Random Observations

Have you noticed that the abbreviation id when turned upside down is pi (near enough)? You could extend this to say that identity is the fore never ending. I know that is off centre and random but it's just the way my mind works.

April is nearly over and the beginning of May is on Monday. Then I am going to start my Million Step Challenge . It is being done to raise money for diabetes research but in my opinion their timing is wrong and as I am so rubbish at tracking things I am not going to do it for sponsorship, just for myself, to prove that I can do it. I, averaged 11K steps a day for the last two months so I don't see a problem doing it for the next three. My target  normally is to do 10K a day.

I was thinking of repeating my #SongADayInMay which I did a couple of years back. If I do you will see the first post on Monday . The theme would obviously be "May" (avoiding any reference to a certain person) but I think Dr. Brian May might feature fairly heavily, probably opening with Queen's "Keep Yourself Alive", but we shall see.

Anyway it's Saturday, the weather is quite pleasant, and I have other things to get on with. I've been listening to Graham Parker, played my first '78 on my turntable, but am currently listening to a best of Joe Walsh (Pete Townshend's favourite guitarist) so I think we will go with "The Bomber" which he played with The James Gang, Barnstorm and solo. I love his simple but beautiful playing. His riffs are not beyond me and that is what makes him a brilliant guitarist.

Have a good day everybody.

A Wonderfully Arty Vegan Lift To The Weekend - #ALifeInNumbers #49

In a week that has felt like the world is raining hammer blows on us, today I had two pieces of good news. My friend Craig is out of hospital, but posting on Facebook and sounding very upbeat and positive, though has a drug stash almost as big as mine.

Not Wildflower

Not Thousand Yard Stare

Secondly my friend Jessica, well we've met twice, she has given me cake and I know her mum and we are Facebook friends, and her friend Asher Turnbull are opening Wildflower, an art / vegan café in Westgate Road on 15th of November.





I mentioned that their logo reminded me of the one that one of my favourite bands, Thousand Yard Stare ,had used for their new album (which is excellent by the way). If you follow the tag or click on her name you will find details of the amazing exhibition where I first met Jessica , but as yet I haven't visited  Wildflower but will do as soon as it opens.


While I am pleased to have a vegan eatery close to home I will give a real review when it opens but I am just going to share Jessica's words with you for this. Yes it's a bit lazy I know, but as well as being an amazing artist , she can write too:


Wildflower is a vegan art café opening up on 283a Westgate road, just a little walk from town. We are a friendly place aiming to help creatives express themselves while eating delicious cake!

The café is owned by two very creative young vegans, Jessie and Asher, who aim to make this place spectacular. We want to have many fun events and parties, such as still life drawing sessions, anarchy knitting groups, themed dinner parties, vintage markets, art markets, live music, comedy, upcycling workshops, cooking demos and many more things! All with demonstrating an eco friendly ethic, and helpful attitude towards the local community.

We have started out with very little money, but have so far managed to get most of our furniture from Freecycle, which has been rather glorious. But there are a few essential things that you simply cannot get for free, such as ovens (that work properly!) so we are raising some money to try and get those few essential things! Link to our crowd funder is here: 


Their Facebook page is here  and this is where it is, so also handy for me for lunch.

Anyway this is being woven in with my #ALifeInNumbers  sequence and for number 49 it was always going to be "Funk #49" by the James Gang. The James Gang featured Joe Walsh on guitar, and I have always loved his economic style. Pete Townshend once said that Joe Walsh was his favourite guitarist and you can see the similarities. The chord holsds sway in their songs and this means that they are easy to follow for budding musicians. I've included an excellent live session but you can here the James Gang original here.

Have a wonderful Saturday night my friends.

256

I've just got to page 256 in Pete Townshend's autobiography "Who I Am" and again with my recent semi obsession with numbers he's just on about the story and completion on Quadrophenia , the lead single from that being 5:15 . 256 stick out because it's just the number two to the power eight , that is multiplied by itself eight times. If you do the same with one it's still one. One never changes, multiply it by itself or divide it by itself and it's still one. If you go up to 3 then the powers create much bigger numbers 2^8 = 256 but 3^8 is 6,561 , I doubt I will ever read a book with that many pages.

Yesterday the new Nick Cave album Skeleton Tree was released, and it's great that people are still producing things I want to hear, I love the new single and am sure I will love the album when it turns up.

The Vertigo Swirl In Action

I ordered a copy of Rod Stewart's Gasoline Alley album and Black Sabbath's Paranoid single as I wanted some vinyl with the original hypnotic Vertigo Swirl label. I do like the look of vinyl playing and the Vertigo Swirl does look good. I got a copy of Split Enz "History Never Repeats"  on laser etched vinyl which you can see here.

Anyway it's Saturday and I am going to get back to watching Casino Royale , which is enjoyable. You all have a great Saturday everybody.

I just found this unaccompanied performance by Rod, absolutely brilliant.

Heatwave

I am just amazed by the heat, and a pity most of the day has been at work. This is the sort of day you need to be at a beach or in a park and not in work. I just feel I need a cold shower, but five minutes later you need another one. This is the time you need a swimming pool in the back garden. It's definitely not a clothes day and the worst thing it's work again tomorrow.

There are black clouds and blue skies and the atmosphere is oppressive, but I am sure I can find some comfort, at least I am not in work now.

The weather and situation is not exactly causing inspiration so as I am reading Pete Townshend's "Who I Am" I ll leave you with The Who's take on Martha and The Vandellas' Heatwave.

This post consists of a mere 200 or so words, so here I go on again about numbers, but I've said all that is in my head for the time being and if anything else comes upyou know that I will let you know. Well I usually do., don't I.

Anyway that's enough waffle from me.

Have a good evening my friends.

The Marshall Plan - Books Are Wonderful

Reading is good for you. It can educate you, inform you and take you places that don't exist, except in the imagination. I love Bill Hicks response when he is asked:

"What are you reading for?"

And then accused of being "one of them readers". You can hear his response here if you don't already know it. During my life I have often been denigrated for reading, having books (or the wrong sort), or not following religiously TV like X-Factor, BGT , Soaps and the like. Even today people still regard readers as something to be avoided.

I can't say I am a fast reader, and sometimes I don't finish books such PJ O'Rourke's "Don't Vote, IT Only Encourages The Bastards. PJ O'Rourke is very right wing, very intelligent, and eloquent talker , a great comedian , but like say Richard Dawkins he can get evangelical about certain views and the becomes a huge turn off for me. The book starts off well , again opposite to my views but well argued, presented and funny and readable. But , in my opinion, it descended into an anti Democratic government / Obama rant about the fact that he shouldn't be taxed or kept in line by government rules so it was donated to the Westgate Ark Charity Shop.

Cat Rescue

Next in line was Pete Townshend's "Who I Am" , a 500 page autobiography, by one of my favourite artists. All my life I've thought about Jim Marshall of Marshall Amplification fame as an American, and the fact unearthed from this book is that Jim Marshall is actually English. Now this is a very small insignificant fact, but if I didn't read I would probably never have known that, but now I do.

I try to encourage reading in others, my daughters are avid readers, and for the past four years I have given away books for World Book Night, but I am still aware of people who are actively opposed to books.

When I started Primary School, I was able to read, that was my mum who taught me to read, and my girls could read when they started school but some teachers actually berated us for having taught them to read.

Reading should be a pleasure and should be natural and everybody should do do it and encourage others to do to it, but I know for some people reading is getting their daily fix from their Red Tops (I don't want to even mention their name)

But anyway, I think you should pick up a book and , broaden your mind. I've included Mac Barnett's TED talk which is a great reason for reading.

And as this has been inspired by Pete Townshend, I've included this acoustic performance of "So Sad About Us" with Paul Weller , a good version of a wonderful song.

5:15

The worst thing about waking up 45 minutes before your alarm goes off is that you know that by the time you get back to sleep the alarm is going to go off. The other option is to get up, but if you're tired you really want to enjoy your bed and warmth of being wrapped in your duvet. But it's Tuesday morning and you have to get up to get to work.

If you wake up earlier it's worth going back to sleep, but not at 5:15. It does give you a bit of extra day to play with and if I'm tired tonight I can always go to bed a bit earlier.

I'm looking out of the window and it's been raining, which means the lawn doesn't need watering, in fact it is looking very green.

Self Portrait

We have the August Bank Holiday coming up and maybe I'll track down some music event to attend, even though I've missed every one so far this year. Lee Perry is playing Think Tank this Sunday and with Monday off that is a definite possibility.

I saw him at the Riverside and that was just an amazing experience, so that's an excuse to do it again.







Really this post is just a slight moan about waking up too early , but is an excuses to play The Who's 5.15 from their seminal Quadrophenia album and I am currently reading Pete Townshend's autobiography "Who I Am" so again I suppose that's me going off on tangents and finding connections between disparate things which links in to my admiration for lateral thinking.

Anyway it's Tuesday morning, so have a brilliant day everyone.

A Little More Positivity Please

... especially from me. My last post was a little whingy , but hopefully it provided a little food for thought. Sometimes things can not seem good , but when you take the time to look at them sometimes they are nowhere near as bad as you thought. I got my payslip and thought it was a bit down , but was due to starting a new job , some jiggery pokery with tax and this month was my first proper months pay , which made me feel much better.

Classic Hmmm

This is just going to be a short post , nowhere near the last one and really I'm generally feeling good , it;s Saturday night , I've watched and enjoyed Game of Thrones and listen to the classical reworking of Quadrophenia featuring Alfie Boe in the lead. Generally listening to it part of me is saying "No No, its like one of them 'Classic Rock'  albums where they gave rock music the Mantovani / James Last  treatment" , but the other part reckons Alfie Boe makes a good fist of it with excellent support from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra , Pete Townshend , Billy Idol and Phil Daniels taking Keith Moon's parts.


And my overall opinion is a thumbs up. So something I was apprehensive about has turned out to be a good experience , though still not up to the original., obviously. My does of current day music was provided by The Wytches.

But anyway , today has been full of good TV , good music , good food and good fun.

Of and last night was in Trillians and bought a round of four drinks for a tenner. Atmosphere was great , Barbara and Dave are doing a great job and it's definitely an object lesson in being positive.

Sleep well my friends.

Frozen

Woke up this morning and it's cold. Clear cloudless night meant that the temperatures seem to have plummeted but surprisingly I don't see any ice on the cars outside. The guy on the radio has told be to expect zero temperatures (which I assume is centigrade).

Also the radio has just played "Default" by Django Django  which is a fantastic record and made me realise how much great stuff you hear and then semi forget about. It's one of the things I love have about having a big record collection combined with an eclectic taste and when you add to that things like Radio 6 and the internet options you have no excuse for not listening to good music.

Who's Next?

Original I was going to have Frozen by Madonna, but have now decided to go with "Swamp Thing" by The Grid as  Chris Hawkins just played it on the radio introducing the concept of "air banjo" which must bring a smile to everyone's face. Incidentally The Grid was a concept used by Pete Townshend in his abandoned Lifehouse Project which became Who's Next.

Anyway have a brilliant day , I'm off to work.