Life, The Universe and a Cup of Tea Please

Went to Chester today - would you believe it, for the first time - for an interview with an agency I’ve registered with.

I saw it as a good omen - if I ever believed in such things, which I don’t - so let’s just say it raised my spirits to see three Angels in the town centre, two on trumpets (don’t know enough about brass to tell you if they were B flat or not) and one on accordion, blasting out ‘My Way’.  There wasn’t much in the cap that was on the ground, but they were clearly enjoying themselves, the kind of group Fitzroy would have approved of, the Keep Music Live brigade and sod if we’re not really that good.

Such visits to relative civilisation, Llandudno I suppose being the closest place with more up market shops, but Chester has more so, this could get me thinking am I really the country mouse that I believe myself to be?

Yes - I don’t think I could last more than a couple of weeks in a major town now, think I’m used to my blood pressure being somewhat lower than before.

moar funny pictures

It’s been too long since I last posted or did anything at all with That Angel Look, and I could lie and say I’ve been busy (which is true) but I’m on here every single day.

Enjoying the tennis and I really am torn.   Would love to see a British guy finally win Wimbledon after God knows how long; watching Murray on Saturday, the guy is getting more powerful by the year and rather than the Hope you had with Bates, Henman and Rusedski (the latter, frankly, was difficult to regard as British, no matter how hard you tried), suddenly we are faced with someone who not could, but will win a Grand Slam one day.  On the other hand, as excited as I could get about this, Federer has been my favourite ever since I saw a match he played at Wimbledon, I dunno, probably about 8 years ago.  If he wins Wimbledon, he will not only regain his title, but be number 1 in the world again, beat Sampras’s record of 14 Grand Slams and the cherry on the cake will be baby Federer not long after.

A Federer/Murray Wimbledon final would probably have me running shrieking into the hills (yeah, probably stark bollock naked) unable to bear watching.

Over reaction?  Yes, actually.  But compared to the over reaction from Michael Jackson’s fans after his death, I think that’s pretty tame.

Ah and my reviews are posted on SHOTS.  One Karen Campbell (which I liked) and one Michael Stanley (hmmm…).   I have five more to do.

Told you I was busy.

There are times when I feel homesick, even now.  It can sometimes be triggered by hearing something like Dire Straits Sultans of Swing; “Way on down south, way on down south, London Town”. I miss the River Thames, and the pretty parts of the riverside, Richmond Hill, Chertsey, Weybridge, the water glistening in sunlight and the ducks quacking.

Today, we did something very rare for us, on the spur of the moment we decided to go up Great Orme in a cable car (and nearly scared the bejeebers out of ourselves).  We got to the top, after our stomachs had completed several back somersaults, and looked around at a 360 degree panorama of pure, spectacular beauty.  Yes, I have been up there before, by car, but the fear we had to get over to reach that point, made the trial worthwhile.   I welled up with emotion as I thought; this is home.  This awesome landscape is where I live, and where I’ll probably stay for the rest of my life.

Yeah, there will be times that I think fondly of Richmond on Thames borough, Surrey etc, but the feelings that I experienced today will stay with me the rest of my life.  I finally feel that this really is home.

I’m surrounded by books.  Last time it got this bad, I had to consign a few of them to Amazon Marketplace, or, for the few which were so badly damaged, or just plain bad, they ended up in the bin.

Some people I’ve met who read books don’t keep hold of them; they have the same attitude towards films, frequently, once you’ve seen it once and you know the ending, why see it again.  So it is with books.  But my favourite ones are always read again and again, and often (well, at least up to the fourth time) I found I missed something.  A good book matures, I find, the love of books that my grandfather wanted me to inherit but never really found an interest in until about 5 years ago.

And now I find myself with an (unpaid) part time job of reading, and writing reviews for SHOTS and I’m dead nervous about it.  I’m currently reading a book sent by them which has so many superlatives written about it on Amazon that I feel almost obliged to like it.  Actually, it’s pretty good.  But can I get those feelings into words?  No-one’s opinion ever seems to match mine.  But I was always told individuality is what matters, not going with the flow, cos everyone else does too.  Nah, never been my thing.  Not so much a brebis galeuse as a brebis blanc cassé.  Always putting my foot in it.

Having a shitty weekend as well, which doesn’t help my rather mixed up mood.

Two new windmills have popped up on the Irish Sea.  Well, I say ‘popped up’ - we’ve been watching the employees of npower Renewables go back and forth, laying this, tweaking that, keeping the residents of Colwyn Bay awake (seriously) for months now.

My stance in the whole wind power debate?  The argument that tourism is being affected, to me, is just a bit questionable.  Rip-off Britain did for tourism, not windmills.  After all, Holland made a feature of them, and my other half reckons they should paint ours pretty colours and make a proper spectacle of them.  Actually, it’s only a matter of time before one of the locals erects a Welsh flag on one of them.  That I would pay to see.  Yeah, so I’ve heard that companies are only just breaking even with them, and long term we should feel the benefits (well, the electric companies might).  And the things are so precious, in very high winds they are disabled.  It is really weird when it’s blowing 40+mph out there (which occurs here several times a year), slates are falling off, trees are bending backwards and those windmills are not going round.  You’d thought that a day’s worth of that could power most of Denbighshire for a year.  Seems they’re too scared of the bloody things breaking.

All the same, people laughed at solar power in the 80s.  You needed really bright sunlight to get semi-decent wattage making the whole concept a joke.  Now, there are houses powered by solar energy from our very changeable climate, giving back electricity to the power stations.  So I figure that as solar power improved, so will wind power.  Prove to me it really won’t work, then I might go out on a protest march.  Perhaps.  If I haven’t got anything better to do.  I think they’re quite pretty actually, and if they put house prices down round here, all the better.

***

Mike Ripley contacted me today saying that Allison and Busby are not going to release Angels Unawares in paperback format.  Although, doubtless, they have their reasons, it’s put a downer on my day and is perhaps another nail in the coffin for the entire series.  I note that my review on Amazon has gone from ‘helpful to 0 out of 1′ to ‘helpful to 2 out of 3′.  Someone out there other than me likes the series, in fact, I’ve e-mailed a couple of them.

Could get angry about it.  Could want to do something about it.   Such energies could be better served elsewhere, perhaps.  Somehow I think I’ll just carry on waving this little flag of mine cos no other bugger seems to.  And, you know, it feels good to be working for underdog Angel, and I’m sure there’s a Rule of Life in there somewhere.

There is a bit towards the end of the film American Graffiti where a guy who is about to leave home for college is trying to get in contact with a girl, and is trying his luck by getting a dedication out on the airwaves.  He goes straight to the god of the airwaves, Wolfman Jack, the guy that knows all, sees all and is the voice of the generation.

CURT
I’m looking for a girl.

MANAGER
Aren’t we all. She ain’t here. Come on back to the booth.

Curt walks around through a few more glass doors and ends up in
the booth with the manager.

The manager sits down and leans back, turning a fan to blow on
his large chest. He’s a large, friendly looking man; he wears a
Hawaiian shirt. He sucks on a popsicle. Curt stands awkwardly.

MANAGER
Hey, have a popsicle. The ice box just broke down and they’re
meltin’ all over the place. You want one?

CURT
No. Thanks. Listen, ah…

MANAGER
Have a popsicle.

CURT
Are you the Wolfman?

MANAGER
No, man. I’m not the Wolfman.

Now we know that this guy is the Wolfman, or is he? Some of us may be taken in, the rest of us are asking, why does he lie? You may feel disheartened that a hero such as he is being so unfair to the kid.

The manager leans forward and picks up a spool of tape. He holds
it up as a magician would for audience inspection, then puts it
on a machine. A record is about to end. As it does the manager
punches some buttons and the record segues into a Wolfman howl
and then the distinctive Wolfman voice takes over. The manager
adjusts the monitor volume down and sucks his popsicle.

WOLFMAN (voice over)
Who is this on the Wolfman’s telephone?

DIANE (voice over)
Diane.

WOLFMAN
How’re you doin’, Diane?

DIANE
All right.

The station manager smiles at Curt, who is watching the tape and
blinking lights of the large console.

 MANAGER
That’s the Wolfman.

CURT
He’s on tape. The man is on tape.

Here’s the rub. The Wolfman is on the tape.

The guy later goes on to say:

Listen, it’s early in the morning. Now, I can’t really talk for
the Wolfman. But I think if he was here he’d tell you to get your
ass in gear. Now, no offense to your home town here, but this
place ain’t exactly the hub of the universe, if you know what I
mean. And well–I’ll tell you this much–the Wolfman does come in
here now and then, with tapes, to check up on me, you know, and
when I hear the stories he got about the places he goes. Hell,
here I sit while there’s a big beautiful world out there, don’t
ya know. Wolfman comes in last time talking about some exotic
jungle country, handing me cigars he says was rolled on the naked
thighs of brown beauties. The Wolfman been everywhere and he seen
everything. He got so many stories, so many memories. And here I
sit sucking on popsicles.

Last weekend a bunch of DJ’s relived the pirate radio days on board LV18 in Essex. It was great, really, but somehow the magic has gone. What is really missing is the voice from a box, you know, the one you thought could conquer the world, sees all, knows all etc, and now, by virtue of a webcam, you know that they are grey and balding. Does it matter? No, providing that you know that although DJ’s like Johnnie Walker (who looked great by the way, my gosh, he’s one of the few personalities I actually fancy like mad) probably helped change the face of music in the UK, they are human and not the be all and end all as life as we know it. Behind the microphone, he’s Johnnie Walker. Away from it, he is Peter Dingley. I got to thinking that it’s no wonder that some personalities ‘lose it’ if they have to be someone else hour after hour, day after day. And Johnnie/Peter did ‘lose it’ once or twice. Didn’t stop him being a legend, but it does make him human.  I bet there were times when he wished he could say, nah, I’m not Johnnie Walker.  He’s on those tapes there.  Blessedly, Johnnie found his sanity, although getting shockingly close to the Great Rocumentary in the Sky, and gradually Peter and Johnnie became pretty much the same person.

Neil Tennant once wrote “When you’re young, you find inspiration in anyone who’s ever gone”.  I think we should remember that inspiration is the key, and not emulation, and definitely no pretence.

The alpha site is now mirrored on nohiddenfee.

Just for the heck of it.

Good day today, got a lot done and I’m well proud of myself

However, got some news from another source which irritated and saddened me and made me lose interest in writing.

It seems that, to quote a good friend of mine, if something seems too good to be true, it usually is.

Oh - and yeah, I’ve switched off comments.  You know where to get me if you really have something to say.  Humbug.

My contract with ECO is close to expiring.  thatangellook.co.uk is registered until 2010, and I really aught to think a bit more about what else to do to it, or just let it be another hedgehog on the information superhighway.  That aside, I need to sort out a web hoster.  Hmm…