Keep Taking The Tablets

I'm surprised at the number of advertisements for tablets and the horribly named "phablets". Tablets are gret for looking at things generally, but not that brilliant for keyboard based creativity. I have an iPad and mainly use it for watching downloaded programs on BBC iPlayer and TED.

I actually bought it because a friend showed me Garageband on it, and I've manged to create two pieces of music on it and actually put one on commercial sale just to see if I could do it, so it's brilliant for apps that are customed towards it's strengths, the Artrage app is another good piece of software that is great on the iPad.

I also have a Samsung Note 2 phone which allows me internet and other access as well as having a screen that allows me to watch downloaded programs.

So it just strikes me as overkill the amouth that these devices are being pushed at us, maybe it's the run up to Christmas, but I now just see another tablet. Is it my attention deficit disorder and I want something else to stimulate me? I'm also worried about young children who have these and then ten minutes later are bored. Which is why I thought the Raspberry Pi was such a brilliant concent as it would get kids (and adults) into actually doing things rather that passively expecting to be entertained.

Anyway that's enough and I'm sure a lot of you will have tablet's on you Christmas shopping list for either yourself or your loved ones. And I'm sure you will find a use for yours. Below is a video featuring  my first published piece from Garageband.

Another Beautiful Day in National Sausage Week

Sausage Week

A good friend told me it was National Sausage Week in the UK and there's at least one website with all the details at LovePork a website name straight out of the Carry On canon! Although this theme carried through into the final episodes of series 3 of Game of Thrones, though not exactly rib tickling fun for the victim.

Ironically I've spent a lot of time in Helmsley in Yorkshire and there's been no high profile promotion of National Sausage Week. I think there is only one butcher there but there's a few "artisan" food shops but no prominent sausages! Earlier in the week I did sample some very hot ones from Pern's of Helmsley .

Yesterday I had fish and chips from the excellent Scotts though I should have gone for their small portion as I couldnt't finish the normal, and the also have a jumbo one, no way for me.

Any the weather is again beautiful, there was a frost , but it's blue skies and sunshine here. It's been a week of almost total relaxation, not going far and just enjoying myself. Tomorrow is a drive back to Newcastle for the Public Sevice Broadcasting gig, it's amazing how bands can still come up with new takes on how to make original music so even though it's National Sausage Week I'll post the last PSB video as a header to this post. Have a brilliant day everyone.

200

This is my 200th blog post this year, so I can still obviously use a keyborad. At some point I want to try and dictate a post into my phone on some microphone and put it up unedited to see if it makes sense. I've still got around sixty days left this year so possibly expect to finish on 240 or 250 posts.

I was hoping to do the Pickering to Whitby steam train run , but just checked the timetable and the winter one kicked in this week, which means no midweek trains. C'est la vie.

Either Facebook or Google have stopped allowing the use of Youtube or embedded images when I post a link to Facebook, which is annoying. I didn't want an image of me for each post, I wanted something relevant to the actual post. I will research into why this is happening.

Anyway, the holiday is continuing with much relaxation, watching The Wire, Game Of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire. I now have lots of technology at my disposal so I can download stuff off BBC's iPlayer so I caught up with the excellent Orphan Black on my iPad as well as a program on The Who's Quadrophenia.

Orphan Black

As I type this I'm listening to the J Geils Band using my Samsung Note phone as a music player, though just switched it to the wonderful Penguin Eggs by Nic Jones, an album that should be in everyone's collection.

The thing is where I am in Ampleforth I don't have a mobile signal, so that means another form of total relaxation. It's sometimes nice to just cut yourself off, although I'm obviously posting this, and keeping abreast of the times using the BBC site and posting on Instagram as well so people can see what I'm finding interesting. Well I'm going to put an image on here and a John Cooper Clarke song that I loved from the first moment I heard it, with some great lines and a soft porn soundtrack, take a listen. Everyone have a wonderful day everyone.

Storms

Apparently last night we had storms. There was thunder and rain here and the weather here was a bit miserable during the day, but it's November in Yorkshire. You can always enjoy whatever you get. I love sunshine , but I love rain  as well although not too much of either , one will burn you the other will drown you both not what we would want.

The whole point of this week is total relaxation so there may be not too many photographs or even posts. I sure my friends in the sunny antipodes would love to see pictures of a grey rainy day here, and I've posted great pictures of around here on previous Ampleforth and Oswaldkirk (both villages are adjacent) posts. Although I would like to get a photograph of the massive wooden cross at Ampleforth College although I am sure there are many of them online.

Anyway it's always good to take time out to totally relax and it reminds of a TED talk about doing nothing so I thought I would include that for your entertainment. It is very good and makes some great points on how in our modern lives we feel we have to be always doing something. If you take time out then you will be able to do things you want and need to do so much better.

4AM In Ampleforth

I'm sitting here writing this at 4am because I can't get back to sleep. The main reason for this being I went to sleep at 8 pm last night so I've had eight hours sleep.

There's also so something very odd about theis place. I'm scared of the dark. Not darkness as such, but being somewhere with absolutely no visual point of reference. I need a chenk of street light or moonlight from a window, or a light from another rook or something just so I can find my way if I get up. This place isn't like that. It's pitch black, 100 yards from the quiet street and it is pitch black, no light from outside. Obviously I have lights on to post this, but in this place I am fine to negotiate the place in total darkness. Maybe it's because I've been here before and know my way round. You can see the place here.

Anyway I was in bed for a while thinking about things (usually it's worry that keeps people awake) , but good things just kept coming into my head , ideas of nice things to do, places to go , thinking about friends and family near and far away. It's quite amazing how global our friendships can be. Just offhand i have lot's in the USA, around Australia and New Zealand , Tanzania and various other bits of Africa, Germany and probably lots lots more. And these people bring lots of great things into my life in the form of art and music and stimulate ideas in me and cause me to write things like this.

I watch a lot of TED talks which are usually interesting and I've put relevant TED links on a couple of the countries above so feel free to follow and watch. The Australian one is particuculary excellent.

Well have a brilliant weekend and I've include a brilliant Steve F

Steve Forbert as a child

orbert song. I think he was touted as the next Bruce Springsteen, he wasn't just the first Steve Forbert and he has written some wonderful songs.

He's Behind You

Pantomine Hook

Pantomime Cruella

I think we all really like to be scared in one way or another, for entertainment really. As a child you have pantomime villains , cartoon ogres and Doctor Who's fearsome foes. But as we grow up we become aware of what these really are. I still enjoy a good horror film, play or book and love when something truly makes me jump. I don't like the "horror porn" with nasty things for the sake of it but something that can genuinely frighten you.







A really great friend reminded me today that it was 75 years since Orson Welles infamous radio broadcast of HG Wells "War of the Worlds" which many Americans believed was really happening . You can listen to the whole thing here (in the UK anyway) , and there's a contest to celebrate the occasion here .  This is probably the way to actually scare adults by presenting the story through a familiar medium as a news item.

Recently the Ralph Fiennes version of Shakepeare's Coriolanus featured the newsreader John Snow, and the Channel 4 disaster drama Blackout used this construct, and it can be very effective. It wouldn't surprise me if Welles did it deliberately.

Anyway I found the above version on youtube,  so I hope it will stay there. So you can now listen fully aware that we are probably not being invaded by Martians. Have a wonderful night and enjoy yourself,

Be Happy and Enjoy Yourself

Today I found that there was an update to Windows 8 from Microsoft , so I applied it. It was asking to share lots of stuff , and while I like sharing lots of things with my friends, I a bit more reticent about sharing with faceless corporations. I still get slightly annoyed that my Google searches on my PC appear on my phone as well.

XTC Go 2

But this doesn't stop me enjoying myself, and taking delight in the good things that others show me, like new music from around the world , such as a good friend showing me a brilliant XTC album cover, for their second album the excellent Go 2.

Their back catalog is amazing and if you don't know the band you should really check them out.

Pete Burns

 

I bought the album from Probe Records in Liverpool served , probably by Pete Burns of Dead or Alive, a striking individual even then. He never insulted me , so he must have thought my purchases were at least acceptable.

Anyway, the thing is lots of great music can make you happy , and it makes me happy, and there's one song that I'm thinking of and it was one of my mums favourites. Everybody put a smile on your face, have a great night and a great day tomorrow.