Attention Span

Midway through series two I gave up on this series because it was getting too complicated for me and wasn't really what I expected. I am now midway though series 5 Part 2 and looking apprehensively at the end of series 6.

My basic problem is that I was Ok with the Vikings , hitting Lindisfarne and Northumbria, but when it started getting further afield with Wessex and Mercia I felt it was losing me. That's my short attention span. However I did pick it up again and now we have seen Paris , Spain , Sicily ,Rome , Iceland,  The Sahara , and back to York, and the introduction of Alfred The Great.

While historical accuracy is more of a very vague guideline and provider of nails to hang a story on, the series has provided some amazing set pieces , extreme violence and great characters . How the hell they sold the character of Ivar The Boneless (you can't use your legs) to Alex Hegh Andersen I haven't got a clue.

It's just a lesson that sometimes you don't know what you are missing if you don't stick with things.

Reading wise I'm still on with "The Great and Secret Show" (on paper) and "Imajica" on Kindle Fire by Clive Barker and enjoying both rekindling the fires of earlier readings with lots of forgotten memories and characters, both excellent books and clocking in at 700 and 1200 pages not exactly short either.

I must say I am enjoying revisiting these books, stimulating my imaginatation.

This morning I have again ditched 6Music andam on my fourth Horslips album which has been a great mornings listening. The albums have been:

• The Táin
• Book of Invasions
• The Man Who Built America
• Aliens

Even though it's one of my favourite albums ever (It was the only album I played for two weeks when I bought it in 1976) , today I found out for the first time it was based on Lebor Gabála Érenn, a collection of poems and prose narratives in the Irish language intended to be a history of Ireland and the Irish from the creation of the world to the Middle Ages. I knew is was based on Irish mythology frollowing on from "The Tain" but never delved further than that.

Given that I started this post talking about Vikings I am going with "America: What Time Is Love?" by The KLF as the video makes me thinks of Vikings, boats , raids and overseas madness.

Wild, Wild Life

One of the many benefits of the lockdown has been the proliferation of wildlife and the cleansing of the atmosphere thanks to the use of airplanes and cars being significantly reduced. So we've seen frogs , bees and butterflies as well as small birds , although there seem to be many more magpies as well and I'm sure I seldom saw more than one a day.

The problem with this is that th ehuman race is so insistent on it's own convenience we will soon be back to the same air and car traffic with the subsequent increase in polutions, although I still often can cross the road easily whithout having to wait for traffic lights.

Another increase is the number of people out running , although they may have been there before when I was office based, but I was out last night and the noise was so great I was glad to get off the estate I was on and into  the greenery and woods , but then I hit the A167 and then there was traffic noise pollution.

Today I have turned off the radio and am listening to my own music collection which I am playing on my Kindle Fire using BubbleUPnP and I downloaded the 40th Aniversary copy of "Two Sevens Clash" by Culture which differs significantly from the thirtieth anniversary one (barring the origianl album) but the track order seems to be all over the place. I am going to look at this later and it may need some manual adjustment, but the album is full of great songs.

I'm now listening to Caravan & The New Symphonia and was slight surprised to find what "The Dog, The Dog He's At It Again" was about, although it should have been obvious.

So I will leave you with "Wild Wild Life" by The Talking Heads from "True Stories" . Enjoy

The Insidious Evil of Contact Lenses

This morning I lost a contact lens trying to put it in my left eye. Usually if I drop them I eventually find it but to today absolutely no sign. Looked round the sink , on the bathroom cabinet and floor, it does amaze me that when you drop something it can go absolutely anywhere.

Given that my right and left are out of sync I decided to ditch the right one as well well and open new ones but was worried that maybe the left one was actually in my eye but had slipped behind it.

That has happened to me once before and I didn't realise until it reappeared on a hospital visit. I tried inserting the left one but it felt that there was already something there, although this was probably psychosomatic  caused by by attempts to take out a contact lens that wasn't there..

Decided to go with my glasses then checked my phone and noticed an odd reflection. It turned out the lost contact lens was stuck above my palm at the bottom of my index finger, and there is apparently no name for that bit of the hand, like as Vivian Stanshall said in "Sir Henry At Rawlinson End" - "There ids no name for the back of the knees".

So that's my start to this beautiful Saturday morning when the 2019/20 football season restarts in empty stadia , but it is a good sight to see even if it's just on TV.

Chris Hawkins on 6Music is playing a Rolling Stones cover of Solomon Burke's "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love" . I was one of the backing singers and in the Gospel Choir support when Solomon Burke played The Sage ten years ago, see here .

This weekend will see lawn mowing , Roman Temple visiting and football watching and we need a song to go with that don't we. For some reason Johnny Clarke's "Rockers Time Now" was in my head yesterday,  it's an absolutely great song , perfect for today, so we'll go with that.

#LikeNoOther #11 - Nadine Shah

I think this is #LikeNoOther #11 though I  may have missed one out as it's ages since I posted in this series. Nadine Shah has released a new album and the new album "Kitchen Sink"  (though just a thought Kitschen Sink would be a great album or book title)  doesn't let up.

Her music is not exactly danceable , but sounds like it doesn't conform to any norm. It has a highly percussive framework  which she and her band use to build the songs, and you finish every one thinking what the hell was that, I need to listen again.

Nadine , as far as I am concerned, falls in the same sprawling universe as all the other artists who have appeared in this series, but my immediate touchpoints are:

• PJ Harvey
• Siouxsie Sue and The Banshees
• Captain Beefheart
• The Incredible String Band
• David Bowie
• Ethiopiques
• Tom Waits

There is a hell of a lot of original music around and it always amazes be that a combination of 12 notes can continually be moulded to give us something new and original. Nadine Shah continues to do that on every sone her and her band produces.

Watch and listen to the new single and your musical listening horizons will expand.

I've seen Nadine Shah twice and was very impressed both times. Her music is is as I've described and she has a very engaging stage personality as well so well worth going to see her, here are a couple of my reviews with some more video.

Hazy

Since the weekend the sky has been a uniform grey with mist almost to ground level. This has burned off for the last two afternoons revealing sunny blue skies, but my phone's weather app showed an icon that looks like waves , so I was thinking Tsunami? Flood? ... apparently it actually means hazy so that means I can rest a little more safely.

It's now after work and the sky is still grey. I will go out for a walk and visit a local Roman Temple, the weather is at least conducive to walking which is good. I've managed to keep my steps up this month.

Today I opened a pack of toilet rolls that I bought when lockdown started and everyone was panic buying, throughout this lockdown I have never gone short of anything , I noticed shops that have sold out but always found alternatives close by, while a lot of people I know were telling me how impossible it was to get things. The irony being they all own cars so in theory can go anywhere , whereas I rely on public transport and shanks pony.

Although my CD is slowly shrinking via my Discogs store I will be buying the new Nadine Shah album "Kitchen Sink" , here music is like nothing else , all the instruments are so percussive and she is one of the few artists who I have a complete collection of. I am also going to download the 40th anniversary version of "Two Sevens Clash" by Culture, I have the original in digital format so will do the same for the anniversary edition.

As this is named Hazy I will share "Hazy Jane" by Nick Drake.

Hmmmmmmm

This morning I thought about not showering, there was another part of my brain that said get in, you need to be clean for the day , but the thought was worrying, if fleeting. I always want to shower , and love being in there but hate drying myself and then having to get dressed.

One of the things about working in lockdown or being furloughed you aren't under any pressure to look your best (and I never look good anyway) and if you are furloughed there's only so much non work you can do.

My lawn is currently getting long, but I am deliberately doing it to encourage wildlife although it will be trimmed this coming weekend.

The sky today has been a uniform grey , my phone app says hazy, so it is not the most inspiring.

I have now finished for the day

Today is the sixtieth anniversary of the release of Alfred Hitchcock's  "Psycho" so maybe we can go with Elvis Costello's "Psycho" which was the "B" side of "Good Year For The Roses" from the album "Almost Blue".

Enjoy.

Afoot

I have been using some comfy trainers for my walking and this week I pulled out an old pair that feel as though I'm walking directly on the road, but actually make walking much more productive and easier. The comfy ones I suppose are almost like walking on grass whereas the "uncomfy" ones are actually more suited to the job of walking.

Since I've decided to keep to the 11K steps a day target , whatever the month , it's been a lot easier to meet the targets and I am not halfway through this month but already 30K steps up (mainly due to walking into town to post a couple of Discogs orders to Spain and Sweden) , so maybe this month I will hit my target again.

This week I binge watched (for me ) "Space Force" on Netflix , the episodes are only thirty minutes and there were only ten episodes  and I was very impressed by it. I am also up to series five on "Vikings" which just seems to spread further and further round the world with every episode.

The weather is is still dreich and as such is not very inspirational , I've had the guitar out and looking at using keyboard to provide bass rhythms but still no nearer producing anything. Part of this is that I want by backing to to be instant and also get distracted by TV , listening to music and reading , although they should be providing inspiration rather than distraction. I am not good with self practicing.

I wasn't sure what  music to share but last week heard this Nina Simone take on Bob Dylans' "Just Like Tom Thumbs' Blues" , the thing is Dylan's voice often put's people off but I think that people will listen to Simone's version. I obviously love the original but this is a song that can transcend the performer, bu t this is and awesome performance.

Listen all the way through , I challenge you to be unimpressed.

I Now Have A Top Three

I am always positive, looking for positives in any situation. As I was make breakfast , porridge and coffee, I ran out of milk. This meant I had to go to my local shop to get more milk, but in the process added 600 steps to my daily sep count , which is always good.

Anyway back to the point of the post.

On my morning walk I decided to listen to "Dirty Computer" by Janelle Monae, which I was so impressed with that I posted this two years ago. and every time I listen I am floored by the album. It now joins "Future Games" by Spirit and "El Dorado" by The Electric Light Orchestra in my top three albums ever. I do like music and have eclectic taste and if I were to choose top artists it would probably be David Bowie and Bob Dylan.

I have included the Emotion Picture that contains most of the album , and is a great piece of science fiction music culminating in th ewonderful "Amercans" . The album has lost none of it's joy and power since I first heard it , and it's so good I never skip a song , similar to the other two albums in my top three.

It is an amazing , joyful and thought provoking piece of work and is always great to listen to and always lift my spirits.

This also shows that there is always great music being produced, and while often it's cited that the music you hear between the ages of 14 and 16 shapes your whole future tastes , I think that you have to keep an open mind and listen to everything.

Also you don't have to be yound to produce great music , age can educate you and I thing that Sparks are  still one of the most at the edge original band still going.

So keep a very open mind and let the good stuff flow into you.

The Odd Price of Music

I am selling CDs I'll probably never play again on my Discogs store and am sometimes surprised at the prices that things actually go for, although you can price at any level and it's only good if you actually make a sale, but on my latest additions there were a few surprises:

• The Cramps "Off The Bone / Songs The Lord Taught Us" around £4
• Roger Daltrey "Moonlighting" up to £60
• Louis Jordan "The Anthology" £30

I could obviously unload via CEX or Music Magpie and get 20p a CD if I'm lucky, but I use Discogs to sell and price and sometimes get several times the original purchase price.

Again the thing is I might see a CD priced at £250 on Amazon like "The Handy Wah Whole" but you have to want to sell the item AND you need a buyer. Sometimes these things come together and you find a buyer, I remember selling a copy of "Anarchy In The UK" for £25 in the early eighties after they went from EMI to A&M to Virgin and then bought the LP for a couple of quid leaving me twenty pound to the good.

I tend to love the music rather than the format and as long I can listen to it then that's OK by me.

I do realise that I have bought records mainly to support the artist, resulting in a very large collection that is now subject to a very slow cull, I don't need to sell it , and any CD that is priced less than two quid goes to the charity shops.

I'm not sure how much these are on Amazon but you can see on the list below.

It's quite early but I am feeling a bit iffy like I'm coming down with something, hopefully a night's sleep will sort me out.

Every Piece Of Vinyl ....

I was looking at all the books I have,  and was thinking "Will I ever read all of these?" . The same goes for DVDs and CDs . With the digitalisation of music, plus streaming , and the phenomenal fall in price music has become easy to buy without listening to it.

People used to make tapes and that had to be done in real time , but now it's just a playlist and if there is little effort in producing it then there will be little attention payed to it by listener. I see loads of playlists shared each day , but will take more notice of a single song in some format or other.

Digital media is so easy to aquire , put aside for future listening, then never revisit. Books are slightly different in that you may put them aside, but usually you have them displayed in a bookcase or something and always tend to buy them with at least the intention of reading. That is not always the case with digital media, and you can include ebooks with that , so easy to acquire and so easy to forget about.

I have bought very few ebooks but have acquired a lot as many are public domain and available for free or very cheaply.

Back to vinyl , every record I have has been played at least once, and many times more often. Buying vinyl creates a sort of tangible connection with the music, the covers are often an adventure in themselves (thinking Hawkwind's "In Search of Space" and Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick" newspaper cover).

I have a few picture discs including Kate Bush's zoetropic picture disc of "Running Up That Hill" and the Star Wars and Jack White " Lazaretto"discs with the etched holograms all of which need lights or strobes to bring out the images, but I can't find the Kate Bush one although I posted it on instagram a few years back, maybe I will try doing it again soon and put it on Youtube.

So what should I share this time, we'll go with "Paranoid" by Black Sabbath because of the Vertigo Swirl which is one of the best simple optical effects I have ever seen , and you don't get that on digital, sometimes it's great to watch the record just  play.

Dreich

A good description of this Saturday morning Dreich which if you follow the link you will get the definition. It's grey, wet and cold, the wind and rain beating aginst the window panes. And that's it.

While I do enjoy a shower, I just want to come out ready for the day , but hate having to dry myself, apply deodarant etc before you can actually get dressed. I've known people who say that deodorant is just a trick to con more money out of you , not the sort of people to get too close too.

One of the main problems I have with lockdown is the lack of physical contact with people, although I still have contact via phone , social media , and video apps , but to compensate for this I speak to people when out for walks (while maintaining social distancing)  and have spoken with a lot of people although I will probably never see or speak to them again.

In the time I've been writing this the sun has started to poke through so it may turn out to be a decent day , but we shall see how it goes.

Lots of ideas are going through my head , thinking about a podcast / radio show as it used to be that music couldn't be included in podcasts , but the BBC has a lot of shows / podcasts that do include music, but I first need to grab some software to do this , although I could just record in analogue form, but we shall see, and it may go like many of my other purported projects and never get started, although I do know I can do things when I put my mind to it otherwise I couldn't do a job.

We're in June and we should be well into summer weather but you have seen how I've described it, although we have had some great weather this week so I'm just trying to think of some music to share, and then I found this father/daughter quarantine take on "The Time Warp" from Richard O'Brien's "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" which in my opinion is one of the most fun things ever.. Watch this , you may love it. My daughters love The Rocky Horror Picture Show and loved the computer game on the old Amstrad.

Enjoy

The Titles of Budgie

I was originally going to title this "Nude Disintegrating Parachutist Woman" which is one of the many startling titles from the Welsh Heavy Metallers Budgie. Other titles are "It The Grip of A Tyre Fitters Hand" and "Breadfan" the latter covered by Metallica here among other places.

Their titles also vaguely remind me of the titles that Amon Duul II had on their albums which only just about made sense.

This morning I awoke from a dream it which lots happened but most has melted away now although one thing I remember was going back to the office except walking in was more like a packed church, withe everyone at their desks , then I realised I had forgotten my laptop so had to go back home , but it was pointless going back to the office because there was no place to sit anyway.

My mind is empty tonight (as usual) so I will leave you to enjoy the Welsh metal.

Long Distance

I have a Canon SX620 camera and it enables me to take long distance pictures. The control says I can take up to 100x zoom although the front of the camera says 25x optical zoom so that maty be why my longer distance pics get a bit less detailed, after 25x the zoom becomes digital.

I use the photos of long distance shots as a screensaver on my desktop and love when I see something and try to work out lots of things that I had never noticed before in relatively familiar surroundings. From the top of Cow Hill I can photograph from The West Road to Wallsend taking in the City Centre and St Jame's Park.

Having a sizeable zoom worried me about privacy , but I trued taking photos in my front room and front bedroom and the lack of light and glass reflection ensures good privacy. I do wonder about controllable drones that could easily be used to snoop, although I have seen some great outdoor drone shots.

Today Shaun Keaveny brought up the fact that you can use scissors to cut pizza, something I had never thought about , but I suppose you could , although the take aways I get are usually ready cut , and I haven't had a frozen pizza for a long time (Dr Oetker and Morrisons are my preferred ones when I feel in a pizza mood).

So given that this started about cameras we shall go with "The Camera Eye" by Rush

Parallel Reading

This year I was determined not to post so much, and although I am posting less than last year I am still posting. There are seldom two days between posts unless I am away for a weekend and don't take a laptop with me.

For the first time I am actually reading two books simultaneously , one on paper "The Great and Secret Show" (c 800 pages) and "Imajica" (c 1200 pages) on my Kindle Fire , both by Clive Barker , both excellent and getting through them at a reasonable pace which I don't normally do. These are rereads and though I know the overall story the detail has gone , so it's like I am reading a book I know I will like , which is always a good thing.

This morning on my walk I was listening to "Diamond Dogs" by David Bowie and I still think that "Rebel Rebel" is one of the greatest riffs ever because a) I can play it and b) it's probably the greatest Rolling Stones song that they never wrote or recorded.

I always go one about how brilliant Bowie is but yesterday I realised I have a particularly awful song by him from the covers album "Pin-Ups" . The rest of the album is great, the version of "Sorrow" is sublime and most of the others hit the spot , but "Shapes of Things" , the Yardbirds cover,  in which he sounds like he is impersonating one of his big influences Anthony Newley. The guitar solo is OK but it is really a sore thumb on a decent covers album

My reasons for disliking it it that the original is a great Yardbirds song , and Jeff Beck covered in with Rod Stewart as he had every right to do and that turned out fine .

Unfortunately for all other covers Nazareth threw the kitchen sink plus lots of phasing and heavy metal turning it into a perfect piece of prog metal , tagging on "Space Safari" giving us an excellent closer to their finest album "Rampant", so that's what we start June with.

The New Time

One of the problems with getting older is that the days seem to get shorter and you seem to have less time to do things, well that's how I feel. A number of people with children want to get the children back to school mainly because they are missing their friends, and of course looking after young children 24/7 is not an easy task.

The thing is that six weeks of lockdown for a six year old is a fiftieth of their life , where for me it's one five hundredth so it seems a lot longer for them that it does for me although the actual time is the same.

I am now trying to find a way of perceiving time in the same way that a child does and see a week's holiday or even a weekend as a long time. A weekend is around 62 hours from work finish to work start for most Monday to Friday workers and we should be able to see that as time to enjoy and do things.

I'm often reminded of "The Eighty Minute Hour" by Brian Aldiss where the controllers speed up clocks when we are not at work and slow them down when we are at work, and if that were happening  would we know?

People often waste weeks wishing for Friday , I used to be like that but now think "What Can I Do Today?" . If you are always looking forward to Friday you effectively throw away five days of your week , and the weekend is only two days so that makes your time seem to fly by.

My aim is not only to slow time down , but to do more in that time. I often am bothered by going for
walks because , by it's nature, that takes time, although usually I listen to music while walking as they are complimentary activities and listening to music can almost make the activity go faster. The paradox is that you want to finish your walk , but you want to enjoy your time doing it and if time speeds up you feel you are losing out.

Matt Haig wrote one of his excellent books "How To Stop Time" which also took this as part of his premise, and his self help page from "Reasons To Stay Alive" is excellent , so I am now FEELING TIME as well as taking my final part in the #maywriteabit , because tomorrow is the first of June.

So what song should we go with , there are many songs called "Time" , Pink Floyd and David Bowie come to mind, and even "Five Years Time" by Noah and the Whale and "Minutes" by The Human League came to mind.

I decided to go with "The Waiting" by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers as it is sort of appropriate for the position we are in now and does contain a lot of pertinent lines to the lockdown situation.

Primal Screen

We're coming to the end of the second full month of working during lockdown and while I have adapted there are a lot of people who still find things difficult . Next week I have a hospital appointment when I will probably use a bus to go. I haven't used a bus for weeks. Although I could actually walk to the hospital I wouldn't have time to walk back to start work.

We have had had sunny days and last night my phone showed a temperature of 17º Centigrade which I thought was hot , though I seem to be the only man in our neighbourhood cluster without a suntan, though I noticed an oddity on my left arm this morning two adjacent two centimetre round spots on my right arm one dark (as in tanned)  and one light (as in white) ,  not something that bothers me , just slightly odd.

I watched "Suicide Squad" last night and while it was good in bits with an excellent cast , the film as a whole was a bit of a mess.

So this Friday morning we go with another song that 6Music have been playing by a band who are new to me BC Camplight , and the song is "Shortly After Take Off" , I'd forgotten thename of the band and the title of the song but thanks to the shows' tracklistings on 6Music (in this case Nemone sitting in for Lauren Laverne) .

The thing is that's how my memory works , I often can't remember things but I can remember what to do to find them . How does that work? If my memory is bad then surely it should be bad for everything.

Another song that Nemone played was the absolutely brilliant "Endless Art" by A House (both versions) and really have to share that as well.

Why "Primal Screen" , well an obvious play on "Primal Scream" and the latest section in Clive Barker's "The Great and Secret Show" is called "Primal Scenes" and I am use my laptop computer screen for work as well as play.

Have a great Friday everyone.

On Demand

Yesterday I didn't even listen to the live radio, because now you can listen to shows on demand. I was using the BBC Sounds app on my Kindle Fire. I noticed there was something featuring Stephen King , who , like Terry Pratchett, I don't really like his books , but I like him as a person and like the TV and film dramatisations of his stories.

First up was the 6Music "Paperback Writers" show and the listing didn't include The Rolling Stones song "Dance Little Sister" which came between Jan & Dean's "New Girl In School" and KC & The Sunshine Band's "That's The Way (I Like It)" . King's attitude to disco is the same as mine, and we both love it.

I was looking forward to following this with his "Desert Island Discs" but it ran into Irvine Welsh's show and as I am an admirer of Irvine Welsh I let it run , and his music choices were stuff that I would have played , listened to and maybe even picked.

Both authors' shows were illuminating and gave a good insight into them and their tastes. The only slight black mark for me was Stephen King closing with "My Sharona" by The Knack , but each to his hown and when the other choices were so good you have to allow some leeway. Irvine Welsh's choices were all more than acceptable to me.

I then went back to "Desert Island Discs"  which was more talking and less music but a decent listen nonetheless.

The thing is you can cherrypick what you want to listen to these days and that means that live radio is up against a formidable library of sound, so my listening to live radio is about to get a little less. I think I will share "It Came Out Of The Sky" by Creedence Clearwater Revival" because it is on Stephen King's list and it has the "It" connection too.

Growing Old is Mandatory but Growing Up is Optional.

yesterday I was feeling in a black and down mood that I couldn't shake off, not sure why, but it was like I couldn't snap out of it , but there is always part of my mind that says YOU CAN hit normal again. The weather ranged from sunny to overcast , and overcast doesn't hely.

I have a dripping tap that I can't fix and don't want to risk a flood despite the online help that shows how to "simply" fix , but I have contacted someone to actually do the job so awaiting a call back (it is a Bank Holiday).

I don't think my mood was helped by watching episodes of "White Lines" , "Vikings" and "Altered Carbon" , all excellent TV but not exactly taking you to happy place (and still 50 episodes of "Vikings" to go)  , but actually watching "Spy" with Melissa McCarthy and Jason Statham really lifted my spirits ant the end of the day , both of them providing comedy gold in this James Bond spoof  with lots of violence and swearing but absolutely great entertainment.

I also couldn't even be bothered to write, but enjoyed listening to a few records. Sat at the keyboard to learn Tom Waits' "In The Neighbourhood" and then at the guitar for a run through "Crossroads" and "Cocaine" all of which were adequate but not yer shareable.

I didn't even want to walk, but then got myself out and actually completed my 11K steps for the day and that again made me feel better.

For me , it's basically find something that makes you feel better and do that that. Hitting targets is usually good , but maybe avoid the darker things.

Having said that I am going to share Tom Waits' "I Don't Wanna Grow Up"  which featured in the "Cracked Jukebox" documentary broadcast on the BBC, and is really one of my aims of life. The song appears on the soundtrack of the film "Jojo Rabbit" as well.

Apparently the Ramones covered this , so I need to find that don't I? I did, and really OMG that is soooooo god The Ramones covering Tom Waits , almost as revelatory as Hendrix covering Dylan, that is brilliant and has made this weekend end on a definite upward trajectory.

Great quote from the Youtube feed:

"My dad always said growing old is mandatory but growing up is optional."

Today is Bank Holiday Monday and I intend to enjoy it very much.

A Slightly Different Perspective

By actually posting , I am continuing with the #maywriteabit , although I know others are doing it and my interaction with them has fizzled out a bit.

I've been doing this three month rolling million steps for a couple of years by doing 340K steps a month. This is fine but in months with less than 31 days the extra daily steps are just a slight pain. Then looking at it from an annual view 11K steps a day will result in just under four million steps , which is a million every three months, and given that most days I tend to do a bit more than 11K then I should just aim for a daily average of 11K a day and that will sort me over each year.

It's only taken me a couple of years to realise this , and make my step counting so much simpler.

So that is a good thing at the start of this Bank Holiday Weekend. I don't have much more to say apart from to share another great record that 6Music have been playing  "PDLIF" by Bon Iver to raise money for Direct Relief . 100% of streaming proceeds will be directed to Direct Relief, a humanitarian aid organization working to protect workers and patients alike so if you watch the video you will be contributing to this charity. Here's a description from the Direct Relief site:

"The release marks the first time a music video has premiered on Direct Relief’s website and reflects the myriad of new ways artists — and individuals in general — are helping support Covid-19 relief efforts. Along with the novel distribution method, the song was created in a new way as well, because of safety precautions necessitated by the pandemic. Each contributor worked on their part of the song in isolation before sending their work on to their bandmates and audio engineers."

Enjoy the song , stay safe and look after yourself.