When to throw the towel in

It’s hard to find your place in this world. No matter how talented you are, or how hard or for how long you’ve worked at something, it may not be good enough.  It might be, but if those with the power to make or break you don’t agree, then it ain’t.

The old adage of “it’s not what you know, but who you know" greases the wheels across all industries, blocking the path of talented people. Oh, and those with big pockets buy their (and their kid's) way in the world too. Throw in to the mix the tick-box criteria that we're up against, a focus on low denominator qualities, and fear of socio-political agendas, then the wall comes right up and there’s no way to knock it down. You’re marginalised, just because of who you are, no matter what.

In this messed up world, we have to cling to what we can, and keep going. However, when you know the odds are stacked against you it's understandable that so many bow out, thinking what is the point of  putting the effort in when your destiny is out of your hands.

I often draw solace in music. Some tunes just resonate. For the utter despondency I feel when the world is  against everything I do, the only song I feel covers it is "I just wasn't made for these times" by The Beach Boys. 

It helps. There's no solution, no way forward. But Brian Wilson's lyrics... well at least I can relate to them. 

Supertogether Band

 Discovering Supertogether, together

In the late 1980s I got introduced to a band called The Seers by one of my school friends.

 The moment I put the needle down on the 12" vinyl of  Freedom Trip I knew this was the band for me.

When they broke up in 1992, around the time of their second album, Peace Crazies, it left a gap in the lives of many music fans. Personally, that gap was made worse by the fact I never got to see them perform live. 

Having seen many bands I enjoyed my teen years get back together, I always hoped The Seers would do too, but as the band approach their sixties it seems that won't happen. 

A while ago, I discovered some of the members of The Seers have been in other bands since then, so, this post is about one of those bands and I'll probably do something on the other bands too (though, I'll probably include them in here too.)

My main reason for doing this is to save myself having to dig around for material when I want to listen to them. This is the cased with Supertogether, because I haven't found any of their music for sale or to stream. 

Supertogether are a band put together around 2011 (possibly earlier), fronted by Steve "Spider" Croom of The Seers, and include Billy and Richie from The Heavy Drapes (both are now in The Godfathers). 

Material first started appearing on the internet via Bandcamp in 2011, but with members of the band far apart as Scotland and Bristol it seemed difficult for them to get things done. The last post (at the time of writing) on their Facebook page was 2018. It's now July 2022 and their debut album, Bitterness and the switch, still hasn't materialised. 

It's a shame because the tunes that have been shared to date are awesome.

So, let's start off with the videos that are out there. Here you go.

There are a few places to listen to audio tracks too. Probably the place with the biggest selection of Supertogether's material is Reverbnation with 9 tracks (includes 2 versions of Powder Blue). If you pop over to Steve Croom's Soundcloud page you will find 3 more (okay, one of them, Loveless, is on Reverbnation), Here you will find more of Steve's tracks from his other bands, Zoomer, Teenage Girls and some of his solo stuff.  Their bandcamp page only has one track, Powder Blue again. 

So, that it really. Well, all I can find out about Supertogether. Will they ever put the finihsing touches on the debut album and perhaps play some gigs? Who knows. I hope so. 

Dissident Citizen - The King (of the Slums)

Following the sad passing of Charley Keigher (aka Charlie Keighera) on 28th November 2021, I've had the album Dandelions on loop in my car.

I wanted to post something, some way on honouring Charlie (yes, the spelling was varied over the years), but all I could think of doing was sharing some videos from YouTube to perhaps spread the word. 

Up until recently I've kept my King of the Slums (K.O.T.S. were initially called Slum Cathedral User) fandom to myself. I discovered them in my early teenage years in the late 80s, hearing Sarah Curtis'  screeching raw violin and Charley's northern poetic lyrics on BBC2's Snub TV/Reportage. They were my band, part of my teenage identity. Yes, I was too young to see them live, but I felt connected. 

I tried to get my high school mates interested, but they were too busy listening to goth . When I moved to sixth form everyone was listening to shoe-gazing indie. In all fairness, I was too, but I kept K.O.T.S. close. After they split following their 3rd album, Blowzy Weirdos, I though that was that but I kept looking, hoping. 

It was a long wait. And then another long wait, followed by an even longer wait before they finally came back in full force. Discovering Machine Gun Witchcraft album in 2005 was joyous, 2009's The Orphaned Files even more so. 2017's Manco Diablo brought a full return, with 2 more studio albums to follow. I was one happy K.O.T.S fan.

To fans and music lovers, Charley's passing came out of the blue. Lots of great artists have come out of Manchester, but Charley was the most under-appreciated. Perhaps like all great artists he will be appreciated even more in years to come. I know I'll still be listening. 

Thanks for music, Charley. I consider it memorable.

Fanciable Headcase

Barbarous Superiors

Weirdo

Virgin Mary/One Trick Fairy

Churchbells over Enlgand

Salt of the Earth

104 Words

We Are Albion

The word "Albion" has long fascinated me. 

Why? Well, it's the suffix of my football team, West Bromwich Albion. 

There are a handful of suffixes used by football teams; United, City and Town are the most common. There are a few Rovers, Wanderers, Athletic, County and Albion teams. And there are a bunch of teams with unique suffixes (e.g. Tottenham Hotspur, Accrington Stanley and Preston North End) and then a few with no suffix at all (Everton and Liverpool, for example). 

These suffixes have meaning to them. City and Town being the most obvious. United less, obvious, but I understand it may have originally being from more than one team or location coming together. Albion as a word has a historic meaning that many may not know of. A quick flick through the dictionary and it is defined as a name for England or Britain, especially the England or Britain of ancient times. That makes sense, with Alba being Celtic word for Scotland and there are similar Irish, Welsh and Cornish words too. I didn't study latin at school (too young and not posh!), so I have to go on what I can research about the etymology, and there is a suggestion that it may come from the latin words for white (albus) or hill (alb). 

Coming back to the topic of football monikers, these suffixes are often used locally in place of or in addition to nicknames. Where you live you might refer to your local team by the suffix as well as the nickname. (FYI, in addition to Albion, West Brom also have the nicknames of The Baggies and Throstles).

In some instances these suffixes can become synonymous with one club. United? Man United. City? Man City. Rangers? Glasgow Rangers. Real? Well, it's not going to be Real Salt Lake is it? Sorry, to the Claret and Cobalts. It's always going to be Real Madrid. And Albion? West Bromwich Albion.

Such global association of a suffix to your club comes with history. By history I mean both being the first, but also footballing success history too. I'd like to add that perhaps that success should be before the Premier League money started sloshing around and ruining the game and skewing the odds.  Take a look at the domination of domestic trophies by a handful of cash-rich teams since 1992, and compare to the previous 100 years. Sadly the league is the play thing of billionaires....

Modern football fans have a very short attention span, and get all of their information from the internet. Sadly, all it takes is for one false article or a mischievous (or malevolent) edit on Wikipedia for incorrect information to become fact. These incorrect facts can then get referenced elsewhere. Just ask comedian Dave Gorman! I think it's sad that people no longer take the time to explore and learn about the culture and history and evolution of our beautiful game, and all their information comes from their phone or TV. 

I've seen several poorly researched articles incorrectly suggesting Brighton & Hove (who I understand were the 5th team, behind WBA, Witton Albion, Albion FC [in Uruguay] and Albion Rovers) as the first team to use the Albion suffix - nope, wrong answer! Sorry if that sentence is a bit clumsy - I was cautious to not phrase it in such a way that it could be misconstrued by some search bot.  I suspect the people who wrote these articles only skim the internet and watch just Premier League* on the telly.

* WBA ("The Albion") have spent the most seasons in  top flight football (even just the Premier League) out of all of the Albion's. Read to the end for more on this fact.

Fun fact: I keep tabs on every team that has dropped out of the EFL. Teams shouldn't be forgotten by football fans just because they're not on the telly every week or on social media channels. Seriously, if you love the game then go beyond the glory of the top flight leagues. Watch out for Rayo Vallecano instead of Real Madrid (incidentally, Albion and England legend Laurie Cunningham played for both of these clubs), take in grass roots games, look at the history of your club, their rivals, their influences (for name, kit, badges etc.) For example, do you know why Juventus play in black and white stripes? I bet not many modern football fans do. 

Formed in 1878 as West Bromwich Strollers (cool suffix, right?), Albion changed to West Bromwich Albion in 1880. Albion, were one of the 12 founding members of the Football League, along with  Accrington, Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Burnley, Derby County, Everton, Notts County, Preston North End, Stoke (they didn't have the City suffix at the time), and Wolverhampton Wanderers. The league commenced in 1888. When it was formed it didn't need to be known as the English Football League because it was the first. It wasn't until 2016 that for some reason the powers that be decided to rebrand the Football League. 

So, West Bromwich Albion were the first team in the whole world to be known as Albion. And they're the most successful too.  

Here's some other Albion facts for the uninitiated. 

• West Brom were founded by factory workers. Their initial name West Bromwich Strollers came about because they walked to Wednesbury to buy a ball. 
• Albion have worn their famous blue and white striped home kit since 1885.
• The bird on the club badge is a Throstle (a song thrush), which is perched on a hawthorn branch. 
• They have been champions of England once (1919–20), and have been runners-up twice.
• They are the only team to win promotion and win the FA Cup in the same season.
• Albion have won the FA Cup 5 times, having made the final 10 times (prior to the Premier League era WBA were 5th most successful team in the FA Cup).
• They are 11th in England's all-time top flight table (the next nearest team with the Albion suffix are 49th with only 10% of  The Albion's point tally).
• The ground is named The Hawthorns because the location where the ground was built was covered in hawthorn bushes.
• The Hawthorns is the highest ground above sea level of all English professional clubs.
• They reach the quarter finals of European Cup Winners' Cup in 1968-69
• WBA reached the quarter finals of the EUFA Cup in 1978-79
• They lost in the English Final of the Anglo Italian Cup in 1995-96
• West Brom were the first English club to sign a player for over £1/2M (David Mills from M'boro in 1979).
• On 23/01/22 Blackburn and West Bromwich Albion set a new record in the Premier League by fielding players from 22 different nations in the same game among the 27 players used in the game.
• Players from 64 different nations (at the time of writing) have played for WBA
• 700+ players have played for West Brom, with player surnames starting with every letter in the alphabet except X! 
• They were the first team to avoid relegation in the Premier League having been bottom at Christmas (and the only team to avoid the drop whilst being bottom on the final day)
• Out of all the clubs to provide players for England, West Brom are 10th position, having provided 45 players to date (Spurs have provided the most with 78 at the time of writing).

Okay. I've got other things to do be doing, so I'll draw this post to a close.

I guess I wanted to make you think a bit more about the names of football teams, understand the history a bit more, not take things at face value or take what you see written on the internet (except this post, obviously, as it is bona fide 100% accurate at the time of writing) or social media as facts without doing your own research.

And in case there was any doubt:-  West Bromwich Albion were definitely the first football team to use the Albion suffix moniker, and are the most successful Albion team in the world. So, yes, we are Albion. The Albion. 

Oh, hello. New MJT site.... again!

 What can I say, the official Mark Towers website has had another facelift.

It's had a good tidy up and I'm pretty happy with it now, so I don't think it'll change much for a few years.

Click here to take a look. 

Rather unlike me, I forgot to mention The Christmas Starfish was updated and re-released last year. 

And.... I had a new book published. Also last year. Pretty slack of me, I know! The new book is called Strawberry Scoreberries. 

New MJT website

After many years looking sorry for itself, MaJaTo/marktowers.co.uk has finally been updated, and now I have been able to link to all my projects in one place.

Here's a sneaky peek for you. Click on the image to take a more in-depth look. 

Quidco Is A No Go

I've always been a bit dubious of the cashback model.

The model works okay with credit cards. Afterall, the reward is being paid by the credit card company who pay based on your spend. Pretty straight-forward. And you could see what is in it for them. They charge companies to use their services and of course they can charge interest to card holders too if they don't pay the full amount off monthly.

But the likes of Quidco, Top Cash Back, etc, well, they just come across as a bit shifty. I can't really see how they make their money, but obviously they do. So, they have a vested interest in roping people in to using their service. The more you use them the more they make. And, one suspects, even if your cashback claim is apparently unsuccessful, they still get paid.

I signed up for Quidco a few years ago. To be honest, I haven't used it much over the years, but have had a couple of not bad cashbacks here and there. However, customer service is pretty poor. Now, I don't know what it's like if you pay for Premium, but I don't think you should have to pay to get better service; They are already making money out of you using their website, so paying for them to any good at their job is a con. 

Having tried to use the customer service at Quidco a few times I gave up trying. The responses were so vague and generic and it seems they don't really care about the customer. I bet they don't even attempt to contact the company that was supposed to pay cashback. 

One of the biggest gripes I've have with Quidco is the inability to be able to rate the companies on their cashback fulfilment (or lack of) or to feedback directly to the company. Some are slow at paying, and some don't pay. And the declining email is so poorly worded it makes it out like it is all your fault. 

I'm a pretty honest user of these services and quite a meticulous person too. So, whenever I remembered to use Quidco (and there have been many an occasion when I forget they exist) I use it in the belief that I should be paid cashback for my purchase. 

For the first few years it had been okay, with only two companies (Dominoes Pizza and Interflora) refusing to pay the few pence cashback I was entitled to. Now, I know companies make mistakes and for a few pennies I'm not going to quibble. But over the past 12-18 months, the number of cashback declined has increased. And it seems to be the same companies over and over. 

Argos, Travelodge, Pizza Hut (and Dominoes) are all repeat offenders. And the worst? Halfords. Halfords have a 100% rate of declining cashback for me (several purchases via Quidco, and I've bought at least 10 bikes in the past decade from them - not any more.) Every time I have met the conditions. Seems iffy to me and I don't know whether it's Halfords (substitute Argos and any of the other rogue companies here) or whether its Quidco, though I suspect its both. It would certainly be good to have the opportunity to feedback to the companies and to rate them so other users can be warned. 

And the length of time for estimated payment has increased from a couple of months in most instances to nearly a year now for many companies. One could be suspicious and suggest Quidco are hoping that if they tell you it is declined after so long you won't have kept the receipts (and even then, on my experience, they've never overturned a claim anyway!)

Just Eat is a good example. At the start of the year they would pay in a week. Now it is over 6 months. That's poor. On the plus side, so far Just Eat has always paid. 

But going forward Quidco is a no-go for me. I'm not sure I want to even bother with any of the other cashback companies as I suspect they'll be just as bad. 

Holiday Money - A Cautionary Tale

Always shop around - That's great advice for pretty much everything you buy.

Here's another one for you - Check the small print too.

Oh and timing is everything.

Okay, that's all the motto's out of the way. Let's begin.

My family recently enjoyed a few days at Dinseyland Paris. It was bitterly cold, a bit snowy, and Eurostar did their best to scupper our vacation before it even started (more on that in another post sometime), but the long and short of it was we had a nice time.

Now, I've always been a believer in having a bit of local currency in cash form. It's good for the small purchases like drinks, and potentially for tipping too. It's always difficult to judge what you need so I get a rough daily figure in my head, times it by the number of vacation days then add another days worth on top. After all, I don't have to spend it all and I can exchange it back to good old pound sterling afterwards.

Now, as I said before, timing is everything. Thanks to half the population of the UK we're heading for economic oblivion (aka Brexit). Whether it's because they believed some sneaky politicians with extreme agendas (both nationalist and socialist), or "the good old days" viewed through glaucomic eyes clouded their viewpoint, or they had a misplaced/prejudiced fear of "foreigners", or (like all political graduates*) they failed to grasp very basic economics, or they hate kids, or..... well, whatever the reason, we're royally screwed. But we'll have blue passports again. Woo.

So, a few weeks before travelling I monitored the exchange rate.  It had of course declined over the last couple of years, and, whilst still generally on the downhill, it was steady-ish. So, with about 3 weeks to go I decided to buy.



Lesson 1 - Trust is Important
After a bit of shopping around, it seemed the best rates were online but either encountered delivery fees or/and meant buying in advance from brands I hadn't heard of and had no way of trusting.

I had bought dollars once at a great advance rate from a company who I hadn't heard of but they looked trustworthy, then I instantly regretted it. A quick post-purchase Google suggested the reviews were mixed and that the company may not be on a sound basis. I emailed straight away asking to cancel the purchase and to my amazement they refunded entirely. Surprising as a month later they went out of business. Phew!

Lesson 2 - Bargaining with my Loyalty
I like a bargain. I'll happily spend hours looking around for the option; Looking at coupon sites, and cashback sites (I use Quidco and have got a few hundred quid back over the years), comparison sites... You name it, I'll check it.

On this occasion there was little to differentiate the deals I was looking at. As well as rate, convenience was a factor, so being able to park at a supermarket collect my cash and go was a big factor.

Banks are notoriously stingy. Less so nowdays, but still there's always that likelyhood of hidden fees. So, if the rates look good I prefer supermarkets. The rates between Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury's were similar, though Sainsbury's was the only one to offer loyalty points. They offered a special rate for Nectar card holders, which made the rate ever so slightly better (without it, their rate was not as good.) Plus a few Nectar points would be earned for the transaction too (only about 5 points per £100, and as each point has a value of £0.005 it's not really worth it, though to be honest, Nectar is not worth it at all nowadays.)

As yet the Nectar points haven't appeared on my account, though it does say that it could take 60 days to appear.

See - I told you it was cold!

Lesson 3  - The Law of Sod
Having purchased Euros the exchange rate decided to climb over the next few weeks, ending up about €0.05 higher before we left. So, for every £100 we would've got an extra €5. That's more than an extra bouteille of pop in EuroDisney!

Lesson 4  - Read the Small Print
So, here's the crux of it. Whilst looking for rates of exchanging Euros back to GBP I noticed a few places offered to buy-back based on the purchase rate if you bought from them.

Be careful here, because this might require paying a guarantee fee which could end up being more than the potential benefit a rate-match would bring.

Hmm, I thought. I recall Sainsbury's mentioning buy-back when I bought my currency. So, I checked the website and indeed they did "buy back". Merrily I made my way to the nearest Sainsbury's and asked the exchange cashier what the buy-back rate was for Euros that I had purchased from them. Gleefully she pointed to the rate board and told me it was the same rate as everyone else, €1.2875. No special buy-back rate then. Grrr! It was worse than any rate I'd seen anywhere else.

Lesson 5 - Be Persistent
I could've settled for the poor rate Sainsbury's offered me. However, I felt I could do better. Afterall, I had already seen that Tescos and Asda already had better buy back rates (around €1.27), and I could always chance it with the online boys.

I was in the city already and heading towards the bank. As I walked past M&S shop window I spotted their rates - no harm in looking. €1.2571. Yippee - the best yest. Okay, I'm going to Barclays anyway. No harm checking. €1.24050 - Get proverbially in!

Yeah, I could've swanned around and checked a few more banks, after all, Barclays ain't the most generous, but I was pleased to find something considerably better than Sainsbury's. Kerchinng! It went straight in to my account too.

However, I do regret not looking in to the buy-back situation a bit more and considering buying from somewhere with a buy-back offer based on purchase rate. Another lesson to learn for next time!



*Seriously, the worst people to be engaged in politics in any way are students/graduates of politics. Ideologies don't work in the real world. Politicians need a grounding in economics, business, civil services and any other aspect of life that government touches. A staunch admiration for the model of communism within an isolated system or the ability to memorise the works of Karl Marx (as fascinating as they may well be) have as much practical use as a university degree in watching Coronation Street.
Some kind of personality test wouldn't go amiss either to ensure we stop the Trump's, Farage's and Corbyn's of the world before they even get started.  Find out what your MP studied, investigate how politically active they were as a student, what have they done before entering politics, and assess really what they stand for and how realistic this is before giving them your vote.
 

Looking for more stuff to read? Why not check out this article on buying Fortnite presents pop over to one of my other blogs, Majato Scribes (stories, poems etc),  Original StarWars, Random Stuff from My Life in the 70s,80s and 90s or the utter weirdness of Pocket Picture Taker.

If you read me

I've taken to writing very very very short fiction lately. Mainly 50 and 100 word fiction.  Not as quick to write as you would think as keeping it to the word limit is  challenge and of course it has to relay a story in that short space.

Anyway,  and a few have been published on other websites and I've added links to these on MaJaTo Scribes, as well as adding a few more to that blog too.

Here's a recently publsihed 50word story called Suburbia.

Fortnite's Alright? Certainly is for Christmas Presents!

Gah! Like all parents around the globe I'm sick to my back teeth hearing about blooming Fortnite!

"I was sat there waiting with my pump (pump action shot-gun) waiting to blow
em to smithereens....."
"Yeah, I was scoping the hills, sniping them as they came down."
"Whoah. The cube has moved. Dad! The cube moved and then it cracked and then (blah blah my brains outta here).... it was awesome!"
"I'm on level 99."
"Hah! You're a NEWB!*"
"Hah! NEWB skin! Gonna snipe them if I can be arsed!"
"Oooh, a Scar (a type of rifle, apparently). Scars are Cooool"
"Oi! That's my treasure! Mate, that's my treasure. Nah, you're alright mate. I've just been killed anyway...."
"Just one more game, Dad. It'll only take a few minuuuttesss....."
Etc etc etc.

Newb= Newbie = New to the game or considered such given the fact they haven't forked out a ton of money for a some virtual fancy-dress.

And so it goes on. After about 8 months it doesn't seem to be the fad I was hoping it is. So, with Christmas rocking around the corner I guess there is one positive we can take from all this. At least it gives us something to buy for the kids for Christmas!

When it comes to my two they've got all the equipment they need for football, a stock pile of books to read, they have pretty much lost interest in Lego and there's little point buying any other X-Box games until they stop playing Fortnite. 😄

So, if like me you find yourself facing the dilemna of what to buy your Fortnite-mad kids for Christmas I've compiled a few suggestions that might help.

I cannot "Floss". I've tried. Once. Maybe your little one can Floss like a Boss



Don't look like a complete Newb at school with this Fortnite back-pack, gym bag, lunch box and pencil case


Genuinely this is actually quite a good idea - Draw Fortnite like a boss!


Fortnite toys, games and stocking fillers. I have to say, though, a Fortnite Monopoly game? Wow! Just wow!



Get even better at playing the game. No more Newb status for you, sunshine! Anything that gets the kids reading is a good idea.


Oh, hello. It's actually coming out in disc format too! Perhaps for us oldies who don't get the online way of playing!


And, well, here's the best of the rest a.k.a miscellaneous.



 So, there you have it. That's just scraping the surface of the Fortnite related stuff out there. Hopefully this will help you find something for your Fortnite made kids (or adults!). This search has certainly helped me pick out a few items for upcoming birthdays and for Chrimbo. I'm pretty sure they'll still be in to this game in a few months time.

 Of course, if you're buying from Amazon then having Amazon Prime might help too.

Thunderclap

Like an Icelandic thunderclap, the sound of activity on my blogs in deafening. Ok, over-dramatic prose but still.... I have been very busy.

On MaJaTo Scribes I've taken to just coming up with stuff off the top of my head and typing it without any plan. Just to get the creative writing juices flowing.

 At the moment new posts are appearing every few days on Pocket Picture Taker and Random 70s/80s/90s blog too. Original StarWars has had a couple of recent posts too. I'll try to keep up the pace, people.

On NorfolkPlaces everything is pretty active too. It's the website's 7th birthday this month and it continues to grow, establishing itself as Norfolk's favourite and best independent tourism, leisure and lifestyle website.

 To celebrate this hive of activity, here's a fantastic song from A House, an Irish indie/alternative band from the 1990's. Tune.

From nowhere

After years on sporadic activity, today I've added two new blogs to the family.

Introducing Pocket Picture Taker - My phone takes pictures in my pocket. Without me doing anything. It's that simple. Rather than just delete them I decided I should create somewhere to post them.

Next up is Random Stuff From My Life in 1970s, 80s and 90s - Basically I'm having a bit fo a clear out and I keep finding lots of oddities from my youth. Some sentimental, some valuable (perhaps), some tat destined for the bin. I figured I would share this "stuff".

There have also been new posts on other blogs Original Star Wars and MaJaTo Scribes.

The King of Procrastination

The exertions of an early start, fleeting thoughts echo around my hollow head. The news. The emails. The social media. All checked. And checked again. For I am the king of procrastination and I wear my crown wearily. My domains are my domain. It's a kingdom of isolation. Indeed, the outside the world is frozen as I type. Hence the plagiarised line. :o)

So what brings me to blog on this here wintry day? Well, to avoid work of course. House work, health work (gym), my work (my domains), real work. No other reason, because the only other reason is vanity. And I don't do vain. At least, I don't think I do, but what do I know? Precisely.

Whilst I'm here I may as well poison your minds. Afterall, isn't that what kings and leaders have done for millennia? Not that I lead. But I don't follow either.

So, that poison. It's a poison of the soul, and poison can be good for what ails you. For you dear reader are quite probably sick. We all are. It's part of the human condition. We seek things that will make us feel better; Quick fixes that fade and leave a scar like butterfly stitching. We're here so fleetingly that we must grab stuff that makes us feel really better about ourselves for just that bit longer. Music is one of the few poisons that work for real.

So, the dispensary offers you a healthy dose of tunerificary (yep, I made that word up. It's not latin for terrific tune, but that's what it means. Or not. Call the police).

I force this perspective upon you. Maybe it fuses to your guts' inner lining. Imagine the rain, an inner city slum of desperation, hate, love, fear, hopeful hopelessness. An undercurrent eddies beneath the  skin. Oppression, suppression, class, race, religion. Friction, fact.  Forget all that, and close your eyes. Taste this. Feet it. Underappreciated, not forgotten. And still here.

"Up the Empire/Balls to the Bulldog Breed" - by King of the Slums, from the album "Dandelions".


The King of Procrastination retires to his jail of thoughts once more.

See, I told you.

Crazy! It's not even 10am in good ole Blighty and I'm doing the 2nd post of the day, as promised.

Just wanted to put a link up on here to the latest article on the fabulous NorfolkPlaces website.

A couple of days ago recent winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Kazuo Ishiguro, gave a talk at the UEA. NorfolkPlaces were there at this sold out event and so figured the big literature fans amongst you might be interested to see what Ishiguro had to say.

Click here to read the review of Kazuo Ishiguro's talk

There you go. That's probably it for the year now!

Back once again

Back once again for the renegade master D4 damager, power to the people Back once again for the renegade master D4 damager, with the ill behaviour....etc

Yep, these Wildchild/Fatboy Slim lyrics sprung to mind the instant I typed the post title "Back once again". That's more apt as a title than Take That's "Back for good" but "Back on the chaingang" (The Pretenders) is in the running too.

 Rather than post what I was going to post I think I'll just include some musical links instead (just in time for Christmas!). That way I get to do posts in one day, doubling last years' feeble effort!