Showing posts with label Song of the Salesman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Song of the Salesman. Show all posts

Friday, 2 March 2018

Snow No Show


Well we had no snow in 'Nam last night but it's still cold and the snow that fell is still here but possible slowly melting. Roads are fairly clear but I am amazed that certain places have closed their doors for "safety reasons". My friend Julie is dealing with a metre of snow, now that's what you call snowfall as is the dort of thing that stops you getting out. However think about farmers, they don't have a choice they have to deal with the snowfall or risk losing stock and income.

Yesterday was the first day of March and I only managed 4K steps, which is not the least I've done since I started my rolling million steps every three months in May last year, that was 2.8K on a particularly rainy day in Yorkshire. The problem is by Monday I could be 30K steps down by Monday even if I hit 4K a day. But I do know that I can do a decent amaout of steps a day and I can recover that in a week, so I am not too disturbed.

Anyway today is another work from home day. For me that is far more inconvenient that working in the office but that's what happens when you get snow.

The skies are still grey and featurless and I have a feeling it will be cold outside. Anyway I've done my first Wordpress post on Song of The Salesman here and hope that I can now start adding to that in the blog format, we shall see.

So I will now attempt a walk round the block and will leave you with"Fun Lovin' Criminal" by The Fun Lovin' Criminals for no other reason that Nemone just played it on 6Music and of course  band feature Huey Morgan who among other things has a Saturday morning show on 6Music. I had a horrible sight when I searched for Huey on the BBC site and at the end was a picture of the awful Piers Morgan... ughh

Have a brilliant Friday everybody.

Sunday, 3 September 2017

The Art of Getting Up


This morning I really wanted to get up . During the week, I really don't want to get up, maybe because I have to to get up and go to work to effectively fund my life.

It's something that I have to do , but I don't feel it's a decision that I have made, although in reality I have made that decision.

I could choose not to work, but that would mean I probably wouldn't have the finances to actually write this post when I want to , and how I want to and wear I want to .

 It's a trade off, and I choose to do this because I see it as the best option for what I want from life. But I still don't want to get up during the week. I still I have to get up wash, shower, take loads of drugs and injections and then, generally , walk into work.

Today I had a good night's sleep, walk up , had ideas for a couple of blog posts and I actually want to get up. Why? Well there are things I really want to do and am looking forward to doing. The thing is, if you have things to look forward to you will want to get up, even if you have to do things you don't want to do. Here's a list of what I have to look forward to today followed by a W (want to do) , or N (Don't want to do). I know W and N seem odd letters to choose , but I have chosen them for obvious reasons and you now know what I mean. Here's the liset:

  • Mow The Lawn (N)
  • Two Blog Posts (Including this one) (W)
  • Walk 11.5K steps (W)
  • Go to the shops for various provision (N) but it will help me walk my steps
  • Watch some catch up TV (W)
  • Watch some TED Talks (W)
  • Listen to another album (W)
  • Change the bedding (N)
  • Top up The Bird Feeders (W)
  • Meet With Friends at The Wildflower Farewell Party (W)
  • Phone My Dad (W)
  • Take Some Photographs and maybe Instagram them (W)
  • Get Song of The Salesman onto Wordpress (W)
So I have a few reasons to want to get up, and really that's what  you have to have to make you want to get up. You need to have reasons. Yes it's nice to lie in bed, but it's a very long time since I was in bed at mid day ... but that could be a reason to get up even though you actually staying in bed.

So the obvious piece for this is "Can't Get Out Of Bed" by The Charlatans, so either stay in bed, get out, do things or relax.

Sunday, 6 August 2017

Funny How


While people are not reading my posts as much as I thought , it doesn't help if I don't post on Facebook, even so the average hits per post have dropped from 50 to 25. Something that has been bothering me for about about a year is changing to format and hosting of Song of the Salesman and my friend Bob Armstong's sites.

Bob's is a static site so that was simple , but Song of The Salesman is an Access Database driven .Net site, which has served it's purpos and I don't think people are bothered what song was used for a Guinness Advert in 1999. I am looking to move it over to Joomla as people are more bothered about current information that past.

Today is the first day this month that I wont hit 11K but I am ahead of the target having done 4K so far, and I am going to brave the rain and do a few more steps soon.

Anyway, it seems recently I've not really been writing about the fun stuff, like music and travel and film, though I have been watching and listening , and I have just had an idea to put some of Bob's images together  and soundtrack it for a youtube video, and maybe use something like King Crimson's "The Night Watch" which is about the Rembrandt painting.

That seems a great point to stop and maybe I will post again later for #August50

Saturday, 13 May 2017

Sleeping In


My body has stopped letting me sleep in at weekends. I used to be able to sleep til mid day quite easily. Now it's like I have an internal alarm that kicks me out of bed as early as 6 am, sometimes leaving me til 7 am. But both are a lot earlier that it used to be. My eyes are tired and my body and brain are, but something is pushing me to get up, and by the time I have washed and shaved I think I may as well have a shower and by that time I am awake and up.

So while it's 7:45 when I am writing this, I have done everything I mentioned and gone out and got the papers, done my first thousand steps of my Million Step Challenge , and need to iron a shirt or two because later I am going to Andrew and Glen's Wedding.

I need to update Song of The Salesman , and see if I can fly that drone again , write some songs (and more importantly record them) and walk at least another ten thousand steps and probably a lot more things.

I have ripped a couple of music DVDs including The Who at the Isle of White, Public Service Broadcasting at Brixton Academy and Van Der Graaf Generator at Metropolis Studios, because I am now so lazy I can't be bothered to get up and put the DVD in the player, though that same Sony Player plays the ripped DVDs from my home network as I become "Homo Sedens".

I also found a load of rare David Bowie songs on Youtube and need to update the MP3 tags and ad to my already vast Bowie collection, and although I've used it before I will use the Spiders from Mars version of "Holy Holy" which is not on official CD release but in my opinion one of Bowies's finest songs (but how many songs could you say that about). His original was good but a little pedestrian and both version are available in the Five Years Box Set here, a ittle expensive but ten discs for £90 is not that bad really.

Anyway I will let you listen to both versions so you get two candidates for #ATuneaDayinMay,  enjoy your Saturday my friends.


Monday, 8 August 2016

Numbers Time Krautrock and The Old Fox


Last week I didn't post much for various reasons (see here) and then got to thinking what is a normal rate of posting things. Almost everybody on Facebook posts something everyday , often several times a day , and often it's just reposting something they have seen and liked. So I post more on Facebook than I do on here.

Usually Facebook is about being in the moment , it's what's happening at the time, and then things get lost and forgotten. People often use it to let off steam or moan about things, and too be quite honest a lot  those sort of things I just ignore, though if someone is having I bad time I will contact them and see if can help.

Anyway , in my first year of blogging I posted 6 items , that's an average of 1 post every 2 months (60 days) , here is my first post which I hadn't a clue why I was doing this. The next post was about Krautrock but I had just lifted from a music section on my Song of The Salesman site but then decided not to go further with but I thought the piece had some merit.

I then wrote nothing until I went on holiday to Dublin and decided this would be a travel blog , hence the name. But that didn't take.

Anyway the following year I posted 46 times , almost once a week , and really that should be what I am aiming for and since that time (2008) I have written fairly consistently, about absolutely anything. In 2013 I posted 244 times that's two posts every three days , which is a lot of writing. This year I have posted 66 times and expect to maybe do 100 posts by the end of the year.

Last year I posted my thousandth post (here) which was in the middle in the middle of my Oddysey58 project which was a song for every year of my life which I do intend to somehow turn into an ebook, combining it with another book project I have started but not finished.


Shev and Friend at The Old Fox

My posts tend to get 50-50 views though the biggest one has had over 900 views but is a rubbish post (here) though my most read post ever is on my Spoongig blog about the reopening of The Old Fox in Felling with over 1,100 views.

I chose "In The Meantime" by Spacehog because they had a song called "Millions" but I couldn't find it but I love In The Meantime with it's motif lifeted from The Penguin Cafe Orchestra's Telephone and A Rubber Band. 


Anyway this morning started out very grey , but it's now sun shining but very windy, so it's the start to another week and if the weather is anything to go by , it's going to be a good one.

Enjoy my wonderful friends

Sunday, 8 February 2015

Lock It Down


An interesting thing happened this morning , my website has been hacked again. Last time it was some Islamic Group who replaced my home page with an absolutely cracking one promoting their agenda, it really did look brilliant , but not exactly what people were expecting to see when they visited Song of The Salesman. So at the time changed the password and removed the pagese.

This time was a bit different , they hadn't hijacked my site as such , but uploaded a lot of files for what looked like a shopping site. Thinking about this, going off the file times , they took over two days to upload , each file around 40-60K , this would have caused my site to slow down or not be available over that timeframe. I can't really think why anyone could be bothered doing this , my site is not a high volume or high profile and webspace is cheap and you can host it yourself.

So the lesson learned is to keep an eye on things , sometimes when all appears ok , it may not be. This was something that didn't affect my website , it's abit like haveing squatters in because I've got loads of spare space.

Police and Thievery
So very little to report apart from it's a nice day and always make sure your doors are locked if they need to be. After yesterdays cold and fog we have bright sunshine which always good for lifting the spirits. Oh and my mate Keith has started another blog here. So now I'm off to do more chores , set the recorder to record some more TV , maybe set up my NOW TV box which I bought with a free Argos voucher but just haven't really needed to use. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.
Wasn't sure what song to use but you can't go wrong with Junior Murvin.