Showing posts with label Instagram. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Instagram. Show all posts

Friday 8 November 2019

Pen Pals


I seldom write to anyone anymore. I mean really write with a pen on paper. The closest I get is addressing CDs that I sell on Discogs.  I used to send postcards to people of places I visited, but now it's Instagram videos, which in a way are more personal and effectively instant but in some ways I miss putting pen to paper.

The thing is a letter or a postcard is closer to you that digital communication , but digital communication can give an immediate closeness that paper can't. Telephone is great especially with the advent of the mobile , and then video calling  can  enable you to share even more. My eldest daughter sent my dad a video message on his eigtieth birthday because she was working and couldn't make the party. While a birthday card is nice the video message really amazed my dad.

We have so many ways to communicate, but it is nice to write every now and then, and I don;t know if that is just me being selfish. There are lots of people who generally shun technology so pen and paper is the general default mode of long distance communication. We have had the telephone for over a hundred years so that has always been relatively immediate.

So maybe the song we go for is "The Word / OM" by The Moody Blues the closing songs from "In Search of The Lost Chord" probably my favourite of their albums. Yes it's pretentious taking in sixties hippie culture references but I like it and so I will share it with your.

I've also noticed there's a Children In Need Covers album which is on the strip below , which you can buy or just chip in at the web site.

Wednesday 6 November 2019

Packing In Lollipops


Today has been a busy but relaxing day. My first goal was to photograph the Ribblehead Viaduct . The problem was that I had a thirty minute window to take the photo's shortened by the fact the outward train was ten minutes late then I misread the return time which knocked another ten minutes off my free time. If I didn't catch the return train then I'd have a two hour wait for the next one, and the distance to the Viaduct was downhill and probably would take twenty minutes so my compromise was to take photographs from the car park of the Station Hotel and from the platform of the Station which you can see here on my Instagram feed.

Secondly, on my return to Settle, I walked to The Hoffman Kiln which is a remarkably eerie experience to walk through. I haven't a clue what lime burning entails but it seems a huge physical enterprise for the production of lime. You can see my walk through it here. There's more information than I can tell you here.

Vinyl From SCAD
When I came back to Settle I visited the S.C.A.D. charity shop, and ended up buying three vinyl LPs. I don't need any new vinyl but there was a Weather Report eponymous album that I've never seen before, some Debussy (Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune is one of the most beautifully creepy pieces ever), Vaughn-Williams and Delius.

One of the things is this blog does enable me to share music with friends all over the world, and I love when I do mange to share something new with them to increase their experience.

Sometimes it's something you like, sometimes it leaves you cold but it can be like food, I am not a fan of most Thai food and am picky about sushi and it is the same with music.

So what should we go with? Well I have seen a lot of fifties vinyl, including The Chordettes "Lollipop" which is always good to share with friends.

Enjoy

Sunday 3 November 2019

Always


I got to Settle on Friday and thought I would start up the laptop (which I am writing or should that be typing ) this on and  the web browser wasn't saying it was insecure. Basically I hadn't used it for six months and battery needed charging but there was an avalanche of Windows 10 and ASUS Laptop updates that required installing , and as usual I said yes...... Ten hours later I think it finished , well it didn't because last night it required another restart and update.... and to quote Eddie Izzard ... Nothing has changed (Apparently).

This always happens and really I should start this up when I'm at home, but I don't, so it's my fault , at least partially,

Yesterday I walked to Scalebar Force (also signed as Scaleber Foss) and it was only a mile and a quarter but hadn't factored in the one in five (20%) gradient, and was amazed that on the way back down that there were two guys of my age or older biking up the gradient , that showed amazing determination and stamina. There are some photos and video on my Instagram feed here.

It's Sunday Morning and I have plans to visit The Hoffman Kiln again, and it's always great to share things with people. It's not good to always keep yourself to yourself , although solitude is good and necessary at times to recharge your batteries and do what YOU want. Remember the most important person in your life is YOU , if you are not there and 100% you cannot be there for those who matter to you.

And a record has been playing through my head for some reason, ans I think I first heard it on John Peel and I want to share it with you because it;s a great record and you are important to me. I'm almost shocked that I've never shared this before, there's over 2K posts on this blog, but it's the excellent "Him or Me" by Paul Revere and the Raiders. Enjoy.

Thursday 22 August 2019

Fifty Shades of Grey


That's the colour of the sky this morning. As you can tell I have not got that much to write about. Listening to Huw Stephens on 6Music but a lot of the music is just passing me by but was impressed by a new one by DJ Shadow (ft De La Soul) "Rocket Fuel" so some good has come of me switching on the radio this morning.

So basically it's go out , pick up train tickets , go to work and that's my Thursday.

I have ordered "Another Green World" on vinyl to complete my Roxy Music related collection (first album , "For Your Pleasure" and "Viva" all from Vinyl Guru in Newcastle) and they sound a lot better that I thought even with the slight paint mark on "Editions of You" (it was second hand and cheap and plays fine). It's amazing what watching a Brian Eno documentary can cause you to do, while it's not exactly advertising but it did influence me and "Another Green World" is coming via Amazon Prime.

There's a little Roxy on my Instagram posts here and here


So we obviously go with "Rocket Fuel" this morning.


Wednesday 3 July 2019

No Photographs


One of the annoying thing about the Facebook Ban is that I am now very reticent to share any pictures on Facebook. I've disconnected as, as far as I can, my Instagram Account which means I have now stopped sharing my walks and music on Facebook. I will share my blog posts and really that's it.

The real annoying thing is that I keep getting ads for voucher schemes often featuring girls wearing next to nothing, knowing full well that if I shared this thing that Facebook is shoving in my face it would be a three month ban.

I've reinstalled Facebook Messenger on my phone but Facebook is now reflecting my real life socialising, vitually non existent. This is my choice to reactivate but part of it may be old age and part may be just apathy.

I had a few friends who I would meet up with for lunch or after work, but whenever I suggested anything it was never convenient so I know when I am beaten.

This may sound like I'm on a downer, I'm not, just learning that as people get older they become more set in their ways, socialise in their own groups, and if I do want to meet up with people I need to actually do something that interestes them.

While I always stay positive, and know damned well that I could pick up the phone and speak to a few close friends there is a devil inside that says I can't be bothered. No doubt I will change and get my self out in the near future and in fact I am going to visit two friends this lunchtime. I have decided to just do this and visit The Glamorous Owl , RPM and maybe lunch at Snackwallah.

So what song goes with this, for some reason Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round" comes to mind and what's not to like about that.

Sunday 16 June 2019

Scrabble and Facebook


I wasn't going to post tonight , but what the hell, I thought I'd then just dispose of a couple of things that were on my mind.

There are now only two people who play Scrabble with me on Facebook. If you read this and want to play me feel free to leave your details in a comment. Scrabble is one of the main reasons that I go on Facebook but everyone I've played with (bar two) have dropped off. Maybe they're bored or don't like playing with me any more.

Facebook Jail
I'm still on the ban, and while I may reinstall Facebook Messenger on my phone , Facebook won't be going on. Also give that I am on some kind of black list I have a feeling that next time it will be a three month ban. A facebook friend said it could be the image to the right which causes people who access your posts to report it as contavening Facebook's rules. That is a possibility, but I am making the assumption that anything I share could get me banned.

So basically with Scrabble coming to a halt and my inability to share anything on Facebook it isn't looking that attractive to actually use it as I did.

Since the ban the views to my blog have increased 25 fold so I don't think sharing on Facebook will improve it all that much.


I am probably using Twitter and Instagram more and installed Scrabble on my phone which the reactivated my Facebook account much to my annoyance. The problem is Scrabble has been a total pain recently by continually failing to load so that may be why my friends have dropped off.

So I suppose a suitable song for thinking they are out to get me is obviously "Paranoid" by Black Sabbath so I will share that with you on this Sunday night.

Saturday 8 June 2019

Where's Wally?


You know that joke about the difference between stupid and being dead, everyone else knows except you in both cases.

The Facebook ban is sort of like that in reverse, I know that I'm banned and therefore can't communicate in any way via Facebook, but none of my Facebook friends do, except the ones who I communicate with via phone, email , Instagram or Twitter, and it is a sort of weird situation. Because my online presence ids there, people ca send me messages, post things on my timeline , tag me or whatever and barring disabling / deleting the account there is nothing I can do.

I can't even use Facebook Messenger.

While I have not transgressed any Facebook rules for three out of the four bans which are here and you can see what I'm banned for in these posts here and here and see what you think.

Basically anything that I personally post can result in a ban, and I cannot challenge it full stop, snd no explanation for the  supposed transgression will be given.

So this is a warning to anyone out there, do not allow Facebook to be your only mode of communication or your Facebook friends will think you don't love them any more. Essentially for everything in life you always need a Plan "B" and luckily I do have communication channels open with friends, it's just that often people don't check their alternatives.

As this is post 1945 I'm going to share "Caledonia" by Louis Jordan and His Tympani Five, which is rather celebratory which is good as WWII came to a  close in that year.

Sunday 2 June 2019

More Time


Not having Facebook active seems to be giving me more time. I could use this to do other things but I;m probably reading more, watching more TV, walking more but not improving my creative output (yet) unless you count this.

I spent some time in Helmsley today and because Scott's was not open to sit in we tried  La Trattoria , a new Italian based restaurant next to the Town Hall, and it is definitely an excellent new find.

I also had a brief walk round the Castle and posted some Instagram photos here.

I know I'm on holiday, but I can post this, I have watched an X-Men film , and am watching an episode of Marvel:Agents of Shield waiting for this weeks Gotham, while reading Neil Gaiman's excellent"Norse Mythology"".

This is day one with no Facebook and while I am talking about it,I am doing other things. I suppose I slightly miss sharing things and having things shared with me but I have Instagram and Twitter if I want to interact.

As yet no one (I told about five people) has asked me where I've gone so I am not being missed (yet).

So you can see the analogy between Social Media and Drug Addiction .

I thought "Free" by VAST is semi appropriate so giving the year a miss for this post but I will use it as I work up to 2019, we shall see, although 1935 was the year that my dad was born.

Friday 24 May 2019

I Played A DVD


I am definitely becoming lazier and lazier. Also while I have a large CD and digital music collection, there are big chunks of it I have never heard and probably never will. It's similar with DVD. This week I have actually taken the DVD from it's place on the shelf, switched on the DVD player and switched the channel on the TV and actually watched  the films. The two I watched were "The Golden Compass" which was excellent but has been on the shelf unplayed for ten years, and "Fight Club" (adapted from Chuck Palahniuk's novel) which has been there for even longer. Both these films are excellent, and I should have watched them years ago, but apathy and laziness has meant that despite knowing how good these are ("The Golden Compass" was the film of the first book in Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" series which is coming on TV from HBO and BBC).

I don't know if this is just a digital malaise, because my vinyl collection is always played when I purchase anything and I often share things on my Instagram Channel , but when you buy digitally it is so easy to put it on one side for later, and after a week or so it's forgotten about. If anthing gets put in a box or a drawer then thats usually it. I still listen to music digitally from my network and on my phone, but still eschew streaming services such as Spotify or Amazon as to use them without wifi means that your data gets consumed fairly quickly, so I load albums from my network to my Google Pixel which I may upgrade to a Pixel 3A in the future.

So one of the good things of being in the digital world is that I can share suitable music with you as I post entries on this blog, but I do think digital storage has turned us into magpies , buying things that we don't actually use or properlay appreciate. With that I will share "Digital" buy Joy Division with you with an excellent video taken from the equally excellent film "Control".

Sunday 7 April 2019

#AprilSongs #7 Sunday Evening


Continuing on in this sequence I've done the first week without being too obvious, and today is "Sunday Evening" by The Black Angels. On first listen you think 1960's Garage Psychedelia, but it's actually only five years old and I have a couple of their albums which I obviously need to revisit.

This is one of the problems with any music collection, you don't listen end to end, and very often will buy things then listen and forget or not even listen.. I am currently selling CDs that I wont play again on Discogs , I do actually like playing a single or album and share Vinyl Plays on my Instagram Channel under the tag #VitalVinyl

So today will be just relaxing though maybe a trip into town to get a few things, and maybe catch up on some TV shows, as well as possibly another blog post later on.

Just listening to 6Music interviewing to an artist talking about the last album they "streamed" , not listened to, and that is part of the problem that at times people don't really listen, but that has been with us since the advent of CD allowing us to program and skip stuff we didn't like or were bored with. Don't get me wrong I love the convenience of digital, but sometimes taking away the controls from you is a good thing which is why I listen to the Radio and Vinyl.

Enjoy your Sunday

Wednesday 3 April 2019

#AprilSongs #3 - Wednesday Week


I'm under a three day Facebook ban for posting an Instagram shot of the art on the wall at No 28 (here and you can see it on the site link), this is following a ban a couple of months ago when I shared a link from IMDB for the Peter Greenaway film "Drowning By Numbers" (you can see the image I was banned for on the link) , this is because of the pathetic fact that some people can find offense at absolutely anything and while male bodies are OK, females are totally out of bounds and must be fully covered, how ridiculously puritan. So I can't link this post to Facebook til they let me on.

Also Google+ has been withdrawn with no alternative that I can see so I can't actually share this post with any social media platform, so this may be my first post that doesn't get read by anybody, because even if you follow the blog you don't get notified of updates.

I've woken up to snow, which is just what I want when I found that my roof is leaking.

But to the main point of the post the #AprilSongs and today is the excellent "Wednesday Week" by The Undertones, and while I thought they were a more than decent band (and John Peel had "Teenage Kicks" as his all time Number One record) that's all they were to me with the odd song that raised them above the norm and Wednesday Week was one of the songs that did that.

Sunday 31 March 2019

An Interlude With Bobzilla


Today while have a wander round the Tyne Bridge and High Level Bridge with Scott we dropped into Arch 16 and we were well impressed by the latest avian based artwork on display. You can see it here on my Instagram feed , I also had to use the loo and was very impressed with the repurposed vinyl single display on the wall (see here).

We had a cafe latte and the guy serving us told us this was all his work and he goes under the name Bobzilla, and apart from being a talented artist (you can see more by visiting his "I Am Bobzilla" site) , he makes a great cup of coffee and is remarkably engaging to talk too. Among other things he is also a DJ and had some excellent sounds playing while we were these. It was so pleasant we had another coffee before departing back across the High Level Bridge to Newcastle.

So you get art , cake , coffee , tea , good sounds and good vibes, a thoroughly excellent half an hour, worth visiting for a coll and chilled atmosphere in which to eat cake and drink coffee.

So it's the day before April Fool's day but it has been a most excellent final day of March , chatting with Bobzilla and enjoying his art and sounds, so continuing with the art theme I've included my slideshow of the Armageddon themes paintings of the North East's greatest artist John Martin. I've just found that the book of his work I have is going for up to £200 on Amazon, like my Handy Wah! compilation on the last post but one.

Anyway hope you have a wonderful week.

Thursday 7 March 2019

Another Week In Settle


This week has been quiet and relaxing. I have managed to finish the excellent "Deadwood" , start "The Terror" ,binge watch two series of "Shakespeare and Hathaway", and that's part of the relaxation in the cottage. For some reason I have woken up early, before seven every morning after going to bed between eleven and midnight each night.

I have managed to walk up Castleberg Crag (Instagram video here and a climbing video here) and The Hoffman Kiln (Instagram video here) . There is a decent video of it here.

The amazing thing is the immense relaxation I have got from this holiday. Settle is full of great walks, pubs, eateries and the people are amazingly friendly. It is remarkably well served by public transport, though not a place to drive,many of the streets and roads only six feet wide.

I picked up some vinyl from Skipton Sound Bar and Skipton Market and visited The Huntress of Skipton Castle Woods (Instagram video here) , the train journey from Settle to Skipton  is maybe 30 minutes, so absolutely  local and easy to get to.

So I will share the Bronski Beat / Marc Almond take on Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" which is one of the 12" vinyl records I picked up from Skipton Market.

Friday 28 December 2018

Quiet


It is that time between Christmas and New Year where you almost feel you are trapped in Limbo. Prior to Christmas I saw someone chatting about the 12 Days of Christmas with celebrations every day but it is basically Christams and New Year and then the outlet seems to be shop sales.

I would love 365 days of celebrations where everyone had a good time, looked out for their fellow man and no ne wanted for anything but unfortunately it's not like that. Commercialisation drives us to spend more money while ensuring we are paid less, and then complains that people are not spending money. People spend what they think they can afford.

This morning on my walk in I saw some amazing skies as the sun rose, examples on my Instagram feed are here. I have completed my steps for December 2018 although at the beginning I was thinking I might not make it, but the weather has become much milder and listening to music on the way in is excellent. Today I listened to Jordan Reyne's new album "Bardo" which is hypnotically dark and beautiful, much as I expected.

There are no video's for the new album yet so I have chosen "Bite" from "The Annihilation Sequence", all her albums are worth experiencing and available as a digital pack from Bandcamp.

Sunday 2 December 2018

Copy Wrong


I do find copyright application very strange and often just like bullying for the sake of it, like you see from traffic wardens, council officials and post office counter staff. I have just had eight notices from Instagram for copyright infringement from Warner Brothers for an old video, which is now blocked, which I posted to show off a shop (RPM) and it's vintage record players. Now anyone interested in the music would have probably gone out and bought it, so what I was doing was free advertising, but no that has to be stopped.

I posted a Christopher Lee video which YouTube initially took down for the same reason after nearly hitting 10K hits in one day, details are here, but Charlemagne Productions, the copyright owners were absolutely fine with it, since we lost Christopher Lee it seems we can now post, so my latest post has hit 10K.

This is just my opinion but copyright should enforced if people are being detrimental to the originator, or effectively stealing from the originator, say trying to advertise your own product using copyrighted music. If you are trying to share the music with others to get others to support the artist by buying records and going to concerts then that should be OK although it's probably impossible for a machine to determine where the real benefit lies.

Although this is my second time in Settle this is the first post that I've mentioned it in, and it is a lovely place but not the best place to drive in. I may write more about it this week but I am enjoying it. Among other thing it is home to the world's smallest Art Gallery which was opened by Brian May of Queen (my mate Jim Stevenson told me that) and you can see my Instagram take on it here.

Another plus is that Mike Harding lives here and hopefully I'll get to see him on Monday night.

This afternoon Guy Garvey played a song by The Monkees "Me and Magdalena" which I had never heard it before, and it's absolutely wonderful so that is the one that I will share with you.


Monday 5 November 2018

Black Turns To Grey


Just looking at the sky out side it was black when I rose and now it's fading out to grey. It's Monday and looks like just another week coming up.

I'm surprised at the amount of walking I have done so far this month, but I am sure that that will drop off soon although I still expect to hit my monthly target, though not sure I will hit the 400K (that's about 200 miles) I hit last month.

The problem is on days like this I have nothing much to say, it's just one of those days, although I am sure something good will happen today. The grey weather is not exactly inspiring, I will start to walk but chances are I am going to get the bus most of the way into work.

I may cook the Jack Monroe Peach and Chickpea Curry tonight and may try to record it on an instagram video. I only have a minute to do that so that could be interesting, maybe hashtag it with #cookamealinaminute which is slightly misleading but you get the idea.

So the obvious music accompaniment to this post is "Fade To Grey" by Visage, which I have for sale on my Discogs store.

Have a great day everyone.

Wednesday 26 September 2018

Flash O' Fire


Last night as I got into bed I thought I saw a flash of fire across the room. I didn't, of course, but thought I did. This happened twice. One of the things is that our our eyes only see bits of what we actually see, and our brains fill in the rest, so it's no wonder that that we get optical illusions and hallucinations.

This is probably the reason why people see ghosts, apparitions and UFOs and aliens, sometimes you see what you want to see rather than what is actually there. I often see things which I know cannot logically exist where I see them. It's always and instantaneous thing, that I see for a split second, though I am not sure what I would do if the apparition became persistent to the point of me believing that it was actually real, but some people are less fussy.

Another optical effect I've come across is that way objects that are further away seem nearer the further away from them you are when you view them though a window. It is a real mind bender when you first notice it and even when it is explained to you, which makes perfect sense, your mind still rails against the actual effect. Here is my Instagram post about it. Here is the Sydney Opera House Illusion explained.

Again this gets me to those 3D Magic Eye drawing images which  were big in th e1980s, though most of the time I really couldn't be bothered to concentrate to see the images. Then we go to th emind bending art of MC Escher which again bend reality for you and did inspire a scene in "Labyrinth" which bring David Bowie into play for this post.


Monday 20 August 2018

A Quiet Walk


This morning the first half of my walk to work was done without headphones, so it was effectively quiet , just the sounds of nature and the traffic. It is sometimes nice to just have the non silence, although I always eventually need to listen, but more of that later.

I was in Bradley's on Saturday and mentioned and showed them pictures of the CHAT Trust Phoenicx which I decided to route my walk past this morning as you can see here. This was after noticing the excellent notices on the four doors of Dabbawal in High Bridge on Sunday here.

It always gives me a lift to see witty and funny and original window decoration, and this definitely falls into that category.

This post is about harlf the length of the posts I normally do, but when I add this bit and then talk about what piece of music I am going to share it will suddenly self expand and I will have hit my normal 250 word target.

Maybe we can go with the Happy Mondoy's cover of John Kongos' "He's Gnna Step on You Again" (a favourite of my dad's) which the slowed down, baggied up and retitled as "Step On".

Tuesday 14 August 2018

Clouds and Total Football


Looking out of the window and there is an amazing cloud formation overhead. Here's my nstagram post.

Well it looks like the site visits have taken another dive, c'estla vie. The last two nights I have gone to bed early and this morning I was wide awake at 2:30.

I had woken from a dream but the dream was very influenced by the book I'm reading Matt Haig's "How To Stop Time" which is certainly a page turner but the main protagonist is possibly the most depressing since Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant. Both characters have a heavy burden but it does become wearing in the way it's presented., although other charaters do provide the hope and lighter sections.

The rain has taken a break so I may be able to walk into work to day and listen to some good music.

Today is the first round of the Carabao Cup and Preston North End are playing Morecambe, and on 6Music Chris Hawkins has just played "Total Football" by Parquet Courts so it has to be that doesn't it.

Have a good day everyone.