left shoe

hello there


this will all be a quite welcome return for some of you, to be sure. well, if no one else, then Codename : Magic shall be happy, look you see. he, in his most discerning and infinite wisdom, was always quite the fan of posts such as this. and this post is, but of course, concerning abandoned footwear.

left shoes is, as it happens, quite the apt description for all of this. not only is it that the trend of abandoning quality (kind of) footwear in public back, but it is back with the weirdly specific emphasis being on the left shoes being selected to be discarded. both of the most popular definitions of the word "left" are, then, on display here.

but yes, seeing is believing, etc. and so with no further delay, bar this sentence, here is a glimpse of one of the left left shoes.

indeed, yes, this was spotted, or if you will sighted, at one of the industrial wastelands which occupy any number of areas in the north. no, quite, indeed, this shoes is decidedly not industrial in nature. whereas i am no expert, i would suggest that anyone who wore such shoes to work in an industrial setting or environment would be reprimanded and admonished by the appointed health and safety representative for the industrial concern.

the question of why people - ladies, i dare to speculate - are leaving singular, solitary shoes at random is one that is far too complex for me to answer. if it is all some sort of misguided attempt to evoke the mythology of Cinderella, then i would be confident enough to argue it shall not work, for it is rather unlikely that any sort of prince charming character would be in such a place to find it.

a problem which has blighted, if not dogged, much of western civilisation for most of the twentieth century is the plot flaw found in Cinderella. if we are to accept that the glass slipper (or whatever) was indeed the "perfect fit" for the ostensible protagonist, then how is it exactly it fell off in the first place?

no, not from an industrial wasteland, in answer to your question about the above. more of a conventional, suburban environment, some twenty or so miles away from the first image. but, still, another left left shoe, and one which would appear to have been designed for use by the ladies of the world.

i shall, of course, keep a (relatively) keen eye out for further such instances of left shoes for you, be they left or right. would it not be quite smart if, by some miracle, i found the right shoe which went with either or both of those pictured here?

well, anyway, that's that. may it be the case that all of you crazy, wonderful people what are enthusiastic about sightings of abandoned footwear be pleased with this.





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

quite probably long overdue book reviews

heya


of all the curious reasons why complete (as opposed to partial) strangers visit this site it would, look you see, be just great if some of them did so on a recurring dream of a reason to see my latest ramblings on books that i have read. in this respect i have been slack in allowing for that dream to be reached. sorry, i have been busy with this and that.

these are, as point of fact, two novels which i read to completion across the last month of 2018 and the first month of 2019. yet here we are in the second month of the latter year quoted. hey ho, oh well, better late than either never, or if you prefer more words to say the same thing, not at all.

a usual quick look and a spoiler free sort of overview thing? why, certainly.

in starting where i did, Don't Let Go is the third novel by Michel Bussi what i have read, and for all i know there are just the three what he has done. except i just did a google and found another that i had not heard of from 3 or so years ago. anyway, yes, it's another really good "crime / detective / thriller" novel. The Rebel's Revenge is the latest Ben Hope adventure from Scott Mariani. sure, much of it is ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as some previous exploits, and after a rather pedestrian start it kept me entertained sure enough.

right, then, as ever a luxuriant *** SPOILER WARNING *** is in place for the rest of this post, but i will do my best not to give too much away. to that end, whereas i doubt i could ever really do much to spoil one of those Ben Hope adventures, for to do so would be like saying "you don't know how a James Bond film will end", if you have any interest in reading Don't Let Go rather skip that part of this post and just get the book.

so, Don't Let Go, then. to recap, i was i think quite harsh on After The Crash in my review, yet keep finding myself thinking of it in a positive way, what, some 3 or 4 years later. as Black Water Lilies was excellent, i figured i would try all future books i saw by the author. which i did.

which leads to the provenance question that so many of you seem to think is of importance. yes, as you can see from the price sticker, this was bought in those hedonistic glory days when Tesco did 2 for £7 on books. that has gone now, of course, and they charge £8 for 2. still reasonable, bit also please note Asda still does 2 for £7, what a shame the nearest branch of which is quite far away from me.

plot? it's set on the island of Reunion, which sounds like a swanky place for tourists, less so for residents. one tourist, a beautiful lady, goes missing from her hotel room. when evidence starts to indicate that she's not so much missing as dead, and further indicates that it was her husband what done it, one gets the idea that this story, and the novel entire, is not going to be completed in six or seven chapters so much as it is six or seven pages. however, with somewhere just north or south of 400 pages to the novel, it is clear that there is much more going on than as first seems....

a superb read, really. with it all seeming to be straightforward, i found myself reading wondering what it is that was going to come along then. it is a fine skill this Bussi has, to lead a reader down a road of surprisingly fresh set of twists and turns in a murder / "whodunnit" / detective tale, leading to a destination of a satisfactory ending that does not rely on any cheap tricks or absurd, contrived conclusion points.

let me leave it there, then, in truth. if you are interested and did not heed the spoiler warning then i shall speak no more specifically of it all. but, yes, i have no hesitation in saying it is well worth a read.

whether i recommend a Scott Mariani Ben Hope adventure or elect not to is, i would think, academic. surely there is some sort of locked in audience for these novels, with me apparently being one of those incarcerated. let me press on, then.

provenance of my copy? it was a considerate and lovely gift in celebration of Christmas off of the family. but, for those of you looking as to where to get it, one would imagine that it can be obtained from the usual outlets and retailers.

the plot? Ben Hope has taken a brief break from twatting bad people so as to go on holiday. he has elected to go to one of them "deep south" places in the USA, so that he may enjoy some sort of jazz fusion gig by an artist who swears that it shall be his final ever such concert. a really rather unfortunate sequence of events happen, and wouldn't you know Ben ends up on the run from the coppers, and needs to resolve a secret revenge mission which has origins dating back to a betrayal which occurred during the American Civil War.

how wonderful to see Scott Mariani give his protagonist of choice a break from battling clichéd Russians, clichéd Arabians, clichéd Nazis and clichéd etcs so as he may battle clichéd redneck, "south of the border now boy" hillbilly (crude reference to Oedipus removed)s for a change. yes, its all creeks and illicit moonshine set ups and intricately poor tattoos, all the sort of things that us in the UK look at on in the USA with a sense of awe and wonder.

it all starts off fairly pedestrian, to be honest. not necessarily badly as such, but somewhat more slower than one expects. once the basics of the story kick in and it all kicks off, however, we, the readers, are on the frankly comfortable ground we have come to both want and expect from these novels. a somewhat low key central plot - it's not some lunatic wanting to cut the planet in half with a laser, for instance - and a (mostly) not too preposterous set of contrived twists serve to make this a rather reasonably enjoyable reading experience.

yes, indeed, regular readers, two proper books, as in paperbacks. from what i recall the last two or three set of reviews have featured the evils of one of them "ereaders". that was purely for convenience since my verk saw me travel a bit. with such travels behind me for the moment, that device is now safely tucked away again, then, only for use in emergencies.

and so, well, then, that is all of that for this post. once again, no idea if any of these posts are of any practical use to anyone, but happy days if it turns out that yes they are. whatever else you go ahead and read, thanks from me as ever for taking the time to read this.



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

out here in the fields

hello there


indeed, yes i have evoked the opening like of Baba O'Riley by The Who for the title of this post. undoubtedly it is the case that i have, look you see, done so in the past, but one cannot really do just south of 4000 posts without some sort of repetition, i guess. besides, Daltrey bellowing that line after the hypnotic, trance inducing opening is one of the single greatest moments in rock history, ever. as such, it is always worth a mention.

speaking of repetition, yes, as we would seem to be in the season for such, snow is the agenda here. my understanding is that a small, but relatively or if you like comparatively vocal section of society gets quite cross when images of snow are posted on the internet. this is because they have seen such pictures before, assume that everyone else has and for some reason protest that further images are taking up perceived valuable real estate on the limitless plains of the online world.

whereas i have a partial level of respect for their complaints and protests, this is for family and friends, to be sure. as such, anyone who feels that i am wasting time and space sharing these images can simply get over themselves and go look at something else, somewhere on the internet. oh yes, i agree - to be more abrupt, if they so choose they can simply "do one" and f*** right off out of it.

and so we had some snow recently, to move things right along. you may be under the impression that the entirety of the UK was brought to a standstill by it. this is because, for a change, London got a touch more snow than is usual for an area celebrated for extreme humidity. as all of the world would appear to think that "London" equates to "all of the country", the reporting on it was styled as such.

whereas we did not get quite enough snow to suggest we were smothered or cut off or otherwise inconvenienced, it was happily so just the right amount for William to be wanting to be off sledging in it, and doing other things. sadly some favoritism or bias might be what i stand accused of here, for James will not feature in this post. this is all due to the fact that James has sampled and tried snow, and does not at all like what he found, so stays within the warmth of home as and when it comes.

how about a picture of me out in the snow? yeah, go on then. for some reason one or two of you are not troubled to see how i am getting on in life, so here you go.

no, you are not mistaken with what you see. it seems, as age afflicts, i am becoming quite the fanny. no less than three layers on there, with me wearing a t-shirt, a proper button shirt and a jacket. my kind are, traditionally, meant to walk around in such weather wearing only shorts, sandals and a rudimentary vest, declaring anyone wearing anything in excess of this to be a "southern softie". guilty, i would appear to be.

but, enough of me for the moment. i don't mind being out in the snow at all, but William seems to thrive on it. much of his summer is spent wanting for it to be winter, when the snow is more likely to fall. so, when it comes, he is out in it, and it is complicated and difficult to persuade him to come back in from it all.

some sledge action (as in actual sledging and not the rude things what Australian cricketers say) coming up, but first the snowman which we built. or made, constructed or put together, however the correct way is to say it. made, i think.

not a bad effort, if i say so myself. as a partial defence of the mostly correct accusation that i was being a big fanny in the snow, i did roll the big bulk of the body for this snowman with my bare hands, refusing to wear any gloves or other such gauntlet like protectors of the flesh.

it is traditional to give a snowman a name, i believe. to this effect, William first called this one Frosty, but for some reason later changed the name to Tanner. i misheard the change as Tanu, which i think is a really smart name, but is apparently incorrect.

often i have wondered if we should not have named William Hannibal, or similar. this very much came to mind when he, with some precision, carved open the snowman of several names, so as he may insert into it both a heart and a brain. not together, at separate points of the body. displaying unnerving skill and ability in knowing where to place them and where the best places were to cut.

and so to sledging, then. this would seem to be William's favourite part of having snow. well, why not. once upon a time it was surely mine too, but i suppose age, size and an accidental proclivity to live in lands south of the equator brought an end to such exploits. the least i can do, then, in my retirement from sledging is take William off to do such as and when the conditions allow for it. which they more or less did with what snow we got.

some film footage of William sledging, out there in the fields? there is no reason not to include such. as usual, you will have to rely on my substandard, poor video skills if you wish to watch. this time, i suppose, a partial defence of the low quality footage is that the ground was most slippery, and so it was a bit of a struggle for me to remain standing as i filmed.

indeed, amongst the rustles of the wind against my jacket and the attempts to remain stable you can probably hear my short, weighed down breathing on that clip. well, if the sound is any good. as some of you shall be aware, i take nothing but pride in being overweight, out of date and in poor shape. undoubtedly cigarettes have enhanced this. despite it being scientific fact that i am immortal (as i have yet to die there is no empirical evidence that i can actually be killed), who knows, perhaps i am somewhat further past the halfway stage than i might have suspected.

but that can all be for another day, i suppose. unless of course this turns out to be my last ever post, although saying that is hardly moving off the subject. as i am still here, go on then, another selfie, with a regional landmark most likely to draw your attention away from me. wisely so.

yes, as with the earlier picture, i was indeed being a big fanny, wearing more than one layer of clothing and rounding off the southern softie poser style with a nice thick beanie.

that google thing might not be as clever as it thinks, or as scary as many assume. how do i have such suspicions, and why are they relevant to raise here? quite simply, via the conduit of my phone google asked a most peculiar question of me. for some reason google asked me to review the North Yorkshire Moors, and give it a score out of five stars. if the google was as clever as it is made out, surely it would automatically assume, or take as a given, that everyone fortunate enough to step on these lands would give a five star review, assuming that is the maximum possible. why not just apply such for all their users, and save everyone a lot of effort?

enough of me, and massive internet giant corporate entities. here you go, to finish off a reasonably splendid shot of William bombing down the snow on his sledge.

many news agencies and other such distributors of information have, of course, predicted that the end of the world is quite soon, and we are facing doomsday levels of constant snow for the next few decades. whereas i expect them to replace this with stories of how we are going to have "totes the hottest summer ever" before long, if they happen to be correct with this prediction then i would imagine more posts such as this one will be in the offing.

anyway, as far as this post goes, i do believe that this and that is that for this. or something like that.




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

what's normal for the spider is chaos for the fly

heya


i had a dream would be a good start for a post, to be sure, but one really rather suspects that i would stand fairly accused of pinching it from a famous speech. so, i shall not start with it then.

on one instance of sleep in the last week or dozen days, look you see, i woke just around midnight. it was with a stark, starling fright with which i woke. the sensation was of my body somewhat shaking in shock. perhaps this was it, i thought, maybe this is what some sort of heart / lung reaction to the pleasure of cigarettes is like, then. but, no. well, maybe yes, but if i had some sort of stroke or heart attack or similar then i am well impressed at the speed with which i recovered. yay, finally found something i am good at, if so.

when awake, and reasonably certain that death was not quite a done deal, i scribbled. well, jotted on my phone. i became aware that i had woken with a somewhat slightly exalted state of shock, recalling a peculiar dream of, of all things, The Stone Roses.

as we so much not know but generally assume, recollections and memories of dreams are abstract at best; fragments that we sellotape together in order to make the slightest sense of them. to this end, let me put you in the picture, let me show you what i mean, i will recall here all that i scrambled to scribble down.

for some reason i elected to go to the official web thing for The Stone Roses. on it was, at a slight angle, what appeared to be some new artwork. it was peculiar, for it looked like a portrait shot of John Squire, wide eyed and either straight faced or trying to suppress a smile. i can recall snow in the background, with a grey jacket collar visible, possibly one of them massive coats what the infantry off of the USSR used to wear.

the record, if it was a record, simply read The Stone Roses - Get Set across the top. one of those "scroll down" menu things was next to it. there seemed to be loads of options, but all i could remember was "7 day streaming access £60" and "1989 video".

yes, indeed that is all i can recall. of course i went straight to the official site for The Stone Roses. as expected, what i found was a site not updated since 2017, bar the fact that the links to the shopping section take you nowhere.

what does any of this all mean? no clue, hence me throwing it out here. my hope remains, of course, that one year we get Christmas With The Stone Roses by The Stone Roses, but yes i would settle for whatever on earth Get Set is. although the recently once again solo artist Ian Brown doing his thing says no to any of it.

hey now, hey well. any Stone Roses fans or those who seek to weave meaning from the threads of recalled dreams that can see anything at all in this are most welcome to. baffled, i am, to be sure, and baffled i suppose i shall remain. unless dreams are a sign of a longing or desire. if so, then apparently what i long for or desire is this record, maybe?




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

random bowie - blackstar

Howdy Pop Pickers


And so here we are again, then. This, look you see, is the penultimate edition, or if you like episode, of all of this. Just one more album I have yet to write of here after this one, and then I have covered all of his, being Bowie, commonly accepted releases. So, Blackstar it is. As the previous episode was called as something of a subtitle How It Started, then this, to be blunt, should be called How It Ended.

Yes. For the pedantic, or those who consider such to be important (and by no means do I say you are wrong to be so), indeed the album isn't really supposed to be called or referred to as Blackstar as such, but rather ☆. Or even, if this works on this black background, ★ . It will, however, be a good deal easier for me to simply type Blackstar, so if you don't mind I shall stick with that.

One thing I have tried to do with these posts is to deliver some quickfire, fantastic facts at the start. When it comes to this one, however, oh boy. Very well. Blackstar was 25th solo album by David Bowie as per the commonly agreed method of counting them. Even if that method excludes one of his finest works, and for that matter one of his most iconic. Recorded mostly in secret (of the seven songs, two we released as a double a side single in 2014, two as "digital downloads" in late 2015), it would also prove to be his last. Well, as of time of writing - you never know if some sort of "previously unreleased" (like, for instance, Toy) album will surface. The album was released on his birthday, 9th January 2016, and some two days later his death was announced to the world.

With much of that paragraph in mind, I think it's pretty much or all but impossible to speak about Blackstar without focusing heavily on the context and the apparent motivation for recording it. Someone, and I think it was the album's producer, long term Bowie collaborator Tony Visconti, did confirm the record was always intended as a flat out thank you and goodbye from him to us all. Although a lot of people have taken it upon themselves to say a lot of things about Bowie since he died, in this instances there is absolutely no reason at all to doubt or question that what Mr Visconti says is absolute truth.

Let me try and start with the two lead singles, then, although as it turned out they were the 3rd and 4th songs from the album to be heard. Yes, titular track Blackstar ("★") and Lazarus. Right, then. Just what I am I supposed to say about these two songs that hasn't been said already, or better still, isn't said (in retrospect) by the songs themselves?

Before we knew that 'Tis Pity She's A Whore and Sue (In A Season of Crime) would be on the album, the first new track we got was the titular Blackstar. It came as something of a surprise release, if not quite the high impact surprise of The Next Day. Knowing that Bowie was "back" after a decade or so away from releasing new music meant that it was not too much of a shock to see further releases. Few, however, would have anticipated what came along.

In truth I was not all that enamoured with Blackstar when I first heard it. The first four or five minutes seemed to be him off on one of his "jazz fusion odyssey", with a bit of a repetitive beat and little lyrically that seemed to say much of sense. And then the song reaches a point were it, and all that surrounds it in the world, apparently ceases to focus on anything else but the beautifully eloquent way in which Bowie sings the line "something happened on the day he died". Perhaps this was a hint, but with it being spoken of in the third person I suspect few, if any, clocked that he was trying to tell us something. A bit, I suppose, how we all casually overlooked the line "here I am, not quite dying" in The Next Day.

The line "look at me, I'm in Heaven" from the second "single" was rather more difficult to brush aside, but somehow we did. Oh sure, some of us, there can be no doubt heard the line, saw the video which appeared to show Bowie on his deathbed and thought "maybe he is telling us he is dying", but few if any spoke it. We could take shelter in the fact that, although quite patently speaking directly to us, he was in character, for the song was for the musical Lazarus. A musical based on The Man Who Fell To Earth, and consisting of Bowie songs chosen by Bowie. Not much shelter, then but taken all the same.

You have to wonder about the timing of the release of Lazarus. Well, I do. I mean, it had a kind of "locked in" date, due to the Broadway debut of the play. But part of me thinks maybe Bowie, with the love of subversion that's often cropped up in these episodes / editions of Random Bowie, toyed and tinkered with the idea of the song being released after his impending death, or even as a means of announcing the news. Maybe, but then again perhaps that notion or idea proved to be "a bit too much", even given the circumstances.

On that note, an aside. The overwhelming majority of people see, or if you like hear, Blackstar as an astonishing, unique (more on this aspect later), generous, breathtaking and outstanding way for an artist to bow out. A smaller number branded it as "sick". They felt horrified, "disgusted", shocked and many other words that someone should take what is arguably one of their most personal experiences - death - and for want of a better term "exploit" it, be it for purely artistic reasons or as base as financial gain. Whilst I disagree with this smaller number, in my heart I cannot say they are wrong to react the way they have. As there is no precedent and nothing to hold it to the standard of, there really is no explicit "right" way to have reacted to Blackstar and what happened next. To my mind, there is only one entirely wrong way to react, and that would be "indifference". Nowhere can I find anyone referring to Blackstar as "meh" or "so-so", meaning that it prompted some form of reaction from all who came within reach of it, and you'd kind of like to think that is ultimately what Bowie wished to achieve.

Perhaps this is stating the obvious, but we have to assume that absolutely nothing is on Blackstar by accident. By this, or that, I mean that surely it is a given that the other five songs on the album are not just window dressing to pad out the "message" being sent with Blackstar and Lazarus. Is there anything of interest of curiosity hiding away?

Difficult to tell. Bowie was private, not reclusive. As mentioned in the past, when he did VH1 Storytellers, David shared some wonderful, entertaining stories. Virtually all of them, however, focused on other people, and said nothing about himself. This, I know, I have mentioned before, but when quizzed on doing something overtly autobiographical, he had no interest. Whenever he was asked, he would just tell people to "look at the many different biographies of me out there. Find the one that you find most interesting, and just assume that it is true". No, I am not sure if he said that before or after Backstage Passes by Angie Bowie came out.

Which may or may not lead us into a look at anything of interest possibly lurking in other songs on the record. Let us randomly start with 'Tis Pity She Was A Whore. Although the title is a derivative of a 17th Century play, one that has been used and reused over the last 300 or so years, the lyrics seem not to reflect that particular work. Of particular interest would be lines such as "she punched me like a dude", and references to sexual entrapment or emasculation, and stealing his purse. Ahem, should Bowie have used Blackstar as a conduit to shed some light on his feelings about people who had been in his life, well, over to you to interpret who this song might have been about.

By far the most intriguing possible source of "messages" on the album (as opposed to the known sources, Blackstar and Lazarus) is, for me, Girl Loves Me. There is a whole stack of stuff to find meaning in, if you want it. Most striking, perhaps, is the casual use of Nadsat, the slang invented by Anthony Burgess for his rather well known novel A Clockwork Orange. If I remember right, this would be the first time Bowie has used Nadsat in a song since Suffragette City on Ziggy Stardust.  Perhaps a reference to the delicious rock myth or urban legend that Bowie was considered for the role of Alex in the film adaptation of the novel, but Kubrick considered that his famously different coloured eyes would add "too much symbolism that need not be there". Bizarrely this, if true, would not have been the first instance of a rock star not getting the part; there was an intention to turn the thing into a Beatles like comedy starring The Rolling Stones.

Questions posed by or hinted at the song? For a start, who is the "girl" of the title? Iman? His daughter? An unspecified lady from the past? There's also the sweary bits. It is with desolation, despair and resignation he sings "where the f*** did Monday go", it is with some sinister bullying overture that he soon after sings "who the f*** is going to mess with me".  Perhaps it was all something thrown together just because it sounded good, maybe it is all a new You're So Vain mystery that we as a collective have not clocked yet.

Hinting at how perhaps the record is Bowie saying more than we may think is the final track, I Can't Give Everything Away. There is one lyrical couplet that most tend to pick up on, "seeing more, feeling less, saying no, meaning yes", interpreting it as his reaction to knowing he was at the end of days. It is the next two lines which interest me more, though - "this is all I ever meant, that's the message that I sent". Is he referring to that couplet before, or the album, or something else entirely? Well, as the title says, he can't - or won't - give everything away.

The thing I "like" most about this final track is the remarkable, possibly accidental but perhaps not, Can't bookmarks he has given his collected works. Whereas one was not strictly speaking his first song and the other was possibly not the last ever recorded, to me it just seems if not lovely then something special about his musical career commencing with Can't Help Thinking About Me and ending with I Can't Give Everything Away. But maybe that's just me that thinks that.

Finally on this idea there is Killing A Little Time on the No Plan EP. This was released on his birthday a year after his passing. Ostensibly the three "new" songs are ones he wrote for Lazarus, with only cast recordings previously available. Yet you can't really hear lines like "I've got a handful of songs to sing, to sting your soul, to f*** you over" without suspecting that there are very distinct messages aimed at quite specific people within the handful of songs which form ★.

I can sort of half remember those two and a bit days that I had the ★ album and played it a fair few times, never giving Bowie himself a moment of thought beyond how good it was to have a new record off him. Things changed, though, by the third day, when the news came that he had passed away. We cannot unknow that what we know, I suspect that, at least for this generation, no one will be able to hear the album for the first time without knowing what the specific intention was. But, you never know, in the years to come it may come as a surprise. There are, after all, kids today discovering the wonders of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, entirely unaware of how each and every song on it is a drug and jealousy infused bile spilling exercise by members of the group against each other.

Was, or is, ★ unique? Strangely not. Oh, without question it is the most audacious, bold and brave way in which an artist has used their art to say farewell that I can think of, but it is not a one off. Bowie even appeared on one such "dying musician makes a goodbye record" in the form of Mick Ronson's Heaven And Hull in the 90s. Other examples? We could pretty much take it as a given that Freddie new his time was coming with some of the final songs he recorded with Queen. Wilko Johnson persuaded Roger Daltrey to record Going Back Home with him when the doctors had (incorrectly as it turned out) given Wilko "months" to live. My favourite, however, is one that I cannot confirm. It's another rock myth legend, but please let this one be true. According to it, Warren Zevon was literally on his deathbed when he ordered recording equipment and musicians be brought in, so that he may record a cover of Knockin On Heaven's Door. The legend says that family and friends in tears pleaded with him not to, to which he responded "well, if not now, when?". Just, please let that story be true.

There is a lot more I could write, I suppose. Like, for instance, how come Bowie was apparently so clumsy with his phone, going on the Lazarus lyrics. Further, there is the whole connection to The King, Elvis Presley to be found in the lyrics to Blackstar. But, let me let you either discover these things yourself, or read any of the many things written about both of them, and more, across the internet.

Normally I would end these by posing the question as to whether or not this particular Bowie album was worth taking ownership of by you, the more casual Bowie fan. The astronomical sales (a lot of which we made before the announcement of his death) and all those "streaming" figures suggest that most of the known world already has it. Oh. Well, if you don't own a copy, then yes, I would certainly suggest you pick this one up, soonest.

How do I feel about Blackstar? Three years later and I do not know. At once it is an astonishing and beautiful way for someone I and millions of others held in such high esteem to say thank you and goodbye. It's perhaps the personification of not going gently into the night, of raging, raging against the dying of light. But it's strange. I muddled on for the ten or so years between Reality and The Next Day just enjoying music, you know, and whenever thoughts of Bowie came up it was that he was probably in his swanky New York address, or fancy Italian castle. With him returning and then going for good, there is an inexplicable, nonsensical sense of a gap in my life, a missing of someone that I never knew personally and never in all likelihood would. Perils and sins shall forever the outright devotion to a musician, I suppose.

Next up will be the final edition, then. Oh, boy. If you have found the writing here convoluted, patchy and messy, I shudder to think how I will get on tackling that which is my favourite album. Yes I've saved it for last because sometimes it is just too damned hard to articulate what you want to say about that which you love the most. But, I shall give it a go.

Many thanks, as ever, for reading.





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

celebrating Vernon Wells through the medium of keyrings

g'day


whenever i see an object for sale that catches my eye, my first instinct invariably is to think of as to how it could be used as a conduit to pay homage to Vernon Wells. it is my understanding that i am not alone in this thought process, look you see, for my assumption is that most of the population of most of the known world have precisely the same reaction.

of late, i confess, i have been rather slack with such thoughts. last October was when i previously had an object which could be used in celebration of Vernon Wells, the rather magnetic details of which can be found by clicking here. time, then, to ensure that i am showing the correct, acceptable level of respect for the man.

it was during the course of some routine, rudimentary shopping that i saw sets of "frame keyrings" for sale. they looked instantly like they would be a most splendid way to convey images of Vernon Wells in all two of his key (excuse the play on words) iconic roles. and so i made the purchase, and set about some fancy printing.

yes, indeed, quite desirable items i have crafted there. the pricing of these keyrings (blank, and not with Vernon Wells images in them) was also desirable, or if you like attractive. it cost only £1 for a set of three different ones. strangely, no, i did not buy these off of Poundland, despite the pricing giving every reasonable indication. Yorkshire Trading, i think. which is a nice touch, because in bringing Yorkshire and Vernon Wells together i have finally achieved the dream of a unification of two of the greatest things in the world, if not the two greatest.

the frames bit of each keyring is pretty easy to open up and assemble. one finds a little gap on the base of each frame, and if you insert a pin or the tip of a pen into it you can get it open easy enough to place your cut to size images in. no, of course i did not use a pin or a pen. as these were for celebrating Vernon Wells it would have been disrespectful to use anything but my most massive knife to open them up. well, most massive knife that happened to be on my penknife, and was also of a size making it possible to fit into the gap.

a closer look at the actual frames, with the standard stock photographs in them, placed purely for display and illustrative purposes? sure, why not.

oh i agree, those stock photographs are splendid, showing a rather happy, wholesome family scene. i would suspect that more than a few have bought these picture frame keyrings and just left the stock images in, so that they may go about their business and just pretend that they are familiar with, or somehow related to, the models and actors pictured.

but no, that is not me, and that is not my way. also, it is not my way to put pictures of my own family in such frames. i would, i suppose, if Vernon Wells did not exist, for if he did not, then there would be no reason to celebrate him. thankfully, however, he does, and so i do.

yes, i have indeed selected all both of the most iconic roles of Vernon Wells to use in the keyrings. i hardly need tell anyone this, but those roles are of course those of Wez, the homoerotic maniac out of Mad Max 2 (or The Road Warrior if you are one of them Americans), and Bennett, the homoerotic maniac out of Commando. more pictures were used of the latter rather than the former purely because i happened to have more pictures of that role at hand when i got all excited and made these.

if i were ever to meet Vernon Wells, are there any questions i would ask of him? actually, yes. quite often i have wondered if Vernon had considered changing his name to "Vernon Welles", so that there would be a balance of vowels in his forename and surname. this lack of balance, or symmetry, in his name in all likelihood bothers me a good deal more than it bothers him, but you never know.

yes, i did have to cut quite carefully. no, i did not use a massive knife, just conventional scissors. i sort of traced an outline on the parts i wanted to cut out from some pictures i printed, using the stock photo in each keyring as a makeshift, or perhaps intended, template.

what have i done with the Vernon Wells keyrings? distributed them. several contemporaries of mine are blessed with a healthy level of respect for this fine Australian actor. granted, in some cases, i have assumed that they have this, but still. one associate of mine in particular will no doubt be very pleased with his, for he struggled somewhat with the concept of a magnet and made several futile attempts to attach it to some wood.

a look at the reverse, or if you like other, side of the magnets of Vernon Wells that i made? sure. if nothing else, these images will go some way to ensuring i secure the top search engine result on google and similar for anyone who searches for the keywords "Vernon Wells keyrings". unless someone has set up an empire selling them.

something of an obvious question here is whether or not i would consider sending a Vernon Wells keyring to Vernon Well(e)s himself. probably not. for a start, i do not have is address. even if i did, i suspect it would cost a lot of money to send it to him in Australia. and, when you think about it, spending a lot of money to send someone an image of themselves from the other side of the world would not, i dare suggest, be in keeping with the Vernon Wells way of doing things.

is it likely that i will make more keyrings? oh yes, but perhaps not all featuring Vernon Wells. there is every chance i shall decide to create one for Spiros, featuring David Lee Roth. or one for myself, for that matter, as i failed to retain one of the above three.

anyway, that's that. for now, at the least. undoubtedly the time ahead, as opposed to the time behind, shall allow me to find yet more most splendid ways to celebrate Vernon Wells. it is my most earnest hope that you stick around to see how.



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

four

who is and who isn't


this is a little late, look you see, but i thought that perhaps you - if you are a frequent and indeed regular visitor - may well have had enough of Ian Brown for a bit. such a sentiment is of course heretical, but then again also i do make every effort to avoid writing about the same subject for consecutive posts, unless there is good reason to. which of course there was with the day of release misadventures in respect of the new Ian Brown album, Ripples.

but for now, the point of the post. one week after the peculiarly difficult to attain day of release and the album chart has come out. yes, true and totes, the charts are no longer as important as they once were. for starters the "singles" chart has become meaningless due to messing about with how "sales" are calculated. the album chart is not far behind being such a mess, what with x number of free "streaming plays" equalling one "sale", but still the actual sales of the actual record are what count the most.

and the people have, it seems, gone off to purchase Ripples off of Ian Brown, even if one could not do such at HMV, as it turned out.

indeed, fourth in this "consolidated" chart, which appears to combine sales of actual lps and cds, presumably tapes too, with all this "streaming" and "downloading" stuff. beaten off of the top spot what Ian Brown has never reached (no, not even with The Stone Roses) by The Specials, someone called Busted and that record about that film about that Australian in a circus or something singing about being in a circus or something.

how does that compare with previous chart performances by Ian Brown? favourably. allowing for the fact that more sales this week might push it higher, that number four slot is only bettered by his third solo album (and arguably his finest), Music Of The Spheres. it currently equals the position reached by the (now 20 years old) debut solo Unfinished Monkey Business, quite topical at the time The World Is Yours and for the complete image Second Coming off of The Stone Roses. which means it did better than The Stone Roses debut, which somehow only ever got to number five, and the superb Solarized which somehow stalled at 7.

whilst i cannot tell you too much about Busted, for i am not quite so "down" with the kids and what they are grooving to that i know of them, i am pretty confident i know how The Specials got to number one. and good luck to them, by the way. tape sales, or the sale of tapes, must count towards the chart. one of them google search thing says there are presently 21,000 "licenced" black cabs (hackney carriages) operating in London, which presumably means 21,000 copies of the new album by The Specials are in the tape decks of such vehicles. i have every confidence that the non-tube, non-uber and non-bus using members of the London community have heard bits of the tape as they have been driven around at the maximum cost to be able to do so, all whilst their cheeky cockney cabbie belts the lyrics to Pressure Drop over whatever is on the new album.

the failure to purchase Ripples on its day of release was, for me, offset somewhat by my in hindsight wisdom in ordering the tape of it off of Ian Brown's site; a tape which did indeed arrive on the day of release. on the day of release i did take to the web to go back to the very same site and placed an order for it on CD. this, as you can see above, arrived the very next day, along with the 12" of First World Problems which i elected to order at the same time. well, i do like to purchase at least one proper, physical single each year.

yes, in retrospect, i did "miss a trick" by trying to go and buy the CD (and possibly vinyl) at HMV. for a consolidated amount that i spent on separate orders for the tape, then the CD and 12", i could have got the "super" bundle what came with the CD, tape, vinyl and a print of the album artwork signed by Ian Brown. but, i didn't, and if i had then i would not have got the 12", so there you go.

what would i have done with the print what has or had been signed by Ian Brown? framed it probably, and put it on display. i am not sure i am all that fussed about having signed stuff, really. over the years i have picked up things off of the Manics, and Brett out of Suede, which have been signed by them, but in truth i would have bought such singles unsigned. the novelty factor of the Brett out of Suede one is, i guess, that knowing his fortunate lifestyle he was in all probability likely to be doing a sex as he signed the records.

am i still digging the album? yes, very much so. i've been giving it fairly frequent spins, with spins being the right term as i have now put the tape away and am playing the shiny CD. it's just a bit easier to have on when you are doing the dishes and that, not needing to flip the tape over to hear side two.

how about a bit more on the 12" single? sure, why not. the most striking thing about it is that, in keeping with the point above, Ian Brown has decreed that both sides of the record may be used. whereas this might seem perfectly normal, for the two (by their standards) "recent" records off of The Stone Roses, the 7" All For One and the 12" Beautiful Thing, the song only appeared on one side, with side two (the b-side) being all blank and smooth.

oh surely yes, i know,  many who purchase things like 12" singles in this day and age leave them unopened, so that they may be "mint and sealed" when they for some reason resell them on stuff like ebay and what have you. well, i buy music because i wish to own it, to play it and to keep it. besides, i thought some of you may want to have a gander at what it looks like, so there you go.

erm, whereas both sides of the 12" are used, it's just the one song. there is the album version of First World Problems and then there is the "edit", which i imagine is the download "single" what i bought as and when it came out. oh. but still, nice to make a fairly maximum use of the slab of vinyl.

will this likely be the only single (that has the benefit of being an actual single) that i shall be purchasing this year? i am not sure. oddly i have no idea who, if anyone, that i like will be releasing any new vibes this year. or, for that matter, of any new artist will come along with something that i would fell compelled to purchase. maybe i will go along to that independent record shop i found on Record Store Day this year, see what classics are getting reissued.

yes, that's an unusual non-Commodore 64 mode picture of the 12", the tape and the CD if you are interested. indeed i have pretty much run out of things to say for this post, hence the obvious narrative for the obvious picture.

no, to the best of my knowledge, Ian Brown has not granted any interviews in support of Ripples. this, presumably, or you would imagine, is all down to the fact that he is fully aware any and all interviews will see him get asked questions of, or about, The Stone Roses, which he presumably is not interested in answering. there is also no word on a tour, or any concerts. if i were any good at doing bets and that, my money would be on a gig or two being announced rather than any sort of interview being granted to anyone. now watch, since i have written that, an interview appear somewhere now that i have said it would probably not.

why, or for what reason, do i particularly care about the chart position of this or any album? to lessen the sense of isolation, i suppose. so much of modern society places emphasis on being alone, or in solitude, and not "out there" in any sort of randomly mingle sense. well, except getting hammered in pubs and clubs, or that sort of thing. just knowing that there are fellow fans out there, who i in all likelihood will never meet and would probably not wish to meet me, makes me feel fleetingly less alone in this life, i suppose.

go on then, the back of the 12", the tape and the CD too. sorry for the poorer than usual quality of the pic; my pc what has my picture fixing (kind of) software on has crashed, so this is pretty much the best i can do for you. no idea why the flash is doing what it is doing.

am i likely to round off this set and buy Ripples on vinyl? it is possible. now that HMV has been saved by some Canadian business concern (thank you very much), then maybe it is now that the record label shall trust them with copies of it to sell. considering that my last visit to HMV gave me a sense that it was my final ever time there, it would be apt to return to purchase the record.

speaking of vinyl, wouldn't you know that Ian Brown is on that twitter thing. he took to it to express his delight that, when measured on vinyl sales alone, Ripples was in fact number one this week.

splendid stuff, although one suspects that Ian himself didn't do this twitter thing, rather one of the people down the record label or similar.

anyway, that's that for this post. possibly also for Ripples for a while. the album shall probably just get mentioned over the next ten or so months in passing, when any other new releases get bought and i comment on how they are not as good as Ripples. also, at the end of the year when i do a "best" thing, this shall no doubt be it.




who is and who isn't

new mug on monday

hi there


there was a time, look you see, when my taking ownership of a new mug was the cause of much merriment and celebration. it still is, i suppose, but now just with a good deal less fuss and in the presence of a considerably smaller crowd.

if we gaze back, rather than forward, we can recall posts such as this one, or indeed this one, to see what i mean by the above. yes, indeed, so important was it that i had a new mug that a decision was taken to bring the mechanisms of corporate banking to a halt so that it may be admired and inspected. or the other way around.

not so much now, of course, as i am no longer at that place of verk, and indeed am no longer office based. what this means is, right, when i get a new mug, the celebrations of it are pretty much limited to just me, then, and of course you, dear reader.

actually, in this instance, it is not just a new mug i got. in a move which perhaps shows my age, maturity and sophistication, wisdom said to purchase a new coaster too. besides, as you shall no doubt have observed, it is something of a matching set, although mug and coaster were sold quite separately. at reasonably pricing, mind, but we may touch on that later.

what is this mug (and coaster) all about? as i would like to think you can see quite clearly in Commodore 64 mode, it's a celebration of Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation of The Shining, or indeed The Shinning as a familiar of mine from more decades than i would care to number ago insisted it be called.

how did i come to own this? i treated myself. as many of you are aware, various members of the nobility, the aristocracy and ruling classes are numbered amongst my contemporaries. of such, an ambassador and a viscount were discussing one of those "online" shops, something called Last Exit To Nowhere. if you click on the name you can see it for yourself. although not myself of such high class, i elected to peruse the site, saw these items and decided to splurge the cash.

for clarity, then, a rare non-Commodore 64 mode image for you. yes, indeed, the mug features a page of the all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy text those familiar with the film will recognise. as too, will they, the splendid carpet out of the hotel where the film was predominantly set (The Overlook, if i recall right) provides the pattern for this coaster.

cost of this venture? not bad. they had some sort of January Sale promotion on. whereas i do not have the exact figure to hand, including (first class) postage, it was north of £10 but well south of £15.

and so that is about all i can tell you, really. in the absence of an office full of people to pose with, all that is left for me to do is show you an image of the new mug in action, as of course it rests on the new coaster.

so far as i can recall that is a half done cup of coffee on the go, although it may well have been tea. in either case, i can assure it was most splendid, enhanced by the use of a lovely new mug.

well, then, lovely, splendid, and that would be that for this.




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

they weren't prepared to let go, they weren't prepared to let go

greetings


it would, i believe, be fair to say that the most recent of Christmas celebrations are behind us. this is for, look you see, the most part. although most proprietors and other such stores have taken down their "reduced to clear" Christmas stock from the shelves, storing them until the Christmas countdown period commences in earnest again in the second week of July, some still clutch to or otherwise cling on to festive frolics.

one particular example of this is, of course and as you might well have assumed, Saltburn. yes, that neoclassical, coastal paradise named after one of the lesser known beasts of mythology, the condiment phoenix. i had relatively good reason to be at this most fine of fine places, and it came as no surprise at all to see the Christmas spirit flowing through the streets.

well, kind of.

due to the remarkable clarity of Commodore 64 mode i suspect that hardly a word is needed from me about the above image. for the sake of clarity, however, yes, that is indeed some Merry Christmas bunting, elegantly wrapped around some twigs and other such remnants off of trees and other things what grow branches and that.

some of you might suspect that there is no fancy presentation here, just wasteful discarding of Christmas decorations with litter being the intent. a fair assumption, if one does not know all that much of Saltburn. it has a very strict zero tolerance thing on the go, with absolutely no riff raff allowed to be present, or resident in, the borders of the place. for this bunting to be on the streets in the place means that council, if not municipality, permission was given for such and it was thus meant to be precisely where i saw it.

for what reason was i there to see such a spectacle? to take in the sea salts. i would imagine that it is quite common knowledge, really, the medicinal and invigorating powers of breathing in the freshness of the sea air. Saltburn is renowned for having the finest of such, and so that is where i went.

will the people of Saltburn be leaving these most dapper and wondrous of Christmas decorations up, or on the streets, for the duration of the year? one would certainly hope so. to do so would magnificently display their commitment to the ideals of the season, would it not, after all.

perhaps i shall make the effort to visit the place later, as opposed to earlier, in the year. you never know, i may have good reason to. or i may simply wish to taste the sea salts once more. anyway, if i do, yes, i will see if they still have this most outstanding of bunting on proud display.



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

the only living seagull in hartlepool revisited

hey there


sometimes i do wonder what it would be life if i solicited requests, look you see. not requests in any general sense, but specifically for what appears on here. one really suspects, however, that if i did do such, then either there would be silence, or a smattering of people asking nicely for me to simply "stop writing". yes, one or two would also give every indication that i should "go f*** myself" or similar such crass vulgarity.

with all the above being what it is, the only thing at this stage i can do with regards to requests, then, is to accept "tacit" requests. as somewhere (not very far) north of one hundred of you dear readers have had a look at my post on (the possibly factually inaccurate) the only living seagull in hartlepool, i am assuming that a return to this is something that is wanted.

it is. surely i am safe to believe, likely that what some of you are saying is that you want more details of this magnificent specimen, this winged creature that is off of all of the air, the sea and the land. here, then, is more. yes, some six months after the incident linked in the previous paragraph, i made a return to seek out what i believe to be the only living seagull in hartlepool, which i have indeed linked there again to save you on scrolling.

yes, indeed, if you look at the previous pictures (no i am not linking again) you can see that he/she/it, the only living seagull in hartlepool, has grown somewhat in size over the course of six months. quite fascinating, perhaps that Attenborough fellow would consider one of them smart documentaries what he does on the subject.

what was i doing back in hartlepool? lots of different things, really. in terms of what i am prepared to say on the record here, let us just accept that i am committed to visiting the place at least once a year, and i hadn't been (so far as i am aware) thus far in 2019. also, wouldn't it be lovely just to think i went all that way to go and see the (possibly) only living seagull for you all?

have i been, as an aside of sorts, anywhere other than hartlepool? goodness me yes, lots of different places. for those of you somewhat curious about how i am looking at the moment (or close to it), here you go, one of them "selfie" things.

this was in one of the more picturesque - indeed lovely - villages, or if you will hamlets, on the outskirts or outside of Leeds. a fairly conventional drive down there, blessed with roads free of ice and snow for the most part, i got on with what i needed to get on with, and then had a jolly decent spot of lunch prior to leaving the place.

is it still so that hartlepool remains passionately committed to fining those who dare to drive to the place until their wallets bleed and they are left on the verge of bankruptcy? as far as i am aware yes, but i did not experience this on this voyage. rather interestingly, and perhaps infamously, the bbc did one of them "expose" things on hartlepool, highlighting how they only had 6 (or was it 10) police officers serving the place due to "budget cuts". as the hartlepool economy would seem to rely solely on parking fines (well, to a lesser extent tourism too), they still somehow manage to find the budget for around 3,000 traffic wardens.

just think, then, as you look on this next picture of the only living seagull in hartlepool. all of the cars that you see in the surrounding area will have been given parking fines on many occasions, with some of them suffering this once or twice on that day alone.

as i saw one or two other seagulls on the same day, flying together and also just sitting down and hanging around, no, then, this isn't really the only living seagull in hartlepool. but if it were, then how lovely it would be as the last ambassador for its kind.

further, it would also be lovely if this was indeed the very same seagull i saw in the middle bit of last year. let us assume that it is, or was, despite the fact that i cannot offer any proof to that end.

well, anyway, that's that for now. time to get on with other matters.




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

a half pint pot of hope

heya


it is time, look you see, to have a look at an item what i have seen as i have randomly wandered the lands. for some reason several of you find these observations quite entertaining, and so they shall carry on here, as and when i see them.

on this instance, or occasion, since i have one of them spell checking things enabled and thus feel brave and confident enough to use a word as complex as occasion, where was i, oh yes, it was an item that i saw which i had thought to be no more. but, it seems that it still exists.

yes, a half pint pot, or if you will glass, carelessly abandoned on a rudimentary path or walkway, but then again also done carefully as it is perfectly preserved.

truthfully it has been some time since i was in a pub or similar. i state this so as you know i do not know, but i had just assumed, or taken as a given, that the "half pint" drink was a think of the past; a relic abandoned to memories of the 70s and 80s. well, what can i say, the evidence at hand gives every indication that my assumptions were made in error.

no, nothing else to add on this subject.



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

of luck and superstition

hello there

and so another month, and so another calendar update for all of you out there who really like using my blog for such matters. once again i must say it would surely be easier, look you see, for you to purchase your own calendars. but, that said, you are always and forever welcome to make use of mine, as and when i get around to adding it here.

february is, of course, a curious month. whereas all months of each year have 28 days, pedantic fans, it is the case that february is limited to only 28. at least for 3 out of every 4 consecutive years, or if you will for 75% of the case in a four year measured cycle. why is this so? for this answer, if it is a question, we must go back many, many years. as opposed to forward. the answer resides with luck, superstition, King Numa and what can only be described as the Roman way of doing things. except not in a Life Of Brian presentation way.

as simply as i can, Numa (and most Romans i guess, i don't know) considered even numbers unlucky and so sought to ensure that all the days of the designated months of the lunar cycle (what we now call a "year") were odd. however, 10 or 12 (them crazy Romans and their obsession with decimal) sets of odd numbers equates to an even number. so it came to pass that, in his infinite wisdom, King Numa created february, delegated it to be an "unlucky month", proclaimed that it was a time for the Romans to celebrate the dead, and moved on. except for that bit when february has 29 days, but let me not cloud things.

yeah, that's my Retro Cars calendar for the month. a Vauxhall Cavalier, it says. they do quite like to give exciting, macho, adventurous names to cars, don't they? everything about "cavalier" speaks to those who have dreams and aspirations of being seen as wild eyed, free spirited roaming adventurers. meanwhile, from what i can recall of the 80s, the Vauxhall Cavalier ended up being the choice of car of accountants, low level financial sector workers and entry level middle management starters. nearly all of them wore those massive framed glasses like what assassins in low grade 70s films wore, had crap moustaches and worse hair. hardly buccaneers then, but what are we without dreams i suppose.

and what are we without superstition? very little, it seems. there is absolutely no good reason at all to hold on to the Roman ideology which led to february having twenty eight days alone. but we all need to believe in something, to accept a common ground to ensure the status quo of society rolls over from generation to generation. it would be but the work of a moment to borrow a day off of january and march, bung them on february and thus usually have three months of thirty days each, making any of the three 31 in total every fourth year to address this "leap year" requirement, the requirement for which i accept but the validity of i question.

in clutching to the superstition of someone what has been dead for hundreds, if not thousands of years, what do we say to those who have special stuff in february, such as birthdays, anniversaries, etc? doomed, we are, i suppose. but then nothing lasts forever, anyway.

for those interested, that right there above is the Winnie The Pooh calendar which we ostensibly have in our kitchen. a rather unfortunate flash incident obscures it all somewhat, but basically that is Winnie and the pig one, Piglet i think, commenting that they have found someone like them, or something like that.

oh, no doubt it suits the ruling classes, the elite, to maintain the calendar as it is, with february never ever tasting a date in association with it higher than 29. i have no clue as to why, or in what way they would gain from it, but it is bound to be the case somehow.

well, anyway, that's that for the calendar update for this month. may this, as ever, have been of some assistance to you all as you plot and plan to do what you will with the limited number of days that the powers in control grant us to use.




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