The End of The Weekend

I was apprehensive about reading Stephen Fry's "Mythos" mainly due to the number of pages and the small type after James O'Briens' excellent "How To Be Right" (both shorter and with larger type so easier to read for my ancient eyes).

That's one of the benefits of eReaders, you get to choose the size of the font, although the bigger the font the more pages / page turns you effectively get, but it really does put you in control.

Anyway I am a fan of all mythologies and in "Mythos" Fry takes on the Greeks and it is incredibly readable, dashing all my apprehensions. It's like having a lesson from a really good teacher or watching an episode of QI, and he illustrates the very beginnings of Greek mythology often using contemporary illustrations and more than a little humour. He also brings his ego to bear, but non of this is to the detriment of the book, which I am now looking forward to having a very enjoyable ride through.It really is that good.

Today also saw the culmination of the English Premier League with Manchester City pipping Liverpool who were 25 points ahead of Chelsea. Liverpool finished second with 97 points after losing only one match this season, a stunning achievement, but even more stunning was Manchester City taking the title. LIverpool now have a Champions League Final to play.

So a great end to the weekend, and tomorrow sees another visit to the Freeman Hospital for me, though this time it is relatively minor and nowhere near the extreme discomfort of last week's endoscopy.

So I hope your weekend has been good, and just to vaguely find a related song and thought I would go for "Pandora's Box" by Procol Harum, which I always found vaguely sinister with it's off kilter signature motif, though apparently their name is Latin for "Far From Things" so not Greek, although Greek and Roman Mythologies were always interchangeable.

Going Back With Janelle Monáe

In my opinion the best album of last year was "Dirty Computer" by Janelle Monáe (I hadn't noticed the acute accent on the a before today, but that's just my English linguistic ignorance),and this is what I thought of it here which includes the accompanying album length video. This album is where she was getting to at that point and it is a damned near perfect album, which I still play regularly and is definitely on my top ten.

So I decided it may be a good idea to revisit here earlier output. The actual production quality is consistently excellent and the songs are good from the off although throughout her albums there is a definite upward curve.

It started with a planned multi part suite "Metropolis" starting with  the mini album "The Chase" which sets the story in "The March of The Wolfmasters" , one of five suite overtures over her first three albums. She collaborates with other writers and all her output has a heavy science fiction presence, but it is so well executed it enhances rather than detracts from the music.

The Chase ends with an expected take on Charlie Chaplin's "Smile" , which does fit in with the dystopian future that Monáe's narratives display.

"The ArchAndroid" , containing "Suite II" and "Suite III"of "Metropolis"features her developing soul / rock with attitude style taking in The Slits, X-Ray Spex and Todd Rundgren , check "Mushrooms and Roses" that closes "Suite II" . She has no fear of collaboration and really the best way to experience this is to listen to the album.

"The Electric Lady" consists of "Suite IV" and "Suite V" of "Metropolis" as is a step closer to artistic perfection. The thing is the closer you get to "Dirty Computer" the harder it is to pick something that says this is Janelle Monáe because you know that you will always miss something.

She really is one of the most important artists performing and producing today. We will go with here collaboration with Erykah Badu "Q.U.E.E.N."  and this gives a great idea of what she is about.

One Book To Another

Well last night's visibility experiment was inconclusive, but I am doing another evening post. This time it's about  the books I'm reading. I've just finished the excellent "How To Be Right" by James O'Brien and I am following that up with "Mythos" by Stephen Fry.

"How To Be Right" was easy to read with decent sized type over 220 pages, but "Mythos" sort of gives me the horrors because it's over 400 pages of small type.

"How To Be Right" helps to prepare you for dealing with with, shall we say, the difficult people and situations of the modern world and has been great to read, if more than a tad worrying , but a lot of people I know fall into that category, who refuse to examine what causes their beliefs that certain situations are true and cannot be challenged. Their paper of choice is The Metro (published by The Daily Mail) because it's free. I really shouldn't say any more.

"Mythos" is a completely different ball game tapping into my love of all  mythology , though this one is hitting the Greek strand. As a kid I loved reading Norse, Celtic, Roman , Greek and further mythology, so despite the small print I am looking forward to it.

So I will not go with another Pete Wylie song, but this time I will go for "Jason and the Argonauts" by XTC from their album "English Settlement" as it does fit in with the Greek Mythology connection.

Six

I had a good reason for calling this Six , it does follow the wrongly named "Five" post but I've forgotten why I was going to call it that . This is also an experiment to see if I get more visits if I post at night rather than in the morning. In the morning the USA is asleep but in the UK evening the USA is awake. I'm not sure that will make any difference.

I've had Pete Wylie songs for that last two posts and this time I found a live take of "Four Eleven Forty Four" at King Tuts in Glasgow. A guy I worked with at Littlewoods , Dave Homan was a friend of Pete Wylie's , and Wylie has been responsible for some amazing tunes and should really be a much bigger name than he is.

Even his sketch songs and gorgeous and when I chose this, lots more came to mind, but I stuck with this lovely live take.

It's dark outside, it's Thursday night and maybe time for bed....

Five

So England will have five* teams in next seasons Champions League. Tottenham Hotspur, like Liverpool last night overcame a three goal deficit to win on away goals with a last minute winner at Ajax. I'd said to my friend Obi today, who was dismissive of any chance they might have, that they had Son and Lucas Moura , and if Moura played to his abilities they definitely had a chance.

So Tottenham conceded two early goals just to make life difficult, and set themselves a task they had not achieved since 2010 (against Arsenal), overcome a two goal deficit to win an away match, against a team that had disposed of Real Madrid and Juventus. That was no mean feat.

Lucas Moura score all the Spurs goals and you can see the match report here. Given what has happened over the last two nights God knows what will happen in the Champions League Final in Madrid, I wouldn't like to call it.

Basically, from the point of view of the English and Neutrals you have seen two amazing matches that go to the top of the scale for excitement, nerves and unexpected results. It is unlikely such a thing will ever pass again.

So a piece of music to celebrate this momentous occasion, I think we will go for another Pete Wylie / Mighty Wah slice of beautiful brilliance, the wonderful "Come Back" (which you can actually download for 99p) which Tottenham Hotspur can do with pride and their heads held high. There is no way I would disgrace this post with "Diamond Lights"

* Just realised it will only be five if Chelsea and Arsenal both win tonight.... we shall see

Liverpool is Liverpool

This is just to record the fact that Liverpool thrashed Barcelona last night is one of the most amazing turnarounds in modern sport. Statisticians had given Liverpool a 4% chance of progressing, they were missing their two main strike threats, although the final third of their strike force has hit the net 20 times this season.

Even Liverpool fans were resigned to going out , but I pointed out that Liverpool are not one man, Liverpool are Liverpool, they have a team, they have a brilliant engaging manager who most of the time gets it right and knows how to motivate people (loved the bear hug as he sent Daniel Sturridge on for the last five minutes last night, that is someone who cares). His Barcelona counterpart was stoney faced and immobile throughout the night.

Barcelona have Messi , Suarez, Coutinho and god know how many more, so the task was great, but last night was the stuff of Football legend. Jurgen Klopp's acquisition of Virgil Van Dijk has made their defence far more solid (though Newcastle scored two against them on Saturday) but Divock Origi and Giorgio Wijnaldum scored a brace each to take Liverpool though.

The match report is here.

An absolutely wonderful night and we will share my  (and John Peel's)favourite song about Liverpool to mark the occasion, Pete Wylie's "Heart as Big As Liverpool".

There will be a lot of happy faces in Liverpool this morning.

Six Minutes

One of my bugbears is waking up, wondering what time it is and seeing it's six minutes before your alarm is due to go off. You can't go back to sleep, or enjoy the few minutes you have left in bed so you drag yourself out of your put to start the day and take yourself off to whatever awaits you, work or whatever. I don't know whether it's worse after a Bank Holiday Weekend although the slight upside is that, for me, it's only a four day working week.

I think a four day working week for people like me would actually improve productivity and and work-life balance, although that imay not an option for one man businesses, or maybe it is. I remember the story of an American Tyre business who realised they got most of their business at the weekend, so they changed their working week from Monday to Saturday to Friday to Monday, so their employees got a four day week for the same pay and the company's profits went up. I know this is just an isolated example but it is something worth considering.

Anyway I think I'll just share The Stranglers "Five Minutes" with you before I set off for work.

Have a good Tuesday everyone.