Fantastic Day

That was the record playing on the Chris Hawkins show when I switched on 6Music this morning. The rain has stopped and it's a Friday so that is a great initial start today and it's up to me to enjoy it and make it better.

I must have used that song before, but remember hearing "Favourite Shirts" by Haircut 100 and thinking it was extremely similar to "I Zimbra" by the Talking Heads. Haircut 100 were never one of my favourite bands but they and Nick Heyward came up with a few cracking songs which prompted me to buy a combined best of.

That is one of the issues with CDs is that they became so cheap that you end up buying a double CD (possibly over two hours of music for a three minute song) , I have been guilty of that many times. I wouldn't have bought it on vinyl, although my vinyl collection is a bit like a beard, it grows slowly but does need trimming to keep it in tip top condition. You should always be able to quickly find what you want to play.

My walking recently has been fragmented, partly due to the weather, but I am still keeping up with my rolling million steps every three months, and it is startling how many people seem surprised by it. Though Matt Haig made me laugh when he said "I used to just go for a walk, now I get worried if I don't hit my 10K steps a day".

So that's a few snippets to think about as you enjoy your Friday.

Coming Up

I wasn't going to post today, I'm not sure it the increase in visits has sort of addicted me to writing posts, although professional writers write a hell of a lot more than I do so maybe it isn't an issue. This is post 1951 so my target for this year is to hit 2000, and at this rate that will happen next month, not sometime in December as I originally hoped to do.

The thing is my writing here is not subject to editorial scrutiny aor targetted an a particular audience in order to become an influencer or to sell products, so I can post when and what I want. Also I have no deadlines to meet apart from self imposed ones.

I'm enjoying "Notes on A Nervous Planet" by Matt Haig and am coming to the conclusion that it's essentially a manual for surviving the modern world illustrated by his observations and experiences. It's not as uplifting as "Reasons To Stay Alive" but that's because it's more Haynes Manual than Harry Potter, it is still very good and you should get your own copy  (both books) and read and enjoy them.

I'm just reading how the consumerist world wants us to be unhappy so it can SELL us things to make us feel better. It is partly the reason I have 5K CDs and 400 DVDs because I have bought things because I thought I should have them, and then not watched or listened to. To address this a lot of CDs and DVDs have gone to the Westgate Ark Cat Shelter charity and I have a pile of 170 CDs that are listed on Discogs here.

I titled this because all of a sudden the 2000 target is coming up and it's also the title of a Paul McCartney song that I really like (The opener from McCartney II) so I will share that with you on this wet Thursday.

Low Flying Cloud

Today has not really been raining but it's wet. It's like it's just very low cloud. I don't know if it will finally blow over but today has been a perfect example of dreek. The sky is grey the windows are wet and it's cold.

It's almost a month since the blog visits went from fifty a day to fifty an hour, starting with sharing on Twitter then being picked up buy Feedburner and since the 17th of May daily visits have not dropped below 1,100 and today is already up to 1,200 and I think it's based on the New York date line so there's still about five hours to go.

I do need to give it a day's rest but I keep thinking another post will fuel the visits, but I do need to try and have a day without posting, I've already posted sixteen times this month that is four posts every the three days.

The rain / mist is running down the window pane as I write this and to quote the cheesiest of lines it is a cold, dark, rainy night, not dark and stormy , just dreek.

I was surprised to be followed on Instagram by Louise Distras (her web page is here) who I saw, and was impressed with and chatted with at The Cluny where she was supporting The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing. She is an excellent artist and a really nice girl to chat with. My review of the gig is here. and that reminded me of the new video that Jordan Reyne has released for "They Came For You" from "Bardo" which is appropriate for this troubling times.

So it is time for bed, but it is worth checking out all these albums when you get the chance.

Let It Rain

The sky is grey and it's raining. I normally like rain but at the moment it's a threat because I have an intermittent roof leak  that I have been waiting three weeks for the roofer to sort out. He's an OK guy but  not as quick to deal with this as I'd like.

I'm reading Matt Haig's book and one of the things we should listen to to relax and unwind is rain and waves, things that you hear but are constant but don't grab your attention but give your mind a relaxing bed to sleep on, it's a good idea. Youtube has some sequence of up to twelve hours of natural sounds (waves, rain etc) that you can put on and fall asleep to, check here.

When  I was starting to write this Chris Hawkins played "Sometimes" by James which brings up rain and waves and water in its lyrics and I will share that with you this morning.

I often go to sleep listening to lots of music, Brian Eno's "Thursday Afternoon" is wonderful because like natural sound there is nothing that grabs your attention. The night before last I listened to Alice Cooper's "Killer" and I got through most of that. Last night I put on three Weather Report albums  ("Heavy Weather", "I Sing The Body Electric" and "Mysterious Traveller")which is excellent jazz instrumental but fell asleep before the first piece had finished. I got up three times to go for a wee (I am old and diabetic and it was one of those nights but that is life) but each time chose a different Weather Report album and went straight back to sleep.

I think I will also include "Birdland" which was going to be my original piece for this, but we can have both.

Sleep Now

A lot of this is coming from Matt Haig's book "Notes on a Nervous Planet" and it is so good that I am about to order "How To Stop Time" which I think was inspired from a page in "Reasons To Stay Alive" which is another of his excellent books. I have read others, my introduction to him was "Humans" which I gave away on  World Book Night before it degenerated into commercialisation. The thing is I'm not sure if I have read and bought "How To Stop Time" because it is a paperback book and my real books are not stored digitally although Amazon will tell me if I've bought it before, then I just have to find it.

Anyway one section I have come to is a short section on sleep and the fact that generally we don't get enough. We need seven to nine hours per night and lack of sleep does cause problems. The odd night or two is fine especially if you are interacting withe real people of real things. The problem is that people use what should be sleep time to bings watch TV, be on their electronic device, with phones replacing alarm clocks and therefore living on people's bedsides. This si not a good idea.

The CEO of Netflix said that their biggest enemy was sleep and it was a huge area to increase consumption of their product. I have not yet taken out a subscription to Netflix, because by TIVO Box is filling up from my Virgin subscription, I also have access to Amazon Prime, and NowTV which I can stop and start when I want it. I worked out that it will take six hours to illegally download a TV series or film yet for £8 you get a month of Netflix or NowTV, a far better use of my time to pay that rather than steal, though we have been conditioned to think we shouldn't have to pay for digital content.

When we sleep we cannot be consumers so the whole commercial world hates us because we are not buying, but to buy we need money, but we are always having credit pushed at use rather than being paid enough to actually buy without going into debt.

Another point that Matt Haig makes is to turn off notifications on your phone to give yourself control, and that is something I have always done as I can't deal with things popping up all the time.

So it's gotta be "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" by the sadly missed Warren Zevon as the music to accompany today's post.

Walk or Write?

Just wondering, and I have chosen write. It's the first day back at work, and a wonderful day outside so the natural choice should be walk, but as you can see I am writing this post. Due to the way the month has started I have a hell of a lot of catch up to do when I get to work but that does make the day fly by, I am thinking how the hell will I do this, but at 4:30 I will know how I did it.

So yesterday I finished Westworld on Now TV and as I said previously peer downloading takes a couple of hours for a series and then you aren't sure if it'll work, but Netflix or Now TV Entertainment is about £8 a month , in which time you could watch the whole of several box sets. I have Fortitude , Chernobyl and others to catch up on and it the two months that I have had NowTV this time I have seen Game of Thrones, Tin Star series 2, and Westworld Series 2, think how much they would be to buy. SO basically the TV streaming services( Now TV,Netflix,Amazon Prime plus BBC iPlayer and commercial hubs) generally provide value for money.

So I suppose the only song has to be "TV is King" by The Tubes.

Enjoy Your Monday.

No Time

Just reading the excellent "Notes on a Nervous Planet" and something came up that applies to me. I continually feel that I do not have enough time to do things (may that's a symptom of getting older) but as Matt Haig points out, we can now communicate faster and more easily than every before, we have rapid travel options , washing machines, lawn mowers , microwaves , etc speed up things that took a lot more of our time than they did before.

When I left EE I didn't realise at first that I didn't have to travel, on general three hours a day to get to and from work. That's fifteen hours a week (I was stopped from working from home before I finished), that's sixty hours a month. Given that the average working week is 37 hours (150 hours a month) I gained more than 20% time by leaving. That is a lot of time.

The problem is life overload, to watch a TV program or a film , still takes as long as it takes, reading a book takes time, listening to Beethoven's 9th Symphony takes about 70 minutes to listen to (you could play it at 78 rpm but that would sound silly), but basically we do not really appreciate the extra time that modern life is giving use, and we should do.

Writing this takes time, and reading it takes time (though not as much time as it takes to write).

It is a beautiful Sunday Morning and it's an excuse to share the wonderful Flash Mob take on "Ode To Joy" from Beethoven's 9th . I showed this to the lady in the the Oxfam Shop in Helmsley and she loved it because she said it makes you realise what instruments go together to make this wonderful music.

Where's Wally?

You know that joke about the difference between stupid and being dead, everyone else knows except you in both cases.

The Facebook ban is sort of like that in reverse, I know that I'm banned and therefore can't communicate in any way via Facebook, but none of my Facebook friends do, except the ones who I communicate with via phone, email , Instagram or Twitter, and it is a sort of weird situation. Because my online presence ids there, people ca send me messages, post things on my timeline , tag me or whatever and barring disabling / deleting the account there is nothing I can do.

I can't even use Facebook Messenger.

While I have not transgressed any Facebook rules for three out of the four bans which are here and you can see what I'm banned for in these posts here and here and see what you think.

Basically anything that I personally post can result in a ban, and I cannot challenge it full stop, snd no explanation for the  supposed transgression will be given.

So this is a warning to anyone out there, do not allow Facebook to be your only mode of communication or your Facebook friends will think you don't love them any more. Essentially for everything in life you always need a Plan "B" and luckily I do have communication channels open with friends, it's just that often people don't check their alternatives.

As this is post 1945 I'm going to share "Caledonia" by Louis Jordan and His Tympani Five, which is rather celebratory which is good as WWII came to a  close in that year.

We Are All Nervous

.. to some extent. After finishing "Norse Mythology" by Neil Gaiman, I've picked up "Notes on a Nervous Planet" by Matt Haig. This sort of follows on from his "Reasons To Stay Alive" which addressed how he dealt with his depression, and the book really helped a sadly missed great friend of mine Craig Puranen Wilson who was one of the most positive people that I have met it my life but also dealt with his own demons while helping so many others.

I read "Reasons To Stay Alive" on a train journey down to London for my friend Paul Campbell's 50th Birthday, it took me just three hours and I started thinking "I shouldn't be giving this as a birthday present" and finished thinking what an absolutely brilliant, uplifting and hopeful book. I think I could do the same with "Notes on a Nervous Planet" but am not on a three hour train journey, but it has started very well.

"Notes on a Nervous Planet" posits that anything can make us worried or nervous and how we can deal with that. A lot of that can be answered by the answer to the question:

"Am I in Control Of This?"

If we are we are usually Ok, but it's when we are dependent on things that are out of our control that the worry bomb starts ticking. Today I parked up a hire car rented from Enterprise  to pick up something from the Post Office (a clear vinyl copy of the first Faust album) . If the car gets damaged I am liable for £1,000 excess so that is always on my mind, and it doesn't have to be my fault , and a combination of an idiot parking me in (he was on double yellows) and another one pulling out of a side road without looking could have caused me to be in an accident. I waited til everything was clear so there was no accident but the nervousness was there while it was still a possibility.

Though to put things in context when I was was coming up the A19 in driving rain, I was not worried at all but just wanted to get home, and really , you would think that would be when an accident might happen, and therefore I should be worried, but if you were that worried you probably couldn't drive. You need to have confidence in yourself.

So again , I wasn't going to write anything today but things just trigger something, and given the subject it has to be the opening song from Side 2 of my favourite Alice Cooper album "Killer" , "You Drive Me Nervous". Legend has it that Vincent Furnier changed his name to Alice Cooper after a 17th Century Witch (You probably can find one) but the name was chosen because it sounded wholesome, normal and at odds with the band's raison d'etre.

So Much For Ragnarok

I've just finished Neil Gaiman's "Norse Mythology" and it is an excellent read, not as long or bawdy as Stephen Fry's "Mythos" but no less entertaining.

There's lots of things in it that are mirrored in Game of Thrones (never ending winter and frost giants) and lots of other genres, but the stories are told in the style of a fireside teller whereas Stephen Fry aligned them with contemporary equivalents, both excellent story telling methods, and I was looking forward to the end game of Ragnarok, the end of all things.

One thing this book brought home to me is that Loki is a particularly nasty piece of work, sort of Joffrey with added intelligent malice. Maybe it's that I think Tom Hiddleston's Marvel take can be endearing at times, although I suppose that engenders the nastiness of Loki, he can be nice as pie as he is engineering someone's murder or betrayal while covering his own tracks and framing someone else to take the blame.

So Ragnarok came and it , to me, was just another story, Fenris Wolf and The Midgard Serpent are Godzilla like figures and too big o seriously defeat, although they are defeated which means that the gods but have suddenly increased in size or the creatures decreased in size. Also it was a case of listing who killed who, more like a shopping list than a battle narrative. Still I suppose that's what you would get if you were sitting round fire.

As I am writing this 6Music are playing a lot of Drum and Bass as though it is some kind of revelatory genre. I've always wondered why Drum and Bass never features any Bass, it's just a fast repeated drum sequence and then songs / pieces are built up over that. I have no problem with it, but it does amaze me how so many people say they don't want to be pigeonholed and then decided they are part of some grouping.

So for post 1943, I'm going back to 1943 for "2 O'Clock Jump" by Harry James which is a decent piece of jazz, although I saw something called "Praise The Lord and Pass The Ammunition" by Kay Kyser and the comments on the Youtube post are frightening (right wing snowflakes taking offence at anything not like them) especially with the song being like a cheery church quire, and almost a justification for Ragnarok. I had originally heard the line on the amazing "Texas Jerusalem Crossroads" by Lift To Experience. I thought the line was blackly funny, and it is until you read those comments.

Living on The Edge of the World

I just wanted to write a post with that title. It doesn't really mean anything to me or my situation but it does sound grandly isolationist, also reminds me of a line from the Bob Dylan song "Joey" that has always summed me up:

"Always on the outside - Of Whatever Side There Was"

I am always on the outside of whatever cliques are going on, always the weird or abnormal one, but if I wasn't I wouldn't be me. I suppose there is a little jealousy in not being included, but it doesn't mean I don't enjoy life. Also not being included does not mean being excluded, which can be very hurtful.

So why am I writing this?

I am still on holiday and actually relaxing and I wanted to get this title down.

Also it's an excuse to share the latest lovely release by Panda Bear "Buoys",though I have apparently bought stuff from them before (see here) and this is the great thing about keeping a blog, you can use it to remember things that you had forgotten, but I'm pretty sure it was Panda Bear Meets Grim Reaper which I will revisit when I get home.

Time for bed soon

Drab Dreams and Diamond Dogs

Another gorgeous day, and this morning I woke at a reasonable time, not six am like yesterday. I've been having some very mundane dreams this week , which seem to be like going to work. Nothing I can really remember, or worth writing about apart from the pure mundanity, although when I woke up I thought that the guitar riff for  David Bowie's "Candidate" was the riff for "Rebel,Rebel" (the Rolling Stones song that they never wrote, or to my knowledge performed). Actually "Candidate" is sandwiched between "Sweet Thing" and "Sweet Thing(Reprise)" and the latter piece plays out in a crunching guitar sequence that perfectly leads into "Rebel, Rebel"

Obviously "Candidate" is not "Rebel,Rebel" but at least it's the same album and fairly close to it. I have a feeling the Feedburner spike is about to come to an end , but it's given me my highest blog activity since I started so that is rather excellent.

That means the song that I am going to feature is the nine minute "Sweet Thing/Candidate" sequence from "Diamond Dogs".

Enjoy you Thursday.

Spilling Wine with Lauren Laverne

Today while driving Lauren Laverne played "Spill The Wine" by Eric Burdon and War on 6Music. This is the third song this week that has been the main song in my blog posts.

I first heard this song from 1970, when I got hold of the compilation "All Good Clean Fun" and the music is recognisable as the War of "Low Rider" fame topped with Eric Burdon's perfectly matched vocals. I recently reacquired the vinyl record, although it also appeared on the vastly expanded 3CD set which is now fairly expenses but a great snapshot or the Liberty / UA (United Artists) label imprints from the late sixties and early seventies.

Lauren has been including a lot of great sixties and seventies music recently, mixing with excellent contemporary sounds on her show. One of my slight problems with 6Music is the semi stagnation of shows,  and the number of ex muso's DJing , but the result is an incredible mix of new music to discover with reminders of stuff that you have forgotten or missed along with some great fun and audience interaction. And really that is a good thing.

I wasn't intending to write many posts this week or this month but this is the eighth so far and  I only need to average ten a month to hit 2K posts on this blog since I started it.

Anyway check out Lauren and any other 6Music show , and you may discover something new or something you had forgotten.

Living Without Clocks

This is post number 1939 , 1939 was year in which my mum was born (four years after my dad who was born in the same year as Elvis Presley) . My mum was vivacious, full of life and very supportive and fun. She had me reading before I went to primary school and her and my dad always just told me to do my best, and that was good enough. There was no criticism when I just got 5 'O' Levels and 2 'A' Levels. We lost her in 1989 to a stroke and heart attack, but she is still with me  for her attitude and support thirty years on. She never saw the internet although was proud that I had inveigled my way into IT without the normal required qualifications.

So on to the main point of this post. We are always tied to clocks and time to catch buses, trains and planes , get to work and lots of other things. On this holiday clocks are not to the fore,although there are clocks around the cottage, there is nowhere I need to be for a certain time, apart from to be out of the cottage and get the car back to Enterprise for 11 O'Clock on Saturday.

I think of Catweazle who was confused as to why we lived our life ruled by timepieces. The reason is it gives us a framework to work as a big team, but it is great to dispense with that every now and then. It does relax you when you don't have to do anything or be anywhere for any particular reason.

i-toc

I was going to look for a piece from 1939 but Lauren Laverne has just put on "May You Never" by John Martyn on her 6Music show and that just seems so perfect for the moment.

Of the thing about whether it's the lack of drugs or just tiredness when I just don't want to getup in a
morning,this morning I stretch , got up , shaved , washed and showered, checked my watch, thought it said eight o' clock but it was only seven o' clock (that's my i-toc , that gives me a rough idea of the time) so it's not the lack of drugs, it's just that I'm tired, because this morning I am not tired, and was wide awake before I took my drugs.


It looks lovely outside , so another nice day awaits.

The Insidiousness of Social Media In The Middle of Nowhere

Well essentially I am badmouthing Facebook on this one as I thought there's no harm in installing EA Games' Scrabble via the Google Play Store on to my phone so I can still play Scrabble. I then asked for my Facebook id which is my email address, so I put that in. Next thing I get an email saying "Welcome Back To Facebook, Your account has been reactivated as you signed into Scrabble".

Oh Really?

Well Facebook or Messenger  is not on my phone, and I have a feeling it will never return now. I may access it again via computer at the start of July, but I am not really missing it much and certainly no one is missing me. That might sound a bit pouty, but I have over 400 Facebook friends, it would take a while for me to notice anyone disappearing and if someone disappears and you don't know any of their contacts then that's it , they are gone and despite the insidious ubiquity of Facebook, most people don't actually use it.

I've just checked but not logged in and there are 39 updates against my Facebook login, I would deactivate it again but have a feeling that as soon as I use Scrabble it would reactivate.

So the holiday cottage "Honeysuckle Cottage" in Oswaldkirk really is in the middle of nowhere. There are no places to socialise or meet or shop within walking distance. Add to that most roads round here don't have footpaths, and also there is nothing really worth seeing apart from the views of the hills and the moors, and there in lies the reason for staying here, it's a perfect place to relax. It has wifi and a TV with a million Freeview channels so it's hardly cut off . The cottage is booked through cottages.com via Top Cashback to get 5% back

While I've always liked Joan Jett I have never taken to her version of "I Love Rock'n'Roll" but on 6Music today I heard "Bad Reputation" which is rather good, so I will share it with you and Facebook , has a bad reputation as far as I am concerned.

Missing ... Not Missing

This morning I switched on 6Music and an excellent take on Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" was playing. I was surprised because it was on Lauren Laverne's show and she is usually techno heavy, so I assumed it must be a modern song, but no, it was by Them and I had recognised the voice of Van Morrison.

So what am I really missing from Facebook? Playing Scrabble, seeing what friends are up to photowise (but I do catch a lot on Instagram) and posts from God (but again I catch a lot on Instagram)., also there's a few pages / groups that I share and update but a thirty day rest won't harm them.

I have a feeling the Feedburner effect is tailing of a little but I am still getting 1,300 hits a day so I thing that June should see me hit  40K in June which is fairly startling as I haven't really done anything different.

Today is meant to be grey and showery although it did start off very sunny, and , as yet, there's been no rain so fingers crossed.

So I will leave yo with the piece that I first heard this morning, "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" by Them. Have a good Tuesday everybody.

Fatigue and Observation

I had a dream last night but it's virtually disappeared from my memory as dreams tend to do. I've just noticed that this laptop keyboard has direct accented letters like á and é which are activated by pressing the letter with the alt gr key.

Anyway I was wondering if when I wake up in a morning and feel I want to go back to sleep, is it because I haven't taken my drugs, or because I am just tired. I know sometimes I'll wake up in the middle of the night and be wide awake. I once heard a story about a man who was unable to drive until his wife had given him is drugs. That just sounds wrong to me.If you have not got control of yourself then you should not get behind the wheel of a car. As a diabetic I have to check blood sugar levels every two hours while driving but that is in my control. If I ever was into a situation where my condition affected my control then I would not drive again.

The other thing is that when I got into the sower this morning, the door wouldn't close. I thought the rollers are screwed which the doors run on, but couldn't see anything blocking them. I pondered what it could be then looked up and saw the shower room mat hanging over the top, which of course was stopping the door from opening.

It's post number 1936 and from 1936 we have the excellent "Let's Face The Music and Dance" by Nat King Cole with a video featuring Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth , Ginger Rogers and E. Powell dancing to Billy May's arrangement.

Enjoy on this gorgeous Monday morning.

More Time

Not having Facebook active seems to be giving me more time. I could use this to do other things but I;m probably reading more, watching more TV, walking more but not improving my creative output (yet) unless you count this.

I spent some time in Helmsley today and because Scott's was not open to sit in we tried  La Trattoria , a new Italian based restaurant next to the Town Hall, and it is definitely an excellent new find.

I also had a brief walk round the Castle and posted some Instagram photos here.

I know I'm on holiday, but I can post this, I have watched an X-Men film , and am watching an episode of Marvel:Agents of Shield waiting for this weeks Gotham, while reading Neil Gaiman's excellent"Norse Mythology"".

This is day one with no Facebook and while I am talking about it,I am doing other things. I suppose I slightly miss sharing things and having things shared with me but I have Instagram and Twitter if I want to interact.

As yet no one (I told about five people) has asked me where I've gone so I am not being missed (yet).

So you can see the analogy between Social Media and Drug Addiction .

I thought "Free" by VAST is semi appropriate so giving the year a miss for this post but I will use it as I work up to 2019, we shall see, although 1935 was the year that my dad was born.

A Facebook Holiday

I'm on a thirty day Facebook ban. I checked their Community Guidelines and have not transgressed any for my last two bans, but Facebook can interpret the guides any way they want, they can always say it's sexual whether it is or it isn't. It's their club so it's their rules.They don't even tell you what the problem is, it reminds of the Monty Python sketch where the guy gets a coffee table nailed to his head for transgressing the "unwritten rule", almost Kafkaesque.

My main problem is that you are stopped from any kind of response to anything including via Messenger so people think you are ignoring them. So I think that the best option is account deactivation then reactivation after the ban is finished. To be quite honest I don't think anyone will notice I have gone so that may influence whether I go back to Facebook.

I am very happy that Liverpool won the Champions League Final though the match was hardly a classic. So this is post 1934 so what song can I share with you from that year. Well "Honeysuckle Rose" by the excellent Fats Waller fits the bill, and I think it's an excellent song too.

Another Facebook Ban

Well it's the first day of June and I start with a thirty day Facebook and Messenger ban for sharing my friend Sophia's Tattoo Page picture of a sternum tattoo (see here) with another friend who had posted one that she had had done. Facebook bans are pathetic and inconsistent but there is zero I can do about it apart from stop sharing and stop posting because they can deem anything not acceptable, and person A can post something and person B can be banned for sharing it. There needs to be consistency, but my thought on the ban which I set down here still stand.

I often use Messenger to communicate but the ban holds on that too , so people who message can't be replied to.

Anyway less of that, it's the first of June, a gorgeous day, we have the Champions League final between Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool in Madrid which hopefully will turn out as good as the second half of the Europa League Final between Arsenal and Chelsea.

This is post 1933 so keeping the lear connection I'll share "Lazybones" by Hoagy Carmichael from that year, as this has been covered many times, and it's just a song I remember from a cover in the seventies which I think was by Jonathan King. After he was disgraced like Gary Glitter I was in liverpool and the Caver Club has a brick wall with the names of all the acts that have appeared ther, but there are two highlighted bricks that say Jonathan King and Gary Glitter have been removed. They should have just removed them and said nothing.

The blog passed the 200K mark last night so still getting lots of visits , which is not bad considering I have only four subscribers. I do wish some of my 400 Facebook friends would subscribe so that when I am banned or finally leave they can still see what I am up to.

Anyway have a great day.