Share The Good Things

While life may not be perfect at the moment , we are getting a lot of chances to do things that we didn't think we could do before. It does help when the weather is good and I have not actually used a bus for about three weeks, that's not because I dislike buses , it's just because I don't need to use them.

Today I am going to visit Westerhope for supplies shopping , rather than going into town, It means actually crossing the A1 but there is a foot bridge so I don't have to dodge motorway traffic.

I am listening to a lot of vinyl and digital at the moment, plus 6Music and a hell of a lot of TV , there is so much to watch and so much choice and it does amaze me that people record , watch and rewatch soaps . Having said that is me watching "Vikings" and "Lucifer" and different that someone watching "Eastenders" and "Coronation STreet" in the grand scheme of things.

I always try and dig out some piece of music that is either new and you should hear, or appropriate to the post, or some great song that you have never heard. This one fulfills the latter two criteria , being "Television" by Dave Edmunds.

Choose Your Masques

I think facemasks in close contact with people you don't know are probably a good idea, but there are people who think (or probably don't think) they are a fashion accessory. I saw a guy in the street the other day wearing one, pull it down and then sneeze into the air, obviously didn't want any germs polluting HIS mask. As far as I am aware the point of facemasks is to stop YOU spreading anything to others, rather than protecting you. Only the surgical type ones protect you from close contact with infected non mask wearers.

I've given up on th erolling million steps every three months and halfing it to two million steps per year which is around 5.5K steps a day until I get to easily wander again. The main problem is a relatively small area that I am walking in resulting is a boredom / familiarity scenario which is why I don't do gyms and only do swimming very infrequently.

In other areas "Not The End Of The World" by Christopher Brookmyre is rather excellent, although it covers a heck of a lot and the initial "Marie Celeste" event of the prologue has not featured too much , but I expect will be resolved in the final quarter of the book. I home it doesn't turn out like many episodes of "Elementary" where everything is wrapped up in the final two minutes.

So I simply chose the title becasue of the name of the Hawkwind album, but if I wera one it will just be a bandit / neckerchief or scarf , though was also thing of a balaclava / motorcycle helmet inned balaclava thing.

Stream Girls

I'm not sure why , maybe because I'm a sexist , male chauvinist misogynist , but I find some of the phrasing and vocabulary of Lauren Laverne and Mary Ann Hobbs a bit grating and pretentious with "down with the kids" descriptions of certain musical pieces , however I'm OK with Craig Charles and Shaun Keaveny coming out with similar things.

It doesn't stop me listening to their music though , and they are far better that the dross available on commercial radio and  other BBC stations and today Mary Ann Hobbs had a guy on discussing the state of streaming. Now as you know I will not have anything to do with Spotify because it's an unworkable model and today I found out something more about the model that makes it even worse.

When you (or the person who's giving it your free) pays Spotify or whoever their monthly fee this is what happens. They take their cut and then the money goes into a big pot. It is the paid out to artists based on the the number of streamed songs they have. So what that means ids that you may have a a predilection for Egyptian and Iranian folk and listen exclusively to that music. Which is good for you but not the artist. Why? Because the money you may is split based on all streamings so if Ed Sheeran gets a million times the streams your artists get , then he will get that chunk of your subscription and the artists you listen to get next to nothing. So basically Spotify is even worse than I thought.

So a big , big thank you to Mary Ann Hobbs (and possibly Lauren Laverne) for illuminating me on this. They are extremely good and I can put up with the bits that niggle me. Here's my last post on the situation and to go with this I will share "Stealin'" by Uriah Heep , in my opinion a great record  with a vague connection to the situation.

Cloudbreaking

I think I've run out of date homophones so that's that for this month on that subject. If I tried hard enough I am sure I could have found one for TEN ,  depending on regional pronunciation Tin, Tan , Tun and Ton may have dones. Ton , Tin and Tonne are definite homophones for each other but  Ten is stretching .

Outside it's grey and a fine misty rain is coming down, though I do want to go for a walk. I'm keeping on with the #maywriteabit abd looking out thinking I can see clear sky but there is a huge gray cloud overhead but it is dissipating..

Eventually it turned out to be a nice day but I din't do much walking , so I am back down on my monthly step target , which doesn't bother me too much, although it's possibly a motivational worry.

I watched my first thing on Netflix , the first episode of season four of "Lucifer" so I really am Ok forever with TV to watch , having just completed "Code 404" in two days (6 x 25 minute episodes , so hardly a trial) . "Lucifer" opened with Tom Ellis playing "Creep" by Radiohead on piano , so more of the same but nice ending to the episode with Graham McTavish as a sinister priest.

May Ja , May Nein

The 8th of May!

Well I have a homophone for May 9 , although I am not sure how long I can keep this going , although it has given me a line to keep the #maywriteabit going although I did like the 8th of May Motorhead / Lemmy (Ian Fraser Kilmister) memes going round yesterday.

The blogger went into the new format , which like Facebook , seems anything but an improvement. When you are writing , ideally you want something that is going to look in the same ballpark as the published item and the new blogger interface is not that.

So this Saturday is another gorgeous day , but I have been working and listening to more of Max Richter's "Sleep" , and also gone through the childhood upbringing of one of the protagonists in Christopher Brookmyre's "Not The End of The World".

I was sure I'd written about this recently but my Google Pixel 2XL only actually starts after unlocking when I switch it on. This may be true of other phones , but this is the first time that I have started switching it off at night.

I feel that this Bank Holiday is a total damp squib and although I didn't work yesterday I don't really feel that I have had a day off and work starts at 8am on Monday again.

While I have been walking , I like to take photographs of trees , grass and wildlife but with this good weather you get lots of people on Nunsmoor and the Town Moor relaxing in the sun and I always avoid taking pictures of people. Yesterday I managed to use trees to avoid some people, and I wanted the tree in the picture anyway , so if you see one of my pictures with a tree in it , there may be someone behind that tree.

Yesterday I heard a lounge jazz version of "Ace of Spades" played by Huey Morgan on 6Music and I was not impressed. I know the obvious song to go for would be Motorhead's "Ace of Spades" but I am going for another one that 6Music have been playing The Streets & Tame Impala's collaboration "Call My Phone Thinking I'm Doing Nothing Better" ,I do love Mike Skinner's word, this does sound like classic Streets. It is rather good.

May Ate

Well I got a homophone for May 8 , and as it's just past midnight and a supposed Bank Holiday (still need to finish some work but have a weekend to do it) so I will do today's post now and keep on with the #maywriteabit . I wonder how many people see me going on about homophones and think I am going on about homophobes.

Today I listened to Max Richter's 8 hour performance of "Sleep" which is available for four more days from BBC Sounds here. I got the original album with a bonus disc as part of a Rough Trade recommendation package. The eight hour piece contains 31 sections which you can find out more on the link.

While in a similar univers to "Thursday Afternoon" by Brian Eno, it is a more music based piece, rather than semi structured ambient sounds.

So I've decided to share "Vladimir's Blues" by Max Richter featuring a video that utilises state of the art surveillance techniques. Check out "Sleep" it's definitely worth your attention.

May's Even

Well another day where I can't think of a homophone for SEVEN although I sort of fitted it into the post title. The only word I could think of are variations on the names Sven and Steven. So anyway this is continuing with the #maywriteabit

I'm enjoying the Christopher Brookmyre "Not The End of the World" but there are a hell of a lot o plot areas in there, and I was thinking about how long it takes to actually plan out a book be it face or fiction.

I remember an episode of Hamish Macbeth which I think was penned by Danny Bole where a hood was disposed of and his accomplices buried him in some remote spot and then a mobile phone started ringing. They all looked at each other and realised it was coming from the ground where they had buried colleague. The consensus was "Well I'm Not Getting It" . I think the whole episode was planned around that single idea. OK so how can this happen? I think the episode was "The Lochdubh Assassin" although he wrote twelve episodes.

I have thought of a similar scenario to maybe open a book, but as I've told you about the Hamish Macbeth episode it's pointless me including my scenario and i'll probably forget about it. I still haven't started to write a book, because I still haven't thought of what I might think of a killer idea.

So we are on the final working day of this week, and the weather is absolutely gorgeous again.

This weekend I need to mow my lawn and probably do some decent walking.

So morning music. Just because it came up in my feed and looks mad , we'll go with "Supernature" by Cerrone and "Spacer" by Sheila & B Devotion (who I always thought was Sheila B Devotion) segue / mashup , some late seventies electro disco.