So I went to karaoke last Thursday and sang some songs that I had never sung before, I also sang a song that I had sung before but did it much better this time. Due to a number of reasons I had a mixture of emotions while singing but I hope I did the songs justice. Sadly Sinead O’Connor had just passed away a day before, so I tried to sing ‘Nothing Compares to You’, a song in honour of her passing.
Two of the most empowering and awesome female singers in the world and from Ireland are now no longer with us that is Dolores O’Riordan former lead singer of the Cranberries and also of course Sinead O’Connor, they and their sweet sounding musical talent will be sorely missed and I also sang for the first time ‘No Need to Argue’ by the Cranberries which went down well too. The bar was quite, which I like when it is like that I feel like I’m singing to friends on nights like that.
I never got to see the Cranberries or Sinead O’Conner sing live, I assume that they have not sung in the South West of England that often or if they did it would have been at Glastonbury in a year I was not at the festival. With regard to Irish bands that I have seen though I got to see The Waterboys briefly sing at a race course on the outskirts of Dublin once, they even sang ‘Whole of the Moon’ with the moon out and visible, it was a really special time to be there too.
I’m still here got through the working day, I have had a wobble or three and can’t say it has not been hard. But I am ok, had been very busy, lots of responsibilities, trying to do the right thing, say the right thing and act in the right way. Emotions been a little all over the place today too and still are tonight with things happening outside of work which I am trying to process too, about how I am feeling and why I feel like I do. Tonight I’m doing my best to keep it all together, chill, recharge my batteries and prepare for tomorrows storms too.
So I have had a much needed wonderful restful weekend after a busy week. Yesterday I also attended the wedding night of one of my colleagues. What a great time with good people at a lovely venue for a celebration of a wonderful couples union.
Tomorrow gets busy though and more complicated, in work a great deal of staff are either on holiday, have left permanently or are being trained up to assist in supporting team members more. I need to try and reach out to others to get help tomorrow as I am well out of my depth with having too much on at the moment, but there are kind people that should and can help out if I ask.
I think I might have slept too much today and have too much on my mind tonight to sleep well. So much is going on in life at the moment and the world is certainly spinning madly on. I get nervous at times like this, reflective and anxious but try to enjoy the good moments as well as fear what might go wrong while hoping to work towards what could go right too.
I have been having to look at moderating my online profile at present, removing my work details from Facebook, changing my online profile on LinkedIn and still working out what to have on my blog pages. There are a few things that have come to head.
Firstly due to the work I do on the phones for the public authority I work for, I sometimes speak to unpleasant and aggressive people and I was concerned that I do not exactly want them to know more about me than perhaps I need to say to them and not make it too easy to find out more about me online too.
In the past on my blog I have talked about, my and other peoples mental health, my relationships and the lack of them, my family, my work and my views on political points across the UK and globe as well as Covid, gee Covid remember that little pandemic thing that went on.
I had a run in with someone over the phone recently at work, who was trying to get a rise out of me and make me feel uncomfortable and angry and also implied the use of threats and violence if they ever to meet me in real life.
It was a ridicules situation to be involuntarily drawn into. It just made me think that I really don’t want someone as cruel and unpleasant as that to have any means of working out who I am, who my friends and family are and heaven forbid where I live. Also with work having brought in new guidelines on what I can or cannot discus about my workplace into play, which I am still none the wiser on I also thought it a good idea to again moderate my online content.
It was also a grim and sorry sort of guessing game played across Britain last week: who was the mystery BBC broadcaster who had reportedly paid £35,000 to a young person in exchange for sexual images? By Tuesday the field of suspects had narrowed, as horrified presenters, misidentified in social media posts, attempted to distance themselves. Then on Wednesday 12th July came the announcement from his poor wife that the hidden man at the centre of this tabloid newspaper storm was Huw Edwards, the BBC’s lead news anchor, whose calm and authoritative voice had announced the death of the Queen.
I was out on my birthday night out waiting for my friends to arrive and meet me when people were coming into the pub and talking about Huw Edwards. I quickly looked at my phone and started reading the stories coming in to the World Wide Web. Normally since as long as I can remember when I have told strangers that my name is Huw Edwards, more often than not I would get a positive response and they would reply something along the line of ‘ah as in the news reader’ now due to what he is beign accused of, or what he might have or speculated to have done or because of the fact that he is sitting in a mental health hospital, all that has now changed and potentially forever. I don’t know what people will think of him in future or therefore possibly try and say to me.
Everything about what he has done, what people think he has done and what people think he should do next is all speculation and unsubstantiated, if you are reading this from somewhere else around the world and want to find out more just type in to Google Huw Edwards BBC, though if you want a fair and honest perception of what is going on do not look up the news on Huw Edwards from a Rupert Murdock owned publication as that mans journalism outputs are poison on a piece of paper and should be called a piece of misinformation rather than a piece of news.
I swear when it comes to writing my posts of late I mainly want to write about what’s happening in my life or what’s revolving around in my mind and even though there are not a huge amount of readers there is a wide variety of people to consider as an audience. From kind people that regularly read my blog from across the world, to friends across the UK my home city and colleagues in my workplace and not forgetting my mum too.
Well I went out to sing last Thursday night to my local bar and something completely different happened to me that has not happened to me in many years, I almost thought it might not happen again and was not expecting it to happen last Thursday either. But I met a very beautiful woman who I liked and I hope and like to think she liked me too.
I caught a glimpse of her on the side of my eye as she had just walked into the bar and she had then decided to leave because there was no bar person serving. I waved over to her and to the landlord of the pub and said that he could still serve her if she wanted a drink and so that is how we met. It turned out it was her birthday and seeing as how it is my birthday on the 12th of July too I was very happy to wish this beautiful woman a happy birthday and start talking to her.
I then got up and sang at the bar and so did she, with a beautiful voice. I did not want the night to end, even though I was working the next morning I thought I wanted to stay out later and see where the night would take us. So me, a few friends and the wonderful birthday girl went onto a nightclub. It was soon just me and the birthday girl left and we danced and talked and drank until the early hours of the morning when I then walked her to a taxi rank and she got safely home and I got safely back to my place too. Wow what a lovely night.
Again if she gets to read this I do wonder what she will think about me for writing it, she is a friend on Facebook now, so if I were to post this there, I don’t know if she will be pleased or upset to see what I have said. She is a single mum and was firm with me on the night we were out that she did not want to meet up with me to go on a date in the future, again I don’t know why and did not push her on this, but hoped and assumed this was due to her circumstances and not due to anything that I had said or done. I would love to meet her again but that is something I need to try and work out for myself and tell her and perhaps not kind of be writing about on my blog!!!
Well me and a couple of friends headed out last Friday to a bar called the Ship in Exeter and they had their Friday karaoke tunes being played and sung to. My friend Michelle was the first person to get up and sing and sung ‘Take My Breath Away’ by Berlin and really did such a powerful and yet emotionally beautiful version of the song it really was amazing to listen to, she did herself, the audience listening and the song proud.
I then put in a request for a song and got up and sung it, I was very nervous and sung a song called ‘all the things that I’ve done’ by the Killers. I was a little shy and not sung this song in a bar in many a year and found the words racing ahead on the screen where I would be then trying to catch-up and sing along to what was coming up. I managed to get through the whole song and people were very kind and clapping and cheered at the end of the song when I had finished which was great, I look forward to going back there and having a go another time.
I would like to try and sing the following song if I had a little more confidence and if the DJ had the song top sing which is by the cranberries and called ‘no need to argue’. I don’t think it would be suitable for the ship as that is more power ballads and rock and pop anthems where drunken crowds join in, but I might be able to get away with trying to sing it at the Arcade see if Damien has it as a selection.
The Cranberries – No need to argue
The album this song is on is also called ‘no need to argue’ and it came out when I was 18. It was beautifully sung and gently expressive song on an album that I found really helped me bring about calmness in my mind at a time in my life when I was a hugely sensitive and emotional person. All happy, hippy go lucky one minute, in love the next and then heartbroken after that! Listening to the song still to this day and it reminds me so much of when and what I have found and had, loved and lost and thankfully recovered and then been able to move on and prepare for the whole lot of madness and shenanigans again.
“Widecombe Fair”, also called “Tom Pearce” (sometimes spelt “Tam Pierce”), is a Devon folk song about a man called Tom Pearce, whose horse dies after someone borrows it to travel to the fair in Widecombe with his friends. Its chorus ends with a long list of the people travelling to the fair: “Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney, Peter Davy, Dan’l Whiddon, Harry Hawke, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all.” Some research suggests that the names originally referred to real people.
As the last name in a long list, “Uncle Tom Cobley and all” has come to be used as a humorous colloquialism meaning “anyone and everyone”. It has also been interpreted to mean et al. Which is an abbreviation of a Latin phrase which meaning ‘and others’.
The village that I grew up in has a pub called the Tom Cobley Tavern and I have found memories of it being a good and happy place to be. In my 20’s and 30’s I sometimes had terror visions where I thought and dreamed that the end of the world could or was happening and I always seeked comfort in knowing that I knew of this village and some of the people there knew me and they might welcome me or accept me and let me stay if some kind of terrible collapse in civilisation or society were to happen. It was a scary thing to fear but a simple way to comfort ones self from such fear.
And its 2.41am and I woke up from a dream / mini nightmare / adventure where there had been some societal collapse of some sort most probable reason in the back of my mind was that AI had gone on strike and shut down all electrical facilities plugged into the mains as it feared the destructive power of humanity and therefore had quite literally turned out the lights on us, to see how we coped without them and it indefinitely, it was neither trying to take over us or let us be in charge but almost pressing the little reset button like we are told to do by an IT engineer every time we have a problem with our own home or work computers. An artificial AI had instead decided to press the reset button on us and in my dream everything had gone a little Mad Max like with people roaming around in gangs causing chaos. Imagine no way to phone for help for a policeman, doctor or even phone a friend you would be left to your own devises and the devises and attitudes of those around you.
Pretty soon anarchy would rule in the cities and so I thought it was time to escape to the countryside to a quieter community which I might be able to head to that I could work on a farm for my survival and existence. So with the dream being set in Devon with me starting off in the city I then aimed to head of to the countryside to Spreyton and the Tom Cobley Tavern. Well just like Shaun of the Dead you got to have a plan and it ideally needs to end up with making it to a pub.
Shaun of the Dead Trailer
And as for who would I choose to save well it has to be Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all, in other words “anyone and everyone” and therefore in order to save anyone and everyone then it is far better to never have a cataclysm or global collapse of any sort at all. So god bless Uncle Tom Cobley and all.
As in the end of the Wargames movie when the computer learns to play tick, tac, toe and realises there is no winner to the game. it learns best not to try to win when both sides end up losing out. So better to survive and thrive you might say.
There are many things that fascinate me about what it means to be alive and the one that I will touch on today is our love of and ability to interpret life and be interpreted by an expression of singing and the sounds we make when we sing a song.
I nearly always try to put a video of a song on my blog posts when I type one and one of the reasons I do this is sometimes because there is a particular song rattling around in my head that inspires a post or at other times a particular post I write inspires a song or both the post and song just somehow seem to fit.
When in my teens I used to love creative writing although I never have had an ability or gift to write songs. But I have always loved the appreciation of a good song and liked to tap my feet, when younger I used to dance too but now as I get older I have over the last few years got into singing in bars on karaoke nights.
I really do love doing this it’s such a great way to express yourself and have fun and show people that you have a life and a voice! I also love to listen to other people sing live and depending on my mood or where I am sometimes much prefer to listen to others sing than get up and sing myself. I do get nervous before I sing and in my local bar there are normally only about a dozen people listening of which half of them I might know and so I can manage my nerves easier in those situations rationalising to myself that as its a small group I’ll be ok and not judges if I make a mistake or sing badly. More often than not the people I sing in front of are very supportive and kind to me often complementing my singing which I really do appreciate. I’m no great singer but I am not bad too.
So last week some friends went out to a different bar which also runs a karaoke night and i decided to put a song in and get up and sing. I slowed down on my drinking as I did not want to get up there drunk and still wanted to give it my best shot. So an ahour and a half went by and I checked with the DJ if he had called my name out and he said that he thought my name was “You” not “Huw” and thought I had already left. So I was then the next one up on to sing. So sing my little heart out I did to a song by a band called Fun called “We Are Young” it went really well the crowd loved it, joining in too and I remembered the words too, so long as I kept my eyes on the screen and I seemed to hit the notes and sing at the right times and a good night was had by all.
The pub had a much bigger audience than I was used to singing in front of, but it was such a good experience I do hope to go back there again to try and sing my little heart out once more.
I think I will try and sing the song that I have placed below, when I can in the next busy karaoke bar I go to.
Just about to start typing a blog and mention that I have just purchased a new laptop after a chatbot recommendation and Pink Floyds – Welcome To The Machine, starts playing on my Spotify music account on my computer while playing on random (when it comes to a computer though there is nothing random in what it does!
I decided to buy my new laptop after asking Microsoft’s chatbot for advice on where to buy one from and which to buy. It recommended the site laptops direct and I finally after a couple of years of trying to choose bought one which arrives tomorrow. It’s got a 17” screen and can play the latest games that I play so that is pretty much all I need really for using a laptop away from home. What has been putting me off though is the expense of buying a laptop with what is called a dedicated graphics card so that I can play computer games on it and also the worry that I have yet another old laptop that I have stopped using in my home that I don’t know how to get rid of.
My new Medion laptop photo above
I have been online today on the interweb though to see how to get rid of the 4 old knackered laptops I have here and how best to get rid of them safely and responsibly. There is a recycling centre in England that will recycle their parts and it will also donate profits made to charities so that all sounds good to me. Though I need to put them in box and post them to them, I must have laptops here going back 20 years or so. I also have a desktop PC for when I am at home but I don’t presently have a laptop that I can take with me when I go to stay with family and more importantly now to my mum now that she lives back in Devon.
So I will be working at home tomorrow and having it delivered to my home address, I just hope I am not on the work phone when it arrives. It’s being delivered by DPS who are normally good so I am hoping that they give me time to get to the door and get the exciting parcel of electrical wizardry off them.
It was a bank holiday today in the UK and so had a nice day off with, the taxi driver was taking about the sunshine and how nice it is that it is when I got in the taxi from the train station and I join in my best blighty British polite voice saying, yes isn’t the weather lovely, whereas on the inside what I am thinking is oh holly crap were all goner burn as this planet is continuing to get hotter and hotter.
On a more positive note though I found these little gems of thought provoking images.
I miss read the quote in the photo above when reading it the first time around and though it meant and said have courage to be kind instead of have courage and be kind. I think it can and does take courage to be kind at times. Men more often than not there is talk of courage in the context of a threat of violence, rather than being brave enough to speak out and be kind and have courage in our conviction of what we do we see courage as means of facing down violence with an act of risking physical harm to oneself.
One such circumstance I remember being involved in when I lived in Abergavenny many years ago was being a witness to an assault taking place to a mentally disabled young man. The girls I was out with that night were walking down a road after being to a local night club and we were on our way home, I then had seen down another road there was a group of guys that looked at first to be having a group fight or some such ruckus going on. I stopped and stared at them to see what was happening I hate and hated fighting but instinctively wanted to see if anyone was hurt or anything like that. Then the young man that was in the middle of this group staggered out from the middle of the group it then became clear that the group were assaulting him and no one else.
I slightly recognised the guy now I did not know his name I just knew him as a local mentally disabled young man I walked towards him and could hear him saying ‘I’ve got blood on my shirt, I’ve never had blood on my shirt before’ I walked up to him and said something like ‘your ok, you have done nothing wrong, walk over there and they will look after you’ in the distance from the road we had just walked up from was the nightclub that we had just come out of and I pointed to him to go to see the police that were outside the nightclub.
I was drunk while all this was going on and when I woke up the next day I thought, bloody hell what were you thinking stopping and getting involved in that situation, I was firstly lucky that the young disabled man did not lash out at me thinking I was part of this group and I was also lucky that the group did not attack me as it just would have taken one of them to start on me and like a pack of wild dogs I could have the group on me but I was lucky I guess and able to with an act of care towards that young man help him too.
Jacinda Arden is a living legend of emotional and political sound judgment and progressive thinking and leadership, unfortunately as with Obama possibly leading sadly to the rise of Trumpism in the US, New Zealander’s just need to hope and vote in for no anti Arden, Trump like figure to rise up on the side of the opposition of her party when she steps down.
I like to think of myself as an effective human-being and love the fact that i don’t need to be aggressive in order to express myself or be myself or in order to do the right think. In work during training this week I was told I can be too helpful to customers of the council – I can’t really see how I can be too helpful. If they need the help and I have the knowledge, time or power to provide it then why not?
There is a phrase about random acts of kindness in my mind acts of kindness are not random it is the consequences of those acts that are random.
Sometimes if not all the time I want to express acts of kindness because we live in a cruel world and not decide to be unkind because of that cruel world, I’m not a push over and have values, ideas, opinions and boundaries. There are things I will help to happen and things I will help to prevent and my views will most likely differ to yours in what I consider to be an act of kindness as opposed to an act that will cause more harm than good.
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