L.R.

.... Ah well.....

Gaston Beree...

Kenny Rodgers (well he used to) Not nice to see you Bruce
a pregnant Keith Richard and Mick shouting one note very
loudly for an hour or so... what a joke and no I didn't
watch 'em.

This was good though ..




and here's two of the girls from the chorus .. 

KRO

Stevie Nicks ...

was sixty five years young last month so here she is ..

Tomorrow is ...

... local election day (I think) every one tells me I should vote...
    but I wont.






KRO

Two years ago today ....

'I'm not sure that the new Wembley has heard a noise like this"

Hey lads, I know you're not really crying ....... KRO. 

Goin' home......

Looks like I've sold my flat, oh feckin' 'ell. Guess I'm going back 'home',
back to Runway.  Where ever I go, I'll take Joni with me....  KRO.

Sunshine on Leith...

A Proclaimers song adopted by Hibs as their anthem
love it, but here's a version by the Lights that ain't bad ..
KRO

Richard 111

I don't play golf anymore but I was a member of Maxstoke Park Golf Club for about 15 years or so.
The back drop to the 17th green is Maxstoke castle and, so the story goes, it was here that Richard
ate his last civilised meal before the battle of Bosworth field. Once I had heard this story I wanted
to know more than just the Tudor propaganda and Will shakeys version of Richard, and the awful
story of the princes in the tower.
     Just the account of how he died at Bosworth left me in awe of the man, but his whole life
story (short though it was)  is almost unbelievable .The picture above and not the image W.S
paints, is how I think of Richard 111.
   Film on channel 4 last night on how the remains of Richard have been found ( a fantastic
story in itself) and how some 500 years or so after his death he will be given a 'proper' burial.

Foot note ... Richard was the last English king to die in battle, royalty should have died with him...
    

Wow......

..it's so beautiful here right now,
and tonight it's going to snow.
I might stay up and go for a walk
in the 'first fall'.

Think that was the..

... longest ten days I've ever had to endure, but hey,
it's a so called new year now. Spent most of the hols
listening to the radio, sad to know that we won't be
hearing the voice of CMJ. anymore.
   Watched bits of telly in the small hours, and thankfully
I saw an Arena film of Amy, in Ireland, stunning.
For me, Amy has to be the greatest singing talent this
country has ever had, just light years ahead of anyone
else. Maybe, just maybe, she could have been the best
'jazz/blues' the world has ever known.
 We'll never know.
If youtube remove these, go and have a look at
Amy Winehouse/ accoustic.

KRO

more Dexys ..

So we waited 13 years for Cable to return
and 27 years for Dexys  (K.R.) new album.
I guess Kevin's one of those you love or hate,
who cares, me and Kermode love him ..


KRO

Dexy....

is madder than ever, but who's the girl?
Wow, wow, and thrice wow ...
I really, really love this vid...
bet y/tube remove it .
KRO

500 days .....

Don't know why I watched this film, well actually
there's two reasons I did. One is Zooey, wow, I'd
die tomorrow for just one kiss, and two is the sound
track, thought it was cool.
KRO

the greatest show on earth..

Well not many of us wanted the Olympics here, it was an obscene
waste of money and was just for London and the great and the good,
but feckin' hell, wasn't it brilliant?
Apart from a few mates on STB, no-one knows that some of my
work was centre stage in the "greatest show on earth,"  (I made the
 inflatables for Voldemort, he's the 70' evil guy in a black hooded
 cloak and the fat ugly Queen of hearts in a bed) Have to say I wasn't
impressed with what I made but then I never am, however now it's
it's all over and, to know that I was part of such a huge event well,
it's not a bad feeling.... did anybody get a ticket?

.. just one more ...

Parkinson's law ...

So...Not to be confused with Parkinson's Law of Triviality. Parkinson's law is the adage first articulated by Cyril Northcote Parkinson as part of the first sentence of a humorous essay published in The Economist in 1955:[1][2] Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. It was later reprinted together with other essays in the book Parkinson's Law: The Pursuit of Progress (London, John Murray, 1958). He derived the dictum from his extensive experience in the British Civil Service. The current form of the law is not that which Parkinson refers to by that name in the article. Rather, he assigns to the term a mathematical equation describing the rate at which bureaucracies expand over time. Much of the essay is dedicated to a summary of purportedly scientific observations supporting his law, such as the increase in the number of employees at the Colonial Office while Great Britain's overseas empire declined (indeed, he shows that the Colonial Office had its greatest number of staff at the point when it was folded into the Foreign Office because of a lack of colonies to administer). He explains this growth by two forces: (1) "An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals" and (2) "Officials make work for each other." He notes in particular that the total of those employed inside a bureaucracy rose by 5-7% per year "irrespective of any variation in the amount of work (if any) to be done". In 1986, Alessandro Natta complained about the swelling bureaucracy in Italy. Mikhail Gorbachev responded that "Parkinson's Law works everywhere".[3]

Me? I have no work right now, so how much time have I got?
Who cares, here's the timeless, ageless, magical Cyndi....

... youtube ....

... well cut off my legs and call me shorty ......

O mio babbino caro ..

Opera, classical music, great authors, I study nor 'learn' any of these,
but I do listen and read them. If I am quizzed on them my answers
are not very informative, as my memory is crapp and I sound pretty
simple. However, the joy of this is that when I return to such things
then the pleasure is as new as the first time I read/listened to them.
.... So it follows that this may be wrong, but...
A young girl falls in love with a young boy, for what ever reason
her family oppose the affair, heartbroken, she makes one last plea...
" O my beloved father ... "

cool.......

.. and 'cooler'

... one man guy ...

Well, I thought I was just a misogamist then I got divorced, lived alone for ten or so years and now I know..... I'm a misanthropist ..

Alabama shakes ...

For Sale .......

.. Anybody want a cool pad ........

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-21648429.html?premiumA=true

Sorry, you'll have to cut and paste ...

So, where to next? and who cares.. am I gettin' too old for this?  Here's a man of my age,

a man of my time, a man who makes you think the human race ain't all bad ..

KRO

Tas didn't shoot the snakes ...

Post on STB by Tas telling how he didn't shoot two snakes, 

you'd need a bloody big gun to shoot this bugger Tas..

    Finished it couple of weeks ago, it's now in Paris with

some Ballet group, strange lot the French.

     Due in hospital next Wednesday for my "eye-op",

you know, the one where they slit your eye-ball open

and shove a needle in.

Thought I'd make it re: driving to work 'till then. I'm

ok in daylight hours, but headlights at night just blind me.

and last Monday night I knocked a keep-left bollard over,

so now I drive home in day light. Thankfully works quiet

now, and the " boss" lets me off early, he's a cool guy ha ha.

Forgot to add music to this post..

link was Whitesnake .. Sailing ships.. nah ...

Ships with Sails .. the Doors ... cool ..

and these guys did a cover of the Doors..

and this track of theirs has nothing to do

with anything.. but it's ace ...

Reuben H.

Valerie H.

.. Valerie H... June 1943...October 2011

Haven't got any words Val, so maybe we can share

this one last time, but I guess not, I guess I'm listening

alone now.

Bosman Blues ...

The Premier League is Soooooooooo feckin yesterday.

We haven't got a pot to piss in, come next year we may

not even have a club, but we are the holders of the League

cup, and CH and his Bosman's are in Belgium this week in

the Europa Cup. Some 5 to 10 thousand blues fans will be

there with them, bless 'em all.

    Crocs, a legend on STB, like many other fans, was gonna 

make the trip without a ticket but I've just seen that he and

Nicky finally have got tickets after queueing again for six

hours or more.... 

.. Just hope the Belgium police behave themselves and don't

start picking on our lads.. ha ha ..

KRO

Crocket1

Words and music and all that.. Derek H.

Recorded at 60a .. February 2008

H/Phones... please ..

New York Mary ....

Mary, an Irish girl who has lived in Rochester New York for many

 years now, called into see me today while on a flying visit to the UK,

 wow, I do like Mary.

 Only put this on here as I don't keep a diary any more, and neither 

of us were sure, but I don't think we have met for three years or more.

      After a hug and a kiss, and as I watched her walk away, I thought of

how, chances are I'll never see her again. But hey, that's a sad thought,

and to think of Mary is to smile....

Silver leaves....

So, 'tis the season of the back-slapping politicians. We had a crowd of

them in town last week, not sure (they all sound the same to me) but

I think it was the "Nice but Dimlebs. Never listen to their words now,

doubt many of us do, but I did listen to a guy named John Davies on

the local radio, he's my new hero, (well almost) I guess it's because all

that he said echoed my own thoughts.

    He talked mostly about the mess the banks are in, said quite simply

it started when Regan and Thatcher ( man that was hard to type) 

de-regulated them.  In simple terms this meant instead of being limited

to loaning out £10 for every £1 we put in, they could loan out £10,000

or what ever they wanted.... Hey, lets just trade in money, sod the miners,

sod the steal workers, sod any manufacturing industry, just give that lot

of peasants,  mops and buckets and call them the 'Service Industry"

      Most chilling of his comments were on the bail-out of the banks. He 

said the myth that this was done to protect joe public, wasn't a myth, it

was a lie to protect bankers and the politicians themselves. He said that

three years ago, the "casino' side of banks could have been left to go to

the wall with little or no effect to the public's money. Asked could we

still do this, his answer was ... yes ...

      I say Mr. Davies is almost my hero, but not quite, because there are

many guys out there that have the words we don't have, many that have

the where-withal to help us,  but don't... 

footnote....  though it hurts me to say it...

the act of bailing out the banks was not capitalism ....

Gypsy vans ...

I see the United Nations have got involved with the latest

eviction of Gypsy and Irish Travellers from a site in Essex.

Seems a bit over the top to me, and yes, before you start, I

know the picture above is a romantic image and I could have

posted one of  a Gypsy site looking more like a combination

of a scrap metal yard and a rubbish tip, but hey, so we wear

different specs, that's ok.

    Well I thought it was ok 'till I heard a phone in on 5 live

this morning and I have to say comments from some quite

erudite people left me pretty sad. I know I'm old enough to

know better but to hear the dark side of us brought to the

surface so easily wasn't good.

  

Friday night out .....

... well it was a new one for me, although it was more a Friday
evening as it started about four pm. Started with me lying on the
floor of the chemist in the recovery position, Danny holding my
hand and saying "stay with me Derek,stay with me they'll be here
soon"( He's an ace guy Danny, but a bit of a 'drama queen'.) "They"
being two para-medics in an ambulance, they duly arrived and
spent best part of an hour getting my OBS stable, what ever that
means.
This entailed them putting sticky terminal points all over the
top half of my body, although that's not quite true, they only put
them where I had hair growing. Next they put plastic clothes pegs
on my fingers then shot some little needle thing into my thumb
for a blood sample ( nearly an arm full )all the while they kept me
talking, man, I don't do that, what they trying to do, kill me?
Eventually they decided it was ok to move me and bundled me
off to Solihull A & E.

Seems I got the last cubical/bed and they repeated all the
stuff the para-medics had done.. more sticky patches, more
blood tests (this time it was an arm full) and finally wheeled
down to the x-ray room etc. Of course everything was fine,
as I had already told them. This all took four or five hours,
most of which time I just sat on my bed watching what ever
was going on.
Best entertainment was the mobile x-ray machine, I swear
this was a scene from the ward in Catch22. Seems, unlike
me, no other patients could bemoved, hence the mobile
x-ray. Having wheeled it into a cubicle the nurse would
come back out, draw the curtain, and instead of shouting
"Fire inthe Hole" she shouted " X-ray , x-ray" as she
walked to the far end of the ward with a tv zapper in her
hand. Upon her cry, all the staff opposite the cubicles,
about ten of them behind a huge curved 'counter' left
their seats,and, still talking to each other crouched
down out of sight. The nurse with the zapper fired the
x-ray machine then shouted "All clear" at which all
the staff re-appeared from behind the 'counter', still
deep in conversation as if nothing had happened.
Well I guess you had to be there, but I thought it was
a hoot. By about ten, we, me and them, had had
enough of each other (and they wanted my bed)
so they signed me out and I got a taxi back to 60a.

Got to say what strange places hospitals are,
thankfully I have never stayed in one.To anyone
reading this and if you are into time travel, quantum
thingy or worm holes into parallel universes.... well,
they are real, we just call them"hospital entrances"
I spent four hours or more watching people coming
through them, leaving the world and all they know
outside, all with the same submissive demeanor,
as if they are saying " there you go doctor, there's my
body and soul for you to do as you will" Sure you get
the odd jerk like me who won't even put on those
stupid gown things with ribbons up the back,
well come on, maybe Jennifer Aniston can wear one,
but the rest of us?
If you want the last word on hospitals I suggest
you take out your copy of High Windows by Larkin
( of course you have one) and read "The Building"
brilliant. Anyway, spent the rest of the weekend
just me and Roland, cool ....

.... oh.... don't be so bloody stupid.... I'm fine ...        KRO.

No reason ....

.... Just love this lady .... just love this song ...








.... Just one more ....

Bye Amy ...

Thankyou for the gift ...

I'd rather stick pins in my eyes...

..as KLD would say.

    So, I finally got back to an optician, a local guy in the village,

a small business run by two brothers, surname Maginnis. My

guess was they were Irish which was correct and I so wanted

to ask him if his middle name was "where's" but I resisted the

temptation as I had to charm him if I was to get any glasses.

    Well how the hell do you charm an 'educated' Irishman with

a voice of pure gold? Thank god for Darren Clarke, winner of

the Open on Sunday, one mention of his name and I was in.

The soft-spoken optician agreed to sell me some glasses before

he packed me of to hospital, seems I have cataracts in both eyes.

He said I had lost 90% of my vision, but the specs would get my

sight back to around 50% and the hospital would restore the 

remainder.

   Have to say, what a cool guy he was, although I was a little 

concerned at the glint in his eye, and the restrained smile on

his lips as he described how at the hospital, they would slit the

side of my eye open with a scalpel...... then shove a needle through

said slit to draw off the cataract. This done, they would then shove

a clear plastic lens through the open slit and job done.. well, ninety

seven times out of a hundred.. ha ha .

    So all in all no big deal, but it does jog you into remembering how

precious life is, and how wonderful are all the gifts that go with it...  KRO

Apart from the title this track has little to do with the above.

.. Gifts (I'd send)

Words and music an' all that .. Derek H.

Recorded at 60a ....... April 2008

H/Phones.... please?

Footnote to last post ...

So... with just four or so minutes of a whole season to 

go we were safe, and then relegated, way to go Blues.

    Nothing else to say, and the link to this track is a

tenuous one (from a Jack to a King and back again)

but I do love it ...

KRO

Step away ...

Sorry but it's more music, just ain't got much to say these days.

Old school mate called in at Runway yesterday, long time no 

see. Said he had been playing some of my music, how cool is

that, some one listening to my stuff.

   He said he had "been mostly playing" 'Step away', the last

track my daughter and I recorded together. Spooky, but that

was over two years ago now.

  Man it's strange how time goes so quick, it's as if the older you

get, some weird 'Einsteinian' law takes over, as if the weight of

years compresses time and each new year gets shorter, and 

shorter...... 'till.... well, you know ...

Anyway.... Step away ..

 Words and music an all that ... Derek H.

 Lead vocal ... Melanie H.

 Recorded at 60a ... March 2009

   ( h/phones ... please ?)

Noughts and crosses..

Just a few days more and on the 17th of April, the swallows return

to Runway. Heather( the farm manager) however, reckons they get

here two weeks before and hide up at the top cow-shed, before 

coming round to my place, just to tease this silly old bugger.

  When I first moved to Runway I had two units, one was my office

and also where I lived for eighteen months. The other, my workshop

was some hundred feet long by twenty five feet wide, royal blue carpet

covered the floor and the walls were white.

      A few years back, on some hot June afternoon I had a thirty foot

football spread out on the floor, and was taking a break sitting on

the floor when a swallow flew in through the open barn doors.

For the next five minutes I sat spellbound as it gave me the most 

stunning display, swooping a fraction of an inch above the floor

then up into the roof.

All too soon it left, and I was left to treasure a very special few moments.

I rose to my feet to continue working and there it was.....

Bird shit all over my work.... Well, I guess nothings for free...

KRO

27th FEBRUARY 2011

...All these emotions but I can't explain them... oh Blues my Blues....

thanks to kristoff1875

.GOOD TALK SON ...

.. Had a message from my son saying he has a blog

up and running..... I don't know, ex-rock star, actor,

now author, you'd think he'd find something better

to do with his time.

Here's a track of his old band cable. He was pretty

laid back on stage, I'm told at one gig he took an

armchair, TV, and few cans and watched a film ....

As you can see below, he was a well-read kid even

in those days....

... Enzopia ....

.. Turns out that if you do crosswords with Tas and the General, and

the answer to 12 down is Enzopia, well one of you gets  this strange

eye complaint, and I have. So, I did as I was told and went to the

opticians for an eye test and specs etc. what a waste of time.

        .. I guess my warped sense of humour didn't help, as I walked into

the wall instead of through the doorway to the opticians room, and then

sat in the chair facing the wrong way, but the bottom line is she 

wouldn't sell me any specs unless I go back for further tests... ha ha ha !

 . This leaves me with a couple of choices, some I can't be arsed with, so

I'm gonna do an Andy Warhole, my dark glasses are winging there way

 here as I write ...... so all you sweet little things , shades and smokes ...

 cool way  to go ....... innit .......

Wemberrlleeeee

That proves it then, it ain't the gypsies, it's me. I'm the curse.

I fell in love with my Blues some fifty years ago, but this year

 I didn't renew my S/T, (many reasons for this) and what d'ya 

know, we get to a 'real' final, and I miss a very, very special

 night at Stans. I spent the night alone at 60a, pacing up and 

down the kitchen floor, chain-smoking and listening to radio

WM. I know it sounds daft, but I could feel the atmosphere,

and when the final whistle went I sank to my knees, fists

clenched, sweat in my eyes (brummies don't cry) and a stupid

grin on my face that is still there two days later.

   Of course the whole country doesn't want us to be there,

and the Arse are gonna stuff us 10-0, but hey, stuff 'em,

we're there, and we ain't just goin' for the 'day out, we're

goin' there to win, goin' there to piss everybody off.....

So here's a fellow bluenose doin' his stuff .........

     

New year ...

Happy new year, and the start of a new decade unless you believe it

started twelve months ago ...

Not the most exciting Christmas hols I've ever had and the Blues didn't

help, nothing to do with results or form, but they have that look and

feel of relegation certs, a look I know so well. Still, it was snug and warm

at 60a, my last ever Christmas here, it has to be sold this year, out of my

hands... should be fun.

Christmas...

.. Gonna finish at the farm today, I've had no work this

month, but that's ok. I've still been in each day, it's been

bloody cold but the drive in has been good fun, what with

the snow an' all.  Got a bit of a bad feeling about this Christmas,

maybe it's just my age but...?

..... Here's a clip that reminds me of  my childhood, and though

I'm an atheist, a clip of what Christmas is truly about, just people

showing love to one another.

To any one reading this, have a wonderful Christmas, try and think

of those less fortunate than us, and may your god go with you ...

oh what a world ...

Students rioting... all a bit tame.. Blues fans and Darkside Devils

rioting, all a bit tame... North Korea acting butch, all a bit tame

'cause the Chinese don't like 'em now... Iran acting tough, all a bit

tame, and the Saudis want the Yanks to bomb 'em any way....

and Wikileaks, what's that all about? Who's really behind all that?

    Couple of weeks ago I said to my mate that it was worth a punt

on the head of Wikileaks being arrested on some trumped up charge

 and, cut of my legs and call me shorty.... Julian Assange is nicked.

Anyway, here's Rufus... ( you're right Darius, he did nick all Cables moves.. ha ha ..)

... glory days ....

That's it then, out of work again, but at least I've made enough 

to keep me here 'till next February or there abouts. No work

so here I am moochin' around on the interweb again and read

a piece on glory days. How when we were kids in the fifties and

sixties life was better then, simpler, happier, sunnier ... bollux.

       Yes days were ace then, but that was because we were young,

beautiful, immortal and, innocent. Beautiful because we weren't

disfigured by life's scars, innocent because, with a shrug of the

shoulders most of us "didn't want to know" Mostly we had no

money or possessions, so how could anyone threaten or hurt us,

we had our youth, and you couldn't buy that at any price.

Some of us stayed, some of us left and came back, some of us left

and never returned but where-ever we finished, "they" "them" the

"system"  finally got us and plugged us into the matrix.

     I've spent my life living as close to the edge of the system as a guy

with a wife and three children could, but it still pisses me off that I have

to be a part of it, still pisses me off that I saw what I saw, heard what I

heard and did nothing to change it. Omission is, perhaps the greatest sin

of all..... I live and work alone now, alone and unplugged, no-longer

young or beautiful, no-longer innocent, no-longer immortal, but I

still smile and remember ....... glory days ......

... live music ..

... what can you say? ...

11th hour, 11th day, 11th month ..

The lads in their hundreds to Ludlow come in for the fair,
There's men from the barn and the forge and the mill and the fold,
The lads for the girls and the lads for the liquor are there,
And there with the rest are the lads that will never be old.

There's chaps from the town and the field and the till and the cart,
And many to count are the stalwart, and many the brave,
And many the handsome of face and the handsome of heart,
And few that will carry their looks or their truth to the grave.

I wish one could know them, I wish there were tokens to tell
The fortunate fellows that now you can never discern;
And then one could talk with them friendly and wish them farewell
And watch them depart on the way that they will not return.

But now you may stare as you like and there's nothing to scan;
And brushing your elbow unguessed-at and not to be told
They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,
The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.

A.E. Housman .

Norman Wisdom

..... Norman Wisdom ... 1915-2010.

Even at this sad time, to think of him ... is to smile ....

The Few .....

High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

J.G.M.

Gifts......

Well here I am again...
Thought I'd be out of Runway Farm by now, me being
broke and no work for weeks, but hey, out of the blue
I get a job for the Sha of Oman, and farmer John has let
me off with the rent,(again) so I'm still here, still clinging
to my 'way of life'.
..... My health has been better, and my energy levels are
very, very low, and ergo my mood, I needed a lift badly,
and wow, I got two in a week. First my son sent me his
first full, published book, inside he has written that he's
sure I'm partly to blame for it.. ha ha . I don't think so
Daz, I'm sure your talent is inspite of me, not thanks to
me.
.. Anyway, lift number two... I can't afford to go down Stans
anymore, but I keep in touch through singing the blues,
a forum I post on once a week or so. A couple of days ago
I got a package from Tasmania, it was a Zippo, engraved on
it was "KRO" "Tas". I was blown away, I had no idea it was
coming. Tas ( Steve Kerr) is an ex-brummie and bluenose I talk
to on singing the blues. We met a couple of years ago when he
made (maybe) his last visit to England. We had a drink in the Wagon,
and, well I felt I'd known him all my life, what a cool guy.
.. So thank you both for my gifts, and the smile on my face..

and here's the magical, mixed-up, pissed-up John Martyn ....

skin...

.. Gaz, a blues mate of mine, tells me 

 Skunk Anansie are back together, had

a look at their myspace and yep, they 

have a new single "my ugly boy" and

 areback on tour in the UK.

...Sounds good, hope it goes well for them

but,  well,  you can never go back I guess,

and their old act will be hard to follow..