Three Graces

 

This is the first post of 2024

"Pies and Prejudice" by Stuart Maconie is excellent moving slowly north and reaching Liverpool and the Three Graces (they wanted four but the final one was rejected, if you want to know why read the book)

So eighty pages in I will probably be finished in less than six months.

He is also an excellent writer and DJ and worth checking out in print or on the BBC. 

If you want to buy a book of my poetry there is one on the link below.

I recently discovered that my American Amazon Author page has a feed from this blog which you can see here. It only shows on the .com site but not on others. C'est La Vie.

The music is "Heart As Big As Liverpool" by Pete Wylie .

Mike Singleton - Vocal Stories

I am not sure if you are aware of my writing on Vocal but these are a few of my stories if you would like to sample them:

1. Barter Books - An Amazing Bookshop In A Railway Station In Alnwick
2. The Plagiaristic Poetry Series - Poems Taken From Random-Themed Lines
3. Another Raven - A Take On Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven"
4. The Cleaner - An Autism-Focused Christmas Special
5. An Owl In A Towel - A Beautiful Book by Lesley and Cheryl
6. Three Reasons Why I Love Settle - Scaleber Force, The Hoffman Kiln and Castlebergh Crag
7. The Accidental Book - Helping a Great Vocal Friend Resulted In Me Publishing My First Book
8. Call Me Les - A Great Friend and An Amazing Writer

The Finest Song About Liverpool

A recent "reply" from Ian Prowse on Twitter has made me think about this. I've always considered Pete Wylie's anthemic "Heart as Big as Liverpool" because the fact that it's anthemic . It is a truly great song regardless of it's connections to Liverpool in it's subject and composer. It should be in everyone's music collection and I think has become ingrained in my Liverpool associations (I worked there on and off for for years). I also love the video and wish there was some way of having a video rotation at the top of this post.

"Does This Train Stop On Merseyside" does take it up a notch. First of all it is a great song, and very simple to play, with a great chorus, but it is also a wonderful four minute history of Liverpool , with references to slavery , locations , the Maryland Pyramid , Hillsborough and much more. It triggers questions in your mind about the city in an excellent way , so much that Ian Prowse and his band Amsterdam actually did a documentary about it.

My favourite rendition is Ian's solo performance in Liverpool cathedral though it was originally released by his band Amsterdam (who , when I first saw them I went and bought their two available albums they were that good) . I am going to share those lyrics here , as well as the documentary and links to buy the music. I think overall Ian Prowse wins this one but you are talking a 9.9 versus a ten, both superb songs.

"Mckenzie's soul lies above the ground

In that pyramid near Maryland

Easyjet is hanging in the air

Taking everyone to everywhere

...Whoa

See slave ships sailing into port

The blood of Africa's on every wall

Now there's a layline runs down Mathew Street

It's giving energy to all it meets

...Whoa

Hey, does this train stop

Does this train stop on Merseyside

Whoa

Hey, does this train stop

Does this train stop on Merseyside

Whoa

Alan Williams in the Marlboro Arms

Giving his story out to everyone

Famine boats are anchored in the bay

Bringing the poor and deperate

...Whoa

Hey, does this train stop

Does this train stop on Merseyside

Whoa

Hey, does this train stop

Does this train stop on Merseyside

Boston babies bouncing on the ground

The riggers beaming out to every town

Whoa... Yeh... Yeh

Why don't you remember

Whoa... Yeh... Yeh

Why don't you remember

Can't concieve what those children done

Guess theres a meaness in the soul of man

Yorkshire policemen chat with folded arms

While people try and save their fellow fans

Hey, does this train stop

Does this train stop on Merseyside

Whoa

Hey, does this train stop

Does this train stop on Merseyside"

 

 

Nothing To Say - #Oktoberfest #25 - Whiskey In The Jar - The Dubliners

I keep toying with the idea of doing a one or two word blog post just to see if anyone notices or not as they are all robots (I know they are not because although I am virtually unfollowed, and I'm not sure what benefit following gives the follower in the case of this blog, friends leave comments about posts on Facebook) but in 2010 I was on holiday in Oswaldkirk and posted this. It had a link to a to photos from the holiday but , really, thirty words, but the cat picture is good and the photograph link has some decent stuff on there from my point of view.

So anyway it's Monday morning and I don't have much to say after a weekend of Football disappointment in which Preston North End lost to a goal in the 98th minute (though Reading are a real bogey team for us) , Newcastle lost to Chelsea (that was not unexpected, the fact it was only 1-0 was), Liverpool's juggernaut was finally unexpectedly stopped by a misfiring Manchester United but the were not beaten (and I love Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Jurgen Klopp) and Ayr (Fiona's team)  were unexpectedly beaten by Dunfermline (who are my friend Scott's team so that was good for him).

Anyway, as I said, I have nothing to say this morning, so without further ado we will continue #Oktoberfest with "Whiskey in The Jar" by The Dubliners. That's the third time this song has appeared on this sequence but it's a great song and all the versions I have shared are excellent and worth your listening time, and The Dubliners live take here is certainly livelier than the Thin Lizzy / The King takes

Dawn is breaking now so I may get a photo or two on my walk to work this morning.

By the way the blog visits has now passed 320K and although this most was meant to be short , it's more than 300 words (I think my average is about 250 words), so so much for nothing to say , whether it's worth reading is a different matter entirely.

A Facebook Holiday

I'm on a thirty day Facebook ban. I checked their Community Guidelines and have not transgressed any for my last two bans, but Facebook can interpret the guides any way they want, they can always say it's sexual whether it is or it isn't. It's their club so it's their rules.They don't even tell you what the problem is, it reminds of the Monty Python sketch where the guy gets a coffee table nailed to his head for transgressing the "unwritten rule", almost Kafkaesque.

My main problem is that you are stopped from any kind of response to anything including via Messenger so people think you are ignoring them. So I think that the best option is account deactivation then reactivation after the ban is finished. To be quite honest I don't think anyone will notice I have gone so that may influence whether I go back to Facebook.

I am very happy that Liverpool won the Champions League Final though the match was hardly a classic. So this is post 1934 so what song can I share with you from that year. Well "Honeysuckle Rose" by the excellent Fats Waller fits the bill, and I think it's an excellent song too.

Another Facebook Ban

Well it's the first day of June and I start with a thirty day Facebook and Messenger ban for sharing my friend Sophia's Tattoo Page picture of a sternum tattoo (see here) with another friend who had posted one that she had had done. Facebook bans are pathetic and inconsistent but there is zero I can do about it apart from stop sharing and stop posting because they can deem anything not acceptable, and person A can post something and person B can be banned for sharing it. There needs to be consistency, but my thought on the ban which I set down here still stand.

I often use Messenger to communicate but the ban holds on that too , so people who message can't be replied to.

Anyway less of that, it's the first of June, a gorgeous day, we have the Champions League final between Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool in Madrid which hopefully will turn out as good as the second half of the Europa League Final between Arsenal and Chelsea.

This is post 1933 so keeping the lear connection I'll share "Lazybones" by Hoagy Carmichael from that year, as this has been covered many times, and it's just a song I remember from a cover in the seventies which I think was by Jonathan King. After he was disgraced like Gary Glitter I was in liverpool and the Caver Club has a brick wall with the names of all the acts that have appeared ther, but there are two highlighted bricks that say Jonathan King and Gary Glitter have been removed. They should have just removed them and said nothing.

The blog passed the 200K mark last night so still getting lots of visits , which is not bad considering I have only four subscribers. I do wish some of my 400 Facebook friends would subscribe so that when I am banned or finally leave they can still see what I am up to.

Anyway have a great day.

FactoryZoo

Just shoved together two of my most liked record labels Factory from Manchester and Zoo from Liverpool because I do  have a book called "Factory".

Factory was the imprint of Tony / Anthony Wilson and brought us among others Joy Division , Happy Mondays , New Order and lots more as well as lots of iconic design ideas. The Hacienda Club used the black and yellow warning stripes , now every time I see it I don't think WARNING I thing HACIENDA or FACTORY . A brilliant idea. The film "24 Hour Party People" is about Tony Wilson and the lasting enigma of Factory Records. It was also responsible for releasing "Reach For Love" by Marcel King, one of my favourite records ever. It's also Shaun Ryder's favourite Factory single.

Everything on Factory had a catalogue number (The Hacienda was FAC51)

Zoo Records from Liverpool was nowhere near as influential as Factory but I remember getting a compilation (Street To Street: A Liverpool Album - 1978) and loving "Match of The Day" by Big In Japan, who featured Holly Johnson, Ian Broudie , Bill Drummond and Budgie. The label also featured Echo and The Bunnymen , Teardrop Explodes and lots more so still very important.

It is quite surprising that Zoo Records are almost impossible to track down these days and a lot of the Factory compilations are similar. Discogs seems to be the best way of sourcing them.

So it's Sunday , the weather is gorgeous , so I may relax and enjoy it or possibly nip out for a walk, but either way I am going to have a relaxing day. Hope you do too.

The End of The Weekend

I was apprehensive about reading Stephen Fry's "Mythos" mainly due to the number of pages and the small type after James O'Briens' excellent "How To Be Right" (both shorter and with larger type so easier to read for my ancient eyes).

That's one of the benefits of eReaders, you get to choose the size of the font, although the bigger the font the more pages / page turns you effectively get, but it really does put you in control.

Anyway I am a fan of all mythologies and in "Mythos" Fry takes on the Greeks and it is incredibly readable, dashing all my apprehensions. It's like having a lesson from a really good teacher or watching an episode of QI, and he illustrates the very beginnings of Greek mythology often using contemporary illustrations and more than a little humour. He also brings his ego to bear, but non of this is to the detriment of the book, which I am now looking forward to having a very enjoyable ride through.It really is that good.

Today also saw the culmination of the English Premier League with Manchester City pipping Liverpool who were 25 points ahead of Chelsea. Liverpool finished second with 97 points after losing only one match this season, a stunning achievement, but even more stunning was Manchester City taking the title. LIverpool now have a Champions League Final to play.

So a great end to the weekend, and tomorrow sees another visit to the Freeman Hospital for me, though this time it is relatively minor and nowhere near the extreme discomfort of last week's endoscopy.

So I hope your weekend has been good, and just to vaguely find a related song and thought I would go for "Pandora's Box" by Procol Harum, which I always found vaguely sinister with it's off kilter signature motif, though apparently their name is Latin for "Far From Things" so not Greek, although Greek and Roman Mythologies were always interchangeable.

Five

So England will have five* teams in next seasons Champions League. Tottenham Hotspur, like Liverpool last night overcame a three goal deficit to win on away goals with a last minute winner at Ajax. I'd said to my friend Obi today, who was dismissive of any chance they might have, that they had Son and Lucas Moura , and if Moura played to his abilities they definitely had a chance.

So Tottenham conceded two early goals just to make life difficult, and set themselves a task they had not achieved since 2010 (against Arsenal), overcome a two goal deficit to win an away match, against a team that had disposed of Real Madrid and Juventus. That was no mean feat.

Lucas Moura score all the Spurs goals and you can see the match report here. Given what has happened over the last two nights God knows what will happen in the Champions League Final in Madrid, I wouldn't like to call it.

Basically, from the point of view of the English and Neutrals you have seen two amazing matches that go to the top of the scale for excitement, nerves and unexpected results. It is unlikely such a thing will ever pass again.

So a piece of music to celebrate this momentous occasion, I think we will go for another Pete Wylie / Mighty Wah slice of beautiful brilliance, the wonderful "Come Back" (which you can actually download for 99p) which Tottenham Hotspur can do with pride and their heads held high. There is no way I would disgrace this post with "Diamond Lights"

* Just realised it will only be five if Chelsea and Arsenal both win tonight.... we shall see

Liverpool is Liverpool

This is just to record the fact that Liverpool thrashed Barcelona last night is one of the most amazing turnarounds in modern sport. Statisticians had given Liverpool a 4% chance of progressing, they were missing their two main strike threats, although the final third of their strike force has hit the net 20 times this season.

Even Liverpool fans were resigned to going out , but I pointed out that Liverpool are not one man, Liverpool are Liverpool, they have a team, they have a brilliant engaging manager who most of the time gets it right and knows how to motivate people (loved the bear hug as he sent Daniel Sturridge on for the last five minutes last night, that is someone who cares). His Barcelona counterpart was stoney faced and immobile throughout the night.

Barcelona have Messi , Suarez, Coutinho and god know how many more, so the task was great, but last night was the stuff of Football legend. Jurgen Klopp's acquisition of Virgil Van Dijk has made their defence far more solid (though Newcastle scored two against them on Saturday) but Divock Origi and Giorgio Wijnaldum scored a brace each to take Liverpool though.

The match report is here.

An absolutely wonderful night and we will share my  (and John Peel's)favourite song about Liverpool to mark the occasion, Pete Wylie's "Heart as Big As Liverpool".

There will be a lot of happy faces in Liverpool this morning.

#AprilSongs #27 Saturday Night's (Alright for Fighting)

I originally was going to choose "Book of Saturday" by King Crimson for this but I had got it mixed up with "The Great Deceiver" (this is an acoustic reinterpretation and is rather good but you get the idea) from "Starless and Bible Black" ( What a wonderful and perfect description of dark night from "Under Milkwood" by Dylan Thomas) but the two songs could not be more different, the former in my opinion being fairly insipid while the latter is a brass assault and brilliant album opener. They are both on Youtube so you can check them out.

So then I though well "Saturday Night's (Alright for Fighting)" is one of Elton John's best and maybe a little obvious, but has some great lyrics and one of my favourite couplets:

"I'm a juvenile product of the working class 

Whose best friend floats in the bottom of a glass"

I've found an excellent 1984 live take which shows how good Elton John can be. This is the final #AprilSongs Saturday song and the whole sequence will be complete on the first of May.

Last I night I went to see Half Man Half Biscuit at The Boiler Shop and it was an amazing gig at a great venue. I managed to meet two people who I knew but had forgotten. The first was Clare (I don't know if that is the correct spelling as there are so many ways to spell the name)  from the Glamorous Owl (and if you want to partake in one of their excellent ring making workshops you get 20% off on the site) and I managed to compound my ignorance by not realising she had the names of the band on her T Shirt. She was with Victoria (who now lives in Liverpool) and a very affable Anarchist who I have probably seen at the Black Bull.

The other person was someone I have worked with, but it must be at least fifteen years back, but he recognised me but we had about two minutes at the bar.

Anyway have an enjoyable Saturday, I am off to Edinburgh.

Here It Comes

It's 11:30 on Friday night before the Bank Holiday Weekend. Normally I'm in bed asleep but for some reason I am fairly awake. Again I wasn't going to write anything tonight but I then thought I'm still awake and writing this will take me into Saturday Morning.

I'm looking forward to the Liverpool vs Real Madrid Champions League Final as it might actually be worth watching. Betfair are offering 5/1 for Mo Salah and Christiano Ronaldo to score, and I think there is a pretty good chance of that happening, but Iwon't be putting the house on it.

The last couple of days I've listened to a couple of albums two or three times, the first was Genesis "Wind and Wuthering" which was the second album without Peter Gabriel but their final one with Steve Hackett and it was after this that they became very AOR/MOR and this, in my opinion, was their last consistently good album. They still could produce some killer songs, "Abacab", "Driving The Last Spike", "Mama" to name but a few but "Wind and Wuthering " consistently excellent and even on repeat you don't think of stopping iit or skipping songs, even "You're Own Special Way" is fine and "Afterglow" is a wonderful finale.

The other album is Blue Oyster Cult's "Spectres". While not totally consistent, this is maybe because of the absolute killer songs that pepper the album. The heavy metal lyrical perfection of the opener "Godzilla" is amazing and that is followed by their own "Born To Be Wild" anthem "The Golden Age Of Leather". Add to this "Fireworks", "RU Ready To Rock"  and "Nosferatu" and you know this is a class album that should be in your possession.

How To Start Christmas Day

As a kid Christmas Day started for us at 1 minute past midnight on Christmas Eve, by that time Santa had left some small presents at the bottom of our bed, though we couldn't go down until much later, like when it was light but there were things to eat and play with and by that time mum and dad had gone to bed and didn't complain about us having lights on at night.

I remember when I was living in Southport (and working at Littlewoods in Liverpool) the train line ran back and forth from Southport to Liverpool Central Station. My friend Jim had been out for a few drinks and left for home at 2 pm as they had visitors coming at 5 (it was a half hour journey). He fell asleep. ..... When he woke he was disorientated and then realised he was back in Central Station, so thought he would just just wait for the train to head back to Southport. He waited, and waited, and waited and then a uniformed train   person came down the carriage and Jim asked what time the train was leaving. The guy looked surprised and said "It isn't mate, the trains stopped running half an hour ago" . Jim looked at his watch, it was 11:30pm , he was twenty miles from home on Christmas Eve, five and half hours late for his guest, and this was way way before mobil phones. I never found out what the aftermath was..

Roll forward a bit further and Juliet and Kirsty have graduated from Duplo to Lego and I have been out for Christmas drinks so am not exactly the mot coherent and focussed and then remember I have two Lego Constructions to put together one was definitely a castle and the other maybe a Space Station. This was a very daunting task, but I did manage to complete it, but the lesson was don't drink and do Lego.

Today as I am so old I tend to wake up at odd times and today was no exception, but I thought well I can do a blog post and then go back to bed, there's no pressure , and the obly thing I need to do is check on my neighbour's fish. It's dtill dark and windy out (as it should be at 5:30 am on Christmas Morning) and there are no signs of a White Christmas (although it did rain a bit yesterday evening).

So these are a few tales of how Christmas has been for me previously, and I hope your Christmas turns out to be absolutely perfect.

My #SuddenlyItsChristmas moment is going to be the greatest Christmas song of all time "A Fairy Tale of New York" by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl, despite the latest outrage about the lyrics (see here), it's about two flawed people who are maybe not the Christmas paragons of virtue you might expect. I would never use those words as insults and sure all MY gay friends love the song , sing ALL the words and don't take offence because it's a self contained story, and to be quite honest it's probably nothing more than a convenient rhyme in the song (and often poetry does rhyme)

Anyway have a brilliant day

Birthday Thoughts and Thanks

I was 60 yesterday, but on Friday I was incredibly touched when I had a presentation at work. I walked in at 8 to find my desk desecrated (in the nicest way) with "60" banners and paraphenalia, but in the after noon came the presentation and a bag with a cup , som bottles of coke , a bet for Preston and Liverpool to win (they bothe drew :) ) and a very substantian INTU voucher whuch I am fairly certain will be going towards a new handset as I found that Carphone Warehouse are doing the Google Pixel unlocked, which good.

On Satruday Kirsty and Molly came over with more presents including a great personlaised print from her Juliet and Mark, as well as a DVD of the Grateful Dead's final concert and a Blu Ray of Dave Gilmour at Pompeii..

The weekend was then spent at La Rosa and I got more presents from Fiona, plus a bottle of Bucks Fizz courtesy of the lovely staff at La Rosa. Amazingly there was no TV, Video or Music over the weekend , just quiet, not that I'm getting old but it's nice to have the option. I got a phone call from my Dad too and that was nice , and you can see various presents and stuff on my Instagram Channel here.

So all in all everything goes on as before, I still have lots I want to do, and lots I've not done, but this is a big thank your to everyone who's wished me a happy birthday and I hope I can do the same in 2077. Sleep well everybody.

I'll leave with The Grateful Dead's final take on "Terrapin Station" one of my favourite Grateful Dead songs.

360° of Circles

I am tired, well my body is, but my mind won't let me sleep. I'm up to page 360 in "Who Am I" and one of my favourite who songs is "Circles" which appeared on The Who's "Ready Steady Who" EP (On the blue Reaction label if I remember rightly), I once had that I bought for about 30p from Palace Records in Preston and sold for £20 at Probe Records in Liverpool. I didn't plan to do that, but that's the way it happened. Though if you click through on Circles you will see that The Deluxe My Generation CD which cost me about a fiver , is going for over a hundred pounds. I won't be selling mine though.

Glastonbury When It Was Good

The Palace was a record shop cum coffee house near the old Public Hall and I used to spend a lot ofsixth form time in there when I should have been studying, but listening to music, chatting with friends and drinking coffee was much more preferable that study. Then picking up decent second hand stuff like the original Glastonbury Soundtrack , triple album in it's pyramid sleeve, with the odd dud , like a band called Lucifer the album sleeve was black and the music was a fuzzy bass playing six notes that even I could play.







We used to frequent that place in preference to pubs, and to be quite honest, I'm probably the same now, preferring Bohemian places like Bar Loco to you chains and pubs.

Anyway maybe I will go to bed now, so enjoy your night, and have a nice lie in.

We All Make Mistakes .. And Often That's Good

Someone asked me if I knew about the Alberts as they'd seen a great documentary on them. I said yes, I have , and have a couple of their records, and whilst they were influential I thought, they're hardly the sort of band who would merit a documentary, especially now. Although I then pondered and thought well, with today's access to recording and media , anyone who's willing to put the work in can actually make a documentary about anything. In an experiment I did a very short one about Staddle Stones here just to see if I could talk about something maybe people had wondered about. It was unprepared, so I just said what I knew, but there's a good example of the story of of mine and John Peel's second favourite song about Liverpool , Amsterdam's "Does This Train Stop On Merseyside" here. Anyway that's by the by...

It's All Jazz

The band I was talking about was the trad jazz band The Alberts, from the early sixties who were a big influence on The Bonzo Dog Band and other less illustrious musical combos. I'm not sure if they even made any albums , as I can only find odd tracks on compilations.






They were talking about Alberts an Australian music dynasty , responsible for bands such as AC/DC and the Easybeats and many, many more and a new documentary called Blood and Thunder that has been released documenting their history. The trailer of it is below. So it's just an example of how you can be talking about the same thing but actually be talking about something different. While searching for this I found a documentary on The Easybeats here. which is well worth a visit.

And the good thing about mistakes like this is that you can discover even more about stuff that you didn't know about, a great example of a good mistake.

Anyway hope you enjoy the music , and I hope this post isn't marked as abusive and offensive by Facebook like the last one was. Have a great Sunday everybody

Backsliding Fearlessly

Mott The Hoople

Don't know what brought that to mind, I think it's the name of a Mott The Hoople song, which will be somewhere in my collection because I do have quite a large one. It's actually on their first album, the one with the MC Escher sleeve featuring the paper crocodiles.

One of the things I like about writing a blog post is the way you can just ignore the rules and flit from one thing to another as your mind sees fit ... or unfit as the case may be.




As I say I don't what inspired me on this post but now as a video for this post I want an Escher animation , you would think that someones bound to have done one on Youtube, and when you look there are quite few on there but this one is very inventive and a joy to watch. The guy looks like a cross between Gru and one of his minions in Despicable Me!

So it's quite a leap from a seventise rock band to a kids animated film , although The Beatles did do Yellow Submarine , so maybe it's not that far fetched , and they have an actual Yellow Submarine in the Matthew Street complex in Liverpool.

Anyway this post has told you little although it may have joined some dots that didn't actually need joining, but I hope it stimulated you or made you smile a little. It's time for bed for me, so I hope you are having a great week and tomorrow it's Friday. Have a good one!!

A Lot of Music , Hospitals and Liverpool

This week I've been to two gigs , seen some old friends, met some new ones,  seen four bands , The Star Spangled Chestwigs, Toxic , Go Go Midgets and Penetration and had a check up at the hospital before my operation, and annoying they want me to go in the day before my op and stay overnight to check my platelet levels.

Anyway on the player is Go Go Midgets "Beneath The Valley of the UltraMidgets"  which they gave away last night free at The Three Tuns, and very good it is too.. If you check out their Facebook Page there's a lot of free downloads to enjoy.

Was discussing the best songs about Liverpool last night, so I've included mine and John Peel's favourite, the magnificent "Heart As Big As Liverpool" composed by Pete Wylie and performed by Ian Prowse who composed the second best song about Liverpool ever "Does This Train Stop On Merseyside" , another opinion shared by me and John Peel. The documentary is at the bottom of the post, very interesting and entertaining.

Liver Biopsy - Not My Body (I think You Knew That)

The reason being that I've been hit by ITP twice in my life (the last time fifteen years back after  spending a night outdoors in sub zero temperatures - so I know what the homeless have to endure on nights like that) . I pointed out I'd recently had some fairly invasive stuff for my Liver Biopsy which was done in a day , but to no avail. I do feel over caution has won out in this case as I would know if the ITP had hit as I check every day for the signs.


Anyway so I'm in hospital 18th August til the 19th of August for the op so no playing out that night (not that I ever play out of course.

Outside it's pouring down so plans to mow the lawn with take a hike tonight, which means I can watch some films. Currently watching the wonderful Hugo which is Martin Scorsese's first family film, so will finish that off tonight.

So though it's raining there's lot's of great stuff going on and the weekend is here so enjoy yourselves everyone.

Have FUN

Lot's of people miss this point and having fun can make you laugh, and making yourself laugh makes you happy and being happy makes you feel good. I was talking to someone about having fun and they had just discovered a comedy club in their town. In Newcastle we're lucky , we have lot's of comedy nights all over the place from pubs that put on comedy nights to the actual comedy venues such as the Hyena Cafe and The Stand.


I've seen my friends Gavin Webster and John Scott at both venues and always come away feeling better than I went in. So if you are looking for fun you can do worse than a decent comedy gig. I'm showing three videos in the post. The first is the brilliant John Scott , the second is Gavin Webster's take on the Gateshead Third Reich , and the third is not funny at all but just a wonderful song called Comedy by the brilliant Liverpool group Shack.

So I expect you all to have smiles on your faces , find something to laugh about and go forward into the week and have lots of fun.

Be Happy and Enjoy Yourself

Today I found that there was an update to Windows 8 from Microsoft , so I applied it. It was asking to share lots of stuff , and while I like sharing lots of things with my friends, I a bit more reticent about sharing with faceless corporations. I still get slightly annoyed that my Google searches on my PC appear on my phone as well.

XTC Go 2

But this doesn't stop me enjoying myself, and taking delight in the good things that others show me, like new music from around the world , such as a good friend showing me a brilliant XTC album cover, for their second album the excellent Go 2.

Their back catalog is amazing and if you don't know the band you should really check them out.

Pete Burns

 

I bought the album from Probe Records in Liverpool served , probably by Pete Burns of Dead or Alive, a striking individual even then. He never insulted me , so he must have thought my purchases were at least acceptable.

Anyway, the thing is lots of great music can make you happy , and it makes me happy, and there's one song that I'm thinking of and it was one of my mums favourites. Everybody put a smile on your face, have a great night and a great day tomorrow.

The Rain Has Gone - The Sun Is Back - Fighting With My Left Hand Part Whatever

We had the rain on Friday , the sun was back yesterday and this morning is shaping up to be good , too. Blue cloudless sky , which may make it initially cold cold but still it looks very nice outside.

During the week I managed to play G and C chords almost , and recorded me playing Ian Prowse's "Does This Train Stop On Merseyside" for a Youtube post. I wasn't happy with it, but do intend to post if I get a vaguely acceptable cut. The song is very easy to play, just the chords D, Am G and C played in repetition with it's 3 minute story of Liverpool. I've posted various Ian Prowse videos before , but will include the documentary on this post.

The song is John Peel's second favourite about Liverpool and has been covered by Christy Moore. I don't disagree with Mr Ravenscroft.

Anyway on Tuesday I am in hospital for an EMG session which will hopefully establish that I have a trapped nerve and that will account for what happened to my left hand and the muscle wastage and stuff. The session will take up to an hour but obviously there's all the getting there , waiting about and questions and form filling that goes with it. So  on Tuesday I expect to have some good news.