Friday 27 April 2012

Au revoir

Well my friends, I know my posting has been erratic to say the very least. Posting is always in my thoughts, and there is a lot I'd love to talk to you about and the list gets longer daily. Indeed too long, I barely know where to begin (!)

You know of course I'm not in the best of health, and my recent re-start was part of an attempt to maybe normalise or at least arrange my life. That seems to be my goal right now, to bring a feeling of order. However after just a few days I can see that this at least has been a wrong move. While I have so much to talk about, and while more comes up all the time, blogging is just one more thing I don't have the energy to do. Often I feel I barely am able to cover the essentials of life never mind any of the add-ons.

So all that has happened is I don't post and it becomes just one more thing to beat myself up over and feel guilty about, and this of course is not helpful!

So as of now I'm formally saying Au revoir. Not goodbye, you never know what the future will bring. Indeed I have meetings with several doctors and specialists in the near future, there is the hope that life can be improved, maybe even returned to something approaching normality (whatever that may be) but for the foreseeable future, this blog will be put to rest.

I am on Twitter, which is great fun,it's by definition short and immediate and can be picked up and dropped at will depending on how one feels. Banal to important it's all on there, if you are too, I'm @MUSEmunkey, and assuming you're a real person and not a bot or trying to flog me stuff I'll follow you back :-) I am on Facebook too, but frankly don't like it and very rarely say anything.

But in the meantime dear people thats it for Blogger, thank you for reading and for all your messages, my love to you all

Graham
Neath
South Wales

Sunday 22 April 2012

Captain Vimes's boots

This is the Captain Vimes's boots theory of economics, paraphrased as I can't remember the exact details and am too lazy to try and find it, but it is ©Terry Pratchett :-)

Captain Vimes doesn't have much spare cash, instead spending most of it on cheap booze (!) so spends $5 on his boots. They are not good boots he knows this, after a very short period they will start to disintegrate, they will leak and be uncomfortable but with some make do and mending and stuffing with the Ankh Morpork Times they can be made to last about a year at which time he will pay another $5 and buy another pair.

Lord So and So on the other hand for one reason or another has more disposable income. So he gets his boots made to measure. They cost $25 but they have been made by a local skilled artisan. They are luxurious, they are beautifully made, they look good, they are comfortable and most of all they will still be as good in 25 years *and* he will have had dry feet *the whole time*.

Much simplified but just a thought...

Saturday 21 April 2012

Happy Record Store Day

Apparently it's Record Store day. So happy record store day. Not.

Record stores were one of the reasons I stopped listening to music for over a decade, not the only one it is true, maybe not even the main one, but it was certainly a major nail in the coffin.

In general I'm glad almost all have gone to the wall. There is all this tosh about all the help and advice they gave, I can put hand on heart and say I have *never* been given any help or advice in one, just sneered at by some spiky haired foetus that has done one to many experiments in facial piercing.

The final straw I remember was the lady in front of me wishing to pay and to ask about albums by Mick Ronson being abused by the pair of 'youffs' behind the counter because a. they had never heard of Mick Ronson anyway (!) and B. they would rather carry on chatting in the most lurid possible terms about their unsavoury doings of the evening before rather then do their jobs or give any form of help or advice other then to leave them alone.

That was the last time, I couldn't get out fast enough, out of the darkness and volumes of 'music' that would be considered dangerous in a disco, or a building site,  so you immediately couldn't remember why you went in there in the first place and the crowds of milling teenagers , not buying or even looking at anything, probably also wondering what the hell they had gone in there for...

I am now a music fan again, I buy and listen to music constantly. I love Muse, and My Chemical Romance, and Marilyn Manson. I also love The National, and Elbow and Doves. I also love Pink Floyd and Roxy Music and The Rolling Stones. And Ella Fitzgerald, and Dinah Washington and Nina Simone. God I have even been known to love Frank Sinatra and Doris Day, and Andy Williams.

And where do I go now? Amazon. They are fast and efficient, and most importantly they could not care *less* who I buy or what my taste is. They just want me to carry on doing it so they will all have a business and stay in a job.

Kind of bet all the Our Price Records, and Virgins and Tower Records and all those oh so superior 'independents' had thought of that before...

Good riddance.

There will be more. You have been warned :-)