Feedburner and Interrupted Dreams

It looks like the huge increase in visits is due to being picked up by something called Feedburner which is some kind to data feed. I'm not sure if this is permanent, although I wont complain if it is. I'm not sure if this is as a result of me sharing the blog posts on Twitter or including a link with my most visited Youtube slideshow. , 26K views and featuring Christopher Lee, so it could have been any one of those. Twitter has resulted in a few retweets and also I tried MeWe after Google dropped their social sharing although I do not think that has resulted in any visits. I use it to post on then stipe the post to post in Twitter on my phone.

This morning I woke at 5:30 and thought I had quarter of an hour to enjoy, but fell back into an unspecified dream and the was rudely awoken by the alarm going off seemingly about thirty seconds later. That's is the problem with falling asleep when you are about to get up. It always amazes me that often at night sleep refuses to come, but when you have to get up, especially for work, sleep is so, so welcoming.

I'm over halfway through Stephen Fry's "Mythos" and thoroughly enjoying it and am now thinking about which book will come next.

So what should I share with you tonight, Huw Stephens featured Caught By The River and from that Jeff Barrett's Labe's first single release was "Under Dubwood" by The Dubwood Allstars featuring the tones of Richard Burton and the music of King Tubby (think it was used for Ali Baba by John Holt)

Apathy In The Uk

Apathy From The Uk

This is nothing major. Although I am English and live in the UK, I would expect my UK visits to be top 3 normally but they are not.

UK Visits are less than half the USA and Germany and only 20% of the French visits. As I have said before the Unknown region has me flummoxed, maybe some rogue robots.

I'm not complaining, this is just an observation, and lets face it the uSA is far more populous than the UK though I don't think France is (though it is much bigger. Germany is slightly bigger (though that may be completely wrong as I am too lazy to check it out at this moment, but I am glad for the visits)

The recent visit explosion (for me) has boosted the site income from about 10p per week to £10 per week which is a significant increase which I wasn't expecting.

The blog is not about making money but acting as a diary and sharing interesting stuff with people.

I wasn't intending to do this post until tonight, and the title came to me and I thought I'll make a start on it. Although it's about people visiting this blog the title could also apply to political engagement and taking an interest in things that actually affect your life, but most people would rather watch a soap and make a cup of tea.

So maybe I should take the song that I stole the title from and Share a little Alberto y Lost Trios Paranoias (a typical Manchester name) with you. I bet you thought I would go with The Sex Pistols didn't you?

FactoryZoo

Just shoved together two of my most liked record labels Factory from Manchester and Zoo from Liverpool because I do  have a book called "Factory".

Factory was the imprint of Tony / Anthony Wilson and brought us among others Joy Division , Happy Mondays , New Order and lots more as well as lots of iconic design ideas. The Hacienda Club used the black and yellow warning stripes , now every time I see it I don't think WARNING I thing HACIENDA or FACTORY . A brilliant idea. The film "24 Hour Party People" is about Tony Wilson and the lasting enigma of Factory Records. It was also responsible for releasing "Reach For Love" by Marcel King, one of my favourite records ever. It's also Shaun Ryder's favourite Factory single.

Everything on Factory had a catalogue number (The Hacienda was FAC51)

Zoo Records from Liverpool was nowhere near as influential as Factory but I remember getting a compilation (Street To Street: A Liverpool Album - 1978) and loving "Match of The Day" by Big In Japan, who featured Holly Johnson, Ian Broudie , Bill Drummond and Budgie. The label also featured Echo and The Bunnymen , Teardrop Explodes and lots more so still very important.

It is quite surprising that Zoo Records are almost impossible to track down these days and a lot of the Factory compilations are similar. Discogs seems to be the best way of sourcing them.

So it's Sunday , the weather is gorgeous , so I may relax and enjoy it or possibly nip out for a walk, but either way I am going to have a relaxing day. Hope you do too.

A Strange Thing

A strange thing happened on the blog today . Normally I'll get 100 hits if I post and 20-30 if I don't.. I did post today but I have had nearly a thousand hits today from the mysterious "Unknown Region". This is probably just some mad robot but will it is nice to have your hits increase, it only matters when it is like that on a daily basis. It would be nice to think these are reading visitors, but I would only know that it was if people were to leave comments or communicate with me about it.

The numbers are below:


As yet there is nothing, which does imply robots.

So I will see if this continues into tomorrow, and if it does , or I start  to get communications , I won't be sure why, as I haven't done anything differently to what I have been doing over the last ten years.

This post number 1918 so the post numbers are like the years from the last century, 1918 being the year World War 1 ended, so maybe if the year / number is significant I will mention something about the significance.

Maybe I could even choose music related to the year 1918, and in looking I found a metal band called Sabaton who have produced a concept album about the Great War. It is almost amusing how noticing one thing (the post number was the year that WW1 ended) which resulted in me finding even more music that I have never heard before.

A short post with a new band for you to check out, Sabaton with  a Great War concept album.

Rolling Fultium

I though I would try Speechnotes again on a shorter passage, and thought I would make a note about how my blue Fultium tablets almost always roll off te desk when I put them out to take. Speechnotes heard Fultium as 14 as well as other errors but probably gets about 90% of it right. Fultium is supposed augment my Vitamin D and keep my bones in good shape (I think). This is what Speechnotes heard.

"Ok right and try this again and this will be a bit shorter it's just about the 14 blue 14 tablet that you take and every time I put my tablets out there's about 20 tablets XL always manages to find a way to roll off the table and hit the floor I haven't a clue why not the only round one"

How Fultium Rolls

Make what you will of that. The thing is , the more you say the more you have to correct, but that is probably true of normal writing. I suppose this could als be a coach for public speaking, as it pays to get what you say write, although you do have the option of correcting it later.

Speechnote also doesn't seem to punctuate and you need punctuation to actually make things reasonably readable.

Come On

This is just a shortish post about an app called "Speechnotes" that I put on my phone (a Google Pixel though I expect to upgrade to a Pixel 3A in the next few months) just to see if it could actually take what I was saying and put it into readable format. This is a first try so it didn't do paragraphs (I don't think) but generally the translation was OK, what I was saying maybe wasn't that good:

This is just a check to see if there's some software actually works could I have suddenly my words write them down and then before me wondering about it for writing my blog and things like that to be actually working in the actually putting most of the word rightly in this in this sir wondering alright basically it's gonna get a slightly funny but it's trying to trying to understand what I actually say which a lot of people can't actually do but that's just the nature of this sort of thing but I'm just wondering whether I can do this instead of typing.

It's it's so far there's a bit of repetition and things like that and obviously I keep saying on and things like that the breaks up my speech sudden it's one of their one of those things you know no I mean one of the things today that came about her I was going to write about something then I forgot about it and this will enable me to capture it assuming that I can talk and people don't think I'm some kind of nutter who just starts talking in the street like you do sudden see so many people having loud conversations on the phone in public and you think who does he think he is you know so that I know everything about what he's actually saying and ways that should be they should make an attempt to privacy but often there for two important to deal with that the obviously.

If you're listening to what they're saying then you're intruding on their privacy which is just get outside just weird anyway I'm just wonder capture this my blog and then see what actually happens paragraph.

Alright I was hoping that it would actually but it's put the word paragraph in just one of those things and today I was in somewhere having something to eat and they played the very first song that I think I played in public where I sang and played guitar on which was the Rolling Stones what's the cover of a Chuck Berry song (Come On) it's got a mouth organ harmonica solo in it and that bit I played on the guitar but that was as a teenager a long long time ago but basically it's a three chord. Chuck Berry song one of my favorites and I will possibly included with this now and we shall see cut this and send it somewhere.

So that is what it did , a lot of mistakes but there is some sense in it, and that's about 400 words or so. I'm just wondering if it gets better the more you use it so I may try this again and see what comes out and also actually make some corrections. On the one hand it may create more work, but it will mean just actually editing so it's probably going to make me a little more involved in what I am writing.

So I will obviously include The Rolling Stones take on Chuck Berry's "Come On" for you.

Too Lazy To Learn

I think we are all guilty of this to varying degrees. Often it's because the learning process is time consuming , expensive and even difficult. Sometimes it's because it's time consuming. While I can doodle about on most musical instruments I can't actually play apart from basic rhythm accompaniments and maybe the odd simple solo. However something like Trace Bundy's take on Pachelbel's "Canon" just leaves me awestruck. Learning takes practice, time and dedication.

There are other instances where people cannot master computer basics, yet can drive a car. I point out that , generally , learning to drive a car is a lot more complex, difficult and dangerous than using a computer, but lots of drivers eschew computers as the black arts.

Sometimes it's the fact that people refuse to use short cuts and simple methods because the have used a particulal method of doing things and would rather take fifteen minutes doing it their tried and trused way rather than the two minute simple method that has exactly the same  result. It's like they would rather gather woould and make a torch that they burn to provide illumination but you would rather switch on the electric light.

The same could be said of cooking, although millions watch cooking programs for many of those cookery consists of sticking a ready meal in a microwave or ordering a takeaway. I sometimes have a mental battle over this, I can cook an Aloo Chole in about two hours and it costs me about a pound plus heating (it does for two servings)  or I can can order a portion from Rajnagar (my local Indian Restaurant) for six pounds. I value my time at a lot more than six pounds an hour so I ofetn go for the takeaway option , although that is a decision arrived at by weighing up all th eoptions and making the best decision rather than laziness.

One of things I have noticed is that cooking vegan / vegetarian is usually much simpler than cooking with meat or fish, so my next experiment is a chickpea and apricot curry. I think that should be quite good.

Jamie Oliver has a book called "Just Five Ingredients" so that gives people an option to get into cooking for theselves very easily, but again, for some people reading is too much of a chore,

There are probably a million other examples but I thingk that's enough to be going on with and I will leave you with Trace Bundy's TED Talk showing what you can achieve with practice.

A Photograph

Usually when you have a hospital visit for a scan you are told to fast, and you vaguely know why but lats week his was brought home to me. I was having an Endoscopy but had forgotten about it so had some porridge in the morning . this was three ours before I had the camera pushed down my throat and everything was fine.

However....

They gave me photographs of my insides and one was "partially obscured by food". The clarity of the photographs was amazing, but this one brought it home in no uncertain terms why you need to fast and drink only water or black coffee or tea, It is so you don't obscure the photographs with food.

Only a short post but thought that I could just share this with youso if it happens to you you know why. And keeping with the body theme ......

I've decided to go with a song from the soundtrack of the Roy Battersby documentary The Body  (IMDB here) by Roger Waters and Ron Geesin who also collaborated on Pink Floyd's "Atom Heart Mother". The film also features Vanessa Redgrave.

A Muse Ment

This is my thirteenth post on the thirteenth day of this month and is post number 1913 since I started this blog. That is quite a lot of 13s coming together and it was not contrived at all, I promise.

Still enjoying Stephen Fry's "Mythos" and one of the things that I love about it is that it reminds me of things I'd forgotten and expands my knowledge of something I know. Stephen Fry does make a very good teacher.

Again, going through the origins of Greek Mythology he points out the origins of the words and  you think "oh is that where THAT came from" or I didn't know that" or "I'd forgotten that".

He's  listing The Muses, and the first one on the list is Calliope. I know Calliope from the line in Bruce Springsteen's "Blinded By The Light":

".. the Calliope crashed to the ground"

I'd always imagined a Calliope being a circular ride and the image was of one coming off its axis and crashing down, but no, it's the steam driven fairground organ that we've all heard, so the image still works, and I now know that Calliope is the Muse of Epic Poetry.

Then there is Terpsichore and both Stephen Fry and I were introduced to this Muse via the Monty Python Cheese Shop sketch:

O: Oh, I thought you were complaining about the bouzouki player!

C: Oh, heaven forbid: I am one who delights in all manifestations of the Terpsichorean muse!

O: Sorry?

C: 'Ooo, Ah lahk a nice tune, 'yer forced to!

O: So he can go on playing, can he?

C: Most certainly! Now then, some cheese please, my good man.

So it is a beautiful sunny morning, even though it's Monday, and I am looking forward to this week. The song has to be "Blinded By The Light" which features the line at the end of the first verse.

The End of The Weekend

I was apprehensive about reading Stephen Fry's "Mythos" mainly due to the number of pages and the small type after James O'Briens' excellent "How To Be Right" (both shorter and with larger type so easier to read for my ancient eyes).

That's one of the benefits of eReaders, you get to choose the size of the font, although the bigger the font the more pages / page turns you effectively get, but it really does put you in control.

Anyway I am a fan of all mythologies and in "Mythos" Fry takes on the Greeks and it is incredibly readable, dashing all my apprehensions. It's like having a lesson from a really good teacher or watching an episode of QI, and he illustrates the very beginnings of Greek mythology often using contemporary illustrations and more than a little humour. He also brings his ego to bear, but non of this is to the detriment of the book, which I am now looking forward to having a very enjoyable ride through.It really is that good.

Today also saw the culmination of the English Premier League with Manchester City pipping Liverpool who were 25 points ahead of Chelsea. Liverpool finished second with 97 points after losing only one match this season, a stunning achievement, but even more stunning was Manchester City taking the title. LIverpool now have a Champions League Final to play.

So a great end to the weekend, and tomorrow sees another visit to the Freeman Hospital for me, though this time it is relatively minor and nowhere near the extreme discomfort of last week's endoscopy.

So I hope your weekend has been good, and just to vaguely find a related song and thought I would go for "Pandora's Box" by Procol Harum, which I always found vaguely sinister with it's off kilter signature motif, though apparently their name is Latin for "Far From Things" so not Greek, although Greek and Roman Mythologies were always interchangeable.

Going Back With Janelle Monáe

In my opinion the best album of last year was "Dirty Computer" by Janelle Monáe (I hadn't noticed the acute accent on the a before today, but that's just my English linguistic ignorance),and this is what I thought of it here which includes the accompanying album length video. This album is where she was getting to at that point and it is a damned near perfect album, which I still play regularly and is definitely on my top ten.

So I decided it may be a good idea to revisit here earlier output. The actual production quality is consistently excellent and the songs are good from the off although throughout her albums there is a definite upward curve.

It started with a planned multi part suite "Metropolis" starting with  the mini album "The Chase" which sets the story in "The March of The Wolfmasters" , one of five suite overtures over her first three albums. She collaborates with other writers and all her output has a heavy science fiction presence, but it is so well executed it enhances rather than detracts from the music.

The Chase ends with an expected take on Charlie Chaplin's "Smile" , which does fit in with the dystopian future that Monáe's narratives display.

"The ArchAndroid" , containing "Suite II" and "Suite III"of "Metropolis"features her developing soul / rock with attitude style taking in The Slits, X-Ray Spex and Todd Rundgren , check "Mushrooms and Roses" that closes "Suite II" . She has no fear of collaboration and really the best way to experience this is to listen to the album.

"The Electric Lady" consists of "Suite IV" and "Suite V" of "Metropolis" as is a step closer to artistic perfection. The thing is the closer you get to "Dirty Computer" the harder it is to pick something that says this is Janelle Monáe because you know that you will always miss something.

She really is one of the most important artists performing and producing today. We will go with here collaboration with Erykah Badu "Q.U.E.E.N."  and this gives a great idea of what she is about.

One Book To Another

Well last night's visibility experiment was inconclusive, but I am doing another evening post. This time it's about  the books I'm reading. I've just finished the excellent "How To Be Right" by James O'Brien and I am following that up with "Mythos" by Stephen Fry.

"How To Be Right" was easy to read with decent sized type over 220 pages, but "Mythos" sort of gives me the horrors because it's over 400 pages of small type.

"How To Be Right" helps to prepare you for dealing with with, shall we say, the difficult people and situations of the modern world and has been great to read, if more than a tad worrying , but a lot of people I know fall into that category, who refuse to examine what causes their beliefs that certain situations are true and cannot be challenged. Their paper of choice is The Metro (published by The Daily Mail) because it's free. I really shouldn't say any more.

"Mythos" is a completely different ball game tapping into my love of all  mythology , though this one is hitting the Greek strand. As a kid I loved reading Norse, Celtic, Roman , Greek and further mythology, so despite the small print I am looking forward to it.

So I will not go with another Pete Wylie song, but this time I will go for "Jason and the Argonauts" by XTC from their album "English Settlement" as it does fit in with the Greek Mythology connection.

Six

I had a good reason for calling this Six , it does follow the wrongly named "Five" post but I've forgotten why I was going to call it that . This is also an experiment to see if I get more visits if I post at night rather than in the morning. In the morning the USA is asleep but in the UK evening the USA is awake. I'm not sure that will make any difference.

I've had Pete Wylie songs for that last two posts and this time I found a live take of "Four Eleven Forty Four" at King Tuts in Glasgow. A guy I worked with at Littlewoods , Dave Homan was a friend of Pete Wylie's , and Wylie has been responsible for some amazing tunes and should really be a much bigger name than he is.

Even his sketch songs and gorgeous and when I chose this, lots more came to mind, but I stuck with this lovely live take.

It's dark outside, it's Thursday night and maybe time for bed....

Five

So England will have five* teams in next seasons Champions League. Tottenham Hotspur, like Liverpool last night overcame a three goal deficit to win on away goals with a last minute winner at Ajax. I'd said to my friend Obi today, who was dismissive of any chance they might have, that they had Son and Lucas Moura , and if Moura played to his abilities they definitely had a chance.

So Tottenham conceded two early goals just to make life difficult, and set themselves a task they had not achieved since 2010 (against Arsenal), overcome a two goal deficit to win an away match, against a team that had disposed of Real Madrid and Juventus. That was no mean feat.

Lucas Moura score all the Spurs goals and you can see the match report here. Given what has happened over the last two nights God knows what will happen in the Champions League Final in Madrid, I wouldn't like to call it.

Basically, from the point of view of the English and Neutrals you have seen two amazing matches that go to the top of the scale for excitement, nerves and unexpected results. It is unlikely such a thing will ever pass again.

So a piece of music to celebrate this momentous occasion, I think we will go for another Pete Wylie / Mighty Wah slice of beautiful brilliance, the wonderful "Come Back" (which you can actually download for 99p) which Tottenham Hotspur can do with pride and their heads held high. There is no way I would disgrace this post with "Diamond Lights"

* Just realised it will only be five if Chelsea and Arsenal both win tonight.... we shall see

Liverpool is Liverpool

This is just to record the fact that Liverpool thrashed Barcelona last night is one of the most amazing turnarounds in modern sport. Statisticians had given Liverpool a 4% chance of progressing, they were missing their two main strike threats, although the final third of their strike force has hit the net 20 times this season.

Even Liverpool fans were resigned to going out , but I pointed out that Liverpool are not one man, Liverpool are Liverpool, they have a team, they have a brilliant engaging manager who most of the time gets it right and knows how to motivate people (loved the bear hug as he sent Daniel Sturridge on for the last five minutes last night, that is someone who cares). His Barcelona counterpart was stoney faced and immobile throughout the night.

Barcelona have Messi , Suarez, Coutinho and god know how many more, so the task was great, but last night was the stuff of Football legend. Jurgen Klopp's acquisition of Virgil Van Dijk has made their defence far more solid (though Newcastle scored two against them on Saturday) but Divock Origi and Giorgio Wijnaldum scored a brace each to take Liverpool though.

The match report is here.

An absolutely wonderful night and we will share my  (and John Peel's)favourite song about Liverpool to mark the occasion, Pete Wylie's "Heart as Big As Liverpool".

There will be a lot of happy faces in Liverpool this morning.

Six Minutes

One of my bugbears is waking up, wondering what time it is and seeing it's six minutes before your alarm is due to go off. You can't go back to sleep, or enjoy the few minutes you have left in bed so you drag yourself out of your put to start the day and take yourself off to whatever awaits you, work or whatever. I don't know whether it's worse after a Bank Holiday Weekend although the slight upside is that, for me, it's only a four day working week.

I think a four day working week for people like me would actually improve productivity and and work-life balance, although that imay not an option for one man businesses, or maybe it is. I remember the story of an American Tyre business who realised they got most of their business at the weekend, so they changed their working week from Monday to Saturday to Friday to Monday, so their employees got a four day week for the same pay and the company's profits went up. I know this is just an isolated example but it is something worth considering.

Anyway I think I'll just share The Stranglers "Five Minutes" with you before I set off for work.

Have a good Tuesday everyone.

You Have To Watch This In HD

A friend of mine asked me to watch something on a new Hi Def video player many years back and he enthused about the fact that in the space sequences you could see that the backdrop was actually a black curtain. I told him I don't want to see a black curtain I wasnt to see a great film.

Another friend told me I had to see "Taken" in HD. I recorded it in normal resolution and watched it and thought, it's just a typical Liam Neeson film.

I have a DVD set of the original Addams Family and put it on and the transfer to DVD is not that great, like a crackly vinyl record for the eyes, but five minutes into the first episode you don't see the white screen noise you nee the excellent acting the hilarious story and the great characters.

I recently watched "Dr Strange" on oddity from the new Marvel Studios which was absolutely excellent and the special effects, particularly the folding buildings sequences (stolen from Christopher Nolan's "Inception" ?) are the sort of thing that would probably benefit from Hi Def but looked great in normal definition.

Since we switched to digital transmissions, most transmissions are fine in normal definition but sometimes they get it by digital drop out and pixelation (which I don't remember from analogue transmissions) but it my be like DAB against normal radio, mostly DAB is perfect but it can drop out, whereas normal radio you get interference and fading.

A year or two back we had another 3D TV push which dropped off , "Watch Football In 3D" they said, go to a real football match I said. There's no 3D sports broadcasts no although still a lot of films. Again it's something for those absolutely ridiculous disaster / horror movies (examples here)

Basically if a film or program is worth watching the quality of the media becomes secondary, yes it's great if you can see the best picture possible, but I'd rather have a great film on low res media than a bad film on hi res media.

So I have to share The Addams Family dancing to The Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop", what's not to like?

Enjoy your Bank Holiday Monday.

Battery Acid

This is just a short post about problems that I was not aware of with batteries. I ordered a replacement battery for a laptop and Amazon delivered via their lockers in 24 hours. That was great.

However that battery was not for my laptop even though it was on the list of compatible items so I followed the return procedure. I had to put a label on that stated this was a hazardous item and should not be sent via post or airmail.

I then searched for couriers who would take batteries but couldn't find any. I thought I had found one, but the just used established couriers and were going to send via DHL who do not take batteries.

In my search I found that people said the carriers scan for batteries and if they find they they just destroy them and you lose the battery.

Because of the nature of batteries they could actually burst into flames, but are apparently ok if they are in the device that they power.

Personally I would think that would make them more dangerous.

Amazon then recommended Parcel Monkey , great name but they are very clear about batteries as they state here. . Another call to Amazon and they game me a refund and told me to keep or dispose of the battery, so all was resolved in the end although I still need to source a replacement battery.

I got a call from Parcel2Go who said I could send a battery through them but it wouldn't be covered for compensation, so I will bookmark them in case I need to send anything in the future.

So an appropriate piece of accompanying music would be "Battery" by Metallica though I could have chosen other songs by Hawkwind or Genesis.

All is good

5AM Sunday Morning

This is ridiculous. I should be asleep. My body is tired, my brain is tired but my mind is wide awake. So I wasn't sure what to do, so like always when I am not sure what to do, I thought I would come an blog about it. It is could that I can do this and know that I am compos mentis enough to string a few words together, but it is a bit of a pain when I just want to sleep.

I had been dreaming and was in a queue at Boots for some tissues in possibly Leeds, and the serving person was chatting with other servers and trying to serve others before me so I decided to go elsewhere and vaguely remember some huge indoor area like a market or mall  before waking again and deciding to maybe read a bit. I've finished "The White Wolf's Son" by Michael Moorcock and enjoyed the all over the the place swirl of the writing, making for a thoroughly enjoyable read with lots of flashbacks to earlier themes as well as referencing the a area of North Yorkshire where I enjoy going for a relaxing holiday.

I has a slideshow of my last two holidays in Settle and am using the photographs as my computer wallpaper and every one gives me a lift, it is a wonderfully relaxing place. You can see most of the photographs here if you are logged into Facebook.

I'm now starting "How To Be Right: … in a world gone wrong" by James O'Brien which addresses the situation in post brexit-vote / Trump UK via encounters with callers on his radio show. Some of the people he interviews are polarised by the media and unfortunately I hear these sort of things every day, but it is a great read to provide an insight into what is happening in society today. That reminds me of this excellent TED talk by Carol Cadwalladr about Facebook's involvement in allowing untruths about the EU to be spread to push the Brexit agenda.

The music I've chosen for this is the excellent piece of social commentary from the latest Specials album "Embarrassed By You" and I was surprised to see the "Stereotypical" collection which is sitting not two feet from where I am typing going for £225 on Amazon, but as I always say, it's only worth that if you have a buyer.

So enjoy your Bank Holiday Sunday everybody.