Showing posts with label TED. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TED. Show all posts

Sunday 13 June 2021

Vegan is Fine for Everyone


 I was in the shower this morning (not an image you want in your head I know) and I read the side of my Lacura Shower Gel that I got from Aldi and it said "Suitable for Vegans and Vegetarians". Then I thought if something is suitable for Vegans then it is also suitable for Vegetarians. 

Although there are exceptions for allergic to reactions to certain foods that are Vegan (Nuts etc) no Vegetarian is going to thing I can't have that because it's Vegan , but a Vegan would have to check out something that is classed as Vegetarian to see if it is suitable for them..

Also someone who is an Pescatarian or an Omnivore should not have a problem with a product that is classed as Vegan (barring allergies), although religion could possibly come into it but essentially , if it's Vegan it is suitable for everyone.

I am lucky enough to live in Newcastle and we have a plethora of Vegan eating places, I'll add to this as I discover more but here's the list with links for you to explores:

Please let me know the ones I have missed.

Jack Monroe's Peach & Chickpea Curry
And here is the gorgeous Peach and Chickpea curry by Jack Monroe , click on the pic to get the recipe.

Yes this is a very short post , and I may expand it for my Vocal writing , but this is one of the things that I use this blog for. I was gonna share some appropriate music but remembered this TED talk debunking all the arguments against Veganism by Ed Winters.





Ed Winters talk is excellent because it brings in the "just because it's legal doesn't make it moral" argument ,well worth your time , and if you fancy some vegan recipes try the books below.

Saturday 7 March 2020

Water Music


When showering this morning I thought I could hear music maybe in the pipes , maybe in the water. It's like when you think you can hear something in another house, or a passing car or someone with headphones on. You cannot quite grasp what it is and when you switch the shower off it stops, so it's obviously in the water. This happens quite often with me, and I suppose it's brought to the fore because of the Clive Barker books I'm reading which always have that world just out of your sight or ken, be it music , lights or images.

Because this was music probably caused by water I thought of Handel's "Water Music" which is a rather essential classical piece which I enjoy , although last night I was watching  a wedding on "Brassic" (which is an excellent Joseph Gilgun creation with a cracking soundtrack)  and the music was Pachelbel's "Canon" which has been used as a basis for so many songs (the Farm's "All Together Now" for instance) but one of my most striking moments was when I saw Blair Dunlop (Ashley Hutching's son) tap it on his guitar (the Trace Bundy arrangement) at an Albion Band concert many years back.

I couldn't find a Blair Dunlop but I did find Trace Bundy's TED performance, the sort of guitarist who makes you feel you may as well give up. Amazing stuff, and brilliant arrangement of a beautiful tune.

Monday 4 November 2019

Late Again


For the first time since I can remember I woke and got up at nine am today. I am almost always up around six like clockwork and I know I am on holiday but that came as a bit of a surprise to me. I thought the older you got the less sleep you needed but that doesn't seem be the situation with me.

It is good to get enough sleep, and you need your sleep, it is not a good idea to do without. Sleep repairs the body and promotes good stuff happening in there. If you don't get enough sleep then it does affect you, although I expect it is different for everybody , but it is nice to be in bed and be able to enjoy the feeling.  The TED talk from Matt Walker below is extremely informative on this.


So a perfect song for this post is "Late Again" the song that introduced me to Stealers Wheel ( Joe Egan , Gerry Rafferty and band , the saxophone is glorious, I wonder if it was the same guy who played on "Baker Street" ) who I saw performing this on The Old Grey Whistle Test as a teenager.

Most people know Stealers Wheel because "Stuck In The Middle With You" was used for THAT scene in Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs", one of Tarantino's inspired musical selection that wonderfully litter all his films.

So I know it's Monday afternoon, and the fact I am not at work means I can write this and communicate with the whole world. That's one of the pluses of writing your own blog , there is no one to tell you not to do that, although maybe sometimes you do need that.

So watch the TED talk and enjoy the excellent Stealers Wheel song on this Monday.

Friday 11 October 2019

Dreams and Sleep - #Oktoberfest #11 - Everything Stops For Tea - Long John Baldry


Yesterday I was on an "away day" in Leeds and on the journeys to and from I watched a few excellent TED talks one of which (included below) by Matt Walker informed me that it's not a good idea to pull all nighters. Ideally you should have a consistent routine with around eight hours sleep as this actually helps the body recover by promoting the growth of !assassin cells" that eliminate lots of bad stuff in our bodies, while not sleeping does exactly the opposite. It last twenty minutes but is very interesting and worth taking your time over.

Because I am actually run down I went to bed about nine o'clock and slept though til 5:45 when the alarm went off and think I feel better for that, but it is always good to get a good nights sleep. There's a few snippets of the dream left including my boss asking what she was doing doing wrong , the answer being just sleep, there was a new locked SUV who's seats were covered with snow, and footprints leading to a brick wall where I was sure there was a door , and finally twenty pound notes had been taken out of circulation and ten pound notes had been replaced by eleven pound notes. I know it doesn't make sense but that's the nature of dreams.

The last item just reminded me of the imperial currency system. 12 pennies made a shilling , two shillings were a florin , five were a crown , for crowns made a pound but 21 shillings made a guinea and the guinea was often used for pricing although the guinea was like 5% more expensive than a pound so a 20 guinea item was a £21 item. Simple wasn't it.

So #Oktoberfest is continuing non alcoholic which Long John Baldry's odd take on Jack Buchanan's "Everything Stops For Tea". The album was produced by Rod Stewart and Elton John. Rod had been a member of Steampacket with Long John Baldry along with Brian Auger and Julie Driscoll.

It's Friday morning so time for work.



Saturday 28 September 2019

Strictly Not Strictly


I do find Strictly Come Dancing as tedious as Come Dancing was, but that is life, we like different things and why I am not watching the big telly at the moment and writing this post. I would rather do anything (within reason) than watch a Dancing program.

The contestants all work hard and I appreciate this but they really don't catch my attention so I would rather write , listen to music , watch other TV and TED Talks  on my computer or portable device. I loved Groucho Marx' quote about TV:

"I find television very educational , every time it's switched on I go into another room and read a book"

That's roughly what he said and is both funny and educational in itself. It's great when things cause you to do something that results in the creation of something. So Strictly caused me to think about things and write this and watch an educational TED talk about satire today which is both informative and funny and educates you with some great ideas by Patrick Chappatte , so I've included it below. It includes some excellent cartoons taking on Trump, Brexit and more.

The song I was going to include is obviously "Come Dancing" by The Kinks, so I hope you are having a great Saturday night whatever you are watching.


Sunday 1 September 2019

September Scamalot Coincidence


September is upon us and someone yesterday that summer is over. Not from my window it isn't. Blue skies and bright sunshine and I might even mow the lawn and go for a walk after breakfasting and reading the papers with the crossword and sudoku to have a stab at.

This is an unusually extremely short post just to mention James Veitch , who I first came across on TED then went to see him at The Stand in Newcastle , bout his book , and found his take on scamming funny, entertaining and informative.

I was then surprised that he has a series on Amazon Prime called "Scamalot". The episodes are two or three minutes and are in fact presentations of sections from his live show and is book "Dot.Con" both well worth your investment.

In August I actually did 420K steps which is approximately 140 Km or 90 miles and 20% over my monthly target

I've just noticed that this is post number 2023 , and "2023" is the novel by The KLF that then got me into my current read "THe Illuminatus! Trilogy" . Life is full of noticeable coincidences.

So time to sign off with this first post of September.

Sunday 5 May 2019

5AM Sunday Morning


This is ridiculous. I should be asleep. My body is tired, my brain is tired but my mind is wide awake. So I wasn't sure what to do, so like always when I am not sure what to do, I thought I would come an blog about it. It is could that I can do this and know that I am compos mentis enough to string a few words together, but it is a bit of a pain when I just want to sleep.

I had been dreaming and was in a queue at Boots for some tissues in possibly Leeds, and the serving person was chatting with other servers and trying to serve others before me so I decided to go elsewhere and vaguely remember some huge indoor area like a market or mall  before waking again and deciding to maybe read a bit. I've finished "The White Wolf's Son" by Michael Moorcock and enjoyed the all over the the place swirl of the writing, making for a thoroughly enjoyable read with lots of flashbacks to earlier themes as well as referencing the a area of North Yorkshire where I enjoy going for a relaxing holiday.

I has a slideshow of my last two holidays in Settle and am using the photographs as my computer wallpaper and every one gives me a lift, it is a wonderfully relaxing place. You can see most of the photographs here if you are logged into Facebook.

I'm now starting "How To Be Right: … in a world gone wrong" by James O'Brien which addresses the situation in post brexit-vote / Trump UK via encounters with callers on his radio show. Some of the people he interviews are polarised by the media and unfortunately I hear these sort of things every day, but it is a great read to provide an insight into what is happening in society today. That reminds me of this excellent TED talk by Carol Cadwalladr about Facebook's involvement in allowing untruths about the EU to be spread to push the Brexit agenda.

The music I've chosen for this is the excellent piece of social commentary from the latest Specials album "Embarrassed By You" and I was surprised to see the "Stereotypical" collection which is sitting not two feet from where I am typing going for £225 on Amazon, but as I always say, it's only worth that if you have a buyer.

So enjoy your Bank Holiday Sunday everybody.

Sunday 29 July 2018

Six Memory


Today is the 29th of July and it's the birthday of six people I know in varying degrees of importance, and until this morning I was unaware it was their birthday. These include myson-in-law Mark (important), Amanda, Ellen, Savona, Sam and Laura.

That got me thinking on how, more and more we let electronic devices do our remembering for us, and in some ways that is good because it allows the mind to focus on other, hopefully, more creative or inventive pursuits.

Someone was once shocked that Albert Einstein didn't know the speed of light. His retort "Why do I need to know that? I can look it up in a book". That's always been an inspiration to me, because my memory has always been atrocious, though I find it odd that I will know the plots of Shakespeare's plays but seldom could remember quotes. When I did the Law part of my Business Studies I knew all about cases but could never remember what the cases were, which was fine when doing course work but not in an exam situation.

Rebecca Cother's Lovely Robots


This reminded me of a TED talk by a guy, Henry Evans, struck down at the age of 40, now a quadroplegic who now lives his life aided and through his devices. We are all now reliant on so many devices, ebven though we may not think we are. Stephen Hawking used devices to share his thoughts and knowledge with our world.  These peaople show us what CAN be achieved in situations of apparently impossible adversity.

You press a light switch you expect the light to shine. Thanks to phones you now don't have to remember phone numbers, I still know about three, all my own, but I know where to find phone numbers.

I've been in IT on and off for the best part of forty years but with out reference books the best I can come up with is:

SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE field_name = "What I Want"

But I know where to find out how to do what I want, I don't need to remeber how to do it.

So for a change a none music related post, it's a rainy Sunday but if you are lucky you wont be at work.


Monday 19 February 2018

Big Brother


Something happened yesterday, I'm sure it was just coincidence, but it may have been something else. I had been listening to David Bowie's "Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)" and "Ashes To Ashes" had been playing when I got on the bus, and descided to watch a TED talk about waste in the fashion industry (see the bottom of this post) and it was very illuminating. I finished the talk and resumed listening to the album andit started palying the song "Fashion". Now this follows "Ashes To Ashes" but I cannot be certain that that song had finished. It probably had but I can't help thinking of the phone apps that require access to everything on your phone for no apparent reason.

This is like when you look for something online, then the cookies allow whatever you've been looking for to influence the adverts that appear around the page. You will probably see it on this blog.

Then there are the devices like Alexa and Google Home which have the ability to record everything they hear (in sometimes misinterpreting what they hear). There was the murder case where the authorities asked for recordings to be made available (see here) and think about the implications of that.

The Fiona was telling me how her and a friend were talking about handbagswhen her friend said she was certain that our phones were actively listening to us as later her feed started including what they had been talking about.

While we complain about government and local authority intrusion it seems that we are happily surrendering our privacy to corporate entities that certainly don't have our best interests at heart, the just want our money or preferably to to put us in debt to them to creat a permanent subservience.

The thing is that gives me an idea for a story the opening line of which is "Could We?", which hopefully I will turn into a least a short story if I put my mind to it.

For me the natural accompanying song for this is the menacing "Big Brother" the real closer from David Bowie's "Diamond Dogs" . It's a rainy monday but have a good day.




Friday 12 January 2018

Another Foggy Friday


Well today is the first full week that I have done this year, or it will be when I finish today, and I have done a lot this week so am looking forward to the weekend, most definitely. Outside we have fog or low lying cloud (which I assume are the same thing) as will as a fine drizzle, but it's not windy or freezing so a walk into work is a distinct possibility.

Yesterday I only did 10K steps so that was the first lapse this year but I'm still ahead of where I need to be, which is good. This was because I took the bus in and used that time to watch a couple of TED talks, my first so far this year.

I'm still on a Hawkwind listening trip (literally) and yesterday put on "XIn Search of Space" , I'd been putting off listening to it, because while it has one of the most impresive album covers and packaging the opening track "You Shouldn't Do That" goes on for sixteen minutes. Well I played it and it sounds even better that I remembered , all sixteen minutes , great riff rock for walking to and I will be playing it a lot more in coming months. The album also contains some other great songs like "Master of The Universe" plus extras such as the two sides of the "Silver Machine" single (that and the excellent "Seven By Seven) and "Born To Go" which I first heard taking up most of a side of the "Greasy Truckers" charity album.


Wednesday 13 September 2017

Coincidence, Marxism and Roald Dahl


I have finished the Jordan Ellenberg book , and it was worth reading although hard going for the second half. It seems that maths encompasses a lot more than just addition , subtraction, multiplication and division. Although these are the basics and starting points there is a whole world of concepts out there that are beyond my limited intellect, but I do now know about all these things.

I've now picked up Alexei Sayle's "The Weeping Women Hotel", which is the first novel I've picked up in a long time (I've been reading mostly factual stuff), and Alexei Sayle is an intelligent person, a great comedian and a Marxist (see the last but one post). It's funny how you get these unusual and unexpected connections in writing.

The weird thing about this blog is that you go to log in , then you are presented with a screen inviting you to start a new blog, even though you are logging in to update your blog. It's just a slight annoyance, probably caused by the fact I clear out cookies on a regular basis.

Today is wet and grey but brightening up. I am hoping to listen to "The Use Of Ashes" by Pearls Before Swine (see last post if you want to listen) on the walk to work although if it raining I may have to take the bus then I will dig out a TED talk.

It is the 13th today and I have written about the number 13 several times, and everyone has their own opinions , but 13 being unlucky belongs in the realms of astrology and superstition. It is a prime number so does not fit into many boxes, but that's about it. And remeber a Baker's Dozen where you would can an extra loaf or cake just in case one wasn't up to scratch so that is a case of 13 being lucky for the recipient an dgenerating good will for the supplier.

And today is apparently Roald Dahl day, an author who my girls always loved and wrote some wonderfully subversive children;'s books as well as a lot of great adult books too. If you haven't read any, do something abit it NOW.

I think a sensible music choice would be Terrorvision's "Tom Petty Loves Veruca Salt" and you know why that is ......

....have a brilliant Wednesday

I was just mentioning the 13 wasn't unlucky and my internet went down so I couldn't publish this. So I've just taken this draft and published it on a public computer. C'est La Vie.


Tuesday 5 September 2017

Not Walking


Today was the first time for a long time that theweather has affected my walking. It didn't help that I was feeling really tired this morning despite being in bed by ten last night. It was my friend Lynn's birthday so I walked to hers and dropped off a birthday card before walking across the park to catch the bus. As I'm sitting typing this I have done 6.5K steps so thats;'s above average anyway, although I am still 500 steps short of what my targert will be so I have to do some more walking. This morning in was pouring, now it's like a summer's day so perfect for actually walking , so I should be able to get a few steps in.

The good thing about getting the bus is that I can watch some TED talks (and managed three today) including the one below.

Anyway although I am being relatively lazy , I am sure that I will recoup the steps and listen to lots more albums. I sold another two albums on my Discogs site (it's here if you fancy anything).

I decided to let you have a listed to "Sol Caliente" by Quiet Sun from the album "Mainstream", Phil Manzanera's pre Roxy Music band. I was thinking it was sunny and I always loved the "Sol Caliente" concept, it is not a word you tend to associate with the sun.

Anyway enjoy this gorgeous evening

Sunday 3 September 2017

The Art of Getting Up


This morning I really wanted to get up . During the week, I really don't want to get up, maybe because I have to to get up and go to work to effectively fund my life.

It's something that I have to do , but I don't feel it's a decision that I have made, although in reality I have made that decision.

I could choose not to work, but that would mean I probably wouldn't have the finances to actually write this post when I want to , and how I want to and wear I want to .

 It's a trade off, and I choose to do this because I see it as the best option for what I want from life. But I still don't want to get up during the week. I still I have to get up wash, shower, take loads of drugs and injections and then, generally , walk into work.

Today I had a good night's sleep, walk up , had ideas for a couple of blog posts and I actually want to get up. Why? Well there are things I really want to do and am looking forward to doing. The thing is, if you have things to look forward to you will want to get up, even if you have to do things you don't want to do. Here's a list of what I have to look forward to today followed by a W (want to do) , or N (Don't want to do). I know W and N seem odd letters to choose , but I have chosen them for obvious reasons and you now know what I mean. Here's the liset:

  • Mow The Lawn (N)
  • Two Blog Posts (Including this one) (W)
  • Walk 11.5K steps (W)
  • Go to the shops for various provision (N) but it will help me walk my steps
  • Watch some catch up TV (W)
  • Watch some TED Talks (W)
  • Listen to another album (W)
  • Change the bedding (N)
  • Top up The Bird Feeders (W)
  • Meet With Friends at The Wildflower Farewell Party (W)
  • Phone My Dad (W)
  • Take Some Photographs and maybe Instagram them (W)
  • Get Song of The Salesman onto Wordpress (W)
So I have a few reasons to want to get up, and really that's what  you have to have to make you want to get up. You need to have reasons. Yes it's nice to lie in bed, but it's a very long time since I was in bed at mid day ... but that could be a reason to get up even though you actually staying in bed.

So the obvious piece for this is "Can't Get Out Of Bed" by The Charlatans, so either stay in bed, get out, do things or relax.

Wednesday 9 August 2017

Prime Time


Reading "How Not to Be Wrong: The Hidden Maths of Everyday Life" by Jordan Ellenberg  and there are some complex concepts in there and we're talking prime numbers (or should that be Prime Numbers) and he make a stange but true point n and n+2 are more likely to be a pair of prime numbers than n and n+1.  Now given that after 1, 2 and 3 only odd numbers can be prime, it seems a strange point to make. 29 and 31 are prime but 30 isnt, 31 and 33 are not both prime but I think 131 and 133 are. It also talks about the apparent randomness of prime number distribution, which obviously cannot be random because the nature of numbers is set in stone ... sort of.

Below is one of my favourite TED talks on very large prime numbers by Australian DJ Adam Spencer. This talk held no interest for me, or so I though but it is a brilliant way to spend twenty minutes and you learn a lot as well.


So it's 7AM and we need a numerical song to go with it and what about The Jam's "Away From The Numbers" , my nay is spent dealing with numbers but there are times when maybe a rest would do me good


Friday 21 July 2017

Fire


On Wednesday I ditched the iPad and got a Kindle Fire. Basically the iPad was an excellent device but tried to tie you into Apple and some non Apple apps didn't behave the way I wanted including YouTube and TED. I originally bought it because someone showed me GarageBand, but while that was great to play with, and I managed to record a couple of things, it forced into such things as defining the length of your song before you recorded it, and it took me six months to export my first MP3 after having recording the song. I think it was a space issue and on someone's advice I deleted a load of apps and it finally exported.

I recorded a couple more but, for me it was awkward. So eventually Garageband became something I dabbled with every now and then, and all I was really doing was keeping it charged and updating IOS.

So I got the Kindle Fire and it doesn't like Google apps so can't really use the Google Play Store or Google Docs or NOW TV (which uses some Google Framework). There are ways of circumventing this but I like life easy. I've not yet connected it to Social Media, but have installed TED and managed to print via Bluetooth to my Canon Pixma Printer. It was the first photograph I took with the device , which only has a 2 MP camera, but it was late at night and I wasn't sure what I was doing when taking the picture, but I took it and printed. That's one thing I never did with the iPad (although I never tried).

I've downloaded a Music Studio, which gets good reviews, but will check that out in the coming weeks.

I then played some YouTube stuff using my Bluetooth soundbar for sound and that was good.

Then the biggest plus' which in my opinion has mad the purchase worthwhile already , was the installation of BubbleUPnP which connected to my DNLA Server meaning that my whole digital music collection is available to me. I am now seriously thinking of giving away big chunks of my CD collection.

So far, so happy.

It's Friday, so we need a "fire" related song and the ones that spring to mind are Arthur Brown, Bruce Springsteen and The Pointer Sisters but as usual I'm going a little further afield with Nick Cave's take on "Fire Down Below" from Johnny Depp and Gore Verbinsky's pirate song project "Rogues Gallery".


Monday 17 July 2017

Monday Sun


Despite the fact it's Monday it looks an absolutely gorgeous day. This is a definite walk to work day. The benefits of walking are evident in my general improvement in health, although it means I have less time for TED talks and other stuff. I tend to spend maybe two hours a day walking which should result in around 12K steps but vary between 8K and 15K, so sometimes I must walk more slowly and some days more quickly. I'm writing this as I'm getting dressed (which you really wouldn't want to see).

I am toying with disposing of my CD collection. A big chunk is in boxes , and while I love playing albums on CD and vinyl, if something is boxed up , it's not available to play. I have it all digitally stored (I think), so it would be a good idea to get some more space by getting rid of some boxes. But in those boxes there are CDs I wouldn't want to lose so it's not a simple task, but I am formulating a plan.

I'm in a similar mode with books and DVDs , I seldom watch DVDs though recently got around to watching the excellent "Looking for Eric" by the brilliant Ken Loach and featuring Eric Cantona, and yesterday I listened to a "Best of R Dean Taylor" , if I remember rightly the first white artist on Tamla Motown, though I may be wrong there, but was surprised at how many songs I knew on there outside of the big hits such as "Two of Us" and "Ain't It A Sad Thing" (which are possibly covers).

So I've chosen "There's A Ghost In My House" for you to enjoy, and I will soon be on my way to work. Enjoy your day my friends.


Friday 12 May 2017

Stepping Out

Today is a bit grey and I am still just ahead of my target for my Million Step Challenge. The thing is we all can do a million steps , eventually, just by walking around, my slight problem is that I still have a target of 10K a day when it needs to be 11K a day, but this challenge allows me to slip back as long as I make up the deficit.

I'm finding some annoyances with my Sony Xperia XA, file management is really awkward and every time you connect to your computer to put stuff onto it it asks how you want to use your USB connection, then often mid transfer will finish the the transfer to ask you what you want to do with the USB connection. Also it wont block spam calls and texts. You have the option of blocking all calls (with some broad definitions like international, incoming and outgoing) but nothing about individual numbers. Apparently there are apps to do these tasks which I will look into.

Also you can copy and delete files using Windows Explorer but not move them , so you have to delete and recopy from the source.

I've managed to watch some TED talks on it and they are fine, but I lost all the downloads I had on the old Samsung Note, but they are all somewhere online.

Anyway it's time to start and see if I can hit 11K steps today (I did 13K yesterday), also I will be visiting Wildflower for lunch today and Fenham Fish Bar for tea , so that should be about 5K steps accounted for , as well as 5K from walking in.

I was going to use Joe Jackson's "Steppin' Out" but decided that John Kongos' "He's Gonna Step On You Again" was a better option. This is where The Happy Monday got "Step On" from.

It's Friday, It's weekend, have a good one.




Thursday 15 December 2016

Totally Wired


This week I bit the bullet and got some wired headphones for my Samsung Note 4. Some update or app has caused Bluetooth to crash settings, meaning I cannot add or access any new device. One of the solutions was to clear Bluetooth data which means it has in fact become unusable. Others are factory reset, uninstall apps one by one (there's about 300 on the phone half a dozen of which that I use).

A couple of months back someone posted that Apple were screwing their customers because system updates were causing devices to slow down forcing customers to buy new devices. Apple aren't, everybody does this. Often new apps require more resources and more powerful processors , it's generally how these things progress although I would like it if I could get my Bluetooth to work again. But whether it's Android, Apple , Microsoft , you will hit these situations. It's not built in obsolescence , it's progress. Yes lots of the software is bloatware , but in our hand held devices we are heading towards Star Trek territory.

The thing is with wires is they always get tangled up and you spend all your time untangling them, though it has enabled me to start watching TED talks, films and listen to music on the move again which is brilliant.

The only song can be "Totally Wired" by The Fall , although I also found a version by The Last Shadow Puppets as well so you get two versions of this amazing song.

Enjoy my friends and have a great Thursday.


Saturday 19 November 2016

TV Dinner - #ALifeInNumbers #57



I often hear (and see thanks to social media), people complaining that there is nothing on television. That is in these days of so many channels that you can get lost. The thing is you can only watch one thing at once, but some people seem to think that means they can only watch one thing, their TV diet is often X-Factor, EastEnders and if they are feeling adventurous maybe Coronation Street and Britain's Got Talent. Needless to say I don't watch these , but I do remember the days before BBC2 existed and you couldn't record anything.

It is true that since the digital explosion there are an awful lot of channels filled with unwatchable dross, but this very fact means that there is always something that you can watch. Groucho Marx once said that he found TV very educational, if he walked into a room where the TV was on he'd walk out and find a book to read. TVs have always had an off switch.

Today the options to watch high quality content has never been better. There are films and TV series that I will never see despite them being must watch programmes. Dexter, Braquo, and 24 are three that immediately spring to mind.

Also I remember everyone complaining about repeats on television, now you have whole channels screening repeats DAVE and GOLD are two that spring to mind though there may have been name changes and one may be the other.

Anyway we are up to number 57 in #ALifeInNumbers and it has to be Bruce Springsteen's "57 Channels (And Nuthin' On) which does hit the nail about the choices we are presented with which are maybe no real choice at all.

Me, I find that 6Music , Radio 2,3 and 4 then BBC2,4 , Film4, Sky Living, Atlantic and Arts provide me with far more than I need. If I then add Youtube and TED then that gives you a small indication of my tastes.

Enjoy Saturday Night my friends.

Thursday 29 September 2016

#LikeNoOther #5 Dispepsi - Negativland


This is a slight deviation from the formula but also the first time that an album taught me a lot about market manipulation and controlling the minds of the masses who buy products. The album was, I think legally challenged by Pepsi and possibly Coca Cola and there is a Wikipedia entry here which mentions the legal shenanigans.

It contains lots of samples including many famous people , digs at artists selling themselves to corporations and includes some clever and witty songs , woven together into a coherent blast at market manipulation.

Drink It Up
It's one the albums that I still listen to end to end, and suggest that you do the same. It came back into mind after watching a TED talk that said that 90% of the media production was now owned by six companies who an make us think about whatever they want.

That is very frightening and Dispepsi predicted what they are doing now over 25 years ago. The album is very difficult to lay your hands on though Amazon have a few very expensive copies here.

Listen to the Youtube link here, if you want a copy, contact me, I will direct you. Below is the TED talk by Christopher Bell that reminded me of this amazing , educational and subversive record, with its demonstration  that Disney are anti powerful female heroes. Listen then watch my friends.