Alarm

Is there anything more disappointingly annoying than waking up warm and in the dark, checking the time to see it's one minute before the alarm is meant to go off, then do you wait, switch it off , get up or what? I waited.

Continuing on "The God Delusion" and the treatment of atheists is absolutely disgusting bry religious zealots and idiots. We are seeing this is the USA today where Christianity has been engineered as a power grabbing money making machine and woe betide anyone who questions it. One example was an atheist who wanted to protest against a faith healer who was telling diabetics to throw away their insulin and cancer sufferers to stop their treatment and pray for a miracle. He contacted the local police department about protection from the faith healer's supporters and was threatened in no uncertain terms by everyone in the police department because he was questioning "god's work".

I keep using a lower case "g" for god because in my sixty one years I have yet to see any evidence of a god, though seen plenty of evidence of the harm caused by religion.

It looks like another cold but bright day today and I was surprised to see that I was up to series five of "Parks and Recreation" so still 55 episodes to go but a lot nearer the end than I thought, and thoroughly enjoying it.

So this weekend Sky Arts are screening a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the film of "Quadrophenia" and to be honest I have never watched it, although I love the album and thought the classical version with Alfie Boe in the was very good. I will be recording all the Sky Arts programs and will get round to watching the film which one of the many unwatched films in my DVD collection.

So we will go for a live take of "The Real Me" the opening song from the the "Quadrophenia" album.

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.

Rock Is Not A Musical

The other day I saw an advertisement for a new musical called East End Babylon with the tag line "There are Three ways out of the East End - Football, Boxing and Rock and Roll" , like the East End of London is a bad place to be. Worse still it's the story of the Cockney Rejects - what next JLS , One Direction , Simon Cowell , Patrick Fitxgerald? But a musical ... no way , a film documentary I can live with:


Then I heard there's on about Susan Boyle, again Susan Boyle is a fine singer , but a musical about her life - surely not. Maybe she's had her fifteen minutes of fame , but I hope not.

Then we have Green Day's American Idiot . If I want to see Green Day I want to see Green Day , not a musical based on their songs. We have had the potential abberation of Queen being fronted by an American Idol contestant . That is not the way to honour Mr Bulsara's memory .. and of course the blockbusting Ben Elton scripted horror that is "We Will Rock You".

I don't mind concept album's finding their way on to celluloid , Tommy and Quadrophenia are excellent albums transformed into excellent films - and Tommy was transferred to an all star stage show.

When your heroes end up as musicals they are sanitised fro mass consumption , the danger and outrage  is removed like when Biffy Clyro's "Many A Horror" was renamed "When We Collide" for it's X-Factor cover release.

I bet you won't get a musical about the life of Rage Against The Machine!!