Lustrous

"Luster" by Raven Leilani is not my thing, but it is an excellent read and in a week I am more than halfway through so I would recommend this to anyone who reads. It concerns a young black artist who takes up with an older white couple although they seldom meet together. The girl is not a hero or villain but just trying to get through life

I have resumed "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 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 "Glittering Prize" by The Simple Minds

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. Barter Books - An Amazing Bookshop In A Railway Station In Alnwick
2. The Plagiaristic Poetry Series - Poems Taken From Random-Themed Lines
3. Another Raven - A Take On Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven"
4. The Cleaner - An Autism-Focused Christmas Special
5. The King Of Elfland's Daughter - A Wonderful Book By Lord Dunsany
6. An Owl In A Towel - A Beautiful Book by Lesley and Cheryl
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 Fog

This weekend, and this morning, I've been surprised by the amount of sea fret, fog and low flying cloud I've encountered. Coming down on the train at times the train was in thick sea fret and my attempts to take photographs in the earlymorning of the Forth Bridges were affected in the same way.

I know this is just part of summer weather and it will burn off.

Over the weekend I was in a taxi and the guy was playing music from local radio hell, Hall & Oates "Maneater",  probably the worst three minutes on their otherwise excellent "Private Eyes" album (standout songs "Mano A Mano" and "Head Above Water". This was followed by some American AOR mercifully wiped from my memory , then America's "Ventura Highway", even more bland that the one chord, one note of "Horse With No Name". He did eventually redeem himself with a popular Simple Minds song, either "Don't You Forget About Me" or "Alive and Kicking" although these, in my opinion don;t touch "The American" from "Sister Feelings Call" (the companion album to "Sons and Fascination") with one of the most vicious guitar solos that I've heard.

Then there was the instance of the guy on an East Coast Train with a West Coast Advance ticket having to stump up £150. While I think the rail network is a total rip off you really need to go in there knowing what you are doing. I always tend to go for open returns to cover me for most eventualities, though some people become so obsessed with saving money by booking fixed tickets, that they are left high and dry if  any part of the plan fails.

Then I was in the wonderful No. 28 and there was a group of 3 startled by their drinks bill and had to split it. Lesson here is if you are running a tab either now the price of what you are buying or have enough money to pay whatever your cost.

I know this has been very rambling, but it is and excuses to play "The American" , my favourite Simple Minds song.

Hope your Monday has been great.

More Strange Dreams

Good night's sleep but more weird dreams. Often dreams take it something you have seen or are thinking about and I've seen a lot of these Butlins Music Weekends advertised which I think are a great idea but have never got to one yet. But this one had shared flooding showers with no towels, some American artist playing "music you cannot buy" and me playing Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues". Like all proper dreams it made no sense whatsoever but there's obviously bits of real life in there. Our showere ever so oftent needs the drain pod clearing and if I didn't ot would eventually flood, but once every six moths keeps that clear.

Yesterday at the Tyneside Cinema we saw the excellent "Batteries Not Included" while brunching before watch the excellent "Darkest Hour" which features Gar Oldman doing an excellent turn as Winston Churchill. Oldman is a great actor not tied to type as demonstrated by the dreadlocked half-caste drug dealer in my favourite file "True Romance".

Walking yesterday was down but the weekend pverall was fine. It's the 15th of January and I am well over half way to my target for the month, but had my first diabetic hypo (3.3) last night after walking for a pizza.

Apparently it's Blue Monday today (most depressing day of the year), but I am going to have a great day and you should too. It's strange how the media and tradition push things like this on us and we take them on board and make them true. So I've included the brand new Simple Minds song "The Signal and The Noise" for you to enjoy.

Have a brilliant Monday everyone.