blue blue

Bad news, I’m going to spend it in a blue bubble.

There have been a couple of beautiful days this week. I’m considering taking my hiking boots of for the year. But my usual pleasure at watching Stevenage burst into spring from eight floors up is diminished by the scaffolding and blue stuff I’m encased in.

Then there’s the drilling.

I had a note through my letter box, telling me that the drilling will only take a day and would be carried out on Tuesday 2 March. I took all ornaments off window sills and pictures off externals walls and went out for the day.

I came home to find the drillers turned up around 16:00 for a couple of hours and left again. The caretakers, nor anyone else, has a clue what’s going on.

Same ol’ same old.

They started drilling again 11am today. Ten seconds drilling, 5 seconds break. Repeat until insanity sets in. And as they get nearer my floor it gets louder.

And I can’t go out today because I am waiting for my new TV to arrive. Nor can I put on my iPod loud, in case I miss the delivery.

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

This song by David Bowie trips through what is left of my mind every time I look out the window. The fit to my life right now is scary. Must have been arranged by aliens.

Blue, blue, electric blue
That’s the colour of my room
Where I will live
Blue, blue
…

I’m going to sit right down
Waiting for the gift of sound and vision

Or just possibly, I may murder the drillers when they reach my floor.

This is my least favourite time of year. Christmas is gone, and now a couple of months until spring and warmth returns.

This year will be quite eventful. A general election due around about April. Then I’m off to South Africa in the summer. It’ll be winter there then. But I avoid the sun anyway, so it’ll be no great loss to me.

And I am launching a new blog this year. I start work on Monday. That’ll keep me occupied until South Africa.

A full six-months planned, but the money situation is still not so good. The South African trip will blow a hole in my finances. Which will be good motivation to get out into the world again. I really need to get off of my backside and into action.

A song to accompany the new blog. This sums it up best I think

“Can you see what it is yet?”

A funky number from the 70s. A track from my teens which set me on the road to rock and roll. I love the vocals. But the sentiments seem a little dated now.

I would like to dedicate this to ageing hippies everywhere and those good folk at Virgin Media.

I have every expectation of being on the phone to you again soon.

Today, I watched the LCROSS mission climax on NASA TV. They sent a probe into the Moon at twice the speed of sound. If there was any water ice at the crash site they would be able to detect it in the cloud of debris sent up by the impact.

It turned out to be a bit of an anti-climax. No explosion, no plume, and so far no trace of water

On the bright side, I successfully piped my PC output through the TV using an s-video connection. But it only works when the cable TV box is on. I have no idea why so any suggestions would be welcome.

But, as long as it is working I have an option for watching the Ukraine v England game tomorrow without getting eye strain.

I will test this system later. The FA are steaming the England U21 game v Macedonia live at 7:45. The NASA TV pictures were not very sharp.

Still, I want to dedicate this song to everyone involved with the LCROSS mission. It is a recent remix of an classic. I think the orriginal track is better but I love the vid that accompanies the remix.

There are links to the original at the end.

Up to this point I had avoided punk on the principle that if my sister liked it then I didn’t. My sister had been hard core from early on.

My sister was then a hair dresser working in London. She was well into all the hair-styles that punks were experimenting with. Once on her way to a gig in London, a bus driver wouldn’t let her on the bus because she had green hair.

Thirty years on and punk style is almost main stream. But, back in 70s, it was an anti-establishment social movement. The music was only a small part of it. A joke at the expense of the BBC and the music industry.

My mum bought my sister No More Heroes by the Stranglers as a present. But she didn’t want it. Apparently they weren’t, “True Punk.” So she gave it to me.

After listening to No More I understood what all the fuss was about. It was completely different to anything else playing on Radio1 at the time.

Later on, I saw The Stranglers a couple of times live, including Reading festival around 86. I still love the clacky bass and pipe organ sound.

This track is from Rattus Novergicus. Their best album I think. It takes me back to being a student in London, and spending a lot of my summers Hanging Around.

I like this video, it captures the completely non-professionals mood of early punk.

I would like to point out to any bankers who maybe reading this, that the credit crunch thing is now personal, and YES we do have a problem.

Looking at last week’s vid of Bowie in the 80s made me go look for some of his stuff from the 70s. This is when, under the influence of my elder sister, I became a Bowie fan.

This is “Starman” another classic Bowie song. It looks like it is from “Top of the Pops.” I used to think this was the coolest thing on TV. Not that I’d call it “cool” back then, “Fab” maybe.

It is so painful to watch now, particularly the audience. Maybe they had rules about the audience enjoying themselves too much.

Punk saved me from all this, but more of that next week.

The media has been outraged by how soft we have become. Too many stay home in the face of a little hardship. It’s a far cry from the London of my youth, where painful, proud stories of The Blitz were still told.

Then the spirit was one of endurance, determination and of “mend and make do.” A culture of defiance, courage and refusal to surrender or compromise cherished national values.

In today’s risk adverse UK, an inch of snow will close a factory for fear that someone slipping over will lead to litigation.

So, here’s a song from another age, dedicated to all the craven, degenerate idiots who sold their souls and the country for a few pieces of fools gold and an illusion of safety.

The “Holy Island of Lindisfarne” is an island stuck out on the north-east coast of England. Monks and hermits have lived there since forever. They first settled on the rock for protection against savage raiders. Having once spent a couple of evenings in Newcastle, I know how they felt.

“Lindisfarne” is also the name of a 70s rock-folk band from north-east England. The band has something of a cult following – which is a polite way of saying it’s available to play weddings and 60+ birthday parties.

One of these died-in-the-wool folk fans got in touch and irately pointed out that I spelt “Lindisfarne” as “Lindasfarn” in my post about fog. I have now corrected the post and offer my sincere apologies.

It has also been pointed out that Stevenage is in south-east England and nowhere near the Tyne. Therefore the post in question is a gratuitous reference to a bunch of ageing hippies and should be deleted immediately.

Fair point.

To make the post less gratuitous and in way of apology, tonight’s music video rip-off will be of Lindisfarne performing “Lady Eleanor”. This is one of their most loved songs.

Enjoy