twenty one again..

It was my birthday yesterday.
In the whole day I spoke just one
word out loud, "Thankyou" to
the girl on the till at the Co-op,
man what have I become? Still,
it seems I'm two years older
than I should be
     I was gonna have a party
but you can't have a party with
out clowns ......

KRO





clowns

Third month with no work..

...so today I as bin mostly playin'

flint

rex

KRO

Never let me go

Stumbled across a film taken from a short story by Ishiguro,
"Never let me go"  I have never known such
a short story cover so much ground, it may not contain all
the answers you need but it sure as hell poses every question.
      There are so many wonderful scenes, the beach/boat,
the Tokens, the.... well just watch it if you can, if not then
read the book.

KRO

Birmingham Buskers

... ace, ace, ace ........





Link>>>>> B'ham buskers
KRO

You know most days......

... I just can't stand me, what a jerk I am, but then I get
    the odd day when it's ok Dek, "because I do like you"







http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD7ARRNE7gY

KRO

Alison.

Acoustic.

Goldfrapp


Put the link  'cause they keep blocking vids, berks.

KRO

Just listen.

Shadow Art ..

.....Listen...

Shadows follow shadows
As if a sound a shadow makes
Thoughts will scatter dreams
As the torpid mind awakes
The earth becomes a mirror
A reflection beneath my feet
As I rise and tread the soil
Steps forever to repeat
Soil so full of shadows
So deep they're never found
And yet we often hear them
For a shadow is but a sound

Derek H.

Entropy

So you really think you're important?

Time's end

What did you do in the war Dad?

I'm quite sure that I can remember as far back  as when I
was two years old. Now I may be wrong about this and
I'm sure there's a body of government scientists that have
carried out tests on white rats ( this involved making two
half-hitches and a sheep shank with their tails and soaking
said rats feet in Red Bull) that prove adults have no memories
before the age of three. However I know for a fact there has
never been a time in my life when I haven't had a love of
aeroplanes, haven't had a dream that I would be a pilot.
        In a small way I did make my dream come true. I
learnt to fly and my old log book says I had some 130
hours flying before I didn't have the time or money to continue.
Have to say the hours I spent flying alone went way beyond
all my dreams, no words can describe the the feeling of freedom
or the thrill of just me and machine above the Worcester country
side and the Malverns.
  So, what did my Dad do in the war?  Well I guess you may
be thinking the link between my Dad and my love of aeroplanes
was the Spitfire and you'd be right. However, my Dad didn't
fly Spitfires, he built them, along with hundreds of other Brummies
(men and women) at Castle Brom..  I found this wonderful BBC
site with a list of films each one an absolute treasure.( click on
Spitfire)

Spitfire

KRO

There's a joke here some where....

... and it's on me ...

say hello..

..to the people I know .....

JFK......

..'...In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility - I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavour will light our country and all who serve it - and the glow from that fire can truly light the world. And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man ...' ..




 Some inaugural speech that and as a thirteen year old kid I believed him, and believed in him. On his visit to the UK he dazzled us, it was gonna happen, our generation led by him would change the world for the better. After his death the older I got and the more I read the more I saw just a good politician with great speech writers. Here was a man who lied to the most important person in his life,lied to her and betrayed her so what worth were his words to us? I have never trusted a politician since, never voted or took part in any election, I never will 'get fooled again'

ps. he wouldn't get away with 'the freedom of man' now days..

 KRO

 

John Nicholls....

...was the last boss I ever had way back in 1976. We lost touch until
2002 or there abouts when he rented a unit at Runway farm, we
remained friends until he died on the 7th of this month.
  The piece below is from tinterweb it 's a bit sparse and doesn't
tell that he 'toured' Australia as well as S/A in his Speedway
days. We bury John today, I guess I lost the bet mate I owe you
a fiver.

 Nick started riding at his home track Coventry in the early 1950's he had spells with Brafield in the Southern Area League in 1954 / 55 and stayed with these local tracks until 1961 apart from a short spell with Oxford in 1959. He toured South Africa in the winter of 1956 after a successful season with the Bees that year including a couple of maximums and ending the season with an average of over six points per match. However his form dipped badly on his return completing the 1957 season with 3.26. Nick spent most of his career at Coventry but finally made the move to Belle Vue in 1962, it proved disastrous and he couldn't find his form. He joined the Heathens in the Provincial League in July scoring seven points on his debut against Wolves in the Dudley Wolves Trophy. His scores were up and down but still managed an average of over six. However disaster struck in the Provincial League Riders Qualifying Round at Exeter in August where he crashed and received head injuries and severe concussion. This was to end his career. Always immaculately turned out in shiny black leathers little has been written about Nick and he is rarely seen in speedway photographs, such a pity his association with the Heathens was so short. [Thanks to Matt Jackson & Hugh Vass for help with this profile from the excellent "Complete A-Z of Post War British League Riders"]

KRO

Dylan and Safka

Sometimes humans do beautiful things, sometimes....

Was it so long ago....

... or was it yesterday?

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 ?)