with bankers and governments , who preach austerity, while expecting huge rewards for themselves for very little effort. The banks nearly destroyed the world through greed and were bailed out by governments, and are still paying themselves huge bonuses  with the blessings of right wing politicians, because they are somehow entitled to those rewards. I've yet to see anyone who deserves the obscene amounts they take.









Anyway rant over and there are good things up and coming. April 12th is National Learn To Play Day in which music shops and artists offer free taster lessons to encourage people to take up playing music. Full details are here with messages from Jools Holland and others.

That weekend I shall be picking up my books for World Book Night which takes place on the 23rd April.


And we also have National Record Shop Day on the 19th of April , which will be a great day again. I don't do the queueing but I do enjoy visiting the many shops we have in Newcastle.

Anyway it's time for bed now so I hope you all have had a great night and sleep well.


Monday Already

Carlisle Castle
..and it's still foggy. I've not seen the sun since Saturday on the West Coast. Still I've heard about a lot of things coming up this month that have got my interest or I'm involved in, but I need to get out the door and off to work, but I shall add these when I return home tonight.

Anyway everybody have a wonderful day, and I've included a sunny reminder of Saturday with the picture of Carlisle Castle.



Sunday 30 March 2014

Foggy Day and a Full Wilko Johnson Gig


It's seems the east is foggy and the west full of sunshine today. I got a more powerful LED bulb for my office and have discovered that LED bulbs to still generate heat although not as much as ordinary incandescent and energy saving light bulbs. You can stll change the bulb even if it's been on for a long time.

Today I nipped into town to purchase, an other things a copy of the Wilko Johnson and Roger Daltrey collaboration but the record shop had sold out. No matter I can wait a few more days, to get my own copy.

Wilko in Game of Thrones
Fourteen months ago Wilko was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer and he'd maybe have six months with chemotherapy. He declined the treatment. He's still going and quotes "If I ain't dead by the end of the year, it's gonna start getting embarrassing" . Well I certainly wont complain if he's ear at the end of the year, and at the end of many more years.. The article is here. He is an example to us all of how to live life to the fullest. Amazingly positive and I am amazed how good he's looking. All power to him. He also played the executioner in Game of Thrones so a many talented guy.

Oh and he's the guy who I based my electric guitar playing style on!

Anyway I found a ninety minute concert of them on YouTube, so you enjoy it, I certainly did.

Saturday 29 March 2014

Saturday And Shattered

Another hundred miles of train journey today, although in the west the sunshine was great while in the east it's very misty and foggy still. The trains were comfortable, not to packed , but had no room for major luggage, no catering and no power sockets. I suppose that's the problem living up north. The journey I did there and back was Newcastle to Carlisle, seeing my dad and girlfriend , taking a trip to Gretna and having a light lunch just out of Carlisle.

I must admit, I hate city centre driving , lane switching all over the place, not my cup of tea, but overall an excellent day and saw some great scenery as well. Anyway today I will be haveing an early night probably, and have nothing major to report although I hope to to have something in the next couple of week.

Tomorrow is more weekend work, but I will make time to relax, and watch some fun TV like the excellent Blacklist.

I've included the JAMMS (KLF) - It's Grim Up North , we know it isn't but it's fine to let the southerners think that.

Have a lovely night everyone.

Friday 28 March 2014

Friday Is Here


Yesterday's post was an interesting exercise and probably makes no sense to anybody, and I need to go back and read in myself. But given this was the first time I'd used voice recognition on the phone I thought it did pretty well. I will try it again, with a bit of preparation next time.

Anyway today is Friday , end of the week and I have a journey across the route of Hadrian's Wall tomorrow by train to Carlisle to see my Dad and his girlfriend which will be nice. Although the journey takes a while by train there are some great views and it's getting towards summer.

Anyway this is just a short post to let people know I've have not lost my marbles and I can actually write reasonably coherent sentences that people are able to read and make sense of.

For some reason the Squeeze song Electric Trains (which mention's The Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia in the brilliant chorus) came into my head!

Everybody have a brilliant day and an even better weekend.

Thursday 27 March 2014

Virginal - A Speech To Text Exercise

Computer
This is the block the i was gonna do daily by just talking so i'm not gonna make any changes whatsoever this is just what it hears from what i say which is quite an impressive really low draw something oddities that you recycle come out of this recycle i never said that is what i did i did now anyway i just interested in what you catch we say and i am at watson this can actually capture and what it actually end up with and yes i am just like this is just stream of consciousness stuff now so i don't know where how are you put a. In when you just actually speaking. Are so actually put in a4 no a full stop. That's quite impressive anyway so there's not going uni links in there's not gonna be any um pictures not gonna be any video this is just um my first attempt at a complete leave um spoken blog post and this is on my samsung phone um ball my note any does lots of arms ball i'm not gonna make any corrections to this i'm not gonna make any changes and this is just as i actually spoke it today 11 you realise all day anyway this this is gonna be it right that's enough amber post office

The post above was done using text to speech on my phone, just to see what it would do. Sorry if I'm talking rubbish, but it was an experiment I've been thinking about for ages. Now I've done it. The title was meant to say something else!

THe title virginal should have been translated as "I Hear An Owl"!

Wednesday 26 March 2014

Forgetfulness and Elton John



A friend told me that Elton John has a film showing at the moment, with only two showings only at selected cinemas. An interesting strategy, but I do think that the showing of concerts and other live (even though they may actually be recorded)  events at cinemas enables people who couldn't get to or afford the actual event to experience it. In Britain a lot of plays and operas are done with cinema simulcasts.

Incidentally Elton John appears in one of my favourite Orange adverts which I have to include below at the dawn of  3G.



Always makes me smile, then , as everyone knows I can be very forgetful. The benefit of this is that you can re read and enjoy books and rewatch films, and I was wondering what I should read next and then remembered I bought a pile of books while I was on my last holiday, so I think one of those will be accompanying me to work today.

It's frosty outside, but the sun is out and it looks another gorgeous day. So have a great day everybody.

Monday 24 March 2014

More Blue Skies




It's the start of the week and there are clear blue skies and frost on the cars and rooves or is it roofs? Grammar is such a weird thing , especially English which is probably the most complex idiosyncratic language in the world. How do you pronounce the word "wind" . You need to see or hear it in context.

I was just on Amazon's Kindle store and noticed that Ebooks are subject to VAT. I'm not sure if paper books are, but I assume not if Ebooks carry that notice.

Still that's a minor thing , so I'll include The Strypes Taxman as a video (check out the drummer he looks about 8 in this clip.

Have a great day, it looks lovely out.


Sunday 23 March 2014

So Glad and English As Tuppence



That people are enjoying my blue sky pictures, it's always nice when you do things that people like. Today we've had more gorgeous blue skies. I've been out for a couple of walks and yesterday mowed the lawn for the first time this yeatr and the garden is looking fine after the winter.

I'd ordered some Aftercut from Amazon and Yodel delivered in a huge box on Saturday, so we shall see how that performs. I need to change the bird feeders as the plastic perspex ones don't seem to do for the birds here, so I'm going to pick up a couple of wire ones and hopefully the birds will enjoy that.

The Local Church
I'm listening to Radio 6 and an advertisement came on for a program called "English As Tuppence" about Vivian Stanshall singer with the Bonzo Dog Band, presented by their musical leader Neil Innes. You can listen here for the next week, though it is three hours long. Now this would be ideal to listen to on the way to work but as you can get a consistent signal between Newcastle and Darlington and they don't let you download radio broadcasts I'll just listen at home.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend, I certainly will do

Saturday 22 March 2014

Kate Bush, Matt Haig, Jon Evans, Books and Why You Should Go OVO


I have a date for collecting my books for World Book Night on the 23rd of April. The book I have chosen is Matt Haig's The Humans so I need to get myself a copy fairly rapidly as April is nearly hear. However, many years ago Waterstones had a promotion called "Try Me For 99p" where you could pick up a number of loss leader books for 99p. One of these was The Blood Price by Jon Evans whicj, although not my usual sort of read, is a rivetting , exciting page turner which I would recommend to anyone, although I suppose I can draw certain vague parrallels with what happens in the book. Anyway that's the literary bit.

I've also nearly completed my power switch to Ovo Energy, after being with E-On for years (and having a fixed price deal). The thing that turned me on to them was that when the Big Six said they had to raise prices because wholesale prices were going up, MD Stephen Fitzpatrick implied they were being economical with the truth as he hadn't seen any price rises for two years. Articles here and here . The guy deserves respect and to be quite honest iof you're looking for a switch just go OVO. Their website is here

Oh and the wonderful Kate Bush has announced fifteen dates in London in August, her first since 1979, which will be amazing but the tickets probably sold out last year, full details here . Kate is one of my favourite artists who has manged to just do what she wants on her terms. Her albums are always a pleasure but The Hounds Of Love is still my favourite.

So that's more positives and hope I've given you some food for thought if you are in the UK and thinking about a power switch.

Blue Skies and Sunshine

Blue Skies Over Fenham
To Be Mown
Woke up this morning to blue skies, sunshine and the realisation that lawn mowing may have to start soon, although it is almost the end of March. So really there's no getting away with it. I'm awaiting a delivery of Aftercut that cam via Yodel on Wednesday when I was at work. I was expecting another run in with the delivery company as they only deliver Monday to Friday 9-5 (what sort of time is that to deliver large items to home address/ Anyway, went on their web site and they now deliver on Saturdays, which is good, so I'm expecting delivery of that today, so another thing to brighten up my weekend.





Sunrise in the Back Garden
It's ages since I used my camera to take pictures as I now tend to use my Samsung Note, but have had the camera out this morning and it's good to get to use the optical zoom. It's a five year old Canon Powershot but is compact and easy to use. It may be superseded by my next phone and phone manufacturers have gone for the huge megapixels that allow lossless zooming of pictures negating the the need for an optical zoom for the sort of photographs I take.






Anyway everyone have an absolutely wonderful weekend, I intend to, and if you are in the North East then it's a brilliant day weather wise, and if you are elsewhere in the world you are probably have good weather anyway. Enjoy every moment.

Thursday 20 March 2014

Being Positive Is Good For You

View From A Drone
I saw a lovely picture of a gathering on a school field, apparently taken by a drone and it got me thinking, I remember when getting a aerial picture was a luxury item, and soon we'll all be able to take aerial pictures of your house ore whatever. Google Earth and Streetview give us a lot of that already. And this reminded me of one of the most inspirational TED Talks about Henry Evans who is quadroplegic but uses drones to inspect his vineyards and the roof of his property.
I was shocked by how much this guy can get out of his life using robots and drones, and I think it's a lesson to us all, that life generally is improving. There is still a lot wrong in the world but there are people who are slowly showing us how we can get things right.

Also if you search TED you can see that there are a lot more beneficial applications of drone technology. Soget inspired, it may be from a friend or someone you don't know, it maybe from someone next to you or on the other side of the world, but you will feel better for it. Inspiration comes from many sources and places. So again be inspired and have a wonderful day. Oh and if you are doing the #nomakeup selfie for #breastcancerawareness , smile , really that is the only make up you need. Smile please

Tuesday 18 March 2014

Share and Be Positive

Woke up from some dream and there was something in it on how good life can be when you are positive and smiling and share things with others. That thing you share may be your smile, good news, knowledge or something you think people will will like. And it gives you a lift when you give things and people take things and then later do the same thing to you.

Building relationships like that means that people can be there when things maybe aren't has good for you, and they will know that you are probably there to help them as well.

I've not done any posts about happiness and positivity recently , but it is something that we should always maintain in our lives otherwise we will basically be miserable. I always look for the good, the positives in situations , as it's so easy to find faults. Remember faults are there to be dealt with , while good things are there to be savoured and enjoyed.

Key looking for the good, share and open up with people, and I hope sunshine fills your day.

Oh by the way, and example of this is that on Sunday I started using Runkeeper. Two of my good friends at work Neil and Lee said Endomondo was better as it was more configurable, and they use it on a daily basis, so it's only a small thing but it shows they think about me and it makes you feel more connected.

Have a great day. And I think "Love It When You Call" by The Feeling is a fantastic upbeat song which always makes me happy, and I love it when my friends call.

Sunday 16 March 2014

Some Positives


I know I haven't been too positive on my posts and have been ignoring certain things. So I got the Nintendo WII out and did the Tennis and Boxing , before finding it was seventy four days since I last used thing. I'm just a pound lighter so the good news is I haven't put on weight. It's too easy to put things away and just forget about them and we should never do that , I am atrocious for doing it.

The second thing was installing RunKeeper on my phone. This product looks like it actually works. I have no intention of taking up running, but walked about a mile and burnt 130 calories according to the app.

I included the Chariots of Fire  opening , because it's one of the most archetypially English musical pieces , obviously composed by a a Greek (Vangelis) , and also one of the lads on the beach was a trainee for me when I was at Littlewoods back in the day.

Anyway enjoy what's left of the weekend, another week awaits ...

Coincidences and Connections

Last night I watched three unrelated programs bar the fact that they were BBC programs. Line of Duty was the first and I've been following this amazing series since the start, not for the squeamish and with plot twists to to tie your brain in several knots. It is police and crime with Dennis Wise look a like Martin Compston one of it's many star turns.

Next up was Shipwrecks: Britain's Sunken History concentrating on the destruction of the Spanish Armada on the Irish and Scottish Coasts, and how the survivors became integrated into to the local communities.

Next up was Shetland , currently on season 2 but something I noticed , based on the Raven Black books by Ann Cleeves. First up was the fact that the main detective is DI Jimmy Perez (the Armada connection) played by Douglas Henshall, next coincidence was that Mark Bonnar who plays DCC Mike Dryden in Line of Duty plays Duncan Hunter in Shetland.

Then, and she didn't know I was writing this, Fiona told me that Ann Cleeves was actual one of the protagonists of Peter Jackson's film "Heavenly Creatures" , so that was unexpected. There is an article here. Though that was fairly difficult to track down.

So an amazing number of coincidences and connections in a very small number of items this weekend. It's amazing how easily things can spread out and become connected. The seven degress of Kevin Bacon is probably true , but for obvious reasons I'd rather not co there, despite the fact he was in one of my favourite films Tremors.

Saturday 15 March 2014

Rename The Post Office Tower "The Tony Benn Tower"

Tony Benn and a few of his achievements
Saddened yesterday at the news on Tony Benn's passing, one of the only politicians you could trust, who actually wanted to make the world a better place , not just line his own pockets. Almost everyone will have more things to say about him, and I couldn't do him justice , so just search the net , read some books about him and learn some lessons from his vision. I was shocked at work as no one seemed to know who he was , my own daughters (admittedly in their thirties know who he was and why he was important. It is just sad that they place more importance on X-Factor or Big Brother than people like Tony Benn (admittedly there aren't that many.

This post was only going to have a fleeting mention of the man, but it says something that this has spilled over into more that a couple of words. A lot of people will be unaware of the technical revolutions in communications and other walks of like that he helped kick start. One little thing is the commercialisation of stamp design , he was a prime mover behind the Post Office Tower in London, maybe they should rename it the Tony Benn Tower, and also behind Concorde and Radio 1! See here.

We should start a campaign to get the Post Office Tower renamed the Tony Benn tower.

A brilliant man , a brilliant mind , and an incredible loss.

Oh and here are ten of his greatest quotes.

Thursday 13 March 2014

How Does This Happen?


You wake at 5am, and are wide awake, not sleepy at all, bed is suddenly so comfortable you don't want to leave, but you have to get up. You're not really getting any benefit because you know you have to get up , so eventually you succumb and get out of bed, get washed , shower , perform ablutions and it's still half an hour before you leave for work.

Then it kicks in, you are so sleepy and want to go back to bed, yawning , and so tempted to get back into bed. Radio 6 keep playing Queen snippets,  but I'm sure that couldn't be anything to do with it , could it.

Thought of the Cure song to go with this though I suppose I could have had Queen , but I like The Cure better.

Hope you all have a good day.

Wednesday 12 March 2014

How Bad Were The Eighties Really?


I've just finished Danny Baker's series of shows on the seventies , eighties and nineties and the eighties usually come in for extremely harsh treatment due to New Romantics and A Flock of Seagulls hair styles. But Baker's show opened with The Clash playing Should I Stay or Should I Go at Shea Stadium , New York. The program was only half an hour long and while Prefab Sprout and The Pretenders are not exactly my cup of tea (although when both bands are good they are very very good and Prefab Sprout's last album is an absolute beauty) , the quality of the music never faltered , finding space for Ivor Cutler's Shoplifters before having the great man introduce The Smiths Boy With The Thorn In His Side. The show closed with New Order playing The Hacienda.


This post seemed to be getting fairly monoparagraphic so I thought I'd insert a break.

Incidentally a friend from Facebook had mentioned the Fall's I Am Curious Oranj in various  orange related posts last week, and then Danny Baker played Big New Prinz in situ with the dancers / ballet for which the music was commissioned.


When you add bands like The Cure , Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus  you have to admit there were a lot of great bands round in the eighties. As I've said before 95% is always rubbish , it's up to you to track down the good stuff. I've probably mentioned more bands in this post than any other previous post but there is a lot of great music round all the time, find and enjoy.


Monday 10 March 2014

Back Now

And off to work soon. I've spent the weekend driving back and resting and not really doing much bar watching some catch up TV such as the brilliant Elementary, Blacklist and Arrow and the truly atrocious Hostages (good idea for a film not a TV series but although it's not been recommissioned it'll be a staple of daytime TV in future ). I am watching Hostages just to see how bad it can get, apparently based on an Israeli TV series, like the excellent Homeland, which went off the rails after the first series but still kept your interested to due to excellent scripting and compelling characters.

Also noticed in the proliferation of betting shops a "Set Your Limits" campaign. Don't they realise that anyone addicted to slot machines, daily lotteries , or the proliferation of betting options will not do that , the only people who will are those in complete control. Then you add the facts that William Hill are looking to open shops 24/7 because slots and electronic casinos are open 24/7 , then combine this with one staff member per shop, and Paddy Power  taking bets and joking about the Oscar Pistorius , see this Guardian article, and it shows that they are only interested in one thing.

Tonight I have a meeting at my local practice' patient forum (details here) so am going to away from the house for 13 hours again today , but it's good to be involved with these things and you can't complain about things if you don't get yourself involved.

Anyway I know that this is not my normal sort of blog post, and I apologise, but when I get home tonight hopefully I can post something more positive and uplifting. Still enjoy your day, I know I will.

Friday 7 March 2014

Friday Feeling


Well it's Friday and it's the last day of the holiday , but has been a great week.I found out the guy who runs the farm we are staying at restores vintage cars for a hobby so hopefully I'll get some photos of those before I leave. The weather has been mostly excellent and is very sunny again today.

It's almost eleven o' clock and I've still not switched on my phone , which I have used quite a lot as a camera. It's amazing now how mobile phones are replacing cameras and music players because they are capable of doing all these things.

Add that to Instagram and Facebook and you can be completely connected and let everyone know everything you are doing but whether that's a good thing I'm not to sure.

I've just seen a black ladybird with red spots , apparently seeing a ladybird is lucky, so who knows what may happen , but there's always something good so I know that will come true one way or another.

Although it's Friday the song "Saturday Gigs" by Mott The Hoople is playing round in my mind so I'm going to include that, ain'y Youtube useful?

Anyway I'm going to enjoy the rest of the day and hope that you do too.

Thursday 6 March 2014

Worcester Records, The Good and The Bad

The Rise Vinyl Racks
Well the bad news from Worcester is that Mann Audio and Phoenix are no more, or as far as my experience goes , never were. However the good news is that the Rise Records go from strength to strength , with a lot on offer in a small shop, and I ended up buying some books (well it is World Book Day today, though as far schools are concerned it's Dressing Up Day) , was talking to the guy in the shop who was very knowledgeable and let me take pictures and told about the record shops that had gone , but there was a great second hand shop called Market Hall Records.

While I was in there, there was something playing that made me think of The Cure and Joy Division , and turned out to be the Eagulls , so that went onto the purchase list as well, whuch can be seen on my Instagram Feed.


Market Hall Records
Market Hall Records has a big selection of stuff and the guy is really good to talk to, if you go to their website you can find out where they are, and they are sensible enough to use the web as just an advertising hoarding, which is a fine low maintenance approach. I also picked up a Julian Cope disc called Ambulance.

So all in all a successful day, Worcester has two excellent record shops (HMV doesnt count although they have one), so it's a good place if you want to improve your music collection and expand your horizons. I'd never heard The Eagulls before today but thatnks to the visit to Rise I now have their album and thingk that you might like them too.

I could post a video, but there are pictures and links so I will leave you to find the stuff. That's part of the fun of the internet , you can lose yourself for hours looking for stuff you didn't know that you wanted.

Worcester Records

A short post. Today i will be visiting Worcester which according to The Vinyl District has three record shops. I know the excellent Rise which has a few shops in the South West, but there are two more Phoenix and Mann Audio but the web searches don't look too hopeful for these two.

Anyway no doubt I will have something to report later

Tuesday 4 March 2014

A Purple Bit


Hendrix and Zappa
Yesterday when I was in Stratford I looked at The Vinyl Disctrict app on my Samsung and it came up with Purple Vinyl. HMV is long gone so in Stratford the only source of getting ohold of music is the charity shops. The thing is there were a lot of tourists there, but obviously not enough to support a record shop.





Purple Vinyl Sign
Anyway I found Purple Vinyl close to Shakespeare's birthplace, and they have a Facebook presence here.  The Stratford shop had a lot of Zappa, Hendrix and Pink Floyd stuff nicely displayed and I spoke to the proprietor who told me they were essentially an online operator (check them out here)

I can't remember the guy's name but he was really nice to talk to, and though I didn't buy anything, I'd recommend going along just to see what they have out , or smapling their online selection.

I saw a 99p Jimi Hendrix BackTrack compilation which they were selling for £30, and was almost tempted as I had had it my original record collection. I now only my vinyl as artefacts rather than to play, and they still feel substantial compared to CD or the ephemera of MP3.

Given the amount of Hendrix they had on display and their name, there can only be one song can't there?

Anyway it's good to see a record shop in Stratford and hope they live long and prosper.

Have a pleasant evening everyone.

Periodic Moan


I try to keep things posutive on this blog but sometimes you have to let it out when things annoy you. Sometimes they are not really all that much of a problem, but let's face it 90% of the world prefers having something to moan about rather than having good things happen to them. It may be contributory to the state of the world at the moment.

Last night I went to see Wolf Hall based on the Hilary Mantel book at the Swan Theatre / RSC in Stratford. I cannot recommend this highly enough to anyone. I haven't read the books but the play is well paced , easy to understand, and a sparsely visual treat.

Firstly , I know that students are in the process of learning but there were about ten who didn't understand the relevance of seat numbers at a sold out seated event. I find the same on local buses where studens try to congregate on the footplate of the bus despite the rest of the bus being empty which results in the driver whizzing past stops because they thing the bus must be full, when all they have is about ten students.

Worse that that is the numpty suit who replaced them, then continued texting at every opportunity with his screen on full brightness. He was probably an iPhone owner and needed to let everybody know he had his iPhone at an important play. I was tempted to borrow one of actors weapons and "get biblical on his ass".

Then the Vauxhall Astra I haveon hire this week, despite being a two door model, is too long for many parking spaces. I was wondering why parking was a little awkward, but it is easy to drive and looks like a white Batmobile.

Also I've finally started Breaking Bad and love the use of Periodic Table entries in the credits. It is a truly brilliant program. So this week there's been loads of great things happening and to experience with a few niggles, and really the message is treasure the good things and ignore and forget the bad stuff.



Monday 3 March 2014

A Feast For The Eyes and Ears



Today is bright but cold and also means a trip to Stratford to see Wolf Hall at the RSC followed by Bring Up The Bodies on Wednesday, based on the best selling award winning books by Hilary Mantel. Last timewe were at the RSC we saw an excellent production of the Tempest, my favourite Shakespeare play, and was very impressed as the place was comfortable, and the air conditioning was excellent throughout the play, meaning you can actually watch and enjoy the play without the fear of falling asleep. Too many theatres just get warmer and warmer throughout the performance , so I would recommend the RSC.

Also started watching Breaking Bad this week as well as continuing with Boardwalk Empire (which I borrowed off a very good friend several months back) , so this week is going to involve a lot of watching stuff either live or on TV. I'm including the full movie The Tempest by Julie Taymor (as long as it stays on youtube) who incidentally gave a brilliant TED Talk which I've included below. So lots for me to watch and lots for you to watch. Have a great day.

Sunday 2 March 2014

Here Comes The Rain ... and Batman



Esconced in the cottage in Upton Snodsbury and the rain is coming down, although today was forecast as a bad day. Still getting used to the car with is a Vauxhall Astra that seems to me, modelled on the Batmobile, but I'm getting the hang of the damned thing. For the Batman connection I've include my favourite Batman related theme from Siouxsie and The Banshees.

Reminds me of a recent tweet:

My boss told me "Dress for the job you want, not the job you have" Am now sat in a disciplinary meeting wearing my Batman costume.

Which amused me quite a lot.......

Tomorrow will be in Stratford with hopefully better weather. AThere's just been a Skoda advert on the TV and I've just noticed how similar the Vauxhall and Skoda logos actually are, anyway I'm going to continue relaxing and enjoying my holiday. I hope you all have had a great weekend are are looking forward to a most excellent week.

Saturday 1 March 2014

Marching On ... and The Omens Are Good


Just a quick post before a five hour drive, I will maybe do a post when I get there. Been watching some amazing TV like Elementary and Line Of Duty , and ready for a week of being able to lie in and get a decent amout of rest while doing interesting things.

Also the radio is excellent this morning on both Radio 2 and Radio 6 

The weather is good here and in Upton Snodsbury so the omens are good.

And I thought I'd include one of my favourite videos for your delectation.... the wonderful KLF