A Short Month

We're almost at the end of February and between February and March for most people is the shortest time between paydays. While I need to be aware of when I get paid these days I'm lucky enough not to be wondering  how I'm going to get through to the next one, though obviously I always did.

Wouldn't it be a great idea if each month we had a short week, a four day week that would give people something else to look forward to. Imagine if the week you got paid was also a four day week. It's just a thought. The thing is if you create a great working environment with things like that, the productivity will improve because people are concentrating more on their work while they are there. Very simplistic I know, but I also know what it's like to be on the journey to work and really not want to walk through the door.

Anyway we're at the end of February now, and although I had a very restful weekend I could still do with another two hours in bed. Still it's time to go to work and get this week underway. For some reason Spandau Ballet's "Musclebound" came to mind, love the relentless chorus and the totally over the top video that I've never actually seen before.

Have a brilliant Monday my friends.

2PM

I managed to go back to bed , get some sleep, get up , get the papers, saw the Daily Mail blaming immigrants for the latest pensions crisis, went into town and bought lots of stuff from the Grainger Market , steppend on to a bus home and now I am writing this as the football is due to start in an hour, Asda are delivering a load of bottled water (taking advantage of  a Topcashback offer) after the games have finished then off to see The Handsome Family at the Sage.

So all in all it's been and it's going to be quite a full day, and I'll probably have to wait til Sunday to have a real rest.

Anyway this gives me a chance to share "Gold" with you, and now it's time for a cup of coffee. I really shouldn't get up and do things during the night, but I still act like a ten year old at times. I can stay up , so I will , I'm not tired honest.

3AM

It's 3AM and because it's Saturday I don't really have to get up for a few hours. Yesterday I had to get up for work and I was really tired, but when you don't have to get up , you can be up during the night and do things like write blog posts. I'm sitting here with a bottle of Coke, well Diet Coke (though I have just noticed it only mentions the name Coca Cola in very small writing on the label.

How times change, Cocaine was once an advertised ingredient in the drink, not they've replaced it with another "bad for you" ingredient , aspartame. The alternative of six teaspoonfuls of sugar in a can is not pleasant either.

This post comes after me eulogising my excellent vegan breakfast at Wildflower, but hey , it's Saturday morning and it's an excuse to bring up Negativland's 1997 album Dispepsi which you can listen to here or attempt to buy here. Definitely one of the best albums ever made and more relevant today than when it came out, with it's cut and paste dissection of marketing and media.

Enjoy your Saturday my friends.

The Wildflower Hour and The Quest For The Perfect Vegan Sausage

At the weekend I was jealous cos I missed out on a vegan all day breakfast then I saw Jessica at Wildflower was now doing one. While I love Wildflower , often my work lunch break doesn't give me time to get there, have a meal cooked, eat it and then get back in a reasonable time. Wildflower is probably a ten minute (uphill) walk , and fine on a summers day but in the current climate, not quite as attractive a walk, though what's at the end is so worth it.

Gorgeous Wildflower Vegan Lunchtime Breakfast

Then I thought why not use Facebook Messenger and ask them to start a meal for me. So I did. And they did, and when I got there I got a huge come of coffee and soon was presented with and gorgeous all day vegan breakfast. There was toast, with a lovely spread , beans, hash browns, mushrooms and vegan sausages. I will be honest I am yet to find a vegan sausage I like, but it was so filling that I ended up leaving a slice of toast and half a sausage. It was absolutely gorgeous and you should visit to try this and the many other vegan culinary delights in store.











So a combination of social media and an excellent cafe meant that I had an absolutely brilliant lunch (even though it was a breakfast) and has set my mind ticking on what would the perfect vegan sausage contain? I thinking lentils, chickpeas, spices and herbs (not sure which ones) and some way of binding them together but not making it too dense or inedible. I'm sure that some of my culinary friends can point me in the right directions.

I found this recording of The Wilde Flowers featuring Robert Wyatt singing "Memories" which seemed fairly appropriate even though it's almost fifty years old now.

It's Friday and the weekend starts here. Enjoy my friends.

That Bit Where....

You get up , get distracted, and think "Did I Inject My Insulin?" . There is blood from a puncture on my leg , but was that the Byetta (exenatide) (I have two injections in a morning), so what are the options? (sorry about the multiple probably ungrammatical use of brackets). I aren't inject the Insulin as that is a potential overdose, but not injecting means that I make be not 100% until my next scheduled injection at dinner time (that noon) . It's fine , this has happened before, so I will get through this. The thing is if I have injected then all will be fine, apart from the nagging worry that I didn't inject. The inconvenience of being a diabetic.

I'm still reading Bruce Springsteen's "Born To Run" and realised I'd never actually thought of him as an age, he just is. He mentions turning 60, tours three hours plus sets and the problems you hit as your body gets older, but YOU never actually get older, YOU just get more knowledgeable, wiser and better, that's how I look at it. You continue learning and improving and getting better until your body lets you down and I remember 40 being unfeasibly old, now you see people of 80 and 90 living full lives and continually enjoying life.

Anyway back to the book and found that Bruce had covered a song by my favourite Australian band The Saints on his album "High Hopes". The song is "Just Like Fire Would" and I'd assumed it was an original. I don't have The Saints version despite having 128 of their songs spread over various albums (Prehistoric Sounds is still my favourite, but I'll revisit that in another post). It's on the album "All Fools Day" which is not available for download, but it's a brilliant song , so I've included both versions for you to enjoy here.

Have a brilliant day my friends.

Russia?

Russia on Top

The last few days visits to this blog have increased due to visits from Russia. I don't know if these are robots looking for evidence of anti Putin / Trump / May or other appeasers, but every so often visits spike due to attention from Russia.

The other one that spikes now and then is Australia, but as you can see there were no antipodean visits yesterday, almost totally European bar Russia, Ukraine,Canada and the USA.

The blog is in English as you can see so it's unlikely to attract people from countries where English is not spoken or written.







Anyway it's just something I noticed this morning so I think we should have something that at least has a Russian feel, so we'll go for The Leningrad Cowboys backed by The Red Army Choir in Helsinki singing ZZ Top's "Gimme All Your Lovin'".

Have an excellent day my friends.

Joy of Communication

There's many ways we can communicate, we can talk face to face, by video call , on the phone, by email, by letter, sign language , graffiti , post it notes, through music and writing (like I'm doing with this blog) , sharing memes on social media such as twitter and Facebook. This is just a very ver short post because ideally I should have left the house ten minutes back, but I thought I would just like to say this.

On my last post my friend Joan asked if I was going to see The Handsome Family. Everything I have heard by them is wonderful and two years ago their "Far From Any Road" was used as the theme to "True Detective" (series one). I thought that the theme would fit well with the titles from "True Blood" so I spliced them together (it turns out both title sequences are 1' 31").

It turns out that the are playing The Sage this Saturday so  there were a few tickets left so I bagged myself a couple.

So I have a great gig to look forward to , at a great venue , thanks to a great friend , and I also may get to see my friends Craig and Sharleen who work at the Sage to.

Have a great day my friends, I have had a great start to the week.