This Strange Thing Called Life

No it's not anything deep. I find it strange that Facebook keeps suggesting friends because they're friends of people who would probably wish I wasn't their Facebook Friend anyway. Sometimes I spend a couple of minutes removing these suggestions and then let it revert to what it was. Basically I respect others privacy and they certainly wouldn't want  me intruding on them.

I've also regressed to my teenage years in my reading, revisiting Michael Moorcock's "History of the Runestaff" and while the writing is a bit clunky the storytelling more than stands up for me but it's probably not up to GRR Martin's standard, but Moorcock is both influential and a cracking story teller. I have six hundred pages in this book then another twelve hundred pages of a couple of related volumes that I want to revisit so we are talking Tolkein's "Lord of the Rings" and Stephen King's "The Stand" in sheer volume, And at some point I want to revisit the former, I always found "The Stand" a bit bloated and could have been wrapped up in three hundred pages.

So it's Sunday night and today, among other things I ripped the live Springsteen 15 CD set so I can listen to it on my travels, and I have been impressed with what I have heard so far,

I'm going to choose another Moorcock / Blue Oyster Cult collaboration "The Great Sun Jester" from "Mirrors" based on the novel "The Winds of Limbo", it is a wonderful song and I still play it regularly, though when I first got the album this was the only song I liked, but the album has since grown on me as I posted here.

Books To Read

I've been finding it difficult to keep up with the walking, basically due to personal laziness. The thing is the last couple of days I've done more than my required steps to keep my rolling three month million steps going and keep thing am I obsessed or am I focussed and is there a difference. The thing is I know it benefits me physically so I know I have to keep doing it, and I will keep doing it as long as the weather is reasonable , and if it's not I will find another way of keeping up. I have Fenham Community Pool less than ten minutes walk away.

It's funny , while I am not an avaricious reader , I am reasonably well read. I am proud to have passed that on to both my daughters, Kirsty is always reading and recommends some good stuff and Juliet had read "Lord of The Rings" by the time she was 8. Her teacher at her new school didn't believe her so gave her a grilling, and she answered every question he asked. He was well impressed. It's a book I have a few copies of and have read about five times even though it consists of six different books, and often released as three separate books. I was introduced to Tolkein at secondary school and "The Hobbit" was one of the first books we had to read and most of the class loved it. A great introduction and great preparation for "Lord of The Rings".

My favourite book of all time is Clive Barker's "Imajica" , incidentally another book that is often split into three separate volumes. I love it, it has everything you could want from a twisted fantasist spanning five dimensions with magic , horror and lots more.

There are two books that everyone is assumed to have read and be familiar with that I have not touched. They are:

• "Catcher In The Rye" by JD Salinger and
• "On The Road" by Jack Kerouac

It's something I am going to do something about before the end of the year. I am currently reading "David Bowie: A Life" by Dylan Jones which is essentially a chonological compilation of interview snippets, but still interesting to get an idea of Bowie, although the number of people who come on the when appeared doing "Starman" on Top of The Pops their life changed and nothing would ever be the same again seems a bit far fetched to me. Yes Bowie was innovative but he was also a magpie and loved attention, and this got it in spades.

It can't happen again because at the time most of the population watched Top of The Pops religiously, now we have the internet, and so many ways of communication and finding an sharing information that were not available at the time.

Incidentally at my second ever gig somewhere in Ingol someone asked us to play it, and though I'd never played it before we managed to do it!! 

A lot of people these days can barely listen to two minutes of a song.

So it's obvious what I will leave you with isn't it.....

Forever

I have some contact lens fluid. A couple of weeks ago it was virtually finished so I bought some more. Each day I use it and each it seeps like it's going to run out, but doesn't, I feel that it's going to go on forever. It's funny how that happens with some things , you think they are finished but they keep going on (like a Take That record or Peter Jackson's take on Tolkein's The Return of The King)

I can't see an end to my medication (until I shuffle off my mortal coil), but my walking is helping a slight weight loss which in turn has allowed me to reduce my insulin intake by 30% (and that in turn will help me lose more weight) but I am still a massive 30Kg overweight and morbidly obese and I know if you asked me to carry 30Kg any distance I would know I had been carrying something.

Still enjoying Rob Young's Electric Eden and found a sort of sad coincidence that resulted in the gestation of two amazing albums, Fairport Convention's "Liege and Lief" and The Band's "Music From Big Pink". Fairport's album was the band's recovery after a horrific crash resulting in the death of drummer Martin Lamble, which affected the band but they spent a summer in a country retreat which gave us the album that was the flagship genesis of English Folk Rock.

The Band had been backing Bob Dylan who was involved in a serious motorcycle accident so the band retreated to a secluded pink house (hence the title to produce an album of seminal Americana by a band led by a Canadian).

However the song I am going to include is Roy Harper's "Forever" as that was the thought that inspired this post, and he is a major figure in English Folk Rock. Have a wonderful Tuesday everybody.

A Little History Of The World

Every Home Should Have One

I've started reading this book by Ernst Gombrich and four chapters in I've convinced that any family that has children under ten should have a copy of this. It's written in a simple, generally jargon free manner and is likely to spark interest and questins from inquisitive minds.



It's nice to come across something positive for young children and also to able to promote it as I shall be doing on April 28th.




Books stimulate the mind whether on paper or in ebook format and all children should be encouraged to read from as early an age as possible even if teachers don't like it .



Both my daughters knew their alphabet and the use of upper and lower case by the time they started school and amazingly some teachers said this was wrong. Luckily their primary school in Sunderland encouraged their reading and both had finished the Lord of The Rings by the age onf 10. I only started on the Hobbit at that age!