Stille Nacht

Last night, oddly and exceptionally, when I decided in was time for sleep , I thought I don't want anything playing, I just want silence. Normally I have something playing, maybe Brian Eno or some space rock /  Krautrock such as Hawkwind or Tangerine Dream and let myself get lost in the sounds and drift off into the realms of Morpheus.

I know a lot of people who have difficulty sleeping and going to sleep is a bit like riding a bike, if you think about it, you can't do it.

This morning I posted off a CD to Germany and had difficulty writing the letter "ß" as it sort of comes out as a "B" when I write it, but hopefully it will get there.

The "Silent Night" aspect of this post reminded me of two takes on the Christmas Carol by Franz Xaver Gruber one by Can and the other by Sinead O' Connor (from "The Ghosts of Oxford Street" by Malcolm Mclaren, a great album / documentary if you can track it down. My friend Alison just found that it's on All4 here , so watch , learn and enjoy.

I've inclluded both for your enjoyment.

Take The Skinheads Bowling

Yesterday, for the first time in a long time, I walked to and from work. Both walks were in the dark as it's autumn and the days are still getting shorter as we are still on the way to the Winter Solstice and the shortest day. I did about 18.5K steps which at 2.5K steps per mile is about 7.5 miles. I don't think I will do that today as I need to be at work a bit longer today but I will definitely be walking in , and my step cout is ahead of schedule for the month.

I got to listen to the excellent "Dirty Computer" by Janelle Monáe, my favourite album of the last two years, repeating a couple of songs as I played it then finishing off with Marcel King's "Reach For Love" , one of my favourite singles and Shaun Ryder's favourite Factory single. That's the great thing about walking, these days (and really since the dawn of the compact cassette) we have the ability to listen to music on the move. Although cassettes are having a revival, the problem has always been their fragility, but they did combine that with convenience. A friend of mine had a cassette player that allowed you to program the playing order, but the fact that it had to fast forward and rewind between songs sort of negated the convenience, but an impressive piece of technology none the less.

The blog is now eight posts away from the annual record (last year I hit 316) so that will be easily surpassed this year and that will probably be it for posting records.

One of the points of this blog is to share music with friends and I was thinking of something by Janelle Monáe or Marcel King, but Chris Hawkins on 6Music has just put on "Take The Skinheads Bowling" by Camper Van Beethoven who once retired to a cabin and recorded Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk" (my favourite Fleetwood Mac album and even got album of the week from NME despite being a double album by "dinosaur rockers" in the middle of the UK punk explosion, and the CVB one is good as well). So we will go with "Take The Skinheads Bowling".

Just as I was writing this , my tablet box somehow fell out of my pocket. It is round. I looked down it was nowhere to be seen. I guessed right and it had rolled under the chest of drawers. C'est la vie.

Mustang Ford

I remember as a teenager wanting the album "My people were fair and had sky in their hair .... But now they're content to wear stars on their brows" just for the cover. The song "Mustang Ford" seems to be a bit of an oddity here but the subject would have been more suited to the electric T. Rex than the acoustic Tyrannosaurus Rex.

I never got the album although my first purchase was a budget FlyBack compilation "The Best of T. Rex" on the Fly label with the four square design. This album is now in my collection on CD and get's the odd play, but the cover is still, in my opinion the thing that drags you into it, it has a lot to look at and extra things keep jumping out at you, Pink Floyd's "A Saucerful of Secrets" has a similar effect on me.

This post came about because I saw a friend in their Ford Mustang and this is part of the raison d'etre of this blog to record events big and small that actually matter to me. The number of times I go back through this to dig up some extra information.

I'm also updating by friend Bob Armstrong's website and he does some amazing landscape paintings which you can see here. So enjoy Tyrannosaurus Rex and Bob Armstrong's amazing paintings on this cold bright Sunday.

98.3

Coming back from holiday I weighed myself. No I am terrible at dieting and eating the right foods and taking exercise (although by stating this means that I am aware of this) so I expected to have increased weight. I was surprised to see that I weighed in at 98.3 Kg (that's 15 stone 7 lb imperial) which is the lowest I've been for over thirty years, I just wish that this could continue with as little effort as I've given it in the last week.

I know lowering my weight is better for me but I am very easily tempted and of the opinion that life is to be enjoyed as much as possible which sometimes means going outside the recommendations. Having said that a nurse once told me that I should not eat fruit and should only eat celery and turnips. Hardly inspiring, I ignored her.

I do like eating things that taste nice and think that when you do eat it is for the taste not the actual consumption. This morning I have had a couple of small cold satsumas which were very pleasant , and the fibre is good for bodily functions but the most captivating part is the taste on your tongue and in your mouth.

So this is just a short post to mark another slight drop in my weight. I know a lot of people join organisations such as Weight Watchers and Slimming World but really just go and see your GP they will weigh you and advise you and if you are in the UK that is "free" (paid for by your National Insurance and taxes).

For today's song we'll go with Tom Waits' "Eggs and Sausage"  which I do enjoy every now and then.

Pen Pals

I seldom write to anyone anymore. I mean really write with a pen on paper. The closest I get is addressing CDs that I sell on Discogs.  I used to send postcards to people of places I visited, but now it's Instagram videos, which in a way are more personal and effectively instant but in some ways I miss putting pen to paper.

The thing is a letter or a postcard is closer to you that digital communication , but digital communication can give an immediate closeness that paper can't. Telephone is great especially with the advent of the mobile , and then video calling  can  enable you to share even more. My eldest daughter sent my dad a video message on his eigtieth birthday because she was working and couldn't make the party. While a birthday card is nice the video message really amazed my dad.

We have so many ways to communicate, but it is nice to write every now and then, and I don;t know if that is just me being selfish. There are lots of people who generally shun technology so pen and paper is the general default mode of long distance communication. We have had the telephone for over a hundred years so that has always been relatively immediate.

So maybe the song we go for is "The Word / OM" by The Moody Blues the closing songs from "In Search of The Lost Chord" probably my favourite of their albums. Yes it's pretentious taking in sixties hippie culture references but I like it and so I will share it with your.

I've also noticed there's a Children In Need Covers album which is on the strip below , which you can buy or just chip in at the web site.

True Romance

Today has been a quietish day meeting with my dad for lunch and hearing a lot of good music. Some of this reminded me of my favourite film of all time, which I still love watching the Quentin Tarantino scripted Tony Scott directed "True Romance" which in my opinion has everything, cracking soundtrack, amazing cast including Dennis Hopper as a good guy and amazing face off with Christopher Walken's Sicilian gang boss, Gary Oldman as an albino negro drug lord and a Mexican stand off to end it with and all this interwoven with the Christian Slater / Patricia Arquette love story, oh and Val Kilmer as the ghost of Elvis.

I cannot believe that I haven't mentioned much of this film in the blog, but maybe once or twice.

The theme that Hans Zimmer, "You're So Cool", borrowed from Carl Orff's "Gassenhauer" (used in "Badlands") constructed as a children's piece to be played using very basic instruments. It is one of my favourite pieces of music and off course that is what you will get with this post.

There was a lot more good stuff that I heard today but that will be fuel for my next few posts.

The blog has just passed 350K visits so 400K by the end of the year is a distinct possibility, and half a million by the end of March could possibly happen.

It is late and I do have to get back to Newcastle tomorrow, but enjoy the start / end mash from"True Romance" , it still gives me goosebumps.

Packing In Lollipops

Today has been a busy but relaxing day. My first goal was to photograph the Ribblehead Viaduct . The problem was that I had a thirty minute window to take the photo's shortened by the fact the outward train was ten minutes late then I misread the return time which knocked another ten minutes off my free time. If I didn't catch the return train then I'd have a two hour wait for the next one, and the distance to the Viaduct was downhill and probably would take twenty minutes so my compromise was to take photographs from the car park of the Station Hotel and from the platform of the Station which you can see here on my Instagram feed.

Secondly, on my return to Settle, I walked to The Hoffman Kiln which is a remarkably eerie experience to walk through. I haven't a clue what lime burning entails but it seems a huge physical enterprise for the production of lime. You can see my walk through it here. There's more information than I can tell you here.

Vinyl From SCAD

When I came back to Settle I visited the S.C.A.D. charity shop, and ended up buying three vinyl LPs. I don't need any new vinyl but there was a Weather Report eponymous album that I've never seen before, some Debussy (Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune is one of the most beautifully creepy pieces ever), Vaughn-Williams and Delius.

One of the things is this blog does enable me to share music with friends all over the world, and I love when I do mange to share something new with them to increase their experience.

Sometimes it's something you like, sometimes it leaves you cold but it can be like food, I am not a fan of most Thai food and am picky about sushi and it is the same with music.

So what should we go with? Well I have seen a lot of fifties vinyl, including The Chordettes "Lollipop" which is always good to share with friends.

Enjoy