Festival Fun - Comparing Photos At A Fall Gig

The last four days have see three days of music and seeing about fifteen bands which is a lot even for me, although this is not so much about the music about various fringe observations , which looking back on have amused me , or made me glad I side stepped them.

On Thursday I went to see the excellent King Charles at The Riverside and all three bands were superb. I briefly spoke to the guitarist with Man Made who was a really nice guy as well as being a talented guitarist and it turned out he is Nile Marr son of Johnny Marr previously of  The Smiths. That night at the end of the Gallery Circus set something started dripping through the ceiling. It turns out the toilets had got blocked , so I'm not sure what was overflowing but we managed to avoid the wet area, and the gig was totally brilliant.

While I'm guilty of posting photos on instagram, facebook and twitter I am amazed how many people see to spend virtually the whole gig on the phone or tablet. While watching The Fall , who are musically challenging , there were four ladies in front of comparing holiday and family snaps on their phones and mobile devices, I don't know if this is the normal modus operandi for Fall audiences these days.

Comparing Photos At A Fall Gig

Yesterday I was in a crush to try and see Public Service Broadcasting, but my sensible head moved me to the sides to ensure I could breathe. I'm sure there have been worse concert crushes, and I don't know what the solution is , but people forcing their way into the crush carrying multiple pints in plastic glasses and various takeaway foods on paper plates did not make the situation any better.

I thought I'd try Tesco's next day wine delivery. They've farmed it out to Yodel , split it into two parcels and keep sending me texts saying it will be delivered today. No time or anything , so they will probably wait round the corner and wait til I have to go out. After all in in a twelve hour delivery window there's only one possible time they could deliver. God I almost sound like a Daily Mail reader don't I!

However today is the day when I find whether I've been chosen as a giver for World Book Night 2015 so my fingers are crossed for that. I've been doing it since 2011 and here's a post on my first one.

Anyway I came out of it all in one piece , having seen some amazing performance, and looking forward to a totally brilliant week.

My Seven Day Weekend

Last June I did 35 posts , more than 1 a day. This June that's unlikely, but I will still be posting, and hopefully will have a few this week. Yesterday I ate at Scotts of Helmsley , just the standard fish and chips. I thought the portion looked a bit skimpy but didn't by the time I had finished, full and with great service and I would recommend them to anyone who is in the area for any reason. Helmsley is slightly odd in that I've been visiting for years and in all that time it has never had a chemist, which odd for such a big village.

Anyway I could tell you what I'm going to be up to but that would spoil it for when I actually post what I've done and where I've been (which does sound a bit ominous but it's not honestly).

Well this is the first post of this month and the weather is really nice , I've posted pictures on Instagram , Twitter and Facebook so you can look there.

So everyone enjoy the rest of your weekend I have a seven day one this week so that's why I have the New York Dolls on this post!

Friday Feeling

Well it's Friday and it's the last day of the holiday , but has been a great week.I found out the guy who runs the farm we are staying at restores vintage cars for a hobby so hopefully I'll get some photos of those before I leave. The weather has been mostly excellent and is very sunny again today.

It's almost eleven o' clock and I've still not switched on my phone , which I have used quite a lot as a camera. It's amazing now how mobile phones are replacing cameras and music players because they are capable of doing all these things.

Add that to Instagram and Facebook and you can be completely connected and let everyone know everything you are doing but whether that's a good thing I'm not to sure.

I've just seen a black ladybird with red spots , apparently seeing a ladybird is lucky, so who knows what may happen , but there's always something good so I know that will come true one way or another.

Although it's Friday the song "Saturday Gigs" by Mott The Hoople is playing round in my mind so I'm going to include that, ain'y Youtube useful?

Anyway I'm going to enjoy the rest of the day and hope that you do too.

Rainy Day

Turkish Grand Bazaar - Grainger Market

Well today started with blue skies , but very cold, now we have a bit of rain. It's nice to have a restful weekend . I visited the Grainger Market  and got some amazing bookmarks from the Turkish Bazaar, which I instagrammed at Christmas as well.

I then wandered past Reflex and saw an impressive looking Ron Kavana boxed set for under three quid  called "Irish Ways - The Story of Ireland In Song, Music and Poetry". It's available quite reasonable on Amazon as well here

CDs from Reflex plus a Bookmark

Obviously this talk of music as well as bookmarks means I do need to put something relevant to the post on here, but should it be British Sea Power or Ron Kavana?

I love both these artists  and recommend both to everyone, and you can find lots of both of them on Youtube.

But having thought about the British Sea Power
 preview of the album I've bought would be a perfect addition to this post, and it could whet your appetite if you don't know them.


Anyway I will leave you with this as I get off to bed, sleep well all.

Quietly

A POster From My Phone

Well this is the third post in a row I've done without a music video. No particular reason , though I am very tired as I type this. I've also been fairly quiet on twitter and and instagram has slowed down , probably because there's that that many interesting things I've thought worth posting about.

It's funny how if you want your post to be viral it has to be a complaint or an attack on something. The public are seldom interested in good news.The media always likes to find something to complain about, making it up if it can't find anything truthful. Some people are only happy when they are miserable and surely that should have been the title of a Smiths song.

Anyway, enough of misery, I'm just going to keep positive thoughts in my head and enjoy my weekend. You can be happy when you have time to yourself and you are in touch with people who make you happy. I always love a smile , although I'm not too good at doing one myself, but I do like to be happy and keep happy and make others happy.

I've included a picture and poem I penned on my phone, so no pen was actually involved , unless you include the stylus from my Samsung Note 2. So anyway have a great weekend, mine is just about to start ..... with me going to bed to sleep .

Stay cool

Picture This

Deanham Gardens

This morning, it was very foggy , but I thought in the dark and with the streetlights I may get an interesting picture. The main road had a few cars, but then I took a static picture down a side street. As I instagrammed it there seemed to be some really odd effects possibly caused by the mist , but I took the picture and this is how it turned out. Lots of people seem to really like it, which is fine by me, and makes me want to keep taking pictures. I know that there are billions of digital photographs out there, but it just gives me a warm feeling to post something that someone actually likes. It makes such things worthwhile although ironically most of the good feedback has come on Facebook!.

Thank you to all you who like the picture, and have a great night. There are lot's of pictrure related songs , but I'll go for Bread's If:

I'm In Love With Rebecca Cother......

Well her wonderful paintings and images......

There's a lot of things that I didn't intend to do this wonderful day. Yesterday I visited the Divine Bodies exhibition at The Laing , took some photos which ended up on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Todays CDs

I went to Reflex and ending up buying 9 CDs of 50s and 60s soul and rock. I have a lot of the tracks but the collections looked so good I just had to have them, listening to one of them now. And rather good it is too.

The weather is still fantastic, and I've just remembered I need to design a card for my friends 50th birthday fairly promptly as it's his birthday on Wednesday.

Alan is scared of flying

Anyway  back to the lady in the title of the post. She's an artist as well and started following me on Twitter . I had a quick look at her website on my phone and was instantly enchanted by her wonderful images and paintings. Really they are beautiful and you can just fall in love with them , I challenge you not to. Some are funny, all are inventive and just beautifully presented.

Owl-Vis

I've took this couple of examples from her website which you can visit here, or her facebook page which is here. I just love all these paintings and in our twitter exchanges turned her on to the brilliant Kelly Richardson, who is responsible for som amazing installation art pieces.

I saw her amazing Mariner 9 at Whitley Bay's Spanish City. Anyway I promised Rebecca she'd be the subject of my next post and this is it. Go visit her site , and be as enchanted as I was with her paintings. Have a brilliant day all!!

(not so) SAD

See Serpent #tabletart

No I have nothing to be sad about, but it is amazing how the weather and lack of light and sun SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) can bring on negative thoughts and just bring you down. There are easy ways to combat this, find something, however smal, to just spark a smile. So I got up and did a bit of #tabletart which I published on instagram and hopefully others will like it. It's not going to change the worlsd but already i feel much better for the day ahead.





I'm looking forward to the weekend and sure that lot's of fantastic things will happen. I have to get off to work, so this post will be short, but I will include today's #tabletart picture and I'm sure you can find my others on Facebook and Instagram , and there's only one song to describe my mood at the moment, one of my favourite Rolling Stones' numbers , "Happy"!

A Brilliant Time in The High Bridge Quarter

Street Food Stalls

Another great High Bridge Quarter Festival today. Lots off food stalls with cupcakes from Sweet Petite Cupcakery , coffee from the Ouseburn Coffee Co , Pies and Chili Vinegar from The Red House , as well as food from Dabba Wal. So the setting was good from the off. The weather kept nice and there were some excellent records played by the DJs.

There were so many food options, I couldn't decide which one to try and ended up not eating anything, though got some things for later on , but we had Jamaica , Italy , England , India, Mexico and The USA all represented in one way or another,. Burgers , Curries , Gumbos , Jambalaya , Cupcakes and much much more.

RPM - Record Player Mecca!!

It was RPM's 25th Anniversary and they laid on free cake as well as knocking 25% off CDs for the day , which I took advantage of with the new Bill Callahan and Factory Floor albums. So the atmosphere was excellent , even The Beehive had tables outside for Al Fresco drinking!

Some Sweet Cup Cakery

The only band I caught were the excellent Transfigure , and I chatted with Grace after the set , a very nice young lady and a more than decent singer.


I sampled bits of the food and succumbed to some Carrot Cake from Cupcakery which I posted on my instagram feed here. The Carrot Cake was very nice and a great finish to an absolutely brilliant day.

Early Morning Rain

Well a trip to Penrith today , and hope the weather turns out better that it is looking now. Yesterday was like that a deluge during the night followed by early morning rain and then by home time blue skies. Check out my Instagram feed here . Hope the light will be good enough to take some photographs and I'm takeing both my cameras and my iPad just in case I get the opportunity for some good shots.

I will be traveling along the route of the River Tyne from Newcastle parallel to Hadrians Wall , which I helped light up in 2010. Check the link above and you will find some video . One thing about taking photographs and videos is that you never actually appear in them , although then again I could not afford to keep replacing the broken lenses, I think I've only seen a handful of acceptable photographs of me and the current profile pic is over five years old , so need to replace that soon .

Anyway , I know today will brighten up , there are lots of good things happening , and I will see some wonderful scenery, but will leave you with the excellent Gordon Lightfoot song eponymous with this post:

Picture This

A short post this , but a number of people have mentioned that they enjoyed seeing my Instagram posts. I ditched both Instagram and Twitter because of the disposability of the posts on there , but have slowly come round to the thought that as long as you dont OD on the stuff then its OK to use , so I've decided to resurrect my Instagram feed.

My Twitter one is here.  My instgram name will be mikeydred96 so it may be here

So I'm just hoping I don't swamp peaople with pictures , but will try and post interesting things. Also the Samsung Note 2 has a decent camera and processor so should be interesting to see what I can do , maybe I'll limit myself to black and white , but we shall see.

I chose the Blondie video , because it's a great song and I nicked the title for this post . Oh and on May 4th Blondied are on the bill at the "Fake Festival" at Percy Park Rugby Club . Details here

There's video and music samples of them on the link above so you can try before you buy so to speak

Back on Twitter , and Storing All World Knowledge

It's been about a month since I ditched Twitter and Instagram. One of the reasons for doing so is no matter how good your picture or text is , it generally goes into a black hole. But twitter can be used for keeping an eye on events , and since taking the time ro watch a few TED talks , I have a reason to follow someone on twitter . I need to find a few people worth following because of what they do , so am slowly building things up. I posted one tweet , which I nicked from a place in York, so will see how things go.

I promise not to post pictures ogf my food or any video at all , but will share things worth sharing. My new id is @mikeydred96 if you want to follow me , and if you don't that's fine.

I'm looking forward to National Record Shop Day and World Book Night this year and have a couple of ideas mulling around for both events.

The video is another brilliant TED talk from Brewster Kahle on a building a digital library, sort of like Project Gutenberg . The Book-Mobiles are an amazing idea , great fun .Watch the video

Sort of Missing Instagram and Twitter

A Photo

I was wondering whether I would get withdrawal symptoms from ditching Istagram and Twitter , and I definitely have. Although the problem is it's like any addiction. Sometimes I want something extra to do on my phone.

Then I think 99% of the posts and pictures will go unnoticed and unread no matter how good the picture is or how witty the riposte on Twitter is. And then the desire goes away.

If I want to post something I can do a blog post like this one or just post a status on Facebook, it just takes a little more effort.

The problem with Instagram and Twitter is that often it's more about getting followers and the way to get followers is to follow people and hope they reciprocate. If you have a big following base then people will hopefully take notice of what you say or take a picture of , although often it's just about what they've had do eat.

I've been very guilty of that, and people aren't interested in what I've had to eat , although people may be interested if I recommend a good restaurant or pub. Anyway I am happy with what I'm doing and when I see things I want to photograph I can take them for my own pleasure , share them on Facebook or Picassa for people to check out.

Twitter No More , Instagram No More ...

Not quite "Letter From America" by The Proclaimers , but it sounds sort of snappy. Today I deleted my Twitter and Instagram accounts. The real reason was that really I didnt get anything from them , and you do that many tweets or Instagram Pictures that they just get lost in the billions of posts on both planforms . Twitter is supposed to be 140 character limit yet allows pictures , and now 6 second video clips!! Instagram , while it has some interesting filters , results in a lot of dross between the good pictures , though I suppose you could say that of all digital photographs.

The other thing I think both these platforms stop you from posting anything interesting anywhere , you post almost without thinking. I know there's a lot of famous people on there , but if Stephen Fry says something really worth hearing it will find it's way out of Twitter.

I'll probably keep my Facebook account , as it has got me in touch with people who I'd lost touch with , and can enable me to do what I did on Twitter and Instagram.. So you won't see anymore hashtags from me , I don't know if my old tweets stay or will be removed , I'm not bothered either way. And if I hadn't deleted the accounts I wouldn't be writing this post.

Lot's of people like Twitter and find it useful , though some people just seem intent on following as many people as they can. Just decided they are not for me any more

Micro De Socialisation

Instagram Post of My Train Arriving in Darlington Station

I may have posted something like this before , so it's a bit like a discussion last night when my friend Bob said his favourite comedy series ever was "Yes, Prime Misister" but it's only problem was that sometimes the same joke was repeated word for word. I pointed out that it was in the days before video recording and the only reason he noticed was because he was watching a series back to back. Today we're just as likely to wastch a series from a digital recording as live on TV when originally airs. I have the full series 5 of True Blood on my hard disc and currently working my way through Arrested Development and The Wire.

Anyway back to the point of this post , my third in eight hours! I've not slept dur to major discomfort in my right arm , currently being eased by a hot water bottle . Not looking forward to having to go to casualty , though I think I have a local walk in centre , so I may track that down. So that's the reason I am awake at this god foresaken hour , although on a work day I would just  be getting up. But ..

The reason I was really writing here was the thought that came into my head about how society , me included is maybe becoming de socialized by Twitter and Instagram . Both of these are short format blanket communication devices that can communicate with each other and other social media such as twitter. They are both about what's happening i the moment so not neccessarily meant to be kept , but can also be viewd as a sort of diary. I have seen one friends drams of home life and house moving unfold on there . And sometimes the limitations of Instagram can produce amazing pictures but mostly it's throwaway stuff. And like the sfformention "Yes Minister" there is a lot of repetition , I often think "Have I already posted this?" and then decided it doesnt matter. The almost out Facebook Facebook with the disposability of their feeds,

The worry for me is that it means that I don't blog as much , and some people actually use them as main modes of communication. I follow about 25 people , many more and I feel I will disappear in an avalanche of trivia. Also some people will expect me to know something because it appeared on Twitter. I still tend to watch the BBC News for important stuff. With that I will post this and go and have a lie down . The hot water bottle is having an efficacious effect , much like Lily The Pink's Medicinal Compound!! Did you know Mike McGear of The Scaffold was Paul McCartney's brother?