The Serpentine Twists of An Unexpected Life

Very often things don't go as you would want them or even as you would expect. The sun rises and traverses the sky for eight, nine , ten hours and then it goes dark and the moon may rise and for the rest of th eearth day you can sleep as the dark hangs around slowly dispersing into the next day.

I've still not got my roof fixed but last night I decided to get a takeway from The Diner in Fenham. My normal modus operandi is to order via their phone app, then walk up and pick up (it's probably about 500 yards from my front dooor) and pay by card (I could pay by card in the app but you have to put in your card number and loads of other details each time) .... except ...... their card machine was not working. There is no cash machine close by... so .....

I walked back to Two Ball Lonnen Post Office to get some cash but the cash machine was out of service, 100 yards up the road is a Nisa and that had a working cash machine. I then decided to walk back to The Diner though the estate and notied a van for Responsible Roofing so I photographed the phone numbers and went to pay for the pizza and curry.

I mentioned that I may have found someone to fix my roof and the guy at The Diner immediately told me about a local brilliant guy who did all their work and directed me to where I had seen the van , it was the same guy we were talking about. I have an appointment today with him so things are looking better.

So this is just a post about how unexpected twists can take you to a postive conclusion.

Just as an aside I'm still enjoying "The Illuminatus Trilogy" by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, and found out the latter has thirty five books published on similar themes  which feature knowledge , lies , great writing, a sense of humour and a razor sharp wit so I have a feeling I will be purchasing more of his work.

So a perfect song would be George Harrison's excellent "Any Road" which basically says "If You Don't Know Where You're Going, Any Road Will Take You There" .

Enjoy this sunny Thursday

Well I Didn't See That Coming

Sheet lightning , thunder , torrential rain, Bojo the poundshop Drumpf as Prime Minister, and now the rain has stopped , hopefully Bojo will too.  Today is forecast very hot and sunny so that should be a bit of summer to enjoy apart from being at work.

It is very hot already and it will be in the office.

The radio is still full of Moon Landing related programmes and articles, and Professor Richard Wiseman is doing spots on the Chris Hawkins Show on 6Music about the whole "Apollo Mindset" where Mission Control planners were all very young (early twenties) and got this done because they didn't know it couldn't be done.

So it's so hot that I really can't write any more but  maybe we should go with "Saturn 5" by The Inspiral Carpets.

200

This is post 200 this year , which means 2019 is, so far, my fourth highest posting year since I started. This week I will hit my two thousandth post. I hit my thousandth post , here, in November 2015, eight and a half years after my first post here.  . So my second thousand post has taken about four years so I have doubled my posting rate, which my be a good or bad thing , possibly quantity of quality. You can check the first against the thousandth against this one and see if there has been any improvement at all.

I just got my latest bill from Discogs and I'm now selling about two CDs a week, which is quite impressive as often they are going for above ten pounds, way above the 17p I would get from CEX or Music Magpie. That's nothing against those companies, because they have to take the hit of the stuff they can't sell and then have to hold what they have until they actually sell the things. The latest one will be posted off to Germany this morning.

Today is another sunny day, and I am going to take myself off to work soon so I know this is short, but this won't feature Nico for a change.

I opened the curtains and there was a big fly on the window, but then I noticed it was outside so that was a good start.

So what are we going to have music wise? Just noticed the Faces box that my daughters got me for a birthday, so we'll go for a live take of "That's All You Need" one of my favourite slide guitar rock songs , and this is very rough but totally brilliant.

Enjoy your Tuesday

Vinylisation

I don't know if that's a real word , but just refers to the fact that I prefer these days to buy vinyl as opposed to CD or digital. I will probably still buy certain boxed sets but  now very seldom look at normal CDs.

I definitely like listening to vinyl and  often think I would like to buy certain music on vinyl, an example being after watching the film "Nico 1988" although the cost of Nico on vinyl is prohibitive although I do have her performances on the fisrt Velvet Underground album so it's not as though I have no Nico on vinyl.

I particularly like her take on "The End" by The Doors which then tempted me to purchase the first Doors album but I have that digitally along with a live Nico take from the live Ayers, Cale, Nico , Eno album at the Rainbow. That would be also a nice album to have on Vinyl but again I have a digital copy so I should be satisfied with that.

I really do have enough vinyl but, as with Oscar Wilde, "I can resist anything but temptation" , although that temptation does have to be something special.

So what music should we go with, maybe Nico live in Tokyo performing "The End" would be fitting

Watching Nico

Over this weekend I have watched a few films. As I am writing this I feel but my blood sugar is way too high but my blood sugar reading is at 5.2 which is fine. I am trying some new tabs (in addition to everything else) forxiga , dapagliflozin which supposedly lets you pee your excess  blood sugar away, which means more time at the urinal or wherever but it seems to be working (I think).

So back to the films and I was most impressed with Nico 1988 which traced Nico's last couple of years when she went out on the road and played some gigs. The film was written and directed by Susanna Nicchiarelli  and features Trine Dyrholm who impressively plays Nico complete with tantrums ,  love and impressive gothic singing with great support from  John Gordon Sinclair as the ever supportive but put upon Richard. "Gregory's Girl" this isn't.

I found a live take of "All Tomorrow's Parties" from Preston in 1982 by Nico and the take from the film with Trine so you can see how good she is.

This has made me want to get some Nico on Vinyl but give the prices I may have to just stay digital (which I can play through my record player via my Kindle.

Conspiracy, Autocorrect and 1984

I went to write this post there was this link to a Messianic Bible which apparently proves that English Bibles are flawed and this proves that Jesus (Yeshua) is the true Messiah. I though the Jews were still waiting for the Messiah. Can't say any more but it's a bit like saying the Hebrew Spiderman comic corrects the errors of the American Spiderman comic.

I'm not sure why the ad came up apart from the face that I have been including a lot about "2023" by The Jams and "The Illuminatus Trilogy" by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea (which is shaping up to be rather good (lots of conspiracy theories based on actual conspiracy theories in a vaguely underground detective novel.

The last nigh I met with Chi Onwurah very briefly after autocorrect on her email told me to meet her at "campervan" opposite the Tyneside Cinema. What she thought she had sent was Ampersand which is in Commercial Union House for the fortnightly Labour Party meeting , but I will catch up with her properly in next couple of weeks to talk about my various issues with the current state state of the Labour Party , but also how we address the "idiocracy" that belies every word of the right wing media.

Maybe given all this, and the fact that "Space Oddity" is playing on the radio , we'll go with "1984" by David Bowie because your devices ARE watching and listening to you. I found this very hard edged live take from a 1973 NBC TV Special from The 1980 Floor Show which produced the album "Diamond Dogs" as the George Orwell estate refused permission for Bowie to use 1984.

Coincidentally.. A Conspiracy Theory and The Heisenberg Supercut

After finishing "2023" I started "The Illuminatus Trilogy" expecting some exposé of secret societies and the like, but it is more a detective story and the main detective is Saul Goodman and the book , I think was published in 1975.

Saul Goodman also appears as a policeman in "2023" and a CRIMINAL Lawyer as opposed to a criminal lawyer in "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul". I have a feeling that this is more than coincidence.

Anyway after the mass of text in a bad typeface that I initially saw in "The Illuminatus Trilogy" it is starting to pick up and I am looking forward to this 800 page slab of reading over the new few weeks. I am sure it probably influenced Dan Brown to write "The Da Vinci Code" but I have a feeling that this will have tongue firmly in cheek with more than a little fun.

Given that I've dragged in "Breaking Bad" (one of the greatest TV series ever) so we will go with Badfinger's "My Baby Blue - The Heisenberg Supercut"