Trick or Treat? I'd Rather Celebrate Samhain - #34 - 1990 - KLF - What Time Is Love?

Celebrate Samhain

It's Saturday and it's been a good week, but today is Halloween or Samhain depending on yuor viewpoint or religious or non religious religious. I do detest the commercialisation of the whole thing where plastic bats and witches costumes seem to be the norm , and the whole American  idea of threatening somebody is little more that preparatory gangsterism , Give me something or I will do something bad to you. Tonight I will get teenagers not even dressed up coming demanding stuff, and of course I will have tubs of sweets because I don't really want to find out what the malicious little imps will do. The reality is that is it's an excuse to dress up and collect free sweets , although about ten years back we were burgled on Halloween.

Samhain means Summers End so is probably the most appropriate description for today , and the best
way to celebrate.

Anyway enjoy the night in whatever way you see fit . I will be watching Preston North End play Bolton and jump into Australia versus the All Blacks for the Rugby World Cup Final, so that's my night sorted , though I would welcome any Pagan's or Druids round for a drink if you are reading this and know where I live.

Anyway into year 34 of the Musical Odyssey and we hit 1990. The year the KLF released the awesome White Room. This is an excuse to play the excellent "What Time Is Love? Amerika" which was a thunderous revamp of the already amazing version on the album.

So enjoy Saturday , Samhain, Halloween and the Rugby World Cup Final. It promises to be an amazing day my friends.

Some people have asked who Lee his (Good Evening Lee) . Lee is a great friend who live in Japan doing translating stuff I believe , and lives near to Mount Fuji . We worked together at the PPA in the early 90s around the time of the KLF and reconnected of Facebook a feww months back. Facebook does sometimes throw up good things.

Friday I'm In Love

Carter USM ?

Over the past few weeks this song has been popping up on the radio and in shops and other plays. I've never really listened to the lyrics , though the title is obvious , and also The Cure are one of my favourite  all time bands with "Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me" being my favourite album with songs on there bringing back unexplained memories  such as "Like Cockatoos" bringing to mind JG Ballard's "The Drowned World" and the achingly beautiful "Catch" still reminding of a student call Frances I knew back in the eighties who was great Cure fan.

I gave her my vinyl copy of "Standing On A Beach" , amazing how songs can still hold associations after so long. That was way before Newcastle meant anything to me other than Michael Caine's face off with Alf Roberts in Gateshead.

The thing is "Friday I'm In Love" is such an uplifting song you almost don't need to listen to the words and it really does lift your spirits and make you feel better. It certainly resonates with my feelings and does lift me up even further. I've just transferred it to my phone because a listen to that will dispel any slight downers like Preston getting beat 2-0 by Hull yesterday.

Anyway we're in the middle of the Bank Holiday (for those in the UK) so enjoy the rest of the time and this week is only 4 days of work .

Love you all

Woke Up Smiling

I'm in an incredibly good mood  today, I know I'm generally positive anyway but , today feels special. Good things seem to be happening. Last night Preston got a goalless draw with Rotheram , we never beat them but three matches in we've not been beaten. A good friend has signed the paperwork and moving to a bigger better house and last night I saw ny friend Bethany leading the North East Socialist Singers at a rally for Jeremy Corbyn , hopefully the next Labour Party Leader.

Big JC

I was there courtesy of my friend Craig who got me a ticket , and met with my other good friend Gillan who hasn't changed her hair colour since I last saw her at the Chase Park Festival , she was there with her family. I delivered Bethany's very belated birthday present via a NESS member, and it's the first time since I heard her duetting with Jon Lee on "Where The Wild Roses Grow" at The Tyneside Bar and Cafe.

Anyway , it's the first political rally I have attended , and including the people outside the Tyne Theatre there well close on two thousand there. We got lots of rousing call to to arms for Union Leaders , Council Members and Activists to universal applause. The we had Jeremy Corbyn.

What can I say , electrifyng , galvanising , an answer for every question , vey clear , and a commanding presence , no wonder the opposition are running scared. This is no career politician , this is a hard working guy , not afraid to tackle anything and also address the supposedly thorny issues of funding the NHS , helping those who cant help themselves , working for everyone's good, in politics for what he can put in , not what he can get out.

I think my Muse is with me today , and feeling incredibly inspired. I even took some video of NESS for you to enjoy singing a song from 1012 about Suffragettes according to Bethany.

Anyway time to go to work ,and have a good day, I going to have and amazing one.

Having said that the lyrics to this song are remarkably pertinent. Big JC by Steve Gibbons

Football Makes Me Nervous At Time

Preston play Swindon at Wembley today. This is Preston's tenth attempt to win promotion by the playoffs. The media make a great deal  of this but Sheffield United have tried 8 times and fell at the first hurdle despite putting five past Swindon.

However this time we have a manger who has done it several times before , plus a team that included the best strike force in league one and a midfield that can do the job and the best defence in the division, but Swindon have come as far as us with a young team that includes the Australian David Beckham (Luongo)  and in Williams and Obika they have players who can find the net.

Shoot and Win

Prior to that Newcastle are hoping to stay in the Premiership, it's probable that they will because Hull have to beat Manchester United , although that is by no means an impossibility. I'm just wondering with Sam Allardyce's impending departure from West Ham ,  he could put Newcastle down and end up managing them next season ... now that would be quite amusing.

I bought myself a Sky Sports Day Pass  from NOWTV which means I could watch the Newcastle match , but I have and episode of The Walking Dead to watch.

Today will finish at the Riverside watching Pop Will Eat Itself , so basically that's my day planned out already. Enjoy your Sunday my friends.

Chose the song because my friend Patrick Murphy is a Swindon supporter , so appropriate for today.

Sometimes Bad Things Result In Good Things

A very short post, but it struck me that sometimes bad things can ultimately lead to good things. I was made redundant and ended up with a totally ideal jo. Last Sunday Preston didnt play well and lost out on automatic promotion. Today they played Chesterfield and three minutes from the end Jermaine Beckford scored a wonder goal. If we had won automatic promotion , that goal would never have been scored. This means that Preston are going to Wembley and I am going to have a very crowded Bank Holiday Weekend

That's all I'm going to say , but it's something to bear in mind if things don't seem to be going your way at the moment.

MY Little GPO - An Example of Great Customer Service

My Little GPO

No it's not about the Post Office , it's about my vinyl record player , a GPO Attache Case model. It's a small player in an attache case type housing and I bought it a few months ago from JG Windows in Newcastle. The player is great and actually easily accommodates a full 12" vinyl record. It is perfect for what it does.

A Tiny GPO Manual

I hooked it up to my Bush Soundbar and the sound is excellent. But my only bugbear was the enclosed manual, it had been reduced so much that you cant even photograph it and enlarge it to see what all the buttons mean. Try it with the picture to to the right.. This meant that when I tried to record to MP3 it was very much guesswork. And of course I only have to convert stuff once in a blue moon so I forget which button (they are silver and small) is the record button.

So I went to the GPORetro website (who do all sorts of brilliant looking retro gear) and sent an email asking if they had the manual is PDF Format. This was a bout six o' clock on Saturday night. Within half an hour I had the document in my inbox , amazing service , so often you email suppliers and they'll take a week to get back/ I don't expect people to be on call for me 24/7 for things like this but it shows their commitment to excellent customer service.

So now I have a readable manual and would recommend that you visit the site . My niece bought the same turntable for her mum so obviously the appreciation of good things runs in our family. It's first thing Sunday Morning so time to get the papers, and get ready for Preston North End's second playoff game against Chesterfield.

The music is the nearest I could get to Little GPO , Ronnie and the Daytona's Little GTO (also a Beach Boys standard)

Legendary Times

Not quite yet

Well the last few months have been amazing and the next few weeks are likely to be just as good. Have been catching up with friends, started an excellent new job with some great people in an excellent location, been involved with an amazing start up GeekTalent , done a small amount of volunteer work for Oxfam, taken part in Record Store Day and World Book Night, seen two total music legends, George Clinton and Lee Perry in accessible settings and Preston North End are within a win of returning to the Championship. Joe Garner winning League One Player of the year , and despite having a lengthy layoff still managing to finish as probably the league's top scorer. Here's that goal from last season's playoff defeat , but it is amazing:


So that's what's been happening, this week is more work , and more music with Public Service Broadcasting , Jordan Reyne next month Black Grape as well, with a possibility of fitting in the Fall. I'm just so lucky to be living in Newcastle with all this amazing stuff going on. Oh and there's going to be Summertyne , The Mouth Of Tyne Festival , Corbridge Festival, the Newcastle Unity Festival and The Green Festival, it is looking like an exciting summer.

It kicks off with a half eight hospital visit tomorrow morning which should be just routine stuff. Also lots of garden stuff to do , a new website to design and put live , and to record some songs I've half written (initial ideas recorded to phone now sitting on my PC)  when I finally get my set up running though may just go for recording to system microphone.

So basically it's now time for bed. Enjoy the rest of your weekend , I certainly will. I've include John Cale's Bamboo Floor because it makes me happy , with suitably dark lyrics.

...and another chance of Snow

OK, it's Sunday Morning, cold, there's a forecast of snow, and it's back to work next week. However this week has been great , lots of great things happening and there lot's good things going to happen this week.

Last week I had a relaxing holiday, the weather was good, if cold, but no snow and little ice, and Ampleforth is just a lovely place to stay.

Blyth Spirit

After getting back there was the football , with Blyth Spartans beating Hartlepool away, Newcastle United disposing of Chelsea in an incredibly exciting and entertaining match and Preston North End progressing to the third round of the FA Cup.

I then got the news that my eldest daughter Juliet has got a promotion after several interviews, so lots of good things coming up.






There's birthday celebrations this week for good friends, another friend has finally got a phone after two weeks of rank incompetence from her phone company, and on Tuesday I'm getting a new boiler fitted, and , if all goes to plan this will be a four day week, with a visit to somewhere called John Snow House in Durham on Friday.

At the moment things look cold outside but there's no sign of snow yet. I need to nip out to get papers soon , take lots of drugs and make breakfast before enjoying a relaxing Sunday. Al
though it's just starting to rain now, and the wind is getting up.

I hope your day goes brilliantly, and what better song than the Small Faces "Lazy Sunday" to remember Ian McLagan who we lost this week, but who's life was full of fun and happiness and that's the way to be. A smile on your face produces as many endorphins as eating a bar of chocolate without the calories!

Not Burning Out ... Burning Bright

This week has been mental and could be deemed as stressful. Planning always helps but when things go wrong it can be disconcerting. It is great to have back up options in place as well as having the ability to deal with things as they occur. Luckily I'm not in that situation that often and have always come out stronger and more confident. I was thinking of a TED talk I watched a while back about stress being your friend, and while it's not good to be permanently stressed , it is good to be under controlled pressure every so often. I , like everyone else, don't like losing control, so wherever possible have safety nets in place, which , ideally I don't have to use.

Things aren't finished , but I am looking forward to having a week and a half's holiday in a very quiet cottage in Ampleforth.

The think is this week I've had a lot of good things happen, not leaste finding out that I have enough loyalty points from Enterprise Car Rental to pay for two weeks hire , which is like finding £200 in your wallet you didn't know you had. I also watched another TED talk about the benefits of smiling which I now try to do as often as possible.. I used the talk a couple of posts back here.

#mikeydredsplaypile

Then last night I was at an amazing concert, saw two incredible acts , Jordan Reyne and The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing , both of which I will be seeing again. Sometimes at a gig I'll buy a CD if I like the act. I ended up buying 4 and am listening to the Crone EP as I write this post, by the incredibly talented Australian Jordan Reyne.

So this week has so far turned out to be very rewarding despite the tribulations and the icing on the cake was Preston beating Bristol City after a bad run and Newcastle continuing their winning streak.


Anyway we're halfway through the weekend, and I still have work to do, but am fully confident that i can tackle whatever happens, sometimes you need to change the way you look at things , sometimes you meet things head on. I have done a bit of both this weekend but am looking forward to next weekend when I will be well into my holiday. You enjoy the rest of your weekend, I will enjoy mine.

Beat The Clock, An Urge For Offal and THAT Goal

Some of My Watches

Chose the title from a brilliant Sparks and Giorgio Moroder collaboration from their album Number One Song In Heaven. In our fantastic digital age all of the clock resetting is done for us apart from the odd analogue device (like my Beuchat and iToc watches, wall clocks, heating clock) plus the digital cooker clock and the wall timer for the living room main light.

Many years ago I went a whole day without realising the clocks had changed, luckily I switched on the TV in the evening , thought there's something very amiss here, then realised what had actually happened.

New Album

Today sounds and looks very windy and I'm not looking forward to the fact that it's going to be darker an hour earlier but that's just the nature of the beast. I'm not sure daylight saving actually saves anything much anymore in the 24/7 world that we live in, although in a bit of good news Fiona's friend Tim informed me he'd heard a new Half Man Half Biscuit album, "Urge For Offal" on Spotify so that is about to be ordered when I've posted this. I I listen to it on Spotify the band will probably get paid about 0.0001p per track. The mega selling Daft Punk album Random Access Memory resulted in a payment of £13K from Spotify which might have paid the tea bill!


 I've nothing against the Spotify model , but it's pay per play model just doesn't work in favour of the artist. Apparently Spotify plays have generate me 1p in the last 12 months on a piece I did for the artist Rebecca Cother for the slideshow below, but I didn't do it to make money , just to see how easy it was to do.




Oh another good thing is that Preston's Joe Garnerweighed in with hat trick to give us victory against Fleetwood Town yesterday and put us second in the table, so it's an excuse to include THAT goal:




Anyway I hope you enjoyed your extra hour in bed and enjoy the rest of the day.

Time To Have Fun

Right it's the weekend and it's time to have fun. So many good things have happened this week (and I don't include the iPhone6 Launch, iOS8 and the new U2 album, which I like) that really I am in a very good mood.

I woke up to early , have got a rant out of my system , and am looking forward to the whole weekend with lots of things to do. I've been invited to lots of free bashes and may or may not partake of some of them. Have an upcoming GOAT concert which is going to be even better because one of my great friends (who's planning a huge Wedding Anniversary bash next year) is also coming.

Hold That Happy Thought

I unexpectedly ran into friends this week and really it's just been an enjoyable if busy week. Two hospital appointments the first of which was not pleasant but the results have been fine. Oh Preston threw away a three goal lead , but it was against my friend Chris's Chesterfield so I'm not too down about that, these things happen.

So I suppose I going to have to take drugs, have breakfast , get showered get up and enjoy myself, and I suggest that you do the same. There may be things to complain about but there's a hell of a lot to enjoy.  Like the fact I can put my fingers to the keyboard , update this blog and wish you all a most excellent weekend.

Go out there and be very, very happy!  And on that note I'll post "Happy" by The Carpenters, because it was one of my mums favourite songs , it makes me happy and I know it makes a lot of my friend happy!!

Just An Excuse to Be Happy!

I've had a fairly quiet weekend, watched some TV and read the papers, quite impressed at the coverage that the sad passing of Sir Tom Finney got in the media. Anyway it's the end of the weekend now and another week awaits. I can't say I'm looking forward to going to work but I am looking forward to having a good crack with all the good friends I have made there. I also know that I actually have a lot of good things going for me.

A quote from watching Channel 4's Babylon (which I enjoyed) . "I love going to work, It's the eight hour wait to go home that I can't stand!".

Today we had blue skies and sunshine, though it has been very cold without actually freezing. It's still February so I suppose still technically winter, but the sunshine is on it's way back and spring is coming.

I've been listening to some British Sea Power today, their latest album "From The Sea To The Land Beyond" which is wonderfully atmospheric. But I really must get recording and writing again which I keep promising to do.

There was a phone call last night for a plastic surgery appointment which I've had to cancel, but may be rescheduled in  May although I think it's linked to the specialist appointment I have in August about the damaged nerves, but we shall see soon.

I finally heard Pharrel's Happy today, and was shocked how insipid it is. The Carpenters and Rolling Stones both have songs called Happy that are actually joyful.....now which one should I choose.

Anyway I am going to make the most of what is left of the weekend, I hope you do too. Have a good one.

Tom Finney A True Great

Sir Tom Finney

Yesterday was Valentines Day and we lost one of the greatest footballers of all time, a hero of mine, and a Preston and England legend. He was 91 , and a perfect gentleman and exemplified dignity and how to conduct yourself, as well has having a good sense of humour.

He never swore but was no pushover and when the mercenary football authorities uprooted the National Football Museum from it's home at Deepdale he told them they couldn't have his memorabilia. I'm sure it gave them more room for for their Coke and McDonalds advertising.

There will be far better obituaries than I could ever write , so check out the Preston North End Forum , the Preston North End site , and the BBC , there will be many more.

The thing is he left a huge legacy and I just love Bobby Robson's stories of him. An excerpt from his book is displayed on the right.An exemplary servant to Newcastle United.

Football today is all about money, with very few loyalties manifesting themselves. While I agree you have to make money in order to provide the entertainment, now clubs just see fans as cash cows, managers are expected to produce instant results and if they don't they are often sacked immediately.

My Tom Finney Shirt

Sometimes even if a manager has done well he sacked after a run of recent bad result. Recently Swansea dispensed with Michael Laudrup's services, Fulham dismissed Rene Meulensteen, Cardiff got rid of Malky Mackay and we're probably not finished by a long chalk. A list on the BBC is here.

These are all Premiership dismissals basically because club owners are scared of not being in the Premier League . The Championship is going the same way due to parachute payments, so League 1 and League 2 are the highest leagues where you can see real competition, where teams play on a relatively level
playing field.





Tom Finney's memory is a shining beacon that people today should emulate but  too many just look for what they can get without regard for others.