This evening I've scheduled in the last of what I'll call the 'official' Class Song of the Day songs. I've been doing this since April of last year and have only accidentally missed a couple of days in that time. As said previously though it does take a little time and I have put pressure on myself to keep it going. Now that I've decided to finish it of as of December 31st then I won't have the time pressure to keep up with it.



That's not to say I won't tweet out songs from now on. It just means if I don't I won't feel I've messed it up if I miss a day, or a week, or if I repeat any songs. In fact I've actually carried on and buffered songs a week into the new year. And I now don't care that a few of these are repeats of earlier songs I've tweets out links to. Ha! Who cares? Not me. I've not added the hashtag #ClassSongOfTheDay to the songs for next year. The hashtag may or may not remain dormant. We shall see.

Anyways carry on loving music. Because there aren't many legal things much better than music out there.

With Elton John being my last artist getting a whole week for himself on #ClassSongOfTheDay this week,I've gone and picked my artists for the last eight days of the year, but not the songs - incidentally it was supposed to be the week for Pixies then Lykke Li. The artists I have gone for are:

• Decemberists
• Jayhawks
• Neil Young
• Teenage Fanclub
• Chuck Prophet
• Warren Zevon
• Ryan Adams
• Frank Turner

Unsurprisingly it has come out largely as Americana and singer songwriters. A difficult pick with Bright Eyes, John Hiatt, Blue Aeroplanes, Felice Brothers, Thea Glimore, Adele and Iron & Wine all waiting in the wings.

All the November excitement of VSS365 and NaNo has to some extent passed. It seems an age ago (er it is 4 days since my stint at the helm of VSS365 came to an end). But my other scheduled daily Tweet is still very much alive, that is: Class Song Of The Day. This evening I've updated the CSOTD (Year 2) webpage and the next ten days of songs are Buffered.

This weeks songs are from the living folk legend that is Steve Earle. Enjoy.



Can't believe there are only three artists to come after him before Christmas. The year, the year is disappearing right down the plug hole. That said I've got the next six artists lined up as far as the end of January. Should be a breeze to get the full Year 2 sorted. Not sure what/if I'll continue into Year 3 with if. We shall see when we get there in the middle of April.

Since April I've been selecting an artist that I like, putting them up for the week and choosing a song each day for them. It's been a cracking group of artists. Let's face it if I was a DJ it'd be bloody great - I'd like it anyway.




The CSOTD Tweet get's sent out each morning at 8am (UK).
#ClassSongOfTheDay

Several aims today included getting the scheduling of #VSS365 and #ClassSongOfTheDay up to date and updating the Class Song page with this week's links (Talking Heads).

I also have the aim of writing over 3000 words for NaNoWriMo. At the end of today the par word count is 31,667 and at the start I was only at 25,081 so I need a decent amount to close the gap a little. It's got to the point now where a par daily count is around 2000 words, which sounds fine, but when you think of a missed day adding that to the fewer remaining days it all adds up quite quickly.

Well first things first was VSS365 and I've updated the Twitter Scheduler to bang in the next words. It being the 19th and the scheduler having a maximum of ten then it takes it up to the penultimate day of the month. So tomorrow I can schedule my very last VSS prompt tweet. Ahhh! How sad. It's been great fun so far anyway and have been loving all the stories, though I have been able to read them all. There's so many. It's been good to meet so many new people on Twitter through it to. Top flashers.



I then updated the Class Song scheduler with the remaining songs from Talking Heads and next week's band (which will remain nameless until next Monday but it's one of my fave from uni days) and sorted the Class Song page links. Huzzah! Click on the link to get listening.

On top of that I have written 2500 words for NaNo. Want to write another 1000 or so to dig into the total just a little bit. It's hard work and I think it may be about fifty fifty if I get to the end at the moment. Onwards and upwards and all that.

#KeepWriting

A busy week last with all sorts going on. VSS365 has been going well. The scheduling site I use has continued to successfully upload all the Tweets at the right time... happy days. And so many people getting involved, it is great. Yesterday a few people suggested I should have been writing my own VSS365 rather than just setting the words free and so I wrote a quick ten to catch up with the rest of the guys and gals. I promised I'd write for all of them now.



At the same time I have been doing NaNoWriMo and up until Saturday have been right on track. Yesterday I wrote nothing though and don't think I'll get any - or at least not much - done today, so I will end up being some 3200 words down. Eek! Some catching up to do.

Meanwhile on Saturday and Sunday my #ClassSongOfTheDay tweets weren't sent out on time. Shock and horror guys! A handy reminder was sent to me from my listener in chief and I had to send them both out yesterday. Today I have scheduled the next ten days on Buffer, so there won't be another gap for at least that time at any rate.



Last Thursday I played guitar (and sang) in front of some people in a Liverpool pub - The Sanctuary - which was the first time I've sung in front of anyone publicly since 1997. There maybe some video evidence of it somewhere apparently, but I am yet to see it. That may well be a blessing. In the meantime I am contemplating doing it again but picking another song or two to do. Made a couple of CD playlists to see what may be easiest to work on: should time to work on playing guitar suddenly appear.

I've not been entering many flash fiction challenges lately (not counting VSS365 as a challenge per se) but have done the odd Microcosms over the last three or four months. I was working on Friday but it was a late start so I wrote a quick story before heading to work and found out the judge chose mine as the top one this morning. So a nice start to the day. Normally the winner would take on the judging the following week, but as I'm doing NaNoWriMo and I'll be curating VSS365 this weekend I've asked to put back my judging duties to another month (which has graciously been accepted - thanks Geoff!).

If you're looking at a <300 word challenge on a Friday then head on over to Microcosms some time (preferably on a Friday).



I've got #VSS365 sorted now. The first ten words are in the scheduler and good to go. I think I'm largely happy with the words, but hell I dare say there aren't many words we couldn't or wouldn't want to work with (probably words Trump uses). I'll have to see whether I get to change any of the words in the daily tweets. May be best to just keep it simple. After all you're all just wanting to know what the one word is...



So, I'm ready with regard to VSS but I am far from ready with respect to NaNo. I've sketched out some ideas, but boy there's a lot of question marks about how it will go and a damn load of space to fill. Whilst I've done it once before and completed it I think I am less confident about this attempt due to the existing woolliness. We shall see how it works and whether it will come together over the coming weeks. Good luck to all who are giving it a go.

I have sorted the images for next four bands and singers for #ClassSongOfTheDay which will save some time later in the month and today I've updated the CSOTD2 page with the songs for this week from the mighty slide of Ry Cooder. If you like some fab guitar slide on over and listen to some great tunes.

Have had an hour or so updating the Class Song Of The Day song list and now have the next 33 songs all selected and raring to go. In addition the bands and singers are all lined up as far as the new year. The next bloody year, people! 2019, my word.

So I now know that there will be songs from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s - and even THIS century. Incredible.



The CSOTD page is looking mighty fine already, but will look even better once the next ten bands are up there too.

I've spotted a few gaps so have some bands ready for next year. Like I say, bloody hell.

Have updated the website with this week's song links for the wonderful John Hiatt. Only seen him once live, down in that there London far too many moons ago. Would like to see him some more.



And I found that second Twitter scheduling site. I use Buffer for Class Song of the Day and for free you can only schedule a maximum of 10 Tweets; with me needing to schedule 30 Tweets for VSS365 next month I needed to find a second site to do the scheduling - or else I'd have to log in and just do five of each (ie every five days). With going for NaNo this year every bit of time saving and general assistance is a god send. Trying out a little used one. Will see how it does, I won't name and shame it until I know if it works properly and if it does I will sing its praises of course (maybe it'll come in handy for someone else). I've scheduled the first ten words already. So watch Twitter at 06.30am on November 1st to see if it works - and maybe give it a whirl.

Tonight I've managed to delete another 1250 photos and I've now got 8GB more free space on my hard drive than I did four weeks ago (from 52.6 to 60.5GB). Can't be bad. I've now gone from 54k photos to just under 47k.


12 Sept


Today

I need to delete some more, perhaps get it down to 40k photos, which should give me a very healthy additional c.10GB space. Huzzah! Then there's the thorny question of creating and managing some bloody substantial photo albums so I can find stuff when I need it. Maybe, one day.

After a nice day in the sun today I even managed to take a couple of photos for #DailyDeliveryPhoto Just need to put them up on Twitter now.

Oh, and I've also lined up another 7 days worth of #ClassSongOfTheDay for next week with some fab classic songs (well 1980s).

Class Song of the Day has been moving amazingly smoothly from one week to another in Year 2. Since Dylan and the Stones in July I've continued with a mix of big bands and a few lesser known ones and a few singer songwriters, namely;

• Broken Family Band
• REM
• U2
• Neil Young
• Bright Eyes
• Iron & Wine
• Barenaked Ladies
• Queen
• Creedence Clearwater Revival
• Cracker
• David Bowie

I've got the weekly bands lined up now as far as Christmas. Yes, that bloody holiday thing. There is apparently an almost never ending supply of my favourite bands. Of course next year that may well be tested, if I continue into year 3.

#ClassSongOfTheDay

Class Song of the Day has continued unabated - it's a good job I like a lot of bands. With the latest being the wonderful Canadian band Barenaked Ladies who consistently record fab albums and are great live - although I last saw them many moons ago when they played in the Royal Court, Liverpool (so I guess that would be mid-1990s!).

Of all the bands and singers I've had so far in Year 2 there are only the Beatles and Warren Zevon who I haven't/can't seen live (although I did see Paul McCartney when he played Anfield in 2008).








The bands coming over the coming months will include a lot more bands that I haven't seen because I can't be everywhere or every-when.

It's my birthday week next week and whilst the No.1 when I was born was the Beatles 'Hey Jude' I won't be having the Beatles again next week, but I do have it all set up with one of my favourite bands from when I was a youngster. But that's next week and you'll have to wait to see who they are. In the meantime enjoy the songs from the Barenaked Ladies and all the other bands above with links on the CSOTD2 page.

Class Song has been progressing well with these weekly song lists. So far the artists have included a lot of biggies, but I've tried to mix it up with some smaller ones. The artistes so far have been:

• Warren Zevon
• Wilco
• Counting Crows
• Ryan Adams
• Jayhawks
• Frank Turner
• Pogues
• Chuck Prophet
• Beatles
• Thea Gilmore
• Aimee Mann
• Bob Dylan and
• Rolling Stones

A mix of rock, country and singer songery types. Let's face it if I've covered Beatles, Stones and Dylan I've pretty much done the biggies. That said there's lots of cracking bands coming up. Next week I've got songs from Broken Family Band. A criminally underrated English band who were not big at all - so don't expect many videos.

Not sure how many people are listening to any of them. But I do know whoever is should be finding some decent tracks. And if I can introduce one new person to a band they didn't now before then the job has been a good one.

Keep listening.

So far this week has been very poor for writing. Hoping to get an hour or two done this weekend - at some point.

Finished reading Neil Gaiman's 'Fragile Things' which of course was excellent - and makes you realise how good short stories CAN be. Now I need to get more practiced at it. Pen to paper, mate.

Been an odd week with a few things. But whilst writing and reading has been a bit limited I have at least managed to update the website a little, especially getting Class Song of The Day up to date. So far Year 2 has been a breeze. As well as 'Buffering' the next ten songs I've selected the following 32. I'm keeping up with keeping up.

This weeks songs have been from The Pogues. Let's face it, who doesn't like them? An easy job for me then. Now get yerself drunk crooning, no need to remember the words just grunt along folks.



Next week is one of my fave singer songwriters and underrated guitarist... but I won't spoil the surprise. You'll have to wait until Monday for #ClassSongOfTheDay on Twitter

CLASS SONG OF THE DAY YEAR TWO: FRANK TURNER WEEK

'They've started raising walls around the world now
Like hackles raised upon a cornered cat
On the borders, in our heads
Between things that can and can't be said
We've stopped talking to each other
And there's something wrong with that

So before you go out searching
Don't decide what you will find
Be more kind, my friends, try to be more kind'

Lyrics: 'Be More Kind'

So after the glorious harmonies of the Jayhawks along came one of my favourite singer songwriters (and I mean of all time even though he's only a young pup right now) the wonderful Frank Turner. He is a prolific writer and performer and the quality doesn't seem to be a problem. He keeps track of all his gigs and currently as I write this he's up to gig #2183 (in Baltimore). I've been lucky enough to seem him at five of those gigs and they were all boss (Bath, Liverpool, Glastonbury (Secret gig) and Glastonbury (Second Stage)).



That's four not five. Well yeah. The first time I saw him was incredibly at Wembley Arena on April 13, 2012. I'd gone down to watch the Liverpool v Everton semi-final at Wembley and found that the night before Frank was playing the Arena. A very lucky accident. It's hard to get over how bizarre this gig was in some ways. I mean a folk(ish) guy without big record company backing and not that well known filling out Wembley Arena through little more than word of mouth. It was a fabulous gig. A massive singalong from start to finish. Support was great too with Beans on Toast, Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip and Billy Bragg. I was lucky to keep some of my voice for the following day (when Liverpool of course beat Everton).

The seven songs I chose were:

• Glory Hallelujah!
• Plain Sailing Weather
• I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous
• Get Better
• Long Live the Queen
• Reasons Not to Be An Idiot
• Mittens

Click on the pic to go to the Class Song of the Day (Year Two) and check them out. He's so prolific and great that I'll be having a second Frank week later in the year.

Frank Turner & the Sleeping Souls are a brilliant live act. If you get a chance to see them don't think twice.

This week's songs will be from The Pogues.

Today's plan is based around my normal 'Ideal Day' type:

• Coffee
• Read a bit
• Write a bit
• A couple of ales

We'll see how I go.

After waking up early I got to the bit coffee early doors. Eventually I prised myself away from Twitter to get a whole hour (whoopee-do) of reading. Currently reading Neil Gaiman's 'Fragile Things' (a short story collection). I am still behind in my reading this year, but getting some done. Onward and upward.

Next up was looking at updating some Class Song of The Day stuff. Selected another couple of artists and sorted the picture for next weeks band, which I'll upload onto the 'CSOTD: Year 2' page shortly. It's a band I was well into back in the 1990s and have seen in a few places - whatever the venue invariably there was chaos with this lot.

Next up there was this little blog update. It's important to keep it a little bit alive, isn't it?

Following this the remaining plan is a wee bit of writing. Maybe 1000 words? Got a competition piece to consider as well as getting back onto the Infernal Clock story. I've also got to finish of the Turkmenistan memoirs piece for the Memoirs section (it's been half finished now for an age) and also type up 'The Origin of the Carbonatite Magma'. But that's not for today.

After completing some writing I'll be rewarding myself with a pint and meeting a mate in Liverpool centre.

I'll report back how the writing, and the imbibing, goes. Laters ...

CLASS SONG OF THE DAY YEAR TWO: JAYHAWKS WEEK

'Pretty little hairdo, don't do what it used to
Can't disguise the living
All the miles that you've been through

Looking like a train wreck,
Wearing too much make-up,
The burden that you carry
Is more than one soul could ever bear'

Lyrics: 'Save It For A Rainy Day'

Following on from Ryan Adams in Week Four Class Song of the Day Music Weeks was brought to you by The Jayhawks a most underrated and glorious band. Been lucky enough to see them a few times, as well as seeing the lead singer Gary Louris perform in Liverpool. Top songwriting with lovely guitar and beautiful harmonies.

They is top (I like them so much my main email address is named after a Jayhawks album!).



The seven songs I chose were:

• Waiting for the Sun
• I'm Going to Make You Love Me
• Ace
• All the Right Reasons
• What Led Me To This Town
• Bad Time, and
• Stumbling Through the Dark

Click on the pic to go to the Class Song of the Day (Year Two) and check them out.

This week's songs are from Frank Turner the prolific English troubadour. I've had a real hard time whittling that down to seven songs; pretty sure I'll have a second Frank week later in the year.

Three days in and I'm STILL continuing with my first BuJo effort. I wonder how long I will actually continue it? Seems a good idea so far though. May even get into making it look pretty at some point (not with my handwriting though, cos that is bloody awful).

Updated the Class Song Of The Day page for this second year and I think it looks a lot neater with the 'Weekly' lists. Makes it look cleaner and I think more user friendly too. Let's face it that's what web pages should be about hey?

And such tunes...!

Trying to keep the updates coming on the website in the blog regularly too. Mind you not sure how much this week. The weekend will be taken over by a certain footy match. Jealous of everyone in Kiev this weekend. I was lucky enough to go to Istanbul and Athens, though for the latter I didn't get a ticket or go in the stadium (ended up watching the match in the Craft Beer Bar. The chances!). My week in Sunny Beach and Istanbul was one of my best holidays ever. I mean come on, what a match. What an occasion! Traveling with loads of fans, the songs, the colour, the banners, the beer (well, okay not necessarily the taste of it), a great city, a half finished stadium, the laughs.



The victory was great too!

Just updated the next ten songs on Buffer for the upcoming days with some fab tune age. Disappointed how little decent live footage (or even official videos there are of next week's class act). Ho hum. Some bands don't get the coverage or investment they deserve. Ryan Adams week has come to an end there was no probs finding decent vids and lots of live stuff by him. Biggest problem was refining a selection down to seven songs. Been listening to lots of the CDs in the van this week, whacking them on loud. Let's face it I could have just put seven tracks of Gold or Heartbreaker up. Me thinks I'll be having a second Ryan Adams week later in the year.

The seven songs I chose for Ryan Adams week were:

• I Love You But I Don't Know What to Say
• Two
• When the Stars Go Blue
• Do You Still Love Me?
• Let It Ride
• Come Pick Me Up
• This Is It

Really I could have picked seven other songs and been equally happy with the selection. So many good songs in that man's heart.



Putting ten songs in Buffer means I've selected the first three songs of the following week too and again the biggest problem with that act is getting the number down to seven songs and I can see me definitely having a second week for that artist too.

Thinking of presenting the Class Song of The Day pages on the website differently now that this year it is split into weeks. Watch this space...

Anyways, been good to keep it going and enjoying the videos and performances myself even if not many of you guys have been clicking yet (though happy to see Sal has been enjoying Ryan today!).

CLASS SONG OF THE DAY YEAR TWO: COUNTING CROWS WEEK

"When everybody loves you,
Oh, son, that's just about as funky as you can be"

It is Week Three of my Class Song of the Day Music Weeks and following on from Warren Zevon and Wilco it is another of my big lovely favourite bands, the wonderful Counting Crows. I fell in love with them straight away when I first heard them on the new Virgin Radio through 1993 and 94. At the same time I fell in love with Cracker who (I think) toured with the Crows around that time in the UK. I didn't see them on that tour but I have been lucky enough to see them three or four times in the UK.



Given how long they've been going it is a bit surprising that they've only released seven studio albums:

August and Everything After (1993)
Recovering the Satellites (1996)
This Desert Life (1999)
Hard Candy (2002)
Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings (2008)
Underwater Sunshine (or What We Did on Our Summer Vacation) (2012)
Somewhere Under Wonderland (2014)

If you haven't got August and Everything After then you really don't have a CD collection at all, so get it sorted. Mr Jones is one of the most perfect pop songs ever and don't get me started on Anna Begins.



If you don't like listening to Adam Duritz singing and baring his soul then you, my friend, have no soul.

Happy listening.

CLASS SONG OF THE DAY YEAR TWO: WILCO WEEK

Following on from Warren Zevon Week, which was the first of the artists of the week for Class Song Of The Day (Year Two), it's now week two and this week's band is one of my most favouritest bestest bands ever ever. It's Wilco (the band not the Johnson).


Wilco - the Band

I've been lucky enough to see them several times in Manchester and Nottingham and at the End of the Road Festival. They are a top band and a brilliant live act; wonderfully melodic, occasionally very noisy, great lyrics (which is my 'thing' I guess) and most of all consistently high quality thanks in no small part to the fab songwriting of the lead man Jeff Tweedy.


Jeff Tweedy - songwriter extraordinaire

They've released ten studio albums and an excellent double live album (Kicking Television, 2005). The studio album discography comprises:

A.M. (1995)
Being There (1996)
Summerteeth (1999)
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2001)
A Ghost is Born (2004)
Sky Blue Sky (2007)
Wilco (The Album) (2009)
The Whole Love (2011)
Star Wars (2015)
Schmilco (2016)

Typing those out I realise I don't have the two most recent - it must be rectified. I'd find it hard to recommend just one, due to the aforementioned consistent quality. If you are coming to them for the first time maybe I'd recommend Summerteeth that said YHF or A Ghost... a difficult call.


Nels Cline - Boss guitarst and chief wall of noise meister

You can also find the two albums they recorded with Billy Bragg, performing songs to lyrics from Woodie Guthrie; Mermaid Avenue I and II.

If you get a chance to see them live don't miss them. And prepare to be blown away by a tight band, immense tunes and some stellar guitar and noise from Nels Cline.

Hope you enjoy this week's curated tunes.

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!

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

I've finally got around to putting some of the links through to the songs from Class Song of the Day on to the website. Partly this is because of me getting off Facebook. My FB page has largely comprised just the Class Song being automatically copied over there when the tweet goes up each morning at 8am. A few regular visitors to my daily song on FB aren't Twitter users so I thought maybe if they are going to keep following the songs then they are more likely to peer at the website than head over to Twitter.



As I've already posted 340 links with this Twitter quest that means I face a lot of Copy and Paste to get the links checked and sorted so it will take me a while, but I've made a start with getting March to date and February links sorted on one page. To minimise pages but also minimise scrolling I've decided to display the links with two months per page and it seems to fit alright this way. I won't be updating the links page each day. I'll probably end up doing it once a week playing catch up with the Tweets of the previous week or so - I don't want to give away each of the daily songs in advance now, do i?



It'll definitely be easier to click through songs on the list than trying to find individual links through the hashtag for anyone who doesn't follow me on Twitter. So first 50 or so links posted, just another 290 to go through. Flip! A rod for my own back maybe, but once the year is up the effort will have made a nice whole. When I've a moment I'll consider whether to put other information up there in addition to the song links. That said, I only have so much time ya know!



Head over to the Class Song (Feb-March) page to check out the links to the songs from the last couple of months. There should be something there for everyone.

The news about Facebook and Cambridge Analytica over the last couple of days is fascinating and concerning but in the end it comes as no surprise, does it? I've been on the edge of leaving Facebook for a few years and have spent time deleting many old posts in the past. These days I only put an update up there two or three times a month - other than 'Class Song Of The Day' which is linked with the zevonesque Twitter account - so it will be no great loss. The thing that stops people leaving, or at least puts any pause on it, is the risk that you're cutting ties to friends who have no other easy way to contact you. Of course if you're really friends then you will have one way or another to keep in contact (at the very least just ask a mutual friend) - unless you are just using it to cyber stalk. It may be hard to believe but we all lived perfectly well in the days before Facebook with nothing more than a little book with telephone numbers scratched into it, scrubbed out, rewritten and slotted with post-it notes.

Anyway, long story short I am going to delete my Facebook account sometime this week; maybe even today. End of.



Facebook: useful when it started but won't be missed at all at this point. Sorry to anyone who can't find me easily ... er but I'm still all over the www like a rash with a website and Twitter so you can find me with a wee bit of a google anyway. And of course Class Song Of The Day can still be found on Twitter - just search #ClassSongOfTheDay - I'll see about putting a decent page or two on the website too. My biggest fear is losing all my Words with Friends data, but if that disappears in to the electronic ether then so be it.

Links to my Twitter accounts are on my Homepage, you patently don't need the link to the website: you're here!



The Cambridge Analytica affair is not the reason I'm leaving it's just another nudge in the right direction.

Been another good few songs in the last few days from Class Song of the Day including some excellent indie stuff from the 90s with They Might Be Giants, Echobelly, Elastica, Lush and Orange Juice. Been nice to listen - some of these which I haven't heard for years.


Sleeper / Elastica

Lush / Orange Juice

The next ten days are up and ready to go on Buffer which will take it up to day/song #315 and includes a right mix of classic rock and roll, rockabilly, folk, country and blues rock.

Keep listening!

#ClassSongOfTheDay

Last night I scheduled the next ten days of my daily #ClassSongOfTheDay tweet out which will take me past the six month mark. So far I've managed to succeed in the aim to have unique artistes for each day, so there have been over 185 bands and singers I've gone through. Expect I'll manage that over the following year, after that though I will no doubt start repeating some of the bands - probably - but never the same song and artist. Assuming I keep track of it properly.

I've had pop, rock, folk, Americana, Motown, blues and many things in between and long may that continue. The next week brings up a mix of Americana, 80s Pop and modern Indie tunes. It was sad last week retweeting an earlier Tom Petty ClassSong after his early departure from us, hoping I don't have to do that too often too soon.




Buffer, the website I use to schedule the daily Tweets, has been easy to use and I can recommend it for anyone wanting to send out a regular message when they are out and about or want to arrange them all in one go in advance. It's easy to use and has never failed to send the Tweet out on time; so basically it does what it says on the tin. You can only schedule TEN tweets (and/or FB Posts) at a time with a free account, but if you wanted it done professionally for a web campaign I could see it being very worthwhile paying for. Not for my little Class Song though - I'll just have to keep on top of it every eight to ten days or so.



If you are interested in using it then try it out at www.buffer.com