Tuesday 31 July 2018

Electronic Deluge


Yesterday started so warmI couldn't wear any jacket to go to work, resulting in me trying to fit things into not very deep pockets ad hanging thing things round my neck, and finished with an incredible deluge wich you can see a little of here, I always think I'm at the highest part of Newcastle therefore immune to any potential flooding but Lanercost is higher that my house and the West Road runs down to that, so although unlikely to be stuck in a final flood, I'm certainly in it's path.

Last night was another early night as I was absolutely shattered (again). I don't know if it's the weather, or I'm run down, or the left shoulder situation is taking it's toll, or my body is just about to give up the ghost. This Thursday I have a Liver Biopsy so that's a day in hospital courtesy of the NHS, meaning I'm going to miss meeting up with my friend Paul in Whitby / Robin Hood's Bay, and have a couple of days recuperation as the football season starts.

I think August may be difficult for walking as four out of the first five days need to be taken easily and I don't want to risk causing internal bleeding, especially with the ITP that is always lurking.

This morning we have blue skies, the grass on lawns is certainly recovering so at this moment in time things are looking good.

There's just been an Advert on 6Music for Nemone's "Electric Ladyland" supposedly drawing together every type of"electronic" music, I must check this out but expect it will just be disco or rock with synthesisers, citing Kraftwerk as the inventors of electronic music while anyone with any knowledge of music knows that the first fully electronic film soundtrack was "Forbidden Planet" by Louis and Bebe Barron, and electronic music has been produced since a very long time back.

So we'll go with my favourite Kraftwerk piece, "Ruczuk", though from this live version you can see where "Autobahn" came from.

Sunday 29 July 2018

Six Memory


Today is the 29th of July and it's the birthday of six people I know in varying degrees of importance, and until this morning I was unaware it was their birthday. These include myson-in-law Mark (important), Amanda, Ellen, Savona, Sam and Laura.

That got me thinking on how, more and more we let electronic devices do our remembering for us, and in some ways that is good because it allows the mind to focus on other, hopefully, more creative or inventive pursuits.

Someone was once shocked that Albert Einstein didn't know the speed of light. His retort "Why do I need to know that? I can look it up in a book". That's always been an inspiration to me, because my memory has always been atrocious, though I find it odd that I will know the plots of Shakespeare's plays but seldom could remember quotes. When I did the Law part of my Business Studies I knew all about cases but could never remember what the cases were, which was fine when doing course work but not in an exam situation.

Rebecca Cother's Lovely Robots


This reminded me of a TED talk by a guy, Henry Evans, struck down at the age of 40, now a quadroplegic who now lives his life aided and through his devices. We are all now reliant on so many devices, ebven though we may not think we are. Stephen Hawking used devices to share his thoughts and knowledge with our world.  These peaople show us what CAN be achieved in situations of apparently impossible adversity.

You press a light switch you expect the light to shine. Thanks to phones you now don't have to remember phone numbers, I still know about three, all my own, but I know where to find phone numbers.

I've been in IT on and off for the best part of forty years but with out reference books the best I can come up with is:

SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE field_name = "What I Want"

But I know where to find out how to do what I want, I don't need to remeber how to do it.

So for a change a none music related post, it's a rainy Sunday but if you are lucky you wont be at work.


Saturday 28 July 2018

Trash


Well we got  thuder and rain last night, sort of ironic as I'd just taken delivery of a garden sprinkler, but you know that was going to happen. It's still hot and muggy and a couple of times this week I've had to change my clothes twice in a day.

I switched on 6Music and Chris Hawkins was going to play a seldom heard Roxy Music classic. I wasn't too sure what it would be, but it turned out to be "Trash" the lead single from their first comeback album "Manifesto" . The opening two songs were worth the price of the album on their own, and the single "B" side features a slow take on "Trash" ("Trash 2") but I liked the brooding"Manifesto" title track even better, and still do. Roxy could never hang on to bassists so I think that's Gary Tibbs in the video who also was in Adam and The Ants if I remember rightly (mentioned in "Ant Rap").

It's early Saturday morning and rain has stopped for now. Today I am going to hit the Library to see about downloading their eBooks and visiting the Newcastle Food Bank to see what they need for the School Holidays. I can't believe that we are one of the richest coutries in the would an government policies force people into food poverty. The thing is my disposable income is getting less as well and that sort of thing is very bad for the economy, when disposable income drops, the economy shrinks, and companies cut back on workforces further reducing economic capacity.

Anyway it's weekend, and as usual I'm up early instead of just lying in, but it is so hot that sleep is not really an option. I will spend some time noodling on keyboards and guitar in the hope of actually getting some songs down to put on Soundcloud.

Today I am determined to not buy any vinyl. My collection is complete. Really.

Though I saw this beautiful limited edition copy of "Anthem of The Sun"  by The Greatful Dead in Beyond Vinyl yesterday so just had to have it. My instagram post of it is here.

Have a great Saturday

Friday 27 July 2018

Talk Talk


It's always good to talk and chat with peopla about non essential things. Today I was in a shop discussing the merits of Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" (wheich everyone should have and at least try to read and understand) and Simon Singh's "Fermat's Last Theorem" which while educating you about mathematics is also a brilliant cliff hanging detective novel.

Then I held the door open for a girl with amazing hair braiding / dreadlocks and mentioned a Facebook post by my friend Kaz which brought a smile to many people's faces., about her encounter with a Jamaican "bruddah", (see image).

The thing is encounters like this definitley make youy day better and it's always good to talk.

In my work environment I encourage lots of social talk and interaction, because that makes it much easier  to  then talk work when it matters. Social interactions remove inhibitions about whether you can actually speak to people.

I still see a lot of cliquery but often that's induced by familiarity and inhibitions about straying outside your box. Maybe my problem is that I often go way outside the box and end up tripping over my own feet, but more often than not it is a good end result.






Anyway today's music can only be "Talk Talk" by Talk Talk, which is a break from the recent proliferation of Alice Cooper, David Bowie and Rolling Stones.

It's Friday, it's the weekend and it's still sunny. Enjoy everyone


Thursday 26 July 2018

Vaguely Homonymic Musings


When I titled my last post "Speed Too" I though how far can you count using homonyms instead of the actual numbers. I know it's convoluted (especially seven), and someone else will have done this better, but it was an interesting thing to think about. THis is the list:

Won
Too
Free
For
Fife
Sicks
'S Even
Ate
Nein
Tin

I was vaguely thinking of numbering blog posts with these words but decided against it, as I'd get bored , and I've done it all in one here.

Today I went for a Tofu Katsu Curry at Wildflower, but I still find Tofu to spongey and featurelessly chewy. The Katsu Curry, rice an dleaves were excellent though and really I should have asked for the tofu to be replaced by Mushrooms.

I also gave in to temptation and bought a vinyl desk copy of Alice Copper's "School's Out" on a Green Warner Brothers label, and that should complete my vinyl collection barring any new inventive covers or picture discs.

So maybe we can do more Alice Cooper today and go with a live take on Gutter Cat vs The Jets.

Wednesday 25 July 2018

Speed Too

This time I know what music I'm going to include so I should be able to keep to my ten minute to create this blog post but I sort of know I wont. As I've said before, and therefore repeating myself, but we always do that don't we, this blog is also a diary for myself so that I can store things that I like and are worth remembering for me.

When I was first blogging that first paragraph would have been enough but I also have to tell you about the frightening "Ballad of Dright Fry" by Alice Cooper from the album "Love It To Death" about and mentally unstable child murderer ... but the way that song sotally unnerves you still doesn't prepare you for the segue into the abum's finale a cover of Rolf Harris' "Sun Arise" which does sort of leave you with a smile on your face while feeling cold inside from the previous song.

So that's that, another very quick post and it's still Wednesday.

Oh and this post took me over 160K page views.

Speed


I'm sure that I used to be able to knock off a blog post in ten minutes, but these days it can often take an hour ,or sometimes thirty minutes. When I see what others write I thin, for me, that would be about a days work if I could actually concentrate on it for that long. Just vaguely timing this I'm actually writing at about a line a minute, although the actual post is on a wider screen so that's not as many lines therefore when I'm writing I look and think "That looks a decent post" then when I publish it I think "Is that all?".

The weather is still excellent although my walking this month is only just keeping up with what I need to do, and next month may be extra difficult because of the time I need to take off walking for the Liver Biopsy, though having said that my last one must have been last year so I must have coped with that, or maybe it was two years back. I need to check that out

So this was to check if I could actually do a fast blog post. This one is going to be about 250 words havingg taken basically ten minutes. Maybe I am just gettiing less efficient or more inefficient, who knows?

I need to choose something new to listen to on the way to work but not sure what that will be. As on the last post I mentioned Alice Cooper I was going to leave you with "The Ballad of Dwight Fry" from "Love It To Death", a very scary song and an example of why early Cooper albums were so good, but then I saw this amazing animation from "The Diary of Tortov Roddle" by Kunio Kato,(check here for original) for Pink Floyd's "The Narrow Way" , the Dave Gilmour solo piece on the studio disc of  "Ummagumma", maybe Dwight Fry tomorrow.

As you can see I've got totally sidetracked and gone of on a tangent because I just saw something interesting that I wanted to share and remember, so this blog has almost tripled in the time it has taken me to produce. C'est La Vie.

It's the middle of the week, enjoy yourselves.

Tuesday 24 July 2018

..... and another problem with Vinyl


I hadn't really thought about before, but it's only the unusually hot weather that made me think about it. This morning I picked up a copy of The Rolling Stones "Sticky Fingers" with an intact zipper cover, and of course to have to try it out and play the record, don't you? It's The Rolling Stones. I Instagrammed it here. if you want to see.

There's an article about the cover and why it was abandoned here.

The cover was designe d by Andy Warhol and featured some well filled underpants that various people have claimed to be, see here

Then, as the sun came through the window, and started getting really hot, I thought if I left this record out it could end up melting on the turnatable. Possible similar the RCA's Dynaflex in the seventies which just seemed to be a built in warping mechanism for albums and David Bowie was on RCA , how not good was that?
 
Today I noticed HMV were selling The Rolling Stones "Hot Rocks" for £9.99 but if I bought it, I'd have five pieces of Rolling Stones' vinyl and I don't think I need that. I was also tempted by a green label Warner Brothers copy of Alice Cooper's "School's Out" with it's desk sleeve (though missing the original paper panties that it came dressed in) , I also managed to avoid buying that as well.

So basically keep your vinyl out of the sun or it may become unplayably flexible


Saturday 21 July 2018

The Problem With Vinyl


Today I had a little free time in the house to myself and decided to listemto some vinyl while catching up on some reading. Today it was still "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman, while listening to "Velvet Underground and Nico" , "Strange Days" by The Doors and "Exile on Main Street" by the Rolling Stones.

Then I realised the "problem"

When walking and listening digitally I can listen to an album, even a double album end to end. When CD came out you could listto 78 minutes of music without interruption. When "Godbluff" by Van Der Graaf Generator was released the NME said that it needed to be heard as a continuous piece and vinyl didn't give you that. At the time you would have had to record it on to a side of a C90 Cassette, but CD changed all that.

And therein lies the problem, a side of a decent sounding vinyl album (33⅓ rpm) will clock in at ten to twenty minutes, so the music, while enjoyable runs out fairly quickly for me. I still like listening to vinyl  but if I am reading then usually I up every fifteen to twenty misnutes to change the record.

That's all I wanted to say so I will leave you with "Sweet Black Angel" from "Exile On Mainstreet" which was the "B" Side of the lead single "Tumbling Dice".

Sleep well folks.


Flexibly Free

Back in the sixties and seventies music was often promoted by giving away vinyl flexidiscs. These were'nt meant to last but were meant to give you a taster of something so you would buy the actual single or album and generate income for the artist and definitely the record company.

The thing is sometimes these flexidiscs contained exclusive music (at the time), I'm thinking Alice Cooper's "Slick Black Limousine" which was promoting "Billion Dollar Babies" and the interludes on the promo for the Rolling Stones' "Exile on Main Street". These were both NME freebies as it was my music mag of choice at the time. Both these were committed to cassette as soon as I got them, but were lost way back. They may be worth something now.

I recently bought a couple of flexidiscsfor Long Play Cafe / Empire Records in The Grainger Market and was surprised that the Adam and The Ants one had no track name on , but is their take on The Village People's "YMCA" called apparently "IMCA". Because the flexidiscs slip you need to put a couple of coins to stop the vinyl slipping.  The other was by Hazel O'Connor and you can see the details here. LAter sounds actually started giving away vinyl EPs.

But in the sixties we started getting loss leader compilations. At first I thought these would be very expensive, but they were very cheap and full of amazing music. Again these often contained music you couldn't get anywhere else, I'm thinking "America", Yes' ten minute take on the Siman and Garfunkel song and Led Zeppelin's "Hey,HeyWhat Can I Do" on the "Age of Atlantic" samplers.

The first one that I bought was Island's "Nice Enough To Eat" which introduced me to Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, King Crimson and many more.

In the disgital age Amazon used to give free downloads but that seems to have stopped but often artists make music available to download for free in exchange for an email address.

I suppose music is still effectively free to listen to on the radio and Youtube, but I do like to have the music and make sure the artist gets something from me.

Well I am looking out at the blue sky and sunshine and think its time to wake the neighbours by mowing my overgrown jungle of a lawn.

Today Fiona and Helen are doing a 26 Mile walk for MacMillan which you can track here and donate here.

Have a most enjoyable day

Friday 20 July 2018

Precipitate


Unexpectedly (for me) it's raining. I was out at dinner time and was wondering whether to buy an umbrella or to plan a route back to work as much undercover as I could find. I plumped for the latter as I didn't see any umbrellas on sale.

The rain seems to have stoped so there may be a chance of mowing the lawn tomorrow, as it does look quite green and lush now.

I've noticed that when I type I often capitalise my second letters, maybe doing it too fast and another thing is splitting the last "e" of a word and starting a word with that "e". It's always the letter "e". Then sometimes I notice an oddly used word, and I am sure it's caused by some rogue autocorrect as I would have no reason to make such ludicrous errors, but go back through my posts and you will find them.

Today I moved on from the Velvet Undergound demos to the actual first album, and love it, although what I assumed was a guitar riff on "Waiting For The Man is actually a piano riff. While the demos are interesting this is the real stuff.

So I will include (once more) "All Tomorrow's Parties" with that awesome drum and Nico's gothic magisterial vocal lines carrying all before it.

It's almost the weekend so enjoy.

Noise Is Good


Well sometimes. Sometimes you want quiet but someimesnoise lets you know that there is someone or something else there, be it a radio, tv, someone else in the house or whatever.

I was just in the shower and could hear something that sounded like the "Theme From The X-Files" and realisedit seemed to be coming through either the shower drain or the shower head. Totally weird but I wonder if that is where Mark Snow got the idea from. Who knows?

Quiet is also good at times, sometimes it's just good to lie on the bed with an eye mask in a dark room and complete quiet and empty your mind. A great form of relaxation, and after it I then want NOISE.

I love playing stuff on vinyl because there's no remote, so no skipping and you can actually sit and enjoy the music.

When I walk  I have a decent set of headphones so the phone / headphone combination allows me to listen to whatever I want (as long as it's on the phone). I don't use music streaming services because I think they're unworkable business model for artists (unless you're Ed Sheeran) but I still have a huge selection on there. Although in this creeping inherent tech induced laziness, transferring music to my phone is a bit of a chore. The thing is when we used to make mix tapes for friends we had to choose albums and tracks and do it in real time, so a ninety minute tape would take you well over two hours make, whereas these days people just want to share a spotifyplaylist.

I find the same with DVDs, I find getting up getting the DVD out, opeing the player drawer and then pressing play a chore. And I always forget about the theft warnings before the video starts. Like is many walks of the life it's the people who keep to the rules who are targetted, not the ones who break the rules. 

Thursday 19 July 2018

Demos


Today on my walk into work I decided to listen to the demos for the first Velvet Underground album from their "Peel Slowly And See" box set. I was surprised to see there are only six songs which I thought would be a waste of a CD , but the opener "Venus In Furs" last fifteen minutes with four takes. on acoustic guitar possibly sung by John Cale.

"Prominent Men" is almost Woody Guthrie-esque and "Heroin" is another acoustic demo reminded me how I'd introduce my new songs to bands I was playing with.

The problem with The Velvet Underground is that often some of their finshed product sounds like demo quality, but they are so vibrant that they are essential listening ranging from noise terrorism to gentle love songs to gothic menace. I still find the bass drum sound on "All Tomorrow's Parties" awesome and the menacing violin / cello backing Lou Reed's living dead vocals on "Venus in Furs" nerve tingling.

It's almost strage that the demos seem to be an almost country and western group, but they are completely transformed for the debut album release. I never saw "Waiting For The Man" as a country song.

While initially the album did not sell, it showed bands what could be done without going high tech. I've always gone for originality over technical ability and the ideal is both, but technical ability without originalty leaves me cold, Toto were prime examples of that scenario, which I think Boston and Rush were two examples of technique and originality.

The thing is the Velvet Underground showed YOU could do it. "Waiting For The Man" was one of the staples of The Bok's live set and we possibly sounded less together than the Velvet Underground but I love the main riff which was also appropriated for The Jam's "In The City" and The Sex Pistols' "Holidays In The Sun".

So that's what I've been listening to this morning and maybe will spin th evinyl tonight.

War Children


A bit colder  this morning 13º according to my phone although the radio is forecasting 23º to 25º later today, and I'm listening to 6 Music and "3AM Eternal" by KLF has just come on the radio and that immediately reminded me of their contribution to the "HELP" album for War Child, "The Magnificent" by them disguised as The One World Orchestra taking on Elmer Bernstein's "Theme From The Magnificent Seven".

War Child is still going today ,because our governments supply and profit from weapons and bombs, an have to care for the resukts by charity contributions. They still need our help.

The album was released in 1995 and has since spawned a series of creditable compilations, featuring some excellent covers and original songs, one of my faves was "Tom Petty Loves Veruca Salt" by Terrorvision, but you also find a Paul Weller / Paul McCartney collaboration in there as well as Blur, Radiohead and Suede.

I wasn't intending to write anything this morning but it's funny how a random thing can then inspire you to actually write something. I am surprised I've not wrote about this before, but I haven't and now I have so there.

I have all these albums (and more) in my collection barring the impressive vinyl singles collection. I may actually do a post about other charity compilations.

Anyway it's time to get going , so enjoy your Thursday.

Wednesday 18 July 2018

Back To Bowie


I had a dream last night but all I can remember i smy contact lens fluid being contaminated by coffee. I wrote about some absolutely awful coffee in my last post , but it turns out that I should have checked the milk I was using, as I tried it on some cereal and it was not good. At first I thought my sense of taste had taken some mad turn and now I couldn't drink milk, I smelt the bottle and it was truly awful. I was half expecting a replacement bottle to be the same but it was fine.

Basically if something is wrong you need to check all the components, not just a single one.

On the walks I've skipped back to seventies Bowie in "The Man Who Sold The World"  and "Hunky Dory". Even though they are forty years old they still sound fresh and challenging and always get my thinking on how songs are constructed. While the music is important it can be minimal when driven by vocal melody. Song structures vary from acounstic to rock to orchestral some with dense almost indecipherable lyrics which still drag you in to the experience ("The Bewlay Brothers").

While "Hunky Dory" is vaguely poppier but not without it's barbs ("Queen Bitch", "Quicksand"), I still prefer the darkness of "The Man Who Sold The World" with th esinister "All The Madmen" and "After All" complemented by monolithicly relentless "Supermen", thefractured "Width of a Circle" and stright rock of "Running Gun Blues" and "Black Country Rock".

So that's what I've been up to.......

Sunday 15 July 2018

Is It Too Darn Hot?


Yesterday I was in Edinburgh and at times in was so hot that had to dive in to shade to get a little relief. While I am not a hot sun person, I definitely prefer the weather sunny that to grey dark skies. I alsthink of the walks to work with the wind is so cold that it's almost trying to burn your face off. We've also not had much rain, last year was almost perfect, sunny during the day raining at night. It is great wehn you don't really need an umbrella.

Today it's so hot in th ehouse that even a nightgown is uncomfortably superfluous, but luckily I have a couple of old Preston North End replica shirt that hide my body from the public while keeping me cool, after all in our Daily Mail / Dail Express / Sun dominated nation we don't want any bare flesh unless it's some photo shopped female in one of those rags do we. Some people are only happy when they have something to be offended by.

I finally cut ties with someone on Facebook when he tweeted that there was no need to demonstrate against Donald Trump and everyone should just chill, which in my opinion is there a backing for racism, misogyny, bullying (fill in your list), this comes on the back of him trivialising my friends and continually criticising while excusing Tory misogyny and racism.

Anyway today France play Croatia in the World Cup final, and I have just had the most awful cup of instant coffee, and it's L'Or and it is truly bitter and awful , the jar is going in the bin when I get down. I have had their stuff before and it was fine, this is disgusting. God I am sounding like a Daily Mail reader. I AM NOT.

Anyway I am now going to have a coldish shower, and go out and get the papers. Today is a day when I am expending no effort whatsoever. I wasn't even going to write this, but I already have done. Two songs have been going through my mind "Too Darn Hot" by Ann Miller from Cole Porter's musical "Kiss Me Kate" for obvious reasons and "Too Much Ain't Enough" by Tom Petty, because even though I've said I'm going to do nothing, I will do somethingand I probably will overdo it and at the end of the day think there is something else I should have done.

So you get both songs and now it's shower time.


Thursday 12 July 2018

How Long Would It Take This Blog To Die?


Pretty depressing title, and I am so glad when people read my posts but if I don't keep posting then readers just disappear. I am as guilty as anybody, I have several friends who run blogs that I don't really follow, just dip into them now and then. Sometimes I will post something that catches people's eyes for some reason  and they will get a couple of hundred views.

If I don't post on Facebook then I get very little interaction, and hate relying so much on Facebook, but maybe I am just not a very interesting or even adequate writer, and unless I am writing about something that people are interested in then no one will read it, I wouldn't.

The reality is I will keep writing because I have some great friends who read and like what I put down in words, and also, as I have said before, this is a sort of diary whee I can store things that I may want to revisit in th efuture.

This week I have been feeling lethargic and as though my mind and body are wading through treacle. My walking has really dropped off, although I am still hitting my targets, just. Work is remarkably difficult, it's not that I can't do it, it's just that the simplest of tasks seem to became incredibly cumbersome. I have managed to get through a decent amount of work though I feel it's still a fight.

I am suffering from hay fever symptoms and life seems to be continually draining limbs, making walking  a chore.

The very fact that I have managed to write this shows that I am dealing with things but I probably just need a day in bed. I will keep posting but sorry this is not overly optimisticbut I am sure that I will feel much better soon.

I think Disturbed's take on Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence" is appropriate for my current mood, or my mood as was. Even writing this has lifted me although I still feel very tired, but it may also be this oppressive weather that has a lot to do with it.

Find something that puts a smile on your face and do that. It is a good thing to do.

Monday 9 July 2018

Mondagain


That bit where you are shaved, dressed, showered, contact lenses in, ready to go and then you realise you have your Annual Diabetic Review and that includes a retinal scan, which means you have to take your contact lenses out and put your twenty-year-old glasses back on (they still are fine for reading, watching TV and driving).

My appointment is at 8:52 which seems a bit precise.

It's Monday morning and the temperature is creeping up. I've realized that if I walk across Nunsmoor then I come out at the old General Hospital where my review will take place. This can take anything from one to four hours, most of the time will be waiting, but so glad that I have the NHS to look after me and advise me.

Its was the NHS' 70th Birthday last week and it was also Ozzy Osbourne's as well, sort of appropriate as they have both been through some very pressured times, but have access to all the best drugs, and are still with us and we love them both.

I know it's Monday and this week is going to be very busy, but it is better to be busy than not, but sometimes you do wonder where the time goes.

Oh and David Davies resigned so I'll throw in Dave Davies' "Daath of A Clown" which is appropriate. Dave Davies was instrumental in the invention of Heavy Metal when he stabbed the speaker cab to give the vicious guitar sound on "You Really Got Me".

Enjoy today, I'll be glad when I'm back home tonight

Sunday 8 July 2018

Banana Mañana Nirvana


Yes, the title makes no sense but it's from a Gong song, "Radio Gnome Invisible". I found a live version in Amsterdam and everyone is having an absolutely great time. It's over forty years since I saw them live and Daevid Allen still had it when this was recorded though he died in 2015 aged 77.

Today the heatwave continues, I have felt incredibly lethargic and as though I've done nothing. I only just hit 6.5 K on steps, but d.ecided to cut back some of our shruberry stuff and managed to fill the brown bin, despite not having a major effect on what I was cutting.

I am not wearing much as I type this but still sweating profusely despite doing very little bar writing this. I'm cooling down by eating a couple of Co-Op iced lollies, and have managed to watch two films "The Purge:Anarchy" and "Behind The Candelabra", the first being very pertinent to the way America is going and the second having an absolutely stellar cast with lots of brilliant acting and lines. Both well worth your time.

I have an annual Diabetic Check up tomorrow so will be walking to the hospital, and hopefully the weather will be a little cooler. The temperature is slowly dropping, but it is still hot.

Enjoy the end of your weekend and get ready for England against Croatia on Wednesday .

Sleep well.



Saturday 7 July 2018

Seven By Seven


It's the seventh day or the seventh month and England are in th elasteight or the World Cup Finals where all the media darlings have been unceremoniously dumped out  leaving a wide open competition.

Keeping on the seven theme Preston North End put seven past  Bamber Bridge in their first pre season friendly and setting an example for England to follow, hopefully.

The heat is still on and it is showing no signs of abating.

I've been listening to a couple of albums and for a compilation Primal Scream's "Dirty Hits" is both eclectic and impressive and they're a band who have demonstrated they have Rolling Stones style longevity and "Rocks" could actually be a Rolling Stones song coming close to "Rocks Off" from "Exile on Main Street".

Then I revisited Genesis' "Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" which is a remarkably coherent album of a dream of Peter Gabriel's which has the full libretto on the album's sleeve, but you really need the vinyl copy to be able to read it. A remarkable number of songs have a single one note heavy bass line I think produced by bass pedals, and some remarkable keyboard solos on "Riding The Scree" and "In The Cage", and The Slipperman are an incredibly worrying creation. Well worth searching out the video on line or just buying a copy of the album to hear the story of Rael and his brother John who continually screws up the situation.

Right I'm going to watch England play Sweden.