Winter is Coming ... Everywhere

Well it is in my life. The final series of Game of Thrones comes with the Night King bringing Winter and turning the world to Ice. I'm currently revisiting Michael Moorcock's  "The Prince With The Silver Hand" in which a "resurrected" Corum battles the Ice and Winter brought by the Fhoi Myore in a freezing Celtic world, and today started off extremely cold before a minor snow storm brought snow to Newcastle. It's still white and there is Ice on the paths.

I don't think I'll be walking to work tomorrow unless there is a major thaw.

This morning in the cold I was listening to Primal Scream's "Dirty Hits" and they are a truly awesome band taking on any style and making it theirs , from Rock and Roll to Gospel to Krautrock to Metal. While "Autobahn 66" has an obvious nod to Kraftwerk's "Autobahn" it's closer in type to Neu!'s Motorik beat, and that is the one I'll share with you tho their catalogue is a veritable cornucopia of brilliance. I particularly love "Kowalski" with it's reference to the film "Vanishing Point", one of my favourites, and I know how they stop him.

So we shall se what the weekend brings.

Numberless

Still waking to fragments of dreams and really feeling that I need a full day in bed, but part of me thinks I have responsibilities at work and another part says I should walk into work, but the dark, and the cold wind is putting me off that. I don't know whether I will or not.

Numberless is an odd adjective, and I don't know why the word came to me maybe it's out of one of the dreams. It is amazing the number of book, music and film sequences that are inspired by dreams and, see, I ve just gone off on a tangent in the same sentence.

Still could you imagine a world without numbers. There are peoples who's counting system is one,two many. In the TV series "The Prisoner" Patrick McGoohan states "I Am Not A Number, I Am A Free Man", he is No 6!! Which was also a Brand of cigarette favoured by my friends in my teens. Of course I went for No 10 hand half a cigarette and gave them away and luckily never got hooked.

Every aspect of our life is affected or influenced by numbers, I couldn't write this without the various computers involved crunching numbers to allow me to do this. If I go to work by bus I have to buy a ticket which I have to pay for with money and we need numbers to deal with that.

So I'll leave you with the intro to The Prisoner featuring Ron Grainer's theme tune

In A Broken Dream

It's strange how dreams can be vivid, seemingly keeping you engaged all night and then when you finally do wake up you are left with fragments, even though the dream itself captured your imagination. I had gone to sleep last night after watching some of this week's installment of "Black Lake" so that obviously had some bearing on the contents of my dream.

This is what I'm left with, two rooms, in a containment area and whenever the room is occupied or being used there is a green indicating light and whenever it's empty or not in use then there is a red indicating light. The dream had a hell of a lot more to it, but I am just left with these fragments, and by tomorrow they will be gone too. The fact I am writing this here means it actually won't be forgotten as such, but whenever I revisit this post or search on the Dreans label I will come across it in the future.

That obviously made me think of the record "In A Broken Dream" by the Australian group Python Lee Jackson featuring Rod Stewart on vocals and some of th emost amazing guitar work you will ever hear on a chart single. It was a one hit wonder, but once you hear it you will never forget it.

I Won't Watch Black and White Films, Films With Subtitles or Read Books

Obviously not me, but over the years I continually hear this from people, and variations on the same. Anything out of the blinkered area that they see means you (that's me) are a total weirdo. You don't like "Top Gear"? You're weird. You like classical music? You must be retarded. You don't watch X-Factor or Britain's Got Talent? You have no taste in music. You watch Asian language film? You're strange. You listen to German and French bands who sing in German and French? You are mad.

I've had all these reactions from people, and maybe it's why people seldom speak with me, but that's their loss. The fact they are cutting out of their life the films:

• Downfall
• Amelie
• The Seven Samurai
• Casablanca
• It's A Wonderful Life
• Young Frankenstein

....and more

and then the music of:

• Beethoven
• Mozart
• Philip Glass
• Can
• Amon Duul II
• Jacques Brel
• Alan Stivell
• Gong

..... and more

And the fact that people refuse to read for the flimsiest of reasons, missing out on the joy of hooking up your own imagination as someone's words take you on a journey that no film could ever do, I list the music I listen to and the books I read on here. I have finished "There Is No Map In Hell" which I bought just for the title and I discovered what it is like to run 214 Wainwright Peaks in seven days. which you can read about on Steve Birkinshaw's blog here, You might not be able to judge a book by the cover but it was the title that hooked me and though I have zero interest in Fell Running it did hook me.

So I should include a song that is not sung in English, so I'll go with Los Lobos take on Richie Valens' "La Bamba" from the soundtrack of the eponymous film

Tempus

This is Post Number 1800

I don't know if it's an age thing, and maybe that's a sign of getting old, but I oftemn start on something with I know will take an hour or two, but want it completed immediately. This is true of work and walking (understandable) but also watching films and TV progams and listening to albums, which have to take as long as the last.

I always found it amusing that mobile networks sold the favct that you could download a four minute song in two seconds. It still takes four minutes to listen two , and if you don't take four minutes over it then you lose all the pleasure and experience to be gained from giving the song the listening time it requires. It's even more true for albums and films. It is useful if you are downloading before going into a no signal area but that is never the reason pushed as it would imply that signal coverage is not perfect (which it isn't).

It's been a mental week and work and next week is probably going to be madder, I'm sure I will be able to cope.

It is Friday and I am actually feeling tired though it's another early Saturday start with a trip across Slatyford Park to pick up some things from the Post Office Depot. I keep forgetting I could have things delivered to my local Post Office when order stuff from Amazon that won't fit through my letter box, still it does give me some exercise.

I'll leave you with "Shooting Star" by Harper Simon , Paul's lad. It's a few years old but an absolutely beautiful way to leave Friday night ti enter the realms of Morpheus.

Future Islands

Just a quick one about blog targets for 2019. Last year I posted over 300 times (with the aim of beating my previous highest year of 2017 with 264 posts. This year I want to take the blog over 2,000 posts since day one which means just over 200 required this year, that still requires around two posts every three days so i am going to have to find something to talk about. Given that I seldom see anyone these days it does give me an option to say things that people may or may not listen to, but it's always pleasant when someone mentions something that I have written about.

I'm  still reading "There Is No Map In Hell" and it reminds me of "Fermat's Last Theorem" in that it's almost a gripping adventure , with the will he / won't he on almost every page, getting more and more tense as you near the end of the book.

I've also been adding more CDs to my Discogs store here due to the fact that I play vinyl more than I play CDs and listen to most of my music via various digital platforms such as my phone and Kindle Fire and Home Network.

I have bought a hell of a lot of CDs without really getting to know them, but also some have only required a single listen and it's pointless having them boxed up doing nothing.

Anyway, this is post 1799 so I will share Motorhead's take on David Bowie's "Heroes", and it is more than up to scratch. I've seen King Crimson's take which is great as well, and while I am sure there will be versions that don't cut the mustard, this certainly does.

Friday is almost upon us.

There Is No Map In Hell

The title is the name of the book by Steve Birkinshaw that I bought from 3 Peaks Cycles in Settle just because of the title. I didn't look at the back cover or find out what it was about I just bought it. It's about the guys attempt to run ALL Wainwright's 214 Fells in seven days, this was like running two marathons and ascending / descending 35,000 feet each day. Oh, and just to make it really easy he went public to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis. I have a couple of friends who suffer from this horrible debilitating condition so that raised Steve in my estimation, he really does care for others.

This whole thing is not a subject that normally interests me and had you said do you fancy a book about a guy running the 214 Wainwright's in seven days I would have taken a pss. The book is large format and around two hundred pages but I am half way through at the moment enjoying the mentons of places and areas I know and finding out on how he powers through the challenges he faces

This book is a prime example of just diving in and trying something that is completely new for you. I could have easily hit a brick wall and discarded it but the narrative of fell running, nutrition , friends and family values and challenges with the added bonus of familiar locations (Steve works for Newcastle University as well) are making this a joy to read. I will resume my re reading program after this, but this is an enjoyable read from a most impressive man.

So something appropriate to accompany this, there's obviously "The Race" by Yello, but I'm going to go for "Man In The Hills" by Burning Spear because the only thing it has in common with STeve is the title and it is a brilliant record. I know it's Monday , but enjoy it, I 'm off  to the doctors and then to deal with something that will be unpleasantly annoying at work.