by the sea

now then

were it so that i was asked (and no, my social circle is not of such a radius that i get much in the way of conversation) if i believed i would visit Scarborough at all this year then the answer would likely have been not really, not really, no. however, as it turns out, that's now twice i have gone done been there, all in or around a six (6) week stretch, look you see. 

most recently, as (undoubtedly) both regular readers and those with a taste for quality music will know, it was off there to once again see Holly Johnson do his stuff. well (ahem) musical stuff, and the support was boss. not so much on the latter for his live dates (announced thus far) in 2027, mind, since a certain Tony Hadley is on the support bill. anyway, getting back on some semblance of point, it was so that, at rather short (but not disagreeable) notice that verk decided i should go there one Friday. 

quite a lovely day too, considering it happened to be the first Friday of October. well, weather wise it was all splendid, verk was somewhat difficult (challenging), but i suppose i am not there just for my rather dashing good looks. bright sunny day, perfectly comfortable temperature and a most welcome breeze off of the mysteries of the sea. often, in our (collective) haste to be all miserable and depressed, we overlook the positives of all this global warming and (or) climate change business. a lovely day at one of the more prestigious Yorkshire coastal locales is very much one of them. 

a big plus for Scarborough is that they (the residents) actually want people to visit. some nearby places, and i didn't (specifically) state Whitby but still, get all @r$ey, not wanting tourist filth yet wishing for their money. one example of how Scarborough is more welcoming in absolutely loads of parking and not much in the way of really excessive charges for it. bit of a shame it is not better served by more direct rail links, but hey, welcome to England, the land where the train people do not really want you to use the trains. 

indeed that is a (reasonably) rare "proper" picture above, as in no "app" mode. no, i suppose it isn't what one would call "postcard perfect" or suitable for framing (commercial or otherwise), but still, not too bad. although maybe the people on the beach might wish to frame it. or show it off. 

to the right in the above picture is the Grand Hotel, one of the more celebrated sights in Scarborough and one linked to a (most peculiar) curious myth. no, nothing to do with Sir Jimmy. my brother loves it when i send images of being in Scarborough, as he cites the story of how Hitler intended to turn the place into the "capital of Europe". this isn't entirely accurate, as the myth (or urban legend) is that Hitler simply wished to make the Grand Hotel his "base". at the time it was the largest hotel in Europe. undoubtedly the magnificent architecture of it appealed to him. further elaboration of this was that the Luftwaffe were told they would be executed if the bombed it, so fond of the building was Hitler. no evidence has ever come to light that suggests any truth resides in this one, but it has just about the right level of randomness to be plausible. what a lovely idea it is, though, that France was occupied merely as a stepping stone to making Scarborough the epicentre of Europe, or whatever Europe would have been called under his rule. 

yes of course there is some video (above) and indeed it is in VHS mode. actually, i elected (or opted) to do something close to intelligent. this video kind of replicates the classical "scenic shot" everyone and anyone with a video camera in the late 80s and most of the 90s tried to do. except i did not think to use the zoom function, sorry. doubtful that the video is of any particular use or holds much interest, but as you are here now, go on, press play if you have not already done so.

generally the local residents are on the whole rather friendly and welcoming. this is not like certain other places on the Yorkshire coast (no i didn't specifically say Whitby, but still). for an example, on this visit a bloke just stopped and had a random conversation with me. he appeared full of remorse about having spent two days in Blackpool. yes, going from one seaside resort to another for a bit is interesting, although of course this one meant going from east to west. i asked, since that would be the usual reason for such a short sojourn to Blackpool, if it was for a stag night. he replied no, informing me that it was a "drunken decision" and (very much) a mistake he would not make again. 

cost of the magnificent fish and chips (with scraps) you see above? just north of £12, which isn't bad as such for what i got, but more than i would usually spend on dinner (or "lunch", if posh). likely cheaper, or if you insist "fewer", than certain other places on the Yorkshire coast. to be honest it was just ever so slightly south of 4pm that i had finished verk stuff, had not eaten, decided (or elected) that a late dinner was wise before a 90 - 120 minute drive back to lodgings in this era of exile. so my choice was made on the first place i saw with no queue, and of course when i saw the price it did (indeed) occur to me why no queue was present at this one fish and chip shop. still, it was amazing, man. probably not the sort of thing i should be eating with my various medical exploits, but it is done now. 

readers of a sensitive nature, which is to (very much) say those that simply don't like me and certainly have no wish to see images of moi, may well do well to depart now, for the next (and final) image is indeed of an obligatory selfie nature. like, you know, it is my blog, and i get people not wanting to see me, but surely some (even if just one or two) do. 

did indeed get a bit windy during the later stages of the day, hence my (usually concept free anyway, to be fair) hair going a bit stray. i do indeed keep considering doing "something" with my hair, but ultimately i am (just) too lazy to do that, and besides however it goes feels rock and roll, which is all that i am particularly interested in. 

likelihood of me heading to Scarborough again soon? probably "high", in particular (or if only) for further verk reasons. doubtful such shall ever take me to that there London (innit) ever again, but one never knows which path comes next. or something like that. 

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

pennies

hello there

alas just one of "them" posts, look you see. bit of a whine, or moan and groan. not for the first time and, if we are (entirely) honest, not for the last it is of course all about the wonders of our inefficient, unreliable public transport system here in England land, or possibly all of the UK. except that there London (innit), for those times when the greedy staff there are not on strike for an extra few hundred thousand (each) for working on what is effectively an entirely automated system. 

recently, then, i (and many other passengers) had to put up with a delay in service. great. such things have gotten to the point where you feel compelled to be grateful that it is at least running, so frequent are the outright cancellations. for me (moi) the most recent incident was pretty much a minor inconvenience, not all that much of a problem. other passengers, however, were going to miss connecting trains, buses and, in one case, flights. 

calling trains "public transport" is, these days, somewhat misleading. of all the "privatisation" things what they have gone done, and not all are bad (for a start energy companies are competitive, subject to regulation and gone are the days of ruthless disconnections), the only one more stupid that the trains was, of course, water. the companies what run the trains soon clocked that they could charge a fortune for the tickets, cancel services at will and claim massive subsidies from the government (our taxes) as they somehow cannot "cover costs". not helping is that a different company, the comically named "Network Rail", own/run the tracks on which trains run. they simply have no interest at all in proper maintenance and would prefer it if trains did not actually run on their tracks. 

so is it a case of "eat sh!t and f*** you" from all of the train people involved with regards to us? not quite. yet it is the case that the utter contempt and lack of interest in customers (beyond their money) is illustrated in the "compensation" one gets for these delays. behold, if you will, the stunning amount i am entitled to for the most recent incident. 

i am not getting a calculator out but i believe (or think) that's not even 10% of the ticket price. to state the obvious, nor does that really cover the inconvenience of it all. and no, mine was not a major issue, but as highlighted earlier it very much was an issue for other passengers. 

putting this compensation claim on a "fast track" is something that presumably sounded witty to them. however, the reality is that is a false description. granted (true), the compensation process "has" got faster, as in putting in the claim has been "simplified" to the extent of "only" taking about 15 minutes. before it took somewhere over half an hour, required a whole load of information and needed you to log in and out. yes, you could speculate that they make it deliberately cumbersome so people just get bored or otherwise fed up (f****d off, even) and simply don't bother. 

fast track for the actual payment of the "compensation" (all of 50p) isn't a thing either. they do advise it can take "up to ten days" to process the claim, and when found correct as in you are due it then it can well be the same amount of time waiting for it to arrive in your account. presumably we should be grateful that they pay it back via your payment method and do not issue a cheque. hopefully none of the tw@ts involved in this process are reading this, or they will see that last sentence, consider it a brilliant idea and go with it. 

to make some sort of (vague) point with this whine, then. issuing "compensation" is all well and good, but the value is nowhere near meaningful enough to teach them to stop being incompetent, is it? say only half of us bother to file the claim and get back that limited amount and, well, how exactly does that seem like "punishment" for the rail company? that's a really insignificant amount of the overpriced ticket they have to pay over. 

eligibility for what they call "compensation" commences if the delay exceeds a very Andy Warhol fifteen (15) minutes. as you can see, the percentage (%) of ticket is small, and likely of negligible difference to either the train people and fat lot of good to the people (us simple passengers) wildly inconvenienced by it all. were it so that compensation, on the random 15 minute mark, started at 150% of the ticket price and increased dramatically with 5 (five) minute intervals then it would be a decent gesture of compensation and would teach the rail companies not so much to be efficient as it would just to do the f*****g job they get paid (very) well to do. 

undoubtedly our glorious, excellent new leader (he likes The Smiths so he must be good, apparently) will have this on his agenda. right now, of course, he seems busy with the most pressing concern in modern society, which i gather is allowing football fans to drink alcohol in stadiums. let us hope that getting public transport into some sort of serviceable state is next. 

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

random bowie - the shel talmy recordings

howdy pop pickers

indeed i was hesitant, if not quite reluctant, to include this in my set of "random bowie" posts. this most recent of releases, The Shel Talmy Recordings, doesn't claim to be an "album", look you see, instead being as direct (or honest) enough to say it is very much a bunch of recordings taped together as a bit of a compilation. some of these have surface before, a few have not. besides, there is a (quite) strong likelihood this might be the last time we get a significant amount of "previously unreleased" Bowie material all at once. i dare say his taste for the subversive would be amused at a "final (mostly) new" release would feature his first ever recordings. 

but, one may ask, are these recordings the first ones he ever gone done? probably, likely but no one is all that sure, really. one (you and i) have to remember that the unreleased until now ones were mostly all forgotten about. for the sake of simplicity, or an easier life, perhaps we should just say yes, the first recordings what he ever gone done are held in (on) this tape (disc). 

and is it any good? does this release offer anything of remote quality, or interest beyond it being David Bowie (and a few others of note) on it, or is it simply a bit of a "cash grab", dangerously if not perilously close to scraping the bottom of a barrel? yes, no and maybe are all (oddly) not unreasonable answers to both extremes, which places a fair review in the middle. 

who(m), exactly, is Shel Talmy? must confess i had not heard of him, so did a bit of research. whereas no, not quite a legendary figure as some producers of the 60s, a very decent track record (sorry for the play on words) with some musicians, notably The Who and The Kinks. also took a bit of a flyer, or if you will a calculated risk on a young David "Davie" Jones, who he felt might be quirky enough to produce a few hits but accepted probably not. so he signed him up, encouraged him to write songs and brought in musicians to play on some records. as has widely been reported, one of them just so happens to be (i think on 4 songs) a certain Jimmy Page, who(m) started off as a very much in demand session musician. beyond that, was interested to see Nicky Hopkins appears too. for the more casual fan it may well be so that the name doesn't immediately trigger a memory, but i promise you that you have heard either his organ (so to speak) or piano playing on some of the greatest rock songs ever. 

this will sound terribly (and incorrectly) like i am damning with feint praise but the booklet, with extensive liner notes, is the treasure here. it tells the story of Shel, who was not, say, George Martin or, for better or worse, Phil Spector, but all the same was an integral component of that legendary era in the 60s when pop music well and truly became a thing. for anyone interested in rock history, or all of the mythology, it is fascinating stuff. 

music, though? well, said booklet makes (abundantly) clear not to play it with any expectations whatsoever. no "lost classics" exist here, but there is also nothing "bad" and certainly not a song one could suggest is an "embarrassment" for either (as we came to know him) Bowie or the musicians that feature. you get decent mid-60s sounding pop and proper rhythm and blues (not the horrendous style which appropriated the the term in the 90s) for the most part. good, but not what one would realistically deem "great", and certainly nothing likely to challenge The Beatles, The Kinks, Gerry & The Pacemakers, etc, etc as being the toppermost of the poppermost. 

 

once upon a time you could walk into shops and they would have tapes (actual) and then discs called things like "the best of the sixties". a more better (accurate) title was invariably "the best of the sixties songs that are either cheap to licence or free to use". invariably they comprised of "one hit wonders" or artists none but a few ever recalled. again it feels like i am unfairly slating this record, but being completely honest would be to say that any of the songs here would not feel "out of place" on such a set. 

do we (at the least) get the distinctive David Bowie vocal on the songs? partially. impossible for me to say but i suspect that if you played it for someone without telling them it was Bowie they would be able to work it out. although there answer would possibly be "sounds like Bowie mimicking Roger Daltrey", or Eric Burdon, or even (not then but still) Sir Mick. entirely likely that this was what he was doing, really, since they were the popular vocalists of the day (well, outside of The Beatles). certainly the evidence here is his ability to hold a note and be a strong vocalist, but you have to temper that with the fact it was a 17 year old lad, famously with a lack of ego or self belief. were anyone foolish enough to let moi into a recording studio when i was 17 then i dare say i would have tried, in my own head if not actually, to sound like who(m)ever was popular. major difference is that Bowie (Jones) does a really good job of pulling off a vocal which could be marketed along the lines of "if you like The Who or The Animals you will love this guy".

stand out, or outstanding songs? closest to such will be the ones you are (possibly) familiar with, for they are the songs that he re-recorded for Toy, be it in the never released intended version or the ho hum variation that eventually got released. to that end the first track, You've Got A Habit Of Leaving, stands out somewhat. of the four (4) tracks featuring Mr Page (two songs with two different vocal takes) easily the best is the rather decent I Pity The Fool, with Take My Tip being resoundingly ok.

for the week (or so) that i have actually had it the tape (disc) has not been replaced by another on the stereo. not sure if this is due to it being peculiarly compelling, or if i am resigned to knowing that in  week or so there is little, if any, chance of me playing it again. once more that is not quite the damnation of it that it feels like it sounds, more a reality. 

how has the rest of the world taken to this set (or if you like compilation)? reasonably well. it got up to number seventeen (17) in the UK album chart. quite the lovely touch, since that was his age when most if not all of these were recorded. 

were it so that someone said "oh yes, you can clearly tell his genius is present already in these early songs" they would be hard pressed to elaborate (or clarify). by the same margin, if one were to lambast this, saying it was rubbish (or just plain sh!t), then likely they are being far too harsh or exacting, or otherwise went into listening with far too many exalted expectations. ultimately it is a record way closer to pleasant curiosity than it is patchy cash in, which is fair enough. 

should for some reason you wish to read just a fraction more of the (vast) acres of waffle i have managed to gone done on Bowie over the years, this link to a "bootleg best" has a link to all of the random bowie editions (i think). 

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

notebook and toothpaste

g'day

unexpectedly, then, i bookend this not particularly significant month with posts of vague relation to the wonders of koalas. well, not vague, look you see, as for most of it there has been a perfectly clear, or if you will direct, connection. if you are a more random than regular reader here is the link to the start, indeed commencement, of this month. 

yes, with the overt fair dinkum Australian link it is so that some would (perhaps) suggest i have gone right ahead and "boomeranged" the subject for the month. this is if you accept the notion that a boomerang is indeed meant to come back to you, once thrown proper. no, alas, it is not. a boomerang is a hunting weapon, and so whilst it is incredibly efficient to return, a returned boomerang has failed and you have to try once more to get some food. 

moving on as best i can, then, and this month of nothing much of anything being so saw me purchase yet further things of koala. as i said earlier. 

do i purchase (or procure) absolutely everything i see what has a koala on it? no, i do not believe so. there was that instance, for instance, when i saw (observed) in a shop a teddy bear styled as a koala. whereas it was very clearly of a high, discerning quality, i was not prepared to pay(from memory) somewhere around £140 (not a typo) for it. on the other end of the scale as recently as today i saw another form of koala toy for £3 on the nose. this item i declined. 

on the same note no, i do not believe i have ever (knowingly) gone out to specifically purchase an item which one could say was of koala. it really is as dull, or mediocre, as every now and then i shall see an item or thing which has what one could call essentially a koala link, and my money is handed over in exchange for it. which does indeed lead to a number of unnecessary, impulsive and arbitrary acquisitions. 

like, for instance, an off blue-grey (very pleasing to the touch) furry covered 80 page notebook. 

when i saw this, in an Aldi i believe, i did indeed think to myself (or possibly said it aloud) oh wow that is rather cute, but took as a given it would be too expensive to indulge as an impulse item. no, as it turns out, for on seeking guidance from the relevant price tag it turned out that the item cost all of £1.79. 

indeed i am (quite) aware that the world as we kind of know it is on the verge of collapse, that society is going to break down, etc. maybe it would have been wiser to retain the penny south of a Bullseye friendly £1.80, but then if society breaks in a quite specific way then money shall be of little consequence and less ("fewer") value. it might be easier to trade a notebook rather than coins for essentials like cigarettes (sorry), sex or even, at a push, food. besides, the soft feel of the cover is really, really smooth and quite comforting. 

shall i, on the off chance of society not collapsing, use it as intended, which would be as a book to write notes in? doubt it. long since has been the time i aspired to be some sort of "writer", bar doing this blog what you are reading (thank you). just don't see what i would "note", to be honest. all the same, a lovely item to have, one that i shall probably forget about and one day (which may not be as soon as some hope) it will be the problem of someone else when it comes to disposing of all that i have picked up on my travels through life. 

for the toothpaste element of this, well, i did and did not (really) need any more of the stuff. however i happened to be in a shop and saw they had eucalyptus toothpaste. so of course i elected to purchase it, presuming that if it were good enough for koalas (eucalyptus and not toothpaste as such) then it would certainly do for moi. 

how is it? actually quite decent. oddly it is a pinker shade of pink (or thereabouts) in colour, and is quite overtly more of the menthol suggested (stated) on the box. not essentially spearmint, alas, but all the same a subtle "mint" like experience, presumably tempered by the fragmented presence of the wonderful thing what is eucalyptus. mindful of such being dependent on what you eat, or put in your mouth (so to speak), during a day, this does seem to leave one with decent feeling teeth all day. 

exactly why has someone decided that eucalyptus should be used to clean teeth? a good question, as it turns out. being curious i elected to do a google thing, and it might not be that koalas have brilliant teeth as a consequence of their eucalyptus based diet. far from it, sadly (and alas). if "the internet" is to be believed then koalas do have strong, robust teeth so as to consume the eucalyptus, but in turn the eucalyptus damages the teeth, leading to them being unable to eat. oh dear. 

right, well, i would remain (pretty) confident that any random (or practical) purchases made will for whatever reason get documented here. 

be fair dinkum to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

blu two

greetings

of late it feels somewhat this month (september 2026, look you see) has become a bit heavy on posts concerning films (or related) and (merrily quality) vibes. well, i suppose i can only write of what i have gone done, or what comes to mind. and little ("fewer") else comes to mind. 

so, as the title gives you every suggestion of being, i have recently watched two (2) of them fancy types of video called blu ray. unusually one of them i did not watch alone, but we shall get there. don't get all too excited. indeed i have watched a few "regular" fancy videos (dvd discs), but yeah, i shall go ahead and let them pile up a bit more before (inevitably) posting of them here. 

for now, then, 2 (two) what i watched, with both (as in all two) of them being 2026 releases. one of them also being one what i had not seen before, although i was very familiar with the story. 

go on then, since this has inadvertently taken the format (or what have you) of how i would usually do books (so to speak), a "spoiler free" overview. indeed Project Hail Mary is excellent, and a truly inspired adaptation of a novel i loved. that said, perhaps out of necessity, it is a bit long. meanwhile it was not all that long ago i saw Supergirl at the cinema. very enjoyable, no masterpiece true, but nowhere near as bad as some comments and (or) reviews have indicated. 

with the above (relatively) fresh in mind, then, on to each film. so yes, one of them "spoiler warning" things is likely best to put here, although i shall do all that i can to skip such. although for the first i suppose, realistically, for the film they simply could not keep the "twist" secret. 

regular readers (or people who click here before going on) will be aware of just how much i loved the novel of Project Hail Mary. it was breathtakingly brilliant, and if i ever get to read a novel which so enthralled, entertained, kept my attention and felt so beautiful that will be a tremendous day. anyway, when it got released at the cinema i declined going to see it. not out of any fears of it being a poor adaptation, i simply couldn't see me being comfortable sat there for three (3) or so hours. it struck me as wiser to wait for the video (disc) to come out. 

indeed they have done a spectacular job of adapting it. for fellow fans of the novel who(m) have not seen this adaptation yet there are two what i would call "key" (or big) moments dropped, but they do not cause any harm or, in terms of telling the story, miss anything "major". as big as one of the two were. 

my concerns of going to the cinema were, it turns out, well founded. although at no stage does it ever get (particularly) boring as such, it does have a sense of being overtly long. whereas the novel was one i flew through, eager to experience the whole story rather than savour it, the pace is well slower on screen. peculiar, if not strange, as the reverse is usually true. the only other instance i can think of where the film was a slower ("fewer") pace than the source novel is The Da Vinci Code. whatever flaws or what have you the book has it was an exhilarating pacy read, where the film was overtly dull. 

quite peculiar that this film got released in that odd "window" (or at the time) when it is unlikely to be recalled when the relevant "award" season comes along. delighted to say that Project Hail Mary is brilliantly made, and Ryan Gosling deserves all the praise, accolades or other such positive things one would care to throw his way. 

doesn't feel like all that long ago when i went and saw Supergirl in the cinema. well, eventually did, after some sort of mishap with electricity. being fortunate enough to go and see it on the weekend it opened meant that i went without being influenced with all the noise, etc, berating the film. noise coming from people who possibly had not actually seen it. well, i walked out of the cinema (after the movie had finished!) feeling thoroughly entertained. the eldest of my (known) children also saw it at the cinema and enjoyed it. alas the youngest of my (known) children didn't get chance to go and see it on the big screen, hence me watching the fancy video of it with him. 

little value exists in trying to discuss whatever those chronically online have said in a negative way of the film. also that's not my fight, and no (real) need for me to take the punches. rather, then, it would be considerably more better for me to just say why i enjoyed it. mostly it was a decently paced, reasonably well timed self contained story, despite being part of yet another "expanded universe" thing. good story, funny in a lot of places and thrilling in others. i didn't have any immediate issue with any of the cast, the writing or much else beyond. 

one "criticism" (or what have you) i have - or still have, for it is likely in my original post - is the "end battle" thing. for some reason the pacing of it feels a little off and, watching again, some of the effects, or cgi or what you call it, are noticeably poor. a bit where Supergirl is flying into something or other, possibly a crashed spaceship or maybe a building, manages to look like effects have not progressed from the days of the Christopher Reeve Superman films; if anything have got worse. 

very likely (and a bit sadly) right to say one Supergirl film will be enough, though. as much as i enjoyed this, more would be pushing it. she is just not an a-grade "main character", really. this is no bad thing. look at the two poor to mediocre Hulk films that got made, yet the character is brilliant in ensemble films or ones where there is a different protagonist. going on how good (so far) this Lanterns tv show has been, and how obviously sh!t it would have been as a film, maybe they might have been wiser going that way with this. but, all the same, seen twice, enjoyed twice. 

well, that's that. just my musings, really. in the present day (2026) i would imagine all who(m) wish to see either (or both) have done so, and have no need for my suggestions at the best of times. one never knows though, years from now when both films are forgotten (it happens) someone may stumble on this, determine that one (or both) sound quite class, and seek to watch them on whatever format is the one to use in that time. or not. 

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

act iii by kasabian

howdy pop pickers

no, i didn't really anticipate the Mike D tape (disc) being dislodged from my stereo in all that much of a hurry, for it is quite class. but such has happened, look you see. somehow - and i get that i shall be getting accused of not being a "proper fan", etc but just trying to be honest - Kasabian have gone against what i had expected and delivered a rather smart album in the form of act iii. 

whilst i was (vaguely) aware they had a new album on the way i was all "meh" or "sigh" about it. for some reason i had gotten it into my head that i wasn't all that keen on the last two (2) releases they had gone done. no, this is not me in "camp Tom", for the reasons for his departure were as understandable as they were reasonable. however, looking at my reviews of the last couple (click here and follow the links back if you are interested) suggests that i enjoyed them at the time. neither has been played since, mind. 

so sure (or certain) was i that i hadn't particularly cared for the previous offering off of Kasabian meant that i did not rush to "pre-order" it. now that i think, perhaps (and this i shall assign to being a senior moment) i got confused with the banal, bland, anonymous record off of someone called Blossoms that i randomly got at the same time. anyway, in the face of "social media" pressure (or reminders) via adverts i clicked on to order it. being honest again and i was delighted to find some "special exclusive live artwork cover" version of it which was about half the price of the "standard" disc. thank you very much, that will do. 

it turned up in the post what i thought was a few days early. this, however, turned out to be a few days after the previously much treasured "day of release" date, thanks for that Royal Mail. for some reason i had it in mind the release date was 11th September, which would be a Kasabian thing, yet no, it was as point of fact released earlier (4th). oh. well, after noting the cover said that this was all "inspired (or based) on true events" and with interest seeing neither the front or back cover mentioned that it was Kasabian, i put it on. 

honest response to the first song "proper" (after an intro thing) was that it reaffirmed my idea that i didn't really like the last one. i get why they didn't recruit a new vocalist to replace Tom, for Sergio felt it would be better for him to just do it, but then the first song, Soulmate, features him doing that "shout rap" thing. it sounds awful. nonetheless i carried on, going with the idea that at worst it was another album which is just north of 30 minutes (half an hour) from them. 

yes i have ended up with the "proper" tape (disc) of the album too. for some reason they are doing a couple of gigs on the same day at a venue reasonably close to moi. having not seen them live it seemed like as good an opportunity as any. the gigs are being labelled as an "album launch", just three (3) months after the release of it. i am assuming they are "warm up" shows ahead of some major (large) venues they are playing a few days after, and expecting to hear just all of act iii in (mostly) full, with maybe a Fire or Club Foot thrown in for fan service. the ticket i got did say it included the album, but i had taken it as a given it would be issued at the gig rather than posted to me. 

good job that i did leave it play, for the remainder of the record is less "shout rap", more frenetic, energetic, gloriously "this sounds awesome" rock. as in (you know) what made Kasabian such a class band. lyrically i am at a loss as to what the "true events" all are, except (conveniently) the tale can merrily be told with basic, simple and predictable rhyming couplets, but so what. 

favourite tracks? not sure i could select just one, but mostly i have been quite taken by Hippie Sunshine and Hyper/Rising, with Superpowers along the way. pretty much all of them after Soulmate, i think, elect not to have "shout rap" on them, so they work just fine. 

essentially (or effectively) this is just a really good rock album. the kind they would have you believe no one makes any more, since the charts tend to get dominated either by solo artists or this hideous (awful) trend of solo artists with someone else on a "featuring" credit. delighted to see that i am very much not alone in supporting the band and their quest (if not crusade) to make sure awesome rock and roll gets the correct level of attention. 

sure, it did that very modern thing of immediately falling out of the top one hundred (!!) album chart the next week. which pretty much means that everyone who wanted to own it (or just hear it) did so within the first few days of its release. 

oddly i have (somehow) become a "proper fan" of this album. well i assume so, since i went right ahead and bought a third (3rd) copy. during the first week of release they had a clear and obvious push to get the number one spot. to this end they offered a "special edition" download version for (just) south of £5, with the added bonus of posting you a "personalised" signed card. 

anyway, that will do. little point (if any) exists in me writing something here that takes longer to read than one would need to spend hearing the whole album (entire). once again, then, it is quite class, with some truly epic rock odyssey adventures in the music. 

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

for quing and country

ow do

indeed this is, ostensibly, (yet) another post on cigarettes, look you see. of course that would be ones procured in such a way as to be "tax efficient" in doing so with the (frankly) absurd extra, extra extra tax which got placed on such here in the UK within the last few years. an extra tax which has spectacularly backfired on our most beloved government, as indeed it has in fair dinkum Australia, although at least our friends down under have acknowledged their folly. 

but first, of course, the usual "disclaimer" or what have you. no idea why i bother with such, but every now and then someone takes the time to complain about my posts, no matter how (reasonably) suitable for all i try and keep them. so yes, smoking is quite bad for your health, and you should not take up doing so or if you do then seek help to quit. which is in relation to smoking cigarettes, of course, for in this day and age one seems to get lots and lots of support for smoking cannabis, heroin or similar. 

having not quit myself (sorry) i, relatively recently, went off to procure some "independently imported and distributed cigarettes". for some exciting mathematics (or "math" if American) on what that means exactly, go ahead and click here. doing so might make some of this make more sense, if only in the slightest way of slight. anyway, my preferred broker of choice did not, alas, have the ones which i like at the moment, but suggested i try one called sovereign. or, to give a full name, sovereign black, which the claim on is that they are off of Benson & Hedges. 

unknown types (or brands) of cigarettes on the more "independent" market, which could also be referred to as the common sense one or the "illegal" one, are something of a risk. whereas one may chance on some really good ones, like the smart top gun ones (no i am not linking), there is also a possibility of getting rather rough, kind of do the job ones like manchester. mostly wishing, needing or just (if we are being honest) craving cigarettes, i consented to purchase them to give them a go. 

rather glad i did, as it happens, for these sovereign black are quite decent. not (of course) decent as in how my beloved Marlboro Red are very decent, but all the same. they don't have the rough, salty sea dog nature of some "legal" or otherwise cigarettes, and on the whole are a most smooth smoke. yes, still quite bad for your health. let it not be said that i disregard all warnings, though, for i do take heed of the one above (and it is lovely that the "independent" ones still have warnings) and i do all which is possible for me to do to avoid smoking on those instances when i am pregant. 

calling someone a "considerate" smoker is a bit peculiar, however i (and sadly not too many others but some all the same) do try to keep away from people when indulging. it is not a pleasant smell or what have you for others, i know, although there are those drama queens what cough away when within a mile or so of any smoker. that said, there was a strange incident when someone followed me all across a park when i went to a designated smoking area and made a big fuss of me smoking, asking me to refrain from "blowing it" in his direction. as politely as possible i suggested that perhaps he should have not followed me all the way to a designated smoking area. he left. 

oh yes, the title of this post. just north of four (4) years since HMQEII passed away and such still trips up people when it comes to singing the national anthem. not that it gets sung all that much, i suppose. anyway, it feels like instinct kicks in, we haven't quite grasped that HMKC3(PO) is the monarch, so one can clearly hear "god save the qu...ing" being sung. natural, i guess, as for the majority of us we have only ever known it to be a queen. no, it's not really all that relevant to this, however with it being september and the cigarettes being called sovereign, well. 

a peculiar thing to do with the "colour" branding of cigarettes is that it doesn't make much sense. which this probably won't do either, but anyway. ever since they made them get rid of terms like "lights", in case someone assumed that meant a "safer" (or what have you) cigarette, colours have been the go. for a while, then "gold" has been the colour used for "lighter" cigarettes, "blue" for somewhere in between and of course "red" for full tilt strong strength. 

my thinking is that the "scale" used gives every indication (or suggestion) of lighter colour = lighter strength or taste of cigarette. one would (reasonably) assume, if such was true, that "black" would thus be the uber strong strength ones, mindful of the "none more black" interpretation of Spinal Tap. not so, or this is not the case. for some reason "black" cigarettes are the lightest on the go, as i discovered with a slight sense of disappointment with Marlboro Premium Black some time ago. sovereign black are indeed on the lighter side of light for cigarette taste, strength or whatever. pleasant, mind. 

token selfie (of course of moi) enjoying (or killing myself) with a sovereign black above then. yes, this is once again (for regular readers) using the new "8 bit" camera app what i purchased for somewhere south of £1. not sure i like it all that much, but as it would appear to obscure any overt idea that it is a picture of me then i would imagine some quite like that. 

black branding should not (of course) mean that you take black cigarettes to be "weak" or in any way lighter. a long held ambition of mine is to try some Russian (as in off of Russia) cigarettes one day. i believe (or so i have been told) that the tobacco used is if not "none more black" then "pastel black", and that they are really, really, totes uber strong strength strong. you would think that with an entire world full of opportunities and possibilities that i might have somewhat more intelligent (or interesting) ambitions, but no i do not. 

no, nothing much else to add here. to be honest i ran out of things to say after putting (thus far) they are quite good, really, but since i had all these pictures i thought why not pad it out some. 

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

empire

hello there

risking some repetition of sorts, here. as in yes, this is all to do with me finding another old film magazine on my travels, look you see. well, when i say repetition i think this is "only" the third time i have done such in around 22 years (!) of doing this. the only other instances, unless i have missed one or two (or more), would be here and then here. 

quite the slight difference with this one, however, as it is a 90s one. specifically, if you like, at the time of writing a more or less exactly 30 (thirty) year old magazine. and it's also arguably an edition of one which could consider itself "the best" film magazine what ever existed, for it is (indeed) a copy of Empire what i found. for provenance i likely bought this at the time, but this copy was found at a charity stall at a service station on my travels a couple of years ago. deliberate indeed was my decision to only showcase it here close on a decimal numbered anniversary. 

somehow Empire remains a going concern, as in it being a published, physical edition magazine offered for sale. not bought it in years (likely not since the early 2000s) and am not likely to either any time soon. other than being not particularly interested in "film news" these days, well, from what i can tell from the cover of it when i see it now it has (alas) seem to have become pretty much a promo tool for various "streaming" services. 

frequent readers of this blog (thank you) will not be surprised at why, of the half a dozen or so copies they had on offer, i selected this one. yes, indeed, my proclivity to (mostly) review films on the basis of quality nudies in them saw me drawn to this. also, though, this would have been (when i picked up this edition) around when i saw The Substance, in which cover star Demi Moore was breathtakingly brilliant. i would hope that influenced my thinking. 

like (i imagine) a good many people i have discovered, flicking through this, that i have simply lost the patience (or interest) in reading magazines. probably newspapers too. whereas i still (very much) read novels it is quite extraordinary how "the internet" (or the "information age" as i suppose it is called) has changed us. the seemingly constant, perhaps incessant, flow of fast and compressed information has taken away from engaging with quality journalism. it is entirely possible that the generation of now know not what it is they shall miss with this, for they never had it. 

one of the "big" things film magazines like Empire did was bring you "advance news" on films. stories, rumours and reports on who(m) was doing what. maybe i should have done a "proper" picture, or one of them scan things, of the below, but we are here now. you shall just have to read my account below. 

blimey. essentially what that article is all about (or relates to) is that James Cameron, who at the time was making Titanic (that was a surprise and no one had any idea how huge a film it would be), intended for his next film to feature 0% actors, 100% computer generated actors. quite a statement of intent, since at the time i think the only "entirely computer created" film was Toy Story. obviously the comments in the article from acting unions and what have you are against the idea. the point of interest for me with this is that he damned nearly did it, since the one after Titanic, being Avatar, was made with quite negligible "actual" actor presence. 

any other "coming soon" news in the edition? nothing quite so exciting (or vaguely close to accurate) as the above. there's a picture of Harrison Ford punching Brad Pitt (in the face) off the set of whatever it was that IRA based mess of a film was, and a reference to the apparently exciting idea of broadcasting preview screenings of Evita (yes, the Madonna one) via satellite. otherwise, just something on Eric Cantona making a film (if not acting) debut, plus a bit on the decline of (ahem) "romantic" scenes in summer blockbuster movies. 

  

the articles in Empire were (maybe still are) always good, being quirky, interesting and a times causing a degree of (mass) debate on (in) the readers letters page. in this edition, as pictured above, is an article on fifty (50) films which "should not have been made". doesn't go as far as stating "the fifty worst films ever made", for none of the post-Guttenberg Police Academy ones feature. 

no, i am not listing them all here. one or two (or more) "debatable" choices, since i quite liked Cocktail, the David Lynch Dune, The Doors, Electric Dreams (although i need to watch it again), Problem Child 2 (odd they don't pick on the first too), the 80s Supergirl, Showgirls (for obvious reasons) and, for that matter, Zardoz. should my brother ever stumble on this edition and read that, according to them, that the film The Boys In Blue, starring (Tommy) Cannon and (Bobby) Ball, should not have been made, he would probably set fire to the magazine, track down the writers and set fire to them, set fire to the printing press that produced such heresy, etc. he does tend to take the defence of his favourites seriously. 

pretty sure that 1996 was the last "golden era" for cigarette adverts. when Bliar came into power in 1997, aptly on May Day from what i recall, banning cigarette adverts (with the exception of on Formula One for a while) was one of his first acts. i don't rightly know, or recall, if i ever tried the "Marlboro Medium" on offer here. must be (obviously) before they stopped them using variations of strength as part of the brand name, hence Marlboro Lights becoming Marlboro Gold. likely i gave them a go, but for the most part it would have been Marlboro Red all day every day then (sorry). 

speaking (or writing) of adverts and the magazine is one lengthy reminder about just how big, and presumably lucrative, the home video market was in the mid 90s. believe it more or less was for at least another ten or so years, likely right up to "the internet" being fast enough to pirate things and the rise of DVD recording technology. with this edition being before DVD was a thing. 

exactly how big the market was in illustrated by Woolworths (don't look for it, it isn't there any more) doing a full page advert to sell the video of Judge Dredd. yes, the Sylvester Stallone one, which wasn't particularly bad, just not brilliant and hardly a success. not including a picture of that here (unless someone asks nicely and then i will edit it in later), but there's one other film that gets advertised quite a lot in this edition. 

merry days, for HMV remains a thing (all the other shops advertising have long since ceased to be), and the point of the above here is them advertising Crimson Tide. although describing Pulp Fiction as an action film doesn't feel right. there are at least three (3), possibly 4 (four) adverts from different shops encouraging one to purchase the video of Crimson Tide off of them. really don't remember all that much about the film, to be honest, except it featured some quality Gene Hackman shouting. from what i recall the "big deal" with it was that Quentin Tarantino acted as a "secret" (except everyone knew it) script doctor for it, adjusting some of the dialogue. hence the appearance of abstract 70s cultural references every now and then in a film i think was something to do with a submarine threatening to fire a nuclear missile at someone or other. 

by the way, if you ever end up with the sell thru video (actual) version of Die Hard With A Vengeance in the above advert immediately destroy it. the mid to late 90s was the BBFC being their most keen to needlessly throw their weight around. video releases routinely got extra edits from the cinema versions which they invariably demanded cuts be made to. in respect of this version of Die Hard 3, there is some clumsy, awful "language" censorship, with the soundtrack going silent to remove what the BBFC felt was just a few too many rude (or naughty) words. 

to tie in some of the above with the below and one of my favourite articles ever in Empire pertained (or related) to when the BBFC "refused" to give Reservoir Dogs a certificate for video release. in response, and remember this was all before "internet" or being able to "order online", readers wrote in with the ways and means by which they had "imported" a copy of the video. this went on to the extent that Empire ran a quasi competition to determine the "best" way someone had got their hands on a video of it, with the kicker that no less than Quentin Tarantino, who(m) thought it was "cool" that fans were going to such lengths, judging the best means. no, can't recall the winning method or any sort of prize. 

on to the "small" ads, then, above. which are also "classifieds", yet Empire referred to it as the emporium. again, getting obscure, rare or unusual stuff was not easy pre-internet. whilst i do appreciate how easy it is to pretty much get anything you like (legal or otherwise) these days, indeed it is true that i do miss the days of "mail order". never any reason to have doubts you would get what you wished for and quite quick too, since back then we had a reliable, decent postal service. 

getting film soundtracks, relatively rare videos, rental copies of films and what have you was lovely to be able to do off of this. more importantly, though, since these were not "mainstream" (or actual) shops as such, well. once you built up a relationship with sellers here, this was the way you got the videos which were "banned" or withdrawn from release in the UK. a partial list would be, remembering this as being the 90s, Clockwork Orange, Straw Dogs, The Exorcist and what have you. probably (ahem) some erotica ones too. 

as to why someone would wish to buy a "rental" copy of a video (which cost 4x or so more than the sell thru new), well, quality. rental tapes used better quality video (actual), heavier and slightly thicker than was used on sell thru. the reason is that rental tapes would likely be played hundreds of times and so needed to be resilient, whilst no one expected anyone to play a sell thru tape more than ten or a dozen times. playback of sell thru tapes noticeably deteriorates if you watch it that many times. 

last picture (unless i get requests to add more) and why would one take up any of the many offers to go and buy the video of Crimson Tide when you could get it as a gift if you took out a subscription to the magazine? maybe i should watch the film again, for i really don't remember it being full worthy of all the fuss that was seemingly made at the time. well, the time it came out to buy on video. 

the advert to the right is an interesting one, offering as it does "internet access". again, this was 1996, with most still regarding the "internet" as a novelty, or a passing trend that had no practical future. not sure that was accurate. likely around this time a few magazines and newspapers started to have what we would today call an "online presence", whether they were or were not (possibly the former, maybe the latter) aware that "internet" would come to deliver a near fatal blow to them. specifically for a film magazine like Empire i can remember one late 90s (and early 2000s) web "thing" that seemed to provide fast news. for fun i did a google and yes, it is still going, even looking like i recall. 

right, that shall (more or less) do for another sentimental hygiene trip into the way it all was. once upon a time, then, you could walk into a newsagents with £5 (a fiver), buy this decent magazine, a packet of Marlboro (sorry) and get a few coins change. further, you could then get on an affordable, reliable train, go somewhere knowing you would be on time, reading the magazine but likely not being allowed to smoke on it. 

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

heal thyself

greetings

whereas no, not really, not really, no, i don't expect anyone to be all that interested in my plight, it does feel somewhat amiss of me to not give vague traces of conclusions to tales that i start here. and so, to that end, or to this extent, some updates on my most recent of medical exploits. essentially this is a follow on to this post, look you see. don't say you weren't warned (if not guided). i can totes relate to someone having no interest at all in this, so if it is you i randomly and unknowingly relate to then i wish you well in finding something (considerably) more better to read. 

speaking of warnings, guidance and the like, note that this post does feature a significant level of indulgent, excessive and gratuitous selfies. as if there is (really) any other form of such. yes, i did beautify the previous post with some "not bad" so-called "AI" generated images of hedgehogs and koalas, but i simply could not be bothered to do so here. 

above is an image (or if you like picture) of the things of medical stuff i need to apply to my somewhat still gaping wound. for what, exactly, that wound is, well, you kind of do need to go and read of the incident in the link provided. only if interested, of course. yes, i am indeed amused that the aseptic pack has written (printed) on it "for professional use only", when i am not. 

to get to the stage of changing the dressing (or what have you) by myself i have made three (3) visits to oddly different medical practitioners. nurses, if you like. well, nurses if you don't like too, for that is what their vocation is. hey don't get upset with me, i didn't build this world, i just live in it. 

likely this shall lack the accidentally coherent, at the least chronological sense of the original post, but to go back a few steps (or what have you) from the image above, in the first instance i returned to the hospital where the "surgical procedure" was carried out. eventually, despite their efforts to be as inefficient as possible. would you like some video what i have added narration to? good. 

exactly how little of a f*** anyone responsible for people gives about patients to this particular hospital is wonderfully illustrated there, is it not? there is indeed a (partial) car park on the side of the road where one can find the hospital, but generally it is perpetually full. having no means for people to safely cross the road from a car park to a hospital is a whole new level of insanity, one that (for instance) Joseph Heller could only wish he had thought of as fiction. 

circumstantially i had to return to this hospital in the first instance. they were the ones that reluctantly did the procedure my doctor said was required, and thus they had a notion of interest in making sure it had not gone "wrong" or what have you. more on that appointment in a bit, but the peculiarly familiar nurse appeared happy with how (after some 4 or 5 days) it looked. she, in a quasi giddy way, said i needed to get it changed "every 3 to 4 days" or something like that, which i initially interpreted as "weekly". i was asked if i would like to arrange to return to that hospital for this to be done and i used a somewhat diplomatically worded version of "f*** no, no f*****g way" to decline. this was not an issue, apparently, and it would be fine for my "regular" clinic to do it. 

warnings were issued, the first selfie is coming up. or down, i suppose, since it is below. for some reason i thought it would be a (really) good idea to take a picture of it all sans bandage, as in the gaping wound itself. then i thought it might be appropriate to censor it, and that's why such a thing as images of Larry Grayson pulling that face thing exist. 

how is the gaping wound, or traces of the surgical procedure? of significant size and slight depth i suppose, yet perhaps not to the excess which the size of the Larry Grayson image implies. from what i can tell it is "closing up" or what have you, which i suppose is a sign of it being on the mend. 

exactly what size is this gap (or gaping wound) in my arm? well, for a perspective that all can related to, no i cannot Videodrome it. should for some reason you have no idea what that means, well, it means that the gaping would is not large enough for me to insert a (VHS) video into. probably not even a Betamax. likely best i could do is (ahem) copy Videodrome onto a micro sd thing (or very small usb memory stick) and shove that in, but it's unlikely to make me full tilt James Woods. 

going back (briefly) to the return to the well run hospital, then, when they initially changed the dressing and did some rudimentary checks that it was (vaguely) all right. 

notice how there was absolutely no one else waiting when i arrived? a bit spooky (or unusual), to be sure, but what's more interesting is that somehow, although i was the only one actually there, i was still only the fourth (4th) patient (or what have you) they called for. as per my other post, no this is not some form of entitled "but i was here first" whine. if there's a serious medical issue then of course preference should be given. however, in this instance, no emergencies as such, they just seemed keen to see if anyone else turned up before going "oh go on then" and checking out my arm. 

for further dressing (or bandage) changes i was referred to my usual medical practitioner, then. alas they could not assist, for the nurse what does that sort of thing (not that sort of thing) was away. not to worry, they were most helpful in finding another clinic what was (is) within walking distance of my lodgings in this era of exile, and they were delighted to see me. 

quite lovely people there. although their first (entirely reasonable) question for me was of what did i think i was playing at only booking an appointment every week when i was told it needed doing every two to three (2 to 3) days. indeed yes i apologised and they made the requisite bookings. 

yes, another selfie (on a cloudy day) above for you to do what you will with. as you may well have noticed the plaster (or dressing) is in the "diamond" arrangement. one of the nurses said to alternate between diamond and square so as to not keep sticking to the same patches of skin. well, that's what i can remember of the advice. 

really not much else to add, except to say that the nurses were (most) delighted with my efforts in cleaning the wound, applying gel and placing the dressing (plaster) on it. i was told that i would be very welcome to come in and have them do it, but i could clearly hold my own (so to speak) with it all, so just do it myself. with the clarification that if something looked busted, such as it going all red or discoloured or the rash returning, i was to go to the doctor at once. fair enough. 

that's that, then. if something interesting (or unusual) happens further (rather than earlier) with this jolly incident i shall be sure to document it. otherwise, well, those (few) interested can likely take it more or less as a given that it is on the mend. 

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!