Nine Feet Underground

A taster for the future, perhaps? Spent the day reading the weekend papers (catching up), listening to my 'Freak Zone' backlog and organising my Bullet Journal for July.  Inevitably there was some stuff that had to be done, such as organising delivery of meds for E,  but mostly it was about getting stuff done for me. Q came back from work at lunchtime, briefly, and is off to dinner tonight for a work function.  Consequently, I'll be impersonating Billy Nomates (I can't sing as well as she does...) and making my own dinner for one.  (Is that a violin I hear in the distance?) Watched some TV after dinner including a documentary on the Hacienda before Q returned after a meal which included a Lobster-based starter. NV. To bed, for tomorrow is a working day.  Wire / 'Map Ref 41 Degrees N 93 Degrees W' / '154' [[ ]]

A fairly bog-standard Saturday lies ahead. It's a little different because of the upcoming events of Sunday and Monday. More on that, when/if they happen. Apart from the usual chores the main feature of my day was watching the King's birthday flypast.  Watching it on ADS-B, listening to it and most surprisingly seeing some of it.  Post-flypast we were treated to the unusual sight of RAF fast jets overflying us very low.  Initially a pair of Typhoons (I'm guessing the ones that flanked the P-8 Poseidon) followed by around seven to nine Typhoons that had been part of the formation which were the letters 'CR' in the sky.  I managed to get some photos of the second set of Typhoons, nothing brilliant, but a memory if nowt else. As part of this peculiar behaviour I also worked out how to control my new scanner such that it logs and records all that it captures, with timestamps and frequencies/tags. Of no interest to most, but my boat is kept afloat. Spent a chunk of the r...

The last working day of the week, and so that dominated the day, until the early evening, when in and around taking son #1 and his gf to the station (town being incredibly quiet, despite the festival), I found time to listen (at last) to the Quietus' Low Culture podcast from June. The June podcast which featured an interview with Colin Newman of Wire talking about one of his favourite albums, Todd Rundgren's 'A Wizard A True Star', which is one of the albums I'd take to a desert island, should I crash-land there (I carry it with me at all times along with a copy of 'Finnegans Wake', just in case).  As I'm sure you all know, Wire are a band that came to prominence during the punk era, with their debut 'Pink Flag' being released in 1977. Colin Newman is a founder member of the band, who are still making excellent new music and pushing boundaries some 40 years later. Apart from his love of 'AWATS', Colin also said that Todd's preceding a...

The final Saturday of British Summer Time, though any hint of summer in the weather has been absent for quite a few weeks now. Sadly, as befits the times, it's going to be another Saturday spent in the same way as most other Saturday's this year, doing the same old boring shit there isn't time for in the working week. In order to spice 😆 things up a bit, I've decided we're going to get a curry delivered tonight rather than get a microwaveable pale imitation of one. That - unexpected surprises notwithstanding - will be the highlight of the day. Apart from the chores - what chores? I'll have a large glass of pinot noir please. Start again. Apart from the chores, I will endeavour to read the papers, and also maybe a bit more of 'Ulysses' and 'The Many'.  Talking of which, 'The Many' is our book club choice for the month, it's quite short - more novella than novel - and sounded quite interesting from the blurb, but without giving too muc...

Words come easy or they don't come at all. A multitude of words bouncing around my head, but the moment I try to capture them and express what they are saying, they dissolve away to nothing. In my head I've written this blog several times over but each time I've sat down and tried to write it, the words are gone or they no longer seem to capture or express what I am trying to say. And so it remains.

First up was support act Captivves, a Reading three-piece featuring drums, bass and guitar. From the outset the guitar player set a tone of dark foreboding with sheets of steely noise: the bassist is also the singer and his angst-filled vocals had the perfect setting against this backdrop. A beautifully consuming sound to get lost in.  Captivves have a couple of EPs up on Soundcloud that are well worth a listen:  Captivves on Souncloud .  The venue started filling out ahead of the arrival of the main attraction, though if you were there early you did see Colin Newman setting up his equipment before the band came on stage for their set.   Whatever happened to roadies? Wire took to the stage and got straight into 'Boiling Boy' from ' A Bell is a Cup' one of the few numbers dating back to Wire mark 1.  This year is Wire's 40th anniversary but - as is customary with them - they did not choose to do a greatest hits set, rather a set almost totally com...