The New Time

One of the problems with getting older is that the days seem to get shorter and you seem to have less time to do things, well that's how I feel. A number of people with children want to get the children back to school mainly because they are missing their friends, and of course looking after young children 24/7 is not an easy task.

The thing is that six weeks of lockdown for a six year old is a fiftieth of their life , where for me it's one five hundredth so it seems a lot longer for them that it does for me although the actual time is the same.

I am now trying to find a way of perceiving time in the same way that a child does and see a week's holiday or even a weekend as a long time. A weekend is around 62 hours from work finish to work start for most Monday to Friday workers and we should be able to see that as time to enjoy and do things.

I'm often reminded of "The Eighty Minute Hour" by Brian Aldiss where the controllers speed up clocks when we are not at work and slow them down when we are at work, and if that were happening  would we know?

People often waste weeks wishing for Friday , I used to be like that but now think "What Can I Do Today?" . If you are always looking forward to Friday you effectively throw away five days of your week , and the weekend is only two days so that makes your time seem to fly by.

My aim is not only to slow time down , but to do more in that time. I often am bothered by going for
walks because , by it's nature, that takes time, although usually I listen to music while walking as they are complimentary activities and listening to music can almost make the activity go faster. The paradox is that you want to finish your walk , but you want to enjoy your time doing it and if time speeds up you feel you are losing out.

Matt Haig wrote one of his excellent books "How To Stop Time" which also took this as part of his premise, and his self help page from "Reasons To Stay Alive" is excellent , so I am now FEELING TIME as well as taking my final part in the #maywriteabit , because tomorrow is the first of June.

So what song should we go with , there are many songs called "Time" , Pink Floyd and David Bowie come to mind, and even "Five Years Time" by Noah and the Whale and "Minutes" by The Human League came to mind.

I decided to go with "The Waiting" by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers as it is sort of appropriate for the position we are in now and does contain a lot of pertinent lines to the lockdown situation.

Trop

Well I was worried about keeping up my steps for August after the op on Thursday and the recuperation over the weekend. I didn't mow the lawn but ended up walking 20K steps yesterday and 15K today putting me 5K ahead of schedule which is good. I wasn't expecting to be this far ahead at this point although I know it's a possibily.

I don't know if I've overdone it, or it's just the hot weather, but I have not been feeling good at all today. Just under a very black cloud, although I know I will come out from under it.

I have listened to some good music and saw an excellent film "Jackpot" tonight and am reading Matt Haig's "How To Stop Time" which is not the most cheerful book, although it's extremely readable.

I have made a decision to turf out all my CDs that are in boxes, music should be at your fingertips, so I will reduce my collection to my box sets and stuff that I like to play, and of course I have it all backedup digitally (although I didn't realise I hadn't ripped my Dire Straits albums until last week). The other thing is that a lot of music is available on demand but I still won't subscribe to any streaming services and they do more for the service that the musicians.

I was just thinking about Ed Sheeran's "Divide" , which I have never knowingly heard, and it wouldn't surprise me if there are people who have never heard anything but that album.

So I am still recovering, still not in the best of spirits and it's work tomorrow. I could stay off but that would give me more to catch up on, and being at work will focus my mind.

I know I've maybe overdone things so Tom Petty's "Too Much Ain't Enough" seems appropriate.

Is It Too Darn Hot?

Yesterday I was in Edinburgh and at times in was so hot that had to dive in to shade to get a little relief. While I am not a hot sun person, I definitely prefer the weather sunny that to grey dark skies. I alsthink of the walks to work with the wind is so cold that it's almost trying to burn your face off. We've also not had much rain, last year was almost perfect, sunny during the day raining at night. It is great wehn you don't really need an umbrella.

Today it's so hot in th ehouse that even a nightgown is uncomfortably superfluous, but luckily I have a couple of old Preston North End replica shirt that hide my body from the public while keeping me cool, after all in our Daily Mail / Dail Express / Sun dominated nation we don't want any bare flesh unless it's some photo shopped female in one of those rags do we. Some people are only happy when they have something to be offended by.

I finally cut ties with someone on Facebook when he tweeted that there was no need to demonstrate against Donald Trump and everyone should just chill, which in my opinion is there a backing for racism, misogyny, bullying (fill in your list), this comes on the back of him trivialising my friends and continually criticising while excusing Tory misogyny and racism.

Anyway today France play Croatia in the World Cup final, and I have just had the most awful cup of instant coffee, and it's L'Or and it is truly bitter and awful , the jar is going in the bin when I get down. I have had their stuff before and it was fine, this is disgusting. God I am sounding like a Daily Mail reader. I AM NOT.

Anyway I am now going to have a coldish shower, and go out and get the papers. Today is a day when I am expending no effort whatsoever. I wasn't even going to write this, but I already have done. Two songs have been going through my mind "Too Darn Hot" by Ann Miller from Cole Porter's musical "Kiss Me Kate" for obvious reasons and "Too Much Ain't Enough" by Tom Petty, because even though I've said I'm going to do nothing, I will do somethingand I probably will overdo it and at the end of the day think there is something else I should have done.

So you get both songs and now it's shower time.

Two Still Stand

The Travelling Wilburys always struck me as  rich rock stars' indulgence, and although I do have all their records the concept grated on me and I found a lot of their songs forgettable. But there was a few geat tunes in there such as "End of The Line" and when you hear Roy Orbison's voice come in on "Handle With Care" you just wonder how the others dare sing in his presence, it's an absolute incredible monster of a voice compared to the others.

Unfortunately we lost Roy and George and yesterday amid lots of confused reporting we found that Tom Petty had gone. Six yeards older than me her went out after finished a fortieth anniversary tour still doing what he loved in a universe that some people only get the Andy Warhol fifteen minutes of fame. Tom never got old, he lived life how he enjoyed it and could have gone on  for a lot longer but it wasn't to be.

The first Tom Petty song I heard was "Anything That's Rock and Roll", a knowing re-imaginig of Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues" with the Heartbreakers which I bought immediately and followed up buying their eponymous first album , which also contained the Byrd's tribute "American Girl". There was a little confusion at the time because Johnny Thunder' Heartbreakers were very active at the same time though obviosly more punk than Petty.

When Tom released his first solo album, I wondered what we would get and was rewarded with the gorgeous "Free Fallin'" and so it went on. There is always a lot of new music, but I do have a few Tom Petty albums in my collection and a Tom Petty record always give you a lift on the radio. I've just realised he shares the same surname as Buddy Holly's producer, Norman Petty, I must find out if there's a connection there.

Anyway there are two Travelling Wilbury's left standing and still very active, Bob Dylan and Jeff Lynne, and while since "Face The Music" I haven't been overly impressed with Jeff Lynne's output (the ELO were meant as an experiment in what the Beatles would have done after "Strawberry Fields" if they had continued on that road) , but Bob Dylan's out has varied from from the brilliant ("Tempest") to bland ("Triplicate")

I was disappointed but not surpised to see HMV have a huge Tom Petty display up to capture all the real fans, but that's just business.

Anyway it's time to go to work, have a brilliant Wednesday my friends.

Please Smile

Today walking into town I saw a guy with a very fierce expression on his face . I smiled and said "Nice Day" but got no reaction. He then started cleaning his car. I then got on a bus and there was a guy looking miserable holding a scratch card. It may have been a winner but probably not, but he didn't look happy. I hope it was a winner and I hope he ended the day smiling.

Smiling releases endorphins and makes you feel better, and makes you better able to do whatever you want to do.

I've passed 900K on my Million Step Challenge but today has been an absolute trial. Firstly my phone seems to be losing and not recording steps. One example is first thing this morning that I took Fiona's phone upstairs for her and that registered 92 steps, mine registered 5 steps , and that's what it was on before I picked Fiona's phone up. Yesterday it registered 25 steps from bus stop to home , when it should have been 200 steps. I went for fish and chips on Friday , that's well over 2K steps , my phone decided I'd done 1K. So this is a little demoralising.

Then I've started feeling drained like all the strength is leaking from my arms and legs. If I can keep going for 20 minutes then I can overcome it, but it's like walking through treacle for 20 minutes. I won't let this combination of negativity stop me from completing the Million Steps by the end of July but it does feel like I'm pushing against something, but it won't stop me.

So an appropriate song would be Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down" , I know it's Sunday and tomorrow  is Monday, but it's another week, another challenge. Push on my friends , push on.

So Much For Obsession

Well the last two days I haven't made my 11K steps, I still am 12K ahead of my target and could possibly nip out for another walk and make up the 3.5K steps that I am short today.

I am feeling lethargic and apathetic, because I am waiting for a call that means that I need to drive down to Coventry and back, that's eight hours driving and I'm not a huge fan of driving, but it's far better than being stuck in hospital which is Fiona's situation at the moment.

I didn't even write yesterday but managed to catch up on "American Gods" so that's fine. The weather is grey, so not exactly inspiring.

The problem is when you are waiting on a call, you can't really start on something else or go out to a film or a gig, there's more important things in life than being selfish. I'm looking forward to having Fiona back and catching up on TV and then having a week's holiday next week.

So I though "The Waiting" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers would be appropriate for the whole of this Bank Holiday Weekend. See I can't even write that many words even though I haven't written anything for two days. I am still keeping up the number of posts so have maintained #ATuneaDayinMay but I really should be writing more about stuff that is interesting really.

I'm sure the journey to Coventry and back will give me lots to write about, and I suppose the 250 or so words that are in this piece is not that small. I seem to remember doing 100 word essays at school, or maybe I am just imagining that, I wonder if my teachers ever counted how many words I wrote or was it just a threat to make sure I wrote enough to be read.

Who knows.

Anyway I will go out for another walk now , even though the weather is still greay.

I may have an early start tomorrow

Slide Comes Before A Fall

..and my how I fell , wandering into the bathroom barefoot and 18 stone of me hit the Amtico floor with a fair jolt . Somehow the floor and Kitchen ceiling were undamaged , while I survived with a sore back and bruising. Think that the Tom Petty song title is fairly appropriate for the situation.

After that have had fun with passwords and mobile phone and broadband technology with Orange and Virgin , eventually succeeding despite the best endeavours of the website "designers" to make their site unusable. I've worked with a few programmers and one of them cauled Paul who I worked for at the National Bus Company gave me these three rules for a program , though they can be applied to anything you do:

1. It must work and do what it is supposed to do
2. It must be legible and easily understood and documented
3. It must be efficient

It seems very few designers / programmers take those maxims into account these days. Many of the people on the end of the phone are fine but they do have to work with systems that make their job very difficult , although you get some places that actually blame the incompetence of the user , with "You must have done something wrong" or "Try later" , as though some magic is going to suddenly make things work. If it doesnt work now , it wont work tomorrow unless it gets fixed. I'm thinking Tesco , Barclays and Nationwide for this particular bad attitude.

Anyway it's the end of the Bank Holiday , work starts again tomorrow , and it's almost time for bed .

Foo Connection

Was talking with a friend about the Foo Fighters and telling her how good they actually were , though sh aint a fan of Nirvana. Anyway just thought of how Learn To Fly and Wheels remeinded of Tom Petty's Learning to Fly . See what you think!!

Foo Fighters: Learn To Fly



Foo Fighters: Wheels



Tom Petty: Learning To Fly




Enjoy - I do!!