The other night ran into Hazel Plater and Carl Taylor authors of a book reminiscing about the Riverside one of Newcastle's iconic music venues, second only to the magnificent Mayfair . Progress doesnt always mean better and we now have to make do with the (Insert current brand name) Academy , although we do have the Cluney and The Sage is a good upmarket venue , but not a rock venue as such.
The City Hall is still there , as is The Tyne Theatre , and the aircraft hagar that is the (Insert current brand name) Academy.
I would happily bulldoze the Gate if it would bring back the Mayfair , but now we have a multi screen cinema , various chain restaurants , and sticking out like a sore thumb the excellent Spice Cube Indian restaurant. The old Odeon lies derelict and listed so nothing can be done with that magnificent building.
Anyway we don't have these places anymore and it was interesting the read the comments from various friends in there . I remember seeing Rocket From The Crypt , supported by the Coyotemen on my birthday, and remember seeing loads of bands such as Faith No More , Stiff Little Fingers etc at The Mayfair , the Academy seems to do its best to crush the life out of gigs , The Mayfair was just the most perfect venue ever for concerts.
We humans have a penchant for progress and nostalgia and while both can be good , sometimes they can also be destructive!!
On 10th September 2001 I landed in Mexico , on the 11th The World Trade Centre was demolished by suicidal hijacked jet airliners. These events precipitated the second Gulf War , and gave George Bush and Tony Blair and excuse to cause carnage in the gulgf and send our soldiers to their deaths in the name of freedom, which seemed to mean curtailing our own freedoms to keep us safe from the latest bogeyman Al Quaeda and Osama Bin Laden.
Anyway This caused me to take some notice , after all this war was played out on television for all to see and was scarily weird because all Bill Hick's routines about the first Gulf War were eerily pertinent to the second!
Q: How do you know they got weapons of mass destruction?
A: We got the receipts !!
Thanks for that one Bill
Also I didnt realise till that point that both Christians and Islam worship the same God!! Their main prophet was a different guy , Islam had Mohamed and the Christians have Jesus, so what the hell were the Crusades about.
These days it's the fundamentalist few who screw it up for everyone , at this time , well all the time you should "Be Nice" , "Love Your Fellow Man" and the world will be a better place . Look out for each other , stop worshipping power and trying to control others and the world will be a better place despite what the Dail Mail and Express tell us.
All my Muslim friends enjoy Christmas and join in , and if Diwali means I get nice stuff and get to enjoy myself with friends then thats a great thing!! All the restaurants have Christmas menus regardless of origins yet politically correct left wingers say we cant mention the "C" word for fear of offending others. Christmas offends no one but idiots
It's a week before Christmas but we who are Ok should enjoy ourselves , count ourselves lucky and help others if we can. Be of good cheer and may your God go with you , even if He is Richard Dawkins!!!
Was just reading a review of the latest re-issue of Jethro Tull's Aqualung , which posited that the opening riff of the title track was the most arresting and best rock riff of the seventies , out riffing even Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water".
Once you start thinking of this lots of thinks start crawling out of the woodwork , such as "Layla" by Derek and the Dominoes , "Black Dog" by Led Zeppelin , any number of Black Sabbath and Hawkwind songs.
Above is a carousel of albums and here is a Grooveshark playlist featuring ten great riffs (in my opinion).
This week our "M" Renault Clio "Mof" was scrapped . £500 was needed to get it through it's MOT , this was on top of the £320 service , £266 insurance and £130 tax that had been recently forked out to keep it legally on the road, and the insurance company gave it a write off value of £50 , the same value given to it by webuyanycar dot com.
A local car scrapper gave me £70 for the car so that was a bonus.
The DVLA was an online tax refund situation which will take six weeks and carries all sorts of threats on how I'll get nothing if I don't satisfy every condition , so we'll see in six weeks whether thats ok.
The worst was the RAC insurance , before I go any further RAC dis provide the cheapest insurance by about £75 , however ....
I rang up and explainened the situation , expecting to pay about £22 for the month I'd had insurance , plus the rather steep £35 cancellation fee (pic left in red on page 16 of my policy) . Not so - I was charged £22 plus £83 short term insurance fee. I thought this was steep and when I queried it was assured it was detailed on page four of my policy , which I found on further examination, (in blue left) .
Now I'm going back to car hire as Enterprise Car Rental give you a new Ford Ka or equivalent for £110 a week with pick up and drop off!!
...or it has for me. A week in Cumbria was very relaxing , alogh driving past Ullswater was scary , butA mbleside was superb visiting the excellent Lucy On A Plate , seeing the actual first Lilliput Lane Cottage and going for a drink in the pub on the cover of Half Man Half Biscuit's CSI Ambleside.
Appleby was interesting veering from discussions on extreme violence , to excellent coffee shops and superb architecture . The village is wifi'd up as well but our cottage was just too far out to benefit.
Rheged was an interesting shopping centre with so quality stuff on sale , an excellent restaurant and an interesting art gallery , and it's all under grass!!!
I know this is a short post but needed to get December started . Holiday pictures are here.
By the way the Dail Mail and Express have been forecasting Armageddon again because it's a bit cold and windy!!
Everywhere you go now tries to foist some kind of loyalty card , with the promise that you can earn "points". The reasons for these are to capture information about you in order to lure you into buying far more than you want or require.
There are a few that give a reasonable reward such as the 4% given by Boots and the free WIFI with Starbucks . But then you have the awful returns on Nectar and WH Smith cards.
Basicall my three are Boots , Starbucks and Tesco and I aint too keen on on Tesco!!
Before Facebook I knew one person who originated from Leicester , and leicester to me meant a football team who did well under Martin O'Neill and Walkers Crisps and Gary Lineker. Since I joined up with Facebook people from Leicester pop up with alarming regularity in my Facebook encounters.
I've met players of Mafia Wars ,Scrabble and now I find the guy from one of my favuorite record shops (RPM in Newcastle) hails from Leicester. The latest incident was a guy asking about a Supercharge CD who actually went to my old school , but is now Director of Physics at Leicester University.
I've never been to Leicester , but everyone I've encounterd from there have been absolute top people, which is maybe the reason I don't live in Leicester , I obviously wouldn't meet their quality control!!
