A Numerical Experiment

This blog is now a sort of diary and I am not sure if I will hit 20 posts this year. I had not posted in a month and in December 2022 I have about six thousand visits (I wish I got that many reads on my Vocal site which actually does make me money with about fifteen hundred reads per month.

However, when I posted this month for one day I got four thousand visits, so this is a test to see whether dropping a post in here will give me another boost, this month is standing at twelve thousand visits.

I am still reading World of Tiers by Philip Jose Farmer and it is a little formulaic but I will persist with it as he is a good writer.

I recently found out that my American Amazon Author page has a feed from this blog which you can see here. It only shows on the .com site but not others. C'est La Vie.

The music is "Three Is A Magic Number" by Bob Dorough 

Mike Singleton - Vocal Stories

I am not sure if you are aware of my writing on Vocal but these are a few of my stories if you would like to sample them:

1. The Never Ending Story - My Directory
2. The Never Ending Music - My Music Directory
3. The Never Ending Poetry - My Poetry Directory
4. An Owl In A Towel - A Beautiful Book by Lesley and Cheryl
5. Three Reasons Why I Love Settle - Scaleber Force, The Hoffman Kiln and Castlebergh Crag
6. The Accidental Book - Helping a Great Vocal Friend Resulted In Me Publishing My First Book
7. Call Me Les - A Great Friend and An Amazing Writer

Surreal Kilo

"Q:Why do Computer Scientists get Halloween and Christmas mixed up?

  A: Because OCT:31 = DEC:25"

I had to think a few seconds about that one then it made me smile. Another Mathematical Guffaw from Simon Singh in "The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets" a book I contue to enjoy so much I've ordered a couple more of his books, although I am intending to enjoy some more fiction in between servings of Simon Singh.

Today has been bitterly cold, walking down the West Road the wind almost took my face off, a couple of times I had to shelter and contemplated finishing my journey by getting the bus, but I perservered, and walked in.

Work has continued to be challenging but I am on top of things though prefer actually doing things rather than ticking boxes to say that I've done things, and finding that in IT still a remarkable number of people work manually rather than using the numerous tools at their disposal.

I'm looking forward to a weekend in Edinburgh, one of a few coming up, though snow is forecast. Still I'm sure I will have fun walking round , taking pictures and finding presents for friends.

Last year I was told about the Two Together Railcard. For £30 a year you get 30% of rail tickets if two of you travel together. This means if you go say Newcastle to London and the tickets are £210 , you would get the ticket for £150 and even accounting for paying for the card you would still be £30 in pocket on that one journey. If you plan to use the railways this could be useful for you.





So before I sleep I will leave you with Bob Dorough's "3 Is A Magic Number" given the mathematical introduction that I introduced the post with. Sleep well.

Three Choices For Three - #ALifeInNumbers #3

I thought I had this nailed. I was going to go for "3 Is A Magic Number" by Bob Dorough, then thought maybe that's a bit obvious so thought I'd pitch for "Three Cool Cats" by The Coasters, a totally great song , but then thought what about "Harry Lime Theme" the theme from The Third Man by Anton Karas which is something you have heard and know totally but maybe wouldn't have expected me to come out with it.

It's unusual that it's played on the zither, and instrument I don't think I've ever seen let alone tried to play. This is one song I've not used before although Orson Welles who starred in The Third Man directed by Carol Reed has appeared before.So that's todays choice.

This morning I drove back from Whitby, dropped off the car before dropping into work. I also got some more lovely birthday presents and tonight intend to relax and have an easy night.

I don't think every number is going to present me with these choices, what will I do for 37 or 43 for instance. I will find a way , sometimes it's just a was of looking at things and applying a little lateral thinking.

Anyway that's enough words for me, if i average 250 words a post (which I often do) then that's going to be close on fifteen thousand words on this trail of songs. I don't know if that's overkill , but of course it will be interspersed with the joys and mundanities of everyday life and well as observations on other things that catch my interest and may interest you too.

Anyway enjoy your Monday evening, I am going to try and relax

The Numbers Game , Pirates and Burgers

I stated that I wanted to hit a thousand blog posts and a hundred thousand hits by New Year's Eve 2015. That's not likely to happen although combined views for both my blogs are over 100K now and the combined number of posts is up to 970 , so if I add the two together , then both the targets are achievable.

Jack Sparrow .. Well Burger Me!

At the weekend I attended the rather excellent PKD Festival (see here for my review) and met a pirate at one of the burger vans . One the odd things was that there were lots of variations on meat sandwiches involving Aberdeen Angus Steaks ,Sausages , Chicken, and the like , and then you had salad!  You can't have a salad roll , although that was your only option if you were a vegetarian.

A Classy Tricycle

Anyway apart from the music , there were pirates , big guns a small fairground , bike and cars , something for everyone , and I think they sold a lot of food on the day. Oh and they had a doughnut stand as well , but I'm not a huge fan so I gave it a miss.

Anyway this is just a short post about what I'd like to do and what I enjoyed doing at the weekend, so all of you have a good night and enjoy whatever you are doing tomorrow.

Although essentially this post was meant to be about numbers and I've always loved this Bob Doroug song so I thought I'd put it in.

OK Good night

On The Third Day ....

.. and that's the name of an Electric Light Orchestra album (when they were good) . Today the computer decided not to start and the burglar alarm decided to just play silly buggers. The weather is still good , in fact very hot , so summer looks like it's here.

For the June's Tunes I want to get away from the numbers but also want to have the Bob Dorough original of Three (Is a Magic) number. I have 30 days to go for more obscure stuff , so I will actually go for it. I first heard it on an excellent Blue Note sampler.

Incidentally Roy Wood formed the Elelectric Light Orchestra because he wanted to continue the musical direction taken by the Beatles on Strawberry Fields. Whether he was successful you can judge for yourself but Roy Wood left after the first album leaving Jeff Lynne to produce some excellent stuff while Wood went off and formed Wizzard as well as producing a great body of solo work.

Anyway here's Bob......