The First of June

On the one hand I've been lazy with blogging this weekend, but have seen five bands attended two gigs, seen a few friends, been to a Steampunk Fair seen a demonstration cum lecture on dueling and  now written two posts on Spoongig.

Some of the costumes I've seen have been amazing, and I was quite surprised to come out of the Sick'n'Beautiful gig on Friday with no apparent detriment to my hearing. The bands, especially Bad Pollyanna were very loud and heavy.

Then I enjoyed some dark folk at the new Star and Shadow on Saturday, and have made a good start to walking for the month of June.

I was listening to "The Yes Album" and it still sounds wonderful although the actual lyrics make very litlesense in their attempt to be confusingly meaningful , beut that album is still one of my favourites with some great keyboard power chords from Tony Kaye. The opener "Yours Is No Disgrace" just hits me with that massive guitar sound , and that "starship Trooper" and "Perpetual Change" make the album. The only duffer on the album is "A Venture" but you are fine listening to it because you know what is coming next.

Steve Howe's "The Clap" is and impressive live guitar instrumental, and "Your Move"  contains some of the only sensible lyrics on the album when the band appropriate John Lennon's "Give Peace A Chance". I've include "Yours Is No Disgrace" from "Yessongs", it's all about the music, some good images but sometimes their lyrics can be almost painful.

Anyway time for bed now, hope you had a good one too.

The Nightmare of Existence

I switched on the radio (6Music obviously) and John Hilcock was  "Frontier Man" by Gruff Rhys and the first line I heard I took as the title of this post.

Yesterday evening was spent in A&E at the RVI being seen by an excellent doctor who reassured me that I was suffer4ing from a major muscle pull in my left upper arm. It does feel like my who shoulder joint has been massively bruised, it's fine at rest but hurts when I try to raise my arm. So it's a case of painkillers and hoping it does get better. I always believe if there is pain it's a sign that something is amiss and needs to be dealt with, which is why I went to A&E last night after work as it had been getting worse over the weekend.

I'm sorry this is a boring post as I have nothing newsworthy to say, although this week I have two upcoming gigs Bad Pollyanna on Friday and "Always A Star, Never A Shadow" on Saturday so lots to look forward to.

Anyway this week on the walks I have been listening to Pink Floyd's "Division Bell" and I've also watched the film "Hawking" so naturally it's got to be be"Keep Talking" from that album. To often we find it easier to not talk that to make the effort and meet people and talk. At the very least you can pick up the phone and talk to someone.

So that's the thought or thing to do today:

KEEP TALKING

The Numbers Universe

I'm currently reading Simon Singh's "Fermat's Last Theorem" which I picked up after reading "The Mathematical Secrets of The Simpsons" and it's probably the first book that I've read where I immediately reference the footnotes and appendices as soon as they are referenced in the book. I'm not sure what my fascination with numbers is but I do enjoy exploring the concepts to some of the ideas may cause people to say so  "So What?".

The value of Π (Pi) for instance is essential to be right for all sorts of calculations and engineering constructs. The mechanical clock would not work if Π were not adhered to and more importantly neither would the wheel.

Fermat's Last Theorem is basically:

In number theory, Fermat's Last Theorem (sometimes called Fermat's conjecture, especially in older texts) states that no three positive integers a, b, and c satisfy the equation aⁿ + bⁿ = cⁿ for any integer value of n greater than 2.

And a lot of people will say "So What?" to that but it is an intriguing puzzle that certainly fires my imagination and Simon Singh's presentation of the story certainly keeps my interest up at 100% as it's mixed in with a whole slew or other theories and conjectures taking in Pythagoras, Euclid and of course Andrew Wiles who finally proved the Theorem.

I've also installed Grammarly to see if it can improve my blog writing. It has spooted the odd mistake but also has flagged the theorem aⁿ + bⁿ = cⁿ as an error so I will see how this progresses. Though this post seems relatively free of howlers.

One of my favourite TED talks ever is a twenty minute talk on prime numbers by an Australian DJ, Adam Spencer. And Grammarly just flagged up an error then so it's just proved it's worth.

Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam as he is now) released an album in 1975 called numbers which was in a nice package which is not available digitally but I will close this post with "Banapple Gas" from the album.

Can We Fix It? - YES WE CAN!

Today I visited the new Star and Shadow Cinema for the first time, which has moved to a more open location that it's previous home behind The Tanners' pub, and is just as easy to get to as well as being directly on the 1 and 32 bus routes. Although I walked up from The Tanners it is only five minutes from the road that runs onto Byker Bridge so is very accessible.

It's also home to the Fix It Cafe  which I visited today and chatted with people both fixing keyboards, computers, clocks and things that I didn't recognise. My friends Hedly Sugar Wells and Jonathan Wells Lee were both there fixing things and helping with the cafe and socialising and making people welcome.

It is a great space but obviously needs people in there to help and keep it going but it really does bring people together with a great sense of community. This is the very beginnings of what will be an absolutely wonderful experience.

There will be films , music , socialising , food , cake , drinks , and a coming together of like minded spirits.

One of the prime movers in the crowd funding of this project was my great friend Craig Puranen Wilson who we lost recently, and next week it is home to a celebration of his inspirational life "Always a Star, Never A Shadow"  , one of the many future events inspired by his life and keeping the spirit inspiring us to do more. I've included an unusual video of Women in Revolt in civvies at The Soundroom in Gateshead.

Anyway it was a wonderful hour I spent there and suggest to get on down there when you can, and great place to  put a smile on your face for so many reasons.

Here's looking forward to next Saturday and many many more after that.

Here It Comes

It's 11:30 on Friday night before the Bank Holiday Weekend. Normally I'm in bed asleep but for some reason I am fairly awake. Again I wasn't going to write anything tonight but I then thought I'm still awake and writing this will take me into Saturday Morning.

I'm looking forward to the Liverpool vs Real Madrid Champions League Final as it might actually be worth watching. Betfair are offering 5/1 for Mo Salah and Christiano Ronaldo to score, and I think there is a pretty good chance of that happening, but Iwon't be putting the house on it.

The last couple of days I've listened to a couple of albums two or three times, the first was Genesis "Wind and Wuthering" which was the second album without Peter Gabriel but their final one with Steve Hackett and it was after this that they became very AOR/MOR and this, in my opinion, was their last consistently good album. They still could produce some killer songs, "Abacab", "Driving The Last Spike", "Mama" to name but a few but "Wind and Wuthering " consistently excellent and even on repeat you don't think of stopping iit or skipping songs, even "You're Own Special Way" is fine and "Afterglow" is a wonderful finale.

The other album is Blue Oyster Cult's "Spectres". While not totally consistent, this is maybe because of the absolute killer songs that pepper the album. The heavy metal lyrical perfection of the opener "Godzilla" is amazing and that is followed by their own "Born To Be Wild" anthem "The Golden Age Of Leather". Add to this "Fireworks", "RU Ready To Rock"  and "Nosferatu" and you know this is a class album that should be in your possession.

The Case of The Mutilated Chessboard

Still not thirty pages into Simon Singh's "Fermat's Last Theorem" and he throws in another conceptual gem of a problem apparently first propsed by a guy called Max Black in his book "Critical Thinking" in 1946. It sounds like the title of an Agatha Christie or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle novel (who incidentally met up in Sky Arts' "Urban Myths" series here). The Wikipedia entry for the Mutilated Chessboard problem is here but basically it's this

"Suppose a standard 8×8 chessboard has two diagonally opposite corners removed, leaving 62 squares. Is it possible to place 31 dominoes of size 2×1 so as to cover all of these squares?" 

Here's The Problem

... and basically it is actually impossible because each domino must cover a black and a white square and the board is left with thirty of one colour and and thirty two of the other. There are conceptual solutions but you cannot solve it in reality. Itn the book this was introduced when talking about the concept of mathematical theory against scientific theory. Science always has doubt because it is based on observation whereas mathematics demands absolute proof and until that happens it's always just a theory.

So suitable music for this, Elvis Costello's "Watching The Detectives" , something from "Chess" but I'm going for Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" as it mentions a chessnoard and it is sucjh a perfect piece of music. Enjoy your Thursday everybody.

Packing Plastic

This is the 1600th post on this blogm, thought I would just mention that.

Last Friday I decided to order a copy of "Under Dubwood" by The Dubwood Allstars. I can't remember where I heard this first, probably 6Music, but I had been listening to it on Soundcloud, but the song disappeared from there although the account is still there.

I followed the link to the website and ordered the single on vinyl, the third repress here on the Caught By The River site (it's not available on Amazon), I have recently really got into reggae and ska on vinyl through the home cinema sysem with subwoofer on reasonably loud.

"Under Dubwood" is a mix of Richard Burto reading the introduction to Dylan Thomas' "Under Milk Wood" backed by King Tubby and John Holt's "Ali Baba" as backing (see below and here). "Under Milk Woood" contans some amazingly eveocative phrases such as "Starless and Bible Back" (appropriated for thitle of a King Crimson album.

Anyway the point I was making is that the single was dispatched as well as an MP3 link, and on Saturday I went out , thinking that a seven inch single would fit through the letter box. On returning hope the was a  note from th epostman telling me that they couldn;t fit it through the letter box, so I had to go and collect it on Monday morning from the local depot. I then saw why it would fit through, a sturdy close on twelve inch package, so light I wasn't sure there was anything in it, so I opened it to make sure it was in there and it was. I told the lady in the Post Office about it and she wrote down the details to check on Youtube.

The thing is the service from Caught By The River was ultra excellent and efficient, but surely a little less packaging would be greener and more economical, but what the hell, I now have a wonderful piece of vinyl in my collection and here's the proof on Instagram.

Have a brilliant day everybody.