Let There Be More Light

Well I'm still looking after myself, trying to eat healthily and I haven't touched coke for week, but the weight is only coming down very slowly . But its is coming down.

This morning I had to go and pick up a package for the local Royal Mail sorting office because my friend Jo from Darlington refused to do it for me (only joking), but rather than wait for the bus I walked and almost didn't notice the journey. Well I didn't until I walked back when I realised that the mile and a half walk to the sorting office was slightly downhill, and therefore the walk back was up hill. Still it would have done me good and I didn't really notice it.

The 3w LEDs Fitted and Working

Anyway I was picking up some LED bulbs for my new kitchen light fittings, fitted expertly by my brilliant mate Dave. The fittings had halogen bulbs and basically when switched on were using about a pounds worth of electricity a day. That is fine because you don't have the lights on all the time, but I just fitted the new LED ones and they are using £1 to £1.50 electricity a month even left on 24/7 !!

LED is the lighting to have if you can get it. And that's why I had to use the Pink Floyd song on here.

So a good start to the weekend, I hope you all have a great one .

An addendum to this , if you fit the LEDs and use them for 2 hours a day they will save you a penny a day (each bulb) against halogen. I have 12 bulbs in my house so over the year that'sover £40. No doubt the power companies will have to claw back their profits by increasing prices.

Book or TED?

I'm currently enjoying the new excellent John Niven novel Single White Male. The thing is because I'm reading that on the train I've not really had time to watch any TED talks which I also enjoy and find inspiring. Sometimes you can only to one thing you enjoy at once , this is a situation where multi tasking is definitely not an option. So I thought I'd include a book related TED talk.

The books about a writer and in one passage about planning or outlining a book comes up with an interesting observation about Stephen King, which may or may not be true. The protagonist doesn't outline his own novels , citing Stephen King's reason being "If I don't know what's going to happen next, then the chances are the reader won't either". That seems to me like a good reason for not necessarily planning you novel. I actually know the structure of my own book so it's just a case of putting flesh on the bones of the framework that is already there in my head.

Well I'm glad the weekend is here, and looking forward to being able to relax and enjoy myself. Anyway I hope you enjoy the talk and have a brilliant weekend.

Early Morning Observations

And there isn't really that much to observe as it's pitch black outside, but it seems calm , with a little wind. The good thing about getting up at 5am and getting probably a 6.45 train to work is that you get get to see the sunrise on the east coast. There are likely to be some glorious pictures, but most are unphotographable from a train because of the reflections caused by the window. But at least I will get to see them. and they do help set you up for the day.

Well lat night I was messing with the iPad / Garageband / Alesis dock set up before eventually getting it to work and got down a few ideas for a piano piece which I may continue with tonight.

Have a Nice Day

So this is just a short post, have a wonderful day everyone, and always keep focussing on the positives, there are a lot of them out there.

Reasons To Be Cheerful

Although sometimes things may not go according to plan , mistakes are made , accidents happen , it rains at the open air barbecue, it's always worth stepping back and seeing the millions of great things in life. Today has seen more beautiful blue skies,  great weather , the odd monsoon like strorm, but hey , that just waters the garden.

While working from home I have had great music playing from 6 Music which is still playing at the moment. The problem with 6 is that when it gets switched on it becomes very difficult for me to switch off. A bit like BBC4.

These are tiny instances of pleasure that make life a joy to love. My eldest daughter has just moved offices , she loves it and it's closer to hokme for her , so that pleased me no end.

Rebecca's Lion

I keep meaning to do an Einaudi / Part type piano piece which I want to do to accompany a picture montage of Rebecca Cother's artwork. If she likes it I'll publish it on Youtube for you., but have to compose it first







For some reason going to go with one of my favourite James songs.

Everyone have a fantastic night , and tomorrow is going to be another brilliant day.

Surprisingly Amazed by John Martyn

The late John Martyn is one of my many favourite artists, the amazing performance above left me awestruck and immediately had me captured. However in a completely sideways tangential coincidence I was sorting out my daughter's birthday present and as I was on Amazon I thought I'd check out their MP3 store for freebies and noticed the John Martyn Island Years (£160 on disc) for seven pounds. I don't know if this is mispriced, but if not it is a definite bargain.  Seventeen CDs , featuring nineteen hours of music, which will have knocked up my already large music collection fairly significantly.

Today has been another excellent day, despite visiting a dodgy part of town for a hospital clinic appointment with a very pleasant nurse, and again the weather has been beautiful.Have a great night everyone.

Nant Ffrancon Farm by Bob Armstrong

I could do with a picture and I keep ripping of Rebecca Cother, so I'll have one of Bob Armstrong's instead!

Another Beautiful Day

Another gorgeous beautiful day and I don't know what I'm going to to do just at the moment. The weather this year has been absolutely awesome in fact a brilliant TED Talk about clouds comes to mind so that's why it leads this post. Watch it , it is brilliant.

The book is not coming along as fast as I would like but got another thousand words knocked out last night and have ideas still to get down and it's still stuck around the late sixties early seventies so there is a hell of a lot of information to sift and mine and get down. It's still really at the beginning , but it is the first time I've ever undertaken anything like that. Thank god for the word processor I say. I really couldn't hand write or hand type it. Although I do need to use dictation to get ideas down and maybe even write some of the stuff.

I remember about two years ago on holiday I wanted to see if I could write two thousand words in a day, and I did it here. Whether it makes sense or not is a different matter but it does pale the hundred word essays of early secondary school , I can write a hundred words now without thinking almost , but is that a good thing or bad thing. It could get me a job as a scriptwriter of a Michael Bay film, I'm sure.

I now need an image for each post otherwise you get my ugly mug. So I particularly love the pictures of Rebecca Cother and this one caught my eye , because for all of us there is always something good out there  we may have to find it, or we may already have it. Watch that TED talk , enjoy the great weather and have an ebsolutely brilliant day everyone.

Something Has Got To Be Out There - Rebecca Cother

A New Light In My Life

Well rather in my kitchen. Finally replaced the old fluorescent tubes with some halogen (at the moment) spots soon to be replaced with LEDs. Found the LEDs online at Amazon so that means I can do what I want this weekend and not wander round shops looking for light bulbs.

As the sun is rising it's looking like another great day. I just remarked on the Fleetwood Mac song "Go Your Own Way" that I may try as part of my learning to play guitar. The chords are simple but I was just so surprised at the fact that the lyrics use so few words but convey so much. Always though it was a great song from a great album detailing break ups , affairs and the like , but they actually went on to make greater albums and are still touring today forty years on. But here are the lyrics and here is the song and did you know that , rumour has it (see what I did there), every Fleetwood Mac cover has a penguin on it!

Loving you Isn't the right thing to do
How can I Ever change things that I feel?
If I could Maybe I'd give you my world
How can I When you won't take it from me?

Chorus:
You can go your own way! Go your own way
You can call it another lonely day Another Lonely day
You can go your own way!Go your own way

Tell me why Everything turned around?
Packing up Shacking up's all you wanna do
If I could Baby I'd give you my world
Open up Everything's waiting for you

More chorus stuff