Progressive Thoughts - Day 12

Today’s song is another by Rush. This is a recent one called Headlong Flight, which basically talks about how being happy about your life despite the ups and downs that you have had to endure.

As you can expect, in 54 years of living on this weird planet, there have been quite a few ups and downs, a lot of which I’ve bored readers with in the (almost) nine years I’ve been writing crap for the world to read.

In the grand scheme of things, however, my contribution to the history of this planet (or more accurately, the history of humanity on this planet) is in fact so tiny that it is negligible. In two hundred years’ time, my contribution to history will probably only be a footnote in the hobby of a descendant researching their family history. That assumes that I am lucky enough to have descendants at that time. I have two boys at the moment and I would like to hope that they will both produce clones who will also produce clones (etc. etc. etc.).

What will they discover?

With any luck, they will find an ancient blog out there on whatever the internet evolves into and hopefully they will regard my wittering as something they can appreciate, despite all of its flaws.

As I get older, I find myself looking backwards to the past more and more often. There are constant reminders, such as music, television programmes and people dying (as morbid as that sounds) that remind me of times gone by and I am beginning to feel an urge to scribble it all down in a medium other than an amateur blog.

That’s why, a couple of years ago, I started scribbling down a kind of autobiography. As usual, procrastination has been victorious and beaten me into submission so I have left it untouched for at least a year. My main reason for starting it was to hand it down to my lads so that they could remember me when the Grim Reaper knocks at my door.

I didn’t do this for selfish reasons. On the contrary, I want them to see what my life was like before they were born first hand rather than looking at history books primarily because I regret not finding out more about my own family history.

My own family may seem unremarkable in the grand scheme of things but when you dig down there are some nuggets of interest.

My grandmother’s brother, for example, was killed in World War I and my grandad was a prisoner of war in World War II.

These stories are gold and I hate the fact that, as a child, I didn’t interrogate my grandad about his experiences in those tragic times.  I can’t change that now because, sadly, there is nobody around to inform me.

My own life is far less exciting, as readers will agree. Nevertheless, there are some nuggets even in my life that may be of interest to future generations. For that reason, I aim to complete my stupid little autobiography and possibly even to delve into my own family history and write something about that.

Who knows what I may uncover?

I may even find an old book written by an ancient ancestor of mine full of rants about how unfair life was back then.

Now wouldn’t that be interesting.

Progressive Thoughts - Day 11

There is one British band carrying the torch for Progressive Rock into the future and are bringing the genre to the masses. That band is Muse and today’s song is one of their classics. It is called Survival and was the official anthem for the London 2012 Olympics.

It’s a great song that illustrates the drive to achieve a sporting triumph and characterises the desire to keep on striving to reach your goals.

When I was a young lad, I used to watch sport and dream of achieving similar goals. I was hindered slightly because my eyesight is so poor that there are certain sports I could only dream of attempting.

Take football for example – or if you are American, I mean “soccer” ( I will try not to rant about the sport that you guys call “football” because, don’t forget, I am endeavouring to be positive in 2017 and not antagonise anybody – besides, you have enough on your plate with Donald Trump!).

To play football, you need good eyesight and I can barely see the other players on my own team let alone the bloody ball. I did try playing football in my spectacles a couple of times, but each time I ended up in pain. One time, the ball hit me full in the face and the frame of my glasses pierced the skin above my eye giving me a nasty cut more reminiscent of boxing.

I tried repeatedly to play without them but failed. One time, the goalkeeper cleared the ball in my direction and I ran forward to where I thought it would end up. My fellow team mates yelled at me – all I could hear was my name being called. Sadly, I thought they were expecting a pass the moment that I plucked the ball from the air, like a professional footballer would do; the truth is that they were yelling for another reason. I looked up into the sky and the ball hit me full in the face almost breaking my nose. I fell in a heap on the floor and the opposition players almost collapsed in laughter.

Another game I tried was rugby, which is more like American Football – but much more violent and with no added protection.

I regarded rugby as legalised bullying and in order to thrive you needed to have good eyesight (fail!), be big (fail!) and be strong (fail!).

I was fast, and could run when the ball somehow found its way into my hands but sadly my other flaws let me down and I ended up breathing mud having been flattened by angry meatheads twice my size and weight.

Cricket was another choice and I could play with my glasses on. The problem was that the ball is constructed in Hell and is a small hard missile hurled at you at ridiculous speeds and, if it makes contact, can cause huge pain.

Athletically, I was okay. I was quite fast and excelled in 100m, 200m, long jump and triple jump. My stamina was also high thanks to trying out cross country running so I was a very competent distance runner, doing well at 1500m and 5000m.

The field events were a challenge. I opted out of trying to throw a hammer, discus or javelin in case I impaled the sports teacher, although at the time I wouldn’t have been too sad because he was a sadistic rugby player (and a complete bastard) who hated me for some reason.

My sports teacher

I’ve tried a few sports over the years such as tennis, swimming, table tennis, badminton and hockey but my love was always football and I carried on playing five-a-side well into my late 30’s before finally giving up and joining a gym to keep fit.

Now, in my mid-50’s the only sport that I can excel in is walking – and I love to do that alone with my iPod as a soundtrack.

I would dearly have loved to have been a professional footballer but God had other ideas; you can’t play football if your eyesight is worse than Mr Magoo’s.

If all of the rumours about the afterlife are true and one day I end up facing judgement I plan to ask the following questions:

Why the bad eyesight? 

What did I do wrong?

And before you ask, yes I did try contact lenses and I almost threw up over the optician’s suit.

That would have been most unpleasant.

Progressive Thoughts - Day 10

Today’s song is one of my all-time favourites by yet another band from Birmingham, the Moody Blues. I’m sure you have heard the song before – Nights In White Satin:

The song is basically a beautiful and emotional love song, the kind of song that I normally wouldn’t like. It’s not that I’m not romantic – I think I am. The problem is that I find generic love songs a little too contrived whose sole purpose is to rip your heart strings.

If you are just beginning a truly wonderful relationship, and everything is new, then perhaps love songs can express human feelings -  that is unless the lyrics are extremely corny.

If you have just broken up, or had a failed attempt to win over the heart of a fair maiden, then such songs can become your nemeses. 

There are one or two that I still cannot bear even a couple of decades after the event.  I am in a long term loving relationship with the woman who is “the one” and yet when I hear these songs, I feel like Satan himself has ripped out my heart and taken a big bite with a grin on his malevolent face.

That’s what love songs can do for you, dear reader.

So, how do these songs get into your head? Let me tell you.

I regard music as a surreal kind of time machine. A song can propel you back in time to your life at the time it was popular or had meaning in your life. You hear the opening notes of the song and a box of memories is opened in your mind that remind of the time you heard that song or when it was important in your life.

I have a vast collection of 1980’s songs that do just that, propelling me back to the time when I was young and when life was truly exciting; songs that remind me of good times, friends etc. but most of all that remind me of my successful and failed attempts to acquire a girlfriend – and there are far more times when I failed.

Any love song from that time will cause what is left of my heart to lurch but one two in particular invoke a mixture of rage and pain. It’s almost like a phobia. 

One of the artists responsible for the song in question specialises in the sugary nonsense that drips from loving youthful relationships. But they don’t prepare you for the inevitable pain. As a consequence of one particular incident, which I won’t relate for fear of bringing back more pain, I now refuse to listen to ANY songs by this artist. It’s not that I hate them – it’s just that their performances evoke that nasty bilious feeling of rejection and heartbreak.

There must be millions of people who hate certain songs and artists for the same reason.

Of course, on the other hand, there are some songs that loving couples regard as “our song”, and such love songs serve a purpose. The problem is that you both have to like the song. 

Mrs PM and I do not share the same taste in music and the truth is there aren’t any songs that we could regard as “our song”.

I have associated one or two from my collection with my lovely lady, but I can tell you all this for free – she will hate every single one of them.

I am certain it’s the same case the other way round too.

Nevertheless, I still love Nights in White Satin and I thank the Lord that I was too young to care less about women when it was released in the late 1960’s.

I’d hate to hate it.

Progressive Thoughts - Day 9

Today’s song is from the 1970’s and features Dutch Progressive Rock band Focus. The song is called Sylvia and reached the top five in the UK in 1973.

I was eleven when I first heard the song and once more it is an example of how Progressive Rock has influenced my musical taste over the years. At the time, I thought nothing of it because I was young and naïve and didn’t understand the various musical genres that were out there.

I just liked the tune.

I like to think that is the way I am today.

Sadly, people suggest that I am a metalhead, i.e. somebody who only likes heavy metal, because of the bands I see live and the CDs I buy. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I occasionally surprise people sometimes by accident and sometimes on purpose.

For example, one of my work colleagues was walking behind my desk while I was listening to my iPod (I was writing a boring technical document and only music can get me through such a tedious task). He picked up my gadget to see what was playing and was so amazed at the song that he tapped me on the shoulder.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“You’re listening to Madonna!” he exclaimed.

This revelation came as a shock to the other colleagues on my desk, mainly because I often moan about the state of music at the moment and how we are forced to listen to certain artists and genres, while I champion bands that nobody has heard of.

“Be my guest,” I said, indicating that perhaps he should check the other music on my device.

He flicked through it reading out what he thought were the “embarrassing” bands and artists.

“Abba, Adam and the Ants, A-ha, Blondie, Blur, Bruce Springsteen, Classical Music?” he started.

“Yup,” I replied.

“ABBA?” said somebody else with a laugh.

“Coldplay, Elvis Costello, Enya,” he continued. “ENYA? A fine heavy metal artist.”

Somebody then started singing “Like a Virgin” across the desk.

“Kate Bush!” he laughed.

At that point he put down my iPod and I had to endure a tirade of abuse. I didn’t care. I told them that my CD collection showed that when it comes to music, I am not a narrow-minded metalhead. On the contrary, if I like a song, whatever genre it is, I shall add it to my collection.

Of course, they didn’t see it that way and some of them couldn’t see that a person who likes Motorhead can also like Abba. Mrs PM has also been surprised by some of my taste – bizarrely, the contrary is also true. For example, the other week, I was playing a song by Rush, my favourite band, a band that Mrs PM is openly hostile to, when she amazed me.

“I like this song,” she said.

I almost fell off my chair.

There’s hope for her yet.

Progressive Thoughts - Day 8

Edging out towards the pop end of the progressive spectrum are Electric Light Orchestra a band who combine rock and pop music with classical music and have been a favourite band of mine since the 1970’s.

Today’s song is the first part of a four part piece called “Concerto for a Rainy Day”, which culminates in the final part which is the excellent and most well-known Mr Blue Sky. This song is called Standin’ in the Rain.

Many people in the world picture England as a rainy, dull place with grey skies and miserable people. Elements of that are true, but only small elements. When the rain comes, the sky can become a miserable dark grey colour and the coldness of the raindrops isn’t pleasant. Walking home in the rain is quite depressing particularly if you have forgotten your umbrella.

The rest of this myth is totally false. I regard British people to be amongst the friendliest in the world and certainly the funniest. Maybe our inclement weather helps in this regard. We are willing and able to laugh at ourselves and smile in the face of adversity.

Manchester in particular has been done a disservice in the weather stakes. It rains a lot here but we are not the rainiest city in the United Kingdom by any stretch of the imagination. Furthermore, we are really friendly too. It has been observed that when a Mancunian travels to London, for example, he assumes that he can just turn to the person next to him on the London Underground and hold a conversation. In truth he can’t because, as a rule, Londoners are less friendly.

I have had some wacky conversations with random people in my adopted home city, just in passing. That’s one of the reasons I love the place, despite the higher than average rainfall.

One good thing about the rain is that the areas surrounding Manchester, the North West in particular, are always lush and green. When William Blake wrote the poem Jerusalem, I like to think he was thinking of the North West of England when he wrote the words “green and pleasant land”.

I’m sure he wasn’t because, in truth, the whole of the United Kingdom is as green as it is pleasant.

Anyway, back to the rain. I’ve mentioned this before but, despite the common belief that Manchester is the rainiest city in the United Kingdom, we aren’t. Here is the list:

1. Cardiff

2. Glasgow

3. Preston

4. Huddersfield

5. Plymouth

6. Blackpool

7. Carlisle

8. Manchester

9. Gloucester

10. Liverpool

One of my worst experiences of rain in the United Kingdom was in Glasgow. I was at Strathclyde University for a course in November some years ago and, in the evening, I decided to go for a walk to explore the city. I love walking and just meandered around the dark streets, taking in the sights. Sadly, I wandered a little too far from my hotel and was unsure of the direction back (this was in the days before satnavs).

And then it started to rain.

I was totally unprepared. I had a relatively thin coat on and had stupidly hoped that walking would help me work up a bit of a sweat. It did but then I realised that it had little protection for sudden rainstorms. Accompanying the rain was a biting northerly wind that tore through my flimsy protection and chilled me to the bone.

And then the thunder started.

I have never seen such rain in the United Kingdom. It was like ice and totally torrential. People in Glasgow must have been aware of what it was like being stuck in the cold November rain (perhaps this was the inspiration for the song by Guns ’n’ Roses) and were safely tucked up in their warm houses.

I was alone in the cold wet streets and ended up taking quite a few wrong turns as I searched the city streets for a sign I recognised. Sadly, my glasses were useless because the rain was so intense that I simply couldn’t see a thing.

After what seemed like an eternity, I stumbled on a taxi rank and hopped into the first cab. I was drenched – utterly drenched.

The hotel was just a three minute ride away and the driver’s almost unintelligible Glaswegian accent was no help whatsoever. I couldn’t understand a single word. One thing I did understand though was his mocking laughter as he dropped me off.

Back in my hotel room, I peeled off my cold wet clothes and discovered that the rain had penetrated everything. Only my socks were dry. Even my underpants were soaking wet.

I spent about an hour in a hot shower to warm up.

I have seen worse rain in Singapore, Trinidad and Hong Kong but at least in those countries it was warm.

If you take one thing from this post, it should be this:

Always carry an umbrella with you in Glasgow in the winter and make sure that you know the way back home – or at least the way to the nearest taxi rank.

Progressive Thoughts - Day 7

A progressive rock blogathon wouldn’t be complete without a song from my favourite band of all time, the Canadian power trio that is Rush.

This song is called Mystic Rhythms from the 1985 album Power Windows.

 The album is right up there with my favourites of all time and reminds me of commuting between Manchester and London. At the time I was in a long distance relationship with my ex-wife. We weren’t married yet but she had moved to the south of England as a temporary measure.

It was a real strain and expensive too. I used to listen to the album repeatedly during the journey that, at the time, took almost four hours each way, every other week. These days the journey is a lot quicker and more enjoyable, thankfully.

I don’t regret doing so but at the time, it was a challenge.

I think this happened for about a year and during that time I ploughed through more novels than I have ever done at any time in my life. I alternated between reading and listening to music on my Sony Walkman, which bizarrely was considered the height of music technology at the time. That little device saved my sanity but the problem was I had to take a bagful of cassette tapes with me.

Alongside the novels, it made my overnight luggage heavier than expected.

These days I can take one tiny little iPod with me that contains my entire CD collection plus a Kindle that can accommodate hundreds of books. It’s so much easier, although I do have to make sure that they are both fully charged, particularly for long journeys and has made them more enjoyable as a result.

Actually, when I say “more enjoyable”, what I really mean is “less tedious”. Though I am a keen traveller, the actual travelling to my destination is not really enjoyable at all. I’ve spent many a blog post ranting about travelling, particularly long distance flying so I won’t go down that road again. To be honest, back in 1985, train travel was pretty much the same.

Worse, London is a hub and for many of the towns and cities in the south east of England, you would have to get to London, cross London and then take another train out. Getting across London these days takes almost as long as actually getting there.

And if you are unlucky enough to arrive during the rush hour then you are totally screwed. You end up standing on a platform with seemingly thousands of fellow travellers waiting for the next train.

When the train actually arrives, invariably it is full and cannot accommodate the sheer volume of people waiting to get on. This doesn’t stop everyone trying to get on board and if you are lucky enough to actually manage that, you find yourself crammed up against total strangers. Personal space is non-existent during such journeys.

Most of the time, you don’t know where to look. I tend to look up simply because it is awkward when you are pressed up against a total stranger, particularly if it is a woman. When this happens, I don’t know where to put myself – and I simply don’t have a choice.

It can be embarrassing.

Thankfully, if the train isn’t crowded, the journey is more tolerable and I can entertain myself watching my fellow passengers, in a non-creepy way of course. Some of the people who live in London or just visit are actually quite eccentric – and I love eccentricity. I particularly love places like Camden Town and Camden Market where a lot of these people are drawn too.

Campden Town

It's not everyday you see the Mad Hatter on the streets of London

People-watching is one of the things that also make travel more tolerable. It is a pastime that quite a few people enjoy and I sometimes wonder what these people make of a weirdo like me.

Do they regard me as eccentric or just plain boring.

To be honest, I regard myself as slightly weird but not excessively so, and I imagine that people ‘s eyes just gloss over me in search of a more interesting person.

And believe me there are plenty of them about.

Progressive Thoughts - Day 6

Today’s song is called Ascension by a British progressive rock band called Arena.

The song has a theatrical feel to it, something I love when listening to music. The song is the final track on what is a brilliant album and rounds it off beautifully.

I imagine that you probably won’t have heard of Arena, nor in fact many of the bands in this blogathon and that saddens me a little. I’ve mentioned this before in previous blog posts and urged people to actually go out into the world wide web and actually seek music that is not on the playlists dictated to by record companies and people like Simon Cowell, who are in my view killing music.

The internet has opened up the entire world to everybody and we should all make use of it, rather than being told what to do. This doesn’t just apply to music; it applies to everything. Whatever you are interested in there is something out there for you.

I like to cite music as an example because this is one of the most important subjects I like to pontificate about – and I do realise, dear reader, that sometimes I do preach a bit. It’s my problem really because I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve over some subjects.

Anyway, as I have vowed to remain positive in 2017, I shall try to dwell on the music itself rather than attacking Simon Cowell and his partners in crime, as well as greedy record producers.

Let me use Adele as an example.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Adele has an amazing voice and has written some good music, albeit not to my musical taste. But in Britain, a new Adele album is met with absolute delight by the music industry simply because they know that they can rake in millions. Her latest album was apparently a triumph – I don’t doubt that – but it was basically rammed down our throats here in Britain particularly. I’ll give you an example.

The BBC pride themselves in not advertising but in many ways, they are hypocritical. When I am abroad, I watch BBC World News and, in between reports they show adverts – but I guess that doesn’t count because we are in a foreign land.

Nevertheless, in the UK we can watch television programmes uninterrupted by terrible and cringeworthy advertisements.

That is, unless an Adele album is realised.

The BBC gave Adele a one hour show where, in between songs, she chatted to one of the most famous UK chat show hosts, Graham Norton, and plugged her new album mercilessly.

It was a one hour advert for her album!!!!

I don’t blame her. If I were in her position I would also have accepted this lucrative offer.

In my opinion, television and radio in the UK is flawed in this regard.

If I had any clout whatsoever, I would not allow this – or alternatively – have programmes and shows that showcased alternative music out there. With all respect to Adele, there are lots of women who have written great songs and have amazing voices yet are never heard of because nobody plugs their music on prime time television and radio shows.

I would love to be a DJ at a commercial radio station. I would play all sorts of music from various genres.

Back to Adele, I have to admit that I like her Bond theme for Skyfall. She wrote an amazing song and sung it brilliantly. She deserves all the plaudits.

However, there are other women out there who have written better songs and have equally, if not better voices. I have an example.

A year or two ago, a Dutch symphonic metal band were challenged to interpret other people’s songs and perform their own version. They were given one week per song. The band is called Within Temptation and I have mentioned them before. Their song writing is amazing but on this occasion for fun they covered other songs. One of those songs was Skyfall.

Now I know that they didn’t write it, but the singer, Sharon den Adel, sang magnificently. Yes it is a little more rocky but concentrate on the vocals. I think you will be surprised.

Judge for yourself:

Do you agree?

If so, check them out.

This is the power of the internet, ladies and gentlemen.