How To Win The Lottery and Make money on Scratch Cards

Basically don't buy them. It amused me that whet the National Lottery started there were lots of books on "How To Win The Lottery"  (surprisingly there are still lots of books on this, who buys them?)  and I've heard people talk about about how to win at scratch cards. Jordan Ellenberg wrote a book called "How Not To Be Wrong" and it contains a chapter on how to win on certain lotteries where there is a trickle down if the main jackpot is not won, but this requires a sizeable dedicated team and a lot of money to crack it. Remember that for each person to win £5 million on the National Lottery  more than 2.5 million people have to lose, yes you might win, but it is not very likely is it.

Today it is hot but raining and thing is in some ways that's not a great thing , because the water falls then because of the heat in evaporates filling the clouds with more water to rain down on us. The benefit is we don't have to water the garden but is a definite symptom of global warming.

Been listening to a lot of vinyl this morning while relaxing , Boston, Bowie , Brubeck and Split Enz , the laser etched disks still amaze me (on my instagram feed here), and the first side of the Boston album is close to perfect, I should really play the second side sometime, but it is twenty minutes of vinyl perfection.

So what should I share with you, I think we'll go with the best football song ever, "England's Irie" by Black Grape for the chorus lines:

"I live in a land of class hypocrisy, 

We're going to win the National Lottery, 

E I Adio, I don't think so"

Don't you think so?

I am not sure if you are aware of my writing on Vocal but these are a few of my stories if you would like to sample them:

1. The Never Ending Story - An Index of All My Vocal Writing
2. A Halloween Film Evening
3. A Waterfall of Clouds
4. The Witch's Promise
5. Waiting For The Green Light - The Genius of Bill Hicks

Like A Ping Pong Ball In A Wind Tunnel

I was trying to think of an analogy for "The Illuminatus Trilogy" and that came to mind. It's a loosely noir canvas but this ranges from  American location , proisons, hotels , big cities , small towns with secret societies to submarines and sunken cities and lands such as Atlantis and wars and fights with gangs and armies and societies featuring every continent of the Earth and even some extra terrestrial locations. The whole thing can change between paragraph , one line you're in a seedy New York hotel next you're a Yellow Submarine the you are locked in a southern tale before ending up on a small island off the West African coast.

I am about halfway through the book and despite incredibly long unbroken chapters I am finding it incredibly readable, though maybe others would not.

I'm selling a lot of my CDs on Discogs  but sometimes I hear things on the radio by bands I thought I didn't really listen to then think , no I'm not selling that. That's recently happened with Kate Tempest and Fat White Family , both well worth a listen.

The weather is still absolutely mad  but we still have to venture out. Ever since the leak (temporarily fixed)  I am now constantly listening in case it comes through again , but any regular noise such as a tripping tap or the ticking of a clock or watch can trigger the worry mode , and when you think about various forms of mental illness related to OCD and just somethings taking all of your attention and triggering anxiety , something that is everyday for me can be absolute hell for others.

If you do suffer in this way Matt Haig's "Reasons To Stay Alive" id a book that should be in your position . A friend of mine told me it saved his life.

So it's Saturday and yesterday I bought two vinyl records, Bostons' eponymous first album with has one of the most perfect AOR  vinyl sides ever, and the "Substance" Joy Division compilation and leaving JG Windows met Jonathan Wells-Lee and Hedley Sugar Wells and their young charge who were watching a twenty grans self playing piano in the window. Lovely people, and lovely meeting them for a quick catch up.

So we'll go with a live take of "Foreplay / Long Time" by Boston , showing that they could play taking in in progressive bombast and euphoric AOR . Enjoy.

JFDI

Many years ago when I was still being paid by the PPA , a team played a trick on their manager. In IT there is always a new "better" methodology and you hear word like "agile" , "structured" and many others , we used JSP and Bachman as well, anyway there was an article on JFDI and how it always delivered on time and fast. The manager said they had to sort out training courses in this methodology as soon as possibly (ironic considering what JFDI mens). I'm quite surprised at the number of toned down meanings of the phrase, and Nike dropped the "F" for their tag line, not surprising for a company that has never made any of it's branded products, they outsource everything.

So yeasted after god knows how long I had lunch at Snack Wallah with my friend Nicky Black (one of her many names) and we had a long catch up discussing art and Facebook bans and what we were doing and going to do. Also the fact that last time I saw her I mistook her for another friend, and this is the problem when you don't see people often enough. We always can find a reason to put something off til next week but we should really do things as soon as we can.

I need to go and visit my dad and his girlfriend , see my girls , and know that this will happen eventually but really we should have much more JFDI in our lives, and we will enjoy life much more.

So for no reason other than it's a great record and he was mentioned in the Brian Eno documentary "The Man Who Fell To Earth 1971-77" which I am watching on Amazon Prime , when Island put together the Ayers , Cale , Nico, Eno (unfortunate acronym) gig at the Rainbow  to celebrate the the signing of ex Velvet Underground members John Cale and Nico, I'll leave you with "Barracuda" from the album "Fear".

Growly Night

There's thunder, lightning and rain. It's getting dark early. I'm amazed how accurate the weather information app is though I always look out the window to confirm what's happening . Another lightning flash , another roll of thunder.

Today when mowing the lawn there was a small short shower, but now we have the reall stuff. The positive is that I don't have to water the garden. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to walk into work without being forced to get a bus.

I wasn't going to post today but the image of "growly night" just seemed to be something worth capturing and recording.

My grandma used to say that thunder was the angels playing then pin bowling, which is a fairish analogy.

So given that I've nothing really to say I'll share an appropriated of music, "Night on Bare/Bald Mountain" by Modest Mussorgsky possibly rearranged by Rimsky-Korsakov and featured in Disney's "Fantasia" which he created to teach children about classical music and it is largely successful with stunning animation.

"Night on Bare Mountain" was also rejigged as "Night on Disco Mountain" on the soundtrack of "Saturday Night Fever"

So enjoy.....

Anyone For Tennis?

This is nothing about tennis, which is a game I find generally tedious (I can't play or hit a return serve), although Wheelchair Tennis actually does command my total respect, I cannot play being reasonably fully mobil and these girls and guys do it from a wheelchair, how absolutely amazing is that.

The Bok had a song called "Tennis" but I don't have a recording of that, maybe I should try and recreate it, but this is just about the Cream song which is one of those Cream songs that is like nothing else Cream did and I like it and actually think it's good. There are others like "Pressed Rat and Warthog"(the "B" side) that are just plain silly, and I suppose lots of bands tried and keep trying completely different sounds to the point of taking on alter egos to either be able to play more intimate gigs aor see if it's just their name that sells.

"Anyone For Tennis" is the Theme from the film "The Savage Seven" (a biker film lost in time but available on Amazon.com) and was recorded during the "Wheels of Fire" sessions and released as a single and on the album soundtrack. It was written by Eric Clapton and someone called Martin Sharp

I don't know why I wanted to post this, possibly because I saw a "Best of Cream" (which doesn't feature the single) in Beyond Vinyl but it's Saturday , it grey , and it's the first day of the Football season, so all is reasonably good.

I keep looking at posts I've done and often notice spelling and grammatical mistakes and more and more I think I am being wrongly autocorrected rather than mistyping, or maybe I am just being paranoid. The latest was a post which had "their" instead of "there". Now given that I am a bit of a grammar stickler myself that is not a mistake I think I would make but autocorrect might.

I know it's short (this post) but see what you think .

Realisation

Nothing deep, but due to my rate of posting from March this year , if I post twenty two times a month for the rest of the year then I will have another record year. I'm not expecting to do that though given this is my second post today you may not believe it.

The thing is the more you post , the more you feel like posting. I just wish I could get myself into gear with writing , and writing songs and recording them. I have all the tools so no excuse not to do it, just the extreme lack of discipline.

Today I found a couple more covers of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by The Cure and "Ceremony" by Radiohead. I was completely unaware of these though the song has been covered by almost everyone but it still belongs to Ian Curtis.

These songs don't seem to have been officially released but they are on Youtube so you can listen fairly easily.

So enjoy them , I am off to my pit.

Closer

It's one of those English words that in isolation you cannot be sure of what it means or how it's pronounced. It can mean nearer (and this is probably how you actually normally read it) or the opposite of opener.

The reason I've chosen it it is because of a section in the Joy Division film where they talked of the title of their second album, which I always assumed was the former meaning, but give the tomb on the cover, the death of Ian Curtis and the fact that it was the final Joy Division album the latter meaning makes far more sense.

This is the first post of August and we had another downpour during the night but the sky is just a uniform grey as it was last November recorded in this post.

I watched a film "The Colony" last night which was a lot better that it's 5.3 IMDB rating although there was some Walking Dead grade horror, but my only problem was the extremely sudden ending when there was actually and decent chink of hope.

So we obviously go with "Colony" from "Closer" by Joy Division on this first day of August.

Night Watch

I can hardly believe the extreme heat and extreme rain we've been having, and amazed the the people in power don't seem to see a problem. We've been lucky we haven't been hit by floods but I made the mistake of trying to walk to work without an umbrella today and got hit by two heavy showers. Looking out the window it's grey with some impressive cloud formations.

"The Illuminatus Trilogy" is going along but it's essentially stream of consciousness slipping between realities with long meaninglessly titled chapters / splits but I'm about two thirds through book one "The Eye In The Pyramid" coming across the detective Saul Goodman, Atlantis , gratuitous sex ., pyramids, giant submarines and right wing southern USA jail stays but you are never in the same place for long. I'm enjoying the read / ride but this will not be most people's cup of petrol.

I watched a couple of films on Amazon Prime including the remake of "Suspiria" which has a lot of touchpoints of "The Illuminatus Trilogy" and an experience to watch with a Thom Yorke soundtrack, I may have to watch the original now which is an hour shorter.

I also watched a documentary on Joy Division which again was excellent and to me their music sound as fresh and pertinent now as when it first came out. The thing is everything was generally analogue so the sounds and noises were actually made and not just something downloaded. A highly watchable film following on from Nico 1988 that I watched the other week.

So I am going to share the excellent video for Joy Division's "Atmosphere" always one of my favourites, as i get ready for bed.

2001

Like the 1999 post the 2001 post will go the same way except not with the Prince song but the Arthur C Clarke book and the Stanley Kubrick film which still look jaw droppingly awesome now, fifty years sich it was brought to us in the days before CGI, and thank god no one has decided to to ty and remake it for a modern audience.

The original main theme is "Also Spake Zarathustra" (there are various alternate spellings and wordings by Richard Strauss , also used to open Elvis Presley's '68 Comeback Special , but remember being shouted down in a pab discussion when the shouters said it was Holst, proves that shouting louder does win the argument.

Johann Strauss was the composer of the "Blue Danube" for the docking scene included below.

So this is post 2001 with some appropriately great video and musical accompaniment. I know there's not many words but it is good to be able to share this film and book and if you haven't read the book or seen the film do yourself a favour and make time to do it now.

Millennium Post #2

I don't know whether I expected to do this many posts. I do know I expected to have a book written but the ideas come and go, and I expected to have some recordings out there and a combination of laziness and "not having enough time" , life and things have distracted me from hitting those targets.

My first Millennium Post can be seen by clicking on the link and was about eight and a half years after I started this blog. This one is about four years after the last one so the rate of posting has doubled and again I'm not sure if the quality has improved although the quantity definitely has.

One of things in the last four years I have started walking a million steps every three months on a rolling basis which was inspired by the Diabetes UK One Million Step Challenge which raises money for charity. I just did it to see if I could do it and it has helped me discover a lot of places that I would never have seen if I had not been on foot.

The fact that this has fallen on a Sunday would have some kind of divine significance for some people but lets face it there was a one in seven chance it would happen. At the beginning of the year I wanted to hit two thousand posts by the end of the year, and because I kept posting I realised I could actually hit it this month, so I have done that.

This means I will soon have the number of posts up to our number of Anno Domini years whether that's significant or not.

So nothing momentous to write about, and trying to think of a significant song for this , should we go with Pulp's "Disco 2000"  or The Rolling Stones "2000 Light Years From Home" but definitely not Robbie Williams "Millennium" (which I always thought was spelt with one 'n') or "2000 Man" by Kiss , but then I saw on "Their Satanic Majesties Request" the Stones had a song called "2000 Man" so we will go with that, with it's heavy Kinks influences. The video is full of images that appear in "The Illuminatus Trilogy" so it's strange how many things just coincide.

I thought Captain Beefheart had a song called "2000 Man" but I had got it mixed up with "25th Century Quaker" , understandable mistake.

So it's a sunny-ish Sunday have a good one and thank you for reading.

1999

This is post number 1999 so there's only one way this is going isn't there. In fact the next few posts could all definitely be music related, but "1999" is one of those all time perfect songs.

It's not like the album was short on quality but opening with the title track followed by "Little Red Corvette" and you already have a killer, and this was pre CD so I had a double vinyl copy, and it is one to consider for my vinyl collection.

I'm quite surprised I'm on my third paragraph and everyone knows who I am talking about but I haven't yet even mentioned him by name, the sadly missed , immensely talented guitar titing funkster  Prince Rogers Nelson.

Though 1999 appears in lots of artwork , books and film , as well as music as the pre millenium year this is what the Google search gives you. so you don't even have to search.

Summer Rain

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

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

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

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

Enjoy your Saturday.

Turning Lebanese

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

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

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

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

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

The Serpentine Twists of An Unexpected Life

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy this sunny Thursday

Well I Didn't See That Coming

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

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

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

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

200

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy your Tuesday

Vinylisation

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

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

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

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

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

Watching Nico

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

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

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

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

Conspiracy, Autocorrect and 1984

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

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

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

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