Twelfth Night

Today is the date of the Epiphany or revelation of Jesus to the Magi according to the Bible , which has gone through so many rewrites we can't be sure any of the original text is still in there and the first one was probably compiled about half a millenium after the supposed event.

It's also the date of the twefth nigh (isn't twelfth an odd looking and sounding word) t of Christmas so decorations and Christmas Trees should be deconstructed and put away or thrown out to bring life back to normal.

Today we have so far seen rain and hail and the sky is still very grey and it's total SAD weather.

I do apologise for the lack of content in my posts, as I've not seen or done anything worth writing about apart from walking, but I haven't been able to take any photographs for instagram , if you follow the link you see the last few have not been that good, but I am still walking and still exploring my record collection. To take decent photographs you do need decent light to take the and the curent weather is definitely not conducive to that, but hopefully I should be back on track within the next week. One has to stay p[ostive and as I am looking out of the window there is a little bit of unclouded sky, almost blue.

I found this great Saturday Night Live clip which is appropriate for the occasion, so I will leave you to pack up your decorations and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Mr Kilmister Said

I'm still listening to Hawkwind's "Doremi Fasol Latido" and the original album closed with this acoustic song from Lemmy (Ian Fraser Kilmister to give his Sunday name)  and sung by him. While the song is gentle the lyrics are a little more acidic although there is very little indication of  what was to come when he was sacked by the band. This was not his last album with Hawkwind and on "Hall of The Mountain Grill" he contributed probably the best track on that album and also one of his and Hawkwind's finest, the amazing "Lost Johnny". Now that I've mentioned it I have to include that as well don't I.

I wasn't sure if his surname was Kilminster or Kilmister, it turns out it's the latter.

Anyway this week my walking has been good despite some rain and cold mornings, but it's still raining now so I am glad to be warm and dry inside the house.

The weekend is here, the first one of the year and I am looking forward to some well needed rest. My knee has been playing up when I sit down so th eanswer is surely to keep walking, although I think the weather may have contributed to it.

Another thing technology wise is that most of my photos these days are taken using my phone and I was thinking I don't need a camera at all. In fact generally my phone is actually better than my camera for getting the shots I want so I may be have a small technological clear out.

Anyway it's time for bed so have a brilliant weekend everybody.
 

Early To Bed

I thought that the older you got the less sleep you needed. I've never gone for afternoon naps but this week I am enjoying going to bed relatively early after watching some catch up TV, and ending up in bed between nine and ten. That will happen tonight, and it's quarter to nine as i start to pen this particular post.

I have to admit work has been particularly intensive (mainly due to Excel 2016 being particularly tedious and lost of new projects coming up)  and maybe that has something to do with it. It's been another grey and uninspiring day weather wise, the sun didn't come out at all today. Despite that I've still managed to hit my step target so that's a little positive news for me anyhow.

Tomorrow is Friday and we can look forward to the weekend, it's also Fiona's birthday on Saturday so we shall be having something celebratory then, so definitely a weekend to look forward to.

As I said this is just a very short post mainly about me going to bed early every night so far in 2018. For some reason "The Sun Has Got His Hat On" came to mind and I found this version remixed by DJ Electro Swingable with the offensive word removed. I don't know if you can buy it but the are several takes on the song here

Right I'm off to bed, see you tomorrow.

Here Comes The Sun

It's already 4th of January 2018 and yesterday after a couple of miserable grey days we got some sunshine and blue sky. Yes there was rain and we'd had grey overcast skies but the sun and blue sky gave me and most people a palpable lift. People who'd been feeling down on Tuesday (not helped by the fact it was the first day back at work) were visibly uplifted yesterday.

It is strange how nice weather actually can lift us, although I think Tuesday was really bad because it was just dark, cloudy, cold and nothing much was happening weatherwise. Even rain or snow would have perked up the weather a bit. I know some parts of the country had been hit by Storm Eleanor so we should count our blessings round here, but I am looking forward to more interesting weather today.

I'm still listening to my apocalyptic space rock and at the moment I am working through Hawkwind's third album "Doremi Fasol Latido" which was probably the second one that I bought . I loved the black and silver cover (and still do) , I am sure there was some interesting text on the sleeve somewhere, but maybe I will search that out again at some point.

Anyway the second song on "Space Is Deep" contains an amazing saxophone coda from Nik Turner and was based on Michael Morrcock's book "The Black Corridor" so that is what I will leave you with and I will be listening to that as I walk into work this morning.

Have a good Thursday everybody.

Walk This Way ....

I wasn't expecting a great start to the New Year with my walking but the first three days I've passed 40K steps , which is a good return. February will be more difficult as I will need to hit 12K a day and part of me thinks I can't do that, but part of me is determined that I WILL do that.

I was looking It a post I'd done about Tideswell and Litton in 2009 here which contains less than 100 words, and looking at it I'm surprised that there are that many. It is remarkably sparse, although it is my ambition to do a coherent post of maybe ten words, though I am not sure that would be possible. While I can ramble on about something and nothing sometimes I do need to be reigned in to stop me from going off at such a tangent that I fall of the edge of whatever I'm actually doing.

At this point this post clocks in at around 170 words, so the Tideswell post would have probably finished after the first paragraph.

Anyway people will probably expect me to include "Walk This Way" by Aerosmith, a band I missed when they first came round and still don't think I missed much. The only song of their's that I really like is the excellent "Livin' On The Edge" though I am sure lots of people will tell me how wrong I am.

Instead I've been listening to the excellent "Quark, Strangeness and Charm" by Hawkwind a thouroughly enjoyable album from start to finish, but while the opener "Spirit of the Age" is great, my favourite is still "Damnation Alley" based on the book by Roger Zelazny (turned into a rubbish film but it works well as a backdrop for the song) and probably appropriate given Donald Trump's "My Button is Bigger Than Your Button" Shenanigans with Kim Jong Un

One One Two Zero One Eight

Happy new year and an obvious song to welcome in the New Year would be U2's "New Year's Day", but that is a bit obvious, and I'm currently working therough "Songs of Experience" their latest album which I was completely unaware of until my friend John Scott mentioned he was listening to it. It's a follow up to "Songs of Innocence" , the one they deposited free into everyone's iTunes accounts that people then couldn't easily get rid off which turned a lot of people into your typical red top readers being offended by something that , at worst , was just an annoyance.

The new album is very listenable all though there it's nothing that hits you like a hammer and the first ten songs have very low key production although toward the end you begin to hear U2 signatures such as the duplo guitar and Bono starting to actually stretch his vocal chords. My favourite song so far is "Lights of Home" which sound more like an old blues song with a wonderful guitar sound and ruff.

Today I've seen a rainbow, and been out to the Co Op and it's another month to start my steps but I don't think I will hit my 11K today.

So it's a  start to a New Year and I have just found another reason to hate iTunes , tryied to play the beautiful "To Ohio" by The Low Anthem then I had to log in to play it, then it told me my computer wasn't authorised, so I had to autorise it (two logins to play one song), I do hate Apple, they may look good but their systems are full of holes and stupidity.

Anyway I found a live version of "To Ohio" and that I think is a great start to 2018. Start having a good New Year now.

Two Thousand and Seventeen Years So Far ... and I Want More

Five years ago I published a pretty good post about getting older here  with one or two useful profundities (if that's a word, well it is now) , and as we come to the end of 2017 we start thinking about what we will do in the new calendar year. Personally it's going to be another year of doing more, rising to challenges , rediscovering my social mojo, actually playing on the virtual orchestra I have stashed in our back room, actually watching TV series , seeing films and reading books.

I have four recent books of fiction to get through two by Philip Pullman and two by John Niven which I'm looking forward to, and well as numerous new challenges at work which will be great fun to take on.

Some days I would like a longer lie in, but today was typical, I woke up at seven and thought I may as well get up wash and shave and shower , then maybe go back to bed, but then I think I may as well get up.

This year I have started walking maintaining a rolling Million Steps every three months and that has reduced my insulin intake by over sixty per cent. I might do even better if I lived off cucumber lettuce and kale but that would be very boring indeed, although cucumber subs are a great alternative to bread subs and therefore better for you , even though they may not seem that appetising. They are best eaten in summer and I used to make them a lot when I worked from home.

I've got to give thanks to everyone who has been there for  me , helped me, made me laugh , encouraged me , played  games with me , eaten with me, and made this a great year for me. I know 2018 will be even better.

So what is a great playout record for 2017. In September we lost Holger Czukay, but in the seventies I remember him and Can lighting up Top of The Pops with the brilliant "I Want More" which is a perfect sentiment to see out the old year and see in the new.

Happy New Year everybody .... Make it Brilliant.