The Creation is Finished, Women's History Month and The Situation in The Ukraine

I only did one post on here in February and we are six days into March already.  I have finished "The Day of Creation" by JG Ballard and it was more difficult than I expected, being a revisit, but still drew me in completely. Not everyone's cup of petrol but an absorbing read for me.

So I need something a little easier for my next read, so I am going to go back to "Riverworld" by Philip Jose Farmer starting with "To Your Scattered Bodies go and you can read more about it by me here.

March is Women's History Month and I think I shall have to write something about some of the incredible women, marginalise by the patriarchy, without whom the world would not be as incredible as it is.

On another note I wonder if Vladimir Putin thought that Ukraine was going to be as simple a pushover as the USA and UK. He installed is puppets in the USA and UK but the USA saw sense and much to the annoyance of the idiot part of their electorate, got rid of Putin's Puppet, while the UK still has his puppet at the help, and if Putin is kicked out Johnson will welcome him with a red carpet and a Lordship.

Today's Music Choice - Batyar (Bigmouth Strikes Again) by The Ukrainians

I just remembered that The Wedding Present morphed into The Ukrainians to cover Smiths songs in a Ukrainian folk style , so "Batyar (Bigmouth Strikes Again)" is a perfect musical response to Putin

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. The Never Ending Story - My Directory
2. The Never Ending Music - My Music Directory
3. The Never Ending Poetry - My Poetry Directory
4. An Owl In A Towel - A Beautiful Book by Lesley and Cheryl
5. Three Reasons Why I Love Settle - Scaleber Force, The Hoffman Kiln and Castlebergh Crag
6. The Accidental Book - Helping a Great Vocal Friend Resulted In Me Publishing My First Book
7. Call Me Les - A Great Friend and An Amazing Writer

Vegan or Omnivore?

I do fall into the second category and am unlikely to every be totally vegan. As I've got older I seem to be going off meat more. A full English breakfast used to be a must for me , bow I can't remember the last time I had one and certainly don't miss it.

I've never been a fan of steak and I find red meat so heavy on the stomach. Meatless Farm mince is a perfect example , if you use it in Shepherd's Pie or say Keema , and you save some for tomorrow you can feel how much lighter it is than lamb or beef mince. That fact alone should spell out that it's better for you.

I sort of abhor Tofu but both Snackwallah and Vegano have served it up in very tasty meals that I have cleaned the plate with.

Our local Indian , the excellent Rajnagar and about ten vegetarian / vegan main courses and if I eat from there , that's my eating list.

I still drink milk and have it for my porridge and coffee and eggs and fish are always on my menu. Chicken is ok every now and then especially in a curry and am ok with decent sausages ,  although there is part of me that says I shouldn't.

So I don't see myself being vegan , although lots of work colleagues think I am,  but the thing is , barring Tofu , I think most vegan food is excellent and if I am eating out the vegan option is the one that grabs my attention.

So really can we have anything but "Call Any Vegetable" by Frank Zappa and The Mothers (the record company added "of Invention" so as not to be offensive) to play out with? I thought of "Meat Is Murder" by The Smiths but that is a bit too hard hitting , though it's right to be.

A Misery of Goths

Heaven Knows ......I'm miserable now. Well not really , yesterday started with more snow , and though it's cold it looks nice , relaxing and almost Christmassy in our current lockdown situation, however this has transmogrified into could continuous rain that is extremely uninspiring and hence the feeling of misery. 

MissEeerie Loves Company

I saw a meme  yesterday that described a collection of Goths as  "A Misery of Goths" which I have now decided to use as a title for this first post of a mostly miserable so far February. I couldn't find a really suitable picture but the one on the right sums up my feelings on my walks so far this month.

I hope that things will improve soon , but probably not before the weekend.

I do like that picture and you can click through to see more of their pictures, so ironic that something that is miserable results in a positive find.

I got a text this morning for a Diabetic catch up which these days is by phone and them trusting me to tell the truth, which I do. If I have problems I also get onto my doctor or the hospital , but generally I look after myself and follow guidelines, the only thing that bothers me is that generally I seem to need more sleep, that is I can't do things during the night even once a week, and often think it's great if I'm in bed at nine o' clock

Today or tomorrow I will be seeing my granddaughter Alexis and her mum , my daughter Kirsty , weather permitting , so that is a big plus.

I have also started following an author on Facebook called Lynn Miclea and she shares some very funny memes and will have to get some of her books , she's on Amazon here

I am now a permanent home worker and this gives me time to listen to a lot of music, currently listening to "The Next Day" by David Bowie and am also listening to the pile of CDs I have put up for sale on Discogs. As I've said before I often buy the CDs to support the artist or because I feel that I should have their music rather than any need for it. It's the same with films on DVDs which I am often too lazy to put in the DVD player , and when you do you get all the anti piracy videos which are pointless because you have PAID for it.

So before venturing out I will share the song that sort of originally inspired this post "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" by The Smiths  which really should be a Goth anthem shouldn't it? Although The Smiths are hardly your archetypal Goth band.

Back Into The Canyon

 My reading , as it often does, has taken me back to Clive Barker and "Coldheart Canyon" . Title wise I think it's pretty awful sounding like some sixties doomed romance soap , and maybe that was the intention. While I remember the basic premise of the book , finding "The Devil's Country" I don't think I am giving anything away by mentioning that.

There are adverts for "The Secret Garden"  on Sky at the moment and that has vague reminders of what is happening in "Coldheart Canyon" , as well as Halloween references which given that it's Halloween tonight , is another coincidental link. Thanks to the lockdown I doubt there will be any trick or treaters out tonight although today has been rather miserable weather wise.

My listening this week has included "The Business" by Madness which is early singles and rarities, but is enhanced by lots of interviews about the history of the band, that was followed by the eight disc "Smiths Complete" box although three of the discs are compilations so there are a lot of repeated songs , but all rather excellent. This was after finishing the Bruce Springsteen "SoundStage" box which was five concerts over fifteen discs and again a lot of repeated takes on songs but all worth listening to.

Next week I have my first Bruce Springsteen box which is all the studio albums up to "Born In The USA" and that will probably be followed by the live 1975-85 box , so next week will be another Springsteen binge.

As I've mentioned "The Secret Garden" and Bruce Springsteen that's the obvious song that I need to go with , even though it's not on the albums I'll be playing next week. I'm using the video from the film Jerry Maguire.

Have a great Halloween

Good

The weather is nice and I think things are improving with the lack of vehicles and planes travelling. Wildlife is more prevalent and things look good. I would like a lot of things to stay like this.

I don't particularly like working from home as the days are much longer and I end up eating while working , something I generally don't do in the office, but I listen to a lot more music and that is another good thing.

There are some people who are only happy when they are miserable and have something to complain about, but you can always find something wrong , look for the things that are right. I was tempted to use the Smiths "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" which I once had as my ringtone for a good friend Lee when I was at EE , a great character and great at pretending he was grumpy. He definitely wasn't.

I haven't ridden a bus for two weeks although surprising I have kept almost on target with my step count. With this weather that is very easy to do while working my way through "Monkey Island" by the J Geils Band , which is a very listenable album.

One song that has caught my ear on 6Music is "Crocodile" by Melt Yourself Down with it's insistent driving saxophone motif, and I kept hearing and didn't even know who the band were, well now I do, and so do you.

As I post this I noticed my boxed set "The Smith Complete" is priced at £1200 on Amazon , who the hell would pay that much for a CD box?

A Play(List) For Today

Thanks to Sky Comedy I am working my way through Veep and 30 Rock. 30 Rock is not on demand and is broadcasting three episodes a day, which I am trying to keep up with, and am now just two episodes in arrears after watching four of five episodes a day for the last few days. It is an easy watch , and the episodes are short as well as being on the nail funny, but am I watching too much TV?

I'm also going through Lucifer and Picard on Amazon Prime as well as having two Clive Barker books on the go, sio am I doing to much being entertained rather than actually doing stuff?

Also today I went to a local supermarket who's shelves were being cleared by panic buyers and the queues at the tills were backed up with huge loaded trolleys, I laughed , walked out , and went to a smaller local shop, got what I needed and came home. Most of this is fuelled by a lying media and a government that is only bothered about lining pockets of the already wealthy, but c'est la vie , what do I know.

After my earlier post I thought I could list a few songs relevant to our current situation, though it's still not that long when you had to put together a tape in real time rather than a playlist. All the songs link to a Youtube video for you to watch and listen to.

So here we go:

• Panic in the World - Be Bop Deluxe
• Spreading The Disease - Queensryche
• Isolation - John Lennon
• Panic - The Smiths
• Virus - Iron Maiden
• Splendid Isolation - Warren Zevon
• Virus - Bjork
• Shake The Disease - Depeche Mode
• Isolation - Joy Division
• Hot, Hot, Hot!!! - The Cure

I had to have something by The Cure in , didn't I? And from 30 Rock we have Alec Baldwin in a quartet singing on the underground.

(Don't) Panic

Today is a work from home day testing the network to see in we can come with coronavirus isolation. While I appreciate that the situation is serious and I may have had it (or a variation) and may still get hit by the more viciously virulent COVID-19  but I hope my natural resilience will see me through, but the media fed majority panic buying and lack of corporate planning has left me quite amazed. Some places are like testing the Titanic's lifeboats after the iceberg hits. I see people using hand sanitiser what seems like every two minutes when there is plentiful soap and hot water (the best defence) available. If it weren't so serious it would be funny.

At the weekend Tesco in Clayton Street was almost cleared of toilet roll, but Poundland (next door) had a huge display of Andrx nine packs in the front door, but of course the middle class red top snops would rather have nothing than go to Poundland.

Sorry for the ranty nature of this but it does give me the opportunity to share one of my favourite Smiths songs "Panic" maybe replace the chorus with "Hang The Red Tops".

Be safe, wash your hands , look after yourself and others, be sensible, and if you catch it stay at home. Think of yourself and others

'flu'

'flu' is one of the few words with a double contraction, from the full influenza. Last night I came home feeling like I had been stamped on bu cloven hoofed animals and spent an hour just shaking and finally retiring to my bed. Today I intended to go to work and bring home my laptop, but I wasn't even up to that, so spent today in bed in two hour sleep blocks, also only my sight was affected , when it was really dark I could see nothing, and that is scarier that the physical pain.

I know this is not real 'flu' because I can get out of bed and do things , I got hit by this ten years ago and could not leave my bed.

This is why I have been relatively quiet, and I hope I feel better soon, because it doesn't feel good at the moment. An appropriate song I suppose is "Still Ill" by The Smiths, and I found a live take from The Tube in 1984.

I know this post is short but I need to get back to bed, I've only done 212 steps today and have obviously fallen behind with my blog posting but hopefully will feel more up to it soon.

That Was Lucky

An absolute deluge during the night, so glad it held off while The Great North Run was on. There were ceratainlt black couds about during the day. The sky looks a bit clearere this morning so a walk into work is going to happen, but I'll be keeping off the grass, and I won't be mowing the lawn tonight.

It's another Monday and even though it's halfway through September , the mornings are dark and this weather is not exactly the best , but weather is complicated so you take what comes and deal with it insted of moaning about it. Though there are people who are only happy when they are miserable and the weather gives them another reason to complain, and I am sure we have a lot of non sunshine on the way to cries of "We never had a summer" , in reality the last couple of years the weather has actually been excellent.

On my walk in today I will be listening to Primal Scream's "More Light" and I was vauguely thinking of including The Smiths "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" but my mind says have something more upbeat and better, so Primal Scream's "Trippin' On Your Love" would be a good start to Monday , I think.

Have a brilliant Monday everybody.

Power To The People

No it's not about Jeremey Corbyn , although with the state of voting in the leadership contest Owen Smith and Angela Eagles and the PLP will be preparing their next leadership challenge , probably just stopping anyone from them voting.

It Had To Be

Anyway for the first time in months I forgot to submit my power readings (due the face of some extremely enjoyable company). I'm in my third year with Ovo and signed up with them after their CEO accused the "Big 6" of being liars about theire wholesale costs. I was coming to the end of a 5 year fixed deal with E-ON and they told me that to continue for another 12 months I would have to hike my monthly payments by 20%. I contacted OVO and they gave me a two year fixed price deal for a 4% increase on what I'd been paying E-ON. I know I don't get Tesco Clubcard points any more but I get get payed 3% on my credit balance which sounds good but probably works out about a pound a month.

At the end of my deal Scottish Power contacted me (I said they could ring me in the evening, they rang at 1pm the following day, maybe the sun sets earlier in Scotland, and said they could give me a deal for £70 a month, then have rung me several times since causing me to put them on auto reject).

I went online and Ovo recommended I reduced my payment by more than 50% (£60 a month) so I decided to reduce to £100 a month. They are also good and helpful on the phone.

Anyway that's where my power is coming from in the foreseeable future.

September is here, The Smiths are playing on Radio 6 and I'm drinking a cup of tea ready to go to work. I hope you all have a brilliant day and it is nearly weekend. The obvious song is John Lennon and The Plastic Ono  Band's Power To The People.

Have a good one.

Nova Vega

Over the past few weeks I have been asked if I am vegetarian , vegan and when did I become vegetarian and was it difficult to cut out meat and fish , just because I ate some vegetarian food. The answer is  I am not vegetarian or vegan, when it comes to eating I am blood awkward and fussy. I eat all the wrong things, I am diabetic , I like a bacon sandwich although I think I may be weaning myself off chocolate , which I adore and today I bought some scales and recorded the terrible fact that the scales tell me I am 114.6 Kg that's like 18 Stone.

Yum

 

Anyway enough of that, last week I visited the excellent Bohemian Restaurant and recorded my thoughts here so you can check it out , apparently one of the top ten British Vegan  Restaurants, it's in Pink Lane Newcastle and is definitely worth your time. They recommended Farplace which is a vegetarian / vegan shop / cafe in Clayton street , that sells  Vegetarian and Vegan products AND supports animal welfare so to quote George Orwell it really is DoublePlusGood , the staff are really nice and when I went in they had the guy from The Nut Roaster demonstrating his machine and selling various nut butters (you can see his oven in action here)



I went with Cashew Nut Butter along with a lentil curry pasty and vegan Victoria Sponge and a Chocolate Orange Scone.

Then today I was walking up Grainger Street and noticed a new cafe called Super Natural , there is already one near Carliol Square but this is a new one and very pleasant it ism, I checked in on Facebook here. As my friend Katie says it's a great time to go Vegan is you are in Newcastle.

The places I've listed are all town center, and they are not the only ones. If you go out to other Novocastrian districts you will find more Vegetarian and Vegan places.

I thought I was going to have to you use Meat Is Murder by The Smiths as accompanying music for this pice buth then remembered The Mothers' Call Any Vegetable which is far more positive , which lets face it Vegetarianism and Veganism is.

Enjoy your vegetables , they keep you regualar.

Why Pay For Music?

For years people have said this to me, and now there's a generation that has grown believing you shouldn't have to pay for music , films or anything really. It's a sad situation and a lot of it was casued by the greed of the already rich , when they saw how they could rip off their fans with the advent of CD (Elton John and Metallica I'm pointing the finger firmly at you). Also a little at Led Zeppelin with yet another round of remasters.

When music became digitally copyable (Is that a word) , it was the first time that everyday media could be stolen over and over again. Taping from the radio was always subject to interference and copying from vinyl had to be done in real time. But ......

Just because you can do something doesn't make it right ....

And just because a band is playing in a pub you shouldn't expect it to be free.

There's costs involved , they equipment , getting there , fuel and the graft put into to learning the music.

As for CDs , while recording can be done relatively cheaply and with digital distribution you don't need to risk a costly run of music that may not sell.

Spotify is not a good model for artists as it's based on a pay per play basis , so new artists , at the best, will just get exposure.

And this is what it means, every time you don't pay for something you are effectively shoplifting if
you don't have permission to take that item. Some artists give away their music and make their profit by charging a modest ten or twenty pounds for a gig . I have recently seen Nadine Shah and Du Blonde playing less than a tenner for tickets , having a brilliant night , and I bought their records too. In my small way keeping these people going. So this is really like the opening scene to Reservoir Dogs where the guy won't tip the waitress and the other guys take him to task, I'm one of the other guys.

So if you want to support music , get down to your record shop and buy some records, and get to see a band and pay to see them.

Would you work for nothing ? I think not ... so support music .

I thought the Smiths song was appropriate for this post.

The Day After Christmas Day

Edge

Well it's the day after Christmas , and I'm "Still Ill" to quote The Smiths, although it's essentially nose cold , running into my throat causing and tickly cough which then can go on for quite a bit. Dealing with it with , paracetamol . drink and chocolate.

Seen and talked with family over Christmas , exchanged presents, great to see people getting perfume they want , no chocolate , I got some clothes including a Kelly's Heroes T-Shirt, a totally not over the top Christmas.




Manage a few films and the Christmas Doctor Who and even caught a bit of the Queen's Speech which focused on the 1914 Truce when the French and German soldiers stopped fighting and played football in a brief interlude before going back to slaughtering each other and the behest of the paymasters safely enjoying a drink and mince pie back in London or Berlin. These days David Cameron, Ian Duncan Smith and George Osborne would have had them shot while Nick Clegg, Ed Milliband and Nigel Farage gave their backing. Remember it was your "working man" who called that truce, not the officers and it does make me sick to hear it romanticised as it is now. We should remember for the right reasons, as a beacon for peace , not a glorification of war.

Oops don't know where that came from, but it's how I feel.

Anyway, I've had and am still having a brilliant Christmas, and I hope you all are too. This Christmas we have four days of being off before having to go to work and clear up the mess on Monday. Have another brilliant day my friends.

THe Dangers of Decent Music Ring Tones

Sunderland

It's 2am on the Saturday before Christmas, and I'm still suffering from the current UK novovirus, but after going to bed at seven , woke up at eleven, managed to do most of my online Christmas Card sending from Moonpig , plus a few Christmas Presents which means that tomorrow will be a little less physically stressful. Sunday will not be a good idea for a shopping perambulation as it's the Newcastle vs Sunderland derby, so Sunday will be stay at home.

Anyway I'd been meaning to write this post for a while , but due to being laid low, have not really been up to writing it, but here goes. I like many other people assign favourite songs as ringtones for friends and colleagues. One of the benefits of this is that you immediately know who is trying to contact you and you can answer or ignore as is your predilection:



Here's a few that I have set up:

• Dad - Sabre Dance
• Fiona - Game Of Thrones
• Juliet - Bat Out Of Hell
• Kirsty - Hysteria
• Nick B - April Skies
• Carol H - Carol
• Lee - Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now
• Andy - Oh Yeah
• Sue - We Care A Lot
• Chris - Arnold Layne

You can click through to listen to the samples if you so desire, but all of these are excellent pieces of music, not sure why I chose Andy's but he's got it anyway. So the thing is if someone rings you when you're in work or out and about , that's absolutely fine and it serves it's purpose, but and here's the punch.......

...when I work from home I usually have Radio 6 or a CD on, which generally means good music while I work, but when one of these people call I just think it's the Radio, so a couple of weeks back Sue was wondering why I was out of breath as a suddenly sprinted across the room realising Faith No More were coming from my phone and not my radio. Earlier in the week it was the Smiths.

So something to be aware of if you have music ring tones and work from home while listening to music.

Right I'm now going to listen to some classical music music and hopefully drop off into a deep sleep.

Still Ill

Well not ill, but my arm is hurting and there's still a week before I go back to sort the bandages. I've also been extremely busy with work, finishing at 6 tonight, and found time to squeeze in a gig and watch the return of Dr Who with Peter Capaldi as the new Doctor. There were elements of Malcom Tucker in the performance which made it even more enjoyable. I always loved the Thick of It Doctor Who Mash Ups they did.

Complete Smiths

Anyway this is just a short post, my arm is improving , life is good and there's still two days of the Bank Holiday weekend to go, with lots of options of good things to do.

The title gives me an excuse to namecheck The Smiths which
I know are not some peoples favourites, but I do like them.

How Bad Were The Eighties Really?

I've just finished Danny Baker's series of shows on the seventies , eighties and nineties and the eighties usually come in for extremely harsh treatment due to New Romantics and A Flock of Seagulls hair styles. But Baker's show opened with The Clash playing Should I Stay or Should I Go at Shea Stadium , New York. The program was only half an hour long and while Prefab Sprout and The Pretenders are not exactly my cup of tea (although when both bands are good they are very very good and Prefab Sprout's last album is an absolute beauty) , the quality of the music never faltered , finding space for Ivor Cutler's Shoplifters before having the great man introduce The Smiths Boy With The Thorn In His Side. The show closed with New Order playing The Hacienda.


This post seemed to be getting fairly monoparagraphic so I thought I'd insert a break.

Incidentally a friend from Facebook had mentioned the Fall's I Am Curious Oranj in various  orange related posts last week, and then Danny Baker played Big New Prinz in situ with the dancers / ballet for which the music was commissioned.


When you add bands like The Cure , Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus  you have to admit there were a lot of great bands round in the eighties. As I've said before 95% is always rubbish , it's up to you to track down the good stuff. I've probably mentioned more bands in this post than any other previous post but there is a lot of great music round all the time, find and enjoy.

Quietly

A POster From My Phone

Well this is the third post in a row I've done without a music video. No particular reason , though I am very tired as I type this. I've also been fairly quiet on twitter and and instagram has slowed down , probably because there's that that many interesting things I've thought worth posting about.

It's funny how if you want your post to be viral it has to be a complaint or an attack on something. The public are seldom interested in good news.The media always likes to find something to complain about, making it up if it can't find anything truthful. Some people are only happy when they are miserable and surely that should have been the title of a Smiths song.

Anyway, enough of misery, I'm just going to keep positive thoughts in my head and enjoy my weekend. You can be happy when you have time to yourself and you are in touch with people who make you happy. I always love a smile , although I'm not too good at doing one myself, but I do like to be happy and keep happy and make others happy.

I've included a picture and poem I penned on my phone, so no pen was actually involved , unless you include the stylus from my Samsung Note 2. So anyway have a great weekend, mine is just about to start ..... with me going to bed to sleep .

Stay cool