The Day After Yesterday

Yesterday we woke up to a decent snowfall, two or three inches deep in parts as I walked into work. We had sun and the snow started to melt. By the time I walked down Barrack Road the footpath was like slush driven slide. Because it was still so cold the melted snow started turning to ice.

I don't know if it's age or my lardy weight but despite a decent pair of boots I could not negotiate even slight iced slopes, each time having to find an alternative clear path which involved extra walking. This wasn't me being safe rather than sorry, it was me being forced to take a (slightly) different route to get to where I want. The final one being the path from Rosie's bar near the start of the Town Wall to the front door of Citygate. I could,t go on the path and the grass was reduced to a slippery muck, luckily the footpath round was level and partially ice free. Having thought about it no one else was walking on that slope either.

It's like the feeling you get on the bus when you are starting and the bust (apparently) slams on or goes violently round a corner , and I have difficulty keeping upright. Again is this old age or is it just that buses (I still think it should be spelt - or is it spelled - busses, the joys of the english language, I'm English and can hardly spell.

This morning looking out of the window ther is still a decent white snow blanket, though this will now be infused with ice so the walk to work may not be so comfortable. I will tell you tonight how it went.

February will mean increasing my daily steps by 10% to 12,250 steps a day but so far this month I am averaging more than that (12,650 a day at the end of yesterday).

Chris Hawkins played "Calling All The Heroes" by It Bites and that reminded me of the excellent "American Life In The Summertime" by Francis Dunnery http://amzn.to/2DpHDAvafter he left the band, which is what I'll share with you twenty three years after it's release.

Polish Wind

How do you pronounce that? Is it Polish  - relating to Poland or polish - to buff something up? Is it wind - the atmospheric movement of air or wind - the method of tightening something up like a spring on a mechanical clock. Then the words wind, wined and, at a push whined could all sound the same when spoken, In isolation you wouldn't know what the person meant. Similarly wind and winned are both the same.

The English language is brilliant for writers and wordsmiths but must be hell to learn as a foreign language.

The reason that this came up is I was watching "Black Lake" last night and the police turned up and the word POLIS was on the car but the end of the word slightly obscured by snow and I though is that POLIS or POLISH ? "Black Lake" is well short on humour although absolutely excellent.

This is my first post in which I have mentioned Poland. Currently I have two Polish friends, Marek who runs RPM and Ola who I work with. At school I had lots of Polish friends and used to rehearse at Chorley Polish Club with my first band Cyrus Teed. I remember the first gig was a snowy night in Chorly and during the drum solo in "Wipe Out" the drum podium  (which consisted of four big blocks) split four ways leaving the drummer and crowd and us "surprised".

Anyway we have had real snow last night (see here on my instagram feed)

I have donned a large pair of boots because I would like to see what Nunsmoor is like covered in snow so that's a ¾ mike walk on snow covered paths but I will post a video on instagram if I get there before I freeze.

For absolute no reason apart from the snow / rain at the start of the video I'm including Jordan Reyne's "Shadow Line" which still gives be goosebumps, reminding me of the first time I saw her (documented here). Wrap up and be careful if you have to go out.

404

For some reason my blog redirection is not working. It's actually a 503 not a 404 but I watched the dream sequence in Mr Robot and there was a 404 sign on a tree where a house was missing. It's been cold today but the snow dusted footpaths were fine but the walk across Nunsmoor almost took my face off (which many would say would be an improvement) but I warmed up once I hit the shelter of the trees. Tonight more snow is forecast and no doubt it will be very cold.

Snow looks nice and is fine while it is solid and crunchy but once it melts a little the freezes it becomes treacherous. I am not looking forward to that.

I'm currently flipping between Mt Robot and Black Lake on TV catch up , the benefit of Mtr Robot is that I don't need subtitles but Black Lake is creepy and scary and uses a possibly non existent language, so just a small smattering of the glut of excellent TV we have out our disposal and I still have to watch the latest Black Mirror and Orphan Black. That's three excellent series that have the word BLACK in their title. Are my viewing preferences trying to say something to me.

I've been listening to Blue Oyster Cult's "Fire of Unknown Origin" which is a bit rock by numbers. There's probably three songs on there that are worth continual revisiting, the sword and sorcery of "The Pact", the drum heavy Michael Moorcock collaboration "Veteran of The Psychic Wars" and the bona fide classic "Joan Crawford (Has Risen Frome The Grave)" which I've included or you delectation with a great video and slide show.

Wrap up well and keep the heatig fired up, it's going to be a cold, cold night.

Is This A Dream Week?

I woke this morting and the lasting image from my dreams was interpretive dance versions of  Terry Pratchett's novels "Mort" and "Cardiff City vs Preston North End". Yest I know the second one is a football match and not a novel but this is one of my dreams and it wouldn't be a dream if it made any sense would it. This is the first time I mentioned Terry Pratchett on this blog although I' never got into him , though I enjoyed "Mort", that was it, but I know I was in a minority the

Last night I was feeling wrecked, I was heading towards another Diabetic hypo (3.8) and was in bed for nine. Today I am not really looking forward to work as I have an annual donkey work task that I will be lucky to finish today, but I will do it, so maybe that was on my mind.

Last night I watched Ben Wheatley's take on JG Ballard's "High Rise"  which is a flawed masterpiece in my opinion, very 1970s and the buildings look simply monstrously awesome from a distance, but the soundtrack featuseds both Can and Amon Duul II and an awesome take on Abba's "SOS" by Portishead. I can't find this officially available anywhere but found this wonderful Youtube montage from the film soundtracked by the Portishead take.

More Strange Dreams

Good night's sleep but more weird dreams. Often dreams take it something you have seen or are thinking about and I've seen a lot of these Butlins Music Weekends advertised which I think are a great idea but have never got to one yet. But this one had shared flooding showers with no towels, some American artist playing "music you cannot buy" and me playing Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues". Like all proper dreams it made no sense whatsoever but there's obviously bits of real life in there. Our showere ever so oftent needs the drain pod clearing and if I didn't ot would eventually flood, but once every six moths keeps that clear.

Yesterday at the Tyneside Cinema we saw the excellent "Batteries Not Included" while brunching before watch the excellent "Darkest Hour" which features Gar Oldman doing an excellent turn as Winston Churchill. Oldman is a great actor not tied to type as demonstrated by the dreadlocked half-caste drug dealer in my favourite file "True Romance".

Walking yesterday was down but the weekend pverall was fine. It's the 15th of January and I am well over half way to my target for the month, but had my first diabetic hypo (3.3) last night after walking for a pizza.

Apparently it's Blue Monday today (most depressing day of the year), but I am going to have a great day and you should too. It's strange how the media and tradition push things like this on us and we take them on board and make them true. So I've included the brand new Simple Minds song "The Signal and The Noise" for you to enjoy.

Have a brilliant Monday everyone.

Careful With That Axe Eugene - Five Words and a Scream

This morning I went to the local Post Office depot to pick up an item "too big" for my letterbox. Because it was early it was a walk across the park and down Stamfordham Road and I got there ten minutes early.

The album I was listening to was the live disc of Pink Floyd's "Ummagumma" and for the firsy yime I noticed that the rhythm is provided by the guitars, with the drums used more as a musical embellishment whereas on most rock songs it's the other way round, especially on a lot of modern songs where rhytm machines and sequencers are used. I remember when I bought it as a teenager from a record shop at Lane Ends in Preston, the rather haughty guy dismissed me with "We don't sell singles" instantly displaying his musical ignorance. Needless to say I never revisited that shop.

The second song, although it's not really a song more a jam piece and it goes on for a hypnotic eight minutes. The lyrics consist on the title whispered once followed by a scream, and that's it. Then I started thinking (over analsing of course) what was this about.

Was it a murder?

Was it a suicide?

Was it an unsatisfied plea for mercy?

The singer is the one who screams so is he the victim or does the singer take  multiple parts?

All this from five words and a scream.

I've included the version from "Live at Pompeii" for you analysis although this has a few more words in it, some Roger Waters indulgence.

Anyway this is far too deep for a Saturday morning, have a brilliant day everbody.

#ItsNotThem #2 - The Jesus of Cool

Nick Lowe was the producer to have during the punk years 1976-79, he'd cut his musical teeth with the excellent Country Rocker Brinsley Schwarz who went on to back Graham Parker as The Rumour (well some of them did). So how many bands did I mention in that sentence, and I didn't even think about doing that.

Anyway Nick Lowe's first release on Stiff was the double "A" side Heart of The City b/w "So It Goes" both of which appeared on his excellent "Jesus of Cool" album. The song "So It Goes" is a perfect "Thin Lizzy" song, whicjle it is lighter that the Irish Rocker's sound , the dynamics and phrasing are pure Thin Lizzy and I am surprised that they never covered it,

It's a simple descending chord sequence with a virtually spoken dialog / melody, very Phil Lynott / Thin Lizzy.  I know this is a very short post about the Jesus of Cool but follow the links and get a listen to some of his stuff, it is worth your while.
 
Enjoy my friends, I 'm going to bed as I need to be up very earlty tomorrow.