A Dark Design and more Riverboats

I have finally finished "The Fabulous Riverboat" by Philip Jose Farmer, and thoroughly enjoyed the 250 pages (I am a slow reader) , and this ends with King John streaming Mark Twain / Sam Clemens riverboat, the "Not For Hire" which King John intends to rename.

"The Dark Design" is book III in the Riverworld series and was originally meant to be the conclusion of this part of the story, however at 400K words, Farmer and his publishers decided that was too much for a single volume, so they split it.

It still clocks in at 450 pages so I am going to be on this for a while, but that isn't a problem, as you meet so many historical characters in these books from most of "civilised" history.

Sam is going to build another riverboat and that made me think of the scene in "Fitzcarraldo"  where they really pulled a riverboat over a steep hill in the jungle.

Below is the Wikipedia entry:

Fitzcarraldo  epic adventure-drama film written and directed by Werner Herzog and starring Klaus Kinski as the title character.

It portrays would-be rubber baron Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an Irishman known in Peru as Fitzcarraldo, who is determined to transport a steamship over a steep hill to access a rich rubber territory in the Amazon Basin. The film is derived from the historic events of Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald and his real-life feat of transporting a disassembled steamboat over the Isthmus of Fitzcarrald.

The film had a troubled production, and the documentary Burden of Dreams chronicled the film's hardships. Herzog had his crew attempt to manually haul the 320-ton steamship up a steep hill, leading to three injuries. The film's original star Jason Robards became sick halfway through filming, so Herzog hired Kinski, with whom he had previously clashed violently during production of Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Nosferatu the Vampyre and Woyzeck. Their fourth partnership fared no better. When shooting was nearly complete, the chief of the Machiguenga tribe who were used extensively as extras, asked Herzog if they should kill Kinski for him. Herzog declined.

Today's Music Choice -  Wild River by The Golden Palominos

You can read about the album, "A Dead Horse" Here.

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

A Rather Good Day .. so far ..

Well a lot of good things have happened today. I ran into a good friend who I hadn't seen for ages and got an invite to a 50th birthday party next year (to go with a wedding invitation from another friend) so probable lots of great things going to happen tonight I'm sure.

I then got a call from Screachtv who told me I'd won a £25 voucher to spend at The Strawberry ! That was unexpected and a nice surprise.

I watched a program and a film "Rescue Dawn" (well it's a Werner Herzog film with Christian Bale, what's not to like) on BBC iPlayer on my Samsung Note phone, and was majorly impressed with the quality and experience.

I've had some minor surgery, well half of it, resulting in 10 stitches , which need removing next week, so that was slightly worrying , but the doctor was brilliant and didn't spill too much blood. The NHS is brilliant.

And I managed to find the Formula 1 Brazilian Grand Prix version of Signal 30 by Public Service Broadcasting. Just how good is that
!