On The Border

Woke up this morning to thick fog. 

I was dreaming , there was a guitarist and Cher , and he was playing in various styles and she told him to play like Carlos Santana, I thought there is no way he can just play like Carlos Santana without the right guitar and amplification set up.

He started to play and I thought it's nothing like Santana , it sounds like birdsong. This went on for a while and I then realised it was my alarm clock which wakes me up with birdsong. It's the first time for me , I think , that real life and dreams have meshed together so closely . I really don't know if that is a good thing. Is this real life or is it just fantasy indeed?

Obviously the multi style guitarist got me thinking of "Guitar Jamboree" by Chris Spedding , he is a brilliant guitarist but it's just a novelty song.

I finished Tony Hawks' "Piano In The Pyrenees" which turned out to be more about his attempt to build a swimming pool while integrating into the local French community , culminating in meeting up with a former lover. I hope it worked out.

Next book I've nipped over the border with George Orwell's "Homage To Catalonia" about his experiences in the Spanish Civil War. It is grim and the pages are huge blocks of text making for difficult reading but it is providing an insight into what happened then.

Now to work.

More Dreams and The Accidental Button Press

Yesterday I got my new contact lenses and there was a letter saying which lens went in which eye, which I duly followed. After giving my eyes hydration via and eye bath I put the lens in my left eye and it was very blurry but thought it will settle down. I prepared the right eye one but the left eye was still blurry , it wasn't going to settle down. Then I swapped the lens in my left eye to my right eye and I could see perfectly immediately. The letter had got the lenses the wrong way round , so now my sight is perfect.

I had a really odd dream , our work team were having a meeting in a classroom on the corner of the West Road and Clayton Street (it's a cake shop in reality so that might say something). There was my team and a Facebook friend Les who shares a love of Greek Mythology as demonstrated by this story

Ola by boss was writing in chalk on a blackboard and I was having real difficulty seeing , took my glasses off , no difference , but still had contact lenses in. Then walked out and visited a couple of record shops with another friend Sarah , who's birthday party I attended a couple of weeks back. Now there's only one record shop in that direction , Beyond Vinyl , although Vinyl Guru is the other direction  but there are the Amnesty Bookshop and Kazbats Den. I didn't buy anything and told Sarah that I needed to get back to work.

I then woke, washed , showered , and when I picked up my phone , the Marvin Gaye song "We Can Make It Baby" came on via YouTube. I have never heard before , it is quite good , but a sort of end to the dream sequence.

Nigel Blackwell of Half Man Half Biscuit in one of his songs wrote that and unusual thing in a dream would be going for a loaf of bread. in the song "San Antonio Foam Party" but all the lyrics are here and they are a literary treasure trove.

Comprehension

 A fifth of the way into "Nightworld" by F Paul Wilson and it is now clear why The Adversary Cycle is six books and not four. You could probably read "Nightworld" as a stand alone book but you would be continually asking who is he , and what is that and how did that happen and how did he know that.

In fact there could be a prequel to "The Keep" but that is just something that stimulates the imagination.

Although "The Tomb" does not refer directly to anything in "The Keep" the links become clear in "Nightworld".  It is similar with "The Touch" , again a sort of stand alone novel , but when you hit "Nightworld" it becomes clear that it is a part of The Adversary cycle.

"Reborn" and "Reprisal" do follow on from "The Keep" but not directly.

But essentially I now comprehend how the six books fit together and am rather impressed with how much I remembered and how much I had forgotten.

Unlike the dreams I have been having recently including  a house with moveable showers filled with ice, and driving in a large van around somewhere that may have been Preston  or somewhere in Scotland but I was unable to go in the direction that I needed due to roads being blocked or bricked up.

But I am not even going to try an analyze that as I have better things to do with my time.

Music wise we'll go with "Hole In The Ground" by The Mekons which is sort of appropriate for "Nightworld".

... on a Magic Swirling Ship

More weird dreaming yesterday except as usual everything in the dream was mundane , like being in people houses , going for a drink in a small field , being in Oswestry (Oswestry? I don't think I've ever been or ever need to go , not that I have anything against Oswestry). Dreams can be boring at times.

Today I went to get a bit of shopping and now I have a painful shoulder / chest. I did have t take off my rucksack part of the way back, but at a quick estimate the weight of the shopping was about 15Kg which I carried for around two miles. It's amazing how bottles of milk , water and Prosecco do carry some weight.

Anyway this is a short post mainly inspired by the title line that came into my mind. I have been listening to Bob Dylan's "Biograph" this week and I first heard the line when The Byrds played it on "Thank Your Lucky Stars", and that hooked me. When I first heard the Bob Dylan version I was less impressed thanking he couldn't sing or play. I persevered and Dylan's delivery grew on me. The early stiuff sounded rough but the words took you into magic.

Lot's of people still don't rate Dylan, but like Terry Pratchett his sales must be a huge comfort to him. I only ever liked "Mort" by Terry Pratchett , but that's just me , and people tell me that I am missing so much. I did enjoy the TV adaptations and am similar about Stephen King , find most of his books a grind but TV and film adaptations are great and I think the guy is great.

The "Magic Swirling Ship" is a great analogy for our dreams and the places books and music take us and for me that is just a brilliant image. In itself it's meaningless, but let your mind loose on it and it can be anything you want.

Strange Dream Fragments and Instagram Problems

I dreamt last night and just remember fragments , a deep water harbour (there was a reason for this but it's gone) , an Excel Worksheet with an eight by four table based on the naked male wrestling match between Oliver Reed and Alan Bates in Ken Russel's take on "Women In Love" by DH Lawrence (yeah work that one out)  and wooden buildings akin to the northern towns in "His Dark Materials" by Philip Pullman. Obviously "Steppenwolf" is also somewhere in there as well . That's a lot of references for something that I don't actually remember anything about, but so often that's the thing about dreams, generally they don't make sense, they happen just before you wake up , and soon you forget about them . I sometimes write about them.

The other thing is that Instagram not won't access my camera on my phone. Instagram used to allow a one minute video , then they reduced it to 15 seconds , then video disappeared (unless you use Reels , whatever that is) , and now even taking pictures has gone, and I have to take things with a camera then add them to Instagram. An unexpected benefit is that when I share my #MusicWhileYouWork videos I now create a one minute video which I then share to Instagram. The only problem is that Instagram pics and videos need to be 4:3 and the phones. video is something like 9:16 and Instagram always then takes the bottom of the video, so I use a great piece of software called YouCut which allows me to crop and rotate and trim and lots of other things with the video , not ideal if your power is low, but it extremely impressive.

So music wise "I'm In Love With A German Film Star" by The Passions came to mind on this dreich Monday morning.

A Nightmare

 I woke from , what for me is, a recurring nightmare, although it is very mild compared with what most people would class as a nightmare. I think I am slightly claustrophobic , so it's a manifestation based on that.

Earlier this week I dreamt I was in a house and many of the rooms had no windows, big buildings with no windows I find, creepy, rooms with no windows creepier because you are inside.

The latest was for some reason I was holidaying in the far north of Scotland (which I would like to do) , and while being shown around the place I had to squeeze past the host in the doorway to the "main room" and then felt even being there it was too small to get out. It's this situation where you are at the risk of getting stuck and unable to free yourself and often have variations on that theme, though I always manage to get past the difficult part.

In real like it reminds me of the ascent of Scott's Monument in Edinburgh which manged to combine my claustrophobia with vertigo, but I managed to do that and got some great photographs, and to be honest, my body size is not increasing, so once this lockdown is dealt with (if that happens) I may do it again. Similarly the "gateway to Cow Hill from Grandstand Road is a very tight squeeze for me , although I could climb over or through the fence.

I don't like small caves or underground tunnels and when I see these cavers squeezing through holes , often also underwater it sends my blood cold, I think that happens in the film "The Descent" , which for me is a real horror film.

Other nightmare scenarios are being up high and having to traverse gaps in stairs or ladders to go up, knowing you have to do the same coming back.

The thing is, with all these nightmares, I either get through it or wake up, and with tonight's , because I am on a staycation, I can write about this at 3:30 am knowing I don't have to get up at 5:45 as usual. Every day is like a Saturday , although today I have to go to Newcastle University to help with research into my Cirrhosis of the Liver so it won't be just lying around doing nothing, listening to music , read or playing.

So something dark to accompany this post, or maybe not. I'm been listening to a lot of Chris Rea recently and maybe "Nothing To Fear" is a more suitable piece to sign off with. I just posted a Youtube video of some of his amazing album packaging here, although some people may think that Chris Rea's music is a nightmare but given his prodigiously good output I can forgive "Driving Home For Christmas". 

It is now 4:10 am

Dreamworks - #AnimalAugust #6

Would this morning from a weird dream sequence. I was in an open plan office with my boss and team and someone started playing loud music but I was on a call . My boss suggested we move to an office (my normal response would be to tell whoever was making the noise to quieten down) , then I wanted a shower but couldn't because there was some guy in the shower bed (that is a bed that you had to sleep in before having a shower) so I couldn't and thought I will have to go home. The dream made no sense at all, although probably influenced by the fact that I listen to a lot of music while I am working from home. One of the things about the dream was to keep on going to get things done which I do normally anyway , but really it's Sunday afternoon , and the dream is almost completely gone from my memory.

This morning I tried to share an article on Facebook , but know I would probably be banned because it would not share the link without the Guardian image. The article is here and the image is not pornographic or offensive but Facebook's algorithms are dodgy to say the least. Her Instagram posts are here. The article's headline is :

"Instagram ‘censorship’ of black model's photo reignites claims of race bias #IwanttoseeNyome outcry after social media platform repeatedly removes pictures of Nyome Nicholas-Williams"

Now if this were a topless white man , nothing would be said.

TV is still providing a lot to watch though I have just finished "The IT Crowd" on All 4 and thought it was great , love the room with all the seventies technology like the 8-Track Sphere and the Sinclair Spectrum and Commodore Pet and the Altair 8000 (wasn't that a planet in "Forbidden Planet" ?

So to keep #AnimalAugust, on track I'm going with  "I Love My Dog" by Yusuf Islam as part of a live "greatest hits medley"  ,  when he originally released it he was Cat Stevens , and his is one of the box sets on my #MusicWhileYouWork list ("On The Road To Find Out") while I am working from home.

The Titles of Budgie

I was originally going to title this "Nude Disintegrating Parachutist Woman" which is one of the many startling titles from the Welsh Heavy Metallers Budgie. Other titles are "It The Grip of A Tyre Fitters Hand" and "Breadfan" the latter covered by Metallica here among other places.

Their titles also vaguely remind me of the titles that Amon Duul II had on their albums which only just about made sense.

This morning I awoke from a dream it which lots happened but most has melted away now although one thing I remember was going back to the office except walking in was more like a packed church, withe everyone at their desks , then I realised I had forgotten my laptop so had to go back home , but it was pointless going back to the office because there was no place to sit anyway.

My mind is empty tonight (as usual) so I will leave you to enjoy the Welsh metal.

Leaf Mouse

It looks like the feedburner feed has finally fizzled out two thousand visits short of half a million, c'est la vie , I 'm surprised it has gone on as long as it has. The half million will come , just not as quickly as I was expecting.

Tonight I was out walking and heard a noise near my feet and thought it was a mouse or rat. On closer inspection it was actually a leaf! I may have been influenced by the rodent I saw aon West Cliff at Whitby. Who knows what can twist and lead our minds. I also saw and disposed of a huge spider in the kitchen tonight, I've seen bigger, but not that often.

I was thinking of writing a (science) fiction story as a post with the title "The Probability Conundrum" bas on the fact that everyone expects something to happen whether it be good or bad, based on fact or heresay (or heresy ... I wonder if those two words are related) and then do those people cause the expectation to happen abdor does it just happen ... eventually, and also could people make things happen for other people if they knew someone was expecting a particular outcome.

I wasn't sure where I would go with this but there's some bits here that I may pick up on one day.

It seems the tags on posts are working again so I've added a few for this post, which I hadn't really planned to do as it is past eleven on a Friday night and also this year I don't intend to post as much.

I've also stopped posting on Mewe but maybe I will post this on there and see if visits pick up.

So a song to go with this, maybe "Science Friction" by XTC which is a song from my long ago youth, but still worth a listen. This is one of the things about getting older , your back catalogue of experiences and likings increases with everything you do , or it should, and it certainly does with me.

Ok almost time to hit dreamland and see all my friends there.

More Strange Dreams

I'm still hit by 'flu' although the benefit so far is a two kilogram weight loss. Yesterday it was 3:30 pm when I woke which meant I obviously needed the rest and sleep. I searched influenza for treatments and it is very infectious, so this close to Christmas I won't me going into work today, and the reason I'm writing this is that I hit the sack at 8pm and woke up coughing so thought sitting up would give a bit of respite and also make me ready to go back to sleep.

I've been having some mad dreams, one that I had a collection of apps on my phone that would tell me when I could go to the toilet , although they all used different criteria. I think that was just due to the back pain I was feeling , and while I am sure there are apps out there for things like that , it's not something I would have or use, and certainly haven't got , though when I woke I did check, and there is nothing there , the only health based apps I have on the phone are Google Fit and EMIS (for booking doctor's appointments and reordering prescriptions).

Then I had this weird dream that I went out late at night and (remember I live in Fenham, Newcastle) and for some reason was at a Metro station in West Jesmond and there was a bus with a huge bed instead of seats, I then took a bus which went down avery narrow street which reminded me of the main street in Totnes (in Devon) and ended up at the seafront in Seaburn (Sunderland) which meant I would have to walk back. This is what happens in dreams although I am sure it will give any psycho analysts a lot to play with.

As I said this was keeping me awake so now I have it down I can go back to bed for rest and recuperation. Possibly an appropriate piece to accompany this is Marilyn Manson's take on the Eurythmics "Sweet Dreams are Made of This".

Goodnight darlings .....

Weird Dreams, John Scott, Ellen Mellor and Nick Cave - - #Oktoberfest #28 - Coffee and TV - Blur

I've just woken up for a sort of weir dream. My friend the excellent comedian John Scott was emailing me songs from the new Nick Cave album "Ghosteen", the title reminiscent of "Ghostkin" a novel by my friend Ellen Mellor , any way John was emailing me three songs at a time and Nick Cave was sending me similar stuff from John Scott. The only thing to trigger this dream is that John has said how goof the album is and the title reminds me of Ellen's book. For a dera this was fairly normal apart from the fact that the only emails I get are spam and demands for money of to renew my web domains.

So that's the dream and now on to #Oktoberfest and I hadn't really thought of any new drink related songs so have to fall back on a reserve which is "Coffee and TV" by Blur  so really I need to get a few more on the list as there is still a week to go in October although that has just reminded me of "Cigarettes and Alcohol" by Oasis so that is not the worst song to include in the sequence, so I am OK for another post.

Dreams and Sleep - #Oktoberfest #11 - Everything Stops For Tea - Long John Baldry

Yesterday I was on an "away day" in Leeds and on the journeys to and from I watched a few excellent TED talks one of which (included below) by Matt Walker informed me that it's not a good idea to pull all nighters. Ideally you should have a consistent routine with around eight hours sleep as this actually helps the body recover by promoting the growth of !assassin cells" that eliminate lots of bad stuff in our bodies, while not sleeping does exactly the opposite. It last twenty minutes but is very interesting and worth taking your time over.

Because I am actually run down I went to bed about nine o'clock and slept though til 5:45 when the alarm went off and think I feel better for that, but it is always good to get a good nights sleep. There's a few snippets of the dream left including my boss asking what she was doing doing wrong , the answer being just sleep, there was a new locked SUV who's seats were covered with snow, and footprints leading to a brick wall where I was sure there was a door , and finally twenty pound notes had been taken out of circulation and ten pound notes had been replaced by eleven pound notes. I know it doesn't make sense but that's the nature of dreams.

The last item just reminded me of the imperial currency system. 12 pennies made a shilling , two shillings were a florin , five were a crown , for crowns made a pound but 21 shillings made a guinea and the guinea was often used for pricing although the guinea was like 5% more expensive than a pound so a 20 guinea item was a £21 item. Simple wasn't it.

So #Oktoberfest is continuing non alcoholic which Long John Baldry's odd take on Jack Buchanan's "Everything Stops For Tea". The album was produced by Rod Stewart and Elton John. Rod had been a member of Steampacket with Long John Baldry along with Brian Auger and Julie Driscoll.

It's Friday morning so time for work.

And Awake

I switched the alarm off, was going to have a lie in on the rainy Sunday morning and woke up at 7:15 . I have been dreaming drifting in and out of consciousness and remember a lot of things that make no sense in a house possibly surrounding a courtyard , with fragile windows in the floor of one room which you could see fish and the the floor two storeys down (it seemed to be half way over a fish tank) and there was a work course with people I didn't know where I ended up in bed before getting up again wandering round, meeting one person I did know and there was a dog.

Yeah that does make a lot of sense doesn't it? But that is the nature of dreams.

Now I'm awake and counting out my drugs and writing this post. I think it's always good to write things down, you never know when ideas might come in useful.

I suppose the dream vaguely makes me think of the film "Paperhouse" directed by Bernard Rose, one of my favourite off the wall horror films. "Paperhouse" is also a song by Can who I was considering for inclusion in my last post but decided against it, because it's normally best to have just one song. So we can go for "Paperhouse" by Can but I will include a trailer for the film "Paperhouse" below. The two are not related.

Drab Dreams and Diamond Dogs

Another gorgeous day, and this morning I woke at a reasonable time, not six am like yesterday. I've been having some very mundane dreams this week , which seem to be like going to work. Nothing I can really remember, or worth writing about apart from the pure mundanity, although when I woke up I thought that the guitar riff for  David Bowie's "Candidate" was the riff for "Rebel,Rebel" (the Rolling Stones song that they never wrote, or to my knowledge performed). Actually "Candidate" is sandwiched between "Sweet Thing" and "Sweet Thing(Reprise)" and the latter piece plays out in a crunching guitar sequence that perfectly leads into "Rebel, Rebel"

Obviously "Candidate" is not "Rebel,Rebel" but at least it's the same album and fairly close to it. I have a feeling the Feedburner spike is about to come to an end , but it's given me my highest blog activity since I started so that is rather excellent.

That means the song that I am going to feature is the nine minute "Sweet Thing/Candidate" sequence from "Diamond Dogs".

Enjoy you Thursday.

5AM Sunday Morning

This is ridiculous. I should be asleep. My body is tired, my brain is tired but my mind is wide awake. So I wasn't sure what to do, so like always when I am not sure what to do, I thought I would come an blog about it. It is could that I can do this and know that I am compos mentis enough to string a few words together, but it is a bit of a pain when I just want to sleep.

I had been dreaming and was in a queue at Boots for some tissues in possibly Leeds, and the serving person was chatting with other servers and trying to serve others before me so I decided to go elsewhere and vaguely remember some huge indoor area like a market or mall  before waking again and deciding to maybe read a bit. I've finished "The White Wolf's Son" by Michael Moorcock and enjoyed the all over the the place swirl of the writing, making for a thoroughly enjoyable read with lots of flashbacks to earlier themes as well as referencing the a area of North Yorkshire where I enjoy going for a relaxing holiday.

I has a slideshow of my last two holidays in Settle and am using the photographs as my computer wallpaper and every one gives me a lift, it is a wonderfully relaxing place. You can see most of the photographs here if you are logged into Facebook.

I'm now starting "How To Be Right: … in a world gone wrong" by James O'Brien which addresses the situation in post brexit-vote / Trump UK via encounters with callers on his radio show. Some of the people he interviews are polarised by the media and unfortunately I hear these sort of things every day, but it is a great read to provide an insight into what is happening in society today. That reminds me of this excellent TED talk by Carol Cadwalladr about Facebook's involvement in allowing untruths about the EU to be spread to push the Brexit agenda.

The music I've chosen for this is the excellent piece of social commentary from the latest Specials album "Embarrassed By You" and I was surprised to see the "Stereotypical" collection which is sitting not two feet from where I am typing going for £225 on Amazon, but as I always say, it's only worth that if you have a buyer.

So enjoy your Bank Holiday Sunday everybody.

Preferring The Dream

Today I didn't want to wake or get up because the dream I was in was actually quite enjoyable and comforting despite being in a spin in a Mercedes the rear ended by a bus, but also being in pleasant surroundings and resetting the heating controls after returning from holiday. I know this makes no sense whatsoever but that is what normally happens with dreams. I suppose the benefit of it is that you wake happy and rested and ready for the day even though it's a Monday.

The sky is full of pink clouds so I am not sure what the weather will bring today.

Recently I have been mightily impressed by the new Gang of Four song "Paper Thin". It reminds me of the best of New Order although with added aggression and sandpaper, well worth adding to your collection in whatever form you decide to take it.

So it's Monday and we are ready to go, I have lots to do and deal with, but if I had nothing to do I would be terribly bored. Maybe if I don't write then it dips my mood so I really have to make sure I actually write something even if I have nothing to write about, although actually you can always find something to write about even if it's the fact that you have nothing to write about.

So get out there and enjoy yourself, it's the best way to go.

In A Broken Dream

It's strange how dreams can be vivid, seemingly keeping you engaged all night and then when you finally do wake up you are left with fragments, even though the dream itself captured your imagination. I had gone to sleep last night after watching some of this week's installment of "Black Lake" so that obviously had some bearing on the contents of my dream.

This is what I'm left with, two rooms, in a containment area and whenever the room is occupied or being used there is a green indicating light and whenever it's empty or not in use then there is a red indicating light. The dream had a hell of a lot more to it, but I am just left with these fragments, and by tomorrow they will be gone too. The fact I am writing this here means it actually won't be forgotten as such, but whenever I revisit this post or search on the Dreans label I will come across it in the future.

That obviously made me think of the record "In A Broken Dream" by the Australian group Python Lee Jackson featuring Rod Stewart on vocals and some of th emost amazing guitar work you will ever hear on a chart single. It was a one hit wonder, but once you hear it you will never forget it.

Precipitate

It's been raining during the night, which is a good thing. Still too heavy to walk in, but not threat of biblical floods here in Fenham. I'vewoken up fairly demotivated, and not even had a shower but think a shower will wake me up an dmakeme a little less lethargic .

ven if I stopped writing now this still counts towards my #August50, but I don't feel that I am going to make that at this moment in time.

I had some weird dreams including my friend Juli getting a bubble perm and suiting in it a large school hall where I was trying to take a photograph of an amazing sight through the windows of the moon and the eather next to each other shaded in blue, but I couldn't get a decent shot sho went into the field outside to get a less restricted shot and they had disappeared and all there was was a big blue IKEA like cube.

That is roughly all I can remember of it but I am sure it would provide some psychiatrist or analyst a bit to go one, but as Half Man Half Biscuit stated in "San Antonio Foam Party" which appeared on their excellent "Cammell Laird Social Club" album from 2002:

"Your weird dreams

Don’t impress in any way

In dreams

Weird things are mundane and everyday

Strange to me would be

Buying a loaf

And coming straight home"

Such is the nature of dreams. So that's provided a song for this post though there is quite a lot more music that I do want to share with you, maybe I will take a chance to do that later. Now it's shower time, the maybe get a paper, do a crossword, write a song

Enjoy the rainy Sunday my friends.

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.......

Dreaming Again

Just woken foorma fairly intenses horror story dream and I can't remeber a thing about it, just some incoherent images that may or may not have been there. I obviously dealt with it fine as I am just about to get up, take drugs, shower and get to work, but part of me does want to remember what the dream was about. I'm reading Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" so maybe that's something to do with it, and watching England vs Tunisia  last night where you know the technology is there and supposedly being utilisedto ensure fair play and once again cheating and gamesmanship rules the day, although for a change didn't result in victory.


Anyway once again we have an absolutely beautiful day and that means a walk to work and listening to music. Recent albums have included the first three Jimi Hendrix albums and Bowie's "Blackstar", the eponymous opener I still find absolutely jaw dropping and that along with "Lazarus" would be a reason to have the album if the rest of it were blank, and it isn't. I'm currently listening to Bob Dylan's "Shelter From A Hard Rain" semi bootleg which I originally bought because it contains a duet with Joan Baez on Woody Guthrie's "Deportees (Plain Wreck At Los Gatos)" and the playing is a bit shambolic but in a good way and the song selection isbrilliant, so this does get a lot of plays.

Yesterday I met some friendly cattle on the walk and posted a little film on Instagram but it can be a little awkward when you are trying to film, photograph, walk and make sure that you have an escape route. Evidence here.

I'm looking forward to seeing Los Coyotemen this Friday at The Globe which means I am getting off my arse and actually getting out. A friend of mine posted on Facebook that he doesnt have enough hours in this week, I feel I don't have enough hours in my life but maybe that is because I'm nauturally lazy but actually want to do things.

My friend Sophia alerted me to the Charity single "The Fall Of Emperor Less" by Dave King so I've included it in the list below and there's furter info here, there's no full length Youtube video, so we will go with Bowie's "Blackstar".

Have a good one.