My Alarums

Although I have an alarm clock , it's generally other things that wake me, and during the week I really don't want to get up for work, I want to stay in bed.

I tend to hear cars on the road outside that start around five am , and I think these people must get up really early to be driving at this time. The next thing is at around five twenty the heating comes on and you can hear water coursing through the radiators , then twenty five minutes later the actual alarm goes off and thein it is time to drag myself out of bed.

There will be lots of things that wake you up , the dawn chorus is a good one. When I lived in Shieldfield there was a lit yard behind the flat and the dawn chorus went on all night, although I slept through it.

My second job was as a computer operator for Peter Ctaig and I worked "continental shifts" which was days followed by nights and in a week you would work Monday day , then Tuesday night then Thursday day and Saturday morning , then the next week was Monday night etc. That taught me to be able to sleep any time anywhere.

So that's a few things on sleeping and stuff and I thought I would go with something by The Strawberry Alarm Clock , with then thought The Alarm was even more direct so we'll have "68 Guns". On tThe Best of The Alarm there is a song called "The Stand(Long Version)" that clocks in at 2'47" , not sure how long the sort version is.

Zigzagging

I didn't intend to post anything today after posting three times yesterday , but felt I needed to record what I noticed today. It is probably not anything most people will be bothered about but my lateral thinking mind immediately tied it up with Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart).

I've been out for a walk today mainly to get some jam from the Moorside Allotment shop for me and my daughters, but this meant a continuation of the walk across Nunsmoor .

No the EU forced Britain to keep driving on the Left Hand side of the road , despite most of the rest of the world driving on the right , and it's similar when walking on paths or escalators , you see signs that say "Keep Left" , and I always try to keep left, but people on paths seem to be all over the place which mean that when I'm walking it's not a straight walk but a zigzag , going from right to left to avoid people walking on the right , and the worst one was a guy who was on the right with his dog on an extendable lead on the left hand side effectively blocking the actual path meaning I had to walk on the grass to get past.

I think will some people it is just pure ignorance , they are the only ones that matter.

The walk was pleasant nevertheless and is an excuse to share "Zigzag Wanderer" by Captain Beefheart, just to show how off kilter my mind gets.

20221

Today is the twentieth of February 2021 , or you could say Twenty - Two - Twenty One like you are counting backwards. Over the last year or so there have been a lot of dates that fall into that category, and no doubt 2022 will provide even more. This is just an observatory post on how dates can appear significant when the reality is that it's just natural progression or coincidence.

One of my vinyl captures is "Numbers" by Cat Stevens and it is one of so many albums that use numbers as their inspirations as well as having a wonderful storybook and cut out cover as part of the package.

Another being "A Grounding In Numbers" by Van Der Graaf Generator, which is the sort of offering you would expect from Peter Hamill and company.

Although I could have chosen these artists to share a song with I am going to go for Ry Cooder's take on  Otis Redding's "634 5789"

Atmospherics

This week I have taken some photographs of mainly St Jame's Park that have come out far better than I expected. Yes my Canon camera has a 25x optical zoom , which goes up to 100x when using the digital zoom, though that is almost impossible to use without a tripod. This is similar to the Sydney Opera House Effect of the Wallsend Cranes from Fenham Hall Drive which you can see here .

St Jame's Park - Newcastle United

Effectively if the atmospherics are right you can actually get a great picture. But you do need a clear ideally sunny or cloudless day and we haven't had too many of those this year, but it is really satisfying when you get images like the one on the right.

I often remark that if you want to take a picture involving atmospherics you have to get it there and then otherwise whatever you are trying to capture will disappear forever.

That has happened so many times to me and sometimes even the time it takes to get your phone out of your pocket means that you lose the moment.

For the first time in my life I have noticed the "Sphere" part of the word "Atmosphere" , basically "Atmos" is from the Greek for vapour and "Sphere" is the ball shape of our planet. "Atmos" is also a Dolby sound system which until today I was unaware of.

I've had at least two time where I have caught "flying saucers" , one being a cloud , the other the sun reflecting off shaped building rooves. , while they are on my Instagram Feed Instagram doesn't allow you to search your own feed for hashtags.

I will update the links if I find the pictures but will leave you with another excuse for this post , one of my favourite Tom Robinson songs "Atmospherics:Listen To The Radio" which I didn't realise was co written by Peter Gabriel..

Le Son

I'd lost my Bluetooth Emospeak headphones and yesterday I found them, so thanks to the milder weather I don't have to wear multiple coats and hats so the headphones are now an option once again. I wasn't sure what to listen to but I have a Disco playlist featuring Donna Summer , Lipps Inc , Marcel King , Janelle Monae and The Emotions although I have a hell of a lot of choice to listen to on my Google Pixel 2XL phone and it's still half empty so when I can be bothered I can add more from my collection.

This week one the original album series boxes that I picked out for listening was the first five albums by Little Feet , and though the albums are all under forty minutes and they are so good that they just seemed to disappear immediately . Steered by Lowell George they were on a similar level to The Band in terms of shaping the sounds of Americana.

I am quite shocked I have never mentioned Little feat before on this blog, but at leas this short post will rectify this and will share two live numbers from an Old Grey Whistle Test performance in 1975 , "Rock and Roll Doctor" and "Fat Man In The Bathtub" (maybe should be my theme tune).

Going Up

Another idea for a short story or non-poem. 

You take a stairway to go up, there are people behind you and is tis fairly narrow. The stairaway winds round and you realise you are not sure where you are going. There are no numbers on the doors or floors and there are no lifts. You cannot stop because there is a line of people behind you, they are going up and morally forcing you to continue.

You cannot stop, you cannot get tired , you feel you are in an Escher drawing, all the floors are the same. all the doors are closed and the same colour and all the doors are padlocked so there is no option of leaving the head of this hellish upwardly mobile conga line.

You still have to go on, you don't know why you came in here and surely you have to hit the top at some point , and then what?

Will it be like Jack and The Beanstalk or will there be a roof or will there just be a dead end, but still you keep going , looking for a way off , looking for a change.

You start to think you are just going round the same circuit , even though you are going up you are in some kind of Moebius strip type stairway that you can never get off.

You don't know how many are behind you and whether they feel the same as you.

There is no change, this keeps , going on and you wonder why you are not hungry , thirsty or need to relieve yourself, you are starting to think you are in a dream , but it seems so real.

You keep going what you think is up, and although you are tired , stopping is not an option,

There is no reason for it and you hope it will stop , or have an end, but it doesn't

You keep going up and up and up .........

And here is the non-poem version:

"One step starts it

The two and soon a flight of stairs

Then another

And Another

And More

And It never stops

You think it will end

But it keeps on going

Turn the corner

Another flight awaits

There is no turning back

Only going Up

And Up

And Up

And ........"

That's Friday's which probably says something about my state of mind.

I wasn't sure what to illustrate this but "The Staircase (Mystery) by Siouxsie and The Banshees seems perfect. Maybe that's what inspired me to create this.

Enjoy the weekend every one.

I'm Missing The Snow

This morning I finished "Left Out" which while it mostly depressed me on the infighting in the Labour Party but left with the observation that Corby had moved the party back to the Left , but I home that Starmer has something lined up to destroy the Tory party because he's being very quiet at the moment.

Next up is "Fake Law" by The Secret Barrister which doesn't start well as it intersperses right wing idiot quotes from the press , parliament and the rest, and is almost like a Daily Mail article but it is what you hear from so many everyday people who can't be bothered to think or look into what they are reading. I have been guilty several times but luckily have friends who can put me right.

The snow has gone and temperatures are up , but generally the weather is grey and uninspiring .I don't need two coats , gloves and a furry coat to go out in and while it's a bit brighter it's a bit meh. I  thought I would pen a non-poem on my thoughts , so I supposed it is still causing some inspiration. 

"I Miss The Snow

Crunching underfoot

The bright white pavements

Parks and Fields

I Miss The Snow

I Miss The Snow

I miss The Snowmen

The animal trails

A bird , a cat, a dog

I Miss The Show

I Miss The Snow

The iced puddles and ponds

Electric Brilliance from The Winter Sun

And still that crunch underfoot

I Miss The Snow"

So that's a non-poem for this day off, and the weather is boringly mild but I will nip out for a walk soon. While I'm writing this I picked up a CD called "Raw Rockabilly" from my Discogs pile , the music is great but the cover is a bit iffy as it contains the Confederate flag which has been adopted by American Nazis in the same way the St George's Flag and Union Jack have been purloined by British Nazis . It's also an anti Black Lives Matter image now, but when this was designed it was a redneck image but was not seen at that time as a racist image, which it undoubtedly was. I'd never seen it as a racist flag , but I had all the bits which if I had bothered to put them together, I would have immediately seen that it was. We all have to be continually learning and to be educated.

So musically will go with "Please Don't Touch" by Johnny Kidd and The Pirates from that album. More rock and roll than rockabilly but still a great record, which Motorhead and Girlschool updated for the St Valentine's Day Massacre EP which I have posted about recently and in the past (follow the tags).