Back In The Night

One AM this time and for some reason can't sleep. Yesterday was a relapse and today intend to stop and maybe just have a bath and do some catch up TV. The title comes from the opening song on the Wilko Johnson interview which should still be on 6 music here til next Sunday and I would recommend to go a listen to it , failing that get a copy of Oil City Confidential the brilliant Julien Temple

Anyway this a short one and an excuse to include Dr Feelgood's Back In The Night in my June's Tunes series. Ofviously my back in the night and the songs subject are quite different said he with a chuckle:

Hardwick Cottage, Ampleforth

These days I seldom do specific posts about cottages we've stayed in, but this one is exceptional. The owner Rose is very welcoming and the cottage was her father's house. The renovations are documented in one of the welcome books you see as you walk into the large airy dining room and kitchen.

The front room features a book filled tall boy which belonged to Ros's grandmother as well as a modern TV and DVD , player and dedicated wifi , plus an incoming land line. Some cottages are provisioned with cast offs , but in this case whatever is best for the cottage has been provided. Even the selection of films , in my opinion is faultless : Amelie , The Motorcycle Diaries , Withnail & I and Tea With Mussolini and more (including the very disturbing In The Night Garden - CBeebies have a lot to answer for)

There's no need for any photographs as you can look round it here.

I can highly recommend this cottage.

Oh by the way the spiders seem to have vacated the premises!!

Anyway I also need to post an approprate song of the day for June's Tunes, and you think of Our House by Madness or CSNY or Country House by Blur but thinking a bit further on it and decided on the idyllic "Village Green Preservation Society" by the Kinks , then I saw this Kate Rusby version and decided to go with that one which sort of goes with the feeling of the place:

Ampleforth, Spiders and Evolution

Still feeling the after effects of whatever I've had , but well impressed with the cotage which sensibly has it's own wifi , though I feel this will be a growing trend. Ironic that I cant get a phone signal so cant recieve calls or texts but can use my phone to surf the net and listen to online radio stations. You can see the cottage here.

Anyway this was up during the night and noticed a spider in the bath (there are lots of arachnid vistors to this cottage but what can you expect is such a rural area). This morning it was still there and it got me wondering. Spiders are essentially intelligent creatures and ceramic baths have been around for 150 years or so , so why have they not learned to climb out of a bath yet. More pertinently a spider arriving in a bath from the plug hole is like a driver arriving in a cul-de-sac . Eventually you realise that you've made a mistake (unless the place you want to go is in the cul-de-sac) and then you leave the way you came, This is one area where spider show a distinct lack of intelligence.

Lot's of people can't be doing with spiders and it's basically humans cannot deal with creatures with more legs than them that move faster than them. I'm generally ok with spiders as they cull the insect population , but would prefer it if they keep out of my way.

Given the amount of arachnid action today there can only be one one song for the June's Tunes:

It's Four In The Morning .. And I Feel Awful

Well it isn't it's actually 1:48 , but while trying to sleep since 8 pm last night have kept being woken up by coughing fits and an extremely sore throat coughing up some not very nice stuff. It's times like these when I get scared the ITP may come back, but last couple of times I thought it was happening I've recovered sufficiantly. Just found this ITP support site which includes an article on a (nearly) nude St Andrews Calendar , information here.

Just glad this has occurred at the beginning of my holiday at a weekend , which means , as I can't sleep, I can write this post. The fact I can write this means that I must be on the mend , last night I was only fit to drop into bed. Symptoms 'flu like aching , very sore thoat as soon as you lay down tickly cough kicks in , but you are actuallly too tired and weak to get up , but you have to to spit out the horrible phlegm to get it out of your system (swallowing is not an option).

Anyway for some reason the phrase "Four In The Morning" popped into my mind which I've just realised was a syruppy counry and western confection by Faron Young , but the one that I was thinking of was the song by Kevin Godley and Lol Creme from their triple album Consequences that they put out after splitting from 10CC (who have already featured in my June's Tunes). So here is the wonderful song , the kettle is on and I'm going to make myself a cup of tea!!

Now I've found the video , the song is actually called Five O'Clock In The Morning , memory not fully populated , it's still a fantastic song , have a listen. Just checked the albums on Amazon and they will now leave a serious dent in your pocket and there is not much available on download.

Windows 8 Maps and Scottish Pirate Metal

I'm still getting to grips with Windows 8 so this may be an unfair rant. One of the problems in building intuitive interfaces is that the user has to guess what the designer wants the user to do and the designer has to pre empt what the average user will do.

So I was presented with a map roughly centered on Newcastle , with a Bing logo in the bottom left hand corner (and we all know how rubbish Bing searches are) , so that doesnt bode well for the package. Eventually I discovered that a right click on the bottom of the screen brings up a menu with a directions button whicjh I selected , put it my start and destination post codes and it drew a blue line on the map....

...and that was it , no printed directions , no opportunity to put in detours. So went back to Google Maps and got what  I needed.

Anyway it's sunny, and I will we driving down despite having a cough , cold , maybe hayfever and feeling quite rubbish. This day in 1692 an earthquake destroyed Port Royal in Jamaica , a notorious pirate haven . Article here. This gives me the inspiration for todays June's Tunes , the Scottish Pirate Metal (how niche can you get)  band Alestorm

Life is just a TLA and Iron Maiden

It's the sixth of June already. We're half way through 2013. Another work day. And need a piece of music for today's June's Tunes. It's funny how sunny weather is quite uplifting but when it's grey you can easily feel down . It that what they call SAD (Seasonal Affected Disorder) . Yesterday I was told I may have had a TIA , and the doctor spoke as though I should have known what he meant . It's a sort of mini - stroke that leaves little or no trace barring the damage it does. So in theory you could have one and not be aware of it. TIA stands for Transient Ischaemic Attack which would have disturbed me even more if he'd come out with that !

Still it's just another TLA (Three Letter Acronym) , anyway here's today's tune ,ad it's the sixth we'll go for Iron Maiden's 666 - The Number Of The Beast:


   

Oh by the way Maiden England are playing The Doll at The Black Bull soon . Check here for details.

Trailing Spaces and TIA

Whenever you parse a string in any programming language you should usually exclude trailing or leading spaces. This is because usually they have been but there accidentally, It means that comparisons will fail if you do not remove the spaces.This has happened four times to me today on web forms.

It's amazing how many basic rules seem to have been thrown out of the window with the new programming regimes . Fast and cheap , standards gone , and we have to live with it.

In other news com back from hospital with the news that they think I've had a TIA except I still cant use my little finger properly. So it looks like its just going to be a long slog to regain the use of it once more , either that or I stick to playing bass!

Anyway today's tune for June  is The Hospital Song by 10CC , I'd forgotten how good this was :

The Moon In June

This was one of the songs that I had down for the June's Tunes. Obviously it could be used any day , but less obviously it is probably a tune most of you don't know. Always loved Soft Machine , but lots of you will know Karl Jenkins and maybe even Robert Wyatt - banned from performing on top of the pops because he was in a wheelchair and it might disturb sensitive viewers. He actually was on once with a stellar backing band featuring Nick Mason (Pink Floyd) , Fred Frith (Henry Cow) and may others when he covered The Monkee's I'm a Believer . It may actually be already on this blog (check the Robert Wyatt tags). Oops it's not but I will actually post about it soon.

Anyway summer is still with us and is likely to be here all week.

Happy days

On The Third Day ....

.. and that's the name of an Electric Light Orchestra album (when they were good) . Today the computer decided not to start and the burglar alarm decided to just play silly buggers. The weather is still good , in fact very hot , so summer looks like it's here.

For the June's Tunes I want to get away from the numbers but also want to have the Bob Dorough original of Three (Is a Magic) number. I have 30 days to go for more obscure stuff , so I will actually go for it. I first heard it on an excellent Blue Note sampler.

Incidentally Roy Wood formed the Elelectric Light Orchestra because he wanted to continue the musical direction taken by the Beatles on Strawberry Fields. Whether he was successful you can judge for yourself but Roy Wood left after the first album leaving Jeff Lynne to produce some excellent stuff while Wood went off and formed Wizzard as well as producing a great body of solo work.

Anyway here's Bob......

Two To Know

Today its the second of June and was thinking of something to do with the day for the June's Tunes task , and my first thought was Sunday Morning by The Velvet Underground , well actually it wasn't , it was U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday , both fine songs but I am trying to keep off the obvious track , and for some reason Pink Floyd's "Arnold Layne" came to mind.

The reason for it is the phrase "Two Too Know" , which actually found its way into the Oxford Book of Fine Verse , despite the song being controversial as it was about a man who's "strange hobby " was stealing ladies underwear from washing lines at night for his own nefarious purposes. The wiki link is here.


Anyway in the rest of the news , the weather is good , and I way have a wander along to day two of the Green Festival as the weather is gorgeous again. Just realized over the last two weeks the weather has been gorgeous over the weekends and rubbish during the week , just what you want for any normal person.

Junes Tunes

Last year I did "A Post A Day In May". This year for every day in June I will post a song that bears some relation to that day. It be the day , the date or something relating to it. I may do a full Grooveshark playlist at the end , although I may also try it on Deezer to compare the two.

This week has been semi eventful . I finally got a new Windows 7 computer delivered , but it turns out it's Windows 8 . I have then reinstalled most of the software on the new box , the hardest being the POP3 Email of Thunderbird , but that is all done now, The computer is up , running and behaving.

I entered my Dark Side Of The Moon representation on the EE Facebook page  to win a Glastonbury Ticket which I would give away if I won it.

And today I went to the Green Festival and saw the excellent Too Spicy , who I will write up on the Spoongig site.

Anyway todays June's Tune is  "One Fine Day" by The Chiffons.