The Heat Is On

Well it's Saturday Night and still very warm, hot even. Hope I haven't got sunburned today , though I bet a lot of people have. Just been having a relaxing day , though dewired some clutter in the front room and had a wander round town and bough a book and some fruit.

This post is totally random, because as is quite often the case, I don't really have anything to write about, but it is nice to just let the words flow and and fill the page, although I don't think there will be much page filling tonight. I just keep trying to thing of ways to cool down, after today clothes need to go in the wash. Luckily have cool drinks and will be sleeping on top of the bed with maybe a light sheet , just need some sort of cover on, for obvious reasons.

The days are getting shorter, the nights drawing in , although it is most definitely summertime.

Just as I was writing this my computer desktop disappeared, very weird, so had to restart. Given it's so hot have gone for The Who's take on Martha Reeve's Heatwave.

Anyway I hope everyone is having a great weekend, enjoy the sun , and keep positive, there is lots to be positive about.

777

This is my 777th post. I'm not sure where I expected to get to when I started, but obviously 1000 is in my sights. I actually started seven years ago, in 2007 and I did six posts i that year so the seventh actually occurred in 2008. The first post is here and the second was a piece I wrote on Krautrock which I pillaged so to blog would look a little more substantial.

777 7 7

Anyway the number seven seems to be cropping up quite a lot in this post , but Im not going to count words or letters.It's probably a number that some ancient Chinese Astrological Horoscopic Wisdom will tell me will define my life , or something. Oh and tomorrow is the 7th Day of the seventh month and if you ad the digits up that make up this year 2 + 0 + 1 + 4 , guess what ..... they make SEVEN.

It's quite fun the connections and coincidences you can find with relatively little effort.

Well no doubt some people will be in seventh heaven.

So there are lots of songs that have Seven in the titles and I was going to go for  "Seven By Seven" by Hawkwind , but then thought I'd plump for "Seven Stars" by Uriah Heep , the first band I ever saw live. Sleep well my friends and have a brilliant week.

My Seven Day Weekend

Last June I did 35 posts , more than 1 a day. This June that's unlikely, but I will still be posting, and hopefully will have a few this week. Yesterday I ate at Scotts of Helmsley , just the standard fish and chips. I thought the portion looked a bit skimpy but didn't by the time I had finished, full and with great service and I would recommend them to anyone who is in the area for any reason. Helmsley is slightly odd in that I've been visiting for years and in all that time it has never had a chemist, which odd for such a big village.

Anyway I could tell you what I'm going to be up to but that would spoil it for when I actually post what I've done and where I've been (which does sound a bit ominous but it's not honestly).

Well this is the first post of this month and the weather is really nice , I've posted pictures on Instagram , Twitter and Facebook so you can look there.

So everyone enjoy the rest of your weekend I have a seven day one this week so that's why I have the New York Dolls on this post!

Because i Can ....Be Happy

Just woke up , and it's 2am here and I'm just posting because I can. I feel wide awake , but 2 am is not a good time to be wide awake unless you're at a party. But there's no work tomorrow so I can do this. It's also an excuse to include a brilliant TED Talk on the "science" of happiness and it is worth watching. One of the reasons I blog is so that I can remember things that I've enjoyed, sometimes it will be a gig , sometimes something I've seen on the web , meeting with friends and lots of things and that's why I leave it  open to the public because others my find itinformative and worth reading.

I'm a fairly public person on the web, easy to find if you want, but I suppose the blog is fairly selfish and self centered, itn that it's essentially for me, and if others want to come along for the ride then so be it.

I really didn't intend this post to be much more than a sentence , but it's amazing how sometimes once you start writing words seem to just flow from your fingertips. Whether those words are worth committing to some permanent medium is a different matter (M Knight Shyamalan and Dan Brown I'm thinking of you, but it's made you both a hell of a lot richer than most people, so as usual I'm in the tasteful minority here).

Anyway I'm going to try and get back to sleep, but really check out Dan Gilbert's talk, be happy and have a great weekend.

Friday Is Here

I know it's not the last working day of the week for everyone but it is for me and a lot of others. The Arctic Winter and Bulgarian Invasion forecast by the redtops and tabloid rags never appeared, so generally life is good, and thought it was time I posted something.

I do intent to do a blog post by talking into my phone and maybe I'll do that this weekend, and I also need to do some more recording. I have in my head an idea for an album, although I can't say a thing about it as the title will give it away, although it's probably already been done but not by me , yet. The old Apple iPad with Garageband will be my recording studio for that.

I've also keeping up writing my book , with an October finish target and that I will hit. Anyway I'm drinking Lemsip to stave off my cold and will soon be leaving for work. There are lots of Friday related songs but there's only one I'm going to leave on here for you , The Cure's Friday I'm In Love (again).

Have a great Friday everyone, I certainly will.

And Another Thing....

I was speaking to a few work colleagues and friend and was surpried how many people read this blog. Even if one person reads my post it's a success as far as I'm concerned. I write because I want to, and to remember things  and to let other people know about things and also to give ideas for my ongoing book , which I am still working on.

So if you are reading this, a big thank you for taking your time and reading my ramblings. And it's great the way writing can trigger something that you've forgotten about. I was meant to send a my dear friend Mick Errington details of walks in Northumberland. I feel a little as though I should be in the doghouse but I will phone him tonight.

Anyway thank you for reading and there's only one song for this, Iggy Pop's Success from his Lust For Life album.

200

This is my 200th blog post this year, so I can still obviously use a keyborad. At some point I want to try and dictate a post into my phone on some microphone and put it up unedited to see if it makes sense. I've still got around sixty days left this year so possibly expect to finish on 240 or 250 posts.

I was hoping to do the Pickering to Whitby steam train run , but just checked the timetable and the winter one kicked in this week, which means no midweek trains. C'est la vie.

Either Facebook or Google have stopped allowing the use of Youtube or embedded images when I post a link to Facebook, which is annoying. I didn't want an image of me for each post, I wanted something relevant to the actual post. I will research into why this is happening.

Anyway, the holiday is continuing with much relaxation, watching The Wire, Game Of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire. I now have lots of technology at my disposal so I can download stuff off BBC's iPlayer so I caught up with the excellent Orphan Black on my iPad as well as a program on The Who's Quadrophenia.

Orphan Black

As I type this I'm listening to the J Geils Band using my Samsung Note phone as a music player, though just switched it to the wonderful Penguin Eggs by Nic Jones, an album that should be in everyone's collection.

The thing is where I am in Ampleforth I don't have a mobile signal, so that means another form of total relaxation. It's sometimes nice to just cut yourself off, although I'm obviously posting this, and keeping abreast of the times using the BBC site and posting on Instagram as well so people can see what I'm finding interesting. Well I'm going to put an image on here and a John Cooper Clarke song that I loved from the first moment I heard it, with some great lines and a soft porn soundtrack, take a listen. Everyone have a wonderful day everyone.

Book or TED?

I'm currently enjoying the new excellent John Niven novel Single White Male. The thing is because I'm reading that on the train I've not really had time to watch any TED talks which I also enjoy and find inspiring. Sometimes you can only to one thing you enjoy at once , this is a situation where multi tasking is definitely not an option. So I thought I'd include a book related TED talk.

The books about a writer and in one passage about planning or outlining a book comes up with an interesting observation about Stephen King, which may or may not be true. The protagonist doesn't outline his own novels , citing Stephen King's reason being "If I don't know what's going to happen next, then the chances are the reader won't either". That seems to me like a good reason for not necessarily planning you novel. I actually know the structure of my own book so it's just a case of putting flesh on the bones of the framework that is already there in my head.

Well I'm glad the weekend is here, and looking forward to being able to relax and enjoy myself. Anyway I hope you enjoy the talk and have a brilliant weekend.

Another Beautiful Day

Another gorgeous beautiful day and I don't know what I'm going to to do just at the moment. The weather this year has been absolutely awesome in fact a brilliant TED Talk about clouds comes to mind so that's why it leads this post. Watch it , it is brilliant.

The book is not coming along as fast as I would like but got another thousand words knocked out last night and have ideas still to get down and it's still stuck around the late sixties early seventies so there is a hell of a lot of information to sift and mine and get down. It's still really at the beginning , but it is the first time I've ever undertaken anything like that. Thank god for the word processor I say. I really couldn't hand write or hand type it. Although I do need to use dictation to get ideas down and maybe even write some of the stuff.

I remember about two years ago on holiday I wanted to see if I could write two thousand words in a day, and I did it here. Whether it makes sense or not is a different matter but it does pale the hundred word essays of early secondary school , I can write a hundred words now without thinking almost , but is that a good thing or bad thing. It could get me a job as a scriptwriter of a Michael Bay film, I'm sure.

I now need an image for each post otherwise you get my ugly mug. So I particularly love the pictures of Rebecca Cother and this one caught my eye , because for all of us there is always something good out there  we may have to find it, or we may already have it. Watch that TED talk , enjoy the great weather and have an ebsolutely brilliant day everyone.

Something Has Got To Be Out There - Rebecca Cother

Busy Doing Nothing ....

Today has been quiet, though took advantage of a free Beefeater meal with work colleagues. Finally reading a "normal" novel , John Niven's "Straight White Male" and been listening to good music on the journey to and from work. I'm aware that I need to do another music video of me playing and continuing to get the use of my left hand completely back ,and need to get some more of the book down. But that will all come in it's own good time.

This is going to be a short post because I am quite tired, although I'm sure I won't be into bed straight away.

Anyway hope you have had a great day, I'm looking forward to the approaching weekend and looking to have lots of fun and enjoy myself.

It's Dark Now ... But The Dawn Will Soon Be Here

The Strypes do make a brilliant wake up call!

 One of the problems in getting up really early (4:30 am today) , is that it's dark and you know in a couple of hours you need to be in work. There's not enough time to go back to sleep (I had six hours which is enough for me) so you sort of are awake and wanting to do things.

The Sun Will Rise

My minds abuzz with thoughts and ideas and I'm looking forward to my my train journey south. I still need to take drugs and stuff, but it means I can do things at a leisurely pace instead of rushing around.

I can be sure everything will be on time and work perfectly for me, and I have a small but very interesting problem to solve at work. It's one of those things that's annoying and boring, but I want to get my head round it and understand what is happening.

These are the sort of things that keep us thinking and stop life from being boring. Yes it's a challenge , and yes I will find a solution , but at the moment I am still trying to work things out.

I also need to devote some more time to my book in order to get it up to maybe 10K words a week. Because I work during the day I am going to have to restructure my none work time , but ,that's life. It's what we all do.

I also have to prepare an answer for some anti Barack Obama people (this isn't work) but it is amazing how people pluck figures out of the air and wave them around like it's actually true. There are some figures for you here.

Anyway, feeling very positive about today , so you all go out and enjoy yourself, I know I am going to.

Heat and Silence

This is going to be a very short post, but it's August now and trying to think of something to say. The weather is still hot , and there was a bit of rain today. That's about it. Somewhere down this blog there is an exercise that I carried out in Craster to write two thousand words with no planning whatsoever and it turned into an essay on the difficulties of trying to write two thousand words.

Anyway was talking with someone yesterday about how you can integrate silence into talking to enable things to sink in to a potential audience. almost all of us have filler words because we are uncomfortable with silence. Once these are pointed out you can eradicate them , because we tend to take our own behavior as the norm. So when we repetitively reuse a phrase it dilutes the meaning.

So that's

A Post A Day In May

   Well it's the early hours of Sunday morning on day six of the task I set myself. I still have to write up my visit to Cheltenham , and should reall do a post on the excellent Tebay Services one of the mentions in Bollocks To Alton Towers. Incidentally they are planning another on on the M5 so southereners can get the benefits of a brilliant service station.

As well as that this week I going to try and make Doxford Park by public transport , though that does mean going through Sunderland , but there is plenty going on in the football world., so I shouldnt really be struggling to write about things. Oh and it;s the first Bank Holiday this month as well: