The Weight

One of the reasons I write this blog is as a diary, another is when something happens or grabs my attention that I can , however tenuously, link to a song that I can then share with my readers and listeners, maybe I should try a podcast too, though I'm not sure that the sound of my voice will enamour everyone, an ex boss once told me he couldn't understand a word I said!

Anyway I don't eat healthily, I dislike regimentation intensely (diets, exercise - especially gyms) so obviously I am destined as I age to just get fatter and fatter. I do see some people, and they may have a lot of issues, but I think "didn't you at some point realise you were getting fat". I know damned well I could easily be 30 stone if I didn't constantly say no to certain temptations, although as Oscar Wilde said "I can resist anything but temptation", so I suppose I do think about what I eat at times.

For the second time after a week away in Settle I have lost a kilogram bringing me down to 96.75 Kg  (see here on Instagram) that's fifteen stone three pounds in imperial measure. I remember maybe being 13 stone in the late seventies so I have been a lot lighter. The thing is on holiday you normally over eat and indulge and there was fish and chips, big breakfasts , curries , potato salads and a Terry's Chocolate Orange all part of my culinary intake.

So as this has been on about my portliness and weight, I'm going to share the song "The Weight" by The Band, which was pencilled for inclusion in the "Easy Rider" soundtrack, but the producer either had a falling out with The Band and went for a cover of the song by a band called Smith, I've chosen a live take with The Staples Singlers from the Martin Scorsese directed "The Last Waltz", an awesome concert film, well worth watching.

It's a cold sunny Sunday so have a great day everybody.

In The Middle Of The Night ...

Sometimes you just wake up and feel you want to do something. I can't concentrate enough to read read, and I can't really pick up an instrument an play because it makes noise and disturbs others, I can't put a record on ar watch TV because when I feel like this it's not a headphones moment, so I find that writing I blog post can satisfy the need to do something vaguely creative and run my mind down a bit so I can then slip back to bed and get some sleep.

It is now five am on Sunday morning, but middle of the night can be any time between going to bed and getting up. It's black outside the window, but not particularly cold so I didn't have to get dressed to write this (but I'm sure you didn't really need to know that) but it is also very peaceful.

This week I will hit my annual record for blog posts which will be 317 (this is post 315 and last year I posted 316 times) . That's like 17 posts every 20 days or 26 posts a month which is fairly close to being daily, although some days I have done multiple posts (like yesterday).. I should actually try to see if I can do a lot of posts in a day, although I don't think it would be possible because all these posts are on the fly  about things that interest me, rather than to hit a target, although if a target is achievable I am often tempted towards it.

So I am starting to feel a little tired so I think we simply go for "In The Midnight Hour" by Wilson Pickett and I found this great performance by him and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band perform "In the Midnight Hour" at the 1999 Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, when Bruce Springsteen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Fridaying - #Oktoberfest #12 - Malt and Barley Blues - Mcguinness Flint

For some people Friday at finishing time is the best part of the week, you have the night ahead, you don't have to get up tomorrow (or the day after) and work is suddenly a distant memory. However a lot of my friends have to work weekends and the concept of a weekend is gone for them, a horrible side effect of our 24/7 society. I do remember shops shutting for a half day on Wednesday and I think Saturday and everything was shut on Sunday. It didn't really cause a problem but now people expect everything on tap.

That should have really come from technological advancement, but it's just coming from people having to work whenever they are needed and the gig economy. There is a place for zero hours contracts but not as permanent jobs.

Ironic that the Sunday Day of Rest has it's recent existence due to the Catholic Church and this at a time when my tolerance for religion is very thin thanks to the arguments and facts presented by Richard Dawkins in "The God Delusion". Religion is like a signal flare in the hands of a child, it may be used to light the way but more often than not it does irreparable damage.

So because i am still run down and suffering from a cold I will leave you with "Malt and Barley Blues" the second single from McGuinness Flint (their first hit was "When I'm Dead And Gone" which would have been appropriate while talking religion), so enjoy this on your Friday night.

Bookwise with Laura Purcell

I finished Matt Haig's excellent "Notes on a Nervous Planet" and decided to start on Laura Purcell's  novel "The Silent Companions". I bought the book from Amazon to to make up a package so I didn't have to pay postage and it is definitely not the sort of thing that I normally read, although it has definitely drawn me in with it's gothic creepiness. It jumps between three time periods the link being a potential murderess in an asylum , her family and their time ravaged home. It has been compared to various classic gothic novels, and although I I can't really comment on the comparison I can say despite finding it claustrophobic and not my normal far it has got my attention so well that I will happily continue on the end, and I don't really expect it to end well.

I had intended to hit 2K posts for this blog this year which meant I had to post about 210 this year,, but I have already posted 168 times so I could easily hit that target in July, which then means I will be thinking about hitting 3K posts.

Walking, I am still doing the rolling million steps every three months and to complete June I need to do another 56K steps by a week tomorrow so that is another positive for this morning.

I also need to mow the lawn and cut back some hedges, although it never fails to amaze be how much hedge actually grows and needs cutting back, but we have to remember that with a combination of photosynthesis and drawing water from the ground provided by rain plus the recycling of carbon dioxide to produce breathable are, these are essential to use staying alive.

I've also seen a rat in the garden, it actually looked cute and friendly, and was scavenging spilt bird seed and then looking round for something once the seed had gone. I think it was just an itinerant rat , like the hedgehogs and frogs that sometimes appear unexpectedly.

So what do we go with ? "Mad Alice Lane (A Ghost Story)" by (Peter) Lawlor fits the bill, named after a street in York. It was used in a Land Rover advert and reminds me a lot of Portishead and has a very disconcerting vibe while being a great record, although difficult to track down, but not impossible.

Enjoy your Sunday

#AprilSongs #28 National Avenue (Sunday Afternoon)

I know it's quarter past twelve on SUnday morning and I've just posted a piece featuring Red Guitars, but while checking out their music I noticed that "National Avenue(Sunday Afternoon) would be perfect to close the Sundays. Five minuted of lovely jangliness from the "Tales of the Expected" album that you can pick up on CD for about £25.

So this is going to be a very short post because of the time and the fact I've been to Edinburgh today, although it is Sunday and I could actually have a lie in.

So if you are reading this now and you are in the UK it's time for bed, if you are anywhere else leave a comment and enjoy the song.

#AprilSongs #21 Sunday

You can't search for music about and Easter day without bringing back nothing but hymns and worship songs, which I mentioned in my Good Friday post. This time I have gone for a Nick Drake instrumental, "Sunday" the closing piece from "Bryter Later" for the #AprilSongs sequence. The opening flute made me think of the spooky sixties "Wicker Man" folk but actually this turns into a lovely listenable piece.

This is the day after I have started a seven day ban on Facebook, for sharing a picture FROM facebook , which is still there and you can see here which is basically mens bum cheeks decorated as Easter Eggs. The thing is it's a link to a site and the linking site posts the pictures. This has happened to me before when I posted an IMDB link to the Peter Greenaway film "Drowning By Numbers" . The film itself features nudity but the DVD cover picture, if you really zoom in has the suggestion of a female nipple underwater. Follow the link and see for yourself.

The problem is this is just a Kafkaesque situation and if you are a member of club then you abide by the rules but when those rules are applied arbitrarily without warning then that becomes annoying . I see a lot of  shall we say more explicit pictures than those I have been banned for, and of course racism and right wing hate and political lies are fine, freedom of speech and all that. So for a week I can't like, share or use messenger, without any dialogue or explanation from Facebook.

So anyway, it's another lovely day, enjoy your Easter Eggs and Easter Sunday.

Precipitate

It's been raining during the night, which is a good thing. Still too heavy to walk in, but not threat of biblical floods here in Fenham. I'vewoken up fairly demotivated, and not even had a shower but think a shower will wake me up an dmakeme a little less lethargic .

ven if I stopped writing now this still counts towards my #August50, but I don't feel that I am going to make that at this moment in time.

I had some weird dreams including my friend Juli getting a bubble perm and suiting in it a large school hall where I was trying to take a photograph of an amazing sight through the windows of the moon and the eather next to each other shaded in blue, but I couldn't get a decent shot sho went into the field outside to get a less restricted shot and they had disappeared and all there was was a big blue IKEA like cube.

That is roughly all I can remember of it but I am sure it would provide some psychiatrist or analyst a bit to go one, but as Half Man Half Biscuit stated in "San Antonio Foam Party" which appeared on their excellent "Cammell Laird Social Club" album from 2002:

"Your weird dreams

Don’t impress in any way

In dreams

Weird things are mundane and everyday

Strange to me would be

Buying a loaf

And coming straight home"

Such is the nature of dreams. So that's provided a song for this post though there is quite a lot more music that I do want to share with you, maybe I will take a chance to do that later. Now it's shower time, the maybe get a paper, do a crossword, write a song

Enjoy the rainy Sunday my friends.