Walking out now is treacherous because of the iced up pavements, and what that has meant that I am sure I am doing far more steps per whatever measurement you care to put forward because if I try to walk normally I'd end up flat on my back.
The thought of walking tiny steps made me think of one of my favourite Elvis Costello songs , and to be quite honest that's the only reason for this post. Elvis Costello's real name is Declan McManus , and Declan McManus plays for and scores quite a few goals for Dunfermline Athletic. Also I believe Elvis Costello's dad was an Elvis impersonator and sang the R White's Secret Lemonade Drinker advert.
It shows the way my mind works in that a post about the perils of walking on icy footpaths takes left turn into the connection between Elvis Costello , Dunfermline Athletic and R White's lemonade.
I normally aim for about 250 words in a post , but this is less than half that , but is also my second post today, plus it's quite late and I really need to go to bed. So this is me signing off.
The weather over the last week has been so depressing , grey and featureless, nothing to photograph and it's too cold and wet to go out. At night there is the odd good photograph to be had , but it is extremely demotivating. Add to this pressure at work (although that is become much easier as I manage to resolve the problems besetting me) , it's already dark and I have finished "The Frankenstein Chronicles" nut still on "The Other Log of Phileas Fogg" and "Imajica" , though TV wise I look at all the series that I could start and at the moment I am shying away from it , though I recently watch a German take of "The Colour Out Of Space" and the unexpectedly excellent remake of "Whiskey Galore".
I usually don't take to remakes although there have been good remakes of bad originals and bad remakes of great originals ("Psycho" and "The Haunting") come to mind.
So I'll just go with Elvis Costello's take on the Leon Payne / Eddie Noack song "Psycho" .
I know this is very short , but it's grey and dark and "Pointless" is coming on and I can't be bothered to do an evening walk.
This morning I thought about not showering, there was another part of my brain that said get in, you need to be clean for the day , but the thought was worrying, if fleeting. I always want to shower , and love being in there but hate drying myself and then having to get dressed.
One of the things about working in lockdown or being furloughed you aren't under any pressure to look your best (and I never look good anyway) and if you are furloughed there's only so much non work you can do.
My lawn is currently getting long, but I am deliberately doing it to encourage wildlife although it will be trimmed this coming weekend.
The sky today has been a uniform grey , my phone app says hazy, so it is not the most inspiring.
I have now finished for the day
Today is the sixtieth anniversary of the release of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" so maybe we can go with Elvis Costello's "Psycho" which was the "B" side of "Good Year For The Roses" from the album "Almost Blue".
Still not thirty pages into Simon Singh's "Fermat's Last Theorem" and he throws in another conceptual gem of a problem apparently first propsed by a guy called Max Black in his book "Critical Thinking" in 1946. It sounds like the title of an Agatha Christie or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle novel (who incidentally met up in Sky Arts' "Urban Myths" series here). The Wikipedia entry for the Mutilated Chessboard problem is here but basically it's this
"Suppose a standard 8×8 chessboard has two diagonally opposite corners removed, leaving 62 squares. Is it possible to place 31 dominoes of size 2×1 so as to cover all of these squares?"
Here's The Problem
... and basically it is actually impossible because each domino must cover a black and a white square and the board is left with thirty of one colour and and thirty two of the other. There are conceptual solutions but you cannot solve it in reality. Itn the book this was introduced when talking about the concept of mathematical theory against scientific theory. Science always has doubt because it is based on observation whereas mathematics demands absolute proof and until that happens it's always just a theory.
So suitable music for this, Elvis Costello's "Watching The Detectives" , something from "Chess" but I'm going for Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" as it mentions a chessnoard and it is sucjh a perfect piece of music. Enjoy your Thursday everybody.
Last May I started on a challenge to walk a million steps in three months. I took it up, did it, listeened and rediscovered a lot of my music collection, discovered lots of new places to walk, reduced my insulin intake, lost a little weight and now I'm six weeks away from doing this for a year.
After the initial three month challenge I decided to do 340K steps a month so I would do a rolling million every three months. I though February would be a problem, it wasn't and March started badly with the ice and snow but I am way ahead of my target for the month, with only April to do, and then I'll start again.
It's not actually a huge challenge , less than two hours walking a day does the job and it keeps you a little bit fitter.
I have seen some great sights I didn't know were there including walking bit''s of Hadrian's Wall and areas of Arthur's Hill where they are residential but you can walk a long way without encountering a road.
I was going to go with Spacehog's "Millions" but it isn't on Youtube (I may put a slideshow together) so intead I will treat you to "Tiny Steps" by Elvis Costello. Sleep well my friends.
Turns out the Spacehog song is called "Millions" at all but "Zeroes " and the is one called "To Be A Millionaire", so another example of my memory messing with my memories.
Today was the day I expected to record my lowest step count (the lowest is 2,800 last year at Helmsley), the footpaths are icy with melted frozen snow, and that is melting, leaving a treacherous skid pad and I had something fairly heavy to bring back from Aldi about a mile away. That's nomally about 2,500 steps but when I got there I'd covered over 4,000 steps and at first that my step recorder is screwed, but then I thought..... becaus the paths are so bad I am staking smaller steps to make sure I don't end up slipping, so although the distance is the same the steps are double what I expected.
I'm back home now but thought I would post this as an example of something becoming clarified when you look and the whole picture. These days so many people are reactionay and focus on a very small area without looking at the bigger picture, I nearly did today.
Anyway I know this is a short post but it's an excuse to include the amazing "Tiny Steps" by Elvis Costello, have a brilliant last Saturday of 2017 everyone.
I'm just reading The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson and there's quite a lot of disturbing stuff in there, and some worrying things about the nature of psychopaths and sociopaths . Apparently f you start noticing traits in yourself that may you suspect you may be a psychopath then you probably aren't one , but if you don't thing you could be a psychopath then the chances are that you are one. It also reckons the reason for the inequality and unfairness in society is that psychopaths are actually in a lot of high up places of power , and they get there because of their nature.
This is something we should be very worried about. We tend to give certain people a lot of leewaybecause it's "just the way they are" but I have seen some disgusting bullying behaviour in the workplace of the years that has been condoned and allowed by company management for the flimsiest of reasons, management often turning on people less likely to cause a fuss to carry the the can for the bully's behaviour.
We see it in politics today and as long as we allow it , it will continue to happen.
I suggest you grab a copy of the book , and then try and find something positive to focus on , because it's the weekend and you should really be enjoying yourself, I certainly will be.
There's only one song that will do for this post and it's Elvis Costello's take on the country and western classic "Psycho" written by Leon Payne after he saw Hitchcock's film "Psycho".
It's the last day of may and the last blog post I did was the 888th on this this blog , I don't know if that's significant but there's probably someone who knows and old saying that means something but it was a precursor to a pretty amazing week for me personally, and that week it still continuing to throw up thing that are good , make to think , and make you enjoy life.
A friend had mentioned to me about a project to record some unrecorded Bob Dylan lyrics from 1967 around the time of the original Basement Tapes when Dylan and the Band were jamming in a basement and the tapes were bootlegged and eventually released. I read a blog review and that inspired me to get the album and to write this post.The copy from Amazon says all about it:
"Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes is a music event 47 years in the making. It's an historic album project from five of music's finest artists -- Elvis Costello, Rhiannon Giddens (Carolina Chocolate Drops), Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes), Jim James (My Morning Jacket) and Marcus Mumford (Mumford & Sons) -- in unique collaboration with a 26-year-old Bob Dylan. Produced by project creator T Bone Burnett, the album was recorded in March, 2014 at Capitol Studios in Hollywood, where the artists and Burnett convened for two weeks to write and create music for a treasure trove of long-lost lyrics handwritten by Bob Dylan in 1967 during the period that generated the recording of the legendary Basement Tapes.
The collective completed and recorded dozens of songs, 20 of which appear on this deluxe edition."
T-Bone Burnett has lots of experience delving into the history of Americana , and his work on the soundtrack of the Coen Brothers' "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" (Itself based on Homer's Odyssey) , is testament to that.
It got me thinking of other times people had effectively scramble under artists' beds to dig out and create a contemporary vision of their music . When Jimi Hendrix died , unfinished tapes were taken to produce the albums Crash Landing and Midnight Lightning with varying amounts of success. You couldnt help wondering what would have really happened had Jimi lived.
Country Joe McDonald set the poems of Robert Service to music for his "War War War" album which is similar to what Burnett and Costello have done with Dylan's lyrics. I first heard "The Twins" in the seventies and it's still with me today as we see governments send men to war and abandon them when they return.
Again this is a great example of a contemporary artist, taking worthy material from the past and spreading the word to a brand new audience.
Billy Bragg and Wilco completed recordings of Woody Guthrie's unrecorded lyrics on their Mermaid Avenue triumvirate of albums. Again there is an excellent synopsis this time from the BBC that tells you all about the history of this:
"Thirty years after his death, Woody Guthrie was a distant memory when Mermaid Avenue came out in 1998. But he’s never been far away. You can hear the original Depression troubadour in the dustbowl romanticism and blue-collar unrest of every alt-country band that’s picked up a guitar – and the recession of a new century seems a good time to be remembering that.
Bob Dylan has come almost full-circle, back to the folk and blues with which he first channelled Guthrie as a teenager, and Springsteen has turned out This Land is Your Land at SXSW. But nobody has picked up on Woody as effectively – or unexpectedly – as this transatlantic get-together.
Back in 98, the idea was simple: winnow out the best of the thousands of lyrics Guthrie had written without music, and turn them into songs.
The first album’s success spurred Mermaid Avenue Vol. II in 2000. And this package adds in the unreleased, more-ragged final 17 tracks from the sessions (including some non-Guthrie folk standards), without dimming the charm of the original.
Wilco’s languid, dogged strumming and Jeff Tweedy’s now yearning, now rabble-rousing vocal perfectly capture the Guthrie that has seeped into every crack and crevice of Americana.
But it is Billy Bragg – the one who is an anachronism, really, a banner-waving socialist in a 21st century world of indie brats and pop divas – who guards the soul of this resurrection. The Englishman can spit the word “fascists” with rare contempt, even if few listeners will feel the political charge the word once carried.
But he brings a British folk lyricism, too, that deepens and sweetens the brew.
The words show Woody’s range, from inspired poetry to rhyme-free rambling. But like a time-machine Basement Tapes, the free-flowing musical clamjamfry buoys up the folk icon in a way that makes a virtue out of inconsistency. There are memorable contributions from Natalie Merchant, Eliza Carthy and Corey Harris. And at root, really, it isn’t about musical taste any more than it’s about politics. Bawdy, smart, big-hearted and mischievous, Mermaid Avenue is simply all about a personality that is rich with life.
--Ninian Dunnett "
The Costello / Burnett project is unusual because Dylan is still with us , but it's great that Dylan can hear the results of this. There are many more examples of this sort of thing , but it's good to get your hands on something of this quality. Enjoy your Sunday
In 1974 Robert Wyatt was at a party , possibly worse for wear , fell out of a window and broke his back and never walked again. Not good for a drummer . He didn't let it stop him and released this version of The Monkees' I'm A Believer on Richard Branson's fledgling Virgin label.
It was promoted by an appearance on Top Of The Pops , but some BBC manager decided that a guy in a wheelchair was too disturbing for the public and he wasn't allowed on again unless he sat on a normal chair. Nice treatment of people who have to use a wheelchair then.
Anyway the record is brilliant and it may get you into Robert Wyatt. The follow up to this was Chris Andrews' "Yesterday Man" , and hopefully everybody has heard his wonderful rendition of Elvis Costellos Shipbuilding.
Rant over and hopefully the BBC are different now (but probably not).
..of 2012. This Christmas has been the worst weather I can remeber , it's not even interesting , just the SAD inducing rain and grey skies. Having said that met up with some great people and had some good nights as well as having a quiet Christmas eating excellent food , doing catch up TV and recuperating for the stresses of everyday life.
Radio 6 has been on constantly while I've been working and I inted to see in the next year with friends as well.
It's quarter to four and lights are coming on. Elvis Costello's "Good Year For The Roses" is playing on the radio. I remember thinking how much I should hate it because it was country music , but as I dug into the album and periphery I discovered many jewels not least a couple of versions of "Stranger In The House" and the excellent "Psycho". It's great when life throws you unexpected pleasures , just brightens things a little and I am going to dig out my expanded copy of "Almost Blue" ... Happy New Year
