Dreams and Sleep - #Oktoberfest #11 - Everything Stops For Tea - Long John Baldry

Yesterday I was on an "away day" in Leeds and on the journeys to and from I watched a few excellent TED talks one of which (included below) by Matt Walker informed me that it's not a good idea to pull all nighters. Ideally you should have a consistent routine with around eight hours sleep as this actually helps the body recover by promoting the growth of !assassin cells" that eliminate lots of bad stuff in our bodies, while not sleeping does exactly the opposite. It last twenty minutes but is very interesting and worth taking your time over.

Because I am actually run down I went to bed about nine o'clock and slept though til 5:45 when the alarm went off and think I feel better for that, but it is always good to get a good nights sleep. There's a few snippets of the dream left including my boss asking what she was doing doing wrong , the answer being just sleep, there was a new locked SUV who's seats were covered with snow, and footprints leading to a brick wall where I was sure there was a door , and finally twenty pound notes had been taken out of circulation and ten pound notes had been replaced by eleven pound notes. I know it doesn't make sense but that's the nature of dreams.

The last item just reminded me of the imperial currency system. 12 pennies made a shilling , two shillings were a florin , five were a crown , for crowns made a pound but 21 shillings made a guinea and the guinea was often used for pricing although the guinea was like 5% more expensive than a pound so a 20 guinea item was a £21 item. Simple wasn't it.

So #Oktoberfest is continuing non alcoholic which Long John Baldry's odd take on Jack Buchanan's "Everything Stops For Tea". The album was produced by Rod Stewart and Elton John. Rod had been a member of Steampacket with Long John Baldry along with Brian Auger and Julie Driscoll.

It's Friday morning so time for work.

Sick Leave - - #Oktoberfest #10 - Java Blues - Rick Danko

We're going no alcoholic for today's #Oktoberfest with Rick Danko showing his versatility on "Java Blues". People often say they "need a drink" which is something I have never understood and it's usually alcohol or coffee when that phrase pops up. I have always drunk for my own pleasure and never needed drink to either wake me up or calm me down. Maybe I am just lucky or don't understand my own cravings.

I managed to find a live version of this song at The Band reunion concert in 1984.

Just a thing about having time off work for not feeling well, I am sure in my first twenty years I would have no qualms about ringing in and resting to ensure that I was fit in a day or two and fully functional. There was always someone to cover for me if I wasn't there.

These days it seems that's not really an option. I do see people off for illness but unless I am hosptalised I feel that I need to go into work because maybe 80% of what I do cannot be done by anyone else. While we all need to become more productive and work smarter, it used to be you were rewarded by pay rises and bonuses, but now it's you are allowed to keep your job and if you are not happy then leave. A sad situation and I actually work in a relatively decent environment with a great team.

The thing is I felt extremely run down with a sore throat yesterday but work was the priority, not getting better. I had an early night and feel a bit better today but need to get to Leeds today.

So have a great Thursday.

Armed - #Oktoberfest #9 - Tequila - Terrorvision

One of the things that reading "The God Delusion" does is arm you with plenty of logical constructs when someone comes at you with "... but The Bible says ..." . I actually do find Richard Dawkins ironically evangelical at times but given the power being wielded by Right Wing "Christians" and other religious extremists we are more than likely to find ourselves in that situation.

Don't get me wrong, a great deal of people find comfort in their religion and beliefs and do not force it on others and use it to force their will on others. It can also provide a life discipline, but for a lot of people going to church has been replaced by going to garden centres or going shopping.

Anyway here's the next #Oktoberfest song, and it was bound to come, we have "Tequila" by Bradford's Terrorvision. I originally spelt that as "Yequila" which is why I will never be able to touch type as I cannot trust what my fingers do.

A Meme - #Oktoberfest #8 - Escape (The Piña Colada Song) - Rupert Holmes

I wasn't going to post this, but saw an amusing meme which referenced the song in the latest Donald Trump criminal activity. The problem is with Trump and Johnson we laugh at them when we should be jailing them, they are allowed to get away with murder literally and there are always people defending them often citing the law, But essentially this is a funny meme and the song to go with it.

"If you're big into Nazis and don't have half a brain

If you pay for sex from pornstars then try to bribe it away

I'm the putz that you looked for, 

Vote for me 'cause of hate"

No doubt I have the song somewhere in my collection on some compilation because it has appeared on many soundtracks, but for such a slab of cheese, divorced from the awful lyrics the tune is actually quite good. It did appear on the "Guardians of the Galaxy" soundtrack and is always part of standard 1970s fare often served up by local radio and wedding DJs (if they still exist, I recently saw one in Dalgety Bay so they are still around).

Sleep well, I am flagging now.

My God! - #Oktoberfest #7 - Spill The Wine - Eric Burdon & War

When I started "The God Delusion" it was Richard Dawkins stated aim to polarise my views towards the non existence of God. While my opinion on the existence of God (I'll believe in God if it turns up and does something genuinely miraculous to prove it's credentials, in my 62 years I've yet to see anything) has not changed Dawkins has pointed out the harm that religion has caused over time along with  singular and mass situations from child murder to genocidal wars plus slavery and misogyny as the norm.

Until th World Trade Centre was destroyed I was unaware that Islam and Christianity worshipped the same god, and as has been recently if there was one god there would be one religion. Dawkins book has made me considered my opinion of religion, as while for some people it does provide order and comfort, but for others it is a method of control and  division often used to implement abuse and harm.

Holy books were written by women and men to provide a way to implement their desired methods on people's way of life. I was also surprised to find out Mormon was as much a made up religion as Scientology ( a tax evasion by L Ron Hubbard) .

Ian Anderson on the cover of "Aqualung" in the text to "My God" put it perfectly.

"And In The beginning, Made Created God; and in the image of Man created he him"

Aqualung

So with that, I move on to #Oktoberfest and an appropriate piece would be "Spill The Wine" by Eric Burdon and War.

Have a good Monday everyone.

Newcastle to Whitby by Train - #Oktoberfest #6 - Gin Soaked boy - Tom Waits

I decided too to try Newcastle to Whitby by train as I hadn't done it before, didn't realise there was a direct train (26 stops) and a return fare for two was only thirty pounds. On the Friday going down the train stopped at Hartlepool because of a broken down freight train but Northern rail laid on a taxi to Whitby resulting in us getting there half an hour earlier than expected.

It's a scenic and long (timewise) route, but anyone can do it plus you get to the end and don't have to find a car park. You have to be selective in what you buy because you have to carry everything back, but the peace of mind that the relaxation gives you is so worth it. My next two holidays are by train and it really makes it more of a holiday for me. I know some will require a car but it is so pleasant when you can do it by bus or train.

I was surprised to come home to see that the blog had passed 300K visits, despite no posts since Friday.

So continuing #Oktoberfest we're hitting the Gin with Tom Waits' "Gin Soaked Boy" from "Swordfishtrombones" . My friends Peter and Jane run The Northumberland Gin Company so worth trying if you are a Gin connoisseur.

#Oktoberfest #5 - One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer - George Thorogood

I am always confused by how slow office software is these days. We have Youtube and video streaming that processes and delivers  an enormous amount of information seamlessly , but you open an email application, word processing application and it's like you are wading through treacle. Apologists always use the excuse that "well it's doing a lot more than it used to". To paraphrase my inner Ron Swanson "Not An Excuse". It is running on very fast processors with unfeasibly large amounts of memory, so responses should be fast.

Incidentally I forgot to plug my Google Pixel phone in last night and this morning it's down to 27% , and the power consumption seems to have massively increased since the Android 10 upgrade, and apart from that I am not to sure what else has changed apart from the general fonts, and certain things don't work, such as I can't look at the video directory through the file manager. It's pointless complaining because everything is perfect when you actually do mention these things.

It's enough to make one turn to drink.... talking of which we have George Thorogood's take on Rudy Toombs' "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" which was first covered by Amos Milburn who will be appearing in this sequence as he recorded many drink related songs which has just reminded me of another one, so I might hit the fort posts in October that I have set myself.

Enjoy your Friday everyone.