You Wait Ages For A Bus .....

.. and then three come along at once. Well it's not quite that but nearly. Last year on World Book Night I gave away my books on the Tyneside Metro , if you click on the labels below you will see what happened then.

Initially this year I was going to do the same thing with Bill Bryson's "Notes From A Small Island", but this year World Book Night is on the 21st of April which is coincidentally National Record Shop Day as well as being the first High Bridge Quarter Festival.

So the idea is that I'm going to join in the festivities at High Bridge concentrating on  RPM records and giving away my books at the festival . I've been joining in National Record Shop Day for the last couple of years and had a great time seeing some great bands , getting ice cream great food and meeting great people.

This year looks like it's going to be the best ever and if you catch me you might get a copy of the book. Check out the High Bridge Festival site by clicking on the poster.

Reflex in Nunn Street and Beatdown up near The Five Swans will also be having lots of events and special stuff for sale so get yourself down and have a wonderful day. Great music , great company , great books , great food all guaranteed!!

There Are Lies , Damned Lies and Mobile Phone Contracts

Not long ago I thingk it was Talk Talk who won a case allowing them to advertise ridiculously low ceilings as "unlimited" . More and more companies are offering seemingly unlimited all inclusive packages. Oftenthese are based on two year contracts , with a "free" phone that of course just carries a one year guarantee. To protect this you have to take out a care package that will cost at least £150 for the duration of the contract.

O2's Best Ever Contract

Today I saw O2's latest foray into the arena. O2 are a market leader and have their "On and On" Best Ever Tariff that offers a "massive" 1Gb a month data, from £36 a month . This also doesnt include picture messaging and lets face it everyone picture messages so that could add a tidy sum to your all inclusive rates . 1 Gb is about a weeks normal web browsing with no downloads of MP3s or films. A single DIVX movie will be almost a Gb , and when you that that watching Youtube , streaming radio as data , you could use up that "massive" 1 Gb in a couple of days. T-Mobile used to have an excellent Flext plan that included everything with a limit where you started paying but everything came out of the same pot. It annoys me that so many companies hide behingd the small print almost getting like insurance!



I have my Mobile Wifi with 3 , who charge me £15 for 5 Gb on a monthly rolling contract which is more than adequate . I seldom come anywhere near that but its a good data package. Another company offers unlimited data on a similar rolling contract except in the small print is capped at 1 Gb per month.

So when you are taking out a new contract ensure you check the small print. Probably one of the most honest I've encoutered is Orange and as I say 3 offer excellent value for money , but a lot of companies are still trying to take you for a ride . Be wary!!

Rock Is Not A Musical

The other day I saw an advertisement for a new musical called East End Babylon with the tag line "There are Three ways out of the East End - Football, Boxing and Rock and Roll" , like the East End of London is a bad place to be. Worse still it's the story of the Cockney Rejects - what next JLS , One Direction , Simon Cowell , Patrick Fitxgerald? But a musical ... no way , a film documentary I can live with:


Then I heard there's on about Susan Boyle, again Susan Boyle is a fine singer , but a musical about her life - surely not. Maybe she's had her fifteen minutes of fame , but I hope not.

Then we have Green Day's American Idiot . If I want to see Green Day I want to see Green Day , not a musical based on their songs. We have had the potential abberation of Queen being fronted by an American Idol contestant . That is not the way to honour Mr Bulsara's memory .. and of course the blockbusting Ben Elton scripted horror that is "We Will Rock You".

I don't mind concept album's finding their way on to celluloid , Tommy and Quadrophenia are excellent albums transformed into excellent films - and Tommy was transferred to an all star stage show.

When your heroes end up as musicals they are sanitised fro mass consumption , the danger and outrage  is removed like when Biffy Clyro's "Many A Horror" was renamed "When We Collide" for it's X-Factor cover release.

I bet you won't get a musical about the life of Rage Against The Machine!!

National Cleavage Day 2012

Apparently instigated by a bra manufacturer such as Playtex or Wonderbra , denigrated by women's groups , embraced by both men and women as fun, is this much different to Guinness appropriating St. Patrick's Day?

You could say that it objectifies women , but women are attractive to men . That's genetic. I wouldnt want any woman to feel threatened by this but really it's a bit of fun intended to seel underwear , in particular bras . If more are sold then that helps the economy , and I'd rather women were having fun that preparing the Sunday lunch in the kitchen .

More fizz , more wine , more bacchanalian fun , and if you wish to display your cleavage feel fee to do so,

Not sure which day it is , whether it was yesterday today or tomorrow, but I don't thingk it does any harm.

HMV - How Much Longer

I visited HMV in Shrewsbury yesterday . I've pointed out about the drought of record shops in Salop , but found HMV in a shopping centre. I also managed to buy six CDs and Trojan Mento compilatopn , a Carribean Compilations and Terry Hall Retrospective , and The Stereophonics singles and something else.

Anyway the HMV seemed to be mainly selling DVDs and Blu-Rays along with a big section for Apple i-Things . The CD section was miniscule , the only contempory CD on display was Madonna's new album . No Black Keys El Camino or Jack White Bluderbuss. No singles , no chart display, and certainly no vinyl. I may have missed something but they had quite a lot of floor space and very little devoted to music.

HMV's looking like it hasn't a clue what it's doing . It's logo is a dog listening to a record player. It's looking like the only appropriate part of that is the dog!

Drought In Salop

For the past couple of days I have been pottering about in Shropshire and Powys , mainly in Ludlow and Shrewsbury and Knighton. The buildings are interesting and very old , people are friendly and the weather is wonderful but that's by the by.

I was slightly disappointed to find no record shops in Ludlow ,unless you want to buy from Tesco or Oxfam. But barring Tesco and a new WH Smith being put together there are no chains in Ludlow and the Park and Ride  is remarkable good value for money.

Worse still Shrewsbury is a much bigger town and still no record shop , barring Oxfam. There may be an HMV but that doesnt really count as they will sell anything, the record space in most HMV stops decreases by the second.

We have World Record Shop Day which coincides with Newcastles High Bridge Festival and World Book Night on the 21st April , so that is a plus to look forward to. If you go here you can download iPhone and Android Apps to find your way around,


In Salop we'll make do do with the nice weather , historic buildings , Aardvark Books and Thion at Leitwardine!!

Has Nothing Happened?

I'm slightly amazed that I've only made two posts this months . Is this because nothing has happened or because I've been so busy with stuff I've not had time to post? Probably a bit of both...

I'm just recovered from an approximately 40 hour bout of 'flu which completely laid me out , not very nice at all . Just slept through while my Rumanian cleaners did their excellent stuff as usual . If you live in Newcastle and need cleaners  I can recommend APM Cleaners unreservedly.  Anyway now fully recovered and ready to go.

Preston North End have managed to stop conceding and start scoring again . The play offs are out of our reach but the club is on a more stable footing and there are some excellent young players gaining experience and Thorsten Stuckman is a great name for a goalkeeper . Pity we lost Neil Mellor to injury but the club has been stripped bare , but hopefully will become a lean mean fighting machine.

The lawn is looking like it needs mowing but another week wont hurt.


Looking forward to lots of music at the Doll @ The Black Bull , The central Bar , Trillians as well as the Mouth of Tyne Festival and Evolution (Jumping Hot Stage) where last year I discovered Mama Rosin (they're Swiss ya know) , as well as seeing The Buzzcocks , Neville Staples , CW Stoneking , Bellowhead , Billy Bragg a bit of Iggy Pop and more . Anyway that's it for now - enjoy the vids