Sun Back - #AnimalAugust #14

Last night there was another Windows update , but this was a five minute one so I'm OK with that. Just wish that they were all that easy.

After the deluge that night the sun looks to have returned and it's a beautiful morning. This has continued so far and is looking to be a nice day after the greyness earlier in the week.

While I didn't feel liek doing any walking, that has picked up so I'm back on target for my steps.

I'm enjoying "Venus On The Halfshell" although Mr Farmer takes every opportunity to drop in a single entendre . On slightly unusual thing , is , I know it's a 1970s copy, but the pages are on quite thick paper, and I keep thinking that I've turned multiple pages, but I am re enjoying the book.

I also keep dipping into "Small Dreams of a Scorpion" with Milligan veering from funny / absurd  to serious and thought provoking.

TV wise I am on the final series of Veep and despite everyone being particularly awful (like the American Republicans and the UK Tory Party) it is very funny and incredibly well written and acted. Sometimes you see actors being particularly obnoxious , but generally that shows them just to be excellent actors.

Once I've finished that I do have "Silicon Valley" to be getting on with , which also has it's share of obnoxious characters.

For #AnimalAugust I can share "Five Years Time" by Noah and the Whale , a particular favourite of mine in it's almost flung together feel.

Have a brilliant Thursday.

Bloody Windows - #AnimalAugust #13

Last night I was ready for bed, checked a couple of things on the computer, and when I went to shut down there was another update available. As usual I Ok's it and it started staying on 0% and telling me to not swith my machine off, then severak restarts and loads of times staying on the same level. You never have a clue how long these things take and the various indicators never tell you how long it's going to be.

Eddie Izzard nails the situation in his Computers and Terms and Conditions stand up routine which you can watch here. This happens time and time again. Also recently Microsoft applications stopped giving you a time line and replacing them with a blue spinning circle and you haven't a clue what is happening.

#AnimalAugust is going to be "The Bonny Black Hare" by Fairport Convention , the thing is it's a traditional folk song , and it's not really about a rabbit related mammal, but the title will do for the sequence.

PAYTV - #AnimalAugust #12

I've been binge watching TV again , this time "The Rook" on Virgin . When I first started watching it was on Virgin's UHD channel , but when I hit episode three it said I had to upgrade to continue. Needless to say I didn't though apparently it's STARZ production , though "Ash vs The Evil Dead" was included in the package.

Amazon Prime is similar , you pay for the Prime package , and you see some programs advertised and when you select you have to take out another subscription to another provider. It's like charity and lottery adverts, there are more and more spring up and if it keeps on like this we may have to go back to buying DVDs.

I also get annoyed that pay channels carry advertisements on th elive feeds, I don't mind advertisements on say All 4 as I see that as my price of admission, same with all commercial channels.

I am grateful for the plethora and cornucopia and good television programs available, this is from someone who grew up with a choice of two TV channels. Also when you watch recorded items you can fast forward through adverts , and when you watch Sky or Amazon Prime Streams you have no adverts so to speak (possibly some short ones) .

To be quite honest I do watch very little live TV which means , apart from All 4 and other commercial streamers I am not usually troubled by adverts so generally things are good , although you do get some very good adverts.

So what should we go for #AnimalAugust ? Well "Toad" by Cream is playing , essentially a Ginger Baker drum solo bookended by a solid simple heavy riff , the live version has a bit more guitar work in it , but Ginger Baker's drumming is the star here.

Don't Walk, Boogie - #AnimalAugust #11

I had gone to bed , my body is tired but my mind is not , so I 've got up and decided just to post something on the blog , in the hope that my mind will decide that sleep is a good idea as well as my body. When I got up I could hear running water, always a worry , but a tap had not been switched off in the shower room, so that was OK.

For the last two days I haven't felt like walking anywhere, but still done 6K steps a day and for the month I am still ahead of the mark, but I have just not felt like walking. Maybe I am just too used to walking round my area and want somewhere different. On Saturday I did go down Denton Burn  and got some good photographs and am toying with walking down to the Tyne , although it's then a long uphill walk back, but it would do me good , and if the weater is OK I may get some good photographs.

I also may track down some more interesting old buildings to visit, we are virtually sited on Hadrian's Wall and I have still never been to Segedunum which may be a trek worth doing one weekend. Vindolanda is a bit further west and definitely not walking distance but here's a video I did soundtracked buy Alex Harvey's take on WH Auden's "Roman Wall Blues"

The "Don't Walk, Boogie" title is nicked from a k-Tel disco pop album from te seventies or eighties. The albums were groove crammed so sound quality was not too impressive.

For the #AnimalAugust  sequence , given the Romanesque bits of this post I thought I would go for an Eagle song and that could have been something by The Eagles, "Fly Like An Eagle" by the Steve Miller Band , but thought I would go the "Day of the Eagle" by Robin Trower , ex Procol Harum , but a very impressive metal guitarist fronting his own band after he left. I do have a 4CD set of his stuff and think it may be due another run out.

Right that's probably enough so I will try and hit the sack once more tonight.

Timefolder - #AnimalAugust #10

I've had an idea for a short story or even a book called "Timefolder" , obviously I can't say any more as the concept is fairly nebulous and cloudy and I do need some time to flesh it out. Whether this will happen or it will just be forgotten about , I don't know , and given my  previous track record it will probably just be left.

We are well into August and today's weather is as grey as ever. I have been trying to set up a subdomain to no effect (ie using the proper channels nothing actually works).

This is a very short insubstantial post and had a few things I wanted to say but like many times before everything has trained from my mind, leaving me with very little to share with you.

The thing is I think my posts average about 250 words and even though I feel there is absolutely nothing in this post this has hit that word count so it's not like my early posts which were about a sentence long, but also I suppose there is a lot of word fluff in this that is waffle to expand the post.

I have finished "The End of The F**king World" this week , which I found rather good if challenging and you do laugh but sometimes feel you shouldn't because of what has happened. You can watch for free on All 4 . I keep getting adverts to subscribe and go advert free , but I am fine if adverts are the price I pay to watch the series.

I actually pay Virgin to watch Sky and Sky carry adverts even though I am paying to watch them anyway.


For #AnimalAugust I've gone for a Christmas record from Alan White and Chris Squire when they were with Yes , "Run With The Fox" , possibly a bit trte but I've always liked it . I'm surprised it doesn't seem to be available for digital download but is on the Yesyears boxed set which is available art a reasonable price through Amazon.

With The Possible Exception of Being Garth Crooks - #AnimalAugust #9

Every time I wash a sieve the Half Man Half Biscuit song "Lock Up Your Mountain Bikes"  from "Look Dad, No Tunes" comes to mind:

"There is surely nothing worse than washing sieves

There is surely nothing worse than washing sieves

With the possible exception

Of being Garth Crooks

There is surely nothing worse than washing sieves"

Possibly very true but what Garth Crooks has done to incur Nigel Blackwell's ire , I haven't a clue.

Today is very hot and clammy but foggy. I went to Morrison's but wearing the mask can feel a bit claustrophobic , but we are in a different world now until a vaccine is found for COVID-19 . The mask is annoying the alternative is frightening.

Talking of claustrophobia , which I suffer from slightly, that is the feeling that I am getting in "The Lost" by Jonathan Aycliffe , being trapped but frightened of what might happen, ironically I'm enjoying it , and saw parallels in "The Revenant" in the cold, snow , and forest settings , although one is in North America and the other is in Romania. Leonardo Dicaprio's fight with the cear is stunning, and Tom Hardy play s a great villain.

Keeping with Half Man Half Biscuit for #AnimalAugust we will go with "King of Rome" which is about a pigeon , and one of their covers but not officially available digitally. Here is a list of their covers. Luckily for everyone it is on Youtube and you can listen to it on this post.

Be Prepared - #AnimalAugust #8

This weekend has been mostly vegetarian / vegan and I do find that good vegan food is generally more palatable that most animal carcass based food. But I am not a vegan , not even a vegetarian, but do enjoy fish and sometimes chicken. The vegan stuff is generally a lot lighter on the stomach and always goes down well, and you never have to wonder what's actually in a vegan meal.

Sometimes some stuff can seem a bit bland but that's why vegan cooks are more inventive in their meal preparation, so vegan meals tend to bevery morish.

Just thinking of the next post number that I will mark and it will be 2345 , which will probably happen in September at the current rate of writing .

This morning I have started my #MusicWhileYouWork with a Go Go Midgets EP and "The Texas Jerusalem Crossroads" by Lift To Experience , which twenty years on is still an awesome experience to listen to, and that is their only release that I am aware of although Josh T Pearson released a solo album and several EPs.

I am currently working through "From The Beginning" by Emerson, Lake and Palmer which , like the curate's egg, is good in parts , th einterview wit Aaron Copeland over their take on "Fanfare For The Common Man" is illuminating , as their version is a six minute jam bookended by the actual "Fanfare For The Common Man".

The Jonathan Aycliffe novel "The Lost" which I had regarded as almost comic has taken a much darker turn in the second half, with and ever increasing body count, which although I have read it before I had forgotten about. The book is excellent and half way through I am looking forward to find out what lies in store in the Carpathian monthains.

For #AnimalAugust we shall go with a live take of "The Dog, The Dog , He's At It Again" although it's not really about a dog , but it's an excellent song by Caravan.