Australian Surprise

It'sa couple of days after Australia Day , and I wasn't going to post, but my youngest daughter's partner sent me this video of a totally amazing Australian artist Xavier Rudd. I've never heard of him and was amazed and shared the video on Facebook , which lots of people then shared, obviously as impressed as I was.

I'm not very good with wind instruments and still can't get much out of my didgeridoo  , but I am still stunned by this. His web site is here.

SO just a short post, but that's the thing about the blog, is it should stay here for as long as I want it, so I can always come back and find it , and my friends can also come and enjoy it too.

I think some purchases may be in order

TVOD and Australia Day

This week I've used my traveling time to just read, no catch up TV , no TED talks , just reading. I don't know if that's calmed me down or not , but the benefit is that you can read and listen to music simultaneously. That's two things you engage with at the same time.

You can't watch TV and listen to music at the same time without losing track of one thing or the other.

This doesn't meant that TV or TED  is bad, it just means you have to watch and listen , whereas a book the whole of the experience comes through your eyes leaving your ears to engage in aural stimulations.

Itn other news I've been reminded it's Australia Day tomorrow which is a great reason to celebrate and that in turn reminded me it my dad's birthday in two days time. So that's an excuse to reproduce my Australia Day playlist from a couple of years back which you may or may not enjoy , but there is certainly a lot of great music come out of Australia. I still remember ordering The Saints "I'm Stranded" on the EMI Import print sometime around 1976, and it still sounds brilliant today.

   

Oh and the wonderful Tom Ravenscroft did an Australia Day special which you can listen to here.  I've downloaded to my phone to listen to this week.

Wake Up Time

OK this will be a short post after my last post that was longer than the short post I expected it to be. It's the final day of the week , so just another 11 hours to get through until I get home. I was just wondering , including traveling time, what is the average person's time away from home due to work and do they feel adequately rewarded for it? I do know there are people who have two and eve three hours each way commutes, which if you then add on eight hours at work, and take away six hours for sleep leaves you with four hours of the day you can call your own. Yes you can do that for a short period of time but it should never become the norm.

Anyway I am not wishing my life away but it is really good that it's the last day of the week and I'm looking forward to enjoying this weekend. For a song I was toying between David Bowie's cover of The Easybeats' "Friday On My Mind" (which was the first Australian global smash it I believe) but decided to go for the Cure's "Friday I'm In Love" just because I love it more !

4AM In Ampleforth

I'm sitting here writing this at 4am because I can't get back to sleep. The main reason for this being I went to sleep at 8 pm last night so I've had eight hours sleep.

There's also so something very odd about theis place. I'm scared of the dark. Not darkness as such, but being somewhere with absolutely no visual point of reference. I need a chenk of street light or moonlight from a window, or a light from another rook or something just so I can find my way if I get up. This place isn't like that. It's pitch black, 100 yards from the quiet street and it is pitch black, no light from outside. Obviously I have lights on to post this, but in this place I am fine to negotiate the place in total darkness. Maybe it's because I've been here before and know my way round. You can see the place here.

Anyway I was in bed for a while thinking about things (usually it's worry that keeps people awake) , but good things just kept coming into my head , ideas of nice things to do, places to go , thinking about friends and family near and far away. It's quite amazing how global our friendships can be. Just offhand i have lot's in the USA, around Australia and New Zealand , Tanzania and various other bits of Africa, Germany and probably lots lots more. And these people bring lots of great things into my life in the form of art and music and stimulate ideas in me and cause me to write things like this.

I watch a lot of TED talks which are usually interesting and I've put relevant TED links on a couple of the countries above so feel free to follow and watch. The Australian one is particuculary excellent.

Well have a brilliant weekend and I've include a brilliant Steve F

Steve Forbert as a child

orbert song. I think he was touted as the next Bruce Springsteen, he wasn't just the first Steve Forbert and he has written some wonderful songs.

Connectivity, Eclipse and a First Time For Everything

Last night I watched via the internet , facebook , and Panasonic solar technology , on the recomendation of a very good friend a solar eclipse in Queensland Australia. Apart for the images and the event being spectacular it was amazing to see how connected we can all be in this digital age . Instant video feeds from 9000 miles and 10 hours away while being exactly in the same moment. How many thousands of us shared that . An event that even ten years ago could not have happened. People watch on their TVs , computers and phones , took and shared pictures . Absolutely amazing.


It reminded of seeing Bill Bryson a couple of years ago relating a story of a guy who organised a scientific expedition to India to watch a similar event a few hundred years back. The guy spent years preparing and was thwarted by thick cloud cover. Last night was good because of the twin feeds from Port Douglas and Fitzroy Island , making sure we had at least one clear view.

This brings me on to the excellent new advert for EE featuring Kevin Bacon selling the concept of total connectivity in todays digital world . Kevin Bacon is still a top guy and is excellent in the advert, telling us about the connectivity which the Eclipse event was made for. By the way Tremors is one of my favourite all time films:


And then this morning I relented in my Starbucks boycott to pay for my first coffee with my phone using their rather efficient app. That was fine only slightly marred by me being confronted by three beardy beggars demanding 40p as a walked out of the shop . I was bigger and scarier than they were so I made my way to the train to enjoy my coffee frappacino!