Does anybody care anymore?

I was sitting thinking earlier, I do that quite a lot these days, about how the Mayan calendars seem to end when there is a catastrophe due to happen. That’s probably the reason why so many think the end will come on Dec 21, 2012! Myself I think they’re gonna be soooooo pissed when Dec 22 comes rolling in.

Are there other “significant” dates to come, or in the past, when people thought we were going to end, (of course in the past 3 or 4 years there’s been lots of statements concerning the death of the planet). Yet here we are on the 3rd rock from the sun spinning around and avoiding collision by the grace of ? so what, if anything, do others think about this tale of the doom about to fall.

On a much lighter note, I’ve been listening to music from my current playlist (Hippy favourites) on shuffle and I’d forgotten how good a lot of these songs are, but it sounds strange hearing Leo Sayer before the Jimi Hendrix Experience, or listening to Led Zeppelin then on comes the Lovin’ Spoonful followed by Cream!

I still like listening to James Taylor, The Doors and Velvet Underground while I keep up to date with Florence + the Machine, Coldplay, Marilyn Manson, Adele and Duffy.

Am I the only one who loves music which doesn’t fit into the same genre, I don’t believe that for a minute, but who knows?

That’s it for now dear reader more next time….

You’re never alone with schizophrenia

Why do people look strangely at you when you have a conversation with someone you can see and hear but they can’t? Has it got something to do with the fact that you’re different, or is it just that they consider such behaviour as a manifestation of lunatic behaviour? All I really know is that when I’m troubled or feeling stressed, then I see my mum and have conversations with her which make sense of the madness I feel all around me. Is this madness? Maybe it is, but it eases my anxiety to converse with someone I shared a lifetime of love with until her too early demise at 57, the age I was last year.

The things that always bring mum to mind are music (the radio was always on or else my mum would sing to herself) I remember there was always music around even before we got our first tv from radio rentals, a huge box on legs with a tiny screen. In those days there was no colour, programmes were only broadcast at certain times of the day and channels went off around midnight. Thursday and Friday tea times there were the music shows Top Of The Pops on the BBC and, the more popular, ITV answer Ready Steady Go (your weekend starts here). On RSG the groups and audience were together and you could see the likes of Keith, Mick and Brian from the Stones dancing with fans from the audience. Much more laid back than TOTP and featured the same presenters every week. When the BBC felt threatened by the competition (not just from RSG) they pushed the Government to pass legislation that music on tv had to be live, knowing the big attraction for RSG was the fun behind their use of records and allowing the stars and audience to mingle without any worries of lip synching or instruments being plugged in or even being played.

However, I digress, I think my catholic interest in music stems from all the exposure I received during my formative years. Even when travelling to Newcastle every summer, we’d all sing most of the way. I spent hours in the company of my older cousin and her girlfriends listening to Buddy Holly, the Crickets, Cliff Richard and Paul Anka, at least until she started dating.

It was around the same time, I think, that she taught me to read, before I even started school. Thus starting my other big passion – books – that, sadly, hasn’t survived. I used to read avidly anything I could get my hands on, nowadays, I read till I get tired or my eyes ache which is generally only about 15 to 30 mins. I enjoy movies more than I used to in my youth. I would only go to the cinema once a month or less with only the tv to watch films at home. I now own a collection of blu-rays and dvd’s to watch when I’ve got time.

Do I miss the old days of vinyl? Not really, I’ve got a 2Tb hard drive almost full of music and if these albums were all on vinyl I’d need a bigger flat to store them all. In that respect I thank the gods for mp3 files, I do miss being able to hold a physical cover while listening to the music but that is a minor thing as the music was always more important than the covers.

Subtle as a flying mallet

I’ve been thinking of my daughter a lot recently, wondering how she and her family are keeping and it’s been getting me down knowing that I have 2 grandsons out there I’ll probably never see. That’s why I’ve not been on here for a while but today I thought “I could die today, the sky could fall today, you just never know what’s around the corner” and I thought fcuk it, life’s a mystery, yesterday’s history, tomorrow isn’t yet written, all we have is now, this moment so lets go folks!

I’m right but I’m also wrong, the future hasn’t been written but what of now? Don’t our actions here in this moment carry through to our future? What is here and what is now? Is time merely a concept since its different depending on where you are? That gets me thinking about our perceptions of, not only time, but also right and wrong, God and Satan. As an agnostic I believe in a higher presence but not in God, but please bear with me here…

If the universe was formed by a huge explosion in pre-history, then it follows that it is still expanding but what happens when it can’t expand any further? Will it contract or will there be another bang to allow things to keep expanding? If that’s the case then how do we know the first Big Bang was the first? Maybe there have been others and that’s what created, and destroyed, life on this planet.

I’m not trying to confuse anyone, merely showing that when we start to look into things then more and more things creep in. Or maybe it’s just lunatics like me who see things this way, but that doesn’t mean we’re wrong just that our perception of reality is different. What is reality? It’s the perception of that which is real. However, my perception will be different to yours so who is right? Is there even a right and wrong when talking about perception?

I don’t know the answers but I keep asking the question to try and find out what it is that I don’t know, till next time friends, take care and may your fears diminish with time.

Weather forecast was dry and sunny

Why didn’t the rain read today’s forecast and fall where it’s supposed to? Brought back to my mind the long ago seasons when I was older than I am today, come with me to a time some 50 years ago….

The last few weeks of summer term were often warm and sunny (this would be June) occasional showers but nothing to cause alarm. Summer holidays were always spent outdoors, after the first week we’d travel South to Newcastle, kids would still be at school the first week down so no cousins to play with my siblings and I would play in either my aunt’s garden or my nana’s. Monday was always baking day, bread and cakes, I used to pinch some of the hot bread, smother it in butter (which melted into the hot bread) and wolf it down before it turned cold. The ease of being young, everything was an adventure. When I went to the cinema with my cousins and siblings we’d come out and be whatever we’d seen on screen.

Even though we’d play out in July and August till we returned to school the weather wasn’t always kind. We didn’t get anything like the amount of rain seen today, showers were sometimes heavy but rain never fell for more than 4 hours back then. There was no danger of flooding apart from spring tides when the snow melted. It was only a few feet thick on the hills, elsewhere there was enough to make everything appear white but not enough to worry about. Being a good catholic family we went to mass every Sunday, ate fish on Friday and went to confession every other week, even if we had to make things up.

I no longer go to church, when I hit puberty I saw what was really going on and it was quite a revelation. Men would be all spiritual for an hour then once out of church would be swearing drinking and talking to wife or mistress on the way home. Hypocrites all. I must’ve had one of the few pious priests judging by the revelations as none of us altar boys were defiled, nor were any of the choir. I had a lot of friends in those days and not all were Catholics! Life was simple, there was generally a cold dry spell from the middle of November and if there hadn’t been any snow before we went to midnight mass on Xmas eve it had always snowed while we were there. Every Xmas was white.

Now we can have snow anytime from October to January and not the light sprinkles we used to have but drifts up to 10 feet tall we can tunnel through. When that melts there’s a risk of flooding, we get torrential rains for days at a time which can destroy homes by removing the foundations.

Is global warming to blame, who really knows the answer to that? Our moon is moving further away every year so could that be the cause. Personally, I think if we do find out the reasoning behind this shift in the weather patterns it will bring us one step closer to understanding why our planet, along with everything on or in her, keeps evolving and may bring us closer in the end, I can dream and hope that one day all people will live in peace and harmony and the lion will be able to lie down with the lamb without trying too kill it to survive.

Monday rolls in again

So here we are again, beginning of the working week for some, for others like me it’s just another day in a seven day weekend. Because I’m waiting to go into hospital for an operation I’m not looking for work so sometimes struggle to fill my days. As the late great John Lennon once said any time you enjoy wasting is not wasted.

Anyway, it’s Monday once again, music is blasting out to drown out the idiots next door who’re fighting again. My two biggest passions these days (in case you hadn’t guessed) are music and books. For details see my previous blogs. The books I’m reading just now are The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa which I’ve just started but finding very good. I’m also reading Terry Pratchett’s Disc World novels again but this time I’m starting at the beginning and reading up to date.

If people were all the same, sharing the same passions how boring would life be? I know some of the things I say will upset some and please others, without pushing the boundaries how would we ever know what works and what doesn’t? After all a great man once answered his critics who told him he’d failed hundreds of times replied, they’re not failures they’re unsuccessful inventions.

I’ll leave you with a little thought for the day, what defines reality as everyone has their own perception of reality.

Another Sunday afternoon

Wow, who’d have believed how quickly a week can pass when you’re having fun? Certainly not me, after all the furore about last Sundays XFactor I had to watch yesterday and did I hear correctly, Rylan who is this seasons running joke, said he wanted to prove he deserves to be in a SINGING competition then proved he can’t sing, he is energetic but should not be in this competition, he’d be better off in a Karaoke competition in Ibiza.

Right, now I know what he can’t do I can only assume the person with him in the bottom 2 last week could actually sing. But enough about a competition that is so obviously fixed to be controversial.

This is your 2 minute warning, getting close to the edge now. I’ve always had a passion for music and this has crossed genres so much so I now classify music into 3 categories: 1) music I like, 2) music I don’t like and 3) music I’ve not heard. Normally I’d look for music on the Internet, however, now that Later with Jools is back I find new artists, get reacquainted with musicians I’ve not heard for a while.

More about music next time for now it’s goodbye.

Having been giving a lot of thought into what to do with this blog, I received inspiration from a very unlikely sauce, Snotting Black posts an almost daily blog full of randomness, a bit like Terry Pratchett. I’ve decided to give it a go with my own random exploits for who knows where the time […]