The Insidious Evil of Contact Lenses

This morning I lost a contact lens trying to put it in my left eye. Usually if I drop them I eventually find it but to today absolutely no sign. Looked round the sink , on the bathroom cabinet and floor, it does amaze me that when you drop something it can go absolutely anywhere.

Given that my right and left are out of sync I decided to ditch the right one as well well and open new ones but was worried that maybe the left one was actually in my eye but had slipped behind it.

That has happened to me once before and I didn't realise until it reappeared on a hospital visit. I tried inserting the left one but it felt that there was already something there, although this was probably psychosomatic  caused by by attempts to take out a contact lens that wasn't there..

Decided to go with my glasses then checked my phone and noticed an odd reflection. It turned out the lost contact lens was stuck above my palm at the bottom of my index finger, and there is apparently no name for that bit of the hand, like as Vivian Stanshall said in "Sir Henry At Rawlinson End" - "There ids no name for the back of the knees".

So that's my start to this beautiful Saturday morning when the 2019/20 football season restarts in empty stadia , but it is a good sight to see even if it's just on TV.

Chris Hawkins on 6Music is playing a Rolling Stones cover of Solomon Burke's "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love" . I was one of the backing singers and in the Gospel Choir support when Solomon Burke played The Sage ten years ago, see here .

This weekend will see lawn mowing , Roman Temple visiting and football watching and we need a song to go with that don't we. For some reason Johnny Clarke's "Rockers Time Now" was in my head yesterday,  it's an absolutely great song , perfect for today, so we'll go with that.

Sale of The Centipedes

I took the title from a line from "Sir Henry at Rawlinson End" the Vivian Stanshall film and monologue that first appeared as a John Peel sessions, well following the initial outing on The Bonzo Dog Band's "Let's Make Up And Be Friendly". It is full of very evocative images and lines and well worth delving into for fans of eccentric English Comedy and ebullient wordsmithery.

I've recently been having to go to bed as early as eight o'clock because I am feeling absolutely drained, I've no idea why and have als been soffering from intermittent back ache. A lot may be old age, but I do have a doctor's appontment scheduled in a week or so to maybe find out if anything is not completely in order.

Although I could include a litlle Vivian Stanshall there are links below to his work, so you can check him out there.

I've litsened to a couple of Oysterband compilation albums "Little Rock To Leipzig" and "Granite Years" and they are a band that revisit and rework their own songs as well as others, and I've often discovered other people's songs for the first time through The Oysterband. One such example is the achingly beautiful "Love Vigilantes" which is the opening New Order song from Low-Life. Both songs are great but I will just leave you with The Oysterband verson as you may already have heard The New Order one.

The chorus always gives me goosebumps, it's that affecting a song for me.

Sleep well.

Eleven Moustachioed Daughters? #ALifeInNumbers #11

There was only ever going to be one Number Eleven and that is Eleven Moustachioed Daughters by The Bonzo Dog Band , a song I'm sure that everyone knows, or everyone that reads this will now know. I've chosen this excellent live rendition by Viv Stanshall's post Bonzo's band BiG Grunt (that's not a typo although it may have been originally.

 The Bonzo's started out as a bit trad jazz ut all the members had ideas about the direction they wanted to go, very involved in the TV Comedy "Do Not Adjust Your Set" with many of  the pre Python Monty Python team,

While I had heard them on "Do Not Adjust Your Set" and they had a hit single with "Urban Spaceman" I was amazed by the breadth and depth of their music when I put on "The Doughnut In Granny's Greenhouse" and the first track "We Are Normal" blew me away , normal this band definitely was not.

Eleven

By the time you hit the last track on side two "11 Moustachioed Daughters" you realise that you havecovered a hell of a lot of ground with these guys, after the rock, pop , jazz, comedy and everything else the hit you with this rhythmic pagan chant which is both frightening and funny and you do want to hear it again and again.

I once heard that The Bonzo's were the UK's Mothers of Invention (originally Zappa wanted them to be called The Mothers but the record company forced the to add "Of Invention" for decency, don't you love marketing sensibilities) , and Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart were hug fans of The Bonzos.









Anyway enjoy this, and your record collection should really contain a copy of "The Doughnut In Granny's Greenhouse".

Right it's six am on Sunday morning, it's dark. and I am going back to bed.

Have a brilliant Sundaty everybody.

All Fool's Day and Pixies

Foggy Morning In Fenham

The title is another quote from Vivian Stanshall / Sir Henry Rawlinson at the start of the new Tax year. In the North East we're on our fourth day of thick fog. Yesterday we had a little sunshine , and thanks to British Summer Time we now have light at the end of the day, but a lot of people were feeling the loss of that hours sleep. I was just wondering do they do the same in Australia and New Zealand and the USA?

Anyway I am going to wrap up and have another good day today, with some ideas for music I want to buy and books to read, I still need to read my book for World Book Night , The Humans.

Oh and the Pixies have a new album out, and that can't be anything but good news can it?

I Don't Know What I Want But I Want It Now

The title is a quote from Sir Henry Rawlinson the creation of the wonderful Vivian Stanshall, and is particularly relevant to the sense of blind entitlement certain people seem to have for no other reason than they just expect to be given everything on a plate.

The TED Talk above by Paul Piff goes some way to explaining why , the more people get, the more they feel entitled to. Manchester United fans this weekend got a a plane to fly over Old Trafford demanding that David Moyes be relieved of his duties. This is because the team are not steam rollering everything in front of them, like they did under Alex Ferguson, forgetting that pre Ferguson the team had a long time in the trophy wilderness. Real fines appreciate there is a rebuilding job, but there are those who expect success to be presented to them on a plate.

Some of My Collection

It's similar with bankers and governments , who preach austerity, while expecting huge rewards for themselves for very little effort. The banks nearly destroyed the world through greed and were bailed out by governments, and are still paying themselves huge bonuses  with the blessings of right wing politicians, because they are somehow entitled to those rewards. I've yet to see anyone who deserves the obscene amounts they take.









Anyway rant over and there are good things up and coming. April 12th is National Learn To Play Day in which music shops and artists offer free taster lessons to encourage people to take up playing music. Full details are here with messages from Jools Holland and others.

That weekend I shall be picking up my books for World Book Night which takes place on the 23rd April.


And we also have National Record Shop Day on the 19th of April , which will be a great day again. I don't do the queueing but I do enjoy visiting the many shops we have in Newcastle.

Anyway it's time for bed now so I hope you all have had a great night and sleep well.

So Glad and English As Tuppence

That people are enjoying my blue sky pictures, it's always nice when you do things that people like. Today we've had more gorgeous blue skies. I've been out for a couple of walks and yesterday mowed the lawn for the first time this yeatr and the garden is looking fine after the winter.

I'd ordered some Aftercut from Amazon and Yodel delivered in a huge box on Saturday, so we shall see how that performs. I need to change the bird feeders as the plastic perspex ones don't seem to do for the birds here, so I'm going to pick up a couple of wire ones and hopefully the birds will enjoy that.

The Local Church

I'm listening to Radio 6 and an advertisement came on for a program called "English As Tuppence" about Vivian Stanshall singer with the Bonzo Dog Band, presented by their musical leader Neil Innes. You can listen here for the next week, though it is three hours long. Now this would be ideal to listen to on the way to work but as you can get a consistent signal between Newcastle and Darlington and they don't let you download radio broadcasts I'll just listen at home.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend, I certainly will do