Tag Archives: brian eno

Sunday 15th September 2019 – I MISSED …

… an exciting day today up in Grand Falls. Apparently they were having a drag racing afternoon.

Nothing more exciting than watching a bunch of men dash round a town while dressed in women’s clothes, but I had other fish to fry unfortunately and I was quite disappointed to have let the opportunity pass me by.

In fact I was out near Meductic moving furniture. Zoe has, as I mentioned earlier, bought herself a little house and she doesn’t have much furniture, but someone was disposing of a clean two-seater bed settee that transforms into a double bed and that will be just the thing.

And so having emptied out Strider, we set off for Zoe’s where she and a friend clambered aboard and then we all shot off southwards towards Fredericton.

Putting the bed in the back of Strider was the work of a moment and it was soon strapped in place. Back at Zoe’s, we unloaded the sofa and then I came home. Totally whacked. I just can’t do things like this any more.

Mind you, I don’t know why, because it’s not as if I had much of a difficult night. In bed comparatively early and apart from a brief foray down the corridor to ride the porcelain horse, disturbing our overnighters on the way, and a few interruptions to record things on the dictaphone (and I wonder what they are?) I had the kind of lie-in about which I have only been able to dream just recently.

09:00 when I finally surfaced, and just loitered around until it was time to go and deal with Zoe.

This afternoon, I’ve had a shower and, would you believe, a haircut, and I look almost human. As well as that, Rachel was having a marathon clothes-washing session and I’m now up to date with all clean clothes ready to leave here Wednesday morning for Montreal to clean out my storage locker and hopefully to go for a meal with Josee.

But having seen the fuel in Strider evaporate before my very eyes, I’ve been searching on the internet with Darren and we have finally found a performance chip which claims inter alia to offer an 8mpg fuel improvement.

And I tell you what – that if I could get an extra 8mpg out of Strider I will really be impressed. So tomorrow I shall be on the case.

For tea tonight we had baked potato – the carnivores with salmon and we vegans with a bean medley. Quite delicious and prepared with my own fair hands. And if I can find the time tomorrow, I’m going to make a curry.

But I’ve been a busy boy this evening. I’ve tracked down the complete digital tracks to two more albums that I own. The first one is Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy by Brian Eno. That was his second solo album after Roxy Music and was such a surprising album that it left me speechless when I first heard it, and that’s not something that happens every day, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

But it’s one of those albums that grow on you quite quickly and it’s always been in my top 100 albums out of the couple of thousand that I own.

The second one though is an album that means a great deal to me and for many reasons too.Warrior On The Edge Of Time features work that probably represents Michael Moorcock’s apogee as a science fiction writer, and several of the lyrics, adapted from works by Shelley and Wordsworth and set to Hawkwind’s space-rock music will penetrate deep into your bones.
“The golden void will speak to me
“Denying my reality
“lose my body, lose my mind
“blow like wind, I flow like wine
“Down a corridor of flame
“Will I fly so high again?”
Yes, what wouldn’t I give to be able to write meaningful lyrics like that after some of the things that I have done?

The album was thoroughly panned by the critics in the same was that A Passion Play was, and for the same reason too – that the critics didn’t understand what the musicians were trying to achieve.

The Melody maker wrote that Moorcroft’s poetry was delivered “with all the emotion of Davros being exterminated by renegade Daleks”, totally overlooking the fact that this was precisely the effect that Moorcroft and Brock wanted.

And when Lemmy wrote that ” ‘Opa-Loka’ was a lot of f***ing rubbish”, what he really meant to say that he didn’t play the bass line on it. It transpired much later that with Lemmy off on one of his little jaunts playing Hell’s Angels, Dave Brock refused to hang around and wait but played the bass line himself.

It’s quite true that Hawkwind has never ever recorded an album on which I have liked every track from start to finish, but “Warrior On The Edge Of Time” will be up there with the best of them.

But it has much more of a personal significance to me too. When the album was released I was dating Jackie Marshall. She worked at the Nantwich Library on Saturdays and used to scan the new rock albums that arrived, secrete them in a drawer, smuggle them out for me to record and then take them back next week. This particular album, she bought me for my birthday and inscribed a beautiful little message on the album cover which meant quite a lot to me – and still does.

But her parents hated me with a passion (like I said, I was a different person in those days) and so our fate was destined to unwind.

Strangely enough, I was driving a coach around North Shropshire a few years later and needed some cash, so on my lunch break I called in at Barclay’s Bank in Whitchurch. Who should be working there behind the counter as cashier but the aforementioned?

I had the briefest of moments to exchange pleasantries like you do, but not enough time to chat, so I determined that at the next opportunity I would go back.

And so I did – and on a couple of occasions too – but I never saw her again. We’ve often talked about TOTGA – The One That Got Away – but that particular girl was from a very different time and a very different era. Jackie was TOTGA from quite another epoch in my life and is probably the original one from which all standards are made.

Sometimes I wonder whatever happened to her.

Having had a play around on the bass, I’m ready for bed. The house is as quiet as the grave with everyone having retired and I suppose that I should really badger off to. But I’ve found the digital track to another album and I’ve made a start to re-record it.

But I’ll tell you all about that in the morning.

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Friday 12th January 2018 – IT’S JUST LIKE …

… old times in here. Here I am, sitting cross-legged on the floor (just like sweet Regina who’s gone to China) surrounded by piles of paperwork. Only difference is that there aren’t four cats circling around trying to work out which pile of paper you are actively working so that they could sit on it and stop you.

Yes, I’m having another “missing paper” session and so the easiest way to deal with all of this is to bring out all the papers that I can find, sort them into date order and then file them away now that I have bought a binder. And I reckon that I’ll have to buy some more too because this is going to be a long job.

After crowing for the last few days about how good my sleep hs been just lately, it’s inevitable that sooner or later it would come back to bite me.

And so after being thoroughly worn out by my adventures yesterday and aching all over, there I was, wide awake at 03:30.

Mind you, I did go off on my travels again. On a field, which strangely enough was the office car park of where I used to work between 1992 and 2004. I was in a Mercedes 814 bus watching the people walk by and I made some kind of cheerful comment to a girl going past. She made a petulant remark so I got out to speak to her. She was curious to know what I was doing in a bus – and it was a curious bus. There were the three seats in the fron and then a glass partition, and then the door to the passenger compartment. I was trying to explain to her how it all worked but I didn’t know either. She reckoned that it would have been just as well for me to walk to work, but I told her that I’d just come back from taking some people skiing. And our chat continued along those lines for a while.
Suddenly I realised that I had some work to do about fishing – or, more precisely, angling. The deadline was within the next hour or so and I’d done nothing, not to mention the fact that I knew nothing abiut it. I dashed into the building to see if anyone in the Reception knew anything but as usual they were very distant. And there sitting in the corner was my old colleague Frédéric – long-since retired. He was filling a cupboard there as if he had come back to work. Ordinarily I would have gone over to say “hello” but I was far too preoccupied right now.

I beat the alarm quite comfortably this morning and after breakfast I set about doing some things. And here’s something interesting that you might not believe (or, maybe, knowing me, you might).

For a project that I have on the go, I need a medical certificate. I doubt if I’ll pass it but you never know. And there are ony certain doctors who can do it – just one in Granville.

And so I phoned him – and his secretary told me that “Doctor so-and-so isn’t taking on any new patients”
“But it’s not a question of taking on a new patient” I explained. “It’s for a once-only medical examination and he’s the authorised doctor”
“It doesn’t matter” she replied. “He’s still not seeing anyone else”.
“You mean he’s going to turn down €45:00 for 10 minutes work? That’s the strangest thing that I’ve ever heard, and believe me, I’ve heard some strange things in my time”.
“Goodbye”. CLICK

So I’m going to have to travel all the way to Coutances for a medical. And I have to take all kinds of things with me, including a urine analysis. And I had that done in Leuven just now and I have the report, but can I heck as like find it?

Talking of phones, I also had to ring up Montreal and my storage facility. We’re having credit card issues as you know so my payments are falling behind. But with my new card I can go back up to date which is just as well, because otherwise they will foreclose on my camping gear and whatever else thereis in there.

Lunch was another load of soup with bread again. Took a while for the bread to go down but the soup itself was delicious and I’ll have to look out for some more of that.

And after crowing about how nice the weather has been this last few days, it’s been miserable, misty and overcast all day. And after lunch I had to go out. With this urine sample thing, if I can’t find my paperwork I’ll have to have an analysis and I need to know what to do and where to go.

So my route took me around the walls and down the steps to the pharmacie where they helpfully gave me a little container and told me where to go. I have friends like that of course.

Regular eaders of this rubbish will recall that parking features quite a lot on these pages.

bad parking granville manche normandy franceAnd here’s another miserable example of total and utter laziness and selfishness.

The school is just round the corner from here, and here’s a mother parked on the kerb waiting for her brat to come out. It’s just before chucking-out time and all of the school buses will be coming by here any minute now, as well as all of the usual traffic. And she’s blocking the free movement of traffic.

And if you look closely, there’s a free public car park just 50 metres further on, but her darling little angel is too bone-idle to walk that far.

Makes you sick.

For tea tonight I tried some rice with mixed vegetables and a frozen curry. The rice was difficult to eat but I eventually managed it, so that’s something I suppose. One day I’ll try some pasta again and hope that I’ll have better luck next time.

And my walk this evening too. I need to keep it up no matter how unsteady on my feet I feel.

As for the music, I’m up to Neil Young. There will always be a special place for him as far as I am concerned. When I was in a very bad place 25 years ago it was he who kept me going. He suffers from depression – which must be bi-polar, for if you listen to his music you can tell the songs that he wrote when he was “up” and the songs that he wrote when he was “down”.

I remember playing After the Gold Rush on a cach with Percy Penguin, and she enquired about the album
“Released in 1970” I said
“Bimmin’ ‘Eck” she ejaculated. That’s three years before I was born!”

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