Summer Rain

We're in the middle of summer and a week of rain is forecast. The good thing is that you don't need sprinklers and water plants and garden, but does mean you need to have some kind of rain protection although it's still very hot so a waterproof jacket or coat is not an option and umbrellas are often cumbersome.

I never thought I would wear a hat, but many years ago in a windy wet Whitby , someone suggested I spend £12 waterproof hat (which you can see here) and that was brilliant , it keeps you mostly dry , leaves both hands free, and stays om your head when it's windy, and generally when it's raining it's my preferred method of keeping dry.

After the mess of the leak in the extension not being addressed by the last lot of disappearing  fixers , the excellent and professional Responsive Roofing  came and looked and put a temporary fix up which kept us dry last night, now I'm just waiting for the estimate which will punch another big hole in my finances, but it has to be done, and they are great guys and happy knowing the will do a good job. The problem is we expect things to last forever and they don't.

So what do we go with this morning, maybe "Wonder Toys That Last Forever" an absolutely brilliant song from Bill Nelson's (one of Yorkshire's finest) Red Noise  (post Be Bop Deluxe) , yes it's very 1980's in it's production but it is a great song.

Enjoy your Saturday.

Turning Lebanese

The Bake in Byker (a lebanese restaurant I have not yest visited but heard great reports about) has a presence in The Grainger Market called Felafel Al Hana, which I visited briefly when it first opened and was treated to complimentary felafel. I had been a couple of times and decided the main courses were too much for lunch, but passed today and checked out the hot starters and these actually looked like more than enough for a meal.

I ordered Batata Harra and Fried Vegetables , which was a more that decent serving of fried spiced potato cubes with sauce , bread , olives , mushrooms and a lot more vegetables , so an aleast vegetarian if not vegan meal , along with a cold jug of water, all for undet four pounds.

Service and the people were very welcoming and I have a few more items on th estarter menu that I am going to try. It is one of the many brilliant places to eat in the Grainger Market and far better thatn most of the chains in The Eldon (Incidentally Giraffe has gone).

You can see what I had here.  It was as good as it looks.
I wasn't sure exactly what music to have on this but as I had just got a new Facebook friend who was a friend of the lead singer with the Coyotemen, Helmut Bruiser,

I think their last single "Can She Cook" should suffice as Felafel Al HAna certainly can cook

The Serpentine Twists of An Unexpected Life

Very often things don't go as you would want them or even as you would expect. The sun rises and traverses the sky for eight, nine , ten hours and then it goes dark and the moon may rise and for the rest of th eearth day you can sleep as the dark hangs around slowly dispersing into the next day.

I've still not got my roof fixed but last night I decided to get a takeway from The Diner in Fenham. My normal modus operandi is to order via their phone app, then walk up and pick up (it's probably about 500 yards from my front dooor) and pay by card (I could pay by card in the app but you have to put in your card number and loads of other details each time) .... except ...... their card machine was not working. There is no cash machine close by... so .....

I walked back to Two Ball Lonnen Post Office to get some cash but the cash machine was out of service, 100 yards up the road is a Nisa and that had a working cash machine. I then decided to walk back to The Diner though the estate and notied a van for Responsible Roofing so I photographed the phone numbers and went to pay for the pizza and curry.

I mentioned that I may have found someone to fix my roof and the guy at The Diner immediately told me about a local brilliant guy who did all their work and directed me to where I had seen the van , it was the same guy we were talking about. I have an appointment today with him so things are looking better.

So this is just a post about how unexpected twists can take you to a postive conclusion.

Just as an aside I'm still enjoying "The Illuminatus Trilogy" by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, and found out the latter has thirty five books published on similar themes  which feature knowledge , lies , great writing, a sense of humour and a razor sharp wit so I have a feeling I will be purchasing more of his work.

So a perfect song would be George Harrison's excellent "Any Road" which basically says "If You Don't Know Where You're Going, Any Road Will Take You There" .

Enjoy this sunny Thursday

Well I Didn't See That Coming

Sheet lightning , thunder , torrential rain, Bojo the poundshop Drumpf as Prime Minister, and now the rain has stopped , hopefully Bojo will too.  Today is forecast very hot and sunny so that should be a bit of summer to enjoy apart from being at work.

It is very hot already and it will be in the office.

The radio is still full of Moon Landing related programmes and articles, and Professor Richard Wiseman is doing spots on the Chris Hawkins Show on 6Music about the whole "Apollo Mindset" where Mission Control planners were all very young (early twenties) and got this done because they didn't know it couldn't be done.

So it's so hot that I really can't write any more but  maybe we should go with "Saturn 5" by The Inspiral Carpets.

200

This is post 200 this year , which means 2019 is, so far, my fourth highest posting year since I started. This week I will hit my two thousandth post. I hit my thousandth post , here, in November 2015, eight and a half years after my first post here.  . So my second thousand post has taken about four years so I have doubled my posting rate, which my be a good or bad thing , possibly quantity of quality. You can check the first against the thousandth against this one and see if there has been any improvement at all.

I just got my latest bill from Discogs and I'm now selling about two CDs a week, which is quite impressive as often they are going for above ten pounds, way above the 17p I would get from CEX or Music Magpie. That's nothing against those companies, because they have to take the hit of the stuff they can't sell and then have to hold what they have until they actually sell the things. The latest one will be posted off to Germany this morning.

Today is another sunny day, and I am going to take myself off to work soon so I know this is short, but this won't feature Nico for a change.

I opened the curtains and there was a big fly on the window, but then I noticed it was outside so that was a good start.

So what are we going to have music wise? Just noticed the Faces box that my daughters got me for a birthday, so we'll go for a live take of "That's All You Need" one of my favourite slide guitar rock songs , and this is very rough but totally brilliant.

Enjoy your Tuesday

Vinylisation

I don't know if that's a real word , but just refers to the fact that I prefer these days to buy vinyl as opposed to CD or digital. I will probably still buy certain boxed sets but  now very seldom look at normal CDs.

I definitely like listening to vinyl and  often think I would like to buy certain music on vinyl, an example being after watching the film "Nico 1988" although the cost of Nico on vinyl is prohibitive although I do have her performances on the fisrt Velvet Underground album so it's not as though I have no Nico on vinyl.

I particularly like her take on "The End" by The Doors which then tempted me to purchase the first Doors album but I have that digitally along with a live Nico take from the live Ayers, Cale, Nico , Eno album at the Rainbow. That would be also a nice album to have on Vinyl but again I have a digital copy so I should be satisfied with that.

I really do have enough vinyl but, as with Oscar Wilde, "I can resist anything but temptation" , although that temptation does have to be something special.

So what music should we go with, maybe Nico live in Tokyo performing "The End" would be fitting

Watching Nico

Over this weekend I have watched a few films. As I am writing this I feel but my blood sugar is way too high but my blood sugar reading is at 5.2 which is fine. I am trying some new tabs (in addition to everything else) forxiga , dapagliflozin which supposedly lets you pee your excess  blood sugar away, which means more time at the urinal or wherever but it seems to be working (I think).

So back to the films and I was most impressed with Nico 1988 which traced Nico's last couple of years when she went out on the road and played some gigs. The film was written and directed by Susanna Nicchiarelli  and features Trine Dyrholm who impressively plays Nico complete with tantrums ,  love and impressive gothic singing with great support from  John Gordon Sinclair as the ever supportive but put upon Richard. "Gregory's Girl" this isn't.

I found a live take of "All Tomorrow's Parties" from Preston in 1982 by Nico and the take from the film with Trine so you can see how good she is.

This has made me want to get some Nico on Vinyl but give the prices I may have to just stay digital (which I can play through my record player via my Kindle.

Conspiracy, Autocorrect and 1984

I went to write this post there was this link to a Messianic Bible which apparently proves that English Bibles are flawed and this proves that Jesus (Yeshua) is the true Messiah. I though the Jews were still waiting for the Messiah. Can't say any more but it's a bit like saying the Hebrew Spiderman comic corrects the errors of the American Spiderman comic.

I'm not sure why the ad came up apart from the face that I have been including a lot about "2023" by The Jams and "The Illuminatus Trilogy" by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea (which is shaping up to be rather good (lots of conspiracy theories based on actual conspiracy theories in a vaguely underground detective novel.

The last nigh I met with Chi Onwurah very briefly after autocorrect on her email told me to meet her at "campervan" opposite the Tyneside Cinema. What she thought she had sent was Ampersand which is in Commercial Union House for the fortnightly Labour Party meeting , but I will catch up with her properly in next couple of weeks to talk about my various issues with the current state state of the Labour Party , but also how we address the "idiocracy" that belies every word of the right wing media.

Maybe given all this, and the fact that "Space Oddity" is playing on the radio , we'll go with "1984" by David Bowie because your devices ARE watching and listening to you. I found this very hard edged live take from a 1973 NBC TV Special from The 1980 Floor Show which produced the album "Diamond Dogs" as the George Orwell estate refused permission for Bowie to use 1984.

Coincidentally.. A Conspiracy Theory and The Heisenberg Supercut

After finishing "2023" I started "The Illuminatus Trilogy" expecting some exposé of secret societies and the like, but it is more a detective story and the main detective is Saul Goodman and the book , I think was published in 1975.

Saul Goodman also appears as a policeman in "2023" and a CRIMINAL Lawyer as opposed to a criminal lawyer in "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul". I have a feeling that this is more than coincidence.

Anyway after the mass of text in a bad typeface that I initially saw in "The Illuminatus Trilogy" it is starting to pick up and I am looking forward to this 800 page slab of reading over the new few weeks. I am sure it probably influenced Dan Brown to write "The Da Vinci Code" but I have a feeling that this will have tongue firmly in cheek with more than a little fun.

Given that I've dragged in "Breaking Bad" (one of the greatest TV series ever) so we will go with Badfinger's "My Baby Blue - The Heisenberg Supercut"

Darts Illuminatus

2023 is finished and I loved it complete with it's "Keeper of The Page" list and now I am going to read "The Illuminatus Trilogy" which clocks in at 800 pages , double the length of 2023 and ⅔ the length of "Lord of The Rings" if I remember rightly, though at the hospital today I was enjoying the ideas coming from "Acorn", making the time at the hospital fly by despite the retinal scan and the needles to check my feet were still OK.

The font in "The Illuminatus Trilogy"  is fairly challenging and the book looks like it was photocopied, maybe to give the impression of being subversive.

It seems I'm not in too bad shape after all, well not at the moment.

I then ended up walking back from the hospital because I thought I could walk part way to Netherby Drive to catch a bus closer to home then realised I was three stops away so though I may as well just walk all the way, so ended up walking all the way and well over four miles today. While that is not a lot to most people it is fine for me.

So time for an early night.

An Acorn

Thanks to reading 2023 I am considering buying Yoko Ono's "Grapefruit" but it seems to me perfectly suited to an ebook reader, though is not (yet) available in ebook format. However the follow up "Acorn" is, so I bought it and have started skimming through it on my Kindle app on my Google Pixel phone , and am enjoying what I am seeing.

The only book I have ever read on my phone is "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu and that is a book that can actually be dipped into, although a polar opposite of Yoko Ono's writing. I am also trying to read "Ulysses" by James Joyce though that is much ard going.

The joy of "Acorn" and lot's of Yoko Ono's writing is that you can take a little or a lot and it will still satisfy. Some people will be left cold but we cannot all like the same thing.

I do hope "Grapefruit" is released as an eBook as I will definitely purchase it , it would be nice to have it with me most of the day, when I'm on the bus , or in a hospital waiting room (my annual diabetic check up tomorrow), but I do have "Acorn" , "The Art of War" and a "QI" compendium to keep me going.

So why don't we go with "Walking on Thin Ice" by Yoko Ono ?

Go - 50 Years Since Apollo 11 Lift Off

Sunny days can lift your spirits, and we have a sunny day this morning and hopefully it will be like that all day. Yesterday, without making any particular effort I did over 20K steps (6 Miles). I walked into work for the first time in a while and had to walk round town a bit so that's where it came from, but it was really no great effort on my part. That is really the best way to do things, so they are either part of the norm , ideally pleasurable and afterwards you can feel satisfied with what you have done.

One thing I keep noticing is spelling or grammatical mistakes in my posts and tweets but they seem to have been done by autocorrect but there is also the possibility that I have made the mistake, but I know what I wanted and intended to write and that is not what is in front of me.

Today is fifty years since Apollo 11 was launched and sent the first men to the moon.Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin, both American, landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, but you got to feel for Mike Collins who just had to stay in Orbit while the other two went down , but you can read more here.

So really it's gotta be something from "The Race For Space" by Public Service Broadcasting and we'll go with the highly positive "Go", which is based on the Apollo 11 mission.

The Oblique Grapefruit

Thanks to reading 2023 I am probably going to end up buying the book "Grapefruit" by Yoko Ono , metamorphosed in 2023 to "Grapefruit Are Not The Only Bombs", essentially a series of instructions to direct people to do things to create radical art or change the world in radical ways. The book consis of "event scores" such as:

"Imagine the clouds dripping. 

  Dig a hole in your garden to 

  put them in.  

   — 1963 Spring"

There is more information here. and a few more event scores here

This reminded me of the "Oblique Strategies" card set by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt (who also collaborated on the cover of "Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy". You can use and online implementation of it here.  , and the first card says "Is It Finished?" the answer , for me, on this post , being "No"

The second card says "Don't Be Afraid To Display Your Talents" so you can see how this could randomly help you in the creation of an artistic piece. I often say to people that for something to be art you just have to say that it is art, and that should cause an effect in the viewer. The effect may be positive or negative but if you have an effect  then the art piece is valid.

Follow the Oblique Strategies link and see where it takes you.

If you want to produce something these two methods may help unblock any mental brick walls, and these are probably just two high profile art aids or directors and they may help with everyday life, not only art.

"Emphasize Repetitions"

So will take the opening song from from "Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy" with an image of the album cover.

EYE LIVE:EVIL EYE

I do like wordplay and it's amazing how much you can rearrange the letters in the name "ELVIS" , so "Elvis Lives" has an anagrammatical pair. I chose the title because I saw a book on one of Fiona's piles called "Evil Eye" and then it set my mind off, as things do, I am easily distracted.

Today has been very much a do nothing day, and I spent a lot of time just listening to vinyl while I did a crossword , Sudoku and read a bit more of 2023. I still feel tired and this week apart from work have an eye test and my annual diabetic review.

As the sun goes down, I do feel really tired for some reason , when I should be rested an energetic. My walking has been fine with 13K done today, but that is hardly very far, not even three miles. So that is definitely not the reason.

So as I titled it EVIL EYE and the started on about Elvis maybe we should have my favourite Elvis song , and I could go on about the Turkish Nazar charm for warding off the Evil Eye.

Then another thought pops into my head , this is post 1985 so what about "1985" by  Wings from the "Band on the Run" album and we'll leave my favourite Elvis song for another time.

Now it is time for bed.

Twitteringmore

Facebook is definitely finished on my phone but I feel I am getting too much political stuff on Twitter, well that has replaced the stuff I used to see and share on Facebook. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing, but it's nice not to let Facebook really track me as such, so no check ins or film sharing as such. I use twitter to share my blog posts as not many people read them on Facebook and Twitter gets me more (robot) attention. Twitter does however open my eyes to a lot of political stuff that I then try and check from other sources, and I do enjoy Mike Harding's posts which are often funny but always with a serious point, and Matt Haig's posts which are always helpful.

I do share the odd positive or funny picture but I am just waiting for my three month ban, as Facebook doesn't play by it's own rules.

I don't know if this will be a short or long post, but I got a couple of classical vinyl albums today (Bizet's "Carmen highlights" and Elgar's "Enigma Variations") from a charity shop and hopefully that will satisfy my vinylisation for a while. IT is good to just put and album on with no remote option and let it play, and that applies to classical and contemporary albums.

I also need to mention this is post 1984 and 1984 was the year my youngest daughter Kirsty was born and she has turned out to be talented, well adjusted , sensible with a reasonable taste in music, books and media , taking after her elder sister Juliet in many respects while being chalk and cheese in some areas. However as sisters and daughters they are as perfect as you could expect.

While I love "Carmen" I also love "Carmen (L'Oiseau Rebelle)" Malcolm McLaren's "Fans" , his take on the theme from Bizet's opera, which is a much harder edged piece but extremely listenable and that's what we shall go with.

Control

I've mentioned how not having control of a situation can make you stressed. Manty times part of that is caused by not knowing what is causing the situation. So I have a bad leak in the spare bedroom , right above where the bed is. So I know the roof is leaking and I can't get in touch with my roofer. Last night I took the plunge and went into the attic and saw exactly what was happening. I can't do anything about it but I can now tell the roofer exactly where he needs to target. The attic is not a great place to navigate and one slip will see you dropping through the ceiling. Need to think about getting flooring in there, but that's for another day.

So I am (for me) whizzing through 2023 , it is very stream of consciousness and random ideas and will definitely not be to most people's tastes , but I am enjoying it. It's not something that is destined for the Charity Shop immediately, but how many books do you keep and never reread. I have quite a lot , and think , really I should let them go , I will never read them again and someone else could benefit. I have multiple copies of "Lord of The Rings" and "The Hobbit" , now there should be really no need for more than one copy of a book.

Similarly with albums although since music became digital multiple copies of exactly the same song (not counting remixes) is the norm. I remember the shock of discovering I had some Bay City Rollers songs. While "Keep On Dancing" (one of their early singles) and their covers of "Rock'n'Roll Love Letter" and "It's A Game" were good I had no desire to add the Bay City Rollers to my collection... but there they were on the soundtrack of "The Filth and The Fury" the julian Temple feature about The Sex Pistols.

So I found a "live" performance by The Bay City Rollers featuring two of their best cover.

Phlox Redondo

Two unrelated words that came into my head today, I haven't a clue why but it's always good to put together unrelated items to see what happens , assuming there's no danger and you know what your are doing. So it's not a good idea to drop phosphorus into water but Phlox (Greek for "Flame") is a genus of plant and Redondo because of the reggae based Patti Smith song "Redondo Beach" from her debut "Horses".

I found a live take from Stockholm in 1976 and there's a tour of the actual place here.

The weather is still hot and muggy and the house heating is decidedly off. I have it at 19° though I hear of people who's norm is 25° to 30° so I must be a naturally cold person.

So just wanted to share those two words with you on this Friday night, have a good one.

Not The Worst (Good Things ARE Happening)

This morning I was feeling to apathetic, lethargic to even have a shower, but it has to be done, like taking medication. Over the last week I have noticed myself forgetting things, just very briefly like taking my tablets and just as I'm about to go out I remember. The thing is we all forget things and the fact that I always DO remember actually confirms the confidence I have in myself.

Yesterday I was trying to do something , following all the correct steps and the software was just ignoring the parameter I was supplying. After narrowing the fault down to the software (it was to produce an email with a subject line but was ignoring the subject parameter) I wondered if it was just ignoring the first parameter and would it take a second subject. It did. So working that out showed I do know what I'm doing (there was nothing in the documentation).

It is a grey day but we can expect sun and (maybe the odd shower). Fiona is doing her first mighty hike this year for MacMillan Cancer Support and if you want to drop a few quid in go here. , so the fact that people are doing things for others is a great thing, and it is Friday.

Given that Chris Hawkins played the record on 6Music and Fiona is raising money to help Cancer sufferers and it is Friday , we go with " It's Yer Money I'm After Baby" by The Wonder Stuff.

Pure synchronicity ... and that is good and spirit raising.

Also this is post number 1981 and the year 1981 is the year in which my daughter Juliet was born so if I can remember things like that (admittedly very important but that's another good thing, and I love catching up with Juliet and Kirsty whenever I can)

Now time to go out, all tablets taken 😀👍 oh that's that's the first time I've used an emoji in a post !!
 

Not The Best

Today I thought I was getting a lie in as they burglar alarm service team were coming. They did ... late ... and will be charging me for a new battery as they only last five years. Prior to that a serious roof leak reappears soaking a mattress and sheets and I am trying to get the person who should have fixed it to fix it..

This is what causes stress, when something affecting you is out of your control. Because of that I didn't go to the Queercastle finale party even though it was only six to nine with people I like to see, although I wasn't missed.

The day has been muggily hot so not comfortable at work. There's been rain and sun but I managed to get some stuff done at work then left phone messages about the roof.

I then watched some catch up TV finishing off with Janelle Monáe and The Cure's Glastonbury sets.

It's still hot and muggy so I hope to be able to sleep.

A work colleague recommended the Youtube Subliminals for weight loss and other things but the rten hours of rain sound is very relaxing although at odds with what is happening to my roof ate the moment. I listened to a few ten minute ones and an hour of the rain this morning , may download some as MP3s to listen to when walking into work.

So what music should we have,  Last night I listened to "Go" by Stomu Yamash'ta and it's one of my many favourite albums, so we'll have a live take of "Crossing The Line" featuring Stevie Winwood from the album.

Sleep  well.

Truly Original

Can anything be truly original.?

This question is usually asked about art forms and will have been debated and answered by people far more qualified and intelligent than I. If you ask the question on Google you get this list but I am just going to put down a few of my thoughts on this.

The question came into my head last night and I started wondering about it.

Science (I know that's a huge umbrella) is probably the main area where someone can be truly original in methods for discovering existing things and creating new ones, but it still works within an existing framework.

Religion is usually based on some kind of moral code with an off world figurehead and an on world leader group. AGain based on a defined framework.

Then we come to art. Thom Yorke once said Radiohead were going to dispense with melody, but I still hear tunes in their work. Surrealism takes us away from the norm but it still anchors itself in familiarity. If it didn't you could not connect with a desired audience.

That is usually the point of everything, is to share and connect in some way, whether to benefit, control or make money.

Sometimes simple board games require true originality (I'm thinking Edward De Bono's "L" game), but again they start with the defined framework of a board.

All art is a rearrangement of existing letters of the alphabet and grouping them into words, and in music you have a set number of notes augmented by sounds from nature and electronic devices , and as soon as it becomes liked it becomes familiar and becomes part of the framework.

This is just a few thoughts with no real conclusion and is not very original but I just wanted to put this down.

For some reason Roxy Music's second album "For Your Pleasure" has come to mind and while I was thinking firstly "Editions of You" with Brian Eno's synthesiser sol , I then ping ponged between the sinister title song and "The Bogus Man" and I will go for the latter with the 2011 tour visuals.