Breadfan

September this year seems a bit weird for me. I feel there's a least a week left in September but it ends on Monday meaning that Tuesday we're into October and incidentally my birthday. Thought the week after it's my daughter's birthday and I always think I have more time to sort her card and present out and often end up consulting her Amazon wishlist the day before. I will do that this weekend.

The other day I went to the Strawberry and was thinking while I like their toasties I'm not really that much of a bread fan these days. Really if you are trying to keep the weight off bread is best avoided. That reminded of the seventies Welsh Metal band Budgie who had a song called "Breadfan" (covered by, among others , Metallica who do a more than decent cover) and thought that would be a good title / subject for a post. Some more of their excellent titles include "In The Grip of A Tire Fitters Hand", "Nude Disintegrating Parachutist Woman" and "Crash Course In Brain Surgery" (Budgie not Metallica).

Still on "The God Delusion" and it is teaching me a lot about Cosmology and Physics and I'm finding it more scientifically instructional than anti God / Religion although Dawkins has no time for ignorance and using God as an explanation for things we don't yet have an answer for.

So it's Friday morning , time for work, and I'll leave you with "Breadfan" by Budgie with excellent static Roger Dean cover.

Anthropic

When you are reading a book it helps if you know what the words you are reading actually mean and I am still sort of getting my head round The Anthropic Principle which basically means that if the universe were not capable of supporting life then we wouldn't be hear to wonder about it . This is the weak version, follow the link or search google for more information.

It is coming up a lot in "The God Delusion" where I am up to so far and does sort of make sense to me but I also feel it's far above my intellectual level (which is not very high anyway, 2 "A" Levels , 5 "O" Levels and something in Business Studies) but I wont let it stop me from reading this book.

The blog visits are probably going to hit 300K in the next month and at this rate half a million could happen in the next six months. That is something that I didn't expect as the Feedburner thing is continuing unbroken this time, although it may stop after two months, but we shall see.

September has seen 34K visits which is an all time record following the previous record of 27K last month and 25K in June which smashed the previous record of 10K in October 2013.


So we'll go for "Set The Controls For The Heart of The Sun" by Pink Floyd from "A Saucerful of Secrets" which seems vaguely appropriate for me with a suitable video. Apparently Stanley Kubrick wanted to film an adaptation of Dune with a soundtrack performed by Pink Floyd... it would have been 14 hours long. This song was the only one to feature all five members of Pink Floyd Phas I

I'll set my mind to understand more.

Bed

This morning the alarm woke me up from a dream in which I was taking an online survey about why I was taking an online survey. Recently I've been sleeping extremely well always being woken by my alarm.

Bed was so comfortable that I decided to have another hour under the sheets but after twenty minutes stretched and and got out. For some reason I vaguely worry that I'm not going to be in work for eight o'clock though they are very flexible with work ours and people come in from any time from seven thirty to eleven. It doesn't stress me and I'm writing this at seven thirty so it's highly unlikely that I'll be in before eight, well I wont be, even if I get the bus. But I am certainly not stressed.

I am aware that some people become stressed over very small things and often it's their psychological make up that cause it. I have every sympathy for them. I also believe that stress is caused by things we can't influence or control, and can be reduced by stepping back and evaluating the situation, but usually you can't do this on your own, it helps to speak with someone. I have helped a few people who have been very stressed and talked and chatted and when we finished they were in a better place in their mind and more confident of being able to deal with the situation. I just did this as a friend, and friends are brilliant to have so always cultivate friendship.

I would recommend any book by Matt Haig who's "Reasons To Stay Alive" once saved a friend's life, it really is a book that everyone should have.

So I still have to take drugs, get dressed, and then get to work and choose a tune for this post. I think we'll go with "Sleeping In The Devil's Bed" by Daniel Lanois from his second album "For The Beauty of Winona". I first came across Daniel Lanois from his work with Brian Eno on the "Dune" soundtrack and U2's "Unforgettable Fire" . His first album, "Acadie" was an immediate purchase and I do love is franglais littered languid and brooding songs.

Wet

Today it has poured down. There has been a lot of rain. I was in town and was surprised at the number of people who just stand blocking doorways. If you are going to go out , go out or else get out of the door way. Apparently the precipitation is going to get heavier and given today was the Autumn Equinox we can expect the weather to get a little less summery to say the least.

Again I wasn't going to write this as I really need to go to bed, but  just wanted to mention that in about two weeks the number of visits to this blog will hit 300K given that there about 1200 visits a day, that's 50 an hour and just under 1 a minute.

Today I went for a Liver check up and everything seems to be going in th eright direction although my body is showing signs of wear and tear with calcification around the heart, but sensible living will keep that OK.

I'm gonna close with "I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have" the coda of which metamorphosed into "Loaded" (check out the studio take and the live take of both songs running into each other here), Primal Scream are just one of those bands who are not limited by any style and are one of the most enduring bands ever.

Alarming

For the past two weeks I have been woken up by my alarm from a deep sleep. This is a good thing really but each time comes as a slight shock as I normally tend to wake up before the alarm so it's just a question of switching the damned thing off.

Today is extremely cloudy and rainy, but we are in the second half of September so it's not exactly unexpected. I have been bingeing on some TV programs, mainly Parks and Recreation , Defending the Guilty and Vikings .

Last night I actually started on recording a song, and maybe I will complete it this week and put it on Soundcloud.

This is just a short throway post but I'll sign it off with with a live take of  "Framed" from 1974 as I've been chatting with a friend on Facebook about how brilliant a front man Alex was and Zal Cleminson's evil clown costume predates todays Joker and Pennywise from It

Break

One of the benefits of listening to vinyl is that you listen to a whole side with no option for a remote break, and on a normal well planned album those sides seldom pass twenty minutes and definitely not twenty five minutes, so you are given a natural break. Todd Rundgren's "Initiation" clocked in about thirty five minutes a side which always needed to be played with a new diamond needle. That was not a good idea. Also somewhat strange that his classic "Todd" clocked in at just over sixty minutes and was a double album.

When Van Der Graaf Generator's "Godbluff" was released the NME reviewer said that we needed a continuous play medium (actually one side of a C90 cassette or an 8-Track tape would have provided that) but CD and MP3 satisfied that perfectly and some albums are best listened to in a non stop sequence.

But I bought four second hand albums at the weekend for a tenner from Vinyl Guru and on Sunday morning listened to side one of "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" by The Sensational Alex Harvey Band followed by side one of "This Is The Moody Blues" especially for the closing song "Legend of A Mind" one of my favourite songs of theirs.

Digital music has no limitations and vinyl has lots , but vinyl is more of a personal experience and you feel closer to and more in touch with the music. The may sound trite but the sounds produced from an analogue vinyl source are always a pure curve whereas digital is always a series of defined steps however small they may be.

So how do we soundtrack this, of course Youtube is a digital medium and this is a digital medium but we shall go for "Action Strasse" from the first album I played yesterday.

Goodnight and God Bless,

Delay

This could have been titled an Airdrieonian , A Native of Ayr, an Italian, and Australian and a Prestionian got in a taxi in Morpeth and went to Newcastle.. This was the end of a very long day as due to work on the East Coast Line Newcastle to Edinburgh was via Carlisle adding an hour and a half to the journey.

Coming back two trains were cancelled so we ended up on a coach from Edinburgh to Morpeth which was a literally last minute thing but the coach journey was fine although lengthy.

Once we hit Morpeth the train to Newcastle was going to be another 50 minutes so the five of us above got together and commandeered the only taxi in the station to get back to Newcastle. It was a pleasant ride back and we found that the Airdrieonian girl who had originally suggested the taxi lives in Gateshead and works for the NHS, the Australian guy was trying to get to Cambridge, the Italian girl (who had an American accent) was trying to get to London.

Everyone in the taxi was really positive and pleasant and this was a very small lesson in coming together to get a good result and that is what happened. The taxi driver was very talkative and the journey was over very quickly and a very reasonable £30.

So cause of the title we'll go with "Long Time Coming" by The Delays, always been a favourite of mine.