Three

This was going to be the third post I posted yesterday for #August50 ,which I think I've decided will probably be impossible without resorting to one line posts, which plenty of bloggers do. The other alternative is Vlogging but I doubt anyone would want to see me, and hear me talk, it's bad enough me actually rambling on in single words.

Today I don't want to walk into work, I don't want to mow my lawn, and lots of other things but they have to be done so I will attempt all of them. Obviously the black cloud is still floating aroundbut I don't have to let it cast it's shadow over everything.

I also need to change the music on my phone, although there's probably a lot more on there than most people have in their music collection because they now subscribe to Deezer or Spotify or Apple Music or Amazon Unlimited or YoutubeMusic and it plays exactly what the want to hear. Think about that for a second. Why not get a radio?

Music like BBC4 is a sort of bane of my life because you put them on and then you're happy to stay watching or listening until you are forced to switch off. 6Music has provided me with todays music, "Pool Hall Richard" by The Faces.

Enjoy your Tuesday.

#August50 #2

This is my second attempt at this and I've realised that we're six days into August an dthis is only my ninth post. I can see that I may have to do three or four posts some days as I don't want to be trying to do ten on the 31st of August. Even for that scenario to be realistic I will have had to do four posts every three days, and really I need to do five posts every three days to hit the target, so that is possible. If I actually actually do three today I will actually be on track, but I am not sure that that will happen.

One of the things is that I want tio have something to write about and some days, some weeks that just doesn't happen. There's only so many times you can write about the weather or walking or you physical wins and loses, and though I have managed to force myself to write about nothing a few times that doesn't usually work out.

I shouldn't have to delve into the minutiae of my day because I don't want to and I doubt many prople would find it interesting.

I had been looking to include "Infinity" by Guru Josh as it has a saxophone riff to rival Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street" in my opinion, so why not now as it is a truly great piece of music.

Answers on a Postcard

Remember that for competitions and requests? This morning I emailed John Hilcock standing in for Chris Hawkins on 6Music and got a positive response withing five minutes. There are some ways we have progressed. John was asking about songs about Dallas and I immediately thought of  Dallas by Steely Dan, one of their finest songs, but they rated so lowly that it's never had a digital release.

The Matt Haig Book is a little weird with the main protagonist thinking about ending his life but finding a reason to continue. I saw a meme about suicide that it doesn't stop the pain it just passes it on to others, and that is something that I am sure would stop me were I ever in that black a place. The number of good things in, and peripheral to my life of worth looking forward to. Enjoyin TV and holiday s with Fiona and friends, seeing Juliet's amazing fodcreations when as a small child pizza was a base with cheese and ham, no tomato, going to gigs and meeting up with Kirsty and Juliet and Molly, Mark's music and car perfection talks and his continual excellent taste in music, phone calls to my dad who can still be a curmudgeon, and then all my friends in Newcastle and Preston.

If we sit down and started writing a list of what we have to look forward to most of us would only stop when our arm started to ache.

So it's back to work today, and I am even looking forward to that, there's a lot aI could complain about but far more positive things.

So I am  sure I was going to write about about more things and a couple of years back I started an #August50 target to hit 50 posts in a month. When I first tried I hit  30, though the most I've done in a month is 43, but I could probably hit 50 this August so I'm going to set myself that target to do it. It's still less thatn two posts a day. I once saw a blog which had hundreds of posts each day, but each post was just a link to anther site. Very strange.

It's grey out but there's lots to look forward to, including mowing the lawn one evening this week, the football season has started, Preston won their first match despite missing two key players, and  my friend Krista is back from Finland so it is going to be a great week.

Have a good one everyone.

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.

Aprés

This morning is the first time since Wednesday that I've put in contact lenses. My walking target is is actually growing by the day but actually even if I didn't do any walking til Monday I ,in theory,, could walk far enough to get me back on target.

Although still a bit sore this weekend is more about still doing nothing to ensure there's no internal bleeding which could be caused by any undue straining so it really is an excuse to do nothing, so a lot of reading (Matt Haig's "How To Stop Time") , listening to vinyl and digital,  as I write this I'm listening to Trojan X-Rated Box set Wreck A Buddy by the Soul Sisters, a totally X-Rated take on "Little Drummer Boy"  from probably the late sixties . The box set is available on Amazon for a mere £180!!

It is quite amazing how puritanical the west is at times, while at the same time using women's bodies in provocative poses to sell the most banal of things. Though having said that misogyny is still prevalent in a hell of a lot of music, not just ska and reggae.

Today is the first day of the new football season, and of course Preston North End have just lost two of their best attacking players to injury, although the squad is far stronger than last season so it isn't bothering me too much.

So this is a day of making sure I am fit to get back into normal life, ie not lying around reading and watching telly.

As the new season as started we can have"The Referees' Alphabet" by Half Man Half Biscuit. Have a great Saturday everyone.

Busy Doing Nothing

Today is my first day of home recuperation after the Liver Biopsy and it really has been a case of being busy doing nothing. For me that has been trying to find something that requires as little input from me as possible.

It hasn't stopped me walking a little, and reading a little and choosing a little music, but most of the day has been watching four Mary Beard documentaries about Rome , which are very interesting and so I've gained a little knowledge today, so that is a small win.

Thoough it's grey and cloudy it's still very hot and humid so not the most comfortable, though is an excuse not to wear too much.

I thought I may have done a lot of blogging today but, obviously I haven't.  I mean this is barely a hundred words and this has not been easy to drag out of me, so obviously I am not going to producing anything worthwhile today.

Tomorrow is going to be more of the same, unless I get some inspiration, although I have been surprised by the number of well wishers based on my last post, I wasn't really expecting that. I know that people care but sometimes that results in "Oh I must let xxx know I'm thinking of them" and I am as guilty as anyone for that, and I do know who cares about me.

Anyway what should I leave you with, just looked at my pile of CDs and there's a best of Beverley Knight so I think "Come As You Are" (hers not Nirvana's) would be a good one to leave you with.

Post

Well I'm home after the Liver Biopsy, slightly fragile side and sore shoulders for some reason, but remember the right shoulder being a side effect of the Liver Biopsy.

It's quite amazing that  the rooms now have basic TVs although I was tooled up with my Kindle, my Phone and a Matt Haig book, "How To Stop Time".

So I spent some time reading then binge watched Nathan Barley abd was surprised and the number of name actors in it. Benedict Cumberbatch, Noel Fielding, Ben Whishaw and it's written by Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker and it's thirteen years old and I've only just watched it thanks to All 4,

Again it's been another example of how brilliant and efficient the NHS is despite being under such enormous pressure due to lack of investment.

I also found the 360º Camera app on Facebook on my phone, so that is another plus from today. I now need two days of total rest before slipping back into real life.

Today I was worried I would have my lowest ever step total , but I have hit just over 3K although tomorrow and Saturday will both be very low, then it's a case of trying to catch up.

This morning I was going to share "Hospital" by The Modern Lovers (featuring Jonathan Richman) but that will do for me to sign off tonight. You can hear the Velvet Underground influence in this excellent brooding song, and it's a cool one to sign off with tonight.

Pre

Well I've just packed a bag with stuff to keep me occupied while not moving on the hospital bed today. Just as a precaution, no contact lenses, which is just a little annoying but means if I decide to sleep it's easier.

I finished Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" which I found a fairly hefty novel, and very readable but at times seemed to be a couple of books that had got mixed up with each other, but a good read and I did keep seeing Ian McShane as Wednesday (which only makes sense if you have read the book or seen the TV serieas on Amazon Prime if you have it).

Next up, which is in my bag, is Matt Haig's "How To Stop Time" which has a very intriguing concept, so I think I have a hell of a lot to keep me occupied today. I may Instagram and post on Facebook during  the day.

I've done various other posts about the Liver Biopsy and Cirrhosis of The Liver so if you follow the tags you can chanck out what this is all about, and why it's actually happening.

Weatherwise it looks like another hot day but I know it will be cool enough in the Freeman today.

The first song related to today was "Lady Godiva's Operation" by The Velvet Undergoundso I will leave you with that while I get ready to wander off to the Freeman.

Vietnam

Vietnam?

Every so often I get a reasonable amount of views from some places. Recently it's been Russia, Germany, Peru and Brazil an dthe latest one is Vietnam. I haven't a clue why this happens in this way, it may be that the save up the figures for a month or a quarter and send the to google causing a spike in my viewing figures.

I don't think I've been hit by any spy bots, but only Russia may have been in that area,. Maybe if I mention ISIS, Trump's assassination, Boris Johnson drowning Theresa May there may be a little interest but I doubt it.

But it is weird how these countries apart from Russia don't really seem to repeat their visits.

The USA has little interest in this blog although I do hav mant American friends who may or may not read this.



This is just a very short post (though a lot longer that some of my early posts) about this situation.

I think an appropriate sng for this will be New Order's take on Jimmy Cliff's "Vietnam" which appeared on the "Best of War Child"digital only album release.

Have a rather excellent Wednesday everybody.

August Like February

Well it is for me. Today I start with a trip to the Freeman to give a lot of blood, probably have an ECG to make sure I am fit for a Liver Biopsy at the same place tomorrow.  This means at least two days of rest, and a week of no strenuous stuff, which probably will affect the number of steps that I do. This means I'll probably have about 27/28 days to get my steps in (like February) instead of August's 31.

Really I should do a load today but I have to go to work, although I could walk for a couple of hours after work assuming no Biblical deluges

The NHS are brilliant at looking after you and making sure they get it right. I do find it amusing the number of people who complain about it but refuse to actually fit in with their recommendations. There are good and bad bits but the NHS is good for you.

For the first time in a long time the heating came on this morning so I don't know whether the temperatures are dropping slightly.

So we shall she if I can hit my August target, although I think I've been signed up for a couple of longish walks later in the month so really that shouldn't be a problem.

So basically I'll leave you with "The Walk" by The Cure as I run off and make my way to the Freeman, and I suppose The Cure are an appropriate band for this post.

Electronic Deluge

Yesterday started so warmI couldn't wear any jacket to go to work, resulting in me trying to fit things into not very deep pockets ad hanging thing things round my neck, and finished with an incredible deluge wich you can see a little of here, I always think I'm at the highest part of Newcastle therefore immune to any potential flooding but Lanercost is higher that my house and the West Road runs down to that, so although unlikely to be stuck in a final flood, I'm certainly in it's path.

Last night was another early night as I was absolutely shattered (again). I don't know if it's the weather, or I'm run down, or the left shoulder situation is taking it's toll, or my body is just about to give up the ghost. This Thursday I have a Liver Biopsy so that's a day in hospital courtesy of the NHS, meaning I'm going to miss meeting up with my friend Paul in Whitby / Robin Hood's Bay, and have a couple of days recuperation as the football season starts.

I think August may be difficult for walking as four out of the first five days need to be taken easily and I don't want to risk causing internal bleeding, especially with the ITP that is always lurking.

This morning we have blue skies, the grass on lawns is certainly recovering so at this moment in time things are looking good.

There's just been an Advert on 6Music for Nemone's "Electric Ladyland" supposedly drawing together every type of"electronic" music, I must check this out but expect it will just be disco or rock with synthesisers, citing Kraftwerk as the inventors of electronic music while anyone with any knowledge of music knows that the first fully electronic film soundtrack was "Forbidden Planet" by Louis and Bebe Barron, and electronic music has been produced since a very long time back.

So we'll go with my favourite Kraftwerk piece, "Ruczuk", though from this live version you can see where "Autobahn" came from.

Six Memory

Today is the 29th of July and it's the birthday of six people I know in varying degrees of importance, and until this morning I was unaware it was their birthday. These include myson-in-law Mark (important), Amanda, Ellen, Savona, Sam and Laura.

That got me thinking on how, more and more we let electronic devices do our remembering for us, and in some ways that is good because it allows the mind to focus on other, hopefully, more creative or inventive pursuits.

Someone was once shocked that Albert Einstein didn't know the speed of light. His retort "Why do I need to know that? I can look it up in a book". That's always been an inspiration to me, because my memory has always been atrocious, though I find it odd that I will know the plots of Shakespeare's plays but seldom could remember quotes. When I did the Law part of my Business Studies I knew all about cases but could never remember what the cases were, which was fine when doing course work but not in an exam situation.

Rebecca Cother's Lovely Robots

This reminded me of a TED talk by a guy, Henry Evans, struck down at the age of 40, now a quadroplegic who now lives his life aided and through his devices. We are all now reliant on so many devices, ebven though we may not think we are. Stephen Hawking used devices to share his thoughts and knowledge with our world.  These peaople show us what CAN be achieved in situations of apparently impossible adversity.

You press a light switch you expect the light to shine. Thanks to phones you now don't have to remember phone numbers, I still know about three, all my own, but I know where to find phone numbers.

I've been in IT on and off for the best part of forty years but with out reference books the best I can come up with is:

SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE field_name = "What I Want"

But I know where to find out how to do what I want, I don't need to remeber how to do it.

So for a change a none music related post, it's a rainy Sunday but if you are lucky you wont be at work.

Trash

Well we got  thuder and rain last night, sort of ironic as I'd just taken delivery of a garden sprinkler, but you know that was going to happen. It's still hot and muggy and a couple of times this week I've had to change my clothes twice in a day.

I switched on 6Music and Chris Hawkins was going to play a seldom heard Roxy Music classic. I wasn't too sure what it would be, but it turned out to be "Trash" the lead single from their first comeback album "Manifesto" . The opening two songs were worth the price of the album on their own, and the single "B" side features a slow take on "Trash" ("Trash 2") but I liked the brooding"Manifesto" title track even better, and still do. Roxy could never hang on to bassists so I think that's Gary Tibbs in the video who also was in Adam and The Ants if I remember rightly (mentioned in "Ant Rap").

It's early Saturday morning and rain has stopped for now. Today I am going to hit the Library to see about downloading their eBooks and visiting the Newcastle Food Bank to see what they need for the School Holidays. I can't believe that we are one of the richest coutries in the would an government policies force people into food poverty. The thing is my disposable income is getting less as well and that sort of thing is very bad for the economy, when disposable income drops, the economy shrinks, and companies cut back on workforces further reducing economic capacity.

Anyway it's weekend, and as usual I'm up early instead of just lying in, but it is so hot that sleep is not really an option. I will spend some time noodling on keyboards and guitar in the hope of actually getting some songs down to put on Soundcloud.

Today I am determined to not buy any vinyl. My collection is complete. Really.

Though I saw this beautiful limited edition copy of "Anthem of The Sun"  by The Greatful Dead in Beyond Vinyl yesterday so just had to have it. My instagram post of it is here.

Have a great Saturday

Talk Talk

It's always good to talk and chat with peopla about non essential things. Today I was in a shop discussing the merits of Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" (wheich everyone should have and at least try to read and understand) and Simon Singh's "Fermat's Last Theorem" which while educating you about mathematics is also a brilliant cliff hanging detective novel.

Then I held the door open for a girl with amazing hair braiding / dreadlocks and mentioned a Facebook post by my friend Kaz which brought a smile to many people's faces., about her encounter with a Jamaican "bruddah", (see image).

The thing is encounters like this definitley make youy day better and it's always good to talk.

In my work environment I encourage lots of social talk and interaction, because that makes it much easier  to  then talk work when it matters. Social interactions remove inhibitions about whether you can actually speak to people.

I still see a lot of cliquery but often that's induced by familiarity and inhibitions about straying outside your box. Maybe my problem is that I often go way outside the box and end up tripping over my own feet, but more often than not it is a good end result.






Anyway today's music can only be "Talk Talk" by Talk Talk, which is a break from the recent proliferation of Alice Cooper, David Bowie and Rolling Stones.

It's Friday, it's the weekend and it's still sunny. Enjoy everyone

Vaguely Homonymic Musings

When I titled my last post "Speed Too" I though how far can you count using homonyms instead of the actual numbers. I know it's convoluted (especially seven), and someone else will have done this better, but it was an interesting thing to think about. THis is the list:

Won

Too

Free

For

Fife

Sicks

'S Even

Ate

Nein

Tin

I was vaguely thinking of numbering blog posts with these words but decided against it, as I'd get bored , and I've done it all in one here.

Today I went for a Tofu Katsu Curry at Wildflower, but I still find Tofu to spongey and featurelessly chewy. The Katsu Curry, rice an dleaves were excellent though and really I should have asked for the tofu to be replaced by Mushrooms.

I also gave in to temptation and bought a vinyl desk copy of Alice Copper's "School's Out" on a Green Warner Brothers label, and that should complete my vinyl collection barring any new inventive covers or picture discs.

So maybe we can do more Alice Cooper today and go with a live take on Gutter Cat vs The Jets.

Speed Too

This time I know what music I'm going to include so I should be able to keep to my ten minute to create this blog post but I sort of know I wont. As I've said before, and therefore repeating myself, but we always do that don't we, this blog is also a diary for myself so that I can store things that I like and are worth remembering for me.

When I was first blogging that first paragraph would have been enough but I also have to tell you about the frightening "Ballad of Dright Fry" by Alice Cooper from the album "Love It To Death" about and mentally unstable child murderer ... but the way that song sotally unnerves you still doesn't prepare you for the segue into the abum's finale a cover of Rolf Harris' "Sun Arise" which does sort of leave you with a smile on your face while feeling cold inside from the previous song.

So that's that, another very quick post and it's still Wednesday.

Oh and this post took me over 160K page views.

Speed

I'm sure that I used to be able to knock off a blog post in ten minutes, but these days it can often take an hour ,or sometimes thirty minutes. When I see what others write I thin, for me, that would be about a days work if I could actually concentrate on it for that long. Just vaguely timing this I'm actually writing at about a line a minute, although the actual post is on a wider screen so that's not as many lines therefore when I'm writing I look and think "That looks a decent post" then when I publish it I think "Is that all?".

The weather is still excellent although my walking this month is only just keeping up with what I need to do, and next month may be extra difficult because of the time I need to take off walking for the Liver Biopsy, though having said that my last one must have been last year so I must have coped with that, or maybe it was two years back. I need to check that out

So this was to check if I could actually do a fast blog post. This one is going to be about 250 words havingg taken basically ten minutes. Maybe I am just gettiing less efficient or more inefficient, who knows?

I need to choose something new to listen to on the way to work but not sure what that will be. As on the last post I mentioned Alice Cooper I was going to leave you with "The Ballad of Dwight Fry" from "Love It To Death", a very scary song and an example of why early Cooper albums were so good, but then I saw this amazing animation from "The Diary of Tortov Roddle" by Kunio Kato,(check here for original) for Pink Floyd's "The Narrow Way" , the Dave Gilmour solo piece on the studio disc of  "Ummagumma", maybe Dwight Fry tomorrow.

As you can see I've got totally sidetracked and gone of on a tangent because I just saw something interesting that I wanted to share and remember, so this blog has almost tripled in the time it has taken me to produce. C'est La Vie.

It's the middle of the week, enjoy yourselves.

..... and another problem with Vinyl

I hadn't really thought about before, but it's only the unusually hot weather that made me think about it. This morning I picked up a copy of The Rolling Stones "Sticky Fingers" with an intact zipper cover, and of course to have to try it out and play the record, don't you? It's The Rolling Stones. I Instagrammed it here. if you want to see.

There's an article about the cover and why it was abandoned here.

The cover was designe d by Andy Warhol and featured some well filled underpants that various people have claimed to be, see here

Then, as the sun came through the window, and started getting really hot, I thought if I left this record out it could end up melting on the turnatable. Possible similar the RCA's Dynaflex in the seventies which just seemed to be a built in warping mechanism for albums and David Bowie was on RCA , how not good was that?
 
Today I noticed HMV were selling The Rolling Stones "Hot Rocks" for £9.99 but if I bought it, I'd have five pieces of Rolling Stones' vinyl and I don't think I need that. I was also tempted by a green label Warner Brothers copy of Alice Cooper's "School's Out" with it's desk sleeve (though missing the original paper panties that it came dressed in) , I also managed to avoid buying that as well.

So basically keep your vinyl out of the sun or it may become unplayably flexible

The Problem With Vinyl

Today I had a little free time in the house to myself and decided to listemto some vinyl while catching up on some reading. Today it was still "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman, while listening to "Velvet Underground and Nico" , "Strange Days" by The Doors and "Exile on Main Street" by the Rolling Stones.

Then I realised the "problem"

When walking and listening digitally I can listen to an album, even a double album end to end. When CD came out you could listto 78 minutes of music without interruption. When "Godbluff" by Van Der Graaf Generator was released the NME said that it needed to be heard as a continuous piece and vinyl didn't give you that. At the time you would have had to record it on to a side of a C90 Cassette, but CD changed all that.

And therein lies the problem, a side of a decent sounding vinyl album (33⅓ rpm) will clock in at ten to twenty minutes, so the music, while enjoyable runs out fairly quickly for me. I still like listening to vinyl  but if I am reading then usually I up every fifteen to twenty misnutes to change the record.

That's all I wanted to say so I will leave you with "Sweet Black Angel" from "Exile On Mainstreet" which was the "B" Side of the lead single "Tumbling Dice".

Sleep well folks.

Flexibly Free

Back in the sixties and seventies music was often promoted by giving away vinyl flexidiscs. These were'nt meant to last but were meant to give you a taster of something so you would buy the actual single or album and generate income for the artist and definitely the record company.

The thing is sometimes these flexidiscs contained exclusive music (at the time), I'm thinking Alice Cooper's "Slick Black Limousine" which was promoting "Billion Dollar Babies" and the interludes on the promo for the Rolling Stones' "Exile on Main Street". These were both NME freebies as it was my music mag of choice at the time. Both these were committed to cassette as soon as I got them, but were lost way back. They may be worth something now.

I recently bought a couple of flexidiscsfor Long Play Cafe / Empire Records in The Grainger Market and was surprised that the Adam and The Ants one had no track name on , but is their take on The Village People's "YMCA" called apparently "IMCA". Because the flexidiscs slip you need to put a couple of coins to stop the vinyl slipping.  The other was by Hazel O'Connor and you can see the details here. LAter sounds actually started giving away vinyl EPs.

But in the sixties we started getting loss leader compilations. At first I thought these would be very expensive, but they were very cheap and full of amazing music. Again these often contained music you couldn't get anywhere else, I'm thinking "America", Yes' ten minute take on the Siman and Garfunkel song and Led Zeppelin's "Hey,HeyWhat Can I Do" on the "Age of Atlantic" samplers.

The first one that I bought was Island's "Nice Enough To Eat" which introduced me to Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, King Crimson and many more.

In the disgital age Amazon used to give free downloads but that seems to have stopped but often artists make music available to download for free in exchange for an email address.

I suppose music is still effectively free to listen to on the radio and Youtube, but I do like to have the music and make sure the artist gets something from me.

Well I am looking out at the blue sky and sunshine and think its time to wake the neighbours by mowing my overgrown jungle of a lawn.

Today Fiona and Helen are doing a 26 Mile walk for MacMillan which you can track here and donate here.

Have a most enjoyable day