Trying Hard to Wake Up Again

 I ran into Bill Nighy, or at the worst, a very bloody good look alike, even down to the hair and eyes, and mannerisms, on one of my regular local walks as the first main "lock-down" was relaxed. It was a lovely sunny warm Sunday morning. 

I did a "double-take" as I know I'm not 100% reliable on look-alikes, but I was utterly convinced, and still think that it WAS Muriel Gray in the pub in Holmfirth that time..........

I wished him a "Good morning" and he stopped, looked at me, smiled, and said "Hello". 

That was it, and I knew all was ok in the world after all. It just felt a bit seriously shit at the time.

In the mean-time, I am trying to write, and draw, and concentrate on the camera, and my dog.....and well, I'm making a fist of things as usual. Here's my imaginary girlfriend's video from April. Filmed in Kyiv seemingly, must have been before Putin went nuts.


(Aiming for normal service, but bear with.)

Numan

At the tender age of 12 my peers tempted me away from the safe environments I was used to, and into the insane world of train-spotting......

No, really.

Bear with me.


Insecure skinny white spotty geeks unite, before, or as well as going all Dungeons and Dragons, or other far worse forms of self abuse.....

I once had whole photo-albums of diesel engines, stations, etc...... But while I don't now, sort of wish I'd held onto them for posterity.

Anyway, stretching the apron strings is all part of growing up. Away from home, away from your home town, exposed to illicit things, beer, tobacco, hash, speed, mindless vandalism, influential stories from your senior influences, lies, violence, whisky, bitter stories from old men who chose to return to trains in their dotage...... It soon becomes less and less about categorising and collating, and ticking off which engines you've actually seen, and more and more about rebellion and self discovery.

Someone should make a film. Maybe Mr Welsh....

Back on topic. On a red hot summer's day in 1979 at the end of platform 9 of York Station an older fellah had a radio on, while brandishing a camera, notepad, binoculars, and a pack of sandwiches and cigarettes.....on this radio played "You Can Ring My Bell" "Bright Eyes" "Pop Muzik" "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" and so on and so forth.... what a bloody good year to really start to listen to music! (I had already, but really this was pretty influential!)

"Are Friends Electric?" played, about four times, as we waited, and watched the trains come and go, drink coffee, Coke, and cough our way through the mildest cigs going...Silk Cut, Kim, More Menthol......and it stuck with me. I thought it was so utterly different from what I thought I liked.

In the immediate weeks after it inspired me to order a cassette from Woods Music Shop, on Wood Street, in Wakefield, my second chosen album..... My first being in 1976 when I bought "Mud's Greatest Hits" with a Christmas voucher for "Boots" (The Chemist...) (My first single was Monty Python's "I Like Chinese", also from Wood's, probably at the same time, but I was so bloody naive, I didn't even know there were such things as record shops that a 12 year old boy could go into and learn all this stuff.........

To cut a long story short, I bought everything in time that Tubeway Army and Gary Numan put out, until Strange Charm. I have no idea what happened after that, as I got side-tracked, and a bit bored. In hindsight I think I was actually on a tight budget and fell in love with a thousand and one other bands, from all the classic Doors/Joy Division/Bowie/Pink Floyd/Led Zep/Stones/Jam/etc etc onwards.....

Music shops became mecca, and my enthusiasm cost me, and benefitted me too no doubt. But I ended up ignoring my initial idol. I hardly listened to his stuff, except on very rarer occasions, and then the records got scratched, lost, left in someone else's house, or whatever when I moved.....

Thank Goodness for the internet!

The other tracks on YT are the obvious ones, until you start mining down to the nitty gritty.....when you can find all sorts of gubbins......

Got to go and listen to Savage, the new album ASAP...... not enough leaks as yet.....

Music

I'm 99% sure I've posted this before, but which version? I can't be bothered to go and look, as even though it's not an overtly political post, it is the eve of the General Election, and it just seems tiomely, so forgive me.....

Turn it up!

Definitely not of my creation, it's just one of my "Liked Videos" on YouTube, and I've just posted the acoustic version on FB...This is the full blown version though, and is well worth the volume.....

IAMX- "Think of England"

In the grip of a winter came love and greed
Insane with faith, I took the driving front seat
In the lowlight comfort of Berlin streets
The calm from emptiness duetted with my body heat

I was alone at the front line
The message I was told was to triumph at
The joy of a lifetime

I just can't think of England
I can't see the picture
I'm still running from the fire, the fire

I just can't think of England
I can't see the picture
I'm still running from the fire, the fire, the fire

In the twilight hours of nervous rest
I bought the peace before believing the threats
In a foreign field, I cut all regrets
But the boys in stories just repeat themselves in a fucked up mess

I was alone for the first time
The message I was told was to triumph at
The joy of a lifetime

I just can't think of England
I can't see the picture
I'm still running from the fire, the fire

I just can't think of England
I can't see the picture
I'm still running from the fire, the fire

I just can't think of England
Can't see the picture
(Ah)
Can't see the picture
(Ah)
Can't see the picture

(Lyrics by Chris Corner)

Very Random Scream

It's been a while since I posted anything but my own crap, so here's a cracking bit of Johnny Cash to break up the madness.

I did try to reduce the size of the embedded video, by changing height & width in the code, but it just ignored me, so I gave up.....It's up to you whether or not you just listen to it, or watch and listen.....

Shucks, after watching that one three times in a row, I let YT do it's automatic "next track" thing, and of course "Hurt" came up.. Then the tears started, and I thought, I've already "liked" it, on YT, and probably commented before too, so commented again just to be sure...(!) and then thought I'd post it here too...

Don't waste time reading the comments, or you'll just get mad at the idiots who can't listen to something for itself, without getting all tribal, and judgmental about nothing whatsoever, because that's what our commercially centric world is making us.

And this is me being happy..... Sheesh........

Holmfirth Writers Group

 (Definitely NOT mine, Credit to HCF Photography, look them up on FB, I did have the link, but I've copied & pasted a few things since I found it...sorry!)

After a few years of topsy-turvy living and emotional adventure, I came to the time in my life where I really do have to re-evaluate things. 

Smoking, drinking, socialising, relationships, life-choices, attitude to all the above....All need a proper hard coat of looking-at.

In this process, I had the idea that one of my "safe" things, (that's just a relative description, so take it that way, as I have written some stuff which I cringe at to read,) was my writing. It's long been a "hobby", and at times a cathartic prop, a way to vent, to rail at the world, more particularly at my treatment of the world, and vice versa.... I have never pushed it "out there" apart from a few random "Open Mic" nights in the old "Stage Door", as was, before it became the "Box Office". And, apart from the abandoned "Writings of a Birdman" blog, now utterly deleted from every angle, as far as I can find, here, in Dungeon Wood.....

Anyway, to cut a long story short, ha, timely, and appropriate. I made a few moves to find out about the local writing scene, and ended up tonight, sitting in on the Holmfirth Writers' Group meeting.

I have to qualify this a little bit as to "why?"

I want to be inspired, yes, people, events, occurrences, random stuff and things around me do that already. But I'm writing more or less in a total vacuum....  I wanted and needed to see how other people handle their addiction to the pen & paper, or keyboard, or whatever...so, I bit the bullet, and ridiculously, for someone who can sing in front of two hundred people or so when necessary, (or at least I used to be able to, it's been a while) I got the jitters.. My heart was actually racing, like border-line panic attack material, for pretty much the entire time, at least until we retired to the pub.

  

I'm not sure what I expected, but, again, to cut a long story short, we were presented with about half a dozen photos, and told to write something, a short story, a play, poetry, or whatever came into our heads, inspired by one of the pictures..

I chose the top picture, (as I tagged, definitely not one of mine, but one from HCF Photography, who I don't know, and have no connection with, that I'm aware of.... LINK)

Anyway, after about 20 minutes, or so, it was "pens down" and then we went around the table of (I think it was ten) and read aloud what we'd written....

Talk about pressure.....

Dead Mill

Scents, Clean fighting dust, oily, dark,

A breeze disturbs cobwebs, abandoned,

Broken glass crunched underfoot,

Historic North-light pierces into forgotten corners.

Pulling on his roll-up, his memory stirs,

The menders sat here, way-back in his hour,

Sly laughter echoing though his years,

Silenced by stiff charge-hand command...

He peers into time shadows,

Hearing the clatter and back, clatter and back, of looms,

And the shouts of his mates,

Trusted team workers, hard men all.

He spares a thought for the boys,

Shifting wool bales and running hard errands,

Between spaces now silent, labours long lost,

Indescribable perhaps to anyone now.

It was a mistake to come back,

The vacant sad warehouse, broken shuttles on the floor,

Dead spindles,

A trip out he'd said, to revisit his youth,

The old mill, and it's dangerous truth.

Turning from his story, peering at now,

A memory ache in his muscles, a long gone vow,

The machines all sold, along with his soul,

Cheaper imports, deep sadness, then dole....

Stepping through the seized still doors,

Back to today, and positive sunlight,

Briefly he turns and whispers “farewell”

To his pals, the weavers, menders and all.

As he squeezes thought the chained gates,

For the very last time, he half hears “So long...”

From the end of the line,

He knows he's half-dreaming, but can't help but turn back...

Brings forth “farewell, God keep you”

Then, makes his way home,

Puts those memories safe, out of reach,

In an old biscuit tin. And sits.

 ..............

It's not one of my best, far from it, but I'm reasonably happy, under the circumstances. I had to get out of my comfort zone. It's made me think though, which was pretty much my entire reason for braving the whole experience, and I think I will go again next week.

Instead of writing "Woe is me" and "Another failed attempt at trying to understand my world..." or "...  my seeming inability to maintain a relationship...." (a recurring theme if you can be bothered to go back through it all) I suddenly had to run with something else. I now have to try that again, like taking a photo of something new, from a new angle, or whatever.....

 I could write an essay, but I think I nearly did....and it's late. A lot of food for thought, indirectly. The meeting stimulated my own thought processes, which is pretty much all I wanted, so overall it was a success. I hope the others got something, no matter how small out of the experience......

 

Flockprinter: Buddy Wakefield

Ignore the video.

I don't know a lot about Buddy Wakefield. 

I have listened to some of his stuff, and some works for me, and some not so much, that is true of a lot of things out there I guess. The Flockprinter track I came across on a music blog I used to follow a few years back, and stumbled across it again just today while listening to the "misc" folder, and culling out some of the old dead-wood.

Wiki/Bio 

Have a look/listen. There's a whole load on YouTube.....

Time-Out

Before they hit the charts, but were bubbling-up as they used to say back then...Japan did some starker more cutting-edge stuff. Adolescent Sex, look it up on YT, and

It's only 41 minutes long. It's my soundtrack to tonight. Well, for as long as that....

Whoever you are, take everything that I post as having a hidden-meaning, as it does. Maybe it doesn't.

Say What You Want About Jacko...

Both of these bring tears to my eyes. I'm sure there are better covers if you look hard enough, but the strength of Michael Jackson's lyric writing shines through. Pity I never really "got" him at the time, well, I did, and it just wasn't speaking to me.

Ignore The Video

Just listen to the song. Simple as that.



Now have to try to find what on earth Jhelisa is doing these days, a voice like that shouldn't be cooped up....

The Internet of Local Things

Apologies to the one or two contributors who added some of the following pictures to FB, (and an odd one or two might be mine, but hey.) but I just wanted to use them to try to illustrate an odd tangent that things can suddenly go in...


There are, I'm sure, 1000s of similar "closed groups", that are equally well meaning, but haphazardly run and worse off for it. Enthusiasts, who eventually dare to come out and give/lend their private pictures, I'm talking local interest/historical types here, nothing weird, though you never know of course...The one most pertinent to me is "Huddersfield Then And Now" (sic).

The sheer scale of the newly realised power to connect things, such as FB, is immeasurable really. If we concentrate on "local history" for a moment though, by way of an easy example...Most people have some old photos, their own, inherited, or other hand-me-downs, or whatever, collecting dust in an old shoe-box or something somewhere, and long-forgotten. An impossible job to collect & collate them all perhaps, but given the nature of "social media" the ambition is less of an Everest and more of a Ben Nevis as time goes along....The same is clear for any kind of data, music, stats, art, documentaries or whatever I suppose, but this is so much more democratic than ever before. The ability for any jumped-up little or big, wannabee, to "have their say" is a mixed blessing obviously, as not everyone has something worth saying in the first place, but bear with me...

The way I'd like to see things develop is for FB to facilitate the joining up of the various contributors to a given subject to work outside of FB itself, say via a Blog or other format, to produce a more polished and 3rd-party user-friendly experience. To cut out the speculative nonsense, the chaff if you like.

Clearly a one "dedicated person type blog" has a lot of merit, but surely a group effort might be more than the sum of it's parts?

I have a lot of ideas, just not enough time to realise them without help. Maybe it's just easier being an observer rather than a doer.. I am a doer, just most of my "doing" is trying to keep sane, solvent, and satisfied, and so on....maybe I don't always get the balance just right.

..oh, and side-tracked, of course, that's a given.

I can't post a link to the current thread that's "grinding my gears" given the "closed" thing, but going back to 1850ish:

These are more or less all the same area, hopefully that's obvious in context....

What I want is for the many old established historical families locally, to root about in their attics and cellars or sheds, or wherever, to dig out their own old pictures of the area, going back to as far as possible, like the dawn of photography....so that this shit doesn't get completely lost.

FB is helping, but this is an uphill thing....

I can't shed much light on the pictures apart from they're all more or less centred around "Digley" which in the 21st Century is only known as a local reservoir, but was previously a village/area that is now mostly forgotten. As I walk my dogs around here a lot I see odd hints and remains of the past, it's pictures like these that put flesh on the bones of that past,and I do think it's a potentially fabulous use of the collaborative nature of the internet that needs some urgent polishing.....

 

Like when did "St James's" (sic) become "St David's"?? Ha! Riddle me that internet....


Happy June people.


  





 

September

"Phone-Hacking"

 

 (Clearly not one of mine)

If you left your car keys in the ignition and it was stolen, or if you left your house unlocked when you went on holiday, and then were burgled, the police and press would laugh you off the page. So why is it when thousands of people don't change the standard issue PINs that are freely available from manufacturers and service providers on their mobile phones do the police go ape that people choose to open the unlocked doors??

Why on earth is there no criticism being aimed at the Royal security staff who clearly didn't advise their charges that they should change these PINs on an urgent basis?

Quite rightly charges were not only brought against an incredibly small number of key people, and an odd conviction or two made, but really, in context these are 100% politically motivated, though exactly by whom and why remains less clear. The Edward Miller Band ought to think before commenting that Cameroon brought a criminal into Downing Street, especially in view of the war criminal who occupied it prior to Brown Gordio.

Certainly "illegally" accessing people's phone messages is wrong, and immoral and so on, and downright revolting when a missing child or murder victim is involved, but in the scheme of things, the service providers and phone manufacturers have to bear some responsibility in loudly reminding everyone to personalise their PIN to avoid such things happening.

Honestly, if the majority of people are stupid, and someone takes advantage of the fact, then millions of people buy their papers because they've "got the up to date goss..." who really is at fault?

(Definitely not one of mine)

Having said all that, Cameroon can't apply "legerdemain" by blaming Levison, as the enquiry, admittedly set up as a direct result of the (then-) emerging "scandal" was specifically denied the opportunity to consider "phone-hacking" as part of it's report due to the subject being under consideration in a criminal case...You can't make this shit up. I nearly choked when The Miller Band claimed it was "all smoke and mirrors" and sadly recalled the death of Dr Kelly, the fictional Iraq dossier on WMDs that never actually existed, and the Bliar & The Campbells-are-coming years.

Headline: Some people are thick, shock horror, someone else gets nailed for it.

If there's this much crap in the news, what is actually happening that we aren't being told about?

A picture of a tit. (Probably a sad and lonely tit who'll almost certainly never procreate, or do anything other than masturbate himself to death.)

 (Also clearly not one of mine)

 As a foot-note: If it turns out that all this inappropriate accessing of people's phones was via some piece of clever software that throws out zillions of PINs until they find the right one, then "phone-hacking" might be the right way to describe it, but I doubt it somehow. Until that does happen, then nothing has actually been "hacked".....I return to the "open-door" analogies above...sorry, can't help myself on this I must be cross or something.

Second fot-note, I had a picture removed from above, hence the triagular symbol above. I'm replacing it with the original and another two, just to MAKE A POINT ABOUT CENSORSHIP.

I do not claim any ownership over any of the last three pictures, clearly they are already credited by the red-strap-line at the bottom of each. Freaky-deaky. Well, I supposed it helps to prevent them breeding....

Kings Of Leon

Just turn it up and, no that's it. Just turn it up.

The Cure - "Close To Me"

Presented without comment, but for this; one of their best as far as I'm concerned.

New Venture

Nearly another month...bum.

It might start something, it might not, but Valley Pictures is my new venture for now.

Currently it's not a hunt related thing, just a picture one. In time I hope to update everything onto my  Photobox album(s) but as yet am killing waaaay too much time editing the actual pictures, so it's not happening just yet. It will, so bear with me.

There will be certain beagle related pictures from which I will happily donate the proceeds to the CVB, but in time, when I get there.....

 

Prints, enlargements, posters, or post-cards, Christmas and other more secular greetings cards, calendars or whatever anyone requests...just let me know....please!

There are currently only two posts on the site, so it won't take long to check it out............ 

(Absolutely NOT one of mine.)

Comments

I have only just been told that there is currently no way of leaving comments, in spite of my attempts to edit the whole thing. I can edit individual posts to allow them, but something I did two or three years ago in the template has changed the way that Blogger applies it to the new version of Blogger...great. () (>sarc off>) 

It seems that I have to re-enable "comments" for individual posts, rather than being able to do a global attack, historically on the whole thing.

It would matter of course if anyone actually read this, but hey, I'm a gardener, not a computer jock.

Want a hedge cutting?

Contact me.

Want a website designing?

Contact a web designer......

 

See??

Insert smiley face thing...........

More Experiments With "Lightroom 4"

More or less all of the pictures herein are not mine, but my Dad's, and most taken on his old Minolta camera as far as I can see.

As shot:

 LR4 version:

Now, to be frank, some of the changes I've made while trying to learn my way around LR4 are not exactly dramatic, but that wasn't the point. They're meant to be "improvements", at least for the most part, and sometimes the way a picture comes "vanilla" out of the camera is just exactly as you might have wanted it.

 Very old pre-digital shot, scanned presumably...

 As shot:

LR4:

 (Yes, that's me whipping in.....)

As shot:

 LR4:

 LR4 2nd attempt:

As shot:

LR4 version:

 Mr Luxton looking dapper (As shot):

 LR4:

My Dad (As shot):

 LR4 version 1:

 version 2:

 3:

  As shot:

 LR4 version:

 Lawn Meet at Knowle Top Farm (As shot):

 LR4 version:

 A bit more subtle perhaps, but this was the first post-ban meet at The Huntsman when the two beagle packs & foxhounds got together to stick two fingers up at Blair....

As shot:

 LR4 version:

Well, as you can see, I'm no expert, but a keen tryer nevertheless.

Of course it all comes down to personal preference at the end of the day, and if you're looking for really dramatic images to hammer home a point or to use in some marketing thing or other then you might over-cook any aspect of the process just for effect, but I'm having fun trying to get to grips with it, which I could never say about Photoshop which is still an utter mystery to me......

Moby Moment. "The Great Escape"

I was going to write a long piece on copyright, on the music industry and the artists' side of the equation, all of which have been on my mind lately for one reason or another, but until I have a tad more inspiration will have to shelve it for now.

I do not like "stealing" music, via torrents, or unregistered Russian websites, or anything, and do not sell anything on if I find myself compromised by doing so, ever, but if my CDs/DVDs are unplayable, or whatever, or my old LPs and cassettes are just too darned difficult to copy (VERY laboriously) on to my PC and hence music player for personal digestion, I think to myself "I already own this, albeit in a different format, so why not?" Then I read an odd licensing thing that you sometimes see when downloading something, and think that I'm fine with that....I know the artist(s) has/have already been part of the process, and hence (hopefully) got paid, so why not?

Enough, I'm not going to write that essay now.




Ironic that YT or Google deleted my previous video, which I've only just noticed when reading back though....... So have tried again.... (Edited 21st July 2018)

Some of the thoughts were sparked off by YouTube deleting a couple of my videos that featured "copyright" music that someone called "Johnny M" had objected to. Hey Johnny, was anyone fooled into thinking I worked with The Eurthymics or Lou Reed because I'd used them as a soundtrack to walking a pack of beagles through some woods?? No? I didn't think so. Was anyone deprived of any money because I used the tracks? No? I didn't think so.

Was anyone for the remotest second lead to believe that any of the artists I'd picked (because the tracks seemed to fit, and because I LIKED them) endorsed any aspect of the videos I'd posted? No, I really don't think so.

Did I claim anything other than "Fair use" of the tracks at any point? NO.

When artists make zillions of shekels out of a track, and it's been played millions of times "in public" then some of the reasoning for Johnny M to complain about my homemade "Entertainment" videos seems a little bit picky to me. Sorry, but I'm a bit cross.

Hidden messages?

Keep them.

YouTube would die if every single "Copyright" video was deleted, and that's a simple inarguable fact.

Oh, and I was going to go off on one about "The Emperor's New Clothes" and the Daft Punk album, but then that got me thinking about previous "Emperor's New Clothes" albums, like everything by Moby and, in a circular way that made me go look for the one track that always hit me the most. This is a live version of it, but the studio version is sublime.


Got to get a grip.

Dire

After all therse years, I can't help but hear Paul Sutherland's view on Dire Straits. They were associated with the "M&S types".

Still, can't take anything away from much that they've done. My own personal hate is their most successful "Money For Nothing" which to this day I loath with a passion. While it admittedly was technically superb and all that, it was like they'd suddenly turned into a parody version of themselves. This is a reminder of their better tracks, as they had many many....

The Cure

What more can one say?

I have pictures from forever, and a lot of recent, and not-so, that I wanted to post. Some will find their way here, and some won't.

If you're not able to listen properly to music you haven't heard before, then play this twice, or three times, and empty your mind and just let the words flow through you....... I'm not saying you'll suddenly become a Cure fan, you weren't were you? But g'wan, try.

More posts coming, when I get my head back to this planet....

Baked.