More Time

Not having Facebook active seems to be giving me more time. I could use this to do other things but I;m probably reading more, watching more TV, walking more but not improving my creative output (yet) unless you count this.

I spent some time in Helmsley today and because Scott's was not open to sit in we tried  La Trattoria , a new Italian based restaurant next to the Town Hall, and it is definitely an excellent new find.

I also had a brief walk round the Castle and posted some Instagram photos here.

I know I'm on holiday, but I can post this, I have watched an X-Men film , and am watching an episode of Marvel:Agents of Shield waiting for this weeks Gotham, while reading Neil Gaiman's excellent"Norse Mythology"".

This is day one with no Facebook and while I am talking about it,I am doing other things. I suppose I slightly miss sharing things and having things shared with me but I have Instagram and Twitter if I want to interact.

As yet no one (I told about five people) has asked me where I've gone so I am not being missed (yet).

So you can see the analogy between Social Media and Drug Addiction .

I thought "Free" by VAST is semi appropriate so giving the year a miss for this post but I will use it as I work up to 2019, we shall see, although 1935 was the year that my dad was born.

A Facebook Holiday

I'm on a thirty day Facebook ban. I checked their Community Guidelines and have not transgressed any for my last two bans, but Facebook can interpret the guides any way they want, they can always say it's sexual whether it is or it isn't. It's their club so it's their rules.They don't even tell you what the problem is, it reminds of the Monty Python sketch where the guy gets a coffee table nailed to his head for transgressing the "unwritten rule", almost Kafkaesque.

My main problem is that you are stopped from any kind of response to anything including via Messenger so people think you are ignoring them. So I think that the best option is account deactivation then reactivation after the ban is finished. To be quite honest I don't think anyone will notice I have gone so that may influence whether I go back to Facebook.

I am very happy that Liverpool won the Champions League Final though the match was hardly a classic. So this is post 1934 so what song can I share with you from that year. Well "Honeysuckle Rose" by the excellent Fats Waller fits the bill, and I think it's an excellent song too.

Another Facebook Ban

Well it's the first day of June and I start with a thirty day Facebook and Messenger ban for sharing my friend Sophia's Tattoo Page picture of a sternum tattoo (see here) with another friend who had posted one that she had had done. Facebook bans are pathetic and inconsistent but there is zero I can do about it apart from stop sharing and stop posting because they can deem anything not acceptable, and person A can post something and person B can be banned for sharing it. There needs to be consistency, but my thought on the ban which I set down here still stand.

I often use Messenger to communicate but the ban holds on that too , so people who message can't be replied to.

Anyway less of that, it's the first of June, a gorgeous day, we have the Champions League final between Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool in Madrid which hopefully will turn out as good as the second half of the Europa League Final between Arsenal and Chelsea.

This is post 1933 so keeping the lear connection I'll share "Lazybones" by Hoagy Carmichael from that year, as this has been covered many times, and it's just a song I remember from a cover in the seventies which I think was by Jonathan King. After he was disgraced like Gary Glitter I was in liverpool and the Caver Club has a brick wall with the names of all the acts that have appeared ther, but there are two highlighted bricks that say Jonathan King and Gary Glitter have been removed. They should have just removed them and said nothing.

The blog passed the 200K mark last night so still getting lots of visits , which is not bad considering I have only four subscribers. I do wish some of my 400 Facebook friends would subscribe so that when I am banned or finally leave they can still see what I am up to.

Anyway have a great day.

To Buy or Not To Buy

... that is the question, I was thinking about getting a Google Pixel 3A and then I thought "What will it give me that I don't already have?". The onboard memory is double that of my Pixel , but that is really a minor thing. It may have better battery life, a faster processor and better cameras, but the reality is that it will not tangibly improve my life. I still miss the Samsung Note Stylus, but I am not paying a grand to be able to use a dedicated stylus every now and then.

Whether it's age or just being sensible I think for the foreseeable future I will just keep my current phone on my SIM Only plan.

It's like the roll out of 5G, seriously what do I need that for. I can see it's uses in a large scale or industrial environment, but for personal users the benefits, again, don't really affect you or me.

I've just finished Stephen Fry's "Mythos" and absolutely loved it and am following that up with Neil Gaiman's "Norse Mythology" which I am sure I will enjoy , being a fan of almost all mythologies, and I got into them at School not through Stan Lee's comics (that is not a dig at Stan Lee, just me showing my age).

The blog is set to hit 200K page views tonight, which is an unexpected surprise due to Feedburner helping me to hit 20K views this month. I really didn't see that one coming. Also I was only intending to do about 15 posts this month to hit 2K posts since the blog started, but I have manged to post 32 times this month.

A Sudden Surge on Seven Days In

Given that the post numbers are now corresponding with the years of our current timestream, I thought for the next ninety posts I could use a piece of music from the corresponding year. This is post 1932 so we'll go with the Cole Porter song "Night and Day" from "The Gay Divorcee" performed by Fred Astaire. I bet you weren't expection that. Although the first time I heard this song it was John Peel playing Tuxedomoon's take on it.

Focus On The Good

Working from home yesterday which meant I could listen to whatever music I wanted , although I did end up listening to 6Music for much of the afternoon. The issue with the Garden Waste payment was dealt with when I phoned Newcastle Council to tell them their site was down. They came back with the evergreen excuse "Oh You Know, Computers". I didn't bother pointing out that that you shouldn't make something public when it doesn't actually work, I then paid over the phone and that did work (hopefully).

Focus On The Good

Anyway I saw a post from my Facebook friend Raul Kohli (The Newcastle Brown Male, brilliant comedian) which was a short piece by Scroobius Pip eulogising appreciating the good  rather than going on about the bad. Too many times people just whine and moan about things, but while you have to deal with the bad, it should not become the main point of your life, although I see lots of people who are not happy unless they are miserable ad have something to complain about. I suppose the phrase "A Pessimist is Never Disappointed" does hold true.

This means I finally worked out a title for this post, and it's really to give priority to the good things in like like friends and family, socialising , music, theatre, film and good tv, and good food.




If you do focus on the good things in life it makes it easier to deal with the less savoury aspects of it. I've said it before that I always look for positives in disappointing situations. You miss your bus, it means you can walk to the next stop and get a little fitter. Though I know people who then say "What if it's raining?" or "What if it means you'll miss your train?" , to the first I would say stay under the bus shelter or run to a bus shelter, to the second I would say you should have caught an earlier bus.

You can always find fault with any situation, look to find the positives of you situation and build on them. I've included  "A Letter From God To Man" by Scroobius Pip which gives a little food for thought.

Stay Happy.

Thwarted

I'm giving the Laptop update attempt a rest, the guy is comping to fix the roof link later and the weather is good. I also decided to pay for the Garden Waste Collection for this year found the site and it told me to follow a new link if I was renewing. The new site is a beta site that doesn't work, so I thought I'd try the normal way. It told be I can't because I have paid before (last year).

It does amaze me the sheer volume of online idiocy who's normal excuse is YOU (the customer) must be doing something wrong. I don't know if  I've just become immune to it or what , but I just feel it's another example of the idiocy and buffoonery profligate in our world today. This is the page and the new link is at the bottom, but it resides here. It may work when you try this or they may change it on the live page to a live address.

I also woke up very early and couldn't get back to sleep and now feel tired, but I am showered and dressed and ready to get off to work, so no real option to go back to sleep, also I have a piece of work to do using my three screens at work before I work from home this afternoon.

So really what better song to share than "Gardening At Night" by REM, which I first heard when I bought the album "Epobymous",  who I've never featured in a post before which surprises me, Enjoy your day.

A Laptop Stole My Week

I am still trying to update the laptop to Windows 10. This is basically because the software I want to run on it won't run on Windows 8. It seems that every time I get past one brick wall there is another one waiting.

Added to that the leak in the roof is still there, I tried getting into the rook but my biggest ladder is not long enough so, I've ordered a longer ladder although hopefully the roofer will turn up and sort it out this afternoon.

The skies are very grey and it is frustrating not being able to get into the roofspace , but the new ladder should help with that. Water is very insidious, yes we need it to drink and clean but it can find it's way through the most unexpected paths.

The laptop had some software updates which I applied and apparently there are 619 issues for it to fix, if I pay £27 for software to do him. I feel this is, to say the least, underhand Toshiba.

So I am still in this limbo , though I am sure I will I will eventually get my way with it. As I say if Cars and Washing Machines were like computers no one would drive or wash anything. I don't know where the "Limbo" thought came from but it gives me a chance to share "Sitting In Limbo" by Jimmy Cliff.