Tonight I caught a bit of a program I was recording about the great Woody Guthrie , Three Chords and The Truth which will be available on BBC iPlayer for the next month. While it is a great song and applies to any country, but is geographically situated in the USA stating that the land belongs to the people , not to governments and not to corporations.
I didn't know it had been used at Barack Obama's Inauguration as while it was sung in schools as an almost national anthem, only the first three verses were sung because the next three were deemed offensive.
At the Inauguration all six verses were sung, and it was very uplifting and moving and I am glad to be able to share it with you on this post thanks to Youtube. The documentary is very revealing but I just had to share this with you. Here are those words:
This land is your land, this land is my land From California to the New York Island From the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters This land was made for you and me.
As I went walkin', I saw a sign there And on the sign it said : 'No trespassing' But on the other side it didn't say nothin' That side was made for you and me.
In the shadow of the steeple, I saw my people By the relief office, I'd seen my people As they stood hungry, I stood there askin' If this land made for you and me ?
This land is your land, this land is my land From California to the New York Island From the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters This land was made for you and me.
Nobody living can ever stop me As I go walking that freedom highway Nobody living can ever make me turn back This land was made for you and me.
This land is your land, this land is my land From California to the New York Island From the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters This land was made for you and me.
As I went walkin', I saw a sign there And on the sign it said: 'No trespassing' But on the other side it didn't say nothin' That side was made for you and me.
This land is your land, this land is my land From California to the New York Island From the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters This land was made for you and me.
This land is your land, this land is my land From California to the New York Island From the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters This land was made for you and me.
Enjoy , digest and remember This Land is YOUR Land
I suggest you watch and enjoy
The documentary features Billy Bragg now a UK music elder statesman (though he's younger than me), but I was surprised that I couldn't track down a Springsteen recording of the song on Amazon as I am sure he has recorded the song, but maybe not.
After yesterday going on about Roman Numerals I thought what is the Roman Numeral for Zero? It turns out there isn't one, but medieval scholars used the word "nulla" to signify zero. In IT we used to be familiar with the concept of "null" (and those who know what they are talking about still are).
Zero is the numeric representation of no items, as in "I have zero pounds in my bank account", but it is a numeric value, it is one less than one or one more than minus one, though this summation could be done with any numbers. The formula:
x - x = 0
is always true, though mayb Stephen Hawking, Andrew Wiles or someone else could possibly dispute that successfully with me.
Null on the other hand is a complese absence, it cannot be used in computation whereas zero can, and will often cause systems to crash if returned as an answer. Null is the bane of any programmer's life, in that it is often valid but you can't actually do anything with it, and no doubt I will come across it in some calculation today.
I'm still feeling absolutely shattered and despite have nine hours in bed last night after watching Black Sails and Nightcrawler, I didn't feel up to walking into work, so though this would be the first time in a long time that I walked into work having done less that a thousand steps.
Then I decided to get off the bus at the BBC and walk down Barrack Road from there thus giving me a couple of thousand steps.
I thought I'd include "Countdown" by Lindsey Buckingham from his album "Out of the Cradle" as I love the song and it's vaguely numerically themed.
Reading Rob Young's "Electric Eden" I'm discovering a lot of interesting things.
Christian rituals apparently don't allow the use of wooden vessels as it is too close to the "pagan" rituals from which they were appropriated. Wood was seen as a vital living spiritual essential in pre Christian Britain. It provided fire , material for weapons, homes , utensils, and was alive and grew and was all around. Omnipresent ... remind you of anything?
Then it got on to human sacrifice, in early times the top dog / king / leader was sacrificed to the gods to ensure a good harvest. So being to leader of the tribe was not exactly a career move with a future. As time progressed slaves / captors were substituted (obviously someone didn't fancy being offed themselves) and when the Romans came human sacrifice was outlawed and animals replaced humans under the sacrificial knife.
Today this has become to Sunday Christian Ritual and Harvest Festival but it's roots are in the human sacrifice practiced by people who came up with the idea that killing the top dog might be beneficial to the community. While I'm not an advocate of extremes putting the Prime Minister out to pasture would be a great idea at the moment, but she's hardly an inspirational or even competent leader, the gods would not be happy with her.
And I suppose this is all leading up to talking about faith which can be very dangerous. Actions being based on arbitrary directions from an unproven source.
I have faith that the sun will rise, that a light will come on when I press a switch, that a letter will appear on my screen when I touch that letter on my keyboard, that my bus will turn up on time (sometimes), because I know there are mechanisms behind it that will cause it to happen. But as for God (well I follow him on Facebook and Instagram) but I have not seen any evidence of God's existence. God may exist but God's existence for me is decidedly unproven, but I am agnostic.
Anyway the song has to be George Michael's"Faith". It's Friday, the weekend is here, and Glastonbury is going to be all over the BBC this weekend and there are some good bands on, and you can watch them on your big telly.
I've just been struck how much machines are encroaching on our working lives. The Luddites smashed the machines during the industrial revolution because they feared that their jobs and therefore their livelihoods would be threatened. The French threw their clogs (sabots) into the machines to wreck them (hence the word "sabotage"). It turned out the Luddites were wrong , the industrial revolution produced great economies of scale for goods that could be mass produced, and generally standards of living improved.
Production lines had people doing repetitive tasks aided (and driven) by machines and wages enabled people to buy goods, creating demand because people had disposable income.Everyone was a winner.
However when I see staff being replaced by autotills at the supermarket (which often break down or don't work) but we as customers have to put up with it because there is no other option. If one doesn't work you move to the next one.
Bookmakers are turning into slot machine arcades, often opened in poorer areas (I have two with five minutes walk where I live), again replacing staff and making existing staff work more than twelve hour shifts often alone. Both these examples I do not see a benefit to the customer or staff only to the business owners.
I don't see myself as a Luddite, but I am worried that a lot more people will soon be out of work with no way of getting back in , and then I see this BBC article on future inequality, read it and frighten yourself because it could happen if we don't do something about the world.
In our own lives think about the phone numbers you can remember. I know my own. That's it. I used to know lots but my phone remembers for me. This is a good use of technology because it doesn't reduce what I can do , it enhances it and that's what the introduction of machines in the workplace should do for people. I also use my phone to measure my steps on my Million Step Challenge, though the app (Google Fit) needs resetting every couple of weeks as it keeps stopping or slowing down .
So I could have gone with The Beastie Boys"Sabotage", will will go for the more obvious "Welcome to The Machine" by Pink Floyd. And remember that alarm clock that wakes you up for work tomorrow, that's another piece of good technology, though I think most of us hate it.
After doing the 15000 Step Challenge that finished on 20th of March I said that I wanted to maintain ten thousand steps a day. On Sunday I decided to visit some Roman Ruins in Benwell a little video here and a photo montage here) .
Despite living here for fifteen years, I had never been despite knowing about it and being so close to the line of Hadrian's Wall (which I helped light up in 2010 - so I've included the video of that and there's a lot of articles on it such as this on the BBC).
Anyway I've managed to go off on a complete tangent.
After the Roman Ruins, I needed to do more steps, but suddenly felt like I was walking through treacle, walking became very difficult, and I was on Nunsmoor and nowhere near a bench or housing. I had completed my steps but was feeling close to collapse, feeling like I'd been kicked and battered, aching limbs like when you get 'flu', and feeling queasy and worried I was going to throw up. I was not feeling good.
I eventually got to a bus stop where Fiona met me, where eventually a bus turned up and then I got home and went straight to bed. I slept and drank a litre of fizzy orange and then I was OK to watch some TV and have some soup.
The following I thought I maybe have to give it a rest, but it was foggy and I thought I may get some good pictures, so thought I would walk over Nunsmoor and took this video here. That meant that I still hit 11K steps yesterday so my idea of giving myself a rest didn't happen. The thing is, I do need to exercise and lose about 30Kg (I weigh 106Kg) , and am thinking maybe on Sunday I became dehydrated.
So today I will walk in again, well part of the way, and hopefully hit my 10K steps which is about 5 miles.
The music in the video is "Shining Light" by Ash , which is my daughter Juliet's favourite band.
It's nice to actually get up on time and have time to make a cup of tea without having to rush out the door to get to work. This is what I intended to do yesterday , but the alarm was running an hour late. I'm listening to Radio 6 and about to run out the door after finishing my tea.
Tonight Wales play Portugal , a big match for both teams , but Wales do have the most expensive player in the world in Gareth Bale , and he can deliver , ad he has a team round him that can do it's job so don't be surprised to see Wales in the Final though all the money will go on Portugal.
Anyway enjoy your Wednesday , it's half way through the week and the sun is shining and "Everything Counts" by Depeche Mode is on the radio , but I will choose The Referees Alphabet by Half Man Half Biscuit as today's music.
Last night I watched an episode on Odyssey on catch up TV. I'm also reading "A Brief History Of Time" by Stephen Hawking and today discovered what a quark is . I knew the name and know it's a vegetarian filler food but I didn't actually know what a quark was. This started me thinking and I recalled an incident from twenty years back after taking a psychometric test....
...after the test the guy told me I had a problem , but it could possibly be corrected. I asked him what the problem was. He told that my problem was that I always wanted to be right! I didn't see this as a problem, and asked him didn't everybody want to be right , as an example didn't he want to be right in his assessment assessment of me? His assessment was correct , but I didn't see it as a problem and still don't see it as a problem. I still want to always be right, but that statement unqualified does not show the full picture. I WANT to be always right BUT I am often WRONG, and when I am wrong I want to be told how I am wrong and to be shown how to get it right. I know that I'm not infallible , I would just like to be .... especially when I put a bet on the horses! At the time I was working with a manager who took me to one side after I's questioned a situation and told me "You might be right ... but I'm in charge" .... though that was was true I knew he was wrong and I was right but there was nothing I could do about the situation. I was right but not in control.
And this sort of brings me to the next part , is that in general we want to be in control , but not be controlled although we may need and want direction. When I was watching the TV last night I was thinking before the option of recording we were very regimented by TV . You had to be at your set at a particular time or else you missed that program , and god forbid there were clashes , yet people still complained about repeats (yet most digital stations serve nothing but repeats these days), but now I very seldom watch live TV, I let my recorder build up what I think I want to watch and watch it in almost chaotic fashion. Whatever I want whenever I want and with apps like BBC iPlayer and my Samsung Note 4 Phone and my iPad and Laptop wherever I want. So is that disorder or the control I want ? I think it's latter , I feel I have tools to manage my disorder and allow me to order my situation as I want.
I do think it's good to be right , but you have to also be open to new ideas and the fact that you may be wrong. We are at our most vulnerable when we lose control and are reliant the power and ability of others to help us get it right. I always try to be there for others , and part of that is that I want others to be there for me if I need their help.
Given the tone of this post , what else could I choose but Joy Division's She's Lost Control.
Incidentally this is post 911 given my last post was about numbers.
Anyway I didn't think I would finish this , but I still want to be right , I still want to help people , I still want to be there for my friends and family , I sill want to be in control and I still want to have a wonderful time. So everyone have a fantastic day.
Well it is and it isnt. I'm old enough to remember only two channels, being really annoyed when Kennedy got shot because ITV took all their programs off and just had some woman playing piano and I missed my weekly episode of Bonanza. I saw the transition from black and white to colour, the moon landings and England winning the World Cup..
I remember getting BBC2 and that was a 50% increase in available TV , then we got Channel 4 and Brookside and Channel 5 was a relatively recent terrestrial addition , plus there was the proliferation of satellite , Sky's money managing to make and sterilize football in one fell swoop.
When we had limited channels , audiences could be huge , but people complained like hell about repeats. We now have digital channels that are completely repeats. People complain about the TV License but happily shell out five times as much for subscription TV that STILL is full of advertisements.
The switch to digital came and gave most people loads of effectively free content funded by adverts. Plus these days we can have catch up TV and recording boxes that allow you to skip adverts, enabling you to watch what you want when you want.
It's very seldom these days that you need to get home for a TV program unless it's a televised live event, but we now probably watch more TV than ever before. It#s ubiquitous. We have TV on Mobile devices and there's a TV screen visible wherever you sit at work.
And my point is people still say "There's nothing on television" , apart from the off switch you have all the options above. My TIVO box is 90% full and Netflix and Amazon Prime don't even touch my radar. There are times when you channel hopand cant find anything you want but there are so many catch up and record options you should always be able to find something.
And if not, why not read a book or call a friend , that's even better than TV!
Though the Tubes song was appropriate as it gave the post it's title.
My friend Royston posted a link to this blog post from KFMX (Lubbock's Rock Station) about the legacy of illegal downloading. It sums it up in a nutshell. Although I'm in two minds about the grammar , sould it be Metallica Was Right or Metallica Were Right. Anyway this post isn't about grammatical correctness it's about the whole music stealing thing , and where we are at today and why we are here today musically/ It's probably best to do it roughly in temporal order so I'll do it by decades:
Vinyl became established, first in 78 format with seven inch 45's becoming the single record content delivery device of preference. 12" 33rpm Albums named because sheet music was collected in albums was the modus operandii for Classical Music because of the length of the pieces , although spoken word albums came out that played at 16 rpm . If you look at a full featured vinyl record player that's what the 16 option is for. If you do want an classic record player take a look at RPM in Newcastle.
The thing is unless you had your own recording facilities in the 1950's the only way of stealing music was to actually shoplift or resort to burglary. Music theft was limited to plagiarism and blantant exploitation like Alan Freed's co composer credit on Chuck Berry's Motorvatin' because there had to be a white presence.
Music took of in this decade, and you had a proliferation of transistor radios and portable vinyl disc players, and affordable reel to reel tape recorders were available. These allowed you to record either from the record player, radio or television. However this was not widespread so artists and record companies just saw it as another marketing opportunity, however the BBC threatened prosecution of anyone who recorded TV programs , although they then later asked for recorded copies when trying to replace lost shows . Albums became more popular especially with bands like the Beatles and Beach Boys shifting industrial quantities and incidentally albums were commercially available on tape reels. Really record companies were seeding the ground without looking to the future.
This is when supposedly the shit hit the fan for record companies. Music was becoming more portable. The introduction of the 8-Track tape and more importantly the compact cassette tape. These were introduced by record companies again to sell product, but when cheap portable recorders were put on the market you would have thought that someone would have realised that customers would not just record their own voice or birdsong.
Lots of companies produced tapes and recorders and customers started recording music from TV and radio and records and sharing it with their friends. This was countered by the "Home Taping Is Killing Music" campaign. What actually was happening was that record companies saw a threat and adopted a terrible attitude that their market was comprised of thieves. Home taping went through the roof with the introduction of the Sony Walkman , because this meant that you could take music that you had paid for with you by copying to a C90 tape. Record companies didn't like this either because they saw it as a potential loss of revenue.
Companies started marketing pre recorded cassette tapes which sold well , but in a completely odd ploy Island started the 1+1 series with the album recorded on one side and the second side blank for you to record whatever you want on. The only image I could find was for the John Martyn album Grace and Danger, although these was a normal delivery method for Island completely encouraging people to tape music. I don't know if there is a caveat or disclaimer on the tape somewhere.
The portability of recording apparatus meant that bootlegs now became more prevalent, so as well as official releases , you could , if, ironically, you were prepared to pay way over the odds for usually substandard recordings.
The record industry tried introducing a high frequency signal on the vinyl record to combat taping, and finally introduced a 5% PRS levy on all tapes.
Home taping didn't kill music, if anything it helped spread the word. Although you could only record in real time, so you knew what you were doing. Though for the first time you could put together tapes for parties , driving , bus journeys, running but you still knew that you should really buy the records. However often you would get a tape from a friend, listen to it and then go out buy the album. The record companies didn't acknowledge this.
1980s:
This was the decade that changed everything. The record industry introduced the new cure all, the perfect indestructible medium of CD. This was a cold planning campaign by the music industry, they introduced very cheap CD players, CD players were part of the all in one music centres replacing the cumbersome vinyl turntable. People bought music centres not realising that this made their vinyl records obsolete. So they needed to buy CDs to replace the vinyl , except CDs were expensive £12
compared with around a fiver for the vinyl equivalent. Mid price albums were a bargain at a tenner. Now you weren't offered a trade in for your vinyl so you were paying for the medium. Did this mean that the music had no actual value?
But anyway this was a McDonaldisation moment for music, suddenly you had remote controls , you could program the way a CD was played , you could skip and repeat tracks, it was convenience for the ears. And you could program a CD and record it to cassette to make your mixtape.
The new medium had no clicks or background vinyl noise, and the first song I played on my new CD player was The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again", played loud. A mistake I never made again. Previously the song was introduced as the needle hit the groove, this time the opening power chord just hit with no warning at all. That was my first impression of CD.
But again the music industry just saw a huge cash cow, but they were selling discs containing music converted to digital signals and guess what happened then......
1990s:
CD replaced floppy discs as a medium for computers. They could also be written to. Home computers were taking off, the internet was connecting people and at this time the music industry decided it was time for another change. CDs would deteriorate and were not as indestructible as we thought. They needed replacing. Incidentally I've had CDs for thiry years that are still fine.
The music industry told us we now had to but DAT . It's tape! Tapes break , get tangled , and you cant easily change the order, and a blank tape cost as much as a CD. DAT did have it's place but just became a specialist niche and never threatened CD's dominance. However......
The CD data was copied into a digital file stored on computer , this was MP3. It was not created by the industry so there was no regulation. People could copy albums to there computer and duplicate them to CD, but more importantly could use the internet to share music using peer to peer networks such as Napster.
People were ripping , sharing and downloading music and not paying for it. The music industry had given everything to the public on a plate. Like with cassette they tried legal downloads but included DRM which limited what devices you could play YOUR music one. It didn't work. Elton John and Metallica were the biggest voices behind the movement that eventually shut down the peer to peer network Napster citing the amounts of money they had lost. The thing is most of the people who downloaded stuff were actually doing it because they could, they would never have bought the music if they couldn't download it so the figures were irrelevant , and these artists didn't give a fig about their fans when the issued old product on CD , then brought out a new version with an extra track, ten brought out a remastered version , expecting fans to cough up money each time.
However in the days of pay per minute internet connection a friend of mine spent £30 to download a Basement Jaxx album he could have bought over the counter for a tenner.
The nineties were the decade where certain people began to expect music to be free, not realising how this affects the people who produce it. This was a direct result of the music industries pushing of CD uptake in the 80s without any thoughts of impact analysis.
The New Millennium:
The turn or the century digital music became the norm. The internet has become very fast , and they perception that music is free has driven down the price of CDs. These days a new Cd will set you back around a tenner, a new vinyl album will cost you twice that. If the cost of albums had kept pace since say, 1975, you would be paying £80 for a new album today. I've used Job Seekers Allowance as a guide for this , in 1975 I bought the new Pink Floyd album "Wish You Were Here", it cost me £3.25 , now JSA stands around £70.
People can listen to music of their choice free on Youtube , Spotify and any number of streaming services. The problem with these for the artist, is that royalties are paid on a pay per play basis. So if a track is streamed on Spotify an artist will get paid a very small fraction of a penny, if their record is played on the radio they'll be paid £50 (that is completely made up but it is a reasonable amount). I don't know what the answer is to this.
But this leaves us in a world where to make money bands have to charge a lot for gigs and merchandise and kids think that stuff (music and video) should be free.
However music is still vibrant and alive, record shops are still going strong especially with National Record Store Day . New music is still being produced and I still buy a CD a week of usually new music the latest being the Wooden Shjips album "Back To Land".
The music industry is continually bleating about lost profits and stealing , but in digitizing everything they have created something that can be stolen over and over again, although as recent trends have shown , sensible pricing and convenience will actually result in sales and income, otherwise iTunes would have died a death long ago, and they still cause havoc and inconvenience with their licensing and terms and conditions.
So that's it , possibly my longest ever blog post. Hope it didn't send you to sleep.
Today I had the best Hot Chocolate I've ever had at Sugared Butterfly in Helmsley. It used to be The Old Police Station, but is absolutely lovely and, as I say, brilliant Hot Chocolate, and I just had the basic one. Chances are I'm going back tomorrow , the people were really pleasant, and it is the sort of place you can feel totally relaxed in and get a choice of both traditional and unusual food. This place is just one of many in Helmsley which is just such a pleasant village. My only criticism of the place is that they have space for an Edinburgh Woolen Mill shop , but still no Chemist! I've been holidaying in the area for about five years and still can't believe that situation still exists.
The holiday is continuing on in a relaxing fashion, not going very far, watching Breaking Bad and Boardwalk Empire, both extremely worthy series. It's amazing these days how much advertising you can dodge with catch up TV options. I'm surprised they let you fast forward through the adverts, although if you use 4OD you don't get that option. This is why I don't mind paying my TV License, I'm amazed at the number of people who complain about the £130 a year TV License while forking out £100 a month for a Sky Movies and Sport package without batting an eyelid.
Anyway another problem I had today was my phone not connecting to the Holiday Cottage Wifi. I tried lots of solutions on the web and finally solved it by switching the router off and on, nice simple solution, though I wish I'd done it this morning.
Today we've had blue skies, although it's been very cold, but still an excellent day, just good to be well away from the rat race.Thought I would leave you with a bit of Faust , sort of relevant to the holiday, not your average Krautrock , but then I don't think ant Krautrock is average, and if you don't enjoy this then listen to it until you do. It is very good.
So again I've managed to link up a relaxing holiday with some extreme music, but that's just the nature of things, everything is connected if you look for the threads
Well it's Friday and I'm waiting for my hire car to be delivered so I can drive down to Ampleforth to the holiday cottage for a week of quite after two hellishly intensive weeks. In that time I managed to see an amazing gig and a great talk about robots and what fun they can be and how great libraries are. And that reminds me that last week the BBC were celebrating libraries and Scroobius Pip wrote a poem for them to celebrate all that was good about libraries.
I'm still raving about Jordan Reyne and am going to have to order the rest of her albums, as she has been my going to sleep music all this week. I really wish I'd have bought all her albums at the gig. But anyway , the weather is still grey (and it was yesterday too) , but that's the only thing that is not great today. I'm feeling excellent and happy and looking forward to next weekk/
Did you realise that a week on Sunday it's the anniversary of the bombing Pearl Harbour? I wonder what put that into my head.
Today I know lots of idiots are getting into fights , being conned by the big stores into buying stuff they don't want. There's fights and police involvement , very seasonal indeed, but that's not for me , I don't do queuing unless there is absolutely no other option. Most of my friends are the same.
The only Black Friday I have time for is the Steely Dan song from Katy Lied and with that I will leave you for today. Hope you have a very enjoyable day.
I must admit that the first time I came across this ominous beauty of a phrase is when King Crimson used it as the title of one of their great albums. Of course it comes from the opening of Dylan Thomas' wonderful tone poem "Under Milk Wood" :
"To begin at the beginning: It is spring, moonless night in the small
town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the
hunched, courters'-and-rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the
sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboatbobbing sea."
Anyway, it perfectly describes the feeling of being here in Ampleforth in the middle of the night, but here it id perfect calm and very relaxing, though it was initially disconcerting when I first came as I tend to get a little unnerved in absolute total darkness when you have no point of reference such as a chink of light through the curtains or late night taxis taking people home or the police helicopter chasing someone down the A1. In Ampleforth there is none of that, just calm and serenity, admittedly in the dark.
Actually the local Church clock auto chimes on the hour, or something does because as I awoke I heard three bell chimes.
Anyway after a good journey down, I found I'd managed to leave my contact lens solution at home (none to be found in Helmsley and about the only thing the loacal Post Office doesn't stock), then realised that I'd left my glasses at home, so once lenses are out the eyestarin gets a bit much for any reading or messing about on the computer, then I realised I'd left the DAB Radio at home (and we have 4!) so that's three things I've forgotten.
Anyway it's almost four in the morning now, so I am going to get back to bed, and leave you with the DubWood Allstars treatment of the intro to Under Milk Wood, which I have loved since Cerys Matthews played it on her 6 Music show. And if you want to watch the recent excellent BBC production, it's here:
Last night I , and a lot of others , were kept away by the high winds. The good thing about it, is there wasn't any rain so it's had a drying affect on everything. Today it's back down the track to Darlington so I hope that the trains are not affected as tomorrow I have got to go to London, where I wish I had time to visit the "Rain Room" at the Barbican. although I have a feeling it's no longer open, like many web sites there's so relevant information but it looks like it's closed as all the articles are from a couple of years back like this BBC one.
Most Monday mornings are a pain. Today's, for me , is different. First of all its sunny after a grey and drab weekend weather wise (although that was the only downer so to speak) , Then I should be on the radio this afternoon in about nine and a half hours on the Steve Lamacq Show ( BBC Radio 6 at 4 PM GMT) and because it's a Bank Holiday I have the day to myself, and at the end of the week I'm off on holiday to Ampleforth for a week.
So for a change it's not a Stormy Monday or Blue Monday , but for me it's a good Monday. I have sympathy for everyone who has had to work today and am thinking about some friends who are having to deal with not good situations which I know they will come through so really, I am feeling positive today and everything is pointing towards a good day and a good week.
Yesterday I got some albums including a Badfinger compilation that contains the final song from the Breaking Bad TV series. I'm not sure whether it can match up to Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" in the closing scene of the Sopranos but I shall see, the album is full of great song , and I shall be working through Breaking Bad when on holiday next week, I'm half way through series two at the moment , so a way to go before I get to hear "Baby Blue". I am tempted to put it on here as I know, for me it will be out of context to hardly a spoiler for me.
OK I just watched , and it is good and I will now purge it from mind...... Have a great Bank Holiday Monday Everyone
Well Good Friday is here, the weather is wonderful, and there is a lot of things on and to do. I was intending to to clean and stain my decking this weekend but there are a hundred and one distractions.
The BBC are staging the Great North Passion at Bents Park in South Shields, I was unaware of it til I caught a preview on TV last night then some friends posted on Facebook, but it is being broadcast on TV and you can see the details here.
Tomorrow, hopefully I pick up my books (The Humans by Matt Haig) for World Book Night and it's also National Record Shop Day and I've been tasked with obtaining a copy of Peaches by The Stranglers which has a limited run of 1,000 in the original picture sleeve. Incidentally I downloaded a copy of the A-Z of Humans which is very entertaining, and very worth getting for you Kindle or other eReader. It's only about 50p and very entertaining.
Well that's it for this morning, I'm off out to see what I can see or do. Have a brilliant Easter everybody, enjoy yourself and make the most of everything.
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.
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.
I'm writing this somewhere between London and York using my USB Tethered Samsung Note. I'm not sure how long the connection will last, but it is actually fairly robust, but it's the first time I've done it like this. Having said that the train has just come to a halt, not always a good sign. I'm on my way back to Newcastle and given the storms and bad weather we have had recently, just a little apprehensive, is is the 13th after all and one of my friends was delayed by four hours on this line yesterday getting home at one am. Teres a lot of related stories on the BBC here.
The weather today has actually been very good and it makes you feel much better when you are going home. Some lovely skies but I can't photograph them as the windows are so dirty.
The seats I'm in are supposedly reserved to York so I may have to move when I get there, but I'm sure I can fine another seat. Two Japanese girls who gave me a bar of Kinder Surprise thought they had reserved seats but they were half an hour early on their train, the conductor let them off though which was nice. I've seen one of their seats is from London to Berwick so I'll nab that one.
So appropriately I'll include The Storm by Big Country from the first album, which should be in your collection and if it isn't , why isn't it?
I think this will be short. I've finished my first book of the year, started on the second , both by Stuart Maconie incidentally and started making inroads into the TV backlog on BBC iPlayer on my phone. How do I do this?
Basically book on way to work, means I feel I've done something worthwhile and learnt
ed something and made an effort, then coming home I watch stuff on the TV (well my Samsung Note 2). Having said that I do need to fit the TED talks in there somehow as there are a few that I really want to check out, but I will find time somewhere. There are 24 hours in a day after all.
Only one song give the title of the post. From the Moody Blues album A Question of Balance.
I don't if I need to be worried, or I don't know if I should be just happy. I'm actually watching more TV on my phone thanks to the fact that BBC iPlayer allows downloads on my Samsung Galaxy Note2. This week I've watched various music related progammes, and the first episode of the new series on BBC3 called "Uncle", which I found excellent. I've downloaded a few duds, but iPlayer allows me to catch up on the way to and from work.
My problem is that I feel I'm watching less TED talks and reading fewer books. I haven't read a book so far this year.
I suppose the simple solution is just to pick a book and start reading it, but it is just another thing I can do while I travel. I can also watch other channels' downloads as well but BBC2, 3, and 4 provide enough excellent quality programmes to keep me going. I can also load films onto the phone and it does have a couple of eReaders so I can actually read book on the phone if I so wish.
The title is taken from a Dictators song (lead singer Handsome Dick Manitoba!) so I have to include that don't I.
