The Portobello Shuffle Between Munich And Berlin

"The Vengeance Of Rome" by Michael Moorcock, the fourth and final part of the Pyat quartet, now finds Max in a pub or cafe on the Portobello Road with Mrs Conelius and her sons. Max is reminiscing about unsavoury encounters with Hitler and encounters with Albanian spies while in Germany.

While I will never read these books again, it has still been a strange and interesting journey. I still have two-thirds of this book to go.

I am still reading "Imajica" by Clive Barker on my Kindle. This is a book I never want to end. When I finish it, I just restart it. I read a lot on my trip to Scotland yesterday

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 "Portobello Shuffle" by The Pink Fairies

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

The Wicker Tree - #AnimalAugust #4

A few years back I picked up blu ray copies of "The Wicker Man" and "The Wicker Tree" Robin Hardy films separated by nearly forty years. "The Wicker Man" is a masterpiece and does not need and never needed a follow up, but generally the people who watch  "The Wicker Tree" will be fans of "The Wicker Man" and as such extreme disappoint may be the best that you can experience.

The film was made in 2011 and lots of things hark back to the seventies, some of the acting is very two dimensional, and the storyline (two born again US Christian hicks sent as missionaries to pagan Scotland and ending up as targets for the pagans) is very shallow , though there are some good one liners and digs at Bible Thumpers , Graham McTavish as Sir Lachlan Morrison is excellent as the Christopher Lee / Lord Summerisle figure.

Also the landscape shots and scenery is top notch, even the ruined castle is very impressive.

The problem is that if "The Wicker Man" is this season's Liverpool , the "The Wicker Tree" is this season's Wycombe Wanderers , in their own sphere absolutely fine , but you try and compare and latter is bound to come a cropper.

The film is short , maybe 100 minutes but is probably far more watchable that Nicholas Cage's  "The Wicker Man" remake. and I wouldn't put you off it. I was apprehensive when I saw the IMDB ratings but those fears were , in my opinion, unfounded.

So what #AnimalAugust song should I share with you , it's still a bit reptilian , as the first thing that came to mind is "The Snake" by The Pink Fairies from the "Never, Never Land" album , but this is a 2014 live recording from The 100 Club , where I went to see Ben Waters.

Enjoy the Pink Fairies and give The Wicker Tree a visit.

My First Mobike

Well today I completed 340K steps for February, with three days to spare. This is just before the really cold weather sets in, so I am very pleased with that.

Today for the first time I used a Mobike. I kept wondering where I was going to use so went from St. Andrews Church round The Grainger Market and parked up on Clayton street. I was berated for not wearing a helmet but given they are a jump on jump off type of thing you don't carry a helmet around with you so I am not sure what the solution is bar being extra careful like I as as a teenager. These are not racing bikes, they have baskets on and are meat for going short distances. I found it difficulat as my legs were too long for the back and when I got off I realised that I could have ajusted the seat. I'll know that for next time.

One of my problems is that if I'm going to go by baike then I will potentially not do the number of steps that I need to do , but that is something that I will deal with in the coming weeks. They will be great for nipping across the Tyne Bridges to places like Arch 16.

So what to play on thsi Sunday night, the obvious one for me is "My White Bicycle" by Tomorrow refering to the Dutch in the sixties who stole bikes and painted the white for people to use for free.

According to drummer John 'Twink' Alder (Pink Fairies), the song was inspired by the Dutch Provos, an anarchist group in Amsterdam which instituted a community bicycle program: "they had white bicycles in Amsterdam and they used to leave them around the town. And if you were going somewhere and you needed to use a bike, you'd just take the bike and you'd go somewhere and just leave it. Whoever needed the bikes would take them and leave them when they were done." The band also featured Steve Howe later of Yes and Keith West who had a hit with "Excerpt From A Teenage Opera". I'm not sure about John 'Junior' Wood.

The free is a good concept but the stealing is not , but if we all used bikes or walked instead of using cars the world would be a much better place.