More Dark Designs With George Ezra and Ian McKellen

In my last post, I tried a redirect and it seems to do it automatically even when the page is not selected. This is to see if this normal post will stop the auto-redirect on the blog when the last post was at the top. Hope that makes sense.

I am still on "The Dark Design" by Philip Jose Farmer but only have twenty pages to go, This has been the most difficult book in the series because of the length and the expanse of characters and planetary development.

Music is the excellent George Ezra video with Ian McKellen for "Listen To The Man" 

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

The Design Is Still Dark

I am still on "The Dark Design" is Book III in the Riverworld Series by Philip Jose Farmer,, it is 450 pages and I have just passed three hundred but as you know I am a very slow reader. There are airships , reiverboats and a lot more to keep you spellbound and occupied.

So musically because Mark Twain is involved going to choose "Tom Sawyer" by Rush.

Today is supposed to be the hottest day of the year in the UK and my phone is showing 24 degrees Centigrade which I think is 80 degrees Fahrenheit if my calculations are correct, but this is not Texas.

I am using my Amazon Kindle to play Backgammon when  I want to waste some time and after enjoying Wordle my friends Dharrsheena recommended I tried Weaver which I also find entertaining, from a concept by Lewis Carrol and you can play it here.

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

A Dark Design and more Riverboats

I have finally finished "The Fabulous Riverboat" by Philip Jose Farmer, and thoroughly enjoyed the 250 pages (I am a slow reader) , and this ends with King John streaming Mark Twain / Sam Clemens riverboat, the "Not For Hire" which King John intends to rename.

"The Dark Design" is book III in the Riverworld series and was originally meant to be the conclusion of this part of the story, however at 400K words, Farmer and his publishers decided that was too much for a single volume, so they split it.

It still clocks in at 450 pages so I am going to be on this for a while, but that isn't a problem, as you meet so many historical characters in these books from most of "civilised" history.

Sam is going to build another riverboat and that made me think of the scene in "Fitzcarraldo"  where they really pulled a riverboat over a steep hill in the jungle.

Below is the Wikipedia entry:

Fitzcarraldo  epic adventure-drama film written and directed by Werner Herzog and starring Klaus Kinski as the title character.

It portrays would-be rubber baron Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an Irishman known in Peru as Fitzcarraldo, who is determined to transport a steamship over a steep hill to access a rich rubber territory in the Amazon Basin. The film is derived from the historic events of Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald and his real-life feat of transporting a disassembled steamboat over the Isthmus of Fitzcarrald.

The film had a troubled production, and the documentary Burden of Dreams chronicled the film's hardships. Herzog had his crew attempt to manually haul the 320-ton steamship up a steep hill, leading to three injuries. The film's original star Jason Robards became sick halfway through filming, so Herzog hired Kinski, with whom he had previously clashed violently during production of Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Nosferatu the Vampyre and Woyzeck. Their fourth partnership fared no better. When shooting was nearly complete, the chief of the Machiguenga tribe who were used extensively as extras, asked Herzog if they should kill Kinski for him. Herzog declined.

Today's Music Choice -  Wild River by The Golden Palominos

You can read about the album, "A Dead Horse" Here.

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

Aboard The Fabulous Riverboat

I have finished the first "Riverworld" book  "To Your Scattered Bodies Go" and started "The Fabulous Riverboat". Grammarly and this blogger are totally useless. I cannot just select a font or size or whatever and if I make a mistake and Grammarly catches it puts the corrected word at a random place in the text, so I have to do everything manually,

"The Concept of "The Fabulous Riverboat is Sam Clemons (Mark Twain) with the aid of Lothar Von Richthofen and some Vikings. Sir Richard Burton (the adventurer not the actor) from the first book has just turned up.

Clemons has a problem as King John wants the Riverboat as well and is less than trustworthy.

I am forty percent through this book and will keep you posted on how it goes.

Today's Music Choice - River - Bishop Briggs

I had never heard of Bishop Briggs until I wrote this piece but her song "River"

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

To Your Scattered Bodies Go and The Decagon Key

After my operation and stay in hospital I haven't been writing much, so this is just an update on my current reading.

On paper, I am revisiting the first "Riverworld" book by Philip Jose Farmer  "To Your Scattered Bodies Go", which, though it was written in the sixties touches on so much that that is relevant today with religion, resurrection, racism , anti Semitism , and the history of the world in general. I wrote a high level piece on the series here if you want to investigate further, but halfway through this first book, it has me hooked once more.

Digitally I am reading "The Decagon Key" a book of short stories co=authored by my Vocal friend SJ Covey. All the stories so far have featured some kind of key and I will be leaving a review on Amazon when  I have finished, but I am a fairly slow reader, and at the moment, a slow writer, but you can get yourself a copy or sample it via the link below. So far I am really enjoying it.

Today's Music Choice - River of Dreams - Billy Joel

As with my Vocal piece I will share this wonderful Billy Joel song with you.

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

The Creation is Finished, Women's History Month and The Situation in The Ukraine

I only did one post on here in February and we are six days into March already.  I have finished "The Day of Creation" by JG Ballard and it was more difficult than I expected, being a revisit, but still drew me in completely. Not everyone's cup of petrol but an absorbing read for me.

So I need something a little easier for my next read, so I am going to go back to "Riverworld" by Philip Jose Farmer starting with "To Your Scattered Bodies go and you can read more about it by me here.

March is Women's History Month and I think I shall have to write something about some of the incredible women, marginalise by the patriarchy, without whom the world would not be as incredible as it is.

On another note I wonder if Vladimir Putin thought that Ukraine was going to be as simple a pushover as the USA and UK. He installed is puppets in the USA and UK but the USA saw sense and much to the annoyance of the idiot part of their electorate, got rid of Putin's Puppet, while the UK still has his puppet at the help, and if Putin is kicked out Johnson will welcome him with a red carpet and a Lordship.

Today's Music Choice - Batyar (Bigmouth Strikes Again) by The Ukrainians

I just remembered that The Wedding Present morphed into The Ukrainians to cover Smiths songs in a Ukrainian folk style , so "Batyar (Bigmouth Strikes Again)" is a perfect musical response to Putin

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

GriefDreich

The weather over the last week has been so depressing , grey and featureless, nothing to photograph and it's too cold and wet to go out. At night there is the odd good photograph to be had , but it is extremely demotivating. Add to this pressure at work (although that is become much easier as I manage to resolve the problems besetting me) , it's already dark and I have finished "The Frankenstein Chronicles" nut still on "The Other Log of Phileas Fogg" and "Imajica" , though TV wise I look at all the series that I could start and at the moment I am shying away from it , though I recently watch a German take of "The Colour Out Of Space" and the unexpectedly excellent remake of "Whiskey Galore".

I usually don't take to remakes although there have been good remakes of bad originals and bad remakes of great originals ("Psycho" and "The Haunting") come to mind.

So I'll just go with Elvis Costello's take on the Leon Payne / Eddie Noack song "Psycho" .

I know this is very short , but it's grey and dark and "Pointless" is coming on and I can't be bothered to do an evening walk.

Temporally Speaking

I find it amazing how time flies by if you are doing something that needs to be done , or you are enjoying it, but drags like hell when you are waiting for something , doing absolutely nothing , or doing something that bores you. 

I love doing things that interest me and detest boredom but when time is dragging or flying I always call to mind "The eighty Minute Hour" by Brian Aldiss, where the controllers slow down timepieces when you are at work and speed them up when you are not. If that were the situation , how would we know.

This morning I started out extra early , got things done then , had to do more thanks to a milk leak in my rucksack meaning that had to go in the wash , and suddenlty you don't feel any further forward that you thought you would be but you actually are.

It's a bit like my current paperback "The Other Log of Phileas Fogg" , it's only 166 pages but the font is so tiny it is going much slower than I expected. Having said that, though I know the overall concept and have seen a couple of films I have never read Jules Verne's "Around The World In Eighty Days" , although my girls as children used to love the cartoon character Willy Fogg, but this book is giving me a good grounding in the original book while setting my mind off on lots of "What is happening here" questions. I am enjoying it and , unusually , this is taking longer than expected , and "Imajica" on the Kindle Fire is going very slowly , but , in all honesty , that is a book I never want to end despite having read it several times.

The weather this week has been totally dreich and showing no signs of changing , but weather is weather. The thing I don't like about it is the featureless skies.

There are lots of songs that refer to time , but I'm going with Todd Rundgren's "Time Heals" from the album "Healing", the video was a staple of MTV in the early eighties.

So Nineteenth Century

 My current TV series is "The Frankenstein Chronicles" , a hybrid of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" novel and "Ripper Street". I was a bit apprehensive about this but it has turned out to be a great watch , very high production values and barring what I have told you I don't want to give anything away. Even the abhorrent Laurence Fox turns in an excellent performance , and Ed Stoppard in this series is ideally avoided.

It's definitely nineteenth century with Sean Bean being Sean Bean with the transition of the Bow Street Runners to the Peelers. It is a Netflix series and well worth the temporal investment. I've just realised that Sean Bean's name visually rhymes but does not do so audibly.

My current paperback book is "The Other Log of Phileas Fogg" by Philip Jose Farmer, an alternate take on Jules Verne's "Around The World in Eighty Days" continually asking questions on why certain things happen in the original book that are unexplained and coming out for the real reasons for the events. There are elements of Sherlock Holmes in there and I think a lot of these books are available for free if you have a Kindle or equivalent. So my paperback reading is also nineteenth century. 

On my Kindle I am still reading Clive Barker's "Imajica" so that is more vaguely twentieth century although it reaches back into history and across five universal dimensions.

So that's me being nineteenth century in the twenty first century so to soundtrack this we will share Todd Rundgren's take on Gilbert & Sullivan's "Lord Chancellor's Nightmare Song" from that appeared on his album "Todd"

Love unrequited, robs me of me rest,

Love, hopeless love, my ardent soul encumbers,

Love, nightmare like, lies heavy of me chest,

And weaves itself into my midnight slumbers.

When you're lying awake with a dismal headache and

Repose is taboo'd by anxiety,

I conceive you may use any language you choose to

Indulge in, without impropriety;

For your brain is on fire, the bed-clothes conspire of

Usual slumber to plunder you:

First your counter-pane goes, and uncovers your toes,

And your sheet slips demurely from under you;

Then the blanketing tickles, you feel like mixed

Pickles, so terribly sharp is the pricking,

And you're hot and you're cross, and you tumble and

Toss 'til there's nothing 'twixt you and the

Ticking.

Then the bed-clothes all creep to the ground…

Enjoy

Here Comes The Rain Again

Today has been cold and miserable out , persistent precipitation that just makes it uncomfortable to be out. Today I took a day off work , got a haircut from my local Turkish Barber Skin Fade which apparently refers to a hair styling technique and Ahmet gave me some very nice Turkish Delight which I have already partaken of.

Today has seen me finish off American Horror Story:Freaks which , although there is a lot of graphic violence as generally more a tragedy than a horror story , despite having the scariest clown I know , and the finale was actually quite uplifting (I think) . I am watching "Prodigal Son" with Michael Sheen sort of stealing it amid a brilliant cast and have now started on "The Frankenstein Chronicles" which is wandering the realms of "Ripper Street".

"Coldheart Canyon" is now finished and I don't remember the rather quiet but still decent ending of another excellent Clive Barker novel. The next one is "The Other Log of Phileas Fogg" by Philip Jose Farmer , a book which I have totally forgotten reading but the title gives you clues.

The rain is still falling and there are rumours of snow, although I haven't seen any yet.

I just realised that because I have had a relatively restful day , I can actually do a blog post and am under no pressure to get up early tomorrow and it is nice to feel completely unpressured.

So I am just left to choose a song to go with this and the simplest option is to go with the Eurythmics one that I stole the title from.

In The Dark - #FruitfulSeptember #3

I am not coming to terms with being woken up by the alarm and it's dark. I'm sure last week it was still light when I got up. I know it's autumn but it seems to have been a very fast transitions from light summer days to what we have now. While I like autumn generally, I don't like grey silent skies.

At the moment there is a uniform greyness in the sky, which brings on the sad feeling of Seasonal Affected Disorder, although for me that's just a general lacl of motivation and positivity.

Tonight I will watch teh final episode of  "Veep" although I have plenty of other things to watch , and "Silicon Valley" will keep me supplied with caustic one liners even though there's not a Donald Trump type imbecile figure in yet, although there are a few Jonah equilavents to be going on with.

 

I'm also on the final chapter of "Venus on the Halfshell" and though I know what's coming , it's been a wryly amusing observation of the general human condition , so wil lnow have to get abother book to be going on with, although I am still reading "Imajica" on the Kindle  which , although it's my favourite ever book, I am quite happy to stop and start reading whenever I feel like it, although different devices seem to conspire to lose my place in the book . I have a Kindle and also the app on my Google Pixel 2XL phone, and you would think it would be fairly simple to maintain a book position give the state of technology today.

 

So for #FruitfulSeptember I will share "Blueberry Hill" by Fats Domino with you, and I know it's an obvious one, but there will be a few of those, but the thing is setting yourself the target in the first place.

Uniform - #AnimalAugust #16

The sky is a uniform grey and it's raining and drizzling a perfect situation for the word "dreich" , not exactly great walking weather or inspirational and certainly not summery.

With the weather being so awful I was wondering if I could hit my 11K steps without actually leaving the house. I know people have done it, but basically the house is about ten steps from side to side, so going from one side to the other and back 550 times would actually do it but I could see that tedium would  hit me very quickly. Of course there is up and down stairs and the rest of the house to use but it's a lot of repetition, which I am not really up for.

Yesterday during a work meeting the sound went off, and I assumed that there was a problem with the person speaking then realised my TV , that provides the sound, and switched it self off which it does after four hours. After several months I found the setting to stop it from switching itself off, but this means I now have to remember to switch it off when I've finished with it.

On my #MusicWhileYouWork Instagram sequence which I started when working from home I am now listening to the Bruce Springsteen "Soundstage" 15CD box , which is still available for around £20 , and while it's a radio broadcast quality , it is still excellent. I'm on CD2 so a long way to go and after this I have a 4CD David Bowie set (The Collaborator) to enjoy.

Still on "Venus on the Halfshell" and though it's dated tongue in cheek , I am still enjoying it, and it is packed full of ideas and observations that are very relevant today.

Over the last week I have binge watched (for me) lots of TV coming to the finale of "Veep" , one and a half series of "Bosch" , which is very good and his apartment and view is worth watching the program for.

"Shortly After Take Off" by BC Camplight has just been played by Chris Hawkins on 6Music, followed by "96 Tears" by ? & The Mysterians which put me in mind of Sam The Sham and The Pharaohs who had a hit with "Wooly Bully" which will do for today's #AnimalAugust .

I'm just wondering whether to have a September sequence based on fruit , but will have to think of a hashtag for that.

Sun Back - #AnimalAugust #14

Last night there was another Windows update , but this was a five minute one so I'm OK with that. Just wish that they were all that easy.

After the deluge that night the sun looks to have returned and it's a beautiful morning. This has continued so far and is looking to be a nice day after the greyness earlier in the week.

While I didn't feel liek doing any walking, that has picked up so I'm back on target for my steps.

I'm enjoying "Venus On The Halfshell" although Mr Farmer takes every opportunity to drop in a single entendre . On slightly unusual thing , is , I know it's a 1970s copy, but the pages are on quite thick paper, and I keep thinking that I've turned multiple pages, but I am re enjoying the book.

I also keep dipping into "Small Dreams of a Scorpion" with Milligan veering from funny / absurd  to serious and thought provoking.

TV wise I am on the final series of Veep and despite everyone being particularly awful (like the American Republicans and the UK Tory Party) it is very funny and incredibly well written and acted. Sometimes you see actors being particularly obnoxious , but generally that shows them just to be excellent actors.

Once I've finished that I do have "Silicon Valley" to be getting on with , which also has it's share of obnoxious characters.

For #AnimalAugust I can share "Five Years Time" by Noah and the Whale , a particular favourite of mine in it's almost flung together feel.

Have a brilliant Thursday.

Answer

I am enjoying, if that's the right word, "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins but seems to be more against  organised controlling religion and by extension the monotheist "god" which is the focus of most religion. I'm a tenth of the way through the book and think that at some point he will take aim and my own belief that evolution won't waste our consciousness but I have no evidence or reason to believe that, but you can never satisfactorily prove the non-existence of something, and also the fact that we cannot explain something means we have not found the answer. I couldn't really explain how a plane flies but it's not supernatural, magic or the will of god.

Also I wonder if Richard Dawkins would have a problem with people who worshipped the Earth and believed when they die become one with the Earth. He couldn't really argue with the basic premis.

Often religion is a search for "the answer" and two books spring to mind that provide the solution.

The first being Douglas Adams' "Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy" which gives that answer as 42 but the tells us you need to know what the question was.

The next is "Venus on the Half Shell" written by Philip Jose Farmer under the pseudonym Kilgore Trout, a creation of the amazing Kurt Vonnegut. Basically the protagonist is searching for God to ask, in his opinion, the ultimate question:

Why are we born to suffer and die?

Through many adventures he eventually comes face to face with God and asks his questionand God answers:

Why Not?

A great ending to the book.

And just a thought, why doesn't the Christian God have a proper name? It's like calling your dog Dog (ironically a palindrome of God) and what the heck is the Holy Ghost ?

So what to go with this morning , maybe "Converted" by The Alabama 3 from "Exile on Coldharbour Lane" which my friend Tom glared at me as they broke into the chorus "Let's Go Back To Church* but by the end of the gig even he was converted.