The Good, The Bad and The You What?

Another call to my Blog readers this time for cover versions of songs that are good, bad or just plain disasterous.

e.g. Johnny Cash - 'One' is a good cover of U2.

Bah!

Am I asking the right questions?

Books that I read this week

'Millions of Women Are Waiting to Meet You: A Story of Life, Love and Internet Dating' by Sean Thomas - Easy to read, enjoyed it.

'32 stories: The complete Optic Nerve mini-comics' by Adrian Tomine, a collection of his early work would fall under category of graphic novels, enjoyed the artwork and stories.

I see

So yesterday I started my Cardiac Exercise Programme at a hospital that really I should have started 6 weeks ago. It consists of doing exercise circuits including a 15 minute warm up and 10 minute cooldown as well as the exercises in between. These are mainly things like heel digs, step work and light weight work with very light dumbells. I am also meant to integrate these exercises into daily life at to do these at home. The only thing that compunds it somewhat is that I had an MRI scan of my knee last year and I have a small cartilage tear which causes my knee to to swell and hurt when I exercise as the cartilage catches every now and then! I'm falling apart!

Today, I met my friend Irish Tony in town and went down to the South Bank and having not been there in such a long time saw that Wagamama, Strada and Giraffe as well as Foyles and a funny little DVD/CD shop(Missy keeps on mentioning this shop) had appeared down there. After lunch at Wagamama's, it was then off to 'Undercover Surrealism' at the Hayward Gallery. Pretty good exhibition as it turns out.

I am still struggling with reading 'Status Anxiety' by Alain De Boton so instead have started reading 'Millions of Women Are Waiting to Meet You: A Story of Life, Love and Internet Dating' by Sean Thomas, which is a much easier read that is not to say I won't stop reading 'Status Anxiety' though. My own attempts at internet dating have been absolutely rubbish, if I do manage to exchange a few messages with a girl who I like the look of and she sort likes the look of me it just seems to peter out without ever meeting. I have yet to have been on a date through internet dating despite my best efforts which clearly are just not good enough for the thousands of thousands of women in London. I guess I don't live in the right postcode for women on the dating site I joined.

I also did my graphic novel run and came away with two which I will talk about when I've had a chance to look at them in detail.

Guilty Pleasures

Going to the movies during the day twice.

I like going to the movies when there are only around 5-7 people total in the theatre.

Yesterday I saw 'Brick' and '16 Blocks'. You can find both on www.imdb.com as well as me if you know who I am(not really that important but just blowing my own trumpet)

It had occurred to me to ask if anybody wanted to see the movies with me but in the end I opted to just go and see them by myself.

I enjoyed both for different reasons.

Deja vu

For those of you who don't like sports turn away now.

It was May 2005 that a certain football club went behind and came back to tie the score and play extra time where their goalkeeper made an unbelievable save in the last minute before said club went on to triumph in a penalty shoot-out.

That club did it again on Saturday May 13th at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff in the F.A Cup.
Two teams met one kitted out all in red and the other all in white.

First they went behind to an own goal by one of the most consistent defensive performers of the season and then it got worse. What can only be described as an aberrration when the goalkeeper spilled a relatively tame shot resulted in the ball being bundled in for a two goal lead.

Salvation was to come from the player who went on to quite rightly win the Man of the Match Award. His pinpoint pass to a teammate resluted in a neatly taken sliding volley to half the deficit to one goal at halftime.

What would the second half bring well almost another goal for the team that lead at the break but this time the goalkeeper thwarted the forwrds twice. An equalising goal did come from the man who would be man of the match. There was never any doubt when the ball fell to his feet as the ball hit the back of the net.

With the scores now tied the game looked as if the team in red would prevail and go on to take victory. Yet the match was far from over and against the run of play an attempted cross from the team in white drifted over and into the back of the goal!

As the time ticked down and into the start of injury time after the ninety minutes were over and with players starting to feel cramp the ball was to fall at the feet of the team in red's captain, their talisman as so many other writers have called him. The ball was struck with true force and supreme precision from all of forty yards and didn't touch the ground until the net in the goal had stopped it.

Extratime saw the players on both sides begin to collapse with cramp as muscles tightened and an inevitability of the penalty shootout loomed. There was still time for last minute drama as a header went goalwards for the team in white but replays showed but for the merest of touches by the goalkeeper deflecting the ball onto the post it would have been over.

The penalty shootout saw the team in red go first and score...the team white went and saw the penalty saved. The team in red saw their next penalty saved and the team in white scored to tie the score. The next penalty went in for the team in red but the team in white saw their attempt saved. Up stepped the next penalty taker for the team in red...goal! All rested on the next penalty which was struck low to the goalkeepers right but it wasn't struck true enough and the ball was saved.

The team in red had won again.

That team was Liverpool Football Club.

Away we go

Say no more

Happy Songs Please

To my readers, your mission is to think of at least one happy song and to post it here.

Why? Because I have too many songs about love lost, love yearned for, love that went away etcetera...

Ghost at the Tate

Entry?

How much of your inner monologue makes it out in some shape or form?

Do you express it all on here or in some other way?

Do you purge all the troubles of the day by exercise?

Can a hot bath or shower really wash everything away and not just metaphorically?

Is reading and watching events unfold a way to try and find answers to our own questions?

Does poetry and a certain beat or note in music surpass and transcend all worries for the moment that it lasts?

Is human experience an attempt to collect and experience moments of transcendence and that is why we go through the motions of life each and everyday hoping to collect those moments?

Despite the weather being fantastic, my mind is not at ease and it is questions like those above that occupy my thoughts amongst others. I'm not sure what would happen if somebody did have all the answers to my questions. I'd really be stuck then without my pseudo prententious musings on experiencing life in the universe.

I write sentences in my Moleskine notebook either as sentences or paragraphs for some future use that are actually indicative of my state of mind at that given time. Here's one...

'The light had started to fade on that which had once consumed his interest and defined his being, now all that was left was a body devoid of meaning and searching vainly for a reason to be.'

(What a happy person!)


ADDED AT 6.30 pm I also worry that I am fast becoming a dull person.

Busy, Kind of, Sort of Bee

Last week I kept fairly busy again with the almost weekly visit to a hospital of some sort for something or other(this one discharged me...one less to go to now!) and had numerous lunches, a group dinner and took in a movie too.

The movie was 'The Squid and the Whale' which had two well cast 'child' actors who looked right but also acted very well too. Jeff Daniels hiding behind a beard and the ever excellent Laura Linney played a New York Literary couple whose marriage disintegration is played out in front of their two sons who deal with it in their own unique ways. Anna Paquin is present as the young temptress a role she played in "25th Hour" too, will somebody give her a role other than temptress or mutant? The film was set in the early 80's and other than the odd miniscule detail here and there captured the period.

One of the lunches was a home cooked 3 course Italian meal which was indeed delicious but also just way too much food. I couldn't eat again until much much later in the day and even then that was just a slice of bread!

I found the group dinner rather stressful I'm not sure if that was because I didn't know that many people and the noise from one guest was loud, loud, loud! I wonder if said guest's loud, brashness is alcohol induced or an act to mask their insecurities or just plain old fashioned attention seeking.

I also got a little job drawing up a sofa that incorporates three different elements from three different sofas into one. As one person I spoke to over the weeked named it...a 'Frankensofa' if you will.

So my life is not all rock n'roll but then again was it ever?

This week see's me taking a 'Walking Test' as part of my much delayed Cardiac Rehabilitation Programme and delivering the Frankensofa drawings.