Living on The Edge of the World

I just wanted to write a post with that title. It doesn't really mean anything to me or my situation but it does sound grandly isolationist, also reminds me of a line from the Bob Dylan song "Joey" that has always summed me up:

"Always on the outside - Of Whatever Side There Was"

I am always on the outside of whatever cliques are going on, always the weird or abnormal one, but if I wasn't I wouldn't be me. I suppose there is a little jealousy in not being included, but it doesn't mean I don't enjoy life. Also not being included does not mean being excluded, which can be very hurtful.

So why am I writing this?

I am still on holiday and actually relaxing and I wanted to get this title down.

Also it's an excuse to share the latest lovely release by Panda Bear "Buoys",though I have apparently bought stuff from them before (see here) and this is the great thing about keeping a blog, you can use it to remember things that you had forgotten, but I'm pretty sure it was Panda Bear Meets Grim Reaper which I will revisit when I get home.

Time for bed soon

Drab Dreams and Diamond Dogs

Another gorgeous day, and this morning I woke at a reasonable time, not six am like yesterday. I've been having some very mundane dreams this week , which seem to be like going to work. Nothing I can really remember, or worth writing about apart from the pure mundanity, although when I woke up I thought that the guitar riff for  David Bowie's "Candidate" was the riff for "Rebel,Rebel" (the Rolling Stones song that they never wrote, or to my knowledge performed). Actually "Candidate" is sandwiched between "Sweet Thing" and "Sweet Thing(Reprise)" and the latter piece plays out in a crunching guitar sequence that perfectly leads into "Rebel, Rebel"

Obviously "Candidate" is not "Rebel,Rebel" but at least it's the same album and fairly close to it. I have a feeling the Feedburner spike is about to come to an end , but it's given me my highest blog activity since I started so that is rather excellent.

That means the song that I am going to feature is the nine minute "Sweet Thing/Candidate" sequence from "Diamond Dogs".

Enjoy you Thursday.

Spilling Wine with Lauren Laverne

Today while driving Lauren Laverne played "Spill The Wine" by Eric Burdon and War on 6Music. This is the third song this week that has been the main song in my blog posts.

I first heard this song from 1970, when I got hold of the compilation "All Good Clean Fun" and the music is recognisable as the War of "Low Rider" fame topped with Eric Burdon's perfectly matched vocals. I recently reacquired the vinyl record, although it also appeared on the vastly expanded 3CD set which is now fairly expenses but a great snapshot or the Liberty / UA (United Artists) label imprints from the late sixties and early seventies.

Lauren has been including a lot of great sixties and seventies music recently, mixing with excellent contemporary sounds on her show. One of my slight problems with 6Music is the semi stagnation of shows,  and the number of ex muso's DJing , but the result is an incredible mix of new music to discover with reminders of stuff that you have forgotten or missed along with some great fun and audience interaction. And really that is a good thing.

I wasn't intending to write many posts this week or this month but this is the eighth so far and  I only need to average ten a month to hit 2K posts on this blog since I started it.

Anyway check out Lauren and any other 6Music show , and you may discover something new or something you had forgotten.

Living Without Clocks

This is post number 1939 , 1939 was year in which my mum was born (four years after my dad who was born in the same year as Elvis Presley) . My mum was vivacious, full of life and very supportive and fun. She had me reading before I went to primary school and her and my dad always just told me to do my best, and that was good enough. There was no criticism when I just got 5 'O' Levels and 2 'A' Levels. We lost her in 1989 to a stroke and heart attack, but she is still with me  for her attitude and support thirty years on. She never saw the internet although was proud that I had inveigled my way into IT without the normal required qualifications.

So on to the main point of this post. We are always tied to clocks and time to catch buses, trains and planes , get to work and lots of other things. On this holiday clocks are not to the fore,although there are clocks around the cottage, there is nowhere I need to be for a certain time, apart from to be out of the cottage and get the car back to Enterprise for 11 O'Clock on Saturday.

I think of Catweazle who was confused as to why we lived our life ruled by timepieces. The reason is it gives us a framework to work as a big team, but it is great to dispense with that every now and then. It does relax you when you don't have to do anything or be anywhere for any particular reason.

i-toc

I was going to look for a piece from 1939 but Lauren Laverne has just put on "May You Never" by John Martyn on her 6Music show and that just seems so perfect for the moment.

Of the thing about whether it's the lack of drugs or just tiredness when I just don't want to getup in a
morning,this morning I stretch , got up , shaved , washed and showered, checked my watch, thought it said eight o' clock but it was only seven o' clock (that's my i-toc , that gives me a rough idea of the time) so it's not the lack of drugs, it's just that I'm tired, because this morning I am not tired, and was wide awake before I took my drugs.


It looks lovely outside , so another nice day awaits.

The Insidiousness of Social Media In The Middle of Nowhere

Well essentially I am badmouthing Facebook on this one as I thought there's no harm in installing EA Games' Scrabble via the Google Play Store on to my phone so I can still play Scrabble. I then asked for my Facebook id which is my email address, so I put that in. Next thing I get an email saying "Welcome Back To Facebook, Your account has been reactivated as you signed into Scrabble".

Oh Really?

Well Facebook or Messenger  is not on my phone, and I have a feeling it will never return now. I may access it again via computer at the start of July, but I am not really missing it much and certainly no one is missing me. That might sound a bit pouty, but I have over 400 Facebook friends, it would take a while for me to notice anyone disappearing and if someone disappears and you don't know any of their contacts then that's it , they are gone and despite the insidious ubiquity of Facebook, most people don't actually use it.

I've just checked but not logged in and there are 39 updates against my Facebook login, I would deactivate it again but have a feeling that as soon as I use Scrabble it would reactivate.

So the holiday cottage "Honeysuckle Cottage" in Oswaldkirk really is in the middle of nowhere. There are no places to socialise or meet or shop within walking distance. Add to that most roads round here don't have footpaths, and also there is nothing really worth seeing apart from the views of the hills and the moors, and there in lies the reason for staying here, it's a perfect place to relax. It has wifi and a TV with a million Freeview channels so it's hardly cut off . The cottage is booked through cottages.com via Top Cashback to get 5% back

While I've always liked Joan Jett I have never taken to her version of "I Love Rock'n'Roll" but on 6Music today I heard "Bad Reputation" which is rather good, so I will share it with you and Facebook , has a bad reputation as far as I am concerned.

Missing ... Not Missing

This morning I switched on 6Music and an excellent take on Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" was playing. I was surprised because it was on Lauren Laverne's show and she is usually techno heavy, so I assumed it must be a modern song, but no, it was by Them and I had recognised the voice of Van Morrison.

So what am I really missing from Facebook? Playing Scrabble, seeing what friends are up to photowise (but I do catch a lot on Instagram) and posts from God (but again I catch a lot on Instagram)., also there's a few pages / groups that I share and update but a thirty day rest won't harm them.

I have a feeling the Feedburner effect is tailing of a little but I am still getting 1,300 hits a day so I thing that June should see me hit  40K in June which is fairly startling as I haven't really done anything different.

Today is meant to be grey and showery although it did start off very sunny, and , as yet, there's been no rain so fingers crossed.

So I will leave yo with the piece that I first heard this morning, "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" by Them. Have a good Tuesday everybody.

Fatigue and Observation

I had a dream last night but it's virtually disappeared from my memory as dreams tend to do. I've just noticed that this laptop keyboard has direct accented letters like á and é which are activated by pressing the letter with the alt gr key.

Anyway I was wondering if when I wake up in a morning and feel I want to go back to sleep, is it because I haven't taken my drugs, or because I am just tired. I know sometimes I'll wake up in the middle of the night and be wide awake. I once heard a story about a man who was unable to drive until his wife had given him is drugs. That just sounds wrong to me.If you have not got control of yourself then you should not get behind the wheel of a car. As a diabetic I have to check blood sugar levels every two hours while driving but that is in my control. If I ever was into a situation where my condition affected my control then I would not drive again.

The other thing is that when I got into the sower this morning, the door wouldn't close. I thought the rollers are screwed which the doors run on, but couldn't see anything blocking them. I pondered what it could be then looked up and saw the shower room mat hanging over the top, which of course was stopping the door from opening.

It's post number 1936 and from 1936 we have the excellent "Let's Face The Music and Dance" by Nat King Cole with a video featuring Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth , Ginger Rogers and E. Powell dancing to Billy May's arrangement.

Enjoy on this gorgeous Monday morning.