Something Negative

It's into Sunday morning and one of the things this Social Distancing / Isolation is doing is (at weekends) allowing me to stay up very late knowing that I don't have to get up tomorrow morning. While I see people out , I don't see any gatherings and I am wondering if the cramped aisles of local shops (and supermarkets) may have to change. Certain people certainly know how to block your way.

I am now reading "What If" by Randall Munroe and it is quite interesting trying to seriously and scientifically answer some completely absurd questions. Randall Munroe is responsible for XKCD "A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language". What does XKCD stand for (I think it looks like a Roman Numeral but the K knocks it out ("K" in European metrics is a thousand but "M" is a Roman thousand) but this is what it says on the site:

What does XKCD stand for? 

It's not actually an acronym. It's just a word with no phonetic pronunciation -- a treasured and carefully-guarded point in the space of four-character strings.

So follow the link to find out more and read the book to enjoy some absurdities , there is a section about lightning and tonight watching the final "Righteous Gemstones" episode Baby Billy got struck by lightning and forgave his brother in law and meeting his dead sister, so there's a coincidence.

So I only said something negative because the last post was something positive, so maybe we should get something dark and gothic to play out with, maybe "Bring on the Dancing Girls" (available as a free download from Bandcamp by clicking on the title) by Dead Eyes Opened who impressed my as a support band at the Cluny a few years back.

Something Positive

Obviously everything I post will be influenced at least in some part by the COVID-19 scenario. There are some positives to be taken from this, although it is still a frightening situation.

I can almost walk across the road at will , traffic is a lot sparser. There are still people out and on my walks I have said hello to a lot more new people than I normally would , a lady this morning explained (at a distance) about the impressive stick she had in her hands.

Animals, in theory , may be a problem because unless they are on a leash they will always investigate new people, I've had both cats and dogs approach me over the last few days.

There has been good weather and bad weather this week, but not so bad that I can't get out, although I am wanting to go a little further afield although I have plenty of green areas to walk through so hopefully I won't get too bored.

I am one of the lucky ones, I can work from home , but although it's fine when you are working singly,  I find screen sharing a little trying.

This really one of those posts where I have nothing to say, although it is my first post in April and last April I did 50 posts, so that's a definite no go this year.

Today I actually listened to some CDs (Dead Eyes Opened, The Yachts and Ethiopiques - Ethiopian jazz , which is very disconcerting) because my speakers take a feed from the TV screen that is my new monitor and when  I use it for my work monitor it's not really an option to play music on it. So we can go with "Tezeta (Nostalgia)" by Mulatu Astatke which I think I may have shared before after discussing with Nadine Shah , The music just seems a little off/strange making it very compelling listening, I could listen to this all night , although we are just past midnight here.

Billy Bolero Again

One of the things about working from home is that my sleeping seems have got much better, not that it was bad, it's just better.I can go to bed later , get up later and still put in a good day. The working environment is not quite as good as work but I have found how to split my 24" screen so that I still have effectively three screens to work on (see here)

Yesterday I was posting on Ravel's "Bolero" and then after searching wanted to include Alex Harvey's "Billy Bolero" but it wasn't available on Youtube, so I found a version with Frank Zappa conducting his band in "Barcelona" which was good.

This morning I decided to put together a slide show but Windows Movie Maker has been removed from Windows 10 and the alternative method is to use Photos which is slow and has far less functionality than Movie Maker. So I downloaded Movie Maker 10 recommended on the Microsoft Store. All was going fine until I wanted to save the project . No you have to buy it, admittedly only a tenner.

But you have to time every clip individually and can't apply durations and transitions across the whole slideshow or time the transitions. So it's adequate and better than Photos.

So I've created a slideshow , and this is the first one I 've done with this software, hopefully I've missed something , and documentation seems to be an unnecessary extra for them, but at least the song is now on Youtube and you can enjoy it, I love it.

It's only available as a demo on digital download , but if you can get a copy of "Soldier On The Wall" then you will be fine.

Billy Bolero

The intention was not to post as often as last year , and up to now I am outstripping last year, though last year i posted 50 times in April and doubt that will happen this year, this is post 63 so averages two posts every three days which should be adequate, no one is asking for more and there is plenty of more pertinent stuff for you to enjoy.

Today I went out for a walk, I am slightly worried I am going to miss my monthly target, but it was a beautiful day and it was quite amusing with so many people practising social isolation but waving and shout / chatting greetings. Then I was walking along Nunsmoor Road and there was a woman walking her dog on the other footpath and it wasn't on a lead, and when it saw me it ran into the road , cue much shouting. It's a dog!! Dogs get distracted. The only problem with some dogs is idiot owners.

Then there was another lady who was hailed from across the road by her friend , then her friend stepped into the road and nearly got hit by a cyclist. No malice intended , just a bit of not taking notice of what was happening.

Which brings me to the actual point of this post Maurice Ravel's "Bolero" , it always been a piece I've loved and is like two separate piece played at the same time , the almost menacing simple three note backing, then the beautiful wandering surface melody (does this sound like I know what I'm talking about or make me sound like a moron) . A bolero is

• A Spanish dance
• The music it is danced to
• A ladies' short jacket

Not to sure what inspired Ravel, but it has been picked up by several rock bands such as Frank Zappa , I thought Jethro Tull had , but the piece was "Bouree", Jeff Beck gave us the excellent "Beck's Bolero"  and ELP gave us "Abbadon's Bolero" on their album "Trilogy". The reason it came to mind was that as I was stripping the bed it came on Classic FM but I just started playing "Billy Bolero" by Alex Harvey and I just love that song , but it's not on Youtube yet , ao that's a video for me to put together, so you can make do with Frank Zappa's version, it ain't often you see Frank conducting.

Synchronicity on Monkey Island

I am currently reading "Cabal" (AKA "Nightbreed") by Clive Barker and a priest appeared who is being blackmailed by a ne'er do well and was thing how technology can date both film and writing . The priest says "I burned the negatives" the ne'er do well replies "I made copies". A similar situation underpins "The Righteous Gemstones" except the technology is iPhones and hard drives. That series is wonderful black comedy in which everyone bar none is utterly beneath contempt, absolutely awful in self righteous right wing Christian way.

While going out for a little shopping through hail, snow and rain I decided to play an album I hadn't listened to for many years, "Monkey Island" by the J Geils Band "Monkey Island" was also a favourite game of both my daughters many years ago in the days of efficient code when a game could fit on a single floppy disc.

The album does contain some great songs , "I Do"  is a particularly good rock and soul example and the album features some great harp / harmonica from Magic Dick (why was a harmonica called a harp or a mouth organ) but the title track is nine minutes of epic story telling with an absolute killer chorus. I found a live version from 1977 at Winterland and the intro takes up almost half the song. I think the studio version is better , but this is good.

This is a revisitation of something I know is good, unlike the "Grand Hotel" by Procol Harum which I was unaware how brilliant that still is , so it will be getting a lot of revisitations.

Enjoy , and Monkey Island the game is available on Steam for around a tenner.

No Future

This is not as negative as the title might sound and is an excuse to share the Sex Pistols' "God Save The Queen" from which I extracted the title of this post. When I first heard the Sex Pistols I was sort of disappointed because they were more heavy metal than punk though that also might be down to having decent production

This is about the situation we find ourselves in with the lockdown. Normally we have something we have to do , and something we look forward to , like seeing people at work and socially , going to town , for some people shopping, everything is something to look forward to, but the lockdown has stopped a hell of a lot of that.

I am lucky enough to work from home and make random Teams calls to people to maintain sociability , but if your work is closed down you may suddenly lose a huge amount of social contact. We often think that the people we work with are just co workers but they are often friends and do provide social interaction and friendship as well , giving us something to look forward to.

Luckily I live in Fenham , Newcastle which has wide roads, wide footpaths , parks , green areas like the Town Moor which enables me to get out and walk while maintaining social distancing.

Today I went to the local Boots to pick up a prescription, but it took me well over an hour in freezing conditions. I was worried I was going to collapse the cold was so bad.  The other thing I hadn't thought a bout was there were two vapers spewing out their smoke over everyone behind them in the queue. They complainingly desisted when me and another guy told them they could be infecting everyone  their smoke / vapour hit. Smoking and Vaping is OK as long as you don't breathe it on anyone else.

The thing is you need something to look forward to. We have phones , social media, and an unfeasible amount of TV choice. Then there's books and music.

So we can give ourselves new things to look forward to , however small, something to look forward to is something worth having. There are still people who seem to relish things going wrong and telling you you must be miserable because things will only get worse, but I do not subscribe to that.

Although things will change, we can slightly change our goals and look forward to a bright future when we come out the other side.

So find something you like to look forward to. Enjoy your Saturday.

2222

Yes , this is post number 2222 , probably the next significant number will be 2345, but this is one of the goals I mentioned in a recent post. I have now got 98 positive reviews on Discogs so still two off the century there. I added a few more CDs one of which was a BEF box set with is going for around fifty mounds so it must be quite rare, but I am never going to play it again so I can make some room.

I'm slightly worried that the lockdown will hamper my walking although I have kept up my steps so far and likely to be ok for March , but April may be a different kettle of fish. I have been out and am surprised at the number of people who seem to go out of their way to stop social distancing, managing to take up the width of a Supermarket aisle on their own, so it just means finding another way round.

So it is quite late on this Wednesday , so I doubt anyone will read this, but given our current situations here's another one for it, "Clampdown" by The Clash.

Thank you and good night.