Come gather ’round people wherever you roam

This blog seems to get updated pretty rarely. Just as well I have a direct line to its main audience.

Thing is, I’m becoming increasingly positive and therefore suffer less from the need to vent in blog form. Things are, seemingly suddenly, falling into place and I may very soon have everything I could ever want.

Accordingly, I’m in a state that’s close to bliss. Things are looking like they’re falling into line and there’s only good things on the horizon and all of them with my own Miss Romania by my side. It means I’m happy beyond reason and have to keep checking I’m not dreaming when I realise how good it’s looking to be.

There’s also a great summer to look forward to with a trip to Barcelona. I get to explore more of the world and to do so with the best possible company. Not so long ago I’d barely travelled outside of my home county. Now I’ve been up and down that Eurostar track, seen a wonderful chunk of France and am soon to see Spain and Romania and experience the thrill of my first air travel and it’s all down to the same wonderful person that saved me from the black dog. I hope that I’m able to continue saving her too.

Things That Jog The Memory

It’s a strange thing, the memory and it’s ability to throw you a curveball and take you away to a different place…. Coming home this evening from work; TIRED from staying late to finish an article that links Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, convergence, mobile marketing and automotive dealers, fighting fatigue from traffic and wondering how I became a commuter.

I get in the house to find that my Dad had, at some point, bought and wisely not told me about, some Mikado sticks and all of a sudden I’m back at cinema with Linda lining up to watch a 3D film about dinosaurs. Though the Mikado were all gone before we even got into the cinema. Dozing in the park before the film, watching the 3D screen flash and demonstrate with lights and sound before the film, taking the glasses off occasionally to see what it looked like without them on, looking at Linda with the glasses on. She’s a real cutie. I think we still need to go the cinema that actually moves but the 3D one impressed me.

Oh, that was the weekend with the Amelie bridge too, visiting friends in their apartment near the Sacre Coer and the mad man that managed that took his clothes off in the middle of the road between our walking past to find a cashpoinit and back.

It made me feel better, a little blast back in time to a great weekend of which more are to follow.

How Does It Feel?

I woke up this morning with my Breathe Right strip stuck around my ear, I don’t think that’s gonna fix my snoring. 

Not that my snoring bothers me, I’ve never woken myself up and asked me to roll on my side, shut up or find the couch. However, I know that it really bothers Linda and so it’s this or surgery. So if they’d just stick to my nose I’ll be a lot happier. Though I’m sure surgery involvesremoving the adenoids which I had lopped off when my tonsils were removed – the always efficient NHS.

Pip is currently rolling around. He’s in the beam of light throwing itself through the window across the carpet and he’s using it to get a bit of sun time and scratch his back the lazy way by rubbing himself aggressively on the carpet and create a bit of hoovering for me to do. Not that he’d be doing it on purpose, given the cute and innocent look he seems even better at giving now that age has greyed his eyebrows ever-so slightly. 

One of the advantages of living near the railway lines is that, on turning in to the top of my road I get occasionally get to see the Eurostar as it thunders past, over an aqueduct that gives it the impression of being on a level above the houses and, when the back doors are open to the sounds and air of the garden, I can hear them. Not so much those which bolt past at stupid km/hs but those that are stopping: this hiss off the breaks and cooling of the slowing engines. It’s strange that I associate these with going to Paris and seeing Linda. I imagine them always with me getting on them, even though I know that half of them are coming from there. This has got to be the power of positive thinking I guess.

I picked up – at vastly reduced price or I wouldn’t have as I usually consider the series highly extortionate in costing – volume 3 of the Bob Dylan Bootleg Series yesterday. It’s the famous one, the “Royal Albert Hall” concert that was actually in Manchester. It’s a great selection of songs and features the most famous heckle in music: “Juuuudaaaaaaasss.” 

I got a strange sensation listening to it. A concert now over 40 years old that has one singe word that’s frozen in time and become a thing of legend. Then there’s Bob’s reaction. I don’t believe you. You’re Lying. Play FUCKING LOUD. Then the thundering and confrontaional version of Like A Rolling Stone. It’s every bit as good as I imagined it to be and had seen snippets of on No Direction Home.  The strange thing is that all of this took place some 14 years before I was born, at a time when my parents weren’t even in their teens. Here I am gobbling it up like it’s the very gospel itself.

I wonder if there’s anything of today’s crop of musicians that are lionised after 2 albums that will ever have anywhere near as much impact or be so determinedly saught out by musical obsessives like myself in forty years. I doubt it. Well, the BrokenOrchestra thing may be dug out for curiousity’s sake…. 

Time to look for some lunch and tell the dog to stop showing off by licking down there

Away above the chimney pots

So, the huge decision… well, it wasn’t really a decision. I think it had been decided for me long ago now in one of the most otherwise gloomy and unromantic locations and I was merely confirming it for the world and for fate to continue.

I proposed to my beloved Linda and she managed in just one word to make everything perfect. It was a ‘yes’ by the way.

There’s an aching in me at the moment as we’re apart again but it goes almost as soon as I feel it because I know it won’t be for long in both short term and definite terms. There really is no question about it: we are going to be together, it’s just a case of working out the niggling little problems. Thankfully, between us (mostly her) we’re pretty smart and I know we can solve this.

We spent a lot of time together recently and celebrated her birthday along with our engagement. Did all those things couples do – shopping for food, strolling and visiting other couples. At one point this weekend I awoke and realised that adult life seems to have sneaked up on me and, without knowing it, I’ve become a grown-up.

Not only that, but I find myself looking at my own 30’s and the grown up world pretty close now, thinking of the rest of my adult life and the situations I’ve been plonked into lately and… and I’m no longer scared. Maybe I was a saint in a previous life, but somehow I have the perfect person for me by my side to accompany me and share life with. It makes it all look a lot better and more interesting. It’s strange to consider but I may, technically, be happy.

As I actually told Linda, I don’t have a black dog anymore. I think, while I was sleeping, she took it for a long drive out into the middle of nowhere and let it go in the woods. I just have to make sure she can shake the scent of it off of her. (I love metaphors, don’t you?)

Strange Obsessions?

“Last Five” and journey home:

I’m On Fire – Bat For Lashes

The Heinrich Maneuver – Interpol

Song for Woody – Bob Dylan

Intermezzo From Cavalleria Rusticana – Mascagni

First Few Desperate Hours – The Mountain Goats

Jorge Regula – Moldy Peaches

Long Haul – Voxtrot

Lion’s Escape – Karl Larsson

Powerman – The Kinks

Seems that as much as I blog for work, I still fail to come up with anything to say for ‘myself’ here.

It’s a strange old time… I’ve spent a lot of time listening to the always glorious sounds of Last Days of April too after reading Karl Larsson’s blog and getting all giddy and excited at the prospect of the next album this autumn. This is one of my favourite bands, I’ve seen them in the best possible locations here when they played Chatham and even got a request in (Aspirins and Alcohol).

On the subject of albums… I’m very excited about the prospect of new ones this year from Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. along with the potential for another from the reunited Buffalo Tom. I still smile that two of my favourite bands (LDOA and BT) are unknown to most and I get the huge delight of watching the music be heard for the first time.

Meanwhile, I’ve been rediscovering old greats that I must have failed to appreciate properly the first time. Bruce’s Magic keeps revealing more and more layers as does his latest and I’m warming, at last, to Conor Oberst’s solo effort – just in time for his next one to drop.

I can’t stop delving into my current obsession – the second World War. NOT the whole battle and glory shit. Just the people involved. The personal stories and struggles… how they just got on with it and somehow kept going in the face of such horror and adversity both in action and on a daily life basis. I’ve cleared a couple of books on the subject (one by a U-Boat commander and the other a RAF fighter pilot) and have been leant Das Boot and Downfall….. I’m starting to develop some really fleshed out ideas for a novel set in this time.

I’ve been back and forth to Paris a few times this last month, to see my Beloved. I’ve made a huge decision too in life terms. I’ll say more when it’s appropriate too…

The noise of BrokenOrchestra seems to be on hold. I got fed up with the fuzz. It’s all about melodies and acoustic for me at the moment. Nothing gloomy, just a desire to strip it back and develop more as a player rather than drown in noise.

Who was Paul McCartney?

Ce soir, dans ma voiture:

Ain’t It Fun – Rocket From The Tombs

El Scorchio – Weezer

2000 Nuits – Telephone

Fortunate Son – Pearl Jam w/ Johnny Marr

Every Shining Time – Sunny Day Real Estate

Coast to Coast – Elliott Smith

Beat My Head Against The Wall – Black Flag

Je voudrais d’ecrire mon premier blog en francais… soon. I promise

Back In The Saddle, again?

“The Beach Boys made many wonderful songs, ‘Help Me Rhonda’ is not one of them.”

The playlist I bounced through my iPod to wake up with this morning:

Beach Boys – Wouldn’t It Be Nice

Conor Oberst – Souled Out

Ai Otsuka – Pon Pon

Foo Fighters – The Pretender

Kings of Leon – The Bucket

Interpol – Slow Hands

Placebo – The Bitter End

Regina Spektor – Fidelity

Tori Amos – Precious Things (I know – an easy jump but it’s Sunday)

Morrisey – Irish Blood, English Heart

Johnny Cash – Wrinkled Crinkled Wadded Dollar Bill

Fink – This Is The Thing

Counting Crows – Mrs Potter’s Lullaby

I finished reading High Fidelity this morning, with many many thanks to my Beloved for actually buying it and buying it from our favourite bookshop. As much as I enjoyed it, and still love the film, I’m pretty certain I’m pretty far from the Rob in the book.I share many things – the devotion to music and compilations of it. Though disagree so strongly with many of the things he does in the book that I started disliking him.

It has been a very long time since I put finger to keyboard here. I’m doing it everyday for work and it felt like cheating on this one so I guess I left it alone for a while. Thing is, I’ve started to lose my own genuine voice and that’s something I desperately need for my writing again. And to work things out in my head.

So… baby steps.

Getting out of here

There’s a lot on my mind of late and it all revolves around one subject: the future.

Life decisions don’t come along all that often and they’re not to be taken lightly. So my mind is all over the place trying to get a concrete idea as to where I should be. This isn’t nothing new, of course, but now… now I’m too old to be fucking around with this anymore. It’s time to act. I simply can’t keep going the way I’ve been going.

There’s so many variables in the equations though… every decision has pros and cons and variables.. it’s hard to know which decision will be the best but.. isn’t that life? It’s not just my decision anymore though.

Keeping on keeping on

Almost a month later… I have gone from blogging here so often as to end up blogging and hitting the ’social’ for a living, that when it comes to my own personal blog I run out of things to say.

Accordingly, I’m not going to talk about work. I’m trying hard to disconnect my mind from it when I leave the office but there’s so much pressure that I’ve yet to work out how to do so. I’ve gone from not giving a flying badger’s arse about it while I’m even in the building, to really pressed for results and finding myself aggitated outside of work… it’s still fairly new though so I reckon it won’t be long until I can disconnect.

I know for sure that I’ll be relaxing and happy in a couple of weeks. I don’t mean Christmas. I mean spending the New Year in Paris with Linda. Even thinking of it manages to unwind me.

One of the reasons I don’t object walking into town, which I did today in a futile effort to finish Christmas shopping, is that I walk over the railway bridge and I can see the Eurostar running in the near-distance over the aqueduct. I smile to myself and think “soon” and remember those times I have and the station arrivals, and I’m happy. Even in the cold and damp. I can put my iPod on and just listen to songs that are somehow all about her.

Cbristmas shopping… I’m sure I’m not the first nor will I be the last to say… is a pain in the arse. Not for one particular person, shopping for Linda has been fun as there’s so much that jumps out. It’s the rest of em. I haven’t a clue. That and the town centreis always packed lately with something akin to a sweating mass of festive-cheerless sheep.

I also miss seeing the Calvin and Hobbes books on the shelves. It seems that as it’s been so long since the last panel was printed, the works of Mr Watterson have suddenly ceased to exist or be deemed relevent to grace the shelves of Waterstones. I still strongly agree with the critic that said of the last ever Calvin and Hobbes cartoon: “In the final strip, Calvin and Hobbes put aside their conflicts and rode their sled into a snowy forest. They left behind a hole in the comics page that no strip has been able to fill.”

Good to see that Waterstones are still displaying their “Popluar Science” area.  Is this a case of illiterate, distracted, comical or just lazy staff?

Hmm, who knows. For now I shall get a drink and relax.

Pumping on your stereo…

It’s been a while once again since I blogged… I’ve been a tad busy to say the least. Not a great deal has happened.. well, in my life that is the world has seen Americans prove they do have some sense and vote in the man who can. Work has been keeping me very occupied, and intruding into my mind outside of it. A tad annoying though I’m sure as I get more settled into this role it’ll desist. I know it’ll be gone by the weekend as I will too…

One of my recent obsessions of the documented variety is my iPod. Yes, it’s lovely and I won’t harp on about it much more here. However, I will say that it’s been allowing me to play DJ in more ways than one. Many has been the evening I’ve subjected people to my selections from the docking station and now I’ve also got one of those little things that I insert into the end of the pod and it transmits it to the radio… though it’s a bit frustrating when certain radio stations boost their signals in interrupt mine in the mornings with the boring monotone of Terry Wogan.. allowing me to play my tune stock in the car and to anyone else who happens to be close enough to my silver machine an on the same radio station… not very many though. Although if I pick up radio2 does that mean at close proximity to others’ aerials do I push over the top of radio2 for them…?

It’s strange to be in a workplace and actually make the effort to appear business like, though this daily shaving is both surprising in its necessity and annoying for it. I’m liking the suit wearing though. It certainly does create a more work-like attitude. I’m still having to fight the feeling that looking at social networks at work – hit me up on twitter y’all – isn’t wanted. It’s part of the job now and needed… along with so much more. Results are coming in and looking good though.

Bed is calling me, as loudly as it does these days.