I thought I was having anger problems, it's happened a few times recently and with just a bit of thought it's dissipated. I thought maybe it's old age or diabetes , and maybe it is , but , as I've said before , anger is such a negative destructive emotion I do always try to deal with it. I was even thinking of starting a Mr Angry blog to vent my spleen , and let's face it it's always the complaints and negative stuff that people seem to go for , how else can you explain X-Factor and Britain's Got Talent?
Anyway the two incidents today were waiting behind someone taking an age at a cash machine , and then a huge queue in Boots where they had one girl serving . It's the management that exasperates me , absolutely not bothered about the customer experience.
To quote John Lydon "Anger Is An Energy" but it does have to be properly directed , and I have always managed to do that and never let it control me, though I never ever queue unless I have absolutely no choice. So the obvious song to choose is Public Image'sRise from which that line is taken , and John Lydon also used it to title his latest book.
Anyway It's the beginning of March and I have a most interesting week coming up , and really need to get to bed due to an early morning physiotherapy session tomorrow. SO have a good week and always look for a way to positively channel and anger you have.
Oh by the way I took thirty seconds to walk to another cash machine across the road , and walked out of Boots because I can always call in another time and these actions left me totally stress and anger free.
In the sixties my uncle remarked that anyone would have to be an idiot to wear a T-Shirt advertising a company name. I can't remember who the company was but it always stuck with me. While I've never had a problem with discreet external labeling like Wrangler, Levis and Lacoste, this are getting quite silly at the moment.
Everyday I see people plastered with Superdry and Jack Wills in particular. No the quality may be acceptable, but wearing their clothes is only one step up from donning a sandwich board. Really everytime I see these people I don't see a style guru , I see a branded sheep. I wasn't thinking of any song in particular but the Kinks "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion" should be nailed on for this.
I know that on my journey to work tomorrow I will see people advertising Superdry and Jack Wills , and when I next go shopping I will buy something that looks class and doesn't need to scream it's name like Fat Face or John Rocha , or even Next.
I can't believe it's four years since my first World Book Night. Then I had 50 Copies of Philip Pulman's Northern Lights. This year it is 18 copies of Roddy Doyle's Dead Man Talking , so one of my tasks is to finish my current book and read this before I give it away so I can appear knowledgeable about it. I always read the book I'm giving away and it's always good to engage with people about it and hopefully either get people to start reading or to restart their reading.
Thinking about this has just reminded me of one of my favourite TED talks about the joy a book can bring , better than any film or play or TV episode because books use and trigger your imagination.
Here is the World Book Night site and a list of this years books. It's on Thursday 23rd of April which is William Shakespeare's birthday and for 2012 and 2013 I wasn't sure why the day (not the date) changed each year. It's also a charity funded campaign so if you want to help click on the button
below and donate a little cash.
That was the second bit of good news , the first being that I have been offered a position of a Systems Analyst, which will be another excellent challenge as well and keeping me off the street. So anyway it's time for bed as I need to get up tomorrow to do seven and a half hours looking for jobs ..... Oh no I don't !!
SO I suggest you watch the TED talk and buy a copy of the book as it;s a quick read and will only cost you a quid.
The last four days have see three days of music and seeing about fifteen bands which is a lot even for me, although this is not so much about the music about various fringe observations , which looking back on have amused me , or made me glad I side stepped them.
On Thursday I went to see the excellent King Charles at The Riverside and all three bands were superb. I briefly spoke to the guitarist with Man Made who was a really nice guy as well as being a talented guitarist and it turned out he is Nile Marr son of Johnny Marr previously of The Smiths. That night at the end of the Gallery Circus set something started dripping through the ceiling. It turns out the toilets had got blocked , so I'm not sure what was overflowing but we managed to avoid the wet area, and the gig was totally brilliant.
While I'm guilty of posting photos on instagram, facebook and twitter I am amazed how many people see to spend virtually the whole gig on the phone or tablet. While watching The Fall , who are musically challenging , there were four ladies in front of comparing holiday and family snaps on their phones and mobile devices, I don't know if this is the normal modus operandi for Fall audiences these days.
Comparing Photos At A Fall Gig
Yesterday I was in a crush to try and see Public Service Broadcasting, but my sensible head moved me to the sides to ensure I could breathe. I'm sure there have been worse concert crushes, and I don't know what the solution is , but people forcing their way into the crush carrying multiple pints in plastic glasses and various takeaway foods on paper plates did not make the situation any better.
I thought I'd try Tesco's next day wine delivery. They've farmed it out to Yodel , split it into two parcels and keep sending me texts saying it will be delivered today. No time or anything , so they will probably wait round the corner and wait til I have to go out. After all in in a twelve hour delivery window there's only one possible time they could deliver. God I almost sound like a Daily Mail reader don't I!
However today is the day when I find whether I've been chosen as a giver for World Book Night 2015 so my fingers are crossed for that. I've been doing it since 2011 and here's a post on my first one.
Anyway I came out of it all in one piece , having seen some amazing performance, and looking forward to a totally brilliant week.
Well Valentine's Day is here and the weather is very grey. It's doesn't matter where in the world you are the grey featureless skies with te promise of maybe some drizzle do not provide for the best inspiration.
"Valentine’s Day is named for a Christian martyr and dates back to the 5th century, but has origins in the Roman holiday Lupercalia.Valentine’s Day is named for a Christian martyr and dates back to the 5th century, but has origins in the Roman holiday Lupercalia."
There's a Wikipedia entry with more information here.
Today has also been chosen for the release of the film of "50 Shades of Grey" in the UK in which a controlling male abuses a young vulnerable female. The male actor is James Dornan (who played a controlling male who abused, raped and murdered young females in the BBC production "The Fall", do you think he may be getting typecast?) and the girl he chooses is Dakota Johnson , daughter of Melanie Griffiths and grand daughter of Tip Hedren who suffered major avian abuse in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds". I won't be going to the cinema to see the film , and apparently B&Q are preparing for an increase in demand for ropes , duct tape (what will rock bands do? oh they use gaffer tape so it's OK) , and cable ties which in the wrong hands could be very dangerous. This week Breakfast TV has been having features on that make BDSM very cosy and fluffy. It isn't and , ironically somebody could get hurt (and I know that's ironic considering the nature of BDSM) and there a hell of a lot of free books on the subject on Amazon Kindle. They even have 50 Shades Restraint Kits and Party Games!
The marketing machine has even caused me to buy something that I can wholeheartedly recommend to all you and that is the excellent and very funny "50 Sheds of Grey" , the follow uphas also been recommended to me by my friend Julie , so I will avail myself of that at some point. So all this hype has at least brought a smile to my face and with pages like the one below you can see that it is a genuinely funny and slim volume that doesn't exactly take itself too seriously unlike it's source inspiration.
So thats my thoughts on the whole phenomenon, but the positives are that it is weekend , and remember you always have a choice.
Also according to The Guardian the B&Q run on duct tape was a PR Ruse which has been fairly successful. The article is here .
So enjoy yourself today , and don't get to tied up in things that dont matter, make sure you smile and laugh and have fun.
There's only one piece of music we han have and that's the Motorhead / Girlshool "St Valentines Day Massacre" EP leading off with "Please Don't Touch" and I'll bet there will be a lot of people using that line later on tonight. Have a brilliant day y'all.
Some mornings listening to the radio can actually lift you day. I've just heard that all the good weather will be in the North East, which is where I will be today and also I've heard an old record "Too Tough To Die" by Martina Topley-Bird which is absolutely amazing , very reminiscent of PJ Harvey who is one of my favourite artists.
I'm going to have to check my digital library to see if I have the record , the problem is with over 80,000 songs , manually searching is not really an option. I do find it amazing that in 2015 so many organisation still use paper as a method of storing data that they need to search.
But anyway it turns out I don't have the record so that will have to be tracked down soon.
I know this has been a short post but given my outpourings yesterday I think I can be let off.
Anyway it's time for me to get off to work, so everyone have a good day today/
Today after doing a couple of hours at the excellent Oxfam Books and Music in Jesmond , I got mack into Newcastle and decided to go for a cup of coffee and a cake at the Tyneside Bar and Cafe. I was chatting with the girl behind the bar (who's name I didn't get) and she recommended the carrot and cinnamon cake to go with my coffee and I noticed the film playing. The Tyneside Bar and Cafe has a program of silent film screening every afternoon and a couple of weeks ago I caught some of The Battleship Potemkin. It's really brilliant idea to have these films as a backdrop to be engrossed in as you have your coffee or cake.
Anyway I asked what the film was that was showing and she told me it was a thirties rendition of Faust, she didn't know much of the story of Faust but was determined to find out more having watch most of the film and , like me she was impressed with it. It's a two hour film and you can watch it above. This led to a chat about German Surreal Horror and Salvador Dali's involvement with film and I was racking my brains about a film that I'd seen recently but also seen as a child with some lasting images of strange angular paths and a bearded eyeless monk through a window (yes I remembered that from my childhood). Anyway a girl a the bar called Amy who also works at the Tyneside Cinema and threw in some ideas including Un Chien Andalou and L'Age D'Or but more intriguingly mentioned a Salvador Dali and Walt Disney collaboration. This is a short film called Destino started in 1946 and completed in 2003. You can watch it below and to me it is jaw dropping, I have to thank Amy for telling me about this absolute gem:
However I still couldn't remember the film I'd seen,
so decided to search while I had my coffee and cake. After about ten minutes I remembered it had featured in a documentary on European Horror films by Mark Gatiss and then googled European Surreal Horror and there it was "The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari" , which I had discussed at some point with my friend Craig another Tyneside Cinema guy. So I had a really good day , discovering things I didn't even know about thanks to Amy and finally remember THAT film , which I'll use to finish off this post.
Have a great night everybody, because I have had a great day
