...and Another and Another

It's May Day and the first day of my Million Step Challenge , and what happens? The phone I use to track my steps finally gives up the ghost (well it's a bit like Meg Shelton, it keeps pretending it's OK then when you want to do something returns to it's death state) , but I have just gone for a new phone. The old one probably just needs wiping and reflashing, but I think it's quicker to go with a new one.

The old one was a Samsong Note 4 and the new one is a Huawei P8 Lite with a much faster processor and apparently greater reliability that Samsung. We will see. It took and age to copy my stuff but then found it needs a nano SIM and the Note has a micro SIM, so have to sort that tomorrow.

I managed to get my step data over and I have managed to clear 13K steps today, that's six miles which is good considering the technological problems. I think I've had enough technological failures today and intend to be a bit closer to normal tomorrow.

So it's back to work tomorrow, and I will leave you with "Puis Je" by Kevin Ayers, so we have the first two #ATuneaDayinMay songs on the first day, it's one to hold in reserve in case I miss a day.

Time for bed 

One Thing Leads To Another

My phone has been playing up, but I have a feeling it's the battery, so I ordered one online. It came quickly, I put it in and nothing. I tried leaving it charging a few times , but nothing. My current battery just seems a bit temperamental and can shut the phone down when it gets down to less than 30% charge. So today I will hopefully buy a new battery (hopefully from the Asian guy in the Grainger Market near Pumphreys coffee, reasonably priced and knows his stuff but the battery is not a Samsung - the last one lasted over a year for a tenner so that's good, my current Samsung one has lasted six months BUT it had been sitting in a drawer for over a year so you know).

Anyway to return the faulty battery I need to print off a label and an email, then I find my printer has decided it's not printing three colours including black. The printer is an Epson, and prints CDs and has been fine, but it's way past it's sell bay date (I do have a grammatical problem with when I should use "past" and "passed" so apologies if I get it wrong).

The point is the the failure of by phone then just highlighted the failure of my printer when I needed it. My printer is like a spare tire, I only need it every so often. Anyway I managed to find a Canon printer for under £50 that prints CDs , is also does double sided printing and uses wifi, so I've ordered that here , it's not a scanner but I can use a camera or the local library for that.

So I have a feeling that this Samsung battery may sit around for a year in a drawer too.

The thing is I need my phone to track my steps for my Million Step Challenge that starts today, and I need to maintain 11.5K steps a day. SO far I have done 104 steps, but I still haven't taken drugs or had a shower.

So do I do the #ATuneaDayinMay with May themed music? I did one in 2012 here, but that was just a post a day in May and I did 37 posts that month, and you can see lots of link failures due to the fact that technology changes, companies go to the wall, and things don't work any more, much like the initial reason for this post.

I will start with Queen's "Keep Yourself Alive" which features Dr. Brian May on guitar , no synthesisers and a great phased guitar intro and great lyrics, which was one of the reasons I bought it straight away when I heard it on John Peel. Amazingly this doesn't appear on Queen's Greatest Hits. I loved Queen's singles but the first album I liked was "Sheer Heart Attack" still one of my favourite Queen discs.

It looks beautiful outside so I thing a wander into town to track down a new battery is called for.

Have a great Bank Holiday Monday my friends

The First of A Million Steps

Tomorrow is May Day, The first of May and tomorrow I embark on a Million Step Challenge. That's a million steps in three months taking me through to the end of July. To do this I need to average 11.5K steps a day, so that's nearly two hours a day walking.  That is not a major challenge really apart from the fact that today I ran for a bus and have pulled a muscle possibly , somewhere round my hip region. If I don't move , it doesn't hurt, but to continue the step challenge , I have to move (obviously). I have 4K steps to complete today to do my first month in years of more than 10K a day , and hopefully hit the average that I will need to maintain over the next three months.

I know I don't HAVE to do this, but I want to do this. Today I managed my ten thousand steps, but intended to do the last four thousand downhill past Hadrian's Wall and through Denton Burn. That all went well but I intended to get the bus back , but that didn't turn up. Twenty minutes after it should have been there I started walking back ... and then it flies past me. If I was paranoid I'd think the bus driver was waiting for me to set off. The major thing is I got the steps done, and I am in a good position to start the Million Step Challenge.

The other thing is my phone is playing up and that is what I use to measure my steps. I have a feeling the problem is the battery, but the replacement battery doesn't seem to work at all, so hopefully that will get resolved soon.

Sorry if all this seem negative and mundane, you know I don't like to be either of those, but tomorrow is a good way to start the week , with a day not going to work , because it's the May Day Bank Holiday.

I'll leave you with the excellent "Genesis" by Grimes, which I haven't heard for a while but when I first heard it, I went out and bought the album. Take a listen and enjoy my friends. Then for some reason on the same page, one of my favourite singers Peter Gabriel covering the song that got me into Tom Waits "In The Neighborhood" . I'm not sure if this is available on an album (it is here), but check it out and then check out the original (on "Swordfishtrombones")

Right , it's Sunday, the weather is beautiful, go out and enjoy yourself.

A Bit of ABBA on the Side

Last night I went to a screening of "Mamma Mia" organised by Angie and part of Andrew and Glen's pre wedding celebrations at The Side Cinema. I'm not a huge fan of musicals (my favourite is South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut) but this was not a screening it was an event.

There was copious drink, and everyone had a great time socialising and creating a wonderful atmosphere, with a pre "Mamma Mia" film of Andrew and Glen falling of bikes and general going round the world. This was a gathering of great joy and fun.

The "Mamma Mia" movie had the subtitles up for all the songs so everyone could join in and were encouraged to. Glen and Andrew led lots of the singing , dancing , drink spilling, high fiving and celebrating and with good reason.

The Side Cinema itself is great for private screening , compact and but also great for socialising as well, and as it's on the Quayside you are close to pubs and restaurants for pre and post film food and drink.  The seating is red velvet and it had been remarked slightly seedy but perfect for a gathering such as this. A damned sight better than the antiseptic Multiplexes that you have these , but it is a perfect setting to have a great time with the right people and right film and last night was absolutely perfect.

Anyway last night I wanted to post a Star Spangled Chestwigs rendition of an ABBA song on Facebook as a thank you to Glen and Andrew but couldn't find any, so I will leave you with the finale from the film, and below is a bit of the Chestwigs doing what they do :)

Have a great Sunday everyone.

Random Observations

Have you noticed that the abbreviation id when turned upside down is pi (near enough)? You could extend this to say that identity is the fore never ending. I know that is off centre and random but it's just the way my mind works.

April is nearly over and the beginning of May is on Monday. Then I am going to start my Million Step Challenge . It is being done to raise money for diabetes research but in my opinion their timing is wrong and as I am so rubbish at tracking things I am not going to do it for sponsorship, just for myself, to prove that I can do it. I, averaged 11K steps a day for the last two months so I don't see a problem doing it for the next three. My target  normally is to do 10K a day.

I was thinking of repeating my #SongADayInMay which I did a couple of years back. If I do you will see the first post on Monday . The theme would obviously be "May" (avoiding any reference to a certain person) but I think Dr. Brian May might feature fairly heavily, probably opening with Queen's "Keep Yourself Alive", but we shall see.

Anyway it's Saturday, the weather is quite pleasant, and I have other things to get on with. I've been listening to Graham Parker, played my first '78 on my turntable, but am currently listening to a best of Joe Walsh (Pete Townshend's favourite guitarist) so I think we will go with "The Bomber" which he played with The James Gang, Barnstorm and solo. I love his simple but beautiful playing. His riffs are not beyond me and that is what makes him a brilliant guitarist.

Have a good day everybody.

Two Eight Four

It could be a house number, it could be a bus number , it could be any number. It's the first three number in the powers of two with the last two's positions swapped. Although this is essentially a diary so that I can keep a track of things that catch my imagination it was also meant to be a source of inspiration for a book which is still nowhere near completion.

It's also another example of how my mind flies off at tangents influenced by things I see hear or read. Wire's album "154" was named because they had just played their 154th gig.

284 is the page I've reached in Tony Morley's "The Age Of Bowie" that started as a sort of biography but is now using David Bowie's albums as an almost stream of consciousness narrative. It's also up to the album "Diamond Dogs" which was a soundtrack to to Bowie's "Nineteen Eighty Floor Show"  which was meant to be his take on George Orwell's brutal "1984", but the Orwell foundation would not grant him permission to use the book. He still included a track on the album called "1984".

Last year I did a musical sequence call #ALIfeInNumbers in which I included a sequence of 59 songs containing, in one form or another, songs with 1 to 59 in their titles or prominently in their lyrics.

When "Diamond Dogs" was released John Peel played the whole album on his Friday night show. I taped it, loved it and bought it the next day. I remember they airbrushed out the dogs you know whats on Guy Peellaert's excellent cover, but the video I've included has the unretouched version.

The piece I've included is the "Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing(Reprise)" sequence which ends with a brutal speaker swapping guitar sequence before a complete stop heralding "Rebel Rebel", probably the best Rolling Stones song they never wrote.

It's a Bank Holiday Weekend, It's a Beautiful Day, have a brilliant time my friends.

Who Knows Where The Time Goes?

I was going to write this a couple of days back, but time seems to be running away from me all through the day. Actually that's not completely true, what it is is that my time is being taken up by stuff. Instead of leaving the house at 7:30 and being in work before 8 AM , I am leaving the house at 7 AM and walking into work most days , maintaining my step challenge of 10K steps a day , which at walking pace takes me around a hundred minutes. That's over an hour and a half ... a day! If you then factor in that most days I do more than that, all of a sudden I have a two hour chuck removed from my day.

Add to that catching up on Doctor Who from 2015 and another chunk of time goes out the window. It's not that I am not enjoying doing this and it's definitely a far more interesting form of exercise than going to a gym. At a gym you are directed but this walking needs my own direction, and I always try and find another way to walk in.

I have discovered a lot of places I didn't know about, realised that some places are closer together than I though, I mean I never knew there was an Asda down Westgate Road. The other thing is I am getting a lot more music listening in, today I was reminded how great the title track of "Aladdin Sane" is , drenched with Mike Garson's off kilter piano, I also got "Helden" as well from the soundtrack of "Christiane F" with Bob Fripp's luscious everlasting guitar lines, so two slices of David Bowie on my way in this morning.

Which song should I choose?  There are three songs mentioned here and I decided to hit "Christiane F"

Have a lovely evening