Sick Leave - - #Oktoberfest #10 - Java Blues - Rick Danko

We're going no alcoholic for today's #Oktoberfest with Rick Danko showing his versatility on "Java Blues". People often say they "need a drink" which is something I have never understood and it's usually alcohol or coffee when that phrase pops up. I have always drunk for my own pleasure and never needed drink to either wake me up or calm me down. Maybe I am just lucky or don't understand my own cravings.

I managed to find a live version of this song at The Band reunion concert in 1984.

Just a thing about having time off work for not feeling well, I am sure in my first twenty years I would have no qualms about ringing in and resting to ensure that I was fit in a day or two and fully functional. There was always someone to cover for me if I wasn't there.

These days it seems that's not really an option. I do see people off for illness but unless I am hosptalised I feel that I need to go into work because maybe 80% of what I do cannot be done by anyone else. While we all need to become more productive and work smarter, it used to be you were rewarded by pay rises and bonuses, but now it's you are allowed to keep your job and if you are not happy then leave. A sad situation and I actually work in a relatively decent environment with a great team.

The thing is I felt extremely run down with a sore throat yesterday but work was the priority, not getting better. I had an early night and feel a bit better today but need to get to Leeds today.

So have a great Thursday.

Armed - #Oktoberfest #9 - Tequila - Terrorvision

One of the things that reading "The God Delusion" does is arm you with plenty of logical constructs when someone comes at you with "... but The Bible says ..." . I actually do find Richard Dawkins ironically evangelical at times but given the power being wielded by Right Wing "Christians" and other religious extremists we are more than likely to find ourselves in that situation.

Don't get me wrong, a great deal of people find comfort in their religion and beliefs and do not force it on others and use it to force their will on others. It can also provide a life discipline, but for a lot of people going to church has been replaced by going to garden centres or going shopping.

Anyway here's the next #Oktoberfest song, and it was bound to come, we have "Tequila" by Bradford's Terrorvision. I originally spelt that as "Yequila" which is why I will never be able to touch type as I cannot trust what my fingers do.

A Meme - #Oktoberfest #8 - Escape (The Piña Colada Song) - Rupert Holmes

I wasn't going to post this, but saw an amusing meme which referenced the song in the latest Donald Trump criminal activity. The problem is with Trump and Johnson we laugh at them when we should be jailing them, they are allowed to get away with murder literally and there are always people defending them often citing the law, But essentially this is a funny meme and the song to go with it.

"If you're big into Nazis and don't have half a brain

If you pay for sex from pornstars then try to bribe it away

I'm the putz that you looked for, 

Vote for me 'cause of hate"

No doubt I have the song somewhere in my collection on some compilation because it has appeared on many soundtracks, but for such a slab of cheese, divorced from the awful lyrics the tune is actually quite good. It did appear on the "Guardians of the Galaxy" soundtrack and is always part of standard 1970s fare often served up by local radio and wedding DJs (if they still exist, I recently saw one in Dalgety Bay so they are still around).

Sleep well, I am flagging now.

My God! - #Oktoberfest #7 - Spill The Wine - Eric Burdon & War

When I started "The God Delusion" it was Richard Dawkins stated aim to polarise my views towards the non existence of God. While my opinion on the existence of God (I'll believe in God if it turns up and does something genuinely miraculous to prove it's credentials, in my 62 years I've yet to see anything) has not changed Dawkins has pointed out the harm that religion has caused over time along with  singular and mass situations from child murder to genocidal wars plus slavery and misogyny as the norm.

Until th World Trade Centre was destroyed I was unaware that Islam and Christianity worshipped the same god, and as has been recently if there was one god there would be one religion. Dawkins book has made me considered my opinion of religion, as while for some people it does provide order and comfort, but for others it is a method of control and  division often used to implement abuse and harm.

Holy books were written by women and men to provide a way to implement their desired methods on people's way of life. I was also surprised to find out Mormon was as much a made up religion as Scientology ( a tax evasion by L Ron Hubbard) .

Ian Anderson on the cover of "Aqualung" in the text to "My God" put it perfectly.

"And In The beginning, Made Created God; and in the image of Man created he him"

Aqualung

So with that, I move on to #Oktoberfest and an appropriate piece would be "Spill The Wine" by Eric Burdon and War.

Have a good Monday everyone.

Newcastle to Whitby by Train - #Oktoberfest #6 - Gin Soaked boy - Tom Waits

I decided too to try Newcastle to Whitby by train as I hadn't done it before, didn't realise there was a direct train (26 stops) and a return fare for two was only thirty pounds. On the Friday going down the train stopped at Hartlepool because of a broken down freight train but Northern rail laid on a taxi to Whitby resulting in us getting there half an hour earlier than expected.

It's a scenic and long (timewise) route, but anyone can do it plus you get to the end and don't have to find a car park. You have to be selective in what you buy because you have to carry everything back, but the peace of mind that the relaxation gives you is so worth it. My next two holidays are by train and it really makes it more of a holiday for me. I know some will require a car but it is so pleasant when you can do it by bus or train.

I was surprised to come home to see that the blog had passed 300K visits, despite no posts since Friday.

So continuing #Oktoberfest we're hitting the Gin with Tom Waits' "Gin Soaked Boy" from "Swordfishtrombones" . My friends Peter and Jane run The Northumberland Gin Company so worth trying if you are a Gin connoisseur.

#Oktoberfest #5 - One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer - George Thorogood

I am always confused by how slow office software is these days. We have Youtube and video streaming that processes and delivers  an enormous amount of information seamlessly , but you open an email application, word processing application and it's like you are wading through treacle. Apologists always use the excuse that "well it's doing a lot more than it used to". To paraphrase my inner Ron Swanson "Not An Excuse". It is running on very fast processors with unfeasibly large amounts of memory, so responses should be fast.

Incidentally I forgot to plug my Google Pixel phone in last night and this morning it's down to 27% , and the power consumption seems to have massively increased since the Android 10 upgrade, and apart from that I am not to sure what else has changed apart from the general fonts, and certain things don't work, such as I can't look at the video directory through the file manager. It's pointless complaining because everything is perfect when you actually do mention these things.

It's enough to make one turn to drink.... talking of which we have George Thorogood's take on Rudy Toombs' "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" which was first covered by Amos Milburn who will be appearing in this sequence as he recorded many drink related songs which has just reminded me of another one, so I might hit the fort posts in October that I have set myself.

Enjoy your Friday everyone.

#Oktoberfest #4 - Whiskey In The Jar - The King

I was not sure which version of this I was going to share, for me the definitive version in the Thin Lizzy one but for others it's The Dubliners and those may both reappear this month in the #Oktoberfest sequence but I found this live take of "Whisky In The Jar" by The King who covers songs by departed rock stars, and he usually delivers in spades with panache and an obvious sense of humour,

I started this this morning and know I need to finish this now, though I am feeling grotesquely lazy and unable to think of anything to add to this superb rendition. The next few days I can see me not posting anything , so now I am writing about my life as a failure as I can't even think of anything to blog about, although on the positive side although I can't think of anything to write I am still managing to fill up the page a bit.

It's also amazing how in depth these quite tiny posts seem to be when viewed on a mobile device while in your average browser it does look quite short.

I was wondering about whether it was "whisky" or "whiskey" and came upon this explanation:

"The Scots spell it whisky and the Irish spell it whiskey, with an extra 'e'. This difference in the spelling comes from the translations of the word from the Scottish and Irish Gaelic forms. Whiskey with the extra 'e' is also used when referring to American whiskies."

So the program got it wrong as the song is Irish in origin.

OK so I have done my 250 words, so this post is not too short after all and you have learned how to spell the subject of the drink in this post depending on where you are.

Tired Not Tired - #Oktoberfest #3 - Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee - Jerry Lee Lewis

I wasn't going to write anything today, I have to be up early tomorrow to pick up a parcel from The Post Office because they wont leave stuff with my neighbours and I am feeling tired, but my mind has decided to wake up, so my body is tired and my mind is wide awake. This seems to be happening more and more, I just wish my body was as jumping as my mind.

Well the #Oktoberfest song is "Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee" by Jerry Lee Lewis a favourite of my sadly missed rocker friend Chris and one of the many rock and roll classics he introduced me to. Jerry Lee Lewis AKA The Killer produced a hell of a lot of classics but obviously his hell raising tailed off in to middle of the road country and western and he was never afforded the musical rebirth that Rick Rubin helped Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond with.

Maybe that's not such a bad thing as Jerry Lee has a great back catalogue but I am sure Rick Rubin could have done something with this firecracker..

Yes another short post but we have a third drink related post.

#Oktoberfest #2 - Cool Water - Frankie Laine

This was the second song  that I wanted to include because it was one of things that my mum and dad played on their radiogram that I actually liked, a best of Frankie Laine that included the song "Cool Water". I liked it so much that I have a best of Frankie Laine CD somewhere in my collection and it's obviously on my digital network.

It's quite heartwarming that I could actually but a radiogram from RPM in Newcastle who have some excellent vintage players and who sorted my current player , which I absolutely love. I seem to get more from listening to vinyl that from listening digitally , although digital music is great when you are on the move.

It is my birthday today and a lot of people have wished me happy birthday on Facebook although I can't actually see everyone who has wished me but I would like to thank everyone. I also have good wishes from the people I see and will be having tea with my daughters tomorrow, so all is good.

I know this is an extremely short post but it was just to share this song and to kick off the #Oktoberfest project with , in this case , a non alcoholic drink.

Birthday - #Oktoberfest #1 - A Beer and A Cigarette - Terraplane

Last night I got my first Facebook birthday greeting from my friend Keith who moved to the Antipodes nearly twenty five years back although I got my first card on Saturday from my daughter Juliet, plus a phone call from my dad last night. I've not yet gone on to Facebook yet so no doubt there will be the odd greeting. In case you are wondering this is my 62nd birthday.

During the night it's been pouring down and about five am there was a very loud big vehicle that woke me up but didn't manage to see what it was.

I've slightly changed my walking targets , which are a rolling million steps every three months which works out at 340,000 steps a month or 11K a day. My new target is just something to aim for but to try and hit 400K steps a month but I will only hold myself to the 340K. The weather this morning is not conducive to walking.

I was thinking of for October having my own #Oktoberfest with the criteria being something to drink, but not necessarily alcoholic. I have my first two lined up, the first one being "A Beer and A Cigarette" by Terraplane from the Stiff collection "The Akron Compilation" (with it's scratch and sniff cover) which for years I thought was called "The Akron Complication" which to my knowledge has still never been issued digitally. I was introduced to it with The Bok went for a meeting with Rabid Records to sort out our first single (which never happened as they folded but the demos are here on Soundcloud) and the guy said it was the most outrageous song he had ever heard.

It's great and I used it to soundtrack what I thought would be the final night at The Free Trade in 2010 but the financial crash of 2008 meant that the flats never got built and the Free Trade is still going with it;s amazing views down the Tyne.

ALso I am going for another record number of posts in a year and if I do 40 this month (my record is 54 last August ) then I only need 17 before the end of the year, but we shall see how this goes because I may not want to post every day, but we shall see. At least this is a start.

Enjoy your wet Tuesday.

Junk

I woke up from another intense dream about taking an exam. I hate exams as I can never remember anything. I don't have any exams coming up and have no intention of taking any, so an odd subject to invade my dreamspace.

I've just read a (to me) complex section on genes and memes in "The God Delusion" but luckily this was interspersed by an excellent illustrative story of building an origami Chinese Junk which helped illustrate what Richard Dawkins was talking about fairly well to me.

This was swiftly followed by the concept of "Cargo Cults"  which show how quickly a cult can actually spring up, and this bit piqued my interest about Mormonism when it was given as an example along with Scientology of "Intelligently Designed" religion. I knew Scientology was set up by L Ron Hubbard ("Barefaced Messiah" is a brilliant book on the subject by former Scientologist Russell Miller) , a second rate science fiction writer and first class con man  / charlatan because he found out churches didn't have to pay taxes. It turns out that Mormon was a similar exercise by Joseph Smith.

This is an excuse to play "Junk" by Paul McCartney from his debut album from nearly fifty years back.

Have a great Monday everyone.

Guess What?

It's either a certain TV program or continue wit "The God Delusion" or write a blog post, so I've chosen the latter.

Yesterday I posted a couple of short videos of the vinyl copy of "This is The Moody Blues" which reminded me of the excellent "Bluejays" album by Justin Hayward and John Lodge. A fellow fan sent pictures of their copy of the album, and I remember the single "Blue Guitar" was ok but not brilliant but I loved "I Dreamed Last Night" and love the coda from "When You Wake Up" which I will include and am playing as I write this.

I used to use MusicMatch but couldn't get it to run under Windows 10 , so have drifted between iTunes and VLC and VLC seems to have just died so I've got the the "Bluejays" album playing using Windows Media Player. That has reminded me just how many versions of Windows I have been through since I started this blog, but probably best not to think too much about that because I am sure there will be another one along at some point.

Though every upgrade seems to make the computer a bit slower, but maybe that's just psychosomatic, so anyway I shall listen to the rest of the album, though the thing about digital is that it is extremely convenient, you don't even have to look for the disc, of that means it's a lot easier to skip , skim and completely miss stuff on albums.

The thing is a lot of kids these days can't even listen to more that 20 seconds of a song before they get bored, I don't suppose they will ever enjoy classical or progressive music, but each to their own. Years ago a friend to me to watch X-Factor for the best new music. Grudgingly I did and someone was covering "Nights In White Satin" (a five minute song written by Justin Hayward for The Moody Blues' "Days of Future Past" album) and it finished on two minutes.

I remarked on this that the song was not original and it was curtailed and was told they did that with all the songs. I never bothered again.

Enjoy your Sunday evening.

And Awake

I switched the alarm off, was going to have a lie in on the rainy Sunday morning and woke up at 7:15 . I have been dreaming drifting in and out of consciousness and remember a lot of things that make no sense in a house possibly surrounding a courtyard , with fragile windows in the floor of one room which you could see fish and the the floor two storeys down (it seemed to be half way over a fish tank) and there was a work course with people I didn't know where I ended up in bed before getting up again wandering round, meeting one person I did know and there was a dog.

Yeah that does make a lot of sense doesn't it? But that is the nature of dreams.

Now I'm awake and counting out my drugs and writing this post. I think it's always good to write things down, you never know when ideas might come in useful.

I suppose the dream vaguely makes me think of the film "Paperhouse" directed by Bernard Rose, one of my favourite off the wall horror films. "Paperhouse" is also a song by Can who I was considering for inclusion in my last post but decided against it, because it's normally best to have just one song. So we can go for "Paperhouse" by Can but I will include a trailer for the film "Paperhouse" below. The two are not related.

Strictly Not Strictly

I do find Strictly Come Dancing as tedious as Come Dancing was, but that is life, we like different things and why I am not watching the big telly at the moment and writing this post. I would rather do anything (within reason) than watch a Dancing program.

The contestants all work hard and I appreciate this but they really don't catch my attention so I would rather write , listen to music , watch other TV and TED Talks  on my computer or portable device. I loved Groucho Marx' quote about TV:

"I find television very educational , every time it's switched on I go into another room and read a book"

That's roughly what he said and is both funny and educational in itself. It's great when things cause you to do something that results in the creation of something. So Strictly caused me to think about things and write this and watch an educational TED talk about satire today which is both informative and funny and educates you with some great ideas by Patrick Chappatte , so I've included it below. It includes some excellent cartoons taking on Trump, Brexit and more.

The song I was going to include is obviously "Come Dancing" by The Kinks, so I hope you are having a great Saturday night whatever you are watching.

More Words

I could have had a one word post title but was getting a bit bored with single word ones and the chane is that I will duplicate something, although that is always a probability.

Today is grey, wet and we have had a lot of rain, it's not even a nice Autumn day, just a drab grey day although it's always up to us to make something of the days that come our way. While sometimes we might feel hard done by I always try to look for the positives in any situation ( well as long as the situation is not really disastrous)  and you can usually find something to be positive about, well I do.

I am listening to Radcliffe and Maconie and they're playing "Future Days" by Can which is a laid back almost hypnotic stretch and I was thinking of including it here, but maybe not. I do remember watching Top of the Pops as a teenager and being shocked when Can were on there playing "I Want More", now that I would share but it's not available on Youtube (the Top of the Pops performance).

I was just thinking I done over 2K posts on this particular blog, and average, these days maybe 250 words a post (I did one of 2K words just to see if I could write that was back in 2011 here and very contrived  but my first one, a sort of mission statement for this blog was about 50 words here) so that is about half a million words that have flowed from my fingers, enough for a very short novel if it made any sense.

I was vaguely thinking of theming my October posts on drink because of the Octoberfest celebration, although I don't actually drink. So here's the thing I will do a post a day and there will be a song included that is drink related although it will be mostly alcohol related it will be anything that you can drink , so that will be thirty one drink related posts . By the way this post is about four hundred words (you can count them).

So what music should we go with, well "I'm Writing A Novel" by Father John Misty seems appropriate, although I am still hoping that inspiration will turn up and I will actually metaphorically put pen to paper and get my arse in gear to produce a pice of lasting art, although in a way tht's what this blog is.

Breadfan

September this year seems a bit weird for me. I feel there's a least a week left in September but it ends on Monday meaning that Tuesday we're into October and incidentally my birthday. Thought the week after it's my daughter's birthday and I always think I have more time to sort her card and present out and often end up consulting her Amazon wishlist the day before. I will do that this weekend.

The other day I went to the Strawberry and was thinking while I like their toasties I'm not really that much of a bread fan these days. Really if you are trying to keep the weight off bread is best avoided. That reminded of the seventies Welsh Metal band Budgie who had a song called "Breadfan" (covered by, among others , Metallica who do a more than decent cover) and thought that would be a good title / subject for a post. Some more of their excellent titles include "In The Grip of A Tire Fitters Hand", "Nude Disintegrating Parachutist Woman" and "Crash Course In Brain Surgery" (Budgie not Metallica).

Still on "The God Delusion" and it is teaching me a lot about Cosmology and Physics and I'm finding it more scientifically instructional than anti God / Religion although Dawkins has no time for ignorance and using God as an explanation for things we don't yet have an answer for.

So it's Friday morning , time for work, and I'll leave you with "Breadfan" by Budgie with excellent static Roger Dean cover.

Anthropic

When you are reading a book it helps if you know what the words you are reading actually mean and I am still sort of getting my head round The Anthropic Principle which basically means that if the universe were not capable of supporting life then we wouldn't be hear to wonder about it . This is the weak version, follow the link or search google for more information.

It is coming up a lot in "The God Delusion" where I am up to so far and does sort of make sense to me but I also feel it's far above my intellectual level (which is not very high anyway, 2 "A" Levels , 5 "O" Levels and something in Business Studies) but I wont let it stop me from reading this book.

The blog visits are probably going to hit 300K in the next month and at this rate half a million could happen in the next six months. That is something that I didn't expect as the Feedburner thing is continuing unbroken this time, although it may stop after two months, but we shall see.

September has seen 34K visits which is an all time record following the previous record of 27K last month and 25K in June which smashed the previous record of 10K in October 2013.


So we'll go for "Set The Controls For The Heart of The Sun" by Pink Floyd from "A Saucerful of Secrets" which seems vaguely appropriate for me with a suitable video. Apparently Stanley Kubrick wanted to film an adaptation of Dune with a soundtrack performed by Pink Floyd... it would have been 14 hours long. This song was the only one to feature all five members of Pink Floyd Phas I

I'll set my mind to understand more.

Bed

This morning the alarm woke me up from a dream in which I was taking an online survey about why I was taking an online survey. Recently I've been sleeping extremely well always being woken by my alarm.

Bed was so comfortable that I decided to have another hour under the sheets but after twenty minutes stretched and and got out. For some reason I vaguely worry that I'm not going to be in work for eight o'clock though they are very flexible with work ours and people come in from any time from seven thirty to eleven. It doesn't stress me and I'm writing this at seven thirty so it's highly unlikely that I'll be in before eight, well I wont be, even if I get the bus. But I am certainly not stressed.

I am aware that some people become stressed over very small things and often it's their psychological make up that cause it. I have every sympathy for them. I also believe that stress is caused by things we can't influence or control, and can be reduced by stepping back and evaluating the situation, but usually you can't do this on your own, it helps to speak with someone. I have helped a few people who have been very stressed and talked and chatted and when we finished they were in a better place in their mind and more confident of being able to deal with the situation. I just did this as a friend, and friends are brilliant to have so always cultivate friendship.

I would recommend any book by Matt Haig who's "Reasons To Stay Alive" once saved a friend's life, it really is a book that everyone should have.

So I still have to take drugs, get dressed, and then get to work and choose a tune for this post. I think we'll go with "Sleeping In The Devil's Bed" by Daniel Lanois from his second album "For The Beauty of Winona". I first came across Daniel Lanois from his work with Brian Eno on the "Dune" soundtrack and U2's "Unforgettable Fire" . His first album, "Acadie" was an immediate purchase and I do love is franglais littered languid and brooding songs.

Wet

Today it has poured down. There has been a lot of rain. I was in town and was surprised at the number of people who just stand blocking doorways. If you are going to go out , go out or else get out of the door way. Apparently the precipitation is going to get heavier and given today was the Autumn Equinox we can expect the weather to get a little less summery to say the least.

Again I wasn't going to write this as I really need to go to bed, but  just wanted to mention that in about two weeks the number of visits to this blog will hit 300K given that there about 1200 visits a day, that's 50 an hour and just under 1 a minute.

Today I went for a Liver check up and everything seems to be going in th eright direction although my body is showing signs of wear and tear with calcification around the heart, but sensible living will keep that OK.

I'm gonna close with "I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have" the coda of which metamorphosed into "Loaded" (check out the studio take and the live take of both songs running into each other here), Primal Scream are just one of those bands who are not limited by any style and are one of the most enduring bands ever.

Alarming

For the past two weeks I have been woken up by my alarm from a deep sleep. This is a good thing really but each time comes as a slight shock as I normally tend to wake up before the alarm so it's just a question of switching the damned thing off.

Today is extremely cloudy and rainy, but we are in the second half of September so it's not exactly unexpected. I have been bingeing on some TV programs, mainly Parks and Recreation , Defending the Guilty and Vikings .

Last night I actually started on recording a song, and maybe I will complete it this week and put it on Soundcloud.

This is just a short throway post but I'll sign it off with with a live take of  "Framed" from 1974 as I've been chatting with a friend on Facebook about how brilliant a front man Alex was and Zal Cleminson's evil clown costume predates todays Joker and Pennywise from It