Remembrance Sunday Is Not A Photo Opportunity

One of Rebecca's Beatifully Poignant Paintings

It's Remembrance Sunday , and I really want to be positive on this blog, but this day should be a solemn remembrance of people who gave their lives to defend their homeland. However all I see is cynical manipulation and photo opportunities by politicians celebrities and corporations who would happily send decent men and women to their deaths , to swell their bank balances.

It makes me sick the idiots in the current government who glorify war while making sure that they are in no danger and ensuring that their war bonds and arms shares are paying handsome dividends.

It makes me angry every time I see a Help For Heroes plea for donations, not that I have anything against Help For Heroes , they are a selfless caring organisation dealing with the fallout from a government and their corporate cronies who sent men to defend their selfish interests then washed their hands of them leaving Help For Heroes to pick up the pieces. Click through on the Help For Heroes link and provide some help , also write to your local MP and ask why THEY aren't  looking after war heroes and casualties.
 

Paths of Glory

The problem is that since 1914 nothing has changed , the government and corporation still see us as expendable cannon fodder. Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory is still a brilliant damning indictment of the system endemic in almost all modern society. We really do have a long way to go before this changes.

They even have a song The Green Fields Of France (No Man's Land) by Joss Stone and Jeff Beck which you can buy here and raise money to help the returned war injured , but it's better to listen to the uncensored version which is truly anti war written and performed by Eric Bogle (who also wrote "The Band Played Waltzing Mathilda").


Anyway  , sorry if this post has been a bit of a downer, just remember how horrific war is , most of us don't have a clue, like the people who actually cause wars. Remember in silence and don't glamourise war and do what you can to support those who return , and do all you can to make sure we don't have to fight over oil and money.

Frozen

Woke up this morning and it's cold. Clear cloudless night meant that the temperatures seem to have plummeted but surprisingly I don't see any ice on the cars outside. The guy on the radio has told be to expect zero temperatures (which I assume is centigrade).

Also the radio has just played "Default" by Django Django  which is a fantastic record and made me realise how much great stuff you hear and then semi forget about. It's one of the things I love have about having a big record collection combined with an eclectic taste and when you add to that things like Radio 6 and the internet options you have no excuse for not listening to good music.

Who's Next?

Original I was going to have Frozen by Madonna, but have now decided to go with "Swamp Thing" by The Grid as  Chris Hawkins just played it on the radio introducing the concept of "air banjo" which must bring a smile to everyone's face. Incidentally The Grid was a concept used by Pete Townshend in his abandoned Lifehouse Project which became Who's Next.

Anyway have a brilliant day , I'm off to work.

Gunpowder and Treason and Fireworks

Well it's Guy Fawke's Night and the fireworks have been going on for weeks. It's ironic the the government are the biggest bunch of self serving crooks you could imagine and the supposed opposition are not much better. So if I were to go on about this, then this would be a very depressing and negative post.

The thing is while the banging of the fireworks can be annoying , the colours and designs can be amazing and it means I can use a brilliant video set to to Fireworks from the Blue Oyster Cult's Spectres.

So really this is just a nothing much post in the middle of the week as the weather gets colder, but we've had excellent weather this year and it's been rather good. So enjoy the fireworks , have a good night and remember we're half way through this week. Have a brilliant night.

Halloween is Gone.November is Here and a Tenuous Link between The Toon and Nick Cave

Janus Looking Forward and Back

Well it's the ninth month (of the Roman calendar) and one of those where they'd run out of gods and politicians to name them after (it's been like that since September and will stay the same til the new year when Janus hit's us). The good news is it's Saturday and though it's five am I've had a decent night's sleep despite another early night.

Last night we had a few trick or treaters which were all young kids accompanied by their parents which was nice with on young witch deciding she wanted a tour of the house. They were all well costumed and very well behaved.




Although I find the initial concept of Halloween great fun , it's essentially adult and there's nothing cute about it.  While dressing up as a vampire or zombie can be great fun I wouldn't want to be one or live in a world populated by such creatures.

A friends of mine asked why women had to make their Halloween Costumes sexy , well all I would say is that it's personal choice, and you can still have a great costume without displaying any flesh, but the main thing is to have fun. There's a local Goth Night called the Charnel House and they published some pictures which I used for a slide show of one of the Spoon recordings from a long time ago which I have included as the video for this post , and it contains a lot of different costumes , but more to the point a lot of people having fun and enjoying themselves.



Added to that Newcastle fans are on a high after dumping Manchester City out of the League Cup . City did put out their second string , but their second string was still multi million pound buy internationals , Newcastle put out their second string with a lot of names I hadn't heard of. A Very impressive win. I've just realised I need to include two more videos because of this ( the match and The ShireHorses Nick Cave misappropriation)




Anyway, it's Saturday, I'm going to have a major rest because my body feels like it's been beaten with big sticks , so I think I'll be lounging on the settee watching catch up TV, and still enjoying the weekend. Take a leaf out of the Charnel House crowd's book and have a brilliant weekend everybody.

Beat The Clock, An Urge For Offal and THAT Goal

Some of My Watches

Chose the title from a brilliant Sparks and Giorgio Moroder collaboration from their album Number One Song In Heaven. In our fantastic digital age all of the clock resetting is done for us apart from the odd analogue device (like my Beuchat and iToc watches, wall clocks, heating clock) plus the digital cooker clock and the wall timer for the living room main light.

Many years ago I went a whole day without realising the clocks had changed, luckily I switched on the TV in the evening , thought there's something very amiss here, then realised what had actually happened.

New Album

Today sounds and looks very windy and I'm not looking forward to the fact that it's going to be darker an hour earlier but that's just the nature of the beast. I'm not sure daylight saving actually saves anything much anymore in the 24/7 world that we live in, although in a bit of good news Fiona's friend Tim informed me he'd heard a new Half Man Half Biscuit album, "Urge For Offal" on Spotify so that is about to be ordered when I've posted this. I I listen to it on Spotify the band will probably get paid about 0.0001p per track. The mega selling Daft Punk album Random Access Memory resulted in a payment of £13K from Spotify which might have paid the tea bill!


 I've nothing against the Spotify model , but it's pay per play model just doesn't work in favour of the artist. Apparently Spotify plays have generate me 1p in the last 12 months on a piece I did for the artist Rebecca Cother for the slideshow below, but I didn't do it to make money , just to see how easy it was to do.




Oh another good thing is that Preston's Joe Garnerweighed in with hat trick to give us victory against Fleetwood Town yesterday and put us second in the table, so it's an excuse to include THAT goal:




Anyway I hope you enjoyed your extra hour in bed and enjoy the rest of the day.

Darkness To Light

One of the good things about Autumn / Winter is the fact that some days you wake up in darkness and get to see the sun rise andthe day come up. This brings in me a feeling of exhilaration. In summer you wake up and it's light and you've missed thousands of sunrises, although you are warm and you've had a night's sleep.

Also I got a response from First Transpennine about a refund request I put in last night where they're giving be a full refund rather than charging me a ten pound admin fee which is nice. Even corporate entities can sometimes act sensibly.

The French Oven Are 9

I've noticed the excellent French Oven Bakery in the Grainger Market in Newcastle have added me to their circles. We are so lucky in Newcastle having such a concentration of excellent  people like these on our doorstep. One of their vans is parked in the road behind me so it's nice to know that such great people live close to me, being almost neighbours.




Although I normally write blog entries a little longer than this, today will be short, but I am going to have another enjoyable weekend and having a good week.With a few friends at work we'd put a couple of lines on the Euromillions lottery but didn't win even the tiniest morsel , but it gives a little feeling of togetherness, and the jackpot's still not been won, but to be honest I rather be happy than rich , although as Woody Allen puts it:

“Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.” 

Still the day is looking bright and we have the whole weekend to go, which will be great fun, so you go and enjoy yourself , I intend to. I never knew that Louis Prima had done "Enjoy Yourself", always thought Prince Buster had written, a great song always put's a smile on my face as does Mr Prima.

Rainbows and Robots

Rainbow over My Road With Pan Dimensional Car

This is a very short post, but this morning I went out for a paper , and we've had wind and rain, and as I left the house saw this amazing rainbow. So I photographed it. As I walked up the road it still seemed as clear from end to end , and I could see more of it and a lady coming the other way remarked it was the most impressively clear rainbow that she had seen in many a year. I looked back again to take another picture but the span was too big for my phone lens. So I tries the panorama shot which is what the shot above is.

There was a car coming up the road which is why I've lost half of it as it was moving at the time. This is probably the biggest rainbow I've ever photographed.

Out of the rain and bad weather we got this wonderful rainbow against a very blue sky.

And it's something to analogise with that sometimes out of apparently bad things sometimes good things can come. It's not always the case although if you look for positives you can usually find them, well I can, and I'm pleased that most of my friends can.

Aye Robot

One of my friends put me on to the Danboard Robot figures which are simple and cute and spreading like wildfire. They're posable and great to photograph as you travel around. I may get one myself although I'm not sure where I would put it or what I would do with it, but I know these will bring smiles to a lot of faces this year and will probably be on a hell of a lot of Christmas lists. My only slight gripe is the Amazon name on the box body , but , again maybe that's part of the charm.

And that gives me an idea for a song for this post, which I hadn't even thought of when I started, I was hoping for "International Robots" but had to make do with "Do The Robot" by Australia's finest - The Saints.


So I'm going to sign off now , everybody have an absolutely brilliant week, I intend to. See you soon