Observations from a Hill

Forty thousand: an interesting number. On the one hand the words make up 66% of the title of "Forty Thousand Headmen" a song by the band Traffic, released in 1968, and which featured on one of those musical staples of the era - the sampler album [vinyl record] - "Nice Enough To Eat", released on Chris Blackwell's Island Records in 1969 at the pocket-friendly price of 15/6d [old money - look it up] here in the UK, and which is still one of my favourite listens to this day. On the other hand, forty thousand years ago or thereabouts, Homo Sapiens was finally left to its own devices as the apex of mammalian development thus far, as most of the other early human species had died out, save a possible few Neanderthal stragglers, who lasted a few thousand years longer. Anyhow, I say this to put into perspective the fate of two other rather more famous record albums, physically essentially similar in nature to Nice Enough To Eat, that are currently deep in interstellar s

Before I consider writing anything at all tonight, I must give a shout out to the great British instrumentalist Mike Dawes, who is not only technically phenomenally talented, but who also understands music and the arts of melody and harmony applied to instrumental guitar utterly instinctively. Here he is, once again interviewed and playing on Rick Beato's channel - again a shout out to one of my favourite YouTubers for producing serious and seriously entertaining material for those of us out here with an actual attention span and a love of music. Check 'em both out. On with the post... All I want to do tonight is voice how staggeringly pissed off I am about the daily, relentless, hysterical criticism of the new government; including from the natural Labour press constituency of the likes of The Guardian & The New Statesman. The bollocks spouted by the right-wing press is as predictable as it is lamentable; but I'm afraid the commentariat of The New Left [look it up] th

Car issues now thankfully resolved. I had both bottom arms replaced for the MOT test the other day [not cheap] and drove home secure in the knowledge - or so I thought -  that that would be that for the next few months. I fuelled the thing up to the brim ready to go and meet Jane at The Stretton Fox Inn just off the M56 Friday lunchtime, went home and parked up for the night. Friday morning came and I made a nice early start, intending to take my time over the journey and have a decent food break at Holywell on the way. On pulling out over the lip of our slightly sunken car park, a very unpleasant metal on metal clunk resounded throughout the vehicle. On driving down the High St towards Rachub Square - a road whose surface quality is more Greek island than North Welsh in nature - I was greeted with more grating and clanking at each hole and speed bump I encountered. So instead of heading onto the A55 East I made straight for my garage in Bangor again. Turns out that I had sheared the

Sorry to burden you with yet another - sort of - cooking post, but it's been a couple of days of getting the car sorted - still alas not quite resolved - which has involved a good deal of physical exercise on my part [not a bad thing] as while I'm waiting for the garage to get stuff done, I simply walk: a habit that I've had since childhood. While living through my youth and college days, I walked. Around Birmingham city centre, along the canals and out to the suburbs; or, as a hungover student, out as far as Dudley along the canal, to ease the pain of overindulgence with a great Madras curry and three chappati at the Shah Bagh restaurant [blog posts passim]: worshipping at one of my temples of spice and flavour and bringing salve to the ailing fool that I was. Walking. The best and least invasive and injurious form of exercise there is outside of swimming. Taking life a step at a time, at the pace most suited to appreciating the world around you. At a pace that suits intro

Done a lot of walking today, courtesy of my motor being in dock for repairs necessary to pass its MOT. I literally flâneur-ed my way around Bangor for three hours, stopping for coffee at Kyffin - my customary double-espresso - and a read of the newspaper; calling in at Greggs for a sausage roll, and buying a book on Charles Babbage from Pete the Hat, who sadly has recently lost his brother. A decent few kilometres covered in pursuit of absolutely nowt in particular: good physical exercise and a fair amount of introspection to boot. Loads of new University students milling around: doesn't seem five minutes to me since I was a fresher here myself - albeit a mature-student MA fresher - forty-four years ago. Bangor has changed so much in the interim, and mostly not to its benefit; but there are glimpses of hope that there are positive moves to revive the High Street, with a good number of property refurbishments ongoing and small businesses taking up residence again. We just need some

The consequences of mankind's ingenuity and endeavour are truly manifold: we are, after all at the apex - so far as we are aware - of the pecking order on the small blue-green marble we call home: the Earth. What we have succeeded in doing to that marble is, however far from optimal, both to the marble itself, but also to the various sentient inhabitants of said marble, at the apex of which we imagine ourselves as a species, speciously, to be [forgive the split infinitive: you know what I mean, and anyhow, I cares not a jot for the nicety itself]. That we were invested with the capacity to invent beyond ourselves and communicate and disseminate that invention amongst ourselves is of course not unique to us: plenty of other species, mammalian and otherwise do similarly. Where we have taken our ingenuity of course is writ large in the climate chaos that unfolds before us with ever-increasing ferocity. That we are constantly fighting wars of attrition with others of our species - our