What? No weight? Sorry about that, but I’m off on my travels again, and back in the Bristol Centre Novotel. I’m spending a couple of days here, having had a fun long train ride yesterday. After that, it’s off to Wales for another long weekend there.

Here’s a picture that’s the product of my first play with the newly released Perfect Photo Suite 7. There are lots of effects and things to play with, so expect some more experiments…

Millennium Bridge

Up a wee bit this morning.

It’ll be a week of Stuff Reports after today. Details later…

Here’s an interesting bit of tiling from Newcastle’s Chinatown:

Chinatown

No change today, which isn’t too bad.

Not a lot to say today, so here’s a Victorian post box:

Post Box

I’m not entirely sure these things should be legal. Basic roasted peanuts, whether salted or dry roasted, are addictive enough, but these are seriously dangerous. As my Dad used to say, “they get in your mouth”, and if you’re not careful you’ll get through the whole bag in no time at all.

What we have here are roasted peanuts in crispy shells (some mixture of wheat, rice and who knows what), coated in a nicely spicy mixture of chilli, garlic, ginger and other stuff. Spicy enough to be interesting, at least for my taste.

Available in supermarkets, often on multi-buy special deals which makes them irresistible. I’d ignore the price from Amazon that you might see if you click the picture – your average supermarket is likely to be cheaper without needing to buy eight bags at a time. Because you don’t want to do that, you’ll only end up eating them in a couple of days…

And errr, no, I’m not planning on doing a series of salty snack reviews. I just thought I’d mention these because they’re great.[1]

[1] No, it’s not a sponsored review either. But if Walkers want to give me loads of packs for increasing their sales, I won’t complain

Back up today, in the usual weekend way, but I’m lighter than I was a week ago, so it’s not that bad.

Here’s another slightly doctored picture:

All Saints

This was the third serial in Jon Pertwee’s first year as the Doctor, and was first sown between March and May 1970. Nicholas Courtney and Caroline John are along as the Brigadier and Liz Shaw, together with a load of UNIT soldiers.

The Doctor gets involved when something goes wrong with a returning Mars probe. While in our reality, this was shown while Apollo 13 was running into trouble, in the apparently near future world[1] the UK has been more active in space travel, and has a moderately successful Mars programme. Anyway, the recovery ship sent to bring back the returning astronauts actually brings back something else altogether…

And so much fun follows. There’s a good bit of conspiracy, the Doctor flying a primitive space craft[2], people being kidnapped, wild use of radioactivity, and much more. It is a little long at seven episodes, but still works pretty well. The restoration job has worked quite well – there are some blotches in the recovered colour here and there, but overall it doesn’t look too bad, and certainly better than the black and white version I saw on UK Gold in the 1990s.

Extras are a little thin on this one. There’s the usual making of thingy, which has a long section on the Havoc stunt team, who made their Doctor Who debut on this story, and another in the “Tomorrow’s Times” series, looking at what the newspapers were saying during Jon Pertwee’s time in the show.

Not a particularly special release, but still worth watching.

[1] There is much discussion and debate about the dates of the UNIT stories.
[2] And doing some quite impressive facial expressions to simulate G forces

The first I heard about Jake Bugg was a short interview in Q, which made him sound interesting. He’s eighteen, he’s been playing and singing since he was about twelve and even better, been writing songs since he was about fourteen. He wasn’t interested in the hip hop and other such things most of his friends were into, and instead investigated things of a more guitary nature. Apparently he was inspired by hearing Don MacLean’s Vincent on the Simpsons…

He’s played at Glastonbury, and is generally getting a lot of attention. Apparently his song Lightning Bolt was used during that running, jumping and throwing things contest[1] that was on in the summer, but I wasn’t paying attention to that, so I missed it.

So, having heard about him, I checked out a few tracks on Spotify and a recent BBC 6 Music live session. And I liked what I heard, so when the album came out a couple of weeks ago, I bought it from 7 Digital without the slightest hesitation. And I’ve been listening to it ever since.

The songs range from quite gentle ballad type things, just Jake and a guitar and some faster full band material that owes much to the rhythms of Skiffle, for those old enough to remember that. And it all sounds pretty damn nice, but that’s not what I’m going to babble about. It’s the actual songwriting that’s got me hooked on this album. I don’t recall being this impressed with a new songwriter since the Arctic Monkeys first appeared, and that was a while ago.

For instance, Two Fingers is as good a song as any I’ve heard for a while. Jake sings of moving on and getting on with life in a not actually autobiographical manner, even if it sounds like it:

So I kiss goodbye to every little ounce of pain
Light a cigarette and wish the world away
I got out, I got out, I’m alive and I’m here to stay
So I hold two fingers up to yesterday
Light a cigarette and smoke it all away
I got out, I got out, I’m alive and I’m here to stay

Better still, here’s the video:

Another song that’s buried itself deep into my head is Seen it all, about what happens when you crash the wrong party…

And at the door they shone a light into my face
Have to admit I felt a little out of place
But I made my way inside
Past a thousand crazy eyes
Then a friend took me aside
Said everyone here has a knife
…
I’ve seen it all, I’ve seen it all now
I swear to god I’ve seen it all
nothing shocks me anymore after tonight
I’ve seen the light
but not the kind I would have liked

And there’s a lot more – fourteen songs on the album, most of them short and to the point, all of them worth listening to. Jake’s got the voice, and the talent to go far.

Lots more to see on his YouTube channel, and this interview on 7 Digital is worth a read.

[1] Is it safe to say O*y*p*c* yet? Wouldn’t want any trademark issues…

Hmm, now there’s a surprise. Last night’s pizza and drinkies resulted in an actual weight loss of almost half a pound. Bizarre…

Here’s a picture of the Sage on a grey day

Grey Sage

Today’s[1] weight is up a pound on yesterday’s impressive low, which didn’t surprise me much.

I had an evening out for once – an early birfday thingy with Aaron[2]. This may have involved beer, pizza[4], possibly some more beer. Any suggestions that whisky may have been involved will be unconvincingly denied.

This is a picture I’m not quite happy with, but I think it’s got something. A revised version may appear when my tuit supply rises.

Escape

[1] Well, yesterday’s, for reasons that will become clear
[2] My staff[3]
[3] All of him
[4] With a free bottle of Prosecco from those nice Pizza Express people