A Near Miss (Isn't That A Hit?)

I thought that I might hit a 100K visit by midnight tomorrow, but it looks unlikely. I had over 5K visits yesterday, but today it's just 3K at the moment meaning I would need 6K tomorrow. It might happen but I can see it stalling at 99,999 but that is still an unexpectedly decent achievement.

 "How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered The World" by Francis Wheen is still on Creationism vs Darwinism argument. Essentially Creatism is for people who cannot understand scientific concepts. Science always questions itself, religion doesn't. The Bible may have started out with some moral tenets and some of them are still worth following today, but also condones horrible things like slavery, misogyny and murder.

If you want to buy a book my dark poetry is on the link below.

The music "Rings Around The World" by the Super Furry Animals

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 others. C'est La Vie.

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

Oh My God

 "How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered The World" by Francis Wheen is still on politics but is now on the Creationism vs Darwinism argument. Essentially Creatism is for people who cannot understand scientific concepts. Science always questions itself, religion doesn't. The Bible may have started out with some moral tenets and some of them are still worth following today, but also condones horrible things like slavery, misogyny and murder.

This blog is still getting over three thousand hits a day and this month is now the most visits I have had in a single month, over 80K.  I am now starting to get greedy and need 18K reads before midnight on the 30th to hit 100K in a month. That would need 5K visits a day, and yesterday hit what was probably a high for a day at 3975.

If you want to buy a book my dark poetry is on the link below.

The music is "The Four Horsemen" by Aphrodite's Child featuring Demis Roussos and Vangelis from the album "666"

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 others. C'est La Vie.

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

Up In The Air

"How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered The World" by Francis Wheen started with political and philosophical observations and showed me just how idiotic and evil Thatcher and Reagan's policies were and laid the foundation for the disgusting states of the UK and US economies today. The book has now settled into how Mumbo Jumbo now means far more than solid evidence.

This blog is still getting over three thousand hits a day and this month is now the most visits I have had in a single month, over 71K. While I thought one or two posts a month on my writing were OK to keep it ticking over, this month I will hit double figures. If I don't post then figures drop off. I am not sure how this will benefit me although advertising revenue has started to pick up, I was hoping I could cause some traffic to go to my Vocal site though I have not seen any evidence of that happening yet.

Grammarly is still being annoying.

If you want to buy a book my dark poetry is on the link below.

The music is Kites by Simon Dupree and the Big Sound with a slideshow I made at the Washington Kite Festival in 2010.

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 others. C'est La Vie.

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 Wicked Witch Of Westminster

I am reading "How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered The World" by Francis Wheen which has started with political and philosophical observations.I know it is thought-provoking and but this may take a little longer than my lost book. The shocking thing is that while I disliked Margaret Thatcher intensely I did not realise how absolutely awful the woman was. She must be so proud of that Wannabe Idi Amin Rishi Sunak.

She wanted to destroy the welfare state and quoted the bible to justify her aims.

"if A Man Does Not Work He Should Not Eat"

She planned the miners' strike, militarizing the police to destroy them, caused rampant inflation by idiot trickle-down policies and sent unemployment through the roof. Her pal was Reagan and they pursued the same policies. The USA had not been in deficit til Reagan got in and it is still suffering from the policies that he implemented.

This blog is still getting over three thousand hits a day and this month is now the most visits I have had in a single month. It has just passed 900K visits.

If you want to buy a book my dark poetry is on the link below.

The music is Pete Wylie's "The Day That Margaret Thatcher Dies" which is the only song that I could use though I'm not sure it ever got an official release

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 others. C'est La Vie.

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. Three Reasons Why I Love Settle - Scaleber Force, The Hoffman Kiln and Castlebergh Crag
6. The Accidental Book - Helping a Great Vocal Friend Resulted In Me Publishing My First Book

Dancing The Entropy Tango

I am still getting high figures on the blog this month with just over 26K visits this month, there were 7K last month, but 3.5K yesterday. The only thing that I have done is add a nofollow attribute to all my non-Vocal links. The figures are below.

I finished "The Men Who Stare At Goats" by Jon Ronson which is both entertaining, funny and very worrying.

I was thinking of going for another Jon Ronson book but decided to go for "The Entropy Tango" by Michael Moorcock as he is a favourite author and this book has provided some input into my Plagiaristic Poetry series. I was surprised to see that he made an album with his band Deep Fix which you can see here

If you want to buy a book my dark poetry is on the link below.

The music is "Entropy Tango" by Michael Moorcock and Deep Fix

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 others. C'est La Vie.

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

Seven Days In Some Numbers

I am still getting high figures on the blog this month with just over 20K visits this month, there were 7K last month. The only thing that I have done is add a nofollow attribute to all my non-Vocal links. The figures are below.

I may finish "The Men Who Stare At Goats" by Jon Ronson this week, but it is getting more disturbing with each page I turn, but there are only another forty to go and then I need to find something else.

If you want to buy a book my dark poetry is on the link below.

The music is "Don't Tell Me" by Blancmange as it is on my player at the moment and it is a superb record.

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 others. C'est La Vie.

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. Another Raven - A Take On Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven"
3. The Cleaner - An Autism-Focused Christmas Special
4. An Owl In A Towel - A Beautiful Book by Lesley and Cheryl
5. Three Reasons Why I Love Settle - Scaleber Force, The Hoffman Kiln and Castlebergh Crag
6. The Accidental Book - Helping a Great Vocal Friend Resulted In Me Publishing My First Book
7. Call Me Les - A Great Friend and An Amazing Writer

The Goat Still Stands

I may finish "The Men Who Stare At Goats" by Jon Ronson. this week, it has been entertaining but disturbing. I am not sure what is coming next, but it may be something similar.

Grammarly is being awkward, but I thought I would just drop on to say a little bit about where I am up to and share some music with you, which is vaguely appropriate.

If you want to buy a book my dark poetry is on the link below.

The music is "Dirty Water" by The Standells and a great easy-to-play riff and archetypal sixties garage punk.

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 others. C'est La Vie.

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. Another Raven - A Take On Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven"
3. The Cleaner - An Autism-Focused Christmas Special
4. An Owl In A Towel - A Beautiful Book by Lesley and Cheryl
5. Three Reasons Why I Love Settle - Scaleber Force, The Hoffman Kiln and Castlebergh Crag
6. The Accidental Book - Helping a Great Vocal Friend Resulted In Me Publishing My First Book
7. Call Me Les - A Great Friend and An Amazing Writer

Still Staring At Goats

I  expect to finish "The Men Who Stare At Goats" by Jon Ronson. The thing about this is on the one hand it is funny because it is so ludicrous, but it is scary because these things really happened. It is just going on about torture techniques at Guantanamo Bay but has included methods such as playing Barney The Purple Dinosaur to Iraqi prisoners none stop in order to break them down. There are funny bits laced in with horrific bits.

Another thing that has happened this month, well it started on the last day of May is that visit figures have gone through the roof for the blog. The only thing I have done is add is added the nofollow attribute to my Amazon links. The figures are below and there are already 900 today and it's 7am. I have already passed May's total, also since I did that my Vocal reads have been high, I don't know if the two are related.

Changed my bookmark from the one I got made for me for reviewing a book on Norse mythology to a freebie I picked up on my last visit to Barter Books (link below).

It is really useful because it is like an old wooden ruler with lots of measurement conversions written on it. Check it out here.

If you want to buy a book my dark poetry is on the link below.

I've included "She Knows" by Melanie Garside as I rediscovered her excellent "Fossil" album this week that you can read about here.

I recently found out 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 others. C'est La Vie.

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. Another Raven - A Take On Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven"
3. The Cleaner - An Autism-Focused Christmas Special
4. An Owl In A Towel - A Beautiful Book by Lesley and Cheryl
5. Three Reasons Why I Love Settle - Scaleber Force, The Hoffman Kiln and Castlebergh Crag
6. The Accidental Book - Helping a Great Vocal Friend Resulted In Me Publishing My First Book
7. Call Me Les - A Great Friend and An Amazing Writer

The Evening Of The Dumb

This is my most prolific month in 2023 on Seven Days In with five posts (most months have been lucky to get one), but that is probably because the book I am reading now is an easier read than the last one.

Dawn of the Dumb by Charlie Brooker, is nearly twenty years old but could refer to so much that is happening today, the idiocy of the majority of people who believe and act on what the media tell them. The attitude that "Science doesn't know everything" but conspiracy theories and stuff you find on Tiktok are totally believable.

I am l still laughing, this was life fifteen years ago and a lot of the world has got much worse. Lots of other things I thought I had forgotten about have resurfaced, but for me, it is an entertaining read.

The song is by the Bonzo Dog Band's observation on the state of democracy.

I recently found out 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 others. C'est La Vie.

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. Brunch 23 - A great Restaurant in Fenham
2. Another Raven - A Take On Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven"
3. The Cleaner - An Autism-Focused Christmas Special
4. An Owl In A Towel - A Beautiful Book by Lesley and Cheryl
5. Three Reasons Why I Love Settle - Scaleber Force, The Hoffman Kiln and Castlebergh Crag
6. The Accidental Book - Helping a Great Vocal Friend Resulted In Me Publishing My First Book
7. Call Me Les - A Great Friend and An Amazing Writer

I'm Still In Tiers

I have another thirty pages til the end of World of Tiers by Philip Jose Farmer and still feel as though it will never end. I will finish it but not sure if I will start the second volume immediately.

This week I visited the John Marley Centre for the first time and if you wait on this page you should be automatically redirected there. I went to check out Beyond Vinyl and some of their art.

There is too much going on for me, and I know that people will love that but it has really been a slog for me and at nearly five hundred pages the end has been a very long time coming.

I recently found out 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 others. C'est La Vie.

The music is "Greed Is Good" by Shakin' Stevens which is absolutely excellent. I caught him playing a Shakin' Stevens Tribute Act in a recent episode of Greg Davies' "The Cleaner".

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. Brunch 23 - A great Restaurant in Fenham
2. Another Raven - A Take On Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven"
3. The Cleaner - An Autism-Focused Christmas Special
4. An Owl In A Towel - A Beautiful Book by Lesley and Cheryl
5. Three Reasons Why I Love Settle - Scaleber Force, The Hoffman Kiln and Castlebergh Crag
6. The Accidental Book - Helping a Great Vocal Friend Resulted In Me Publishing My First Book
7. Call Me Les - A Great Friend and An Amazing Writer

A March Post

I renewed the URL on this for another two years, but find it really weird that when I write a post it gets about twenty reads, although the blog can have anything from 2 to a thousand reads in a day. I still don't know how it works.

I have now sold 86 books so hoping to hit a hundred one day.

I am now not really writing much on this blog and thought this month I might not post at all, but I have done and this is it.

I am still reading World of Tiers by Philip Jose Farmer and feel as though it will never end, but have a hundred pages to go in the first volume.

I recently found out 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 others. C'est La Vie.

The music is a visual representation of  "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" by Genesis 

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. The Never Ending Story - My Directory
2. The Never Ending Music - My Music Directory
3. The Never Ending Poetry - My Poetry Directory
4. An Owl In A Towel - A Beautiful Book by Lesley and Cheryl
5. Three Reasons Why I Love Settle - Scaleber Force, The Hoffman Kiln and Castlebergh Crag
6. The Accidental Book - Helping a Great Vocal Friend Resulted In Me Publishing My First Book
7. Call Me Les - A Great Friend and An Amazing Writer

And Then There Were Vampires

I've just finished "Switch Bitch" by Roald Dahl and although only 140 pages it was difficult going. Like going back fifty years, full of racism and misogyny and yes some unexpected twists but not a nice read at all.

Then I picked up one I bought from Pandemonium in Whitby by Fiona MacDonald "Vampires, A Very Peculiar History" and I thought it would be something I would dip in and out of, but it is both a fun and interesting read, and I am thoroughly enjoying it. Lots of anecdotes and explanations and some great archaic fonts used in my copy.

So music has to be Blue Oyster Cults "Nosferatu", though I am sure there are lots more vampire and bloodsucker based songs.

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. The Never Ending Story - My Directory
2. The Never Ending Music - My Music Directory
3. The Never Ending Poetry - My Poetry Directory
4. An Owl In A Towel - A Beautiful Book by Lesley and Cheryl
5. Three Reasons Why I Love Settle - Scaleber Force, The Hoffman Kiln and Castlebergh Crag
6. The Accidental Book - Helping a Great Vocal Friend Resulted In Me Publishing My First Book

LIGHT and Darkness and The Switch Bitch

After finishing "The House on the Borderland" by William Hope Hodgson with I still found an incredible ride through a cosmic horror in an Irish ruin.

I then picked up "LIGHT and Darkness" by friend Ana Radulescu which is an excellent easy to read contemporary fantasy. It was 160 pages and I went through in three days which is fairly fast for me. If you like fantasy with lots of contemporary hooks you should buy it , link at the bottom.

I also started "Switch Bitch" by Roald Dahl , and while it is sort of clever , it is very much of it's time and consists of four stories and I have only just reached the third one. It is only 140 pages long and plays on the final twist to the story , but actually getting there is an awful pain. This is no "Charlie and The Chocolate Factory" but I will finish it and probably never pick it up again though I think I had read it before.

Also this week I published my first book , as a result of checking out how easy it would be to self publish an ebook for my good friend Lesley Leatherdale(who wrote The Owl In The Towel (see below), so we will work to get her new book published when she gets some free time,

All the important links are down below.

I am gonna lead with the Heptones "Book of Rules" because I like it and it is semi appropriate.

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. The Never Ending Story - My Directory
2. The Never Ending Music - My Music Directory
3. The Never Ending Poetry - My Poetry Directory
4. An Owl In A Towel - A Beautiful Book by Lesley and Cheryl
5. Three Reasons Why I Love Settle - Scaleber Force, The Hoffman Kiln and Castlebergh Crag