The Grey - #FruitfulSeptember #10

They last few days the weather has been very grey. It's not been the most uplifting. Added to that I thhink I have torn a shoulder muscle or trapped a nerve in my right arm , when you get arm pain's at my age you start thinking heart attack so it's hit the medical box for aspirin. Mt right arm is improving and I haven't lost the use of my hand at all , or been in so much pain that I had to go to casualty. Part of it is that I don't feel like writing or walking, and my monthly target is in danger , but after I post this , I so intend to go out for a walk, maybe up Cow Hill to take some pictures.

Looking out of the window the sky is a uniform grey although it is not as cold as yesterday.

I am thoroughly enjoying "Spear Of Destiny" by Daniel Easterman , which , location wise, has a lot in common with "The Lost" that he wrote as Jonathan Aycliffe. I know that I've read "Spear of Destiny" but I only remember the start of the book, but my rubbish memory means that I can reread books and rewatch films and thoroughly re enjoy them.

While working I am listening to a lot of CDs one of which is the 15 disc Bruce Springsteen Soundstage box. It's only radio broadcast quality but is still a great listen, but just doing one gig at a time , there are five gigs with three discs for each one.

This morning's vinyl was "Who Will Save The World" by The Groundhogs and "Bandstand" by Family both of which I bought for the cover art, but are great albums to listen to in their own right.

So for #FruitfulSeptember I was wondering whether a coconut was a fruit and came upon this vague definition:

"Botanically speaking, a coconut is a fibrous one-seeded drupe, also known as a dry drupe. However, when using loose definitions, the coconut can be all three: a fruit, a nut, and a seed."

So I think I can go with a coconut as a fruit , which means I can go for PM Dawn's excellent "Fantasia's Confidential Ghetto: 1999/Once In A Lifetime/Coconut" which has a finale of Harry Nilsson's "Coconut" which has appeared in so many films and a truly great song, and PM Dawn manage to marry it up with Prince and the Talking Heads. The song is on the "Jesus Wept" album which does not seem to be digitally available on Amazon.

After posting this , the sun came out.

Alarmed - #FruitfulSeptember #9

I know it's only Tuesday but this working week I have been awoken on  both days by the alarm. The thing I take from this is that I must be getting a decent night's sleep, although I have been dreaming a lot but can't remember what happened in my dreamscape.

Today I took delivery of "Who Will Save The World? The Mighty Groundhogs" which I bought from Discogs because of the excellent comic book are album cover by The Nefarious Neal Adams. who also did a lot of superhero comics , especially Batman. I heard that Adams came up with the story and the band based the album on that. You can see what I think on my Instagram channel here. I featured them in the music for my last post, so today we need someone different.

I started wondering if a pumpkin was vegetable or a fruit and found this, so it's ok to have pumpkin for #FruitfulSeptember

"A pumpkin, from a botanist's perspective, is a fruit because it's a product of the seed-bearing structure of flowering plants. Vegetables, on the other hand, are the edible portion of plants such as leaves, stems, roots, bulbs, flowers, and tubers"

I wanted to reshare "Tonight, Tonight" by the Smashing Pumpkins from "Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness" because of the awesome video, and the fact that it is a great song

Getting Lost - #FruitfulSeptember #8

September has been my sparsest month so far for posting , although there is still over a week left, so we shall see how much more I write.

Yesterday I went for a walk and managed to sort of get lost, I though I was going to come up where the West Road meets Two Ball Lonnen but the road I was on was taking toward the centre of Newcastle with virtually no useful turn offs. So I wasn't really lost, just going down a road I've never walked down in twenty odd years of living here , alth I must I gone down it on the Number 1 Stagecoach bus. I finally came up to West Road via The Temple of Antenociticus , Roman Ruins , which you can see here on my Instagram channel.

One my walk one the albums I was listening to was "Music From The Body" from the film "The Body" by Ron Geesin and Roger Waters . Geesin had worked with Waters on "Atom Heart Mother" by Pink Floyd , and the album is actually a joy to listen to , with lots of short pieces and songs that hark to "Dark Side of The Moon" Floyd. Well worth a listen although not everyone's cup of tea. 

I  though I had a complete vinyl collection , although I know there are certain records that I wouldn't say know to you and over the weekend I remebered a couple of comic book covers which I would like. One was "Jailbreak" by Thin Lizzy with the Jom Fitzpatrick "Overlord" open out cut cover.

The other was "Who Will  Save The World?" by The Groundhogs where to comic provided teh story for the album. So that is two albums that are now on theire way.

On The Groundhogs' "Split" album was a song called "Cherry Red" and that falls in nicely for the #FruitfulSeptember sequnce. The Groundhogs produced a lot of heay rock abums are are definitely worth investigating, and I do believe they are still performing if you can catch them on the live circuit.

Speed and Goundhogs

I used to be able to write a blog post in ten minutes. These days it often takes me an hour or more. The irony being that less and less people seem to be reading, that isn't a problem as I mainly write for myself and to instil a sort of discipline to get something down, which I may wish to remember. I've been doing this for ten years or so and some of my early posts were extremely short.

I like to think that I can write at least 250 words, but I don't think you will get this today as I need to get off to work fairly rapidly , and as it looks sunny I want to walk at least part of the way, but I need to get in , do a few things then zip off to a podiatry appointment (due to a cancellation, they rang me and said they knew I preferred early appointments so did I want to come in this morning? That was Friday, I love the NHS).

I also noticed last night it seemed to get dark earlier, and we are past the Summer Solstice so the daylight hours are getting less.

Anyway it's Monday , it's time for work, and Nemone on  6Music mentioned Groundhog Day so why not go with "Cherry Red" by The Groundhogs, a sound which I always think inspired Franz Ferdinand.

Have a good one friends.