Nightmiddling and The Spring Equinox

I woke up at 2:30 this morning and was wide awake. I had been really tired at 9:00 last night , and had a low blood sugar reading which may have been something to do with me feeling sleep, but I thought at 2:30 I might just write a blog post. Then I thought, no I will try and go back to sleep, and obviously that worked because when the alarm went off it was very unwelcome indeed.

I've been advised by my doctor to store up insulin because of the uncertainty of supply with the possibility of brexit (which I hope crashes and burns as it's driven by xenophobic self servers) so I have reduced my dose, so last night's low blood sugar reading did come as a surprise.

Today I can have a shower as the guys at HandymanNewcastle came and sorted the shower and next week will be sorting out a few other little jobs.

So to tie in with the fact that today is the Spring Equinox I will share the opening piece from Jean-Michel Jarre's "Equinoxe" album. I always thought that "Oxygene" was incredibly pedestrian with awful artwork, although listening now it's not as bad as I thought at the time.

When I heard "Equinoxe" I was shocked because it was such a step up, in my opinion, from "Oxygene". I still play the album a lot and noticed that there is an "Equinoxe Infinity" album, which may be worth investigating, I particularly like the cover of it with the Stone Watchers. I'm also tempted by the CD compilation "Planet Jarre" but I will hold out on that one for the time being.

I've always liked Jean-Michel Jarre , and his reputation went up several notches when he staged the Millenium concert in Egypt which you can watch nearly five hours of , complete with penguins here ,  I mean who does he thing he is , The Grateful Dead?

ANyway enjoy your Wednesday.

Some Jarre and Scandi-Noir

In my first for years of posting I posted 6 - 42 - 82 - 46 posts annully. This one is my 54th this year so I post a bit more often and write a bit more and hopefully the quality and content have improved a little. You can see the history on the right hand side. I did set up the blog to be a sort of travel diary, but as I don't travel a great deal that was hardly going to be a long term goer.

And so it turned into what it is today a sort of diary with music included, which sometimes fails when Youtube pull the video for whatever reason.

Last night I watched "In Order of Disappearance" by Hans Petter Moland and featuring Stellan Skarsgård. I was think Fargo with touches of Tarantino and nods to classics such as Steven Spielberg's "Duel". I hadn't seen the tag line  "DEATH WISH set in FARGO and BLOODIER" which does sort of some it up. It's full of black humour (it is subtitled for non Nordic speakers) and one toch I love (and this is not giving away the plot) are the black screens with the name and religious / national ikon of the recently despatched.

Today it looks like winter is returning in the form of cold and frost. I've on the downward slop for February's step totally which I surprisingly breezed through. Yesterday I ended up doing 16K steps even though I'd expected to just hit 12K, but having to go out for supplies when I got home (and managing to forget my wallet three times when I was going up) helped me hit that high.

I finally succumbed and listened to Jean-Michel Jarre's "Oxygene" . I had heard the pedestrian "Part IV" on the radio and when certain people started gushing about how futuristic it was it just turned me off. It seemed a slight improvement on "Magic Fly" by the French Space. The cod SF cover of of the earth being peeled to reveal a skull was another turn off for me, a good idea badly executed. This album was twenty years after the first fully electronic album , the soundtrack to "Forbidden Planet" by Louis and Bebe Barron.

Anyway I added the second album and have just discovered there is a third one to listen too nad must say I was impressed. It is not pedestrian for large parts and the second album carries more of a sonic punch, which has now whetted my appetite for the third album.

It just shows that it's not a good idea to dismiss music on a snippet, though I don't see me litening to Westlife or Steps any time soon.

It's Friday , wrap up and have a good one.

Short Circuits

We had a little snow last night and it has been cold today and though it's been a bit of a forced march I managed to do 15K steps today so that's getting back on the road so to speak.

I am really tempted to do a post of maybe ten words, in fact I saw a blog where the person was posting thousands of posts a year (I have done 1500 in ten years) but when I looked each of the posts just seemed to be links, and that was it, no explanation just a link, and thousands of them. Unfortunately I didn't take a copy of the URL so I can't share it with your.

I think most blogs are a form of diary, though mine tends to morph depending on what I'm doing ate the time. Obviously the walking has become fairly important to me and obviously music and books will always be a big part.

Film and TV also are in my ballpark as is Football (real Football not the American Handball game).

This blog is meant to give me inspiration for a book or a novel and my book ended up with 10K words and in a dead end, so I am still hoping inspiration and ideas will come. My friends do help me and inspire me, but this is the only body of written work that I have produced for public consumption.

I said the Jean-Michel Jarre that I had been listening to had encouraged me to listen to mor European music but today was a tiny dip with Steve Hillage's second solo album "L" which featuring a lot a great guitar nodling and thumping covers of Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man" and George Harrison's "It's All Too Much" which appeared on the "Yellow Submarine" soundtrack album. One of my favourite moments is when "Hurdy Gurdy Glissando" strays into the monster Maurice Jarre "Lawrence of Arabia" riff , absolutely wonderful, as well as the introduction of Don Cherry to embellish the "Lunar Musick Suite" with his jazz phrasings.

I found a live take of "Hurdy Gurdy Man" for you to enjoy, but the album is definitely worth a visit. Sleep well my friends.

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It was freezing this morning but the frost now seems to be fading. For the first time in ages I've had porridge for breakfast and thaks to the new set of pans I picked up forom Morrisons it's just a quick wipe clean.

I've found that listening to instrumental music can be quite good and have been listening to Jean-Michel Jarre's "Aero" which was an experiment in surround sound, and it does sound good on headphones. This is the blurb from the album description on Amazon:

"Aero is Jean Michel Jarre's first experiment in surround sound as well as being the most respectable "best of" album in 13 years. The album features reworked versions of his golden oldies and three new pieces. The result of the new orchestration is a modern-sounding remix album, rather than a definitive greatest hits.

The album was designed and recorded in multi channel surround-sound and is therefore presented on both a CD and DVD in the same package (including Dolby Digital and DTS tracks allowing playback on a standard DVD video player in 5.1 surround sound). Sound quality is top notch as you'd expect although sometimes the transitional pieces between tracks overdo the surround effects for the sake of demonstrating the technology.

The music itself, as a collection of greatest hits tracks, is a surprising choice, presumably designed for the best 5.1 surround sound. There's no "Revolutions", "Chronologie 4", "Ethnicolor", "Calypso", "Oxygene 8" or "Hey Gagarin", for instance. We are treated to fresh, excellent reworkings of classics: "Oxygene 2", "Equinoxe 3" and "Last Rendez-vous". Aging tracks such as "Oxygene 4", "Chronologie 6", and "Rendez-vous 4" have all been brought up to date. The three new tracks recall Robert Miles and Orbital. They're good but there's a feeling they were left over from previous projects. There are too many synth presets sounding too clinical and lacklustre compared to the high standard of sounds used in Jarre's other studio albums. Moreover, there are finer unreleased tracks that could have been included.

Also included on the DVD is a visual track. A close-up of the actress Anne Parillaud's (Nikita) eyes while she listens to the music for the full 73 minutes in one take is typical of Jarre's subtle, minimalist and "non-MTV" visual style. Aero will appeal to those wanting to test their home cinema equipment and those seeking some of the greatest hits of France's electronica wizard. --Colin Neal"

The last few days I've cut down on the walking but still hit over 10K a day so I'm still on track to hit my target for February. Today I will be going for a couple of walks before dealing with Virgin who've given me an upgrade for a reduction in costs, but have been a little economical with the truth. It's a situation where you have to go with it because you are actually better off with it even though it comes with certain inconveniences like not being able to keep your recordings, but if I haven't watched them in six months then maybe I am not losing out.

I've included "Oxygène II"from Aero which sounds excellent on a decent sound system, and it's just playing on my soundbar now, and I hope I haven't disturbed my neighbours Ray and Michelle with the noise.

Have a brilliant Saturday my friends.

 

Nine 'til Five

I know that is most people's working days (well it used to be) but that was my sleep time last night. I was feeling absolutely wrecked. Just did a normal day, came home just put a Ham and Pineapple Pizza in the oven, had that about seven cos I was fasting from eight due to a hospital appointment this morning. Then at nine after two episodes of Mr Robot I was ready to drop, I haven't a clue why.

Yesterday was nice to see the snow, but it was coming down when I was in my sixth floor office so I didn't have to experience the cold , wet and slippiness and by the time I finished it was just cold and dark.

I was going to write a post last night but this isn't it , this is a different one. I also have fragments of a weird dream which involved me being in the centre of Newcastle , going down a brick walkway and being almost too fat to get out of the weirdly shapes other end, being near the Monkey Bar, watching a large aircraft taking off from Gatehead Airport carring a large anchor  to hold down large inflatables in the river Tyne. Just an average day in my head then.

This morning I got up made tea and decaf coffee only to find the milk was turning, so remade using almond milk which is acceptable. I think I am going to have to change my milk buying habits , smaller bottles in future.

Last week I listened to my two favourite Jean-Michel Jarre albums, "Equinoxe"  and "Zoolook". His dad was Maurice Jarre who did some brilliant soundtracks such as "Dr Zhivago", "Ghost" and my favourite "Lawrence of Arabia" . I found Jean-Michel's first album "Oxygene" twee and boring with a rubbish pretentious cover, my attitude has mellowed since it first came out but to me it's a first try, but "Equinoxe" was several steps up the ladder. "Zoolook" used some groundbreaking sound techniques to enhance the listening experience especially on headphones.

So I'll share Christopher Walken dancing to "Diva" from "Zoolook". Have a good Wednesday.