Shadow Spider

I don't know if it's getting older but I seem to misread a lot of notices and signs. One interpretation is that I'm losing it, the other is that my perception is getting sharper because I am noticing it. The title of the post is from a misreading of a book title on Facebbok.

There's a card at work that says "Thanks" but the "Th" looks like a "W" to me. Maybe that's just my dirty mind.

I once saw a "Go Ahead Northern" sign and read it as Gonorrhea, again some indication of the workings of my mind. The thing is I realise my mistake immediatly and just see it as funny. In a way it is enriching my life with extra (if mistaken) language and words. I suppose Shakespeare must have used this and played with it, although I find some of his plays (especially "Romeo and Juliet") far too wordy.

Sometimes it's a visual thing so you get the words with LI in that look rude such as FLICK and CLINT which seen in the wrong light can cause a little consternation.

Carry On Films also exist for innuendo and mistaken meanings although barring "Carry On Cleo", "Carry On Up The Khyber" and "Carry on Screaming" most of them fall flat for me.

I am just going to put a list of my mistaken reads here which I may update as I find more. It's a bit
like the Clint chocolate cake:

• "Go Ahead Northern"  -   Gonorrhea
• "Thanks" - W@nks
• "Clint" - C*nt
• "Give The Gift of Cinema" - read Cinema as Enema (Seen in Tesco)
• 
  

So what song should go with this, sometng literary and wordy, although all songs contain words, and there are so many songs that have mis heard lyrics such as "Kiss The Sky / Kiss This Guy" from "Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix. Although I've used it before I've going to go with "Wrong" by Archers of Loaf one of my favourite ever tunes which I first heard on "The Speed of Cattle" and perfect for me contiually getting words and phrases wrong.

1812

This is post number 1812 and as such need to ibnclude the "1812 Overture (with Cannons)" by Tchaikovsky. Interestingly "Night of Fear" by The Move was based on the main "1812 Overture" riff.

It's almost a week since my last post and one of my #August50 posts came up in my feed where I did mange to post over 50 times in August 2018. I don't expect to do that this year, although I once saw a blog that had thousands on one line link posts each day. I am not too sure of what the point of that was.

I'm just back from another weekend in Whitby managing to scoff lots of fish and chips at the Magpie Cafe and picked up a pristine copy of Can's "Tago Mago" from the MIND charity shop. he album was also inspired by the occultist Aleister Crowley, which is reflected through the dark sound of the album as well as being named after Illa de Tagomago, an island which features in the Crowley legen, which was a surpise to me.

I was once listening to a compilation CD curated by John Lydon and walked in and was listening to something which I though was maybe a remix of The Stone Roses "Fool's Gold" , but it was, in fact "Halleluiah" by Can. I have seen numerous spellings but that's what it is on the vinyl album. I do have it on CD as well (40th Anniversary) but the vinyl copy is something well worth having, and, as I said, was a charity shop bargain.

There are a few places in Whitby to pick up Vinyl such as The Whitby Bookshop, but most places are aware of their worth.

So this is my first post in February, and we shall see how many I do this month. It's really just about noticing things and being bothered to write things down.

A Big Freeze

I don't know if it's me getting older or what, but the frosted white cars and rooves and the biting burning cold this morning just made me want to get into the warm again. As a kid I'd be wanting snow and would go out in a T-Shirt and make snow angels. That would definitely not happen today. Is colder or is it just because I am older and more susceptible to the cold. I really don't know.

Another unrelated thing is that we have a new security entry system where I work amd it makes a two beep or three note noise when you go through whatever door or barrier, and those three notes trigger a musical sequence from Jethro Tull's "Passion Play" every time I come in or leave. While I think "Passion Play" is rather good I could do without it playing in my head every time I walk through a security door or barrier. It's an almost Pavlovian reaction to the three notes and it just happens every time.

Last night Newcastle United beat Manchester City 2-1 and my local branch of William Hills were offering 50/1 for that result, but I thought it would just be money down the drain. It turned out that my actual bets were the ones that actually lost . C'est la vie.

The lack of cloud is what's driving the temperature down, though we have had no snow .... yet. So I think maybe I need to share a bit of "Passion Play" with you although "Frozen"by Madonna was a possibility as well as "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out" by Bruce Springsteen, but we shall have a bit of "Passion Play" that is not "The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles" which I featured in this post here.

I Can Put A Tennis Raquet Up Against My Face And Prentend That I'm Kendo Nagasaki

It's a line from my favourite song on the Half Man Half Biscuit album "McIntyre, Treadmore and Davitt" which was the name of three retired footballers called on to save a Football team in the "Golden Gordon" episode of Michael Palin's "Ripping Yarns". The song is "Everything's AOR" and will of course accompany this post.

It's my dad's 84th birthday and the older someone gets it's more difficult to get birthday presents, especially when his main hobby is working, although he has a penchant for post boxes and boxing. I decided to get him a copy of "There Is No Map In Hell" by Steve Birkinshaw which I bought just for the title and found to be an excellent book seeing what some people can force themselves to do against seemingly impossible conditions.

The weather has been incredibly cold and during January absolutely not conducive to walking although I have managed to keep up my target steps so I am still exceeding my million steps every three months and I will start February in Whitby so I am not sure taht will be a good or a bad thing. Whitby is great for walking but if the weather is not good that may discourage me from actually doing my required steps.

Kendo Nagasaki was a wrestler in the sixties and maybe still is but I remember watching wrestling on a Saturday afternon at my grandmas with Kendo, Mick McManus , Jackie Pallo and others too numerous to mention. It was all staged of course as it still is in the numerous wrestling francises going on today. The link to the Kendo Nagasaki (there are/were many) portrays him as a mystic an dhypnotist as well as a wrestler, so not a one trick pony. The tennis raquet gives a similar effect to the samurai mask worn by Kendo in the ring.

So that's my Monday so far ..... now what's yours?

Ulysses, James Joyce and Japan

I don't know what brought this into my mind apart from the fact that I was having a dream and couldn't remember who wrote "Ulysses" though the names James Joyce, WB Yeats and WG Grace slipped through my mind, so I did know but my mind was telling me I didn't. These days scaremongers so often try to equate forgetfulness with Alzheimers and Dementia.

I remember THAT passage beimg screened on the BBC much to "Angry from Purley"'s disgust, and also seem to remeber my parents having the book , and mee seeking out THAT passage to read over and over. This was the days before video recorders and catch up TV and colour was a luxury. The thing with books is that you can always re read them, if you enjoy them or need to concentrate on the meaning.

I am now thinking I should get myself a copy as someone recently described the book as the greatest in the English language. Maybe on Kindle or Aldiko though , in fact I may have a copy in my ebook library that I acquired a while back.

The Japan part of this post comes from the fact I sold a CD on Discogs yesterday but the guy hadn't paid (shipping is generally added automatically), then I saw that the despatch address was Japan! Internation Stardard shipping is about a fiver and takes five days, International Economy costs four pounds but takes up to 56 days. I charged £4 and sent Standard as you can't be waiting two months for a CD can you. The album was Donovan's "Sunshine Superman" so another Irish connection there.

So I have to go with one of my favourite Donovan songs "Season of The Witch" which is one of the songs on the "Sunshine Superman" album.

Enjoy your Friday everybody.

Tangence or Tangience

Both real word, click on Tangence or Tangience to see the definition. They came into my head because I was just again thinking of the tangential nature of almost everything to do with me. On Sunday's Post here I started on about getting up early, though my slow CD clearance via Discogs which took me on to my favourite Pirates song which led to me discovering  Sons of Pirates and then chatting with Mick Green's sons via Facebook. Almost like a Pinball game of events and connections.

Talking of Pinball, I was in The Strawberry today and they have a Kiss Pinball machine!! I mean what's that about? KIss were always the worst bandwagon jumping poodle rockers with the perfect business model of being facepainted so everyone was replaceable. The ultimate corporate toy rock band.

So I could have shared something by Kiss, but when you are talking Pinball it can only be Elton John's take on "Pinball Wizard" in Ken Russell's feature length pop video masquerading as a film (loads of highlights though such as Tina Turner's "Acid Queen". YOu also get The Who on stage too and those hilarious boots.

Red

I missed the Lunar eclipse and can't understand why it's listed as a "Super Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse" , yes because it's red "Blood" but why include the word "Wolf" in there? It seems a pointless addition like when mobile and broadband companies describe speeds of Super Ultra Mega Fast, it's either fast or not. TV manufacturers and broadcasters do the same with picture quality with Ultra and Super HD. Pointless extra adjectives.

There were some amazing red skies this morning, examples on my instagram channel here. I don't know if that was caused by the Lunar Eclipse.There are lots of explanationa on line on how the moon was turned red by the eclipse and that should keep you occupied for quite a while if that is to your particular taste.

This post is unusual in that it has no musical content, though you can always go for Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of The Moon" or Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" as vaguely related, but I just got a bit of video from the Guardian to see what happened, and I am sure that is far more relevant.