2345

This is post 2345 on sevendaysin and I am not sure I would ever reach this number or keep posting for this long. I started here on the 18th of February 2007 and am still doing this now. I chose Echo and The Bunnymen's "Never Stop" because it is a great record and appropriate for the point of this post.

The thing is in life we do things that seem to never end (apart from the obvious Grim Reaper scenario) , such as washing up , cleaning , working , and watching TV and listening to music , plus walking and lots of other thing.

The thing is if you break things up into manageable chunks you can then enjoy the success of each finish point you define.

While working from home I have listened to several CD box sets which I don't think I could have done even walking to work. I have just finished the Electric Light Orchestra box and, apart from "Discovery" , I would rate all of the albums, although the first five are my favourites.

I have Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen boxes and they are being lined up for my next plays. Having a CD player to hand , plus the discs i sa great convenience, but it means I am not listening to much Radio 6 for a change as certain DJs I thing would be more at home on Radio 2 , so I don't feel I am mising anything.

So that's post 2345 , and basically I will never stop with this here blog.

Turn This Crazy Bird Around

I switched on the radio this morning and that line came out of the speakers sung by Joni Mitchell singing "This Flight Tonight" from her album "Blue". I think my first introduction to this song was hearing Nazareth's excellent heavily rocked up version with Manny Charlton's ghostly guitar solo which I bought as a single, but was on their album "Loud'n'Proud".

Soon after Judas Priest did the same to "Diamonds and Rust" penned by Joan Baez on their "Sin After Sin" album although it doesn't have the intensity of the Nazareth cover.

But these are two iconic songwriters covered by two iconic metal bands and it is an excuse to play these songs.

These albums haven't been on my playlist as I have a few more racked up to listen to but last night I listened to "The Prison" by Michael Nesmith which I will dedicate a future post to.

A couple of weeks back I bought some vinyl on albumwas "Electric Warrior" by T. Rex with it's incredibly cool cover, and it came with a download code. Surprisingly I haven't got it on CD, so I decided to download the album and was surprised that it was in WAV rather than MP3 format resulting in significantly larger files but without sound loss. One of te songs was like 24Mb for a two minute song. That is 2.5 times the capacity of my first hard drive computer which I got from my friend Chris Brough. How times change.

Anyway enjoy all this, I'm off to Scotland for the weekend.

Do You Boho?

It's the last day of March, the day before April Fools Day and for one thing or another, well actually reading "Tom Waits on Tom Waits", the word Boho came up again. There was a passage titled "Boho Blues" which I thought sounded like the title of a Tom Waits song. Waits himself cuts a bohemian figure, raggedly stylish with immense talent as an artist and actor, probably one of the people who can make smoking look cool (my opinion is that a fag in the moth usually makes people look like an imbecile, friends excluded of course). It turns out there is no "Boho Blues" by Tom Waits, at least I can't find a copy and I do have most of his output in my collection.

Boho also means to me a certain style almost gypsy , arty, and life affirming and my eldest daughter Juliet is a wonderful example of that , and Kirsty my youngest is certainly into the arty and exploring the unexpected and unexplored , I remember her wanting albums by The Pixies and Rage Against the Machine for her birthday. They are both anything but average and make me so proud.

The term applies the my favourite hotel in the whole world , La Rosa at Whitby, if you want Boho, spend a few nights here or just visit for one of their many events. Amanda and all the staff fit in perfectly, I'm surprised it's not been commandeered for a film or TV series like say "Desperate Romantics".

The other week it was Kirsty's birthday and we wen to the wonderful Bohemian vegetarian restaurant in Newcastle , check out their web address here. It's I Love Boho! Again the food and staff are awesome and they sell second hand vinyl too! The music played is consistently excellent, and the atmosphere is well ... Bohemian.

Then that took me back to Joni Mitchell's "Hissing of The Summer Lawns" and the song "The Boho Dance" and Joni Mitchell certainly artistically was in the Bohemian Groove progressing from folk to jazz and making it sound wonderful.

Anyway , it's Friday night, and the weekend has started, if you like Boho be Boho , but have a wonderful time and enjoy yourself.

What Am I Talking About?

It's the middle of the working week and the clouds are dispersing giving way to blue skies and sunshine. Everybody seems to be checking apps on their phones, tablets and computers to see what the weather will be like , I still stick with looking out of the window and if I think it's gonna rain I take my umbrella and if it's going to be wet and windy I take my hat (it's water and windproof).

The weather is a complex thing and while it can be influenced by governments with the right resources, nothing can be guaranteed.

A worrying development is the replacement of grass with plastic at Cowgate near me . In the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter, but in Earth's ecosystem plants take in CO2 and exhale O2, it's part of the balance of nature. The thing is if all the grass is replaced by plastic it will have a detrimental effect on the environment. It looks nice and new when it's laid but it soon gathers rubbish and I reckon it's going to soon get very tatty and it WILL affect our environment.

Astroturfing Paradise

Also we see trees being removed . An oak tree may take 50 gallons of water a day. I look at the plants and bushes and trees round my garden. The garden seldom gets too wet to walk on and those plants , bushes and trees are doing very well thank you . Take them away and I have a swimming pool. We are getting more and more floods and a big part of it is tree decimation. Trees can have negative effects , their roots can destroy buildings, roads and footpaths, but they need to be conserved and managed not destroyed.





Anyway I am not a scientist, but these are just some thoughts on stuff I have seen.

Anyway , I am going to leave for work soon and I supposed the line from Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow
Taxi" is coming to pass:

"They Paved Paradise, and Put Up A Parking Lot"

Though Cowgate is hardly Paradise, it does have the best fish and chip shop in Newcastle DG Gorman's Fenham Fish Bar.

Anyway with that thought I will get off and you have a brilliant day.

Oh and Craig Charles just mentioned my Earworm  on his 6Music Show , just before the 7:30 news. It was Earl Mankey's Mau Mau.

Fathers Day and Dexyfication

Father's Day is one of those made up things to con you out of money in the form of cards meals and presents... but ... we can always turn these things to OUR advantage , which effectively me and my wonderful daughters did.

We did lunch in Bar Loco on Friday which was a first for them and is now a definite favourite with them as well. If it hadn't been for Fathers Day we may not have met up this soon but it provided the impetus and we met and talked and had a great time. Lots of smiles and hugs and I got a copy of the excellent new Dexy's album that is playing as I write this. So all in all a great day.

My Dad with Me at Morecambe Long Long Ago

The weekend has been relaxing with lots of catch up TV.

Today I have phone my dad three times but not got in touch , although he'll get his card and presents
eventually.

These days are maybe commercially and cynically motivated , but we always have the option to make them out own and make something good out of them.

Also this week this post on Spoongig here got some major hits which made me happy.


I love the Dexyfication of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" from the new album with is why I've included it here , the album is excellent as well.


I hope you had a great day today whichever side of the fence that you were on, I hope you are rested for the coming week , which will no doubt be excellent, well it will be for for me

Clouds and Blue Skies - May The Fourth Be With You

A very short post today . Something I noticed last night. Clouds are probably the the biggest things that we see everyday . The affect our lives , blocking the sun and cooling us down , raining on us , distributing water, colours from black to white with sun influenced shades of red.

Very often I will see an amazing cloud formation and seconds later it has gone , and really sometimes life can be like that. If you don't take the opportunity when it's presented it's gone. Cloud's are the epitome of that , especially on a windy day. The number of times I have looked for a better perspective and then lost the image is countless, however because of what I have lost , and the fact I carry a phone that can take a decent photograph I can now capture images that previously would have just existed in my memory,

The Sky Last Night

So I'm going to include Clouds by Joni Mitchell and an excellent TED talk on the joy of watching clouds. It's a sunny day here.


Oh and it's May The Fourth - Star Wars Day ... but I wouldn't write about that would I?

Month Nine

    Two days into the ninth month and the weather is still very windy. September was originally the seventh month in the ten month roman calendar. September begins on the same day of the week as December every year, because there are 91 days separating September and December, which is a multiple of seven (the number of days in the week). No other month ends on the same day of the week as September in any year. Apparently it's also the sixth moth of the astrological calendar, but you how based in reality that is.

My arms are still hurting from my new non exercise regime , but weight is still coming down at a reasonable rate, The thing is as you weight comes down you start to do more and eat less so it becomes a self fulfilling cycly . I think. I only say this because at other times in my life it hasnt worked , this seems to be working.

 Also the heating has now gone on for this year as it is getting a little nippy. There's still blue skies outside which is good. Just seed some pretty clouds blowing pretty quickly across the blue sky so Both Sides Now by Joni Mitchell is a good choice for today.