Fuck. I don’t know what to say. I haven’t listened to this band since it became known the singer was a paedophile. I just can’t physically listen to it.
I remember that musically this was great. I saw the band once and it was amazing. In a very small way I feel I enabled that man. I know I didn’t. The best thing is that as soon as people knew he was a cunt they just stopped playing this stuff. The political right would have called this “cancel culture”, but really it’s just “we don’t support your views so fuck off”. I feel sorry for the rest of the band. But fuck the singer.
I’ve had this album since I was a teenager. Listening now I’m surprised that I’ve never heard the first song before but I think my taped version never had that on it. I have always been surprised that Gary Moore wasn’t a bigger star. Everything thing has written is fantastic. He had a great voice, played well, good song writer. I wonder if it’s a thing that his music resonated with me more than with other people and I’m placing my values on the world? Just because I like something doesn’t mean everyone should, and I’m aware that’s clearly a thing, but the metal crowd should love this stuff. It’s amazing.
Every song on this album is great. I think everyone should own this album.
I have to add to this communication. I’ve been playing this album while doing home admin and generally “surfing the internet” [which I don’t think people say anymore]. This album is beautiful. Empty Rooms, Back On The Streets, Shapes Of Things, Victims Of The Future, Cold Hearted. All these songs hit me right where it matters. It’s an album I can listen to when I’m really happy. It makes me happier. If I was sad it would make me sadder. It hits the emotions. Today it makes me absolutely really fucking happy, it’s a Legend of an album.
This weekend has been pretty awesome. Smith and I drove down to Cornwall yesterday to see the band Nine Inch Nails. There aren’t many bands that would have the draw to get us to travel the width of the country but NIN are one of them. Firstly we stayed at a hotel in Okehampton which was on the route and far enough away from Eden to make the journey home this morning less by an hour. While waiting in Okehampton I persuade Smith that we should try and see a viaduct!
Meldon Viaduct – Okehampton
We parked near the reservoir and walked down by the river to the viaduct. Climbed up and walked the length of the bridge/viaduct. On the return journey we saw Dartmoor ponies and they were rather cute. We also got up close and personal with the dam holding back the reservoir waters.
Meldon Reservoir – Okehampton
After the walk and some food we drove to Eden. Parking was at the top of the project but there were shuttle buses up and down before and after the concert. It was lovely wandering through the biomes with 6000 other metal fans. It was absolutely pissing it down outside at this point with a lightning storm. The noise of this inside the biomes was like a small jet taking off, quite spectacular.
First band on were Yves Tumor. Not really my thing. Listened to a couple of songs but left it at that. Wandered around for a while.
Yves Tumor – Eden Project
Nine Inch Nails were quite spectacular. There wasn’t much interaction with the crowd from Trent Reznor. But is was still an amazing show. I hadn’t noticed until right towards the end of the concert that the biomes had lights and lit up as part of the show. The sound quality was really good and the fact there were only 6500 people attending made it quite an intimate venue. It’s the largest concert I’ve been to for years (mostly because of covid).
NIN – The Eden Project
Andy disappeared into the pit on the second song which was “Wish” from The Downward Spiral. I maintained my composure until they started playing March Of The Pigs and I joined in with the pit. I didn’t stay there, I just hovered on the edge and enjoyed the show.
At one point Trent spoke and said there were two things that happened this evening that had never happened at any other gig. First, he made a mistake playing one of his songs and secondly, there was a rainbow. The rainbow was enjoyed by the crowd, it was quite life-positive-affirming.
NIN Rainbow
It was a great concert. As we left and walked up the winding path to the main entrance my niece called both of us and drunkenly chatted which was pretty funny. Also, the biomes were lit up thus:
I’ve written here about my current Flight Sim challenge which is to fly around the world in short stages. Each leg is somewhere from 50 miles to 2000 miles, sometimes you have to fly over the Pacific and there isn’t a load of airports there. I’m currently in Peru and my previous journey had me landing at Aerodromo Maria Reiche in Nasca. While heading there I flew over the Nazca Lines and so I decided to download a scenery pack and go back and see what it looks like. I didn’t want to zoom over at 500 knots so decided to take a Grumman Goose out for a trip. As I’m heading to Lake Titicaca next I might make that trip in the Goose and land on the lake. It’s not very fast so I’ll have to see how much time I have. I might take the T7 to closer to the lake and then swap.
I’m still playing Gran Turismo 7 as it’s most likely the only game I will be able to get a Platinum trophy. There’s quite a bit of work to do, but I’m not in a rush. I have plenty of time. I just enjoy playing the game. I know there’s been annoyance from players because of lots of the internal economic market but I don’t really care about that. I’m happy to just keep playing.
I don’t currently spend huge amounts of time online racing as other people can be terrible and it’s hard t get the balance right. I’m happy to nudge an AI car now and then but it’s different when it’s another person. This is not something most people think about it would appear given how many times I’ve been knocked off. Anyway, I recently did some qualification laps and I was surprised that I claimed Pole Position. Not entirely sure how that happened and I don’t know how Polyphony allocate people to races to it could be entirely random. Anyway, I got Pole. I also won the race and got fastest lap. This was the first time this had happened for me and I was super proud.
I had a small window of spare time today and so I went to the cinema to watch “Men”. There are details I need to enter before we get to my review. First the tide was nearly full. I couldn’t tell if it was waxing or waning but it was close to high. Also, the M2 eastbound was at a standstill and I don’t know what that was about but I hope that people are safe. I didn’t travel that way as I don’t like having to go to the top of the Downs just to get back down the other side. I used the “new” bridge which has probably been in place for many years now. After the film I rated it on IMDB and there’s a page that covers the rating process here. Then, I tweeted the result:
Earlier today I had tried to screen grab a walk around of the new Minecraft base but the screen recording wasn’t working properly so I’m a little miffed by that. Perhaps I’ll try again tomorrow. I think what I’m trying to do is delay writing what I thought about the film. The problem is I don’t know what I thought about the film. I genuinely spent the last twenty minutes wondering what the fuck it was that I was watching. I wonder if the film was trying to be too clever, although having read the Kermode review in The Guardian I think my interpretation was in line with theirs. I think I’m reminded of Mother but less so, as I didn’t mind this particular film.
I might come back and write some more at another point but honestly at the moment I don’t think I have anything else to add.
This album was one of my first CDs! I recall getting a CD player in somewhere around 1993. Before then I had used vinyl records and cassette tapes. I think I knew about the song “Under The Bridge” and that was on this album so I bought it. There were a few CDs I had bought before I even owned a CD player because I knew I would get one. I really enjoy this album. It is a good collection of the best songs this band produced in the days before they got mainstream and super massive. I’ve always considered the band to be a great rock show. I’m also really impressed with the bass playing because bass was meant to be my thing but I didn’t practice enough to become great at it. I consider myself “good enough to play a song”. I am not musical.
I’ve just looked at the track listing and I could have sworn that Give It Away was on this album but it isn’t and now I need to go and re-evaluate all my memories!
It’s been a windy few days here in the south east of this funny island. It hasn’t rained much, or at least not when I’ve been awake, but the wind has been a consistent feature of the “jubilee” days. Yes, it’s been the queen’s jubilee and I’ve been mostly not-interested. I’m not a monarchist by a long way, in fact I think that the royals embody all that is wrong with this entitled country. Anyway, the wheat in the fields out the back of my house are young and have bendy stalks still. The wind gusts were creating lovely wave patterns in the fields and so I tried to capture what that looks like. To be honest I don’t think I succeeded.
In respect of all other things I’ve [once again] deleted Twitter and Reddit from my phone. I don’t think they are good for mental health. I do like knowing the things that I see mentioned on there but there’s only so much shit in this world that I can cope with and along with the knowledge that the entire environment is going to collapse soon I’ve decided to try and focus on what I can do from afar and stop worrying about the end of the world. There isn’t really anything I can do to try and change what’s going to happen. My area of focus needs to be more on the things I can affect. I will occasionally check Twitter but Reddit is likely not to be looked at much.
If you read the news or listen to the radio [I don’t watch television news] then you will notice the, almost daily, warnings from scientists about the collapse of the climate and environment. Those warning signs have been there for most of my life time but no one has really done anything to try to change what’s going to happen. The current economic and political systems do not allow a decent long-term plan that will help the future generations. I am convinced it is all going to be utter shit.
Through my life I had thought that the country and world was heading towards a more liberal approach to people and life. I had thought that society progresses to be more accepting of social norms as they change. But it turns out that I was wrong. The current UK government are fucking horrible people who are liars and self-serving assholes. They have been brought up to believe they are entitled to the power. The problem is they are morally bankrupt racist liars. I honestly can’t believe some of the headlines I see where people are “I’m almost at the point where I won’t vote conservative“. What the fuck have you been watching for the last decade? I honestly despair at the level of cognitive dissonance these people have.
I’m not claiming to be perfect or to have the answers. I honestly have no idea how to change the current to fix the future. But I do know it’s not what we are doing now. The way we treat some aspects of society is horrific. My central tenant is “be nice”. It’s the easiest thing to do. I think I’d also have to say that we should use evidence to improve and help people along with doing out best to look after the planet for the future. We are nowhere near doing that yet. It’s a real shame. So, now I’m going to head off and be selfish for a while along with donating money to organisations that are working to change our current world in the best of ways so we can be the best for the future.
I watched the latest Star Wars thing, a series about Ben Kenobi. Or rather, I watched the first episode. I might watch more as I’ve just finished the latest Picard series and I’m in need of something good to watch. Anyway, watching the first episode and I recognised a hill next to a lake, so I rewound and paused at the point. It was definitely Cat Bells and Derwentwater. I know this view very well. I sent a message to Penguin who’s back bedroom window looks out on this view and they agreed, although they had missed it while watching the television show!
