we often forget how lucky we are

 on a Friday night I'm often knackered after a week at work.  A week at my well paid, comfortable job.  after putting the baby down to sleep I'm often sitting and, as always, I feel a bit brain dead.  sometimes I listen to music.

This evening I was listening to some jesus lizard music and remembering the great times when I saw them play live.  Then I realised that I was once lucky enough to see scratch acid play.  And then I remembered seeing the elephant 6 orchestra play enlightenment by sun ra. twice. and that was really fucking special.

and then i remember how fortunate I am.  how lucky I am.  I have a great wee family and a nice house and a good job and i've had amazing experiences over the years and nothing is perfect but it's important sometimes to just remember how good things actually are.

I hope all of you out there get to feel this good some times.

Mogwai number 1 album shocker

 It's very odd when someone you know ends up having the best selling album in the UK.  I've known members of mogwai for nearly 30 years and it's just amazing to see them do so well.  Hard work pays off!

WANDAVISION

 I spent a lot of my childhood reading Marvel superhero comics.  I think the first one I read was the UK weekly Secret Wars comic although I also read Spiderman and Zoids.  Prior to that I read the Beano and Battle Action Force, Star Wars Weekly and Transformers Weekly.  I loved it all and it was all mind rotting garbage but in a good way.  Comic books and punk rock made me who I am today.

I was always a bit of an obsessive kid, always wanting to read more and know more and understand more. I'm still a bit like that which is good and bad.  I was into Marvel in a big way, I read the official handbook of the marvel universe cover to cover and I learned all about the crazy, colourful minor characters of the Marvel Universe including all of the B listers and the C listers, like the Vision and the Scarlet Witch.

Now the Vision and the Scarlet Witch had a couple of limited series published in America in the early '80s and the stories in those comics were very off the wall.  Some of the weirdest comics out there with a mind bending storyline.  Definitely not mainstream and probably the product of some serious drugs.  Bad hippy drugs.

And it seems that Disney have made that mad shit into a TV series.

And I think to myself what a wonderful world.....

Black Country, New Road - the stage school Slint?

 Referring to a band as the stage school Slint is pretty cruel.  It's also unfair because their first album, 'For the first time' is actually pretty good.  Listening to it there are hints of Slint and Nick Cave and probably the Tindersticks all of which are positives in my mind.  

Musically they sound like they would be fun live although I don't think we will be seeing any live music for a while now.  This is probably more of an issue for me as the 43 year old father of a one year old.  I think my gig-going days are on hold for a while anyway.

The music has nice instrumental sections and some fairly funny lyrics.  Not much distorted guitar but some good dynamics.  Worth a listen.

Spiral season 8

 I've been watching Spiral for a long time now.  I first wrote about it on here in 2013 although I think I've been watching it a bit longer than that now.  It's hard to watch subtitled stiff with a young child but certainly worth it.

Series 8 is the final series and it is  edge of the seat viewing.  I was fairly certain that key members of the case would be bumped off at any time and when I made it to the last episode last night I was left satisfied. Spiral is a slow burner and, as is common with European drama, they do bad things to the cast and play on your emotions.  Paris is made to seem miserable.

Very enjoyable.  Watch it before the Tory party ban it for good!

COVID nutters

 The reality of the pandemic is clearly hard for some to accept.  It was always one of those existential fears that I had, having read lots of science fiction and studied biology and then medicine at university.  I'd read a lot about pandemics in the past.  I knew they were bad and that we were due one.  I knew it would probably happen.  It's just a bit of a shitter that it actually happened.

COVID has happened.  It's almost everywhere and it kills tons of people.  Accept it and deal with it.

Some people can't or won't accept it.  Some reach for a comfortable conspiracy theory to protect them from the brutal truth that humanity is sometimes insignificant in the face of nature and a wee virus could wipe us all out.  COVID-19 isn't going to eliminate the human race but it's still nasty.  We need to do what we can to reduce and avoid infections.  Vaccines, washing our hands, social distancing, wearing masks - all small personal sacrifices to reduce infection rates and reduce deaths.  Some people can't so this.  Idiots like Ian Brown of the Stone Roses and various quack doctors post mad shit on the internet and people believe them and that has consequences.

The UK government haven't helped.  Initial standard Eton arrogance quickly followed by bewildered blind  panic bolstered by exceptionalism from Dominic Cummings and standard avarice has muddied the water creating a fertile breeding ground for the conspiracy theory nutters.  We need a government of adults and the UK does not have this.  

We will be living with COVID forever.  We will probably need yearly COVID vaccines for some time and normality will take some time to return.

The big lesson is don't eat random wild animals.

Dystopian reality

 Over the years I've read a lot of dystopian science fiction, I've watched the movies and I've read the comics.  I never dreamt that I would be living the reality in 2021.  This morning I was out in the freezing cold queuing to get my first shot of the COVID vaccine, wearing a face mask.  I got on buses that were near empty and saw crazy people hanging around central station.

It's fucked.  On top of this, Donald fucking Trump continues to be the president of the united states of america, at least for the next couple of weeks and he basically incited an attempted coup that involved the storming of the capitol building in Washington D.C. by a bunch of freaks including fucking Ariel Pink.  In the UK we have an evil Tory government with Boris Johnston as out prime minister and cunts like Jacob Rees Mogg causing as much badshit as they can.

10,000 people in the UK have died with COVID-19 since Christmas leading to a grand total of 80,000 deaths related to a new disease in under a year.  Shit is majorly fucked up.

I miss my dad and some of my friends who are dead but in a way I'm glad they don't have to live through this shit.  I'm ok, I have a comfortable middle class existence but Scotland right now is fifty shades of bleak thanks to idiots voting for things like Brexit and the Tory party.

I hope the vaccine works at least a bit.  Not sure if anything will fix the damage to the UK after Brexit and COVID.  Hoping for Scottish independence but suspect that is unlikely.

The Mandalorian

 The best thing about 2020 is my son.

However, my son doesn't really have the international appeal of The Mandalorian which is really, really good.  A lot of 2020 is bad but The Mandalorian puts the ball at the back of the net every time.  If you haven't watched it I don't want to spoil it but there are some amazing scenarios in it.  If you love Star Wars you should watch it.  Now.

Sad story

 Randomly heard through Facebook that someone I used to know had died a few years ago.  The person was too young and had a difficult life.  

The person was really a friend of a friend.  I had asked myself, 'what happened to x?' and I looked on facebook and found an answer.  However, it isn't really an answer, only more questions that really are not for me to ask.

We all face difficulties in life and we all walk different roads.  I'm glad that I'm on my road and I gave my young son an extra cuddle this evening.  We have done some family stuff over the weekend and we'll do more during the week.  I'm a lucky man and I realise that not everyone is that lucky.

Mining youtube

I'm on holiday (whatever that means in COVID times) and the baby and my partner are in bed.  I've been listening to old nineties indie music on youtube and I've found a couple of curios.  A version of 'Dicso 2000' by Pulp with Nick Cave on vocals and beyond that, a pub rock version of the same.

The world is indeed a strange place.  

I was also watching some old Travis videos and Iw as struck by how young they all look.  They are all 4 or 5 years older than me but they looked like children in 1999, at the height of their success.  Odd.

It's late now and I better head to my bed.  I'll have stuff to do in the morning but the internet is a strange and interesting place at times.