Buffalo Days du cinq......

... so the week of buffalo days comes to an end with the last buffalo connection SoD, but whereas there have been 4 songs about buffalo...... to round off the week, it is in fact a buffalo singing the song.... a white buffalo no less.....

I'm not the first to say it, but it is true there is a touch of Eddie Vedder about his sound, but that was not why I chose it, I chose it simply because it's a great song worthy of any SoD...buffalo or not...

But to be fair, if you like Eddie Vedder ..... as I do.... then you'll love this song.... and if not then call me a buffalo ....... Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

 Do you wish it were true ?

I wish it were true....

I know it was true...

those buffalo did dance

Buffalo Days avec quatre.....

.... today's BoD is a buffalo redux, all down to some unknown young ladies curly hair at heathrow airport....... and when I say young lady I don't mean ..... yoooooooooooooung ....... at my age anyone under 35 years old is now considered by me to be young.

You do have to be careful now about your declarations towards the female form ...... given all the latest publicity surrounding Harriet*, one has to be careful these days talking about young ladies and declaring how much you love PIES.

I mean I really do love pies.... but not those pies.... my pies.... steak and kidney being me absolute fave ...... steak and ale/Guinness {delete as appropriate} are not real pies, they are faux pies..... a real pie is only a real pie if it has something in it that your kids gue yuk... kidney.... eeerhg....yuk.

So yes I do love pies, and yes todays buffalo redux was inspired by a young girl, but for anyone reading.... [who knows may be no one is reading] that is pies as in meat pies and young as anyone between the ages of 20-35 years old !

So with out further ado

here is the Buffalo Days

that inspired this weeks

SoD..... my BoD

*[Harriet postscript - it might be current now, but the Telegraph were running this in 2009 - Oh the joys of political machinations..... and how the Daily Mail have now got it in for her.... they now have the bit between the teeth and won't let go until we all get bored and move on to the next salacious gossip - There is a great line told by the late great Philip Seymour Hoffman in the film " Doubt" with the eversoalways loverly Meryl Streep ....... {how fondly I think of Meryl} ...ach erm anyway.... yes the character of Philip Seymour Hoffman is besmirched with the suggestion of impropriety against a minor - the story he told goes something like this.......

A woman was gossiping with her friend about a man whom they hardly knew - I know none of you have ever done this. That night, she had a dream: a great hand appeared over her and pointed down on her. She was immediately seized with an overwhelming sense of guilt. The next day she went to confession. She got the old parish priest, Father O' Rourke, and she told him the whole thing. 'Is gossiping a sin?' she asked the old man. 'Was that God All Mighty's hand pointing down at me? Should I ask for your absolution? Father, have I done something wrong?' 'Yes,' Father O' Rourke answered her. 'Yes, you ignorant, badly-brought-up female. You have blamed false witness on your neighbor. You played fast and loose with his reputation, and you should be heartily ashamed.' So, the woman said she was sorry, and asked for forgiveness. 'Not so fast,' says O' Rourke. 'I want you to go home, take a pillow upon your roof, cut it open with a knife, and return here to me.' So, the woman went home: took a pillow off her bed, a knife from the drawer, went up the fire escape to her roof, and stabbed the pillow. Then she went back to the old parish priest as instructed. 'Did you gut the pillow with a knife?' he says. 'Yes, Father.' 'And what were the results?' 'Feathers,' she said. 'Feathers?' he repeated. 'Feathers; everywhere, Father.' 'Now I want you to go back and gather up every last feather that flew out onto the wind,' 'Well,' she said, 'it can't be done. I don't know where they went. The wind took them all over.' 'And that,' said Father O' Rourke, 'is gossip!'

The film doubt is not a true story...... but it's tale and the pillow talk...... is a salutary lesson for us all... when someone says they love pies..... it may be as simple as they love pies.....]

 

Buffalo Days et trois....

.... there are a couple of naff songs with Buffalo in the title.... but thank fully today's offering is by a band to whom  I was introduced by Mathilda.....

Seems there are loads of songs entitled by girls names so I might do a week of SoD about girls names..... some great songs too...

But today the Buffalo SoD

is by a band in the form of 

a triangle....

hit it Alt-J

Buffalo Days au deux....

... Today's buffalo song is a buffalo song redux....

I first heard it on Later with Jools and it was one of those bands never heard of till then, but what a great little ditty.... a band from New Zealand......they sort of remind me of the magic numbers.....

I originally used the song for the story about the loch ness monster being sighted off skegness.....

I have been to skeggy a fair few times in my formative years and despite my furtive imagination never once did I see the loch ness monster there.... in any event..... were he/she {delete as appropriate} there and not loch ness then surely he would be the north sea skegness monster ? wouldn't he/she {delete as appropriate} ?

So here it is, my second 

of the week buffalo offering

come and be the mamal

that I adore.............

Buffalo Days ......

... as a recent bonus SoD and as a homage to some young ladies hair as I was stood behind her waiting to board the flight to Rome...... I chose a song about buffalo days....

This was not the first SoD to mention Buffalo's so it got me thinking, I wondered if there were/are other songs about Buffalo.... blimey there is....

Apparently and gawd knows why but ........ Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo ....... is grammatically correct... it must be true.... wikipedia says so.

 I once saw buffalo dancing in a field.....

So this week, is a week of SoD dedicated to Buffalo.... long may they continue to dance...

The sun is shinning, and for a Monday that is a bonus, and yet somehow every time I hear this guy sing the sun always shines.... who else........ non other than the late great Bob....

What ever your taste in music

Bob must surely 

be in there somewhere

Friday DiD.... redux....

...well thanks to another trip to see my drug dealer ...... I caught the start of this mornings desert island discs.... such inspiring todays SoD choice...... although when I say drug dealer .... not your hard core pimp me up drug dealer...... more of your doctor prescribing drugs dealer...

Well today it was Torvill and Dean chatting about their ice skating lives..... although to be fair I never recalled a big green duck on the ice .... hey oh....

It was interesting as to the first choice of song, and then shortly afterwards, the divine Kirsty was clearly touching on a very raw nerve for Christopher Dean, about the separation of his parents when he was 6 years old...... hearing the awkwardness with which he spoke and Jayne Torvill stepping in for him, I was somewhat surprised that Kirsty even raised the subject.... it was clearly difficult for Christopher to articulate his true feelings..... but it did somehow reflect the first choice of song..... when I heard it, at first I thought it was Ben Howard..... certainly in that mould.....

The song is one of many on a similar theme, I have before chosen a mexican love song as an SoD that says the same thing as today's choice.... except that song is in spanish.....and today's is not.....

I often prattle on about sound track moments, so when I was picking out the you tube link, up popped the 5 sec opt out advert and today it was James Corden doing a cadbury's advert..... I'm not really a big Corden fan but it did make me think about some ad's on TV which are in essence sound track movements....

Most adverts are just shite...... the hotels4u advert ...... anything for yo cupcake [in that faux brummie accent] christ who ever was responsible for that needs a career change..... but every now and again you see an advert that makes you SvL.

Two obvious examples are....... yes sir I can boogie.....

....... and the cat and the budgie love affair......

That's creativity ..... not some shite advert ...... and certainly not this closure to last nights news night..... the producer needs a dressing down for this embarrassing crap ....

So before today's SoD .... one last singing cat.... puerile I know.... but sometimes we need such stupidity to make us laugh.....

The sun's shining
it's friday DiD
and I am just a passenger
in this life......

This ain't rock and roll this is.....

genocide ......

So we look at today's headlines and we see the usual violence breaking out.... this time it's Ukraine .... man's inhumanity to man holds no boundaries....

Where next I wonder ?

Then we see Tony Blair was his usual slippery self, defending as quickly as he could the unofficial advice he gave to Rebekah Brooks..... arsehole ..... Tony I mean... he's the arsehole...

Bernie Ecclestone wins his court case but the judge still managed to say he wasn't a truthful or reliable witness.... well there's a surprise...

And then we see a pensioner is declared best british male ..... as inferred here only yesterday....

I am not a big fan of awards ceremonies most particular so called celeb awards as they tend to be nothing more than a narcissists charter... but I did tune in to see if Bowie won.... and sure enough he did... [but not best album award]. Here he is, at 67 years old and declared best british male when the average age of all the other nominees is 22.5 years old.

Not surprisingly Bowie didn't turn up to receive his award, but up trooped Kate Moss. And this is where it all started to fall apart. First off she was wearing a romper suit, presumably as a homage to Bowie in his Ziggy days..... I didn't get the joke last night and still don't get it.... then she prattled some words out, which she could have delivered in morse code and would probably have made more sense....  to those who know [still know] or even don't know how to read morse code.....

Proof if proof were needed as to the waste of time that awards ceremonies are....but it does give me an excuse to choose Bowie again for my SoD..... so ta dah....

There are any one of a number of fantastic tracks I could choose... but prompted by the depressing headlines in Ukraine.... then I chose a brilliant song which I haven't listened to for years...until today...

So to the best male in britain

come on, give it to us

this aint rock and roll

this is genocide.....

Are we not men ? ....... We are ......

D ....... E ....... V ....... O

Music likes are very much of a personal choice, but we soon learn what we like and what we don't like..... to be fair theres not much music I don't like.

For me music falls in to 4 categorgies :

Category 1.

Oh my word, what is this song ? .......

A song that takes you to a place beyond the physical capabilities of human life. It is near impossible to explain with words just how good the music is.

Last night I had a dream that I cannot last remember ever having since I was a young kid.

I always have had a furtive imagination [it pays to be a furt] and as a youngster I could make certain dreams happen in my sleep. Last night I had one of those dreams..... but I didn't mean it to happen*..... but it was the one where I have the ability to fly..... not fly as a bird or in a plane, but one where I could sort of levitate by the power of thought alone, and then travel just above roof top height...... It is a strange experience, and certainly not an out of body experience..... but when you wake in the morning... there is something quite ethereal...... well there is music that gives me the same experience.....

The Talk Talk album, Spirit of Eden is probably one of the best albums I own.... it makes your mind soar ...... you just become immersed in the music....

Paul Buchanan and the Blue Nile, are the same.... I have been fans of his/their music since the beginning of time. The out put was not prolific and most people I mention them to say...... who ? .... isn't that in Egypt ? Their first album .... Walk across the roof tops sucked me in.... There was no way back after that......


I have written it before about Paul Buchanan but should it be I am listening to music at the time of my demise, I hope it is Paul Buchanan/Blue Nile who takes me from this life and to the next....

There is also geoffrey gurrumul, not a bloody clue what he is singing but my my.....

How could I leave out of category 1...non other than my Elvis

Category 2.

Oh my word what is this song ? ...... I love this song....

But this time the music is just sublime, those who I put into this category [but not limited to] are probably Tom Baxter, Glen Hansard, James, David Byrne [lordy lordy I am sooo tempted to put him into category 1 though.... he is that good some of his music is not of human origin], there is the Bunnymen, Ian Mcnabb and the Icicle Works, U2, Eddy Vedder, Iggy, T-Rex, Elbow, Paul Weller, Bob Marley..... the list goes on ...... but category 2 would never be complete without god him self.... David Bowie ......

I am not big into religion ...... but we often hear about the second coming of christ, but yet it is never proven.... I think if David Bowie and David Beckham had a love child..... then without question .... in that child we would see the second coming of Christ.... the new messiah .......

I had previously suggested it would be the coolest kid ever.... but if Bowie wins the best british male award in tonight's Brit awards ... the love child gets up graded from cool to messiah.....

Here he is in his 6th decade of popular music .... up against the new kid on the block.... Jake Bugg... I loved Jakes first album.... but Jake if you are reading this [and I am not sure you are] sorry but my money is on Bowie....

Category 3.

Oh this is a nice enough song..... nice enough for me not to turn it off.... but not nice enough for it to appear on my iPod let alone song of the day ......

Category 4.

Christ / Son of Bowie & Beckham {delete as appropriate} this song is shite..... so shite you immediately turn it off.....



So my music choice today is prompted by the news on Monday of a death of a musician.

I am very lucky to have a brother 8 years older than me, because as a young boy, my older brother [by default] led me into a path of great music.... so by the time I was an angst ridden teenager [as opposed to the angst ridden middleager I am now] I knew what music I liked and what I didn't.....

I never was into hard core punk, but at the end of the 1970's there was some fantastic post punk music... the first time I heard Patti Smith... because the night.... wow... Blondie... Debbie Harry... you had me at Denis Denis....... Iggy Pop, Roxy Music, Lou Reed ..... and then there was the wild and the weird.... B52's...

Funny how music is ingrained in the memory..... B52's rock lobster.... February 1980 and we were en-route from Dubai to New Zealand, and after 2 weeks out from Dubai we were off the coast of Australia one saturday morning, so close to Perth we could receive a TV reception...[at sea that was a wonder back then... no Satellite TV then]... and who should come on the TV ? .... the B52's singing rock lobster.....

April 1979... I was at the missions to seaman in Plaistow, before traveling into central London, which would be the start of my career in shipping...... Stood next to a lad called Paul Donker listening to Sultans of Swing by Dire straits..... 35 years ago and yet every time I hear that song... that image of standing next to that lad who I have never seen since that day..... is as strong as it could be as if it were yesterday....

Missions to seaman for the uninitiated is a wonderful organisation... biased though I may be.... they provide a much appreciated care for any seafarer along way from home.

So in those formative years I learned to love all sorts of music.... so my reflection today is the news on Monday of the passing of Bob Casale aged 61 years old ...... never heard of him ? .......

God bless you Bob

thank you for the music

from a young man grown old

Whip it Bob

Shape it up Bob

Crack that whip

*{flying postscript: I think my flying dream last night might have been prompted by 3 days on my roof top, finishing the tiling of the new roof..... last night walking up the stairs and I waddled like john wayne..... I see now why I am not in to horse riding ......}

1 degree of separation.....

Mitch Albom wrote about the 5 people you meet in heaven..... in this life, on this earth, you are not sure who they are, they may be the one[s] you never even knew exist[ed]..... and of course they may be one who you just know will be one of your five people you meet .......

The premise of the book works similar to the premise of the 6 degrees of separation......

And so there I was this Wednesday lunch time, having dinner in an Italian restaurant in London with an old boss of mine and his secretary, both about to retire anytime soon. I have known them both for more than 20 years but have not seen either of them for at least 5 years.

As we chatted and caught up, the subject of my parents living in Australia cropped up.  

Where are they ?

In Perth..... I replied.

Oh my daughter is in Perth, my old boss said.

What she doing there ? I asked.....

she lives there....

ach erm... [feeling slightly foolish]..... what has taken her to Perth, I meant......

Oh ..... she works as a radiographer at a hospital ....... Joondaulp hospital...... he added.....

As I say, I have known David a long time, since I was 28 years old in fact and as we go through life there are some people who have such a profound positive impact on your life, they stay in your life for ever...... some even end up as one of the five people you meet in heaven....

Mike my best mate is one of those people who has stayed in my life since we were 16 years old... we were once thunderstruck.... I hope Mike stays in my life always.... Those sort of people are rare....

So when I was 28 years old and David was the managing director of a former employer he and I first met. At the time, his daughter was only a small child, and my parents lived in Nottingham. The only link between David and I, was work..... but all these years since we have remained in touch and firm friends....

And so it is 23 years later, and I learn that David's now grown up daughter has been working for the last 4 years as a radiographer at Joondalup Hospital the other side of the world..... who would have thought that 21 years from me first meeting David, and his daughter worked at the self same hospital where and when my dad would die......

When we sat together 23 years ago, if I had said to David, in 21 years time your daughter will be working at the place where my dad dies..... on the other side of the world.... stuff would have come out of our noses......

To add still to the 1 degree of separation... if 23 years ago I had have said to David, not only will your daughter be connected to my dad, but likely as not she will be a colleague of my niece..... stuff would have come out of our ears..... my niece is a radiographer at Joondalup hospital......

Mitch Albom wrote .......

“There are no random acts...
We are all connected...
You can no more separate one life from another 
than you can separate a breeze from the wind...”

It's at times like this

I always turn to 

The Blue Nile

as a Friday bonus SoD......

I can see clearly now.....

..... nooooo...... not that I have some knob goggles...... I recently had some new glasses... so with business travel boring as ever, on my recent trip to Rome..... walking through the airport I tried out a new experience.....

I have previously written about creating sound track moments, especially with the boredom of business travel ........ and how walking through the airport I often have music playing, so I see the images but there's a song drowning everything else out .....

So to repeat what I said before...... Air travel is quite boring really.... causes the brain to think lots of shit...... my brain thought lots of shit on this trip..... but as always, my way of helping switch off, is through music..... but with an added twist....

I only wear glasses for reading and close up work, and whilst I have a pair of verifocals, usually I have my reading glasses perched on the end of my nose and I peer over the top.

This time round I wore my glasses properly and so close up brill, but beyond that everything was completely out of focus...... although not so out of focus I would bump into things....

So this time, with my lucky ruck sack on my back, spare pair of panties and my toothbrush packed, I walked through Heathrow Airport, looking at life through a blur....

But all the time with my 

SoD blearing out

through my Sennheiser IE6

It's a great song to listen to, watching the world go by in a blur.... although funny enough when waiting to walk on to the plane, I was stood behind a young woman who had the longest flowing curliest hair I have ever seen, and stood close up, golly her hair was in such great focus.... and all I could think was...... how the bloody hell does she comb her hair in the morning..... maybe she didn't......

I have never been in to any form of fetish.... but stood behind her, I was mesmerized by her hair and the clarity with which I could see it with my new glasses......

As a homage to that ladies hair, here is a bonus Lanterns on the Lake SoD.....

The proliferation of internet ......

..... experts....

Tim Berners-Lee may not have given us the computer or it's keyboard, but with a computer device armed with a keyboard we launch our weapons of mass interference through the conduit of our routers, for which gold ole Tim had the vision to allow us the power of electronic communication through the internet.....

Take my blog for example, does it make me an expert whinger ? expert ranter ? expert SoD provider ? probably not on all counts ........ but suddenly it appears everyone has a voice....

My eye was caught by an email from screwfix encouraging me to write a review regarding a previous purchase...... but in particular what was striking  was the hyper link in the bottom left hand corner of the email.....

Top tips on writing reviews ! ....... just how difficult is it to write..... this is shite don't buy one ..... this is good buy one ..... so now screwfix feels the need to teach us just how to be experts at writing reviews .....

Sometimes companies just don't know the power of their own banality.

It's not just the proliferation of experts on the internet, the Chinese are taking mob rule to a new level... when I read this ..... the human flesh search engine ...... the reoccurring image in my head was this .....

What a god awful phrase.... the human flesh search engine.....*

So how did we go from writing this screw is shite to hounding out the weak and the vulnerable.....

Tim if you are reading this [and I know you do] what sort of monster have you unleashed ??

He gives us some clues here and here ......

but today the only 

good thing I can think 

is today's SoD

crikey not heard this song in years

*[Human search engine postscript: Although to be fair I did smile when I saw this ......... ]

The fallen madonna with the big boobies.....

Watching the BBC program Fake or Fortune I have mixed feelings....... on the one hand it makes interesting viewing as to the technical detail of identifying the authenticity of a painting but then there is also .....  the sight of Fiona fawning with Philip Mould, then Philip oh I'm so intrigued you know this might just be real Mould and then there is..... bring in the research expert Bendor* Grosvenor.... and the way he glances sideways at the fawning Fiona as he swishes his finger across his iPad....

A key problem with this program is it seems that people with more money then sense, approach the BBC to prove the credibility of a painting they own, having exhausted all their own previous research, in the hope that the BBC will do the graft for them and prove the provenance that it is a genuine artwork ...... and then......hey presto the art owner cashes in. It is not cheap to carryout this level of forensic investigation work and Phillip Mould is not doing it for altruistic curiosity, I am sure he loves the publicity for his own company

Who's paying for this ? we are...... the license payer that's who.

Sure I fully respect that the BBC has to incur expenditure to make interesting programs, but this is one program that gives one lucky viewer a handsome pay off if it works.

However, this weeks program had a twist and how it is one painting has now garnered the publicity for the outrageous frenchies, who are going to burn a painting worth £100,000 ..... how awful for Mr Lang the owner...... but is it really that awful ?? Think about it.

He paid £100,000 for a painting, which by his own admission on the TV program, he knew was not proven to be a genuine Chagall. What is it they say...if it's too good to be true, too cheap to be real then maybe it's not true,  maybe it isn't real.

Mr Lang knew full well what he was doing when he handed over £100,000 to buy that art work. On the program he gives this laissez faire ~ carpe diem {delete as appropriate} attitude.

Well in truth I can get that as a general rule of thumb, I understand without risk takers we achieve nothing, we have to take risks that's how we achieve something, but it is also relative.

Mr Lang prattled on that life is about living, for taking chances and any way even though by the BBC's own enquiries it was shown that the painting was not a genuine Chagall, he still loved the artwork for what it was......yeah right, my arse..... £100,000 for most people is a fortune, a life changing sum of money and yet he just gave a shrug of the shoulders.... ach erm

£100,000 for a painting ? not by the real artist ?...... when it is said by one faker on one of many BBC1 TV news reports that he will paint Mr Lang a replacement for £100.

So I don't take Mr Lang as so relaxed by these turn of events. The gullible and then the greedy. Is this story any different. Is it ? Really ?

So it comes to the supposed outrage that this painting is to be destroyed as a fake, think of it like this........

First off he knew he was buying this from the Russian market, Mr Lang is not a fool, fools don't easily  accumulate money whereby they can spend £100,000 the way he did, it is known that artworks coming from the Russian Market since glastnost [and before] are littered with fakes....

But what if Mr Lang had brought say a container load of cigarettes from someone in say China for perhaps £100,000.......... and the cigarette boxes were marked Benson & Hedges, and sure enough the sellers told Mr Lang they couldn't prove they were real Benson & Hedges, but as the boxes say it they may be genuine.

So Mr Lang parts with his £100,000 and at some time in the future hopes to persuade another party to prove for him [at the other parties expense ....ie YOU & ME] that they are in fact genuine Benson & Hedges cigarettes and are worth a lot more than £100,000. But wait one minute, we show they are not genuine but still we send them to Benson & Hedges and say.... ere mate are these real ?

And surprise surprise Benson & Hedges say no....we are going to destroy them.....

Replace cigarettes and Benson & Hedges for say, Nike, Reebok, Apple, Viagra, Ray Ban sunglasses what would we say then.... outrage? ..... no...... tough shit ....... is what I would say.

I fully respect that these latter are protected by copy right protection issues but the principle still remains the same. When Mr Lang contacted the BBC he knew full well what he was doing.....He is no fool.... and nor should we be taken for fools either ........

I suspect Jose Ivan might have been on a ship of fools too... of course I could be wrong.... but me I have my own view..... and I am not thinking survival techniques when I say taking the piss..... I think he even modelled his hair style on that of Tom Hanks......

Thankfully the Daily mail have provided the investigative forensic proof that the story is genuine, to save us the worry........ look at all this proof.....

They even have uncovered a photo of him before his epic 16 month journey.... this is him before

This is him after his first landing on dry land at the end of his epic and brave journey......

And if proof were needed this is what he looks like after the caring and considerate staff at the US Embassy paid for him to have a free haircut and shave ..........

Now I don't know about the first picture being taken before his journey........ but I think it was taken perhaps 16 years rather than 16 months before he landed on the Marshall Islands ...... and seeing him without his beard forgive the cynic in me for saying so........ but I think he needs to go on a diet of low fat turtles from now on, I don't know about who ate all the pies more like who ate all the turtles ...... who knows he may even be an expert pianist ?

And to finish on the subject of fakery, a friend sent me this photo he had taken recently...... it must be a fake I considered...... what is that round yellowery thing..... ?

(c) A friend of newageingman

But then on my drive to work this morning I saw for my own eyes the bright yellow thing.... it's the sun I tell ya...... the sun.....

The friend who sent me the picture is not a photographer by profession but this is a fantastic photo nevertheless, one which could easily adorn the pages of National Geographic. The photo is actually of Mount St Helen's and I was with this friend last summer looking at this self same image from the viewing point at Johnston Ridge Observatory. When you see all around the national monument, even though it was some 30+ years ago the volcano erupted.... there is still the signs of devastation and destruction left behind..... nature is fighting back though.... and that's what I like about nature..... not a fake in sight ......

My Sod ?

well let's keep 

the volcano theme going....

*[Bendor postscript: It's puerile I know ....... but every time the divine fawning Fiona introduces him on the show, I hear the joke first told to me as a teenager ...... about two Scottish gays, Ben Dover and Phil McCrevis ...... the simple jokes that make a middle aged teenager SvL]