Time To Get Up

It's the last week before Christmas and we're getting hit with Christmas Songs and requests for charity donations from lots of organisations. I am sure I have said this recently, but looking out for people and being caring and compassionate shouldn't just happen at Christmas, it should be the norm. The problem is many people are so easily distracted and led by the media to hate those less fortunate than themselves is that society can be horrible at times.

A cliche is the oppressed kick downwards and that is so true today, people get their Red Top that tells them the reason why they are worse off is that immigrants , the sick, the poor, the old are making their life worse and there is no doubt that there are a few milking the system, but people fail to see that that corporations and  big money tax avoiders with the collusion of government are the ones making life worse for the majority.

Anyway I am staying positive. The people I know and number as my friends are sensible, compassionate and make me happy.Try and make sure your circle of friends and acquaintances do the same.

I'm going to include a wonderful Tim Minchin song "White Wine In The Sun" (he's Australian) that my friend Daniel alerted me to. Just had a thought Tim Minchin sounds alliteratively like Tin Machine , David Bowie's excellent but maligned rock band.

Enjoy this and it really is time for me to get up and go to work, and probably you too. Have a brilliant day and week everyone.

Time For Bed

After a day which involved going to Edinburgh and back , semi acknowledging my mate John Scott coming out of Edinburgh Waverley, buying far too many books in FOPP (all essential of course) , I am now ready to fall into bed before another days work tomorrow.

I've been writing Christmas Cards and for some reason keep typing Christmas as Christams , just me getting careless with my fingers. Spelling mistakes are very easy to make and then easy to miss. I am just glad we have spelling and grammar checkers which give you a fighting chance of getting your text right , although sometimes you can use the wrong word even though it sounds right

When I came back I checked some stuff on my PC and thought I would pull out a random album, which happened to be "Going For The One" by Yes. I'd forgotten what an excellent riff that was , and so obviously I will include it here. The album contains the twee "Wondrous Stories" but it is worth buying for the title track alone.

Anyway I will include "Going For The One" and I am going to bed right now.

Sleep well my friends.

Wond'ring Aloud

I don't know what made this song come to mind, but today has been sort of a million miles an hour non stop for me. The original version of "Wond'ring Aloud" is on Jethro Tull's "Aqualung" but I found this version by Ian Anderson and some classical mateys. As I write this I'm listening to Rick Wakeman's "Six Wives of Henry VIII" which I still don't think he's topped though I have always liked him. Love the story of him having an Indian Meal delivered while is was doing nothing during other memeber's solos at a Yes gig.

Anyway today I went to the Grainger Market and finally found my friend Krista's gorgeous Kota store, which really does show off her eye for design , it is a typical sized Grainger Market but she makes it light and big, and the stuff she is selling is beautiful. That is one place you have to visit next time you are in there.

Then I found Hoam Grown CIC  a new organic produce store. Absolutely lovely so I bought some potatoes , got home and realised that I didn't need any. Not to worry , The Grainger Market is full of brilliant places all under the same roof, far better than the chain food aberration that they have turned the Eldon into, still some people see that as progress. I don't.

Ok, it's time for a cup of tea now, enjoy your Saturday my friends.

Totally Wired

This week I bit the bullet and got some wired headphones for my Samsung Note 4. Some update or app has caused Bluetooth to crash settings, meaning I cannot add or access any new device. One of the solutions was to clear Bluetooth data which means it has in fact become unusable. Others are factory reset, uninstall apps one by one (there's about 300 on the phone half a dozen of which that I use).

A couple of months back someone posted that Apple were screwing their customers because system updates were causing devices to slow down forcing customers to buy new devices. Apple aren't, everybody does this. Often new apps require more resources and more powerful processors , it's generally how these things progress although I would like it if I could get my Bluetooth to work again. But whether it's Android, Apple , Microsoft , you will hit these situations. It's not built in obsolescence , it's progress. Yes lots of the software is bloatware , but in our hand held devices we are heading towards Star Trek territory.

The thing is with wires is they always get tangled up and you spend all your time untangling them, though it has enabled me to start watching TED talks, films and listen to music on the move again which is brilliant.

The only song can be "Totally Wired" by The Fall , although I also found a version by The Last Shadow Puppets as well so you get two versions of this amazing song.

Enjoy my friends and have a great Thursday.

Thirteen, Thirteen and Zlatan Ibrahimovic

I Am

It's the 13th of December and I've just started Chapter 13 of "I Am Zlatan Ibrahimovic" his autobiography. The talk is often cliched, and he comes across as an idiot at times, but he knows this, but you can forgive all this because it is absolutely fascinating. I keep learning lost of fascinating things about football and outside of football. I never knew Ferrari was owned by The Fiat Corporation.

I got the book on the recommendation from Richard Osman on Pointless and it is definitely worth reading. It is quite small print and there are three hundred pages to get through but it's definitely worth trawling through and there is no down he is an entertaining character will the skill.


Anyway "Skinhead Moonstomp" by Symarip was playing on 6Music so that's what I will include. Enjoy my friend and have a great day.

There's Only One Thing Worse ........

..... than something not working is something (apparently) working when its shouldn't do. This happened to me this morning. Maybe my reactions were slow, maybe I was tired and if I'd have thought properly this wouldn't have happened.

I switched on my PC and it said there was no internet connection. Hmm I thought, then I thought "Ah My Phone is connected to my router via WiFi, I 'll check that" ... and of course it was working fine. It must be my PC, or the cable, but all my checks seemed to imply that the cabling was fine. I though "I don't want to have to install a new internet thing into the PC" but it was pointing towards the PC being the problem.....

... then I remembered  I had the switch on my phone set use 4G if there was no wifi connection, rebooted the modem and all was fine. I spent half an hour messing with wires and connecting and disconnecting when if I'd have just rebooted the modem all would have been sorted because I thought my phone was running off WiFi when it was really running off 4G. C'est la vie.

Also this is my 1200th post just thought I'd tell you that, there is probably enough stuff on here to actually work out a book from, I'm sure psychiatrists would have a field day ("He's a Very Boring and Uninteresting Person, Lock Him Up").

So as I write this I am listening to my Faces boxed set that my girls bought me, so I'll play a Faces song and what should it be? "That's All You Need" is probably my favourite slide driven rock song of all time, so I think we'll go with that.

Have a brilliant Friday night my friends, best night of the week, Monday is 48 hours away so plenty of time to relax and have fun.

Is That A Christmas I See?

Three years ago I posted a seasonal song of the the day every day in December, obviously there's no point in me doing it this year but you can sample it here. Christmas is two weeks on Sunday and we'll get bombarded with pleas for goodwill to all men and looking after those less fortunate than us from people like Gary Barlow, who , if they paid their taxes, would go some way to alleviating the suffering caused by poverty. Sorry I went of track there. The point I really want to make is we should spread goodwill and help EVERY DAY and not just at Christmas. I once had a boss who was a miserable spiteful git throughout the year (his introductory words to me were "If I was allowed I would sack you on the spot" ... I replied "and nice to meet you too"), then at Christmas he was everybody's friends. That doesn't work for me. You can always be supportive and friendly.

On a separate not , it's been a good week and on holiday I learned how to use an option on Garageband which I had bought a keyboard for. The keyboard can go back now and I will produce something at the weekend hopefully. with my iPad.

Last night going to sleep I used the iPad to play my copy of "Timewind" by Klaus Schulze to drift off to sleep too. Technology is brilliant at times.

Anyway we're in December now and maybe I will include a seasonal song and I have decided to go with two Public Service Broadcasting songs Elfstedentocht Part One and Part Two . Here's the story:

" In April 2013 we were approached by the organisers of the Explore the North festival in Leeuwarden, Netherlands. 

They asked if we would use some footage of the Elfstedentocht (Eleven Cities Tour), the world's biggest ice skating race, and write some songs around it. 

So we did. "

Have a brilliant Thursday my friends