Crunch

I'm really enjoying the final Stephen Hawking book which while I don't understand a great deal of it, it is a great book for stimulating thoughts and while it is not explicitly stated I like the "Crunch Theory" of the Universe that it is a constant state of expanding and contracting from a singularity where eveying contracts to a pin point resulting in a big bang which causes the whole thing to start again. If course this happens over millions if not billions of years and implies that the universe is effectively eternal although at the point of singularity time doesn't exist.

reading a bit further about the singularity it's a place where time , space and everything becomes infinite therefore unmeasurable so I think that also fits with my interpretations.

This post sounds as though I know what I am talking about, I don't really, but things to catch my imagination. So definitely a worthwhile book to have in your collection.

Also this morning I got a mention on the Chris Hawkins Show (about seventy five minutes in if you follow the link) plugging a few local record shops and the fact that I have ordered the forthcoming Sam Fender album.

There's only one song for this post, the scientifically accurate "Galaxy Song" from Monty Python and I didn't realises Stephen Hawking had done a version as well.

Books

The Illuminatus! Trilogy is finished and I had my eyes on three books to read next:

1. How To Stop Time by Matt Haig
2. Brief Answers To Big Questions by Stephen Hawking
3. On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno by David Sheppard
4. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

That was roughly how they had ordered themselves in my mind so of course I chose "How To Stop Time" by Matt Haig. I started reading it and thought this sounds familiar, I then dipped into the various parts of the book and it came back to me. I have read it before. It's a great story, pure Matt Haig , but I don't need to read it again. I either must have another copy or I have given it away to a friend or charity shop. I'm sure someone else will benefit from this great book.

So next on the list was the Stephen Hawking book , his last published work and it is remarkably refreshing even with the forewords from Eddie Redmayne and Professor Kip Thorne the Hawking stars writing.... about stuff I do find difficult getting my head round but the analogy I have to use after "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" is like I've been swimming in the weeds and rubbish at the bottom of an undredged canal, yes it's interesting and keeps your attention but is probably the lyrical equivalent of bog snorkelling, then coming to the Stephen Hawking book is like surfacing ing into clear , warm water that brings joy if unfamiliarity. There is still work to be done but it has become a lot more inviting and pleasurable.

The book is only 230 pages so will be finished this week but everything I have read by Stephen Hawking is always easy to read if not to understand. It makes you think and that is always and pleasure.

For some reason the song "Back To Life (Back To Reality)" came to mind so obviously that is what we will continue with on this beautiful Sunday.

Streams

On twitter I keep seeing a poll for what is the best streaming app, Spotify , Amazon or Apple Music (or whatever it's called this week). There are lots of other similar more genre specific apps like Pandora, and people often want to share their Spotify playlists with me.

I don't do Spotify or any other music streaming service. Someone makes a lot of money from streaming and, unless you're Ed Sheeran or Adele, it's not  the artist. Daft Punk's "Random Access Memory" was the biggest selling album of that year and they made about £13K from streaming which might have paid for a lunch break.

People often like the "if you like that you'll like this" option, but that is so open to abuse, and let's face it payola has been around since records were first sold.

Most people listen on mobile devices and the unseen cost for that is streaming uses data, so if you are not on free or unlimited wifi you network provider can start coining it.

Also if you expect your streaming service why not listen to a radio station and trusted DJs and shows. The last I heard artists got paid £50 if their song is played on the radio. I don't know if it's the same now or the same on all stations but it's a damned sight better than streaming rates.

Also given that often today's youth can't listen to more than 20 seconds of a song how do you remunerate for part streams? Many years ago Peter Gabriel was involved with a company call "WE" who's plan was to set of a system where you paid a nominal small fee to listen to a song. I objected to this as if I like music I want to buy a single or album and play it in perpetuity.

Youtube seems to be OK, it's generally free with on ads, and I don't hear artists complaining about it so they must be getting adequate recompense or you would see music being continually pulled. However video uses a lot more data than music does so this can be another money spinner for mobile phone companies.

I done several posts related to this (click on the first Spotify link to see) but this is my own history of recorded music and this talks on how music should be rewarded.

Last week I heard Sam Fender for the first time, yesterday I ordered his debut album and this is about how I heard it on the radio.

If streaming is your bag that's fine but I will stay with radio, visiting record shops , gigs and enjoying music I buy.

Reading

Nearly finished the appendices of "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" and if anything they are madder than the main part of the book itself. Conspiracies and mysticism fantasy with maybe the odd sprinkling of truth with recognisable names and images. I has been a wild and wacky ride and hopefully this will be the last time I mention it, but probably won't be because of the links and influences it has over so much music and writing that are in my admittedly large and eclectic sphere  of stuff that attracts my attention.

I'm not sure what will be next and have a number of disparate tomes lined up including Richard Dawkins, Matt Haig and Brian Eno but they are just three of many, I could easily go for something else and at some point want to reread "Imajica"and "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" or even "Bored of the Rings" although like Spike Milligan's "Puckoon" that starts out brilliantly funny but does eventually fizzle out

So after that brief literary interlude I'll leave you on this Saturday morning with the vaguely literary connection of Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" which recalls Lewis Carroll through a drug fuelled tango time haze.

Darkness

That's what I woke up to, and it wasn't particularly early , the day shortening seems to have come fairly quickly this year. Last night I needed to go out for milk at nine o'clock and it was dark (and wet). Also there seems to be a hell of a lot of snails on my drive this year and I keep accidentally stepping on them. I've nothing against snails and would rather not squash them but if they wander around my normal walking areas then that's going to happen.

Although it was dark when I woke it now looks like a summer's day although I suppose this is really Autumn now, as we're into September and I managed to forget another friend's birthday but got reminded by Facebook.

I keep forgetting names and obviously that concerns me about dementia when I cant remember things, especially names, but I still am able to recall a hell of a lot stuff and often the stuff I couldn't recall always surfaces eventually. I also am always able to recall how to find things although I make great use of Google and reference books as well as working things out for myself.

I use the illustration of music. When I was born you had Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley , Chuck Berry as well as the really commercial rubbish and a few others. The following decade added The Beach Boys, Stooges , Doors , Beatles , Kinks etc but we still had the  artists from previous decades. And every year more is added to what we already have, and that means that things will get forgotten even sometimes when you want to remember it. There will always be a way of finding out what you need to know.

So on this sunny Thursday we shall go with "Baggy Trousers" by Madness (for the line about squashing snails)  and that is another great band who are in my collection and I enjoy listening to.

Reading Appendices #2 and Discovering Sam Fender

Well I am reading the appendices of "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" and it's like nothing has changed. Same mad whirlwind mix or mysticism and conspiracies as well as explanations of I-Ching symbols that I was unaware of, well I assume they are correct despite the fact this is a work of mad fiction. It's not often fictional novels  have a large section of appendices.

This is just a short post to let you know a little more about this book that I thought I was finished with and had finished writing about, but like a box of fireworks you dropped a match in , they've not all gone off yet.

Chris Hawkins played "The Borders" by Sam Fender on 6Music this morning and I've had a natural aversion to Sam Fender because everyone seems to be pushing him. He's also a local lad (North Shields I think, well that's where his studio is). Chris described him as the English Springsteen. After hearing "The Borders" he might not be wrong , and amazing song and the album is on my list to buy, and given my generally paucity of new music buying these days that is no mean thing. Well impressed.

Enjoy your Wednesday.

Reading Appendices

I know I was on the last leg of "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" have finally met the subject of the final book "Leviathan" then way before the end the book ends! It's been a wild kaleidoscopic ride (and I know that probably isn't a correct metaphor, even if it is a metaphor) but here I was at the end.

So I have still nearly ten per cent of the text to go through that consist of the appendices which I suppose is unusual for a work of mainly fiction with the odd drops of reality and even truth in there, so I still probably have a week's reading to go.

Is this a book I will keep? I'm not sure. I've loved reading it but I'm fairly certain this is a one read book for me and not something, for me, that I can dip in and out of, but I would recommend it to anyone who wanted to go off on a mad literary ride. I'm not sure what book I will read next, maybe something with a more stable narrative.

Also this week I have been, for me, binge watching TV taking in Catch-22 , Parks and Recreation, Carnival Row and Scamalot.

September is a 30 month so I need to slightly up my daily steps but that's going OK after last month fairly smashing it. I'm just wondering if I could maybe hit half a million steps in a month, which would require me to hit 17K steps a day so maybe that's not really an option as I am generally to lazy.

The sky outside is grey, the heating is on , there are seagulls crying which indicates rain but we are at the first Tuesday in September.

In that past month the blog has now had 30K visits thanks to Feedburner picking it up again and I'm glad that I have a new top post which is here. thankfully replace this, which was stuck there for years.

So what song for today. I really haven't a clue but as the KLF are the reason I am reading "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" we can go with "Justified And Ancient" their mash up with Tammy Wynette.

Enjoy your Tuesday.