The Hush Before the Silence

A rather splendid book

Boxing Day. A day to relax. A day to do precisely nothing; the square root of nothing, no less. There's even a formula for this prolonged bout of inactivity: e=√FA

That said, I am reading a rather splendid book at the moment, whilst simultaneously demolishing nearly half a tin of Quality Street. Oh, and I've hung a few pictures this afternoon that have been leaning against walls for far too long.

And I'm currently compiling a couple of playlists. Downtempo playlists, if you will; nothing too strenuous, nothing too upbeat. Not today. Not on Boxing Day.

Paul Weller bookends the first one with two different versions of My Ever Changing Moods - one of my fave Weller songs from his Style Council days. He did a rather tasty piano version 30+ years ago and then, last year I think, included it in a specially recorded BBC session - a version reflecting his now slightly reduced vocal range (Macca, a hero of Weller, does something very similar when he sings Beatles songs these days).

Then

Now

Wish You Were Here

Wedding of the Year 2018

2018. It's had its ups and downs, for sure; but with more ups than downs, definitely. All in all it's been a good year - well, it would be, it's got an '8' in there, hasn't it?

A lot of firsts; my eyes have widened and my soul deepened, that much I do know. I also know that, pretty much like last year, my end of year round up is very simple, being both compact and bijou:

Best Song: Paul McCartney - I Don't Know

Best Mixtape: Hong Kong Ping Pong 10

Best Wedding: James & Janneke

Best Bar/Pub: either Jenkins [Sherwood] or the Organ Grinder [Loughborough] - I really can't make my mind up
Best App: remove.bg Remove the background from any photograph Instantly (see 'Wish You Were Here' - below) 

Best Walk: Attenborough Nature Reserve. By a country mile

Best Breakfast: Warsaw Diner, Canning Circus
Best Gig: The Prodigy - Nottingham Arena

Best Podcast: Ruthie - Me & My Dad

Best Blog: What's It All About? [Alyson]

Best Radio Station: another joint 1st. prize - Soho Radio [London] / RTÉ Radio 1 [Dublin]

Best Radio Presenter: Pete Paphides

Best Book: The Chalk Man - C J Tudor (below)

Best Open Mic: The Running Horse - with a big thank you to Paul Carbuncle 

Once again a big thank you to everyone who looks in my shop window, and an even bigger thank you to those who trust to luck and cross the threshold... 

Have a peaceful Christmas

Thank you so much @cjtudor and everyone at @nottsmechanics for a great evening. Caz, you had me enthralled for the full 2 hours x pic.twitter.com/eeYbjZ9c5N

— John Medd (@JohnMeddUK) May 9, 2018

FFS

For Fox Sake

Text message from my cousin Ray on Thursday:

Fox On the Run came on
the radio...I nearly came 
with it. Fucking brilliant 
when a song like that creeps
up and surprises you 

Tell you what, give me 150 

words on why Fox On the

Run is so fucking brilliant

  and I'll put it up on the blog. 

John, this isn't quite what you
asked for - but do as you wish
with it. An ordinary Thursday
afternoon. Christmas themed 
background music dominated 
the airwaves. And then...the 
explosion. It's amazing that 
despite having 24 hour access
 to one's musical preferences, 
when one of them springs 
unexpectedly from a radio 
station, it's inexplicably 
different. It's a joyous three
and a half minutes of nostalgia
that no pre-planned station can
 bring. March 1975. Sweet. Fox 
On the Run. Yes, lyrically it's
bitter, criticising as it does 
somebody whose glory of youth 
has deserted them. 'But the rest of 
you is out of place.' Hardly a 
compliment. Not being 
appropriately trained, I can't
identify what its musical qualities 
are. To be honest, I don't care. 
But what an ensemble. Like so 
many great Sweet songs, it didn't
quite make the top, being denied 
by the hysteria of Bye Bye Baby. 
This is a matter which has recently
been ignored amid the apparently
more significant Brexit issue, but is 
still one I intend raising with my 
MP on March 30th 2019. It's
never too late to gain justice.

Perfect. Thank you.

The Sweet - Fox On the Run (1975)

Sunburst Finish

Sunburst Finish (Acrylic on Canvas)

The Woodlands Gallery (about to enter its fifth year, and now located in Nottingham) has recently acquired two new paintings. Yep, the brushes came out for the first time in ages yesterday and here they both are.

Sunburst Finish, I think it's safe to say, owes very little to the 1976 Be-Bop Deluxe* album of the same name, but the colours and texture cried out Sun as I was working on it yesterday - despite the fading afternoon light on the canvas.

Wood Embers (Acrylic on Canvas)

Wood Embers on the other hand is, excuse the pun, something of a slow burner. I wasn't jazzed with it at all while I was painting it. It's only when it began to dry that the colours bled through. The title, meanwhile, came a little while later...

* Be-Bop Deluxe really did try and set the world alight, but always seemed to be punching above their weight. Being neither Glam nor Prog in the mid seventies, and with one eye on the impending new wave, they somehow got left behind in a world that loved the idea of a band like Be-Bop Deluxe, but didn't necessarily want to buy their records or foot their ladder as they tried to climb it. Shame, really, as Bill Nelson - Mr. Deluxe - knew how to write good songs. Like this:

Be-Bop Deluxe - Sleep That Burns (1976)

Remember Me

Foolproof

If there's a bigger ball ache than remembering old passwords, retrieving forgotten passwords and/or resetting new ones then please tell me; because I really don't think there is one.

And as the majority (alright, all) of my passwords are variations on a theme, I'm buggered if I can remember which ones do or don't have an uppercase letter, do or don't contain a number, and do or don't have a 'special' character; which is why, if left to me, they would all be 123456 or ABCDEF. Sorry, make that aBCDEf1@, no, hang on, I think it it was ABCdeF?100. Oh, fuck it.

Blue Boy: Remember Me (Original 12") - 1997