White Heat

When I was having my second lot of blood taken at the hospital a nurse told me she's been looking for a CD copies of a Newcastle Band called White Heat, I'd never heard of them but said that most things could be found. Anyway there's a few things on youtube (see them performing their debut single above) and this is what you get on Amazon. Discogs is also a good place to look here.

There's info about Bob Smeaton their lead singer here.  There's more stuff here. Their stuff was released on the Valium label , not Virgin as she thought. You can get the album on CD here though from Retro Records who do classic vinyl on CD.

Unfortunately I think there are also some poodle rockers who get in the search mix, but this post is for that nurse who took a lot of blood without causing too much discomfort.

This has been a public service announcement.

Decking Painting Virtually Complete

Decking Left

Yesterday I started painting the decking, I'd cleaned it off with a combination jetwash and decking treatment, and was looking at my fence I painted ten years back and which still looks in fine fettle and thought maybe I'll use fence stain / paint rather than decking  stain / paint. Decking stuff is about five times as expensive. My reasoning is that if using the fence stuff doesn't work and can redo with the proper stuff. So I got some stuff from Wilkinsons.....

Decking Right

.... £7.50 for five litres or ten pound for two tubs.  So got two tubs. I was putting off doing it yesterday as I only had a two inch brush , but it turns out that I ended up doing the lot and using up the five litres of stuff. There's a few patched that need touching up which I can do today but it looks like it's all done for Easter Monday. I was a bit worried as Wilkinson's Country Brown looked more like Dayglo Orange, but remember that these things sink in, and looks to have taken very well.

The Monolith Reappears

So today will be a little touching up but mostly enjoying myself and relaxing, and hopefully the sun will return.

A bit of cutting back, means we can see our monolith water feature once more.

I hope you all have a fantastic day, I know that I intend to. Enjoy your Eggs

Good National Record Store Day

Buy More Records

Well although I didn't see anyone I knew apart from the guys at Reflex and RPM,yesterday was an excellent day. I'm writing this at 3 am just because I was awake and it's the middle of the Easter break which means I can actually lie in today.

Although later on I may be painting decking, depending on the weather. I hope it last a bit longer than in previous years when I finally do it , though I will publish photographs (of the said decking!)

I remember selling my EMI version of Anarchy in the UK by The Sex Pistols for £30 then buying the album on Virgin for £3 , the import single for £1.50 and still having £20 to spend! which brings me on to ....

Stranglers

....I got a copy of Peaches by  The Stranglers from Reflex which was doing some extremely brisk trade, and just wish that certain shops to adapt the speed and courtesy of the guys there, they also had free sweets and chocolate which I forgot to partake of, but they had lots of excellent stuff. I see a lot of copies of the disc were on ebay going for a fortune but you can get their first six albums plus a disc of rarities for under fifteen pounds here. While it's nice to have limited editions, for me it's always been about the music.

Cake at RPM

RPM was rammed as they had cake, DJs and and bands in the courtyard next door, and at certain points the shop was in a one in one out situation. I browsed their second hand vinyl, and saw a second hand copy of the second Roxy Music album "For Your Pleasure". I have the CD, but was thinking about it while I looked round the delights in the  and listening to the rockabilly from the in shop DJ, I went back and it had gone , c'est la vie.

Still it was a great atmosphere and I could have spent a lot of money, which I will do when it's a little quieter.

Good Turnout

Anyway had a nice meal at the Stand , just missed my friend Jon and his daughter Aoife, though he sent me a lovely picture of her, face painted as a lion enjoying orange juice,

Came home and cleaned the decking again so it should be ready for painting today or tomorrow. So after this I am going back to my bed, and going to have a bit more sleep.

I Saw A Magpie

A Magpie

... on the way to pick my books up for World Book Night. When I got there they were nowhere to be found. One for sorrow! Although it's a superstitions and whether you get one for sorrow or two for joy you can always find something to fit in with the interpretation. On the plus side the giving day

Anyway it's National Record Store Day , and I need to go and get a record for a neighbour and maybe buy one myself. The weather is wonderful,  so it's likely to be an excellent day for everyone.





It's also an excuse to post the "Magpie" theme tune from the 1970's performed by the Spencer Davis Group (who used to feature Stevie Winwood) under the pseudonym of The Murgatroyd Band. The cool kids watched Magpie and the boring kinds preferred Blue Peter. It's ironic that the latter program is still with us.

Good Good Friday

Great North Passion

Well Good Friday is here, the weather is wonderful, and there is a lot of things on and to do. I was intending to to clean and stain my decking this weekend but there are a hundred and one distractions.

The BBC are staging the Great North Passion at Bents Park in South Shields, I was unaware of it til I caught a preview on TV last night then some friends posted on Facebook, but it is being broadcast on TV and you can see the details here.

A-Z of Us

Tomorrow, hopefully I pick up my books (The Humans by Matt Haig) for World Book Night and it's also National Record Shop Day and I've been tasked with obtaining a copy of Peaches by The Stranglers which has a limited run of 1,000 in the original picture sleeve. Incidentally I downloaded a copy of the A-Z of Humans which is very entertaining, and very worth getting for you Kindle or other eReader. It's only about 50p and very entertaining.




Well that's it for this morning, I'm off out to see what I can see or do. Have a brilliant Easter everybody, enjoy yourself and make the most of everything.

Running Up To Easter

Well Easter is almost here again, although Easter Eggs have been in the shops since just after Christmas. I just wanted to do an Easter post so I could add the Marillion song to my post which, I think I've done before, but the tags don't always work correctly.

Easter is probably stolen from a previous pagan festival, but it's an excuse to play the song. The weather looks beautiful but it's icy this morning and I need to get off to work now.

So have a great day everybody.

Numbers and Neighbours

I've posted over seven hundred times in this blog and had over sixty four thousand page views. It started seven years ago (apparently seven is the worlds favourite number) so that's roughly nine thousand page views per year 750 views per month on average, although last month I had two and a half thousand page views. The highest numbers come from the USA although maybe some are robots followed by the UK and then Australia.

I'm not bragging (the numbers are quite small), and lot's of bloggers have many more subscribers that I do, although I am sometimes surprised by the people who actually visit my blog. Still sometimes it's quite amazing how the numbers stack up, and if I can entertain someone or make them think or improve someones life in some way then it makes it all worthwhile.

I also use it to record things that interest me, so that I can go back on it , just like a diary, and it means that I can back track and find things whereas before I had the blog I would probably have lost the item in question. I do try to encourage others to start and maintain blogs and it's great to see what people are up to and how they interact with others and they often point me in good directions and set me off on interesting trails.

I've included "Whistlestar" from Cat Stevens'  "Numbers" album that I remember being a fairly expensive package when it came out with lots of extras , and not a little fine music. After he converted to Islam he became Yusuf Islam and is still producing excellent music.

So not my normal blog post, but just something I thought of. This adds to my online history and gives you a little more into your insight about me. I hope your day has been good and tomorrow will be even better,  and I'm already thinking about my next post, which I'm counting on you reading and enjoying. Did you see what I did there? Have a great day.

Oh by they way I've not got my World Book Night Books yet, as the deliveries have been delayed. I'm awaiting an email for them but may get one of my neighbours to pick them up for me. It's brilliant that I know and have excellent neighbours from three houses in each direction. I'm not sure many people can say that these days.