Updated the home page today with a few big black buttons to link through to photo and Twitter accounts. I already had the Twitter links but the old links were a bit bleary with the screen grabs of my various avatars. Gone black and basic with these buttons - makes them easy to see and easy to change. I've added the Instagram link as I know lots of people use it now and whilst it's owned by Facebook I've retained the photo app. I've had Flickr for years and it's rammed with loads of photos in it from various trips both around the world and around the ale trips in the UK.



Maybe I'll add a YouTube button at some point ... if I get around to adding Class Song Of The Day to it (or updating it).

Had a couple of days thinking about my story for Infernal Clock: Deadcades and hadn't really got anywhere. Waking up this morning in a dream state I tried to push the dream in a good direction (ie futuristic and rather bad); would be nice to have the story pop into my head without much effort. But the method failed miserably with a dream that went nowhere scary or interesting at all. I'd have been better off just trying to dream about Salma Hayek walking into it, not that she ever turns up these days (I think she's too busy for personal appearances even disembodied ones).


Too busy

Anyway without Salma or a suitable Deadcade dream I had to lie there a bit and think about my story possibilities and you know what I think I've got it. I've had an idea for a long while about a larger (kinda book length) story setting and I think I can use this short (5000 word) story as a proving ground. Though the story itself would be darker and deadlier than my original ideas for the book it will show if the setting and general ideas have possibilities. Now it's time to start writing it or sketching it out.



Could be fun. In a dark way.

CLASS SONG OF THE DAY YEAR TWO: WARREN ZEVON WEEK

Well, here we go, Year Two of Class Song Of The Day has commenced with six songs by six different artists and from tomorrow onwards we'll be having lots of 'Weeks' of bands and artistes. There could be no other artist for the first week but Warren Zevon. Had real problems deciding which songs to pick, I could have picked a whole other seven and been equally happy with the choices. Anyways, I hope you enjoy them. And if you do, and haven't come across him much then get some Zevon in your record collection forthwith. A class act and a wonderful lyricist; anyone who can write verses like this from The French Inhaler has got to be loved and admired:

"Loneliness and frustration
We both came down with an acute case
And when the lights came up at two
I caught a glimpse of you
And your face looked like something
Death brought with him in his suitcase.

Your pretty face
It looked so wasted
Another pretty face
Devastated
The French Inhaler
He stamped and mailed her..."

As a starting point you could do worse then getting the best of album 'Genius' and then wend your way from there to his studio albums.



The biographical book 'I'll Sleep When I'm Dead' is a fair read put together as snippets from people who were with him at various points of his somewhat chaotic life. Interesting way of sketching out his life.



I've scheduled the first three songs of the next artist too. But I won't tell you who that is until next weekend ...

Today was the anniversary of my attempt to tweet a link to a song each day, which I christened "Class Song Of The Day". In theory it was one song per day by an artist, who wasn't to be repeated in that year and it went out every day at 8am thanks to my use of Buffer. I got close enough to doing a 'damn fine job' apparently (quote unattributed; although it may have been me). The first song up was the wonderful Natalie Merchant and via another 363 songs I ended with Sheb Wooley and the 'Purple People Eater'.


Anyway that was the year that was, what about the year that is to be?

I haven't spent much time thinking about it, but I was never going to continue with the same aim i.e. another 365 artists with no repetition. Carrying on with the daily song though... well I'm happy to give it a go. So I was - or still am - after a different form.

My current thinking is to have an Artist of the Week and/or Themes of the Week (or Fortnight). I've already picked my first few bands and singer songwriters but if I'm making it as round weeks then I'm not starting it tomorrow (on a Tuesday; that'd be silly). Therefore I've picked the next six songs (and I LURVE them all) and the band/theme weeks will start next week.

Class Song Of The Day Year One Is Dead,
Long Live Class Song Of The Day Year Two!

Great to see the announcement this weekend of 'DeadCades' the third and final installment of the Infernal Clock Trilogy. The first anthology - curated and edited by David Shakes and Steph Ellis - was the Infernal Clock (April 2017) and featured twenty four stories based around different hours of the day (which will be why there was 24 stories). My story in it predictably was closing time (11pm) and therefore ended the book.


The second anthology was Calendark (December 2017) which was based around the calendar (see, there was a clue in the title) with specific days throughout the year featuring many festivals well and lesser known - my story was set around All Souls Day.



And now the final anthology goes on the next stage out ... each story will be set in a specific decade from the 1880s through to the 2020s; that's fifteen decades. I chose the final decade as I spend so much time reading SF & F it seemed appropriate. I'm not saying just because it's the future my story will include elements of SF - after all it's only 2 years away - but we'll see where my keyboard takes me.

The author's for the DeadCades are listed below. If you click on the list it'll take you through to the Infernal Clock website which is worth following to see how the new book progresses and if you fancy getting into the book yourself there is the opportunity to write a drabble. Get drabbling!

Well, it's Saturday and I'm a) off and b) of to Sheffield on a real ale trip. Huzzah! It's a wonderful city for real ale pubs. Me thinks a Jaipur in the Thornbridge Tap may be in order. Then of course some Pale Rider in the Kelham Island Tavern.

It's also the last weekend of the first year of Class Song of the Day. The wonderful Centrefold by J. Geils Band yesterday and Rick James' Super Freak today leaves just two days and three songs to go tomorrow and Monday.

Er and now I realise I just have TWO days to decide what to do with next year's Class Song. Or even if to continue with it at all. Um... thinking cap. I need to buy a thinking cap. As I'm of to Yorkshire maybe I'll find a thinking flat cap.

I've done it. Scheduled up to next week so that I will have succeeded in a year of music tweets in #ClassSongOfTheDay As mentioned last week I realised I appear to have repeated one song so on the last day of the 'Class Song Year' I've scheduled two songs. The last one is a real daft one from the 1950s which I loved as a kid. Not sure how well known it really is. But hey, it's a great song so it's in. Still haven't decided what I'll do with the Class Song once the year is up. I've a week or so to think about it.

I've now created all the Class Song pages (bar this April's) with all the artists and songs. Just got a hell of a lot of links to add... hope to get that updated over the next week or so.

It's taking a few hours to do on the website but it'll look good when it's completed and then I'll have some time to do some writing. My writing has stalled a little lately. But I'm keen to get on with some. Watch this space.

Updated the Class Song of the Day pages with all the links to the songs from December 2017 and January 2018. Only the previous eight months to get up over the next week or two. Getting there though.

Two things that have come to notice during obtaining these links included finding one of the songs had not gone out on twitter. 'Dodecahedron' by Beth Jeans Houghton should have been tweeted on the 13th December but wasn't. I can't tell if the song went out on Facebook having just deleted my account.



Worse still I've found a song I've put up twice over the year. I'm really not sure what has gone wrong there. Will have to have a double song day to ensure I've 365 different artistes over the year. I thought I was doing so well too. Damn!

#ClassSongOfTheDay