Showing posts with label Weather. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Weather. Show all posts

Sunday 18 July 2021

The Heat and The Radio

Yesterday was the hottest day of the year and today looks like it's going to be similar. I've read that a cold shower is good for you so now when I get in the shower I don't wait for the water to heat up , juts let the cold water hit me that lasts for about 30 to 40 seconds. I know that's not an image you want it your head , fat old bloke in a shower, but that's what I do. This morning however the unheated water was actually lukewarm so hardly the normal kick I get out of it.

Also this weekend I have actually put the radio on (I have a preference for 6Music) and am currently listening to Radcliffe and Maconie and enjoying it. While working from home I have moved from listening to the radio to my own music collection , partly because the 6Music DJs don't play stuff that interest me as much. I did use to listen to Ken Bruce mainly for PopMaster  as a lot of the music is stuck in a particular time zone.

Generally 6Music does bring in new music , but sometimes has an enormous eclectic sweep like if you listen to Cerys Matthews. The benefit of listening to the radio is that you are there with people and also stand a chance of discovering new music , whereas with your own music collection you seldom discover anything new (but you do) and you are alone , but that is your own choice.

So keep cool to day and we'll go with "Too Darned Hot" a Cole Porter by Ann Miller from "Kiss Me Kate" based on Willam Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew".



Sunday 14 March 2021

The Wind

Although temperatures are rising when I am out walking there is a wind that almost takes your face off it is so cold. This makes walking out not very pleasant, although I still try and get out and to hit an avaerage of 11K steps a day.

This week I tried Noom but found it too regimented but was willing to give it a try as it seems to working for certain friends, but after continually filling it information about what I'm eating (the blurb does not indicate this) and the final straw was to get you walking and then work up to a decent amount. It gave me three starting points , 2K , 5K and 10K . I chose 10K because I walk an average of 11K steps a day, but Noom said I had to start at 2K then increase my steps by 300 a day. There was no way I was doing that as it would ruin my normal routine.

So while Noom is fine for a lot of people , it is not for me , like gyms (which I find boring. I am going to go out for a walk after this and hopefully the weather will be a little milder but knowing my luck maybe it wont be.

So music wise we will go with "The Wind" from "Teaser and the Firecat" by Cat Stevens.

Saturday 13 February 2021

-3°C

It is still cold , so cold that the snow gets a bit slushy during the day then freezes at night. The lowest I've seen is minus eight degrees centigrade and friend in Dalgety Bay have reported minus fourteen degrees centigrade.

Walking out and most of the snow on footpaths has turned to ice, it's the middle of the and the temperature is zero , freezing. It isn't snowing but it is cold, with the only sign that this is over , the fact that most of the snow on the rooves has gone.

This is just a very short post , the day before Valentine's day and it is the thirteenth. Strange how sending a  Valentines card to someone you don't know turns you into a stalker in todays environment , and I am sure there is a great horror story in that situation . Someone gets a card from a stranger and that marks them as the next target. That could destroy the Valentine's card industry.

St Valentine was a clergyman who was martyred but is also the patron saint of epilepsy. Wiki details are here

So what song do I share?

I know it's the day before but I know the Motorhead / HeadGirl / Girlschool "St Valentine's Day Massacre" EP is on YouTube in full , so we will go with that. The lead song on the EP is a cover of "Please Don't Touch" by Johnny Kidd and The Pirates.  I find it slightly odd that the CD copies are now selling for more than the vinyl copies if you check out the links below.

The actual massacre is described thus:

" 1929 murder of seven members and associates of Chicago's North Side Gang that occurred on Saint Valentine's Day. The men were gathered at a Lincoln Park garage on the morning of that feast day, February 14th. They were lined up against a wall and shot by four unknown assailants who were dressed like police officers. The incident resulted from the struggle to control organized crime in the city during Prohibition between the Irish North Siders, headed by George "Bugs" Moran, and their Italian South Side Gang rivals led by Al Capone.[1] The perpetrators have never been conclusively identified, but former members of the Egan's Rats gang working for Capone are suspected of a role, as are members of the Chicago Police Department who allegedly wanted revenge for the killing of a police officer's son"


Thursday 11 February 2021

Snow Go


I was out walking tonight , it was -2°C (this morning was -7°C) and thought this is just perfect. The snow crunched underfoot and there is no slush or skating rink footpath sections just beautiful white snow, and I am loving it while  it's like this. There is no wind, rain or driving snow like last week and it is just perfect to walk in. 

There are some pictures on my Instagram Channel here, and there is a particularly good short snowy video here , and it is on Instagram here.


This week has been listening to lots of #MusicWhileYouWork and today I found a very unusual CD called Hindi Horrorcore by Andy Votel  who does a lot of remixing and you can see examples below, it's just not an expected genre of  anything , but I have the CD in my collection and it is definitely listenable, so I've included it here using the paste video option so we'll see how it goes.

It's close to midnight so I best sign off now. The temperature now is -8°C


Saturday 6 February 2021

In The Middle Of The Night

Having had a reasonably restful week I thought I would get up in the middle of the night and write this post just to prove that I can. I went to bed at 11 o'clock and woke up at 8 o'clock , so the fact is I got a very good night's sleep, nine hours. I may try again tonight.

So I've gone through the day , and the weather is still so dreich and I do not think I will wake up to write another post. I've not done much today but my weekends are for resting and recuperation.

I have not even listened to any music today , but done some reading and managed to keep warm and dry.

I didn't do much walking either so in terms of doing things this has been an unsuccessful day, I am even tempted to not share this as this post is as uninspiring and uneventful as the weather at the moment.

So for a weather related song we shall go with "Like The Weather" by 10,000 Maniacs. No I shall go to bed.

Friday 5 February 2021

At The Double

Yesterday was a non work day for me , so I went out walking and managed to meet and chat to two of my neighbours , Emma and Manjit , twice. Now in this lockdown it's unusual to see people to speak to in person, we can , phone and videocall but two even meet two people is unusual , and to meet them twice in one day is definitely out of the ordinary.

There's been a cold North Wind today and the weather is dreich , cold and grey still , absolutely uninspiring, and though I walked different paths today it was more like a chore than an achievement.

My reading is still between the excellent in a car crash kind of way "Left Out" and the excellent in an excellent type of way "Imajica". The thing is although reading "Imajica" on the Kindle is very slow , it just means I will spend so much longer in that magical universe,

TV is continuing with "The Daily Show" , "Shrill" , "Cobra Kai" and a new one "Resident Alien" and today the Queen Platinum Collection has provided all my #MusicWhileYouWork  and there is a lot of good music in there. Although that is only three hours I did have a lot of meetings.

The reason I was listening to Queen is because my mate Jim had posted on Facebook about "Innuendo" containing his favourite Queen song ever, which is a high recommendation given that Jim must be close the the world's number one Queen fan to the point that his scrap books were used on official Queen releases. However he didn't mention the song , and I  don't have the album, but knew the ludicrously amazing title track graces Volume II of the collection , but I'm going with another favourite of mine "Las Palabras de Amor" featuring Mr Bulsara in a very smart suit.

Wednesday 3 February 2021

Hopefully

The weather doesn't really seem to be improving, still cold , wet , dreich.  This is my thirteenth post this year , though the second today. so overall I am still scaling down the number of posts though lockdown is affecting me getting out any distance to find things to write about, although artists are still managing to produce output while staying in.

Today has had me listening to a couple of David Bowie CD boxes , the first "The Next Day" and "Station To Station" is playing now. Both are examples of how a really great presentation can be made from the artist to the fans, both boxes are on the list below.

Hopefully the weather will improve and tomorrow on another day off  I will get to see my granddaughter Alexis , but me and her mother agreed it's not great to meet in weather like this.

The skies are getting greyer and darker and I still need to gout for a third walk today to try and get my steps up.  February is an annoying month , twenty eight days meaning that it reality I need to average 12,200 steps a day and so far this month I have not done anything like that , and in this weather I don't really feel like doing it, but I know that I will, the only thing that normally puts a spoke in my works is illness.

So I know there really isn't much in this post but will share the title track of the album that I am listening to at the moment , it is a definite favourite of mine.

A Misery of Goths

Heaven Knows ......I'm miserable now. Well not really , yesterday started with more snow , and though it's cold it looks nice , relaxing and almost Christmassy in our current lockdown situation, however this has transmogrified into could continuous rain that is extremely uninspiring and hence the feeling of misery. 

MissEeerie Loves Company
I saw a meme  yesterday that described a collection of Goths as  "A Misery of Goths" which I have now decided to use as a title for this first post of a mostly miserable so far February. I couldn't find a really suitable picture but the one on the right sums up my feelings on my walks so far this month.

I hope that things will improve soon , but probably not before the weekend.

I do like that picture and you can click through to see more of their pictures, so ironic that something that is miserable results in a positive find.

I got a text this morning for a Diabetic catch up which these days is by phone and them trusting me to tell the truth, which I do. If I have problems I also get onto my doctor or the hospital , but generally I look after myself and follow guidelines, the only thing that bothers me is that generally I seem to need more sleep, that is I can't do things during the night even once a week, and often think it's great if I'm in bed at nine o' clock

Today or tomorrow I will be seeing my granddaughter Alexis and her mum , my daughter Kirsty , weather permitting , so that is a big plus.

I have also started following an author on Facebook called Lynn Miclea and she shares some very funny memes and will have to get some of her books , she's on Amazon here

I am now a permanent home worker and this gives me time to listen to a lot of music, currently listening to "The Next Day" by David Bowie and am also listening to the pile of CDs I have put up for sale on Discogs. As I've said before I often buy the CDs to support the artist or because I feel that I should have their music rather than any need for it. It's the same with films on DVDs which I am often too lazy to put in the DVD player , and when you do you get all the anti piracy videos which are pointless because you have PAID for it.

So before venturing out I will share the song that sort of originally inspired this post "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" by The Smiths  which really should be a Goth anthem shouldn't it? Although The Smiths are hardly your archetypal Goth band.

Thursday 28 January 2021

Colder

Although we have not had snow, temperature have been continually less than zero for more than a week now, meaning that snow has not melted and pavements are covered in frost.

The temperature has warmed a little and though there was a flurry of snow , it's now just continuous rain, and still cold.

The BBC has just stated it's going to be a dry day , but snow and rain in Scotland (for the Scotland being anywhere north of Watford)

Music wise I listened to a lot of Lou Reed the other day , a 5CD set featuring "New York" , "Songs For 'Drella" . "Magic and Loss" , "Set The Twilight Reeling" and "Ecstasy" , and every album is excellent , all far outstripping the David Bowie produced "Transformer" his breakthrough solo album and often listed has his peak.

These five albums prove that Lou Reed solo was far from a one trick pony. "Transformer" contains some stunning songs (my favourite is "Vicious") but we will go with the opener from "New York" "Romeo Had Juliette".

Have a great Thursday everyone.


Thursday 21 January 2021

Keep It Dark

 Although we are way past the shortest day (on the Winter Solstice) it is still dark in a morning although lighter in an evening. It's 8AM now and coming light but we will soon be implementing daylight saving again (slightly pointless in a 24/7 society) and will be back to even darker mornings.

This is another post that I started a couple of days ago and then have picked up to finish today. The weather has been dreich although last night we had snow again which you can see on my Instagram channel here.

I have been doing a work course in Power BI yesterday and today so not much time to listen to music, but yesterday I picked out a free copy of "True" by Spandau Ballet and wasn't too impressed , but luckily it's only thirty six minutes. "Lifeline" is good , but the rest is dross although the title track was successfully integrated into the excellent "Set Adrift on Memory Bliss" by PM Dawn.

Anyway the song I am going to share is the excellent "Keep It Dark" by fourth phase Genesis from "Abacab" which I believe was titled after it's chord sequence and is one of the many great songs they produced after Peter Gabriel left.

It's light now and it's 8:18am.

Saturday 16 January 2021

Walking On Thick Ice

The weather has curtailed my walking. It is cold . It has snowed and turned to slush and them frozen , then rained and then frozen again , although the sun is now out and seems to be melting snow and ice. The temperature is up to 6ºC so nowhere near the -5ºC of the other day.

When walking , it's like you are on a think sheet of  ice that crumples underfoot so you are not skidding all over the place , although very often the cleared areas get a film of very slippy black ice.

A lot of the snow is gone but we shall see what tonight brings.

Musicwise I took delivery of a couple of 12" singles of "America:What Time Is Love?" by The KLF although I've seen a picture disc version but £40 is too much for me to pay. I shared a few plays on my Instagram Channel here. The record player I was cajoled into buying by Marek from RPM  has been one of my most impressively joyous purchases that I have made (you see it a lot on my Instagram feed)

I will share with you with the excellent "Walking On Thin Ice" by Yoko Ono (with John Lennon on guitar) as it fits with the current weather

Sunday 10 January 2021

A Snowy Interlude

It was dreich and depressing , then we had snow which was cold but pretty, and now the snow has gone and it's dreich and depressing the day before going back to work. 

Still is always good to try and find something positive and I have been listening to some great music and seen a surprisingly good film "Cold Skin" which sort of reminded me of William Hope Hodgson's "The Night Land" which I have not read for some years , replacing the pyramid with a lighthouse in the Antarctic.

Also have been trying to think of music that is in the same universe as The Moody Blues , and on album that came to mind was "Trespass" by Genesis. While "The Knife" is definitely too aggressive for The Moody Blues but all the preceding songs could almost be a darker Moody Blues.

So I will share "Dusk" with you from "Trespass" , appropriate for this time of year, and still a great song.

Friday 8 January 2021

I Wanna Wear A T Shirt

We're in the first full week of 2021 , and I posted on New Year's Day, but haven't felt like writing since then. Part of this is the dreich weather we have been having which is not conducive to inspiration. It was Tuesday when I started this and really haven't felt like writing anything.

The thing is I am wrapped up but seriously just want to wear a T Shirt, it's a long time sing I seemed to have the choice.

Oddly I have managed to do a lot of walking although we've finally had snow and that has slowed my walking but increased the steps.

It's a first week back at work and now I am a home worker I think my main problem is not taking a break,

I didn't really want to continue this post and thought about deleting it but then thought I would just continue it.

I have been listening to a lot more music this week , but really need to start making it but am embarrassed to actually play anything too loud. At least with writing you don't make too much noise.

I have started the latest series of "Vikings" with one of the most impressive battles and death scenes I have see, that is sort of difficult to follow.

So what music do we leave you with at eleven o'clock on a frosty Friday night., "America:What Time Is Love" by KLF , seriously what else could I leave you with.

Saturday 12 December 2020

Temporally Speaking

I find it amazing how time flies by if you are doing something that needs to be done , or you are enjoying it, but drags like hell when you are waiting for something , doing absolutely nothing , or doing something that bores you. 

I love doing things that interest me and detest boredom but when time is dragging or flying I always call to mind "The eighty Minute Hour" by Brian Aldiss, where the controllers slow down timepieces when you are at work and speed them up when you are not. If that were the situation , how would we know.

This morning I started out extra early , got things done then , had to do more thanks to a milk leak in my rucksack meaning that had to go in the wash , and suddenlty you don't feel any further forward that you thought you would be but you actually are.

It's a bit like my current paperback "The Other Log of Phileas Fogg" , it's only 166 pages but the font is so tiny it is going much slower than I expected. Having said that, though I know the overall concept and have seen a couple of films I have never read Jules Verne's "Around The World In Eighty Days" , although my girls as children used to love the cartoon character Willy Fogg, but this book is giving me a good grounding in the original book while setting my mind off on lots of "What is happening here" questions. I am enjoying it and , unusually , this is taking longer than expected , and "Imajica" on the Kindle Fire is going very slowly , but , in all honesty , that is a book I never want to end despite having read it several times.

The weather this week has been totally dreich and showing no signs of changing , but weather is weather. The thing I don't like about it is the featureless skies.

There are lots of songs that refer to time , but I'm going with Todd Rundgren's "Time Heals" from the album "Healing", the video was a staple of MTV in the early eighties.

Thursday 29 October 2020

The Camera Always Lies

 The other week I just did not feel like walking at all, although I managed a few steps , last week I did get back to sort of normal although th eclocks going back has had an effect. Last night I went out in daylight at around 4:30pm , when I returned around 5:30pm I was in total darkness, the dark came nown very quickly and although the weather is cold it's not freezing.

When I go I out I do enjoy trying to capture pictures, especially the skies , simethimes you don't get what you want, but sometimes you get things far more amazing than what you have actually seen. This morning the sky was a gorgeous pink with mackerel cloud effects , but the pictures I took were grey and nondescript. This week I have taken some amazing looking sunrise pictures , and they were nowhere near as good as the photographs that I took.

The thing is I remember photography being film based , you took the picture , then when you finished the film you paid to have it developed and a week or two later you got the results which may or may not be in focus. Now thanks to enormous jumps in technology we have cameras as part of our communication devices and ofthen these allow us almost instant access to take pictures.

The other thing is that if you don't take pictures immediately then the moment is gone, that was never an option with film based cameras.

Another thing is that often see vistas which I want to take a picture of , but the camera cannot capture the faraway image sthat I see like a plane or a bird. The other thing is that the human eye only captures part of what we see and the brain fills in the gaps.

With a phone camera we don't have an optical zoom, so we need a a very high pixel capture to enable the digital zoom , which works to a point, but still is nowhere near as good as the human eye or cameras with optical zoom (which have enabled me to capture images that I couldn't actually see when I took the photograph),

I once had a Sony phone and the camera on that could take some amazingly psychedelic images, which I sort of loved , but was not good fir capturing a normal picture. Apparently my Google Pixel 2XL is one of the best phone cameras, and the number of photographs I take are a testament to that, but I know things are only going to get better in this area.

The word "Camera" appears in a wonderful line in the John Cooper Clarke song / poem "Post War Glamour Girl" and is:

"Glamourous Cameras Clickety Click"

I always thought "Glamourous Cameras" would be a great name for a band as well. So that is the song we will go with on this dreary Thursday.


Wednesday 2 September 2020

#FruitfulSeptember #1


I often think that I will just not write anymore on this blog , but then it's a diary and diaries never stop. It also is a method of recording things that I may want to remember. So I will keep writing , I am very contrary in my mind at times.

This morning I took a four mile walk to the Freeman Hospital for a check up and all seems to be in order . They now have an impressive fruit and vegetable stall out the front of outpatients but it is farly expensive, but it is in a prime location.

TV wise I have one episode of "Veep" to go although there is an Amazon Prime Veep vs Trump stream which I shall be watching tonight, which has reminded me , I've still not caught the "Parks and Recreation" COVID reunion show.

This morning was a little grey and now we have rain, so I'm not sure if I will get an evening walk. I know we're past the longest day but the nights and dark mornings are drawing in and after yesterday's heat , today is quite chilly.

I'm sure I wanted to say something else in this post but it's gone , and that will be an excuse for another post tomorrow.

I was, then I wasn't, going to do a sequence based on fruit for September but then thought , yeah I will , and #FruitfulSeptember is a good tag to go with, and to start off with "Overnight Sensation" by The Raspberries who have never featured on this blog. Although this was an excellent record , Eric Carmen went solo and produced som excruciating AOR so it's unlikely you will be seeing any of his solo stuff on here, but you never know, there may be hidden gems in his back catalogue.

Tuesday 25 August 2020

Uniform - #AnimalAugust #16


The sky is a uniform grey and it's raining and drizzling a perfect situation for the word "dreich" , not exactly great walking weather or inspirational and certainly not summery.

With the weather being so awful I was wondering if I could hit my 11K steps without actually leaving the house. I know people have done it, but basically the house is about ten steps from side to side, so going from one side to the other and back 550 times would actually do it but I could see that tedium would  hit me very quickly. Of course there is up and down stairs and the rest of the house to use but it's a lot of repetition, which I am not really up for.

Yesterday during a work meeting the sound went off, and I assumed that there was a problem with the person speaking then realised my TV , that provides the sound, and switched it self off which it does after four hours. After several months I found the setting to stop it from switching itself off, but this means I now have to remember to switch it off when I've finished with it.

On my #MusicWhileYouWork Instagram sequence which I started when working from home I am now listening to the Bruce Springsteen "Soundstage" 15CD box , which is still available for around £20 , and while it's a radio broadcast quality , it is still excellent. I'm on CD2 so a long way to go and after this I have a 4CD David Bowie set (The Collaborator) to enjoy.

Still on "Venus on the Halfshell" and though it's dated tongue in cheek , I am still enjoying it, and it is packed full of ideas and observations that are very relevant today.

Over the last week I have binge watched (for me) lots of TV coming to the finale of "Veep" , one and a half series of "Bosch" , which is very good and his apartment and view is worth watching the program for.

"Shortly After Take Off" by BC Camplight has just been played by Chris Hawkins on 6Music, followed by "96 Tears" by ? & The Mysterians which put me in mind of Sam The Sham and The Pharaohs who had a hit with "Wooly Bully" which will do for today's #AnimalAugust .

I'm just wondering whether to have a September sequence based on fruit , but will have to think of a hashtag for that.

Friday 26 June 2020

The Great and Secret Show


I haven't written much about "The Great and Secret Show" by Clive Barker but am thoroughly enjoying it, although I've read it before , thirty pages from the end I am still not sure of the final outcome. The Great and Secret Show is on the isle of Ephemeris in the dream sea Quiddity which is between the Cosm and Metacosm home of the Iad (the main baddies in this story).

This is the good thing about my memory , I know enough to know it's a great book, but every time I read it , it's like a new adventure, although a vaguely familiar ride. I will probably finish this , this weekend and I have so many other places to revisit

Tonight we have had a thunderstorm shaking the street and houses , a little rain but it seems to have passed.

So I know this is incredibly short , but the heat is just stifling my creative writing faculties, so I will sign off.

This week I have been listening to a lot of reggae but given that Armageddon like nature of "The Great And Secret Show" maybe I will go with "The Four Horsemen" by Aphrodite's Child (featuring Vangelis and Demis Roussos featuring the end of the world scenarios by local North East artist John Martin.

Thursday 18 June 2020

Hazy


Since the weekend the sky has been a uniform grey with mist almost to ground level. This has burned off for the last two afternoons revealing sunny blue skies, but my phone's weather app showed an icon that looks like waves , so I was thinking Tsunami? Flood? ... apparently it actually means hazy so that means I can rest a little more safely.

It's now after work and the sky is still grey. I will go out for a walk and visit a local Roman Temple, the weather is at least conducive to walking which is good. I've managed to keep my steps up this month.

Today I opened a pack of toilet rolls that I bought when lockdown started and everyone was panic buying, throughout this lockdown I have never gone short of anything , I noticed shops that have sold out but always found alternatives close by, while a lot of people I know were telling me how impossible it was to get things. The irony being they all own cars so in theory can go anywhere , whereas I rely on public transport and shanks pony.

Although my CD is slowly shrinking via my Discogs store I will be buying the new Nadine Shah album "Kitchen Sink" , here music is like nothing else , all the instruments are so percussive and she is one of the few artists who I have a complete collection of. I am also going to download the 40th anniversary version of "Two Sevens Clash" by Culture, I have the original in digital format so will do the same for the anniversary edition.

As this is named Hazy I will share "Hazy Jane" by Nick Drake.