How Times Have (Not) Changed

In 1974 Robert Wyatt was at a party , possibly worse for wear , fell out of a window and broke his back and never walked again. Not good for a drummer . He didn't let it stop him and released this version of The Monkees' I'm A Believer on Richard Branson's fledgling Virgin label.

It was promoted by an appearance on Top Of The Pops , but some BBC manager decided that a guy in a wheelchair was too disturbing for the public and he wasn't allowed on again unless he sat on a normal chair. Nice treatment of people who have to use a wheelchair then.

Anyway the record is brilliant and it may get you into Robert Wyatt. The follow up to this was Chris Andrews' "Yesterday Man" , and hopefully everybody has heard his wonderful rendition of Elvis Costellos Shipbuilding.

Rant over and hopefully the BBC are different now (but probably not).

The Moon In June

This was one of the songs that I had down for the June's Tunes. Obviously it could be used any day , but less obviously it is probably a tune most of you don't know. Always loved Soft Machine , but lots of you will know Karl Jenkins and maybe even Robert Wyatt - banned from performing on top of the pops because he was in a wheelchair and it might disturb sensitive viewers. He actually was on once with a stellar backing band featuring Nick Mason (Pink Floyd) , Fred Frith (Henry Cow) and may others when he covered The Monkee's I'm a Believer . It may actually be already on this blog (check the Robert Wyatt tags). Oops it's not but I will actually post about it soon.

Anyway summer is still with us and is likely to be here all week.

Happy days

On The Third Day ....

.. and that's the name of an Electric Light Orchestra album (when they were good) . Today the computer decided not to start and the burglar alarm decided to just play silly buggers. The weather is still good , in fact very hot , so summer looks like it's here.

For the June's Tunes I want to get away from the numbers but also want to have the Bob Dorough original of Three (Is a Magic) number. I have 30 days to go for more obscure stuff , so I will actually go for it. I first heard it on an excellent Blue Note sampler.

Incidentally Roy Wood formed the Elelectric Light Orchestra because he wanted to continue the musical direction taken by the Beatles on Strawberry Fields. Whether he was successful you can judge for yourself but Roy Wood left after the first album leaving Jeff Lynne to produce some excellent stuff while Wood went off and formed Wizzard as well as producing a great body of solo work.

Anyway here's Bob......

Two To Know

Today its the second of June and was thinking of something to do with the day for the June's Tunes task , and my first thought was Sunday Morning by The Velvet Underground , well actually it wasn't , it was U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday , both fine songs but I am trying to keep off the obvious track , and for some reason Pink Floyd's "Arnold Layne" came to mind.

The reason for it is the phrase "Two Too Know" , which actually found its way into the Oxford Book of Fine Verse , despite the song being controversial as it was about a man who's "strange hobby " was stealing ladies underwear from washing lines at night for his own nefarious purposes. The wiki link is here.


Anyway in the rest of the news , the weather is good , and I way have a wander along to day two of the Green Festival as the weather is gorgeous again. Just realized over the last two weeks the weather has been gorgeous over the weekends and rubbish during the week , just what you want for any normal person.

Junes Tunes

Last year I did "A Post A Day In May". This year for every day in June I will post a song that bears some relation to that day. It be the day , the date or something relating to it. I may do a full Grooveshark playlist at the end , although I may also try it on Deezer to compare the two.

This week has been semi eventful . I finally got a new Windows 7 computer delivered , but it turns out it's Windows 8 . I have then reinstalled most of the software on the new box , the hardest being the POP3 Email of Thunderbird , but that is all done now, The computer is up , running and behaving.

I entered my Dark Side Of The Moon representation on the EE Facebook page  to win a Glastonbury Ticket which I would give away if I won it.

And today I went to the Green Festival and saw the excellent Too Spicy , who I will write up on the Spoongig site.

Anyway todays June's Tune is  "One Fine Day" by The Chiffons.

Forgot Your Book .. Try TED

This is just a short post about what happened to me yesterday . Nothing special , but I usually take a book to read on the way to work , currently Simon Winder's Germania. Anyway yesterday I forgot it. I have a smartphone , a Samsung Note 2 , on which I have two E-Readers (Aldiko and Kindle) , internet access with 4G Speed if I'm in rage of a signal and the TED (Technology Education and Design not the Seth MacFarlane film , though I do love Seth MacFarlane's stuff)  app. This enabled me to download a few talks when I was waiting for the train in Newcastle , which served me for the journeys to and from work.

There's thousands of tals all of which are both useful and entertaing. The first was to save time when using technology , then there was one about tracking down the Kraken (giant Squid) . I've included them for your own extertainment but it's now time for me to get off to work.

Go And Yodel

I'm extremely annoyed with the so called delivery firm Yodel. This company are arrogant and don't seem to know what their function is. I ordered an item from Argos , provided my contact details and expected some indication of when the item would be delivered. The house was empty for an hour and they slipped a note through , saying they would attempt to deliver tomorrow and the day after then return the item to where it came from. They gave a choice of weekday when I could have it redelivered but that's no use to me. I also have the option of picking it up from their depot as long as I get there between 9 and 5 (when most people are at work). I thought they were supposed to deliver.

Anyway I thought I 'd try and speak to them , each time you go through the IVR , select the speak top someone option and you get cut off.

I phoned Argos who seemed a trifle irate as this obviously reflects on them , they gave their direct number to Yodel. This type I still had to negotiate an IVR system but finally got to speak to someone. I asked them to contact the driver as someone couldbe in to recieve the item.These are the points they put to me:

• The can't contact their van drivers as they don't carry company mobile phones
• They would contact the driver if he returned to the depot
• Had I contacted Argos as they had recieved a query
• The time of delivery is at the whim of the driver 
• They couldnt even arrange a late or early delivery

I find it amazing in this day and age that a company like that can continue in business. The showed no respect and seemed completely oblivious to the fact that I am their customer , not Aros. If I hadn't bought the item they wouldn't have anyting to deliver.

Trying to think of a song to go with this and Frank Zappa's Flakes sort of fits the bill. Argos were helpful and professional. Yodel arrogant and useless , I certainly would not recommend them,

By the way this is the second occasion this has happened with this company.