Hello November

Today I will see my grand daughter , Alexis ,  for the first time so a walk over to my daughter and son in law's will do for my step count on the day after Halloween. Although there are grey clouds scudding across the sky it is a pleasant walk across the central motorway skirting Cow Hill through the Town Moor.

Last night I bought a tub of sweets for Halloween , but due to lockdown, of course , there were no groups of kids out so I have a tub of chocolate to myself that will obviously go down very well. Today is All Saints Day or All Hallows Day or Hallowmas (hence the day before was Hallow's Eve or Halloween) , although this is another Christian theft to replace the Celtic festival of  Samhain. While I know lots of good people who are practicing Christians , the history of Christianity is one of total control of the populace and that permeates society today cherry picking the constantly rewritten Bible to forward their controlling agenda.Jesus would not be pleased and I could see a thieves in the temple scenario ensuing if Jesus returned.

Now who'd have thought that Jello Biafra would cover a song by two ex members of Mungo Jerry. Paul King and Colin Earl left Mungo Jerry to form the King Earl Boogie band and penned and released "Plastic Jesus" which Paul King must have raked in a lot of royalties from the myriad covers, so I've included two versions. The Mojo Nixon / Jello Biafra is available for download but the King Earl Boogie Band original is only available on the Dawn singles collection (at the moment £1.29 on Amazon) . Have a wonderful day everyone.

May Free

Many rears ago I saw a Two Ronnies sketch where a restaurant menu consisted of groups on fingle letters and characters , no words, to represent the food. The only one I can remember is MNX (Ham and Eggs) . I'm sort of joining in with the #maywriteabit project and was wondering if I can continue through having blog titles related to the sound of the date but  not actually stating the date. I think I will run out fairly quickly and also , this year , I was going to reign back my blog posting, but this is maintaining a one a day post for May 2020.

This year I've already posted more than I did in any year before 2011, which may be a good or bad thing.

I am posting at half past midnight so I am into Sunday and really should be asleep in bed. I've told people I'm going to bed but am still on here now.

Today I walked into town via Cow Hill and Exhibition Park and coming out of Exhibition Park there was a man walking his dog as I passed him on the other side of the path he shouted at me "Keep Away from me, the Police are rounding up people like you", I think he was implying I wasn't observing Social Distancing unaware irony that his fist waving was bringing him closer to me , but I was walking a lot faster than he was.

The other day I was walking and heard someone whistling and assumed the were calling their dog , a few seconds later I was nearly hit by a cyclist , why he didn't have a bell , or shout for me to get off the footpath (after footpaths are apparently for cyclists these days)  I haven't a clue. Whistling doesn't say to me "Get Out Of My Way , There's A Bike Coming" , it says "Get The Sheep In The Pen".

So what tune do we go with? Another that's been in my brain on repeat thanks to 6Music is "I'm Not Your Dog" by Baxter Dury, like his father but with some extra Je Ne Sais Quois  (hope that's spelt right.

Where Did That Weekend Go?

It's ten o' clock Sunday Night and another weekend where I feel like I've done nothing when I should have done stuff. Friends have been at Glastonbury, and I've just been here. I watched some of the Glastonbury footage on TV.

On Saturday I hardly did much walking , a mere 7.5K steps so I feel incredibly lazy.... and it's work tomorrow.

But yesterday I mowed the lawn and cut back a tree in the garden (still need to dispose of that). I managed to get my recording stuff working using Audacity and my Digitech guitar processor. Then my old laptop died, so I had to kill it properly with a lump hammer before ordering a replacement and setting that up.

Today I did of 15K steps and am now 40K steps ahead of the game almost 2/3 complete on the Million Step Challenge, taking in some video from Cow Hill (where there a lot of Cows , and I could see the full extent of the Hoppings, so Instagram stuff here)

Then my catch up TV included "Lemmy", "American Gods", "Doctor Who", documentaries on Heavy Metal and David Bowie, "Ripper Street" and The Jo Cox "Last Leg Special" which was incredibly uplifting with even Tony Blair and David Cameron being OK ...

So all though I've been pretty anti social (as usual) I have actually done quite a lot this weekend. So maybe I am being a little hard on myself.

While I was walking today Half Man Half Biscuit's "Asparagus Next Left" came on and was followed by another song , which I though was them again, but was actually David Bowie's "Dancing Out In Space" from "The Next Day". Two great songs, so I'll include both of them.

Sleep well my friends

Eggs and Chickens ,,, Tom Waits for Norman

Sometimes things you do have unexpected results. I've been taking part in a step challenge , the last day of which is tomorrow when I need to do fifteen thousand steps.That's around seven miles in a day, not a great deal in the great scheme of things but it does mean you have to make time to do these things. Essentially each thousand steps takes around ten minutes of brisk walking , so that means I need to spend two and a half hours walking tomorrow.

This weekend , in order to not be playing catch up , I've got up early each day to give myself a start on the steps , and it's worked OK. Today I did nineteen thousand steps (I only needed to do fourteen thousand) byt set myself a task of walking up Cow Hill and taking some pictures. Cow Hill is not difficult to climb, it's sort of a mound but you get a good view of Newcastle.

View From Cow Hill

Anyway the basic point is, that I have got up earlier, done more walking, done more writing, done more reading , done more catch up TV, done more guitar practice and recording, and more listening to music and I feel very tired, but I'm just wondering if the cause of me doing more is actually the step challenge. It could be. In order to accommodate it I've had to ensure there is enough space in the day.

This is about the fifth blog post I've done this weekend but I won't have time to do one tomorrow morning.

Hopefully after my final day tomorrow, I will still ensure that I do 10K steps a day which will clock in a 4½ miles which I will definitely maintain. Also I may try not lying in at weekends and just going out for a walk. I prefer being off road but on a path. The walk up to Cow Hill was a bit muddy today.

One of the things to maintain this is that you do need halfway decent weather but this weekend has been fairly good.

Tomorrow is going to require a very early start. I want eight thousand steps in before I get into work. That is a tall order but it will mean I've over half way there before I start work.

One of the songs I listened to was Tom Waits' "Ol' 55" which was covered by The Eagles , but I'll treat you to a live version by the great man.

Goodnight my friends.

Keep On Keeping On

Last week was very grey then yesterday was actually looking sunny for a while before slipping back into the greyness of the last week and today looking out, I can see all the cars are frosted up. Not the most inviting of Monday mornings, but another week of work is waiting for us.

I had intended to take a walk out to Cow Hill on the Town Moor to take some photographs but was not feeling up to it. Also there's various house related things I need to sort out, and then noticed that my Virgin TIVO box had decided it wasn't recording the first two episodes of the next half season of The Walking Dead but was going to record from episode 3 (well 10 actually cos of the mid season break) onwards, then they seem to have moved The Blacklist onto Sky1 for the next half season and it wasn't going to record that either.

So all that is in hand, but I really need to get some positive uplift into my life, as currently loads of my time is taken by apparent mundanities, the problem being , I think my complete withdrawal from social interaction may be part of the contribution to this because people do inspire me and  give me a lift, even meeting for the odd coffee is good.

The thing is as people get older they seem to almost ossify in their views, what they want to do, and where they want to go. Sometimes an evening in a warm house with a good book or film is more inviting than trying to engineer a social occasion.

I've also not been to any gigs, as I have mentioned previously, and need to get out to see more bands , and there are opportunities to see lots around Newcastle, with venues such as Trillians, The Black Bull and Think Tank? and bigger venues such as The Riverside, The O2, The Tyne Theatre, The Sage, and Wylam Brewery, so it's not as though there's nowhere to go.

In fact I've just checked and Wilko Johnson is playing The Wylam Brewery in April and there are quite a few gigs on before then.

I really must apologise for the down nature of this post I promise to put a smile on my face and do something positive this week and will leave you with Jonathan Richman's "Roadrunner" just cos it's brilliant , and music is always uplifting and this makes me feel better.