Tag Archives: coliseum live

Saturday 15th July 2023 – I REALLY AM …

… fed up of all this.

By the looks of things, I can’t go anywhere or do anything without suffering for it afterwards. I went to the shops this morning as usual, and then spent most of the afternoon flat out asleep in my chair.

In fact I probably would still be asleep even now had I not had an attack of cramp again in one of my legs. And that was rather a shame because I was having a really good and interesting dream and the moment I awoke it all immediately evaporated and I can’t remember a thing about it.

Plenty of dreams during the night though. By the sound of what was on the dictaphone I was quite busy. I’d been cooking and made a big lentil curry. Afterwards I’d put the mixing bowl in the sink and filled it full of water but there was more waste stuff in there than I anticipated. When I tipped it all out into the sink it blocked the sink. The water level in the sink began to overflow so I had to start to scoop out all the stuff with my hands. There was tons of it. Even then although eventually it began to drain away there was still plenty of it left. I tipped the bowl out to empty it and tipped it into the bin, water waste and all but there was still that much stuff still in the sink that it blocked the sink again. I didn’t notice when I put the bowl back in again. It ended up being on top of what was in the sink. It was all an absolute awful mess. I was even contemplating taking the sink out and fitting a different sink at one time because I was certain that the waste trap would be blocked solid and it was such a difficulty to try to move it.

There was also the story of the English cricket team that played a match in Northern Labrador against some team or other. The Inuit were there watching. After the game the English cricketers moved away. A girl who had been watching found a cap left behind by one of the cricketers. She remembered whose cap it was so she walked all the way to their next destination, found out where they were playing and walked there. In the middle of the innings when there was a pause she walked on the field and gave him back his cap by putting it on his head for him. That excited a great deal of comment from all kinds of different people

I also had a really long rambling dream about going on holiday with a friend of mine. We reached the hotel so I alighted – I was on my crutches. Everyone swarmed off into the building. I had to hobble on behind. They were all sidetracked by all kinds of things going on when they arrived. I lost sight of my friend for the moment so I thought that I’d go to find my room. It was room M something. I had a look and the corridor M was miles away on the ground floor. I set off on my crutches. Some woman said where she was going. She said that she was hoping that someone young and fit would come with me to carry my bag. I apologised and pushed on. I somehow ended up in Canada on the border with the USA chatting to a young girl who was living there working in tourism. It seemed that she came from the USA living in a one-roomed shack on her parents’ property and drove a bus. As it happened I’d just won a bus on eBay, a double-decker. That had been the subject of quite some discussion amongst a lot of people. “Who’d Bought it?” “What were they going to do?” etc. We began to talk and ended up talking about all kinds of things. She found out that I was famous so she was pleased and said that she would tell all her friends. We chatted about life in Canada, life in the USA, about my friend in the USA etc. This was a conversation that went on for hours, another one of these conversations that made me feel really good in a dream. It all ended when I had an attack of cramp in my left leg and awoke.

It seems that most of my really interesting dreams are going to be interrupted by attacks of cramp these days. But at least I managed to remember that one.

To my surprise, I was up before the alarm too. Not by much, but by enough to make it a success. And after the medication, mails and messages I went and had a shower to make myself smell nice.

One of the parking spaces in front of Noz was vacant so I called in there. They had some more of those Chinese things so I bought another bag of them. They aren’t all that exciting but they are different.

There were a few other things in there too, together with some vegan Pesto. They had some a while back so I tried it and it was quite nice. I hope that this batch is as good.

Leclerc didn’t have anything exciting and I was wandering around with the impression that I’d forgotten something important. But I couldn’t think of what it might be so whatever it was, I came home without it.

It only turned out to be a small shopping excursion so I profited by topping up the supplies a little. Plenty of flour and stuff like that now, which is just as well as I have no fruit buns left so I need to make a batch tomorrow.

Back in here with my coffee and cheese on toast, and what ended up being a very, very cold second mug of coffee. Like I said, all this is becoming very depressing and I’m totally fed up of it.

Tea was a breadcrumbed quorn fillet and chips with some very sad salad. I should have checked how it was before going to the shops because it was all well past its sell-by date.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when I put the new hard drive in I had issues with the Graphics Card and needed to hunt down some new drivers. At some point during the proceedings my operating system (well, the computer’s – my operating system hasn’t been upgraded for years) must have performed an upgrade because when I went to fire up one of my graphics programs, it wouldn’t run.

Consequently whatever I was planning on doing after tea had to wait while I messed around configuring the Graphics Card and its drivers yet again. I hope that this isn’t going to become a regular feature.

Now that I’ve finished my notes I’ll dictate the stuff for the next radio program. That’s something that I can edit tomorrow.

Not tonight though, Josephine. Today has been one of those days that are better forgotten and the sooner I forget this one the better. I can start again tomorrow by making my fruit buns and see where that takes me. A lie-in will probably do me good but as usual, something will happen to disturb me.

Right now another album that sends me into a fit of depression has come round on the playlist. Arguably one of the greates ever live concerts along with COLOSSEUM LIVE, LIVE DATES by Wishbone Ash, Santana’s “Sight and Sound” (which surprisingly was never made into an album) and ALCHEMY LIVE by Dire Straits has to be LIVE IN THE CITY OF LIGHT.

It always brings me out into a terrible fit of nostalgia and I don’t know why because it doesn’t play any significant part in my life, as many other albums do. Maybe that’s why, I dunno. But sitting here listening to tracks like SOMEONE SOMEWHERE IN SUMMERTIME

“Somewhere there is some place, that one million eyes can’t see
And somewhere there is someone, who can see what I can see”

There certainly is, but they can’t get her arms out of the straightjacket.

Friday 26th August 2011 – I was up early again this morning …

… at about 08:30 in fact, even though it wasn’t until 04:30 that I went to bed.

Mind you, no-one could sleep with the amount of raid that was cascading down, and the noise that it was making. By the time that I had made my coffee, I reckoned that it was about 8 hours since I had taken the stats, and in that time 27.2mm of rain had fallen. And by the end of the day, we had had over 37mm all told. It never stopped raining and it was as grey as any November or February day that you might mention.

No possibility of working outside and so I started to collect together the tools that I’m taking to Canada. That led to something of a (very insignificant) tidying up on the first floor, and then a much-more-important tidying up up here and finding bits of paper.

But we did have a tragedy though. Do you remember the other week about the impressive media wall that I had built? Well, while I was sitting here drinking a coffee, the whole lot crashed to the floor and there were video cassettes and DVDs all over the place. Talk about chaos.

media corner attic les guis virlet puy de dome franceThis afternoon was spent therefore cleaning a load of old bricks, finding lengths of wood and then making some shelves.

You can see them in the photo – a nice cantilever arrangement at the top as well. That all works quite well and I hope that it lasts until I’ve finished the ground floor of the house and settled in, whenever that might be.

I was also interrupted – and very welcome interruptions they were too – by a series of phone calls. Dave from Hexham rang me and we talked about all kinds of things, including that he plans to come down here later this year and teach me plumbing. That ought to be exciting but I think that he’ll be plumbing the depths a little just there. I’ll definitely be out of my depth anyway.

Also ringing up for a chat were Bill and Percy Penguin. And that was nice too – I like talking as you know, and of course Percy Penguin isn’t mentioned in these pages half as often as she deserves to be.

I’ve also started copying some CDs to take with me to play in the hire car. I’ve done three just now, and having read this blog quite often just recently I bet that you can guess what they are.

Yes, Colosseum Live, Made In Japan and Liege And Lief. Say no more. It just happens that I’m listening to Made in Japan right now.

And it’s still raining as well.

Sunday 10th July 2011 – I’m going to bed in a minute…

… in fact, I’ve already crashed out once this evening . . . and so I won’t have the tine to upload any of the maybe 20 photos that I took today.

folk dance music musique danse folklorique st hilaire pres pionsat puy de dome franceThis morning I was awake at 10:00 and by 10:10 I was out of the house and away. At 10:15 I was round at Marianne’s in Pionsat and we went off to St Hilaire pres Pionsat for the fete touristique that was being held there.

That was probably the most interesting of the ones that we have done so far. There was a group of local musicians and a team of local folk dancers and they put on quite a show, the dancers dragging people up out of the crowd and teaching them the moves.

old chateau demolished st hilaire pres pionsat puy de dome franceAfter the fete touristique had finished Marianne took me across the village to see where the old chateau used to be.

It was formerly quite big and quite well-known, and its demolition was rather a controversial matter. Marianne, who merely mentioned the fact in her book Le Canton de Pionsat, was the subject of some … errr … criticism and adverse remarks despite the way that she phrased her remarks. Had I written the book I would have expressed things differently.

water source waste pipe st hilaire pres pionsat puy de dome franceWe went for quite a walk around the village in the lovely weather, and discovered quite a few exciting things about the place.

This looks as if it might be a spring, and it emerges in the side of one of the houses in the village. If it is, I’m not quite sure about what looks as if it might be a waste pipe from a sink draining into it. That doesn’t sound like a good idea.

mill race st hilaire pres pionsat puy de dome franceThere were lots of other things to see here too. This looks very much like a millpond to me and as we looked around, we saw what might have been an old mill-race. this leads me to believe that at one time there might have been a mill here in the village – not that that would be anything of a surprise.

I also saw an old Peugeot van – either a D3A or a D4A – in someone’s garden but it was surrounded by all kinds of stuff and I couldn’t have a clear shot at it with the Nikon D5000.

brocante marcillat en combraille allier franceThis afternoon I went off to the brocante at Marcillat en Combraille. The Combrailles is the brocante capital of the world and the brocante season is now in full swing. I’ll be going to plenty more of these throughout the summer.

But today was good, and for three reasons too.

  1. I met Karl and Lou from Lapeyrouse. We had a wander around together and then went for a coffee and a good chat. It’s nice to meet good friends.
  2. I met a guy who does roof cleaning and facade cleaning on big buildings. We got talking about his cherry picker and it extends to – would you believe – 100 metres in height. And he hires it out too! Yes, no more clambering up ladders and scaffolding for me if I’m installing a wind turbine on someone else’s property. I’m going to do the job in comfort. In fact, thinking on, a cherry-picker might be a useful addition to the fleet.
  3. I made a few good finds. The 12-volt to 7.5 volt adaptor was fine for 50 cents, but the small tripod for €4:00 was excellent. I have a really decent heavy duty tripod that lives in Caliburn and that comes in extremely useful, but it’s far too big to tote around on my travels. This new one folds up to about half the size and so it will fit comfortably into my suitcase of backpack if I’m going for a wander around.
    Star of the show though is a 12-volt motor rated at 50 amps. That’s 600 watts or so and that’s a lot of 12-volt power. I have a bench-saw without a motor and this motor will run that a treat. I can also convert an old washing machine to 12-volt with a motor like this – it will run a twin-tub no problem. And the motor was only €2:00 as well. That was a find!


And so after crashing out I had tea and I’ve been listening to music. I bought a pile of CDs for my birthday – they are all good but some of them are magnificent.
I don’t need to say anything about Liege And Lief by Fairport Convention. It’s the best folk-rock album ever, and I bought it to replace an old worn-out tape recording. That’s another album that has not been off my playlist for 35 years, and the “additional track” of Sandy Denny singing “Sir Patrick Spens” has to be worth the price of the album alone.
Made In Japan by Deep Purple is another outstanding album. It’s one that impressed me back in the mid 70s when it first came out but the thing that got me was why I never ever owned a copy of it. It’s hard to imagine that it’s taken me 35 years to get my hands on a copy of it. That’s a long time.
The third, though, is something else. The subject of the group “Colosseum” came up in a conversation a whle ago and I was obliged to admit that I had never heard anything by them. I’m one of these people who think that there’s no place for saxophones in a rock band, and I never really rated Chris Farlowe’s singing all that much. But there was a copy of Colosseum Live for sale on the internet at a reasonable price and so I took the plunge. And I’m astonished! I can’t believe just how good this album is. It’s a proper jazz/blues album featuring jazz/blues played just how it ought to be played – nice long jamming tracks which – just for a change – are tuneful and meaningful and contribute to the whole. Chris Farlowe’s singing still grates on me but it actually fits in with the music, and his life performance and stage ad-libbing are just superb. “Take me Back to Lost Angeles” has taken my breath away. I can’t believe that I’ve waited so long to get to grips with this group and this album.

In other news, my other friend Marianne from Brussels has had her first novel published. When I get the ISBN I can publish a link to it. What with Rhys’s High-Speed Photography book, Liz about to start work on the Memoirs of Strawberry Moose and the first Marianne’s book on Pionsat as mentioned above, I’m in danger of being left behind by my friends.

I need to get my Trans Labrador Highway book up and running PDQ.